Get them while supplies last!

A while back, in myReporters Announced in the First Newsletter post, we got a little surprise. A Summer bonus was announced. Well, all good things must come to an end, eventually :)

FujiQ posted in End of June:

The end of June is drawing near which means the token special is about to expire! Take advantage of this deal before Sunday, July 1st to get the 10% token bonus on all token purchases made through the Iron Will Games website.

Our international players will want to plan accordingly for the difference in time zones. IWG will be using CDT time. To calculate the time for your specific time zone, visit this website.

Now's a good time to stock up on tokens. You might as well get some while the getting's good.

It's a sneak peek of...what is that?

No, it's not a slow news day (relatively) ;) We even got a sneak peek at some things in the update. TheTyrant came through with his 3DStudio render...but...well, you'll see.

FujiQ posted in Update Sneak Peek:

Tyrant pulled through for you guys and was able to make a little sneak peek preview of the update. Be sure to thank him for putting this together! Remember: What you see on this preview is a render in 3D studio, so the content will look different in game. Enjoy!

Do yourself a favor and click on the original post link to view it at full resolution.

There's a lot going on in that picture...and the darkness is definitely not helping it. But from what I can see, there's a 3-headed dog, a black beast, and a couple of new winged things there in the picture. Clarity, no.

Tyrant does help us out a little in the response thread, though:

TheTyrant posted in update sneak preview:

I was working on a dark angel/succubus monster, but i couldnt get the female face and body right. So I'm still working on it. Those "gargoyles" are pit fiends that i made, there are 3, i only pictured a 80% of the mobs, and like 10% of the items. There is alot more.

That really does help sort out what all's going on there. And we did get at least one new type of monster--pit fiends.

Sure enough, some people took the render to be the Gospel truth on what the game will really look like. Hence my little comment in Okay..so maybe a peek? :) about 3D renders and real game art. Remember, folks, the game will render it much differently.

No more server restarts!

A little joy for those who hate the server restarts.

GM FujiQ posted in About Lag (updated):

***UPDATE***

We have found a better fix for the lag so there will be no need for server resets every Monday as previously announced. We are still monitoring the servers to make sure that everything is running smoothly.

Please keep in mind that lag is not always a problem coming from our side. Some players may find that their lag is much worse than other players. More information about lag and what causes it to differ can be found here.

You have to appreciate the link to the Blues News guide to lag. If you're like me, you'll stop after that point where it lists what kind of connection you can expect based on your ping. Though without a way to get your ping to the server (the servers eat ping requests, after all), the only way to get a decent idea would be to use a route tracer like Ping Plotter or pathping.

So here's the real question. Is this something the DEVs can hotfix or will we have to wait for the update to come? Or, is it something that is half and half? Is it even that "Golden egg" solution to end all lag? ;) Don't hold your breath, folks. But any improvement in lag will definitely make playing a lot easier to deal with.

Okay..so maybe a peek? :)

Well, I was cruising the forums and saw this little tidbit from TheTyant. Originally, he posted on the original preview thread

I could give a sneak peak of some of the art for the update.
Maybe if the players say pretty pretty please.

Well, I sorta ignored it. After all, TheTyrant seems to be the more joking DEV, compared to the other three. Apparently, he was serious :)

TheTyrant posted in Pleeeeeeeeease Tyrant!:

I worked on a buffed taser shot for you guys, but it might have to wait til monday. The one i made was way to dark, and i will work on it this weekend. I hope you guys will enjoy

Now, keep in mind that Tyrant works on the art. The last time I remember some teaser art from him was when we got a preview of the valentine's day armor. And while the armor was absolutely beautiful, it was a 3D studio render. Great visuals, but don't expect it to look exactly like that when the game renders it. Anyone else remember the topless women walking around? ;)

But hey! New stuff, new stuff! Yay :)

Small Blog Update

If you notice, I try to put a label on each post to try and keep things a little organized. I.e. if you want to see just "Official Announcements", you click on the tag and it just shows you posts that were officially announced.

