Talk:Malton

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Can We please start updating again?

Hiya everyone, as you probably guessed i'm new to the wiki but been playing UD under several different characters since day one :)

I've noticed that almost nothing has been updated in at least the past two weeks, with the suburb danger levels in an even worse state. Any chance we can get updating again? I'll do what i can from my end, but i can't do everything.

Cheers

--Dark Fields 18:07, 10 April 2012 (BST)

Detailed Game History Section

I finally added the detailed Game History section I had been working on for the longest time. Although I reviewed it a couple times, someone more knowledgeable that I am might want to go over it to check for inaccuracies or notable omissions. --Zarneverfike 06:44, 20 June 2012 (BST)

Wow, that is some nice work there! looks really good actually. could you maybe add a link to the Malton Incident page for some of the speculative pre-outbreak history? --Dark Fields 08:57, 20 June 2012 (BST)

Pre-Outbreak History of Malton now has a link to Malton Incident. --Zarneverfike 18:47, 20 June 2012 (BST)

quick note about search rates during the second March of the Dead: Kevan stated somewhere that he did not adjust them on the fly, there were already game mechanics in place to increase search rates for survivors once survivor population dipped below a certain point. There is aparently also a similar mechanic in place if zombie numbers dropp that low but I doubt we'll ever see it in action. Otherwise good contribution to the article. ~ _{17:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)}

Also, I believe the ratio reached 7/93 at its worst, though someone else may have seen it go even worse than that. It was at 15% that the new search rate kicked in, but survivors were under 10% for at least a few weeks (the most fun weeks, in fact, since you could find needles at almost 100% search rate in a ruined NT). —Aichon— 17:57, 20 June 2012 (BST)

Anyone have a linky link to Kevan talking about the automated search rate mechanic, or to the some record of the highest zombie / survivor ratio? Not that I don't believe either of you, but it'd be nice to cite both those things in the article. --Zarneverfike 19:07, 20 June 2012 (BST)

I probably have some IRC logs discussing the ratios, but that's circumstantial, and since I automatically keep logs on every channel I'm in 24/7, it simply isn't worth it to me to go searching through them over something minor like this. :( As for the automated thing, I can't find anything from Kevan confirming it. I think it might be one of those widely accepted things, along with the details of the anti-zerging measures and the like. —Aichon— 20:39, 20 June 2012 (BST)

I was unable to find the quoted text either but I do recall seeing it. It is considered canon, however, and even The Dead accept it (it happened to them twice after all). Many consider the act of triggering these game mechanics a faction victory. ~ _{01:58, 21 June 2012 (UTC)}

"Yes, this is just a simple built-in balancing mechanic, triggered by the overall state of the game - at the other end of the scale, search rates drop when survivors greatly outnumber the undead. If you want a thematic reason for it, the pickings are richer for an individual survivor when there are fewer of them around to do the looting, and when the suburbs are getting too comfortably repopulated by the living, it's harder for them to find something that's been overlooked by everyone else." - Kevan. --BOSCH 07:57, 21 June 2012 (BST)

That is perfect (and I actually think I remember reading that before.) Can you by chance point me in the direction of where that was first posted? --Zarneverfike 09:41, 21 June 2012 (BST)

This edit appears to be where it was first posted. You'd have to talk to Revenant for more direct confirmation since he apparently contacted Kevan via e-mail. —Aichon— 15:46, 21 June 2012 (BST)

Thank you for the detective work. I was hoping Kevan had posted that quote directly. Oh well. --Zarneverfike 21:59, 22 June 2012 (BST)

Honestly, I don't think it should matter. We don't need every piece of information here to be verifiable as coming from the mouth of Kevan, and almost everyone who was alive at the time can vouch for the fact that the search rates DRASTICALLY changed once the survivor population go low enough. Revenant is a reputable enough sort that we can take him at his word when he quotes Kevan. ;) —Aichon— 22:50, 22 June 2012 (BST)

Don't get me wrong; I'm not disputing the info or the quote. I was just looking for something definitive to cite (call me anal if you will.) --Zarneverfike 02:02, 24 June 2012 (BST)

Thinking back 14% was probably accurate, although I'd throw in another factor. Something else happened in February 2008, namely Monroeville. A lot of us urban dead diehards were off causing merry hell in the other city, and as bugs and bits and pieces came up (and mapping and video clips were available) Kevan was here most days, and Im sure tweaking all over the place. The perma headshot changes being a classic, if ridiculous example. Personally I think I saw 2 distinct changes in search rates, first find rates, and secondly find rates in ruined buildings.--Ross^lessness 23:09, 22 June 2012 (BST)

search rates in Malton or Monroeville? --Zarneverfike 02:02, 24 June 2012 (BST)

