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Other accounts innactivity

DeletedUser140

Guest
so i saw earlier that accounts with 30 days of inactivity will be deleted. then i had a think and i focused on that particular subject and i realize that the game dont let me have vacations more then a month. thats a bit unfair. i say 90 days. just a sugestion.
 
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DeletedUser23

Guest
That's only before you reach the 3rd technology era/section. After that they won't delete your account/city.
 

DeletedUser57

Guest
I was thinking about this as well earlier. Some kind of "vacation mode" may be quite nice. It would indeed be unfair to come back to a deleted city after your vacation.

And even though this will no longer be a problem for those who have reached the 3rd technology era it i still a problem for those who have not.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I don't know many people that go on vacation for over a month and have no access to a computer over that time.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I don't know many people that go on vacation for over a month and have no access to a computer over that time.

It doesn't have to necessarily mean people going on a vacation. We could easily be talking about going to uni, sorting your life out, moving house.. obviously these things will take priority over Elvenar..

This is coming from someone who's in his second year of uni and I know perfectly well I've had to have a long to get things sorted. When I had major exams over the past couple of years, my immediate thought wasn't, "AHH I forgot about that game I should be playing!"
 

DeletedUser

Guest
It doesn't have to necessarily mean people going on a vacation. We could easily be talking about going to uni, sorting your life out, moving house.. obviously these things will take priority over Elvenar..

This is coming from someone who's in his second year of uni and I know perfectly well I've had to have a long to get things sorted. When I had major exams over the past couple of years, my immediate thought wasn't, "AHH I forgot about that game I should be playing!"
Yeah, but, I really don't think 5 minutes a month is too much to ask. Chances are you're going to check your email at some point, and I'm sure Elvenar sends an email after a week or two of non-playing, so it's not even like you have to remind yourself.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Again, this isn't true. When I moved house a few years ago, I didn't have ANY access to the internet whatsoever - there was a mix up with my provider and it took them a month and half to sort things out! So what you're saying in this case is wrong. I couldn't travel anywhere at the time to get the internet. It would suck to come back just having moved house, to a deleted account. And emails aren't going to be much good if you don't have the internet access to check them, eh?
 

DeletedUser23

Guest
The problem is they have to find a balance between giving people a chance to access the game in those types of situations, and deleting inactive accounts. There's nothing more frustrating than not being able to progress because no one in your neighbourhood plays (and therefore trades or helps out).

However I do think that while they should remove you from the map after a month, they should keep your info on backup somewhere for example, to fit you back in again when you return.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Again, this isn't true. When I moved house a few years ago, I didn't have ANY access to the internet whatsoever - there was a mix up with my provider and it took them a month and half to sort things out! So what you're saying in this case is wrong. I couldn't travel anywhere at the time to get the internet. It would suck to come back just having moved house, to a deleted account. And emails aren't going to be much good if you don't have the internet access to check them, eh?
Well I guess I feel if a player can't get online for 5 minutes a month, then they don't really care enough about their city anyway. I've played other games where you would lose your account if you didn't collect taxes at least every 20 days. So even if you were playing on the 18th day of the cycle, yo'd have only 2 days left to collect before being deleted. This happened when I was out of the country and my laptop broke. I went to an internet cafe, bought a coffee and saved my account, it wasn't difficult.

The problem is they have to find a balance between giving people a chance to access the game in those types of situations, and deleting inactive accounts. There's nothing more frustrating than not being able to progress because no one in your neighbourhood plays (and therefore trades or helps out).

However I do think that while they should remove you from the map after a month, they should keep your info on backup somewhere for example, to fit you back in again when you return.
The problem with doing that is after a while, you have millions of dead accounts taking up server space, meaning you have to open new servers while the old ones are only half full of active players, rather than filling up the space by replacing dead accounts with new ones.
 

DeletedUser23

Guest
The problem with doing that is after a while, you have millions of dead accounts taking up server space, meaning you have to open new servers while the old ones are only half full of active players, rather than filling up the space by replacing dead accounts with new ones.

