Plot Item Left Behind.. how to prevent?

[vonzuben]

If you have a reward (Plot Item) given to a player and that player then logs with it still in their inventory, a little backpack-like looking thingie is left behind. That backpack can be “killed” and then the player doing the killing ends up receiving the item(s) that the other player who logged had. This is bad!

How can I prevent these backpacks from being left behind, or at least prevent them from giving the items to other players?

[acridiel]

This is mainly done to prevent players from taking "rewards" with them to the Mainland.
No item (should be) can be taken from the Ring to the servers. And to, in case of a disconnection of the carrying player, enable others of his party to further play the Scenario. Imagine someone crashes and/or logs out while carrying the important item and can´t come back to the Ring with it for whatever reason.

So, the only way to "prevent" someone from taking the item, is for them not to take it. Unless the item in question has to be delivered to an NPC IN the Scenario, in which case it vanishes from the players "backpack" (inventory).

If your scenario, as I presume, is ended with the taking of said item, why do players stay behind anyway?

CU
Acridiel

[vonzuben]

My scenario is intended to stay up perpetually for a few weeks over the holiday season. I think of it as being more like visiting any land on the mainland, not an act based thing with and ending.

There are several plot items. Some are meant to be given (turned in) to an NPC. In testing with some people going in and out, even the plot items that are meant for an NPC is being left in the backpack. It would be fine if the pack can only be “opened’ by the player who left it upon returning, but it’s allowing any player to retrieve it and in fact the returning player then can’t get it.

So I’d love to find a way of preventing these backpacks from existing in the first place.

[sidusar]

How can I prevent these backpacks from being left behind, or at least prevent them from giving the items to other players?

You can't, and it's been a thorn in my side when hosting Ring maps.

Not even restarting the act gets rid of the backpacks. To make them go away requires taking down the entire scenario and loading it up again.

The idea behind this is that it doesn't become impossible to complete the scenario because the required plot item is gone. However, I usually set my scenarios up so that the item can be regained in the proper way anyways, and all these backpacks do is give later players a shortcut that makes them miss part of the scenario.

[sehracii]

All I know is I'd loooove to have these backpacks placeable with real items on the mainland.

[vonzuben]

However, I usually set my scenarios up so that the item can be regained in the proper way anyways, and all these backpacks do is give later players a shortcut that makes them miss part of the scenario.

Yup exactly same deal for me. Not only does it give them a shortcut, but it creates confusion. Oh well so far it’s the only problem I seem to have. I find the ring much less buggy than the rep it’s got. Everything works as intended.

[acridiel]

Perpetually?
How in heavens are you going to manage that?
Stay logged on 24/7? No forced disconnection by your DSL-Host?

CU
Acridiel

[vonzuben]

It’s one of the members in our guild doing it for me with a separate computer/account. Yes it could be disconnected and might be not up right away if the Ryzom server is rebooted. But if someone is in at the time the scenario stays up (yes even during the server reboot). So you could say it will up almost perpetually.

[kaetemi]

All I know is I'd loooove to have these backpacks placeable with real items on the mainland.

Hahah, yeah, that would be fun, send in a suggestion ticket
I can't wait to see someone put 255 backpacks in one place

[vonzuben]

Turns out that this is not such a problem after all. The “backpacks” seem to despawn after some time (maybe 20mins). I had envisioned the place being cluttered with backpacks but that’s not happening after being online 3 days.