Lighthouse_NA
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Earlier today, Friday, September 7th, we took the Training Room and Training Room01 Test Servers offline to start a series of operations and tests in preparation to implement the coming Character Rename feature and un-reserving the names of characters below level 6 on inactive accounts.
Unfortunately, those processes are running much longer than anticipated. As a result, we are going to need to keep both Test servers offline and unavailable for player log-in over the weekend of Sept. 8 and 9. Our apologies for the lack of prior notification on this development.
EDIT: We were able to finish what we needed to with the Training Room and as of 7:30 AM Eastern on Saturday, Sept. 8th the Training Room Test Server is back online and available. The Training Room01 is still down, however. But, with the main Training Room back online PvP and testing out builds, etc. can continue.
Have a great weekend!
To discuss this announcement, join us on the original discussion thread on the Test Server forums. -
Recently, we had been tracking an issue that could cause players, when zoning, to have their toggle powers turned off. We wanted to let you know that we tracked down the source of this annoying little non-feature and corrected it server side.
As always, if you encounter an issue that negatively impacts your gameplay experience and feel we should know about it, please make use of the in game commands /petition and /bug or visit the PlayNC Support Center and the "Ask a Question" option to reach our Support Team.
To discuss this announcement with your fellow players, join us on the Technical Issues forum. -
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I have an annual subscription that isn't due 'till next spring and haven't encountered this problem (yet). However, it seems an little strange that a good number of players from who handle their NCSoft payment through different financial institutions have started encountering this problem only just recently. It's just a little too coincidental that these different banks would all change their fraud policies around the same time. I just can't help but wonder if NCSoft's billing from a foreign (non-US) IP is a recent development.
In any case, NCSoft should take a close look at this issue to see if there is anything they can do on their end to help remedy the problem. For example, if most of these banks are denying payment on NCSoft's charges because they're billing from foreign IP, perhaps they could look into arranging billing from a domestic (US) IP. It's quite a nuisance to have to call your bank up every billing cycle to allow a legitimate charge (which a lot of people are having to do because their banks won't permanently allow the charges) and I'm just concerned that we're going to start to loose players because they don't want to have to deal with this issue every time their NCSoft payment comes due.
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If you do a bit of web searching you can find some discussion and posts about credit card fraud in that "other" MMO. It's really an industry wide issue and not specific to NCsoft. -
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He just said, that it will start when the feature starts. They don't give exact dates for things that are in the process of being debugged.
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We'll have dates when we get closer to it. So, for right now, it's still in testing and "a little ways out." Or, as some prefer "Soon."
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The original notice was saying, "Hey, any time after Aug. 29th, names of characters under level 6 on accounts inactive over 90 days can go poof at any time." Fair warning.
We are just revising things to let you know we are not going to pull the trigger on the might name poofer until Character Rename and Character Transfer are good to go. That will coincide with the Rename functionality nicely. Thanks for your patience! -
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/unsigned.
The Eden and Sewer Trials are some of the best/most unique content in CoH. They are fun and have some interesting an unique maps. Instead of eliminating a portion of the reward, I would rather see the Devs take the time to fix and update the Trials.
Cyclone Jack
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Gents, I'm not saying we will never take the time to revisit this, or other, existing content. I'm just giving you the down low on what the current status is. We know you want everything and it can be hard to understand why we aren't doing something when the reason is not visible to you. We have a lot working behind the scenes and know that you will appreciate it when it does come to fruition.
The Eden and Sewer Trial aren't killing anyone currently
They are still do-able content and have the additional reward of the rare recipe for anyone running them to choose from. Like anything in life, there is always room for improvement. Lets not get too down on them. Thanks.
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As another point of clarification, the check for old names is account based, not per character. Some people have mentioned to me that they were busily logging in all of their alt characters they hadn't played in a while. You don't need to do that. The check is based on the status of your account, not the characters themselves.
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I posted about the timing of this in the Announcement Thread. We're still a "ways" out on Character Rename and Transfer, so please no holding your breath for it. I don't want anyone turning blue or anything like that!
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As online business continues to grow and develop, issues surrounding the different monetary transactions involved in that growth change as well. Recently, banks and financial institutions have been dealing with increased cancelled charges or charge backs on credit cards used for online game play. One example of this is a credit card, issued to a parent, that is used without the parents knowledge to pay for an online video game by their child. Upon discovering the charge, the parent calls the bank and has the charge reversed or claims it is fraudulent.
