View Full Forums : Patch Message, 2/18/2004


Tudamorf
02-18-2004, 06:45 AM
<i>Update 2/18/04
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Headlines
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Favor points adjustment
Improved server stability



Tribute System
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- You may see a change to your accrued favor points as we implement the second change to the Tribute System. As you know, many items were overvalued and have since been reduced. Now we will be adjusting the accrued favor pool to reflect the amount you should have received for items turned in prior to the changes. We know that this may take away some of your accrued points and for that we apologize, however this change will bring the system more in-line with our intentions. We hope that you agree that it was a reasonable and necessary change.



Server Stability
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- We have made some coding changes to the front end to improve connectivity and stability and reduce the number of 1017 errors.

The EQ team apologizes for the server instability in the past week. This instability occurs at peak times, and is seen to our users as "1017" errors. Normally within a few minutes these users are able to log back in, but on some servers this problem has occurred more than once in a single evening.

We're working to address the problem, and expect that in the next couple of days we'll have everything resolved. In the meantime, there's a chance you'll run into this problem if you're on a crowded server during peak times - if you do, you can normally get back onto the servers within 15 or 20 minutes.

Gates of Discord has been immensely popular - many of our old customers have been coming back to try it out, and many new customers have arrived to give EQ a try. Our simultaneous usage numbers are quite high, but in addition the people who are online are also playing more and for longer than usual. Gates of Discord introduced many new instanced zones, high level content, and re-introduced the casino - this type of content is particularly taxing on our servers, and coupled with the unusually high usage, we're seeing a resulting instability during our peak times.

Our first effort was to remove the casino, which improved our server stability. Since then, we've been working on two different fixes, the first of which will go live at the 3am patch Wednesday morning (Tuesday night). The second will be later this week. Both of them are meant to improve performance during peak times and address the 1017 errors that you may be experiencing. Each of them we expect to be an improvement on connectivity, and we expect our second fix to resolve the problems.

We apologize for our service instability in the past week; we're working hard on this problem - it's cutting into our play time too. :)

We'll give you another update in the next day or two as we make progress, and let you know how things are coming.



Items
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The following items had their "Cleave" effect removed due to stacking issues;

Bracer of the Heartstriker
Bracer of Exploration
Bracer of the Stoutheart
Vadd's Chestplate of Elite Combat
Rayin's Chestplate of Abhorrence
Pressl's Tunic of Balance
Kizash's Tunic of Savage Heart
Luvwen's Chestplate of Melody
Nadien's Chainmail of the Archer
Nodnol's Chainmail of the Scoundrel
Harlad's Chainmail of Fury
Trimdet's Chestplate of Chivalry
Gem-Studded Band of Struggle
Glowing Spiritstone Necklace</i>

Fenmarel the Banisher
02-18-2004, 08:04 AM
Uh-Oh Retroactive change :(

B_Delacroix
02-18-2004, 08:34 AM
Logged off with about 3k tribute points last night. Will be interesting to see what it is today. I didn't use any of those worms or whatever was giving out huge points.

I don't loot a lot of anything so I figure these will be the only points I ever see. If its significantly lower, it definately isn't worth my time to go hand in pages and fine steel stuff and whatever other junk I can get.

Greggo
02-18-2004, 08:37 AM
It was signalled a week ago it would be retroactive.

Aly
02-18-2004, 10:28 AM
Anyone that feels they deserve the thousands of points for 3 coppers worth of tradeskill supplies deserves to be banned. It's ridiculous that anyone would believe that was the right amount of favor points for animated bait and other similar items.

Server Stability
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- We have made some coding changes to the front end to improve connectivity and stability and reduce the number of 1017 errors.

Guess Autumn can't whine about them not doing anything about server stability issues.

Greggo
02-18-2004, 10:46 AM
Well that depends on whether they have actually fixed it...

Kaidian Blade
02-18-2004, 11:29 AM
Anyone know if the Tracking and Secondary Forte bugs were fixed?

Scirocco
02-18-2004, 11:47 AM
Hush...there are no bugs...;)

B_Delacroix
02-18-2004, 11:59 AM
Anyone that feels they deserve the thousands of points for 3 coppers worth of tradeskill supplies deserves to be banned. It's ridiculous that anyone would believe that was the right amount of favor points for animated bait and other similar items.


