Template characters

Well, after a long awaited "soon", the template characters are implemented. I'll make this post brief, with the info I have until now.
I have only claimed Mastara, my previously SM11 healer who has miraculously turned into a GB12 healer. Ar is still waiting until I figure out what to do about epis and gear.

UPS:

- level 1-3 ND elixirs
- all the skills at ch10, including second role skills on characters that have not reached second role
- GK/BK relics
- +5 dagger and bracers
- perfect nuggets
- some clothes. I have 100 def pants (CC), 3% crit jacket, 10% all resistance hat, 100dmg and CK dmg wbs, 10% speed boots.
- 2kk gold
- you get your 3 free restats in hefei again.
- the skills that have been left out (see below) can be obtained through the clan base trainers.

DOWNS (hang on, this is gonna be a long list)

- Your character has face number one, no matter what it looked like before, and hairdo number one.
- if you didn't move your stuff into the inventory, your entire inventory is erased.
- unless high level enough, no epithets whatsoever. There are people with [unsealed]Conqueror of North Sea running around, but other than that, i saw KS at awkward zombies in Hefei. So for people above FC10 - no Shen Mo. Enjoy.
- 0 (yes, zero) karma. So you better do the Bloody flowers quest if you want to wear at least the GK relics
- you have the nuggets, but the weapons are not slotted.
- some high levels got the SM clothing set. Useless in LD/Icy
- your RTD quests appear as completed, but the quest rewards are not on your character. So better save up your clan relics if you have them, or your 2nd role clothes if you got there, you're not getting them now.
- your RTE and RTK quests need to be done again. It will not be easy getting those low-level drops.
- BP is a mess. SM nukers with ch10 aoe and BS buffs are NOT a desired sideffect.
- LE: BlooM reports the warrior damage buff missing (Xuanxu Art of Earth)
- LE: Reported "unhandled exception" bugs on characters that were given with the wrong gender .
- the characters do have all the clan-specific skills, but don't have the clan base vaga skills they learned at the beginning. Now this might not be THAT bad, just mentioned for the obsessive-compulsive fellow players who like to have all their skills maxed. So yeah, we do have some skills to train until ch10 :)


Not yet decided how to rate it:

The word filter is off starting with this patch. People can now freely type "shaolin" and " power", but they are also free to type the non-scientific terms for sexual intercourse, reproductive organs, feces and so on. Since I believe in freedom of speech, well, this is not altogether bad. What is bad is the fact that the discovery was made during a roar that contained the uncensored version of the abovementioned terms (shaolin was one of the last words roared - i will not get into the analysis of how that person's mind worked).

The list is far from complete, since I am leaving I will kindly ask someone else with editing rights to add to the list.
Ar is currently on hold for reclaiming. I'm not happy about losing my ch11 all attributes buff, but I'm glad I won't have to level all the nukes and the reflect all the way to 10. Also the face thing bothers me greatly, since Ar is supposed to have the face she did.
And the character claim sheet ...claimed Ar is a Shaolin hybrid. Funny, for a female character.

So if you decide to claim your characters, strip 'em, and think well. You might get both pleasant and very unpleasant surprises.

Something old, something new, something blue...

Kind of...since we will not have our old chars back, not even fresh new chars, but something between. That's why we will have something...blue.

We are getting a character that is close to the level of our old characters, with a package of equipment that is suitable for that level. It works out like this;

Level Ranges
1-80 = No Template character
81-100 = Level 96 Template Character
101-115 = Level 108 Template Character
116-128 = Level 120 Template Character
129-139 = Level 132 Template Character
140-150 = Level 144 Template Character
151-160 = Level 156 Template Character
161-172 = Level 168 Template Character
173-188 = Level 180 Template Character
189-200 = Level 192 Template Character

The package isn't decided yet. For me it will be a big LOL since i have claimed my CS10 warr as CS9 (i forgot i have made CS10 right before the end of Acclaim), so i'll get a CS1 char. It sucks.

There will be more things to be taken care of, a lot of questions w/o answers, so stay tunned to see what God Hyerion will give us. Speaking of..what are your expectation from now on?

Full link here: http://forums.gamersfirst.com/index.php?showtopic=108428

"Back from the dead" or "God help us"

Hyperion , Yesterday, 08:21 PM

Hey All!!

I'm back in the office after the long trip and meeting schedule. It's good to be back in the office again, although I still haven't fully unpacked or had enough time to readjust my internal schedule to PST. But anyway, here are some updates with nonspecific deadlines

Template Characters are coming very SOON! I will likely post up the full announcement tomorrow with all the details you will need to get the template characters applied to your accounts . We had several options with how to do the process, and we opted with the easiest option for the players that gives you the most ability to change/customize things on your end. I assume ill get a lot of questions about this, but don't be surprised if I defer to tomorrow's update. I need to get some files off my laptop, there are some funny things that people put into the character submission sheet that I wanted to share with you all.

Gameguard will be leaving us shortly. We will not be giving you details on what is replacing GG. This is for a few reasons, the most important being, that giving out details on hack mitigation gives the cheaters more information on how to find ways around it, and I would like several weeks/months of no hacking first before we start giving out details. On your end, it will not appear that there is any anti-hack program at all. This new suite of protections is designed to not affect your gameplay at all (unless you run cheats/hacks).

I am catching up on a lot of little stuff too, the network updates are going along at a decent speed, although there hasn't been enough progress on my 9D stuff that I would like. For instance, I am still waiting on tool access to begin events again from my end, but this should be coming either tomorrow/friday or early next week.

Ask questions, ill answer stuff in this thread throughout the day.

State of things

Hyp's Post:

Look, I get that you all don't understand the complexity of the issues we have been seeing for the last 2 weeks. As a result, your dissatisfaction is justified and expected. If I were in your situation I would be upset too, although I probably wouldn't post about it on the forums because overt negativity doesn't solve anything IMO. But I digress...

The whole insult of being "like acclaim" is BORING to me now. It doesn't affect us like you think it does, its a boring, uncreative, easy insult that is spawned by weakness and ignorance. Acclaim was a publisher, and while I do not think they did a lot of things right, they were professionals and ran a successful business for many years, so they had more experience than the average player at game publishing. While you all think you "know better" in how to run an online game, you are wrong. You have no idea of the complexity of publishing online games, especially from Developers half a world away. But thats not the point either...

The point is that things are bad, and from your perspective we are not doing anything to fix the badness. I get where your coming from, because you are not as informed as we are about the situation. My team has been working 24/7 shifts for the last 2 weeks to isolate and fix the issues, you wouldn't know that because you are not here seeing what is going on. We have brought in additional and very expensive tech resources to expedite the fixes, we have teams all over the world (turkey, brazil, india, korea) and even some very serious Americans working to fix what is happening. So I am not upset/angry about this negativity, it is a natural and expected response from you guys given the situation from your perspective.

All we can say is what is in the announcements above, but the issues we have are much bigger than you know...ALL our games are having these issues, it is not just 9D...so take every issue you know about and multiply it by 5 (War Rock, KOL, Sword 2, General G1, 9D...etc...) and you can begin to see the scope of what we are dealing with.

