Why does the West keep paying the price?

[Staavis_SC]

So a few weeks back, I predicted that we would be seeing Maintenance windows moved up again, and last night's maintenance proved my projection was correct.

 

Here was my prophecy:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=3821337&postcount=62

 

The question is, why does the West Coast, and more importantly, Oceanica, have to keep bearing the brunt of maintenance windows, to benefit non-peak play times for Europe and the East Coast?

 

Let's look at these maintenance windows.

 

10pm - 2am (Pacific Daylight Time) is the equivalent of the following:

 

Sydney, Australia: 3pm - 7pm

Austin, Texas: 12am - 4am

New York City, New York: 1am - 5am

London, England: 6am - 10am

 

So, the time the servers return to operating is:

 

7pm Australia

4am Texas

5am New York

10am London

 

I would like someone from Bioware to provide me with hard numbers which prove that there are in fact more people playing and active at 10am in London, than there are a 10pm in Seattle, Portland and LA, or even at 7pm in Sydney.

 

Can you do that Bioware? Give us an explanation why the West continues to bear the brunt of maintenance windows, even though by all accounts, in the East and in Europe, servers return to operation during non-peak hours.

 

Or, alternatively, since you insist on the West bearing the full brunt on maintenace times, how about offering pro-rated subscription rates to compensate?

 

Or better yet, how about regional maintenance, so this can be a non-issue? Other MMOs do regional maintenace, so as to not inconvience their customers, so why not you as well?

[ZombieKittens]

I share this frustration.

[Distracted]

Sydney, Australia: 3pm - 7pm?

 

You got that wrong by several hours.

[Nonameavailable]

I totally agree with this post. I live in Vancouver and have been an active MMO gamer for over 10 years. NEVER have I ever played an MMO where the weekly server outages are at peak times in my time zone.

 

2am PST seems to have worked for all the other games, why does this one need to have Midnight as the shutdown time? Gamers play in the evening, not in the morning.

 

Also, the twice a week shutdowns are becoming more and more common. BAD!

 

Bioware, great game, I wish I could play it a bit more. Responding to the OPs questions and comments would be a good start.

[Staavis_SC]

You got that wrong by several hours.

 

Not according to this:

 

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converted.html?month=5&day=1&year=2012&hour=22&min=0&sec=0&p1=221&p2=240

 

10pm in Oregon, equates to 3pm in Sydney.

[Distracted]

Gamers play in the evening, not in the morning..

 

I know this might come as a shock to you, but not everyone works 9am-5pm. Lots of people worldwide work nights.

I won't delve much in to the fact that most 'Hardcore Gamers' don't even have jobs.

[Tahana]

You got that wrong by several hours.

 

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converted.html?month=5&day=1&year=2012&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&p1=1986&p2=240

[Tiek]

i thought the normal maint time was 2am pst

[Distracted]

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converted.html?month=5&day=1&year=2012&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&p1=1986&p2=240

 

I should've read the part about the changed maintenance times

[HectorJ]

So can I /sign for 2am PST shutdowns.

If you look at the servers right now 10:16am PST, nearly every single one is low-medium population. That is definitely not peak hours. 2:00-6:00 am, that is a win right there.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Moitteva
Removed IC/"retarded"

[Al_Sparagus]

Can't please everyone, they have maintenance at non peak times on the servers.....if that is during you play time, sorry for you but the fact is you are in the minority.

[Andymantium]

We talking about the 2-hour maintenance window shift today?

[kitsinni]

It is because you guys have sunshine and can "theoretically" go outside and do stuff.

[Tahana]

I should've read the part about the changed maintenance times

 

I read it.. and you were wrong for what you posted and I quoted.

 

I don't agree with the OP on what he is demanding, but you were just being an ***. I clearly know why maintenance was pushed back those two hours.. Because it is a holiday in Germany and Bioware moved the time up since it is a national holiday.

[Staavis_SC]

i thought the normal maint time was 2am pst

 

It used to be, back in December around launch.

 

Then, they moved it to Midnight Pacific.

 

Now, we've had (2) 10pm shutdowns in about 3 weeks time.

 

And as someone pointed out above, we've had (2) shutdowns per week, for the last 2-3 weeks as well.

 

The West Coast, and Australia / New Zealand have lost alot of time with this game recently, and our explanation is so London can be back online at 10am? Or New York at 5am?

 

That just seems very odd to me.

[smilefunk]

We talking about the 2-hour maintenance window shift today?

 

we can only hope the op ingorance of this fact is what prompted the post

[Calsetes]

I only play between the hours of 1 AM and 5 AM in New York City, and I am OUTRAGED THEY DO NOT MEET MY TIMEFRAME IN WHICH TO PLAY!!!!!!!!

 

 

The truth of the matter is, no matter when you do maintenance, someone gets the short end of the stick. People who live in Time Zone X, or people who work Shift Y, or people who's only time to play is during Timeframe Z. Until they somehow work out a way to just "magic" the server maintenance in five minutes (at which point someone will still complain because "it's the middle of their raid time!!!!") then someone's getting shafted. That's just the nature of the beast.

