Year of the Dragon NPC Temporarily Disabled

[Bri]

We are working to re-enable Xatheral in the next day or so, more information later this afternoon most likely. We will also be making an NPC that will debut in a near future game update that will allow us to run more than one Year of the Dragon redemption at a time, so we'll be able to extend out the "Curate Your Xpack Cache" end date by a week and use that NPC for this and any future Year of the Dragon double redemption periods this year.

Thank you @Cordovan .

 

[The Narc]

Hopefully when the NPC gets fixed those that lost their monthly DDO points during the NPC shutdown will be recouped with their DDO points automatically.

If you or anyone you know falls into this class of people(those that did not receive their monthly points) please contact my by pm here. You may not be alone in this grievance that has happened to you.

 

[popejubal]

"Coding is too easy", says someone who I'm betting has never even tried to write computer code. It's not as easy as you are assuming. It's not just a matter of just changing a value in a database or flipping a switch. Even if any two sections of code are working fine on their own, they may interact in weird ways. And figuring out why it's doing that may not be easy. While working to learn coding and make a basic initial game, I coded a cube (stand in for eventual enemy model) to move from Point A to point B, turn 45 degrees left, reset, then 45 degrees right before resetting for "searching the area", then move back to Point A and do another turn left/turn right search.

Coding is easy. Coding is super easy.

Debugging is hard.

 

[droid327]

NPCeption

 

[Cordovan]

Hopefully when the NPC gets fixed those that lost their monthly DDO points during the NPC shutdown will be recouped with their DDO points automatically.

If you or anyone you know falls into this class of people(those that did not receive their monthly points) please contact my by pm here. You may not be alone in this grievance that has happened to you.

No VIPs lost their monthly DDO Points due to an issue with the Year of the Dragon NPC. If you did not receive the points you expected, please submit a ticket to Account Support here so they can resolve your issue: https://help.standingstonegames.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

 

[Kimbere]

Coding is easy. Coding is super easy.

Debugging is hard.

Coding and debugging aren't SSG's main problems (at least not in this regard). The lack of basic QA is what keeps burning them every update.

 

[The Narc]

No VIPs lost their monthly DDO Points due to an issue with the Year of the Dragon NPC. If you did not receive the points you expected, please submit a ticket to Account Support here so they can resolve your issue: https://help.standingstonegames.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Thanks all has been taken care off.

Thanks for the fast and courteous support.

 

[Sweyn]

Who are you arguing with? No one said they should be content with failure. Are you fighting strawmen or what?

I'm arguing with the two quoted messages below, which you would have identified if you had read this thread.

Sentiments such as "If anything succeeds you will be pleasantly surprised," "If you plan for failure any success is a win," and "Accepting success may be delayed, but never denied" demonstrate a contentment with failure. Success should be the norm, not the exception. Any success is a win?? A win is a product coming out under budget, ahead of schedule, performing better than expected, etc.... No business should be "pleasantly surprised" that they released something successful, that's the minimum standard. Now, failures do happen, and you might not be successful 100% of the time, but that doesn't mean the standard of success has to change to "OMG we succeeded?!? I'm so surprised!"

Does that answer your question?

So, for those of you who are complaining about repeated failures, to the point of even tracking how many there have been, why don't you plan for failure (or 'escapes' as the ex-CEO of Boeing called them). That way, if anything succeeds you will be pleasantly surprised. It would save you time in tracking failure points, typing comments on the forums and raising your blood pressure. The bottom line is that if SSG says they are going to give you something, over time they actually do give you something, especially free things. The world, or at least the US, follows a different perspective on QA and customer service. The customer is not always right, if some customers leave there are more coming in the door. It is often a risk/benefit ratio or cost of failure vs. cost of success. If you plan for failure any success is a win (other than for Boeing). >^*^<

Not necessarily expect failures, but plan for the possibility of failure wherein they would accept that failures occur, but get resolved. It's a matter of accepting that success may be delayed, but never denied.

