Uptime Percentages for Oz (based off AEST times)

[FourTwent]

Lets say I'm an East Coast Australian who works a regular 9-5 job & play SWTOR a lot during my free time.

 

Mon-Fri Work 9am - 5pm, get home at 6pm, play SWTOR from 6pm-11pm, eat & go to bed, getup at 7am & go to work. Repeat. That's 5 hours playing SWTOR a night.

 

Sat-Sun: I spend all my "work time" playing, so 8 hours a day of SWTOR, and the other 8 hours doing the "general living tasks" like mowing the lawn I couldn't fit into the week due to my heavy schedule of SWTOR.

 

That's 5x5 + 2x8 = 25 + 16 = 41 hours a week of SWTOR. Hey, we're dedicated, k?

 

Lets throw in maintenance though. It lasts 5pm-9pm, so that overlaps 3 hours of the play time. Then lets calculate it based off the number of maintenances per week:

 

Regular tuesday maintenance #1 knocks 3hrs / 41hrs = 7.3% of my playtime out.

Maintenance #2: 6hrs / 41hrs = 14.6% of playtime is removed.

Maintenance #3: 9hrs / 41hrs = 21.95% of weekly playtime is gone

If they do it, Maintenance #4 will be: 12hrs / 41hrs = 29.27% of weekly playtime is gone

 

---

 

In conclusion: Are you intending to refund 20% of my access payment for this week?

 

Also, most people probably aren't as dedicated as my hypothetical guy. Getting 41 hours of SWTOR in a week is rather enthusiastic.

 

If you shut down a non-fanatic just won't bother logging in that night. Which means 41 hours of play gets turned into 26 hours of play (41-3x5), which means that this week the game's only online for them ~60% of the time they could reasonably play (26/41).

 

60% practical uptime for a casual player is beyond disgraceful.

 

I think Bioware needs to look up what a "persistent world" is. It doesn't matter how perfectly you eventually fix problems if the servers are constantly offline being improved. When a game is offline, it's totally unplayable, which is pretty much the ultimate definition of "broken".

 

Lets say you have a life and can think of dozens of other things to do while the developers are WORKING to make the game better

 

but seriously, this topic shows up in SOOOO many mmo forums its pathetic. and coming from someone who works at night. it is kinda annoying when i can't play after i finish working. but you have no right to ask for a refund. its kind of pathetic

 

edit - i love how you bolded the word 'causal' but say you play 5 hours a day. casual is maybe 1 hour a day, probably closer to 5 hours a week

Edited June 29, 2012 by FourTwent

[Lakhesis]

Hey buddy.

 

You can't take YOUR total hours available and make it the maximum uptime. That's...incorrect. You can't take 41 hours and say thats the max uptime as server max uptime is considered 24 hour a day, 7 days a week.

 

So first, your math is wrong. I don't care if that's your "available play hours".

 

The truth is the server in a month is usually up around 96% of the time if not more. That's industry standard. Get over it. You are just a paying customer like the rest of us and Bioware hasn't done anything wrong here. If they had, I would be on your side.

 

Those are not my available hours. I work shift.

 

Those are an attempt at a reasonable estimate of potential playtime for someone who works 9-5 AEST (e.g. an average of an Asia region customer). NZ or Singaporean hours will be slightly different. Daytime EU & late night US players will be slightly different. But the primary timezone of the "average worker" in the Asia region servers is the simplest general approximation to underline my point. Late night US players actually have it the worst.. it's not like they can do much else but play games at that time of night.

 

3 maintenances in a week is too much & has an exaggerated effect on many player schedules, even if it is only a small number of hours in any given day/week/month/year. "When?" is just as significant a question as "how long?"

 

If Bioware randomly hauls down the servers for extra unscheduled maintenances for reasons as absurd as tonight's, then Bioware's management priorities are absolutely at fault. An augment fix? seriously? that couldn't have been done last night or, better yet, left till tuesday?

 

Stop, read tonight's patch notes, remember that tonight's patch started at 7pm on Friday night in (eastern) Australia and weigh it up the priorities those facts demonstrate.

 

If you're honest about what constitutes a reasonable standard of service & genuinely consider the matter, then I expect that you would absolutely be on "my side".

