US Daylight Saving Time (not "Savings") now starts in March and runs until October. That's why, to you all Down Under, maintenance now starts one hour earlier.
Do you have Summer Time? If so, when we come off of DST, and you go on ST, won't that make it start an hour LATER? For a total of two hours later than right now?
Gotta love the idiot factor in here.
Maintenance fluctuates with Daylight savings changes on BOTH sides of the pond.
The complaint was that maintenance SHIFTED an extra hour ON TOP of the 'apparent' Daylight Savings move.
We're used to six months of the year being 11pm maintenance, and the other 6 months being 1am maintenance.
It was horrible to have a week of 10pm maintenance (and it was for more than a week -- it reverted back to 'normal'' 11pm maintenance yesterday).
As for this assertation that it's a US-centric game, that's not very cogent. How many people are put out by the current 6am/9am Eastern/Western time-zone maintenance windows, and would be 'adversely affected' by a 8am-11am window instead -- not many!
Japan is in the same timezone as us, and I know quite a few Japanese players, and there are the New Zealanders who are an hour ahead of us, who would be spitting chips at 9pm shutdowns.
My request was to move maintenance back to what it was, or perhaps a bit further, not to shift maintenance to 10pm USA TIMES.
Gotta love the 'someone elses problem' attitude a lot of unthinking people have.
Ex
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Part-Troll, who used to be Excession777, now playing pantomime with people's mindlets.
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Gotta love the idiot factor in here.
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We do love you. That's why everyone has been patient and explained how and why things work. If they didn't love you they'd just flame you.
No matter when maintenance takes place it is going to interrupt someones play time. It has to happen or bugs will not get fixed. Such is life.
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Japan is in the same timezone as us, and I know quite a few Japanese players, and there are the New Zealanders who are an hour ahead of us, who would be spitting chips at 9pm shutdowns.
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Funny, in my experience it shuts down at either 1am or 3am depending on daylight saving, and occasional spouts of 2am when they've switched over and we haven't or vice versa. Earliest I've ever seen it is midnight, which is only on patch days.
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Just got home from another eleven hour day and find the games down for the remainder of my evening... 
Might I suggest a staggered times for these extra maintenances? e.g. 9am NCSoft Time for the regular Monday/Friday maintenances (=Australian evening), but maybe 1pm NCSoft time for additional ones? This would interrupt the evening of India and parts of Asia (still not majority game population), whilst still occurring during the American workday.
I'm happy to put up with two evenings play time a week being interrupted, and philosphically reflect on what a great place Australia is to live, and all that. But three times a week is a little bit harsh.
if it maitenance happens more then 2 times a week it is because of patching to fix bugs. no need to complain about it.
I understand that, Sharker.
I know that sometimes extra maintenance has to happen to fix bugs. And like I said Im cool with regular maintenance happening at the worse possible time for me because I understand the reasoning behind it.
Thats why I put forward an alternative suggestion rather than complain. Do you think staggering extra maintanances could work?
I understand the frustration that many of you have with the constant maintenance window. I really do.
However, the Devs, a long time ago, datamined to find the period of time that the least number of players were on during the period where people would likely be in the office anyways. This was to prevent needing to pay overtime and maximize the money going back into the game's content.
Now, if things have changed, and there is another period of time where this is the case, I would have no problem with the Devs doing another datamine and determining when the new low-traffic period is, and moving maintenance to that time.
However, I am not a fan of staggered maintenance. My reason for this is that it means that people need to look up the different times for maintenance, instead of having it be always at the same time, so that they know. Maybe a stupid reason, but it's my reason.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
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i have to go with Aett on this one. with a set maitenance time, everyne knows when the servers will go down. and i do have to agree that there are very few people at the hrs they have chosen. i've done 24 hr stints where i struggle at that time to find a team.
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Gotta love the idiot factor in here.
Maintenance fluctuates with Daylight savings changes on BOTH sides of the pond.
The complaint was that maintenance SHIFTED an extra hour ON TOP of the 'apparent' Daylight Savings move.
We're used to six months of the year being 11pm maintenance, and the other 6 months being 1am maintenance.
It was horrible to have a week of 10pm maintenance (and it was for more than a week -- it reverted back to 'normal'' 11pm maintenance yesterday).
As for this assertation that it's a US-centric game, that's not very cogent. How many people are put out by the current 6am/9am Eastern/Western time-zone maintenance windows, and would be 'adversely affected' by a 8am-11am window instead -- not many!
Japan is in the same timezone as us, and I know quite a few Japanese players, and there are the New Zealanders who are an hour ahead of us, who would be spitting chips at 9pm shutdowns.
