Yipee maintenance

[Sparklehorse]

These threads Never get old.

[Lakhesis]

These threads Never get old.

 

Apparently unscheduled maintenance never goes out of fashion, so neither do these threads.

 

There are only three ways these threads will end:

 

1) All the people bothered by it quit playing

2) Bioware stops doing it

3) SWTOR shuts down (which is a variation on option 2 really)

 

The question is which of those options is preferable.

 

Personally, I want to see the end of my Sith Warrior's class chain & then I'm out of here. It's not worth the ongoing irritation, even if I would very much like to support an MMO with AU/NZ servers.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Lakhesis

[UltimateLemon]

Apparently unscheduled maintenance never goes out of fashion, so neither do these threads.

 

There are only three ways these threads will end:

 

1) All the people bothered by it quit playing

2) Bioware stops doing it

3) SWTOR shuts down (which is a variation on option 2 really)

 

The question is which of those options is preferable.

 

1) is happens all the time. 2) will likely to happen as soon as BW figure out how to deploy something properly tested. 3) isn't likely to happen anytime soon considering the amount of money they already spent on developing this thing.

[UltimateLemon]

None of this is really correct. Any item not attended to was merely lower on the priority list. They do not just ignore anything. LOL It would not be in their best interest.

 

The only players that they are "pissing off" are those that refuse to understand this.

 

As a software developer for almost 10 years. I can safely say that devs WILL ignore bugs and issues depending on the circumstances. Circumstances usually referring to severity and/or frequency. Usually if the frequency is low enough, even a fatal. show stopper bugs are sometime ignored.

 

Yes, you might call it "reprioritization" but infinitely pushing it down the priority list is effectively ignoring it; which happens all the time since a) you can stop development to cope with the market and b) new development adds more bugs.

[Mezla]

Actually, the "joke" is that there are still people that do not understand that maintenance and minor patches are normal every time a game, any MMORPG, patches in content.

 

Except it doesn't happen in other games and it never happened in any other game 6 months after release.

[randalthorr]

and again... this is all beside the point. Its not about the PURPOSE of having a maintenance (though have a look at the last 5 and ask yourself exactly what was so important that it required THREE hotfixes outside normal maintenance times. None of those things affected me, and they appear to have only affected a very small minority of the playerbase, so according to your logic - affect the least people - they were unnecessary if i might be so bold).

 

People UNDERSTAND the need for maintenance. Its a straw man to claim that theyre mad because maintenance exists. The main issue here is actually the poor customer service in their regard for one specific group of players. There has been absolutely no attempt to discuss the necessity of these fixes, nor has there been any significant attempt to placate this playerbase even with a small apology acknowledging that they are disproportionately having to carry the majority of the downtime and maybe even explaining why that is (workers on shift, i assume rather than "affect the least number possible - which really only applies to scheduled maintenance)).

 

Its the wall of complete silence and utter disregard (a tacit "suck it up") thats likely irking the majority. Though i shouldnt really try to put words into peoples mouths. The point though is this. If youre paying for a subscription, and you dont get to use it when you expect (within reason of course, no one asks for the gym to open especially for people who are up at 2am and fancy a workout), youll probably look for somewhere that might appreciate your cash a bit more. This is the cold hard facts of the matter. It doesnt matter if "mmo- maintenance happens noobs!". What matters is if you feel like youre not getting value for your money or more pressing, the service you PAID for. And right now, im fairly certain theres a massive number of people who are feeling that (whether you think they are right or wrong, or are simply too impatient). If they walk, it cant exactly be good for the game, can it?

 

 

+1. This message has been said over and over and yet people ignore it consistently. They see a thread, don't read what the issue being addressed is, zero in on it and exercise their capacity for smugness. Full of win.

 

I wish people would stop these moronic one line comments, saying - 'mmo patch happens.. stop moaning zzzzz... whiners get a book..zzzzz.. lolwut go to gym.' and complete moronic crap like that.

 

ITS NOT ABOUT THE MAINTENANCE, ITS ABOUT WHEN THEY DO IT. DO IT EVERYDAY IF YOU WANT, PICK A MORE SENSIBLE TIME.

 

P.S: THIS IS FOR THOSE ON OCEANIC SERVERS.

 

GETIT?! NO!??

