Gamebreaking bug - beware

[Ombe]

I'm going to go post (again) in the SOE tech. support forums since none of my petitions are getting any responses but...

I've tried to tolerate the myriad of bugs, issues, etc. etc. and even though all my friends quit, I thought I'd play and convince them to come back eventually.

Well, now my character seems to be literally stuck between two states - one where he was level 16 and another where he is level 17. I have screenshots with timestamps (using /time in game in chat window) less than 2 minutes apart, etc. (see below).

I play on the RP preferred server and had quite a few people with me tonight in groups who saw me at 17 and I'm almost half way to 18.

But suddenly it will just throw me to the character selection screen. I log back in and I'm in a different part of the world back at 16. Log out and come back in, back at 17.

Needless to say this has erroded all confidence in the game for obvious reasons. I think the only thing worse is getting no response at all, even a "we're busy, we will get to you _sometime_ soon" or "we know about the issue, don't play until we correct the data integrity issues on our servers", etc.

I can't find a number to call but if no support via my email/positings on tech support forum/petition, it's time for me to hang up my boots on this one and wish you all good luck.

BTW, anyone know what their support number even is? I can't find it, even in my game box.

I think my days of trying to defend this game are slowly drawing to a close :(

I've tried to have a really good attitude and keep my hopes in stride but I think something clicked the wrong way now for how I feel.

If this happens to you, don't spend any more time playing because you are basically losing your progress in both scenarios (either time warp).

[Shawnsan]

I'm going to go post (again) in the SOE tech. support forums since none of my petitions are getting any responses but...

I've tried to tolerate the myriad of bugs, issues, etc. etc. and even though all my friends quit, I thought I'd play and convince them to come back eventually.

Well, now my character seems to be literally be stuck between two states - one where he was level 16 and another where he is level 17. I have screenshots with timestamps less than 2 minutes apart, etc. (see below).

I play on the RP preferred server and had quite a few people with me tonight in groups who saw me at 17 and I'm almost half way to 18.

But suddenly it will just throw me to the character selection screen. I log back in and I'm in a different part of the world back at 16. Log out and come back in, back at 17.

Needless to say this has erroded all confidence in the game for obvious reasons. I think the only thing worse is getting no response at all, even a "we're busy, we will get to you _sometime_ soon" or "we know about the issue, don't play until we correct the data integrity issues on our servers", etc.

I can't find a number to call but if no support by tomorrow via my email/positings on tech support forum/petition, it's time for me to hang up my boots on this one and wish you all good luck.

Anyone know what their support number is?

I think my days of trying to defend this game are slowly drawing to a close :(

I've tried to have a really good attitude and keep my hopes in stride but I think something clicked the wrong way now for how I feel.

If this happens to you, don't spend any more time playing because you are basically losing your progress in both scenarios (either time warp).


*yikes* I'd have cried rollback if they weren't only 20minutes apart and I know the servers were down for longer than that when they brought them down!:o

[Chae668]

its cause your a gnome. they sneaky. bite ankles, hide behind trees or the littlest of pebbles.

[vixxxen69]

Don't worry a few nights ago i logged on with a character from Gulgeroth and was on my Thoridin server(PvP), same named character from a PvE sever, i actually killed a few people. logged on this morning and my character was back on Gugeroth, i am sure you will log back in after next server reset and things back to normal.

[Ombe]

*yikes* I'd have cried rollback if they weren't only 20minutes apart and I know the servers were down for longer than that when they brought them down!:o


I couldn't. My confidence would be far too eroded.

I've done my part trying to support them. Will be interesting to see how it's returned ;) I think that will decide if my continued support is warranted...

BTW, I build software systems for a living (business, not gaming). What scares me most is trying to understand their data model and system architecture that could allow this to possibly happen. The only thing that makes sense is they are having an issue with live-live replication and each time I log in, it's hitting one instance or another.

And I mean I can literally log out, log back in, and I'm toggling between 16 and 17. This isn't like I lost some work or got rolled back and that is that. I'm literally bouncing every 5-10 minutes between level 16 and 17 snapshots. It's quite a scary bug to be sure.

*sigh* :)

[Isobel]

The same thing happened to the tank in my group tongiht. He Lost his connection and when he got back he was back at Neemsong, we were in The Hive and he'd lost 40% of his XP.

[Elrar]

Hey folks,

We're aware of this issue, however, characters are not actually losing data, they just seem to be reverting to a previous state, however, and foward progress made on the character is still available.

Generally relogging or restarting your computer will fix this issue. We're working on a permanent solution now.