 

PS. Although frankly I'd like to think I don't have a side. I like this game. I'd like to play this game, I wouldn't be unhappy otherwise. What I'd like is for Bioware to acknowledge that their scheduling & prioritisation is making them look incompetent & negligent, and then I'd like them to sort themselves out & get onto a regular maintenance schedule which embodies better quality control & fewer rushed solutions.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Lakhesis

[Liquidacid]

Stop, read tonight's patch notes, remember that tonight's patch started at 7pm on Friday night in (eastern) Australia and weigh it up the priorities those facts demonstrate.

 

OMG you couldn't play from 7 pm to 8:30 pm.... what a traumatic experience it must have been...

[Lakhesis]

OMG you couldn't play from 7 pm to 8:30 pm.... what a traumatic experience it must have been...

 

Apparently nowhere near as traumatic as some augment slots from old crit crafted gear not being fully swappable until tuesday.

 

Thank god that greater problem was solved.

 

And now on to solving world peace. I vote we confiscate all butter knives. Those things can be dangerous if someone's emotionally unstable and are clearly a major potential problem in maintaining peace. Bioware'll probably be with me, sounds on par with their priority system - who else agrees?

Edited June 29, 2012 by Lakhesis

[Kothe]

Lets throw in maintenance though. It lasts 5pm-9pm, so that overlaps 3 hours of the play time. Then lets calculate it based off the number of maintenances per week:

 

Regular tuesday maintenance #1 knocks 3hrs / 41hrs = 7.3% of my playtime out.

Maintenance #2: 6hrs / 41hrs = 14.6% of playtime is removed.

Maintenance #3: 9hrs / 41hrs = 21.95% of weekly playtime is gone

If they do it, Maintenance #4 will be: 12hrs / 41hrs = 29.27% of weekly playtime is gone

 

---

 

In conclusion: Are you intending to refund 20% of my access payment for this week?

 

60% practical uptime for a casual player is beyond disgraceful.

 

I think Bioware needs to look up what a "persistent world" is. It doesn't matter how perfectly you eventually fix problems if the servers are constantly offline being improved. When a game is offline, it's totally unplayable, which is pretty much the ultimate definition of "broken".

 

Not trying to troll as I get that you are upset about not being able to play because BW only sorta knows what they are doing but... I am surprised you didn't point out the rest of the math:

 

15 per month. 15/4 is 3.75 per week. And you want 20% of the weekly fee refunded. 3.75 * .2 is .75. So you want them to refund you 0.75? Really?

 

If someone else already pointed this out...sorry, I didn't read the whole thread.

 

Again, I get it, you want to play the game and plan to do so. I would be just as annoyed....but I would find something else to do.

[Lakhesis]

Not trying to troll as I get that you are upset about not being able to play because BW only sorta knows what they are doing but... I am surprised you didn't point out the rest of the math:

 

15 per month. 15/4 is 3.75 per week. And you want 20% of the weekly fee refunded. 3.75 * .2 is .75. So you want them to refund you 0.75? Really?

 

If someone else already pointed this out...sorry, I didn't read the whole thread.

 

Again, I get it, you want to play the game and plan to do so. I would be just as annoyed....but I would find something else to do.

 

lol - very true.

 

In reality I have no interest in a refund. I'm happy to pay for a good service, and I like most of what Bioware is trying to do with this game.

 

I just have very limited time for obvious foolishness & their task prioritisation strikes me as obviously foolish. All points I raise are an attempt to outline & emphasise precisely how absurd it is.

 

I find it particularly upsetting because these sort of management decisions show a team that isn't sticking to an established, coherent, sensible game plan. When the same mistakes get repeated over & over again (e.g. extra unscheduled problem solving), it's a sign of a bad system and a management team that's not successfully fixing their internal problems.

 

I see too many companies stuff up because when the going gets tough they shut out the 'messy organisational stuff' & focus on micro-managing today's technical problem, when the real issue they need to fix is the approach that caused today's problem (and yesterday's, and the day before's, etc). "Flexible, time-oriented development scheduling" is another way of saying "making it up as we go along". It's the sign of a team that's overwhelmed & handling it badly - quite possibly refusing to even admit it.

