Ok, it was nice to have a 4 day long weekend to play with good experience rates, but it's not like we got to play uninterrupted. The servers are still lagging hard from time to time and characters are dying because of it. Mass disconnection isn't as bad as it was last weekend, but it still happens. That sort of thing builds frustration and players will quit because of it. The constant disconnections at the map loads do it too. I don't think G1 understands that yet.

I think G1 still don't understand how many people have quit the game, or how many are now quitting on a daily basis. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that our readership numbers doubled when G1 announced they there were taking over as publisher of the game. Our reader numbers are declining again and the current 30 day rolling number is only just over 1100 unique readers.

The server load images at the load-o-meter show some pretty good numbers for the last couple of days. I think the Phoenix server went over the 50% point for the first time, but that obviously has more to do with the experience event than it has to do with satisfied customers. Frankly, the future of this game is bleak unless G1/Indy21 somehow get the old character database back from Disney.

The 4x xp rates over the weekend helped me to get past the dreaded Golden Blossom levels. Experienced players know that's the make or break point for most players. XP rates drop badly in those 12 levels, particularly at GB4. I may have only delayed that SLOOOOOW feeling but things pick up again as a character gains the second role at EC6, and hopefully I'll get there this week. SpearDriver2 is EC2 now.

Lastly, the coin mall opened up this weekend and I've seen a couple of people wearing IM decos. I'm jealous. I used to have 4 of them dammit, and I could really use a dodge deco now. I'm getting sick and tired of having to run and meditate after killing a few mobs. A low level character with crap equipment is really no fun when you've had better.

I've also seen a few posts in the forum from people who are having difficulty buying G1 coins with people being charged multiple times. The company known as Playspan seems to be one particularly difficult company. Sometimes coins aren't delivered at all and when they are, purchased items are sometimes delivered to the wrong server.