Nope, not in yesterday situation where it seemed to be a fairly critical flaw with the patch. Writing any sort of detailed explanation would take longer to compose, check and have passed off by a manager than a simple message like the one they used.
And without knowing what steps they needed to take to fix the issue it'd be foolish of them to provide any set ETA as to when service would be resumed.
Sometimes servers fall over or have critical flaws in new patches / upgrades. When that happens the priority has to be to prevent it causing any extra damage to customer data even if it means a disruption to services.
Also K and Palli did pretty well keeping us informed in the Announcements as to the nature and extent of the issue on the forums. The GMs and Community Mods aren't developers or technical people, so they need to take a while to translate from the 1s and 0s which Techman speaks into a more human-friendly tongue.
If it's between 8am and 10am UK time, then no, it's not rude. There is a standard notification that between those hours the servers may be taken down at any time.
Outside those hours, I know that they try to give more warning than that, but it's not always possible, especially if it's for something like an urgent fix.
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No Shadowe it was about 7pm, they flashed us a 5 min warning, yes the usual morning one which made little or no sense in the situation, and 5 min later they DC'd everyone. I was in the middle of a TF at the time and was a little put out by it. Surely a 'Sorry our new patch seems to have developed some conflicts on our live servers, unfortunatly we need to shutdown as soon as possible all servers while we address this problem this could take anywhere between 1/2 hour and 6 hours. Thank you for your patience further updates will be published on the official forums.' isn't too much to ask.
And Carni never noticed the announcement thread myself and there are people who don't visit the forums at all.
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No Shadowe it was about 7pm, they flashed us a 5 min warning, yes the usual morning one which made little or no sense in the situation, and 5 min later they DC'd everyone. I was in the middle of a TF at the time and was a little put out by it. Surely a 'Sorry our new patch seems to have developed some conflicts on our live servers, unfortunatly we need to shutdown as soon as possible all servers while we address this problem this could take anywhere between 1/2 hour and 6 hours. Thank you for your patience further updates will be published on the official forums.' isn't too much to ask.
And Carni never noticed the announcement thread myself and there are people who don't visit the forums at all.
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Emergency updates are just that... emergency. Which means they will pull the servers down as soon as they can to apply the fix. Now i can understand the frustration while being in a TF. But you can always get together again after the downtime.
It's not that exactly it's just seems bad manners to hit me with a bot message that makes very little sense under the circumstances, just cos it says server closed in 5 mins somewhere in it.
What do you expect them to do, keep the servers up even though there was a game breaking problem? It was an emergency due to a serious problem in the latest patch. They had no choice and, as has already been explained, a longer message would have just taken longer to get signed off and translated to the other 2 languages.
What happened yesterday afternoon (it was a lot earlier than 7pm for the UK ), is NOT a normal situation; far from it. As for people not reading the forums to check for announcement, that's their OWN fault. EVERYONE is told, when they first register their game, to use the forum for the latest updates and announcements. If people don't avail themselves of that resource, that's their own fault; not NC's.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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What do you expect them to do, keep the servers up even though there was a game breaking problem? It was an emergency due to a serious problem in the latest patch. They had no choice and, as has already been explained, a longer message would have just taken longer to get signed off and translated to the other 2 languages.
What happened yesterday afternoon (it was a lot earlier than 7pm for the UK ), is NOT a normal situation; far from it. As for people not reading the forums to check for announcement, that's their OWN fault. EVERYONE is told, when they first register their game, to use the forum for the latest updates and announcements. If people don't avail themselves of that resource, that's their own fault; not NC's.
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Well said
Thelonious Monk
Hmm no I dont think it's rude, rude would be just booting everyone off the server the instant the problem was identified. 5 Mins is enough time to get yourself sorted out (unless you're on a timed mission of course...) without allowing the problem to get out of hand.
As for giving all the imformation in one message, again: no. All I want to know is that the servers are coming down, it's a simple message that they can just get out quickly. If I want further info I'll come here where peeps will keep us informed. 
I don't wanna save my soul now,
I just wanna lose control,
And even if it takes a lifetime, to learn:
I'll learn!
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It's not that exactly it's just seems bad manners to hit me with a bot message that makes very little sense under the circumstances, just cos it says server closed in 5 mins somewhere in it.
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I do understand where you're coming from, however...this is *exactly* the sort of thread that would have emerged, if the crippling problem re: incorrectly flagged trial accounts had gone unnoticed.
This seems like complaining for complaining's sake, much rather they dealt with it quickly, than the problem remaining and the same thread happening after that
If I was in the pub and the landlord shouted last orders at 3 in the afternoon and when you tried to enquire further all he did was point to a sign that said 'It's illegal for us to sell you alchohol after lisencing hours' and just expecected you to leave I would consider it rude in the same way.
Perhaps I am just complaining for complaining sake but I think understandably being interupted when you are doing something you enjoy is frustrating, in this case I feel NC could have done more to acknowledge this and comminicate more clearly in the first place about the issue rather than expecting people to go search the forums, to me there customer relations was somewhat lacking in this case..
Just my 0.02 inf worth anyway
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If I was in the pub and the landlord shouted last orders at 3 in the afternoon and when you tried to enquire further all he did was point to a sign that said 'It's illegal for us to sell you alchohol after lisencing hours' and just expecected you to leave I would consider it rude in the same way.
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Which is EXACTLY what was done. The landlord called last orders (5 minute warning), and the sign went up (announcement thread on the forums).
