Publish Notes from 2001-09-10

Publish 13 Update 1

On September 10, 2001, the following was published:

• Connectivity fix for the Veteran Rewards System
• Reparations for delays in the activation of the Veteran Rewards System in the form of an extra reward choice

Power Hour Changes

The first hour that each character is played on a given day, known as the “power hour”, allows that character a possibility of bonus skill point advancements.

The Previous Standard

In the past, the power hour time frame on each shard was reset at midnight local time, meaning that players could always get a new power hour after midnight, regardless of when they last played.

Recent Changes

Recently, we began working to implement new software to monitor the shards' performance, which requires that the shards' times be consistent with each other. To accomodate this, all shards were set to run on GMT time, which does not undergo Daylight Savings Time. Due to this change, power hour no longer reset itself at midnight local time, but reset at the same time across all shards, which caused the power hours to reset at inconvenient times for many players.

The Solution

To resolve this issue, power hour will now be calculated based on the players' play time, rather than the shards' local time.

Players will experience a power hour for the first hour of play per character within a 24 hour period, which means that technically, the power hour will be refreshed 23 hours after the previous power hour has ended. To help players know when their power hour is in effect, a sound will now be played when a player's power hour begins. If a player does not log in for over 24 hours, their power hour will begin as soon as they log in, and last for the full hour.

As an example, a player who logs in at 8:00 PM local time will experience a power hour that will last until 9:00 PM. They will not be able to experience another power hour during that 24 hour period, so they will not receive another power hour until at least 8:00 PM the following day. If they do not log in again until 10:00 PM, they will experience their full power hour, beginning at 10:00 PM and lasting until 11:00 PM. The following day, they will not be able to experience a power hour until at least 10:00 PM local time.

The power hour will also not be able to be broken up into smaller periods of time. Once the power hour has started, it will only extend for the next hour, and will be refreshed 24 hours after the last one begun.

In other words, if a player logs in at 5:00 PM local time and plays for only half an hour, their power hour will still last until 6:00 PM, and will still be refreshed the next day at 5:00 PM. So if that person logs in at 5:00, plays for half an hour, then logs back in again at 8:00, they will not receive another half hour of power hour skill gain, since their power hour would have ended at 6:00 PM (an hour after it began).