Why does the West keep paying the price?

[Chindi]

Dear OP. If you'd used the time spent making that post for playing the game instead, you could have made up for all that lost playtime

[Prester-John]

Having servers back up by 7pm is absolutely brilliant. I think the timing is great.

[Adderdin]

Well well well americans complaining about global maintenance times... thought I would not live to see that day.

 

When we Europeans have been asking for seperate maintenance times you told us to suck it up because the service is global and servers are taken down globally, and the time is picked because almost nobody plays at that time.

 

The tables have turned and here we are... SUCK IT UP fuzz ball.

[XFrOzEnX]

Why is the east, east?

 

 

/thread

[HeavensAgent]

I can't see it ever being staggered due to the various regional servers all being accessed from the same client. The patch would have to go up for the first downtime, say Europe for example, but everyone around the world would be downloading it as soon as they log on no matter what server they play on. What would happen when someone from the US logs on, downloads the patch then tries to play on their US server that isn't due for it's maintenance to apply that patch to those particular servers for another 4 hours? Chances are it wouldn't be pretty.

I understand the concerns, but the fact remains the developers are investigating ways of making staggered maintenance a possibility.

[Staavis_SC]

I'll skip the part where I mention how egotistical you sound in the OP, Nostradamus, but if you took a second to check out the information available, this one maintenance was shifted because it was a holiday in Europe (i.e., you're wrong about it being non-peak there).

 

They know how many people play. If shifting one maintenance a couple hours meant more people got to play than would have at the normal time, they did the right thing.

 

So you actually believe that there are more people active at 8am or 10am in London, than there are at 10pm in Vancouver BC, Honolulu, Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, San Diego, San Fransisco and Los Angeles? Or at Mid-Afternoon to Early Evening in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Perth?

 

I know London and the UK were once considered the "Center of the World" during the height of the British Empire, but times have changed. 10pm is a pretty active time for the West Coast, Hawaii, Alaska and British Columbia. Additionally, the mid-afternoon to early evening window in Australia and New Zealand is likely busier as well, than early morning across the pond.

[Zhiroc]

I happen to be on the East coast, so usually get the best downtimes since we're smack in the middle. But just to reiterate:

 

Staggered downtimes:

 

We don't know their infrastructure. I could easily envision that they have some sort of shared backend service that feeds all the server groups (who knows, maybe the item databases in each geo are just "caches" aka mirrors of the "one true" DB somewhere). Something like this would make staggered downtimes difficult, maybe impossible.

 

It would also complicate client updates. They'd have to make sure that clients don't update until they are meant to. And handle cases where people play outside their geo. Complication adds risk, and risk turns into bugs sooner or later. Remember when they blew a build just after 1.2? Errors of that sort are the risk.

 

Earlier downtimes:

 

12am US Central is not the norm, and yes, it does cut into West coast prime time. But there's been reasons for the two recent cases. 2am CT or 12am PT is a reasonable time, when you weigh it against the fact that Europe is 8 - 10 or more hours ahead of Pacific. Unfortunately, there's no way to accommodate the entire world with a single downtime, so yeah, the Pacrim always gets it.

 

If anyone thinks that BW is doing 2am CT for the benefit of their workers.... they must have pretty strange workers If the deployment team is in the US, they are working some pretty bad hours on an ongoing basis.

 

As for "other games":

 

Eve Online has been going down for maintenance DAILY since it launched (2003?) at 11 am UTC (if I recall). Luckily, it seems from what I hear to be down to an hour or so, but back when I played, it was more like 3. In that light, I have nothing to complain about

[Staavis_SC]

Ok, so here we are, the 3rd downtime of the week (EDIT: apparently not, I guess they cancelled last night's maintenance) and I have to wonder when I'm actually going to be able to play again.

 

To deal with these Midnight shutdowns, I got into the habit of not playing at all on those nights. What's the point of logging on to play for 30 minutes (or less) afterall, just to have the server shutdown.

 

So, I didn't play Monday. Then, Tuesday, the announce an emergency patch. I didn't play Tuesday either. Now, I go to log on tonight, and what do I find? ANOTHER UNSCHEDULED SHUTDOWN!!!! (EDIT: Apparently at the last minute last night, they didn't shut down)

 

I'm getting kinda tired of this. I don't pay money out to NOT play a game!

 

And the West Coast and Oceanica taking the brunt of EVERY shutdown, is ridiculous, and Im getting sick of that too.

