Weekly server maintenance EU times?

[spudbynight]

DO you want patches the same time as the US? Do you want the ability to log on to whatever server you want in US or EU?

 

This is the reason why maintenance happens at the same time.

 

This whole thing about patches at the same time puzzles me.

 

As an EU gamer I have played games over the years where we get updates MONTHS after the US. That is I believe where the concern lies. I don't think any gamers give a hoot about having patches several hours apart.

[Raigon]

Regarding Stephan Reed ask him a question.

 

So what you saying is that you don't wana fu"c the yankee playerbase because your a american company and its your hometown. But the EU can p"ss off.

 

Cheers typical yankees

Edited December 29, 2011 by Raigon

[Mandrax]

DO you want patches the same time as the US? Do you want the ability to log on to whatever server you want in US or EU?

 

This is the reason why maintenance happens at the same time.

 

Up to 24 hours after is fine...

Edited December 29, 2011 by Mandrax

[Terans]

Maintenance happening at the same time isn't really the issue for me. I can see the benefits of it.

 

What I do have a problem with is the time they've picked to have this maintenance. At the moment the time is favourable more to the the US player base than it is to the EU player base.

 

Why? Are we less important paying customers?

 

With the current maintenance time it seems so.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Terans

[Msbungle]

That still doesn't address when maintenance goes over the extended period.

 

That still doesn't address users that are +1 or greater to GMT.

 

Do it during the day on US times, if it really affects that small amount of people.

 

When maintenance goes over the extended period, then it goes over the extended period.

 

I'm amazed at the whining over it going over. I was off that day as well, but I got over it. I work in research and realize that sometimes things don't go exactly as planned. And whether you like it or not, coding (which is what they are implementing during maintenance) may not go exactly as planned. And maybe that is why I am not having a temper tantrum over having to wait an extra 2-3 hours to get in. Sometimes, sh*t happens!

 

Also, this is a new game. They are new to MMO's. They are trying to figure this out themselves. Voice your opinion, but let them act on it before planning your next pity party!

Edited December 29, 2011 by Msbungle

[Msbungle]

Maintenance happening at the same time isn't really the issue for me. I can see the benefits of it.

 

What I do have a problem with is the time they've picked to have this maintenance. At the moment the time is favourable more to the the US player base than it is to the EU player base.

 

Why? Are we less important paying customers?

 

With the current maintenance time it seems so.

 

They are based in the U.S. They are human beings who have to wake up and perform this maintenance. They likely have a typical U.S. work schedule as well. Waking up for work 3-4 hours early was probably preferable to not sleeping at all. U.S. companies tend to run lean and so there won't be too many excess employees. These people doing maintenance very likely have to stay at work the rest of the day on top of it.

 

And it is very likely that simple.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Msbungle

[Terans]

They are based in the U.S. They are human beings who have to wake up and perform this maintenance. They likely have a typical U.S. work schedule as well. Waking up for work 3-4 hours early was probably preferable to not sleeping at all. U.S. companies tend to run lean and so there won't be too many excess employees. These people doing maintenance very likely have to stay at work the rest of the day on top of it.

 

And it is very likely that simple.

 

As I said previously,

 

The EU servers aren't based in the US. The staff maintaining them will be working on EU time.

[Legionariuss]

They are based in the U.S. They are human beings who have to wake up and perform this maintenance. They likely have a typical U.S. work schedule as well. Waking up for work 3-4 hours early was probably preferable to not sleeping at all. U.S. companies tend to run lean and so there won't be too many excess employees. These people doing maintenance very likely have to stay at work the rest of the day on top of it.

 

And it is very likely that simple.

 

no, just no....

 

Bioware released a global game - therefore the support and maintenance should be catered to individual regions of servers..

 

Tell me, if you went to stay at a hotel for a couple of nights and you went out during the day you would expect the cleaner to come in and clean the room right? what would you do if you got home and the cleaner wanted to come in and change the bed when you were sleeping in it?

