If I ever manage to get patched up I am seriously considering re-running all my toons without checking to see if a choice is light or dark side. The more I think about the Sith Code, the less it seems to be necessarily about hate, anger and discontent. It seems instead to be about all emotions, to be come more than human by immersing yourself in what makes a person human. "Peace is a lie. There is only Passion. Through Passion I gain Strength. Through Strength I gain Power. Through Power I gain Victory. Through Victory my chains are Broken. The Force shall free me" Nothing about fear, rage or dread. It is about indulging the raw emotions that prompt a person to act in a given manner in a given situation. A gut reaction so to speak. If your current emotion is rage, then by all means slaughter the cause of your anger. If you feel love, act on it fully. Same with the various other feelings. If passion is the source of strength, then ALL passion gives strength. Acting solely on rage and fear may be a quick path to power, but it is not a sustainable power. Just think of how exhausting it is to hold a grudge for a long time. You simply become apathetic after a while. Other emotions (sources of passion) are more enduring and longer lasting. Thus, it seems to me that all passions must be embraced. Then I can more fully enjoy the plot lines perhaps and get rid of my forced to fit toons (LS sith of various types just to see the story ending for example).

I have to agree with Costello. The "state of the game" is highly relevant. Faulty patches and unscheduled downtimes of great length directly impact the state of the game. They clearly impact playability (you can't play if the servers are down to rework a patch). Such incidents also reflect on the future condition of the game. History may not be always indicative of future performance, but it is the standard gauge and is often accurate. A program (any kind of program, not just computer programs) with a history of problems is likely to have more problems in the future. If history shows the frequency and severity of problems are decreasing, then the program should improve in the future...if the frequency and severity of problems is increasing then the program is likely to continue to develop more and worse problems going forward. To borrow a line from Sgt. Bilko, "Nine years without a single successful test? That's not a slump, Colonel,; that's a tradition". The same process applies to any program or endeavor. A long history of problems or failures will cause people to expect more problems and failures in the future. Now, I have missed out on SWTOR for a while, just recently resubbed. I don't know much beyond the distant past and the very recent history. Maybe this is a slump. Maybe they have been doing well most of the time... But I left when I started dealing with what seemed to be excessive in game issues (and a slow internet connection). I returned, coped with the slow connection, did a massive amount of updating, and found many of my past issues had been corrected. It looked good, I sent in a payment... Then, less than 24 hours later, this "incident". I am obviously not amused. It reminds me of the distant past. I am sitting here, watching my painfully slow download sit at 90.19%, it has moved an entire 0.15% in the last 30 minutes. It makes me wonder if the game is being improved or if we are just seeing bandaids slapped onto a sucking chest would and a severed femoral artery. I'll finish the update, then see what has changed... Hopefully for the better, or at lest not for the worse. But the state of the game seems to be one of carelessness and neglect in many respects. That does not bode well for the future when viewed in the light of past history.

Maybe it was my tine in the Navy, maybe I am OCD, maybe I just have a thing for accuracy... But I see a clear difference between "server down" and "we borked the patch and had to start over". In my Navy days, I worked on nuclear reactors. There is a huge difference between say "the reactor SCRAM'd because of supercritical conditions" and "we shut down the reactor because the water chemistry was completely out of specification". Now, I coach football and substitute teach. There is a massive difference between, "our offensive system is so simple anyone can defend it" (a coaching problem, you picked the wrong offense to run) and "our left guard and tackle rest every other play and do not block their assignments" (a player issue). Same in teaching... "I failed to explain to the students how to solve this type of problem correctly" (teacher at fault) is not the same as "everyone except little Johnny is able to solve this type of problem" (Johnny doesn't "get it", a student problem). In the Navy example, a Reactor SCRAM is a hardware issue, something is wrong with the reactor itself...but the chemistry related shutdown is an operator error. In the football example, the first is a coaching (system) problem, the second is a player (implementation) problem. In the teaching example the first is a teaching methodology problem while the second is a problem with an individual student (some kids learn differently or just are not as smart as others). See, the result may be the same (reactor shutdown, games lost, student fails a test), but the cause is different. That is an important distinction.

I would put something like that in the "game breaking" category. Something that would utterly tank the economy would be a problem. Being able to level a character in a week instead of 10 days hardly approaches the same sort of area of importance. Yes, the incorrect values needed to be fixed. But it was not, as best I can tell from this side of things (player instead of developer), game breaking. It could have waited for the regular patching cycle. Have I made mistakes? Yes I have. I worked on nuclear reactors in the Navy (chemistry and radiological controls). I made mistakes at times. The Navy solution was not "try again" or "keep trying". It was "you are disqualified and will be replaced right now and undergo retraining". Why? Bacause messing around with nuclear reactors requires great care, attention to detail, and following very specific procedures. I also have some experience with programming, it's been a few decades now, but as I recall, you had to do a great deal of checking, rechecking and testing on any program before you released it out into the wild. It would appear that such a common procedure was not followed in this case (even they admit it was a rushed "emergency patch"). That is my point. I get what you are saying and I even agree that it needed to be fixed. But time and place as they say. The roof might be leaking and need to be fixed, but you don't rip off all the old shingles during a rainstorm or before buying new paper and shingles... You check the weather, you buy your paper, shingles and nails...then and only then do you tear off the old shingles to put on the new ones. My impression of the situation is that they decided to proceed with a patch without properly vetting it first, sort of like tearing off shingles before buying new roofing materials with a rain storm moving in...

