EU Protest (For EU members only)

[swai]

So it happened once and the very first maintenance period was extended... big surprise. Sure I would have rather played too but I had a movie on instead and the twitter feed running on another screen and under the circumstances this was handled exceptionally well imho.

 

They've already said when announcing the downtime that it was longer than in the future since it's the first after launch and afterwards that they'll look further into minimizing the time, and what more do you want?

 

I never understood why you'd want to complain about not getting to play for a couple hours by stop playing entirely... you're only punishing yourself. Get over it and enjoy the game while it's up.

Edited December 30, 2011 by swai

[Golarz]

You lose a day? No you don't stop lying. 10am to 4pm GMT. Thats not a big freaking deal. 6pm at the latest for most European players.

 

Ow realy ? If i remember correctly this maintnance was extended by 3h.

I have no problem with 10am-4pm becouse i'm working at this time, but i do have with 10am-7pm. It took them 9 hours to apply minor patch, I don't want to think about what will happend when something major will come out.

[Stepsson]

Does alot of people stay home during the weeks collecting wellfare and play MMOs instead of contributing to society?

 

SWTOR is my way of taking a break from my responsibilities and immerse myself in the SW universe. Get a job or an education, EU maintenance window won't affect you unless you're at home during the day.

[Jalden]

Instead of chosing the side of those who take your money try chosing the side that is trying to prevent this... . Some don't really understand a protest, do they... . It's your money and playtime to, don't forget.

 

I do not agree with the protest. It's as simple as that.

[Atroxy]

I work third shift myself, and I accept that there are tradeoffs. Sure I'm out of sync with the waking world, but I don't demand that restaurants be open to serve me at 3am. I don't realistically expect the bank to have tellers on hand at 6am on a Sunday. I accept the fact that I'm out of synch, and consider that it is compensated by the fact that I get paid more and have more flexible scheduling for working third shift.

 

Dude that is a completely different situation.

 

Servers are online 24/7. That means, you pay for them to be online. You don't pay a restaurant a month do ya? Or a bank? Hours from 10 to 17 are "day hours". Banks and restaurants are open. People are usually awake at that time. And alot of people are also "home" during that time. People who work different hours, people who have taken some time off. You name it. When I drive arround during the time I'm home, you see there are many people who are home during these hours of the day.

 

BW states in their response, that the "day hours" are the "LEAST" populated hours in 24 hours. So they are also saying that there "more" people online during the night hours. Which is BS! This has got nothing to do with choosing the least populated time. But everything to do to make sure they can do the US server shutdowns during the night hours and we as EU players have to accept that we are being left in the dark. Discriminated, while we do "pay more" than the US players.

 

You find this acceptable? We pay more, get less. US players pay less, get more? Get it?

Edited December 30, 2011 by Atroxy

[Kalantris]

I don't really give a flying crap about the maintenance during work hours, because I'm at work and can't play anyway, but the truth is, that Bioware is required to treat their customers equally regardless of their origin. There are way fewer players playing around 3am than 10am (checked). Niman sometimes goes heavy around 12AM. There's nothing in the licence agreement saying, that if you're a european customer you'll be treated worse than people from the US and maintenance times were chosen for the US customers. It's pretty clear.

 

There is absolutely no need to perform maintenance on all servers at once, many companies managed to overcome obstacles and perform maintenance in different hours in Europe and the US.

 

Regards,

Kalantris

[Swuulerian]

I never understood why you'd want to complain about not getting to play for a couple hours by stop playing entirely

I never understood people who happily pay full price for crap service. In fact, you pay much more than NA customers, and get crappy service in return. You are being ripped off, you know that, right?

 

Money talks, ******** walks. If enough people cancel their subscriptions, *then* BioWare will become interested in improving the service. Until that they will continue to rip off what they can. It is, after all, business as usual

[muleDArule]

Regular (every week) maintenance during daytime is ********!

 

I am working during that time, so I am not affected, still if there is holiday on Tuesday I would get mad if I cannot play because of this incompetent maintenance policy.

