Catshops: a huge, special island

I think the Catshops are fine as they are. I don't have disconnection problems nor is the lag unreasonable on my 3 year old PC.

I don't know what reason people have to congregate at W. Arch EXCEPT to shop. Yes there is the Crazy Stone and the occasional quest NPC. But that does not explain why people hang out there in such numbers.The reason why Catshops set up there is because people buy from them.

I hate the idea of having to wait to zone into an instance to shop nor do I think PWI would be the same without Catshops. It would look deserted.

ExELFine - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Why doesn't PWI implement a huge, special island where all catshops could be parked and whenever we want to buy those special items, we could just visit and shop.

This is the best idea ever!

Zand_pyrite - Sanctuary wrote: »

well say if they were to set up an instance gate to this island right in west archosaur. That way no one really goes out of their way to set up or visit cat shops.

Combined with this idea it's even better than that.b:kiss

ExELFine - Heavens Tear wrote: »

About the catshops though, it is a real problem with the ones standing on the NPCs heads and, although this has been discussed before, nothing is being done about it.

If u don't make the instance gate in west arch for cat shops atleast u can make cat shops unable to open in the air i.e., NPC-s head or make it so u can only open a cat shop on the ground.

u hate those catshops. personally i don't think they are worth it. you need to leave you coeputer on, and you can't even use other alts while it's set up.



if anything i would say ax the catshops and put in a sort of global trade. where someone can shout what they have for sale, then you can click the trade button and bid on what the item. basically, it's like the auction only faster. or just come to an agreed price and complete a transaction.



if catsops are to be on the game, then at least make them where you can leave them up and running even when you log off

ExELFine - Heavens Tear wrote: »

That's pretty funny, 3 first replies out of 4 are from Sanctuary users. I'm addressing an issue with Heaven's Tear, not Sanctuary so, unless you have the same problem, I think your replies are irrelevant.

But if you have the same problem, then I guess your replies can be considered. That being said, this is the Suggestion box, isn't it? So to react to a suggestion by simply stating it's not going to happen is pretty illogic.

Instead of complaining, I'm presenting the problem with a possible solution. At any given moment when I'm online, the most recurrent complain from players is: "mega-lag" in all its versions/expressions and the second recurrent complain is "i got dc'ed". Personally, since the arrival of genies and nienbeasts -- from the same update -- the lag is horrendous.

One solution could be related to servers, either split them or make them bigger, but I'm a gamer, not a technician, so I'm not touching this.

Instead of denying either the problem or the good-will of the PWI staff, why not be creative and find solutions they may be willing to try?

IceJazmin replied:



That also would be a terrific start to reduce the lag, I second your idea.

About the catshops though, it is a real problem with the ones standing on the NPCs heads and, although this has been discussed before, nothing is being done about it. So why not relocate the catshops -- all of them -- in one special section of either the game, or of Archosaur.

Or even, above Archosaur? Well, any idea is welcome.

Mate there all the same. CS/WQ = ARCHO therefore lag = archo.

I'd say that the main reason people don't use AH is cause of the fee doesn't justify the lack of selling item. And alot of MY items don't show up on AH.

Like other games I have played to help with the lag, they have limited the amount of sellers per map, Face it We all hate going to West Arch, its so laggy, I go and get out as fast as possible and usually don't spend alot of time looking at every seller's items and what they are selling.

My PC is around 3 yrs old...I have NO video card...just onboard....and yes at times...Lagasaur is horrendous.

However, the majority of times its fine.

As for the solution of the kitty shops.......

I also think a time limit should be implimented...say 6hrs...that way a person can vendor their goods for a reasonable time...and after that maybe a 1-2 hr cooldown timeframe, where you had to wait to reopen.

that would cut down of SOME of the lag...

However, yes the majority of the lag comes not from just the shops but the peeps around them.

lol...when I go "shopping" I switch to my normal gear, put away my wep and walk. it does make a dif. To me anyway.

Alot of the suggestions are really good and creative. )

This idea does not suck...

+1 to my post count

Some thoughts on this matter:

1) If you have a decent computer, the lag really isn't that bad. I'm on Sanctuary, but we still have 300+ catshops sitting at the West Archosaur junction (and thereabouts). I run at 1920x1200 with all the settings turned up and it's not very bad. I'd imagine a system barely scraping by on the requirements would have more issues.

2) The biggest problem with West Archosaur is that the cat shops are not optimized. Sure,the model is a very low-poly one, but gazing through memory dumps shows me a disturbing picture: If I stand at that intersection, there are some 1100+ skeletons with textures loaded. My guess is that they're still trying to load the original character's normal avatar, even though they're in catshop mode. There's a huge thread in the technical support area where I've demonstrated crashing, given logs, tried to give as much information as possible... and not one developer has bothered to follow through from what I can tell. The game leaks memory horribly when you're around a multitude of cat shops. Period.

3) Because of the above, a separate island/instance is infeasible unless they fix the memory leak. Otherwise you're just moving the problem. It'd be easier just to relocate the NPCs for the quests.

Solutions:

1) One of the forum admins suggested that the cat shops be spread out to alleviate the burden of the huge memory leak trying to load too many models at once. Of course, who's going to follow that advice? SO MAKE THEM. Institute a system where only 1 or 2 catshops can exist at each coordinate. They they'll *have* to spread out. It might mean that all of Archosaur will be covered in cat shops, but at least they won't all be trying to render at once.

2) Allow the catshop rendering to be turned off! Or at *least* put them under the distance proxy visual so they'll fall off the clip plane if you have it turned down all the way (max performance). Right now, the cat shop is, as far as I can tell, considered an NPC model, so it doesn't disappear like it should. The same thing happens with pets, but that's another story.

3) Fix the memory leaks. If they're fixed, we might find that the game doesn't lag because it's not loading textures, skeletons, models, etc. that the game never renders anyway, and the problem will go away on its own.

Those are my two cents. Take it as you will.