Guild history turned off - perhaps this warrants an unplanned and urgent maintenance?

heinousmoz · September 5

They've said it will be fixed on 15th September at the earliest, there's no guarantee it will be fixed by then. Look at all those times trading history broke for months on end. That was back before they messed with how the server handles guild history requests and their new system broke it in a new and exciting way that lasted weeks.

raystormusa · September 5

msetten wrote: »

raystormusa wrote: »

msetten wrote: »

It seems it is not possible to prevent guild members from depositing gold into the bank.

Correct, unless deposits are turned off for member ranks.

I tested this out this morning: even if you remove the "deposit in guildbank" permission from a rank, players in that rank can still deposit gold. No items, only gold.

You are correct, i tested this myself and got the same result. There seems to be no way to turn off gold deposits to guild bank. i will edit my earlier reply.

ElAland · September 5

As GM of a large trading guild averaging over 15,000 sales transactions per week this history issue is a MAJOR issue.

In order to adapt as best I can the main thing I MUST know is will we see the history data filled in correctly once that fix is made (supposedly on Sep 15th)?

Like others I am seeing some sales data, BUT the data gap others mentioned I am seeing change. I pulled data 2 hours ago with the Snapshot addon, and saw a gap between two transactions. Then I pulled the data again 1 hour ago and saw a gap between two different transactions with one of the previous transactions MISSING.

ZOS_Kevin · September 5

Hi All, just following up here. We posted an update message here regarding guild history. Our team is working to resolve the issue, however, this cannot be hotfixed. The team is currently working on other ways to help while we work to resolve the issue. If we have any additional updates, we'll follow up in the linked thread above.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Due to an issue where guild trader bidding history was visible to those without the appropriate guild permissions, we are temporarily turning off ALL guild history information. Unfortunately the fix for this issue cannot be hotfixed, so it will go out at the next earliest possible time: the incremental patch for PC on Sept. 15 and for consoles on Sept. 16.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

heinousmoz · September 5

Kevin with the best will in the world that literally gives us no new information and doesn't answer any of the numerous questions asked here by GM's.

QueenMisi · September 5

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, just following up here. We posted an update message here regarding guild history. Our team is working to resolve the issue, however, this cannot be hotfixed. The team is currently working on other ways to help while we work to resolve the issue. If we have any additional updates, we'll follow up in the linked thread above.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Due to an issue where guild trader bidding history was visible to those without the appropriate guild permissions, we are temporarily turning off ALL guild history information. Unfortunately the fix for this issue cannot be hotfixed, so it will go out at the next earliest possible time: the incremental patch for PC on Sept. 15 and for consoles on Sept. 16.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

Is the updated message in the room with us now? That's the original message.

hiyde · September 5

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, just following up here. We posted an update message here regarding guild history. Our team is working to resolve the issue, however, this cannot be hotfixed. The team is currently working on other ways to help while we work to resolve the issue. If we have any additional updates, we'll follow up in the linked thread above.

Morning, Kevin and thanks for the response. We saw the announcement post and we're clear that this cannot be hotfixed. We also know it's possible to take the servers down for an urgent fix - it was just done last week for Home Tours.

We've also asked several many questions, the most important of which is:
Once history is turned back on, will we be able to retroactively load in the missed data? This is *hugely* important to guilds that track guild bank donations and run their raffles via the guild bank. Whether the answer is "yes", "no", "or we're not sure yet", an answer sure would be appreciated. Guilds really need to know if they should be telling members NOT to deposit gold.

This throws a huge monkeywrench into the game for hundreds of GMs and thousands of guild members who all work together to raise funds for the weekly bids. Additional insight would be really helpful.

WIZZARD2K · September 5

hiyde wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, just following up here. We posted an update message here regarding guild history. Our team is working to resolve the issue, however, this cannot be hotfixed. The team is currently working on other ways to help while we work to resolve the issue. If we have any additional updates, we'll follow up in the linked thread above.

Morning, Kevin and thanks for the response. We saw the announcement post and we're clear that this cannot be hotfixed. We also know it's possible to take the servers down for an urgent fix - it was just done last week for Home Tours.

We've also asked several many questions, the most important of which is:
Once history is turned back on, will we be able to retroactively load in the missed data? This is *hugely* important to guilds that track guild bank donations and run their raffles via the guild bank. Whether the answer is "yes", "no", "or we're not sure yet", an answer sure would be appreciated. Guilds really need to know if they should be telling members NOT to deposit gold.

