Z-Day Ending and Official Zombie Count

[Kranostav]

Hello!

I have a question on how the end of Z-Day works in regard to final Zombie counts and when ticks occur spawning zombies. Specifically for The North Pacific, we possessed zero in-region zombies at 1:00:00 am EST, however it appears zombies from people who moved into our region once the event had concluded were counted. More specifically, in the case of Castle Federation which moved back into The North Pacific once event border control was removed at "11/1/2020, 1:00:13 AM EDT" had zombies in their nation and appears to have been inadvertently counted in our final zombie count.

If the above isn't the case, and Castle Federation's zombies were not counted, were zombies spawned on nations after the event had ended? We were monitoring nations to the final second of the event and it appeared no new zombies had spawned before 1:00:00 am EST, so for sake of strategy next year I would appreciate a clarification on what exactly occurred to give us zombies that didn't exist before the end of the event.

Thank you!

[Flanderlion]

Hello!

I have a question on how the end of Z-Day works in regard to final Zombie counts and when ticks occur spawning zombies. Specifically for The North Pacific, we possessed zero in-region zombies at 1:00:00 am EST, however it appears zombies from people who moved into our region once the event had concluded were counted. More specifically, in the case of Castle Federation which moved back into The North Pacific once event border control was removed at "11/1/2020, 1:00:13 AM EDT" had zombies in their nation and appears to have been inadvertently counted in our final zombie count.

If the above isn't the case, and Castle Federation's zombies were not counted, were zombies spawned on nations after the event had ended? We were monitoring nations to the final second of the event and it appeared no new zombies had spawned before 1:00:00 am EST, so for sake of strategy next year I would appreciate a clarification on what exactly occurred to give us zombies that didn't exist before the end of the event.

Thank you!

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=west_papua_states I think was counted as well, as the final tally was higher than just Castle Federation.

[Kranostav]

Hello!

I have a question on how the end of Z-Day works in regard to final Zombie counts and when ticks occur spawning zombies. Specifically for The North Pacific, we possessed zero in-region zombies at 1:00:00 am EST, however it appears zombies from people who moved into our region once the event had concluded were counted. More specifically, in the case of Castle Federation which moved back into The North Pacific once event border control was removed at "11/1/2020, 1:00:13 AM EDT" had zombies in their nation and appears to have been inadvertently counted in our final zombie count.

If the above isn't the case, and Castle Federation's zombies were not counted, were zombies spawned on nations after the event had ended? We were monitoring nations to the final second of the event and it appeared no new zombies had spawned before 1:00:00 am EST, so for sake of strategy next year I would appreciate a clarification on what exactly occurred to give us zombies that didn't exist before the end of the event.

Thank you!

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=west_papua_states I think was counted as well, as the final tally was higher than just Castle Federation.

I see, thank you for pointing that out! They moved into TNP at "11/1/2020, 1:03:09 AM EDT", 3 mins and 9 seconds after the event had end.

[General COE]

It seems to me that if it's going to take a few minutes after the event for the final tallies to calculate, border controls ought to remain in effect during that time.

[Flanderlion]

It seems to me that if it's going to take a few minutes after the event for the final tallies to calculate, border controls ought to remain in effect during that time.

OP and I were talking offsite about this, but personally I think it should be last tick, X minutes of final countdown til the end with movement disabled, final tallies then re-enabled. Just leaving the border controls in effect means that regions going for most survivors with open borders will have the same issue as OP's region faced. Having a tick right at the end as it tallies gives no time for the region to respond, and leads to things like 2015 where 4 exporter nations with 0 zombies snatched the no infected crown from us. The final changes in infected/survivors etc. should always be player decided. Leaving status quo leaves it open to griefing now it is common knowledge that you can ruin the final tally of regions after the event ends by quickly moving a nation to it that has zombies (or survivors for ones aiming for no survivors).

The reason these things seem to appear in Feeders (Sinkers/TRR usually don't try for curing succesfully) are because most other regions either are completely overrun or completely cured by the last few hours, while with the super large regions who are going for no zombies it's always down to the wire (as it should be).

