I'm just fuming, but this happens to me a lot. I know there's a bug or issue with zombies disappearing, and everyone knows it that plays a necromancer. If you stray to far while your zombie is out, it'll disappear.

This whole deal, yeah:

IR> command zombie come
You do not have a zombie to command!
I> perc

You reach out with your senses and see flickering streams of black Necromantic mana oozing through the area.
Letting your senses extend further, you feel there is moderately more mana to the west, and around the same mana to the northeast.
You sense the Call from Beyond spell upon you, but can no longer detect its creation.
You sense the Eyes of the Blind spell upon you, which should last for about six roisaen.
You sense the Obfuscation spell upon you, which should last for about seventeen roisaen.
Roundtime: 5 sec.
IR>
You sense your Call from Beyond spell weaken and disperse.

Now I understand that it's known issue, the GM's are quite aware. I'd just like to express my calm frustrations that this is the reason that I don't use zombies, and I haven't for two months now and I probably won't use them much more frequent in the future. But really, I should be able to walk enough rooms (from the Jantspyre River to the East gate in Riverhaven) without my zombie glitching out and disappearing. You want more people to acquire Divine Outrage? Well issues like these aren't helping. It happened to me this same day in Shard, where I made my zombie near the Gondola and went to about (coincidentally) the East gate in Shard, disappeared.

So I'm putting out a Missing Zombie Alert: Code G.I.Z.M.O. (Getting Irritated Zombies Made Obsolete)

>>Just command your zombie to leave before you move around. That puts it in a temporary storage space.

In both instances this was done, I always do that because I'm paranoid some passerby will see it and kill it.

>>From your post before this one, it sounded like you left it in room A, moved one room, and it despawned.

I can tell you as the eyewitness of said event, that's not how it happened. It was vaulted. Then when I tried to tell it to come, it glitched out. Both occassions.

Already provided that information, but I will reiterate.

1.) First occasion was in Shard, the Dragon Spire Mountains area is where I commanded it to leave, effectively storing it. Ran around the city of Shard for about 10 minutes or so before going to the East Gate, one room removed outside the city. Tried to summon, said I had nothing to command, perceived said I couldn't sense the zombie and it gave me the messaging that it vanished. Second occasion, the zombie was stored at the Jantspyre River. Summoned it outside Riverhaven's eastern gate, near the Mausolem area. Same thing happened.

I didn't go into any oddball areas, vaults, banks... housing areas. Nada. And I always set my zombies stances right after I heal it, before I store it.

I've had this happen to me twice, but it has been awhile and I can't remember the details, other than I had just spent a bit of time outfitting it so I was a little displeased at having it blink out. Apologies.

At first I thought I had just done something wrong, so it's nice to know it actually wasn't me.




Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, not only are you a mile away, but you also have thier shoes.

For what its worth... I've never had this problem the entire time I've played my necromancer. Granted, I re-rolled my necromancer at 10th circle about 2 months ago to fix SO and poor spell choice. I had never heard of this issue until now... So I decided to see if I could replicate it. Additionally I had no issues traveling on the ferry, or anywhere else. Maybe its an issue with the actual character, specific to the area, or even the creature being risen. Seems to me its not an issue with every necromancer.

[Skeleton's Crook, Winding Path]

You are certain that the dao is worth exactly 2531 lirums. (Making sure I'm in another province to see if anything weird would happen between provinces)
Roundtime: 5 seconds.

You reach out with your senses and see dull streams of black Necromantic mana oozing through the area.
Letting your senses extend further, you feel there is much more mana to the southwest, and moderately more mana to the north.
You sense the Call from Beyond spell upon you, which should last for about twenty-eight roisaen.
Roundtime: 8 sec.

[Eastern Tier, Outside Gate] (Crossing east gate)

You reach out with your senses and see dusky streams of black Necromantic mana oozing through the area.
Letting your senses extend further, you feel there is moderately less mana to the east.
You sense the Call from Beyond spell upon you, which should last for about twenty-six roisaen.
Roundtime: 8 sec.

R>command zomb come
You focus on the thanatological link to your maiden zombie, willing it to come back to you.
Roundtime: 2 sec.
R>
An arisen maiden zombie shambles in with a groan.
>command zomb leave
You focus intently on your thanatological link, commanding your maiden zombie to depart for a time.
Roundtime: 3 sec.
An arisen maiden zombie shambles off with a groan.

["Kertigen's Honor"]

You reach out with your senses and see flickering streams of black Necromantic mana oozing through the area.
You sense the Call from Beyond spell upon you, which should last for about twenty-four roisaen.
Roundtime: 6 sec.

>command zomb come
You focus on the thanatological link to your maiden zombie, willing it to come back to you.
Roundtime: 2 sec.
R>
An arisen maiden zombie shambles in with a groan.
>command zomb leave
You focus intently on your thanatological link, commanding your maiden zombie to depart for a time.
Roundtime: 3 sec.
An arisen maiden zombie shambles off with a groan.

[Leth Deriel, Sana'ati Dyaus Drui'tas]

You reach out with your senses and see flickering streams of black Necromantic mana oozing through the area.
Letting your senses extend further, you feel there is moderately less mana to the northwest, somewhat less mana to the west, much less mana to the southwest, around the same mana to the south, moderately more mana to the southeast, somewhat more mana to the east, moderately more mana to the northeast, and moderately more mana to the north.
You sense the Call from Beyond spell upon you, which should last for about twenty-two roisaen.
Roundtime: 5 sec.