This throws a huge monkeywrench into the game for hundreds of GMs and thousands of guild members who all work together to raise funds for the weekly bids. Additional insight would be really helpful.

being able to see everything that happened during the "blackout" is probably the biggest need for all the players, and this affects all players involved, not just the GMs trying to keep track, in trading guilds, otherwise, there's going to be a ton of unaccountable donations

KCMail · September 5

Thanks for acknowledging the post, but this adds no new information and honestly feels so out of touch with the community.

I am curious if you do a test and disable guilds as a whole how many players will stick around, For how you treat the community that puts in endless hours of their personal time to make your game continue "for another 10 years" it genuinely feels like you just don't want us here. If a guild system is broken it takes 12 days for a possible fix (lets be honest it's not the best track record) but if a crown store related issue presents that can't be hotfixed the server is down instantly, Home tours? Server down at a time most likely to hurt guilds and GMs.

Why is it like we're screaming into the void for some basic level of support. Your post shows that you've seen this thread, but likely haven't actually read any of the posts and just posted a copy and paste because you know it will only make the community louder if it's entirely ignored.

I used to wish for some tools to make admin of guilds easier, now I just pray that you don't do something that makes it 10x harder, like bug and disable the 1 system we have to keep trade guilds running and to acknowledge the incredible support of our guildies who want to support the guild. We can't even thank a guildie for donating because we'll never know who or where it came from unless they tell us, for trade guilds with requirements that can also lead to a possible removal of a member unjustly creating a rift between the guildie and the admin team. I'm just going to cut off my rant here because I am honestly in disbelief at this lack of awareness and blatant disregard to your most active players who put in endless hours to keep this game running.

Renalds · September 5

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, just following up here. We posted an update message here regarding guild history. Our team is working to resolve the issue, however, this cannot be hotfixed. The team is currently working on other ways to help while we work to resolve the issue. If we have any additional updates, we'll follow up in the linked thread above.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Due to an issue where guild trader bidding history was visible to those without the appropriate guild permissions, we are temporarily turning off ALL guild history information. Unfortunately the fix for this issue cannot be hotfixed, so it will go out at the next earliest possible time: the incremental patch for PC on Sept. 15 and for consoles on Sept. 16.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

How is this an updated message? that's the original post that we are complaining about..
The whole issue is that waiting 2 weeks is unacceptable; we're here doing a service managing guilds that keep players engaged with the game. These features are crucial to running a guild properly.

Traders don't get paid by the taxes generated from sales; they get paid by donations from members.

When housing breaks the server goes down to fix it; but when something as crucial as this happens; we're told to wait 2 weeks?

Where's the logic in that.

Ceral107 · September 5

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, just following up here. We posted an update message here regarding guild history. Our team is working to resolve the issue, however, this cannot be hotfixed. The team is currently working on other ways to help while we work to resolve the issue. If we have any additional updates, we'll follow up in the linked thread above.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Due to an issue where guild trader bidding history was visible to those without the appropriate guild permissions, we are temporarily turning off ALL guild history information. Unfortunately the fix for this issue cannot be hotfixed, so it will go out at the next earliest possible time: the incremental patch for PC on Sept. 15 and for consoles on Sept. 16.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

I'm sorry but that's the exact same message that we've been complaining about as a prime example for poor communication. Absolutely no infos except that this situation will last at least ten more days.

hiyde · September 5

Perhaps this infographic for our two busy trade guilds will help put this in perspective. It covers all 52 weeks of 2024:

In our case, over 82% of our bids are covered by contributions and for nearly every trade guild, contributions come via guild bank gold deposits...

ApoAlaia · September 5

I echo the sentiment expressed by fellow players in this thread.

I appreciate the acknowledgement but the lack of response on what are pretty crucial matters is... well, underwhelming.

Just in case the subtext on this thread is not self-evident enough, we are as much seeking actionable information as we are asking for a reason to continue doing what we are doing.

Destai · September 5

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, just following up here. We posted an update message here regarding guild history. Our team is working to resolve the issue, however, this cannot be hotfixed. The team is currently working on other ways to help while we work to resolve the issue. If we have any additional updates, we'll follow up in the linked thread above.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Due to an issue where guild trader bidding history was visible to those without the appropriate guild permissions, we are temporarily turning off ALL guild history information. Unfortunately the fix for this issue cannot be hotfixed, so it will go out at the next earliest possible time: the incremental patch for PC on Sept. 15 and for consoles on Sept. 16.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

When you post those kinds of updates, it'd be nice if it were an open thread. Obviously there's a lot of questions and concerns that warrant discussion, so just having a closed thread where updates are posted isn't helpful. Would also appreciate if the questions asked in this thread received answers.

