Weekly server maintenance EU times?

[Jamus_Divinus]

I'll wait til the update were getting on this subject later this week. I've been raging about this since december.

 

Let's hope we get some good news or some back/forth discussion with a dev or 6 on this.

[justadude]

I live in Europe. I do not get this thread.

 

Maintenance is from 8 AM - 4 PM on a TUESDAY!!!!!

 

I would like to know the following from the people who are complaining: What are you doing at this time? No job? No school? No college?

 

How is daytime peak time when most of the population has other obligations? I understand circumstance may have some people at home, but those people must surely realize that they are in the minority?

 

Maintenance is once a week on a Tuesday. Tuesday is not Saturday or Sunday.

 

I do not get the complaining...

 

You know what the funniest part is: I have Tuesdays off...

Edited January 30, 2012 by justadude

[Fixiooo]

I live in Europe. I do not get this thread.

 

Maintenance is from 8 AM - 4 PM on a TUESDAY!!!!!

 

I would like to know the following from the people who are complaining: What are you doing at this time? No job? No school? No college?

 

How is daytime peak time when most of the population has other obligations? I understand circumstance may have some people at home, but those people must surely realize that they are in the minority?

 

Maintenance is once a week on a Tuesday. Tuesday is not Saturday or Sunday.

 

I do not get the complaining...

 

You know what the funniest part is: I have Tuesdays off...

 

You'd be surprised how many people are online during daytime. If it was a free to play game I couldn't care less, but being taken away a day once a week while in the US they do it nighttime just isn't fair. Especially when you get nothing in return.

 

But who am I kidding. Bioware never had much for Europe, and I don't think they are going to change it anyways. This, among their piss poor customer support and other things I won't be renewing my sub in a few weeks.

 

A company that treats it's playerbase across the sea with this pissing attitude can go hump a tree for all I care.

[RecliningPanda]

You'd be surprised how many people are online during daytime. If it was a free to play game I couldn't care less, but being taken away a day once a week while in the US they do it nighttime just isn't fair. Especially when you get nothing in return.

 

But who am I kidding. Bioware never had much for Europe, and I don't think they are going to change it anyways. This, among their piss poor customer support and other things I won't be renewing my sub in a few weeks.

 

A company that treats it's playerbase across the sea with this pissing attitude can go hump a tree for all I care.

 

get over it. you guys have it easy.

try Australia where its in the peak of prime time about 7pm to about 3am. that's on the east coast, for people in western Australia its 5pm until midnight even worse.

BW picked a time where they thought the least number of people will be on. its been like that with every mmo that Ive played. so get back in your pram and calm down, getting aggro about it doesn't help anyone and just makes you look unreasonable.

 

and frankly id like to see the numbers of euro to US players they going to pick a time that suits the majority.

[Flammas]

Yet again, on my one day off and my first chance to have a good play at the game, something i was really looking forward to, the maintainence is announced to be 9am till 5pm..... all day...... If you are not going to reschedule these works so that you don't screw over the EU everytime, then i expect some compensation for loss of gametime.

[Tridius]

I live in Europe. I do not get this thread.

 

Maintenance is from 8 AM - 4 PM on a TUESDAY!!!!!

 

I would like to know the following from the people who are complaining: What are you doing at this time? No job? No school? No college?

 

How is daytime peak time when most of the population has other obligations? I understand circumstance may have some people at home, but those people must surely realize that they are in the minority?

 

Maintenance is once a week on a Tuesday. Tuesday is not Saturday or Sunday.

 

I do not get the complaining...

 

You know what the funniest part is: I have Tuesdays off...

 

This sounds right but let's look at the details and why this is worth complaining about. First of all I work 2nd shift CST, my main times to play are 11PM-4AM, if we can use Imperial Fleet as a measurement of when the server is busy, I have had days off work and between 9-5 I have seen less than 100 people on between these times. Right now for example at 11:45PM their is 190 people on imperial fleet.

 

Here is my grip and from the looks of it many others:

 

1. There is an equal amount or more people on during these "off peak" hours than during the "day" when everyone is at work and when they should be patching to begin with.

 

2. While they state that "You will only have to endure this on tuesday's every week," when was the last time there wasn't another patch to fix bugs created by the new patch on Wed night. Which equals 2 nights in a row where many cannot play, but these people (including myself) pay the same subscription fee. I have contacted Bioware support on this asking for reimbursement for time missed due to patching and they stated they cannot reimburse me at this time which is fine I did not expect them to.

 

Finally, to the people that state, "if you aren't working 9-5 get a real job," this is not a valid response and it is shown when more people are actually on during the times they patch which is inexcusable.

