Are you kidding me with server maintenance

[Genghiscron]

Sooo this is getting ridiculous. I have been waiting for this game since early 2011, was in beta, early access, enjoy the game (when the servers are actually up) immensely.

 

1.1.0c - 1/28/2012

1.1.0b - 1/24/2012

1.1.0a - 1/19/2012

1.1.0 - Rise of the Rakghouls

1.0.2d - 1/12/2012

1.0.2c - 1/6/2012

1.0.2b - 1/5/2012

1.0.2a - 1/4/2012a

1.0.2 - 1/4/2012

1.0.1a - 12/29/2011

1.0.1 - 12/27/2011

1.0.0f - 12/22/2011

1.0.0e - 12/22/2011

1.0.0d - 12/20/2011

1.0.0c - 12/19/2011

1.0.0b - 12/17/2011

 

That's 16 times the servers have been brought down for 8 hours each time (with the exception of a few) in 43 days. That's a total of approximately 128 hours of downtime in that amount of time. I personally think this is ludicrous. And on top of that half the time after the servers have been pulled down during peak hours for a west coast player and kept down for 8 hours you look at the patch notes and they fixed 1 or 2 bugs that aren't really the main bugs that are causing problems in game like last time 1.1.0c servers go down for 8 hours and you fix - Improved service to reduce the number of player disconnections to the character selection screen. - REALLY? 8 hours down and that's it. Now like I stated above I really like this game I anticipated this game and I really don't wanna watch the devs ruin this game with this ridiculous amount of down time. You are gonna lose your customer base doing this crap, I would of already cancelled my account due to this amount of server down time if I didn't like the game so much. Now all that being said in my opinion there's 2 things you can do to fix this. 1. give players who have been here since launch another free 30 days as our initial 30 were marred with downtime if you count it shows around 14 down times in the first free 30 days that's the server going down every other day which is exactly what it feels like. 2. the most obvious quit bringing the servers down this much, wait till there's multiple bug fixes in place and bring em down and actually do something with the 8 hours. I played wow for 5 years I was there in the early days and granted there were bugs they always fixed things in a timely fashion and didn't bring the servers down until they had it figured out and they usually only lasted 3-4 hours. I also played AoC and WAR and watched them fail massively so I feel I have a pretty good grasp on what makes an MMO and what can absolutely kill a MMO.

 

I'm not the only one who feels this way, I've seen a lot of talk about this in general chat as well as from people I talk to in guild that are unhappy with this. The game is a very fun, well made, and for me pretty much bug free so far, this is the only thing killing the game for me and others. PLEASE GET THIS UNDER CONTROL

[renegadeimp]

All mmo's are like this for the first few months. Once the game is stable and theyve fixed most gamebreaking issues, then they will level off into an organised pattern.

 

If you don;t like it, post a thread on the suggestion forum, or withhold your sub for a few months.

[Genghiscron]

Well seeing how you play on an EU server of course you dont mind the servers going down at 8AM, so your comments dont have much validity.

[bliapis]

id like to see some gaming compensation - LIKE WOW DID for their CUSTOMERS.

[baconflavored]

id like to see some gaming compensation - LIKE WOW DID for their CUSTOMERS.

 

I'm in CST, and I'm perfectly happy with the times for maintenance since I'm sound asleep while they happen.

[Tyrven]

id like to see some gaming compensation - LIKE WOW DID for their CUSTOMERS.

 

Lossing time on all the extra maintence sucks for sure and is beyond frustrating. There are throngs of things broken in the game right now that need to be fixed so I understand why they are doign it so much but it does feel like I am paying to beta test a game. If it doesn't improve quickly the payments will stop.

[Angry_Ferth]

Frankly, I'd rather they take the time to fix stuff.

 

I have not played an MMO that hasn't had a rough first few months.

 

And while I am not sure why every maintenance needs to be 6-8 hours it does give me incentive to get some sleep now and then.

 

Personally, I am kind of miffed we havent seen another maintenance since 1.1.0c yet, since the game has been pretty much unplayable for me this past week.

[AndalusRenegade]

I'm in CST, and I'm perfectly happy with the times for maintenance since I'm sound asleep while they happen.

 

Lol! Same here. Everytime they start at 2 in the morning and finish at 10. i don't start playing until noon anyway.