What is good about all this, is that once we are "through the woods" we will be a MUCH better/faster/stronger company as a result. But you, as players, probably do not care about this, you want your fun NOW...because NOW is what concerns you. Well, the future concerns me more than NOW, and if what we are doing NOW makes the future better for the company then, from my perspective, we are doing the right thing. What we are doing we have to do, we did not ask for these issues, but we do have to react to them. 9Dragons is going to be with GamersFirst for a long time, a couple of weeks of crap is minute in the lifetime of the game, but only if the good weeks > bad weeks in the long run. So the objective is to accept the reality of the situation now, and make good decisions now that will set us up for big wins in the future.

That being said, I have no ETA for when we can get the maps back up, and events this weekend are probably not going to happen. Do I expect logins/revenue to be low this weekend? Yes, of course I do. I expect low revenue and logins until all this stuff is fixed in general. We will get everything working ASAP. Unfortunately ASAP is probably not fast enough for many of you. Will I attempt to make things better and make cool events when I am able to do so? Yes, of course I will. But you know that too...I think I have been pretty clear in my style...I like weekend events, I like making you all happy...it makes me happy to see positivity in the community.

Also, when maps are down in general they are usually back up in 5 minutes or less, what is happening now is unique, and once we get everything back up and moving again we will not have these problems. But until then, we have to power through the tough times to get to a place where we can start making progress again.

Fooled once, fooled twice, fooled three times, awarded!

To explain the title a little bit...

Fooled once: Acclaim's ending. We all knew how it was, so no further comments.

Fooled twice: GamersFirst 's statement: "We will get the database back" As a side note, the latest news is they actually don't know if there is a database.

Fooled three times: Latest Hyperion ideea, of voting:

Which option below is the best for the 9Dragons community?

Option 1 - Events only [ 57 ] [18.94%]
Option 2 - Template Characters only [ 14 ] [4.65%]
Option 3 - Cross fingers and wait for the database [ 43 ] [14.29%]
Option 4 - Combine Option 1+2 [ 187 ] [62.13%]

Wich is taking me to the next question: why we even bothered to play again? If they will keep it as the votes are going, we will have templates chars, based on lvls. How in the world they can give us at least a part of what we have, God knows.

To see the thread, use this link: http://forums.gamersfirst.com/index.php?showtopic=89110

Enjoy! If there is something to enjoy...

A Little Bed Time Story

Just because nothing can ever be done to please a gaming community that looks like it's mostly made up of people who had little to no real life working experience.

So here's a little Nasreddin Hodja tale.

One day Nasreddin Hodja and his young son were on their way to the market. The Hodja was riding his donkey and his son was walking beside him. As they travelled such, they heard a couple of villagers who happened to be passing by, speak disapprovingly about them.

`Look at our Hodja Effendi,' one said to the other, `he is comfortably riding on his donkey and letting his little boy walk along. Shame on the Hodja for making the boy suffer like that!' When Nasreddin Hodja heard this, he wanted to rectify what was perceived as his selfishness. He put his son on the donkey and he started to walk beside. Shortly after, they met another couple of villagers.

`Look at the Hodja and his son!' they said, `These are the times we are living in. A young boy is riding on the donkey and his poor old father is sweating to keep the pace. Today's children have no respect for their parents.' Nasreddin Hodja found some reason in this comment and thought of another remedy. They both got off of the donkey and started to walk beside it. A little while later, a group of villagers, also going to the market, approached the procession of the Hodja, the son and the donkey, all walking one after the other.

`This Hodja Effendi and his son have no minds, whatsoever.' they whispered amongst themselves, `They are both beating on their feet and the donkey is strolling along. Don't these people know what a donkey is for?' Hodja heard this and thought they had a point. The solution was clear. Both he and his son sat on the donkey. As they continued their trip this way, thinking that they have finally complied with all the opinions of their fellow villagers, they met another of their acquaintances. He was not very happy to see both the Hodja and the boy on a scrawny donkey.

`Hodja Effendi,' he yelled, `don't you know no mercy? How is this poor little animal supposed to carry two people? The donkey is also Allah's creation, have some pity.' Nasreddin Hodja agreed with this last remark as well. What were they to do? He shouldered the front body of the donkey and his son took on the back part, and they carried the donkey to the market place.

G1 skill xp and macro-ing

As you might and might not have known, the skill xp on the Acclaim servers, low as it might have seemed, was actually tweaked to a 4xp. If you remember, after server restarts, skill xp was nutty slow - THAT was the actual skill xp of the server. With G1 taking over, skill xp is back to it's original state, that is 4 times as low as Acclaim players are used to having it.

That being said, I can fully understand that people are not very inclined to play buffers. What I have absolutely no understanding for is using macros to get around it - having some bot "press keys" for you while you go about your business otherwheres and coming back to leveled skills. As far as things go, that is called cheating. Cheating is "fooling the system" because you're not willing and able to play by the rules and loser enough not to be able to take the blow to your self esteem - that is admitting you can't make it the straight way.

So just a little antisocial word of caution here: by all means, if admitting you're a failure at playing the game as it is set up to be played would seriously damage your psyche - by all means, go ahead and macro. However, keep yourself away from Squeak-ers. There are few types of people I despise more than cheaters.

Still Restless

Well, the rodents are back and squeaking.

I have refrained posting for a long while. I didn't want to rant about the ranters and all they hysterical people who want their chars back, this minute and a 100xp compensation and free BE for all forever. I got used to the idea that we most likely won't get our old chars back and if we do, it will take ages. It's only in Ally McBeal that legal battles last the 30 minutes of an episode.

With that in mind, the rodents grinded the weekend away. So, on the 20th of September, shortly after midnight, Restless was reborn. Some of us changed names, some changed roles, some changed clans. Some kept everything, some changed everything. But we're all still restless. And squeaking.

9D is returning

Today's update contained some long-awaited news and some expected news.

The long-awaited news are that 9d will be back up tomorrow at the estimated time of 1am GMT.

You can read Hyperion's post here.

The expected news are that they don't have the DB yet, and it seems that it will be a long time before even we can hope for them. Hyperion pointed out that the DB issue is now indy21's problem, and it seems that indy will need to take legal action against Disney in order to get our info. I somehow would place my bet on the big fish, but hope dies last.

We'll see how smoothly and bug-free the servers will start (small chances there). Maybe some of us should stay up just in order to re-create our characters and at least get the names reserved.
For Restless members, refer to our facebook group and talk to the people who will stay up and make their chars. Maybe we can work something out, and after a couple of hours we'll be able to recreate the league.

More news about the league here and on the FB group. We'll keep you posted.

Claim your character !

Easy. Go here: https://www.gamersfirst.com/welcome/9Dragons/9d_characters.php and claim your fill the forms with your character data. 

That doesn't mean we will have the chars when the game will be up.

Letters - part 3

New one, from CFO of Indy21

Dear Fellow Dragons,

I am Yongnam, Partner and CFO at Indy21.

I believe that this is the first time that I, on behalf of Indy21, am talking to the community directly. First off, thank you all very much for having been the biggest supporters of 9Dragons. You have always been with us through our ups and downs.

Although there have been many times that I wanted to communicate with you directly, especially to show my gratitude, we chose to let our previous publisher take care of the direct contact with you, due to a contractual obligations.