Well, in the beginning, I originally had an idea for just two labels: Current Rumblings and Past Rumbling. The idea was that current rumblings were more current events and past rumblings were tidbits about things said in the past. But, as it turned out, all of my blog posts (with the exception of one) turned out to need the "Current Rumblings" label. And personally, that kind of defeated the purpose of having the label at all.

I've since gone back and redone the labels by the DEV or GM who said it. As I was going through it, I realized that this is truly the way to go with labelling. So I hope the new feature will make this a lot easier to read. :)

There is no preview!

Venant started a thread asking for a preview of the upcomming update and it got quite a few responses. But ultimately, no preview came. FujiQ tells us why:

GM FujiQ posted in Update Preview: Request to Devs:

aww that's no fun! It's like getting a sneak peek at your presents before you open them!

On the realistic side, though, there'd be no way to give you a sneak peek anyways since OE is out of town.

Remember, OneEye's on a European vacation (lucky guy :p). I'm sure many people were expecting him back this week so that's maybe why there's a few threads on the forum asking where our mono-optic DEV has gone.

OneEye's absence aside, there will always be someone who wants a peek at *something* in the update. Curiosity is definitely part of the human condition.

By the way, DevSaid has been getting a few mentions. Tempester's posted it on the forums under Ashen Empires News Center (AE Report #2!) and even FujiQ's given us an honorable mention in this post. I guess this is a project that should probably be stuck to, no? :)

Yes, Virginia. They know about the lag.

A little announcement about the lag:

GM FujiQ posted in About Lag:

Hey Everyone!

We've been listening to your forum posts and know that the lag has reached epically unbearable dimensions recently. First let me say thanks for being so patient!

We have identified the problem and are working to correct it. We hope to have the fix for the lag in when the update comes. In the mean time, we'll be doing a manual server reset every Monday morning at around 9am CST.

If the lag starts to become a serious problem, please let us know by sending an email to support@ashenempires.com.

Thanks again!

Sincerely,

FujiQ
Marketing Manager

Now, I'm not going to pretend I'm not a little pessimistic. But if only because we'll see an improvement but not the improvement people thought it would be. Thing is, every update has addressed the lag in some aspect. But the lag hasn't disappeared completely. And while the DEVs are making progress, I don't think we'll see "due praise" until there's absolutely no lag at all.

Personally, I'll take what I can get. Happy to see they've identified another cause and are going to nail it. ;)

Volunteer Profiles Released

Have you ever wondered what they look for when they hire a new GM? What about VWC? Or forum mods? Well, now those questions have been answered.

GM Rauric posted in Ashen Empires Job Profiles are now live!:

Hello everyone!

Today we take another step towards transparency by publishing both the profile for every volunteer position available as well as the selection process involved. It is our hope that this answers some of your questions and perhaps even awakens some curiosity in our ever increasing community volunteer force.

The profiles can be downloaded as .pdf here:

• Tech Wizard
• Community Moderator
• Valinor Welcoming Committee
• Quality Assurance
• Game Moderator

A big thanks to GM Siyone for compiling this information for our knowledge database.

As usual, please feel free to discuss, give feedback and ask any questions that still remain on the Community Blackboard.

What I think is really of particular interest is the Quality Assurance position. After reading it, I'm under the impression that this goes above and beyond what has traditionally been termed as "QA"--namely that in the past, players simply tested and reported bugs during major expansions. Now it seems that IWG is actively interested in recruiting people to look directly at the bugs they get. This could be potentially dangerous. Let's hope the selection process is tight-fisted.

Anyone else find this disturbing?

As I thought, it didn't take long for some people to take the news delay in a not so good way. That happens in these games, so I'm sure the DEVs are used to it by now. But I kept reading on in that player's response post (mostly because the OneEye was actively responding to the community--something that most MMOs don't do anymore) and came across this nugget:

OneEye posted in The postponed update:

we have hired a full time marketing person and she will be doing all the announcments about future updates. You will never hear another word from me about them.

Of course, he's talking about FujiQ. And honestly, I'm not too worried about having another person dedicated to being the liaison between busy DEVs and uppity community. If anything, I'm hoping it doesn't turn out to be another Obi Wan.

