Wow, I really hate the Internet Explorer keyboards. I had a nice long descriptive post about how corruption effects us all, but it was wiped out when I hit "backspace" and Explorer intrepreted this as go back. Good-bye post. Anyways, just wanted to say that a good buddy of mine, some of you may know him as Klokwurk, lost all his main characters to the freeze corruption bug last night. I was hit pretty hard by it, since he's been a playing partner of mine since the DC days. I don't think he's gonna quit, however, but I do know that this bug is still very much alive and should really be dealt with by the server support team. Not that it will do a damn thing, I decided to write a little statement to Sonic Team Support (hah!). Here's what I wrote:

I'm writing in regards to inform you all that the looming Freeze bug that corrupts PSO data is still VERY much present and the double save is the major cause for character corruption. While, this second save does indeed help against illegal item duplication, the risk of character loss is far greater in the eyes of the community. Not to mention that there must be several other ways of duping, due to the fact that duplicated items are ALL over the place. Anyways, last night, a buddy of mine suffered this Freeze while joining a game and lost his character to "corruption." He was very much an active player amongst our group of friends, and now it seems he will be leaving. This corruption bug effects ALL players, regardless of direct loss or loss of a buddy. I only urge the support team to look at this issue further, or to even remove the second save if at all possible. Thank you for your consideration and keep up the great work!

Hopefully, I'll get some sort of response worth my time. I won't hold my breath though. =/
R.I.P. Klokwurk, your RAcast will be missed. T.T

Man that bites! I never knew the guy, but it's a shame that this happens to anyone.

*shakes head* that is most unfortunate, Mute.. -.- question ~ this isn't the same Klokwurk that periodically visited PoL, is it? =. *sigh* it's a strange irony, technology with loop-holes & flaws ~ i would have lost it if my main avatar got wiped with a single glitch...well, only for awhile, i suppose.. though it is good to know that this has not stopped him from continuing such a good game..

erk ~ i have been summoned, time to watch animatrix; until then! *runs downstairs with a quickness*

*nods* yes, truly sucks what happend to my boy Klok, but I think It's cool that he and others have continued to play PSO. I await the day when Klokwurk reaches his former glory again.

Ahh corruption does suck.
It sucks even more when it happens offline! (I may have done something wrong but it's already been done so oh well..) There were 2 occasions where I did freeze on the 2nd save though. And guess what? I was able to save my characters even when the game said that the characters were corrupted. I guess I was fortunate.
There was another occasion where the saving just froze for a moment (like 2 seconds) when I log on. This caused my character to get initialized. Luckily though it was only one character not the whole memory card. Sucks for my FOnewm though.
Anyway, this shouldn't cause your friend to quit PSO. A friend told me once (right after he got corrupted), "As long as there are friends, I'll keep playing."

--d-_-b

mmmmm, auto-replies are great. -.- Here's the reply I received (which is somewhat understandable considering they probably get spammed full of e-mails every day):

Thank you for your interest in Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II. In our attempt to assist you as quickly as possible, we have sent this automatic reply to you based on the most common sets of questions we receive from our customers.

If you have questions for getting your Game Cube connected online, or to find out where to purchase a modem or broadband adaptor for your Game Cube, please contact Nintendo customer support at: 1-800-255-3700

Please visit the PSO Online Episode I & II website where you will find all the information you need about PSO, including how to purchase a Hunters License, how to check or edit your account information, and much more! Click on this link to go directly to the FAQ page of our website:

http://www.sega.com/community/profiles/pso...help_faqs.jhtml


If the FAQ's do not answer your question(s) or address your concern(s), please reply and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Sega Support

....................

So what I do? Naturally, I replied. I added a few considerate comments and re-pasted my original message. The key, I just wanna make sure they know this freezing/corruption bug is FAR from fixed. Hopefully, even though it's unlikely, I can get some attention from it. -.-;;

yeah i just met klok post-coruption, sucks what happened :/ seemed like a real good guy.

i to am glad that people dont let corruption stop them from playing. just take a minute to think how the servers would look if everyone who got corrupted stopped playing.... while it would clear some of the beggars from vega, we'd loose alot of good friends too.

well, look at it this way ~ if your e-mail refers to an issue of importance, then i'm certain that it will reach Sonic Team so they can look into the matter ~ they're good with looking into concerns that threaten gameplay; hmmm, as far as SEGA replying to you at a personal level, that is probability ~ big corporations tend to overlook giving credit to the little people that found the issue to begin with.. ^.-

QUOTE (DJ_Donkey @ Jun 10 2003, 11:29 PM)

A friend told me once (right after he got corrupted), "As long as there are friends, I'll keep playing."

When it comes down to it, it's not about the spiffy rares or the uber experienced characters. I know I play this game online for the people. I mean sure, I'd be really bummed out if I corrupted, but I'm 100% sure I'd just make up a new character and start fresh. The only thing that would suck is that it might take a little while getting back up to 80 again.

