Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Sleuth Talk

Jun-20-2006 10:44

Over the past six months, we've been struggling to maintain a decent level of Sleuth server performance, despite increasing numbers of simultaneous players.

This is a great problem to have! It means there are lots of new people trying out Sleuth, but it's a bit of a losing battle logistically. There has been some success making software changes to improve things, but those gains are quickly eclipsed as traffic continues to increase. There is only so much the current hardware can handle.

New server machines will be purchased in the next couple of months. This will help, but if Sleuth continues to grow, it won't be long before capacity is reached on the new machines as well, and things will slow down again.

This situation is unfair for paying subscribers, who cannot enjoy the game at peak hours due to the lag of the servers. So, in the interest of fairness there will be a rule change that will limit when unsubscribed players will be able to access the game.

Starting later this week, detectives who are unsubscribed and older than 7 days, will not be allowed to login if there are already 60 or more detectives online.

You will not be allowed to login to the game if all three of the following conditions are true:

1) There are already 60 or more detectives logged in
2) Your detective is not currently subscribed
3) Your detective is older than 7 days

Sleuth has always been as welcoming as possible to non-subscribed players. We also recognize that in some countries, the monthly subscription price is not affordable to everyone, but this rule change is necessary for the well-being of the game. Paying subscribers deserve to have access to a game that is playable, accessible and fun.

Thanks,
The Sleuth Team

Jul-8-2006 19:39

This is what Ben had to say about why we only get 10 cases a day anyway. in a thread in the subscriber center. This is probably where I should have started my case to begin with....

"The daily case limit is important for a couple reasons.

1) It limits the amount of traveling you can do. Without it, a rich detective could hop back and forth as much as they want, making the gameworld quite a bit smaller.

2) It dictates the pace of the treasure hunts. Otherwise, people with an unlimited amount of time to play could bowl through treasure hunts as quickly as they want. With the current setup, cooperation and strategy are more important.

Also, the game is designed to be accesible to casual players, and getting rid of the limit would make it tough for those people to keep pace."

Jul-8-2006 20:41

Well, I am not suggesting unlimited cases. I think that each day, we should get 10 cases; However, if a person can not go through all 10 cases, they should have the cases available for when they have more time to play.

It would work like this, if a person was only able to work on 5 cases one day, then the next day they would have 5 cases + 10 new cases; It would not really affect the conditions above:
1) Travel - not much different from working 10 cases daily and travelling. Even if a player had 20 - 50 cases to work with, they would still have to use some to travel, spend money and work on cases in each city to get favors. Maybe some players would travel around alot, but I think that will tend to get old after a while.

2) Since cases would still be released 10 at a time, treasure hunts would not really be affected that much either.

Plus, I think the reason people would have cases accumulating would be because they do not have time to play. People that have time to play, tend to work on their 10 cases and unused cases from people in their agencies.

I have 1 subbed and 1 unsubbed detective. Both detectives were subbed until recently. If my cases could accumulate, I would resub my detective.

The arguement of "donate cases to your agency" is a good one, however, I do not have time to log in daily to store cases and most of the detectives in my agency do not have time to work through their 10 cases.

Jul-9-2006 17:22

I have to say again that letting cases pile up is a bad thing.

By my rough estimate I have 'lost' over 1,000 cases in my time here.

That is 5,000,000 Experience points.
That is roughly 4,800,000 dollars in reward money.
That is 333 favors I could do.

So all anyone has to do is play along at their normal pace, sometimes doing 10 cases sometimes not. Then when they have a weekend free they can just blow through a tremendous amount of cases, win several hunts on their own, build up enough cash to pay off quite a few trips to shady.

That is with one detective. Now do that with an agency full and you upset the balance of the game so much it is unrecognizable.

I know people will say "I do not want unlimited cases saved". We already have limits on how many cases we can save, the number of files your agency can hold. I think the arguments for increasing the size of the files make more sense and are easier to justify then letting cases that simply never get opened continue to pile up for a detective.

Jul-9-2006 18:39

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
> the more things change the more they stay the same (I think...)

LOL writing in another language is certainly one way to limit your comments for debate Chronestrian :)

Jul-9-2006 19:51

*agrees with R Anstett*


*high fives Secret Squirrel*

Jul-9-2006 20:22

I think a combination of accumulating your cases and still maintain limited storage space in the agencies should be possible. How would this disturb the balance of things?

Does another language necessarily mean a disadvantage in debate?

Could we stop playing this debate at a childish level by petting eachother on the shoulder and giving high fives?

Jul-9-2006 21:02

I'm not in the debate, so I feel I can high five all I want. :)

Jul-9-2006 21:25

me neither :) *pets badass on the back* "there, there" :)

Jul-10-2006 09:39

I must be the only person who is not happy about this.

I am saving up my money to join. I don't have any money because I am in college and a very broke college student.

I feel as if I am being forced to choose between food for a two week period and subscribing to my favorite website.

A human has to eat at least every four days. There is nothing I can do about that.

I understand the reasons 100%. But I wanted to voice that: I am dedicated to the site. I love the game. I am trying to learn the game and become a master. However, I feel as if I'm being punished for not loving the game enough to choose it above food.

Thank you,

Ariel
Boston, MA

Jul-10-2006 09:43

I like the 10 cases a day limit. Having cases build up, would just be too overwhelming for people who are very busy! Keep it howit is please hehe :) Besides, if you join an agency, you can do over 10 cases a day if there are free cases in the files :)