Halloween

[lunarsolace]

It's not true, you only have to wait until Juneish for the anniversary

[appolonia]

What if we just had a look at the very core of this event, giving access to interesting things only to paying highbies (of which I am) ? Reminds me of some anniversary events, while 99% players were clearly said "you don't belong to the community".

Clearly another slap in the face, and I wouldn't like to be in the guy's shoes, who must come here and say "awww it's technical issue/we made a mistake" while the Halloween annoucement was just about mid/long term signups...

Man, you didn't even manage to write stuff, to look concerned, and you want us to be ? The easiest way to have people give you trust, love, then money, is to pull them into doing this, to attract them, to GIVE them since it won't cost you A CENT. You just have to change some variables in a programm that shall have been set YEARS ago, and you would like us to pay for... NOTHING ? To pay for guys that are not even able to hack a game that's over 13 years old in an event running every year (if not TWICE, counting anniversary) FOR 13 YEARS ?

Should you have explained all this by "Gifts must remain gifts, and not the result of a yearly farming session, Halloween is FUN and not about itemization"... well, being sissy (honest ?) is much more forgivable than being greedy or stupid, lazy, but you didn't, instead you slapped us again.

Not that it will change anybody's life, but damn, how can a company be so genius at artistic stuff, and so incompetent and honorless at anything else ??

[Leetlover]

l2r!

saw, but was asking players =p

[Ekarona]

Doesn't everyone have access to most social stuff? Or am I wrong here?

Still, the loottables are screwed...

[Genele]

First of all I would like to apologize. In my efforts to try to make the Lya armor more accessible, I managed to create a misunderstanding in my communication with Customer Service which made them spawn out both the old and the reworked Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Head (from now on referred to as guph) scripts... This is why you have encountered too high level guphs in the areas where I said there would only be low level ones. (This is being corrected as we speak, but it takes hours for all the guphs to de-spawn.)

The reason why we decided to make changes to the guph spawn scripts was because Lya Armor does have a very fair drop chance from guph (25%). And changing the scripts/adding new ones to spawn all level ranges of guphs in old and new areas was the only time-wise reasonable thing we could come up with to ensure that anyone who wants Lya armor could get it during Halloween.

Relying on getting an emergency patch out to fix Halloween has proven difficult. The reality here is that we cannot "just update the loot tables" when making a patch. All other work in the 18.6 branch that has been done since we patched Live the last time, will go in to the build once we make a patch. This is just the nature of working on a project with so little version control. We can't just sit around and wait or avoid making changes because something might go wrong. Something always goes wrong, and then we just have to fix it as it gets discovered and try our best to anticipate what could go wrong. The reality is that with all the ticking time bombs people can have placed over the years, it is amazing that things don't break more often than they do (if you can believe that, hehe).

Since the last Live patch we had to make an exploit fix as soon as possible, because we have found an exploit that causes more and more problems the longer it remains unfixed on the Live dimension. We will try to patch Testlive next week. But a patch which contains larger changes like that is a risk, and bugs could be found while QA is testing. If they find bugs, we will need to make another patch and that would eventually delay patching Live until Halloween is long over. It is all unknowns for us at this point. Either the fixes work the way we intended them to or they don't. Touching one thing in AO can break something in a completely unexpected area. That is just the nature of working on a project that is this old, spaghetti-like and badly documented.

On the bight side: We have actually made larger changes to the uph loot folders this week (we have also added a little surprise). And if we can get this patch out before the end of the Halloween events, I will make sure to keep the Halloween spawns running for an additional week. All I can do is to cross my fingers!

[Metafly7]

Touching one thing in AO can break something in a completely unexpected area. That is just the nature of working on a project that is this old, spaghetti-like and badly documented.

Brings up a nice question, now that you all are working and building to make it work on the new engine.... Are u guys making documents on what is being done now then? :P

[Gunforhire]

Just had to give my 2 cents worth here. Last 2 or 3 Halloweens we have had: Prototype backpack, Neleb Eye backpacks, 4 different Spider backpacks, Tick backpack, Ripped off Arm shoulder pads Eyeball headwear Traffic Cone headwear Paper Bag headwear and numerous other cool items . All this dropped frequently from almost every Pumkinhead. this year nothing new and low drop rates on old stuff. And as everyone has been saying enough with the candy sheesh. This without a doubt is the lamest Halloween I have ever endured in my 8 years of playing AO. This used to be my favorite time with AO now..... not so much sorry to say.