EDIT: JUST got a response from the Support Team. Here's how it went:

Dear valued Sega customer,

Thank you for e-mailing Sega Technical Support.

I forwarded your e-mail to my corporate office.



Sincerely,

-Sandi
Sega of America Technical Support
.........................
In one case this could be a good thing or, in other words, it basically means they deleted my e-mail. *shrugs* Well, at least I voiced my concerns.

That "corporate office" could be a codename for file 13 - the circular file. I sure hope not though.

There is so much duped crap flying around it's easy to replace anything lost; athough it depends if replacing lost items via cheating is justifiable due to a bug that occurs to stop cheating...

I lost a level 174 FO, 100 FO, and a 120ish HU. At my level there was seriously no new challenges to do. Your characater growth slowed down. It felt like there was a SUPER ULTIMATE mode missing, with higher max stats to be gained. Minor level up bonuses didn't make a huge impact on your performance like it did in your earlier levels. Losing a character sucks, but it's about having fun playing the game. Granted things like this shouldn't even happen, but the loss of exp isn't a big deal when the future of your character is destined to face a flawed growth system.

Point is the only thing really lost are nice legit rares that were one time finds and difficult to replace. The levels are trival if you think about it. Only takes a few weeks to get to 100+ and your able to own ulti with ease. Once you hit that level you can take it easy and just play to play, because stats become trival, despite how many dozens of levels your character can reach.

I was playing, if most of you do not know already, A LOT of cmode the last week or so. I was playing most of the day yesterday and encountered two different FSODs.

One of them was returning to the lobby from a game and it froze. The other one happened like a minute after joining a game.

The funny thing about this one is that it froze after I joined, it saved, and I was chatting with the players. I am not sure if my chats got to them because they did not reply...so this could have been one sign that FSOD was near.

I can not remember who but someone told me that if two players leave cmode to the lobby at the same time it is very possible to FSOD.

Anyways, this is just encouraging me to make a memory card for my cmode characters...so don't be suprised if you see Sheik or Kesho running around as a lv1 as they will ONLY be used for cmode. At least if my cmode memory card corrupts nothing is really lost except completed stages, and that is easy to fix.

I sure wish they would remove that double save. From what I have heard, removing the double save WILL NOT prevent the game from FSODing on you...but at least it will not be saving when it FSODs. FSOD does not bug me...corruption does. Maybe if more people sent email...or postal mail to ST they would possibly remove that double save. I wish there was a way to block the save command from the server.

When I got FSODed yesterday all I did was power off and back on...and got right back on. Since I keep all my stuff equipped or in the bank I have no worries.

I was reading through WuMarkus's PSO for Grown Ups forums and I found out a interesting post regarding an anti-corruption method. I haven't tested this, nor have I any more information regarding if it works or not, but here is the method:

QUOTE

Ah, i stopped liking my 1st one so i made a new one, goes like this: Join a game or make a game, but make sure there is no memory card in the 2nd slot, plug a controler(or switch the 1st controler)into the 4th slot. Now hold down L and A when you see the 1st save, count about 10 seconds. The double save shouldve passed by then, the lag avoids the FSOD. Happy Playing! Copyright Model 383

Thanks Mute...although it is a bit tedious and *should* not be necessary if ST would get the server fixed.

Yeah. Corruption claimed me twice on GC before I started playing the XBox version. I never really planned on leaving the GC but I felt better after I leveled and got two characters to ultimate on XBox, so now I've decided to play both and I don't think I'm leaving either one of them in the near future. I'm going to have at least two characters over 100 on both systems someday. I'm almost there on PSOX but due to corruption problems(and me not making up my mind which classes I wanted to stick with), I haven't hit 100 yet on Gamecube amd I've had the GC version since November. The closest I got is a lv98 FOmar and that was right before it happened the first time.

Technically it's not the saving that does the corruption, it's over-data being inputted as you are between the 2 saves. over data includes people joining behidn you, receiving a SM or the obvious, being disconnected. It's a simpel thing to fix, as you cannot dupe by lag-methods so logn as the doublesave is there, but theres a few millisecond gap between the 2 saves that causes the problem. if sega just removed that (it is manually input, the gap isn't a switchover as the doublesave is in fact just savign a tad of extra info) and integrated it before the first save, you woupdn't be able to corrupt, just get yer bog standard FSOD, as the items are what gets saved second (so you can't lag them), but if they were first, and still seperate from the data save, it would lose your inventorey items, but you'd maintain your level, characters and your bank (equippeds would go, as they are droppable). It really is stupidity on segas behalf.

Would anybody happen to know what causes FSOD on the visual lobby?

the chances of FSOD in the visual lobbies are greatly increased by two aspects:

one being a crouded lobby.

the second being a lobby where people are sitting in they're chairs. the pso chairs cause exess loading for the GC and seem to push it to the point of lockup (FSOD)

of coarse the worst possible situation is a crouded lobby full of inflated chairs. watch out!

alternate lobbies away from the general public are the only way to go.