LOST ITEMS AND PETS

Anything you find suspicious, things that crash your client, things that crash the server, anything that doesnt work as it should.
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+Colibri
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Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 4:08 pm
Location: static void Main

LOST ITEMS AND PETS

Post by +Colibri »

I'm posting this thread as a reminder that the server doesn't simply eat items or pets. If you loose an item, or pet, there is a valid reason behind it.

Below is a re-post of what I posted on excelsior daily on November 20th, 2010.
Click here to go to the original post.
Although I have stopped investigating every issue, i still take a look from time to time out of curiosity, and I would estimate that the number of investigations is now definitely over 250.

And even further below, I will be collecting posts from players who have reported an item gone missing.
With these replies, I am trying to raise awareness among all players that, if you loose something, it's an extremely unlikely chance that the item simply vanished. It often happens that I try to explain this to a player, and I know it's hard to understand if you have just lost a bunch of very good gear, but I'm hoping that if you can hear it from your fellow players, you will give it some more weight and understand.

+Colibri wrote:Seems like almost every day now, there has been a help request regarding an item disappearing (sometimes none for weeks but sometimes more than one in a single day).

Until recently, I have investigated into every one of these issues, which could have been bugs. I haven't kept track, but the number is definitely over 100, possibly 200 or more. In none of the cases was I able to conclude that this was a server issue, usually it's one of the following:
- items not insured
- items insured, but not enough gold in the bank, or auto-renew insurance turned off
- got back to the corpse fast enough, but monsters have already looted from it
- item was not locked down
- item was misplaced (sometimes found before I started the investigation)
- item was added to the toolhouse, or trashed (EDIT: toolhouse and trashbag no longer accept blessed or insured items)
- pets were not fed
- AFK in a public house and monster(s) came by
- item was there but didn't display to the player (most likely a razor issue)
- summoning ball used right before logging out (most likely a razor issue)

Keep in mind it usually takes anywhere between 30-60 minutes, can be several hours, takes lots of concentration and so far, nothing has turned up. So these were countless hours spent to find something that's not likely to be there.
Keep in mind, all those floor and wall tiles at the town center are all regular items. And none of them has vanished since the town center has been put up i think 3 years ago. Also, there *is* the possibility of bit rot, but that would mean that items could change shape or color (very seldom) but still, in the past 4 years and 9 months since the shard was up, I haven't yet seen an item do that by itself.

Therefor, I have decided that I will no longer investigate these things.

RAZOR
This came up a few times, it seems that razor sometimes doesn't relay the data between the server and the client correctly. I've seen it myself, for example, when you drop an item somewhere, it no longer is there (usually solved by logging out and back in). Or once, the same "World save complete" message was displayed to me twice. Also, there has been a couple of times when a player claimed to have stabled their bio, but it wasn't there the next day. Looking in to the backups showed that the biopet was on the exact same location as the player, and eventually logged out. Usually it was not in range of any animal trainers, but the summoning ball was in their backpack. Most likely explanation is that there was still some data in the razor's buffer (request to summon the pet using the ball) which finally got to the server when logged out.

So, there probably is a chance that Razor will malfunction. Might be that it happens frequently but it's not at all noticeable, but I can happen when it matters. I'm not saying it's dangerous to use Razor, but that with the good it brings, it may also have a certain risk.


LOST CONNECTION
You can never know when your internet or power might go out, or the server might go down, therefor it is wise to insure your valuable items, or to leave them in your bank when you venture out into a dangerous area. You might be able to solo a particular monster, but when connection is lost, before the server realizes that and puts you to safety, it can be 30 seconds or a minute, and in that time, standing there defenseless, you surely can die.

