Mythic goes into detail on the Phoenix Throne server downtime today:

Today we brought down the Phoenix Throne server for a game update. The purpose of this downtime was to test a few fixes that we will be implementing along with game update 1.1b. Please note, these changes are currently only live on the Phoenix Throne server, however we look forward to bringing them to all live servers very soon.

• Renown gains: This patch includes a significant fix to the amount of Renown gained in both open Realm vs. Realm combat and Scenarios. The intent of this change is for players to gain Renown based on the differential between a player’s Rank and Renown Rank. The examples given below are based on solo Realm vs. Realm confrontations without any sort of bonuses and with both players being of the same Renown Rank (differences between RRs also affect RPs awarded):

• If a Rank 40/Renown Rank 1 solo kills a Rank 31/Renown Rank 1, the Rank 40 will receive 206 Renown as a reward.

• If a Rank 40/Renown Rank 1 solo kills a Rank 18/Renown Rank 1, the Rank 40 will receive 70 Renown as a reward.

Notice that this is a larger reward than the Rank 40 would receive with the previous system (51 and 5 respectively).

To discourage exploitation of this system, if a player is killed repeatedly in a short amount of time they are worth less Renown each time due to the existing diminishing returns system.

Also, please keep in mind that the difference between players’ Renown Ranks will also affect the amount of RP rewarded.

• Nordenwatch: Re enabled access to this Tier 1 Empire vs. Chaos Scenario. Fixed an issue with this Scenario that affected server stability.