Howdy folks! Just wanted to let you know that tickets for the ACPL -- the Asheron's Call Player Luncheon event at Turbine Nation -- will only be on sale until Monday, August 2.

While you can buy tickets for Turbine Nation at the door on August 7, tickets to the ACPL will not be available at the door. If you want to eat lunch with the live team and expansion pack Devs, get your tickets now! They've been selling like hotcakes and they may sell out!

Also a reminder -- the deadline for our Make-a-Monster and Make-a-Movie contests is midnight EDT this Friday. We've already received many excellent submissions -- if you're interested, be sure to enter before the deadline!

See you at Turbine Nation!


__________________
Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

Zone issues

Microsoft is aware that there are currently problems with the Zone login for Asheron's Call and they are working to resolve them. As soon as I have more information or an ETA I will update this thread.


__________________
Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

August Letter to the Players Posted!

Read about upcoming August content such as crafting quests, the Aerlinthe update, and more!

Read it here.

Comment here.

(in my best Professor Farnsworth voice)

Good news, everyone!

Our Operations folks were able to complete the backup restore and data transfer way ahead of schedule by changing some methods and using better compression on the transfer.

We're going to begin bringing the worlds back up in about 5 minutes... that's 1PM PDT / 4PM EDT / 8PM UTC.

We're going to bring the worlds up one every 30 minutes, starting with Frostfell. We want to make sure that the new system is stable and bringing the worlds up one at a time will help with that.

So Frostfell will start coming up at 4PM EDT, Leafcull will follow at 4:30PM, Solclaim at 5:00PM, and finally Thistledown at 5:30PM.

Again, these worlds will be brought up with the data from approximately 7AM EDT Sunday morning.


__________________
Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

Recent data files now downloadable

For your convenience, we have added a new file to our download page. This .zip archive contains the portal.dat file from the July 2004 event, and the cell.dat file from April 2004.

Now if you install Asheron's Call onto a new PC, or need to reinstall for any reason, you can download more recent data files directly from our website!


__________________
Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

Status update:

We have some additional bad news.

While attempting to transfer the world data from the old server to the new one, the old server crashed multiple times. It no longer appears capable of staying stable for the time required to complete the transition.

After much discussion, we have decided that the best course of action is to bring the world data over from the last good backup. This will remove the old server from the equation and allow us to bring the worlds back up as quickly as possible. Therefore we have made the difficult decision to roll back all four worlds -- Solclaim, Leafcull, Frostfell, and Thistledown -- to the last good backup at approximately 4AM PDT / 7AM EDT / 11AM UTC on Sunday July 25.

We are currently working on the backup restore to the new hardware, when it is complete we will begin bringing the worlds back up. The worlds will be brought up in the order listed in the previous post. The ETA for all four worlds to be up and running is 24-48 hours from this post. Unfortunately the discovery of data corruption and the need to restore from backup has added additional time to this task.

We apologize again for this extended downtime and rollback, and thank you for your understanding and patience.


__________________

This and That
Big disappointment
Two down, one to go
The Steps
Long Run
Declare project completed
Cher’okee
Conflict
Guest Writer: Aelryinth of Leafcull
Tour de France
Adventures with Cats
Disaster

A short time after I ran past the Windmill, I spotted a path up. There were a few nasty things, as I ran though the hills, but I outran them with ease. It was a good thing I put a lot into Quick. With a 10 start, it takes a lot of xp to get Quick to a decent number.

As I started to get close to AB, the monsters levels and density started increasing. I found myself making wide detours around tightly packed groups. It was getting harder and harder to find a path around them.

I finally had to just run into the less dense spots and hope for the best. I was really regretting my choice to not bane at this point.


http://www.crackednuts.com/asheron/index.php3?journal=3

Early Monday morning, the database cluster that supports Solclaim, Leafcull, Thistledown, and Frostfell suffered a hardware failure. Operations was able to recover data from 7AM EDT Monday and start all four worlds back up early Monday evening. The only reported data loss were the items stored in one housing community on Solclaim.

However late Monday night, the database cluster suffered another failure. Multiple players were unable to login and got error messages. It is necessary to bring all four worlds back down.

