Another stable bug

[the bazookas]

I wish that I would have started an rpv before I said "claim" in order to substantiate my claim here (hahah very punny!), but you're just going to have to believe me (that I didn't just buy all the animals in the picture). Here is my somewhat long (but, I believe, interesting) story:

Using state-of-the-art methods, I obtained (i.e. stole) ~50 stable spots in Britain Castle stable over the last week (the most recent were stabled a few days ago). My intent was to donate them to the "Operation Reclaim Stables" guys... among other reasons (e.g. destroy a dragon turret or two or three). Also, I was curious about the bug that this post describes, which I myself have encountered on several occasions (in SPITE of the fact that I am not even a tamer and practically never, EVER use the stables).

I decided I was going to test this bug today and claim all the animals and immediately restable them. I did, of course, check if there was anybody around with animals wanting to steal stable spots. After claiming them, I was able to put about 15 back in, but ~35 animals were left out (see the picture... again, I don't have the rpv to prove that I didn't just buy these animals, so you will just have to believe me). That seems like a LOT of spots to have suddenly become inexplicably unavailable when re-stabling time has come.

What possible explanations are there for this? I have re-claimed them and re-stabled them 3 or 4 times now, and don't run into this same problem again.

It would seem that the most probable explanation is that in some way the stables have become overpopulated--perhaps because of a bug which let's you stable more than the max (I remember seeing a post about a bug in which if you had two clients you could have them both say "stable" when there was only 1 spot left, and then have them target their animals and get over the limit that way, but I tested it and it doesn't work.. but maybe there is some bug on a similar vein that lets you squeeze them in...).

Another possible explanation is that the number of available spots was decreased (but the fact that I've run into this several times--and others have too--seems to indicate that this is not the case... although a GM regularly changing the number of available stable spots would be a easy way to mess with people--assuming they're into that kind of thing).

Another possible explanation is that there is, in fact, ANOTHER STABLEMASTER that is connected to the Britain Castle stable spots albeit not in the general vicinity of the Britain Castle stable, and that somebody is camping him for stable spots... but this idea is somewhat groundless because the fact that I can re-claim and re-stable the same amount each time (after losing the first 35 spots) would indicate that if this WAS the case, the stable camper must either be attending to it and turning off the spot-grabbing after a load of spots is grabbed so as to deliberately confuse you OR he has an extremely complicated razor macro to replicate this very complicated function for him.



Any GM's have any explanations for this bug?

FAQ:
Q) How did you steal the spots?
A) That's currently a trade secret... but I've spent a lot of time investigating and perfecting it.

Q) Why did you steal spots?
A) I told you the main reasons... I suppose I might add one more reason: that my bazooka brothers and I like to explore and see what is possible within the mechanics of the game, as you might have experienced if you've met us.

Q) It's so lame to steal spots--Why are you so lame?
A) Meh... The way I see it, if you are a newb and lost the few spots you had, you probably didn't lose much of value anyway (but I'll apologize anyway)... and if you were a lamer, err, excuse me, a tamer with a dragon turret, then in my very humble opinion... you deserve it.

[Mikel123]

Your question:

That seems like a LOT of spots to have suddenly become inexplicably unavailable when re-stabling time has come.

What possible explanations are there for this? I have re-claimed them and re-stabled them 3 or 4 times now, and don't run into this same problem again.

My answer:

A) That's currently a trade secret... but I've spent a lot of time investigating and perfecting it.

[the bazookas]

Touché.

But, my conjecture still stands. If nobody appears even remotely close to all the available Stablemasters for a given stable, then either there is some way to "throw" your stable command beyond the normal (quite large, true, but not SO large that you can't take a look around and see somebody there) range, enabling remote stable spot stealing, or one of the other scenarios I described is the case (and I personally believe that some kind of over-population bug exists, considering the fact that reclaiming and re-stabling doesn't further reduce the amount of available spots).

[Hicha]

I tried to refresh my 8 pets at that same exact stable a day ago; took all 8 out, could only put 6 back in. Claimed all, could only put 4 in. Nobody was around. I ended up releasing all the pets at Brit Bank, just being too much of a hassle playing this stable game.

I spoke with Derrick about it; he said somehow the Skara stablemaster was out on a boat instead of by the stables, so it brought the total allowable spots down (hence why I couldn't restable since it was already maxxed out.)

[elhorno]

Ronk- I have seen the skara one missing recently at least once

That particular situation IS something that I know a lot about.

I spoke with Derrick about it; he said somehow the Skara stablemaster was out on a boat instead of by the stables, so it brought the total allowable spots down (hence why I couldn't restable since it was already maxxed out.)

Bazooka is on a mission to screw over the shards stable system. I really wish you would use all that energy for something productive and not grief the entire shard.