Why does Tractor still zone us?

[Laraul]

Hmmm... I agree... and I have a simple solution. Remove tractor.

Problem solved...

I don't think this is such a simple problem to solve. Leave it be.

[Invader]

I've taken a few college classes on programming, and I'm only a beginner, but even I can tell you that it shouldn't matter whether there is a pre-designated number or a variable. Computers are perfectly comfortable working with either type of data.

If the game can teleport players around an area without zoning by using set numbers, then it can also do so using variables. In theory, it could work by reading in the coordinate values of the BLM casting Tractor, and then reassigning the coordinate values of the player he or she is casting Tractor on to match those values. The mere presence of a variable in an equation should not necessitate a loading screen. The real reason, whatever it is, has to be something else.

More detailed information on exactly why it supposedly can't be done is needed here.

Which is why I said I wanted technical details. You are basically correct in that, if it is not zoning us during a teleporter (conflux or otherwise) then it shouldn't need to zone us when using tractor.

I am thinking that since location is updated client side (which is why you can still run around while d/cing) they don't have a way to tell the client that you should be at X,Y,Z coordinate without also telling the client to change areas. That is the only acceptable answer they could give as to why it can't currently be done, but I don't believe it is the case... hence why I ask whether NPC teleporters are, in fact, also using a zone change.

[Rhianu]

I'm trying to remember whether or not the "Now Loading" screen pops up when using other same-zone teleportation methods.

I don't think I ever really paid that much attention to it before. :X

[Maurauc]

Give Black Mage "Draw In".. Can cast on dead or alive people, gives a prompt, and doesn't require us to zone. Just make it a magic version of what monsters have.. Problem solved?

[Sekundes]

I didn't read everything but I agree with the draw in concept. The simple fact that certain mobs can use draw in completely null any argument against making this possible. At this point it is just finding a good way of making in practical.

[Malamasala]

I'm 95% certain tractor zones you to make it possible to tell the difference between pos hacking and tractoring. That is assuming you can't third party the effect of zoning 10 meters at a time.

[Arcon]

SE should hire a few people on here into the development team. Atomic Skull comes to mind. RAIST too. I humbly offer my services as well. I would really love to challenge those comments by the development team. Of course, just rambling on here no one believes people when they say it's not that hard, unfortunately we can't prove otherwise, short of designing our own mimic game. Seriously SE, consider it.

[GlobalVariable]

SE should hire a few people on here into the development team. Atomic Skull comes to mind. RAIST too. I humbly offer my services as well. I would really love to challenge those comments by the development team. Of course, just rambling on here no one believes people when they say it's not that hard, unfortunately we can't prove otherwise, short of designing our own mimic game. Seriously SE, consider it.

How much you want to bet the code is obfuscated by whatever programmers they had back at the beginning AND the source isn't well commented (even if the commenting translates well into your native language) to boot?

While I think they should reconsider this being "worth it", even if 1 or both of those isn't the case, this could take more hours (and thus money) than you might expect for a seemingly simple change.

[Tagrineth]

Which is why I said I wanted technical details. You are basically correct in that, if it is not zoning us during a teleporter (conflux or otherwise) then it shouldn't need to zone us when using tractor.

I am thinking that since location is updated client side (which is why you can still run around while d/cing) they don't have a way to tell the client that you should be at X,Y,Z coordinate without also telling the client to change areas. That is the only acceptable answer they could give as to why it can't currently be done, but I don't believe it is the case... hence why I ask whether NPC teleporters are, in fact, also using a zone change.

Actually this makes perfect sense.

With NPC teleporters and Confluxes, the player is initiating the teleportation effect themselves. Quick go-ahead from the server, the client updates the position, the server receives the confirmation that you're at the new position, verifies that you initiated the motion via NPC (without verification, you'd be hacking!) and presto! new position.

In other words, we're still working all client-side with client-server confirmation - there's no server "putting" your character at a new location.

Draw-in is similar in that it's a mob effect and thus the server itself knows the position of the mob at a given instant so the server can verify the draw-in command and send it to the player, thus sending the player to a specific point that is clear and functionally known to the server.

I think the problem lies in the way the server cross-verifies whether "boosted" transportation methods (aka anything that isn't running, especially anything that breaks Flee speed) are legit or not. They'd probably have to add a whole new layer of client-server communication and back-and-forth verification to ensure that your corpse's warping to another player's location was legit, since lag can affect so many variables. It wouldn't be totally out of the question for an intrepid hacker to abuse the newfound ability to perform an arbitrary corpse-port with clever use of falsified client-server verification ("oh, don't worry, I was just Tractored!") - and before you say "oh well the server can just verify Tractor was used"... well in the case of lag or even a d/c of the person casting Tractor, it would cause a serious conundrum because the client-server verification that Tractor was cast would no longer exist, which would set off a red flag the size of China and possibly cause a legit player to get banned for pos hacking. All because of a stupid asinine mishap of a failed client-server verification.

Simply put, for this to work and be in any way reliable, the server would be forced to trust the client too much - which could easily lead to abuse.

I'd rather see SE add a server-side special case to certain effects that allow the zoning to 'fudge' maintained status - in other words, add a special flag to Visitant status that can verify if you zone with the same entry and exit zones, your Visitant status is auto-restored by the server and position retained instead of being cleared as normal.

Given SE's penchant for poor programming practices, I'd hazard that the above would be significantly easier and safer to add to the code than changing the fundamentals of Tractor itself.

[Kraggy]

After checking with the development team in regards to this, they mentioned that they are not currently planning anything to make it so using tractor will not result in an area change. Since they feel the measures needed to address this are not realistic, they have no plans to make changes. We do understand that it is inconvenient that visitant status will be removed upon use and we apologize for this.

Well prophesied this man:

Laziness XD If they responded to this thread it would be more or less... We have looked into the situation and are aware of the problems with tractor at this time. However due to the complex nature and amount of time it would take to fix this problem, the development team has no plans to work on this issue in the near future. As always we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

It was an asinine mechanic the day it was released, God knows what the technical reasons are but the negative repercussions in-game clearly didn't bother SE back then, or ever since.