Lakhesis Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 (edited) While I know no-one wants to lose gaming time on a Friday night, I'm sure you also do not want to endure random server crashes that could occur at any time and with no warning. We always take unscheduled maintenances very seriously and weigh the pros and cons. In this case we felt it was important enough to conduct this maintenance ASAP. As soon as the decision was made, the maintenance timing was communicated. Maintenance *is* a server crash from a customer PoV. It's just one with a pre-arranged time (and that generally takes longer). Bioware might take it seriously & weight pros and cons, but apparently it comes down in favour of the Pro-Shutdown more often than any other MMO I've ever seen. I'm currently still playing because I'm really enjoying the whole RP thing of leveling, but this sort of corporate behaviour & the over-hasty, inconsiderate, decisions-from-on-high, non-MMO-oriented design approach has got me to the point where I'm actively badmouthing your product rather than recommending it to people I talk to. I still enjoy the essence of the game enough to say that in the company forums, cos I'd like the issues to change, but this sort of management style is killing it for me. Dramatic changes, quick changes, inconsiderate changes and balance changes are things which have the potential to cripple MMO communities & need to be indulged in cautiously, and lordy but Bioware loves all of the above. Over eager (i.e. inconsiderate) proactive maintenances are the tip of a poor MMO culture within the company imo, and it's getting harder for me as a player to ignore as time goes on. In an MMO it's not just about making the game better - it's also about not making the game worse. Edited March 23, 2012 by Lakhesis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iiyria Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 We are the Borg(US) your servers and subs will be collected into our own thus advancing Borg awesomeness surender your monnies and we'll add your financial distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is Futile. Swtor belongs to Murika Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petromir Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 Also if people wanted to play on another server region they could just install the game twice or more (same as with test server) and simply patch that on a different schedule. Problem solved - give us separate maintenance times Because I can afford the SSD space for 2 installs........ And separate maintenance times causes issues with favouritism claims etc, just as much as this does. All systems cause grief, there is no perfect system Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dsan Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 I'm still LOVING the idea of a rotating schedule of global downtimes (downtime is in US offpeak one week, EU offpeak next week, AU/NZ/AP off peak the following week etc)... Everyone is happy - Bioware get their planetwide downtime, every subscriber gets the same amount of downtime over the course of a month or so. I guess the only ones that might complain would be the US subscribers because they get ABSOLUTELY NO DOWNTIME at the moment. It seems to be the most fair and equal way to handle global downtimes where multiple timezones are concerned. What do you guys think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRonnie Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 As mentioned by Blaine Christine (Senior Producer, Live Services) in March 2nd's Q&A, unfortunately at this time we're unable to run separate maintenance windows for different regions. All of The Old Republic's game servers are in the same service environment. The upside is that players have no restrictions on where they can play - something many players in Oceanic regions continue to benefit from. The downside is that we have to bring all servers down for maintenance at the same time. Our global maintenance time was chosen because it is when the lowest number of players - globally - are on the game servers. That said, bringing servers down on a Friday night in any time zone is not something we do lightly. In this case, there were several server-side fixes we had to conduct (see the brief patch notes here) to ensure continued stability of the game. While I know no-one wants to lose gaming time on a Friday night, I'm sure you also do not want to endure random server crashes that could occur at any time and with no warning. We always take unscheduled maintenances very seriously and weigh the pros and cons. In this case we felt it was important enough to conduct this maintenance ASAP. As soon as the decision was made, the maintenance timing was communicated. Again I apologize for the inconvenience, but for the overall stability of the service, this maintenance was required. Fair enough mate, but Friday and Saturday nights maintenance really do have to be a 'last resort' thing. It's twice now I've seen it and it really has to be a very rare thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iiyria Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 I'm still LOVING the idea of a rotating schedule of global downtimes (downtime is in US offpeak one week, EU offpeak next week, AU/NZ/AP off peak the following week etc)... Everyone is happy - Bioware get their planetwide downtime, every subscriber gets the same amount of downtime over the course of a month or so. I guess the only ones that might complain would be the US subscribers because they get ABSOLUTELY NO DOWNTIME at the moment. It seems to be the most fair and equal way to handle global downtimes where multiple timezones are concerned. What do you guys think? Once again thats not exactly true at 3am mountain (Arizona time) there are 300 people in fleet. 150 on dromund kaas) changing this downtime will surely anger these after midnight warriors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iiyria Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 The maintenance time other countries deserve but is it the one they need ? Bioware was gonna fix your maintenance times but then they took an arrow to the knee. U mad bros? