highspeed's Content

#28002 Updated Route Display Page

Posted by highspeed on 23 January 2006 - 09:09 AM in Announcements

I really like that new layout, thanks!

One problem though: profit is showing as zero on this new page. I'm sure lot's of people here use it to scan for changed profits. Of course we can open each route and look there but for both our sake and the webserver's please do spend a couple more minutes.

Oh, and by the way: I clicked a bookmark I had, and got an SQL error. Not a hack attempt, just the old page sorted on route number being bookmarked for easy access.

If you like a suggestion for future enhancement: maybe a column showing marketshare on that route? I mean: 100% of the market, plane filled 82% with passengers.

#28003 Delivery bug...

Posted by highspeed on 23 January 2006 - 09:26 AM in Bugs

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: all orders are delivered next month, due to some problems in the past. Estimated delivery date is not applicable anymore.

For even more details, please search.

#28004 A new spin on the gate bug...

Posted by highspeed on 23 January 2006 - 09:30 AM in Bugs

Had this problem as well. After looking through my records, this is what happened:

-1- bought new gates
-2- started flying
-3- torquewrench had to make some adjustments; a roll back to the previous situation occured and the gates I previously bought were gone. However, existing routes were not affected
-4- Releasing those gates and trying to reuse them had the same effect as you experienced. They were gone. When you close the route, the gates can no longer be used because you didn't rent them (step 3).

#28011 Buying planes,a warning aka new game rules

Posted by highspeed on 23 January 2006 - 11:50 AM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Not sure what your smoking. I didn't see anywhere in those messages that says that sales in the public market are not going to be questioned. Since at least two of us have been questioned about sales in the public market, I doubt they will stop looking at the public market.

Looking at them is not the problem. Even asking about them is not the problem. Jumping to conclusions is.

The only thing that can be prooved is the number of transactions you have had with airlines that are now no longer operating or that are dormant. Now that most of those have been removed, the only thing we can do is wait and see.

You can buy and sell whatever you want as long as it remains fair for other players.

Staff

The problem: no definition of "fair" is made, not even after multiple requests from me. Apparently it is unfair if I am able to buy more than, say, travelhouse or PSA. However, it is not unfair if, say, travelhouse or PSA manage to make more profit than I do using routes. Where's the logic in that? (Travelhouse, PSA, I am not mentioning you for any other reason than as a competitor somewhat in the same position in this game).

The current situation: if you are not the top-x buyer it is fair, else it is not. At least, that's what I make of it using the little information I got. Now, what number is "x" and how do you find out you're in it?

All in all this means other players have an unfair(!!!) advantage over me. They did not receive that threath about heavy fines or reset. I could even live with that if only I knew what I was doing wrong.

Now add this disadvantage to the recent $10.something million I lost at plane delivery and you'll understand why I am having a bad time right now.

Sometimes randomness is good in a game. But not like this. The rules should apply to everyone equally. That 10mil is probably a bug, not nice but sh*t happens. The changing rules however is a different story, especially when made up by fellow players. And if you're going to change a rule, do so with advance notice. Nobody can expect players to follow rules that have not yet been communicated (not even now!)

#28065 Buying planes,a warning aka new game rules

Posted by highspeed on 23 January 2006 - 10:28 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

You won't know, unless you take the time to look at the submitter first and see if it is an actual airline or somebody that has one aircraft and no gates. I'm not saying that you should have to check out the seller before you purchase any half price aircraft. But, if you look at some of the airline numbers given that Highspeed bought aircraft from, most of them have no gates or aircraft. No offense, but at this point I wouldn't consider that lucky. I mean he may have been lucky to find all of those aircraft, but I doubt it was worth it after all the bs.

The thing is that there is no time to look at the seller. Sometimes the plane is sold in those few seconds needed to click "purchace", load the next screen and click "Confirm" (or whatever it is).

And yes, after buying it I looked up the airline. Then I find out it's problematic. After collecting a few of such, I try to report them. Guess what: initially nobody was interested. Right now that's different.

Try viewing it from my perspective:
-1- posting in bugs forum or similar is not appreciated
-2- U2U to miller was not effective
-3- until I read a post from travelhouse, I had no idea that _forum_ moderators were the link between us, players, and the anti-cheat team. It may seem a logical thing to do in hindsight but I did not figure it out myself.

