Item Spoilage: Why it's going to happen

[Rias]

I know some people get grumpy over the idea of food (and other perishable items) spoiling/despawning, complaining of inconvenience and over-realism. However, there's one very important reason we need it: There are obscene amounts of food stashed all over the game. I'm not sure why people are such packrats when it comes to food in particular, but the amount of food hidden or stored in containers is absolutely staggering. This means there's more work for the server to do, and filesizes grow, all so that ... that barrel of meat can continue to sit there and gather dust like it has for the past year or so.

Spoilage too much of an inconvenience to warrant cooking your own stuff? That's what town-bought food is for. Better yet, buy/trade with another PC!

[Elystole]

No complaints here. I also wonder about the stuff people hide from the janitor to never be found again. Most of the stuff I find is just junk.

So I'm wondering how spoilage will work. What kind of time frame are you thinking? Having meat for cooking is actually the least of my worries because I can just walk into the forest and bag a deer real quick, but having produce on hand takes a lot of time and effort. I suspect we'll start seeing more mixed fields with faster turnaround times than fields of single crops that you then hoard in barrels.

[Kiyaani]

Is there really no alternate solution for this? I don't generally store food. I think it's bad RP. But food in this game is something people like to have a lot of on their characters because, let's be honest, no one wants to run out in the middle of nowhere and have to forage up 20 mustard seeds to get content. Also, just because you keep a lot on you doesn't mean you go through it that quickly so it may sit there for a few weeks. If people are storing obscene amounts of food couldn't it just be wiped and new expectations be set? Didn't this topic come up for pelts too?

If you absolutely think this is the way to go, are things like rations going to spoil as well, how about waybread? What about other processed or shelled foods like jerky or nuts? Is this just going to affect raw meats and cooked items? Will if affect food you have on you when you logout or just things stored or with you while logged in?

I guess I'm just curious how this is supposed to work because there's a fine line between realism being cool and fun and realism being tedious and I personally don't feel this is something the game could benefit from. As long as people aren't being silly with their IC behaviors, this really doesn't seem necessary and I'd rather see other, more game enhancing things added.

[baerden]

I will echo some of Kiy's thoughts.

I hope jerkying/smoking meats makes them last longer.

Second, speaking in technical terms because I'm just curios on how you're planning on implementing this.

I've seen muds implement this in such a way that every food or rottable item had a 'tick timer'. This ended up actually creating more work for the server with thousands/millions of objects all ticking away. Just to keep in mind when planning it. I think an efficient way of doing it would be to give each item a perishable rating in days. Then you could give different ratings to different types of food, and have a 'spoilage' daemon running (on a low priority thread) that would go through and update (subtract) from the rating as days passed.

[Rias]

Kiyaani, I think you may be glossing over the part where this is largely being done to reduce server load/ever-increasing filesizes. This isn't being done for realism's sake - this is being done because there's a ridiculous amount of junk that's beginning to cause technical issues, and the problem's increasing in severity over time. As far as simply setting expectations for players ... I really wish that would work, but one powerful thing running CLOK has taught me is that if people can do something for their own benefit despite being told not to or it being a detriment to the game overall, many people will do it. I'm not about to add "food storage checking" to the list of GM responsibilities, so "spoilage" (item despawning) it is.

Yes, certain foods will last a good deal longer than others (travel rations, waybread, jerky - basically "travel food").

Spoilage will be based on time comparisons, rather than "tickers", for the reasons you mentioned, Baerden. We've already been switching a lot of things from tickers to timestamp comparisons to increase performance.

[Elystole]

The other day the 2:00 am lag spike lasted for over five minutes. It's been noticeably getting worse.

[Lavi]

I don't see a problem with it. the essential foods like rations and things will last longer so it makes sense to me.

[Kiyaani]

I wasn't trying to gloss over it at all - I'm just looking for other solutions or some clarity. I didn't feel like recapping what you'd already established and whether it's the reason for it or not, if it wasn't realistic as well as efficient it likely wouldn't be done.

I do appreciate the little bit of reassurance you gave already and I have confidence that if you think this is the right way to go there's a good reason for it. I also have confidence that you'll make things reasonable for people and as long as that's the case I'm all for it.

It just worries me that this is the solution when there are likely other contributors to the server load/file size as well and those things may be less impactful for players. Obviously I can't see what you can so if you know this is the key then that's that. But if the problem persists - what else is going to have to change before the server load gets back to where you want it?

I'd also just like to throw out there that we have a lot higher average player base than we used to and many of those players have multiple alts who may be following the same IC behavior patterns. This seems like a very temporary solution. If the population continues to grow then the file size is going to grow regardless of food changes. And, no, I don't want GMs to have a task to police this stuff. I'd much rather prefer people be respectful of limitations on a free to play game and/or not do things like store barrels of raw meat, but I understand that people like to keep things for a rainy day.

