THE HERALD

The Electronics Arts Origin store has made the following change to in order to better prevent fraud: it can now take up to 72 hours to receive a code from Origin on some purchases.

This timeframe is dependant on the number of codes purchased at once as well as other variables. Most players should still receive their codes within 24 hours, however, it would be a good idea to order any new game time codes 72 hours prior to your account subscription ending if you wish to guarantee no subscription downtime.

If, for some reason, a purchased code is not sent within 72 hours, please contact Origin’s support directly. 

When contacting Origin, please only state the following: “I did not receive my code after making a purchase on the Origin store. My order# is #####.” Mentioning Dark Age of Camelot can sometimes result in being directed back to our support team, who unfortunately cannot assist with this issue, so be sure to only mention the above quote.

We apologize for the inconvenience this causes and appreciate your patience and understanding as we work with Origin to streamline this process.

Love is in the air as we celebrate the return of our Valentine’s Day event!

This event will run from Thursday, February 11th, through Monday, February 15th and brings the following quests: 

• A Matter of the Heart: This quest will give players of all realms the chance find the imp, Russel, located mainland side of Castle Sauvage/Druim Ligen/Svasud Faste. He’s ready to offer some interesting tasks from the local imp’s union in return for a Lawn Cupid trophy, experience and coin. Don’t forget to speak to Lady Payne and earn your ROG Valentine’s Ring or Bracer too!

• Keeping Company: This quest will be offered to characters level 45 and above and will have a unique challenge for players in Albion, Midgard and Hibernia.  As a reward, players will receive a Tiny Compatriot Crate, experience and coin. Visit Lailen in Jordheim, Pondar Cully in Camelot, and Harris MacCullogh in Tir na Nog to start the quest.

• Valentine’s Traditions: These quests will offer three old style quests which were part of the original Dark Age of Camelot Valentine’s Day content. Players will be able to complete the quest up to six times, which is based on the number of times the original quest has been issued online.  Players will be rewarded with a Hearts Cloak, Heart-Shaped Box, experience and coin. Visit  Rumdor in Mag Mell, Hrolf in Mularn, or Sir Prescott in Camelot Hills to start the quest.

The Midwinter celebration has finally come to an end and the RvR, experience, and crafting bonuses have returned to normal along with it. The traveling band of merchants have packed up their wares and moved on, promising to return one day. But fret not! For the following Hot Fix notes are now live!

• The Buggane’s Obelisk RvR objective in the center of Ellan Vannin has had the following changes made to it:
  • The Buggane’s Obelisk and Obelisk Rubble have had their hitpoints significantly reduced so that small groups can destroy them in a reasonable amount of time.
  • The obelisk’s buff, Buggane’s Folly, will no longer still persist through death and has had its duration increased from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
  • Finally, the RP, BP, and Coin buff now provides different bonuses based on the character’s realm rank, as follows:
    • Realm Ranks 1L0 through 3L9 receive a 75% bonus to RP, BP, and coin buff.
    • Realm Ranks 4L0 through 5L9 receive a 50% bonus to RP, BP, and coin buff.
    • Realm Ranks 6L0 through 7L9 receive a 25% bonus to RP, BP, and coin buff.
    • Realm Ranks 8L0 and up will receive the original 15% bonus to RP, BP, and coin buff.
    • To receive the buff, destroy the obelisk rubble so that your realm’s obelisk can be built. Then, simply right-click on the obelisk to receive the bonus!
• (Gaheris-only) Manannan mac Lir’s encounter inside the underground keep on Ellan Vannin should behave properly now.

Friends and realmmates, 

Brace yourselves, new-anti-cheat-policies are coming! …Err they’re here. The New-Anti-Cheat-Policies. Are. Here. 

Read below for more details!
 

I wanted to take the time to update you all on our last several months’ efforts to combat some different types of cheats in-game as well as announce our upcoming enforcement plans and policies for other types of cheats and violations going forward.

Since our last anti-cheat pass in August, we’ve been hard at work tweaking things and ensuring that our mechanisms in place are as air-tight as can be. As such, we’re happy (and also disappointed in those that still think this behavior is okay) to announce that another few hundred accounts have been issued suspensions for use of radar/map hacks, third-party program hacks, and/or speedhacks. We were happy to see that the number of accounts issued suspensions was less than half of the number from the first pass, with relatively few repeat offenders; however it appears we still have a way to go before the rest of these cheaters get the message.

