Another DOWNTIME tonight

[Khemizt]

BW is terrible nuff said, just wait till the newer MMO's make their release and put this company that has no business in the world of MMO's out of commission. I held on to the belief that the game would be in a playable state by now, but when patching continues twice a week it's obvious this game is far from finished. There is a reason this forum is riddled with negativity and that reason is BW.

 

If you can't play a game for a full hour without running into some sort of bug, you have a SERIOUS problem as a game developer. $100 million and this is what your end product is, what a sad sad joke, I would have replaced the staff the day this game released.

[Chromiie]

What blows is coming home and finding out the servers are going down in less then 2 hours for some

 

 

Yea this is ********.

[Opapanax]

Bioware Employee: Welcome everyone! Welcome to the Bioware theme park! Enjoy your stay at the most fun place in the galaxy!

 

Visitor 1: Wow, this is great!

 

Visitor 2: Meh, I've been to better places.

 

Visitor 3: This is fun. A little rough, but I can handle it.

 

Bioware Employee: I assure everyone that Bioware is doing all that it can to quickly iron any possible problems and shortcomings. We all very much care for your concerns!

 

Visitor 2: One of your rides is broken.

 

Visitor 1: Oh what? That sucks!

 

Visitor 3: Shoot. Well, I guess I'll go on another ride. That one looks fun--

 

Bioware Employee: What?? It's broken! Quick! Everyone has to evacuate the park immediately! Code red!

 

Visitor 1: What? For how long?

 

Bioware Employee: Oh not that long, well, maybe about about a quarter of the work day.

 

Visitor 2: Ehh, that's fine. I'll go do something else.

 

Visitor 1: Aww! Didn't this park close down yesterday?

 

Visitor 3: Yeah, but that was when it's usually closed down for maintenance, right? Why does it need to be shut down again?

 

Bioware Employee: Because!! This one ride is broken! Everyone out! We care about all of your concerns!

 

Visitor 3: But only a few people care about this ride. We'll go on other rides.

 

Visitor 2: Well, I care about this ride. No, I'd rather have them fix this now. The sooner the better. If you're upset, then you're a crybaby.

 

Visitor 1: But I thought I could spend the whole day at the park today!

 

Visitor 3: It's natural to be upset at such a short notice, but I understand if they need to fix something. Still, there's a LOT of people at this park--and a lot of them don't even know or care about this one ride. Can't you put it on the fix-it list for next Tuesday?

 

Bioware Employee: NO! We have an official schedule to fix things on a certain day! And yes, that was yesterday, but still! You can enjoy this park's two-hundred rides tomorrow, after we shut it down and fix this one ride! We must fix park breaking problems as they arise!!

 

Visitor 3: It's just one ride. The park as whole is still operating pretty well--

 

Bioware Employee: SILENCE! We reserve the right to shut down everything on any other day we want!!

 

Visitor 1: But you just closed it down yesterday! This sucks! You suck!

 

Visitor 2: You're such a wuss, Visitor 1. Stop crying and get over it.

 

Bioware Employee: Thank you visitor 2. Your concerns are very important to us!

 

Visitor 3: Wait, hasn't this happened before?

 

Visitor 1: Yeah! You guys shut down this place multiple days in a row!

 

Bioware Employee: [Dialing] Hello, la Bioware parc à thème? Yes, that's right. That one ride--mm hmm. Shut it down, correct. Kick everyone out. Yes, we're doing it too. Mm hmm, all at the same time. Merci!

 

Visitor 1: Man! What a load of bull!

 

Visitor 2: Pfft, get a life you two.

 

Visitor 3: Well, I guess we'll try again tomorrow...

 

Bioware Employee: (Yes.... I can feel their hatred... It gives them FOCUS... Makes them STRONGAH...!)

 

">_<" *Tears*

[Vodalus]

Bioware has no idea what they are doing. The PTR is a complete joke. Do they expect people to grind to level 50 on the PTR to test stuff or something?

 

This is just a continuation of how the beta was ran. They decided wiping the servers every 4 weeks and not providing premade level 50s for people was a good way to test end game content. This is why the end game in ToR is so magnificent and bug free... oh wait.

 

It's ok, one time they gave us random level 42s on a separate server. We didn't get to pick class, advanced class, or faction. Some of them had no gear, skills, or money. So you were basically screwed. Good times.

