Aussie Server Maintenance

[Rahl_Windsong]

I have to say as a Canadian player it is rather nice to be grouped in with the USA for once, because I have never really noticed down times except in beta and even then is was so minimal it was really nice.

[Kaphik]

Doesn't matter. Point is we have no downtimes during our nights. None. Is there a valid reason for this? No. No reason I have seen on this thread is a valid reason, it's just people saying that's the way it is, deal with it, can't be done, etc.

It can be done. Rotate the maintenance every month, or every 2/3 months, so all 3 regions get downtime at night in fair amounts.

 

There is a valid reason. Money. Right now, even though many of you are upset it's in all likelihood not feasible for BioWare to perform separate maintenance schedules. Voice your displeasure through emails and the Customer Service forum if you must because there's a thread like this every single week.

 

I am 100% in favor of having separate maintenance windows for the game depending on the region and I believe before the end of the year that will happen. Perhaps I will be proven wrong, but hopefully not.

[utio]

I have to say as a Canadian player it is rather nice to be grouped in with the USA for once, because I have never really noticed down times except in beta and even then is was so minimal it was really nice.

 

Hi, that's good for you. Would you be against everyone having a share of night time maintenance?

[JerokTalram]

I've posted about this numerous times and even raised customer support tickets which BW which have been promptly closed without a care in the world, and no hint of a resolution (or even an explanation).

 

I've paid $79.95 for the game and now want to cancel my subscription, but that still leaves me $79.95 out of pocket. Anyone think I might have a case for Fair Trade Australia?

 

Before you trolls start to trash my post, I normally play 3 days a week - Monday to Wednesday for around 2-3 hours in the evening.

 

First of all, you opened the box or downloaded the software (guessing download at $79.95) so you agreed to their terms. They would have reserved the right to bring the server down for maintenance when they wanted and there will be no guarranteed uptime in the terms. Terms which you agreed to. So tell me, how are they violating Fair Trade?

Edited March 15, 2012 by JerokTalram

[utio]

There is a valid reason. Money. Right now, even though many of you are upset it's in all likelihood not feasible for BioWare to perform separate maintenance schedules. Voice your displeasure through emails and the Customer Service forum if you must because there's a thread like this every single week.

 

I am 100% in favor of having separate maintenance windows for the game depending on the region and I believe before the end of the year that will happen. Perhaps I will be proven wrong, but hopefully not.

 

Sorry, could you explain a bit more. You say money, then don't give any details.

[JerokTalram]

i did a little searching over why BW would decide to do maint the way they do and found this

 

As more and more companies are acquiring other companies with different and disparate databases there are complexities that come from merger and integration of the IT applications. Even in the organic growth, when a company grows across geographies, it is seen that multiple SAP systems may need to be merged.

 

In such situations, one major question that every CIO grapples with is should one have One Single SAP Global Instance or Separate Regional Instances.

 

TO properly evaluate, there are many things that need to think through. The pros and cons of the two different alternatives are a good startiing point for that evaluation and discussion.

 

Single Global Instance(maint)

 

Advantages

 

Maximum utilisation of SAP Functional Integration

Forces standardisation or commonality

Lower cost of on-going maintenance

Organisation-wide operational reporting is standard

 

Disadvantages

 

Various technical constraints that have to be managed

The online Transactional volume is heavy 24 hrs a day

Response time considerations across global WAN

Inability to accurately estimate client/server workload

More Business Unit impact when system unavailable

 

Separate Regional Instances (maint)

 

Advantages

 

Provides the greatest configuration flexibility between regions

Allows diversity

Reduces the issues with Technical Constraints

 

Disadvantages

 

Multiple separate data bases

SAP Functional Integration is limited

Organisation-wide operational reporting is non-standard

Cost of on-going maintenance is Higher

Commonality is manually maintained and is not forced by the software

 

What does SAP have to do with SWTOR? I'm sure the Hero Engine isn't using SAP.

[Kaphik]

Sorry, could you explain a bit more. You say money, then don't give any details.

