You are absolutely correct, but what can we do? (and please don't say "get rid of ads" or "forget about UI lock")
By the way, having better Internet connection gives you an edge all by itself, I think this is consistent with how most online games operate. On the other hand, if ad networks are slow, they're likely slow for everyone, so people would get similar results.
In addition, the game is balanced around minutes, not seconds, and most weapons can't 1-hit-kill you, so those seconds should be negligible anyway.
But generally speaking, yes, you could die because of lag.
Of course I'm not saying that you should get rid of ads, I know this game relies on ad revenues.
I'm just presenting my experience from the point of view of a player. I don't really know how ad impressions are calculated (e.g. is there a limit on impressions you get from an IP in an hour, does it count unique or gross impression, and so on) so I can't really propose an ideal solution.
If it's a lag caused by certain gameplay elements loading slow, then nothing more needs to be said about it. But if the gameplay elements themselves load fast but the lag is due to one or two slow-loading ads, then it's doesn't feel right.
The slowness can differ from page load to page load, instead of being consistently slow over a period of time - think of random spikes instead of a plateau. More importantly, if I understand correctly some of the ads shown are randomized, i.e. sometimes you get ads from network B (slow) and sometimes A (fast) - I think network G (super fast) is on every page though. So not everyone would get the same results. 2 players with the same fast internet could have different speed merely due to the page having different ad network.
It's true that most weapons merely inflict a flesh wound, but it all adds up and before you know it you're lying on the ground with no arms and no legs. What I mean is, the ability to repair is scarce here, so even the smallest damage (10) easily builds up to ship-wrecking extent (with the beginner ship, that is). Let's say a typical page load takes like 6s and the timeout is 20s, that would be more than 2 times the original time of exposure imposed for the sake of a non-gameplay element.
Jesus, I wrote all the above and suddenly a very compelling argument on not needing a UI lock dawned on me.
You have an actual game on your site. It's not exactly a faucet, so users don't claim and bounce.
By not imposing a UI lock, players would be able to perform the next action faster, i.e. they will load the next page faster, i.e. a fresh set of ads get to be shown to users faster. Yes, there will be casualties with the occasional slow-loading ads, but it'd seem that as a whole more ads would get displayed to the user within the same period of time without a UI lock.
That said, I'm not too familiar with advertising networks so it's possible that I've only made a complete fool of myself.
How about giving that a try for a period of time and see what effect it has on total ad revenues?
Legend has it that...Unstable Dasher is so unstable that he literally split into 5 person.
And let me tell you, those Unstable Dashers really know how to partaaayyyyyy
Bug: Marketplace filterIf you're on page 2 on the "All" filter, and you select a more specific filter e.g. "Resources", then it will show nothing at all.
I think what's happening is that it's trying to show you page 2 of "Resources" as well.