That bs is still not over. Communication between anti-cheat and me is, let's put it mildly, selective.

Buying at 50% is OK, as long as it's fair to other players. Who defines what's fair and what not, using which criteria? I think it is unfair not to answer that question. No, indeed I did still not get an answer to this easy question.

I did get half (only half!) of the cheap planes on the market. What about the other half? Why did I not get those other planes? Who did? Any correlation between sellers and buyers, say 8030 and 8033 ?

#28071 Another AC lost in public sale

Posted by highspeed on 23 January 2006 - 10:51 PM in Bugs

Another one:

J-31 for $4,899,899 sold to pacific coast airlines at time 17:01:05 (don't know which time zone that is but it seems to be 22:01:05 GMT).

No extra cash.
Aircraft sales does report the difference between price and value.
My airline's value was reduced by the value of this J-31.

This is bad; buying a plane on the new market cost me roughly 10 mln, now this 3.something, both occured almost "on the hour". Is it coincidence that this sale was almost on the hour or do all similar problems on such a time?

I know the bug has been there for a while but it seems to occur more often now?

If indeed these problems mostly occur on the hour, perhaps it is because of something like this. Consider a script/subroutine/stored procedure in the database:
-1- fetch cashlevel of player
-2- do calculations, add dop, whatever
-3- store new cashlevel of player

Now mix two of such scripts: "a" is selling aircraft, "b" is end of month

-1a- fetch cashlevel of player $50,000,000
-1b- fetch cashlevel of player $50,000,000
-2a- do calculations, add price of sold plane $50,000,000 + $5,000,000
-2b- do calculations, add dop $50,000,000 + $2,500,000
-3a- store new cashlevel of player $55,000,000
-3b- store new cashlevel of player $52,500,000 <--- without the extra cash

#28086 Another AC lost in public sale

Posted by highspeed on 24 January 2006 - 12:29 AM in Bugs

Anyone could aks those guys that purchased if they actually payed for the planes ? Such we could know if the money is eaten by EA or remains on the account of the buyer.

No response -yet-.

#28147 End of month changed

Posted by highspeed on 24 January 2006 - 01:57 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

For those wanting to know: there was another long day in AE. We are one more day behind now, 1st of the month is now starting 02:00 GMT.

#28240 End of month changed

Posted by highspeed on 25 January 2006 - 01:56 AM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Its typical us brits get screwed again!!!!!

:-(

Just remember that most of europe is an hour ahead of GB. It isn't that bad for you.

#28258 End of month changed

Posted by highspeed on 25 January 2006 - 03:27 AM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

You weenie

#28300 Possibly the BUGGIEST game in the world

Posted by highspeed on 25 January 2006 - 03:58 PM in Bugs

I agree mostly with Travelhouse. I won't repeat her arguments.

One suggestion could be made however: communicate. I think it has been suggested before. I'm not saying that AE is bad for not doing all of this. I'm just saying that posts like the inital poster of this topic made, could possibly be avoided.

If at any point reading this you think it is critisism and the ALT-F4 action would apply: think again. I'm spending time here providing what I hope to be useful, positive feedback.

Status of AE: beta. Most people understand that this means bugs will be present. Some will think the task of a beta tester is to find and report bugs. Others disagree and call this cheating. But what does Miller want?

Reporting bugs: some people do not like announcing a bug in public. They are afraid the bug is going to be abused by others. As a result, some players may be hitting a bug without knowing it. They are then accused of cheating. Or they are not triggering that bug, but other players don't know the full details and misjudge the situation. A list of do's and don'ts would help enormously here.

Reported bugs: A lot is happening behind the screen for sure. The mantis bug tracking system looks promising, but if a bug is submitted and changes its state to fixed in four weeks, plenty of opportunities to communicate are missed. Suggestion: acknowledge seeing the entry. Acknowledge the bug (or not, of course but at least say so). Change status to "to do", "in progress", or "won't fix" etc.

Right now people feel like they are spending time, trying to be helpful, and the resulting material is dumped into a big black hole. That's obviously not what Miller22, TorqueWrench, and other moderators intend to achieve. That however does not make it less of a problem.