Can they not move the inactive accounts to a storage server of some kind though. That's what I meant. Where it would leave the live servers to be replenished, but give the chance that if/when inactives return they can have their account automatically migrated onto a live server (obviously not where they were, or even the same server, but better than being deleted). Though that may not be possible. Either way there needs to be something done to strike that balance.
 

DeletedUser108

Guest
I know of another game where, if you are inactive for a certain period of time (3 weeks, if I remember right) you are set to inactive mode. Your character and all your goods disappear from the village where you live. It's possible for another player to move into your spot, so if you return to the game again, you could end up living in a different village. There's also a vacation mode, which you can set to 'freeze' your account for a number of days, so you don't get put into the limbo of inactive mode. I hope something similar can be used here - if you are inactive, you can disappear from the map, but your account is held in stasis until you return, placing you either where you were or, if that space is no longer available, in another location.
 

DeletedUser23

Guest
I know of another game where, if you are inactive for a certain period of time (3 weeks, if I remember right) you are set to inactive mode. Your character and all your goods disappear from the village where you live. It's possible for another player to move into your spot, so if you return to the game again, you could end up living in a different village. There's also a vacation mode, which you can set to 'freeze' your account for a number of days, so you don't get put into the limbo of inactive mode. I hope something similar can be used here - if you are inactive, you can disappear from the map, but your account is held in stasis until you return, placing you either where you were or, if that space is no longer available, in another location.

Exactly the type of system I was meaning, yeah. What game was that in?
 

DeletedUser

Guest
+1 from me :) I think the ideas suggested here are quite a good ideas. Why? People that just leave the game doesn't care to set up the vacation mode, only people that do care would. That will clearly distinguish both groups. Then saving the inactive account data into a separate database (if the main is too big) is not any difficult task.
Just make some rules around it. Make it not a 1-click option to prevent abuse of the system.

I found my self twice (in the period of 1 year) without access to internet for longer than a month. I am self employed, and due to my work sometimes it was not possible to login to the game (FoE). And if you work 12-19 hours a day everyday for few weeks you do not think about going at night anywhere else than your bed. Life's life and many things can happen. The vacation mode could save 3 of my towns in FoE, and I learned 1 thing: if I get deleted I'll not back to the game ;)

There are many different situations when you're not able to play. Life's more important than the game, but it's not nice to return to an empty town.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Well I guess I feel if a player can't get online for 5 minutes a month, then they don't really care enough about their city anyway. I've played other games where you would lose your account if you didn't collect taxes at least every 20 days. So even if you were playing on the 18th day of the cycle, yo'd have only 2 days left to collect before being deleted. This happened when I was out of the country and my laptop broke. I went to an internet cafe, bought a coffee and saved my account, it wasn't difficult.

It's not a matter of caring. For some, obviously it would be, but in my circumstances with limited travel and no internet cafe (not even a library around me at the time back then), it's inaccurate to say "wasn't difficult" in my situation. You don't find internet cafes everywhere you go. So, to call it not caring is presumptuous and false, because I know for a fact that if I was stuck in a similar situation to the one I was in, the fact that may not be difficult for you is immaterial as it would've been impossible for me to do anything about it.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
But to go back on track in regards to the idea about having a period of inactivity and getting your account temporarily removed from the game, it is a good idea to have an account which can always be placed back onto the map. Who knows where you would be placed is another matter (if new neighbours fill up unused spots, then there's no way you can get your original spot back it would seem.)
 

DeletedUser

Guest
It's not a matter of caring. For some, obviously it would be, but in my circumstances with limited travel and no internet cafe (not even a library around me at the time back then), it's inaccurate to say "wasn't difficult" in my situation. You don't find internet cafes everywhere you go. So, to call it not caring is presumptuous and false, because I know for a fact that if I was stuck in a similar situation to the one I was in, the fact that may not be difficult for you is immaterial as it would've been impossible for me to do anything about it.
I've never been anywhere that there wasn't a possibility to get online, and that includes a couple 3rd world countries. If you live somewhere that you have stable enough internet to play in the first place, then surely you're going to have friends, family, or some public place that you could hop ona computer for 5 minutes over the span of a month.

