New Yew Times and Atlantic Maintenance

I had initially intended for this post to provide a summary of the latest issue of the Yew Times “newspaper”, the chronicle of Ultima Online in-game happenings written by members of the community.

However, this seems like bigger news:

Due to issues beyond our control, I am sorry to have to inform all of Atlantic that we had to revert to a Dec 5, 2012 7:00 am EST back up. We have tried to retrieve a more current back up but we have been unable to do so due to corruption issues. We are very sorry this has happened and any Atlantic player that is being impacted by this revert will be compensated with 30 days free game time. If you are having any issues with Vet Rewards or In game codes please page a GM. They will be able to assist you with this matter but please provide what vet reward/code was claimed and by what character to help us confirm your request faster.

That’s a tragic turn of events, although at least Atlantic players will get a free month out of it. Still, there are times when losing nearly two weeks’ worth of progress comes like a gut-punch.

And if I might be permitted to put on one of my “real life” hats for a moment, might I suggest you all take this as a lesson? Always verify your backups when you make them, and periodically thereafter. Just because the data copy operation completed “successfully” doesn’t mean it arrived at its destination in the same useful format it was in at its source.