I will disagree with the part about wanting to make players happy. The overwhelming theme in game and in the forums was to leave things alone in regards to the higher than planned XP/CXP. People seemed rather happy about being able to level alts and to grind for end game stuff more efficiently. Leaving that situation alone would have made more players happy and then they would have had more time to properly vet their fix patch as well.

As I understand it, lots of things. Mission names became strings of code. Cartel market prices became long negative numbers. Various places evidently "stopped working" in the game... That is according to the earlier postings.

Will it be a fully tested, stable and functional expansion?... Recent history has me concerned.

Maybe sacrifice the programmer types instead and let the interns give it a try... If the professionals break everything maybe the amateurs will only break part of the game.

Last estimate was about 7-730PM central time.

If sense were common everyone would have it...

I would think that in a rolling update scenario the EU servers would have gotten the 5.4a patch earlier than they did, in their "slow time", then the servers come down ASAP for the bug patch... Following the current time line, 3 hours figuring out what went wrong, then two hours on a "fix", then three hours to test and deploy the "fix". If the EU servers went down 12 hours earlier than they did, the "fix" would have been in place by their prime time (which ended not long ago). Then, on this side of the planet, the 5.4a patch could have been skipped and the US servers sent straight to the "fix" patch. It should, in theory, resolve many problems and reduce the impact on all regions.

If the coders/programmers/developers are hourly instead of salary they are getting overtime today anyways. Of course, you can include flexed hours in a contract. Combine that with a robust testing procedure in place it would not be unreasonable or impractical to do phased patch deployments. Thus minimizing negative impacts on any of the regions based on server groups. It would also reduce overtime to some degree, split schedules are not unknown in the US, I've worked them myself several times.

Well, all the servers are down currently, that might be part of the problem. The morning patch was all SNAFU'd and they are working on a patch to fix it and then hopefully bring the servers back up.

Last estimate put it at around 7-730PM central time...assuming the new patch to fix the patch from this morning transfers over properly to the live serves, everything remains stable and no other issue pop up... Check the 5.4A thread for updates (and forum pvp).

We can only hope... The testing for the last patch was clearly not rigorous enough by any measure.

Cirrhosis, jaundice, pancreatic cancer or amyloidosis. Take your pick.

Nope, no drinks for Erik...he is working. I'll have to drink them on his behalf. If too many turn up, I will ask for additional volunteers.

If you need to find the more "polite" expressions, I can recommend "Hey Shipwreck" on youtube. It's Navy humor, but you might enjoy the bit about the "swearing ceasation" program (parody of the current alcohol/tobacco program). Things like "whiny girl dog" instead of the more traditional single word, "maternal copulator" instead of MF, you get the idea. Plenty of good, "clean" ways of expressing rude terms.

If they are not wishing that, then I am prepared to say that based on my extensive studies in Sociology and the Social Sciences that they are in a very deep state of denial...and it isn't a river in Egypt.

Scruffy

As my Chief was fond of telling people, "It you don't have the time to do it right, you WILL have the time to do it over".

Exactly. If I am going to crucify someone, I want to be sure I have the right person. I don't know how the news works in Germany, but in the States whenever someone is accused of a crime the media jumps all over them...guilty until proven innocent (and sometimes still treated as guilty). Same when I was in the Navy. I didn't just hand out negative counseling sheets to people. I wanted to be sure I had the right person before doing something that could hurt their career. I'll gladly riot and storm the castle, but only once I have the information I need to be sure it is the right thing to do and that I am at the right place.

Does the mirror have a better refresh rate?

That last line caused me to have flashbacks to a politician running off at the mouth. I think the line was something like, "we have to pass the bill to see what's in it". I can almost envision the coder behind this patch saying, "You have to deploy the patch to the servers to see what I did"...

Basic sociology. The mob mentality will not be denied. Then, when the mob can't get to the intended target, they find a new one. Sort of like invading Castle Frankenstein. If you can't breach the walls to burn the monster and doctor, you instead burn the farm-house and fields. Which is exactly why I don't trust a true democracy. The herd/mob mentality makes people do very strange, dangerous and/or foolish things. As for feeling like a foreigner, yup, same way in my little town. If you weren't born here you are "one of those people".