My request was to move maintenance back to what it was, or perhaps a bit further, not to shift maintenance to 10pm USA TIMES.
Gotta love the 'someone elses problem' attitude a lot of unthinking people have.
Ex
[/ QUOTE ]Gotta love that you missed the part where US DST changed its start time two years ago. Maintenance wasn't moved, the US just goes into DST before Australia leaves Summer Time now. And the server maintenance times are based on the local time for the cluster (Pacific for west-coast, Eastern for east-coast), and neither of them are in states that do not do DST.
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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
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i have to go with Aett on this one. with a set maitenance time, everyne knows when the servers will go down. and i do have to agree that there are very few people at the hrs they have chosen. i've done 24 hr stints where i struggle at that time to find a team.
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It has tekn nearly 5 years of the same maintenace schedule, and still at least once per week there is a post during about why are the servers down.
Hard though it is for our Australian and Kiwi cousins, Keeping it at a single set time is the best for bulk of people, and the easiest to explain to newbies.
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Thats why I put forward an alternative suggestion rather than complain. Do you think staggering extra maintanances could work?
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It depends on the reason (and mechanics) for the maintenance. Patch? I'd rather have all the servers be the same. If it's something that isn't affecting play directly (say, hardware replacement/update,) where everything will be running the same version anyway but the required time to do whatever will be long, staggering is fine.
Im not suggesting staggering for different servers, Bill. Im sure there are plenty of good reasons against doing that, not least the auction house. All servers have to go down for that to go down fully. Im suggesting performing cross-server maintenance at different times of day on different days of the week.
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Gotta love the idiot factor in here.
Maintenance fluctuates with Daylight savings changes on BOTH sides of the pond.
The complaint was that maintenance SHIFTED an extra hour ON TOP of the 'apparent' Daylight Savings move.
We're used to six months of the year being 11pm maintenance, and the other 6 months being 1am maintenance.
It was horrible to have a week of 10pm maintenance (and it was for more than a week -- it reverted back to 'normal'' 11pm maintenance yesterday).
As for this assertation that it's a US-centric game, that's not very cogent. How many people are put out by the current 6am/9am Eastern/Western time-zone maintenance windows, and would be 'adversely affected' by a 8am-11am window instead -- not many!
Japan is in the same timezone as us, and I know quite a few Japanese players, and there are the New Zealanders who are an hour ahead of us, who would be spitting chips at 9pm shutdowns.
My request was to move maintenance back to what it was, or perhaps a bit further, not to shift maintenance to 10pm USA TIMES.
Gotta love the 'someone elses problem' attitude a lot of unthinking people have.
Ex
[/ QUOTE ]Gotta love that you missed the part where US DST changed its start time two years ago. Maintenance wasn't moved, the US just goes into DST before Australia leaves Summer Time now. And the server maintenance times are based on the local time for the cluster (Pacific for west-coast, Eastern for east-coast), and neither of them are in states that do not do DST.
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For three years, maintenance has been 12.30am in summer, 10.30pm in winter, with a week or two in between at 11.30pm, due to the different changeover times for daylight savings.
Maintenance was recently starting at 9.30pm. This was the point in Troll's original post.
That cant be explained by US DST changing its start time, can it? Maintenance time was actually moved.
Aett - I cant say I agree with your reason against staggering maintenance times.
For the bulk of the playerbase, it doesnt matter whether maintenance happens at 9pm or 1am their time, because they aren't playing then anyway!
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Gotta love the idiot factor in here.
Maintenance fluctuates with Daylight savings changes on BOTH sides of the pond.
The complaint was that maintenance SHIFTED an extra hour ON TOP of the 'apparent' Daylight Savings move.
We're used to six months of the year being 11pm maintenance, and the other 6 months being 1am maintenance.
It was horrible to have a week of 10pm maintenance (and it was for more than a week -- it reverted back to 'normal'' 11pm maintenance yesterday).
As for this assertation that it's a US-centric game, that's not very cogent. How many people are put out by the current 6am/9am Eastern/Western time-zone maintenance windows, and would be 'adversely affected' by a 8am-11am window instead -- not many!
Japan is in the same timezone as us, and I know quite a few Japanese players, and there are the New Zealanders who are an hour ahead of us, who would be spitting chips at 9pm shutdowns.
My request was to move maintenance back to what it was, or perhaps a bit further, not to shift maintenance to 10pm USA TIMES.
Gotta love the 'someone elses problem' attitude a lot of unthinking people have.
Ex
[/ QUOTE ]Gotta love that you missed the part where US DST changed its start time two years ago. Maintenance wasn't moved, the US just goes into DST before Australia leaves Summer Time now. And the server maintenance times are based on the local time for the cluster (Pacific for west-coast, Eastern for east-coast), and neither of them are in states that do not do DST.