Thank you for your patience ;)

[kingofsleep]

Exacly the same thing happend to me. Logged off, logged back on later, I was exactly where I was when I logged out last night. Same place, same XP, same possessions. All that work and all that shiny new armor; gone. I could almost cry.

[Ombe]

*yikes* I'd have cried rollback if they weren't only 20minutes apart and I know the servers were down for longer than that when they brought them down!:o

Hey folks,

We're aware of this issue, however, characters are not actually losing data, they just seem to be reverting to a previous state, however, and foward progress made on the character is still available.

Generally relogging or restarting your computer will fix this issue. We're working on a permanent solution now.

Thank you for your patience ;)


Thank you for a response!

Just for the record, I've been testing things. I can literally log in and out and with 100% consistency (I've rebooted also numerous time), it literally toggles me from 16 to 17 each time.

The part that is the same is that the inventory, quests etc. are the same between the two "states" but the XP and level are different. I forgot to check skills so I cannot comment on that but I guess if this is a known issue and forward progress will be kept, I'm happy.

At least in my instance of toggling back and forth, I'm not sure which personality to play and which is kept but for now I'll go spend time with the Fiancee before I get more aggro there.

For the record: THANKS for the quick reply. I really appreciate it and I'm sure others who might have the same data issue will appreciate as well.

[GelatinousOwen]

How are bugs this serious around a week after launch? Has anything this serious happened in eq2 or WoW at launch?

[MLecl0001]

How are bugs this serious around a week after launch? Has anything this serious happened in eq2 or WoW at launch?

I dont know about the EQ2 launch, but I do about the WoW launch. I will tell you that even if there was a bug this bad at WoW launch no one would have known anyways because no one was playing because the servers were down so much.

[Isobel]

How are bugs this serious around a week after launch? Has anything this serious happened in eq2 or WoW at launch?

Yes. The looting bug that stopped your charcter dead while bent over unable to do anything while mobs ate you at WoW launch springs to mind. The exact same bug as this current one wherein you would log on and have lost a level or, as in my case, three. It's early days people. It sucks but it's common in MMOs.

[Bounder]

Heh, yeah, first week of WoW I got a gutache one day watching an entire guild go sliding by down the road and into town all bent over in the loot pose, it would have made a great video :) A couple of them were sliding around on the ground as corpses, dead but able to travel, all kinds of things can happen with these games unexpectedly.

The good part is communication, just hearing that something is known and they are whipping the gnomes to work hard on it helps greatly. Order more pizzas for the gnome debuggers, long shifts ahead!

[dhakkel]

EQ2 was just as bad. Groups aggroing from miles away, running through trees and mountains to get at you, running at 500% (making running away impossible), and if you finally do kill them not being able to loot them springs to mind.

And I love how that WoW bug is still in game sometimes :D.

So yeah, all mmos have bugs just this terrible. I thought people knew not to play new mmorpgs if they weren't ready to lose all their progress at the drop of a hat :D?

[Isobel]

Also, aggro FISH! Fish that would follow you on land to the zone line.

[Greydog]

Same thing happened to me last night with a newly created character. It wouldn't let me stay logged in and when I did log in it would randomly put me at some point I had reached in one of the previous login try's.

SV ...maybe you could point a dev to this thread!

[Fozzik]

Same thing happened to me last night with a newly created character. It wouldn't let me stay logged in and when I did log in it would randomly put me at some point I had reached in one of the previous login try's.

SV ...maybe you could point a dev to this thread!

That would be Elrar... he's a Sigilite (notice the green name) and posted on the first page. Sigil is aware of the issue.

[imready2go]

Also, aggro FISH! Fish that would follow you on land to the zone line.

I forgot about those fish. That was actually funny rather than gamebreaking though - watching people run across the countryside with fish snapping at their heels.

[Swayde]

Yes. The looting bug that stopped your charcter dead while bent over unable to do anything while mobs ate you at WoW launch springs to mind. The exact same bug as this current one wherein you would log on and have lost a level or, as in my case, three. It's early days people. It sucks but it's common in MMOs.

The loot issue really was not a bug. It was piss-poor planning that resulted in inadequate hardware to support the demand.

As far as the same bug that the OP posted on...well I was in WoW for beta and at launch and I never heard of it. It must have been very isolated or the forums would have been flooded and with the lag and downtime there was plenty of time for forum surfing.

For Vanguard, it was to be expected. Everyone I know knew that playing at launch was essentially paying for and playing the next phase of beta. I sympathize with the OP. It's a scary bug to be sure. I probably would have cried as someone else mentioned too if this happend to me. As it is, some of the other bugs have been hindering me enough to make me want to reconsider my future investment, but the bottom line is that this is a fun game inspite of the bugs. Hopefully it makes enough revenue for the team to remain working on it as steadily as they have been to fix everything and then start to add in more of the features that didn't make the cut for release.