However, the series of events that happened recently has made me want to step up and initiate this communication to provide you all with our perspectives and thoughts on the current situation.

On August 26, I was shocked and disappointed by the way business was conducted by reputable companies like Playdom and Disney. We are operating in the business in which, I believe, if there are any disputes, we try to resolve the issues in congenial terms between companies by putting our customers interests first, not by holding our loyal community members hostage.

I believe, whether you are Western-based or Eastern-based, that is just a simple rule of thumb in the industry that we are in.

We had known that 9Dragons was to be transitioned to our new friends at GamersFirst and were promised by our former publisher that they would support a smooth and friendly transition of all player accounts. We had already inked our agreement with GamersFirst and had started working together to begin this transition, cooperating fully with Acclaim and taking them for their word. However, when the plug was pulled, we, along with the rest of you, were left completely in shock. We were not given the promised notice; the game database, which we required to recreate your characters and accounts for the upcoming re-launch of the game, was not transferred. What is most hurtful and saddening was that even in the last few hours of service, you were not informed of what was going on with the game.

SO, where do we stand now? We have a steep challenge ahead of us and here are our immediate priorities:

1. Restart 9Dragons immediately! We are working tirelessly with our friends at GamersFirst to re-launch 9Dragons as soon as humanly possible.

With little or no sleep in the last week both our teams are working around the clock to re-launch the game. In our estimate we are about less than ten days away from restarting service.


2. Recreate ALL player characters and accounts: It is my promise along with the rest of my team that we will move mountains to make this happen. We are consulting legal counsel and negotiating with stakeholders at Disney to find an amicable solution. We are also working with GamersFirst and trying to come up with some innovative solutions to resolve this problem. We don't have a definitive timeline for this but, again, it is my promise that WE WILL MAKE THIS HAPPEN. GamersFirst and Indy21 will do manual account updates if it becomes absolutely necessary athough we don't think it will come to that!

3. Design and Develop exciting new content updates and communicate the release schedule with you all. The abandonment of our community has fired up each one of our developers here in Korea and they are on a mission to make the 9Dragons community the greatest gaming community out there via providing you with enriched content updates.

With our combined efforts, we will all be playing 9Dragons again very very soon and we look forward to this new chapter in our journey as a stronger community and close friends.



Yongnam

Partner and Chief Financial Officer

Indy21 Co., Ltd.

In fact, nothing new. We work on 9D, we work on database... etc etc etc. Just another name who said that, that's all.  And the funny part is "10 days". Every little kid is thinking they will be able to play in 10 days. I don't wanna be in their shoes in the 11th day...

No more 9Dragons

At least not as we used to know it...

To explain myself, i asked Hyperion in PM for permission to post on the forum the game storyline. Including clans, war..everything. His answer was:

"Hyperion: Unfortunatly, we cannot use that story. Which is a big shame as it was quite good"

So, good bye 9Dragons. Nothing new about the storyline, if we are gonna have a storyline from now on; or who's gonna be the new writer, since they cannot use Steven's. I'll try to keep you guys updated as soon as possible. Wich might be tuesday, if Hyperion will reply to my message.

P.S. The website is on, btw: http://www.gamersfirst.com/9dragons

edit: Unofficial sources said that Steven himself said G1 doesn't need his permision for the Lore ingame, but to pos it on forum/website. Wich is half good to know; the storyline will stay the same. Still, there are some issues about the legal rights. Steven already sent an email to G1 regarding this issue. But that's all i have for now.

Hyperion about fresh start and G1

Hmm, how to respond to this....

It seems like this thread has a LOT of history and emotions behind it (obviously), so I will take a moment to remind you guys to remain respective and be constructive at all times.

From the feedback I have gotten, it seems MOST of the community wants the account information and not a fresh start.

There are more benefits to the Game, Community, and GamersFirst for us not to start over...so that is the road we will be traveling down. So yeah...

Anyway, once we get the game going again, we will likely start a new server for those interested in a fresh start.

Oh, I also wanted to respond to the questions of G1 being greedy "like Acclaim was"...even though I will probably have to write this dozens of times.

It should go without saying, but GamersFirst is in the business of free online games, and that business requires us to make money off our property in any/all ways we can.

So, it should be clear that we will be PERCEIVED to be greedy "like Acclaim was...". This perspective is a byproduct of being in the business of free2play online games. There is no charity or non-profit organization that publishes quality online games out of simply the goodness of their hearts.

We do go about it a bit differently, although I am not 100% sure how Acclaim did their monetization, our philosophy about making money is this:

publish online game
???
Profit!


Just kidding...its more like this:

Publish online game
Provide quality support
Deliver new content and features
Grow and nurture the game community
Create fun events and promotions the community can get excited about
Come up with new and crazy ways to do all of the above
Troll players on the forums
PROFIT!!!


To us it boils down to the mantra that "Happy players spend more money...", so we want to keep you happy, so you give us your money. There is no shame in admitting that we want to take your money, because we view that money as your support for our operation, and without your support, we would have no operation. Every dollar you spend is like a vote in a free2play game. It is also a lot more fun to do it this way, which is why GamersFirst hires people that understand how gamers think (because we are gamers ourselves). Almost every meeting we have here gets prolonged because someone inevitably says "but...but...is this what our players really want?..." or something to that affect.

Only the invisible hand of the market and time will tell if we are doing things the right way.


Hope that clears things up, I did go a bit off-topic, but I did have to comment on "greed" sooner or later.

Hyperion

Hyperion's "Daily Update"

Ok, not so "daily" but still, much more better then Acclaim, regarding the news. Last and maybe most important news till today is: 

1. "We have sent over a ton of information to Indy and they are sending us back some critical files (such as the game client) overnight.

Tomorrow, the new 9Dragons website should be live! That's kind of a big deal"

Bi"g deal or not, things are moving. Still nothing about the database yet. 

2. "We had a great meeting with Indy21, and it looks like I will soon (I know you hate it when I use the word soon, but its faster than "in a while") be able to give out the information you all are going crazy for (regarding the DB and when the game will be back up).

Obviously, the website is NOT up yet, this is due to some bugs that need to be verified as fixed before the site can go live. This will surely be completed while I am sleeping tonight, so I think that the website will go up tomorrow morning.

I know it can be frustrating having to deal with me being evasive on the really important topics of the account DB and when the game will be back. The reason for this is because I do not want to break my promises to you guys. In my opinion, from a players perspective, it is worse for a community manager to break their promises than to be evasive. So, until i get a confirmed date on the items I am refering to, I won't be posting the update you want to see (which I should do....SOON!)"

