Weekly server maintenance EU times?

[Mandrax]

Well I will defer to you if you say it overan, but I honestly don't think it did. Happy to p[ut my hands up if I am wrong on that one.

 

My recollection of 27th December was that I was online, playing that evening.

 

Read HERE. It's the first incarnation of this thread, which covers the 27th. It's all there.

 

The reason I know it was this time is because I was actually travelling from London to home after Christmas with the family. It's a long journey (4 hours or so) and my brother (who also plays) was ribbing me about the fact whilst I was driving he would be playing. As it turned out, we got online together because he was locked out until 6.30pm, which was roughly the time I got home.

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

I want to give a different view on this question. I can readily understand the feelings of many players in Europe, but I live in Europe and I personally would like to see things continue the way they are.

 

Several posters have correctly identified that you can't let people have access to patched and unpatched servers at the same time. If players had access to patched and unpatched servers at the same time, it would be a nightmare. Now, there are two ways to resolve this.

 

1. Do as SWTOR does now, have all servers down at the same time for patching and maintenance, regardless of which part of the world they are in.

 

2. Do as Blizzard does and have separate maintenance periods for US and Europe. The only way to do that is to code your subscription to one continent only. In SWTOR I can chose to play on a US server if I want to, but in WOW, I can only play on European servers if I bought WOW in Europe. I can't ever access a North American server, even if I wanted to.

 

Now, I may be in a minority, but I have several friends in North America and I think it's great that I can play SWTOR together with them. The fact that I can do that, by far outweighs the inconvenience of maintenance periods. I may be in a minority, but I think that it's great that I'm able to play with friends overseas if I want to, and once the holiday period is over, maintenance is only when I'm at the office anyway.

 

Nice idea in theory, but being as I play in a guild that came over from SWG and we have a roughly 50/50 mix of players from both sides of the Atlantic, plus a couple from Australia and 1 in Singapore, I would not be in favour of regionalised locking as it would rip our guild apart.

 

Let me add this, if they were not patching and adding content then split times cease to become an issue, because you alleviate the problem of version control. That's what SOE did, reboots were split US vs. EU, but then SOE only had 32 servers, which then went down to 20 or something in 2008 (ish).

 

However when patching occurred, this was unified across all servers and it was considered to be a fact of life.

 

Bioware have 250+ servers, be they physical or virtual, which all require patching on a (currently) weekly basis, so the unified option is the only one available right now, because of the way the system architecture is constructed.

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

Read HERE. It's the first incarnation of this thread, which covers the 27th. It's all there.

 

The reason I know it was this time is because I was actually travelling from London to home after Christmas with the family. It's a long journey (4 hours or so) and my brother (who also plays) was ribbing me about the fact whilst I was driving he would be playing. As it turned out, we got online together because he was locked out until 6.30pm, which was roughly the time I got home.

 

Like I said, happy to put my hands up to that one. It was bank holiday and there had been beer flowing.

[Gorgewall]

When a game launches, I believe one of the top priorities is actually maintaining server stability and uptime. This is most easily done when you have all of the servers in one (or very few) physical locations and your best techs on-site for monitoring, upgrades, and maintenance. Like any piece of new hardware (not just computer hardware) there is an adjustment period where you must learn the peculiarities of the piece and it settles and develops its.. personality.

 

Maintenance times will decrease as time goes on, and as BioWare and their techs become more familiar with the workings of the particular hardware they're dealing with for the servers, they'll feel more at ease about moving them to different sites or running maintenance at separate times.

 

You have to be careful about moving maintenance schedules around, because with maintenance often comes patches, and as you'd see in Rift or in WoW when servers would crash, people who don't ordinarily play on a given server would flood whatever ones are up and pretty much wreck the experience for the usual users. If Europe gets their patches first, US players will log on to your servers en masse to get the update first, creating queues or installation errors when they try to go back to their own servers. Exploits that exist in new patches may be revealed on the European side early and everyone rushes back to the American servers when they come up to take advantage--or BioWare doesn't bring the patch up for the Americans knowing there is a particularly bad exploit in this now, it having been caught by Europe.

 

That, and the server architecture they're using may just not allow for this kind of maintenance at the moment. Lots of variables. It's not just like there are a bunch of boxes sitting in refrigerated room in London looking exactly like the ones in a basement in Austin, save for the Union Jack painted on the side and a monocle taped to the front, and they just pop in a USB drive six hours earlier on the EU one.

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

When a game launches, I believe one of the top priorities is actually maintaining server stability and uptime. This is most easily done when you have all of the servers in one (or very few) physical locations and your best techs on-site for monitoring, upgrades, and maintenance. Like any piece of new hardware (not just computer hardware) there is an adjustment period where you must learn the peculiarities of the piece and it settles and develops its.. personality.