[Artof420]

^
More pew pew.
Less QQ.

Thanks for fixing the spawns, if in fact, they are fixed (haven't had a chance to log in yet.)

[Brampfine]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bpOE1oCAHU

stuff wanted !!!

[Krause]

On the bight side: We have actually made larger changes to the uph loot folders this week (we have also added a little surprise). And if we can get this patch out before the end of the Halloween events, I will make sure to keep the Halloween spawns running for an additional week. All I can do is to cross my fingers!

Uncle Pumpkinhead Pet?
Commmooon Genele, give me a hint on where they will come from!

[Liwa]

Well .... I can't tell if the changes have taken place or not. It has been more than 10 hours since Genele's post above ... and I am here in 4 holes watching 220's kill GUPH's. They should be lvl 125 - 175 and I am looking at a "cluster" with a lvl 42 and a lvl 197.

Liwa

Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Head's execution of Relapse Into Childhood Terror got interrupted by CEO Guardian..
Extended location information:
- 598.7, 331.0, 20.0 (598.7 331.0 y 20.0 791)
- Pf Proxy: Model=51100:791 GS=0 SG=0 R=791, resource: 791
- zone: 278, area: "Cathedral Approach"
Server id: 3523, character id: 50000:264181, time: 2013-10-26 17:50:08 (UTC)
Version: 18.6.9_EP1, map id: 18.6.9.0_30.09.2013_19.30.46, build: 51721.

edit:

Now a lvl 27, 192, and 204 in the same cluster ... for sure a respawn as the spot only had bodies a moment ago

[Esssch]

Ya, ran around Broken Shores for a bit. Didn't see a single GUPH. Did see some regular UPHs, but 120ish was highest. Also, a few were in the 100% gas around Home.

edit: found some

[Traderjill]

Ya, ran around Broken Shores for a bit. Didn't see a single GUPH. Did see some regular UPHs, but 120ish was highest. Also, a few were in the 100% gas around Home.

edit: found some

Biggest issue I have with that picture is the presence of a pistol MP wearing that stupid panda head

[Genele]

Uncle Pumpkinhead Pet?
Commmooon Genele, give me a hint on where they will come from!

Harvesting Uncle Pumpkin-Heads drops them. GMs and ARKs can hand them out during events.

[Genele]

Are u guys making documents on what is being done now then? :P

We actually have an internal wiki page. Random documents also seem to get lost over time, hehe.

[Liwa]

Harvesting Uncle Pumpkin-Heads drops them. GMs and ARKs can hand them out during events.

Who or where is Harvesting Uncle Pumpkin Heads .....

Liwa

[lyledesol]

Hate to say it, but somethings gone wrong with the guph spawns ... Been waiting at two spawns for a couple hours now and no pops at all
Ok, I just checked a couple more zones.. there's a few uph's about, but no guph's anywhere :/

All's good.. Looks like they just took a longer than usual to change work shifts..


Thanks for the changes Genele, much appreciated.

[Gimpynoob]

Who or where is Harvesting Uncle Pumpkin Heads .....

Liwa

Mission Pumpkins?

[Liwa]

Mission Pumpkins?

Mission pumpkins are regular Uncle Pumpkinheads ... not Harvesting.

Liwa

[Liwa]

We have updated the outdoor Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Head spawns.

Broken Shores will get Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Heads from level: 200-250

Stret West Bank will get Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Heads from level: 50-100

Holes In the Wall will get Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Heads from level: 25-50

4 Holes will get Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Heads from level: 125-175

Stret East Bank will get Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Heads from level: 100-150

Upper Stret East Bank will get Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Heads from level: 175-200


We are also spawning Griefing Uncle Pumpkin-Heads in the Notum Miner playfields (SBC-Xpm Site Alpha Romeo 24).


Now everyone should be able to find the Lya armor of the level range they desire.

Good hunting!

I only checked Holes in the Wall so far this evening ... but it is now spawning the 25 - 50 range of GUPH as promised .....

Liwa