 

/facepalm

[darthgroond]

and again... this is all beside the point. Its not about the PURPOSE of having a maintenance (though have a look at the last 5 and ask yourself exactly what was so important that it required THREE hotfixes outside normal maintenance times. None of those things affected me, and they appear to have only affected a very small minority of the playerbase, so according to your logic - affect the least people - they were unnecessary if i might be so bold).

 

People UNDERSTAND the need for maintenance. Its a straw man to claim that theyre mad because maintenance exists. The main issue here is actually the poor customer service in their regard for one specific group of players. There has been absolutely no attempt to discuss the necessity of these fixes, nor has there been any significant attempt to placate this playerbase even with a small apology acknowledging that they are disproportionately having to carry the majority of the downtime and maybe even explaining why that is (workers on shift, i assume rather than "affect the least number possible - which really only applies to scheduled maintenance)).

 

Its the wall of complete silence and utter disregard (a tacit "suck it up") thats likely irking the majority. Though i shouldnt really try to put words into peoples mouths. The point though is this. If youre paying for a subscription, and you dont get to use it when you expect (within reason of course, no one asks for the gym to open especially for people who are up at 2am and fancy a workout), youll probably look for somewhere that might appreciate your cash a bit more. This is the cold hard facts of the matter. It doesnt matter if "mmo- maintenance happens noobs!". What matters is if you feel like youre not getting value for your money or more pressing, the service you PAID for. And right now, im fairly certain theres a massive number of people who are feeling that (whether you think they are right or wrong, or are simply too impatient). If they walk, it cant exactly be good for the game, can it?

 

So do all these people who are affected the most by the maintenance expect the company to write them all a letter of apology then? I believe that every time a maintenance has been done, scheduled or otherwise, it has been finished off with a 'sorry for any inconvenience caused', such as you might see at your local shop if they nip out for lunch. They have apologised. That's what that sorry is. They've been apologising like it's going out of fashion upon the Twitter etc for servers being down. I've seen apologies all over the shop. They've also handed out a list of fixes that are being made/have been made. They cannot reach everyone individually, so they whack everything in a list and provide links to said list on this site and various other social forums. Can they really do much more as far as communication goes? Also, if they start making personal replies to questions on here, they set themselves a dangerous precedent. The forums would be filled with 'Well you answered his question, why can't you answer mine nagnagnag?' Can't please everyone, especially with this many people involved.

Maybe they should offer some recompense to those who have been affected during their peak hours. I'm sure though, that as far as legal obligation goes, it's all been covered by agreements that we've all clicked 'yes on. Should they offer a little free time or some in-game bonus for those who cannot play at peak hours, from a moral stand point? They probably should, yes. Are they under any obligation to do so? No, they are not. Maybe these people will walk, maybe they won't. This was always going to be the risk assesment that the company had to do. Do we have maintenance during peak hours for the majority of our playerbase and risk losing masses, or do we do it at the peak hours of those who count as the minority of the playerbase, and risk losses on a much lesser scale?

Also, my logic as to the whens of maintenance cannot really be applied to the whys of the maintenance. If they stand around and fix absolutely nothing, they risk losing the entire playerbase. If they chose to make thses fixes, which they have done, they need to decide on a when that is the lowest risk as far as losses goes.

People are always going to have other products they can go use, thats one of the things about consumerism. There are products to fill your needs, and there are many of them. People are always going to find a product that suits them the best. Yeah, it sucks that the minorities of any consumer base are overlooked, but it happens everywhere and if you do not like it, there are other options for you. Yes, the company is providing a service, but it will only provide that service if it is making a profit. It cannot do so if it's losing money hand over fist. That's the bottom line really. What is going to make them the biggest amount of cash, for the longest amount of time possible? As individuals, we don't matter all that much, until the individuals start to become the whole.

[ippollite]

So do all these people who are affected the most by the maintenance expect the company to write them all a letter of apology then? I believe that every time a maintenance has been done, scheduled or otherwise, it has been finished off with a 'sorry for any inconvenience caused', such as you might see at your local shop if they nip out for lunch. They have apologised. That's what that sorry is. They've been apologising like it's going out of fashion upon the Twitter etc for servers being down. I've seen apologies all over the shop. They've also handed out a list of fixes that are being made/have been made. They cannot reach everyone individually, so they whack everything in a list and provide links to said list on this site and various other social forums. Can they really do much more as far as communication goes? Also, if they start making personal replies to questions on here, they set themselves a dangerous precedent. The forums would be filled with 'Well you answered his question, why can't you answer mine nagnagnag?' Can't please everyone, especially with this many people involved.