Letters - part 2

Letter from The Hermit to Disney (intended to be an open letter from every 9D player)

"Dear Disney Executives,



I am a player of the videogame 9Dragons, which was developed by the game company Indy21 and published by Acclaim Games. As you know, the game has now been moved to a new publisher, GamersFirst, following your acquisition of both Playdom and Acclaim, but the character database has not been transferred. I fully understand that Disney is a newcomer to this deal and that Disney personally bares me no ill will. I would really like to have my Character Data transferred as well, so that I can continue playing where I left off. I understand that there are legal issues regarding the transfer of my Personal Data. By registering here on this facebook page I am requesting that you reconsider your decision not to transfer the data in a way that will not cause you any liability. There is a distinct difference between my Personal Data (such as my email address and personal information), and that of my Character Data (which records my in-game character’s name, level and equipment), and all I am asking is that you transfer the Character Data over, and then the responsibility for matching my personal info and that character’s data can be handled and verified between myself and the game’s developer, Indy21, with no Personal Data violation committed by Disney, Playdom or Acclaim whatsoever; and I will further sign any further documentation you wish that can make this possible. It is my understanding that the transfer of the Character Data for our entire community is a simple matter technologically speaking and will take less than a half hour of your time, and I sincerely hope you will take this matter under full consideration. I really want to have my Character Data moved and I believe it will bring a lot of good will toward your company."

Letters - part 1

A letter from Joshua Hong - Founder and CEO of GamersFirst

"Dear 9Dragons Community,

I’m the Founder and CEO of Gamersfirst. Over the last 8 years my team and I have built the GamersFirst community one member at a time and we are welcome all of you into our global network of MMO communities. Your vibrancy and passion were the main reasons why we signed this game from Indy21.

First, I was appalled by how you were all abandoned by the previous publisher of the game, Acclaim. As a gamer, I felt angered and disheartened, by how your community wasn’t shown any respect; I felt your sense of abandonment as they shut down your service with no notice and warning. I promise you that at GamersFirst, you will be provided the utmost respect just as the rest of our communities.

Secondly, I want you to know that Indy21 took no part in deciding when and how the 9Dragon servers were shut down. My colleagues and partners in Korea, at Indy21, were as shocked and surprised as the rest of us as they too were promised a seamless and smooth transition. It seems that the decision to shut down the 9Dragons service was made unilaterally by Acclaim and Playdom. Right now, our first and foremost priority is to help recreate your accounts on our platform as expediently as possible. We’ve already made progress and will be on it like there is no tomorrow. Quite frankly, this process won’t be easy and will require a lot of close collaboration between us and the community. With your help, however, I am confident that we can make it happen and we are committed to working 24x7 till this gets done. From my standpoint as CEO, I view this problem as an opportunity to prove our worth to you. So, from this point on, without any complaint or excuse from us, we will do everything in our power to serve you right.

So, where do we go from here?

Three things I ask you to do:

#1. Stay calm and give us a few days to launch the game servers. Our engineers from both Gamersfirst and Indy21 are working round the clock through the weekend since last Thursday to launch the new website and servers;

#2. Visit the 9Dragon forum as often as you can to find out up-to-the-minute progress. Also, please join our new facebook fan page so you can share information quickly and easily. Our goal is to make the character restoration process as painless as possible. We know how hard you worked to build up your characters. To some of us, it means more than just a game. It’s our life. Although there will be some minor hiccups along the way, I assure you that we will help you restore all your previous characters with or without the screenshots of your characters. You have my word on this. In fact, because you are going through the current crisis and remain loyal community member, if you came back and went through the character restoration process successfully, we will offer you a lot of incentives. I’m positive you will love the special offers to earn and keep your loyalty. Also, we have a lot of new content waiting at the sideline to be deployed. I’m sure you will like what you’ll see as soon as we launch the game;

#3. Tell your friends about the plan we have. Spread the news and let’s get them excited about the new opportunities. I want you to take this opportunity to help us restore and further energize the 9Dragons community. This is the time to test this community’s character and resilience. And, I know, you guys care about the friendships you built over the years and it’s just as important to you as to us.

Gamersfirst is the first and most experienced Free2Play MMO publisher in North America. We have more than 30 million players who created accounts on our platform; and these 30 million friends are welcoming you with open arms. Our mission is to put Gamers First. That means putting YOU first. So, tell your friends about us, about the change. There is new hope.


Cheers,

Josh

Founder and CEO


Gamersfirst."

Latest news from G1

Since GamersFirst announced they will become the new publisher, future GM, Hyperion, said something new and i would like to share :

* no exact time of the transfer

* all active accounts with all the items in them will be transfered

* all banned account will stay banned

* the entire mod/vgm team will be the same, at least at the begining. They will make changes based on a re-evaluation. Let's hope they will not forget about that.

* IM will be review; some items will become cheaper. Nobody said wich items

Nobody said nothing about Acclaims coins, but i guess is more wise to spend them now. You can keep the items, but most likely not the coins. And this is it, yet. I'll try to keep this updated as soon as I can.

Speaking of, the new 9D forum is here: 

http://www.gamersfirst.com/9dragons/

update: Also, latest news from Acclaim

"[GM] Fugen

With great sadness, I have to announce the near-immediate closure of 9Dragons. We will be taking the game and forums down as of 11:59pm PST today.

You may receive a refund on all unused Acclaim Coins in your account. You may also request a refund on any cash items purchased in the last thirty (30) days. Please send any refund requests to transition@acclaim.com. For item refunds, please send screenshots of your character and gear.

We thank you for playing 9Dragons and for your business.

On a personal note, I will miss the community and the game. May the seeds of the dragon within you thrive

Gamersfirst's 9Dragons

Official statement looks like this: August 24, 2010 – GamersFirst, today’s most popular Free2Play online game destination, announced its partnership with Korean game developer, Indy21, to publish 9Dragons. 9Dragons, the hit martial arts MMORPG, previously published by Acclaim Games, will be published by GamersFirst come September 2010. Current 9Dragons players will be able to continue playing with all items and characters intact after the transition.

9Dragons is a Martial Arts MMORPG set during the Ming Dynasty of feudal China. Players explore the vast expanse of the lands as a member of one of the legendary clans of Chinese Martial Arts and challenge each other for ownership of immense Fortresses in massive PvP battles

Well..nothing new for some of us. What is new...but with the old "soon" as a date, is that:  In addition to the solid foundation of existing PvE and PvP gameplay, the changing of hands will also include several new key features over the next quarter, including:
• Dedicated tutorial map for easing new players into the 9Dragons experience
• New high level dungeon encounter “Vault of the Ice Dragon”
• Updated “Tibet” map
• Brand new Kung Fu patterns to master
• ‘Most Wanted’ list – useful in avoiding—or becoming—one of the most dangerous and skilled players in PvP

Enjoy!

x5 events and nuts

Well, the connection is easy. This squirrel, who is known to be nuts, has finally achieved one of the goals of her CK build. After grueling months in Icy grinding on CK build, i finally got it: ch12 def nuke.
Why nuts? well...I will let you judge the screenshots below yourselves:

In other news, the Disconnected league is hosting a contest for our two leagues: create your own deco. For more info and for those interested who want to give the ol' paper and pencil a try, here's the link to the full description of it: http://dc9d.blogspot.com/2010/08/design-your-own-deco.html

Instant nuke shall be leveled tomorrow, if everything works out the way I want to. Have fun at the raised xp event, everyone, and remember:

SQUEAK!

Skill Books

As you well know, in order to increase your skills to ch11 and 12 you need those neat little books that cost a lot of money: the lost books (for ch11) and disappeared tomes (for ch12). There are some things to take into consideration before jumping headfirst into buying books, however.