One thing that comes to mind is lockboxes. I know GMs want to keep making them more fun for people by adding things to them, but people sit on lockboxes with things inside for ages waiting for a PC locksmith because NPC locksmiths are a total ripoff (and yes I get that this is intended to give PC locksmiths work). Some boxes have between 2-6 items in each. I've had to open over 100 boxes in a sitting before from just one player. Imagine what everyone else has lying around.

People store wagons full of things in their houses, or just have wagons full of hundreds of wood blocks so they can trigger-carve for hours on end whether it's necessarily realistic for their character to do it or not, chests full of clothes (don't kill me for mentioning this one Avedri), personal weapons collections, tools, people leaving piles of hundreds of sticks in the town crates lately etc. How does all that stuff stack up? Has house room capacity been considered or is that too difficult to implement? I totally understand that food is a lot easier for players to accept than some of these other things so maybe it is the best solution. I'm just trying to say that I'm sure there are other things out there causing the problem too.

I've also noticed the world is expanding a lot lately. I don't know how much permanent objects or rooms compare in file size to temporary items that have to be re-saved all the time, but the world *is* getting bigger. Have you looked at how much it would be to upgrade systems in addition to in-game fixes? If it's reasonable - people may be willing to donate to help with that in addition to whatever changes you feel are necessary to make the game run more smoothly.

I don't want this to sound like I'm disagreeing with a solution that works. Honestly I don't mind if this is the way things have to go, again, as long as it's reasonable which it seems like you're striving for. I'm just trying to make sure the problem is viewed from multiple angles.

[Rias]

A philosophy I've been trying to embrace more and more lately is to try and make everything as efficient as possible, rather than let some things be inefficient as long as we can keep other things under control to balance it out. This food spoilage isn't the only thing we're doing to optimize things, but it's one of the few things that actually affects players in a significant way, which is why it got a post. It's definitely not going to be the one major change to make CLOK run smooth, it's just one of the many. Most of the others are back-end/under-the-hood coding optimizations.

That we're getting a higher average playerbase only stresses the need for a change like this; otherwise, things will get out of hand even more quickly. Once again, this isn't the only step being taken to combat server slowdown and room/filesize bloating, it's just one of the many that will contribute to the effort.

Home storage is another thing that's slated to become more limited, and I figure that's going to cause a particular uproar, with most people purchasing houses just so they can store infinite items. Your wardrobe full of clothing and weapon rack with a bunch of weapons will be okay, if you're reasonable about what else you have in the room. The problem is people who have multiple wagons and handcarts (ANY, really - why do you have a wagon in your bedroom?!), plus a bunch of barrels and trunks, plus what would be considered "regular" furniture (bed, wardrobe, table, chairs), plus immense stacks of craftable items on the ground, all in the same room. If you're one of those people, get your angry eyebrows dusted off for the eventual limitations on home storage. It's a bedroom, not a limitless black hole storage vortex.

[Kiyaani]

Heh, that's what I figured. And I get it completely. Thanks for the update.

[Evelyn]

Why do I think this is directed at me? I don't think it's bad rp to store food for cooking. That said I welcome the idea.

[Elystole]

Why do I think this is directed at me? I don't think it's bad rp to store food for cooking. That said I welcome the idea.

I don't think it is directed at you. I thought I was doing pretty well but decided to check on my cellar anyways and I had far more food down there than I thought. A lot of it isn't even used for cooking but was left over from my last round of farming, so I took a lot of it to the market. Now I still have food stored up for cooking, but it's a more reasonable amount and it is only stuff that'll actually get used instead of collect dust.

I still have an obscene amount of boxes though, and I don't know how to address that. There simply aren't that many active Thieves, and there are even fewer Thieves that Elystole likes doing business with.

[Lun]

Being one of the blokes who had barrels full of over 400 pieces of meat at a time, I concur with the idea of food spoilage. It's really not THAT hard to buy a ration. If you need money, a hunting ground is often less than 1 energy bar away to find a smattering of riln for it.

Prefer your meat? In reality, if I had a barrel of meat sitting in my cellar or kitchen for months, I don't think I'd want to cook and eat it. Nothing stopping you from going out to gather more for your actual meat fetish.

@elystole there are NPCs that will service your boxes. Yes, it's true that they take a lot of it and you SEE them take it, but at the end of the day you're still getting free money from the boxes.

[Rias]

It wasn't directed at you, Evelyn, but your post made me curious and holy cow! That is a lot of meat!

I didn't mean to say anyone was bad for storing up food to be cooked later - I think that's perfectly acceptable behavior. It just looks like storage tends to go up faster than people can make actual use of the food if it never expires, and that causes some unnecessary server load.

