In the sandbox MMO ArcheAge, many paying players have not received the privileges they are entitled to. A hotfix aims to remedy this.
Update 11:10: The servers were offline for only a few minutes, contrary to the announcement, and are now back online. Many players continue to complain about not enjoying Patron status. This seems to be another failed attempt by Trion Worlds to comprehensively solve the issue.
Update 20:15: As the Community Manager Scapes reports, they plan to make another attempt in the coming hours to resolve the Patron issue. This is the most critical change currently underway, which is why they held discussions overnight (US time) with the Korean developers of XLGames to find a solution to the Patron problem in ArcheAge.
Update 21:30: This time the fix seems to be effective. Reports are increasing that Patrons are regaining their missing status.
Original message:
From 10:20 on Saturday morning until around noon, the European servers are expected to remain closed. During this time, a “possible” hotfix for the Patron issue is to be implemented.
The careful wording shows how cautious Trion Worlds has become with its phrasing. In recent days, they had announced that they had the problem under control but had to backtrack. The fix was expected to be applied during the bi-weekly European server maintenance this morning, but that did not seem to happen: the servers came back online after only one hour instead of the expected two hours, but without the anticipated hotfix.
The thread where players who hopefully had few exceptions with the missing Patron status were asked to report swelled as if a peanut allergy sufferer had accidentally picked the wrong spread.
Without Patron status, the only option in ArcheAge is to reach for the bottle
In ArcheAge, the Patron status grants doubled labor point regeneration while in-game, and at least a single regeneration while logged out. Without this status, players regenerate the essential points for progression only when they are online and since players continue to have significant issues bypassing the queues to actually log onto the servers, the problem is further exacerbated.
Paying players who were sure they could use their time in-game to pursue crafting tasks now find themselves without the necessary resources. If they want to craft, they must resort to labor potions, which either cost gold in the auction house or the premium currency “Credits” in the in-game shop.
The issues have been intensified by the fact that the first rents for houses are now due. To pay them, Patron status is required; otherwise, the painstakingly gathered farm could soon be found back in the mailbox. However, players can be reassured: they have seven days to pay the rent. By then, Trion Worlds intends to have resolved the issue.
Founders: Old problems resolved, new ones appeared
However, a fix has been found for founders who never received the title, cloak, or other benefits of their purchase. Now any founder can claim a founder pack for a single character via their account page at Trion Worlds. This allows founders who were not affected by the bug to equip another character with the cloak and other bonuses.
However, there is currently excitement on Reddit about the “10% discount” on all items in the cash shop, which was promised to founders, now disappearing from the game. Over the weekend, Trion Worlds stated it would be difficult to respond to this. However, they are confident that a solution will be announced next week that will satisfy the players. This is apparently another item on Trion Worlds’ growing to-do list, from which they hope to solve the Patron problem by this afternoon.