[Clavain]

Of course in Vanguard we have mutant fish that walk and land and really will chase you down over the landscape! :D

I had a similar issue to this last night. I was not stuck between two states but it sounds like a related problem. I died and when back at the altar it said I had no corpse to retrieve even though it did show on my map. I was then cut out to the character selection screen. I logged back in but was in a completely random place in that area between two rocks with no invulnerability timer and some bone walkers killed me. I tried again at the altar to get my corpse and it pulled an empty corpse to me. Not good since all my items were still missing. It then cut me back to character select again and I relogged and my tombstone was still on my map from where I died the first time so I went after it with the help of two anklebiting gnomes. I'm never going to live that one down. *sigh* But the tombstone was not where specified on the map and where I had actually died the first time. Soooo my items are still gone, I petitioned it, hoping they can do something as I lost all my newbie diplomacy reward items among other things :(

Also... after my first or second death, I forget which now, my skin changed from the black leopard Kura skin to the tiger one. This has happened before once or twice since launch and usually a recall or death will fix it. Oddly enough, this time around, it had actually changed on the character select screen as well and needed to be switched back.

Anyways, thank you Sigil for working so hard to get these things fixed and please find a way to return my meager possessions to me =)

[jones5414]

I dont know about the EQ2 launch, but I do about the WoW launch. I will tell you that even if there was a bug this bad at WoW launch no one would have known anyways because no one was playing because the servers were down so much.

The WoW servers where never down as much as you are implying. Stop trying to shift the focus away from a extremely premature launch of VG so something else. WoW has never had this severe of an issue. It's a shame Sigil was running out of money and had to launch when they did. I hope they can recover.

[Darkat]

How are bugs this serious around a week after launch? Has anything this serious happened in eq2 or WoW at launch?

AHHHH thanks for clearing this up!
I kept getting kicked to login and re-logging to find myself back at a city, lost all my XP gained BUT still wearing my armour etc...

I figured I'd dropped out and died before I managed to log back in and this has been happening a lot so I just carried on, didn't realise it was an active bug.

Look forward to the fix!.#

As for did EQ2 have these bugs, yes, all games have bugs especially around launch, in EQ2 you had mobs meleeing you from 200 miles away or clipping through floors and walls etc and hitting you but you couldn't hit back and it made certain areas no go zones as you would get eaten by mobs you couldn't attack.

Don't even get me started on the Land Sharks, unlootable corpses or clipping mobs chain aggroing entire zones!

Characters would vanish from your list of toons for days at a time and you'd get groups of mobs randomly teleporting around the place, was a fun few months at launch =p

[Darkat]

Also... after my first or second death, I forget which now, my skin changed from the black leopard Kura skin to the tiger one. This has happened before once or twice since launch and usually a recall or death will fix it. Oddly enough, this time around, it had actually changed on the character select screen as well and needed to be switched back.


That happens to my Black Kura all the time.
I often login to find I've turned into a Brown Kura...a death or re-log fixes it.
I don't remember ever going from black to brown though, just being the wrong skin on login.

At first I thought I had messed up in Character creation and went to delete the toon and start over but saw he was indeed black 0_o.
(and I also found out then that you can change your toons appearance after creation even if you've played them which is fantastic ^_^ - Shame I can't steal of other playes a la UO, free Disguise kits!!!)

[Adagia]

Well here's my story (of Ada, the 7 warrior on Florendyl) of last night's troubles.

After the reset I logged on, died, (cause the reset happened unannounced while I was in the Ra'Jin Stronghold), recovered, and moved to the Final Jin quests.

I visited Garu (I think that's the NPC's name), and while speaking with him, a quest mob that folks summon during one of the tests, started beating on me. I tried to target and fight back, but I got an invalid target message. I ran out of the room and thought I lost him.

I went outside and summoned my own version of that mob and fought it. Midway the bugged one came back out and beat on me some more. I killed mine, then the bugged one killed me.

OK, at the altar, ran to my tombstone and tried to loot it. It said it was an invalid tombstone. Most of my stuff was on that stone. I at least still had a weapon in my hande (7 warrior) and some pants. I logged off and came back. I found myself now back in the quest giver's room with all my stuff. Hmm, well, yay!

I picked up all my quests again, redid the thought one, and went outside. There was my tombstone from before. Being too curious, I tried to loot it. It didn't have anything on it, nor exp, but it did crash me.

When I logged in again, I was back in the state from before I died to the bugged mob, only now my tombstone didn't even exist. Sigh.