 

I can understand that for now, during the early beginning of this game, it is not possible to have a 2nd maintenance team to take care of the EU Server. But this is something that need to be changed for the future, if there are EU Server then there should be also EU maintenance.

 

It is short sighted to think that you can pull-off this non time-zone-customized service with a global customer-base.

[Ikkio]

The majority of EU players will lose a little playtime while the maintenance window is so large, but it isn't a deal breaker.

 

The window itself should come down once they have experience. Although having spent 10 years managing server farms for Ntl/Virgin Media with servers across the world I fail to see why it takes so long. Ours were never down longer than an hour, even for patching and upgrades. Even then, we rolled the window for the small hours of each location.

 

More important is the FU attitude of EA/BW. You're in Europe? You lose playtime? Tough. That's the most annoying aspect of this, not the time lost during maintenance. If Ntl/Virgin could change the maintenance window to suit the users, why can't EA/BW?

[RachelAnne]

Yes I do.

 

 

 

But it wouldn't be bad if they would do it at night for Americans, while the europeans come home and can't play?

 

Right now, it is at night for the Americans and at the morning - afternoon for europe. Its the best solution atm.

 

Yes a few people work in shifts, a few are jobless and another few might still go to school, but in the end the majority of people is not at home around 10-16 so to put the maintenance around that time is fair.

 

 

I dont see the point why it should be like you want it to be, with a maintenance at night for europe. In that case the whole population of America would come home in the evening and have a server down. You cant let others suffer, just because you dont "live" like the majority of the population in this world.

[Ikkio]

Right now, it is at night for the Americans and at the morning - afternoon for europe. Its the best solution atm.

 

Yes a few people work in shifts, a few are jobless and another few might still go to school, but in the end the majority of people is not at home around 10-16 so to put the maintenance around that time is fair.

 

 

I dont see the point why it should be like you want it to be, with a maintenance at night for europe. In that case the whole population of America would come home in the evening and have a server down. You cant let others suffer, just because you dont "live" like the majority of the population in this world.

 

You're assuming they can't separate the two zones and maintain them separately, which they could if they wanted to. That's the point of all this...

[Swuulerian]

Does alot of people stay home during the weeks collecting wellfare and play MMOs instead of contributing to society?

 

SWTOR is my way of taking a break from my responsibilities and immerse myself in the SW universe. Get a job or an education, EU maintenance window won't affect you unless you're at home during the day.

I work for 8 hours a day, and I am pretty damn sure I pay more taxes than you do In case you werent aware, there are more timezones in Europe in addition to the GMT.

 

Servers came up at 20:30 local time, BioWare has informed this is how it will be in the future too. All those wanting to play at 20:00 in the evening are living on welfare? Seriously. Get a job.

 

Sure, they *aimed* at getting servers up at 18:00 local time, but failed viciously. When deploying a minor patch adding practically nothing to the game.

[GumBoil]

You lose a day? No you don't stop lying. 10am to 4pm GMT. Thats not a big freaking deal. 6pm at the latest for most European players. Do you people not have lives outside this game? I love how everyone complains that their game time is being wasted in maintenance yet you agreed to the EULA which states they can take down the game at any time.

 

Whiners gonna whine I guess.

 

10am to 6pm is pretty much a day.

 

Not sure why you are replying to this thread? I guess the irony of "Do you people not have lives outside this game?" is lost on you. Still we all know what you do, you sit and reply to threads that do not concern you. Winner.

[Argyn]

Just wait until a larger portion of the EU playerbase reaches level 50 and finds out that Daily Missions reset in the afternoon for us instead at night.

 

Then we'll have even larger hell breaking loose.

 

Really Bioware, this is bad, bad form. If you have any hope of keeping this game afloat and competing on the MMO market, you'll have to keep your EU player base happy and provided for.

[Mariecurie]

I think the issue for the maintenance on 27/12/11 was that this was the first week of the game going live AND it was a holiday for large parts of Europe (I think in the US the Tuesday may not have been) which has annoyed the EU-zone players. Have to admit myself i was looking forward to playing on Tuesday but i did other things so no great loss.