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For three years, maintenance has been 12.30am in summer, 10.30pm in winter, with a week or two in between at 11.30pm, due to the different changeover times for daylight savings.
Maintenance was recently starting at 9.30pm. This was the point in Troll's original post.
That cant be explained by US DST changing its start time, can it? Maintenance time was actually moved.
Aett - I cant say I agree with your reason against staggering maintenance times.
For the bulk of the playerbase, it doesnt matter whether maintenance happens at 9pm or 1am their time, because they aren't playing then anyway!
[/ QUOTE ]Ummm.... yes, it can.
Currently, it's DST in the US, but still Summer Time in Australia.
Normally when it's not Summer Time, Maintenance starts at 10:30 PM However, with the clocks in the US moved forward one hour, maintenance time starts 1 hour earlier. Therefore, 9:30 PM your time. Simple math, people.
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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
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I respectfully disagree, Fahx. 
I've checked your link and it says:
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2007 to the present
By the Energy Policy Act of 2005, daylight saving time (DST) was extended in the United States in 2007. DST starts on the second Sunday of March, which is three weeks earlier than in the past, and it ends on the first Sunday of November, one week later than in years past. This change resulted in a new DST period that is four weeks (five in years when March has five Sundays) longer than in previous years.
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Could you confirm this is what you're talking about? Could you also confirm that daylight savings in the US alters the time by one hour, and not two. It has always done this, but the recent change is that the time shift occurs earlier than it used to.
This would have the effect of lengthening or shortening the period when maintenance starts at 11.30pm in Adelaide ie the period between US and Australian daylight savings kicking in.
It would NOT introduce a one hour shift in maintenance time the like of which have never been seen before.
Like I said, maintenance has occurred on a cycle of 10.30pm, 11.30pm and 12.30am for me throughout the year for three years now. 9.30pm maintenance earlier this month must mean it was carried out at a different US time. For this to be the result of daylight savings changes would mean that US daylight savings had suddenly started shifting the time by two hours instead of one!
Simple maths indeed!
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As per the EULA
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10. Interruption of Service
(a) NC Interactive reserves the right to interrupt the Service from time to time on a regularly scheduled basis or otherwise with or without prior notice in order to perform maintenance. You agree that NC Interactive will not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes whatsoever.
(b) You acknowledge that the Service may be interrupted for reasons beyond the control of NC Interactive, and NC Interactive cannot guarantee that you will be able to access the Service or your Account whenever you may wish to do so. NC Interactive shall not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes whatsoever.
(c) NC Interactive has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to change and/or eliminate any aspect(s) of the Service as it sees fit in its sole discretion.
(d) NC Interactive shall not be obligated to refund all or any portion of any Account fee or Additional Feature fee by reason of any interruption of the Service by reason of any of the circumstances described in paragraph (a) or (b).
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Everyone that plays this game agrees to this condition each and every time they log on to play.
Sorry if this sounds harsh but, deal with it or don't play.
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One of the reasons I'm looking forward to the CoH competitor coming along (Cryptic's new MMO), is because I reckon it won't have these garbage maintenance windows smack in the middle of peak Australian playing times, or they won't take down ALL the servers at the same time.
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So, threatening to leave the game is going to make them change their policies?
Also:
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I fully understand the need for a maintenance window, especially in a game environment where things change.
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Oh, do you? The rest of you post seems to disagree with that.
Well then, I guess they should simply cancel maintenance... as it will inevitably impact someone's play time. Heck, I would like them to move it ahead a few more hours so that I can play CoH/V when I get home from Third shift!
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As per the EULA
[ QUOTE ]
10. Interruption of Service
(a) NC Interactive reserves the right to interrupt the Service from time to time on a regularly scheduled basis or otherwise with or without prior notice in order to perform maintenance. You agree that NC Interactive will not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes whatsoever.
(b) You acknowledge that the Service may be interrupted for reasons beyond the control of NC Interactive, and NC Interactive cannot guarantee that you will be able to access the Service or your Account whenever you may wish to do so. NC Interactive shall not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes whatsoever.
(c) NC Interactive has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to change and/or eliminate any aspect(s) of the Service as it sees fit in its sole discretion.
(d) NC Interactive shall not be obligated to refund all or any portion of any Account fee or Additional Feature fee by reason of any interruption of the Service by reason of any of the circumstances described in paragraph (a) or (b).
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Everyone that plays this game agrees to this condition each and every time they log on to play.
Sorry if this sounds harsh but, deal with it or don't play.
