Bio Engineer Archive

Just had my first 'regrading' incident tonight, so thought I give a quick heads-up to others on what seems to be happening.

A piece of code has been added that seems to check a pets stats vs. it's CL as the pet is called. If the pet is 'illegal' the user is offered the option of increasing it's CL or reducing it's stats.

There are a number of points to note if you are a BE (or CH):

1.) This does not just affect 'exploited-dna' or multi-generational pets. The pet this happened to was made entirely from harvested DNA(very nice it was too). I've never used any of the known 'bugged' DNA either - so there's probably some still out there........

2.) CL regrading can be extreme. The pet concerned jumped in level from 20 to 28, making it unusable to it's owner. He had expected a 2-3 level jump, and having gone up a few levels since he got the pet selected the 'Change Level' option.

3.) The 'regrading' only happens when the pet's currentstats go over a certain limit in relation to the creature's level. What this means is that just tamed or young pets won't be regraded - it'll only happen when they mature and reach thier full HAM. This isa pain since it means all those pets you have out there are potential 'time bombs' ticking away as they get bigger.................

4.) As far as I can tell the checking only takes place when the pet is summoned, not on creature creation. The pet concerned was a very recent creation. There is then no guarentee that a creature's final stats will match those of the embryo as displayed on the vendor - they could be regraded on maturity.

Fortunately the customer concerned was very understanding and irked with SOE rather than me - but I'm sure there are a few less reasonable folks out there!

For my own part I've issued a 'product warning' to my recent customers advising them of the problem and suggestiing they hit 'Change Stats' if the level of the pet is critical, and to be aware that 'Change Level' might have an extreme effect (the pet vendor also warns purchasers of the problem - not a good sales tactic but should prevent recriminations further down the line).

Sorry if this is repeating what others have written - I've had a long evening contacting customers to warn them and posting notices. I wasn't up to searching the forums as well!

Gully Foyle
All SOE game accounts cancelled - and this time I'm gone for good