 

Get it together Bioware. Before people get fed up.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Staavis_SC

[Nightfalll]

Heres the sad thing..........BIO KNOWS HOW WE FEEL ABOUT THIS TOPIC, YET THEY DO NOTHING...

 

To 'give in' is to admit they are wrong..........And god forbid, Bio does that.......

 

 

 

Its really getting sad here. I came back to give them a second chance, and they just keep screwing up time and time again.....Its getting to be regoddamndiculous..........

 

 

Its like BIO IS THE THREE STOOGES OF MMO DEV COMPANIES................NYUCK NYUCK NYUCK

[funktion]

agree 100%

[Staavis_SC]

Heres the sad thing..........BIO KNOWS HOW WE FEEL ABOUT THIS TOPIC, YET THEY DO NOTHING...

 

To 'give in' is to admit they are wrong..........And god forbid, Bio does that.......

 

 

 

Its really getting sad here. I came back to give them a second chance, and they just keep screwing up time and time again.....Its getting to be regosh darndiculous..........

 

 

Its like BIO IS THE THREE STOOGES OF MMO DEV COMPANIES................NYUCK NYUCK NYUCK

 

Hard to argue with that.

 

The fact they know how we feel, and still continue to do this anyways, is probably the most galling. And how many times has split maintenance been asked for? Yet, they still won't consider it?

 

/facepalm

[LSky]

Hard to argue with that.

 

The fact they know how we feel, and still continue to do this anyways, is probably the most galling. And how many times has split maintenance been asked for? Yet, they still won't consider it?

 

/facepalm

 

You know why they don't care? Because it's a few forums posts made by whiny children on the internets. Everyone who pays a subscription fee to play an MMO knows in advance that there will be times that the server goes down. They can't possibly make everyone happy at the same time so you are just going to have to deal with it, just like I do, when the servers went down just when I was beginning to play today (the day just started here). If you can't deal with these inconveniences, then perhaps you should just unsubscribe altogether. Your presence will probably not be missed.

 

By the way, what happened to your projections about maintenance times? At what time (PST) did the servers go down?

[Lovia]

You cant please everyone.

[Staavis_SC]

You cant please everyone.

 

No, but you could certainly make an attempt.

 

Euro Downtime (2am London)

US Downtime (2am Los Angeles)

Oceanic Downtime (2am Sydney)

 

Make it 2am in each of the above stated regions, and you'll see the hate drop to reasonable levels.

 

Of course, don't try telling that to some people like the poster above you. To posters like them, the answer is to keep screwing people over on a weekly basis until any good will for this game is gone.

[Gerandar]

Someone will get "screwed" out of playing time no matter what. its an american based company why are you surprised they pick times that are better for north america?

 

No, but you could certainly make an attempt.

 

Euro Downtime (2am London)

US Downtime (2am Los Angeles)

Oceanic Downtime (2am Sydney)

 

Make it 2am in each of the above stated regions, and you'll see the hate drop to reasonable levels.

 

Of course, don't try telling that to some people like the poster above you. To posters like them, the answer is to keep screwing people over on a weekly basis until any good will for this game is gone.

 

 

Why would it have to go off London? and Los Angeles? and Sydney? why not the other timezones in the countries in question? it is not fair to them that way.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Gerandar

[Staavis_SC]

Someone will get "screwed" out of playing time no matter what. its an american based company why are you surprised they pick times that are better for north america?

 

Let's clarify, it's better for the Central and East Coast time zones of North America. Oh, and Europe.

 

But anyone West of the Rockies (Which includes Alaska, Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand) get screwed.

 

Why would it have to go off London? and Los Angeles? and Sydney? why not the other timezones in the countries in question? it is not fair to them that way.

 

It wouldn't particularly have to be based on thos cities (although for the US, using 2am Los Angeles makes the most sense) but the point was to use a real dead time in each of these locations.

Edited May 10, 2012 by Staavis_SC

[Decrepid]

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.

 

Actually it is wrong. I can tell you that in New Zealand for example the servers are not back up until 11pm ... about the time I head to bed for work the next day. I can also tell you that with Sydney being on the east coast the time difference is two hours (depending on when NZ goes into or out of day light savings) so around 9pm for Sydney.

 

So your not the only one in one particular country affected by downtimes by any stretch of the imagination.

 

A time that is convenient for one is not for the other and so on. So ask yourself this question .... what time is best for "everyone"???

 

Downtimes are for now a reality so honestly what is the point in making a big song and dance about it?

