quitting from NPC permanently disables movement
Posted: 09 Sep 2011, 01:54
I took part in a recent event and won some rewards, which happened to put me over the critical 50% inventory capacity. The event's next stop was in Candor, where I didn't particularly want to take part in the specific festivities they had planned, but it might have been worth a try for a standard fight. So I headed over there, and as I got to the port, I remembered that I still had to drop off my prizes in storage or else I'd be fighting in no-heal mode, which is not an effective way for me to get anything done, let alone the mass slaughter of a Candor fight. I had already opened up the "Where would you like to go?" box, and I figured that the fastest way to get rid of it would be logging out and back in with Esc-Up-Enter-Enter.
Until the problem I report here is fixed, that stands as a Very Bad Idea.
Upon logging in, I was greeted with two boxes in the center of the screen: the "You're carrying more than half capacity" warning, and...the ferry NPC dialog, still there. However, the logout presumably cleared the ephemeral state variables (if not the entire code path being executed at that NPC), so despite clicking Next, nothing happened in the flow of that NPC, and the box remained there in a perpetual "Waiting for server" state (see attachment). Further logouts kept the problem intact upon logging in, and it is a problem, because as long as that box remains open, no character movement is possible. Not with the arrow keys, and not by clicking on the ground somewhere; clicking or right-clicking players, monsters, and NPCs is similarly useless (though you do still have the standard infobox when you hover over another character). It's still possible to open up other dialog boxes, which respond normally (e.g. using or dropping items), and thankfully standard text input still works. For a moment I thought this would provide me with an out, as I could simply type #alonzialonzo to change map, but go figure--while the warp did succeed (and is the only way, apart from a colored warp towel, to achieve any kind of movement under this affliction), the dialog still remained open through the map change and back, and the arrow keys still wouldn't work.
Lest this problem require intervention on behalf of someone with database-level access to platinum, I'm pleased to report that the death of your character will successfully clear out the dialog box and reenable movement. Actually committing suicide can be tricky; if you have scissors on hand, you can repeatedly use it until you randomly stab yourself enough times to clear out all your HP. Failing that, if you have access to magic, and one or more monsters nearby, you can draw them toward you with #itenplz (the targeting hotkeys don't work in this state) and wait for them to whittle away (assuming they have enough firepower and hit rate to even do so). If even that option isn't available, you might have to call a GM and get them to issue a @kill on you.
So now you know not to do that, and if you somehow still do that, what you can do to get out of the permanent sitting-duck scenario.
Until the problem I report here is fixed, that stands as a Very Bad Idea.
Upon logging in, I was greeted with two boxes in the center of the screen: the "You're carrying more than half capacity" warning, and...the ferry NPC dialog, still there. However, the logout presumably cleared the ephemeral state variables (if not the entire code path being executed at that NPC), so despite clicking Next, nothing happened in the flow of that NPC, and the box remained there in a perpetual "Waiting for server" state (see attachment). Further logouts kept the problem intact upon logging in, and it is a problem, because as long as that box remains open, no character movement is possible. Not with the arrow keys, and not by clicking on the ground somewhere; clicking or right-clicking players, monsters, and NPCs is similarly useless (though you do still have the standard infobox when you hover over another character). It's still possible to open up other dialog boxes, which respond normally (e.g. using or dropping items), and thankfully standard text input still works. For a moment I thought this would provide me with an out, as I could simply type #alonzialonzo to change map, but go figure--while the warp did succeed (and is the only way, apart from a colored warp towel, to achieve any kind of movement under this affliction), the dialog still remained open through the map change and back, and the arrow keys still wouldn't work.
Lest this problem require intervention on behalf of someone with database-level access to platinum, I'm pleased to report that the death of your character will successfully clear out the dialog box and reenable movement. Actually committing suicide can be tricky; if you have scissors on hand, you can repeatedly use it until you randomly stab yourself enough times to clear out all your HP. Failing that, if you have access to magic, and one or more monsters nearby, you can draw them toward you with #itenplz (the targeting hotkeys don't work in this state) and wait for them to whittle away (assuming they have enough firepower and hit rate to even do so). If even that option isn't available, you might have to call a GM and get them to issue a @kill on you.
So now you know not to do that, and if you somehow still do that, what you can do to get out of the permanent sitting-duck scenario.