Weekly Update 2/23/06

Frelorn · 02-23-2006, 11:36 AM

Hi there everyone.

I wanted to start off this week’s update with a heart felt thank you. We know that this week has been one that a lot of us would like to just forget, and that many of you feel very strongly that we are not handling the recent downtimes in a correct manner. All I can say is that we are doing all that we can to keep the downtimes to a minimum. When dealing with billing systems that contain as much valuable information as ours does, you need to be extremely careful. If that means having to bring things down several times to make sure things are kept safe, then it is something we will not hesitate to do. We would rather be sure that all the information is safe, than taking a risk just to keep things up a bit longer. I know that some people are asking for the exact details of what has been done that would require us to have things up and down like this, and to be totally honest, most of it is way over my head. What I do know is that everything that was and is being done is to improve not only the performance of the billing and authentication system, but to also make things easier for you, our customers and our own billing staff. So once again thank you for being patient with us while we work through these changes to the billing system.

Moving forward we have some exciting things going in for the March event. I won’t give out too much information right now, but what I will say is that the world of PvP is in for some rather interesting changes. While not getting into the numbers on the changes, I will say that not only are there going to be some damage increases on Weeping Weapons, there will be more improvements on Phantom and Hollow weapons. Not to mention the continued changes that will be made to help loot weapons become more viable in PvP. All the changes we are making are based on the feedback we got from you, the PvP community. The feedback that we have gotten so far has been great, and we hope to be able to continue that dialog going forward. As we get closer to the March event, we will post more on these changes.

This week is implementation and testing for March. This is when the team gets all of the quests into the game and begin the testing process. We will play through the quests, looking for any errors or oddities that nay cause a problem. This is also the time we look at the balance of these quests to make sure they are in line with our goals.

Thank you all very much and have a great day.

Alltu_Tru · 02-23-2006, 12:04 PM

Let me start out by saying that I would MUCH prefer Turbine over MS and Zone any day. I've played sinse dec of 99, and I very much so remember all the downtime created by zone and the horrid switchover time from zone to passport (and even passport was down quite often!! in fact, every single patch had passport borked for 12 to 24 hours!! MS/passport techs couldnt seem to keep that thing stable when it came to logging into AC)

BUT, and here is the catch.... simply saying it is "over your head" as a reason to NOT tell us what the problem was... makes it look like your just gonna hide it and not tell it....

You could get a short explenation from a billing tech (especially now that the recent update was supposed to be over... they should be a "little" less busy/stressed) would do wonders for showing that you actually want to provide a reason.

NOT providing a reason doesnt help public relations at all, even if you dont understand the underlying problems that caused all the downtime.

SOMEONE understands it, and could write out a short easy to understand reason for the problems.

Other than the lack of information on problems, I like what is going on IN the game and look forward to seeing the continued story arc

Garak · 02-23-2006, 12:36 PM

More weeping damage!!! Yesss!!!

Paraduck · 02-23-2006, 01:28 PM

While that's all good, I just hope you don't negate the changes by adding more and more protection (Prismatic GSA, GSX, and GSC, for example.) Stop doing this, or all of these changes will cancel and we'll be no better off than we were before. Prismatic GSA is MORE than enough, and it basically ensures that everyone who takes some time will have at least 4 major wards, and be able to fill the other ward slots with jewelry.

Protection is fine as it is now. Don't mess with it.

Kid · 02-23-2006, 01:32 PM

Argh

I guess there's my reason why to have 100 innate endurance on my mage again - which I can't do for another 2 months!
Oh well

Xearo · 02-23-2006, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alltu_Tru

Let me start out by saying that I would MUCH prefer Turbine over MS and Zone any day. I've played sinse dec of 99, and I very much so remember all the downtime created by zone and the horrid switchover time from zone to passport (and even passport was down quite often!! in fact, every single patch had passport borked for 12 to 24 hours!! MS/passport techs couldnt seem to keep that thing stable when it came to logging into AC)

I have been playing AC since Nov. 99. WTH are you talking about? The Zone / Passport patch was done before sometimes 2 to 3 hours before the AC patch was even ready to D/L. I can remember 1 time that the Zone was done for 24 hours and that was announced by MS & The Zone a month in advance. Anytime I couldn't get into AC through The Zone I had no trouble going into any of the other hundred's of game rooms on The Zone. So because I couldn't get into AC doesn't mean The Zone was down, Because it wasn't! What more then likely was going on is what is going on now Turbine doing thier maintenance & whatever else they do to bring the servers to a crashing halt 2 to 3 times a week. It's just back in the MS / Zone days Turbine didn't have to inform it's playerbase of these downtimes, Because they could use the cover of it's not us, it's MS / The Zones fault. And all you MS haters went right along with it.