OK, she's only level 7, I can recover. It's not worth the hassle of petitioning, emailing, etc. So I headed out to finish the Final Steps quest series. With my husband's help, a little over an hour later I finished the series and was level 10. I went to town and trained. I visited the broker and bought new equipment. Now I was looking like a proper warrior again - yay! Logged off and went to bed.

This morning I logged on, and found myself back at level 7 again, at the point right after the bugged mob killed me. No tombstone, no gear, not exp. :( I logged off again and back, still level 7. No toggling back and forth for me, just lost last night's efforts and purchases.

I'm not a very happy warrior. I'm going to do a test and gain one level, then log off and back and see what happens. There is a limit of how many times I'm willing to rebuild my character. At this stage I might just want to reroll entirely.

[Hoarder]

At this point I'm ready to kick myself in the head for paying for 3 months. I understand startup bugs but wow is this aggravating. Games are supposed to relieve stress, not induce it.

Luckily all MMORPG I've started were around a year or more before I got into them. People shouldn't have to pay for buggy software when it comes out, but hey, I guess Microsoft can do it to us, so everyone else can too.

[Adagia]

Hmm, logged off again - saw my character select screen said level 7 warrior. I logged in and I'm back in Tanvu at level 10 with all my new gear. It looks like I have the toggle bug the OP has. I'm going to cross my fingers that any progress I make as this level 10 will not get lost in the long term.

Yes, this is frustrating, but the bottom line is, I'm still quite entertained by Vanguard. The bug will get fixed, and the time lost relative to the overall time I expect to play it is very small. My post is mostly here to add data for the devs to help them see the need to fix, and perhaps give clues to the problem so they can fix it. Life is full of setbacks. You can dwell on them, or you can brush yourself off and move on. Since this is a mere game, the brushing off is even easier.

[Elyan]

I love the game even with the bugs its beautiful. I have seen a few bugs. my DE friend came to kojan to party with me (12 desciple) and was killed by a Caial Brael guard. the guard then disappeared so I rezzed him and he died in from an invisible enemy in 2 hits. so he ran back to the corpse and the guard appeared and killed him again. by this time I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. he then came back and I was able to keep him healed long enough to pull the guard away from his 3 tombstones. good times in VG. I will remember that for a while. very entertaining.

[Fingis]

I will tell you that even if there was a bug this bad at WoW launch no one would have known anyways because no one was playing because the servers were down so much.

WoW was so popular that the servers were taxed. The popularity took everyone by surprise even Blizz.

Blizz should've turned people away.

[Ombe]

At this point I'm ready to kick myself in the head for paying for 3 months. I understand startup bugs but wow is this aggravating. Games are supposed to relieve stress, not induce it.

Luckily all MMORPG I've started were around a year or more before I got into them. People shouldn't have to pay for buggy software when it comes out, but hey, I guess Microsoft can do it to us, so everyone else can too.


Checked this morning before going off to work and it is still toggling me back and forth between 16 and 17. Literally like I'm connecting to two different databases each time.

The best part is someone cleared my petition and no email or in game mail response ;)

Yeah I paid for 3 months too but I've done this before - I called my credit card company to revoke the charges and supply the reasons why - and it held. I actually got all my money back.

I've played since Meridian 59 / UO and this one is by far the scariest in the sense of the data integrity. Maybe I should have listened to my friends :P

But, they said they would fix it and forward progress will not be lost.

I'll check when I return from work today...

P.S. Even though if fixed, I will still try and support this game unless the bugs really do turn me away finally but what I will say it's not a good state of affairs when we have to compare the problems here to other games for justification.

My fiancee's mom runs her own business and although smaller than a few of her competitors, she is always written up in magazines and does work with the largest studios as well for the quality of their product.

I don't think her 'subscribers' would stay around long if she said "Bah! That isn't a defect, hell you should see what XYZ company had when they first tried to produce their product!" She is indeed recognized becuase of the high quality of their product, customer communication and care, and industry excellence.

I'm just suprised (upset) they would delete the petition again without even a generic boilerplate response we hate so much. Anything. I've heard others complaining of this too but not until you're stuck does it frustrate you. In mean time, I guess I'll go see what my 63 spells have to hold for me...

[N0rdic Ninja]

Wow, I've yet to experience anything as bad as the stories here XD. The worst I've gotten is getting stuck in random places, I've fallen through rocks multiple times and got stuck inside of them =P. And also having the mobs teleport a random distance away in the middle of a fight, and they wont come back to you until you force them to move (i.e. you start moving yourself). But those bugs are far from game breaking, a simple /stuck will fix my biggest issue, I guess I've just gotten lucky so far.