 

It's extremely depressing & frustrating for me to see a company I'd dearly like to succeed stuff up so badly, obviously & regularly. I want to support them, but I also don't want to witness another organisational train-wreck.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Lakhesis

[Arkerus]

Those are not my available hours. I work shift.

 

Those are an attempt at a reasonable estimate of potential playtime for someone who works 9-5 AEST (e.g. an average of an Asia region customer). NZ or Singaporean hours will be slightly different. Daytime EU & late night US players will be slightly different. But the primary timezone of the "average worker" in the Asia region servers is the simplest general approximation to underline my point. Late night US players actually have it the worst.. it's not like they can do much else but play games at that time of night.

 

3 maintenances in a week is too much & has an exaggerated effect on many player schedules, even if it is only a small number of hours in any given day/week/month/year. "When?" is just as significant a question as "how long?"

 

If Bioware randomly hauls down the servers for extra unscheduled maintenances for reasons as absurd as tonight's, then Bioware's management priorities are absolutely at fault. An augment fix? seriously? that couldn't have been done last night or, better yet, left till tuesday?

 

Stop, read tonight's patch notes, remember that tonight's patch started at 7pm on Friday night in (eastern) Australia and weigh it up the priorities those facts demonstrate.

 

If you're honest about what constitutes a reasonable standard of service & genuinely consider the matter, then I expect that you would absolutely be on "my side".

 

PS. Although frankly I'd like to think I don't have a side. I like this game. I'd like to play this game, I wouldn't be unhappy otherwise. What I'd like is for Bioware to acknowledge that their scheduling & prioritisation is making them look incompetent & negligent, and then I'd like them to sort themselves out & get onto a regular maintenance schedule which embodies better quality control & fewer rushed solutions.

 

It doesn't matter if its your hours or just an estimate. THAT ISN'T SERVER MAX POSSIBLE UPTIME. You can't change the metric to suit your liking.

[alrun]

I remember a lot of game days given out by blizzard for faulty patches. Usually 1-3 days of game time.

 

In my eyes they did earn a lot of reputation by doing this. Made me take bugs less grievous.

 

Yes I got a free month with 1.2 - but that was not a gift for a faulty patch but to celebrate something. I don't understand why there is a PTS and there was only a single update on the PTS and the code base of both IS different. PTS did miss things that were present in 1.2.

 

So why the hell are they rolling out a something that is NOT fully tested and then rather take three days of consecutive hot-fixing instead?

 

Are the normal players the 1.x beta testers? I am used to more stability and far more polished content patches.

[Lakhesis]

It doesn't matter if its your hours or just an estimate. THAT ISN'T SERVER MAX POSSIBLE UPTIME. You can't change the metric to suit your liking.

 

It's not about total server uptime. It's about competent downtime scheduling.

 

For example, take a restaurant that's open for 5 days a week but is shut on friday and saturday. Their uptime is acceptable, but their schedule is horrible. If the restauranteurs need a break, they'd be better staying shut on monday & tuesday. Or, even better, they should only take one night off (e.g. tuesday) and shut for a couple of weeks at the start of the year when most of their customers are away on holiday.

 

Their time off would be identical, but their schedule would impact on their service availability to customers substantially less. In all situations the uptime is identical, but it's not uptime that's the business's problem.

 

I outlined the maximum plausible play time for one of Bioware's average customers in a target market, and attempted to outline why Bioware's approach to scheduling was counter-productive on levels beyond simply raw uptime. That's a very valid (albeit very rough) metric.

 

Lurching from one quick-fix unscheduled event to the next is not a coherent long term strategy, it's counter-productive to a stable customer environment, and the fact it's still ongoing 6+ months after release demonstrates significant systemic flaws within the company's approach which have yet to be properly addressed.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Lakhesis

[Tobytl]

I'm not arguing for or against your point in the next paragraph, just to be clear.