#28313 Whoaaa

Posted by highspeed on 25 January 2006 - 05:26 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

For some it may be just a refresher, others may not yet know about it:

Posted Image

This was a temporary issue that already has resolved itself. I am unaware of anything I did to cause this.

This message is not intended to report a bug (else I would have put it in the bugs forum) but rather to show people a ranking is only reliable if it is there for a longer time.

#28315 Possibly the BUGGIEST game in the world

Posted by highspeed on 25 January 2006 - 05:30 PM in Bugs

We'll refund you any monies that you have paid us within the hour...

We want 120% of that amount, lol.

Seriously, I'm sure you are aware your work is highly appreciated by most players (as is miller's). It may not be told explicitly everytime you do something; that doesn't mean we don't appreciate.

#28378 Whoaaa

Posted by highspeed on 25 January 2006 - 10:09 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Oh well...

Yes Travelhouse, it would certainly be nice if the ATM machine should show a balance like this. I would buy two beeches and start an airline, but then for real, lol.

VC-10: If I had a value of half of that, I'd still buy those two bee... oh wait, you mean in the game

Anyway: I *know* it was reported before. However, I didn't know the difference in value would be this big, and I do think some players don't even know about this bug yet, hence the report in game discussion.

Also, I had never seen an actual screenshot of this problem; right after creating the screenshot the situation normalized again so I guess you have to look at exactly the right moment. Of course this happens to other players as well, but when I look at other players, I don't know their real value. Or can I somehow? If so, I don't know and would welcome some pointers...

By the way: is there any logic behind that 161.odd million difference? It's not like my dop is 161 million and my gate costs are 158 ... Just curious.

#28380 End of month changed

Posted by highspeed on 25 January 2006 - 10:15 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

There will still be people complaining that in the beginning of a round, they have a disadvantage. (by the way, I am not complaining, I'm just watching out for it to happen.)

This would be a good place to add some random number. Have anything between 12 and 36 days in a month, real fanatics will then login every hour if not already doing so

#28382 Possibly the BUGGIEST game in the world

Posted by highspeed on 25 January 2006 - 10:17 PM in Bugs

Oh, my avatar is "Mellissa Joan-Hart" Sabrina the teenage witch... remember?

Yes, I do. Don't make the mistake of typing "Melissa Joan Heart" in google

#28449 Reset?

Posted by highspeed on 26 January 2006 - 01:26 AM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Lol... another bug:

Yes 3 37.50%
No 6 75.00%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 8. You have already voted on this poll

3+6 = 9, not 8. 37.50% + 75.00% is 112.50 %

#28453 End of month changed

Posted by highspeed on 26 January 2006 - 01:32 AM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Yeah, good suggestion, I like it except that I need almost 55 (real) minutes to reset prices on most of my routes. That would mean two AE days. But other than that, it would certainly mean most people have at least one chance of a month-end at a decent hour. My vote is for 10:00 UTC and 22:00 UTC but that's only because it suits me

#28458 End of month changed

Posted by highspeed on 26 January 2006 - 01:54 AM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

poor server is now lagging way behind, like 5 to 8 mins to do the end of month

Part of the delay is caused by the server time being behind. End of month does not start at exactly hh:00.

#28465 End of month changed

Posted by highspeed on 26 January 2006 - 02:56 AM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

That's where your wrong. Check AE exactly at the hour change. The first function that AE processed was the daily pay. Then about three to five minutes later it will work on gates and in another three to five minutes it will work on aircraft delivery.

This time only seven minutes to complete the month change.

Actually I did. My computer is time synchronized (NTP) and displays the same time as my wall clock (also time synchronized, using the time transmitter in germany).
I noticed the first change around 02:02:10. The last change (indeed: buying aircraft) was around 02:06:30. Both times are UTC. Maybe AE needs two minutes to process before it reaches my account; it would surprise me but it is possible.

I looked very closely (and kept records) because two purchases ago I lost quite a significant amount of money. The plane was delivered yet my value was not increased accordingly. This set me back more than 10 million, together with the bug on the public market this means over 15 million behind what I could have been.

#28470 Possibly the BUGGIEST game in the world

Posted by highspeed on 26 January 2006 - 03:23 AM in Bugs

We really don't mind people taking down a game to make it better, you know.