[Geldoff]

Yeah thats a pretty nasty bug and I agree that no response is terrible customer service (it is really a result of the mechanics behind how they process those requests). In fairness to Sigil however, it is all to common customer service now a days and not only in terms of games, but in the software business as a whole. Its a sad state and certainly Sigil is part of the problem not part of the solution here, but they are hardly alone and certainly not the first to invent the "ghost support" theory of customer service.

[Adagia]

A new update to my little saga. I went ahead and continued to play as my level 10 self. I got in a group, fought, died once, continued, died again... this time when I went to loot my tombstone my old stuff appeared! It was so bizarre. I suddenly had full bags and not totally looted tombstone. I had both my new and my old gear now. A trip to a merchant, the broker, and the bank... now I have room again, and was able to loot the rest of my TS. I now have the best of the gear between the 2 sets, and I'm moving on. Now we'll see if later relogs puts me back at 7 or 10.

[Melios]

Oh boy, there's probably going to be some major downtime soon......

[Ombe]

Oh boy, there's probably going to be some major downtime soon......


BTW, someone asked me in a Private Message why I would stick around with these type of issues, etc.

Good question. I assume you are not playing and just following the game so it's harder to explain if you are not on the inside so to speak.

Although my patience now is definitely waning, the community has been great and that is part of why I'm trying to still find enjoyment and hope with the problems but also...

...I got an email from Brad WAY back in EQ1 beta, phase 3.

Back then, I was someone who loved fantasy gaming as much as I do now and came from a background of text MUDS (hi to the rest of you old timers :P).

Brad had posted something on a message board and in it he mentioned MUDS so I was like "Cool! I knew that is where some of the design ideas from EQ1 came from or at least leveraged" and I thought I'd send him a message via the forums with my email address.

He wrote back. I saved the email too since I save many gaming memories for fun including my graph paper maps of some old MUD zones.

He seemed to have a ranger on Sojourn mud and I played a sorcerer there although never met his character in game. However, I thought it was cool that here was someone else passionate about fantasy gaming and although he was in a different industry than me, I was able to relate and of course almost wished I was designing games.

BTW, Sojourn, Arctic, and Jedi MUD FTW! (yes, even Jedi mud - rememeber the Nike Air's from the Bardic College? Ok it was a different kind of game :P)

Well, since that email and my subsequent love of EQ1, despite all my online gaming friends not playing for reasons I don't need to go through, I still want to beleive in a vision of gaming enjoyment that I think they still share and I want to support.

But in the end of the day we all have X amount of hours we can devote to gaming and this is where I come for some escape.

Hopefully that can maintain synergy with the issues at hand :/

So anyway, that is why I still support the game...for now.

Boy, just writing this makes me realize how fun the old MUDS were and how simple they were. Ahh the days.

[Tashan]

How are bugs this serious around a week after launch? Has anything this serious happened in eq2 or WoW at launch?

Don't know about EQ2, but to be fair WoW had queues and tons of downtime due to crashing issues for the first several weeks... However, it needs to also be noted they sold out of about every copy of WoW (which I "believe" was expected to be something like a 3 month supply for stores) within the first week. Thus the reason why after its release if you weren't someone who bought it you couldn't find a copy of it for a couple of months.

[Ombe]

A new update to my little saga. I went ahead and continued to play as my level 10 self. I got in a group, fought, died once, continued, died again... this time when I went to loot my tombstone my old stuff appeared! It was so bizarre. I suddenly had full bags and not totally looted tombstone. I had both my new and my old gear now. A trip to a merchant, the broker, and the bank... now I have room again, and was able to loot the rest of my TS. I now have the best of the gear between the 2 sets, and I'm moving on. Now we'll see if later relogs puts me back at 7 or 10.

Wow. Yeah I'm not playing at all right now until fixed since I don't know that it won't mess up the data integrity issues even worse.

Glad to know I'm not alone but sure wish I was on the outside looking in this time :P

[Sunderban]

theres another issue wrapped up in all this as well. i havn't read the entire post but similar thing happened to me last night but almost all my gear and inventory dissapeared and relogging didn't clear anything.

i posted this in the TTH forum:

i crashed last night fighting a basilisk...logged back in to discover i died (no big surprise there). ran back to my corpse/tombstone. when i clicked on it there was nothing there. almost everything i was wearing, including weapons and almost all of my inventory dissapeared. oddly enough i got my experience back, just none of my gear and loot.

i checked alter for other corpses and escrow items, nada.

so i petition it and meet up with a buddy. we decide to go try a quest anyways so i head to my bank vault, grab a couple weapons i had stored in there. we head to the sunken ship outside lomshir.....were fighting for two minutes when i crash again. this time i log back in and i was teleported to the spot where i was fighting the basilisk. i wasn't dead just got teleported and the 4 items i had just equiped were gone including my xp i received back from last death recovery.

im like wtf? this just hurts....so i start running back to lomshir and buff myself, only thing left i can possibly do to help me survive the run back. as soon as i buff myself the 4 items i had lost, returned and i was teleported back into the ship where i crashed. this time im dead before the lag clears.

needless to say after retreiving that last corpse i had, had enough.

anyone else having similar problems? or had? im hoping they give me my stuff back but the weirdness of it all had me the most concerned.

