25-04-2005, 06:12 AM
I've seen some strange stuff happen to me today. First a Knucles appears in Altair 10-1, apparantly playing Episode 3 (I know that's supposed to be harmless, but it kinda made me uncomfortable 
). Then someone I had seen earlier today at level 10 comes up to me as level 69, claiming he somehow kept the levels he gained in battle mode (yeah, right...).
But then... oh boy... my first FSOD. Wonderful. I met someone in Antares 1 around my level, and we started a VHard TTF. After downloading the quest, there was quite a pause... I was thinking he was on dialup and was taking longer to download, but he said he had broadband as well. Hmm. So we get to the dragon... at the start of the battle, another pause. None of us can move for about 5 seconds, including the dragon. He also paused right after he roared, and IIRC, right before he died. Weird lag, eh?
Into the caves we go, I'm noticing some item pickup lag... the pan arms appear, I start hacking at one with my twin brand (hoping to deplete its HP with the special), and oops, right in the middle of my swing, FSOD. I could just kinda tell that's what it was... the TV was making an odd buzzing noise and sure enough, everything was frozen in place.
So I turn the cube off, and I read the little "ZOMG I killzed ur items" message when I selected my character. Thankfully, I have my backup holder for just such occasions... so I break him out, grab my backup dupes (oddly enough, it was my spread needle that remained, not my twin brand... I wonder why?), and try to get online again. The message was still there... I cursed myself, thinking I'd have to pull out another set of backups (my supplies are limited until I can borrow a non-plus copy of the game), but started offline single just to check. My items were still there, and when I quit, the message was gone again. Hmm.
I get back on, the other guy apparantly did not get FSODed. He claims I was frozen in place for about 3 minutes (about how long it took me to do all that stuff offline). Suddenly I remember the last weird thing that happened today: earlier, I'd taken my low-level FOnewm to help out this level 8 HUnewearl who had left his/her game unlocked. About halfway through caves 1 I notice the HUnewearl's stuck in a tech-casting pose. My keyboard won't send any messages at that point, either. The last time that happened, I was DC'd shortly after, so I killed a few more monsters and then quit the game. His/her game was still on the list about an hour afterward.
Anyway, after that FSOD I suggested we move to Altair 10, which we did, and then restarted and completed the TTF (with help from Sheik, because quite frankly neither of us could've done it alone).
So here are my questions:
1. Are signs like the quirky dragon and quest download pauses signs of upcoming FSOD?
2. I read somewhere that there's, like a 50% chance of losing items through FSOD... is that true?
3. The Sonic/Knuckles/Tails/Random weird character appearances in the lobby ARE harmless, right?
4. If you are FSODed in game and you get "frozen" like that... do you stay that way, sort of like a dummy, until you get back online again (thus making it refresh you, or something)? My guess is, the HUnewearl I was playing with got FSODed, but did not get back online for quite a while...
5. What can you assume if your keyboard stops sending messages? By that I mean, you type them, you hit enter, but no chat bubble appears.
). Then someone I had seen earlier today at level 10 comes up to me as level 69, claiming he somehow kept the levels he gained in battle mode (yeah, right...).But then... oh boy... my first FSOD. Wonderful. I met someone in Antares 1 around my level, and we started a VHard TTF. After downloading the quest, there was quite a pause... I was thinking he was on dialup and was taking longer to download, but he said he had broadband as well. Hmm. So we get to the dragon... at the start of the battle, another pause. None of us can move for about 5 seconds, including the dragon. He also paused right after he roared, and IIRC, right before he died. Weird lag, eh?
Into the caves we go, I'm noticing some item pickup lag... the pan arms appear, I start hacking at one with my twin brand (hoping to deplete its HP with the special), and oops, right in the middle of my swing, FSOD. I could just kinda tell that's what it was... the TV was making an odd buzzing noise and sure enough, everything was frozen in place.
So I turn the cube off, and I read the little "ZOMG I killzed ur items" message when I selected my character. Thankfully, I have my backup holder for just such occasions... so I break him out, grab my backup dupes (oddly enough, it was my spread needle that remained, not my twin brand... I wonder why?), and try to get online again. The message was still there... I cursed myself, thinking I'd have to pull out another set of backups (my supplies are limited until I can borrow a non-plus copy of the game), but started offline single just to check. My items were still there, and when I quit, the message was gone again. Hmm.
I get back on, the other guy apparantly did not get FSODed. He claims I was frozen in place for about 3 minutes (about how long it took me to do all that stuff offline). Suddenly I remember the last weird thing that happened today: earlier, I'd taken my low-level FOnewm to help out this level 8 HUnewearl who had left his/her game unlocked. About halfway through caves 1 I notice the HUnewearl's stuck in a tech-casting pose. My keyboard won't send any messages at that point, either. The last time that happened, I was DC'd shortly after, so I killed a few more monsters and then quit the game. His/her game was still on the list about an hour afterward.
Anyway, after that FSOD I suggested we move to Altair 10, which we did, and then restarted and completed the TTF (with help from Sheik, because quite frankly neither of us could've done it alone
).So here are my questions:
1. Are signs like the quirky dragon and quest download pauses signs of upcoming FSOD?
2. I read somewhere that there's, like a 50% chance of losing items through FSOD... is that true?
3. The Sonic/Knuckles/Tails/Random weird character appearances in the lobby ARE harmless, right?
4. If you are FSODed in game and you get "frozen" like that... do you stay that way, sort of like a dummy, until you get back online again (thus making it refresh you, or something)? My guess is, the HUnewearl I was playing with got FSODed, but did not get back online for quite a while...
5. What can you assume if your keyboard stops sending messages? By that I mean, you type them, you hit enter, but no chat bubble appears.
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