[OrdoVhett]

Ok... people first complain that the game not working. Then they complain when the servers are downed for patches to fix problems they complained about. Welcome to the world of products created by humans to be used by humans.... ITS GOING TO HAVE ISSUES. no one and no thing is perfect. get offf your high horse and deal with it. Dont like it then dont pay for it. If you are going to complain for the sake of complaining please see the thousands of post before you. These HUMAN programers are working at HUMAN speeds to fix the games for HUMAN players that fill this forum with operator error "bugs/glitches" when they got a game that their hardware cant support... Most major graphics issues fixed by updated drivers or dialing down your settings. or i keep getting kicked from the game but get upset when they are told their $19.99/m DSL is to slow to play the game...... CHILL out and let them fix the problems. posts like this should be ignored by the support staff and deleted.

[Besieged]

I'm on EST, I work nights.

 

So, when I get home from work on patch days, I can't play. Bad enough that at least one day a week I can't play at all.

 

I don't want to hear anything about QQ'ing from you people who are asleep or at school/work during this time, either. If you were a hard working adult with a family and limited time to play every week, you probably wouldn't be too keen on a company telling you when you can and can't play. Oh and for reference, I also don't want to hear about necessity, "that's the way other MMO's do it", or any other nonsense: I didn't PAY for this game to be told when I can and cannot play it - if it were free that might be a different story. I come from a data center, telecom and aviation background, and if I can keep a data center and cloud cluster at 99.99999% uptime while still implementing changes and fixes, there's no reason BioWare can't either, if they'd have put some actual thought and work into the server design, instead of just hacking together a WoW clone.

 

And now we get to where they add insult to injury. I get limited enough time to play (that I pay for same as everyone else). I already have to put up with patch Tuesdays knowing I probably won't get to play on one of the most convenient days for me to do so. Even then, since my characters are stuck on a single server (ANOTHER completely stupid, wasteful and unnecessary hold over from the original WoW design that there is zero good reason to emulate: it's the year 2012, for the love of the force), I'm stuck on servers that are pretty much completely dead during my play time. So much for the multi-player: I haven't been able to find a group for a heroic 4 in weeks now.

 

So, I schedule some time on Friday night to play with my friends, create a new character on another server, and am just getting going, when I find out that with zero warning, they're taking the servers down to patch at 3AM EST on a SATURDAY. To fix... nothing. There was NO reason for them to down the servers for something so incredibly insignificant on a weekend, at all! There was no reason whatsoever that this could not have waited until Tuesday! The rare occasion I can actually be on when there are not just other people on, but my actual IRL friends whom I bought this game specifically to play with, and they just shut the game down on a whim, with 15m notice!

 

This kind of disregard for customers is unacceptable. BioWare is burning good will with this kind of behavior, and speaking for myself, memories of this will be coming to mind every time I make the decision whether or not to subscribe.

 

I'm not offering my services, but they seriously need to go hire some competent data center staff from high-availability industries and not people who couldn't cut it at Blizzard.

 

By my count, my ability to play the game at my own will and schedule has been interrupted by pretty much every single patch released so far, and it's getting ridiculous.

 

It is not my fault I work nights keeping airplanes in the sky and gas flowing through the pipelines. It is, however, BioWare's fault that they cannot get their act together and keep the servers up, that they cannot shard off servers and patch incrementally, that they irresponsibly and without care for their players shut them down during peak usage to patch things that don't negatively affect the majority of the players enough to matter, and that they cannot recognize and respect the fact that not everyone plays during the same 8 hour window in CST. I paid the same money everyone else did, I should be able to play when I want to, not when BioWare deems it most convenient to them.

 

I'm not unsubscribing this month, I already paid. I might not unsubscribe next month based on how much I'm able to play the game between now and then, but I promise you, keep abusing me and you'll have one less player to worry about pretty quick. There's no point in me playing an MMO if it it's neither massively multi-player nor ever online.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Besieged

[Greyhorse]

Ok... people first complain that the game not working. Then they complain when the servers are downed for patches to fix problems they complained about. Welcome to the world of products created by humans to be used by humans.... ITS GOING TO HAVE ISSUES. no one and no thing is perfect. get offf your high horse and deal with it. Dont like it then dont pay for it. If you are going to complain for the sake of complaining please see the thousands of post before you. These HUMAN programers are working at HUMAN speeds to fix the games for HUMAN players that fill this forum with operator error "bugs/glitches" when they got a game that their hardware cant support... Most major graphics issues fixed by updated drivers or dialing down your settings. or i keep getting kicked from the game but get upset when they are told their $19.99/m DSL is to slow to play the game...... CHILL out and let them fix the problems. posts like this should be ignored by the support staff and deleted.

