The State of Shadowbane

[Balandar]

Dear fellow Aerynthians,

This is the first in a series of "State of Shadowbane" updates that we plan to bring to our players on a monthly basis. In this update we will explain the details of our most important issues affecting the Shadowbane service. Additionally, we will provide you with a glimpse at our upcoming features we plan to roll out over the next few months.

Please allow me to introduce myself; my name is Erik, a.k.a. "Yitzhak," and I am the new Ubi Soft producer for Shadowbane. Just like many of you, I am a dedicated Shadowbane player with characters of varying classes and ranks on Scorn, Fear, and Mourning. I have been in the interactive entertainment industry since 1995 and am really excited to be a part of the Shadowbane team. I want you all to know that I am dedicated to improving the Shadowbane service and to making the player experience the best it can be.

Let me also introduce to you my counterpart at Wolfpack Studios, Damion, a.k.a. "Ubiq." Damion is one of Shadowbane's associate designers, and has recently assumed the role of Producer for Shadowbane. Damion brings years of experience as an MMO designer to Shadowbane's team at Wolfpack Studios. Damion previously served as lead designer on Meridian 59 and Ultima Online 2, and is considered by many to be one of the best MMO people in the business.

The Shadowbane Live team also includes two new Associate Producers. Joining us on the Ubi Soft side is Patrick, a.k.a. "Oltrak," formerly a producer at Ubi Soft. On the Wolfpack Studios side, Shadowbane veteran developer Thomas, a.k.a. "Dreadflame," brings his passion and experience to the team as the new Associate Producer of the Shadowbane live team. Look for ongoing updates from our associate producers in the weeks to come.

Shadowbane Service Issues

Over the past few weeks our development and operations teams have been incredibly busy trying to resolve outstanding high priority service issues. I completely understand the frustrations of players who have been affected by service outages, lag or other problems that deter your enjoyment of Shadowbane. Your petitions, forum threads, and feedback have not been ignored by us and we apologize for not communicating more with the player community.

Here is the rundown of the top issues that the team is currently working hard to address: · Login Server Issues: The problems experienced with the login servers have been very troubling. The team is exploring all possible leads and avenues that might result in better performance, including hardware considerations, low level OS issues, ISP and network issues, as well as code optimizations. Please understand that this is not a problem with a single component of the login server but is complicated by various system interactions, making it tough to identify a single solution. In the meantime we are prioritizing the possible fixes and taking actions to solve the problem. As we have more information on the effects of our login server fixes, we will fill you in.

· Server Lag & Memory Leaks: Over the past few days the team has made tremendous strides in narrowing down the list of causes for these two persistent problems. We are currently collecting and analyzing vast amounts of data from the servers which we will use to plug the leaks once and for all. We will also use this data to help identify and eliminate the problems causing most of the lag.

· Cities with Missing Buildings or Trees of Life: The Shadowbane team has been investigating all reports of these problems, and the majority of these reports have been the result of guild member actions. However, there have been several legitimate problems, and we are continuing to narrow down the ultimate cause. By Monday, June 9th, our Customer Care Representatives (CCRs) will have a tool in place allowing them to investigate all asset disappearances from a particular city when petitions come in. This tool will allow the CCR team to view the entire history of any asset on any of the servers at any time. This way the CCRs will know immediately if these disappearances are really bugs. Likewise, the CCR team will be able to determine the exact rank and level of any building so it can be fully replaced. This tool will also help the CCRs track the root cause of any problem more quickly.

· Corrupted Characters: The team is aware that some of you have experienced characters with missing attributes, statistics, or items. We are confident that these issues are a side effect of our Login server problems. Once the Login server problems are fixed, we believe the character corruption issues will go away. Next week we will have additional auditing tools in place that will help us identify characters with any missing attributes or statistics. In cases where spent training or statistic points are missing, they will automatically be "refunded" so the character can retrain them. While the team is still working on a permanent solution, these tools will allow Shadowbane players to continue playing without having to repeat hours of hard work already invested in a character.

Patch Update

Because the entire team's resources are dedicated to permanently solving the above issues, we are forced to delay the roll out of new patches and feature enhancements for a few days. I will update you with a new patch date and patch info before Tuesday, June 10th.

Customer Care Update

Since Shadowbane's first few weeks of service, our CCR team's response time has greatly increased. While we did have days when our support channels were overwhelmed, I am very happy to report that the support teams have improved their level of service and response times. Currently, customer petitions are being received and reviewed almost in real-time. To help the CCR team assist you more effectively, please only send in one petition per incident. When numerous petitions for the same issue, from the same account holder are sent in, it just adds extra delays that affect everyone. As a reminder, it is our policy to answer every single petition which is not labeled as "feedback" or a "bug". Bug reports are sent directly to the developer's bug database for fixing and the feedback form is reviewed by the team on a regular basis but is not responded to.

Upcoming Features

Here is a sneak preview of some of the game enhancements we will be introducing over the next few months. Please note that we have many more improvements planned, but for now, we want those to be surprises.

· Retraining: Have you ever trained a skill too high and wish you could correct your mistake? Well, wish no more. Coming soon, we will make NPCs available that will allow you to reallocate misspent training points for a small fee.

· Friends List: Soon you will be able to add your guild members, traveling buddies, and fellow adventurers to an in-game friends list.

· New Higher-Level MOBs: We have heard your call; in June, we will be adding higher-level MOBs for those of you that are seeking more of a challenge. For example, the Irekei will find that their way of life rejuvenated, as their deserts will soon contain higher level enemies, and the Sun Dancers will enjoy some enhancements as well.

· Guild Transaction Messages: Sometimes it is difficult to stay informed about all of the transactions that happen within a guild. To resolve this problem, soon you will be able to see what is happening at all times within a guild, thereby greatly enhancing the ability to monitor a guild's changing political structure.

· New Interface Skin: One of the talented web designers at ubi.com has completed a new game interface skin for your enjoyment. Vosx will be posting the new skin on the Chronicle of Strife website over the next couple of days.

· Test Server: We will be adding a new testing world to the Shadowbane service very soon. This test world will experience all of the patches, experiments, and new ideas long before the live worlds do. This will be a server for the bravest of the brave. But before you make your travel plans to this test server, be forewarned--the test server will be periodically wiped!

· Resource System (Phase I): Tired of protecting discipline drops and spawn points as your only strategic interests? Coming soon, a unique resource system will be appearing in the game based on zone and region. These resources can be combined and used in formulas to make special armor, weapons, and items!

To conclude, I want to assure you that Shadowbane will greatly improve over the next few weeks. Your continued support and satisfaction is our absolute number one goal, and we are doing everything in our power to make sure we do not lose your faith in the game, or in us.

For those of you who have left the game recently, we hope that you will give Shadowbane a second chance as these improvements are made. 

We thank you for your continued support,

~Yitzhak and Ubiq

By: The Shadowbane Team

[Jas]

I feel much better after reading that. At least we know, now, that they have acknowledged the problems. And, better still, are working on fixing them. The new content is cool, too, but the bug/lag/login fixes are way more important. Hope we see this come to fruition soon.

Jas

[Martok]

I think its time for some lag and login server fixes. I am so disheartened when I log in and I have a two minute chat window lag. The insane rubberbanding effect I often get makes me pretty much just quit the game instantly.

Shadowbane is a great game feature wise. Shadowbane is a poor game lag/stability wise.

I hope they get their act together soon, Galaxies is coming out and I for one have actually thought about moving on unless changes are made.

Forget all these FC events and such, just fix the servers!