First of all, there are skills that don't level beyond ch10 0% but the books still drop and are as of yet useless:
- actives
- external wounds heal
- internal wounds heal- nukers' FD slow nuke

Second role skills don't level beyond ch10 0% as well (with the exception of the hybrid's scale buff), but at least there are no books for those skills either, so you won't be tricked into buying them.

Then, there are books for "regular" nukes and smashes. Don't buy those either, they are all available in the clan base and you also need to hit second role (and sometimes attain several levels into the ECs or FCs) to use them. Throw in some pieces of steel as contribution and you'll get them cheaper than a player might try to scam you into believing you'll have to pay.

Finally, we have the rest of the heals, the buffs and self-buffs and the shields. Those have level requirements, but as soon as you are able to level them to cheng 10, you can also get them to 11 or 12 as soon as you can get your hands on the books. Some of those are more expensive than others. A short heal will normally cost you more than a warrior's buff that makes the mobs turn aggro, though I did see some weeeeeird prices out there (like 30 kk for a rezz book, as if healers and hybs go around rezzing themselves all day long).

If you have some books on your hand and do not know what they do, you can check the table below (click for the large image)

Dogs of Lore

Where: "Tomb of Lord Bao" in the northern section of Hefei.
Sunday July 25th
Bardo: 7:30pm GMT

Nirvana: 7:30pm PST

Asura: 2:30pm PST

I was just thinking...let's make a team, combined from Restless and DC Leagues, jus to beat every other competitors. What do u think about that? 

Bardo VGMs

Has anyone noticed the increased presence of VGMs on Bardo? Only today during the event, there were at least 3 VGMs online. I would like to be optimistic today and hope this is Hypatia's doing, keeping his/her team in check. If so, (s)he's started on the right track as Bardo VGM lead, not to mention (s)he's present a lot as well, unlike our former invisible VGM lead. I can only hope this keeps up in the future and that the enthusiasm of the new VGMs won't sink over time. (I still maintain that someone should counsel them regarding the VGM nicks they choose, especially on Bardo since we seem to tend to be the server with the pickiest population :)) ).

The Quiz

Hiya all! Some of you might already know that ill be leaving 9D and moving on to other things.
Before i leave here´s a little quiz for you good rodents and mammals. Take it as a fun thing, not a race or a task. All participants will receive rewards ingame and top3 will get 50 low GT and 10 BE. Also try to answer all the questions, if you have no idea of the correct answer be creative and funny. =P Special rewards for laughters. ^^

Take your time answering there is no hurry. For the last question you need me, so ill be on every now and then. PM me, whisper me, send message on FB or tell people ingame if im not present and ill try to crawl in. =)

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGgyRExob0Z4aXVtNlg0WUhLT0x3ZWc6MQ

*KVIIK*

New Forum Rules

I know that when you combine MMORPG players and the anonymity that Internet forums provide, you get a lot of bold, often obnoxious talk.

This board is here to discuss 9Dragons. We are happy for our players to post their opinions, even if they are sometimes (or often) negative.

Lately, it seems like the flaming and off-topic posting has risen to a new high. We will be vigorously enforcing the Acclaim Rules of Conduct and the board rules. That means warnings for flames, off-topic posts, and dupes/reposting locked topics. Three warnings equals a 30-day ban.

And we're going to start doing something we haven't done before. Which is use the moderation queue. If you've been banned, when you come back, we put you in there. All your posts need to be approved by a moderator before appearing.

We don't want to do this, but we also don't want to have this devolve into a place where civil discussion is no longer possible. This doesn't mean that you can't state your opinion -- just that you have to learn to do so in a constructive fashion, without resorting to being off-topic or personal attacks.

In my opinion it's not more than "Shut up or you won't be able to post anymore". This will be the @ss kissers heaven. Enjoy! (if u can...)

P.S. As always, i couldn't keep my fingers out of it, and i have made a thread on the forum. I wonder how long it will takes untill i'll get that 30-days ban.

Collection Quest List

I want to congratulate my second-favourite vgm (still has a stretch to cover before reaching Kami high in my favours) turned loremaster (for some obscure reason) for the worst collection quest list ever, in matter of asked drops and of spread throughout maps.

Fox Tail - doesn't drop
Tobacco Leaf - clan base drop
Bear's Gall - NC/HZ drop
Buddhist Beads - zz/sz and jinan/datong drop
Fiber Rope - NC/HZ drop, pass material for mansion/wild tower
Water Herbs - dungeon chest drop
Wooden Flute - zz/sz drop (jinan/datong too, though more seldom and ppl usually don't grind on voh mobs)
Molar Tooth Elephant - icy drop from specific mobs, srs pass material
Snowman's Fur - icy drop from specific mobs, srs pass material
A Piece of Red Clothes - ld drop, gc/bt pass material
Plate of North Sea - icy drop,srs pass material
Plate of Bloody Shadows - tibet drop
Antler - icy drop from specific mobs, srs pass material
Sorcerer's Amulet - ld drop, gc/bt pass material
Jade Stone - tibet drop

So... 2 Tibet drops, all icy drops, all ld drops. Tibet drops controversy has been going on for some while, the drop rate is about as bad as broken arrows if not worse and moreover, no one knows yet what the drops are for - could be item collections or maybe pass collections for the ice palace dungeon. All Icy and LD drops are actually pass materials for either SrS or GC which is the main source of income for HM-PS players (I mean those who don't buy gold from sellers or sell item mall stuff).

From the 2 drops of NN/HZ (actually the maps with the greatest drop variety), one is high GB and the other one mid SM and guess what - pass materials for the mid-level dungeons, also required for the FC party quests.

Two drops from the lvl1 and 2 maps: buddhist beads and wooden flutes (again, loads of drops possible from those maps). One drop from clan base maps, the tobacco leaves. I haven't seen fox tails in ages - neither from clan base foxes, nor from the ones in sz/zz. Fox hairs, fox skins, yes. But no tails. And water herbs for which you'd have to go in the dungeons for which the pass materials are required as a donation.

The message to me reads "less dungeon runs for you, folks". Add to that the 10 billion gold sink and you'll have a too late fix for an out of control economy that should've never ever gotten to this point. Also, since rewards are being given out, it doesn't really help low level players get a footing into the game as the others offered the possibility - there's almost no drops they can donate in exchange for BEs.

BlooM vs Smooth

Or, u can call it an useless discussion. W/o any other comment, here it is, the entire irc log w/o any modifications:

01( 1401:04 01) ¤ BlooM "facepalm" [9D]SmoothRu and break his head off!

01( 1401:06 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· I removed the thread.

01( 1401:07 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Deal with it.

01( 1401:07 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· i will...don't worry

01( 1401:07 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· violating your own roc it's lame

01( 1401:07 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Had you all paid attention on page 5 you would've seen me tell you to keep it in the original thread.

01( 1401:07 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· back off....u mods are not more than kids

01( 1401:07 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Kids?

01( 1401:08 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· deleting a thread because it was someting u can';t handle is childish

01( 1401:08 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Thats what you call it.

01( 1401:08 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· You guys got nothing to offer that I can't handle.

01( 1401:08 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· not, that's just the way u acted

01( 1401:08 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· No thats what you think.