As such, we have issued suspensions ranging from 3 days for minimal usage and first time offenses to 7 days for extreme usage and 2nd time offenses with 5 day suspensions levied inbetween.

All accounts actioned today have been sent an email to the address on file.

If you received this email, and do not use these programs, check the name of the suspended account carefully before you panic. If you sold or traded your account to another player, it’s possible that they didn’t change the contact email information.

If you did not receive this email, but your account has been suspended, you should update the email address on the account ASAP.

If it’s your account, and you received the email, please uninstall your third party programs immediately.

For those that think we will stop here, think again. Rest assured we’ll be doing another pass at some point in the future and if you cheat you Will. Be. Caught.

With that out of the way, we have one big announcement to make in our enforcement policy as well as some other, and still important!, general policy updates.

First, the big announcement:

Going forward, we will be heavily enforcing and removing any “macro groups” found in the Frontiers or battleground regions but will now be allowing non-trial “macro groups” in PvE areas. We will be starting off with issuing written warnings to ALL, non-trial, accounts that are detected using macro programs to simultaneously control multiple characters at once that are found in these areas. This is to give those accounts a chance to logout or immediately leave the regions. If accounts are found in a “macro group” in those regions again they will be suspended and eventually permanently terminated if they continue to venture there. Trial account “macro groups” will be immediately terminated, wherever they are found.

In addition to our new mechanisms put in place that help us verify “macro groups,” this is a change in enforcement policy that we hope will greatly help the integrity and fun of RvR. For now, non-trial account “macro groups” will be allowed to exist in PvE zones and PvE/RvR zones such as Darkness Falls, Celestius, and Labyrinth. “Macro groups” already in Passage of Conflict or Summoner’s Hall will be left alone as well but be warned that venturing through the frontiers to those dungeons will put your accounts at high risk to be actioned.

Due to our resources and based on player feedback, we feel this is the right first step to better combat “macro groups”. We will certainly be keeping a close eye on things and revisiting this policy if need be. This policy should draw a clear line in the sand so that everyone knows what is and is not a violation when it comes to these “macro groups.” Please note that this policy change is only going forward; we will not be retroactively removing previously applied violations on accounts that were caught. If you see a “macro group” in the frontiers or a battleground, please file an appeal (or take a screenshot and email it and the character names to support@broadsword.com) and they will be taken care of.

To file a proper violation appeal, use the following syntax:
/appeal Violation: I witnessed <character-server name(s)> operating a macro group in the frontiers.

Appeals without the character-server name or proper information make it that much harder for our support team to investigate in a timely manner.

In general, we have some other important policy changes to announce. These changes will not be updated into the existing Rules of Conduct in the event that the policies need to be changed or enforced differently in the future. The current Rules of Conduct gives us the proper flexibility to enforce violations that may make use of the now-allowed software/hardware but go beyond the scope of what we’d intended. As such, please use the guidelines in this letter as our new enforcement policy (for the issues stated here) until otherwise updated; though understand that we can enforce based on the existing Rules of Conduct when it is so desired or necessary.

1) We will now accept player-provided evidence such as screenshots and videos for players that you feel are violating our RoC. All screenshots and videos (or links to them on forums) should be emailed to us at support@broadsword.com. Please note that this evidence will not be the sole cause of any action given against an account but will be used to supplement our investigations.
2) We will no longer be enforcing against multi-keybind software or hardware that allow for multiple actions per keystroke per character. An example would be setting up a ‘macro’ that allows your “w key” to cast both disease and a heal spell. This is a common feature on most gaming keyboards and mice and is something we’d like to add native support for in-game in the future. In effect, using this hardware or software will no longer be a violation.
3) Caught realm point farmers will now lose a commensurate amount of realm points earned, depending on the severity of the farming, in addition to their account being suspended from the game. Terminated accounts will lose ALL RPs on the characters that were RP farming; this is in the event that that account is ever given a one-time reprieve and allowed back to the game in the future.