 

Just for perspective for those who might not be too familiar with MMO's - the ability to play these games requires a huge IT infrastructure and that requires constant maintenance just in terms of:

• Operating System
  
• Database
  
• AV, etc
  

... to list a few items that have nothing to do with the game! Then the game version will be updated to reflect Database changes AND then finally they can get round to patching the game.

 

All this takes time and is a constant, regular part of MMO's. In the early days of MMO's these will be frequent and occasionally painfully long. Most companies will compensate for unnecesarily long periods of outage HOWEVER regular system downtimes for maintenance is part and parcel of MMO's - if you dont like wasting €0.50 on downtime then go find something else to do - otherwise stop whinning about maintenance in general.

 

We have I think 2 Issues in regard to the 27th:

(a) BW/ EA seemed not to be aware that large parts of the EU were on holiday and yet they still budgeted significant downtime in the first game week - in my opinion POOR PLANNING coupled with lack of customer knowledge on BW/EA's part.

(b) Lack of understanding of maintenance of MMO's by consumers.

 

EA/ BW will have to admit their error in regards to (a) but I am afraid there seem to be way too many players not able to understand the need for (b). They will get disinterested quickly i suspect and move on to other things.

 

I think we will have to chalk up the 27th to experience and hope that the game develops and progresses the way we hope - the market (ie game players) will decide either way in the course of time. If BW/ EA do a bad job then the game will die simple as that.

 

Anyway .. enjoy SWTOR

[GumBoil]

I work for 8 hours a day, and I am pretty damn sure I pay more taxes than you do In case you werent aware, there are more timezones in Europe in addition to the GMT.

 

Servers came up at 20:30 local time, BioWare has informed this is how it will be in the future too. All those wanting to play at 20:00 in the evening are living on welfare? Seriously. Get a job.

 

Sure, they *aimed* at getting servers up at 18:00 local time, but failed viciously. When deploying a minor patch adding practically nothing to the game.

 

Hey wage slave, I really object to your condescending tone. I retired 12 years ago now and am pretty sure that in the time I did work I paid more taxes than most will earn in there whole lives. Thanks for playing though.

[Jalden]

Servers came up at 20:30 local time, BioWare has informed this is how it will be in the future too.

 

They have informed us this is *not* how it will be in the future.

[swai]

I never understood people who happily pay full price for crap service. In fact, you pay much more than NA customers, and get crappy service in return. You are being ripped off, you know that, right?

 

Money talks, ******** walks. If enough people cancel their subscriptions, *then* BioWare will become interested in improving the service. Until that they will continue to rip off what they can. It is, after all, business as usual

 

I also paid more for my TV than the Japanese and more for my car than a Swede would... that doesn't mean I want to only read books and walk to work. Of course it's supply and demand as everything else, but I see nothing so outrageous with this situation that it would warrant that kind of response.

[Ikkio]

I think the issue for the maintenance on 27/12/11 was that this was the first week of the game going live AND it was a holiday for large parts of Europe (I think in the US the Tuesday may not have been) which has annoyed the EU-zone players. Have to admit myself i was looking forward to playing on Tuesday but i did other things so no great loss.

 

Just for perspective for those who might not be too familiar with MMO's - the ability to play these games requires a huge IT infrastructure and that requires constant maintenance just in terms of:

• Operating System
  
• Database
  
• AV, etc
  

... to list a few items that have nothing to do with the game! Then the game version will be updated to reflect Database changes AND then finally they can get round to patching the game.

 

All this takes time and is a constant, regular part of MMO's. In the early days of MMO's these will be frequent and occasionally painfully long. Most companies will compensate for unnecesarily long periods of outage HOWEVER regular system downtimes for maintenance is part and parcel of MMO's - if you dont like wasting €0.50 on downtime then go find something else to do - otherwise stop whinning about maintenance in general.