01( 1401:09 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· wrong again

01( 1401:09 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· it shows your professional way to act as a mod

01( 1401:09 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· wich is 0

01( 1401:09 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· and i'm not talking about freedom of speech

01( 1401:10 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· it;s about licking acclaim's ass and acting like they want u to act

01( 1401:10 01) 15· dj64 15· well, that is part of the deal when you become an insiders

01( 1401:10 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· I dont act the way anybody wants me to act.

01( 1401:10 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· no?

01( 1401:10 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· I do what I want.

01( 1401:10 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· If I feel like "flaming" as you guys say I do, I do it on my own accord.

01( 1401:11 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Nobody brings anything to my attention.

01( 1401:11 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· by "you" ..you mean acclaim or fugen ?

01( 1401:11 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· No by "you" I mean, you forum posters.

01( 1401:11 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Wanna try to change any other words up?

01( 1401:11 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· (01:10) · @[9D]SmoothRu · If I feel like "flaming" as you guys say I do, I do it on my own accord.

01( 1401:12 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· i meand that part

01( 1401:12 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· the bolded

01( 1401:12 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· u mods don't act as u wish

01( 1401:12 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· u act only what acclaim's wants u to

01( 1401:12 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· The sad part is... you're a outsider so that's all you've allowed yourself to think.

01( 1401:13 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· if u think that being a mod it's something like "omg, i'm cool"...wake up

01( 1401:13 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· it's not

01( 1401:13 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· u're acclaim's puppies...

01( 1401:13 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Does it look like I care about whether or not it's cool?

01( 1401:13 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Have you ever seen me say "hey, I'm a mod. So I'm cooler than you"?

01( 1401:13 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· No you havent

01( 1401:13 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· no need to say that

01( 1401:14 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· your actions said more

01( 1401:14 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Once again thats some remedial aspect of the whole Mod/Acclaim thing that you have allowed yourself to conjure up.

01( 1401:14 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· The problem is, you have nothing better to do.

01( 1401:14 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Other than be nit-picky and find crap to complain about. Go cry somewhere else. This forum isn't the home for people who like to cry rivers, this isn't a Justin Timberlake concert. So kick that somewhere else.

01( 1401:15 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· do u think this is a normal reply from a mod?

01( 1401:15 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Yup.

01( 1401:15 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· and u say you're not acting childish....

01( 1401:15 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· I said it before and I'll say it again:

01( 1401:15 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· I do/say/act on my own accord.

01( 1401:15 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· yeah, right

01( 1401:16 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· If you can't take it, make a post in a manner where I won't have to feel like you need to be put in your place.

01( 1401:16 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Any further issues you have?

01( 1401:16 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Or need I continue with this one?

01( 1401:16 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· @[9D]SmoothRu · If you can't take it, make a post in a manner where I won't have to feel like you need to be put in your place.

01( 1401:16 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· that;s the best joke for today

01( 1401:17 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· i made a post...and u locked it aswell

01( 1401:17 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· I didn't lock it.

01( 1401:17 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· u, i mean mods

01( 1401:17 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· It's "By you"

01( 1401:17 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Not "u"

01( 1401:17 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Bleez, locked the thread. If you want to be technical.

01( 1401:18 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· smooth, anatomy...or any other mod...you're all mods, so I can say "you"

01( 1401:18 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· True, you can.

01( 1401:18 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· i make no difference between mods, it was a general way to say "you"

01( 1401:18 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· I never said you couldn't.

01( 1401:18 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Once again you have failed yourself.

01( 1401:18 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· not more than you failed

01( 1401:19 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· I stated "Bleez, locked the thread. IF (keyword: IF) you want to be technical.

01( 1401:19 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· u guys should learn one important thing, of being a mod

01( 1401:19 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· I don't need to learn anything.

01( 1401:19 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· You do. Along with so many others.

01( 1401:19 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· when a topic is locked, another mod shouldn't post after the topc was locked, /wo bringing something new

01( 1401:20 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· If Bleez had a issue with it, she would've stated so.

01( 1401:20 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· u can't teach me nothing about forums and beahivour on forums

01( 1401:20 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Neither can you.

01( 1401:20 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· 3 years of super mods on a bigger forum than this one learned me all

01( 1401:20 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· It's not "learned" it's "taught"

01( 1401:21 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· u're right, my english is not so good as yours

01( 1401:21 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· and the point was...?

01( 1401:22 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· still, those years helped me to understand none of 9D mods can't handle a hard thread

01( 1401:22 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· that's why you guys killed the threa

01( 1401:22 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· thread*

01( 1401:22 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· and ofc, nobody from acclaim's staff will say anything, because they can't handle either

01( 1401:23 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· You call that thread hard?

01( 1401:23 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Lmao....

01( 1401:23 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· How peonic.

01( 1401:23 01) 07» J oins: kaio 07( mibbit@189.71.148.81 07)

01( 1401:23 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· hard, because it was the true there

01( 1401:23 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· and it seems you can;t handle the truth

01( 1401:24 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· You would think it's the "truth".

01( 1401:24 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· But it's not.

01( 1401:24 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· so...the dc issue is not true? :))))))))))))))

01( 1401:24 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· It's just another redundant rant that we've seen a million times.

01( 1401:24 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Theres a thread for it.

01( 1401:24 01) 01· 7BlooM 01· that was the thread, lmao

01( 1401:25 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· If you can't stick to one thread, thats not our business. We'll simply take away the second and third thread and show you to the first thread.

01( 1401:25 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Quite simple.

01( 1401:25 01) 15· @ 1[9D]SmoothRu 15· Got an issue with it, stay in the first thread from the get-go.

So, here it is the most important part of our chat. The rest is nothing...U can see bolded some really interesting parts. No further comments...anything is useless.

World Cup bets

Folks, if you got caught up in the World Cup excitement or would simply like to join the fun, there's a way you can do it in the game now as well. DC League is organising an event to do just that and Restless members are invited to participate as well.

All you have to do is pick your favourite for the cup and pay an entry fee of 1BE into the betting pool. There will be one chance to change your choice should your team get eliminated, if you pay one additional BE. The event is open to DC and Restless members only and you can find additional details to how it will work in SpearDriver's post here.

edit: 2nd round of bets is opened. The payment for bets is 2 be's. Also, u can see the last team available to bet here . So far, there are 13 players and a prize of 50 be's. Just choose your favourite for the World Cup winner, pay the entry fee and enjoy :D

Have fun and good luck all.

Flash # 2 (Bardo)

Question: where can you find this in the Land? Map as well as position on map required.

Servers down

Greetings Players, we were as taken by surprise as you were. Acclaim is switching all domains over to Playdom's domains and everything is likely to be down until the morning hours (PSD). No rollbacks, just an unfortunate interruption that seems to be taking down the forums, and mall, etc. Please spread the word to friends who play as best you can and I'm sure we can make up for lost time with some raised XP.

(As usual, thank you for taking into consideration the non-north american player base... not! not announcing GMT times as well has been a common practice for a while now and yes, I'm lazy to do the maths. The guys at acclaim are paid to do it, i'm not.)

The first pages of any PR manual teach you that credibility cannot be bought. Not with promotions and not with cheap "bribery" such as raised xp. I think manuals skip the part of announce-people-something-will-happen-BEFORE-it-happens because that's just common sense. But hey, we all know that common sense is anything but common these days.