 

Maintenance times will decrease as time goes on, and as BioWare and their techs become more familiar with the workings of the particular hardware they're dealing with for the servers, they'll feel more at ease about moving them to different sites or running maintenance at separate times.

 

You have to be careful about moving maintenance schedules around, because with maintenance often comes patches, and as you'd see in Rift or in WoW when servers would crash, people who don't ordinarily play on a given server would flood whatever ones are up and pretty much wreck the experience for the usual users. If Europe gets their patches first, US players will log on to your servers en masse to get the update first, creating queues or installation errors when they try to go back to their own servers. Exploits that exist in new patches may be revealed on the European side early and everyone rushes back to the American servers when they come up to take advantage--or BioWare doesn't bring the patch up for the Americans knowing there is a particularly bad exploit in this now, it having been caught by Europe.

 

That, and the server architecture they're using may just not allow for this kind of maintenance at the moment. Lots of variables. It's not just like there are a bunch of boxes sitting in refrigerated room in London looking exactly like the ones in a basement in Austin, save for the Union Jack painted on the side and a monocle taped to the front, and they just pop in a USB drive six hours earlier on the EU one.

 

THIS!

 

I have assumed that the servers are hosted by a Third Party Hosting company, rather than in an EA/Bioware facility.

 

Does anyone know?

[Mandrax]

Like I said, happy to put my hands up to that one. It was bank holiday and there had been beer flowing.

 

Fair enough.

 

Here's my take. If they regularly get those servers up and down before midday GMT, I doubt the vast majority of people would mind so much. The issue is that they are taking servers down until 4pm GMT, which, as you well know, means up to 8pm in some parts of Europe, which isn't acceptable.

 

The maintenance periods since the 27th have gone well, but we have only seen very tiny patches applied. We are now approaching 1.1, a large patch that may well cause issues once applied to the servers. The fact that the servers are down until 4pm GMT is wrong in itself because that eats into some players prime time, but if there are issues, then suddenly we are in a situation much like the 27th again. Running into prime time for maintenance is never acceptable, even if it only happens once per month. Not when there are other more convenient times for your customer to carry out these tasks.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Mandrax

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

And what about the Australians?

 

For them it really IS peak time, yet no one worries about them?

 

I stand by my initial thoughts, whether people like them or not, I honestly don't really mind. The game MUST be maintained, else these threads will be replaced with "Servers keep crashing" threads and that would be so much worse.

[Kaarina]

And what about the Australians?

 

For them it really IS peak time, yet no one worries about them?

 

I stand by my initial thoughts, whether people like them or not, I honestly don't really mind. The game MUST be maintained, else these threads will be replaced with "Servers keep crashing" threads and that would be so much worse.

 

I am sorry I missed it, what time zone or Country are you in?

[Nerk]

And what about the Australians?

 

For them it really IS peak time, yet no one worries about them?

 

I stand by my initial thoughts, whether people like them or not, I honestly don't really mind. The game MUST be maintained, else these threads will be replaced with "Servers keep crashing" threads and that would be so much worse.

 

we DO worry about them. it sucks because they get the worst patching time ever iirc. But. There are no australian servers, yet. They haven't been promised localized support. When oceanic area servers will open (that's the name to call australian and asian servers right? not sure but anyway, those), if they keep the current unified maintainance schedule the complaining from them will be even bigger, and justified. What will they do then? Keep on with the unified maintainance and screw them? Do a different maint time for them and not for the EU zone? might as well start planning different maint times for every zone imho, instead of having to do them all at once

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

I am sorry I missed it, what time zone or Country are you in?

I am in the UK, so Yes, 8am - 4pm would impact me, if I was not working... Fortunately I do have a very nice 9-5:30 day job, my kids are at school and I have a full and varied life, of which SWTOR is just one part.

 

Go on, admit it, you were so hoping I was going to say USA weren't you....

[Mandrax]

And what about the Australians?

 

For them it really IS peak time, yet no one worries about them?

 

I stand by my initial thoughts, whether people like them or not, I honestly don't really mind. The game MUST be maintained, else these threads will be replaced with "Servers keep crashing" threads and that would be so much worse.

 

This game was not officially released in Australia, therefore BioWare do not need to cater to them...yet. Let's see how things go when it does officially get released in March. If they carry on with the current maintenance times globally, the Aussies are going to lose out on prime time gaming.

 

The game WAS officially released in Europe, which includes Russia who use GMT+4. They should be looking out for the customers in the areas that they've officially released the game, and not just saying 'you are a minority, tough luck'.

