Kodosong Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I know the game isn't officially out in Australia but this was smack bang in middle of Sat night prime-time play for us. maintenance was at 7pm, which it is every week, but never expected it to happen on Saturday Night. I was playing the game, not monitoring the website to see if there was going to be maintenace on a Sat night. Maybe one day if/when it is released here officially they will take notice of us as well. I know there are way more Aussies playing than they probably thoght there would be and it was pretty inconvienient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kabjat Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 OP, I agree with you completely. BW has dropped the ball in terms of connecting in a meaningful way with their customers. It especially sucks for you Europeans. Here's hoping they wake up and some of this feedback lights a fire under them that the customers want better communication from them....especially about unscheduled maintenance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chocbo Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 (edited) I for one am more perplexed by the forums we communicate through. You see I'm much more single-player focused gamer so usually when I buy a game I know it will stay the same every time I play it (untill the disc gets scratched). So the idea of shouting at the developers to change things about a game seems foreign and even a little backwards to me. Personally I've never seen nor been in a situation where screaming at the guy fixing the thing he made for you makes them fix it better. I realize many are upset that bio-ware isn't using the forums as they should, but perhaps it's also in part the fact that what feels like half of the threads are essentially parroting the same few complaints. These copy paste threads force down fresh threads, and frankly make these forums unpleasant to read and visit. Edited January 30, 2012 by Chocbo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarianeKamutsovy Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Can you (or anyone) name 3 games that actually do what you suggest? WoW Even 2nd Genesis (former) SWG Rift LoTRo STO ... Want more? As a EU player. I barely notice they are down. Sometimes perhaps, in case of emergencies, but not often. I've had more noticable downtime with SWTOR in the last month then with Eve in the early years (maint. allways around noon EU time, even weekends) for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimithril Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Five hours is not a generous window of notice, and for that we apologize. In this instance, we updated with the precise timing as soon as we could, but we'll strive to improve. Lols. During the first summer of Lotro, Turbine would give us 15 minutes notice for an "emergency" downtime and maintainance for crucial patches. 15 if we were lucky. 5 hours is fine.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caon Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 My larger problem is that it didn't seem like an emergency maintence. Plus the misleading topic title. My guild was getting ready to run flashpoints. The fact that is caught ALL of us by surprise should say something. Furthermore, looking at these patch notes "Improved service to reduce the number of player disconnections to the character selection screen. " "Improving" something doesn't sound like an emergency. When people are exploiting something and making a million credits in an hour, that's an emergency. This seems like a quality of life issue. Maybe the notes are just poorly written, but again this goes back to poor communication. Bioware still needs to work on communication. Really, we are passed release. Just give us clear simple information. No one likes surprises like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HumahKavula Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I just cancelled my subscription and my girlfriends too. I'll come back in 6 months or a year if I hear better news about their communication with customers. and they should at least have the big bugs fixed by then.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ortof Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I just cancelled my subscription and my girlfriends too. I'll come back in 6 months or a year if I hear better news about their communication with customers. and they should at least have the big bugs fixed by then.... Do the same with your internet provider. Because you aren't getting what you are paying for I guarantee it. With that said, try to do that with everything you feel shorted on in life. At 2 cents an hour, you are being robbed man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tetriarch Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Do the same with your internet provider. Because you aren't getting what you are paying for I guarantee it. With that said, try to do that with everything you feel shorted on in life. At 2 cents an hour, you are being robbed man. LOL Yo, fact of the matter is, you can not please everyone. Ever know that guy that everyone says, "You just can't please him..."