Exilebuddy 3.0 Status Thread

Exilebuddy is now down for maintenance as the realms are down for the deployment of the 3.0 update.

This thread will provide various status updates as needed for the progression of the 3.0 update.

Please keep in mind, this will be a lengthy downtime, as the game is receiving it's largest expansion to date!

 

Update 1:

Now that the weekend is over, we wanted to give a status update. We're in great shape right now. Most of the API is updated, and has been tested, and our content updates are progressing very nicely. There are some differences between the final release and what was there in closed beta, but since we stayed on top of that, we have significantly less to do now than if we were instead starting from scratch.

Later this week, we'll post some of the short term issues EB will see with this major game transition, as there will be no way to adequately handle everything before we plan to get a testable version out. There still remains a few annoying game bugs that would be nice if they were fixed soon, but we'll just have to code around them if they don't get fixed. These types of bugs affect EB, and while we try our best to code around them, sometimes they will just cause inconveniences until they are addressed in the game itself.

Anyways, that's it for now, we still expect some big game patches soon as well as some server stability fixes, but things are a lot better than expected. No ETA changes yet, but there's a good chance we'll be ready to go after this upcoming weekend.

 

Update 2:

I'll try to keep this short and sweet, but there will be no alpha test this weekend. We were already on the fence the closer we got to the weekend after taking this week to get through the main game, work on additional updates, and start going over the new stuff added since the closed beta. However, if you've been following game news as of last night, this should come as no surprise. If you've not been following game news, you really should if you're interested in botting this game.

As I mentioned in the last post:

Patches were on the light side (which is really helpful with our updates and testing), but GGG has confirmed the additional large patches with Thursday's update, as we expected. Unless an ETA is given for those patches, we know it's coming soon for sure, but we're not going to wait for it as it still might be a week or two away. We expect future bottimg time to be affected by this, but we add that disclaimer to all our bot release threads because that's always how the game has been. Sometimes GGG pushes out frequent small patches during the first week, other times they collect a bunch of stuff and do the patch around a week later. Basically, nothing new has happened that we didn't expect in regards to patches.

However, in light of the recent issues arising after Thursday's patch with the new server issues, and now their server sided anti-bot systems seemingly having bugs based on reddit posts and the forums, we're no longer comfortable doing any sorts of public testing yet.

Too many people fail to understand how GGG goes about banning bots, and are quick to blame EB and claim it's detected, QuestBot is at fault, town movements are at fault, or whatever random feature we don't offer is the reason why GGG can detect people using EB. None of that is actually accurate, and we have been around long enough to understand how GGG does things and we adjust accordingly.

Perception of the bot safety is really important, so there's no way we're doing any sort of public testing if there is a random ban issue (assuming it truly is a bug and the majority of the people reporting issues are not using 3rd party software) going on. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, but that issue alone was more than enough to force a change in our plans.

As I emphasized a week before the 3.0 release in the preparation thread:

I know this is disappointing to people who are anxious to get to botting with EB and start updating code for 3.0, but we're still within our internal estimated downtime range (1-2 weeks of best-case downtime) and anything relating to server-sided bans, is not something to take lightly. As a number of people found out at the end of the last league for a few months, when GGG wants to be persistent with bans for bot-like behavior, and throw a lot of time and effort into it, they will be and are usually pretty effective. It's all server sided metric detection, so it can be hard for people to adjust to changes in the game environment after getting away with it for most of the league already.

While no ETAs have been given still, we now hope to hold a test if things get sorted out and stable by the mid-end of next week. As talked about before in our preparation threads, we're on GGG's schedule, and the start of new expansions are always rough, so don't say we didn't warn you beforehand. Anyways, we still thank people for their patience, and when things get settled down again, we'll hope to be able to do some public testing. In the meantime, we'll be continuing our updates and hope to have a really solid initial testing launch when we do.

 

Update 3:

We'll be looking to push our initial versions really soon (<8 hours estimate)! A few more release thread additions are being done, some build server related things need to be finalized, and then we should be ready to go.

We'll also be giving out the first wave of downtime compensation as well as posting a new roadmap thread for the upcoming weeks to keep users informed about the state of the project and what lies in the near future.

While we do expect some more client patches in the near future, our plan is to just give out additional downtime compensation as needed once those updates are complete. Please keep in mind the game itself still has a lot of issues, so don't expect things to be amazing out of the gate, but we're comfortable with the way things are right now.

