[3.61, Windows 10] Items are no longer showing as unpaid when I pick them up

[jonottawa]

I was LOVING this game until yesterday when I started getting frequent 'map maintenance' messages. Now I get them EVERY time I zoom in or out of a tile.

I think perhaps related to that is that in the last 2 towns I visited, when I pick up an item, it isn't listed as unpaid. Some players might enjoy that, but bartering is one of the things I love about the game and all the free stuff I can take isn't.

In another thread, Privateer mentioned that perhaps I'm zooming in/out too much and that I should just play on the zoomed out map for the most part unless I see an elk or whatever. Is this game salvageable or do I need to start over?

FWIW my computer is fairly decent (i7-8700 w/ GTX 1080, 16GB of RAM and lots of hard drive space) and I'm not running any mods or anything.

Edit: Privateer also linked this thread, which seems to pertain to the same issue:

https://www.unrealworld.fi/forums/index.php?topic=1100.msg3710#msg3710

[Sami]

Please do the following:

.zip up your character folder and e-mail it over to me for investigation.

Are you playing the latest version? (3.51)

The thread linked talks about an age old maintenance bug which was fixed in 3.52.
It's unlikely that the same issue has returned in your world but I'll be wiser when I get the save.

[StefanPravda]

Are you playing the latest version? (3.51)

My Steam version is 3.61???
https://prnt.sc/r055r2

[jonottawa]

The character folder is the one with the character name in all caps, I presume?

The uncompressed folder is 912MB, the compressed folder is a little over 30MB. Is there a free file sharing service you recommend or can I literally just attach it to an email?

I'm playing 3.61 (stable)

Edit: See if this link works for you:

https://file.io/TMkYsQ

[Sami]

The character folder is the one with the character name in all caps, I presume?

Yes, that's true.

The uncompressed folder is 912MB, the compressed folder is a little over 30MB. Is there a free file sharing service you recommend or can I literally just attach it to an email?

What package/zip progran you use? Good compressors should be able to bring this down even more, but basically my e-mail can handle terribly large attachments.

Edit: See if this link works for you:

https://file.io/TMkYsQ

Didn't work.
WeTransfer is one good file delivery option in my opinion:
https://wetransfer.com/

[jonottawa]

I sent it to your @unrealworld.fi email, I hope that's the right one.

I just used the default compressor that came with the operating system. Do you have another good recommendation for me? I'm looking at 7-Zip but I'm not tech savvy and I don't know whether 32-bit or 64-bit is the right choice.

Thanks for taking a look at it. I appreciate it. Love the game.

[Sami]

I sent it to your @unrealworld.fi email, I hope that's the right one.

I just used the default compressor that came with the operating system. Do you have another good recommendation for me? I'm looking at 7-Zip but I'm not tech savvy and I don't know whether 32-bit or 64-bit is the right choice.

Thanks for taking a look at it. I appreciate it. Love the game.

That's the e-mail and I got the save now. Good! It will take a day or two before I have checked it out, but I'll let you know then.

7-zip is a good choice, these days pretty much everybody has 64-bit system so grab that one first. If it doesn't work then you can try 32-bit.

Lets continue.

[jonottawa]

Sounds good. I'm quite enjoying the new game I started. As you probably would expect, there are no map maintenance or trading issues with that game so far.

[Sami]

jonottawa, I did e-mail you with link from where to download the character back. The additional info I post here is the same you find in the e-mail.

Maintenance shouldn't frequent anymore, but if it starts to happen again just .zip the character and send it to me again, and I'll adjust some more.

Then a reason for the maintenance hiccup...
This character isn't very old but has explored zoomed-in maps a lot. There's nothing bad with that but the map maintenance didn't find ways to decide which maps to remove as the world is less than year old. I've adjusted the logic based on this example, and it's wiser now.

When it comes to items not appearing [unpaid] in the village, that's a case I can't solve that easily. It seems to be related to only some items, and their ownership flags seem to differ from the villagers. So it's kind of like somebody has brought and dropped "free" items in the village. I visited few new villages and found things okay, so it's some kind of confusion - with some items - in these two latest villages.

I might investigate that in more detail later on, but now, feel free to continue your adventures with fixed character.

[jonottawa]

Awesome Sami, you're a gentleman and a scholar.

Guess I'll try to zoom in less frequently.

Cheers.

[Sami]

Awesome Sami, you're a gentleman and a scholar.

Guess I'll try to zoom in less frequently.

Cheers.

You're welcome.
But just keep zooming, there's nothing bad with that, and it's the ultimate and challenging way to explore the game.
Moreover, things are adjusted in the next patch to overcome this kind of maintenance hiccups.

[jonottawa]

But just keep zooming, there's nothing bad with that, and it's the ultimate and challenging way to explore the game.

Unfortunately, now I'm experiencing the same problem (map maintenance on every zoom out and zoom in, I haven't investigated if the trade bug has resurfaced as well,) in the new game I started. I don't seem to play the game the same way as everybody else does, apparently.

1st Edit: Guess I'll go back to the game you fixed.

2nd Edit: The game you fixed now does map maintenance on every zoom out and zoom in. I'm going to keep playing it for a while just to see if the trade bug returns.

Is map maintenance designed merely to limit the amount of hard drive space that the character takes up? I'd happily take up 20 or 30 gigs if it means I can explore the map freely.

[jonottawa]

And the trade bug HAS returned. Everything I picked up in the latest village is free for the taking, including lots of expensive stuff, bronze jewelry, mail leggings, a battleaxe, etc.

It's funny, some people will probably try to copy my playstyle just to trigger that bug, and for me it makes the game unplayable, sigh.

Anyway, I hope the next version of the game truly fixes it. It's hard to invest dozens of hours in a character and then have to stop playing it and start over not because you were foolish/reckless or because the RNG gods were exceptionally unkind, but because you explored the map too much.

It's still a lovely game either way. Thanks for making it.

[Plotinus]

This has to me too in the past. i'm also a player that does a lot on the zoomed in map, sometimes i'll build a house about 10 world map tiles away from a village that you can get to the village by following a path like "go south and whenever you hit a tree go east until you can go south again", and then visit the village once a week. I usually keep the goods I'm interested in buying in a pile in one of the buildings, and then if the building was one of those 2x1 buildings then i'd drop all my stuff too on top of it to do crafting or whatever and then when i picked up all my stuff i would notice that all the stuff was mine, so my hypothesis was that I was picking them up too much and dropping them and that reset it, but maybe that was a red herring.  I'll try to submit a save next time it happens to me.

[Sami]

But just keep zooming, there's nothing bad with that, and it's the ultimate and challenging way to explore the game.

Unfortunately, now I'm experiencing the same problem (map maintenance on every zoom out and zoom in, I haven't investigated if the trade bug has resurfaced as well,) in the new game I started. I don't seem to play the game the same way as everybody else does, apparently.

1st Edit: Guess I'll go back to the game you fixed.

2nd Edit: The game you fixed now does map maintenance on every zoom out and zoom in. I'm going to keep playing it for a while just to see if the trade bug returns.

Not to worry, just follow the advice given earlier "if it starts to happen again just .zip the character and send it to me again, and I'll adjust some more."

So save your progress as it is now, and send it over and I'll take a look. Pause the playing until you get reply back from me.

Is map maintenance designed merely to limit the amount of hard drive space that the character takes up? I'd happily take up 20 or 30 gigs if it means I can explore the map freely.

Disk space usage is one of the key reasons, yes. We've had in mind a possibility to allow unlimited map saving, but that would also mean that the whole explored world is prone to various simulations and calculations which would make things really heavy on the long run.