[Nethrom]

TL;DR : Dear non-US subscribers, you are second class citizens in SWToR, deal with it.

 

But we are allowed to pay almost twice as much?

[elelr]

When maintenance goes over the extended period, then it goes over the extended period.

 

I'm amazed at the whining over it going over. I was off that day as well, but I got over it. I work in research and realize that sometimes things don't go exactly as planned. And whether you like it or not, coding (which is what they are implementing during maintenance) may not go exactly as planned. And maybe that is why I am not having a temper tantrum over having to wait an extra 2-3 hours to get in. Sometimes, sh*t happens!

 

Also, this is a new game. They are new to MMO's. They are trying to figure this out themselves. Voice your opinion, but let them act on it before planning your next pity party!

I think everyone understands what the maintenance involves, hence why we are annoyed at the time it is happening. They may not consider the time they're doing it as "prime-time", but as a result there is a greater chance it does start affecting our "prime-time" I guarantee there are more people playing 12PM GMT through 5PM GMT than 2AM through 7AM.

 

The whole new game thing is no excuse. Other MMORPG's do it differently because it's the better and fairer thing to do for the EU fan base. Being a new game hasn't stopped them taking ideas from other games, so why should it stop them being a better customer service orientated company??

Edited December 29, 2011 by elelr

[TheHauntingBard]

But we are allowed to pay almost twice as much?

 

See it as a privilege that you pay much more.

 

It's predictable what will happen, Bioware refuses to change their stance.

They mess up a maintenance on a big patch that results in EU players not being able to play for a day, their CM makes an arrogant remark and tells people to suck it.

People either complain or cancel their subs.

 

Bioware changes their stance, problem solved.

[Tetagouch]

So what I´m working sometimes to at night...and I´m still alive. Poor little people.

 

And what about World first kills....I remeber that other mmo...with Three letters....I think most of the world´s first came out of Europe and Korea and not from the US ...not all but most....and it did not happen after the first day.

 

 

I hope they will change it in the near future....because if it happens like last tuesday ...and it will happen again than there will be in the middle of primetime in Europe.

 

So long and a Happy New Year to everyone...

[NevesNET]

But we are allowed to pay almost twice as much?

 

Indeed... I for one have never understood why Europe always get's shafted on maintenance times. Guess we wouldn't want to take away from the gaming enjoyment of the Pacific coast late nighters so let's do maintenance during the late morning and early afternoon of European players. Only when they see their MACU numbers on a serious decline do they even address these issues, and by then it's WAY too late, hopefully BW will learn a lesson from other failures and fix this ASAP!

[elelr]

See it as a privilege that you pay much more.

 

It's predictable what will happen, Bioware refuses to change their stance.

They mess up a maintenance on a big patch that results in EU players not being able to play for a day, their CM makes an arrogant remark and tells people to suck it.

People either complain or cancel their subs.

 

Bioware changes their stance, problem solved.

It's a shame that it will likely have to go down that road. Customer Service isn't that hard, yet somehow EA and BW seem to have no idea about it.

 

Part of me wants this game to succeed, because I love the game and Star Wars as a whole.

 

But I'd also really like to see EA and BW fail based on the service offered thus far. It's not too late to fix it...

Edited December 29, 2011 by elelr

[Swuulerian]

I really love this game so far I am a family man and not able to play every day, altough I have very eagerly been playing the past week

 

However, I also work for a living, doing normal 7-15 shifts. I live in EU, in the EET (East European Time) timezone. Which means I will not be able to play at all on the days when the weekly server maintance happens, as servers are down in the time slot (I am able to play 16-20 local time; this week servers went up 20:30 local time) when I'd be able to play. Boohoo for me, I can feel all the tears you all and BioWare/EA are sprouting because of my cruel fate. Right

 

As it is very unlikely BioWare/EA would provide a discount because of their chosen policy, this is of course my problem. Sadly I am not going to pay full price for a half-assed service. I don't do that elsewhere either.