 

Solution: Vary the patch times, we all pay the same sub fee, not fair for certain people to take the brunt of the patch times due to working a different shift or whatever. Can we get the proof that these times are the "off peak" hours in the terms of a spreadsheet or something? Let's keep this post going until we get a response. Another issue is, this wouldn't be such a big deal if the patches weren't so large and time consuming. Eve Online for example restarts their server everynight and sometimes applies patches at these times, it only takes them 1/2 for the nightly reboot and maybe 2-3 hours time for their patches. I honestly wouldn't mind the tuesday night patch "IF IT WAS LIMITED TO ONLY TUESDAY," the patch on friday night this past week for example, wow that is completely inexcusable.

[Lord_Indomitus]

Think is that most MMO companies are usually short sighted. They start making drastic changes, out of panic, when population plummets, but it's then when it really doesn't matter.

 

BW doesn't fully understand how annoying this is for EU residents, especially when we know that it's because they want to save some extra bucks. So, you guys that will stay on swtor for long, you may live to see different maintenance times along with even more drastic changes when pop plummets.

 

I live in Europe. I do not get this thread.

 

Maintenance is from 8 AM - 4 PM on a TUESDAY!!!!!

 

I would like to know the following from the people who are complaining: What are you doing at this time? No job? No school? No college?

 

How is daytime peak time when most of the population has other obligations? I understand circumstance may have some people at home, but those people must surely realize that they are in the minority?

 

Maintenance is once a week on a Tuesday. Tuesday is not Saturday or Sunday.

 

I do not get the complaining...

 

You know what the funniest part is: I have Tuesdays off...

EU is not just the UK, it's until 18:00 in my country and it will be PROBABLY be extended to like 21:00 (GMT+2) like last time. So it's 1 less day per week, we pay for 7, we play 6, not for long though tbh.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Lord_Indomitus

[Jacob_Valance]

You Europeans have it easy.

 

The Saturday maintenance started at 6pm Sat EST for us.

The weekly maintenance starts 7pm every Tuesday evening.

 

Just be glad your not an Australian or New Zealander.

We are screwed worse than anybody else.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Jacob_Valance

[excentric]

You Europeans have it easy.

 

The Saturday maintenance started at 6pm Sat EST for us.

The weekly maintenance starts 7pm every Tuesday evening.

 

Just be glad your not an Australian or New Zealander.

We are screwed worse than anybody else.

 

Why are you more screwed than us europeans ? the game isn't even released in australia so it's your choice to pay your sub for a bad service.

[Roodys]

I live in the the EU server area and they take the severs down for half a day if that and they do it once a fortnight seems like such a small price to pay to get are game updated how about go out side and play instead of just whining over nothing

 

 

/thread

[Roddenberry]

I’m just going to ignore all the casual xenophobia in this thread.

 

Ultimately we live in a globalized society, where the physical location of a company’s headquarters is irrelevant. If a product or service is marketed and sold in a country or global region, in this case an online video game in Europe, then the consumers have a legitimate right to demand a good quality service.

 

The server downtime in Europe is by no stretch of the imagination considered ‘off peak’. Such a business model would not be used by a physical retailer as it would not make good economic sense. Could you imagine a supermarket closing one day a week in order to clean the store and restock all of the shelves forcing its customers to shop at its competitors, while leaving the store open over night serving only a small number of people?

 

I’m not sure how this problem can be resolved, but penalising half of the player base with inconvenient maintenance times should not be considered acceptable.

[Ste-wan]

I’m just going to ignore all the casual xenophobia in this thread.

 

Ultimately we live in a globalized society, where the physical location of a company’s headquarters is irrelevant. If a product or service is marketed and sold in a country or global region, in this case an online video game in Europe, then the consumers have a legitimate right to demand a good quality service.

 

The server downtime in Europe is by no stretch of the imagination considered ‘off peak’. Such a business model would not be used by a physical retailer as it would not make good economic sense. Could you imagine a supermarket closing one day a week in order to clean the store and restock all of the shelves forcing its customers to shop at its competitors, while leaving the store open over night serving only a small number of people?

 

I’m not sure how this problem can be resolved, but penalising half of the player base with inconvenient maintenance times should not be considered acceptable.

 

What hours relative to GMT would be acceptable then?

[spudbynight]

What hours relative to GMT would be acceptable then?

 

I think the sensible thing is to have EU maintenance during the night - say 2am GMT to 8amGMT.

[Tigrakis]

This might sound harsh now, but in general...US players should be silent about this subject. Simply because if the downtime would be in their times, the forums would explode from whines.

 

But something struck me. Isn't there more EU server than US ones....

 

Indeed they should : most of them tend to use this opportunity to show arrogance and selfishness "we are not affected , things are perfect as they are , stop whining , bla bla bla " . But they were not directly affected. This kind of attitude is not constructive and helps nobody.