 

Yeah... unlike you some of us are fairly disappointed that this game plays like a beta test that we're paying to play WHEN we can play it. Maybe your're one of the few that doesn't have to deal with fps, or crashes that seem to be growing with every new patch/fix.

 

Maybe you're one of the people that doesn't care that a company sold you a bag of rocks when they promised "awesomeness" in a bag... either way some people have legitamate complaints and are being ignored with lame excuses or empty promises.

 

Personally i'd rather see them "Admit" the mistakes ( like releasing the game before they should have )

 

Sure the beta tests were way more promising, I participated.. and the funny thing is once the full version launched my gameplay went from doable to totaly sucking.... so please avoid reading these threads if they upset you, we are here to stand up for what we were promised not lay down and ignore the growing issues here that seem to continually unfold..

Edited January 31, 2012 by Greyhorse

[JalenTigh]

Not sure if your clock's are broken or what... but the downtime is "scheduled" for 8 hours. Only once (Rise of the Rakghouls) have I seen them take the whole time, and usually... its MUCH less... I can only think of maybe once or twice where it was more then 4 hours.

[bliapis]

Ok... people first complain that the game not working. Then they complain when the servers are downed for patches to fix problems they complained about. Welcome to the world of products created by humans to be used by humans.... ITS GOING TO HAVE ISSUES. no one and no thing is perfect. get offf your high horse and deal with it. Dont like it then dont pay for it. If you are going to complain for the sake of complaining please see the thousands of post before you. These HUMAN programers are working at HUMAN speeds to fix the games for HUMAN players that fill this forum with operator error "bugs/glitches" when they got a game that their hardware cant support... Most major graphics issues fixed by updated drivers or dialing down your settings. or i keep getting kicked from the game but get upset when they are told their $19.99/m DSL is to slow to play the game...... CHILL out and let them fix the problems. posts like this should be ignored by the support staff and deleted.

 

yes i understand that the game has problems and they must iron out them.

 

I havent nothing against patches - albeit i live in Europe and its GMT+2 ontop of that, which is rush hour for me.

 

What i dont understand why we dont get some days of compensation for being unable to launch and play the game.

 

Because 1 maintance per week is logical. Albeit 8hrs downtime is rather UNACCEPTABLE.

 

 

But multiple maintance per week is what... One thing is i cant play my game the other is i pay for illogical hours of maintance per week.

[Tiibbyy]

Classic WoW was the same way. Back in 2006 Server Maintenance was almost as long and when a new patch was implemented, it was up and down for the first weeks after the patch at random and most inconvenient times. Since Blizzard has upgraded most of their servers and they have streamlined much of their processes, their maintenance has gotten more or less down to a fair minimum.

 

I think we have gotten too used to the way Blizzard runs MMO process.

 

It is not to say that it isn't annoying and Bioware and EA do need to work on cutting down the maintenance to an absolute minimum.

 

Till then ... not much one can do but go outside and breathe some fresh air?

Edited January 31, 2012 by Tiibbyy

[Leatherbeak]

It is important to have a scheduled maintenance window. I am perfectly happy to wait once a week so that BW can address issues in both software and hardware.

 

WOW does this too.

[Sinku]

I'm on EST, I work nights.

 

So, when I get home from work on patch days, I can't play. Bad enough that at least one day a week I can't play at all.

 

I don't want to hear anything about QQ'ing from you people who are asleep or at school/work during this time, either. If you were a hard working adult with a family and limited time to play every week, you probably wouldn't be too keen on a company telling you when you can and can't play. Oh and for reference, I also don't want to hear about necessity, "that's the way other MMO's do it", or any other nonsense: I didn't PAY for this game to be told when I can and cannot play it - if it were free that might be a different story. I come from a data center, telecom and aviation background, and if I can keep a data center and cloud cluster at 99.99999% uptime while still implementing changes and fixes, there's no reason BioWare can't either, if they'd have put some actual thought and work into the server design, instead of just hacking together a WoW clone.

 

You are way too worked up over this--its a GAME. Maybe you are better off not playing MMO's if you act like this over them. I hate to see how you treat family and friends when they pull you away from the game.

[Quentis]

PST and have no issue with the servers going down when they do. I understand that to keep things running smoothly they need to bring the servers down for patching and general maintenance. Oh, and yes I am also impacted by this as my play time extends till 2am to 3am most nights.

