Discussion: Extended Live Server Maintenance - Thursday, September 22, 2011

Well, the servers were back up and running after much less than the expected downtime, but then an issue cropped up that requires taking them back down again for another hour or so.

So it's basically a mixed bag.

That is true. She doesn't seem to go out of her way to be outright mean to people.

I want your job where you get paid "ridiculously well" to sit on COX forums or play COX while at work. The rest of us actually have to work for a living so yes, 60 - 80 hours isnt un common.

Again, I retort, stop trolling.

Ah, didn't realize they were already back up. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

i find it interesting only in the sense that there are occasional brief sparks of insight in what otherwise appears to be narrowminded vacuity. This is generally not something i find fun. YMMV, of course.

To elaborate, i've seen her make assertions many times where her only argument in support of her position is that it's true because that's the way it is. No logical justification other than she believes it to be so therefore it is no matter what.

Ah. Attacking me rather than attacking the points of my argument. Good for you!

The problem is, the devs aren't suggesting players are owed anything. They players are. In essence "GIMME GIMME GIMME!" I've always found it best not to reward greed of this sort.

I believe you're trying to insert words into my mouth. I've never said "the devs never do wrong". Nor have I implied it. Even my arguments here in opposition of the "GIMME" crowd imply the devs have screwed up. But they've screwed up by UNDERestimating the load the servers would see. And that's not always something that can be planned for. Do YOU go out in public in full pads and plate expecting someone to accidentally bump into you and knock you over?

Investment? How about "You are paying for access to a computer game service. This includes the possibility of downtime, sometimes EXTENSIVE downtime for maintenance and hardware upgrade purposes."

What, if anything, about that is unclear?

When did NCSoft or Paragon promise you 24x7x52 access?

Basically "If we whine enough they'll throw us a sop to shut us up."

Again. I've found that giving in to this sort of greed is never a good thing.

We agree on this. We simply disagree on what the limits should be.

SOME people are unhappy right now. Not everyone.
And of those that are unhappy, some are philosophical about the situation.
However, a group of them are hell-bent on the "I am wronged therefore I must be compensated" line of...*reasoning*.

And I do.

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Thats only 1 out of 400 points, that makes the argument invalid?

Service is service.

You don't have a leg to stand on. You could continue to fight like the armless and legless black knight if you wish!

i logged in for a while (edit: on Champion) with a level 3 lowbie with no problems, even got to level 4, but i saw a numerous reports from people with higher level characters who were receiving no rewards at all.

No. I'm saying that they saw the loads from the opening of i21 and did something in vaguely this order.

• Went "Holy crap!"
• Said "We've got to get a bigger boat."
• Had some meetings to discuss the issue.
• Had some more meetings to arrive at technical specs for new servers
• Had some more meetings to arrive at the budget.
• Ordered the new servers
• Had more meetings to plan out an upgrade schedule and process.
• Waited for the new servers
• Took delivery of the new servers.
• Unpacked and tested the parts.
• Slotted the upgrade schedule in at the earliest possible time.
• Announced it.

Probably because they hadn't taken delivery of the parts and tested them yet. You don't want to say "We're doing it on THIS DATE" when you haven't actually taken delivery and/or tested anything.

My game company got burnt by one of our manufacturers at GenCon this year because we were promised product that they KNEW they weren't going to be able to deliver. As such, we lost over $20,000 in direct sales at GenCon.

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And now there's apparently a fix that can be applied without taking the servers down, so they will stay up after all.

You haven't lost a damn thing because you were never promised the ability to play during maintenance windows.

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This isn't a standard maintenance window.

According to the EULA, irrelevant.

EULA has no bearing in this situation.

Dear lord i hope you aint on about the server selection screen since that was an actual bug . . . . . . .

If you "know" this, you've either completely missed the point of these maintenance windows or you've crossed over into the mirror universe (check for the "I am evil" goatees!)

That's just it, you didn't "waste" time. You played because the game is good, the community is great, and the devs are genuinely involved.

You're just "Internet Angry" right now. So you're choosing to ignore this.

[quotte]The loyal players are being used as guinea pigs now before the people that don't have to pay come over.[/quote]

No. There are ALWAYS things that pop up on Live that never reared their heads on Beta. Since I started playing, there have been goofy behaviors in Live issue releases that simply didn't occur during IDENTICAL circumstances on Beta or Test. If the devs could avoid this kind of stuff, don't you think they would?

If you can seriously answer that they CHOOSE not to avoid this stuff, you may as well just cancel your sub now.

It's also a smaller number if you're not doing something expensive like paying on a monthly basis.

Also, compare that number by the price of a movie ticket. Or seats at a ball game. Exactly how many of those could be gotten for that amount of money. And would it have provided anyplace CLOSE to the total number of hours played in-game in the last X-number of years.

Hyperbole much?
Buh-bye?
Can I have your stuff?

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Actually YOU don't know what they're doing. I was on the UStream chat this morning. They described the process in great detail today.

So yeah. I DO know what they're doing. And, as someone who works IT, I have a fairly GOOD idea of EXACTLY what's going on from their descriptions, as I've done similar things myself.

They are physically moving the data to new servers.

Actually, since you're ignorant of what's going on, you're right. You wouldn't call it an upgrade. Hell YOU shouldn't call it ANYTHING.

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If you want to complain fine. Just make sure you know what you're talking about. Avoid baseless accusations. And for the love of Bob, try to hold back on the self-entitlement of "I should be complensated" demands.

Without access to actual subscriber numbers, you could probably say you're a portion of the community. How LARGE a portion is entirely debatable though.

Additionally, it has been spelled out, the downtimes during EU primetimes are still STATISTICALLY affecting the lowest number of players. This argues as to how large your portion is.

While I'm sympathetic (and please believe me, were I in your situation, I'd be annoyed as **** too). The devs have stated, several times now, that this maintenance policy isn't going to change in the foreseeable future.

Now, if you can bring on a couple tens of thousands of paying subscribers in your neck of the woods, I'm fairly certain the devs would have EVERY reason to reconsider.

Debatable. Especially since it is already spelled out that they're not required to compensate you for service outages, planned or unplanned.

Maybe have them give the game a try when it's NOT in the middle of an upgrade cycle.

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I'm not unhappy.

I'm feeling quite content today actually.

It didn't rain. The sun is shining. The boss has been gone most of the day.

Yup, pretty good day so far.

When I get home from work, the servers will be up and I will enjoy happy CoH time.

All is good with the world.

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