MSG 1 - ORIGINALLY POSTED: Oct 8/2012
IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL DEVS:
For future reference, we do not need more general events (situations) currently, and this applies especially so to Outside events. Including those which start as resolved and the potential scavevents which could be encountered, there's now about 100 events in the Outside area alone and over 400 in total. This makes it difficult to find anything even if you persistently explore there. This means players don't have a chance to find new content simply by exploring. If you need to make one to go with an NPC, quest, etc... then go ahead, but try to avoid doing so for other reasons.
As well, given how exploring/hunting is done, all new events increase the amount which must be scanned through each time those commands are used, regardless of their area. This really slows down the game's hunting and exploring for events, as a huge list of events must be scanned through each time. Having NPC/quest events currently not in use be closed does provide a minor improvement, but each must still be checked to see if they're resolved/unresolved. Nuku's going to try to optimize the explore/hunting a little, but that may only be a small improvement.
So again, unless you're creating events for a specific purpose (such as NPCs, quests, etc...) or to make some events for an area that's really low on events, please refrain from adding new ones for now.
To help deal with this (and other situation-related issues), I've created the bfandi3 debug command, which lists all events for an area along with several important details (resolution status, level and if it's a scavevent). It also provides totals on the spread of events. It will list the events in the order it finds them. This will also be the order they'll be found while hunting if two or more contain the string being searched for, which may also be helpful while debugging certain issues. I may later add flags to this at a later point. Nuku should have this addition live soon.
As of now, this is the current spread it gives for the various areas:
Outside: 99
Park: 40
HRD: 31
Beach: 29
RLD: 28
Zoo: 27
Museum: 22
Hospital: 21
Mall (Sewer): 19
College Campus: 17
Stables: 17
Dry Plains: 16
State Fair: 15
Junkyard: 11
Warehouse: 9
Capitol Bldg: 2 (awaiting update)
Total: 403 (BFandI says there's 411 in all, so I'm not sure which 8 I'm missing.)
<REPOST NOTE: Values are from Oct 8/2012 and not accurate to current counts. They are shown to give relevant context to the discussion of the time.>
Given the overpopulation in the Outside area, I'm going to look into moving a few to other areas with lower numbers, but there's only a few which can be reasonably moved. We want to avoid excising events entirely, which is why Nuku's looking into optimizing the code and I'll shuffle a few around.
MSG 2 - ORIGINALLY POSTED: Oct 9/2013
<contained updated numbers that have since changed>
I'll be sending along a new bfandi command (bfandi4) some time tomorrow. It will list all events and show their sarea zone as well as the other data which bfandi3 shows. You'll have the option to view this list sorted by sarea or level if you'd like, or receive in the normal order.
MSG 3 - ORIGINALLY POSTED: Jan 28/2013
To help deal with the issue of event overpopulation in the Outside area, I have created two centralized events, which together encompass 15 background and minor events. They are called Consolidated Events Outside CEO1 and Consolidated Events Outside CEO2. While the number of events in the area is still too high to count on finding specific content through exploration, this will significantly improve the odds of finding something of actual consequence while exploring. There are still several other background and fluff events which were not included in these for various reasons, so you can still get background flavour as well.
I have done the same with the Park, putting 11 events into two centralized ones (Consolidated Events Park CEP1 and Consolidated Events Park CEP2. This brings the number of events in the park down to a somewhat more reasonable value, improving one's chances of success at finding the content they need, or at least something of potential interest.
Here's the updated totals on the number of events by area as of Jan 28/13:
<trimmed numbers that have since changed and discussion of areas in need of events at that time>