 

I just have to point out that the "augment fix" wasn't really a small or necessarily trivial bug. A decent minority (you know, those little guys that you were defending earlier in the thread) had hundreds of thousands of credits poured into gear that was essentially useless to them due to the augment slot (which is where the cost of the item came from) being unusable without spending hundreds of thousands more credits to buy MK-6 kits. I think they might see 1.3b to be a good and righteous patch (if not something that should have been caught sooner).

 

Now, to add to your point, and deviate slightly with my own little tin foil hat musings. I think it's a possibility there was a miscommunication the day before and that patch (1.3a) was going to be delayed and rolled into last night's. They did say, briefly, that wednesday's downtime was postponed, and then lolno still going down shortly after. Or not, who knows.

[Lakhesis]

Now, to add to your point, and deviate slightly with my own little tin foil hat musings. I think it's a possibility there was a miscommunication the day before and that patch (1.3a) was going to be delayed and rolled into last night's. They did say, briefly, that wednesday's downtime was postponed, and then lolno still going down shortly after. Or not, who knows.

 

Yeah, I suspect you're 100% correct. We can't know what actually happened from the outside, but it certainly presents the impression of rushing to keep it all together & then deciding to drop some elements at the last minute but push on anyway, then next day doubling-up downtimes to push the stuff they'd dropped.

 

If we're correct, that's total "make it up as we go along" territory & the fact it's a serious possibility really gets to the core of my concerns.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Lakhesis

[Raekor]

The only reason we have had both these down times is because of the holidays in the US. They basically said, "**** APac we will do it now, we ain't paying people public holiday rates to do a minor maintenance on Tuesday".

 

And you know what, it wouldn't have mattered as much taking an extra two nights of play time from us out if they had of *********** BOTHERED TO *********** TELL US WHY BEFORE HAND.

[Arlbo_Nabbins]

60% practical uptime for a casual player is beyond disgraceful..

 

Not if its a rare occurrence. Most weeks there is 1 maintenance, 3 hours out of your 41, of course for players with different play times they may not be affected at all or may be affected to a lesser degree.

 

That is an acceptable level of service.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Arlbo_Nabbins

[Annis]

Pretty sure this part of the EULA applies:

 

You acknowledge that, owing to the complexity of computer technology, as well as the nature of online games themselves and play over a global communications network outside EA’s control, EA and its licensors cannot and do not guarantee that the Software, the Game and any updates, upgrades or expansions Software will run permanently or uninterrupted on your computer. EA and its licensors are not liable for delays, system failures, system outages or difficulties, especially of a technical nature, that are due to legal restrictions or other circumstances beyond its control, including but not limited to third party criminal activity. EA also does not guarantee that the version of the Game covered by this Agreement will be playable in geographic locations where it is not available for sale at retail and/or at all times of the day and/or night.

 

The multiple downtimes are unfortunate, especially for the Aussie players. But legally, they don't owe you anything.

[Tobytl]

I remember a lot of game days given out by blizzard for faulty patches. Usually 1-3 days of game time.

 

In my eyes they did earn a lot of reputation by doing this. Made me take bugs less grievous.

 

Yes I got a free month with 1.2 - but that was not a gift for a faulty patch but to celebrate something. I don't understand why there is a PTS and there was only a single update on the PTS and the code base of both IS different. PTS did miss things that were present in 1.2.

 

So why the hell are they rolling out a something that is NOT fully tested and then rather take three days of consecutive hot-fixing instead?

 

Are the normal players the 1.x beta testers? I am used to more stability and far more polished content patches.

 

The PTS system is fundamentally flawed. There is little incentive to actually use it, and even then it's only to use a small, specific part of it. No one in their right mind would pour hours into the PTS for nothing that actually carries over into your "real" characters. I mean, why grind for gear, or try to acquire optimal mods/gear/augments for something that's not a real toon. The system is just made of disincentives to use it like a real server, which is the only way to catch some of these things.

 

I have to ask, what game are you talking about with stable and polished content patches? Certainly not WoW, where do you think almost all of the issues that caused free time to be handed out came from? From what I recall, big patches and expansions were the time to take a break from the game and give blizz the time they needed to make the game actually run again. Look at the massive downtime the cata patches caused (>24 hours on some servers) and all the rolling restarts (some of which weren't quite so "rolling").

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

Actually they do.