 

Edit: There will also be an even bigger crap storm from the EU if the Aussies get their own maintenance slot.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Mandrax

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

we DO worry about them. it sucks because they get the worst patching time ever iirc. But. There are no australian servers, yet. They haven't been promised localized support. When oceanic area servers will open (that's the name to call australian and asian servers right? not sure but anyway, those), if they keep the current unified maintainance schedule the complaining from them will be even bigger, and justified. What will they do then? Keep on with the unified maintainance and screw them? Do a different maint time for them and not for the EU zone? might as well start planning different maint times for every zone imho, instead of having to do them all at once

 

Oceanic would cover the entire region you descibe; Australia alone is known as Australasia.

[MajikMyst]

It is more effecient and more economical to bring all the servers down and patch them at once, than it is to patch them in segments based on time zone.. All servers get updated, all clients get updated..

 

WOW has been doing it this way for years.. Why are you people giving Bioware grief about it?? From an IT stand point.. All at once is the best way to do it.. Deal with it!!

[Mandrax]

It is more effecient and more economical to bring all the servers down and patch them at once, than it is to patch them in segments based on time zone.. All servers get updated, all clients get updated..

 

WOW has been doing it this way for years.. Why are you people giving Bioware grief about it?? From an IT stand point.. All at once is the best way to do it.. Deal with it!!

 

Another person who is not affected saying 'deal with it'. Easy to say when your gaming time doesn't suffer don't you think?

[Kaarina]

I am glad the time is good for you, however it is not just about UK, it is about all EU players. And yes just incase you forgot the 1st big maintenance it was down 10 hours and tomorrows is 8 hours (if they do not have problems). Please go and enjoy the game since you are not bothered.

 

 

Some of us are bothered and would like to see a change made. Perhaps you continue to post to this thread because a change would affect you somehow? I am trying to understand why you continue to argue and such if the time is ok for you

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

This game was not officially released in Australia, therefore BioWare do not need to cater to them...yet. Let's see how things go when it does officially get released in March. If they carry on with the current maintenance times globally, the Aussies are going to lose out on prime time gaming.

 

The game WAS officially released in Europe, which includes Russia who use GMT+4. They should be looking out for the customers in the areas that they've officially released the game, and not just saying 'you are a minority, tough luck'.

 

There will also be an even bigger crap storm from the EU if the Aussies get their own maintenance slot.

I get all of this, but everyone should have known, going in, that this was going to be the case.

 

I was certainly aware, back in July when I pre-ordered, that daytime maintenance schedules were going to be fact of life for me with this game, due to living in the UK.

 

I guess my frustration with the 'entitlement set' is that they claim they were unaware (or at least act like they were unaware) of this requirement, even though it was a known issue.

 

As I said, we lived with this for 7 years on SWG, though it was not weekly, but we had to deal with it and it was never a problem. We are less than a month into release and I would imagine that as time goes on the frequency will be reduced.

 

They may even introcude regional times, but if they ever start perm locking regions then that would be my cue to question the game. I have friends all over the world who play SWTOR. If they can't keep it global then that presents a problem.

[Catch_TwentyTwo]

I am glad the time is good for you, however it is not just about UK, it is about all EU players. And yes just incase you forgot the 1st big maintenance it was down 10 hours and tomorrows is 8 hours (if they do not have problems). Please go and enjoy the game since you are not bothered.

 

 

Some of us are bothered and would like to see a change made. Perhaps you continue to post to this thread because a change would affect you somehow? I am trying to understand why you continue to argue and such if the time is ok for you

Not at all. I will accept any downtime schedule Bioware put in place, as long as it is best for the game.

 

As previously stated, the downtime tomorrow is a Maintenance window and there is nothing to say that it will be 8 hours actual; no one can judge that until it has happened and becomes facts.

 

This is common practice in the IT industry and is based on so many variables that it would make you head spin, not least of all Key Staff availability, Data Locking, Data Backup, Risk, Testing, Failure Regression and many, many more.

 

I do this stuff on a daily basis, and believe me, it ain't no cakewalk, no matter how stable the system and how mature it is. The SWTOR system is still very immature interms of uptime and stability and there so many things that could go wrong, wo if they say they may need 8 hours to make sure that the game is stable and not going to crash when people really start hitting in later in the day, then that suits me.

 

But, once again, if Bioware stated that they want to do this on a UK evening time, because that is what is required and that was what the expectation that had been set was, then I would have nothing to complain about...

[Mandrax]

I get all of this, but everyone should have known, going in, that this was going to be the case.

