Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Sleuth Talk

Dec-22-2007 13:24

There are days when I have done all my daily cases, and still want to do more cases. I would like to be able to do that by buying like 200 cases for the same fee that a month subscription cost. The cases would be bought for one sleuth, and can be "withdrawn" whenever I want to, until I have done all the 200 cases.
Yes, I know that it's possible to subscribe more sleuths, and I have done so, but there are also limits to how many sleuths it's interesting to rule. Also, I don't think it's too popular in the Sleuth community to rule too many sleuths.... Especially if you are participating in Treasure Hunting...
If Treasure Hunting or Arch Villain Hunting competitions are a problem, you could always put a limit, saying you are not allowed to withdraw from your "case account" when you or your agency are involved in Treasure Hunting or an Arch Villain League. Also, if some high score list's are a problem, you could be either banned from the high score list as long as you withdraw cases from your "case account", or you could be refused withdrawing cases if you are among the top 10 on a list. (I would personally prefer the banning from the list, and not being able to reappear on the list until you are among the last half of the list)

Dec-22-2007 13:56

One of the great (and worst) aspects of Sleuth is that there is a limit on how much you can play.

This, in my opinion, wouldn't work. You'd just allow those with the most money and time, not skill, to reach the high scores.

Dec-22-2007 15:13

Actually my purpose was not to beat any high score list.
Jojo: The possibility for those with enough money, or should I rather say will to prioritize using most money on sleuth, are already able to reach some high scores. It's not that difficult. I already could beat the weekly high score list if I concentrated on it and wanted to, but I normally don't ;-)
Also, I think that the reason someone are on a high score list is rather that they have been sleuthing longer than newbies like me. Any sleuth with the will to do all their cases on the hardest level availiable (where they still win skill points) will eventually be on the top of a high score list. It's impossible to avoid. It's got little with skill to do, but rather much more with time, patience and accuracy.
It's just that I sometimes like to do the sleuth cases.
It would be perfectly fine with me if I was taken out of any high score list while working on depleeting a "chunk of cases" account, and afterwards as well. (Actually that would be a relief, since I don't really want to compete with any of you.)
I think I will use most of my time doing AVH's, competing with myself to get the prices. And, it would take me quite some time to beat some of the best AVH's anyway ;-) I guess I would have to be the first sleuth getting 100 Arch Villains if I was ever to be awarded something official for that, and that would anyway take an awful lot of time, if it ever would be possible...

Dec-22-2007 15:45

There are other reasons this wouldn't work well.

People in AVL hunts - all those extra cases just makes it possible for people who can afford them to finish their hunt in one day. Yay.

Treasure Hunts - there's not much of a challenge when the agency manned by people who can afford to buy extra cases snags it all from the agency manned by people who can't afford it.

Things are basically balanced right now. What you are asking for could create a huge imbalance.

Dec-22-2007 16:08

Just because of theese two reasons, I suggested that as long as you or your agency was involved in AVL hunts or Treasure Hunts you were not allowed to take out this kind of extra cases, because even I can understand it would be unfair ;-)
If you want to be even more certain no one is cheating any competition by buying extra cases, let their daily cases limit reduce to 10 as long as they have more cases left on their "extra case account". With the limitations mentioned and repeated above, you would rather have a disadvantage in competitions if you buy packets of extra cases.
I am fully convinced that it's possible to control this.
As long as you are just trying to get the right contact, or are doing AVH's for your own fun, I can't understand why it would damage anyone, nor why it would create an imbalance.

Dec-22-2007 16:59

Although it may not be YOUR intention to beat the high scores, it will be of others.

This idea, I'm sorry to say, undermines the work of everyone who has worked so hard to get where they are in the high score standings.

The idea that playing longer means you are on the high scores is BS. We have many people who are only 500 days and even under that are topping the high scores.

Dec-22-2007 17:08

Your proposal's been bouncing around the boards for quite a while, Huglover. There have been a couple of things implemented that have been takeoffs of it (ie--sidekicks and retaining points for sharing cases). However, what you're proposing (especially the scope of it) would be a programming and game balance fiasco, and I doubt Admin will go along with it. There's people complaining like crazy about the gap between the 'perks' of subscribers and unsubbeds. This would start a war. Sorry.

Dec-23-2007 01:37

I think there is another fundemental reason to the case limit that would make this a "bad" idea. Note the "" around bad... I for one would on some days love more cases to play.

The reason is server space. The Sleuth servers are relativly small, one way to keep it so not to many are logged on playing at once is limit the amount of play time by limiting cases.

Allowing people to buy more cases would mean they were on Sleuth more meaning that those of us who struggle to be online when the servers actualy run at more than a snails pace would find this task even harder.

So on the whole I say no to a very good idea. Unless the servers are upgraded to handle the greater capacity of players.

Dec-23-2007 06:57

Well, I will have to accept that you didn't like the idea.
I will anyway hope that this could change in the future.

I am planning to try to make some contributions during Christmas in order to see if this can improve Sleuth server speed. I have some ideas I will be working on. Would you care to wish me good luck? I will need it. ;-)
Especially I will need some good ideas to how I can test efficiently if the speed increases.

Dec-23-2007 23:17

You're buying Ben and Sunny more servers for Christmas? Wow. That's really generous. I only sent them a Fruit Cake from last year that I re-gifted this year. I kept it in the freezer all year so I'm sure it's safe to eat. But anyways.... you're going to make me look bad... I hate when people out-gift me.

Dec-24-2007 05:10

No, I am not going to buy Ben and Sunny more servers for Christmas. That would only require to send them enough money, and there would be no need for testing. ;-) (Besides, I don't even imagine I have THAT kind of money... )
What I intended to do was trying to program a front for the server, so that the web server don't have to access the database on Every move you are doing when you solve a case. If this could make the pressure of the database lower, without moving the problem to the memory usage on the server, well, then it's going to be quicker. Ben said that it's especially the updates that eat database capacity.
Obviously I cannot test with the real Sleuth engine, but I need to be able to simulate some of the major tasks that's been done on the server, and also multiple users solving cases at the same time. Also, I need to be able to easily configure where the load goes, so it would be possible to balance the load on the availiable resources.
I don't intend to out-gift someone. I intend to do this both because I am a programmer of heart, to learn something interesting, and to try to easen the frustration I feel when it takes this kind of time solving cases. I need someone wishing me luck, because I am not certain it will work out in practice. ;-)