DragonRacer · September 5

Honestly, I'm reaching a point that if things are just always gonna be like this for trader guilds, just scrap the system, put in the auction house, and we can all pack up and go home.

This ride is getting pretty exhausting.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · September 5

Hi everyone, thank you for raising questions here. We'd like to give a little more context around this issue, what our options are/were, and why we made the decision we did to address it. When we identified that guild trader bid history information was visible to everyone in the guild, regardless of permissions, we immediately jumped on it and looked into what our options are. We determined that this issue is not hotfixable. We also do not currently have the ability to single out and turn off a single element of the guild history log such as guild trader bid history.

Our options to address this issue are/were 1) leave the issue as-is until the next incremental patch on Sept. 15 for PC and Sept. 16 for consoles or 2) temporarily turn off guild history until the fix is live. We were also getting word that guild trader bid information was being circulated among the community, increasing the likelihood that information would be used to cause disruption and harm to trading guilds (such as trade guilds losing out on traders for a week). In weighing our options and considering the impact of both - and with the understanding that both options have some degree of undesirable impact - we chose to go with option 2. Please know we did not make this decision lightly.

We did make an additional adjustment this morning to account for some errant activity log info that was still coming through. Also, guild history info is stored on the back-end for 30 days, so the information will be there for you when we turn guild history back on Sept. 15/ Sept. 16.

valenwood_vegan · September 5

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

We did make an additional adjustment this morning to account for some errant guild activity log info that was still coming through. Also, guild history info is stored on the back-end for 30 days, so the information will be there for you when we turn guild history back on Sept.15/Sept. 16.

Thanks for responding Jess, that is super important info that should probably be added to the main / pinned post about the issue as well.

It would be great if that post could just generally be updated with more details as well, so that guild members who have questions can be pointed to an official source describing the issue and its impact - because, for example... when members make a donation and then don't receive credit for it, it can erode trust between guild members and guild management. Thanks.

ApoAlaia · September 5

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone, thank you for raising questions here. We'd like to give a little more context around this issue, what our options are/were, and why we made the decision we did to address it. When we identified that guild trader bid history information was visible to everyone in the guild, regardless of permissions, we immediately jumped on it and looked into what our options are. We determined that this issue is not hotfixable. We also do not currently have the ability to single out and turn off a single element of the guild history log such as guild trader bid history.

Our options to address this issue are/were 1) leave the issue as-is until the next incremental patch on Sept. 15 for PC and Sept. 16 for consoles or 2) temporarily turn off guild history until the fix is live. We were also getting word that guild trader bid information was being circulated among the community, increasing the likelihood that information would be used to cause disruption and harm to trading guilds (such as trade guilds losing out on traders for a week). In weighing our options and considering the impact of both - and with the understanding that both options have some degree of undesirable impact - we chose to go with option 2. Please know we did not make this decision lightly.

We did make an additional adjustment this morning to account for some errant activity log info that was still coming through. Also, guild history info is stored on the back-end for 30 days, so the information will be there for you when we turn guild history back on Sept. 15/ Sept. 16.

Thank you.

Another question that has been floated, currently 'live' guild history events do populate while the account is logged in, does this mean that when we place the guild trader bids for next two trader flips before a fix may go live these will also be visible to any guild member online?

If the answer to that is 'yes' maybe suspend weekly trader flips until such time that the issue has been fixed?

Otherwise the system is open to abuse and last second 'sniping'.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · September 5

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

It would be great if that post could just generally be updated with more details as well, so that guild members who have questions can be pointed to an official source describing the issue and its impact - because, for example... when members make a donation and then don't receive credit for it, it can erode trust between guild members and guild management. Thanks.

Sure! We can do that and link to this post in that one as well. Some of the details in my reply here, we needed to check with the appropriate people this morning, after that original notification post went up.

ShawnF · September 5

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Also, guild history info is stored on the back-end for 30 days, so the information will be there for you when we turn guild history back on Sept. 15/ Sept. 16.

Thank you for this - knowing that it'll be available eventually is a huge relief.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · September 5

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Another question that has been floated, currently 'live' guild history events do populate while the account is logged in, does this mean that when we place the guild trader bids for next two trader flips before a fix may go live these will also be visible to any guild member online?

The adjustment we made this morning was to address those "live" guild activity events that were still appearing. That should not be happening anymore, as of about 30-45 minutes ago. If you do see some of those appearing now, please let us know?