 

I was going to type out what I had been typing in another thread before the mods nuked it, but the above pretty much summed up most of it.

 

I will add a note to BW:

 

-Test your patches.

 

-Test your patches again.

 

-Provide a way to allow play on the test server with out another 20GB download to encourage more people to test (especially if you are going to ignore the first 2 steps).

 

-Provide a way to test the high level content (notice that the majority of the things that the patches break are high level pvp oriented).

 

-Read, really READ, the feedback you get. We know GZ thinks tester feedback is about as valuable as bantha poodoo and that all that matters are your precious metrics, he made that quite clear to us in beta. But ignoring human feedback and building the game around metrics with no context only works if the game is to be played by robots. Humans have these things called emotions and preferences that manifest as likes and dislikes. If you want the game to be played by humans, and I think you do since robots don't tend to have a lot of money, then listen to what the humans are saying.

 

-And TEST YOUR PATCHES.

[Livingston]

Yeah it comes down at 6pm for me, so that's my whole evening.

[Exilicus]

Fear not friends for i have a solution

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=285286

[Tuscad]

Bioware Employee: Welcome everyone! Welcome to the Bioware theme park! Enjoy your stay at the most fun place in the galaxy!

 

Visitor 1: Wow, this is great!

 

Visitor 2: Meh, I've been to better places.

 

Visitor 3: This is fun. A little rough, but I can handle it.

 

Bioware Employee: I assure everyone that Bioware is doing all that it can to quickly iron any possible problems and shortcomings. We all very much care for your concerns!

 

Visitor 2: One of your rides is broken.

 

Visitor 1: Oh what? That sucks!

 

Visitor 3: Shoot. Well, I guess I'll go on another ride. That one looks fun--

 

Bioware Employee: What?? It's broken! Quick! Everyone has to evacuate the park immediately! Code red!

 

Visitor 1: What? For how long?

 

Bioware Employee: Oh not that long, well, maybe about about a quarter of the work day.

 

Visitor 2: Ehh, that's fine. I'll go do something else.

 

Visitor 1: Aww! Didn't this park close down yesterday?

 

Visitor 3: Yeah, but that was when it's usually closed down for maintenance, right? Why does it need to be shut down again?

 

Bioware Employee: Because!! This one ride is broken! Everyone out! We care about all of your concerns!

 

Visitor 3: But only a few people care about this ride. We'll go on other rides.

 

Visitor 2: Well, I care about this ride. No, I'd rather have them fix this now. The sooner the better. If you're upset, then you're a crybaby.

 

Visitor 1: But I thought I could spend the whole day at the park today!

 

Visitor 3: It's natural to be upset at such a short notice, but I understand if they need to fix something. Still, there's a LOT of people at this park--and a lot of them don't even know or care about this one ride. Can't you put it on the fix-it list for next Tuesday?

 

Bioware Employee: NO! We have an official schedule to fix things on a certain day! And yes, that was yesterday, but still! You can enjoy this park's two-hundred rides tomorrow, after we shut it down and fix this one ride! We must fix park breaking problems as they arise!!

 

Visitor 3: It's just one ride. The park as whole is still operating pretty well--

 

Bioware Employee: SILENCE! We reserve the right to shut down everything on any other day we want!!

 

Visitor 1: But you just closed it down yesterday! This sucks! You suck!

 

Visitor 2: You're such a wuss, Visitor 1. Stop crying and get over it.

 

Bioware Employee: Thank you visitor 2. Your concerns are very important to us!

 

Visitor 3: Wait, hasn't this happened before?

 

Visitor 1: Yeah! You guys shut down this place multiple days in a row!

 

Bioware Employee: [Dialing] Hello, la Bioware parc à thème? Yes, that's right. That one ride--mm hmm. Shut it down, correct. Kick everyone out. Yes, we're doing it too. Mm hmm, all at the same time. Merci!

 

Visitor 1: Man! What a load of bull!

 

Visitor 2: Pfft, get a life you two.

 

Visitor 3: Well, I guess we'll try again tomorrow...

 

Bioware Employee: (Yes.... I can feel their hatred... It gives them FOCUS... Makes them STRONGAH...!)

 

Lol, this is perfect. It describes exactly what goes down here.