Frelorn, you should just stop posting your "WEAKLY" update. You give no information on anything, You have no answers, no timeframes, No reasons to why things are happening or when they are going to happen. Is Frelorn going to post an update today? it's Monday now it's Tuesday still no update, Wensday guess no update this week Wow Thursday afternoon an update wonder what's in it? Same as before NOTHING. If AC is your Job and the AC team has nothing to do with what's going on with DDO then why can't you Turbines, AC: OCR answer some of the questions posted on these forums? The only post you make anymore are to inform people that you are locking the thread.

Knockout Kings · 02-23-2006, 04:36 PM

I'm actually surprised. Sounds like we're in for an interesting month. Looking forward to it. Now, what about acknowledgement of other posts that were made on these boards? I'm dying to hear about what's been presented and what ideas have come forth that can be realistically implemented.

deathhawk · 02-23-2006, 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xearo

I have been playing AC since Nov. 99. WTH are you talking about? The Zone / Passport patch was done before sometimes 2 to 3 hours before the AC patch was even ready to D/L. I can remember 1 time that the Zone was done for 24 hours and that was announced by MS & The Zone a month in advance. Anytime I couldn't get into AC through The Zone I had no trouble going into any of the other hundred's of game rooms on The Zone. So because I couldn't get into AC doesn't mean The Zone was down, Because it wasn't! What more then likely was going on is what is going on now Turbine doing thier maintenance & whatever else they do to bring the servers to a crashing halt 2 to 3 times a week. It's just back in the MS / Zone days Turbine didn't have to inform it's playerbase of these downtimes, Because they could use the cover of it's not us, it's MS / The Zones fault. And all you MS haters went right along with it.

Xearo for one thing you are totally wrong about this, zone was done a fair bit, not all the time but a fair bit. Secondly Turbine never even controlled the servers back then, MS actually did all servers, including the game servers. So server downtime was MS responsibility, Turbine didn't have to touch the servers until they took over every aspect of the game.

SO xearo before you start posing things, make sure you know all your facts.

Alltu_Tru · 02-23-2006, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xearo

And all you MS haters went right along with it.

And all you MS lovers change/ignore facts while telling outright lies because you can not handle anyone critizising MS..... yes, that was sarcasim....

broad generalizations make you and me both look bad Xearo... I am FAR from an MS hater, I switched to winXP as soon as it came out, bugs and all because it was the next best thing, I've even stood up for MS and windows quite often on several forums.

But, as has been pointed out, MS was in FULL COMPLETE control of zone/passport AND the AC servers. Including all updates. Turbine was responsible for sending the patch package TO microsoft tech and THEY applied the patch to the servers which were ON MS PROPERTY!

But, you are right about one thing... MY broad generalization was wrong... zone itself wasnt down, you COULD play other zone games. BUT the zone loggin for AC was almost always borked for longer than it took to patch the servers themselves. I can not count how many hours I spent in the chat rooms watching for the "play" button to turn purple showing that the loggin was live. (the servers were already patched, but no one could log in, waiting for the play button to activate was NOT the same as waiting for the game servers to be patched)

And you seem to have very selective memory as well.... saying that zone was never down for more than a couple of hours now and then.... ROFL ya right!!

Sucamarto · 02-23-2006, 06:33 PM

How much longer now?

Damokles · 02-24-2006, 09:54 AM

For the PvP update:

PLEASE CONSIDER MISSILE TRACKING!!!

I think it was said some time ago that there will be a change, bacause it is too easy to evade missile attacks.... so archers and x-bowers have a big disadvantage in PvP

Paraduck · 02-24-2006, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Damokles

For the PvP update:

PLEASE CONSIDER MISSILE TRACKING!!!

I think it was said some time ago that there will be a change, bacause it is too easy to evade missile attacks.... so archers and x-bowers have a big disadvantage in PvP

Unless Turbine's plans have changed, I believe there will be a toggle for your missile projectiles "leading" the target in the March update. This is similar to (but not exactly the same as) the difference between arcs and bolts for mages. You'll be able to do this via a keyboard shortcut, so you can easily change on-the-fly while in combat. But don't take that as official.

Ole Fart · 02-24-2006, 11:15 AM

I agree, I know war spells have some kind of system for this from playing and getting hit.

Heyaz Frelorn, could you answer my pm please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thadda Al-Munik · 02-24-2006, 01:07 PM

What I want to know is once the testing and implementing phase is over, do we get word on our pvp changes?

Hectorb911 · 02-24-2006, 01:15 PM

Missile tracking would be awesome for PvM too.

Many times I have targetted a beastie only to have it take off, I have to wait for my shot so it tracks at the correct speed, angle etc.
When they change course or stop I again have to wait until they get some direction going for the auto-track to kick in.
If they run a short distance and turn to attack another fellow member then back again I will just miss unless I time it so that I start my draw while it is running so that I will release for the second or two it may be stopped and hope the arrow gets there before it takes off again.

Now I can decide where my arrow is going- a dream come true!!
(if it's implemented)