>command zomb come
You focus on the thanatological link to your maiden zombie, willing it to come back to you.
Roundtime: 2 sec.
R>
An arisen maiden zombie shambles in with a groan.
>command zomb release
You sense your Call from Beyond spell weaken and disperse.
>
As if racing to catch up, the decay process quickly overcomes an arisen maiden zombie. Putrid flesh withers and evaporates into a rancid cloud, leaving brittle, mottled bones behind that crumble to dust the moment they contact air.

If you want to replicate it, go into a not very well used hunting area, bring your zombie in. Move one room outside of where they spawn. You'll see it happen. Its happened to me in frostweyr bears, in cave trolls, young cave trolls, bobcats, gargoyles, frostweavers, and several other places.

>If you want to replicate it, go into a not very well used hunting area, bring your zombie in. Move one room outside of where they spawn.

If you are going to leave the hunting area, use COMMAND ZOMBIE LEAVE. Despawning of creatures in an empty area is a resource management measure that is unlikely to change.

Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

>>Right, but presumably changing zombies to not be on 'normal creature code' or whatever they're on which is causing this issue might be something that could be made to change.

Granted the system isnt perfect, but that sounds like a whole lot of code work to fix something that already has a viable work around via COMMAND ZOMBIE LEAVE and a little player caution.

Elusive
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

>>If I'm reading this right, it's not a creature thing. It's happening because the segment is being unloaded from memory when there are no players left in it. Everything that isn't a static part of the area is lost.

That's how it was explained to us, too.

---

"You always have to be a know-it-all. And you don't. Know. It. All." - GERSTEINJ2

>>Would it unload a familiar, wolf, or alfar avenger?

It wouldn't surprise me if does but it's just not something people noticed because they're just not as complex as zombies, so there's very little difference in a fresh one spawning and the old one successfully following you. For whatever reason (if I had to guess, it's because zombies are legitimate creatures as opposed to objects with critter-like tendencies), zombies just can't be respawned in the same manner.

It's sorta like how, if you're stalking a critter, it might sometimes just "poof" if it walks to another room in mid-stalk, but other times you might end up following it. Or if you see something via HUNT, but by the time the RT expires, it's gone. Those are both examples of mobs being unloaded.

If I once again had to guess, you'd see something similar to zombie unloading with Rangers using Awaken Forest, but how often would a Ranger cast it, move in a manner that unloads that particular section of a zone, then try to see if the spawn is still there? It lasts for like four minutes and doesn't follow the user, right? If it lasted longer and could follow the Ranger, I would assume that they'd have the same kind of issues we do.

---

"You always have to be a know-it-all. And you don't. Know. It. All." - GERSTEINJ2

>>So then it's not exploitable in a PvP situation ?

>>"Zombies ? But you don't have to fight them. Just run around in circles and they'll despawn."

That's my experience with almost every kind of critter in the game. I'd also guess that's how it would work with glass constructs, too.

That said, zombies/constructs/etc won't despawn if the Necro who summons it sticks around.

---

"You always have to be a know-it-all. And you don't. Know. It. All." - GERSTEINJ2

>>Just run around in circles...

FYI that's pretty much the definition of high level PvP :P (at least until someone gets stunned)

__
You hear the voice of Jaedren exclaim, "Look! I'm Leilond!"
You notice Jaedren come out of hiding.
Jaedren shimmers out of sight.

It should. If I find out it doesn't (and I figure out how), Risen would be updated to also function that way.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

Don't familiars wander off when you log?

---

Markat says, "Pleasant people without moral faults, going to church every week and abstaining from sins such as vanity and zombies. Feh...."

Ah. So there is a mechanic in place that allows familiars to exist in an area that is otherwise unloaded. Is it possible to examine them more closely and see what can be applied to zombies without causing them to become notzombies?

---

Markat says, "Pleasant people without moral faults, going to church every week and abstaining from sins such as vanity and zombies. Feh...."

>>Ah. So there is a mechanic in place that allows familiars to exist in an area that is otherwise unloaded. Is it possible to examine them more closely and see what can be applied to zombies without causing them to become notzombies?

It might have something to do with the fact that you can watch what a familiar is seeing. There's probably a module coded into them that makes the room observable. Since Zombies don't have that ability to observe the ongoings of a distant room, those modules wouldn't be present. The system doesn't need the area to be observable so it can safely despawn the area, and I'll bet therein lies the key.

Again, looking for a response from Armifer.

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Markat says, "Pleasant people without moral faults, going to church every week and abstaining from sins such as vanity and zombies. Feh...."

Pureblade, maybe you shouldn't respond to every post as if you're on the development staff. Everyone knows there are THINGS that can survive unloading, but that's not what we're talking about, so your post was pointless. Often times it seems that the GM's won't respond to direct questions if players answer them, regardless of whether or not the players' answers are valid. So yes, considering how few answers we get from GM's re: necro goings on, I'd rather have a response from Armifer than you. And since it pertains to everyone, the appropriate place to discuss it is here. But I've got you ignored now, so go nuts.

Back to my question:

>So there is a mechanic in place that allows familiars to exist in an area that is otherwise unloaded. Is it possible to examine them more closely and see what can be applied to zombies without causing them to become notzombies?

There must be some code that distinguishes familiars from other creatures that would be unloaded, and it would be nice if that code could be applied to zombies without changing what they are. CRAVYD had a theory, and I'd be curious to hear what Armifer thinks about that, in addition to any other distinctions between zombies and familiars that would be important to note.

---

Markat says, "Pleasant people without moral faults, going to church every week and abstaining from sins such as vanity and zombies. Feh...."

On topic, or end it.

Take the bickering over to the Conflicts folder.


Annwyl
Message Board Supervisor

If you've questions or comments, take it to e-mail by writing me at DR-Annwyl@play.net.