3 Nights of Maint in a row?

[iain_b]

I don't think anyone would complain with weekly patches like the majority of MMo's do at the launch. That is to be expected, but multiple down times is frustrating. And yes we have a right to be outraged by it.

 

If you had been around for the launch of WoW, which you obviously weren't given your quoted billing history, you would have seen that the servers were all but unplayable for almost a month...

[Xukuth]

So I'm still unclear....

Tonight maintenance?

Or not?

 

The three maint's already happened. Tues, Wens, Thursday..... Where have you been?

[SithZigg]

Did I complain about the bug fix's? No, your being stupid. They can do what every other MMo did when they was fixing bugs.... Fix them on that one set day a week the servers are going to be down anyways.

 

So you can complain about how the bugs are not being fixed fast enough? We have a winner!

[Sotaudi]

I don't think anyone would complain with weekly patches like the majority of MMo's do at the launch. That is to be expected, but multiple down times is frustrating. And yes we have a right to be outraged by it.

 

You have the right to be frustrated by it as it is inconveniencing you. On the other hand, you have no right to be outraged for them doing their job in fixing bugs and exploits and doing so completely within the terms of the EULA and TOS to which you agreed.

[Xukuth]

If you had been around for the launch of WoW, which you obviously weren't given your quoted billing history, you would have seen that the servers were all but unplayable for almost a month...

 

No I was around before then too, that was just when I no longer used a shared account with my family.

[Lazorous]

The three maint's already happened. Tues, Wens, Thursday..... Where have you been?

 

Interesting. He asked a valid question because he was confused about your post, yet you belittled him.

 

You really should take your own advice, Mr. Hypocrite.

[LyriaFrost]

Guess what WoW did because of those issues.

 

(marked above as spoiler because it was spammy, no spoiler is inside)

Notice something they did?

 

And Oh wait... You mean they gave free time during the free month too? How amazing is that to all the people saying "OMG shut up your first month is free"

 

You know WHY they gave people free time during the first month?

 

There were servers that were down NON-STOP. For WEEKS. Their "maintenance" was 8-hour windows, and often lasted up to 12-14. 2-3 times a week, during the first month. WoW's first few months were HORRIBLE. That's why they gave people free time, as a way to say "yeah, we completely screwed everything up, sorry!"

 

The first month of an MMO is always a shakedown. They find out what's being broken, and fix it. If you're seriously complaining about the game being down for 2 hours a day, and think they should push back game-breaking exploits for a week before fixing them, I don't know what to say.

 

You new to MMOs or something?

[Zajen]

$15.00 a month should be brought down to $7.50 a month if the servers are going to be down 3 or 4 days a week.

[Xukuth]

So you can complain about how the bugs are not being fixed fast enough? We have a winner!

 

Uhm, I've never complained about them not fixing them fast enough? Infact the only bug I ever complained about was combat ability delay or it seems some are calling it unresponsiveness? At any rate I complained about it once and left it...because guess what? I don't care at what rate they fix it so long as they fix it. What I do care about is how many times they shut down the servers to fix little issues only to cause bigger issues making them shut it down again. When that happens it shows poor planning and testing on the part of bioware. We as the consumer should be compensated for their mistake. Yeah sure the ToS/EULA says they won't but too bad you don't get that until after you buy the game! If this was a car that would be something that could be lemon lawed.

[Lazorous]

$15.00 a month should be brought down to $7.50 a month if the servers are going to be down 3 or 4 days a week.

 

But it isn't. 2 hour down times on a few (non-norm) conditions does not constitute full 3 to 4 days of down time.

[Jaradakar]

My complaint... do maintenance when it is most likely the lowest user base and do them rolling with time zones if need be.

 

I.E. PST, don't do maintenance till 2AM at the earliest!!! Turning severs off at midnight is a huge inconvenience for those of us who can only play at night!!!

[Lazorous]

My complaint... do maintenance when it is most likely the lowest user base and do them rolling with time zones if need be.

 

I.E. PST, don't do maintenance till 2AM at the earliest!!! Turning severs off at midnight is a huge inconvenience for those of us who can only play at night!!!

 

Yeah, but your 2am is someone's 10am. So those who can only play from 10am to 12pm would be screwed just as well. See how not everyone can be satisfied? You're only looking at this from your perspective.

[WonderLlama-Con]

The three maint's already happened. Tues, Wens, Thursday..... Where have you been?

 

I guess I was actually sleeping during the Tuesday patch.....

Didn't mean to offend. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something in the stickies about another patch tonight.

Please forgive my ignorance.

Edited January 6, 2012 by WonderLlama-Con

[Lazorous]

I guess I was actually sleeping during the Tuesday patch.....

Didn't mean to offend. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something in the stickies about another patch tonight.

Please forgive my ignorance.

 

Look at that, Xukuth. This guy even apologized after you belittled him. How about you offer an apology as well? Or are you too good for that?

[imtrick]

$15.00 a month should be brought down to $7.50 a month if the servers are going to be down 3 or 4 days a week.

 

They've been down 7 hours for maintenance in the last week. That's one tenth of one percent of 100% uptime for the month, assuming a 720 hour month.

 

If they credited us for that time, it would work out to about 15 cents.

[JMESUN]

the game has bug fix it now or i quit!

 

second wind= now their patching my game that needs to be fixed, how dare they fix this game without my consent

 

REALLY

[Zajen]

But it isn't. 2 hour down times on a few (non-norm) conditions does not constitute full 3 to 4 days of down time.

 

I haven't been able to play for 3 days because of maintenance.

 

I even went by the notification that the server would be up in 2 hours and 3 hours later it was still down and I went to bed.