Have a nice non-gaming weekend everyone. After all, spring is in the air.

Facebook

Yeah, well, I can't believe it myself. But we have a group on Facebook. If you're a member of the league, search "Restless HL" to join. Be sure to let us know your in game name (drop a pigeon or so if we don't react). Nothing special, just another place to interact, have some fun, share some gossip, upload some screenshots... whatever floats your boat ^^

Flash # 1 (Bardo)

Question: "What or who is Angulimala?"

Leave your answers in a comment (don't forget to include your in-game name). Try not to copy, I hate that - phrase your own answers. First three Bardo players to answer that will get 5, 3 and 1 BE respectively.

If I don't get back to you, whisper Arashi_Tora or Aynur during Wed/Fri events.

Since BlooM bragged about the rodents being some dogs of lore and since he tapped into an older custom title I had and as his disciple I ended up with the m&d title "The Legend Keeper", we might just start to live up to the name. For old times' sake.

Patch 115

Maybe one of the best patches since...Here are the news:

-Added epithet quests for Tibet; new higher-level quests

-Map for Cave of the Conqueror(!)

-Non-PK buffs sold by the Hermits in Bloody Plain Safe Zone and the Hermit in CC3. This buff costs 5,000 gold and prevents you from attacking players or being attacked by players for two hours in BP and CC. If you leave BP/CC, the buff goes away. You can renew the buff as often as you'd like/have money. You can't get the buff if you're in combat mode, if you have a major or minor penalty, or if you've won a PvP battle in the past 60 minutes.

So, new epi's for H+ players, the map of CC and the best of it, a dream for all CC grinders, non-pk buff ^^. I may consider to grind in CC again :))

The bad part will be for deff and hp bosses in CC. But at least now u can give it a try w/o being pk-ed. All you need is to be a nuker, lol :)) I wonder if nukers have dmg cap on those bosses too. If they do, be sure u're a FC warrior and u will get those trinkets ^^

Restless and the Dogs of Lore

Well, we did it again ^^

This time, at Dogs of Lore contest we had a special prize, the new Raising Dragon Wardrobe. Permanent deco for top 1-3 and 30 days deco for top 4-9.

With great help from chinchi, who got 2nd place and against all ods (because of my dc's), Restless was on 2nd and 3rd place ^^. And a 30 days deco for tali. Still, squirell wasn't there, so that's all we had :)) (i'm not counting bizt as a Restless member, he played with his vaga)

This time, on Bardo, no pvp-er got that deco, wich is 10k coins in IM O_o. I wonder why...

And as a side note, Restless rulls :D We aren't 1st league in PvP, but we are the best in any quiz/quests contest :D

Here is the list from Bardo:

[-Asura-] - 35
-Surya- - 27 (chinchilla)

MISTyKA - 27 (raccoon)
[Sensu] - 24
tadaa - 20
-P- - 15
Ben_Linus - 15
--------]-- - 14
talibanul86 - 14 (crazy tali) ^^
Fata_Babei - 13
Victorious - 13

Grats chinchi, you did it again ^^

And just for the record, so u can see why my point, here it is ^^

Dogs of Lore contests

1st round:

Arashi_Tora on 1st place (highest score from all servers)

MrBlooM on 6th.

2nd round

chinchilla on 1st place, that topic was deleted.

raccoon on 5th or 6th

3rd round.

Rhoynarr on 1st

-Nemerra- on 7th

4th round

Arashi_Tora on 1st place

MrBlooM on 3rd place

5th round

-Surya- on 2nd place

MrBlooM on 3rd place

Ar-Feniel on 4th place

6th round

-Surya- on 2nd place

MISTyKA on 3rd place

talibanul86 on 8th place (even he is half Restless ^^)

Now you can see why I'm dam proud of it...

Spring clean

Seems a couple of words regarding recruitment are in order and I would like to point out that I am speaking only for the -less band now. When this band and this league started out, it was meant to be a 'friends of friends' thing. We don't want to rule, rock, own, pwn, command or conquer anything or anyone. Therefore, I don't consider we have any reason to lower or recruitment standards in any way. (And in case you are wondering, by 'standards' we do not mean level requirement.

The first and foremost no-no of that is cheaters, scammers and exploiters. I absolutely detest that sort of people and they are less than welcome here. I also detest people who can't handle their anger management so idiotic behavior like swearing, insulting others, rudeness or nonsensical spam (the sort we're blessed with every event when some kid's fuse burns through) isn't tolerated either. Furthermore, idiotic behavior includes acts like safe zone killing, harassing, griefing, ks-ing of mobs and bosses, etc.

If you plan to leave for a while, it'd be nice to let us know. It's generally nice to let us know you are online and playing so some English language would be nice to have. We like nice and fun people who play by the rules and fit in with the rest of the band. Most of us have known each other for a while. So if you find yourself at odds with someone in the band, it would be preferred you find a way to work it out between yourselves because if it comes to taking sides, we'd probably choose our old friends' side.

And as a general rule from now on, if someone wants in this band, please tell us who in the league you know/knows you/you grinded with/etc. You either make a great first impression on us, or you have someone confirm us that you are indeed worthy of being a rodent ;)

For those who do not meet those requirements, if you are under SM, I'd prefer it if you seeked discipleship with one of the higher levels in the band, preferably a leader. If the respective person thinks you are ok, they will also invite you in the band, if you want that. If you are over SM, play with someone from our league or accept the fact that it might only be invite on probation.

I am sorry, I know this may come across as a bit rude, exaggerated or holier-than-thou. But I've seen leagues break apart or become a sorry crowd of idiots because of indiscriminate recruiting and people being invited that just didn't 'fit the profile'. And as far as I can help it, this won't happen here. As said, I cannot speak for the other band leaders, but I guess they can do that themselves :)

PvP balance at last!!!

Yes, my friends, it has arrived. It has taken Acclaim 112 patches to figure out the ultimate recipe to pvp balance: bring BP down.

As of patch 111, The Bloody Plains are not working anymore. It is a grim hour, a sad day for all the Hermit nukers in the Land.

It is a day of rejoicing for us, a day of peace in The Land, a day we walk knowing that no poor soul looking for the flowers of the Bloody Plain is being griefed for 1 BK, no particular shaolin warrior logs to CC to make life miserable for peaceful grinders (sorry about the bias here), no safe zone becomes unsafe....

My friends, this is the day when we are proven right: PvE pwns!

The "free" Tears and Scales fiasco

Well, folks, they've done it again.

This week, I read in the DC league chat that there's a sudden promotion with tears and scales at 1 coin/pack. I logged to the IM, got 1 pack of each, thinking I'm set for the next year.

A little later, in a forum post, Fugen stated that the 9D Item Mall was hacked and those items shouldn't have been there at that price. A lot of people bought more than 1 pack, and even more gifted those very cheap items (after browsing through the posts, the record i saw was 600 scales and 69 tears).

I will not discuss the cases that spammed the "Buy" button. They can be labelled as greedy. What bothered me was the fact that the head GM called the people who took advantage of that "promotion" thieves and scammers. Last time I checked, thieves were the people who took something that is not rightfully theirs. The Acclaim team claims that we were supposed to know better, after the "free xp card" IM bug.