I hope that wasn't meaning an assumption that my 3k came from bate or 3 copper items. I handed in a butt load of stuff. Some of it was POP things no one wanted and I never use. Some of it LDON stuff. Most of it lately is pages and fine steel, which yield like 1 - 3 points. That's why I say it won't be worth the trip to go running back to get 1 - 3 points. Freeport is ugly and I can live without the stuff I played with last night.

KrystofC
02-18-2004, 12:31 PM
Anyone that feels they deserve the thousands of points for 3 coppers worth of tradeskill supplies deserves to be banned. It's ridiculous that anyone would believe that was the right amount of favor points for animated bait and other similar items.


Not everyone with thousands of points got them off bookworms and animated bait. I turned in a lot of good level 40+ gear to get my tribute points. Stuff dropping in level 65 normal LDONs, POP-level stuff, twink gear from Nadox, etc. In essense, I cleaned up my bank and the banks of my twinks with stuff that had just been sitting around doing nothing. I went from 50k tribute to 1419. Wish I had used animated bait instead :rolleyes: I want my items back!

Kineada
02-18-2004, 12:33 PM
Hush...there are no bugs...

Tried both for about 15 mins, looks like they've been fixed.

Fayne Dethe
02-18-2004, 12:35 PM
I sold some LDON item for 7k points and pretty much nothing else other than some very minor stuff. When I logged on today before leaving for work, I still had 7k points....

Scirocco
02-18-2004, 12:47 PM
It seems obvious to me. He tried to skill up in tracking and whatever his secondary spec. was, and got no skill ups. Of course, skillups can be few and far between, depending on your level.

KrystofC
02-18-2004, 12:50 PM
I sold some LDON item for 7k points and pretty much nothing else other than some very minor stuff. When I logged on today before leaving for work, I still had 7k points....

Was that before or after they lowered the item values the first time? I turned in stuff for 6k-15kish. Now assuming on the average everything got cut in half, that should still leave me with 25k points. Hmm, come to think of it, I've probably used a good 20k worth of tribute so far anyway, so I guess 1419 may not be too far off the mark after all :p but they put me at 0 current and 1419 career. /boggle

Macnbaish
02-18-2004, 12:59 PM
The next question is.. if they have fixed them from skilling up any more.. were they also taken back to their old caps or do we get to keep what we have earned already?

Kaidian Blade
02-18-2004, 01:05 PM
Yes, that indeed IS the second question. :D

KrystofC
02-18-2004, 01:09 PM
My tracking is still at 160 (no tracking AAs bought). Not sure whether they've stopped skilling up or not though, as it raises very very slowly.

Fayne Dethe
02-18-2004, 01:33 PM
I sold the item for 7k before the tribute guys were taken down for the big nerf and still have that much. Perhaps the item I sold wasnt devalued a ton or maybe they didnt touch those with less than 10k tribute points?

As for tracking fixes, I dunno if they are going to bother to change everyone's tracking back to what it is supposed to be, especially if you already have some levels of advanced tracking. I doubt they will let it stand for those with more than 175 skill, though.

Arienne
02-18-2004, 02:55 PM
I would think fixing tracking would be pretty easy. Set all the druids back to the previous cap and then let those who bought the tracking AA start to skill up over time.

As for the patch in general... I'll be a happy camper if it fixes the 1017s. That should be SOE's TOP priority. Anything else is misspent energy at the moment... EVEN the tribute points fiasco.

quinalla
02-18-2004, 04:01 PM
I was hoping when I couldn't log in this morning they were fixing people being booted and not being able to log in! I just hope this fix works, especially for those on crowded servers who seem to be affected the most.

Chenier
02-18-2004, 04:02 PM
Checked my trib points at lunch...was at 60ish-thousand last night, now at 15k...no baits turned in either, just ldon gear.../sigh...

Panamah
02-18-2004, 04:09 PM
/scritches her head

Wonder why casino is such a load? That's just bizarre!