 

As such, I have decided to cancel my subscription. No, you can't have my stuff. I hope at some point BioWare/EA come to their senses and do the server maintanance at a sane time, at which point I am most definitively coming back to the game and I will need my stuff then I am going to play for the 20 days left on my subscription, or at least when the servers don't happen to be down for maintenance or I don't have real life interfering with my gaming

 

Thank you for your attention, please carry on now.

[Jamus_Divinus]

"The unfortunate reality of maintenance windows is that someone, somewhere, is always going to be affected"

 

Rubbish Mr Reid. SWG lasted 7years with EU servers having maintenance at 3-7am apart from the US servers.

 

7 years.

 

 

Edited your quote for you...no charge

 

"The unfortunate reality of OUR maintenance windows is that some EU players, ..in the EU are often going to be affected."

Edited December 29, 2011 by Jamus_Divinus

[ElfishGene]

Ah guess it was just me then

 

No it's not just you, this conversation has been going on for a while in our guild now (EU) it's a hark back to the days of SE and FFXI, they also ignored their EU players and would stop us playing during peak times as well!

 

We have EU servers! So how about a little consideration for once.

[ministry-]

Everything starting from early beta until now has favored US players, and still continues to do so.

 

Blizzard manages to have to different maintenance times depending on the region.

I don’t see why Bioware can’t do the same.

 

Also, it doesn’t make sense for them to have all of their EU servers located in Ireland, when far more people would benefit from having less lag if the servers were located in central Europe. WoW has them in France, Germany and Sweden.

 

You could call me a WoW fan boy, but to me it just seems like Bioware is doing everything worse so far, I can’t say I’m impressed.

 

You better shape up or you’ll start losing customers.

[Mandrax]

When maintenance goes over the extended period, then it goes over the extended period.

 

I'm amazed at the whining over it going over. I was off that day as well, but I got over it. I work in research and realize that sometimes things don't go exactly as planned. And whether you like it or not, coding (which is what they are implementing during maintenance) may not go exactly as planned. And maybe that is why I am not having a temper tantrum over having to wait an extra 2-3 hours to get in. Sometimes, sh*t happens!

 

Also, this is a new game. They are new to MMO's. They are trying to figure this out themselves. Voice your opinion, but let them act on it before planning your next pity party!

 

Easy for you to say when your game time is barely affected. You state that you were off that day, but you got over it, your maintenance time was not between 10am and 6.30pm was it? No, yours was between 4am and 12 midday. So yeah, you had a little bit of an overrun as it was planned to finish at 10am CST, but we had no game at all, for the entire day. The servers came back up in the evening for the EU players. Some EU players couldn't get on until after 8.30pm.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Mandrax

[MareLooke]

When maintenance goes over the extended period, then it goes over the extended period.

 

I'm amazed at the whining over it going over. I was off that day as well, but I got over it. I work in research and realize that sometimes things don't go exactly as planned. And whether you like it or not, coding (which is what they are implementing during maintenance) may not go exactly as planned. And maybe that is why I am not having a temper tantrum over having to wait an extra 2-3 hours to get in. Sometimes, sh*t happens!

 

It's also perfectly possible to have software run for years with minimal interruptions. It's just what you prioritize: stability and solid upgradeability or quick results. MMOs seem to go for the latter without exceptions (that I know of). People are getting a little too used to using badly written software so they consider having to restart a computer or a piece of software "normal": it's not, it means the software sucks.

 

That said, **** does happen (ask the London stock exchange...) but it shouldn't be accepted the way it generally is and it especially shouldn't be accepted during prime time for a planned update, that's what off hours are for and that's why you roll stuff out when the users in the affected region are asleep so you affect your users as little as humanly possible.