Er... could you rephrase that please? If it's necessary then it has to be done, but if it can be avoided...

What else am I going to do at 4:30am? Sleep?

#28479 End of month changed

Posted by highspeed on 26 January 2006 - 04:13 AM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Were you hitting F5 to see the month change? Because mine is time synchronized as well (most systems are by default) and the day profits were deposited right after the hour change.

http://forums.airlin...read.php?t=2692

What I ment is: I verified that the time synchronization actually worked, by comparing my computer clock against another, unrelated, source. It is within a second (can't be more accurate with my eyes). In my experience some machines, especially windows computers synchronized in a local network, are within a minute or so but aren't really that accurate. That's why I have that other clock: to verify the accuracy.

I get the main page, and extract the values from it. Those are logged to disk together with a time stamp, automated. This to make sure I didn't get errors while copying the values and/or time. For a short while I did so every 15 seconds or so. Accurate enough.

Of course, if the script happens to process my airline's dop as very last, and decides to give me my planes earlier than anyone else, the difference between these numbers are a bit lower than on average. There is a certain amount of speculation in my data; can't be avoided I'm afraid.

#28519 Buying planes,a warning aka new game rules

Posted by highspeed on 26 January 2006 - 04:40 PM in Game Discussion (SIM2)

Finally some good news.

The status of highspeed has been restored to A Player Like Any Other.

It doesn't really matter anymore, as I am no longer interested in beeches. Anybody wanting to sell their Q400 at 50% ?

just kidding.

I have some beeches I no longer need. Average purchase price some 75% to 80% of their value. Aircraft have been maintained properly and were flying until a couple of days ago. I'm willing to let more than half of them go for 75% of their current value. PM me.

#28528 Return gates with refund

Posted by highspeed on 26 January 2006 - 06:23 PM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

If you open up a Used Gate market, it will only give more fuel to the ever issues of Feeders, more (Bogus Airlines) will be created just to saturate the market. The used aircraft market is a classic example.

Like in the past games, if you have a gate for offer, then use the forum and seek a fee for it, (No AE Laws I dont think) banning that.

Feeders already get gates and are already freeing them up when they die and restart. Why would a market make this worse? I really don't see your point I guess...

#28535 Return gates with refund

Posted by highspeed on 26 January 2006 - 07:20 PM in Suggestions and Feature Requests

Guess my point is like I have stated in the past, DO AWAY TOTAL with the used market.

No Used Market - No place to sell (For The Feeders) and less dropping of gates !!

But getting back to your point, we have now a used market, say we also do a used gate market, More Places for Feeders to drop mass in gates as well as cheap 5-yrs old J31's and Beeches.

Indeed, you have mentioned your opinion before. Closing the market because of feeders is not solving the problem. It may improve the situation, but at a cost. What I still do not see is why the situation would become worse if there would also be a gate market. Gates are now dumped on the free, open market (this is where you and I get our gates!) so there are too many of them already.

Suppose there would be a public market similar to the aircraft market:
Feeder's choices:
a) release the gates by going bankrupt (current style)

put the gates onto the public gate market, selling them for money

Choice a: no different than current situation
Choice b: would mean the ones being fed __loose__ money. The gates they normally get for free (plus a one time fee, plus a monthly fee), would suddenly cost them money (plus a one time fee, plus a monthly fee).

Do you really see choice b happening?

The real problem, feeders, needs to be solved somehow. That should not mean the rest of the game cannot be improved.

Now, let's look at the suggestion in a scenario where the feeder issue has been dealt with:

The public market for aircraft is a nice to have. It does not suffer anymore from feeder issues, people can sell their airplane quick at low price if they need money fast, people can sell their aircraft for more than it's worth if demand is high and supply is low.

I see no reason why the public market for gates would be different. With a limited supply (no feeders anymore in this hypothetical example!) and high demand, you'd have to pay the monthly fees as usual, plus a one time fee to the selling airline. The more popular an airport is, the more fee you pay.

People could even choose: Do I get two beeches, 2 J-31s, or do I get 10 extra gates at the airport of choice (for a total of 15).

Of course, the current system where you can rent gates from the airport itself will still exist yet the airport will adjust its one time fee as well.

cheers
highspeed