the rerturn of the daily maintenance?

That's what I wanted to ask, too - where are those numbers coming from? Last I heard, NCsoft don't publish subscription numbers, and haven't done so since 2009. And it wouldn't even be relevant if they did, considering they're moving to a hybrid model.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Actually, those personnel aren't at Paragon Studios. They work for NCSoft and are at a different location. The servers are in Texas.

Unexpected server maintenance are by definition unexpected and can't be scheduled ahead of time luv.

Best analogy ever.

Minor Nitpick but GM's do indeed work in Paragon Studios. They have made a couple cameo appearances on Zwill's coffee talks. One stopping to make a joke about GM's not hating players.

Sorry but there is major flaw in that argument. We may be a smaller segment of their customer base but we are paying the exact same as you for this game so why should we have less consideration?

NCSoft are happy to take money from people in different time zones shouldn't that also mean they could use some of that extra income to do work out of hours so that we aren't the ones constantly being kicked off? And even if they didn't do it out of hours theres a six hour block during the workday that this work could be moved around in without paying any overtime. Either that or charge us less for the incovenience of it always being us that gets shafted.

I know you yanks think we are just winging but consider this. In the last three weeks 70% of the times my mates and I have tried to play we've been kicked off for a shutdown. There would be a meltdown if that happened to the main playerbase. Yet some of you have the temerity to come into these threads about it saying "thats the way it is deal with it". Our $15 a month gives us a right to voice our concerns to NCSoft just as yours does you.

You answered your own question in that sentence, before you even finished asking it. Assuming that SOMEONE has to be disadvantaged (and someone most surely does), then they try to make it the smallest number of people possible.

Now, while it is reasonable to ask why they can't spread the pain around, we return to the simple fact that the work has to be done during U.S. business hours since that's where the company is located. Can they pay someone extra to do the work during 'off' hours? Sure, for an emergency. Will they pay that on a regular basis? No. It's nothing personal and 'fairness' isn't a consideration. It's a money decision.

Yes but it doesn't need to be the same group every time. And if it is to be the group why the hell should we pay the same money for this game that you do when we get less for it.


NCSoft is getting extra money from all the foreign susbscribers. Hell I've forked out almost $1,200 to them just me alone. Are you telling me it is not right for them to make some extra effort regarding us for that money? And who says it "has" to be done during US business hours. We pay for this service too you know. Do you think it right they take our money then just ignore our needs as customers too?

And anyway we're not even asking them to pay for overtime for this. Shifting the time around during the standard eight hour day would be plenty. Surely not a big ask?

http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/earnings.aspx

The numbers where collected from these sheets since 2005 and put into a graph by a friend of mine.

His words... (Vanex_NA/Vanex_EU)

---
Y = Millions of KRW
that is: 2000 M KRW = 2 M $


collected data from every report since 2005 Q4
you can download 'em all, one by one
still in some italian forum they insist to say there are the same number of players....servers are healthy....
I'm technician, used to look at data files...
unless they tricked reports....it clearly shows that:
1: GR is a flash in the pan
2: if it is healty now, it was twice as healthy in 2006-2009

Table is not labeled since who prepared and who's intended to read that table. They do know what it is about, it is tech data only who manages knows
and, unlabelled to make it more .... Cryptyc!


But KWR > USD
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...gc.r_pw.&cad=b

graph is only CoX,...
---

What I can say about this is then... the numbers are being kept unclear and out of visuals on purpois.

Your basic server staff are probably doing round the clock shifts but they're there to just simply make sure the servers are running, usually servers are contracted out to a third party to look after (these sites usually house server banks from many different MMOs, this is especially the case where a game has server in the US and EU, the EU CoH servers were looked after by a third party) or in the case of NCsoft, probably all your games are house in one big server holding area.

So that means any actual work (I.E. bugfixes etc.) actually has to be done by the guys at Paragon studios, then dispatched off to the server warehouse, which brings the servers down, installs the update and then brings them back up.