 

We have I think 2 Issues in regard to the 27th:

(a) BW/ EA seemed not to be aware that large parts of the EU were on holiday and yet they still budgeted significant downtime in the first game week - in my opinion POOR PLANNING coupled with lack of customer knowledge on BW/EA's part.

(b) Lack of understanding of maintenance of MMO's by consumers.

 

EA/ BW will have to admit their error in regards to (a) but I am afraid there seem to be way too many players not able to understand the need for (b). They will get disinterested quickly i suspect and move on to other things.

 

I think we will have to chalk up the 27th to experience and hope that the game develops and progresses the way we hope - the market (ie game players) will decide either way in the course of time. If BW/ EA do a bad job then the game will die simple as that.

 

Anyway .. enjoy SWTOR

 

While all this is true, it doesn't address the main issue, which is why the EU has to undergo maintenance at the same time as the US, thereby interfering with our potential play time. The argument isn't that the game needs maintenance, but that it's done during our day.

 

Plus, with load balancing, virtualisation and server mirroring, there really shouldn't be any need to an 8 hour window for anything but a complete new build, especially a few days after launch.

[Littlelegs]

I have a job although I think that if I wish to play a game that I am paying for on my days off I should at least have this option. I understand that it is not possible to please everyone although it does seem that the maintenance window is NE friendly. All they need to do is bring the slot forward a little to make it fair.

 

/signed

[RachelAnne]

You're assuming they can't separate the two zones and maintain them separately, which they could if they wanted to. That's the point of all this...

 

I dont work for BW, but I would guess that they would do it like that if they could right now.

 

As soon other "worlds" find their way to SWTOR the maintenance most likely will be changed anyways, Asia is a too big market to leave that out, I also heard something about Australia.

 

Right now I still think its ok, also I doubt that all maintenance windows are 6 hours long - usually this is only the case when they apply a patch.

 

 

In the end people need to calm down a bit, even if they would keep the current maintenance window, its not like you miss anything. Even if you are at home those hours, its just a few hours anyways, you can adjust your timetable to it. Go shopping that day, clean your flat or house, walk the dog etc. I think people just overreact very quick at this forum

[Atroxy]

Alot of people aren't gettting the picture.

 

Let me explain.

 

BW has build their server system that way that people living the US can go onto EU servers and players from the EU can go on to US servers. This is their first big mistake. Because this allows players from both continents to jump to another region without a problem.

 

Because of the fact that America and Europe is not being seperated (which is the case is most MMO games) they now have created this problem. Now understand, the main readon they don't want to change is because they think EU players will be storming the US servers if maintenance is being done on a different time period. Again, full support towards US community, zero towards EU.

 

BW is responsible for the fact that they don't want to do maintenance in Europe during the night hours.

 

This problem was mentioned during the beta, and BW did nothing and just ignored it. Now many more are playing th game and protest is getting bigger. Some of you may not feel like this is a issue. But wait. Untill you've got a few days off. And you wanna play and suddenly servers are offline for 8 freaking hours. This will happen every week. Over and over again. 48 days a year will the servers be down. For the people who are affected by it, isn't so much fun at all.

 

BW knows there is a min of 7 hours between the US and EU. Why be so ignorant and cause this problem? I don't get that. They knew it would cause a fuss.

 

We a paying the price af a mistake BW made internally. And that is just wrong. If people complained about it during beta, they knew the problem was current and already present. They ignored it and decided to "wait and see". But every week their will be more people complaining. This was only the first of many shutdowns and people are already annoyed.

 

So questions that I got are.

 

1- Why allow US and EU players to join one of the 2 continents?

 

2- Problem has been reported during beta, why ignore it?

 

3- How come both sides are not being kept seperate?

 

4- Is it that hard to chance this method to one that is "not" affecting the EU community?

Edited December 30, 2011 by Atroxy

[triskelin]

Signed

[Jalden]

1- Why allow US and EU players to join one of the 2 continents?

 

Why not?

Edited December 30, 2011 by Jalden

[Demonicon]

Only countries can be EU members. Anyone here a country?