The MMORPG Shroud of the Avatar was created by Richard Garriott (Ultima Online, Tabula Rasa). Currently, the game is facing major issues. In the new patch 106, released on September 29, a database error was discovered. However, this issue has been ongoing for longer than originally thought. The game has been offline for over a week. A rollback could destroy the progress of several weeks.
What exactly is the problem? On October 2, community manager Ravalox shared a post explaining why the servers went offline after the release of update 106. It stated that the game “would not disappear from the market” but that the database was corrupted with the update. The developers are working to resolve the issue.
Now, more than a week later, there is another forum post confirming that a rollback will take place. Ravalox states:
In the past week, we have been working diligently to identify the problems and trying to restore the database. During this time, we worked on several earlier iterations that we had restored from our backups.
After seven days of work, we still couldn’t achieve stability and made the very difficult decision to restore a database backup that was saved before the release of R105.
via Shroud of the Avatar Forum
The timing for this rollback, however, dates back more than a month. This makes it one of the largest in MMORPG history. Overall, the development of Shroud of the Avatar has been rather chaotic.
Rollbacks really hurt players, but usually only affect a few hours
Do rollbacks happen often in MMORPGs? Rollbacks are the worst-case scenario for MMORPG players. They have invested time in a game that gets completely wiped out. Therefore, developers are very cautious with such measures.
Most often, rollbacks affect a few hours to days, as these examples show:
- In New World, there was a rollback in November due to a gold bug. At that time, two hours were affected.
- In Guild Wars 2, there was a rollback in 2020 on the European servers, where players lost their progress on a Monday between 11:40 AM and 6:00 PM. However, this still caused significant criticism.
- Mortal Online 2 had to reset the servers by 24 hours in early 2022.
- In RuneScape, there have been a total of 7 different rollbacks since its release in 2001. However, they only affected minutes to a maximum of four hours (via RuneScape Fandom).
A rollback of nearly 6 weeks, as is the case here, is very unusual. It is also unclear how much the rollback could further reduce the already relatively small player base of Shroud of the Avatar.
Rollback back to August affects almost all areas of the game
What happens now in SOTA? The developers are currently testing an internal version of the game from August 24 at 3:00 PM European time. This corresponds to the version that existed before the release of patch 105. The entire player experience from patch 105 to 106 is expected to be completely removed, and both updates are to be released together.
The rollback to this version affects nearly all areas of the game:
- XP, gold, loot, and all character progress will be reset to the state of August 24
- Houses and lots that players have claimed will no longer belong to them
- New characters created after August 24 will no longer exist
However, items purchased for real money in the shop are to be resent afterward. The developers are also working to retroactively include rewards in the October rewards for the login rewards.
How do players react? They are showing shock. Especially the topic of crafting is being discussed a lot. In Shroud of the Avatar, it is luck-based whether you get a perfect weapon. Those who had luck in September may not have it again in October/November.
However, some players are also showing solidarity. A “Resource Recovery Service” has been established. There, players can donate items to those who have lost a lot (via Shroud of the Avatar Forum).
When will the rollback take place? That is not yet determined. The developers are planning a livestream where they will explain the issues and upcoming steps in more detail.
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