So such a thing as "i didn't expect the server to go down" isn't going to help. Also "it wasn't my fault"... hey, it isn't my fault either. The internet is unpredictable. And if i were obligated to recover lost items every time a shard goes down, then every disconnect would mean probably a day of work or more, and there's already plenty of work to be done here.
+Colibri, Administrator of UO Excelsior Shard

Don't know what the purpose of your life is? Well then make something up! ;)
(Old Colibrian proverb)
Kenekeo
Adept Scribe
Posts: 47
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 2:49 pm

Re: LOST ITEMS AND PETS

Post by Kenekeo »

On October 6 around 3am shard time, I lost one of my best weapons. A looted club with 3x46 properties than converted into a Yumi and leveled to lvl 100. At the end, it was a 5x50 weapon with Hit Lighting, Fireball, Harm, Mana and Life Leech. I also had Self repair 5 and a bless deed. So in total, I invested 250 ED, gold, and a lot of time into it.

So how did I lose it…. Well originally, I thought something really wrong happen (it did) such as a Shard Bug. However, the events of that night was hectic. It started off in the pvp dungeon with a friend. Testing out weapons against each other. And in the pvp dungeon was the last time I recalled using it. Next, I was bugged with the Necromancer Form issue (where you cant cast any forms on yourself). The only known cure to this is to die. So I asked a guildmate to kill me at my house. Which of course he did happily :). After regearing and casting my buffs, I continued the night with 2 hours of weapon leveling. So I was everywhere Doom, Tokuno, Trammel Dungeons, etc.

So finally, I got tired and called it a night. I was back at my house and unloading my loot into the bank. As I was checking my Bag of Holding, I noticed my Yumi was missing. “Hmmm, where did I put it”. So I checked my bank, my backpack and half of my house. Nothing. My beautiful Yumi was gone. I started to think where could it have gone. Was it looted when my guildmate killed me? Did I not get it back when I rez, was it left in the pvp dungeon, was it placed in my Token bag. Where, oh where could it have gone?!!!

I started to think it through. Ok it was blessed, it couldn’t have gotten cut up, junked or left on a corpse. But you sure coulda bet I ran back to the pvp dungeon, checked by house, and check where I died at my house. Then finally, I gave up and decided to page the staff.

+Nyx messaged me and ask me to give her the run down. I tried my best to summarize it all. She advised me that it would have to be escalated to +Colibri and if it wasn’t a bug issue that it would cost me 110ED :( . ekkkk. Since I had to wait for +C and I saw there was nothing left to do, I went to sleep and waited.

Next day, I expected the worst and hoped for the best. I was hoping that it was a bug and thought +C would come to me apologizing about the shard issue. Maybe stating, “the Necromancer bug affected your Yumi and when you died, blah, blah. So here is your Yumi back.” Or the worst, saying “I dropped it on the floor and it decayed. If you want it back pay up”. So the next day, I sat by the computer waiting for +Colibri to show up (like some teenager waiting for a hot chick to call me). So I waited.

Twenty four hours later, I got some me time and decided to level my weapon, again. In the mist of my leveling, the hot chick finally called me :) . +Colibri showed up and I was hoping and praying. After much research, he stated to me.

“I checked the saved log and saw the Yumi in your Bag of Holding at 2am, then at 3am it was in a Chest of the Heirloom, and after that it was gone from your Backpack”

My heart stopped beating. Because I knew EXACTLY what happen. I didn’t type for 5minutes. I was soooo frustrated at my own stupidity and bad luck. I was to blame, not the game for my missing Yumi.

During my travels in Tokuno, I got the Heirloom Chest and picked it to help gain my skills in Lock Picking. So I had a open container in my backpack. Of course as I usually do, I turn in all my minor Tokuno artifacts for a greater. Soooooo, when I turned in my chest of the heirloom, guess what was still inside the chest, DOHHHHHH.