 

Ok is it that hard to understand? For separate maintenance windows BioWare would have to higher more people to perform the patches or pay additional overtime for the same people to add in multiple shifts. I'm assuming a lot of the people deploying the patches work during the day and do the patches at a different time than they are used to working because I have a similar job where planned maintenance must occur at night so my work schedule changes accordingly. That change is not easy on the body and mind, especially if it's every few weeks or so. So BioWare loses some productivity, and plus they now have added costs incurred at night. Everything from overtime pay if applicable to increased costs of running the operation however minimal in comparison to day to day costs.

 

That all costs money. Adding in separate times increases that cost. Since BioWare and EA are in this business to make profit so they can continue to provide us with entertainment, I am positive that some decisions have been made to help their finances. Right now, I'm pretty confident that the simple reasoning behind a single maintenance comes down to cost. I am also highly confident that the benefits of changing that schedule will justify increased costs as the revenue grows. Remember, you haven't even had your own servers for a single full month yet!

[Warouth]

What does SAP have to do with SWTOR? I'm sure the Hero Engine isn't using SAP.

 

They have the same problems.

[Kindara]

Correct, they don't have to pull down all the servers at the same time.....Bioware just seem to think that its cool to state they provide a world wide service that runs all at the same time. Weird.

 

Personally you would think it would be better customer service to not pull servers down during prime time....they'd win more fans that way.

 

Meanwhile, brace yourself for this thread to be flooded with the usual "sorry I'm alive" crowd that seem to think we must accept everything every company does without question, and just be greatful we can give them our money.

 

You ever consider the maintence team is primarily in America they can't exactly work 24 hours a day 7 days a week to suite everyone. If you want seperate server times try playing a game that "contracts" people to maintain their servers *cough Warhammer Online incident* and see how things go then. You'll always be Miffed off you had to wait a couple of days in order to get what American servers already have.

 

Finally after years of crying a game offers global servers you can play on any one you want and you cry anyway so you know what no one reallyc ares anymore. You'll cry no matter what so whatever.

 

As for another poster spouting Anti American blah blah blah whatever. Bioware is a Canadian company.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Kindara

[JerokTalram]

There is the option of zero down time updates. I work for a software company that provides such solutions for telecomunications companies.

 

It's possible, they chhose not to do it, which is unfortunate.

 

If you do work for a telecommunications software company, you would know how to spell telecommunications and wouldn't be making sure delibrately misleading statements.

 

1) Telecommunications companies have to maintain 5 - 9s uptime. SWTOR does not.

 

2) A lot of telecommunications hardware runs on Realtime OSes such as Linux and while it is possible to do live updates to software, there is always a downtime. A running application has to be told to reload itself and libraries it's using after an update. Now that may only take a few seconds but it is still a downtime. You can't relink a running application without halting what it is doing and every time it halt it is not providing it's service.

 

3) Downtime for services is avoided by Redundant Services. If you want to patch one machine, you replace it with another and then patch it. Thus no downtime.

Edited March 15, 2012 by JerokTalram

[Surgin]

Ever heard of the saying i'm alright jack! its not a couple of hours and would your reaction be the same if this was happening to you?

 

2 Kids walk in a shop to buy some sweets they have the same amount of money and buy the same items, but one kid ends up getting less cashier says "well he lives further down the street from you" is this the right attitude.

 

8 hours or less out of 168 hours in a week is a couple hours. I have also seen lots on times where the server goes up 2 hours after they went down. Since I tend to play the hours the servers go down already even though I am in America.

 

And yes my reaction would be the exact same, hell I wish they would switch the hours but then there would just have a whole new group of people crying on the forums "IT'S NOT FAIR!"

 

God this whole entitlement generation is just killing the world with the constant temper tantrums, the people throwing a fit here are the probably same ones that think because they are paying for college and show up to all the classes they should automatically pass or the people who move out to farm country and then complain about the smell from the animals.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Surgin

[utio]

Ok is it that hard to understand? For separate maintenance windows BioWare would have to higher more people to perform the patches or pay additional overtime for the same people to add in multiple shifts. I'm assuming a lot of the people deploying the patches work during the day and do the patches at a different time than they are used to working because I have a similar job where planned maintenance must occur at night so my work schedule changes accordingly. That change is not easy on the body and mind, especially if it's every few weeks or so. So BioWare loses some productivity, and plus they now have added costs incurred at night. Everything from overtime pay if applicable to increased costs of running the operation however minimal in comparison to day to day costs.

