Tag: Revelation

Scott Hartsman Releases Statement On ArcheAge Downtime


Yesterday was supposed to be the day that ArcheAge rolled out the Revelation update, however as so often happens in this industry, things didn’t go according to plan. While the European launch went off rather quietly, the North American servers hit a snag that the European version did not, resulting in issues that brought the servers down for the rest of the day and into Sunday. While servers are still being brought back up, the fresh start server has yet to come online.

Scott Hartsman has given the following statement:

Hi there –

I understand the frustration, believe me. After six months of prep work and testing in every place we could, no one including our Archeage teams had expected to need to pull a 30 hour shift to try to get ArcheAge North America Live up and running.

I can promise you that it’s not a matter of competence, if anything, quite the opposite. While it might be hard to believe, it’s their competence that’ll get it up and running.

ArcheAge North America is the largest ArcheAge install globally in the amount of data it needs to deal with. Larger than any of the non-Trion installs by a massive amount, larger than Archeage EU by quite a lot. The software as delivered to us was able to handle the volume of data the other regions, it handled the test data on PTS, and handled EU with a last minute scalability assist from our engineers.

Since then, our engineers have spent the last day and a half working tirelessly with XLGAME’s to improve it even further such that it can properly deal with the amount of data in the NA live service in a way that gets you your game up and stable the way it needs to be.

As a regional publisher, this is way outside of what we should typically be doing. But as a developer of other games ourselves, it’s always all hands on deck, whatever we can do to make things work and get people in and playing, for our partners’ games too.

Our teams are as frustrated as you are here – especially those that worked so hard, fixing all of the learnings from the last releases, to make things go smoothly – And they’re not stopping until it’s up and running. Really appreciate the patience.

-Scott

(Source: Trion Worlds)

ArcheAge Introduces Two New Races: Dwarves and Warborn


ArcheAge players will be able to get their hands on two new races today as the latest update, Revelation, hits live servers. Both the Dwarves and the Warborn introduce new stories and quests, as well as the ability to transform and maybe even roll out with new character models and animations to set them apart from the crowd. Five new environments are being added, including the Dwarven capital Airain Rock and Ahnimar, the home of the Warborn.

Those looking to get a fresh start in the game can do so on the fresh start server launching in North America and Europe, while everyone has access to alternate leveling, new housing areas, and more.

“Revelation offers current, former AND new players the very best ArcheAge experience ever,” said Merv Lee Kwai, the game’s Executive Producer. “From a wealth of new content including all-new playable races, to entirely new systems such as the Abyssal Skills, players of all kinds will find a lot to like in Revelation. Combine that with Fresh Start servers that give every player an equal opportunity to stake their claim to prime in-game real estate, and this is truly the most exciting time to be an ArcheAge player.”

(Source: Trion Worlds press release)

Cryptic Studios Listens: Expansion and CO’s Future


Gustav chooses to murder his dissenters.

Cryptic wants to change. They want to stop being the company known for poor communication with its players, and they want to stop this cycle of rushing patches untested. The employees are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore!

Bill Roper and the team had a lot to say in the State of the Game today, and made a lot of promises of rehabilitation. First, Cryptic is taking the first step: Acknowledgement. In the SOTG, they talk about the recent bugs appearing due to a recent change in the game’s coding in the kitchen sink patch. Furthermore, Cryptic is readily admitting that there was not enough playtesting done in both internal QA and through the test server, in order to rush the patch out. Taking the blame is great, but what is Cryptic really doing to improve conditions?

Foremost, Cryptic is looking towards improving communications between developers and players. The communication begins with bi-weekly question and answer sessions, followed by an ongoing blog by the Game Masters, detailing plans for the game. Monthly developer chats will take place in Cryptic’s IRC channel, and the State of the Game will now be released bi-weekly. An overhaul of the Champions Online website will bring in more fan screenshots, fan art, and ways to stalk your favorite developer.

Boy do I have egg on my face, and that egg is not part of Denny’s free Grand Slam. I’ve often said that although Cryptic has communication issues on the little things (timer resets, feedback, etc), they generally get the picture when an issue becomes big enough. When Daeke announced that the next expansion, Vibora Bay, would be a paid mission pack, the community went, in all fairness, completely ape-poop.

Well Cryptic fans may rejoice, and Cryptic trolls may move on to their next talking point, because Cryptic has an announcement to make. After wading his way through the legion of hate mail, “I quit” emails, and piled on (actually constructive) feedback, Bill Roper and the team have decided to make Vibora Bay, now known as Champions online: Revelation, free to all players.

Revelation is expected mid-March, with more information on the way. All we know currently is that the expansion is a “full fledged expansion pack,” and will feature a storyline full of heroes, villains, new areas, powers, and gameplay mechanics, and maybe even a love interest for your hero (Just kidding).

If Cryptic can stick to this twelve step program, there are good things in Champions Online’s future.