There was a post on the Acclaim forum today that suggested there was a new "client side" patch for GameGuard so I started up the game to get that. As the game loaded though I didn't get a new patch. I went back to that forum post and now [GM]Fugen is referring to this patch as a "server side" patch. Fair enough. I deleted my GameGuard folder anyway just to force the system to download anything that might be new and then I tried to play for a while. On the first try I was able to play about 20 minutes, which was a really nice change. Ok, it's not perfect but we have a small improvement.

I had to go out for a bit so I set up a stand in Hefei just to try that out. I don't know how long the connection lasted but it couldn't have been very long. I didn't sell a single thing from the stand and I was disconnected when I got back from the beer store. I went back to grinding on my warrior and was able to play about an hour or so before being disconnected once again.

I can see from the further posts in that thread that there are still a fair number of people affected by the disconnection problem, and I am one of them. It's just "not quite as bad as it was". It's nice to be back in the game. I would very much like to thank Gehrk and the other bandmasters for taking up the leadership of this league while I've been gone. You guys rock!

On a related note, my wife and I are taking off this week for a scuba vacation and we'll be back in early May. So, Gehrk and the rest of the bandmasters, just keep on rocking. You're doing great work.

- SpearDriver