 

http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1023610#toc7

 

This falls under "A service that: - is substantially unfit for its common purpose and can’t be easily fixed within a reasonable time"

 

Terms of Use contracts cannot sign away consumer protections in Australia. There's a reason why Blizzard had to smile & cough up refunds en masse in Australia when they pulled this rubbish with Diablo 3.

You think you have a case? Call a lawyer and let us know how that works out for you...

 

The service is not "unfit for its common purpose" and the contract you signed up to with Bioware, which overrules what you are claiming, specifically states that they do not guarentee uptime.

 

But, as I say, let us know how that legal action turns out for you.

[Driveinns]

Wow's maintenance takes out 1 night, so lets call that 5 hours (sometimes only 4 hours of one night, but lets bias this against WoW).

 

5 / 41 = 12.2% - so the moment SWTOR runs 2 maintenances (commonplace), they're worse than WoW for any maintenance timezone player & substantially worse for the casual players cos it's 2 nights versus 1.

 

I'm unfamiliar with Rift, been a long time since I've played it, but I'm told that 2-3 30 minute maintenances are routine. Lets bias it against Rift and call it 4x 30 for simplicity's sake:

 

2 / 41 = 4.9% - so, if those downtimes are accurate, Rift is always better than SWTOR.

 

So the moment SWTOR does an extra maintenance a week, they just became the worst of the 3 big names on the market. If they could actually stick to their schedule, they'd be in the right ballpark.

 

Here is where your so called math will come a cropper my friend. WoW quite regularly goes down for 8 hours, not 4 and not 5, but eight, nearly every week. If they have just done a content patch, then there is a significant chance that they will do extra downtimes, usually somewhere between 4 to 8 hours. Sometimes 12 to 24 hours. I know these to be true as I was playing the game at these times and have personally experienced them. I remember the near 24 hour dowtime in particular.

 

This happens with patches, no matter the game. It has happened in WoW, COH, Rift, GW, Crimecraft, SWG. Many and many. It is the way of patches.

 

To the man who suggested they do it by region, well the reason that won't work is because the very second they turned off the American or European servers, then the servers still running would be flooded with the a glut of extra players, this is why it is always done at the same time, again this is an broad MMO thing.

[Lakhesis]

Here is where your so called math will come a cropper my friend. WoW quite regularly goes down for 8 hours, not 4 and not 5, but eight, nearly every week. If they have just done a content patch, then there is a significant chance that they will do extra downtimes, usually somewhere between 4 to 8 hours. Sometimes 12 to 24 hours. I know these to be true as I was playing the game at these times and have personally experienced them. I remember the near 24 hour dowtime in particular.

 

8 hours from a regular player removes 1 night's play (e.g. 5 hours they could have realistically been playing). Two maintenances of 4 hours from a regular player remove the majority of 2 nights play (e.g. 8 hours). From most normal players they'll probably remove 10 hours play, unless you're the sort of person who hovers over the login screen waiting for servers to come back up.

 

Hence more maintenances, while equal or potentially better for overall uptime, are actually worse in terms of playable uptime for the community most affected by lost uptime. You could leave the server down for 18 hours on Tuesday and it'd make no difference to the average-worker AEST player I described.

 

Regarding your comparison to WoW, double maintenances are exceptionally rare nowadays & virtually always involve fundamental server stability. Even if we go back many years to a much less stable version of WoW, I have never heard of them running an emergency maintenance purely to fix a non-game destroying item bug.

 

And to those others who are obsessed with the legal bits, under Australian law you cannot sign away basic consumer protections. You could sign away anything in an EULA, and still be protected. It'd be no more binding than a slavery contract would be in the US nowadays. It's one of the reasons that Australia is a more expensive place to do business than the US.

 

Regardless, I should not have bothered pointing that out because - while an interesting side note to a discussion on acceptable service quality - I agree entirely that legal proceedings are typically a waste of time, especially for sums of money in the $15 range.

 

What needs to happen is for Bioware to get their priorities in order, and learn to operate like a service provider rather than a software developer.