To protect themselves from this, or other sorts of issues with credit card charges, some issuing financial institutions may not allow charges to be transacted from online gaming companies without prior consent. This may result in a user experience where the use of a credit card for monthly online game charges is denied. Users who have such experiences can best address this by calling the financial institution that issued their credit card. If you have your credit card in front of you, look on the back of it for a Customer Service number to call. Be sure to request to speak with the fraud prevention department to authorize the charges to go through.
For NCsoft assistance or answers to any of these questions, please don't hesitate to make use of the PlayNC Support Center and the "Ask a Question" option to reach our Support Team.
To discuss this announcement, join us on the Technical Issues Forum. -
Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement:
As online business continues to grow and develop, issues surrounding the different monetary transactions involved in that growth change as well. Recently, banks and financial institutions have been dealing with increased cancelled charges or charge backs on credit cards used for online game play. One example of this is a credit card, issued to a parent, that is used without the parents knowledge to pay for an online video game by their child. Upon discovering the charge, the parent calls the bank and has the charge reversed or claims it is fraudulent.
To protect themselves from this, or other sorts of issues with credit card charges, some issuing financial institutions may not allow charges to be transacted from online gaming companies without prior consent. This may result in a user experience where the use of a credit card for monthly online game charges is denied. Users who have such experiences can best address this by calling the financial institution that issued their credit card. If you have your credit card in front of you, look on the back of it for a Customer Service number to call. Be sure to request to speak with the fraud prevention department to authorize the charges to go through.
For NCsoft assistance or answers to any of these questions, please don't hesitate to make use of the PlayNC Support Center and the "Ask a Question" option to reach our Support Team.
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City of Heroes and City of Villains servers will be coming down on Thursday, August 30th starting at 6 AM Pacific (9 AM Eastern) to update the game. Detailed notes of the changes included in this update will be found by following the Patch Notes link once the update is complete.
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As a clarification on this announcement, the current plan for the actual process that frees up these names is to run it during the same maintenance window that will launch the Character Rename and Character Transfer features.
As there is still more testing to be done with Character Rename and Character Transfer, the un-reserving of the names of characters below level 6 on accounts inactive for over 90 days will not happen on August 29th.
We are working hard to finalize the Character Rename and Character Transfer features and ensure they are robust and ready for prime time. If you are interested in checking out these features, please join us on the Training Room Test Server and provide your feedback on the Test Forum. -
Included in the update to the game on August 14th, we made the following change:
<ul type="square">[*] Characters over level 40 cannot select the Multi-enhancement from the Eden Trial. Added SO Enhancements to the Eden trial choice dialog box.[/list]You can read the complete changes on the Patch Notes Page.
I bring this up because there has been some confusion and concern about the change. First a bit of history.
For those of you who've been with us since the very start, you may recall that the original level cap for the game was 40. As such, the Eden and Sewer Trial were some of the "end game" content at that time. They were designed to be a real challenge for level 40 characters and included some pretty nifty rewards (at that time) in the way of the Titan-O enhancements.
To address the difficulty of these missions, we adjusted them to allow characters of a higher level than 40 to go in. However, since the Titan-O's were never made for higher than level 40's, if people chose them on the reward table, well oops! the server wouldn't give them anything!
To correct this issue, we disallowed the choosing of the Titan-O's for anyone over level 40 and added SO's into the reward table (a quick fix). In our minds, the Titan-O's and SO's are only there to fill out the reward table, when in all likelihood, the rare recipe option is the most valuable in today's game.
We understand the concerns our customers have about these rewards. Certainly we would all like to see this content as interesting and rewarding as possible. However, we hope everyone can appreciate the history behind this older content and also appreciate that, in the larger scheme of things, we have our designers working hard to bring out exciting new content in a timely manner and not spending too much time optimizing the experience of dated content.
Thanks for your understanding and continued support! -
Calling all Testers! Calling all Testers!
We have enabled the Character Transfer and Character Rename functionality on our Test Server Environment and would greatly appreciate those who are interested in trying it out to do so.
If you are not familiar with accessing the Test Server or how to copy characters there, please see this post.
We have discussion threads for these two new features in the Training Room, so please leave your feedback there:
Character Rename Testing Discussion
Character TransferTesting Discussion -
Seridove from the Vault Network posted up a nice recap from the player meet and greet with all the NCsoft representatives here.
She has some nice pictures from the event. If you are interested, be sure to check it out! -
Use this thread to discuss the following announcement:
We updated the game on Thursday, August 23rd to version 15.20070813.1T.
Read the patch notes of the changes here! -
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As a point of clarification, the actual process to enforce the name policy and free up names is a manual process, not one that runs continuously. The purpose of this advance notification is that we are now considering running that process on a regular basis. Previously, we had not been enforcing this policy or running this process.