But to go back on track in regards to the idea about having a period of inactivity and getting your account temporarily removed from the game, it is a good idea to have an account which can always be placed back onto the map. Who knows where you would be placed is another matter (if new neighbours fill up unused spots, then there's no way you can get your original spot back it would seem.)
Storing multiple thousands of inactive accounts is a big cost to pay. It either clogs up game servers(even if they're not on the map, the data is still there), or means hosting servers just to store inactive accounts which brings the headaches of moving cities across servers which Inno is very very against.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I've never been anywhere that there wasn't a possibility to get online, and that includes a couple 3rd world countries. If you live somewhere that you have stable enough internet to play in the first place, then surely you're going to have friends, family, or some public place that you could hop ona computer for 5 minutes over the span of a month.

You can't just go on your own experience, lol. I shouldn't have to justify the situation but for the sake of it, I will. I moved house to an entirely new area. I moved out on my own for work and education experiences, due to the cost of travel and limited opportunity in the town I was brought up in. I didn't have any friends in the new town because all my friends were back where I left. Family? They came to visit, but they didn't bring their laptops for a trip to see me (why would they?). And like I said, there wasn't a public place in which I could just hop onto a computer. I hope you finally realise that there are situations where you simply can't access the internet for a while.


Storing multiple thousands of inactive accounts is a big cost to pay. It either clogs up game servers(even if they're not on the map, the data is still there), or means hosting servers just to store inactive accounts which brings the headaches of moving cities across servers which Inno is very very against.

Well then, in addition to this, I've noticed that there are a huge number of people who barely even start the game and their accounts just sit there. It would be unnecessary to keep a whole load of these to prevent the clogging.
 

DeletedUser23

Guest
Well then, in addition to this, I've noticed that there are a huge number of people who barely even start the game and their accounts just sit there. It would be unnecessary to keep a whole load of these to prevent the clogging.

Actually I think that's what they are trying to do with the "first 2 technology eras completed". That is, to draw the line between those that clearly have quit because they didn't like it/didn't get very far etc, and those that are more likely to return or have been taking a break/vacation/moving house etc.

Though 2 full technology eras is a little too much right now, maybe just completing the 1st era would be enough in my opinion.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
1) Two full technology research required...
So, to be honest it's enough to check who has more than xxx points. If a person registered 2 weeks ago has zero score points that's enough to think the village is abandoned and should be deleted ;)
On the other hand if someone log in sometimes just to keep their account alive isn't much contribution to the neighbourhood. I see no difference between inactive 'active' player and abandoned village in my hood. I think that's another reason to support the idea of 'holiday mode'. Isn't it better to put the person in holiday mode, and if the period is longer free their position on the map - that makes more sense than login only for the fact of login.

2) Clogging Up Server

To be honest not the amount of players is the real issue. Every player is stored in a database where are few tables, for example one to store their town development (buildings type, level, position, current state...), other table store info about social activity and yet another is used to store login data. As it is relational database the amount of data mainly depends on players activity which means inactive players don't use much data. Storing for example a lifetime login data makes no sense, so if you go into holiday mode, this data (after mods check) can be deleted or archived.
So where's real problem?
Have you checked the json data produced by game and sent to your browser? If you visit another player you can see a lot of unused data, like requirements or actual production (eg 74 supplies and name of the resource: 'Bread'). It may be of use in some other game of InnoGames to plan plundering, but generally fetching all data from the database while you display just a small part of it makes not much sense. Excessive use of database and network bandwidth isn't that much related to amount of players, but it is greatly affected by amount of unnecessary data that is processed.

What I see they use separate table to store buildings data, so if 100 people goes on holiday and they have average 100 buildings (including roads and expansions) has it really that big impact on the database?
 
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