Edited June 29, 2012 by Lakhesis

[Tyrojon]

For me, the issue goes beyond "scheduled" downtime. They often overshoot their window, and not by a few minutes. By HOURS.. Plus, we have regularly experienced unscheduled downtime, such as today. This is not a cost issue. It points to incompetence in their QA/Configuration Management/Build Management people and processes. IT Professionals do it differently. First, you TEST (in multiple environments). Then you have a SMALL deployment on one or two servers (not ALL the servers). Then, if you try to deploy a maintenance build that does not work, you back it out and try again when you are more certain (after more testing) that it will work. You don't keep an entire community down while you try to figure out what went wrong.

 

This is amateurish. It is not what is expected of someone like EA/Bioware. I do not accept it. You should not accept it.

 

EA/Bioware: You are on notice. Your business model will collapse if you do not pay attention to your core mission. Keep the damn servers up. We are paying for a service but not getting near what we are paying for. People can and will walk away. Fix your operations and maintenance issues. Quickly.

[LordRichardEW]

This might fall under the bit in section 6 of the terms of service you know the bit that goes:

 

IMPORTANT: BIOWARE MAY FIND IT NECESSARY TO MAKE CHANGES TO, OR RESET CERTAIN PARAMETERS TO BALANCE GAME PLAY AND USAGE OF TOR SERVICES. THESE CHANGES OR "RESETS" MAY AFFECT CHARACTERS OR GAMES OR GROUPS UNDER YOUR CONTROL AND MAY CAUSE YOU SETBACKS WITHIN THE RELEVANT GAME WORLD. BIOWARE RESERVES THE RIGHT TO MAKE THESE CHANGES AND IS NOT LIABLE TO YOU FOR THESE CHANGES.

 

I know it does say down time but the down time comes with the changes they may find necessary to make thus falls under the bit where they are not liable to you these for change. Since you are playing they game you agreed to these terms of service thus any action you want to take against them for the down time would only prove to be a waist of money and time.

 

http://www.swtor.com/legalnotices/termsofservice

Edited October 12, 2012 by LordRichardEW

[Yogol]

You pay 15$ a month. That's 2 cents an hour. Tht's 8 cents so far.

 

Even if you loose 20% of your weekly gaming time, that would be 1 dollar.

 

A liiiiiiiiiittle perspective is a good thing to have...

[mrpayday]

You pay 15$ a month. That's 2 cents an hour. Tht's 8 cents so far.

 

Even if you loose 20% of your weekly gaming time, that would be 1 dollar.

 

A liiiiiiiiiittle perspective is a good thing to have...

 

LOL, 20% of $15 is $1?

[Tyrojon]

Yogol says:

 

You pay 15$ a month. That's 2 cents an hour. Tht's 8 cents so far.

 

Even if you loose 20% of your weekly gaming time, that would be 1 dollar.

 

A liiiiiiiiiittle perspective is a good thing to have...

 

Wrong. I pay for the convenience of spending my free time when and how I want to. The inconvenience we all suffer due to unplanned downtime will eventually outweigh the "benefits" if something does not change. I don't care what the EULA says. EA/BW needs to recognize they can't treat us like mushrooms (keep us in the dark and throw crap on us). Notice there is no mention or any indication that there was any problem today now that the servers are up. <Poof>. It never happened. Except it did and it inconvenienced me. And thousands of others.

 

My perspective is that when I pay for a service I expect a reasonable level of service to be provided. Right now EA/BW is not providing an acceptable level of service. I choose not to be a mushroom.

[Arkerus]

Yogol says:

 

 

 

Wrong. I pay for the convenience of spending my free time when and how I want to. The inconvenience we all suffer due to unplanned downtime will eventually outweigh the "benefits" if something does not change. I don't care what the EULA says. EA/BW needs to recognize they can't treat us like mushrooms (keep us in the dark and throw crap on us). Notice there is no mention or any indication that there was any problem today now that the servers are up. <Poof>. It never happened. Except it did and it inconvenienced me. And thousands of others.

 

My perspective is that when I pay for a service I expect a reasonable level of service to be provided. Right now EA/BW is not providing an acceptable level of service. I choose not to be a mushroom.

 

Guess who makes the final judgement on services rendered? YOU.

 

Man up and make a decision. If its not enough for you, quit.