According to our research, there is a stability problem being created by incorrect Crew/Faction data on the External Playtest server. Essentially, there are a number of Crew captains and Faction leaders who haven't copied characters over to External Playtest. When members of their Crews and Factions log on, the system cannot find those leaders and it's causing some problems.

 

Later today, Tuesday, March 21, 2006, we will be taking the External Playtest server offline temporarily and clearing out the current Crew and Faction data. This should alleviate the stability issues we've been seeing and enable us to see if there are any additional problems.

 

Note: This issue is strictly related to copying characters over to the External Playtest server and should have no effect on the release of Update 42 to the Live game. The Live game has the full character database, so these collisions will not occur there.