This is often the case for the EU side of things, not sure if this is how it works now everything is in the US (for example the EU CoH would have maintenance at a sensible time for the EU, say 4-8am GMT but if it was a new Issue release, it would require the devs be in the office and thus a new issue was put out at 'American time'.)

You also have to remember that since the launch of Going Rogue we have had 4 booster packs released, 1 of which *didnt* sell all that well (The party pack).

The Origins, Animals and Steampunk pack also had a *lower* cost than the normal Super Booster pack.

The case of "Going Rogue" being a flash in the pan... actually considering that the expansion cost £27 ish at launch, it is *not* suprising that there was an increase in earnings for that quarter... people bought the expansion on top of their normal subscription fee.

The thing that *isnt* revealed, and it is the essential one, is the number of subscribers of City of Heroes. We can make estimates, and guesses... but as long as we are basing it off "Total Earning" we are going to be off the mark by some degree...

Booster sales, discounts on subscription fees (for 3,6 and 12 month purchases), not to mention as well character renames, server transfers, extra character slots, respec tokens.... they all add up and make the total number harder to estimate accurately.

I would be more inclined to say that the total number of subscribers has stayed the same from pre "Going Rogue" to post "Going Rogue". Is it a cry of "DOOOOOM™"?

In my opinion it isnt.


Just yet.


But without an increase in players coming into the game, then just natural erosion of the player base, will eventually cause the game to close down.


Back on topic:

I have played other MMO's and they range from "daily" downtime, to weekly downtime.

The case of a "rolling" downtime (ie it moves forward an hour after each *scheduled downtime*), will quite rapidly place it at *bad* times for developers.

So if you want to avoid that scenario, you then have to cut out the downtimes which are not convenient for the developers.

Which unfortunately, for *ease* of the developers/server maintenance cross over, typically ends up being in Australian prime time.

This seems to be the case if the game has maintenance between 11am UTC to 4pm UTC (Typically between 7pm and Midnight Australian time, if not 2-3 hours later)... strangely enough though, those are within the *easiest* timezones for the Developers to make it...

((Note: The 800lb Gorilla with its Downtimes once a week at 3am in the morning... more often than not had problems bringing its servers back up (at least EU side) and more often than not, one server was down for at least 3-4 hours longer than the rest. Which one would it be? Who knew... but it still happened))

So to me, an Australian complaining about their play time being screwed up by server maintenance (in particular scheduled ones) is nothing new. It happens a lot, unless there is a *dedicated* server hosted locally... and even then, i can guess that its downtime would normally be more scheduled to match the rest of the servers... especially come "expansion" or "content patch" days.....

Well, that fills me with confidence.

The fact that the company and the servers are located in the U.S.

Short answer: yes. The work has to be done some time during the day and the time they pick is when it will affect the least people.

Maybe. Given that the work is constrained by U.S. business hours, I don't know how many people are playing at the usual maintenance time vs... say... 3 hours later. That could be a reasonable option.



And the reason is that NCSoft decided to share less information since their competitors were not sharing this information. Now, is that ACTUALLY the reason? I don't know. But you don't know the reason either. I'm just pointing out there is a 'non sinister' and 'non doom' explanation.

NCSoft, in the interest of making as much money as possible, and pleasing the most customers, will ALWAYS, if given a choice, pick the time that inconveniences the least amount of people, regardless of where they live. You said yourself that your money is the same as ours, so a customer is a customer is a customer. They pick the same times because that's what the numbers say, and if you happen to want to play during those times more than any other, you will be inconvenienced more. There's no way around it.

There are also many people that can only play in the morning times here in the States. They are also just as inconvenienced as you by morning (for us) maintenance. They're not just picking on Aussies.

How about this conclusion:

City of Heroes is a 7 year old (and counting) game, in a world where most MMOs would love to make it to half that. There are more that die in the first year or two than make it to where this game and that other one are.