 

I was in a closed beta for PSO2 last week. I didn't have much time to play it myself, because when I was able to play it, was usually during maintenance time for them. They're a Japanese company, working with a Japanese clock, and I'm an American. It happens. Were it a once a week maintenance, I'd be happy with it. Given it was a beta, and maintenance was daily, then that's just how it worked out.

[terminova]

I don't see it as the West Coast paying a price because no matter what the servers will go down for a few hours once a week. If one cannot deal with that, then the problem isn't the maintenance times. For the record, I'm on the West Coast and have no issues with the maintenance times.

[Staavis_SC]

It is because you guys have sunshine and can "theoretically" go outside and do stuff.

 

You obviously don't live in Oregon.

 

1) We don't have sunshine. Instead, we have biblical rainfall, especialy in Winter and Spring.

 

2) The sun set at 8:18pm last night. 10pm is pitch black.

 

Only things active at 10pm are barking dogs and burglars.

[thomasgallant]

You obviously don't live in Oregon.

 

1) We don't have sunshine. Instead, we have biblical rainfall, especialy in Winter and Spring.

 

2) The sun set at 8:18pm last night. 10pm is pitch black.

 

Only things active at 10pm are barking dogs and burglars.

 

So go out burgling with a dog?

[Durban_Monkey]

It used to be, back in December around launch.

 

Then, they moved it to Midnight Pacific.

 

Now, we've had (2) 10pm shutdowns in about 3 weeks time.

 

And as someone pointed out above, we've had (2) shutdowns per week, for the last 2-3 weeks as well.

 

The West Coast, and Australia / New Zealand have lost alot of time with this game recently, and our explanation is so London can be back online at 10am? Or New York at 5am?

 

That just seems very odd to me.

 

what your missing is that swtor does maintenance on all the servers at the same time. not like the popular mmo that shall not be named had two maintenance windows (One day for the US, and One day for Europe). and these downtimes were from like 2am to roughly 9am local time.

[ZombieClownz]

So a few weeks back, I predicted that we would be seeing Maintenance windows moved up again, and last night's maintenance proved my projection was correct.

 

Here was my prophecy:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=3821337&postcount=62

 

The question is, why does the West Coast, and more importantly, Oceanica, have to keep bearing the brunt of maintenance windows, to benefit non-peak play times for Europe and the East Coast?

 

Let's look at these maintenance windows.

 

10pm - 2am (Pacific Daylight Time) is the equivalent of the following:

 

Sydney, Australia: 3pm - 7pm

Austin, Texas: 12am - 4am

New York City, New York: 1am - 5am

London, England: 6am - 10am

 

So, the time the servers return to operating is:

 

7pm Australia

4am Texas

5am New York

10am London

 

I would like someone from Bioware to provide me with hard numbers which prove that there are in fact more people playing and active at 10am in London, than there are a 10pm in Seattle, Portland and LA, or even at 7pm in Sydney.

 

Can you do that Bioware? Give us an explanation why the West continues to bear the brunt of maintenance windows, even though by all accounts, in the East and in Europe, servers return to operation during non-peak hours.

 

Or, alternatively, since you insist on the West bearing the full brunt on maintenace times, how about offering pro-rated subscription rates to compensate?

 

Or better yet, how about regional maintenance, so this can be a non-issue? Other MMOs do regional maintenace, so as to not inconvience their customers, so why not you as well?

 

 

First world problems at its finest (most loathsome). Crying over a video game's late night down times for maintenance.

[terminova]

You obviously don't live in Oregon.

 

1) We don't have sunshine. Instead, we have biblical rainfall, especialy in Winter and Spring.

 

Italy and Florida get hard rains, we get sprinkles by comparison.

[Helvectius]

Not according to this:

 

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converted.html?month=5&day=1&year=2012&hour=22&min=0&sec=0&p1=221&p2=240

 

10pm in Oregon, equates to 3pm in Sydney.

 

You really cant see? Lets make it easy, the UK is the conter of world time due to GMT being 0, australia is +12 being half way around the world, and coming back gives the other 12 making 24hrs... Try your maths again where there at 15hrs differance from UK--->Aus time...

[Staavis_SC]

what your missing is that swtor does maintenance on all the servers at the same time. not like the popular mmo that shall not be named had two maintenance windows (One day for the US, and One day for Europe). and these downtimes were from like 2am to roughly 9am local time.

 

I'm not missing that.

 

I'm pointing out that if you live West of the Rockies, in Alaska, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands, Australia, New Zealand, etc. the maintenance time is not exactly ideal.

 

And it seems that while it is not ideal for the West, the time the servers come back up for East of the Rockies, England, Germany, etc. isn't exactly a peak time.

 

So, why is the West (and Pacific Ocean timezones) being cutoff early, to bring servers back online at a time hardly anyone is playing them in the East and Europe?