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Micksteroo Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 (edited) As long as Bioware have their heads stuck you know where, things will never change. Keep cancelling those subs people, if they can't please their customers then they don't deserve our money. Edited March 25, 2012 by Micksteroo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dafpants Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 That said, bringing servers down on a Friday night in any time zone is not something we do lightly. In this case, there were several server-side fixes we had to conduct (see the brief patch notes here) to ensure continued stability of the game. While I know no-one wants to lose gaming time on a Friday night, I'm sure you also do not want to endure random server crashes that could occur at any time and with no warning. We always take unscheduled maintenances very seriously and weigh the pros and cons. In this case we felt it was important enough to conduct this maintenance ASAP. As soon as the decision was made, the maintenance timing was communicated. Again I apologize for the inconvenience, but for the overall stability of the service, this maintenance was required. By this stage we're not doubting that the maintenance was actually required. We were arguing at the time of the announcement, however, that if this patch was so critical, if "it was important enough to conduct this maintenance ASAP", why did you wait 12-14 hours to patch the servers? The servers could have been patched and back up again three times over between when the maintenance was announced and the servers finally went down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Micksteroo Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 (edited) By this stage we're not doubting that the maintenance was actually required. We were arguing at the time of the announcement, however, that if this patch was so critical, if "it was important enough to conduct this maintenance ASAP", why did you wait 12-14 hours to patch the servers? The servers could have been patched and back up again three times over between when the maintenance was announced and the servers finally went down. They waited 12-14 hours so they didn't inconvenience their home US players. Why not inconvenience the rest of the world? No biggie surely... Edited March 26, 2012 by Micksteroo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dsan Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 I think people pretty much understand at this stage that regular maintenance is required and sometimes emergency downtime for patching critical problems are called for as well - the problem I have is that EVERY time maintenance like that needs to happen (whether regular scheduled maintenance or emergency maintenance) ALWAYS happens at a time chosen to impact the US subscribers as little as possible and all other regions need to just accept the scraps we're given. If you need to bring down the servers each week for maintenance, that's fine - but PLEASE don't tailor EVERY downtime to the convenience of your US players only. This problem isn't going away and every maintenance that follows the current schedule (by happening while US players are sleeping and at peak times for other regions) will just be pouring fuel on a fire. We need some sort of rotating schedule of maintenance times so everyone is missing the same amount of peak time - there simply isn't any way to please the whole world all the time but you can, at least, treat all regions equally without showing obvious preference to one over the rest. I just hate feeling like a second class citizen... I DO believe that Bioware have made a brilliant game here and have set some ground breaking precedents (like having actual Oceanic servers) - please set an example for other MMO developers again and offer rotating maintenance schedules so ALL players are treated equally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valethar Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 If you need to bring down the servers each week for maintenance, that's fine - but PLEASE don't tailor EVERY downtime to the convenience of your US players only. As has been stated numerous times by the Devs, it has nothing to do with the Us customers. Maintenance was chosen based on when the overall server population was at it's lowest. They also stated, again on multiple occasions, that their system does not allow for taking down servers by region for updates. Time to get over the US bashing already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dsan Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 As has been stated numerous times by the Devs, it has nothing to do with the Us customers. Maintenance was chosen based on when the overall server population was at it's lowest. They also stated, again on multiple occasions, that their system does not allow for taking down servers by region for updates. Time to get over the US bashing already. Please believe me when I say I'm not bashing the US population in any way - if I gave you that impression I sincerly apologise. It's basically a fact that EVERY time they needed to take the server down for scheduled maintenance, it's in off-peak times in the US (starting at 2:00am and going to 6:00am-8:00am). I don't doubt they're right when they say the average population across servers are the lowest but it doesn't make it seem any fairer for the people that are scheduled to be disconnected during their peak time week after week knowing that the same region each and every time experience no downtime at all (because the vast majority are asleep). I understand that taking down certain servers at a time would be near impossible to do - I would never expect them to do that. Even if their system did support doing this, it would be a PITA for maintenance staff to co-ordinate multiple downtimes over a 24-hour period for each region and I genuinely wouldn't want them to go through all that hassle. What I'm asking for is a rotating schedule for maintenance so all servers are still taken offline at the same time but the time various to suit a different region each week. For example (please forgive me, I don't know the exact timezones in each region): * Week 1 - ALL servers are brought down for maintenance at 2am US time * Week 2 - ALL servers are brought down for maintenance at 2am Eastern EU time * Week 3 - ALL servers are brought down for maintenance at 2am Western EU time * Week 4 - ALL servers are brought down for maintenance at 2am AU/NZ time * Week 5 - The sequence restarts with ALL servers brought down at 2am US time The above regions are just an example - in all likelyhood, there would need to be more regions included to keep peak downtimes EQUAL AND FAIR. I don't think this would be too much to ask for - it's something they can apply to the same patch-rollout schedule they're already using, it just varies the start time each week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nexelau Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 I understand where you are coming from, Dsan, I live in Perth.. and I even admit that I probably get it easier than people on the east coast since often the servers are up in time to play after dinner. But with any downtime, routine is key, along with simplicity. I hate to bring up.. that other game.. but lets use it as an example. Maintenance has been Tuesday for how long? Seven Years now, pretty much every week. And yet, every week.. there are people posting "OMG why are the servers down!?!?". Not new people either, people who have max level characters and have obviously been playing awhile. It's pretty obvious, then, that there are plenty of people who struggle with a weekly routine that's been going on for years. It's only going to get worse if they have to get their head around a routine that changes