Its great to be back! I have annoyed the devs to gather info about
what is going on. Many of you have questions about the VU and stuff.

Version naming

As the next update is a great architectural change compared to Project
Entropia right now, the next VU will be called 5.0. The content part
will be called VU 5.1.

ETA of next Version

VU 5.0 will come around the middle of the month, give or take. VU 5.1 will arrive roughly a week after VU 5.0.

What is in VU 5.0?
No content whatsoever. VU5.0
is an architectural change (or re-write, as some of our veterans may
remember, as we changed the communication system between the servers
last fall) in how the server actually behaves in regards to synching
between client and server, how the priorities in data handling and how
the server makes better use of its time. Previously several systems
where affected by the simple fact that an Avatar was logging in, and
this made the physics system (the system that takes care of synching
positions, movement etc) freeze for up to a few seconds (other areas
where also affected with these freezes, making rubberbanding a painful
fact). The server was effectively "locked" from action while this
happened. This is removed in VU 5.0. It was not an easy task to do, and
there will probably be some initial bugs but the way it has been done,
we can make updates quite fast (without any serious downtime), if
needed. These "freezes" was the fact that made the rubberbanding an
heavy issue when a server was full of Avatars moving around - the
physics system did not have the time to make accurate updates. To
summarize - the rubberbanding should be lessened by a great amount once
VU 5.0 is applied. Minor areas that are also improved by this change is
login and logoff time, as well as some transactions and database
operations.

What is not in VU 5.0?
We have another area
that causes "lag". That is the streaming of buildings, Avatars and
items (like when you approach an Outpost, the harddrive is busy loading
models and textures, and this causes "lag"). Another is when many
Avatars are in your own surrounding, as they are also streamed to your
client ("streamed" as in data loaded from your harddrive - not as
streamed over the Internet). These areas has not been updated in VU
5.0. They are next inline for major updates, and the tech guys say that
they should be ready by VU 5.2 (scheduled about one to one-and-a-half
month after VU 5.0). By VU 5.2 many sources of the now infamous (and
extremely annoying) CTD (crash to desktop) problems should be
eliminated.

Bomb Reimbursement
While I was away the Bomb
Reimbursement Programme was performed. This was the programme where a
participant while mining blew up an entire stack of bombs instead of a
single bomb. Nothing else. Probes has not been reimbursed yet, but will
come. If anyone feels that they are affected by the above problem and
has not been given their bombs back (check your Storage Terminal),
please contact Project Entropia Support.

Random amount of PEDs, PECs, and ammo in the Storage Terminal

Once in a while you may find money or items in your storage terminal
that you do not remember placing there. This is often due to lagginess
in the loot system, and the items are then placed in your storage
terminal.

The Merge bug on the 28th and 29th.
Those that
lost ammo and other stackable items during the above time period due to
the merging bug will get their items back as soon as the analyzis and
Programme has been finalized. I have no ETA on this, though. It is a
great amount of logs and database records that needs to be verified and
cross-checked, thus it takes a lot of time. Please bear with us on this.

Ideas Forum
I will this week make comments on
the ideas in the Ideas forum. I do read them, but I believe that the
lack of feedback from us is frustrating. Therefore I will be more
active in that board.

Auction problems - items invisible
There are
instances where auction items are placed in the avatars inventory, but
is not updated correctly, thus not showing to the participant. We are
aware of this and an investigation is at hand. This is going to be
corrected.

Regards

Marco Behrmann

Community Manager

MindArk PE AB

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Mini Patches

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