The subscription numbers are irrelevant. People are still playing, and the company is more than happy to spend money to put in more content.

I've taken the liberty to clarify this graph a little:

I am not in OZ. The shutdowns affect me. I pay the same amount as you, actually possibly twice as much, and soon to be possibly three times as much. I am not spitting the dummy because it hits in the am while I play, and not in the pm's when I don't. I would wager a months playtime that there are more people in NA affected by the am shutdowns here than folks in Oz and NZ. Stop taking it personally mate.

No mate I honestly don't take this personally. I know the Dev's are not picking the time they do out of malice however that doesn't change the basic facts. You and I are paying full price for something we are not getting. It is as simple as that and something that could be addressed by the devs with a little effort.

I have made all my points more than once so I won't do it again. I do want to point out thought that I am not just speaking for myself but all the Aussie's who I play with most of whom rarely bother coming to the forums. They all feel exactly the same as I do and this is what I am communicating to NCSoft. Part of their customer base feels victimised because they refuse to stagger the shutdown times. And as paying customers we have every right to do so.

I would like to point out that this is not just another case where you can say "just ignore the wingers they will keep paying and playing anyway". Australian gamers as a rule are getting very tired of being treated badly by overseas companies. Just as an example a recently released game by a large company in the very same genre as this one not only had their shutdowns in the same time period but had the affront to charge us $5 a month more than the US for the exact same service. When we asked why said company could come up with no valid excuse for it. The net result was every single Aussie I know cancelled their subscription and didn't play beyond their first month.

Now I am not suggesting for a second NCSoft are any near as bad as the above company. They have actually addressed issues we've had in the past which were greatly appreciated. However this is something that is bothering a lot of us and quite frankly a lot of us question our susbscriptions during times like this. A lot of us cut down the number of accounts we had last time too. So please believe me when I say no matter what you may think of us this is something we take seriously.

And we would appreciate hearing a response from the Devs directly. Getting attacked by other players for daring to suggest we get the same as them just makes matters worse.

I hate to sound cold hearted about this because I do feel for your situation. However...

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.

Any business that is looking to stay in business (unless funded by someone with unlimited funds and altruistic reasons) will tell you that. And businesses, in general, don't really care about the individual. Although, NCSoft does seem to care more for the individual than other games I've played. Still, they have to look at the broader view. Would inconveniencing a small group be better for the business than inconveniencing a large group?

From a practical stand point, which would you choose?

Incorrect. NCSoft, in the interest of making money will pick times that causes the least amount cancelled subs. This may be the same as the least amount of people, but doesn't have to be. eg annoying 70% of your userbase 10% of the time may be less disruptive to the incoming subs that annoying 10% of your userbase 70% of the time.

I personally feel that NCSoft has done a lot to reduce downtime for Aussies from what it was when I first started. If it was like it was a few years ago, I wouldnt be playing/paying anymore. I couldnt even recommand the game to people back then, as there was no expectation of being able to play - it was awful when it was 8:30-10:30 every week night.

They changed it from every day, all the time in a peak time to typically once a week.
More recently that staggered the tuesday morning patch time to be a bit later - that was great - 10:30pm shut off is way nicer than 8:30pm.

Another factor is the daylight savings changes - that also changes maint from mildly annoying to in your face downtime.

It would be nice if unexpected maint was announced ahead of time too of course /straightface.

There are times when its simply going to suck being at this stage of daylight savings and the higher amount of downtime. I expect it to be bad during Freedom release too.

Ahh but I disagree with your premise. If this were just a case of choosing whom to inconvenience then I would completely accept your argument.

In this case it's a choice of majorly shafting a smaller segment of the customer base and minorly inconveniencing a potentially larger one.

A larger amount of people getting a shutdown every one to two months is not going to upset anyone. Whereas putting them all in one timezone does. Surely it is better for a company to upset none of their customers if possible?

Look this is a game after all and I'm starting to feel that I'm putting more effort into this argument than the issue warrents but I hate leaving points unanswered.