K
Kharok Svark
Guest
Friday News on the double !
[2003-30-05]
In this week's Friday News you'll find a summary of the E3 meeting, specific information about the release of the next expansions, some good news for the Brocéliande server, new background texts and finally a few tips to help protect your account.
Summary of the E3 show :
We promised you a summary of the journey to E3 and it's Thomas Bidaux aka « Camber » our correspondent with Mythic who tells the story.
As you all probably know, we made our way to the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Exposition) again this year, and it was a good occasion to meet the Mythic teams once more and talk face-to-face about the future of the game, difficulties we might encounter as well as upcoming projects and implications on both sides. We were very warmly greeted by all the teams present.
I cannot give all the details of the discussions that took place, but we still want to tell you about the subjects most relevant to the community, which were approached :
Foundations :
The free Dark Age of Camelot expansion. Foundations is still undergoing testing at this time. An open test should take place in the United States soon, foreseeing a release for mid-June. It is hard to list all the possibilities that will be available to customize your house due to the sheer number of them. Among the more interesting points, know that it will be possible for us to set the prices differently according to server.
Atlantis :
The payable expansion now known under the acronym ToA was presented for the first time to the public during the show. I can't really reveal everything that we talked about (*cough* new races *cough*) but I can say that I was very impressed with the quality of the graphics the new ground textures bring. I will not repeat what journalists have already written since the end of E3 except that this expansion is really « very » promising both on the technical side and content for everyone.
Chronicles :
This was obviously an important discussion at the end of which no short term solution was obtained. The current aim is to move as quickly as possible to version 1.62 (which should go live in the US next week.)
Specific problems related to European servers :
I was quite surprised about this point as it was brought up before I could even mention it. The people at Mythic follow quite closely everything unusual on our servers. The delay there can be for the correction of certain bugs, be those on the US servers, European ones or others, is not always as short as can first seem, certain bugs being more difficult to fix than you would think. Nevertheless the system put in place over the last 9 months to track down the source of some problems has proved its worth and we will carry on in this direction. This brings me to the next point.
The Team Leader program :
Recently, the Team Leader program put in place by Mythic was reassessed and it is currently going through some great changes. One of the objectives is to render the system more structured. Making the most of this occasion, we are going to explore with Mythic in what way our work on Dark Age of Camelot can contribute to this program. There will be no volunteer European Team Leaders like in the US, but we have already discussed several ways in which to enrich the Team Leader program and at the same time highlight some problems which are more specific to the European servers.
Derived merchandise :
We have up to now not had any prolonged discussions concerning the sale of derived Dark Age of Camelot products in Europe. Following the success of the game, we now have the go ahead with the principle from Mythic. You will not see them arrive in the immediate future, as many variables that need to be settled still remain. We will keep you posted as to the progression of this project.
These are but the main points, the rest needs more ample discussions between our teams.
Upcoming Expansions :
We announced a few weeks ago the first estimated release dates of the next 3 expansion packs on the European servers. These estimations still hold except for the RvR expansion. From what we found in our meetings with Mythic at E3, the free expansion dedicated to RvR will not be released in the US before Trials of Atlantis but after. This means that our estimation of December 2003 for this expansion was incorrect. We are unable to tell you anything more precise at this time, as Mythic hasn't released a released a date for this expansion yet. As of today, here is the preliminary planning :
Foundations (free expansion for « Housing ») : start of academic year 2003
Trials of Atlantis (payable expansion like Shrouded Isles) : first quarter 2004
Free RvR expansion : date of release unknown yet.
Servers :
For several weeks now several zones of Shrouded Isles on Broceliande/Hibernia have been experiencing strange lag and other irregular yet frequent « freezing » in the game. The problem was finally isolated and resolved last Monday. Since then the situation has returned to normal. A big thank you to all those who provided us with precise timing of these « freezes », the collection of information to discover the source of the problem was greatly eased by this.
Animation and Background :
Two new texts arrive in the Universe section on the official site. The first brings to light several personalities of Camelot, and the second brings a very interesting insight into Kobold customs. All the texts founds in the Universe section of the official website are there to provide a complement of information on the game and its realms, and to facilitate the immersion into the world of DAoC. If you have not yet discovered these texts, now is the moment to do so. The texts are called Personalities of Camelot and Tribal Council.