 

The downtime scheduled on Saturday 28 was complete fiasco : servers down during a weekend day (approx. 10pm - 15pm, gmt+2). And they planned an insufficient period. Then extended it, giving no estimate.

 

The argument that "a different schedule would make people create alt characters on US servers " makes absolutely no sense.

 

So, dear gamers located in US, please let us the Europeans voice out our complaints about the downtime schedules without cluttering the forum with bogus contra-arguments.

 

 

PS: I make no difference between the regular weekly maintenance and the "special" downtime schedule that happened on 28 . The same people are responsible with setting all of these schedules, and they need to be made aware that they should care about finding a better schedule for Europe in future.

 

Personally, I'll fill in an in-game ticket every time when see again such a downtime planned badly during weekends. I think that this is more effective than arguing on the forum...

Edited February 1, 2012 by Tigrakis

[Nighthawked]

Indeed they should : most of them tend to use this opportunity to show arrogance and selfishness "we are not affected , things are perfect as they are , stop whining , bla bla bla " . But they were not directly affected. This kind of attitude is not constructive and helps nobody.

 

The downtime scheduled on Saturday 28 was complete fiasco : servers down during a weekend day (approx. 10pm - 15pm, gmt+2). And they planned an insufficient period. Then extended it, giving no estimate.

 

The argument that "a different schedule would make people create alt characters on US servers " makes absolutely no sense.

 

So, dear gamers located in US, please let us the Europeans voice out our complaints about the downtime schedules without cluttering the forum with bogus contra-arguments.

 

 

PS: I make no difference between the regular weekly maintenance and the "special" downtime schedule that happened on 28 . The same people are responsible with setting all of these schedules, and they need to be made aware that they should care about finding a better schedule for Europe in future.

 

Personally, I'll fill in an in-game ticket every time when see again such a downtime planned badly during weekends. I think that this is more effective than arguing on the forum...

 

Ok. What about IF the monthly fee goes up because we need to pay two maintenance shifts instead of one? This is EA after all, they very well might do that In that case, the US would be affected.

 

Let the Saturday maintenance go....it is done. You were not affected by the issue they patched. GOOD! Lots of people were, and I had it sometimes. Yeah lets not patch a pretty serious game breaking issue when the MAJORITY of the people play....the weekends. Lets wait until Tuesday. When people complain: "Well we have the fix, but we are going to wait until Tuesday to make everybody happy".

 

It was an emergency patch, it had to be done ASAP. However, yes they DID need to wait several hours. They have to give a few hours notice.

[Siklilmike]

Ok. What about IF the monthly fee goes up because we need to pay two maintenance shifts instead of one? This is EA after all, they very well might do that In that case, the US would be affected.

 

Let the Saturday maintenance go....it is done. You were not affected by the issue they patched. GOOD! Lots of people were, and I had it sometimes. Yeah lets not patch a pretty serious game breaking issue when the MAJORITY of the people play....the weekends. Lets wait until Tuesday. When people complain: "Well we have the fix, but we are going to wait until Tuesday to make everybody happy".

 

It was an emergency patch, it had to be done ASAP. However, yes they DID need to wait several hours. They have to give a few hours notice.

 

As we have said before, patch the game we couldn't care less. But an emergency patch should be rolled out straight away if its that game breaking.

 

Not 8 hours later when the US peak time has passed and EU's has just begun.

[Nighthawked]

As we have said before, patch the game we couldn't care less. But an emergency patch should be rolled out straight away if its that game breaking.

 

Not 8 hours later when the US peak time has passed and EU's has just begun.

 

As we have said before, they need to give notice. What if you were in the middle of a raid, or a very long heroic, then POOF the servers are all offline. Can you imagine all the hate that would come to the game?

 

They HAVE to give notice, the legal department is the one responsible for this.

 

It was not as severe as NOBODY can play the game but 10%, but it was still a serious issue that needed to be patched BEFORE Tuesday.

 

If only 10% of the people can play, they would have done the patch immediately.

[Tigrakis]

Ok. What about IF the monthly fee goes up because we need to pay two maintenance shifts instead of one? This is EA after all, they very well might do that In that case, the US would be affected.

 

That's guessing without having any kind of information.

 

I can easily start guessing , too :

- the EU servers are supposed to be located in EU (so that the connection to them is faster)

- if they are located in EU , there is already a different staff who takes care of them

- most likely , the maintenance team is already working in shifts so that someone is always available to take care of unexpected problems with the servers 24/7

 

But the truth is that EA can increase the monthly fee anytime. And if they ever do so they don't need to provide any kind of explanation : if it happens you'll never know whether it happened because of multiple maintenance schedules , or because the free coffee offered by company to the employees doubled its price due to the economic crisis , or simply because of greed .

 

Rest assured that even doubling the maintenance team wouldn't affect EA's profits ...