What I do find a gross lack of proffesionalism and care for their customers is the attitude displayed by both Fugen and The Hermit. Instead of admitting their failure to keep their Item Mall safe (if that is really what happened and it's not just an oversight by someone responsible with maintaining that page), they put the blame on the people who bought the wrongly labelled packages. The fact that those things costed 1 coin each means that only people who have already bought from the IM were able to get them.
Calling your paying customers thieves and scammers is not exactly the way to keep them satisfied and buying. I expect a fair number of people taking a break from getting stuff from their IM.

On the same note, the people who have gotten the almost free scales and tears are now expected to return them, even if they are gifted. So to those league members who have gifted any of these items, please talk to the people who you've gifted them to, to put the weapons in the first slot of their bags. Fugen said they would remove the scales from those, and not confiscate the weapons. Also, please post in this thread how many packages you have purchased and where they ended up. I would hate to see leaguemates banned for taking advantage of that offer.


On another note, the promotion that started on April 21st (Tibetan Medium Spender) was accompanied by a 2x bonus coins promotion. All the items in the Mall were at full price. I think this promotion is one of the worst planned ones I have seen since starting this game. First of all, it replaced the "tibetan refinement pack" promotion, that was supposed to last 1 more day, without any notice. Second, on April 24th they decided to add another promo: 50% off the Item Mall.
Some people have spent A LOT of coins between Apr 21-24. It's natural that they feel cheated, especially after the scale/tear fiasco. In a typical "My customers=my slaves" kind of attitude that we keep getting lately, Fugen and The Hermit said:

[GM] Fugen Sorry guys, it works the same way on 9Dragons in the Item Mall as it does on a site like Amazon.com. There are various promotions, and from time to time there may be a larger sale. If you bought a book the day before Christmas and it goes on sale on 12/25 for half off, they don't send you two books or give you half your money back.

You're still able to take advantage of the sale and employ some dollar-cost averaging by stocking up on more items.

9D Hermit: I doubt anyone would like Acclaim to turn the sale off now??? Would you have preferred it be next week? Or now while you can have DBL Bonus Coins and the Tibet Medium Spender Package? Even if you'd already spent prior, I think you'd still be interested in the added value even if we'd finished the promotion, waited a week with full prices, and run the promotion again with 50% Off thrown in.

And what about the player who paid full price for an Item the day before any promotion started? Or a player that was buying a promotion during the week and then Curse You Lord Mara Double Bonus Coins just came on!!!

Often we get promotions sent down from Those On High, and they could be Acclaim Wide promotions that do not even make sense in tandem with a 9D promotion.

Promotions can overlap.

We think it's a good thing.

Use it to your advantage, I say

So, in the end, this week's conclusions are:

1. We, the paying customers of Acclaim, are thieves and scammers.
2. We must return the items that we payed for and were underprice, otherwise risking to be banned.
3. They can change their promotions unexpectedly, without a few day's notice, but if we see a promotion, we should not immediately buy, because we risk getting banned.

Enjoy the compensation event (today and tomorrow 12-20 GMT) and reap the bountiful fruits of capitalism (end sarcasm here).

A tired Squirrel, over and out.

Tibet is Free

... at least from Acclaim's clutches and released to the general public. I honestly thought it was a joke when I got home but heh, the patch is downloading. Somehow I feel... deflated? Ah well, let's see what the map brings.

Q&A

Today my eyes fell on an epic thread on the 9D forums. I already said this once, if you're a retard you really don't have to put a neon advertising sign above it too. But eh, well.

The title basically says it all: "Y Should we not PK Low Levels??". The undiscovered genius asking it is an Asurian Hermit char who enjoys "1 hit killing noobs" around EC level. Who should actually be grateful as they now have a motivation to grind.

Well, the spontaneous answer that came to my mind was "For the same reason you shouldn't go around raping little children". Unless you want to "motivate" them to become a deranged sociopath like you are, of course. Out of generosity and a Darwin-like sense of preserving the strong or deranged.

Restless event

Well, as the name said, there will be an event made by Restless. Since i can't stay online ingame to much (thanks to patch 109), i will announce you here. And because of the same reason, the event will be made on IRC, gamesurge server on Restless official channel.

So far, the idea is allmost the same as Dogs of Lore contest hosted by [LM] Tears. There will be a set of questions related to 9Dragons. There are gonna be 5 winners only, we have some prizes already, but those will be announced later.
Why on IRC? just because on irc we don't have patch 109 = no dc's, so everyone can join. If u don't have an IRC client, you can download it from web, most common is mIRC.

Everybody is free to join, even you are a Restless member. This event will be advertise on 9D forum soon, when we will settle everything (date, prizes)
P.S. Just for the notice, [LM] Tears knows already about that, and she support the idea.

I forgot...we still don't have a name for this event. Tears said she will think about, but any feedback with a name will be perfect.

Easter Egg

No, it's not solving the disconnection issues.
It's neither getting Gerrus or BrokenPieces unbanned...

It's just to thwart our BM's and LM's hopes of being finally capped...

We all know the tests for Tibet have begun this week, and the VGMs found the bugs, reported them, and, uncharacteristically, indy seems to have fixed most of them very fast. Which means, the Easter Bunny has whispered, that Tibet might be released this Easter Monday.

So, for those who are not affected by the 5 minute DCs, brace yourselves: you might either encounter new bugs starting next week or you might wanna take that HM4+ char on a lightfoot tour of the new map.

Happy Easter everyone, and keep your fingers crossed!

Collection Quest, again

Well, for those of you who are interested (and who can play, for that matter because massive dc's are still an issue), there is another Collection Quest going on. The thread is well tucked away in the Loremaster's Corner, so look for the sticky there. You can also see what items are still needed in the spreadsheet, as usual.

I for one will be sitting this one out. The SrS bug has almost eaten through my stack of red passes and I assure you, grinding through half a dungeon of blue mobs only to find the light blue ones missing over and over again is not really what I call entertaining. As for my EC alt that I'm currently playing, I couldn't care less on what xp she is grinding. I know that some players in Restless are out there and grinding for drops and I know someone who gave almost a third of the needed gold - tnx for that. I've just given around 200 cof-drops I had saved and that's that.

I just don't feel like putting up with events for now. Not with league mates still dc'ing ever so often, with me unable to play my main char because of bugs and with the last event, the Mystery solving thing turning out to be a rip-off for me personally. Right now I'm really disappointed in the game and the people behind it so I can't be really bothered to participate in something that doesn't give me what's being advertised, whether it's prizes, xp or even fun (which I am sure is found something in the definition of "game").

Patch 109

No, is not Tibet :)
Actually is a patch who started with lots of dc. Those should happend to hackers and crackers, because they updated the game guard and introduced the spring event buff (not yet available). Still, that happens to a lot of players, hackers or not. And the patch continued (for me, at least) with the wonderfull "failed to connect to an upgrade information server"
So, hold your horses for patch 110.

Event times changing

As you can see in this announcement, the US servers will change to daylight saving times. This means that all the events, as well as the war, should start one hour later than usual.


Provided you know what your own timezone is, you can check your local event times here (thanks to syrusstk for that table).

Prepare for having to disable roars and mapshouts, because i bet a lot of people don't read the forums and won't know about this.

Happy grinding!