Im a pretty patient and understanding person but i'll tell ya i dont know how much more of this type of stuff im willing to pay for.

[Melios]

All I noticed was that my character's face was randomized each time I logged in....obviously something bad happened to the hamsters.....

[thouartsimple]

Yeah, my roommate's male High Elf was turned female for a little, hilarious by the way... and my female Thestran changed faces and hair styles... it was amusing.

[benbanglong]

Remember SWG and Rollback.

Oh yea.

[Ombe]

Wow (no pun intended).

Definitely not alone. This is also bad enough it's making the rounds now on WoW boards and just saw a thread in EQ2 (still have a character there so trying to decide what I will go play now until this is fixed - never tried BC since knew I was coming here).

http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=1624

http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=1688

[Aladreal]

I've been lucky enough not to have any thing this bad happen. The closest that's happened to me was losing my diplomacy gear when I died once. I had recently received 3 pieces of clothing for hitting Diplomacy level 40 and they were all missing when I looted my tombstone. Like some of you, I just thought, "Oh well, I'll get more" and kept going. I didn't petition or anything, but 2 or 3 days later all 3 missing items were in my inventory bag when I logged in that day. I equipped them again & they haven't disappeared since.

In case some of you don't know about this (because a couple of my friends didn't), you can buy a bind stone from a general goods vendor that will bind your items to you even thru death. That way when you release & respawn at a shrine, you are still wearing your gear. I always keep one on me & make sure all my adventure gear is soulbound, especially since I'm the tank. Quest rewards will be soulbound already, but drops will need to be bound. The downside is that you can't auction soulbound items when your done with them, you can only sell them to a vendor, but I would rather have my gear on me then mess with it possibly not being on my tombstone.

[Tharzidun]

...

Damn gnomes and their silly machines. Serves ya right.

[nagal]

Same exact thing is happening to me. Its hard to feel reassured by Sigil's response that no data is being lost, at least its not being lost yet.

Between this and my character's appearance changing I want to rename my toon Cybil. :D

[Aularas]

I've 'lost' items when killed while link dead or crashing while trying to loot.

Usually the next time I die the items are all on that new tombstone. This has worked for several people so a suicide test may be worth a try.

Another similar isssue is if you die while link dead, come back in before you're original character has been despawned and die again you can have 2 tombstones. One is not lootable and you don't get any experience back from the one with gear on it.

[SageGaspar]

My characters has done this three or four times over the last week, his inventory and location and everything reverts back three or so hours but when I log back in it's at the right place.

The thing that confuses me is they say restarting your system might fix it. It doesn't seem like I should be able to choose what server save state I start at based on my personal settings.

[Ombe]

My characters has done this three or four times over the last week, his inventory and location and everything reverts back three or so hours but when I log back in it's at the right place.

The thing that confuses me is they say restarting your system might fix it. It doesn't seem like I should be able to choose what server save state I start at based on my personal settings.


So what are you doing? Just logging in and making sure the state you are on is your latest level version and just keep advancing him hoping and praying they don't roll you back all the way to god knows what? I guess I could do that but frankly it doesn't feel very comforting and I can't say I've had that happen in an MMORPG before.

Unchartered waters :)

[Alkterrandorn]

Hey folks,

We're aware of this issue, however, characters are not actually losing data, they just seem to be reverting to a previous state, however, and foward progress made on the character is still available.

Generally relogging or restarting your computer will fix this issue. We're working on a permanent solution now.

Thank you for your patience ;)

At this point in time I understand the we are basically experiencing a save loop. However my main save has some how managed to find it ways out of the loop and I have been bouncing back and forth from old saves over 30 times. I am the point where I am wondering if I should just play the old save or continue trying to get the most current one? At this point it will probably take hours regardless and I am at a lvl where losing 40% exp is equal to half a day of straight getting 6 to 7 percent an hour with breaks and crashes factored in. Any kind of response will be welcome even if it is your out of luck kid.