? Well, he plays MMOs and he might just be the OP. People always, ALWAYS find something to female dog about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haajib Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 i also hate that they ignore the players in Europe, Dubai, Asia, Australia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thamightyboro Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Generally speaking, we try and ensure all required maintenance happens during our weekly maintenance period, but this was one situation where we had to move forward quickly; to not do so could have led to severe performance issues across the service as a whole. State this next time and all this belly acheing is solved. Everyone was up in arms because the fix sounded trivial and something that could have easily been rolled into the Tuesday maintenance. Players aren't completely stupid and there is no way a game would come down at weekend peak times for something so trivial so all kinds of conspiracy theories developed. If its a fix to an issue that is only going to get worse and affect server performance then state so people would be far more understanding of this. Every MMO is guilty of treating the players like they are dumb lets end that trend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckskyline Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 OMG! THEY TOOK DOWN THE SERVERS AT 2AM CST!?!?!? THATS LIKE PEEK HOURS! THEY SCREWED EVERYONE! Really? Lets look at time zones.. 2AM CST? 3amEST 1AM mountain time 12midnight WST --- I can see people in mountain time and the west coast getting upset. but east and central? Really? Its like 2am. I think there were single digits in voss that night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverWF Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I'm American and never heard about any countries over USA Go to the nearest Wall-Mart and buy the Globe of Earth pls, then learn it. Thx. We are talking about Europe and GMT time-zone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goreson Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 State this next time and all this belly acheing is solved. Everyone was up in arms because the fix sounded trivial and something that could have easily been rolled into the Tuesday maintenance. Players aren't completely stupid and there is no way a game would come down at weekend peak times for something so trivial so all kinds of conspiracy theories developed. If its a fix to an issue that is only going to get worse and affect server performance then state so people would be far more understanding of this. Every MMO is guilty of treating the players like they are dumb lets end that trend. Right, you know what patch notes are, right? They are not an essay on the deeper background of a patch and why potentially it was considered to be done? Patch notes are supposed to be brief and give you an idea what was done/fixed/changed. If you require to read up on the background motivation of a patch, try the Dev Tracker... oh, and look, there is actually a posting by Stephen Reid explaining things! And as a note to all us Europeans: from the same posting by Stephen Reid: 'To those of you in Europe, I want you to know that we'll be discussing maintenance windows and how we can improve their timing this coming week. We may not have an update immediately (and not before the scheduled maintenance on January 31st) but we have been paying attention to your opinions.' Well, let's wait and see! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soulaufein Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 You guys dont get it? The "disagree" people are americans. And we all know americans, right ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yogol Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Five hours is not a generous window of notice, and for that we apologize. In this instance, we updated with the precise timing as soon as we could, but we'll strive to improve. Well, Bioware is new to MMOs, you'll get the hang of it eventually. I'm sure the patch was important in your mind. But closing down the servers on a saterday morning does NOT go down well AT ALL. Right now, you are losing points. Not just with the very, very annoying extra downtimes, but also with the nerfs of slicing and biochem, both skills of which you knew the effects when you went live. You are losing points with a very unforgiving audience, except with some 100.000 (very vocal)fanbois. And you ar elosing them in a very, very competitive market. You may say you are in it for the long run, but there is no long run if you don't get it right FAST. Everyone that tries this game (and your PR campaign ensures ALOT of people did) and leaves it, is hard to get back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yogol Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 the idea of shouting at the developers to change things about a game seems foreign and even a little backwards to me. Euh... we are yelling because we couldn't play the game... that is not the same as ''change things''. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voraxus Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Hey everyone; I appreciate everyone's views on this topic and I can understand the feelings being expressed here. Our Live team took the decision to roll out today's 1.1.0c patch during Friday night/Saturday morning with the knowledge that it would affect a higher than usual number of players. Unfortunately, we had to make changes that required server downtime. The Live team felt those changes were urgently required and that was why the maintenance was scheduled. Generally speaking, we try and ensure all required maintenance happens during our weekly maintenance period, but this was one situation where we had to move forward quickly; to not do so could have led to severe performance issues across the service as a whole. I want to address a couple of other points from the OP: This is a little inaccurate. I'm not sure where your timing comes from, but our original post regarding the downtime was posted at 5:10PM CST (Austin time). At that point, we were unsure of the start time for the maintenance so posted