 

I was certainly aware, back in July when I pre-ordered, that daytime maintenance schedules were going to be fact of life for me with this game, due to living in the UK.

 

I guess my frustration with the 'entitlement set' is that they claim they were unaware (or at least act like they were unaware) of this requirement, even though it was a known issue.

 

As I said, we lived with this for 7 years on SWG, though it was not weekly, but we had to deal with it and it was never a problem. We are less than a month into release and I would imagine that as time goes on the frequency will be reduced.

 

They may even introcude regional times, but if they ever start perm locking regions then that would be my cue to question the game. I have friends all over the world who play SWTOR. If they can't keep it global then that presents a problem.

 

Why would we have known when the major competitors to this game have separate times? How would we have known when it was never communicated by BioWare that there would be a single maintenance time for EVERYBODY no matter on location?

 

As you can see I've been registered on these boards for a long time, and we were never informed that these maintenance times would be the case. Clearly you made a right assumption, but many of us assumed wrongly. The reason we all made assumptions because there was no official information given to us. BioWare should have been more up front.

 

Now you may have made your assumptions based on patching times for beta (I'm assuming here so by all means give me some more facts to go on), but it's worth mentioning that the vast majority of the beta period was carried out on US servers, so it's obvious they will patch those during US off periods.

 

Rift proves that they can give everybody access to servers in different locations and still maintain and patch the game at times that are convenient for most people in each region.

[Erelenko]

Why would we have known when the major competitors to this game have separate times? How would we have known when it was never communicated by BioWare that there would be a single maintenance time for EVERYBODY no matter on location?

 

As you can see I've been registered on these boards for a long time, and we were never informed that these maintenance times would be the case. Clearly you made a right assumption, but many of us assumed wrongly. The reason we all made assumptions because there was no official information given to us. BioWare should have been more up front.

 

Now you may have made your assumptions based on patching times for beta (I'm assuming here so by all means give me some more facts to go on), but it's worth mentioning that the vast majority of the beta period was carried out on US servers, so it's obvious they will patch those during US off periods.

 

Rift proves that they can give everybody access to servers in different locations and still maintain and patch the game at times that are convenient for most people in each region.

 

Amen to that

[MajikMyst]

Another person who is not affected saying 'deal with it'. Easy to say when your gaming time doesn't suffer don't you think?

 

Making assumptions?? I work nights.. It is easy to say it because it is the right answer.. I also work in an IT department, and I am sorry to say.. People whining about stuff just doesn't effect when I do things..

 

Bioware is doing it the same way many other large companies maintain their servers.. When it is of the least discomfort for their customers and in the most cost effective way.. Sometimes those two don't match for everyone.. But for the largest segment of customers, it does..

Edited January 16, 2012 by MajikMyst

[MajikMyst]

For the record!!

 

14 March 2007 8:14 am

 

Blizzard's Drysc tells us about the new Maintenance schedule they have started useing.

 

 

Every Tuesday all realms are brought down for scheduled weekly maintenance. This maintenance window is used to perform tasks on the realm databases and hardware, and to take care of any other tasks that would not normally be possible while the realms are live. In the past few months, however, we have been intermittently testing the ability to perform these maintenance tasks while the realms are still up and available to players.

 

Based on the positive results of these tests, we're happy to announce that we'll be switching to a new maintenance schedule that will only require us to bring down realms for maintenance every other week. On the weeks in which we don't take the realms down for maintenance, we'll only be issuing rolling restarts, allowing play to continue with only a very brief interruption.

 

An exception to this schedule will be for the release of patches that require realm downtime during weeks in which maintenance would not normally be scheduled. In such cases, the schedule will start over, with the following week being maintenance-free instead. This allows us to release a patch without having three straight weeks of maintenance downtime. Here's an example of how the maintenance schedule will look, factoring in all of the above:

 

Week 1: Rolling restarts

 

Week 2: Maintenance

 

Week 3: Patch and maintenance

 

Week 4: Rolling restarts

 

Week 5: Maintenance

 

Week 6: Rolling restarts

 

The new schedule takes effect immediately, starting with rolling restarts this Tuesday instead of full maintenance downtime. As previously, the schedule for the rolling restarts or full maintenance will be posted in the news window viewable at the game's login screen, and a 15-minute countdown timer will appear on each realm prior to its scheduled restart or downtime.

 

WOW had been doing this way for years.. I fail to see why people have to complain to bioware about it..

 

Link Here..

 

Bioware does their maintenance at the absolute best single time possible.. It is more cost effective for them to do the maintenance all at once.. Instead of spread out over multiple shifts or days.. It is a better use of resources and a better use of time to do it all at once.. If any of you would check in the servere status page once in awhile.. You would notice..