[Ombe]

At this point in time I understand the we are basically experiencing a save loop. However my main save has some how managed to find it ways out of the loop and I have been bouncing back and forth from old saves over 30 times. I am the point where I am wondering if I should just play the old save or continue trying to get the most current one? At this point it will probably take hours regardless and I am at a lvl where losing 40% exp is equal to half a day of straight getting 6 to 7 percent an hour with breaks and crashes factored in. Any kind of response will be welcome even if it is your out of luck kid.


Yeah from the other posts on the tech forums (and even one in EQ2), the most frustrating thing is that this isn't a "oops quest is broken, everyone is affected, doesn't impact your progression, move on for now".

This is where our entire character is affected in a very disconcerning way and not sure which state is going to be kept...which is holding state...etc.

If this happened in any other industry, well you know what we'd see on CNN :P But I agree with you that Sigil has acknowledged in the forums there is a problem and that "and foward progress made on the character is still available" but no official announcement on the problem affecting many people or what to expect.

Yikes :)

[Ihylia]

I had the same experience last night after the servers were brought down. I went ahead and played the older save point as I only lost 1% due to the death associated with the server going down and me in the midst of 3 dots.

BUT! I just logged in this morning after fighting for an additional level and getting 15% into level 15, after starting at 92% in level 14 and i'm now back to level 14.

Lol, this seems pretty stupid bug to me....Don't know what I should do now. Hate to keep repeating level 14-15. Its almost like that GroundHog day movie....

[Poke]

I played some EQ2 after not playing for a while and I have to admit; it was so nice playing without bugs. For some reason I have a new view of EQ2.

I like Vanguard but I think I will take a break for a while. On Station Access so it will always be there.

[Golgoth]

yeah, I've had this happen to me. unfortunately, the instance of my character that is back in time now has my inventory, and the one that is farther is naked save for soulbound items :/ don't try to get a corpse of a different instance, just a warning

edit: ok I just died now and the corpse had all of my items on it. :S strange

[grape]

Hey folks,

We're aware of this issue, however, characters are not actually losing data, they just seem to be reverting to a previous state, however, and foward progress made on the character is still available.

Generally relogging or restarting your computer will fix this issue. We're working on a permanent solution now.

Thank you for your patience ;)

Oh yes, try also recyling your cable or dsl modem, or re-install

[Greydog]

That would be Elrar... he's a Sigilite (notice the green name) and posted on the first page. Sigil is aware of the issue.

Aye, thats what I get for posting when I'm late for work.

Missed that :o

[Denidil Taureran]

How are bugs this serious around a week after launch? Has anything this serious happened in eq2 or WoW at launch?

because for financial reasons they had to release now despite the fact they would have liked to wait another two or three more months

[HarmonyShidreth]

How are bugs this serious around a week after launch? Has anything this serious happened in eq2 or WoW at launch?

The short answer is yes. In WoW their big problem at release had to do with looting. When you would try to loot they often had issues where it would stick you in a "queue" to get around to looting your mob. So you would right click on the mob to loot it and you would get stuck for sometimes a few minutes waiting for the loot to open. Of course, during this time the rest of the world around you was going on just fine, so you could VERY easily die while waiting to loot your corpse because you couldn't get out of the loot menu and so you would die and not be able to loot whatever you were looting. It took them about 3 months to really squash that bug, though it was much more livable after maybe 4 or 5 weeks.

They had a number of other issues as well, you could type a command for the first month or so to set your Z axis position so you could float 100 ft in the air, but you could still fight mobs that were at the ground levle and they wouldn't be able to fight you back (banned a number of people who exploited that one). They had issues where you would lose all of your stuff when you crashed while putting stuff in the bank, issues where you could fall through the world if you jumped in certain places. I know there was one painful bug for the first week that if you took a specific griffon flight there was about a 40% chance it would drop you while zoning which would cause you to die and respawn in an area of level 40 mobs.

And honestly speaking, WoW was by far and away the best release I have seen for an MMO, especially considering most of their issues were releated to the insane number of players they had at launch. But even the best MMO launch ever was a far cry from being a perfect launch.

[Drainpipe]

Not sure if this is same or similar.
Was fighting near Tanuv and had a quest to blow a horn and fight a named Yeti Garsu. Si I blow the horn and proceed to get an add of a Yeti so I die..Oh well.

Run back to get my tombestone and Can't loot it because Garsu is on my ass beating me up. I figure i'll try to fight him naked.

WTF I can't target him..."invalid target". So now i'm running around like a chicken with it's head cut off trying to sim Garsu, "invalid target". I can't even out run him with accelerate going full bore.

Death #2.