without it. The post was updated with the exact timing of the maintenance at 8:54PM CST, which would give just over five hours notice of the exact timing. Five hours is not a generous window of notice, and for that we apologize. In this instance, we updated with the precise timing as soon as we could, but we'll strive to improve. Overall, this is a fair point. Generally speaking, every Friday we post details of our upcoming maintenance period to give plenty of advance notice. Because of the timing of this patch, we thought it might be easier to roll both notices into one. We didn't feel the ambiguity was too extreme, as the upcoming patch was detailed up front, but I can see how it might have confused some. We'll improve. As stated, the patch was deemed necessary and urgent enough to be rolled out on a Friday night/Saturday morning (Austin time). We didn't take this lightly, and don't expect or wish it to be a regular occurrence. To those of you in Europe, I want you to know that we'll be discussing maintenance windows and how we can improve their timing this coming week. We may not have an update immediately (and not before the scheduled maintenance on January 31st) but we have been paying attention to your opinions. Thanks again for the feedback - it helps us know where to improve. Now, if only we could get BioWare to address the lack of communication to the players in general as opposed to a specific incident... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
despach Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 (edited) I have to thank Bioware for stopping my Saturday daytime gametime. I went out, met some friends at the pub that I game with most nights. We all agreed BW and Star Wars are not worth the crap service atm and restarted our EQ2 subs and all cancelled Star Wars. Now we're happy customising our UI, enjoying zero ability delays, and more importantly enjoying better graphics. Thank you Bioware and your ignorant yank gamers. Edited January 30, 2012 by despach Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fight Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 To those of you in Europe, I want you to know that we'll be discussing maintenance windows and how we can improve their timing this coming week. We may not have an update immediately (and not before the scheduled maintenance on January 31st) but we have been paying attention to your opinions. Our opinions? You guys really need to take a look at your wording before you post. I have the highest respect for Bioware over the years but let me put this bluntly for you, you're on thin ice here. This launch has not been smooth and our gameplay is marred by bugs and glitches on an hourly basis. The fact that you took the servers down MID DAY on SATURDAY in the UK and Europe is inexcusable. This isn't a matter of opinion. Get a separate update team for the European servers as soon as possible - its just not acceptable to do this kind of thing, how can you offer a game worldwide and then cater exclusively to the US timetable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkmorgado Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 you dont miss out on 2 days a week though.. you miss out on really a MAX of 16 hours to maybe 24 if you include all of the other updating they need to do... stop inflating numbers to making bioware look worse. Yes, we do. Two DAYS. As in DAYTIME. Unless you're seriously saying it's our own fault for not all living to a US timezone and sleeping during the day and playing all night? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeltikTwo Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Its kinda funny theres been no dev posts since the one in this thread, no addressing of valid concerns raised in the test forums, no real communication. Saying "we have to do better!" is not the same as doing better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maidel Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 OMG! THEY TOOK DOWN THE SERVERS AT 2AM CST!?!?!? THATS LIKE PEEK HOURS! THEY SCREWED EVERYONE! Really? Lets look at time zones.. 2AM CST? 3amEST 1AM mountain time 12midnight WST --- I can see people in mountain time and the west coast getting upset. but east and central? Really? Its like 2am. I think there were single digits in voss that night. ERm - you do realise this game is released in europe. You know, that place thats between 5 and 8 hours the other way. Where its throughout the entire day time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murkin Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I am not just referring to the patch that was done on Friday. I am talking about overall Bioware's lack of communication is poor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goreson Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 ERm - you do realise this game is released in europe. You know, that place thats between 5 and 8 hours the other way. Where its throughout the entire day time? You do realise that BW considered that emergency action? If you'd been having trouble logging in would you still be sitting here shouting at BW for doing the patching? Or would you rather be shouting at them to 'Solve this! Now!' if they had gone 'well, it can wait until next maintenance cycle'. And yes, I'm in Europe, I am in the UK, I don't work on a Saturday, so I don't really have an excuse not to play SWTOR on Saturday... except I was actually out and about and at the movies without even knowing about the patching In short: sometimes **** happens! You just have to find a new pair of panties/boxers/briefs/shorts, etc. to wear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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