Re their result this year, from a sportsmanlike POV I think they deserve the 0 infected final tally, as they did an amazing job and through no fault of their own it was snatched from them by a flaw in the game. But from a neutral POV I think the final tally should be final, no matter what, and from a selfish POV I'm quite happy for TWP and us to have our best infected/survivors percentages to be better than theirs.

[General COE]

Well, I dunno about all that. It just seems to me at at minimum, people shouldn't be able bypass border controls by moving after the event is over, and have their zombies count in the regional total.

[Kranostav]

Re their result this year, from a sportsmanlike POV I think they deserve the 0 infected final tally, as they did an amazing job and through no fault of their own it was snatched from them by a flaw in the game. But from a neutral POV I think the final tally should be final, no matter what, and from a selfish POV I'm quite happy for TWP and us to have our best infected/survivors percentages to be better than theirs.

I'm not necessarily worried about the final awards tally as much as I am concerned with confirming what caused the alleged error and making sure it doesn't happen again. I would love at least confirmation that my team achieved what we were damn sure we achieved. However also, dealing with the griefing implications this brings about for future Z-Days. Being able to totally bypass border restrictions and ruin 36 hours of grinding in a single, uncounterable, instant is really lame.

[[violet]]

Hmm! Well this is super disappointing to hear.

So yes, something happened differently this year, which probably screwed you guys over.

The issue is that the Z-Day service can't survey the whole world at once. (It's old code, different to N-Day.) It takes between 10 and 15 minutes. Previously, we ran that survey so that it completed shortly before Z-Day ended, but there was a concern that this omitted the effects of last-minute strikes, etc, so this time, we ran it right afterward.

I wasn't thinking of regions quickly lifting restrictions and letting zombie nations in, thereby striking them from the "No Zombies" list. But from your report, that's exactly what happened.

I'm very sorry about that. For a fix, we probably need to do what we were planning ahead of this year's event, but didn't get around to, which is migrating the whole codebase to something more modern. That way, we can take a survey in moments, not minutes.

[Kranostav]

Hmm! Well this is super disappointing to hear.

So yes, something happened differently this year, which probably screwed you guys over.

The issue is that the Z-Day service can't survey the whole world at once. (It's old code, different to N-Day.) It takes between 10 and 15 minutes. Previously, we ran that survey so that it completed shortly before Z-Day ended, but there was a concern that this omitted the effects of last-minute strikes, etc, so this time, we ran it right afterward.

I wasn't thinking of regions quickly lifting restrictions and letting zombie nations in, thereby striking them from the "No Zombies" list. But from your report, that's exactly what happened.

I'm very sorry about that. For a fix, we probably need to do what we were planning ahead of this year's event, but didn't get around to, which is migrating the whole codebase to something more modern. That way, we can take a survey in moments, not minutes.

Thank you for responding!

Just to clarify we didn't lift any restrictions at the end. The game removed our border control that we had set to closed because the game event had ended. So nations from other regions that we had ejected or simply could not join due to our border being restricted were able to join once the event ended.

I am sure the nations moving back into TNP had no idea doing so would end up ruining our efforts, however I am concerned at some nations doing it maliciously next year now that it's been pointed out both here and on many off-site locations.

Would there be a way to extend the border control functions that z-day uses to when the results are officially released to prevent this?

Thanks again for getting back to me on this. I appreciate the update!

[Eluvatar]

Just as a quick note, the much faster ticks and a tweak to how Z-day ends ought to prevent this bug this year. If you are using Zombie Border Controls, don't turn them off manually at the end of the event, they will turn themselves off when tallying is done. (Tallying should also be faster this year for the same reason as ticks are faster).

[Kranostav]

Just as a quick note, the much faster ticks and a tweak to how Z-day ends ought to prevent this bug this year. If you are using Zombie Border Controls, don't turn them off manually at the end of the event, they will turn themselves off when tallying is done. (Tallying should also be faster this year for the same reason as ticks are faster).

I appreciate the update and I look forward to another exciting Z-Day finish this year!

We won't touch the controls and hope for the best.