This is the current status:

Operations is currently working to recover data from Leafcull, Thistledown, and Frostfell. This should be finished by 2AM EDT Tuesday (that's 11PM PDT / 6AM UTC). When this is done, we will know whether or not there is going to be a rollback on these three worlds.

Solclaim will be rolled back to the backup done at 7AM Sunday morning. We're not willing to risk additional incidents like the already reported housing item loss.

The data from all four worlds is going to be migrated to a new database cluster as we are no longer confident in the integrity of the original. Each world in turn will be migrated and then brought back up.

The entire process is expected to take 24-48 hours, but not all worlds will be down for the entire time. As we migrate the data on each world we will bring it back up.

We'll have the order in which the worlds will be brought back up shortly.

This is essentially the same database migration that we performed for Wintersebb, Darktide, and Harvestgain earlier this year. Unfortunately in this case it is necessary to perform the migrations immediately and for all four worlds.

We apologize again for this unplanned downtime and thank you for your patience.

Status update:

The worlds will be brought up in this order:

Frostfell, Leafcull, Solclaim, Thistledown

We do not expect more than a few minutes rollback on FF or LC. SC will most likely be rolled back to approximately 7AM EDT on Sunday. TD may be rolled back some amount, we are investigating it currently. In a worst-case scenario TD would also need to be rolled back to 7AM Sunday, but we do not believe this will be necessary.

Solclaim, Leafcull, Thistledown, and Frostfell are being taken down for emergency database server maintenance. I do not currently have an ETA on when they will be back up, please watch this thread for further updates:

http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11927

Our engineers are currently performing diagnostics on the database servers, this process can take up to four hours. I will post further status updates as soon as I have them, no later than 11AM PDT / 3PM EDT / 7PM UTC.


__________________
Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

Making It Up As I Go Along...

"You can always tell I'm proud of a story when the first line I write is an apology..."

You can read the entire article here.

Tabula Rasa Stratics Wallpaper Contest

Consider yourself a graphic artist? Then this one is right up your alley! So what is the "Tabula Rasa Online Wallpaper Contest"? Basically, we are looking for Desktop Wallpapers that focus on the themes found in Tabula. Themes can range from the abstract to specific themes or anything else you feel is appropriate.

• Guidelines:
  • Wallpapers need to be created in either of two sizes - 800x600 or 1024x768 (or both).
  • It is VERY IMPORTANT that entries be created in BMP format (for people to use as a wallpaper), then e-mailed to Teich Dragon in a WinZip condensed file. If you do not have WinZip already, then please visit their site HERE for a free evaluation version. NOTE that any submissions not in this format will not be accepted.
  • No advertising (such as website links) in the artwork, please.
• Entry: No purchase necessary. Limit one entry per person. The contest begins July 9, 2004 and ends August 1, 2004. All e!
  ntries must be received by 11:59 PM EST on August 1, 2004.
• Winner Selection: Winners will be selected by the TR Stratics staff. Each entry will be evaluated by the staff and after careful review, the top selections will be awarded. Winners will be notified via email and an announcement will also be made on the TR Stratics web site.
• Prizes: Official Tabula Rasa Posters (provided by NCSoft) for all Winners.
• Eligibility: This contest is open to all worldwide 18 and older. All Stratics Team Members and NCSoft not eligible. Void where prohibited by law.
• Conduct: By entering this Contest, you agree to be bound by these rules.
• Winners List: The name of the prize winners will be posted on the TR Stratics site.

Ultima Online, like many other games of recent, such as Magic: The Gathering, is planning to expand beyond the confines of the standard fiction and flavor of a medieval Western European society to include concepts and themes of an Asian origin. The Samurai Empire expansion, which will include a new landmass filled with new monsters and home to two new character classes -- samurai and ninja -- will be the second major deviation from traditional Western European medieval period. The first was the inclusion of technological based creatures and fiction from the previously cancelled project Ultima Online 2, which was bundled under the Lord Blackthorn's Revenge expansion pack.