Maybe they should offer some recompense to those who have been affected during their peak hours. I'm sure though, that as far as legal obligation goes, it's all been covered by agreements that we've all clicked 'yes on. Should they offer a little free time or some in-game bonus for those who cannot play at peak hours, from a moral stand point? They probably should, yes. Are they under any obligation to do so? No, they are not. Maybe these people will walk, maybe they won't. This was always going to be the risk assesment that the company had to do. Do we have maintenance during peak hours for the majority of our playerbase and risk losing masses, or do we do it at the peak hours of those who count as the minority of the playerbase, and risk losses on a much lesser scale?

Also, my logic as to the whens of maintenance cannot really be applied to the whys of the maintenance. If they stand around and fix absolutely nothing, they risk losing the entire playerbase. If they chose to make thses fixes, which they have done, they need to decide on a when that is the lowest risk as far as losses goes.

People are always going to have other products they can go use, thats one of the things about consumerism. There are products to fill your needs, and there are many of them. People are always going to find a product that suits them the best. Yeah, it sucks that the minorities of any consumer base are overlooked, but it happens everywhere and if you do not like it, there are other options for you. Yes, the company is providing a service, but it will only provide that service if it is making a profit. It cannot do so if it's losing money hand over fist. That's the bottom line really. What is going to make them the biggest amount of cash, for the longest amount of time possible? As individuals, we don't matter all that much, until the individuals start to become the whole.

 

Sorry, didnt get past your first line. Straw man much?

[darthgroond]

Sorry, didnt get past your first line. Straw man much?

 

Basically, they have been apologising for the maintenence throughout, but cannot feasibly reach everyone individually.

As to the whens of maintenence, it's a simple matter of risk assesment based on subscribers and the amount of money the company can make. It's all about how to make the most money for the longest amount of time possible. Profit. Without it, we end up being without product.

[UltimateLemon]

I'm sure though, that as far as legal obligation goes, it's all been covered by agreements that we've all clicked 'yes on.

 

Just so you know. EULA doesn't trump local law. This may be contentious but when a product or service is sold in a country, the law of that particular country usually applies. At least in NZ, there exists a piece of law known as Consumer Gurantees Act which stipulates reasonable expectation of service must be met. A consumer may ask for post-sale redress if the expectation is not met.

 

Of course. whether these down times actually violates the expectation of reasonable service or not is another matter entirely.

[darthgroond]

Just so you know. EULA doesn't trump local law. This may be contentious but when a product or service is sold in a country, the law of that particular country usually applies. At least in NZ, there exists a piece of law known as Consumer Gurantees Act which stipulates reasonable expectation of service must be met. A consumer may ask for post-sale redress if the expectation is not met.

 

Of course. whether these down times actually violates the expectation of reasonable service or not is another matter entirely.

 

That's fair enough. Maybe the good folks of New Zealand are entitled to bring about legal proceedings upon EA/Bioware for troubles caused. As I said in my last wall of text, it's difficult/nigh impossible to please absolutely everybody, especially with so many people from so many different backgrounds and different countries all with their own laws and regulations. This was always going to be a problem. If it is so much of a problem, then I would definitely suggest looking into where they stand from a legal point of view and getting some people with actual power to enforce it to inform the company of this.

Edited July 4, 2012 by darthgroond

[Lakhesis]

As to the whens of maintenence, it's a simple matter of risk assesment based on subscribers and the amount of money the company can make. It's all about how to make the most money for the longest amount of time possible. Profit. Without it, we end up being without product.

 

The point many people are trying to make is it's not.

 

There've been unscheduled downtimes to fix relics, augments & all sorts of other minor non-content critical elements. By "content critical" I mean "something that disables a primary PVE/PVP element of the game" rather than "my boots have the wrong stat". Bioware are the only MMO company I've known to routinely do unscheduled maintenance to fix non-content critical stuff. And I only say "routinely" because someone'll probably think up the one occasion someone else did it if I say "ever".