[looneybinjim]

to all those complaining about the regularity of patching, you really have no conception of what your talking about.

 

ive played MMO's for 10 years, and let me tell you, bioware are all over it, they are doing a brilliant job working on getting in fixes asap. and yes, they may be creating some new problems when they do this, and yes, some of the bugs are still in the game that they fixed (but to a lesser degree) but the fact is, they are working to quickly get this stuff fixed.

 

MMO's are very complex things, its not surprising that when soem things change, it effects others. the fact is, so far bioware are showing a willing to quickly work out problems in the game, and id take this (and the extra patching involved) over bugs being left for months if not years completely ignored, like i have seen in other MMO's. bioware are setting the bar high, and if you cant see that, its because you havent got any experiance in such things. stop your whining.

 

the only gripe i have with the patching, is the badly thought out times at which they sometimes implement them (im from the UK) other then that, good work bioware, keep it up.

Edited February 9, 2012 by looneybinjim

[Tristik]

It all has to do with the fact that they pull the plug at 2am CST. If you live on the US east coast or central time zone ( and sleep before 2 am) its considered a non issue. Patches are a part of mmos and so is downtime, but none of the mmos ive played in the past years have had a 2am CST maintance window, its usually around 4-6am PST.

 

^this guy said what I was going to.

[Vodalus]

to all those complaining about the regularity of patching, you really have no conception of what your talking about.

 

ive played MMO's for 10 years, and let me tell you, bioware are all over it, they are doing a brilliant job working on getting in fixes asap. and yes, they may be creating some new problems when they do this, and yes, some of the bugs are still in the game that they fixed (but to a lesser degree) but the fact is, they are working to quickly get this stuff fixed.

 

MMO's are very complex things, its not surprising that when soem things change, it effects others. the fact is, so far bioware are showing a willing to quickly work out problems in the game, and id take this (and the extra patching involved) over bugs being left for months if not years completely ignored, like i have seen in other MMO's. bioware are setting the bar high, and if you cant see that, its because you havent got any experiance in such things. stop your whining.

 

the only gripe i have with the patching, is the badly thought out times at which they sometimes implement them (im from the UK) other then that, good work bioware, keep it up.

 

. . . or, you know, 5 more days when they roll out the patch during the next scheduled down time. But hey, 5 days; months; years. . . it's all the same, right?

[Daganox]

with you 100% OP

 

Bioware said "Once a week"

 

Bioware lied.

 

If people cant understand or don't even care to empathize with those who are forced to play the game during this constant downtime because of their schedules or where they live, they are just thick headed.. prompty ignore them. Especially ignore them if the patch is not during THEIR play time as them talking is just quack quack quack.

 

Article 6 (I believe) does state that Bioware reserves the right to make changes and this will affect people blah blah blah...

 

But that doesn't excuse them from saying they would do something once a week and thene they do it 3 or four times a week.

 

It also doesn't excuse them from spitting out garbage for patches.

[Kanshan]

Rather this then bugs keep happening, Blizzard has done quite a few times.

[TapVallian]

It's as if people have never experienced patching in an MMO before

 

Exactly the opposite good sir. We HAVE experienced patching in many MMO's before... which is why how they are doing it here is so frustrating.

[Skoobie]

with you 100% OP

 

Bioware said "Once a week"

 

Bioware lied.

 

If people cant understand or don't even care to empathize with those who are forced to play the game during this constant downtime because of their schedules or where they live, they are just thick headed.. prompty ignore them. Especially ignore them if the patch is not during THEIR play time as them talking is just quack quack quack.

 

Article 6 (I believe) does state that Bioware reserves the right to make changes and this will affect people blah blah blah...

 

But that doesn't excuse them from saying they would do something once a week and thene they do it 3 or four times a week.

 

It also doesn't excuse them from spitting out garbage for patches.

 

Link please.

[RakeHoxven]

Originally Posted by SolGravion

It all has to do with the fact that they pull the plug at 2am CST. If you live on the US east coast or central time zone ( and sleep before 2 am) its considered a non issue. Patches are a part of mmos and so is downtime, but none of the mmos ive played in the past years have had a 2am CST maintance window, its usually around 4-6am PST.

^this guy said what I was going to.

 

^this guy said what I was going to.