We have not announced a schedule or when such process will be run, other than our desire to run it prior to the Character Rename feature going live. As such, customers can consider that it may be run at any time and if any names on characters under 6 on accounts inactive for over 90 days are lost, this would be the reason why. -
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thats why there is a name change "feature" going in as well
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I refer to the fact that not everyone is going to want to change the name of their character. What if they just want to play their same character without changing the name but on a different server to maintain continuity but with other people?
They will be out of luck.
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That's why there is the name check feature (that is currently live). You can go to the server you want to transfer too and use the name check to see if your name is available. If it isn't, well then you can better decide if you really want to move, knowing that you will have to change your name. If you do want to move, you can use the name check feature to find a name that is suitable for your character that should be free when you do move.
Of course, we never guarantee, even with the name check, that any given name will be available. -
If you're going to the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle this weekend (August 24-26) be sure to drop by the NCsoft both, #324 and see City of Heroes in action!
Positron, Lead Designer, will be in the booth on Saturday, August 25 and City of Heroes Community Manager, Lighthouse, will be there for the whole thing. Be sure to stop by, say hi, and pick up some schwag!
Also remember you can come and hang out with all of the NCsoft team members at the Vault Network Player Meet and Greet on Saturday Night, August 25. Some of the people attending are:
"Lighthouse" - CoH/CoV
"CuppaJo" - Tabula Rasa
"Alyra" - Lineage 2
"Ornery" - Lineage 2
"Crickette" - Lineage / Exteel/ Dungeon Runners / Auto Assault
When: August 25th - 6:30PM to 7:30PM
Where: Elephant & Castle, 1415 5th Avenue (2 blocks from the Convention Center)
You can get more information on the Meet & Greet right here...
See you in Seattle!
To discuss this announcement, join us on the Discussion Forums. -
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Currently, our plan is to enable the Character Transfer service with no limitations.
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But can I transfer from the test servers to the live servers?
TA
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They have already stated that this wouldn't be possible.
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Correct, there will never be moves off the Test server to a Live server environment. -
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Thanks for the update Lighthouse. How does the current schedule/timeline for this service coincide with the Character Rename Service that is accompanying it?
Thanks!
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We plan for Character Rename and Character Transfer to go live at the same time. -
Please use this thread to discuss the below announcement:
We wanted to follow up on the recently announced Character Transfer Service and clarify which servers customers will be able to transfer to when the service goes live.
Currently, our plan is to enable the Character Transfer service with no limitations. There will be no restrictions on which of the live servers you can or cannot transfer too. There are no transfers off of the Training Room Test Server, only copies to it. Also, if you have no free character slots on a server, you will need to make room before you can transfer there.
Our main goal with the Character Transfer service is to enable customers to play on the server they want to with the character they want to with their friends. We are sensitive to population issues and will continue to closely monitor server populations and server performance. Should transfers be seen as a contributing factor to a less than optimal gaming experience, we reserve the right to restrict transfers in the future to address such concerns
The Character Transfer and Character Rename services are still in the testing phase. With any new feature, we want to ensure that it is rock solid and ready before we make it available. We are planning for these features to be available in several weeks time. That may shift if issues arise in testing. If it does shift significantly, we will update you here on the forums. We understand that there are customers who are very interested in these features and we are working hard to bring them to you as quickly as possible.
Thanks for your continued patronage and support! -
We wanted to follow up on the recently announced Character Transfer Service and clarify which servers customers will be able to transfer to when the service goes live.
Currently, our plan is to enable the Character Transfer service with no limitations. There will be no restrictions on which of the live servers you can or cannot transfer too. There are no transfers off of the Training Room Test Server, only copies to it. Also, if you have no free character slots on a server, you will need to make room before you can transfer there.
Our main goal with the Character Transfer service is to enable customers to play on the server they want to with the character they want to with their friends. We are sensitive to population issues and will continue to closely monitor server populations and server performance. Should transfers be seen as a contributing factor to a less than optimal gaming experience, we reserve the right to restrict transfers in the future to address such concerns
The Character Transfer and Character Rename services are still in the testing phase. With any new feature, we want to ensure that it is rock solid and ready before we make it available. We are planning for these features to be available in several weeks time. That may shift if issues arise in testing. If it does shift significantly, we will update you here on the forums. We understand that there are customers who are very interested in these features and we are working hard to bring them to you as quickly as possible.
Thanks for your continued patronage and support!
To discuss this announcement, join us on the forums here. -
Get the latest news on Issue 10: Invasion from this special report on the Vanguard, the all volunteer force funded by the United Nations Security Council. Also, find out why standing next to something that is ticking is probably not the best idea! News, humor, live journalism, this video has it all!
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