QueenMisi · September 5

I'm sure the answer to this is no and the reason unclear, but can the fix be deployed for PC EU during the freshly-announced maintenance on Tuesday 9th?

ApoAlaia · September 5

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Another question that has been floated, currently 'live' guild history events do populate while the account is logged in, does this mean that when we place the guild trader bids for next two trader flips before a fix may go live these will also be visible to any guild member online?

The adjustment we made this morning was to address those "live" guild activity events that were still appearing. That should not be happening anymore, as of about 30-45 minutes ago. If you do see some of those appearing now, please let us know?

Thanks for the update.

I haven't been in the game for the last couple of hours but I will check now.

Ceral107 · September 5

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

[...]We determined that this issue is not hotfixable.[...]

What's the reason, technical or otherwise, that things like the aforementioned housing tours - a piece of content that has no urgency attatched to it whatsoever - can be hotfixed, but not this? If the issue has been identified and is ready to be fixed, what caused it? Can the issue be prevented in the future, and is it intended to make sure a situation like this can be resolved through a hotfix? What's the plan if the incremental patch doesn't fix the issue?

It's nice to know that we will probably be able to retrieve the logs, but there are still plenty of important unsanswered questions.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · September 5

QueenMisi wrote: »

I'm sure the answer to this is no and the reason unclear, but can the fix be deployed for PC EU during the freshly-announced maintenance on Tuesday 9th?

We wish we could push the fix earlier, but unfortunately no. That maintenance on Tuesday is for some backend server upgrade work that is completely separate from our incremental patch schedule. We have an incremental patch build process and a schedule built around it. The build for our next incremental was just locked last night (with the fix for this included). The Sept. 15 and 16 dates are the earliest possible time we can push those incremental patches to the live servers.

Bobby_Digital81 · September 5

After this careless slip on ZOS with properly keeping trader bids disclosed, they should make a global auction house. It's bad enough trying to deal with several networks of trading guilds on PS/NA all working together with sharing bids and pushing out the independent guilds. Also, where is all the materials coming from at the public auctions by these alliance/mafia guilds? See stacks and stacks of raw materials, lots of them that farm bots get. Kinda weird.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom I hope we can see some changes to trading system improved and not just keep going the way it has been. It's been kinda bad and ZOS has tainted it even further with this slip up. I hope you guys properly review and test each update and patch here on out so the players don't get shafted like this again. It's bad enough we have to test each update each year and then get several weeks of patches to fix major stuff. Lots of those bugs and inconveniences shouldn't have been released in the first place.

ApoAlaia · September 5

There have been reports of GMs getting social bans as we scramble to communicate with our guild members through this upheaval.

Would it be possible to relax the ruleset for 'spamming' at least for a couple of days?

I am currently composing a mail for the members of my guild with the new information and a general idea of how we are going to 'negotiate these waters' so to speak until the fix goes live but I must admit, I am fretting at the idea of pressing 'Send'.

Also, I can no longer see guild history updates populating the log so whatever you did this morning seems to be working.

Renalds · September 5

It's time guilds receive some love in general especially when it comes to managing the guild.

ApoAlaia wrote: »

There have been reports of GMs getting social bans as we scramble to communicate with our guild members through this upheaval.

Would it be possible to relax the ruleset for 'spamming' at least for a couple of days?

I am currently composing a mail for the members of my guild with the new information and a general idea of how we are going to 'negotiate these waters' so to speak until the fix goes live but I must admit, I am fretting at the idea of pressing 'Send'.

Also, I can no longer see guild history updates populating the log so whatever you did this morning seems to be working.

We sent out 2500 mails yesterday using mail alts, some got socialbanned ><>

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · September 5

Ceral107 wrote: »

What's the reason, technical or otherwise, that things like the aforementioned housing tours - a piece of content that has no urgency attached to it whatsoever - can be hotfixed, but not this? If the issue has been identified and is ready to be fixed, what caused it?

Pulling out these two questions, which we can answer now.

In simple terms, this particular bug was caused by a guild history permissions refresh issue in the client C++ code, which is why we need to do an incremental. Server code issues can be fixed with hotfixes, and some client issues (UI scripting related, for example) can be fixed via hotfix. But client C++ codes require a full patch and deploy to address.

hiyde · September 5

Renalds wrote: »

It's time guilds receive some love in general especially when it comes to managing the guild.

We sent out 2500 mails yesterday using mail alts, some got socialbanned ><>

Clone GodSend exactly how it works now, add a "send guild-wide mail" toggle to the ranks and voila.