[Xanzul]

Okay. I've been pretty patient here.

But, this is becoming a WEEKLY routine.

 

Sweet jeebus, BW! Please, please, please test your patches more thoroughly before you push them live!

 

I'm really starting to feel like I should just freeze my account until you start getting in the right groove here.

Your patch windows are during my prime time to play and I'm not sure the value proposition is adding up for me right now, the way this is going.

[Vodalus]

Oh, and btw, I remember early in the publicity machine messages that they were talking about how great it is that they can deploy patches without even bringing the servers down (one of the "great" things about this fine engine they used ). Yet in 6 months of testing and 2 months of life that I've experienced, they've not done this once. And it always takes 4-6 hours minimum. Tonight: 4 hours to deploy a patch that fixes one thing. Edited February 9, 2012 by Vodalus

[Minisys]

hey, people might only have 4 hours a day to spend with a busy work schedule. It's not the people complaining about the excessive downtimes that need to get a life. It's the people that think that 24 hours a day is freetime and 4 hours a day has no value at all that need to realize the way they value time as being valueless is an indication of having no real life. ok?

 

No body said anything about 4 hours has no value. So what if someone cant login the game to play for those 4 hours. Just go spend some time with the girl friend or the wife. What ever trips there triggers there is other things you can do.

 

If they got to take the servers down for some reason so be it. You just won't see me whine cause I can't login to play the game for those 4 hours. I'll just go watch a movie or spend time with the girl friend.

[Kunra]

Downtime is NOT going to change.

 

Its based on times with the least number of actually players playing the game.

 

I can understand the frustration and anger for those who play around the world during these Downtimes and not being able to play.

 

Primary audience is US time based. Its a simple fact, deal with or dont.

 

Complaining about it is useless.

[Valethar]

It's as if people have never experienced patching in an MMO before

 

Many MMO virgins died to bring you this QQ thread.

[Daganox]

Link please.

 

Quote:

Bioware may find it necessary to make changes to, or reset certain parameters to balance game play and usage of TOR services. These changes or "resets" may affect characters or games or groups under your control and may cause you setbacks within the relevant game world. Bioware reserves the right to make these changes and is not liable to you for these changes.

 

 

The above was in a BIOWARE employees post before he closed said link.. discussing the same issue.

[Syphorion]

I agree, the amount of downtime and patches lately is nothing short of absurd. I'm all for patches and maintenance, fixing things, getting rid of bugs. But whats been going on in TOR is beyond recawkulous. I work late right now, I get home and servers are about to go down. Like probably the 5th-6th time in a week and a half to 2 weeks at least. Thats lame any way you stretch it. Like I said i'm all for fixing stuff, but the developers need the get their heads out of their rears and figure out what they are doing or.. leave shiz be until maintenance day and knock it all out there. Restarts btw bioware, shouldn't take 3-4 hours. Here I thought this game would be the WoW Killer... so much for that.

[fungihoujo]

You guys would have hated WoW- even in BC, 3 years after launch- patch with bugs, another patch that night, another two patches that week to fix problems introduced with the patch.

 

It's not ideal- but this is pretty standard for mmos.

[Claprica]

These constant patches and fixes are getting rather tedious.

 

Starting to really piss me off to the point where I am seriously thinking of quitting and going back to a more stable game like WOW.

 

Its nice to know people outside of America aren't getting shafted with the constant downtimes

[Vodalus]

Downtime is NOT going to change.

 

Its based on times with the least number of actually players playing the game.

 

I can understand the frustration and anger for those who play around the world during these Downtimes and not being able to play.

 

Primary audience is US time based. Its a simple fact, deal with or dont.

 

Complaining about it is useless.

 

Based on what numbers? I see the same issue that automatic reorder processes have in retail stores.

 

Order 6.

 

Sell 6.

 

Order 6.

 

Sell 6.

 

"Looks like all we can sell are 6 of these."

 

Of course, those of us who have a brain will look at it and say "how do you know, you have never stocked more than 6 at a time".

 

How does BW know that this is naturally the slowest time if the servers are always down at this time. Of course if the servers always go down at 2am cst it will be the slowest time. It's when the servers are down.

 

(Of course, if they would test their patches, they wouldn't need to bring it down as much. . . )

Edited February 9, 2012 by Vodalus