Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerami
Maybe GK will join with Zodiac' and Delteria's trend then.  |
You don't just go "hay guys let's reset and see if we get lucky." You look at the nature of the server and what state it was in when it was reset. I should warn you in advance (since you've complained about this kind of thing) that this post is going to be long and have a lot of "unnecessary information" because I want everybody, and not just you, to understand the differences between 2K2 and Zodiac.
Zodiac breaks one of the fundamental rules of building a server that's successful in the long run. The rule that
the player must never be allowed to "beat the game". Zodiac allows players to reach the point at which training becomes obsolete (we'll call it "maximum level" even though I'm aware that term isn't entirely accurate) way too easily. As a result, Zodiac players are "allowed" to stop training while they're still willing to train (even though they probably don't "want" to) and the server pretty much has to reset just to reset just so that it can "access" the remaining willingness of the players to train. 2K2 never allows the player to reach the maximum level so it doesn't have this problem (remember that maximum level means the point where training becomes obsolete, not just having a base level of 110).
The best way to fully illustrate how this works is with a graph.
Y-axis: Willingness of the player to train
X-axis: How much the player has trained
Orange Line: Willingness of the player to train
Red Line: Training Willingness Threshold - the player is no longer willing to train when willingness to train drops below this point.
Grey Line: Amount of training required to reach maximum level on Zodiac.
Gold Line: Amount of training required to reach maximum level on 2K2.
Point A: Point at which player stops training because he has reached maximum level.
Point B: Point at which player stops training because he is unwilling to train even though he hasn't reached maximum level.
A truly efficient server (like 2K2 and not Zodiac) pushes the players to point B by having the amount of training required to reach the maximum level be to the right of point B for every single player. Since Zodiac is not a truly efficient server, it has to reset in order to push the players to point B. (Zodiac's staff probably aren't smart enough to fully realize this, they were just lucky that this happens to be the nature of their server and thus a reset wasn't damaging).
Of course, in reality, the orange line isn't a perfectly straight downward sloping line. A player's willingness to train can be increased by various factors (such as willingness to train "regenerating" over periods of time when the player doesn't train), but
in the long run a straight downward sloping line pretty much matches reality.
Delteria, however, I don't know jack about.
06-20-2007, 11:10 PM
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