 

Almost 5 hours into a typical maintenance time slot on a Monday morning and all servers are either light or standard.. The standards being in Europe.. But that is hardly peak time.. Maintance would be almost over by now.. There is simply nothing to cry about here.. Nothing at all... Yes I am aware maintenance is done on Tuesday.. But feel free to watch the server status page to see when you think the best time would be.. Not the best time for you.. But the best time for all..

 

Currently 5am PST.. Like most of Europe.. I work during a large portion of maintenance time.. People that help maintain the internet or other forms of connectivity, can and do work odd hours..

Edited January 16, 2012 by MajikMyst

[svenholio]

I am in the UK, so Yes, 8am - 4pm would impact me, if I was not working... Fortunately I do have a very nice 9-5:30 day job, my kids are at school and I have a full and varied life, of which SWTOR is just one part.

 

Go on, admit it, you were so hoping I was going to say USA weren't you....

 

Just a tad selfish dont you think, im alright jack so screw you. To be fair its a common attitude in this country. There are many types of working hours, not just 9-5 office hours.

 

Maintenance should be when there is the least people logging in, im sure this is going to be during the night times hours, 00.00 to 06.00 ish.

[Swuulerian]

@MajikMyst: So because Blizzard admitted years ago their maintenance schedule was screwed and then began the separate maintenances, BioWare *has to* now do the same mistakes?

 

WoW EU maintenance has been for years Wednesday mornings, from 6 to 12 local time. Not 12 to 18 or 20, like BioWare has.

 

There is this one thing about mistakes other companies made years back and then fixed them: You don't have to make the same mistakes.

 

Somebody already stepped in the cow-poo, the wheel was invented aeons ago. You don't have to step the same place, you don't have to invent the wheel again. Separate maintenance for different regions *is* the standard of the business, not admitting that is not very brilliant customer service.

[Lyaise]

For the record!!

 

 

 

WOW had been doing this way for years.. I fail to see why people have to complain to bioware about it..

 

Link Here..

 

Bioware does their maintenance at the absolute best single time possible FOR THE US. It is more cost effective for them to do the maintenance all at once.. Instead of spread out over multiple shifts or days.. It is a better use of resources and a better use of time to do it all at once.. If any of you would check in the servere status page once in awhile.. You would notice..

 

Almost 5 hours into a typical maintenance time slot on a Sunday night and all servers are either light or standard.. The standards being in Europe.. But that is hardly peak time.. Maintance would be almost over by now.. Not to mention today is a weekend day.. Not a work day where people would be at work.. There is simply nothing to cry about here.. Nothing at all... Yes I am aware maintenance is done on Tuesday.. But feel free to watch the server status page to see when you think the best time would be.. Not the best time for you.. But the best time for all..

 

Currently 5am PST.. Like most of Europe.. I work during a large portion of maintenance time.. People that help maintain the internet or other forms of connectivity, can and do work odd hours..

 

Lets get it right shall we

[MajikMyst]

@MajikMyst: So because Blizzard admitted years ago their maintenance schedule was screwed and then began the separate maintenances, BioWare *has to* now do the same mistakes?

 

Link??

 

As of Sept. this year when I stopped playing my lock.. The haven't changed their maintenance schedule..

 

Please show where they changed or admitted anything..

 

Other than a realm splitting into two seperate realms.. There is nothing that I could find after a quick search or two that hey split their maintenance schedule..

 

I would be nice if you are going to make bogus claims like this that you would at least back it up.. You not the only one that played WOW you know.. I also beta tested Cataclysm.. Beta testing this game game too..

 

Realm splits..

 

Click here!!

 

(Locked) Scheduled Realm Maintenance 4/19/2011

 

Gooooooooood Tuesday morning CSF!How is everyone this fine day? From our Service Status Forum...

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2369924357We will be performing scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, April 19th. Maintenance will begin at 5:00 AM PDT and conclude at approximately 11:00 AM PDT. During this time, all realms and many web services will be unavailable. Thank you for your patience.

Web services include things like character transfers, realm changes, etc. - and these forums may also periodically be unavailable - or simply unavailable to post.Always remember, please, this schedule is an ESTIMATE based on currently anticipated times. Realms may return a bit sooner - or later, than forecast.As always, this is an excellent time to maintain your own systems in preparation for the week ahead. This week it is especially important to make sure your FLASH update has run, that is to address a recently revealed vulnerability that could leave your system at risk if unpatched.

 

Sorry.. April of last year.. Still doing it on Tuesdays for all realms at the same time..

 

That is a blue post no less.. Argue with that..

Edited January 16, 2012 by MajikMyst