Security and Protection of your Account :
Not a week goes by without us receiving a demand from a player stating that their account has been « hacked ». After an inquiry, we find that in the vast majority of the cases, the theft of the account details was caused due to a too great a negligence on the part of the player. By choosing to play an online game you should know that there are risks, but these risks can be minimized easily by taking some elementary precautions. Read what follows carefully and don't hesitate to let your friends and guild know.
Never EVER give your password to someone, be they friend, guild master, little brother, or someone working on DAoC. Never give it out. Don't put it into a text file on your desktop. Print it out and keep it in a safe place or even better, memorize it.
Get a capable anti-virus which can scan in the background all executions of files.
Install a firewall, which will monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to your PC. Windows XP has a built in firewall, consider activating it if you run XP.
If you play in a public place be particularly vigilant, some nasty evil people are able to install programs which record all the keystrokes made on your computer, and can therefore retrieve your password. Make sure you play in a place protected by a solid security protocol.
Be wary of the programs you can find on forums, linked to the game and which are developed by people you don't know. You have no guaranties that these programs do not contain Trojan type viruses, which has happened to several players. If in doubt, don't use them or if you do, use them on another pc than the one you play on.
Don't buy second hand accounts. For one it is forbidden, and secondly a person could easily rip you off as they posses all the passwords to that account.
In any case, if you have any doubts as to the security of your password, go to the official website and get it changed as quickly as possible.
As to the subscription password now. This one should be protected especially. This password proves that your are the legitimate owner of the account and as its name suggests, it is used to control the subscription and payment. Do NOT leave it on your PC, print it and put it in a safe place. If you lose it, we can return it to you by email if you write to subscription@goa.com it's your responsebility to make sure that the details you gave us when you subscribed are correct. Also, if you move house, remember to edit your address by going to the Account section.
Support notice :
On a last notice, you may experience some delays in the English support department for the next few days. The high priority problems such as stuck characters and other gamestopping issues should see no difference, but lower priority problem smay experience delays. This is due to internal rotations and should only last a few days.
That will be all for today, have a good weekend, good playing and see you next Friday for another news.
[2003-30-05]
In this week's Friday News you'll find a summary of the E3 meeting, specific information about the release of the next expansions, some good news for the Brocéliande server, new background texts and finally a few tips to help protect your account.
Summary of the E3 show :
We promised you a summary of the journey to E3 and it's Thomas Bidaux aka « Camber » our correspondent with Mythic who tells the story.
As you all probably know, we made our way to the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Exposition) again this year, and it was a good occasion to meet the Mythic teams once more and talk face-to-face about the future of the game, difficulties we might encounter as well as upcoming projects and implications on both sides. We were very warmly greeted by all the teams present.
I cannot give all the details of the discussions that took place, but we still want to tell you about the subjects most relevant to the community, which were approached :
Foundations :
The free Dark Age of Camelot expansion. Foundations is still undergoing testing at this time. An open test should take place in the United States soon, foreseeing a release for mid-June. It is hard to list all the possibilities that will be available to customize your house due to the sheer number of them. Among the more interesting points, know that it will be possible for us to set the prices differently according to server.
Atlantis :
The payable expansion now known under the acronym ToA was presented for the first time to the public during the show. I can't really reveal everything that we talked about (*cough* new races *cough*) but I can say that I was very impressed with the quality of the graphics the new ground textures bring. I will not repeat what journalists have already written since the end of E3 except that this expansion is really « very » promising both on the technical side and content for everyone.
Chronicles :
This was obviously an important discussion at the end of which no short term solution was obtained. The current aim is to move as quickly as possible to version 1.62 (which should go live in the US next week.)
Specific problems related to European servers :
I was quite surprised about this point as it was brought up before I could even mention it. The people at Mythic follow quite closely everything unusual on our servers. The delay there can be for the correction of certain bugs, be those on the US servers, European ones or others, is not always as short as can first seem, certain bugs being more difficult to fix than you would think. Nevertheless the system put in place over the last 9 months to track down the source of some problems has proved its worth and we will carry on in this direction. This brings me to the next point.