 

That all costs money. Adding in separate times increases that cost. Since BioWare and EA are in this business to make profit so they can continue to provide us with entertainment, I am positive that some decisions have been made to help their finances. Right now, I'm pretty confident that the simple reasoning behind a single maintenance comes down to cost. I am also highly confident that the benefits of changing that schedule will justify increased costs as the revenue grows. Remember, you haven't even had your own servers for a single full month yet!

 

Ok, there's no need to be rude. If you write a post giving the reason as money you should really go into more detail. Money encompasses alot of things.

That aside, you are mistaken in thinking they can't afford it. They may not want to pay more, but that's tough. Don't sell to different timezones if you don't want to give them the same service. Simple.

And another thing, it would cost no more if they changed shift patterns every month or so, so any point you had is null.

[Boritoo]

Actually they wouldn't need to "region lock" players at all to have separate maintenance schedules.

 

On maintenance nights, you might have to wait to play on a server in a different timezone from you.

 

So for example, the Asia Pacific server would update first (GMT+10) then the EU servers (GMT) then the US servers (GMT-8).

 

Each region would be still be able to play in their own peak times but would be "locked" from accessing other servers 1> while that server was down for maintenance 2> if their client hadn't yet been updated for a new patch and the other server had.

 

Surely this would satisfy more customers than the current arrangement. Everyone gets to play on their own server in their own peak playtime, noone is "region locked" and the only time you can't access ALL the servers in all regions is when the server for a region other than your own is down or (for a fraction of one day) is patched to a different version than you.

[utio]

You ever consider the maintence team is primarily in America they can't exactly work 24 hours a day 7 days a week to suite everyone. If you want seperate server times try playing a game that "contracts" people to maintain their servers *cough Warhammer Online incident* and see how things go then. You'll always be Miffed off you had to wait a couple of days in order to get what American servers already have.

 

Finally after years of crying a game offers global servers you can play on any one you want and you cry anyway so you know what no one reallyc ares anymore. You'll cry no matter what so whatever.

 

As for another poster spouting Anti American blah blah blah whatever. Bioware is a Canadian company.

 

There should be no anti americanisms, I agree. It's pointless blaming someone's nationality on anything. That's kinda the point here. We are all customers, no matter where we live. We all pay the same, we all should get treated the same.

[Valorian]

8 hours or less out of 168 hours in a week is a couple hours. I have also seen lots on times where the server goes up 2 hours after they went down. Since I tend to play the hours the servers go down already even though I am in America.

 

And yes my reaction would be the exact same, hell I wish they would switch the hours but then there would just have a whole new group of people crying on the forums "IT'S NOT FAIR!"

 

God this whole entitlement generation is just killing the world with the constant temper tantrums, the people throwing a fit here are the probably same ones that think because they are paying for college and show up to all the classes they should automatically pass or the people who move out to farm country and then complain about the smell from the animals.

 

You have not allowed for sleep work eating in your calculations

 

So you believe that its fine that no service is supplied from 6pm to 2am its not about self entitlement its about being fair.

[utio]

8 hours or less out of 168 hours in a week is a couple hours. I have also seen lots on times where the server goes up 2 hours after they went down. Since I tend to play the hours the servers go down already even though I am in America.

 

And yes my reaction would be the exact same, hell I wish they would switch the hours but then there would just have a whole new group of people crying on the forums "IT'S NOT FAIR!"

 

God this whole entitlement generation is just killing the world with the constant temper tantrums, the people throwing a fit here are the probably same ones that think because they are paying for college and show up to all the classes they should automatically pass or the people who move out to farm country and then complain about the smell from the animals.

 

If you don't mind me saying, and I mean no disrespect, you appear to be overeacting. It's not about a bunch of people feeling they're entitled to things they're not. It's not a bunch of people throwing a hissy fit. There's no temper tantrums, well there's a couple. Your post seems to be fueled by temper, that's for sure!

All that is being asked is that nightime maintenance is applied fairly to all customers. That's all, nothing to do with self entitlement, nationality, age. Is that unreasonable to you?