Thanks once again to all our users that showed patience and support, and we hope to be back up and running really soon!

 

Update 4:

Beta #1565 and Release #292 are now being deployed! Users will need to download and use clean copies of the bot to update from.

Please read the Exilebuddy 3.0+ Reference Thread as new content and changes will be added as time goes on.

One of the biggest complaints we've had over time is that there's too much information scattered around the forums for users to find and read, so this time around we're trying one big thread they can refer to and easily search.

We're doing both Beta/Release at once because some users will need to use the Exilebuddy Installer, which only exists for Release. Due to time zone differences, the first wave of downtime compensation will be given out soon, then we'll add additional as needed for any further game patches or serious bot issues.

Once again, we thank users for their patience, and we look forward to continuing to improve and grow Exilebuddy!

 

Update 5:

As issues are reported, we'll be collecting them and push out updated builds to address various things when we're ready.

I noticed I forgot to mention a few things in the reference thread, so I'll mention them here then there:

Tutorial API support is in, but we left that to users. They can click the button on their new chars, or do the tutorial themselves if they have tinfoil ideas about new accounts.

 

Update 6:

We're hard at work fixing bugs, making improvements, and continuing our development on EB!

I've been told by Support all keys should have gotten their downtime compensation by now, so we thank users for their patience.

As we mentioned before, we knew of some upcoming game patches, but had to wait for them to be announced. The first of these is 3.0.1 which will be deployed tomorrow: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1961733

We hope to get updated and things back up and running as soon as possible, but this will be like any other normal update. If there is any further downtime, we'll let users know and give out additional downtime compensation as needed.

Initial support for Act 9 and 10 is planned to be a part of this update as well, so users can start testing and grinding those areas. Please keep the bug reports with logs coming, as they really do help us! That's it for now, we thank everyone for their support.

 

Update 7:

Beta #1567 and Release #293 have just been deployed for the latest update!

 

Update 8:

It appears some Skill stuff broke in the update that went unnoticed, updates are underway for the issues!

In the mean time offsets have been temporarily pulled for the latest builds. New updates will come soon hopefully once the issue has been verified and fixed.

 

Update 9:

A minor skill issues with Blasphemy has been found and fixed. Unfortunately, this type of issue is one of the rare things we just have to deal with in our setup time to time, and was not preventable beforehand without always having a lot longer downtime (which no one wants)

However, we expect additional client patches to be deployed soon to address some new issues introduced in this 3.0.1.2 update. The most noticeable one being talked about on reddit and the forums right now is the exception message boxes showing up when you exit the client as well as some crash/memory leak issues from the new patch.

We'll look to deploy new patches soon, but in the event another client patch comes out, EB will need yet another update, which means more annoyances over night. Depending on the timing, the patch might result in a new version of EB being updated tomorrow morning US time.

So, this is a reiteration of what we talked about in the 3.0 preparation thread and reference thread. This game updates a lot, it almost always seems to have random issues after big patches, and these things affect us because we're dependent on the client working a specific way. We try our best to make sure everything goes as smooth as possible, but the start of new leagues and patch cycles is always rough.

 

Update 10:

Beta #1569 / Release #294 are being deployed. Sorry for the inconvenience, but please keep in mind the previous post!

 

Update 11:

Beta #1570 and Release #295 have been deployed for the additional patch after server maintenance.

Expect random patches of this sort around big updates, because that is the norm for this game. We'll try our best to stay on top of things, but there's only so much we can do!

 

Update 12:

Beta #1571 / Release #296 are being deployed. The previous two builds did not go live due to a build server configuration issue.

 

Update 13:

One of the things I forgot to mention was our inability to fully support pre-3.0 characters with QuestBot.

Basically, it comes down to characters having a quest state progression that is abnormal, so logic coded to handle questing might not always be able to handle whatever state the character is currently in due to the removal of difficulty and the addition of 6 new acts.

In the last big game update, a number of characters had various quest state fixes due to bugs after the expansion. There's not much we can do on this front, but luckily it's a rare event, as the last time this happened, was with the addition of Act 4.

There does seem to be a new API bug identified with pre-3.0 characters (where 3.0 characters are fine) that is currently being looked into.