On FV there is substantial lag in chat, zoning (at times) and particularly in the bazaar doing searches or even turning your trader on at times. The price scripters use an automated program which we all know to search for their item and make sure their item is the cheapest by adjusting it 1% or whatever. This constant hammering of searches by a number of script users 24/7 has got to be taking a toll on the server and contributing to latency. I can't see how it wouldn't...we have seen in the past with other bugs or exploits of zones lagging or crashing from numerous like events running. It's intolerable that honest players who have a PAID SUB have to compete against cheaters but to do so in a laggy environment possibly caused by the cheaters is icing on the cake if this is what is occurring.
They won’t do anything. H@n1t@ has been operating for years 24/7 spamming PL services. Cheating is money in EQ’s pocket.
If that was a major form of lag, then DBG could make a "cooldown-time" on bazaar searches. Legit players don't need to refresh prices that often when shopping around, and it would be a low-hanging fruit when fixing lag. The fact that DBG haven't adjusted any baz-search restrictions, suggests that it doesn't have that much of an impact on server-performance. Im all for annoying botters, but I think the fact that all the classes are so "spammy" with procs/pets/abilities/etc, is a much bigger part of the lag problem. I also think that boxing adds a bit to the lag-problem, the game wasn't designed for each player to control multiple characters.
The perma online PL teams and constantly killing 6-24 box farming outfits (in various zones over several expansions) plus people scripting the ToL missions has to take a toll. Then you have sometimes nearly 600 traders a decent percentage of which now run the aforementioned pricing automation all of which isn't doing an already very busy server any favours that's for sure.
As someone that also plays on FV and has for years, the sever really has become a cesspool of blatant cheaters that do it right out in the open. Scripted box teams going back 4 expansions worth of zones running at all times. Scripted raid box teams doing current raids. If they actually cleaned up this server I’m still convinced the population would be cut in half or more. It’s become a love/hate relationship with this server for me.
This is exactly the conclusion I came to on the FV server. When updating merchant prices, it is obvious that something is wonky. The /baz window will sometimes show results right away, and it takes 30 seconds to show the next results. Almost like there is a flood of information lagging out the baz search. Then of course, if there are 100 of these script runners in the baz at the same time, the entire server would likely be lagged out - which it is!
I dont know that it has anything to do with scripters. On bristlebane I often see price search lag, but at the same time Im not getting 1p undercut enough to think that there is some monopoly on the market. Often I can go a day or so with my collect pieces prices exactly matched with other players. If people were undercutting every 10 minutes then that couldnt happen.
They can see what causes lag much better than we can, even if 100 accounts were sending a query to the baz every second or half second that’s nothing compared to one raid of players raiding. When I was raiding during tov raid nights during prime time were vastly more laggy then when we had raid times outside of prime time. While automated box teams may contribute, i feel swinging many many times per second while each swing being able to proc 5 things per swing contributes more. Database queries can be optimized and the bazaar system isn’t really all that complicated. A single group of 120s pulling a train and aeing them likely creates more server stress than the 100 bazaar bots. Like others said they could just limit bazaar calls to once per 5 seconds if they felt that was the problem. If you have ever done a pl where you pull a train and ds them down you will see the lag you’re creating just with mob path updates. If you’ve raided during prime time you know that sometimes you have to spam an ability just for it to fire. They should fix the bazaar bot issue out of fairness but it’s unlikely that they are the cause of the lag. There are not a lot of people using the bazaar in the grand scheme of things. We know sphegetti code and EverQuest inefiencies and all that but I can’t imagine that the bazaar on all servers really uses that much resources at all. The good news is the servers might just need more memory to handle this stuff and this is the kind of thing where the upgrade to 64 bit on the server side might actually help….. maybe
Regardless of what is causing the lag on FV server, the fact remains that this lag is getting way out of hand. Chat, bazaar searches, zoning are crazy laggy. If a Dev reads this, please, please, pretty please, look into this! FV will love you forever!
For one, its 1%. Not 1pp. Two, obviously the offenders don't have every single item in the game, so you will get by on items without noticing. Three, they also have limited quantities and just as likely listed, undercut, and sold out before you ever checked again. Moreover, it wouldn't take very many offenders constantly querying the bazaar to create lag. Do you think these traders are a myth? Just some superstition? The script is publicly available just by searching it's name.
I know who you're talking about and I know the name appreciate guild they belong to. They have a mini raid force in Sleepers Tomb (COV) 24-7. They're doing the PL thing, always, in many zones. I don't expect them to be banished from EQ. I can only hope they don't hog up a prime spot, quest or rare mobs.
You are right. Out of curiosity, I did a search and found it pretty easily without even knowing the name.