 

I do not think unscheduled non-content critical maintenances are sensible from any point of view other than a perfectionist's. I point to it as a sign of poor management prioritisation & failure to think like a service provider rather than a developer.

 

While having their augment slot non-functional on saturday, sunday & monday will have annoyed some people, I'm willing to bet that shutting the servers down on friday to make the augment slot functional for those three days was more likely to cost them subscribers.

 

Those who were likely to quit over the augments were already offended when the aug slots were broken for the first half of the week, all they succeeded in doing was angering a new group of people (who they've been repeatedly & routinely angering lately).

[UltimateLemon]

That's fair enough. Maybe the good folks of New Zealand are entitled to bring about legal proceedings upon EA/Bioware for troubles caused. As I said in my last wall of text, it's difficult/nigh impossible to please absolutely everybody, especially with so many people from so many different backgrounds and different countries all with their own laws and regulations. This was always going to be a problem. If it is so much of a problem, then I would definitely suggest looking into where they stand from a legal point of view and getting some people with actual power to enforce it to inform the company of this.

 

I'm reasonably certain all countries will have this kind of law; otherwise it's giving carte blanc for random companies to walk all over their clients.

 

As it stands, current situation means people in certain countries are unable to access their paid services under certain times. US is generally fine because it done during a time when most people would not expect to be service (i.e while majority of the clients are asleep). In NZ and Aus (don't know if any other countries are affected), the unscheduled maintenance time is during the time when most people would expect to service.

 

The operative word here is unscheduled, as in something that the clients wouldn't expect. I would think this is pertinent because scheduled maintenance is something people SHOULD have expected when the entered into agreement.

 

The question here would be the degree of it and that would be where experts(lawyers) starts coming into play; if someone would actually bother to take this court instead of just suspending subscription for a month or so until game become stabilised again. Personally, I would just suspend subscription and go find something else to do in the mean while.

[ippollite]

The straw man comment was mean, i admit, i felt a bit trolly saying it, but honestly, the premiss had no basis on what i said, Im not asking for an individual apology. However i dont consider a generic apology for having maintenance acceptable. Its not that there is maintenance. Its that there is a significant amount of maintenance in the space of 9 days (5 days peak time), and that this maintenance disproportionately affects an entire region of there playerbase every time.

 

Please understand, the apology im talking about isnt a "sorry about the downtime".

 

Its more like "over the past two weeks we have had a significant amount of issues with the rollout of patch 1.3..."

Followed by an acknowledgement of the fact that their oceanic (and also EU to a lesser extent) playerbase have had several days of their peak time (and often for many people - only time) gaming experience cut into. It should then explain why this was ABSOLUTELY necessary for the overall wellbeing of the game and more importantly WHY it couldnt wait until the normal maintenance cycle.

 

There should be a dialogue here. The service is simply not being provided and people should be afforded an explanation. This isnt normal downtime, this is extensive and thats the issue. People have been patient, but the patience is wearing thin and the lack of correspondence, (including the more wider discussion on why a known buggy patch was even released for example) needs to come from this. We need to know the way forward from here and what kind of service we can genuinely expect. No dialogue and people will walk. And yes, lots of people might say "who cares". But understand, they arent walking because they hate the game, and they arent walking because they think there should be no maintenance. Its because they detest the short shrift they are receiving when servers are brought down frequently during their game time. There is no explanation and no justification provided, only that a bug was found and it was squashed - possibly... (see last weeks patch fixes x3). No explanation of why it was essential to pull servers down outside of the regular cycle to address this. No explanation of the game breaking urgency involved in allowing it to remain until the regular cycle.

 

There simply must be some explanation as to why there has been so much maintenance. Why it couldnt wait, and lastly why these bugs were not addressed prior to the live release. And if they were, why they were not game breaking enough to be released, but apparently so gome breaking on the live server that an extra day of maintenance was necessary to squash them immediately? These arent unfair questions and they deserve answers. The lack of justification is what rankles people. Its not down time. Its not that theyre losing so much game time. Its that there appears to be no genuine justification for it. Players are being asked to accept routine disruption to ther peak time game to deal with issues that were deemed unimportant enough (and genuinely a look at the patch notes indicates them to be minor fixes) to not delay the release of 1.3, but too important to leave for a few days in the live game and requiring the complete withdrawal of a service they are paying for for upwards of 6 hours in their peak/only game time.