You can find the highest zombie/survivor ratio here. I believe it was somewhere around May 14th 2011. Don't forget Goons were creating lots of scouts all the time, to track down remaining survivors. Finally, they created a few thousands of zergs (military class, so they were spawned outside and didn't interfere with their plans), to lower search rates. They believed high search rates were the main cause of their failure, but they were wrong. Search rates went down, zergs were deleted, search rates stayed down, Goons failed and the game lost a few thousands of players who found it too difficult (survivors) or too boring (zombies).--Johncleese 21:55, 20 June 2012 (BST)

The highest I see (just from briefly looking at it) is 86%. I think wording it as "over 85%" would be suitable for now. As for the rest about the dead, whether it's true or not (difficult to prove / cite) it's probably not relevant for this article. The idea, imo, was just to provide a short summary for each major event. Not to go into too much detail about specific tactics, etc. --Zarneverfike 22:55, 20 June 2012 (BST)

Yeah, looks like my memory was extremely inaccurate. Looking through the data with Excel, there are only 17 hours where the zombies exceeded 85%. Maybe the search rates changed earlier than that? I know we had a good week or two where we were hiding in plain sight in ruined suburbs, engaging in massive revive operations using syringes that were super-simple to find. This also seems to be supported by just how many reviving bodies there were at around that time. The number of reviving bodies is typically about 10-12% of the total survivor population (standing survivors + reviving bodies), but it ballooned to over 40% when things were at their worst.

Also, while it doesn't prove it was The Dead, I just noticed that on May 24th, 2011, over 2800 accounts (2000 survivors and 800 bodies) suddenly went inactive between 0600 and 0700. That's pretty definitive proof that someone was zerging. That said, it looks like they were all created in about the 12 hours prior to that, so I'm guessing it was the anti-zerging countermeasures that caught them. I do agree, however, that any discussion of zerging is not relevant to the article. I'm merely pointing it out here since I noticed it while looking through the data. —Aichon— 00:07, 21 June 2012 (BST)

Yes, that's when zerglings were deleted (May 24th, 2011). They were created in a few batches, not 12 hours prior to that, but during a few days. (udisbroken*, udbebroken*, one or two more like that... can be checked here) Of course, there is no proof Goons did that. Might have been one of the many stupid survivors caught in the only restored part of Malton that was lost at that time, SW corner (which still pays dearly, with zerging hordes). Goons made a lot of noise about that in the Resentized forum, but lets not forget - they were ALL military class, that spawned outside! Of course, it is all (mostly) irrelevant to the subject. --Johncleese 00:37, 21 June 2012 (BST)

The lowest I ever saw the survivor percentage was at 19:00 BST, on 14 May 2011, with 'Standing Survivors' at 2096 (14%), and 'Standing Zombies' at 12418 (86%). I was noting down these figures multiple times a day throughout the last March of the Dead, so they're about as accurate as you'll get. Hope it helps. --BOSCH 07:57, 21 June 2012 (BST)

There's actually more than one balancing mechanism at work here. In addition to that search rates are partially ratio determinate there's also the insane kick up in rates at the low low ends of either side of ratio and population density in a given area triggers lower search rates after a period. That's actually one of the mechanics used to balance out the standard survivor population density issue, it was put in place just before the Dead because the auto-balance for zombies wasn't effectively having an impact, many forget it was as bad the other way with two active hordes before the Dead swarmed the server.

Also there's a whole list of map saves and stats from right around that time somewhere on the wiki. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 11:15, 21 June 2012 (BST)

The csv that was linked above has hourly numbers since 2006, so I doubt we're going to get more accurate than that. Thanks for mentioning the other measures though. I actually wasn't aware of the location-specific ones. —Aichon— 15:46, 21 June 2012 (BST)

Does the 'Game History' section belong in this article?

Since this article is specifically about Malton, is it appropriate for the 'Game History' section to be here and not on another page such as Urban Dead? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NihilJE (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

I think the material does, but it might need a slightly different title, like "In-Game History" or just "History". The section covers the history of Malton alone, whereas something on Urban Dead or in UDWiki:Project Timeline covers history in all three cities.