Update Monday 10:00 EST: Last server patch brought stability back, while we continue to refactor certain services that are still disabled.

Faction RTC as our apology for the outages over the weekend will arrive within the next 4 business days.

The Squadron Edition for players that bought before the Free version became available, and discrepancies with regions, such as upgrading from free to premium via Imperium editions, are being worked on with Steam.

I will give a new update as more solutions and information becomes available.

---

Update 14:30: Servers are up, patch is deployed, never been more players and looking good so far. We're continuing work and further updates.

---

Update 12:30 EST: We are in maintenance and preparing a client patch to address disconnection issues. We will be back in less than 2 hours.

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Update 8AM EST: Techmarines have been monitoring all night as we're getting massive amount of players, which combined with previous problems, puts into the danger zone from yesterday already at 8AM, when our usual peak concurrency is at 5 PM EST. Fortunately, it's only a few services that encountered problems and most have been solved or patched to go further.

There are positive aspects to these problems. Other systems scaled as expected, as they are auto-scaled so when more game servers are needed, we launch automatically new ones. It also showed which services didn't scale, while horrible to be happening on our launch weekend, tells us exactly what didn't scale and we can address that.

We sincerely apologize for this, and will make it up to you. Thank you all for your patience and sticking around while we go through this phase, or as the ancient saying goes "The only way is up, baby, it's you and me now".


Workaround for Imperum upgrade from free version as very many are encountering this. Through Steam web support you can remove permanently the free version, then buy the Imperium, as we store all your data. Will get fixed with Steam after the weekend.
---

Hello Crusaders,

We're very sorry for the continued downtime today. With the surge of new players we're experiencing instability problems. We have Engineers on-site working to get the game up and running asap and will be deploying a fix shortly.

Updated the RTC amount from 1000 to 4000 per faction: Within the next 5 business days we'll be applying 16,000 faction RTC for all factions (4,000 RTC per faction) to your accounts as an apology. (Keep in mind this is the faction RTC earned in campaigns)

Appreciate your patience and wish you happy slaughtering once we are back online!

Katie

Update Monday 10:00 EST: Last server patch brought stability back, while we continue to refactor certain services that are still disabled.

Faction RTC as our apology for the outages over the weekend will arrive within the next 4 business days.

The Squadron Edition for players that bought before the Free version became available, and discrepancies with regions, such as upgrading from free to premium via Imperium editions, are being worked on with Steam.

I will give a new update as more solutions and information becomes available.

---

Update 14:30: Servers are up, patch is deployed, never been more players and looking good so far. We're continuing work and further updates.

---

Update 12:30 EST: We are in maintenance and preparing a client patch to address disconnection issues. We will be back in less than 2 hours.

---

Update 8AM EST: Techmarines have been monitoring all night as we're getting massive amount of players, which combined with previous problems, puts into the danger zone from yesterday already at 8AM, when our usual peak concurrency is at 5 PM EST. Fortunately, it's only a few services that encountered problems and most have been solved or patched to go further.

There are positive aspects to these problems. Other systems scaled as expected, as they are auto-scaled so when more game servers are needed, we launch automatically new ones. It also showed which services didn't scale, while horrible to be happening on our launch weekend, tells us exactly what didn't scale and we can address that.

We sincerely apologize for this, and will make it up to you. Thank you all for your patience and sticking around while we go through this phase, or as the ancient saying goes "The only way is up, baby, it's you and me now".


Workaround for Imperum upgrade from free version as very many are encountering this. Through Steam web support you can remove permanently the free version, then buy the Imperium, as we store all your data. Will get fixed with Steam after the weekend.
---

Hello Crusaders,

We're very sorry for the continued downtime today. With the surge of new players we're experiencing instability problems. We have Engineers on-site working to get the game up and running asap and will be deploying a fix shortly.

Updated the RTC amount from 1000 to 4000 per faction: Within the next 5 business days we'll be applying 16,000 faction RTC for all factions (4,000 RTC per faction) to your accounts as an apology. (Keep in mind this is the faction RTC earned in campaigns)

Appreciate your patience and wish you happy slaughtering once we are back online!

Katie

Amazon AWS started having outages from 12:30 EST and all services back up at 16:00 EST. Then it came again and we went down again.

This affects all our game servers, forums and more. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. All regions are back up, forums are back and we're monitoring the situation.

We'd also like to thank everyone for bearing with us, we're already broken our Daily Active Users (Unique, DAU) record and also passed the launch peak concurrent players.

Have a great weekend everyone! <3

Nathan





Reposted here in case you are commenting and didn't check the top update ;)

Amazon AWS started having outages from 12:30 EST and all services back up at 16:00 EST. Then it came again and we went down again.

