My Chronicles of Spellborn Photo Album

Typing one-handed while holding a baby is tough. So, here are some screen shots from my time in The Chronicles of Spellborn.

Heartless_ Father

9 months has already come and gone. I'm a father to a happy baby boy.

Recap: TCoS PvP Server Bug

To recap my previous post.

...there is one glaring problem right now: the fucking PvP server is not working and has not been working for the entire god damn weekend. No progress is saved, characters can't be created.

Now, I knew there was an issue earlier in the day, but thought it was only affecting me. Not until last night did I know it had been ongoing for nearly two days affecting all players on the TCoS PvP server.

The sad thing is that it took TCoS support until 2:36 AM this morning to post that they even heard about the issue.

We have received reports of Rollback on PvP Server and many more other bugs. We apologize for the delay and are looking into it. I'll update this post when the bug is fixed.

By 3:57 AM, the server was restored to normal working order. To recap: two days the server was broken, for something that took an hour (give or take) to resolve.

Yes, TCoS is F2P and being redesigned. Yes, I am bitching about it simply because there was no way to even notify the developers that there was a problem and no way to know they even knew there was a problem until way too much ill will was generated for their game.

Contrary to popular belief, I want MMOGs to succeed on all business models. TCoS has a chance to relaunch itself successfully and now is not the time for them to be letting the general player base down.

Acclaim: The Chronicles of Spellborn's PvP Server Has Been Broken For Two Days, Please Fix It

I've started to play The Chronicles of Spellborn (TCoS) recently as it went full free to play (F2P) (with no strings attached until they rebuild the game). I'm actually enjoying myself.

So, the game is completely free right now as the developers figure out how to convert the game into a profitable F2P title. As a free game, TCoS is not that bad. Its not something I would ever consider paying $50 + $15 monthly for, but as a micro-transaction game, I would spend a few dollars here and there.

However, there is one glaring problem right now: the fucking PvP server is not working and has not been working for the entire god damn weekend. No progress is saved, characters can't be created. Every time someone logs in, they are at the same point they were at the last login. Unlucky are the few that logged in unaware, spent hours playing, only to log back in later and find every last second spent logged in previously was erased from the record book.

I am aware that I am paying nothing for this game and the support is going to be lackluster. However, it was not that long ago that people were ACTUALLY PAYING TO PLAY THIS GAME.

All I am asking for is a post or whisper from Acclaim stating that they at least KNOW there is a problem. Right now, there is nothing but confused and angry players re-rolling characters on the PvE server (which is working). There is no known way to contact the TCoS developers to make sure they are aware of the problem.

Please, not for me, but for the people that actually paid for this game previously, post this news and get the word out so Acclaim and the TCoS developers can get this fixed.

UPDATE: 24 Aug, 2009 - I guess a support tech came into work this morning and noticed the network cable to the database server was unplugged, because the PvP server appears to have returned to normal as of 8 AM EST when I was able to successfully create a new character.

New Star Wars:The Old Republic Videos: Same Old Crap Part I

IGN is sporting four new videos for Star Wars: The Old Republic, totaling 20 minutes of footage. Most of the footage is from in-game, showing off SW:ToR's combat and voice acting. Unfortunately, holding the same as every single video Bioware has released for SW:ToR, the developers in the video say one thing and then show something else.

Here is the first video.

What Bioware says:

"the action packed Star Wars combat"
"we want to make sure combat feels heroic from the beginning"

What the Video shows:

A bounty hunter crouching behind a rock and tree blindly shooting blaster bolts and rockets through solid objects at NPCs that stand there and take it like a bitch, all while the NPCs five feet to the left ignore the fact that their comrades are being killed.

From the video footage, their idea of heroic is "fighting two guys at once". I'm not quite sure that fits my idea of heroic. Personally, a heroic situation comes from more than just the number of enemies involved. It comes from the entire sum of the scenario. This could have passed as Heroic if the NPCs around the area reacted to the fact a bounty hunter just walked in and started blasting random members of their team, culminating in maybe a wall mounted blaster cannon taking aim at the bounty hunter, truly forcing the jet pack equipped bounty hunter to take to the sky and unleash a precisely-fired rocket to take down the cannon.

That would be HEROIC. Standing still, shooting NPCs that are also standing still, is not.

Part I score: 2.5 out of 5 stars

The only thing that looks interesting is the voice acting and story driven nature. The combat still looks terribly boring and formulaic. An additional half star for the cover system which looks interesting.