[JerokTalram]

Actually they wouldn't need to "region lock" players at all to have separate maintenance schedules.

 

On maintenance nights, you might have to wait to play on a server in a different timezone from you.

 

So for example, the Asia Pacific server would update first (GMT+10) then the EU servers (GMT) then the US servers (GMT-8).

 

Each region would be still be able to play in their own peak times but would be "locked" from accessing other servers 1> while that server was down for maintenance 2> if their client hadn't yet been updated for a new patch and the other server had.

 

Surely this would satisfy more customers than the current arrangement. Everyone gets to play on their own server in their own peak playtime, noone is "region locked" and the only time you can't access ALL the servers in all regions is when the server for a region other than your own is down or (for a fraction of one day) is patched to a different version than you.

 

The problem is the client still needs to be region locked. So let's say an aussie who logins in during the Aussie maintenance period. He wants to play on his US Server but the new client is already available so the launcher updates it. He tries to log onto the US Server and it crashes or tells him he has the wrong version. Now he signed up for SWTOR early and there's no transfers available yet so he's still primarily playing on the US Server. The Aussie Maintenance is only half done so there's at least 20 hours before he's going to be able to log back onto his US Server. Do you think this Aussie will be happy?

Edited March 15, 2012 by JerokTalram

[Warouth]

The problem is the client still needs to be region locked. So let's say an aussie who logins in during the Aussie maintenance period. He wants to play on his US Server but the new client is already available so the launcher updates it. He tries to log onto the US Server and it crashes or tells him he has the wrong version. Now he signed up for SWTOR early and there's no transfers available yet so he's still primarily playing on the US Server. The Aussie Maintenance is only half done so there's at least 20 hours before he's going to be able to log back onto his US Server. Do you think this Aussie will be happy?

 

Could you please tell me why our friend from Australia has to use an Australian client? Why not use the American client? Or why not make one client with an option menu? Or show a popup: "Attention! New client version is available. Do you want to update your client to version x.y.z? Please check our server status page for the version required to play on your server. [ ] Yes, update | [ ] No, update later". We're talking about a game client, not brain surgery...

[Valorian]

Could you please tell me why our friend from Australia has to use an Australian client? Why not use the American client? Or why not make one client with an option menu? Or show a popup: "Attention! New client version is available. Do you want to update your client to version x.y.z? Please check our server status page for the version required to play on your server. [ ] Yes, update | [ ] No, update later". We're talking about a game client, not brain surgery...

 

Exactly the thin client detects which server has been requested access, and applies necessary scripts if the client requires them.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Valorian

[Lord_Scythe]

You keep posting about how you are fine with it as it is, and that's good for you, but with all due respect, this isn't about you, or any one person. There will always be people that are happy with it, same as there will be people annoyed by it. You cannot set a standard based on whether or not you're fine with it.

I'm glad youre fine with it, but alot of people aren't. Should they be ignored because it's fine the way it is for everyone else, or would it be better to rotate downtime, so everyone gets it during the night every third month or so?

 

Guess you missed the fact that I don't care what system they use.

 

Again if the game is down scheduled or not I find something else to do. Not a hard concept to grasp!

 

1) It is just a game.

 

2)It is down 8 hours out of 168 hours per week.

 

3)It is not the end of the world.

 

Move it to NA prime time, EU prime time. Hell rotate it hourly for all I care. It cannot affect me if I do not let it!

 

I am an adult way more important things to worry about than a game being down for maintenance.

[Lord_Scythe]

Ok the OP asked why the maintenance times are the way they are.

 

Simple numbers.

 

According to copies sold in each region:

 

North America: 1.17m 53.3%

+ Europe: 0.74m 33.9%

+ Rest of the World: 0.28m 12.8%

 

Oceanic is classifies as rest of the world. Though I am guessing a portion of that 12.8% is in the red zone as well.

 

Now flip the times so NA is prime time 53.3% of customers are affected.

 

Now flip the times so EU is prime time 33.9% of customers are now affected.

 

Don't get me wrong I think rotation is a great idea or an option to choose what servers you play on so they can take down the servers on local off peak times. A check box saying this are the servers I play on and that is when you get the patch!