But it may just be that I'm worried about change. I don't want to see less of the DEVs interacting with us. To be honest, it's refreshing to see a DEV respond to criticism both well and well-deserved. I'm not saying OneEye should take on a Derek Smart persona. But it's nice to see a DEV not take it on the chin when the argument's really stupid.

It's a Wedding!

It's already been hinted at from the previous announcements. But Lotor's getting hitched and IWG wants you to be there.

GM Wintergreen posted in Lotors Wedding Saturday 6/9/07:

Join us at the wedding area of Lotor's Summer Palace Saturday 6/9/07 for King Lotor's Wedding.

Server Times:
Heroes - 1:00pm CDT (20:00 GMT)
Legends - 3:00pm CDT (22:00 GMT)

Rumblings are that they wanted to do this with the update (see previous entries), but with OneEye going out of town they decided to do the bits that didn't require code changes. At the very least, it's an official event. And that's something we haven't had in a long time.

Update postponed indefinitely...

Well, I get home looking forward to an announcement about how the update's going. Instead, I get a bit of a downer...it seems that technical issues are really hurting the update going in.

GM Wintergreen posted in Update postponed - sorry folks - wedding is on:

Due to scheduling and some other background technical issues, the update that was promised for June 4th has been postponed. The new date will not be announced until we are 100% sure that it can go in without a hitch, but we are pretty sure we are looking at another month. We’re very sorry to push this back especially since you all have been so excited to see the new content. Please bear with us.

The wedding of King Lotor and Lady Anne will go forward this Saturday. Expect some really cool serverwide events in early July as well. We will announce server times for the wedding later today.

Naturally, I think we can expect some backlash from the community (there always seems to be someone(s) who think delays in an update are right sinful).

Luckily, though, OneEye did have a response to why this delay was happening:

OneEye posted in The postponed update:

It's pretty simple. I've added tons of new content for this update and next Monday I am going out of town for a few weeks for a planned vacation. It wouldn't be fair (to the rest of IWG) for us to throw an update up and me not be here if bad stuff hits the fan. So we are delaying until I get back. We tried to hit the date of 6/4, but due to several factors we missed it. You can blame that on me. I tried to add too much new stuff.

We are still moving ahead with the Lotor wedding and the storyline that will follow it.

So, long story short, they don't want to push the update while the main Designer is out of town. This is actually a pretty good thing, since OneEye's the guy in charge of new quests and items. If he's out of town doing his own thing, and it turns out that a new quest or item has a major bug about it, we wouldn't see anything until he got back. Could you live a week with a major bug in the NEW stuff?

Why the delay, holmes?

So why is the update being pushed back (and back again)? OneEye let us in on a little family secret:

OneEye posted in Update delayed:

in case anyone wants the story, the update was delayed because my wife threw me a surprise birthday party on Saturday. About 40 people showed up including my dad and brother from Florida. I had planned to finish up the update over the weekend, but this surprise threw me off schedule.

June 4th becomes June 5th 6th

Keeping in classic AE history, the scheduled update lives on a special "Dev Time". But the good news about the delay? Now we know what those "Book quests" are. And we even see that wishes for first aid and leadership becoming epool skills have been granted. Yay Devs!

OneEye posted in 6/4 update delayed till 6/5.:

The servers will be coming down at ~9am CST tomorrow morning for an update.

The update will include:

-several new creatures
-a new large dungeon
-new quests
-new book quests (like the rock troll quest)
-New store item - masks that allow you to change into creatures
-bug fixes
-first aid and leadership will be epoolable.
-further server updates to help alleviate the lag issue.

I know, my post a little late (i.e. this post was made 2 hrs before the servers are scheduled to go down). But more will follow as I have time to read the forums.

Edit: Wintergreen made a correction to the original post:

UPDATE: 6/5/07 - We had to push this until tomorrow. Sorry for the churn folks.

-WG

Just a little more of a wait. After all, the last "update" was tokens, and that was back in March. No, hotfixes don't count. :P