The Platinum Scarab Bug & Character Rollback
Alright, so now we have a bug that eliminates the need for
players to actually go out and trade/hunt for Pyreals in
order to provide themselves with supplies/equipment/comps.
Some people love it, some people hate it. What does the AC
team or the Devs think? They are considering a rollback for
all characters due to this Bug that *ruins* the economy. The
bug will be fixed on their test servers first, then applied
to the Player Servers, and a rollback will occur if they deem
the situation out of hand. If it a rollback does happen, this
means all characters/world states will be reverted to the way
they were at the "save point" of the Team's
choosing. Most likely, the rollback will be 24-48 hours,
because the situation became out of hand in that period of
time, and they cannot afford to upset their player base too
greatly, or they'll be losing a lot of subscriptions/bad
ratings. If the Team was extremely stupid, however, they
would roll back to patch day, when the bug was introduced
along with Platinum Scarabs.
Advantages/Reasons for Rolling Back:
- Would restore the "power of the pyreal..." if you
had enough, you could buy anything you wanted.
- Would only inconvenience players relatively little as
compared to the long term effect of allowing 500 people on
each server to keep the 4 billion pyreals they have garnered
would be kinda stupid.
- Would present a message that: "Turbine does care about
the constant maintenence of their software, even between
patches."
- If handled well, "Turbine also cares about their
player base, and implements fixes for the greater good of all
at a minimum of pain."
- Understanding players will see the neccessity of the
rollback, and will just bear though it like the rest of the
problems that have popped up for the last 14 months.
Disadvantages of Rolling Back:
- Would cause inconvenience for players through loss of time
and effortspent on their avatars to the point of the rollback.
- People who don't have an ounce of consideration towards
others, and think any good reasons for Rolling Back are
stupid, will gripe, threaten to quit, etc. The emptiest
containers make the most noise when you hit them anyways.
- Server downtime needed to implement the fix will
inconvenience players.
- If they roll back to Patch Day, AC will most likely die
very quickly. A Disgruntled player base, reports of
instability and unreliabilty, ruined E-Bay transactions, etc,
will cause a significant portion of the player base to move
to more stable mmorpgs, like EQ or UO. A very sad thing, if
it came to pass.
Personally, I believe the Roll Back should and will occur,
hopefully 48 hours at the most. It might cause some
inconvenience, but it IS for the better good. Pyreal economy
might seem like a paltry thing, but in the long run, it has a
HUGE impact on the game...Imagine not needing to buy 44k
Scarabs for the next year or more, and D notes no longer
having any semblance of trade value.
Solutions for losses obtained
Experience/Time lost:
This one is the one I'm most worried about, and the reason I
didn't play tonight. If I actually had played tonight, a 48
hour rollback would cost me a lot of time I could have spent
studying, reading, partying, etc. The 6-8 million xp I would
have garnered would be non-existent...I didn't lose xp, I had
just never generated it according to the server...the Tuskers
I killed never existed, and I was never on the Plains from
then until now. If you think about it along those lines, it
doesn't hurt as much. A high level player might have had a
few days off school/work and decided to do some hardcore
powerleveling on Aerlinthe, something to the effect of 60-80
Million Experience a Day. A big number for some, but to a
higher level player, its not that much...maybe a few raised
points here and there. Again, its the loss of time that hurts.
Its like a giant time warp ;p
E-Bay Transactions
A Roll-Back does not mean that the item you purchased/sold is
gone forever. It just goes back to where it was at the point
of the rollback. Missing that Armor VI shirt that you bought
for $100? Just contact the seller and he should have it.
Suddenly have the UA VI Solls that you gave to that customer
a day ago? Contact him/her when they come online and give it
to them before you get a bad referral. Since most E-Bay
auctions last for a week, a Roll-Back should not affect the
transaction to the point of not being able to complete it,
unless the Roll-Back is for a week or more.
Loot Attained Between the point of Roll-Back and Now
You never had it. E-Bay people better retract their auctions
;p
Not many major problems with the Roll-Back other than these
two biggies, actually. The only thing I could think of that
will cause pain now is the UNGODLY LAG that will occur
at the Ayan Lifestone when everyone simultaneously logs on to
see what they lost and finds themselves teleported back at
the lifestone...*shudders*
Oh, a new Lobby Message:
Frostfell: Information
All AC Worlds are coming down in 15 min 9:45am PST as we
prepare a hotfix for a severe bug impacting the economy.
We'll be reverting all character to a point late Wednesday
night to minimize impact. C State Network for more details.
Hmm...someone was really sloppy writing that message =P
Ah well, lets see what I lost. 2 million xp...that's it. My
character is now younger and has her money back;
What did you gain in your time, but never had? Post here!
Zarya's Journals:
01.11.01 -
Introduction, First Journal
01.12.01 - Hunting in
the Mid Direlands
01.13.01 - Analysis of
the Ayan Baqur Region, Plus Some Other Stuff
01.14.01 - First Day
Hunting on the Obsidian Plains
01.15.01 - More
Hunting on the Obsidian Plains
01.16.01 - Armor and
Chat
01.17.01 - Late Post,
Crappy Pic
01.18.01 - Pretty
Pictures and Dev Chat
Commentary:
You
missed a big one
Not that I disagree on the need for a rollback on this issue,
quite the contrary, however the one disadvantage you missed
is the worst one by far. If you had a corpse on the ground at
the point the rollback returns to, it will be gone and all
the things on it too. This usually doesnt mean as much to a
mage since they tend to carry fewer critical items loseable
on death (except for those with high arcane), but it will
certainly hurt many people. Regardless of the abundance of
good loot ingame now, some things are just plain
irreplaceable, even if its just sentimental value. Nothing
that can be done to return the items either, so the loss is
permanent (it has happened to me several times).
Just
thought I'd point that out, and please keep up the good work
on the journal, it's very entertaining.
- Prophet