The Team Leader program :
Recently, the Team Leader program put in place by Mythic was reassessed and it is currently going through some great changes. One of the objectives is to render the system more structured. Making the most of this occasion, we are going to explore with Mythic in what way our work on Dark Age of Camelot can contribute to this program. There will be no volunteer European Team Leaders like in the US, but we have already discussed several ways in which to enrich the Team Leader program and at the same time highlight some problems which are more specific to the European servers.
Derived merchandise :
We have up to now not had any prolonged discussions concerning the sale of derived Dark Age of Camelot products in Europe. Following the success of the game, we now have the go ahead with the principle from Mythic. You will not see them arrive in the immediate future, as many variables that need to be settled still remain. We will keep you posted as to the progression of this project.
These are but the main points, the rest needs more ample discussions between our teams.
Upcoming Expansions :
We announced a few weeks ago the first estimated release dates of the next 3 expansion packs on the European servers. These estimations still hold except for the RvR expansion. From what we found in our meetings with Mythic at E3, the free expansion dedicated to RvR will not be released in the US before Trials of Atlantis but after. This means that our estimation of December 2003 for this expansion was incorrect. We are unable to tell you anything more precise at this time, as Mythic hasn't released a released a date for this expansion yet. As of today, here is the preliminary planning :
Foundations (free expansion for « Housing ») : start of academic year 2003
Trials of Atlantis (payable expansion like Shrouded Isles) : first quarter 2004
Free RvR expansion : date of release unknown yet.
Servers :
For several weeks now several zones of Shrouded Isles on Broceliande/Hibernia have been experiencing strange lag and other irregular yet frequent « freezing » in the game. The problem was finally isolated and resolved last Monday. Since then the situation has returned to normal. A big thank you to all those who provided us with precise timing of these « freezes », the collection of information to discover the source of the problem was greatly eased by this.
Animation and Background :
Two new texts arrive in the Universe section on the official site. The first brings to light several personalities of Camelot, and the second brings a very interesting insight into Kobold customs. All the texts founds in the Universe section of the official website are there to provide a complement of information on the game and its realms, and to facilitate the immersion into the world of DAoC. If you have not yet discovered these texts, now is the moment to do so. The texts are called Personalities of Camelot and Tribal Council.
Security and Protection of your Account :
Not a week goes by without us receiving a demand from a player stating that their account has been « hacked ». After an inquiry, we find that in the vast majority of the cases, the theft of the account details was caused due to a too great a negligence on the part of the player. By choosing to play an online game you should know that there are risks, but these risks can be minimized easily by taking some elementary precautions. Read what follows carefully and don't hesitate to let your friends and guild know.
Never EVER give your password to someone, be they friend, guild master, little brother, or someone working on DAoC. Never give it out. Don't put it into a text file on your desktop. Print it out and keep it in a safe place or even better, memorize it.
Get a capable anti-virus which can scan in the background all executions of files.
Install a firewall, which will monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to your PC. Windows XP has a built in firewall, consider activating it if you run XP.
If you play in a public place be particularly vigilant, some nasty evil people are able to install programs which record all the keystrokes made on your computer, and can therefore retrieve your password. Make sure you play in a place protected by a solid security protocol.
Be wary of the programs you can find on forums, linked to the game and which are developed by people you don't know. You have no guaranties that these programs do not contain Trojan type viruses, which has happened to several players. If in doubt, don't use them or if you do, use them on another pc than the one you play on.
Don't buy second hand accounts. For one it is forbidden, and secondly a person could easily rip you off as they posses all the passwords to that account.
In any case, if you have any doubts as to the security of your password, go to the official website and get it changed as quickly as possible.
As to the subscription password now. This one should be protected especially. This password proves that your are the legitimate owner of the account and as its name suggests, it is used to control the subscription and payment. Do NOT leave it on your PC, print it and put it in a safe place. If you lose it, we can return it to you by email if you write to subscription@goa.com it's your responsebility to make sure that the details you gave us when you subscribed are correct. Also, if you move house, remember to edit your address by going to the Account section.
Support notice :
On a last notice, you may experience some delays in the English support department for the next few days. The high priority problems such as stuck characters and other gamestopping issues should see no difference, but lower priority problem smay experience delays. This is due to internal rotations and should only last a few days.
That will be all for today, have a good weekend, good playing and see you next Friday for another news.