Thank you for your time and we hope that these new policies show our commitment to stamping out cheating of any-kind in our game while transitioning to a more mordern approach; on the whole we feel that these changes will make for a more positive and fun in-game experience for all. Stay tuned for more updates on our development plans this year, in the coming weeks!

Onward!

-John Thornhill
 

Update 5:45 PM EST / 10:45 PM GMT: Ywain is once again open to players. Please be sure to read the notes below!

Ywain will be coming down today at 11:45 AM EST / 4:45 PM GMT to implement our fix for the housing data issues that cropped up after server maintenance last week.

We thank you for your patience during this downtime as we’ll be doing some extra testing before opening the server to players. We expect the servers up no later than 9:00 PM EST / 2:00 AM GMT.

Please read the following notes very carefully as they will outline what to expect and how things should look in housing when the server returns today.

Notes

• Ywain housing data should be reverted to the state it was in just prior to the server downtime last Tuesday (1/5/16).
  • Housing data specifically includes ownership of lots, house type, decorations, total CM money, permissions, etc. 
  • Any changes made to a house while the regions were enabled on 1/5/16 (new purchase, decorations, transfers of ownership) will be rolled back and will be as though they never happened.
  • Please note that housing data does not include Consignment Merchant and House Vault inventories; which are a separate matter (see below).
• Items sold from Consignment Merchants after last week’s downtime will be restored to those CMs prior to the server being re-opened today. We decided to do this since the CM money will be reverted with the rest of the house data and since in some cases prices on CM items were incorrect when the housing regions were up on 1/5/16.
  • In other words, players that had items sold from their CMs will not be receiving the monies from those sales but will instead get the sold items restored.
• Be sure to check your CM and house vaults as soon as possible. While we’ve made every effort to check the data for missing items, we couldn’t check every item moved to CM and housing vaults during the time the housing regions were up on 1/5/16. However, the number of these items we couldn’t check is extremely small and their restoration will be handled on a case by case basis by in-game support.
  • House vaults and Consignment Merchants may need to be picked up into your character’s inventory and placed back down in the house to display their inventories correctly.
  • Any players noticing items missing from their House Vaults should first refresh their vaults as described above. Then, contact any friends and guildmates who may have had access to the vaults to see if the item was removed by them. If not, and you cannot locate the item(s) in the rest of your inventory, please file an in-game appeal with the following syntax:
    • <character name-server> placed items into the house vaults on lot <lot#-server> and they are now missing. The items were <item names/quantity>.
• ALL items on ALL Consignment Merchants will have their prices set to 0 (not for sale) when the servers return. Please visit your house to re-price your items for sale.
  • Additionally, the Market Explorer has been cleared. If you had your items listed before, please visit your house and use the /listmerchant command to re-list your items.
  • We’ve done this to protect against any residual incorrect item pricing on the CMs.
• Please log in as soon as you can and check your house, house vaults, CM items, prices, and house permissions. If you have lost ownership of a house that existed BEFORE the servers went down on 1/5/2016, please let us know as soon as possible. There’s only going to be a short window available to research and restore house ownership after this fix goes live.

Bonuses

• When the server returns, the RP bonus on Ywain will be increased from +50% to +100%. This bonus, the Midwinter Event, and the Traveling Merchants will be extended to last through January 25th.
  • The extra, temporary potions added to the Traveling Merchants while the housing regions were down will also be removed.

Update 1/11/16: All, we’re still hard at work and on track with our fix. We hope to have a comprehensive update and server downtime notice in the coming day or two. Thanks again for your patience!

Greetings all,

As most of you know, we’ve had some issues with the housing zones and have had to disable them temporarily. We’ve been hard at work testing and re-testing our fix and still feel confident that we’ll be able to restore/fix the missing and incorrect housing data. However, after testing some more today, we’ve found some additional issues that need to be accounted for as well. These issues will take most of tomorrow to implement into our fix, which then needs to be tested some more.

We’d be remiss to take the servers down over the weekend with it being the most popular time to play. As such, we plan on waiting until next week to institute our fix. We realize that this is much longer than originally planned and offer our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience this causes. However, in waiting through the weekend, we’ll also be spending the extra days figuring out a way to restore the items that were purchased from CMs back to those CMs without requiring affected players to appeal. This should allow everyone to move on from this unfortunate issue much faster and focus on what we all love: playing Dark Age of Camelot!