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Perhaps I am just complaining for complaining sake but I think understandably being interupted when you are doing something you enjoy is frustrating, in this case I feel NC could have done more to acknowledge this and comminicate more clearly in the first place about the issue rather than expecting people to go search the forums, to me there customer relations was somewhat lacking in this case..
Just my 0.02 inf worth anyway
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They did everything they could, asking for more than that IS being totally unreasonable.
And yes, IMO, you ARE just complaining for the sake of complaining.
I bet you'd have been ROYALLY steamed if you were one of the accounts affected by the bug...
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
No its not rude. Its a warning.
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Is it just me or is spamming us with the standard 'Daily maintence' spiel 5 mins b4 your about to shut down your servers unexpectadley just kinda rude. Is a short message expalining the situation, apologising, estimating how long said problem might continue really too much to ask as we pay to feed them hamsters in the first place so if they got sick and need to go the vet surely we should be properly informed.
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Yea its just you mate, if its important and needs fixing just fix it, who cares about the message.
Next time the fire alarm goes off, lets all read the detailed explanation as to why the alarm is going and.. Is it hot in here or is that just me?
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If I was in the pub and the landlord shouted last orders at 3 in the afternoon and when you tried to enquire further all he did was point to a sign that said 'It's illegal for us to sell you alchohol after lisencing hours' and just expecected you to leave I would consider it rude in the same way.
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Which is EXACTLY what was done. The landlord called last orders (5 minute warning), and the sign went up (announcement thread on the forums).
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Perhaps I am just complaining for complaining sake but I think understandably being interupted when you are doing something you enjoy is frustrating, in this case I feel NC could have done more to acknowledge this and comminicate more clearly in the first place about the issue rather than expecting people to go search the forums, to me there customer relations was somewhat lacking in this case..
Just my 0.02 inf worth anyway
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They did everything they could, asking for more than that IS being totally unreasonable.
And yes, IMO, you ARE just complaining for the sake of complaining.
I bet you'd have been ROYALLY steamed if you were one of the accounts affected by the bug...
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You are missing my point, the point is I was presented with an incomplete or misledaing message regarding the incident. Is opening some God Mod chat window and actually giving me a genuine message regarding the situation in game too much to ask personally I think not but obviously some of your opinions differ to mine on this.
*shrugs*
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You are missing my point, the point is I was presented with an incomplete or misledaing message regarding the incident. Is opening some God Mod chat window and actually giving me a genuine message regarding the situation in game too much to ask personally I think not but obviously some of your opinions differ to mine on this.
*shrugs*
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It's not us missing your point. It's you missing everyone else's.
Misleading message? You've got 5 minutes to finish up before we fix a problem? That ain't misleading son. That's being on the ball.
Thelonious Monk
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You are missing my point, the point is I was presented with an incomplete or misledaing message regarding the incident. Is opening some God Mod chat window and actually giving me a genuine message regarding the situation in game too much to ask personally I think not but obviously some of your opinions differ to mine on this.
*shrugs*
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Dont really know what ya wanted out of this thread, you asked was it just you who thought it was rude, it seems it was just you.
what ya shrugging for? If you wasnt interested, why ask?
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You are missing my point, the point is I was presented with an incomplete or misledaing message regarding the incident. Is opening some God Mod chat window and actually giving me a genuine message regarding the situation in game too much to ask personally I think not but obviously some of your opinions differ to mine on this.
*shrugs*
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And as I have already said.. ANY message that's not the preset "shutting down" one would have to be signed off by some manager, and THEN translated into French and German, and THEN checked before FINALLY getting posted up. That takes more than 5 minutes to do.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I guess it is kinda rude that some people seem to expect those players affected by game-breaking bugs to wait 30 minutes or so whilst a full explanation/apology is delivered and those unaffected finish off their TF.
The bug was pretty-much game breaking for those affected. Support managed to give 5 minutes warning. Annoying for you but not rude under the circumstances.
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as for spamming. yeah, thats so inconsiderate them flashing a message on my screen without my permission. much better tha tthey send an email warning me of the impending server takedown to my registered email address. that way I can choose if i want to see the warning or not. of course, this being the entarrweb , if I dont read the warning then the server shouldnt shut down on me, should it ? so its win-win and the rules of polititudinous (*) correspondence have been observed.
*not a real word
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Next time the fire alarm goes off, lets all read the detailed explanation as to why the alarm is going and.. Is it hot in here or is that just me?
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They actually do warn you when they are testing the fire alarm you know like hours before hand.
Though yeah personally I'm not fussed either way, better little warning than the game breaking.
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
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Next time the fire alarm goes off, lets all read the detailed explanation as to why the alarm is going and.. Is it hot in here or is that just me?
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They actually do warn you when they are testing the fire alarm you know like hours before hand.
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Yes, but this wasn't a prearranged thing. It was an emergancy. Generally you don't get warnings before a fire starts. (Unless you have an oddly polite arsonist)
Its just you.
I think the OP needs to look up what the words inconvientient and rude mean. When he has a better understanding of basic words then and only then can this thread continue.
@Sweet Chilli
Is it just me or is spamming us with the standard 'Daily maintence' spiel 5 mins b4 your about to shut down your servers unexpectadley just kinda rude. Is a short message expalining the situation, apologising, estimating how long said problem might continue really too much to ask as we pay to feed them hamsters in the first place so if they got sick and need to go the vet surely we should be properly informed.