SoD_MaN Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 An open letter and challenge to EA/BIOWARE First and foremost: 1. I love the game! (When the servers are up) 2. You have done a great job at making it a VERY enjoyable playing experience! (When the servers are up) 3. The content evolution has been great so far, keep it up! (When the servers are up) 4. I have never wanted to pay monthly for any game/game service before and I do want to continue doing so with this game! (When the servers are up) Losing Customers: 1. The one thing that is going to kill this awesome game and run off some good people that are good paying customers is DOWNTIME! 2. The complete lack of response to feedback by Asia Pacific customers and the other customers that regularly play during the hours when these maintenance windows occur. 3. Time to step it up Bioware. Diablo 3 launches in 5 days. (I am not personally a fan of the series, but every gamer I know is) As far as I have seen it is not an MMO, but it is going to eat away a massive amount of customers for at least a little while. The NOW Solution: 1. Keep the Public Test Server on a COMPLETELY different schedule. Run 2 if needed to handle the load of players during downtimes. Update/Patch/Maintain that/those server(s) 3-10 days before doing anything on the main servers. 1a. You will find that more people play on them more often if they are up during main server downtime. 1b. You will find more problems more quickly when you let people play on them during main server downtimes. 2. Make the maintenance window at a completely different time. So not only is the Test Server down on a different day, but at a different time. Maybe 12 hours different. 2pm Central instead of 2am Central. 2a. Refer to 1a. 2b. Refer to 1b. The Future Solution: 1. Divide all servers into 2 groups. Group A and Group B (for customer service reasons). 2. Have maintenance for Group A servers the same as they are now, weekly on Tuesday at 2am Central. Have maintenance for Group B 24 hours later. Weekly on Wednesday at 2am Central. 3 You can divide the 2 groups as just every other server, or East coast + Asia Pacific and West coast. The Ultimate Solution: 1. A combination of both solutions. 2. A separate time for each time zones set of servers. 2am LOCAL time instead of a global 2am Central. 3. This insures that there is always AT LEAST ONE server that people can play on! Everyone wins!!! In Conclusion: 1. I am sure you have employees that are sick to death of people complaining about downtimes. 2. I KNOW there are customers that are sick to death of the game being offline. 3. If you keep things the way they are, then the customers are going to continue leaving in masses. 4. Make these changes/fixes and you will keep what I believe is a GREAT GAME running strong with a VERY large fan base for MANY years to come. Thank you for your time! -----The SWTOR community Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razdek Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 While you have valid points... You cant say you speak for everyone because not everyone will agree with you. "i speak for myself and others who feel the same way" Kinda sick of the everyone, end of the argument, the indefinite answer threads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNevet Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 maybe, but I don't think there are very many people who would argue that these are bad suggestions. imho, --the swtor community sig can stand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkwingDK Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 An open letter and challenge to EA/BIOWARE *snip* 1. Keep the Public Test Server on a COMPLETELY different schedule. Run 2 if needed to handle the load of players during downtimes. Update/Patch/Maintain that/those server(s) 3-10 days before doing anything on the main servers. 1a. You will find that more people play on them more often if they are up during main server downtime. 1b. You will find more problems more quickly when you let people play on them during main server downtimes. 2. Make the maintenance window at a completely different time. So not only is the Test Server down on a different day, but at a different time. Maybe 12 hours different. 2pm Central instead of 2am Central. 2a. Refer to 1a. 2b. Refer to 1b. *snip* Bioware take note. There are wise words here. If the patches where really tested before they went live, a LOT of the frustration about downtimes could be completely avoided. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JakkFrost Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 (edited) maybe, but I don't think there are very many people who would argue that these are bad suggestions. imho, --the swtor community sig can stand No, see, you're speaking for the whole community on everything, including your "First and Foremost" subsection. Not everybody loves the game or the content evolution, yet, but they like it enough that they're sticking with it due to brand loyalty, either to BW or Star Wars, for now at least. Next we have the group of people like me who, for various reasons, live in North America but aren't awake or simply can't play during NA prime time. Myself, (and I'm sure there are other like me, though relatively few), I have messed up circadian rhythms, and I tend to be awake more in the wee hours of the night. Others work certain hours, and prefer to stay awake during the night, or wake up very early, during the hours when maintenance takes place. For us, it often would be more ideal if the maintenance were done during normal prime time. because the other hours of the day we're awake are used for RL stuff. Note: playing on the PTS during downtime doesn't count because, essentially, playing on the PTS doesn't count. That playtime doesn't go towards my legacy or my credits saved or anything else on the live servers. Speaking for myself, I understand that that would not be acceptable to the majority of players, though I can't speak for other players with similar unusual hours. However, on the above points, we may be in the minority, but we're part of the SWTOR community, and you're certainly not speaking for us in every point of your post. The point of that whole ramble is, even though some of your ideas are good ones, you can never, ever, take it upon yourself to say you speak for the whole community unless a fully democratic vote were to take place, with every subscriber given the chance to vote, and you were elected to speak for all of us. [edited due to lack of reading skills] Edited May 10, 2012 by JakkFrost Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNevet Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 (edited) You should probably read the posts before beginning your circular argument. You clearly didn't. Edited May 10, 2012 by TheNevet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JakkFrost Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 (edited) You should probably read the posts before beginning your circular argument. You clearly didn't. Whoops, you're right, I thought I read it all, I must have zoned out or something, my bad. The basic validity of my point still stands though. Nobody has the right, no matter how good their ideas, to claim they speak for the whole community. Edited May 10, 2012 by JakkFrost Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenirath Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Whoops, you're right, I thought I read it all, I must have zoned out or something, my bad. The basic validity of my point still stands though. Nobody has the right, no matter how good their ideas, to claim they speak for the whole community. I however have the right and the arrogance to speak for the whole community when I say this. Star Wars the Old Republic will henceforth be know as the best Star wars MMO that wasn't named SWG Pre-NGE. But in all seriousness, Good ideas and I have another. Reduce Server Amounts by 50% merge server populations. Increase Server Pop Limits By 50% to compensate. Increase Planet Pops to allow everyone in one instance No matter how many. (To a certain degree scaling to planet size) This would quell 2 things, Server Population whining and people saying the game feels empty because they arent tripping over each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeavensAgent Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Bioware take note. There are wise words here. If the patches where really tested before they went live, a LOT of the frustration about downtimes could be completely avoided.They are also impossible to follow at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Chop Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 best solution is oe already used by eve online. have the downtime everyday for 30-60 minutes this sounds annoying but it works well somtimes there is nothing to be done so the server just reset and its back up in 10 mins and othertimes there is unimpotant changes to b made to a patch at last minute however they dont delay the time they just wait untill the following day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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