Finally, we’ll be extending the Midwinter Event and RvR bonuses an extra week (at least) and will look at some additional compensation once the matter is fully resolved.

On behalf of myself and the entire team, we want to personally thank everyone for their patience and understanding while we investigate and resolve this matter. We know it’s been concerning and an inconvenience to you all but the feedback and encouragement as we work towards a fix has been nothing short of amazing.

My humble thanks,

John Thornhill
Producer

Update4: Thanks again to everyone for their patience as we address this housing issue. After a long night and coffee-filled morning, we are confident that we have a fix for the issues with the housing data that cropped up yesterday. However, due to the delicacy of the data and to be extra careful that we’ve got everything correct, we’re going to spend the remainder of today (and possibly tomorrow) testing and re-testing that this fix is as complete as it can be.  As soon as we’re comfortable with everything, we’ll re-enable the housing regions and push this fix live. We will post the exact server downtime notice once testing has been completed.

This fix should address any missing houses, incorrect plat values on consignment merchants, and most other discrepencies that occured yesterday. For the most part, all housing data will be rolled back to when the server first came up yesterday. However, the houses that had items purchased from their CMs or traded from their vaults *may* still not have those items after this fix has gone live. We’ll be doing our best to restore those items pre-emptively, prior to opening the servers, but may require players to file in-game appeals. We should be able to verify and locate any items that have gone missing and restore them, but please bare with us as doing so is a time-consuming and involved process. 

Additionally, we’ve added popular player potions to the Infernal Merchants’ <Potion Merchant> NPC outside Castle Sauvage, Druim Ligen, and Svasud Faste. This NPC will allow players to buy omni-regen, omni-healing, water breath, and individual regen and healing potions until the housing issue is resolved. The potions are listed on the 3rd page of the merchant.

We’ll have more info on everything after our testing is complete and we once again appreciate your patience and understanding. 

Update3 7:50 PM EST: Ywain is up once again with the housing regions disabled. RP bonuses on Ywain have been increased from 25% to 50% as compensation for the inconvenience. These increased bonuses will be up for the remainder of the Midwinter Event. We’ll be looking at providing additional compensation for affected players once the matter is resolved. We currently do not have an ETA for when the housing zones will be re-enabled. Thank you again for your patience. See below for additional details. 

Update2: Ywain is once again coming back down. The housing regions on Ywain will be disabled and Ywain will be brought back up. Characters logged out in housing should try to login again, twice. Characters should be moved back to their bind point or to their starter town by the 2nd attempt. If for some reason your character is not moved, please file an appeal on another character, listing the affected character name(s) and server(s) so in-game support can move them for you.

The housing zones will be disabled indefinitely until a fix is found. Please accept our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience this causes you. Realm Point bonuses will be increased from 25% to 50% once Ywain returns.

Update 4:40 PM EST: The Ywain Server is back online!

Update notes:

• House lot locations and associated consignment merchant inventories and prices have returned to what they were prior to the original downtime today.
• All housing data has been reverted back to when the servers went down this morning at 5:45 AM EST. This means any purchases from the Market Explorer or consignment merchants, house ownership transfers, decoration changes, or any other changes made to houses that took place after the servers came up earlier this afternoon will be as though they never happened.
  • All other character data was untouched and players should see rp/xp gains made from after the servers came up earlier.
• Unfortunately, several houses were erroneously flagged to be repossessed after our original downtime today. This should only be for some houses whose owners logged into housing after the original downtime and whose original house location was swapped with an inactive account. In order to fix, simply login the house owner’s character to the housing zone. This should remove the condemned sign from the house’s door.
  • ​Please note that after entering the housing zone on the character that owns the house, you may have to relog once more to see the house door return to normal.
    • ​If you have tried this and your house is still showing as condemned, and your account is not under a free trial and actively subscribed, please file an appeal to in-game support.

After the Ywain server came up we noticed some issues with house locations being moved around within their existing villages. To fix this issue, we will need to take the server down. As soon as we are confident our fix has worked, we will bring Ywain back up. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience as we attempt to rectify the issue as quickly as possible!

Ywain will go down at 1:40 PM EST and will be down for at least 2 hours.