Last night's server shutdown during Athena

  • Admiral RRRSole

    I was waiting for my regular crew mate @Blooddoll22 to finish his current Athena voyage and had joined the chat party.
    You may / may not know but Athena voyages take quite some time to complete and there are several ways that you are unable to complete the quests which can easily make it all a huge waste of time.
    An animal cage or basket could simply de-spawn, being delayed by OP skeletons, afk crew members, the elements, prolonged re-spawn times and / or relentless PvPers could also be a huge factor in getting the job done in a respectable time. As well as server or connection issues, etc.

    They were almost complete when the notice of a server shutdown popped onto their screens.
    Huh? I don't recall reading of any scheduled shutdown and he quickly Alt Tabbed to check these forums himself.

    There was no merge, it simply shutdown soon after the notification.
    They had all lost the voyage (and loot) that they had put so much time and effort into. Not a pleasant feeling.

    This raises a new concerns for anyone doing an Athena voyage.

    There should be some way to save your progress before a server shutdown.
    Perhaps not an option for the player to abuse, but just a safety net for the server.
    If it was able to give a five minute warning then it was able to merge or at least save their current progress before simply kicking them all.

    An Athena voyage should permit you to obtain replacement animal cages or baskets.
    Even though you should turn in all requested animals before continuing on your voyage, we can't help cages de-spawning.

    Your thoughts?

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  • ThePesky
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I've always thought that it was annoying that you couldn't come back to a voyage after any sort of break. It has to even be worse with an Athena voyage.

    I do agree that there should be some sort of "save" feature, where the game remembers where you were in a voyage and allows you to pick up where you left off.

    As far as replacing despawned cages goes: apparently there isn't currently a way to do that because more items can create huge server lag issues. I've seen people spend several thousand gold in merchant voyages just to get enough cages to cover their anchor, so players would 100% abuse the ability to purchase more. Besides, how is the game supposed to know whether your cage despawned or some other crew is taking care of your pig? I'm not saying yours is a bad idea, I'm just showing the questions and issues that need to be answered before something like that can be implemented.

  • CaptnJaq
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    @Admiral-RRRsole

    1. I'm surprise you didn't go HULK and destroyed your console or controller.

    2. For anytime of voyage, it would be nice to have maps remain in the wheel and loot, booty, & merch do some sort of AUTO-CASH-IN for the sole occasions of server crashing.

  • Crimsonraziel
    Master
    Insider

    @admiral-rrrsole I know that feeling

  • KnifeLife
    Commander
    Insider
    Founder

    @admiral-rrrsole Maybe they could make it that when the server closes anyloot you have on your ship just automatically cashes in for you. At least then you can get some comfort knowing the time has not been wasted.

    And if it only happens when the devs switch of the servers i cant see a way it would be abused.

  • Clockwork Raven

    @Admiral-RRRSole
    This happened last night as I recall. I couldn't sleep and decided to join a random LFG. Luckily I was chosen to help a gentleman turn in 21 chests that he had dug up / found including a chest of sorrow.
    We approached Sanctuary Outpost and saw an active Skull Fort at Keel Haul.
    It was by that time I saw the server shutdown notification in 30 minutes. And it only took us 5 minutes to move the treasure;
    however I wonder if that was the first notification?
    If it notified them earlier they should have planned ahead to see how much time it would take to complete the Athena, and just cash in instead of trying to outrun the clock.
    I'm genuinely curious to know if that Galleon I saw approaching Keel Haul had the same situation. It is without a doubt they could beat the fort in 20 minutes. But getting the treasure to Sanctuary ?
    They probably had the same issue if they even bothered to attempt.

  • Admiral RRRSole

    @peskyookamiinu You make a good point. I haven't the time to put thought into that just yet but if I remember I'll think about it some more.

    @CaptnJaq No luv, I wasn't in the game at that stage, just in the chat party waiting to take my seat on a life raft of the Titanic. :o)
    It happened to @Blooddoll22 , his wife, their son and a friend of their son.

    @Crimsonraziel Dang that's gotta hurt.

    @KnifeLife Yeah I think something needs to be done.

    @Clockwork-Raven Sorry, I couldn't tell you if they had previous notifications or not. I had only joined the chat party moments before they mentioned it.
    I'm sure he would have checked the forums etc, sooner if they had earlier notice.

  • DolphTheMann
    Marauder
    Insider

    This is a perfect example of why we need a "Migrate to new server" vote option.
    Now, I have never done an Athena quest, but I hear they are long and a pain in the rear to do, and having the server shut down in the middle of a quest can't be fun. So being able to migrate so you do not lose progress would be very nice.

  • Admiral RRRSole

    @danish-crusader Something needs to be done server-side.
    I think that a "Migrate to new server" vote button would be abused not only by fort hopping but almost anyone who sees a ship at an outpost when they want to cash-in or anyone about to be engage in PvP.

  • DolphTheMann
    Marauder
    Insider

    @admiral-rrrsole No system is flawless sadly.

  • Admiral RRRSole

    @danish-crusader Agreed.
    But if the server can display a notification of it's intended shutdown then it could also merge players to vacant positions on another server.

  • DolphTheMann
    Marauder
    Insider

    @admiral-rrrsole Very true, and it really should do that.
    But then maybe the "Migrate Server" vote could be a thing that would only be available when the server is shutting down?
    That would eliminate most of the abuse.

  • MrWeatherman847
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    I mean, the day of a maintenance session they do say to plan your voyages wisely, as the servers could shut down.

  • Admiral RRRSole

    @colingamez That's just it, there wasn't any heads up of a planned server maintenance for that day. It didn't effect all servers.

  • MrWeatherman847
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @admiral-rrrsole I know not everyone uses Twitter but... "The #SeaOfThieves servers will be offline tomorrow (Wednesday) between 10AM and 2PM BST for maintenance - so plan your adventures carefully! https://www.seaofthieves.com/status" - @SeaofThieves Twitter

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