What? 30min downtime once a day (lets you eat!) vs a full day a week?

I think MOST gamers are in the far east actually... Over 6million subs to wow in that area, compared to 5 million in the entire west (US and EU combined!). Also, even if you take your numbers into account - just because 57% of people are in the US doesnt mean that it is right or sensible to upset the other 43% - thats a hugely sizable proportion of your player base.

I went to university - EVERY day was holiday frankly appart from some nasty days in May. the 4th isnt a 'holiday period', its just a time that happens to be popular for people taking time off, same could be said about the middle of the summer - but they still have to pick one day each week. Holiday periods are like 24th-27th December - thats a true 'holiday' period when almost everyone is off for at least some of the days.

Thats not a 'holiday period' thats school holidays. and as we all know, kids dont count.

HAve you looked at when the american servers update... Yes - they already update in the middle of the night - so the CURRENT system involves the employees staying up all night long. DOH!

Which countries have the 4th Jan as a holiday period? I agree with most of the things people are posting on this subject, but Im still not getting this whole 'Jan 4th is a holiday'

What evidence do you have that the majority of the players are in the US? If you look at the sub numbers for WOW (shudder) then the EU is almost equal to the US.

The ability to influence the game world itself. Eve doesn't do a lot right, but having your actions actually 'matter' really felt good.

Oh I do realise that. This game got as many preorders on day one as eve has subs... Out of interrest, why the heck can't they patch all the servers at the same time?

Did you actually READ my post? You know, the bit where it says THIS DOES NOT AFFECT ME PERSONALLY. Or the bit that says I only play from 9pm onwards, what with maint finishing at 4pm.. . Sigh. Please redirect that rage at someone who deserves it.

That doesnt work... As its been said, the current time is the time of lowest server pop. Thus if the American servers are taken down they will be very low pop invading very low pop. Where is the issue? Not to mention the fact that most people won't roll a character to be used solely for a few hours each week. Sure if the American servers were taken down in prime time there might be an issue, but that's not what's being suggested.

Having come from EVE with its 30min daily downtime, frankly EIGHT HOURS a week seems ridiculous. I know it's a new game and maintenance times 'should' come down later on, but it's a bit of a shock to the system. The time doesn't affect me personally, I work/travel from 7.30 till 6.30 and then I have little people to put to bed, so 'my' time doesn't start till 9pm. That being said, this is a kick in the teeth for the 'roughly' 50% of the player base (eu) who are affected by this. All the people who keep saying 'get out, get a life, stop whining'. Frankly, how would you respond if it was file reversed?

Some of the things being said in here are so egocentric its not even funny. Consider 'it's not fair, I don't work 9-5 I work shifts, this is right in MY play time, why isn't it in the middle of the night'. This is utterly moronic as if you did that you would get OTHER shift workers complaining that they only get to play during the night because their shift hours make them sleep during the day! Bioware will have looked at the time that affects the least number of people, and they go with that. Yes it over ran last time, yes splitting the maitenance would make sense, but ONLY if the servers were split so that you could play on one server or the other, otherwise people would have a character on both server clusters for when dt affects them and it would put huge strain on the servers that were still up.

Move. My unlimited line is £12 a month... The new fibre optic 50mb unlimited is £25 a month. Sucks, but it's hardly bio wares fault.

I've got an unlimited data connection. I'm not bragging, that's just fairly standard in the UK. You tend to get cheap packages with 10gb limits or normal ones that are unlimited. Also, how many games was he downloading??? I've got quite a few on steam and my entire library is only 40gb. Also have you looked into what happens if you go over your limit? In the uk they don't simply cut you off, they either throttle you for the rest of the month or bump you up to the next package.

150-38.... What else were you doing? And if you used the other 112 between the 16th and now you would have gone over your limit by the 16th even without SWTOR.

But you clearly don't see the very obvious difference between using a little app on your phone and using the work computers to play a computer game. Huge difference there which isn't even remotely comparable.

Couldnt agree more. I just don't understand the negativity here. Heck I'd play the entire game from my phone if it was possible, but obviously it's not powerful enough. Not sure what people are finding a problem. As for 'installing the client on my work PC'... You what? How many people could do that and NOT get fired? Not to mention 99% of company machines wouldn't even make the games minimum specs.

It's an unfair advantage that people don't have to work and sit at home all day long playing the game. I fail to see your point. It wouldn't let you do something that the afformentioned person couldn't do while sitting around at home all day long.

I can't understand why people have an issue with this. Obviously it would need to be an apple app as well, some love for my iPhone please. I can't see how this is a 'pay to win' or a 'game breaker' it wouldn't allow you to do something that someone sitting at their pc all day long would be able to do. Why all the hate?