This affects all our game servers, forums and more. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. All regions are back up, forums are back and we're monitoring the situation.

We'd also like to thank everyone for bearing with us, we're already broken our Daily Active Users (Unique, DAU) record and also passed the launch peak concurrent players.

Have a great weekend everyone! <3

Nathan





Reposted here in case you are commenting and didn't check the top update ;)

You can check out the difference between the various versions here.

We didn't put in a bunch of pay walls. There is only one. Upgrade to Premium. And when you purchase more than 20,000 RTC, you get to spend the 20,000 RTC, it's not used to upgrade. It's a threshold you have to pass, nothing else.

As always, you don't have to buy a single thing in the in-game store to get the best stuff, that all comes from playing and we'll continue to keep it that way.

And for those just arriving, here are the most recent posts about our direction and priorities.
http://steamcommunity.com/games/375230/announcements/detail/246973215407468444
http://steamcommunity.com/games/375230/announcements/detail/246973215407628119
Here is the FAQ for the free version and what current players are getting as a thank you from us.

You can check out the difference between the various versions here.

We didn't put in a bunch of pay walls. There is only one. Upgrade to Premium. And when you purchase more than 20,000 RTC, you get to spend the 20,000 RTC, it's not used to upgrade. It's a threshold you have to pass, nothing else.

As always, you don't have to buy a single thing in the in-game store to get the best stuff, that all comes from playing and we'll continue to keep it that way.

And for those just arriving, here are the most recent posts about our direction and priorities.
http://steamcommunity.com/games/375230/announcements/detail/246973215407468444
http://steamcommunity.com/games/375230/announcements/detail/246973215407628119
Here is the FAQ for the free version and what current players are getting as a thank you from us.

Today's patch is addressing a few very specific things, while we prepare for the launch of Free Carnage and the next patch.

1.3.14 Patch highlights are:

- Fix for infinite veteran spawning exploit
- Storm Shields, Looted Umie Armor (Go buy it!), a Pirate hat and such
- Space Marine Venerable Chainswords change color based on faction
- Changed the display name on most Ork items
- Fixed rare server crashes
- Fixed a bug where Gatekeepers Bastion scope could not be toggled
- Fixed the floating Narthecium (AKA the Ghost of Brent AKA Pets)
- Fixed Daemon Bolt, so it is less likely to explode when used next to low cover
- A couple of other exploits and fixes as well.

That's 700+ fixes since we deployed Update 1.3 two weeks ago, which is our usual velocity. Since we're optimizing, fixing, and improving features and functionality, we break things, and we need to iterate on them after people try them out in a Live environment.

Remember to set your region to EU or US unless you want to be matched in both regions. We've also called in some reinforcements for some low-level Melee bugs, and the new world map should be showing up on UAT as well.


We are in full preparation for the full launch of the free version of Eternal Crusade and the two updated Premium versions.

We've started gathering the FAQ for the free version, and what current players are getting as a thank you from us.

- 20,000 RTC ($20) given to you when you log in the first time after the 1.3 Content Update.
- A Steam giftable and tradable package of the premium version of the game. You can give it to a friend or sell it on the Steam Marketplace.
- The Venerable Items will no longer be available for purchase, unique to you before the transition.
- Something more which will be nice. Maybe bedazzle the old Venerable look?

The people that will buy the new Imperium edition receive instead four faction DLCs. The DLCs can also be bought separately on Steam.

You can check out here difference between the various versions.. As you can see, this isn't a full "Free to Play" conversion, you still have to unlock the game.

The reason for so much being accessible in the free version is that a free player has to be valuable to the paying player. And for a free player to be valuable, he has to have fun.

Likewise, for the free player to have fun and become part of our growing community, a fun experience, and an easy upgrade path has to be there.

It is also because of balancing. One class of one faction would ruin balance and matchmaking. This is, of course, all subject to change, as we'll adapt based on the results from the soft launch of the free version (sometimes called closed beta) and after it launches.

The above are consider "Free Players 101" except we didn't put in a bunch of pay walls. There is only one. Upgrade to Premium. And when you buy those 20,000 RTC or Squadron Edition - which is the same - you get to spend the 20,000 RTC, it's not used to upgrade. It's a threshold you have to pass, nothing else.

As always, you don't have to buy a single thing in the in-game store to get the best stuff, which all comes from playing and we'll continue to keep it that way. More weapon mods and such are constantly being made which makes your in-game weapons even more customizable. Yes, that's why Abaddon's grace was nerfed but still has the fire. We might nerf it again but adding a mod to add fire to your weapons sounds more fun.

Thanks, everyone! Keep the feedback flowing.