 

[Sweyn]

Not waded through the entire thread yet, but this caught my attention.


I find it apparent that Sweyn hasn't played many MMOs over the years. An MMO this late in it's life is basically spaghetti code. It's the result of code being patched into existing code hundreds of times, at least. There will be unexpected interactions, bugs, and problems. The bugfix patches are as likely to introduce new bugs as they are to fix bugs without additional ones cropping up. Hell, the same bug may keep cropping up, getting fixed, and cropping up again later. City of Heroes had a long history of fixing a memory leak bug after every single content update. Sometimes multiple times. And one bug fix patch in CoH accidentally removed a door, trapping people in an enclosed area with some quest givers, or blocking them from reaching said quest givers.

And sometimes, a bug doesn't crop up at all in closed or open beta testing, only to rear it's ugly head once an update hits live servers due to the greater load the live servers are under.

Adding another teleport location to the Airship Captain without verifying that the text box is large enough is not a problem with the coding of an 18 year old game. It's incomplete work.

 

[cursedblessedone]

 

[cursedblessedone]

 

[mordek]

We are working to re-enable Xatheral in the next day or so, more information later this afternoon most likely. We will also be making an NPC that will debut in a near future game update that will allow us to run more than one Year of the Dragon redemption at a time, so we'll be able to extend out the "Curate Your Xpack Cache" end date by a week and use that NPC for this and any future Year of the Dragon double redemption periods this year.

So basically you are telling everyone "We expect there to be more major bugs in our Year of the Dragon"?

 

[KatzyBaby]

I'm arguing with the two quoted messages below, which you would have identified if you had read this thread.

Sentiments such as "If anything succeeds you will be pleasantly surprised," "If you plan for failure any success is a win," and "Accepting success may be delayed, but never denied" demonstrate a contentment with failure. Success should be the norm, not the exception. Any success is a win?? A win is a product coming out under budget, ahead of schedule, performing better than expected, etc.... No business should be "pleasantly surprised" that they released something successful, that's the minimum standard. Now, failures do happen, and you might not be successful 100% of the time, but that doesn't mean the standard of success has to change to "OMG we succeeded?!? I'm so surprised!"

Does that answer your question?

I guess I am just more tolerant of the vagaries of life. I didn't post to start any argument. You have your opinions and I have mine. I enjoy the game. I appreciate anything that is offered and given from the game and SSG. I understand that customers have every right to expect things to be done right the first time, but 'stuff' happens. It does not make the game any less fun for me. So, Sweyn, I'm sorry you feel that way about what I wrote and I hope that SSG will be able to meet your expectations. If not, well, you know what to do.

 

[Dementedleo1974]

I canceled my resub, I have tried to play on Sarlona, and took me 6 tries to login, finally got on and everything in my target bubble was a skelly or a wolf. Was funny since I played my Drood prior off different server.. Then switched to PM off another server. Finally got on Sarlona and My Lock had skelly and wolfs. Ohh well, After they fix this Ill redo my sub , just hope they fix fps and blurring issues and lag bursts.

 

[Dude]

I canceled my resub, I have tried to play on Sarlona, and took me 6 tries to login, finally got on and everything in my target bubble was a skelly or a wolf. Was funny since I played my Drood prior off different server.. Then switched to PM off another server. Finally got on Sarlona and My Lock had skelly and wolfs. Ohh well, After they fix this Ill redo my sub , just hope they fix fps and blurring issues and lag bursts.

That's tomorrow's downtime.

Update 67.2.1 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 67.2.1, released on Wednesday, May 1st, 2024.

www.ddo.com

 

[Yvonne Blacksword]

So they are trying to bring something new to the game and it has growing pains.
"...they are trying to bring something new to the game..."
"...they are trying to bring something new to the game..."
"...they are trying to bring something new to the game..."