As each year passes, Ultima Online must continue to grow and evolve in order to remain competitive with other games on the market as well as prevent the experience from becoming monotonous and lackluster. The addition of the Samurai Empire is a necessary step for the future success of Ultima Online as the limitation of an expanding product to a singular mythos will soon find the availability of original content scarce. The repetition of new landmass, monsters, and items without a major shift or addition to the features of the game will quickly leave players unimpressed and looking for another game. This expansion will provide the developers a fresh and untapped source of content on which to base future additions.

On Thursday, July 22 at 9AM PDT / 12PM EDT / 4PM UTC we will be bringing all worlds down to resolve a server issue. We expect the downtime to last no more than three hours. We apologize for this unscheduled outage.

Third Party Paradise has a new look, and a new home. http://tpp.arkayas.com

New Features
User Ratings for Plugins
User Comments for Plugins
Hot List (Top 5 Viewed Plugins)
Live RSS Feed
Live Atom Feed
6 Different Colour Schemes (So if you don't like one try another!)

Comming Soon!
Plugin Categories & Searching
A Logo Hopefully =)

Arkayas - TTP Admin
arkayas@hotmail.com
http://tpp.arkayas.com

Corrections and info
The Hunt for Granite
Trading days
Renegade Stronghold
Salvage Mules
Anal people
The Tour de France

I found that General Folsok was the hardest one to fight. I barely had to heal when fighting War Chief Amanua. General Folsok hits hard and forced me to heal numerous times during out fight.

As players got the rewards, they started porting out. This included the big hitters who used us to get to the reward. There was a risk of a wipe out. If some of the bigger hitters die, there tends to be a domino effect, and everyone dies.

William the bat was aware of this risk. He quickly organized our group to be more effective, and cutting the risk of a wipe out. After he asserted his leadership, the battle became much safer.


http://www.crackednuts.com/asheron/index.php3?journal=3

- Aun Ngationa will not currently give you an old-style Ebon Spine Harpoon, Virindi Scalpel, Elari Bow, or Crop if you hand in a new one. This may be resolved for August.

- Fanzen San returns the wrong translated version of the Blackened Tome. This should be fixed for August.

- The Biting Ballistae and Razorbound Flange should be hookable and are not. This should be fixed for August.

- The regeneration cantrip on the Adjanite Crown should not have the name "Adja's Blessing" as that name is used by an existing spell. It will likely be renamed for August.

- The Ultimate Singularity Atlatl is incorrectly named "Singularity Atlatl". This will be resolved for August.

- The Ultimate Singularity Scepters are unbalancing in PvP combat. We are working to find a good resolution to this.

- Blood Fiends infrequently drop a kite shield that cannot be identified. This is a bug, they should not be dropping this shield. The shield itself is AL40.

July known issues

- We are aware that many players are currently receiving Zone ticket authorization errors when trying to enter the game, and we are working on this to resolve it.

- Aun Ngationa will not currently give you an old-style Ebon Spine Harpoon, Virindi Scalpel, Elari Bow, or Crop if you hand in a new one. This may be resolved for August.


__________________
Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

This and That
Gaerlan
80+ Matron
Leeches
Dad Blab it
Harbinger
Tour de France

After we got together, Molcavian used the item to create the portal. He first warned us to watch for a black on black portal near the drop. It would be easy to wander into that portal and end your quest.

Molcavian asked if anyone knew the dungeon. The silence was deafening. It takes two groups to do the quest, because of a switch. Molcavian nominated me, Ivan and Hot-Shot to hold at the switch. He explained the route I would have to take. The description did not make sense to me, but I was willing to give it a shot.

He said, west, west, west, over a grate, down a ramp, and east, east, east. I was trying to figure out how I would go from west to west or east to east. I had to guess the passage would turn and you would always take the west route if there was a choice.

In any case, it all became moot. After a series of battles we got to a door. Molcavian sent a fellow tell saying to toss the switch. The only problem was, we were standing next to him at the time.



http://www.crackednuts.com/asheron/index.php3?journal=3

That's right, one contest for Turbine Nation just WASN'T ENOUGH.

Check out our new Make-a-Movie contest! Bust out your directing chops and video editing skills and see your creation on display in front of the entire Turbine Nation audience!


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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software