A Little Appreciation

Here's a quick PSA for anyone currently playing any of Daybreak's games. On Tuesday 20th April you won't be. Not that morning, that afternoon, not that evening. You're going to have to find something else to do instead. 

There's going to be some major backend work (Don't start...) officially described as "a large migration maintenance of our backend" (Really?. What are you? Twelve?) which will "impact all game services". 

Even more ominously, "all servers will be shut down until the work is concluded" and we all know what that means. I'd put a red line through most of Wednesday 21st, too, if I was you. 

There's been a bit of this recently. Last week all of the games went offline for "necessary, but unplanned network maintenance". That was estimated to take "about 6 1/2 hours" but in the event came in closer to ten. It followed a period when the currency/membership token (Krono) couldn't be traded over in EverQuest, which I'm guessing would be a priority issue for all concerned. That was backend-related, apparently.

No-one likes disruption to their online game of choice but if the underlying reason is infrastructure investment it's almost certainly a price worth paying. And Jenn Chan did flag it up in her Producer's Letter last month: "we’re continuing the process of a major hardware upgrade to significantly address a number of lag issues".

She did suggest that wasn't going to happen immediately, saying "It is currently slated later this year" but maybe the current backend work is laying down the foundations for it. 

It's also tempting to speculate how much any of this has to do with the recent change of ownership. EG7 have reportedly completed their buying spree so maybe now they're turning their attention to their new toys, polishing them up and making them all nice and shiny. 

I doubt that has much to do with it. It would be a bit soon. Probably this is work that was already in hand and the most the new owners have done is allow it to continue. But who knows? If we did we wouldn't have to speculate, would we?

One thing I can say for certain is that (paying) players of DBG's portfolio of games can look forward to some compensation for the interruptions to service. Not, obviously, financial compensation. This is hardly the kind of issue that merits something like that. 

EverQuest II players, the subset that specifically interests me, can look forward to some "Downtime Appreciation Bonuses". An odd way of putting it, isn't it? Are we supposed to be appreciating the downtime? Ah, no, it's the other way around: "we'd like to show our appreciation for all your patience."

Well, okay then. And how are you thinking of doing that?

• Double Overseer Missions – Daily Overseer Missions will be set at 20 for members
   
• Double Status x2 for members
   
• Double XP x2 for members  

That'll do nicely. I do indeed feel duly appreciated.

I also feel slightly confused. The double Overseer missions (extremely welcome to me) are clear enough with the helpful gloss but what exactly does "Double Status x2 and Double XP x2" mean? Is that the same as quadruple status and xp? And if it is, why not just say so? 

For a moment I thought it was because we already get double those things as members but we don't. We get "Double ALL alternative currency earned in-game". Xp and status are not currencies.

Oh, wait... not this one!

Oh well, I'll find out when it happens, I guess. And that will be next weekend, from Thursday to Monday. "Bonuses will run from 4/22/2021 12:01:00 AM through 4/26/2021 11:59:00 PM" to be precise. Always assuming the backend's back in action by then, of course.

Like most EQII players these days, I always have a stash of status consumables squirreled away for the next bonus event. I think I also have a guide quest waiting to be done on someone. I try to grab them when the guides are on and hold them for just such an occasion as this. 

I also have two characters I'm supposed to be levelling so for once I should be able to make use of the bonus xp, too. Actually, three, now I think about it. The bonuses are for "All servers", which means Kaladim as well. I just hope I can manage to take advantage of it all for once. I wouldn't want to miss out on all that appreciation.

As yet I can't see any news of similar bonuses on the other games but I notice DCUO players already received a thank-you and a gift for the last outage. I'm sure everyone will get something.

Such is the lot of the online game player.