Come back and try to loot 2nd tombstone, can't. Guess who's on my ass again. Yup. Garsu.

Rinse repete... yada yada yada

So I brainstorm and log out and relog back in.

All fixed. But that initial crap was very annoying. I understand and LOVE that the named Yeti Garsu was there hanging around waiting to kick my ass, but at least allow me to target and defend, not just get whipped with no option but to die.

[LeviticusD]

So in general, for people who are having this bug, would you suggest staying off the characters for a bit until it is fixed?

[Alkterrandorn]

So in general, for people who are having this bug, would you suggest staying off the characters for a bit until it is fixed?

I am hearing from people in my guild now that some gm's are suggesting not to play if your stuck on the old game save. This is course after I already grinded back 20% of the missing 40+% at level 34. Good luck to you guys on this problem

[grape]

I am hearing from people in my guild now that some gm's are suggesting not to play if your stuck on the old game save. This is course after I already grinded back 20% of the missing 40+% at level 34. Good luck to you guys on this problem

Why isn't this issue posted in on the News page?

[Angra Mainyu]

Hey folks,

We're aware of this issue, however, characters are not actually losing data, they just seem to be reverting to a previous state, however, and foward progress made on the character is still available.

Generally relogging or restarting your computer will fix this issue. We're working on a permanent solution now.

Thank you for your patience ;)


I tried this more times than I can count off and on all day since it happened to me. I never got what I lost back. Almost and entire lvl. **sigh**

[Ombe]

Why isn't this issue posted in on the News page?

No kidding.

I just got home from work thinking there would be pages of info from them on what to do for now in each situation.

Somthing as simple as "If you can get to your 'current state' character, you can continue playing him and when you log into your old state character, log out and come back as your new one and you are fine until we fix it"

...or anything.

The saddest part is I'm not even shocked anymore that they have communicated nothing.

I cancelled my subscription today (I had picked the longest term one too thinking hell, I'll be here that long). I cannot give them any $$$ right now as things stand.

That said, my 30 day free still has a few more days on it so depending on how they deal with all this (time to fix as well as communication) will decide if I actually subscribe.

Good luck to all those in a similar situation.

I've never actually gone to the tech forums before because hell, when I'm playing an MMORPG and having fun, I rarely read the boards, especially tech support boards. I guess that I've been on the boards A LOT lately must say something :P

When I checked the tech forums, it literally looks like a bomb was dropped on the game there are so many issues - and I mean game breaking cannot play issues, not just quest is broken or mob dissappearing.

:eek:

[Seagoon]

I'm going to go post (again) in the SOE tech. support forums since none of my petitions are getting any responses but...

I've tried to tolerate the myriad of bugs, issues, etc. etc. and even though all my friends quit, I thought I'd play and convince them to come back eventually.

Well, now my character seems to be literally stuck between two states - one where he was level 16 and another where he is level 17. I have screenshots with timestamps (using /time in game in chat window) less than 2 minutes apart, etc. (see below).

I play on the RP preferred server and had quite a few people with me tonight in groups who saw me at 17 and I'm almost half way to 18.

But suddenly it will just throw me to the character selection screen. I log back in and I'm in a different part of the world back at 16. Log out and come back in, back at 17.

Needless to say this has erroded all confidence in the game for obvious reasons. I think the only thing worse is getting no response at all, even a "we're busy, we will get to you _sometime_ soon" or "we know about the issue, don't play until we correct the data integrity issues on our servers", etc.

I can't find a number to call but if no support via my email/positings on tech support forum/petition, it's time for me to hang up my boots on this one and wish you all good luck.

BTW, anyone know what their support number even is? I can't find it, even in my game box.

I think my days of trying to defend this game are slowly drawing to a close :(

I've tried to have a really good attitude and keep my hopes in stride but I think something clicked the wrong way now for how I feel.

If this happens to you, don't spend any more time playing because you are basically losing your progress in both scenarios (either time warp).

I've had EXACTLY the same thing happen. I log in and find my character a chunck away and half a level lower than it was when I logged out. What's odd, is that I logged to the desktop and logged back in and found that I was back at the correct location. I did the relogg thing a couple of times in a row and it switched me back and forth.

This is by far the worst bug I've seen in an MMO after launch. Let's hope the patch going in tonight corrects this kind of thing. Despite the fact there are many things in the game I like, this had be seriously thinking about bailing out.

The thing that makes it all so much worse is that in game petitions are ignored, and Tech Support Forum posts are ignored. Bad customer service will end up forcing me out of this game. It's a real shame. Vanguard had so much promise....

EDIT: And the fact they don't post info in the News page when you launch the game is a disgrace.