[Evelyn]

I wasn't sure! :D And yeah, I've stopped gathering more and getting rid of what I have... Mass cooking spee needed!

[Kiyaani]

So, let me clarify what I said earlier because I don't want the wrong idea out there and I don't want people taking what I said personally. I'm pretty sure it was directed at my comments, not Rias', but I agree with his sentiments.

First off - none of my posts were directed at any specific player or character. I'm sorry if you feel they were directed at you, Evelyn because they were not. I've just been noticing trends.

Second - storing non-perishable food is fine, but let's be honest - people have been known to store barrels of raw meat, harvested crops, cooked items that aren't dried/jerked etc. for indeterminate lengths of time in case they decide to use it someday in the future, only that day doesn't always come. Take Lun's post for example. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to do or that you're a terrible person for doing it. From an OOC perspective it makes some sense since you took the time to harvest that stuff and don't want that time 'wasted', but I still think it's not the best RP to have that stuff lying around.

[Rias]

400 pieces of meat is a good chunk of riln when sold at the market. If you can't find time to cook it, might as well sell it and make some money!

Do it before spoilage is implemented! (Insert evil laugh here)

[Elystole]

From an OOC perspective it makes some sense since you took the time to harvest that stuff and don't want that time 'wasted', but I still think it's not the best RP to have that stuff lying around.

I would like to point out that one reason that players hoard produce is that the only way to get it is through player-run farming. We can't just walk down to the market and buy the handful of potatoes, corn, and peas we need to make that night's dinner. Instead we need to wait a week for crops to come in. We can say it is bad RP to store perishable food items, but since we can't do what our RP would normally call for (going to the store) we make do.

Now, I'm not advocating that we populate the markets with NPC-generated produce for our shopping convenience, but if we want to make parts of the economy player-dependent then there's going to be some repercussions like people storing produce. We're just out of balance right now.

400 pieces of meat is a good chunk of riln when sold at the market. If you can't find time to cook it, might as well sell it and make some money!

Do it before spoilage is implemented! (Insert evil laugh here)

I just made 8,000 riln selling the produce that I'll never use.

[jilliana]

How about foods that are cooked? Stews, pies, spiced meats, fish, cookies, etc etc? I'm hoping they will fall under the in-between with raw foods and travel foods. That way, some of us have these foods for a while if we don't feel like eating travel food and can focus on making it for a few hours on occasion.
I do like the idea of possibly having a place other than the market where one could sell their produce. This will definitely help with food hoarding and players who like to cook can feel confident they'll find what they need without having to hop all over the map.

It never did make sense to me that what is hidden in the wilderness doesn't get affected. It doesn't even make sense to me on an IC perspective that I hide something and nothing happens to what I hide. There are animals and the like who can find and take. It would make more sense if things hidden in the wilderness could be subject to the janitor, but not as quickly as something that is left out in the open.

Maybe there could be a challenge put out to drop the database size by a certain amount of points in so many days. It does sound a bit OOC, but it'll make people aware that they need to do some spring cleaning in their houses or at least make an attempt to find things they leave rround the wilderness.

I'm glad to see this problem is being addressed before it gets out of control. We are all guilty of some form of virtual hoarding or other, and it's nice it's being discussed and for Rias to make us aware of it.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming changes!

[Rias]

Cooking food will generally make it last longer, yes.

I do like the idea of possibly having a place other than the market where one could sell their produce. This will definitely help with food hoarding and players who like to cook can feel confident they'll find what they need without having to hop all over the map.

Is there something you don't like about selling produce to the market, or am I misunderstanding?

[jilliana]

I may be completely wrong about this...(so correct me if I'm wrong) but I think the food and stuff in a market disappears after a time. It makes sense, but it's also a downer because now then we get the problem of hoarding. "I'm not sure when I'm going to get more potatoes so I'm going to go ahead and buy all 100 in market!"
If it indeed does disappear after a time, maybe the time in which it does can be adjusted?

[Rias]

Market goods do disappear over time, and I believe they disappears faster the more there is of that commodity. This is partially so that markets don't fill up with a commodity and then stay full forever, preventing anyone from selling more of that commodity ever again.

[baerden]

Hey, thanks for sharing some of the design info, I find it interesting!

Bring on the spoilage!

[Kent]

Rias: Whenever my character locates cheap hidden items (prime example is arrows hidden as a result of characters fleeing and hiding from infested archers, then remove and drop), he recovers and drops them for the janitor to hoover up.

I felt that making these items vanish would be better for the workload of the server, but never was sure.

So for sure it is best to recover and drop stacks of hidden arrows, etc?

[Rias]

I do the same - if I see a bunch of junk items hidden somewhere, I just yoink it all. I'm still deciding what to do about hidden items. I don't want it to be a way to easily bypass the janitor, but I also like the idea of hidden "hunters' caches" that stick around a long while.