 

[DDO Gaming]

I have a suggestion for SSG: in future instead of simply handing out freebie adventurepacks only to see a more aggressive gaming audience demand ever more freebies...why not create NPCs offering challenge tokens (similar to cannith) to new packs that aren;t available in VIP? That way gamers determined to "try before we buy" can at least try the new adventure pack using a challenge token before making any committment.

As always additional challenge tokens can be purchased from the DDO Store

 

[Sweyn]

I guess I am just more tolerant of the vagaries of life. I didn't post to start any argument. You have your opinions and I have mine. I enjoy the game. I appreciate anything that is offered and given from the game and SSG. I understand that customers have every right to expect things to be done right the first time, but 'stuff' happens. It does not make the game any less fun for me. So, Sweyn, I'm sorry you feel that way about what I wrote and I hope that SSG will be able to meet your expectations. If not, well, you know what to do.

I absolutely love this game as well, and post not to vent frustrations at SSG, but to promote a conversation to assess, learn, and improve from their failures. I’m not mad at all, and contrary to some peoples posts in this thread, my blood pressure is not elevated. Thoughtful debate of ideas is healthy.

It’s my opinion that arguments (if they are based on the content of people’s statements and not personal attacks) are good and healthy. My responses to your messages were disagreements with your statements, not personal attacks. It’s OK to disagree, and I’m not mad or anything. People are entitled to their opinions, and like I said, debates on those opinions are good.

In my line of work, I’ve learned a lot about creating a culture of excellence, self-assessment and improvement, and the importance of standards. Being able to admit you missed the bar on something, assess what caused it, and prevent its recurrence in the future is something that turns a functioning organization into a great one. Statements that other people have made here such as “it’s old spaghetti code and stuff is going to happen” do not promote a culture of excellence. Mistakes will always inevitably happen, but it’s how you view those mistakes and what you’re doing about them is what’s important.

I don’t fault SSG for making mistakes, I fault them for (from my perspective) not taking the time to assess the causes of their mistakes and improve upon them.

 

[ChaoticDrivel]

I absolutely love this game as well, and post not to vent frustrations at SSG, but to promote a conversation to assess, learn, and improve from their failures. I’m not mad at all, and contrary to some peoples posts in this thread, my blood pressure is not elevated. Thoughtful debate of ideas is healthy.

It’s my opinion that arguments (if they are based on the content of people’s statements and not personal attacks) are good and healthy. My responses to your messages were disagreements with your statements, not personal attacks. It’s OK to disagree, and I’m not mad or anything. People are entitled to their opinions, and like I said, debates on those opinions are good.

In my line of work, I’ve learned a lot about creating a culture of excellence, self-assessment and improvement, and the importance of standards. Being able to admit you missed the bar on something, assess what caused it, and prevent its recurrence in the future is something that turns a functioning organization into a great one. Statements that other people have made here such as “it’s old spaghetti code and stuff is going to happen” do not promote a culture of excellence. Mistakes will always inevitably happen, but it’s how you view those mistakes and what you’re doing about them is what’s important.

I don’t fault SSG for making mistakes, I fault them for (from my perspective) not taking the time to assess the causes of their mistakes and improve upon them.

Spot on with every point you made.

It's true that there has been a malaise in SSG's approach to DDO. Comfortable mediocrity. Content with 45% effort and then moving on to the next thing; all while recurring issues permeate.

The fact that DDO is an older game is a sorry excuse. There are even older MMO's with far more players.

But DDO has a lot going for it. There is yet tons of untapped potential. And we can help them achieve it, if they give us the chance.

I'm hoping they will do some much needed "spring cleaning" and return to the kind of quality they are capable of with Myth Drannor - because the recent trend in quest design, loot design, game mechanics, server performance, bugs etc. - leave a lot to be desired...

 

[DDO Gaming]

is there a simple way of discovering what adventur packs I possess? I didn;t even have a clue I have isle of dread