Kineada
02-18-2004, 05:01 PM
My Track was at 198 (no rollback). Didn't expect skillups here since Track went up about once every two hours. Spec Alt was at 135 and went up once every 10 casts of minor heal. I tried for 15 mins to get skillups in Spec but nada.

I was trainning both:

/pause 32, /cast 1
/pause 32, /cast 1
/pause 32, /cast 1
/pause 32, /cast 1
/doability 3

Kytelae
02-18-2004, 05:13 PM
I had 85k of points, as far as I know all earned fairly with turnins of tons of my old tradeskill items (still sitting on alts) and loads of items bought in the bazaar. Had 6k after rollback. Oh well.

Tiane
02-18-2004, 06:09 PM
I feel gipped that I didnt get any sploity-skillups!

Pan, the casino is a huge load on the world server cause every time you complete a trade with someone/something it does a forced save of your character (to prevent duping.) So every time someone hands the casino guys a token, you get a save request. Multiply that by 10,000+ per minute and you have a massive number of additional saves happening that were simply not there before.

Aly
02-18-2004, 06:10 PM
I hope that wasn't meaning an assumption that my 3k came from bate or 3 copper items.

No it wasn't. I was specifically pointing out the very obviously over priced items. (Animated Bait, etc.) I guess that would include the trash drops from LoY and LDoN mobs as well.

guluvasea
02-18-2004, 06:45 PM
i had about 18000 pts last night which was from 1 item i got from a hard ldon. this morning nada no points...

oh well, i did nail a couple of named's in natimbi from being first on my server this morning. I will see what their loot will sell for.

dekkon fuzzyfeet

and and i am pretty sure they have not fixed tracking yet.

Colcannon Bacstai
02-18-2004, 07:08 PM
It was just announced servers where doing down again at around 6pm central with about an hour's downtime.

Someone jokingly said in chat they had foraged a CoF, but I had to log before anyone could respond. Coulda just been a joke :) (although the first day in beta I foraged a horse bridle in Natimbi)

Balise
02-18-2004, 07:17 PM
Forage bugs are fun.

Iilane SalAlur
02-18-2004, 08:46 PM
I handed in every single stuff that dropped in 4 LDoN adventures and had 30k points. This morning, I found I have 1.2k...

Tudamorf
02-18-2004, 08:52 PM
Barindu crashed several times without warning. I think they are trying to fix that problem before addressing the nerfs.

Kulothar
02-18-2004, 08:58 PM
Has anyone been able to log on since this? I haven't. Still getting an error 1001 all evening. An I wonder what it will be like when they bring the casino back. they really need to make it a pocketed zone somewhere.

Aluaeia
02-18-2004, 09:03 PM
Has anyone been able to log on since this? I haven't. Still getting an error 1001 all evening. An I wonder what it will be like when they bring the casino back. they really need to make it a pocketed zone somewhere.


THAT STILL WOULDNT HELP.

Casino breaks servers not because of zone traffic, but because it saves your character to the WORLDSERVER after every trade/hand in.

Noliniel
02-18-2004, 10:32 PM
Had 105 k from all the dorga Gears and LDON stuff. Now I barely have 9 k left. Good Job SOE! Keep on nerfing ! Cleave effect was removed, which sucked cause its fun a score crits on meele as a druid. :p

Thornsong
02-18-2004, 11:24 PM
Turned in 980k in items for tribute -- went through bazaar before GoD surfing for deals and spent about 50-60k on items. Down to 340k after nerf.

Thicket Tundrabog
02-19-2004, 08:35 AM
Had 70k tribute points before nerf, 30k tribute points after nerf. Seems fair to me. Most of my points were from LDoN drops with a few crafted steins thrown in. None came from bookworms/animated bait and similar exploits.

Thicket

Teaenea
02-19-2004, 01:51 PM
Had 105 k from all the dorga Gears and LDON stuff. Now I barely have 9 k left. Good Job SOE! Keep on nerfing ! Cleave effect was removed, which sucked cause its fun a score crits on meele as a druid.

Cleave sounded like fun for us, but, it was seriously overpowering for melee classes that had an item with the effect. It gave them a chance to critical hit 20, 40, and 60% of the time. (cleaveI,II,III) That's an incredible DPS boost. I would guess, enough to seriously screw up Melee/caster balancing.