 

It may very well be that on the grand scale of things that's when the least people are on, as the US will be in bed and a big chunk of the EU will be at work, but I'm pretty sure that if you stop counting the US you'll see that a much larger percentage is still online during those "lowest activity hours". It all boils down to: "stop being so gosh darn US centric".

Edited December 29, 2011 by MareLooke

[Keadin]

Despite being a total SW:TOR fanboy, it boggles my mind that the server maintenance times are during the day for EU customers. I don't care if maintenance is extended for whatever reason, but to start it near midday and to have it continue till well into the afternoon is incomprehensible.

 

These times are fine if you're in an American timezone, you'll be asleep then anyways, but the European customers get shafted. And I'm sure the Americans would feel the exact same way had our positions been reversed.

 

I'll put it simply: BioWare decided on several launch territories, where they would offer their so-called BioWare standard of quality service. I consider the maintenance window part of the service. You do maintenance when as few customers as possible are affected, which would be at night. You do NOT do that when a more than significant portion of your customers will be affected, which would be during the day.

 

I'm not going to threaten BioWare with canceling my sub, I like the game too much for that. But I will express my extreme dissatisfaction with BioWare as a company if they continue to have their maintenance window smack in the middle of the day. You have a dedicated EU team and EU servers, hire some technicians too for God's sake; with over 1 million subscribers already you can easily afford it.

[InvisibleJim]

Why aren't the Dev/BW/EA reps posting these responses on the forum or the game popup and instead tweeting them or posting them on Reddit?

 

Where is the community management? This has been a bigger launch than WOW initially... BW and EA are not stupid. There should be resources allocated for just this kind of event and issue.

Edited December 29, 2011 by InvisibleJim

[amnie]

Everything starting from early beta until now has favored US players, and still continues to do so.

 

Blizzard manages to have to different maintenance times depending on the region.

I don’t see why Bioware can’t do the same.

 

Also, it doesn’t make sense for them to have all of their EU servers located in Ireland, when far more people would benefit from having less lag if the servers were located in central Europe. WoW has them in France, Germany and Sweden.

 

You could call me a WoW fan boy, but to me it just seems like Bioware is doing everything worse so far, I can’t say I’m impressed.

 

You better shape up or you’ll start losing customers.

 

 

because Blizzard's European servers are .separate. from the US-servers. they use different clients. Bioware does not.

 

and I prefer it like that.

and I'm from Europe.

and I think they should switch the maintenance time around so each week someone else can whine about the time chosen :]

[Keadin]

and I think they should switch the maintenance time around so each week someone else can whine about the time chosen :]

 

If that's the best BioWare can do I'll take it...

[recsa]

While today is still classed as a holiday in many parts of Europe and many of you may still be off work or school, this downtime slot was chosen for a number of reasons.

 

Firstly, in the past, we've talked on a number of occasions about how we will run a global service. Many players raised concerns that patches/updates would land later in the EU than in the US. We stated that as we're running a global service, we'll do everything we can to make sure the updates go live in both regions as close together as possible. For this to be achievable, we need to run maintenance at the same time.

 

As European i would prefer 1.000.000 times, getting maintenance at 4:00 am and the update 1 day after US gets it.

 

Secondly, although many of you are able to play at this time, this is actually one of the times in the day (and the week) when we have the lowest number of players in game. It's certainly far from peak. Given that many of you are still on holiday, today's maintenance may feel a bit more out of place than usual, but in the future, the number of users impacted will be even smaller.

 

Obviously, its not peak time, but at 4:00 am while we sleep isn't either, in US you make maintenances at such times, we want same, we pay same, we have same rights, and as stated above im sure 90% of us prefer maintenances while sleeping than simultaneous patches

 

Finally it's also worth noting that today's downtime was a little longer than usual and in the future, shouldn't be the case.

 

So hopefully that's gone some way in shedding a light on the reasons as to why we've chosen this slot.

 

I still think, that the true reason behind maintenances at same time in US and EU is technical staff availability, looks like if you dont have tech staff in EU nor overnight staff