Give us your feedback on Jessica's Transition Diary

[Ibn]

Please use this thread to give us your feedback on Jessica's latest Transition Diary (http://ac.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=251).

[KPD157]

Its good to see that Billing and the Transistion is on the way and that Turbine is doing a great job on making sure the game is running smoothly I definately have seen some of that improved Help time and stuff like that :)

Take all the time you need to get Billing Transfer working perfect I would rather not have to deal with another Transfer that we had when going to ACDM P)

Thanks for giving up the headsup Turbine ;)

[shobo-dt]

One of the new datacenters is located in Dublin? Dublin, Ireland? Dublin, Ohio?

[boneyard]

Dublin, Ireland? that would be the place, its where the datacenter for the 3 european ac2 worlds is.

[Ibn]

Boneyard is correct. AC2's European servers reside in a datacenter in Dublin, Ireland.

[Gafoon]

You knew this was coming Ibn.

Could you guys please let us know whose authentication technology you'll be using?

I'm still hoping and praying that you're not rolling your own, and that if you do, you have it security reviewed by an independant 3rd party.

[Cash_we]

when the billing transition ends, will the policy for playing ac2 will remain the same? I mean, being able to play only if you live in one of the 9 listed countries. I ask because in file planet the purchase of a key is restricted to those countries.

Thanks.

[Reska]

Can you clarify "Keep your Microsoft Passport ID active"?

For instance, I have several ID's, and every few months or so, I'll reactivate them to work with, but just for a month.

What is active and what is inactive?

[Madismaxis]

Thanks for the info looks good

[Sangria]

just take a minute once a month to log them all in so they are active.

Microsoft has been kinda jerky about keeping up their end since Turbine took over - do you honestly think they are going to do anything different when Turbine takes over billing?

Every customer Turbine loses makes Microsofts decision to sell look like a good one.

We all need to do everything we can to help turbine make as smooth a transition as possible!

[Nightstarr SC]

It all looks good but when the Ops team has moment if they could look into why so many of us are having crashs that require hard boots also screen freezes with not lag detected IE the chain stays green.

I'll even take "we are aware of the problem and looking into it."

I'd like the 17 dollar T-bone steak but I'll settle for the 5 dollar suibury steak. If ya get my meaning.

[The Darkness]

We understand we need to keep our Passport ID's active.

But please respond regarding the question of whether folks will need to have access to the email account used to create the .Net passport in the first place.

Please.

[Kaayla]

the email address associated with my passport account is no longer an active email .... i have gone to a new provider
how will this affect the transfers of my accounts


thankyou

[sharpy-sc]

I hope it hasnt past your notice Jessica that the last two monthly updates of ACDM have been quite buggy. We have almost as many things broken each month as introduced as new content. Just an unbiased observer's opinion.

P.s. I still think you guys should send some XP to Grand Patrons and Monarchs. I will never stop saying this because I think you made a mistake here.

Sharpy
www.aclod.com

[MoonglowHG]

I would also like clarification of what constitutes "active" versus "inactive" passport accounts.

More specifically, I have several subscriptions. If one of those subscriptions was not currently active with respect to AC -- i.e., if I was not paying the monthly subscription and could not log AC on that account, but COULD log into the Zone with it -- would that account be considered active or inactive for purposes of your transition?

Would characters from such an account be lost?

[Ibn]

If you can log in to any .NET Passport site with the account successfully, it is active.

Regarding your email question -- I do not believe you will need to have access to the email account originally used to create the Passport. But this is NOT a guarantee.

We will not be providing details of our authentication and security technology.

[Gouru]

Originally posted by Ibn

We will not be providing details of our authentication and security technology.

So you are relying on security through obscurity? I feel so much better now.

[Gafoon]

Originally posted by Ibn
We will not be providing details of our authentication and security technology.

Even to confirm that you're having it reviewed by professional cryptographers?

So be it.

All I ask is that you take the Dark (http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/347457) age of Camelot (http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/358501) experience seriously.

The vast majority of software engineers out there are just flat out NOT capable of designing secure authentication systems. It requires a different skill set that most developers don't have.

Even picking an existing VPN package has issues (http://www.mit.edu:8008/bloom-picayune/crypto/14238).

Bruce Schneier's analysis of Microsoft's VPN (http://www.schneier.com/paper-pptpv2.html) is a good example of the kind of analysis that needs to be done.