Nathan

Today's patch is addressing a few very specific things, while we prepare for the launch of Free Carnage and the next patch.

1.3.14 Patch highlights are:

- Fix for infinite veteran spawning exploit
- Storm Shields, Looted Umie Armor (Go buy it!), a Pirate hat and such
- Space Marine Venerable Chainswords change color based on faction
- Changed the display name on most Ork items
- Fixed rare server crashes
- Fixed a bug where Gatekeepers Bastion scope could not be toggled
- Fixed the floating Narthecium (AKA the Ghost of Brent AKA Pets)
- Fixed Daemon Bolt, so it is less likely to explode when used next to low cover
- A couple of other exploits and fixes as well.

That's 700+ fixes since we deployed Update 1.3 two weeks ago, which is our usual velocity. Since we're optimizing, fixing, and improving features and functionality, we break things, and we need to iterate on them after people try them out in a Live environment.

Remember to set your region to EU or US unless you want to be matched in both regions. We've also called in some reinforcements for some low-level Melee bugs, and the new world map should be showing up on UAT as well.


We are in full preparation for the full launch of the free version of Eternal Crusade and the two updated Premium versions.

We've started gathering the FAQ for the free version, and what current players are getting as a thank you from us.

- 20,000 RTC ($20) given to you when you log in the first time after the 1.3 Content Update.
- A Steam giftable and tradable package of the premium version of the game. You can give it to a friend or sell it on the Steam Marketplace.
- The Venerable Items will no longer be available for purchase, unique to you before the transition.
- Something more which will be nice. Maybe bedazzle the old Venerable look?

The people that will buy the new Imperium edition receive instead four faction DLCs. The DLCs can also be bought separately on Steam.

You can check out here difference between the various versions.. As you can see, this isn't a full "Free to Play" conversion, you still have to unlock the game.

The reason for so much being accessible in the free version is that a free player has to be valuable to the paying player. And for a free player to be valuable, he has to have fun.

Likewise, for the free player to have fun and become part of our growing community, a fun experience, and an easy upgrade path has to be there.

It is also because of balancing. One class of one faction would ruin balance and matchmaking. This is, of course, all subject to change, as we'll adapt based on the results from the soft launch of the free version (sometimes called closed beta) and after it launches.

The above are consider "Free Players 101" except we didn't put in a bunch of pay walls. There is only one. Upgrade to Premium. And when you buy those 20,000 RTC or Squadron Edition - which is the same - you get to spend the 20,000 RTC, it's not used to upgrade. It's a threshold you have to pass, nothing else.

As always, you don't have to buy a single thing in the in-game store to get the best stuff, which all comes from playing and we'll continue to keep it that way. More weapon mods and such are constantly being made which makes your in-game weapons even more customizable. Yes, that's why Abaddon's grace was nerfed but still has the fire. We might nerf it again but adding a mod to add fire to your weapons sounds more fun.

Thanks, everyone! Keep the feedback flowing.

Nathan

Today March 9th we deployed patch 1.3.11 to Live. This is the last patch in the series of Tactical Escalation and we're working on the next series of Content Updates.

Free Carnage is scheduled to go live shortly and the reception has been fantastic. When we sent out the soft launch keys for the free version, we had more players than at the launch of the game.

Thank you everyone, especially those that gave away their free keys to others if they already had the game. Kudos to you. You can still get keys by signing up to our newsletter, at Alienware Arena and other website will be distributing as well.

This patch includes various improvements and fixes to the following categories:

1. Client, Network and Server performance, all of which fall under “lag” as they are all contributing factors.
2. Improve, Monitor and Measure the path into the game for new players.
3. You. That’s your character, the combat balancing, melee, visual customization.
4. We continue to improve current features, such as world map, goals, and campaigns.

Patch highlights, till we finalize patch notes:

• New Map - Fortress Ronan is in
• New Items, paid and free, for the store, like Storm Shields. (Updated: Not all enabled yet!)

General Improvements

• Death Camera to look at attacker who downed you
• Ingame moderator role
• Barks with major match events
• Upgrading premium message to correctly display needed RTC to go premium (excluding non bought RTC such as referrals)

Gameplay, Combat, and Balancing

• Jump and support unit survivability increases
• Fixed a bug that allowed the Howling Banshee Scream to debuff allies.
• Reload while bracing
• Scope toggle (default B key) added.
• Jump slam recovery animation speed increased by 40%.

And for those just arriving, here are the previous posts about our direction and priorities.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/375230/announcements/detail/246974483981292543

http://steamcommunity.com/games/375230/announcements/detail/246973215407628119

http://steamcommunity.com/games/375230/announcements/detail/246973215407468444