[Mephismo]

I honestly wouldn't keep flogging this horse. BW know we are not happy bunnies about this, many sugestions have been made [cough]rotation of maintenance windows[/cough].

 

Personally I see it changing in March (?) when the game is officially released in Upsidedown land (Aus/NZ) as I doubt they can palm 8pm server downs on them.

 

Of course this means, if they can do it in one region they can damn well do it in another ^^

 

Yes but wouldn’t that mean the servers are up during the day, which is the time most important to the those who keep making these threads.

Personally I would take them down for a whole day and be done with it

[Siklilmike]

As we have said before, they need to give notice. What if you were in the middle of a raid, or a very long heroic, then POOF the servers are all offline. Can you imagine all the hate that would come to the game?

 

They HAVE to give notice, the legal department is the one responsible for this.

 

It was not as severe as NOBODY can play the game but 10%, but it was still a serious issue that needed to be patched BEFORE Tuesday.

 

If only 10% of the people can play, they would have done the patch immediately.

 

100% agree with you..... but 8 hours notice. I don't think so, 2/3 tops. Remember the key word they use themselves....alot...... EMERGENCY Maintenance.

 

That EMERGENCY maintenance apparently could wait 8 HOURS.... doesn't say EMERGENCY to me.

[Liathan]

Im sorry, but this seems really strange to me...

 

In the thread made yesterday http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=691258#edit691258 bioware announced the weekly maintenance and that they would try their best to keep these weekly maintenance's on off peak-hours.

 

And that seems correct in the US, but in europe the time is 10AM to 4PM.... How is that in anyway during off peak-hours. Its in the middle off the day.

 

They even have physical servers in europe so why cant we have maintenance on those servers when its the best time for us and not when its the best time for the US?

 

I really dont understand their reasoning for this and its rather annoying knowing that the servers will be unavailable every tuesday afternoon.

 

Hopefully we can get some clarification on this or maybe its just me overreacting?

 

The middle of the day, you mean when most people are at work or school?

[Liathan]

I think the sensible thing is to have EU maintenance during the night - say 2am GMT to 8amGMT.

 

when you convince BW to segregate the customer base, then that will happen.

[Liathan]

Indeed they should : most of them tend to use this opportunity to show arrogance and selfishness "we are not affected , things are perfect as they are , stop whining , bla bla bla " . But they were not directly affected. This kind of attitude is not constructive and helps nobody.

 

The downtime scheduled on Saturday 28 was complete fiasco : servers down during a weekend day (approx. 10pm - 15pm, gmt+2). And they planned an insufficient period. Then extended it, giving no estimate.

 

The argument that "a different schedule would make people create alt characters on US servers " makes absolutely no sense.

 

So, dear gamers located in US, please let us the Europeans voice out our complaints about the downtime schedules without cluttering the forum with bogus contra-arguments.

 

 

PS: I make no difference between the regular weekly maintenance and the "special" downtime schedule that happened on 28 . The same people are responsible with setting all of these schedules, and they need to be made aware that they should care about finding a better schedule for Europe in future.

 

Personally, I'll fill in an in-game ticket every time when see again such a downtime planned badly during weekends. I think that this is more effective than arguing on the forum...

 

The reason the EU gets no sympathy from US players is that US players have put up with this for 7 years with WoW.

 

Yes the Saturday maintenance sucked, but as the game matures the need for emergency down time like that goes away and then we are left with regular maintenance .

 

How does the argument that people will roll on available servers when their server is down make no sense? Historical data shows that this is exactly what people do. When servers go down, people flock to the available ones, flood starting zones, and ruin it for those who typically call a server home.

 

You can voice your opinion, but we can also voice our opinion that it's not a big deal and as we've dealt with it for 7 years with the most popular MMO ever, I think you can deal with it too.

 

When you convince BW to segregate it's customer base and fully split the NA and EU player base, then you can have your separate times.

[deminicord]

How does the argument that people will roll on available servers when their server is down make no sense? Historical data shows that this is exactly what people do. When servers go down, people flock to the available ones, flood starting zones, and ruin it for those who typically call a server home.

 

How many people would that be? I don't think that millions of people are playing during the times that the servers would go down. Yes there are people who would go to European or American servers but it won't "flood" those servers. I don't think that there are that many people online in europe between 2am-10am that every American server would get a queue.

 

And this is not only about the seperated maintenance, but also about communication from bioware to the playerbase wich is kinda nonexistant. This topic hass been going on for a really long time and we had last weekend the first serious post about this.

[spudbynight]

 

How does the argument that people will roll on available servers when their server is down make no sense?

Historical data shows that this is exactly what people do. When servers go down, people flock to the available ones, flood starting zones, and ruin it for those who typically call a server home.

 

 

Got a link to this data?