If you don't get this done, you WILL find yourselves featured on bugtraq and probably on /. as being insecure.

Please, please, please. Verify your security before you deploy it.

Edit: removed duplicate word.

[pacesetter]

If you intend to migrate a player account to the Turbine billing system later this year, keep the Microsoft .NET Passport for it active until that migration happens. If you let the Passport become inactive for a time, it may be deleted by Microsoft. Once this happens, recovering access to your characters becomes very difficult and you will not be able to migrate to Turbine billing until this has been accomplished. Recovering access to your characters is not something that Turbine will be able to assist with in these situations.



OK, if i am reading this right, my inactive accounts will be migrated to turbine billing as long as my passport accounts are active. correct?

or do I have to be subscribed for the next 4 months to make sure all my accounts are migrated?

just want to be sure. I have 4 AC accounts but only 2 active, however all 4 passport accounts are active.

am I safe?

[Ibn]

I believe we will be able to migrate an account even if that account does not currently have an Asheron's Call subscription, but I cannot make any promises. The documentation that we will be providing soon should answer this question definitively.

[Dreamweaver]

I haven't spent much time online since the last patch as the lag is too bad to play. Prior to the last patch, my average ingame pings were about 200. They are now running at 650 minimum. Even though the 650 doesn't sound too bad, The lag seems worse than the 650 pings. When fighting a granite golem at the edge of my compass as an example, I cast 1 debuff spell, and barely get 2 level 3 war spells off before he is beating on me. 50% of the time I don't even see myself cast a spell, and usually try to cast 2-3 spells after I watch the creature fall to the ground.

Checking the internet trafffic report, it usually shows a 90 which is good. I am playing without decal, no background programs running. I don't even keep a virus scanner active on my PC, but scan my PC once per week for viruses and spyware. My bandwidth speed test from http://www.bandwidthplace.com shows 2.7 Megabits per second.

My system is:

Pentium 4 2 ghz
1 gig RAM
Windows XP home SP1
Raedon 9700 128 meg Video card
Soundblaster Live
Cable modem

[The Darkness]

Nice to know its being considered!

Many thanks

D

[Kang]

Sorry to say IBN but this sounds VERY BAD. So bad that i even registered just to comment on this:

Please be transparent.

It is about OUR credit card numbers and OUR accounts.

So we actually do have a right to know exactly how and with what kind of software you will run the billing system.

I know that there is software out there considered secure. I do hope you rely on 3rd party security professionals with a reputation for this.

If your system is secure, it IS secure and you can comment on it and give us the necessary transparency.

If it is not secure or hometailored it IS insecure and not commenting on it will not help you make it more secure.

best regards,

Kang

[Fissell]

"In general, all worlds are running at an uptime of over 99% with lower ping times since we moved to the new datacenters in Washington and Dublin. As always with the Internet, your mileage may vary on the ping time, depending on your location and Internet provider. "

It's funny that she should say this, and Turbine keeps standing behind the idea of less and less ping time, server upgrades to the hardware, etc. And yet, all I hear is more and more people having lag issues anymore.

My lag has doubled easily in the last few months, and compared to 3 years ago, it is 10 times worse then it was back then. It's still not unplayable to me, but it's becoming more and more apparent, and annoying.

It's not graphical lag, it's not my internet lagging, and it sure isn't my computer lagging. I'm sorry, and I don't mean to bash you guys, but it's either the software, or it's the servers. For a game that's over 4 years old, I would expect that the lag would decrease over time as the hardware increases (and at this point, on WE the active clients decreases).

Can you at least answer this one: When we got the hardware upgrade, did all those 4 servers that were listed as being transferred (DT, WE, and the other 2) get put onto the same hardware, as opposed to being on seperate hardware before?

Thanks for any help on this matter, it's getting out of control lately with the lag. Thanks. :)

Edit - typos and also, just wanted to point out, I'm hearing from a lot of people in game, and on various boards, so it can't just be me or a few select people.

[Ghetteran]

When the change over to the new billing is complete,
will we still have to associate our accounts with a hotmail/passport? Could perhaps, once we login after the changes, be able to change our "login" also?
I hate having to keep extra hotmail accounts active, especially ones I do not use for anything but holding open my AC account :)
It would be nice to just have a login and a password option.