 

Also, they do bring the servers down when it impacts the LEAST amount of people.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Quentis

[Aringoth]

id like to see some gaming compensation - LIKE WOW DID for their CUSTOMERS.

 

WoW did NOT give people free days because of all the maintenance; they gave people free days, because there were days that you could not play the game for days on end. This was for –everyone- with a sub that could not play at the longest, for 72 hours straight. Nothing like this, this is one of the best releases I have been through, not –the- best, but up there indeed.

 

Yes, I was there for the WoW release, yes, I still have the free game time credits showing on my WoW account for this. No, it was not because of regular patching and maintenance. Read the ToS you signed up for, you are not guaranteed the service will be up all the time.

[origional]

Ok... people first complain that the game not working. Then they complain when the servers are downed for patches to fix problems they complained about.

 

CHILL out and let them fix the problems. posts like this should be ignored by the support staff and deleted.

 

 

Which would be great if they were actually fixing important issues - As the fanboytroll claims, game breaking issues, but the majority of what they are doing is trivial stuff and on several occasions now they've actually made things a lot worse resulting in emergency maintenance.

 

Reading the forums at the moment it looks likes we will be due another emergency maintenance because this patch has broken the game for a lot of people.

 

They are rushing these patches out before they are ready and its doing more harm than good.

 

You keep hearing all mmos are like this at launch. No they are not, not even close.

[venjinze]

so the other 904 hours wasn't enough time for you to play?

[Astrar]

I don't want to hear anything about QQ'ing from you people who are asleep or at school/work during this time, either. If you were a hard working adult with a family and limited time to play every week, you probably wouldn't be too keen on a company telling you when you can and can't play. Oh and for reference, I also don't want to hear about necessity, "that's the way other MMO's do it", or any other nonsense: I didn't PAY for this game to be told when I can and cannot play it.

 

First off, I am, as are a LOT of players in this game, a hard working adult with a family and limited playing time. No one is forcing you to play the game. If you're unhappy with them trying to fix the bugs to make YOUR gaming experience better, then don't play. Simple as that. Maintenance and patches are not going to stop because it's bothering you. The times they choose are always going to inconvenience someone. Why are you more important than the people it would cause problems for if they changed the time and/or day?

 

I'm stuck on servers that are pretty much completely dead during my play time. So much for the multi-player: I haven't been able to find a group for a heroic 4 in weeks now.

 

I'm pretty sure they are working on a server merge. There are quite a few underpopulated servers. It's not just you. Bioware is not out to sabatoge your game play.

 

 

So, I schedule some time on Friday night to play with my friends, create a new character on another server, and am just getting going, when I find out that with zero warning, they're taking the servers down to patch at 3AM EST on a SATURDAY. To fix... nothing. There was NO reason for them to down the servers for something so incredibly insignificant on a weekend, at all!

 

You guessed it. They took the servers down on a night where they know they are going to have thousands of people playing the game for no reason at all. They did it just to be d*cks.

 

 

It is not my fault I work nights keeping airplanes in the sky and gas flowing through the pipelines. It is, however, BioWare's fault that they cannot get their act together and keep the servers up, that they cannot shard off servers and patch incrementally, that they irresponsibly and without care for their players shut them down during peak usage to patch things that don't negatively affect the majority of the players enough to matter, and that they cannot recognize and respect the fact that not everyone plays during the same 8 hour window in CST. I paid the same money everyone else did, I should be able to play when I want to, not when BioWare deems it most convenient to them.

 

Uh, yeah it is your fault you work nights. I don't work nights, and do you know why? Because I didn't accept a job that required me to work nights, that's why. You working nights is your choice. Still, same response as before. If you're this ticked off about an effing game, you don't need to be playing it. I'm glad someone with anger issues like this is in charge of keeping airplanes in the sky.

[Genghiscron]

Server maintenance strikes again!!! At least its only 2 hours this time.... like I said every other day.

[Leggomy]

Wow I had no idea they had done so much work since launch. Awesome job Bioware keep it up. Id much rather have these bug fixes etc patched in. Fix the game ignore these people.

[Seena]

Same complaint. Different game. If you can't deal with the glitches -- prolly ain't a good idea to play a game at launch. Wait awhile. Read the reviews and or forums. THEN play (or not based on what you learn). You'll be far far far less frustrated.

[JediMasterBurst]

It comes down to this guys, you want a game that down for maintance for 8 to 10 hours per week, or have the game crashing, having non-maintance down time, and poor preformance. MMOs tend to be alot harder on equipment than a server that is used for internet.