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I do deal with it.
I'll repeat what I said before. I'm cool with having maintenance twice a week during my prime playing time. Thats business as usual, I'm in a minority time zone, and living in Australia does have its upside too
However, when we get extra midweek maintenances, it starts to stretch my patience a little, and I'd prefer it if this could happen in someone else's timeslot.
I'm not really expecting anything to change because of my posts here, to be honest. But there's nothing wrong with discussing reasonable alternatives here is there?
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One of the reasons I'm looking forward to the CoH competitor coming along (Cryptic's new MMO), is because I reckon it won't have these garbage maintenance windows smack in the middle of peak Australian playing times, or they won't take down ALL the servers at the same time.
[/ QUOTE ]I was on your side until you got to this point. You don't need to shake a sabre and threaten comparisons to a game that not only isn't out, but won't be out until 2010 as if you know anything at all to try and 'scare' a response out of the higher ups.
I'd like server maintenance to be less regular and to be positioned more appropriately for my playtimes. But good grief man, what the hell.
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<QR>
As per the EULA
[ QUOTE ]
10. Interruption of Service
(a) NC Interactive reserves the right to interrupt the Service from time to time on a regularly scheduled basis or otherwise with or without prior notice in order to perform maintenance. You agree that NC Interactive will not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes whatsoever.
(b) You acknowledge that the Service may be interrupted for reasons beyond the control of NC Interactive, and NC Interactive cannot guarantee that you will be able to access the Service or your Account whenever you may wish to do so. NC Interactive shall not be liable for any interruption of the Service, delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes whatsoever.
(c) NC Interactive has the right at any time for any reason or no reason to change and/or eliminate any aspect(s) of the Service as it sees fit in its sole discretion.
(d) NC Interactive shall not be obligated to refund all or any portion of any Account fee or Additional Feature fee by reason of any interruption of the Service by reason of any of the circumstances described in paragraph (a) or (b).
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Everyone that plays this game agrees to this condition each and every time they log on to play.
Sorry if this sounds harsh but, deal with it or don't play.
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I do deal with it.
I'll repeat what I said before. I'm cool with having maintenance twice a week during my prime playing time. Thats business as usual, I'm in a minority time zone, and living in Australia does have its upside too
However, when we get extra midweek maintenances, it starts to stretch my patience a little, and I'd prefer it if this could happen in someone else's timeslot.
I'm not really expecting anything to change because of my posts here, to be honest. But there's nothing wrong with discussing reasonable alternatives here is there?
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There's nothing wrong with reasonable discussion. But the company is performing it's maintenance in the most reasonable fashion possible.
They perform these maintenance periods when the fewest number of players are online. Changing that schedule would mean more players are inconvenienced.
The US servers schedule things on their timezones. The EU servers schedule theirs on their time zones. If you want things scheduled so they favor your timezones maybe they should consider reopening the Korean servers, or open them in Australia. Of course that would mean giving up the US servers.
I'd still say its open question as to whether this is THE most reasonable. Its close, sure.
Say we simplify it to 3 groups:
US: 100,000 players
Asia: 20,000 players
Australia: 10,000 players
These figures are probably off, the point is US is much greater than Asia, which is somewhat greater than Australia in terms of playerbase.
Both Asia and Australia peak during the US working day, so we're not inconveniencing the maintenance crew by making them come in at night.
I'll also assume that most people play at the same time each day. I've no idea how accurate this really is.
Now, it makes sense to inconvenience the smallest group when maintenance happens twice a week, and they do. Thats fine.
However, on the rare week when they have to perform extra two extra maintenances, like this one, is it more reasonable to inconvenience the same group again, or to spread it around a bit and inconvenience another somewhat larger group?
Is it better to mildly irritate 30,000 players (Asia + Aus get 2 evenings off each) or really annoy 10,000 players? (Aus gets 4 evenings off)
I dont think there's a definite answer to this one, and I am of course biased.
Does anyone else see this clear cut either way? Which is the lesser of two necessary evils here?
Sadly I don't think there's a clear cut compromise. If these extra maintenances occured more frequently, they might consider changing it, but these happen so infrequently that I can't see them considering a change.
Sorry.
I dont think there is any way around it if the Australia population goes down at the same time as America. I think Sydney, Australia is +14 hours ahead of us so if it goes down at 9am Eastern Time here and it would be going down at 11pm in Australia.
Maintenance Time Example:
8AM (EST) -- 10PM (Aus)
9AM (EST) -- 11PM (Aus)
10AM (EST) -- 12AM (Aus)
11AM (EST) -- 1AM (Aus)
... you get the idea.
Someone can correct me if I screwed up somewhere.