[Lazorous]

I haven't been able to play for 3 days because of maintenance.

 

I even went by the notification that the server would be up in 2 hours and 3 hours later it was still down and I went to bed.

 

Whatever reasons you have that you could not play for a full three days doesn't reflect the same for everyone since everyone's schedules are different.

 

Now, if you feel you have a valid concern, you can try to bring that up to CS and see if there's anything they can do for your specific case.

 

I'm just pointing out that an isolated case doesn't warrant compensation for everyone.

 

I wouldn't mind only paying $7.50 for the game, but I'm just being realistic.

[Oneirophrenia]

Yeah, but your 2am is someone's 10am. So those who can only play from 10am to 12pm would be screwed just as well. See how not everyone can be satisfied? You're only looking at this from your perspective.

 

I'm just going to re-post what I wrote from another thread since I'm too lazy to type it all out again.

 

Now I understand the need for patching, especially for a new game that have a lot of features within it. That is *not* what this post is intended to address so please check those "stop complaining about patches" response at the door. My concern lies with the perscribed patching start time. If this patch was suppose to last for 6-8 hours then yes, I could very much empathize with the need to pick a time frame that is reasonably off-peak for all time zones (EST, CST, PST, CET, etc). However in this case, choosing to start a 2-3 hours patch at midnight PST is quite irritating and baffling. Let me illustrate this by breaking down the patching period by each time zone involved.

 

CET: 9am-11am (when the vast majority are working, even taking into consideration the shorter mainland European working day)

EST: 3am-5am (when the vast majority are sleeping)

CST: 2am-4am (when the vast majority are sleeping)

PST: 12am-2am (when only *some* people are sleeping)

 

When the server shut down was announced in-game this morning, there were still 50+ people in Nar Shadda, over 30+ in Taris and over 90+ in the Imperial Station (I was cycling through various characters to refresh trade missions). The explanation is simple. Unlike certain areas of the country, here in the West Coast (especially California), we have *a lot* of people that do not work the traditional 8/9 to 5 schedule, especially tech workers. Many do not start strolling into work until 10-11am and don't get home until 7-8pm. As such, we are still wide awake at midnight. In fact, where I live, the traffic jam on the freeways is actually worse between 9-10am than it is between 7-8am.

 

The Bioware-Austin folks should communicate with the folks at EA as they should be particularly aware of this reality as Redwood City is situated right on the edge of Silicon Valley. They can even take a short 15 minutes drive to ask the folks at Google, Apple, HP, Cisco, Intel, Marvell, SanDisk, Adobe, Nvidia, Yahoo, eBay, AMD, Oracle, Symantec, Netflix, just to get a more complete picture. Of the half million or so IT workers in the Bay Area alone, what is the probabiliy of them participating in MMOs (if not SWTOR)? It wouldn't be a stretch to expect that the probability is much higher than that of the general population.

 

Devs: For future reference, please consider postponing the start time to 1-2am PST for short patches such as the one earlier today. How can it hurt?

[Xukuth]

I guess I was actually sleeping during the Tuesday patch.....

Didn't mean to offend. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something in the stickies about another patch tonight.

Please forgive my ignorance.

 

Yeah sorry, no offense taken. Just there is some people being rather annoying in this thread and I'm being a bit more grumpy then usual cause they are making fun of something that is a serious matter to me.

[Zajen]

I'm not asking for compensation. I'm asking for better business practices and more respect for customers.

 

Other MMO's schedule their servers downtime a good 3 hours later than Bioware does. They also manage to do most patching with a 15 minute restart instead of 5 hours of downtime.

 

If this continues I'd ask that they reduce the monthly subscription cost to reflect the amount of time one can actually play the game.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Zajen

[Fraxture]

People are complaining that BioWare isn't fixing the bugs.

 

And now that they are, people are complaining that they have to take the servers down to apply the fixes.

 

You want them to wait until next scheduled maintenance, when half the community is downt heir throat wanting issues fixed?

 

 

Are you serious? What do you want Bioware to do?

 

 

And now you want refunded time? Hahaha.

 

Damned if you do...damned if you don't.

Fix the issues, fix them quick.

Get it over with now, so the norm is a weekly single maintenance like all MMOs.

And to shut those up who feel they need to make 20 post a day flaming about the same issue.

 

Do you play 24/7? No?

Do you want reimbursement for the time you are working, going to school or sitting on the commode?

Edited January 6, 2012 by Fraxture

[imtrick]

Other MMO's schedule their servers downtime a good 3 hours later than Bioware does. They also manage to do most patching with a 15 minute restart instead of 5 hours of downtime.

 

How many MMOs have you ever actually played? I really want to sign up for the ones that do server maintenance in 15 minutes, but I'm not ware of a single one.

 

You're also grossly overstating how much time these maintenances have taken, which isn't really helping your case, either.

Edited January 6, 2012 by imtrick

[Ossos]

The animation+damage lag issue is game breaking. The Shock vs. Project (SI/JC) skill disparity is a perfect example of how the animations are actually NEGATIVELY affecting the game.

 

They get this fixed, and fixed fast, or SWTOR is nothing more than a waiting room for people rolling Pandas and GW2.

[WonderLlama-Con]

Yeah sorry, no offense taken. Just there is some people being rather annoying in this thread and I'm being a bit more grumpy then usual cause they are making fun of something that is a serious matter to me.

 

Cue WAR.

 

In all seriousness though, annoying as the patches are, I think they are a necessary evil in this case.

 

But I can say from experience as a long time consumer in this industry, that as time marches forward you'll see less and less seemingly random patches and hotfixes, and more large scale weekly/monthly updates.