[UltimateLemon]

why these bugs were not addressed prior to the live release

 

Probably because the forum being inundated with people crying "I want feature X RIGHT NOW or I'll leave" posts. Rushed release usually means less time for bug fixing.

 

Software Developers call it Death March (Also used to refer to cramming to meet release date) where the situation is pretty much "damned if you do, damned if you don't"

Edited July 4, 2012 by UltimateLemon

[darthgroond]

The point many people are trying to make is it's not.

 

There've been unscheduled downtimes to fix relics, augments & all sorts of other minor non-content critical elements. By "content critical" I mean "something that disables a primary PVE/PVP element of the game" rather than "my boots have the wrong stat". Bioware are the only MMO company I've known to routinely do unscheduled maintenance to fix non-content critical stuff. And I only say "routinely" because someone'll probably think up the one occasion someone else did it if I say "ever".

 

I do not think unscheduled non-content critical maintenances are sensible from any point of view other than a perfectionist's. I point to it as a sign of poor management prioritisation & failure to think like a service provider rather than a developer.

 

While having their augment slot non-functional on saturday, sunday & monday will have annoyed some people, I'm willing to bet that shutting the servers down on friday to make the augment slot functional for those three days was more likely to cost them subscribers.

 

Those who were likely to quit over the augments were already offended when the aug slots were broken for the first half of the week, all they succeeded in doing was angering a new group of people (who they've been repeatedly & routinely angering lately).

 

I'm not saying that it's a good business practice, I'm just saying that this is they way that this particular company seems to be going about it. I am in agreement that this is not an ideal way to be thinking about how they do these things, only that this is the way they are going about it. It was simply me offering up an explanation as to why.

I'm of the opinion that those being affected by it should get something for their troubles. However, I'm thinking that, with the way this seems to be being dealt with, that's probably not going to happen. It should, but it won't.

[ippollite]

I'm not saying that it's a good business practice, I'm just saying that this is they way that this particular company seems to be going about it. I am in agreement that this is not an ideal way to be thinking about how they do these things, only that this is the way they are going about it. It was simply me offering up an explanation as to why.

I'm of the opinion that those being affected by it should get something for their troubles. However, I'm thinking that, with the way this seems to be being dealt with, that's probably not going to happen. It should, but it won't.

 

Then i apologise if my tone was slightly impolite. They really are going about this wrong. They are making choices. And those choices are rather poor. They will lose customers, and not people that hate the game, but people that hate the service, for these poor choices. As you say, if thats the cold hard truth of their policies, then thats the cold hard logic of the consequences those decisions bring about. Which leaves oceanics of course to think they dont really care one way or another whether we play the game. As i say, the dirty taste of red zone lays behind this complete lack of acknowledgement that they are asking us to share the heaviest burden.

[devilinhell]

I just wanted to add my voice in dissatisfaction. I'd like Bioware to take a moment and think a bit deeper than usual. For a company renowned for its storytelling, it really seems they don't understand the psychology involved.

 

First of all, they should be aware that there are a huge amount of people who are quietly reevaluating SWTOR after the 1.3 patch. They are watching to see if it's worth coming back and staying for the long run, with a record number of offline hours for the week, a terrible impression is being made for them.

 

Every time the servers go offline it ruins the immersive element of the game. Btw I include even having the game open in the background as sustaining its immersion as the it feels like returning to the story is a second away.

 

It can be subtle, but holidays and other such days as the 4th of July are times when people have a kind of heightened memory or awareness due to it being a relatively 'special' time. We're told that it's a 'different' day even if it might seem arbitrary to us, it has an effect. It is at those times that people are in a state to create lasting memories and if one is in an MMO space during that time it has a high potential to create a bond.

 

That bond, that illusion of immersion with the player's personal 'real world' special time, is valuable to companies and their name brands. It's similar to product placement in movies. Associating your product with people's personal lives is worth way more than some minor tweaks that could be postponed to a non-holiday (or 'a less potentially product bonding-rich day'). Even breaking the immersion for 10 mins might as well be the same as 2 or more hours, it's interrupting the dream, breaking the REM cycles and missing your chance to imprint your brand on the player's subconscious, which is what produces loyal, committed and paying customers.

