Notification before CPU subscription runs out



  • Today my CPU gauge turned a menacing red while I was updating carrier sizes. Knowing red means bad, I immediately went into damage control mode. Frantically undoing the recent changes I hurried to figure out what was spiking my CPU. Did my spawn logic re-write introduce an infinite loop? Undo-save wasn't helped at all. So I went drastic.

    Block commenting out 1/5th, 1/2, my entire main loop. Finally my CPU showed green at 4. Nothing running. My requires, that's it. I re-introduce the profiler, hoping it can show me what is wrong. No change. Okay, first few lines, before my creep loop. Nothing bad. Reintroduce the creep loop and get the name of the creep, instant red-line. At 54/60.

    Finally I thought to check my account status and yup - CPU Subscription INACTIVE. Immediately bought 6 months and started undoing my changes to before I commented out all my code in a mad haste.


    Can you please add in any kind of notification or pop-up letting players know when their CPU subscription lapses? An email a day out would also be appreciated. This was an extremely frustrating experience right when players should be giving more money to support the game.



  • That would definitely be appreciated. It's very annoying if your base is destroyed because you forgot to renew your subscritipon.


  • Dev Team

    There was an email sent to you today at 03:42 UTC. Have you not received it?



  • @Artem - I did get an email "Your CPU subscription is over."

    By this point I was already scrambling to fix my code, not checking my email Updates tab. An Email 24h before the subscription runs out would help. Even then, email is hit-and-miss because it goes in my Updates (spam).

    This is 100% user-error on my part, I'm not saying you did anything wrong. A better user experience would be a notice in the Screeps game. A pop-up, a player message, a badge next to my name.

    For me this is done - I'm just going to set a calendar reminder and be done with it. For existing players and new players MY THEORY is the game would earn more money by proactively letting a player fix this problem before it hits them.


  • Dev Team

    Yes, it would be helpful, we'll consider adding this in the future.



  • Ah yes. I remember the screaming about this one in slack.

    A simple friendly reminder when your subscription is due to expire soon would be very appropriate. You even have a suitable popup already built. It gives us the friendly tip about our GCL level.

    Reminding us in our last month of paid time and informing us of exactly how many days are left in our subscription is more than just a nice thing to do. It's also a sound business practice. Of course a check box should exist to opt out if someone does not wish to see the message again.