There have been a few changes over the last week which have manifested from the CSM summit taking place at CCP HQ in Reykjavik, Iceland. The latest of these changes is an update to the fleet fight notification systems, a system used to inform CCP of a planned battle so back-end adjustments can be made to create a better service for the fight.
For those who don’t know about the tool, it allows players to confidentially inform CCP that they are planning a large battle, meaning both sides don’t necessarily have to be aware that a fight is about to go down. In return, CCP is able to load the system onto a higher-performance server node, which provides a better service and helps the battle run more smoothly.
The main issue raised by the CSM was that requests were being rejected by the system when a request was sent less than 24 hours before the planned fight. This should not have been the case.
An investigation showed that an issue with a logic statement was at fault, and any requests made for a fight starting in less than 24 hours would be rejected. This is an error due to the mapping taking place at downtime; CCP provided the following example.
“If you file a request at 17:00 for a fight starting at 14:00 the next day, it will be rejected. If you file a request at 17:00 for a fight starting at 19:00 the next day, it will be accepted. However, these two statements are actually functionally synonymous, because the node must be mapped at downtime on the day regardless.”
Some players had worked out the logic issue, while others got frustrated that their requests were being rejected but other player requests were accepted. CCP Falcon goes on to outline the changes to the logic system, which is now based on three rules.
“1) Your start time may not be in the past.
2) Your finish time must be after your start time.
3) Your start time may not be within 25 hours of the 10:00 UTC that preceded the last downtime.
To put the third point another way: you must file a request at least one hour before the downtime prior to your anticipated battle.”
He goes on to remind players to continue submitting their requests sooner than later when possible. For reference, the changes to the notification system were deployed on January 22, at 14:00 UTC.
