Fifteen behaviour bugs: the Stormwind portal and the frozen characters

The finding

• Stormwind portal: the portals from Shattrath, Dalaran and the Stair of Destiny, like the mage teleport, drop characters into a closed room under the Wizard's Sanctum. For navigation, this room is an island connected to nothing: its only exit is its own portal, which leads to the top of the tower. There were 457 arrivals through these portals on 28 and 29 October.
• Frozen characters: a diving helmet recasts an endless breathing spell every second, which the module took for a spell being cast. Four characters had been waiting underwater like this since 24 October.
• Endless back-and-forth: the search for game picked the training dummies in the capitals, which combat then refused. During the break, 1,155 characters, almost all level 80, went back and forth more than ten times in 30 minutes.
• Fleeing: ordinary fleeing went back the way the character came, without looking. During the break, 8.8% of the deaths of levels 70 to 80 followed this retreat.
• Repair money:
• 397 characters could not pay for their repairs, 295 of them without a guild;
• gold received was not collected beyond 1,500 m from a mailbox;
• riding and weapon or profession lessons were paid with the repair money.
• Gear gifts: 896 given pieces were never collected. They went to stuck characters, who no longer visited a mailbox.
• Full bags: 394 level 80 characters had no free slot left.
• Druids: 6,455 mount refusals in Moonkin Form in two weeks.
• Routes:
• 64% of the deaths while travelling happened on the walk to the first leg, which the planner thought flat and safe;
• training sometimes went very far for one or two lessons.
• Real strength: the inn, the evacuation and the login check still judged danger by the displayed level. A disarmed character could also engage quest monsters.
• Dalaran: the teleport offered during the quest "The Magical Kingdom of Dalaran" was not used. 198 trips to turn in this quest were abandoned.

The fixes

• Stormwind portal:
• the room now counts as separate land: routes go through its portal, both ways;
• after each arrival, the trip checks that it is not locked in. If it is, it leaves through a nearby portal or changes route.
• Frozen characters: a spell that allows acting is no longer taken for a spell being cast.
• Game: the search skips dummies and anything combat refuses. A hunting spot reached without prey is set aside.
• Fleeing:
• ordinary fleeing picks its spot like fleeing a hopeless fight, away from resting monsters;
• when solo, the hunter feigns death and the rogue vanishes;
• the flee report no longer counts as successful an escape that ended in a death on the way.
• Help:
• a well-off passer-by of the same faction helps a character without a guild to repair;
• the broke character fetches the gold received at the nearest safe mailbox, even far away;
• riding, lessons and tools leave the repair money aside.
• Mail: gifts go to characters who collect their mail and have room.
• Bags:
• pieces worse than the ones worn are sold, up to epic quality;
• outdated consumables are sold when bags overflow;
• a character without a bag buys a small one.
• Trips:
• walking counts terrain and danger, based on the character's strength;
• before a long trip, the character rests, repairs or empties its bags if it passes near a vendor;
• training only goes far for enough lessons;
• an honor purchase must be worth the length of the trip.
• Real strength:
• a disarmed character skips kill objectives beyond its strength;
• the inn, the evacuation and the login judge by real strength.
• Mounts: the druid leaves its form to mount. Without a mount, it takes Travel Form, and the shaman Ghost Wolf.
• Dalaran: during the quest, the character asks the nearest mage for the teleport, like a player.

Checked on the test server

Two parallel 35-minute trials with the same characters, the old version against the new one:

• 28 Alliance characters:
• the two characters sent to Stormwind by portal leave the room through the tower's portal. With the old version, a mage who wanted to reach her trainer in that room got stuck on the way, then gave up;
• the five characters frozen underwater play again;
• pieces equipped: 54 → 83; repairs: 8 → 19; gifts received: 1 → 10; honor purchases: 42 → 60;
• escapes: 35 → 10, failed ones: 19 → 4.
• 16 Horde characters:
• monsters killed: 20 → 32;
• escapes: 56 → 19, failed ones: 28 → 7;
• gifts received: 1 → 8; repairs: 6 → 10;
• the loop in front of the training dummies is gone.
• No error, no crash, and the same CPU use.
• Downside: deaths rise from 7 to 19 over both trials. They are mostly characters the old version left frozen, stuck or disarmed. Armed again and back on the road, they remain weak: level 80s with low-level gear and badly outdated spells, who die against ordinary level 69 to 71 monsters. The estimate of their real strength is too high. A more cautious flee threshold, tried separately, changed nothing: the next adjustment is on this estimate, and it is already being tested.

Still open

• Real strength of under-geared level 80s: it is still overestimated. A stricter estimate is being tested.
• Stair of Destiny: the Legion elites at the Dark Portal arrival still kill level 60 to 66 characters.
• Thunder Bluff: for navigation, the city is an island, since its elevators are not on the navigation mesh.
• Level 80s: outside battlegrounds and Northrend, they have nothing to do and idle in town.
• Training without money: a level 80 mage with rank 3 spells cannot pay the 60 gold of her lessons.
• Stormwind innkeeper: unreachable on foot.

Deployment

The new module version is installed on the server. The autonomous players stay stopped: these fixes will be in place for the restart.