[darth_lopez]

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

 

Does anyone notice that Australias Time Zone is Wrong? It says EST (eastern standard time (or EDT in summer)) which runs through the Americas Not Australia. Is this a localized timezone relative to australia? or is this just an Error on the site? or are there multiple ESTs? what is this exactly. Because i've always seen localized time zones done like CEST (Central Europe Summer Time) or something like that. never just a lone EST.

[Staavis_SC]

A time that is convenient for one is not for the other and so on. So ask yourself this question .... what time is best for "everyone"???

 

Easy.

 

A regional time for each of the 3 major regions.

 

One for Oceanic.

One for the US.

One for Europe.

 

Case closed.

[Bequin]

From the fly over states, we salute you! There located in a central time-zone state. Get over it. I think the very same thing every time I go to LA, why do these strange western people have there clocks back two hours, they should use central time. But then again, when the world ends we will blaze a path of glory for you and give you 2 hours warning!

[Staavis_SC]

Does anyone notice that Australias Time Zone is Wrong? It says EST (eastern standard time (or EDT in summer)) which runs through the Americas Not Australia. Is this a localized timezone relative to australia? or is this just an Error on the site? or are there multiple ESTs? what is this exactly. Because i've always seen localized time zones done like CEST (Central Europe Summer Time) or something like that. never just a lone EST.

 

According to my phone, it is 1:30am here on the West Coast. My phone is telling me it is 6:30pm in Sydney Australia.

 

That is a 7 hour difference, which matches the site listed, when adjusted for American Daylight Savings Time.

[darth_lopez]

Easy.

 

A regional time for each of the 3 major regions.

 

One for Oceanic.

One for the US.

One for Europe.

 

Case closed.

 

You realize then that the situation (assuming you live in the US) would not change? The majority of us run ES(D)T and CS(D)T as well Central and Eastern Make up 2/3-3/4ths of the Country. And combined probably have the largest Population (idk the math for sure all i know is we tend to be more Urbanized than alot of the states that rely on PS(D)T we also have More of the larger cities in the country)

It would still be 2 or 3 in the morning ES(D)T before maintanence begins. placing you at the general equivalent (11 or 12 depending on when the maintanence actually starts today it was 3 so i'm going with 3) So yeah... Not much would change. I'm all for Regional Maintanence divided by country but PST folks still get teh short end of teh stick.

[darth_lopez]

According to my phone, it is 1:30am here on the West Coast. My phone is telling me it is 6:30pm in Sydney Australia.

 

That is a 7 hour difference, which matches the site listed, when adjusted for American Daylight Savings Time.

 

Yeah well i'm not talking about the Number just the Marker the Time Zone Abbreviation is wrong (at least according to wiki) the number is spot on. I'm more or less confused as to why it's marking it EST instead of AEST or something.

[Decrepid]

Easy.

 

A regional time for each of the 3 major regions.

 

One for Oceanic.

One for the US.

One for Europe.

 

Case closed.

 

Are you expecting Bioware to work 24 hours a day to facilitate this?? Becoz for it to be acceptable to me asia pacific would have to be down while I am at work which is when the other side of the world is asleep and I'm sure there will be timing issues with Europe as well once again raising the issue of an acceptable time for "all" in each region.

 

But all that aside Im affected just like you are since I play on the US servers coz there is less lag than on the asia pacific servers ... im just gratfull they no longer have maintenance on Fridays but hey gaming takes a back seat to beers with the boys and girls anyway

[Staavis_SC]

You realize then that the situation (assuming you live in the US) would not change? The majority of us run ES(D)T and CS(D)T as well Central and Eastern Make up 2/3-3/4ths of the Country. And combined probably have the largest Population (idk the math for sure all i know is we tend to be more Urbanized than alot of the states that rely on PS(D)T we also have More of the larger cities in the country)

It would still be 2 or 3 in the morning ES(D)T before maintanence begins. placing you at the general equivalent (11 or 12 depending on when the maintanence actually starts today it was 3 so i'm going with 3) So yeah... Not much would change. I'm all for Regional Maintanence divided by country but PST folks still get teh short end of teh stick.

 

And why wouldn't they run it at 2am Pacific? That's 5am Eastern, which means the servers would be back up at 9am Eastern (6am Pacific) which is plenty early for the "morning play" crowd.

 

Taking the US servers down at 12am Pacific, doesn't really benefit anyone else in the US, because the return to "Live" status would be at a completely odd hour.