In the end, it costed me another 100ED to get that investment back. So the purpose of this story is, “Don’t always assume it’s the shard error. We are all humans and mistakes happen” and “Don’t pick the heirloom chest until you are ready to turn it in”

--Kenekeo
Nelapsi
Legendary Scribe
Posts: 268
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2010 11:16 am

Re: LOST ITEMS AND PETS

Post by Nelapsi »

Yep, seems I was a victim of "Stuff in my house vanished" aka "wow I really forgot to lock it down?" quite a while back. Just recently encountered something different though. I was taming a dragon and removed my bow, the taming went fine and quickly took it to my trainer. What I didn't realize was one of my hot keys I guess put my bow in the dragon's backpack (Still have no idea how though). At first it was kind of funny because the next monster I am attacking and I am wondering, wow this has a lot of hit points then I realize.. I am wrestling it. Hit my dress hot key and nothing, weapon gone. After a little panic of checking several locations and just before I was considering paging staff I decided to check the dragon's pack. One drop command later all was well in the world again.

So yes stuff goes missing and yes it is probably your fault.
Stanley Cleaner
Master Scribe
Posts: 53
Joined: Wed Jan 13, 2010 2:16 pm

Re: LOST ITEMS AND PETS

Post by Stanley Cleaner »

Yet another victim of a lost item!

So I logged on from a few months break and notice that something is missing... My biggest fear and not because I lost the item or it may have been deleted by the server or staff (LOL if that was the case I wouldn't be posting here!). Why a fear because those that know me would know that if I had miss placed this item it would take me a year to find it, in the mess I call a home.

First, I started to look in all my known hiding places and that was no luck. Then after a few more days of looking in all the other possible containers that it might be hiding in and ..... no luck. At this point is when I started to wonder if Staff or the server really did have a hand in this. oh by the way there was one other possible option but I myself didn't think it was possible for this to be the out come so I over looked it.

Well I was out helping someone and that person happened to page staff and he who has all the power showed up and helped this person and I asked him with all the power to look in his magic looking glass. He looked and looked and came back and told me the answer.


MY CO-Owner took my item!!!! The server no staff lost it or hide it! it Was The PLAYER!!!

I hate to do this but I Need to put this story on hold and will tell you how it ends when I get my hands on this CO-Owner of mine. :lol:
Jeny
Passer by
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:19 am

Re: LOST ITEMS AND PETS

Post by Jeny »

Ive recently had a chest go missing from my house. I sent in a help request and a GM responded. He investigated it for me, but was unable to find an answer as to why without spending all day looking into the issue. But he was able to determine that there was no bug. Something else has happened to it. I know GM's are very busy people and there are a lot of people on this server who need help, so knowing that i can place a new chest in the old spot with out it disappearing too is comforting enough. = ) Thank you Colibri for the speedy reply!


- Jeny
Rippster
Expert Scribe
Posts: 37
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2011 5:03 am

Re: LOST ITEMS AND PETS

Post by Rippster »

A week or two ago I FOUND a bag in Trinsic with some artifacts in it. I asked in chat who it might belong to and there was no response so I'm hoping the owner will give me a PM. If you lost a bag of artifacts in Trinsic, please PM me here with what was in the bag and I'll gladly return it.

Thanks,
Ripp
snaggeh
Adept Scribe
Posts: 43
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2011 7:34 pm

Re: LOST ITEMS AND PETS

Post by snaggeh »

i took 50k toekens from my token boot into my bag at brit bank yesterday, my journal said something like " too much weight for items" or something, but they did not go into bank or my bag or be a check. i asked at bank but noone had taken them. i have sent message for help to gm a couple of hour ago but i shall wait untill someone is online for answer.
zoom1012
Apprentice Scribe
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2011 9:19 am

Re: LOST ITEMS AND PETS

Post by zoom1012 »

Rippster wrote:A week or two ago I FOUND a bag in Trinsic with some artifacts in it. I asked in chat who it might belong to and there was no response so I'm hoping the owner will give me a PM. If you lost a bag of artifacts in Trinsic, please PM me here with what was in the bag and I'll gladly return it.

Thanks,
Ripp
It's really nice to see such a great and honest community here on Excelsior. :D
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