 

However the team is currently working on bug fixes and getting stuff in that should have been in on launch. I doubt they have spare hands on deck to be changing this anytime soon.

 

I would also like to point out though I am Canadian I prefer to play in the wee hours of the morning!

[utio]

Guess you missed the fact that I don't care what system they use.

 

Again if the game is down scheduled or not I find something else to do. Not a hard concept to grasp!

 

1) It is just a game.

 

2)It is down 8 hours out of 168 hours per week.

 

3)It is not the end of the world.

 

Move it to NA prime time, EU prime time. Hell rotate it hourly for all I care. It cannot affect me if I do not let it!

 

I am an adult way more important things to worry about than a game being down for maintenance.

 

And here you are again, letting us all know that you don't care, and that it's just a game. If it doesn't bother you then others are being unreasonable when they are bothered?

As for the hours, please take 168, then minus sleep(40ave), work(39ave), eating(14ave), other functions(who knows lol). Soon comes down. Bout 75 if you don't include other functions. So 8 hours in 75 is a more realistic figure.

[Panthian]

Wrong as long as BW is running the same client with access to all 4 zones, they can't run individual maintenance windows. You can't have a newly updated client logging into a old server. For BW to provide different maintenance windows they would have to do some form of region locking or maybe a form of server revision locking.

 

So here's how the server revision locking would work. At 3:00AM CST both the NA East and West servers go down. No one has access to them for 4-8 hours. They come back up and only NA clients can download the new client so any europeans (in prime time) or aussies who play on North American Servers can't log in. Americans who play on European and Aussie Servers can't login either. Some time after midnight in Australia they start the 4-8 maintenance and at the end the Aussies get the new client and NA adn Aussie players can now log on to both North American and Aussie servers. Europeans can only log into European servers.

 

Now possible even before the Aussie Maintenance is complete, European servers come down for maintenance, the Europeans still can log on any servers. 4-8 hours later after the new client is downloaded, Europeans who play on North American servers are finally able to get back on.

 

So lets see the deployment team has worked at least a triple shift, Any European players who play on North American server have been down for upto 24 hour or even more. The Aussie players had upto 16 or possibly more hours without access NA servers and upto 8 or more hours off European servers. NA users wouldn't have access to Aussie servers for upto 8 or more hours and European Servers upto 16 or more hours.

 

So that would be a complete mess and they won't do that. That leaves region locking. IE if you live in NA, you only play on North American servers, etc. If they switched to that then they could have regional maintenance.

 

A simple search filter or if you want to go with something more fancy, a scroll bar on the launcher would resolve that as it has for many other mmo's in the past.

[Lord_Scythe]

And here you are again, letting us all know that you don't care, and that it's just a game. If it doesn't bother you then others are being unreasonable when they are bothered?

As for the hours, please take 168, then minus sleep(40ave), work(39ave), eating(14ave), other functions(who knows lol). Soon comes down. Bout 75 if you don't include other functions. So 8 hours in 75 is a more realistic figure.

 

I understand the concept but again it is not as big an issue as people make it out to be.

 

You are right I don't care. As I have said I am an adult I deal with change very well! I am also not a member of the NOW generation.

 

I am wondering why this is on the general forum and not in say the suggestion box.

 

I answered the OPs question about why. Shear numbers affected.

 

To make it a truly fair maintenance schedule it will need to be rotated based on percentages. That way each zone would be affected equally!

 

In the future I can see them doing scheduled maintenance based on regions. But their programmers are currently trying to fix game bugs and prepare patch 1.2.

 

Comes down to priorities. Whats is more important for the game? Fixing the maintenance time issue affecting a smaller percentage of customers or fix the game bugs and add the stuff that should have made launch. In order to fix the maintenance time to region serious reprogramming of the launcher needs to occur. I do not know how much work would be required on the back end.

 

100% of customers are affected by bugs, class imbalance and missing features.

[spudbynight]

I think that the unfortunate reason for this is the fact that Bioware is an American company.

 

Without wanting to make any rash generalisations some people in this world are more insular than others. They tend not to leave their own country and as such have a rather self centred outlook on things. These sort of people sometimes wield a little bit more power then is really ideal.

 

I don't know where you might find these people.

Edited March 15, 2012 by spudbynight