[D X Mage]

I was wondering. Does simply logging into a passport account and logging out of it and doing nothing else. Will that keep the account active? The reason I ask is that I have a number of accounts that I have turned off in protest of some of the changes that Turbine has made such has the HUGE hit that passup got, the trade skill whack and the fact that we can have bigger fellows or won't for a while yet.

Now while I have the accounts off if Turbine fixes these things or makes some changes around these issues I "might" start to reactivate them. But if the Passport account is whacked then there is no reason to do it.

[ChildoftheKoRn]

Great job turbine, cant wait to see whats in store next once ac is completely back home.

[Jet-eye-nite]

(1) I would like to know what are the hours of operation that the envoy crew cover ? So atleast I would know when not to waste my time trying to get a response to their off time . I wonder what it would take to have some way of a log started when an assistance call is started that could be viewed by the customer as to responses made by the team to an issue brought forward to them . This would cover 2 areas 1 that your issue is being looked at and 2 that an issue could be brought before the team at any time of the day or night for resolve.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Jet-eye-nite
(1) I would like to know what are the hours of operation that the envoy crew cover ? So atleast I would know when not to waste my time trying to get a response to their off time . I wonder what it would take to have some way of a log started when an assistance call is started that could be viewed by the customer as to responses made by the team to an issue brought forward to them . This would cover 2 areas 1 that your issue is being looked at and 2 that an issue could be brought before the team at any time of the day or night for resolve.

The Envoys have 24-7 coverage.

[FmrSentFlatfoot]

The censorship around here amazes me.... truly.

Just totally proves every point I made.

[oxbow_td]

I'm still looking for an answer regarding what will happen to characters created using an inactive account, if the account can't be recovered. I am assuming nothing, they will still exist in the database, but it would be nice to see confirmation.

[Jj-Mage]

Originally posted by shobo-dt
One of the new datacenters is located in Dublin? Dublin, Ireland? Dublin, Ohio?

I know we got the answer already but it could have been Dublin, California :)

btw the updates look great one thing I and know others would really care to see is Imbue % be based on skill level and maxing a lot higher then 33% if you want to make it tuff make it 75% but eitherway it gets tiring blowing up great weapons and it aint always 33% we hit streaks of 5-8 in a row blowing up. just a thought, a thought that would make me a lot more happy =D

[javagurl]

Here is my problem:

Over a year ago (almost two years ago) I got some (legitimate) games for a cheap price, so I bought 10 games (accounts.) I subscribed them for the "free" month, made characters that now exist as a rank chain. I unsubscribed them and can still log in to the Zone or other .net passports with the "email" address. However, I have never re-subscribed them. I think my billing info is actually "incorrect" since the expiration date on my credit card has changed. I know the characters are still "there" because the rank chain is still "there." When the migration happens, does this mean my rank chain is gone? Do I have to actually subscribe all 10 accounts now and....until.....whenever.....this migration happens--or lose my rank chain, and thus lose a mansion? I really don't want to spend $150.00 a month--------waiting-------month after month just to keep the rank chain, but the alternative of losing the rank chain isn't very good either. Can there be a definitive date set if the accounts actually have to be subscribed "active"?? If it is ONLY that the .net passport is usable, that's ok......but if it means AC subscription has to be active...that's another story. Please clear this up. I'll bite the bullet for one month to re-subscribe if I have to--but this rank chain is holding up three mansions on three different worlds. I simply can't afford to re-subscribe month after month until you guys decide to migrate. My main characters are covered...no problem...but I'm sure there are a few of us (like me) who have some unsubscribed accounts. (I feel so lame...lol...but you guys brought it on yourselves with the rank requirements for a mansion--people come and go--and a rank 6 chain is not always easy to keep up. I would bet that a few monarchs are going to be really surprised if unsubscribed accounts get deleted and their rank chains vanish. I know your answer is...."if you want to keep your accounts, subscribe them." Sheesh, I can't afford it. Not with the vague....sometime late summer...sometime early fall....that may turn into sometime before the new year......and on and on. SO
1) if .net passport is legit and associated with a zone name--we are ok??????
2) if not and we have to subscribe...can we have a DEFINITE month that we have to do this?
Thank you

[mishop]

Looks like you've been and will be very busy. I'm sure it makes the day go by faster when you have a lot of work.