[darthgroond]

Then i apologise if my tone was slightly impolite. They really are going about this wrong. They are making choices. And those choices are rather poor. They will lose customers, and not people that hate the game, but people that hate the service, for these poor choices. As you say, if thats the cold hard truth of their policies, then thats the cold hard logic of the consequences those decisions bring about. Which leaves oceanics of course to think they dont really care one way or another whether we play the game. As i say, the dirty taste of red zone lays behind this complete lack of acknowledgement that they are asking us to share the heaviest burden.

 

They will most definitely have to live with the consequences of their actions, and so they should. Unfortunately, the way I see it, is that they really DON'T care about those in the Oceanic area because they view them as a minority of the playerbase that they can afford to lose and still run at profit. They certainly wouldn't do this to America or Europe as that is a large proportion of their profits. It's a stupid way of seeing things and says much about their 'customer service' (one customer is just the same as another, regardless of region, as far as I'm concerned). They probably, and obviously, also think that their communication, through social forums such as Twitter and Facebook, is enough to appease the masses, otherwise they would have something different in place. I've had this issue with other things before. It ends up being a case of 'Either sign up to Twitter or follow us on Facebook or you're not going to get all the information you want'. It's dumb, but they're not the first company to do it and they won't be the last.

Edited July 4, 2012 by darthgroond

[Cyberwolffe]

It's 4-6 hours or more, and usually ends up coming up right when it's too late to play. They are effectively preventing an entire region from playing every day they do maintenance.

 

Imagine if the server maintenance was from 4pm to 8pm in your time zone and frequently extended to 10pm and midnight. Not only that, this happened 5 TIMES IN ONE WEEK. Wouldn't you be slightly irritated?

 

I live in the US and the times you stated would be perfect for me if they used them to do maintenance, since I am normally at work during those hours. As it stands, the current maintenance times cuts into my play time since I normally play after getting off work at midnight. It doesn't really matter much to me what time they do maintenance, someone will always be left out being able to play when they want to.

[ThePasserby]

Sadly, nothing will change as long as those affected by the downtimes are only disgruntled enough to post on the forums but not incensed enough to cancel their subscriptions. Money talks. Edited July 4, 2012 by ThePasserby

[Skarbrandus]

Really, in fact, I keep a track of how much time I could have played, but it was spent on maintainance. When my subscription comes to the end, I'll officially demand for a free time TAKEN from me. I'm fed up with several hour's maintenance each day. I'm pretty sure that there will be people in United States who would even go in for a legal action, if this goes on.

I just hope they'll give back the time for free as an excuse.

[xandax]

Just put 'maintenance' in the US primetime - then many of the 'defenders' of the downtime will shift side fast.

[Iiyria]

Maintenance in US prime= games dead so you wont be playing either way.

[DjSnazzyduds]

These threads are funnier the more they appear.

 

Situation 1:

 

Players : Failware! Bug 1 is making playing impossible! Bug 2 is causing crashes! Bug 3 is just making my experience awful! Fix it now! L2dJ!! (Learn2doJob). You're incompetent, (many other insults...)!

 

Bioware : Sorry about the issue! We have a fix! We will deploy it on our scheduled maintenance this Tuesday (days from now).

 

Players : GAAAAHHHHH Biofail!! Do your jobs right! These bugs are making playing hard fix now! Do it now, NOW NOW NOW!! Why wait X amount of days!?!? ROOOAARRR (rages into more Bioware insults.)

 

Situation 2:

 

Players : Uggghhh!! Suckyware!! Bug 4 is causing rainbows! Bug 5 is making my speeder into a dragon!! Bug 6 is making everyone naked! The servers are crashing!! I can't play! UGGHHHH (rages into Bioware insults.)

 

Bioware : We apologize for the inconvenience, we have a fix and will be deploying the patch tonight as part of an emergency maintenance. Again we apologize for the issues.

 

Players : OH. MY. GOD. BBQ. You people should be fired! God your families do not deserve to be fed! (more raging insults.) This can wait a couple days! Learn 2 Manage a Game!! Etc.. Etc... We're special you treat us like Etc.. Etc...

 

No way to please anyone. The irony.....eh?

Edited July 4, 2012 by DjSnazzyduds