weekly, and cycles once ever four weeks. There are other considerations to be taken into account as well. There could be hard coded features of the game that cycle around those maintenance times that would need to be changed.. think weekly roll-over of caps in other games. Their employees would have to be willing to come in at obscure times of the night.. and probably need to be compensated for that. Much as I would like to not have maintenance during a prime time for my server... I simply don't think it's likely we will see this unless they completely isolate the Asia/Pacific servers and give them their own staff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConradLionhart Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 I have to agree that the forums shouldn't be down for maintenance as well. To put it as kindly as possible, some people are.... "enthusiastic" about the game and even with servers down, they want to chat with other people in order to handle their withdrawals... ah I mean to share their passion of the game with others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dsan Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 (edited) Much as I would like to not have maintenance during a prime time for my server... I simply don't think it's likely we will see this unless they completely isolate the Asia/Pacific servers and give them their own staff. The way I see it, their maintenance staff already come in at obscure times of the night (the maintenance starts at 2:00am their time) so, if anything, I would think the staff would be happy they'd only have to come in at 2:00am once a month. If they can't do some kind of rotating schedule, there must be some other way to reduce the peak-time disruption on some servers - maybe they can bring the maintenance time forward a couple of hours and start it at 11:00pm-12:00am their time? Players in their time zone would lose an hour or 2 of playtime but would reduce the disruption over here by an hour or 2 (but it will also create a ripple affect that will most likely put some other poor region into our situation of full peak-time maintenance). But obviously, no matter how you arrange a global downtime at the same time each and every week, some region is always going to be losing more effective gametime than other regions. The only way around it is to rotate the maintenance times so everyone gets (at least) a taste of pure off-peak downtime. I would LOVE to get a bit more open discussion about this going with Bioware/Devs instead of seeing pages of people saying they don't like it and a post from a Dev saying (effectively) "Sorry about that but that's just the way it is"... Edited March 26, 2012 by Dsan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolotomasi Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 http://www.swtor.com/blog/no-downtime-maintenance-march-27th Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trekkymnster Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 (edited) It would be nice to have Aussie friendly Maintenance but after playing WoW for 6 years, I am used to it As you can play on either Aus or US Servers, imagine how many US people will be on the couple of Aus servers during their off time Edited March 26, 2012 by Trekkymnster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Micksteroo Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 Wow never gave us Aussies this much shafting. Ever since I remember playing Wow maintenance on Tuesday has started from 10 pm or 12 a.m. AEST (dependant on DST). That's at around 5 a.m. PDT. Enough time after work to do the dailies and whatever else needed doing. Prime time maintenance is inexcusable - I wouldn't mind having it once a month but every single week? Glad I cancelled my subscription when I did. I don't care how good the game is; when a company treats it's customers like this it's time to take my money elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herboss Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 While the Friday night downtime sucked, Bioware still give us a local servers so we don't have to play with pings of 200+. Can't say that about most other MMO's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Micksteroo Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 (edited) While the Friday night downtime sucked, Bioware still give us a local servers so we don't have to play with pings of 200+. Can't say that about most other MMO's. True, I appreciate that. But at the same time I don't agree with BW leaving a job half done - giving us local servers but then shafting us with the maintenance MORE than any other MMO I've played. Edited March 27, 2012 by Micksteroo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwoo Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 Wow never gave us Aussies this much shafting. Ever since I remember playing Wow maintenance on Tuesday has started from 10 pm or 12 a.m. AEST (dependant on DST). That's at around 5 a.m. PDT. Enough time after work to do the dailies and whatever else needed doing. Prime time maintenance is inexcusable - I wouldn't mind having it once a month but every single week? Glad I cancelled my subscription when I did. I don't care how good the game is; when a company treats it's customers like this it's time to take my money elsewhere. You do know WoW was down more than up at launch? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lollie Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 (edited) imagine how many US people will be on the couple of Aus servers during their off time Like none? Americans wouldn't be able to handle the 200ms+ pings and the 3 that tried would bring the forums down with their epic QQing like it was a Jerry Springer show. Edited March 27, 2012 by lollie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
utio Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 Like none? Americans wouldn't be able to handle the 200ms+ pings and the 3 that tried would bring the forums down with their epic QQing like it was a Jerry Springer show. Actually, the overwhelming opinion of the US players in these threads is that if the servers are down, go out, get laid, clean your mums basement, etc. So I'm sure they'll be practicing what they preach when their server is down, and not making a character on another regions server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RomerioLopez Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 While the Friday night downtime sucked, Bioware still give us a local servers so we don't have to play with pings of 200+. Can't say that about most other MMO's. I wonder if they have re-run the queries that determine when 'off peak' is since the release of the oceanic servers? When I look through the server lists. I will see many US servers at light, and all 3 Oceanic ones at "Very Heavy". Perhaps if they re-checked the most convenient times, they might find something different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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