Credit for all the downtime
By
Aett_Thorn,
Posted on: 2011-09-22 09:50 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Actually some napkin has shown the downtime has been roughly 2 days of game time, so it isn't far off honestly IMVHO.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
No that's way too much.
To fairly compensate players for downtime the devs would have to tabulate exactly how many hours the servers were down and then add up how much that time actually cost the players out of their subscription fees. 30 days = 720 hours Dividing the hours into the monthly $15 dollar subscription fee gets you just over .02 cents an hour, and since our devs are generous they'd most likely round it up to .03 cents an hour. So the game would have to be offline for at least 83 hours just to be equivalent to 210 PP. That would be about three and a half straight days of server downtime. Of course all the above only applies to unscheduled downtime. They scheduled the current downtimes and told us in advance they were happening so they wouldn't be compensated for as per the EULA. |
This wasn't a scheduled downtime as it was an unforeseen circumstance when they had to do more hardware upgrades and physically move the servers when they did hardware upgrades last week.
unforeseen circumstances aren't announced the day before
No it really is because why would you do another hardware upgrade when one was done last week?
I must have missed something then, I know there was a scheduled 4 hour maintenance this past Saturday, which ended up being 3 hours, but that was a stability hotfix and not physically moving the servers.
Obsid, I'm not quoting that.
That image is bloody TERRIFYING on SO many damn levels! O_O
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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THIS, but it made me LOL like Ive never LOL'd before. That image has made my week. Thank you for that.
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Obsid, I'm not quoting that.
That image is bloody TERRIFYING on SO many damn levels! O_O |
I find it humorous that people are defending them...I understand the EULA says they can't guarantee permanent up time but still this downtime is excessive. For all of you that don't care about the $1.50 or so (or $1) that we lost over the downtime, how about you send it to me then? I don't care if it's $1 I lost in the end, it's still a $1. Sorry if you don't see it this way.
I am perfectly happy with a couple free days. WoW did it, and other MMOs did it (Rift I believe did, or maybe another MMO I'm getting confused for RIft) so there is perfectly no good reason for them not to do so. It's a good PR move. Maybe they should make it optional though so you guys who really like the downtime can opt out and enjoy it more.
there's understanding and then there's missing the point
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Originally Posted by Larvos
I find it humorous that people are defending them...I understand the EULA says they can't guarantee permanent up time but still this downtime is excessive. For all of you that don't care about the $1.50 or so (or $1) that we lost over the downtime, how about you send it to me then? I don't care if it's $1 I lost in the end, it's still a $1. Sorry if you don't see it this way.
I am perfectly happy with a couple free days. WoW did it, and other MMOs did it (Rift I believe did, or maybe another MMO I'm getting confused for RIft) so there is perfectly no good reason for them not to do so. It's a good PR move. Maybe they should make it optional though so you guys who really like the downtime can opt out and enjoy it more. |
Nobody is saying "YESSSS I LOVE DOWNTIME AND I DON'T THINK THE DEVS SHOULD GIVE US ANYTHING FOR IT EVER".
What we are saying is that they are not obligated to do so and they owe nothing to us. You're right that there's not really a good reason not to, but there also aren't any spectacular reasons to do it. (Although I think if they were going to do it, Paragon Points would be the better choice than free game time. It's a lot more tangible, at least as tangible as you can get in a video game.)
By the way, what was the downtime on those other MMOs? Comparable to what we're experiencing? How about their populations? And a follow-up question on something that I don't believe anyone has addressed, what has happened with other NCSoft games having downtime?
"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
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Finally a voice of reason without trying to demean other's opinion. I say reward Dark Glob
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Originally Posted by DarkGob
Nobody is saying "YESSSS I LOVE DOWNTIME AND I DON'T THINK THE DEVS SHOULD GIVE US ANYTHING FOR IT EVER". What we are saying is that they are not obligated to do so and they owe nothing to us. You're right that there's not really a good reason not to, but there also aren't any spectacular reasons to do it. (Although I think if they were going to do it, Paragon Points would be the better choice than free game time. It's a lot more tangible, at least as tangible as you can get in a video game.) By the way, what was the downtime on those other MMOs? Comparable to what we're experiencing? How about their populations? And a follow-up question on something that I don't believe anyone has addressed, what has happened with other NCSoft games having downtime? |
DarkGob..sorry, I'm really bad with typos.
I think it's possible they are waiting until all issues are solved before doing anything. They might give us a lot of paragon points or something when all is said and done (maybe 5-10 dollars worth?). But this is just pure speculation, it's just as likely if not more so they'll do nothing.
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It's that avatar he has. It's distracting enough to make anyone mistype his name.|
Originally Posted by akarah the hunter
DarkGob..sorry, I'm really bad with typos.
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BTW, you do know you can edit your own posts to correct the spelling, right?
With the timestamps on your posts it wouldn't even had shown you edited it and we'd have been none the wiser.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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there's been a few already, Gob is just the most recent |
Originally Posted by akarah the hunter
Finally a voice of reason without trying to demean other's opinion. I say reward Dark Glob
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Yes it was. They announced both ahead of time. That makes it scheduled.|
Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
Actually some napkin has shown the downtime has been roughly 2 days of game time, so it isn't far off honestly IMVHO.
This wasn't a scheduled downtime as it was an unforeseen circumstance when they had to do more hardware upgrades and physically move the servers when they did hardware upgrades last week. |
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The Live European and North American City of Heroes servers will be taken offline for necessary hardware upgrades on Thursday, September 22, 2011. Start Time: 1:30 a.m. PDT / 4:30 a.m. EDT / 9:30 a.m. BST / 10:30 CEST Expected Duration: 12 hours Expected Finish Time:1:30 p.m. PDT / 4:30 p.m. EDT / 9:30 p.m. BST / 22:30 CEST This maintenance is to preform necessary upgrades to the City of Heroes server infrastructure. We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience! There will be a UStream cast starting at 8:00am PDT (11am EDT; 4pm BST; 17:00 CEST), which will run until the servers are back up! Join the community discussion here! |
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The Live European and North American City of Heroes servers will be taken offline for further hardware upgrades on Friday, September 23, 2011. Start Time: 3:30 a.m. PDT / 6:30 a.m. EDT / 11:30 a.m. BST / 12:30 CEST Expected Duration: 8 hours Expected Finish Time:11:30 a.m. PDT / 2:30 p.m. EDT / 7:30 p.m. BST / 20:30 CEST This maintenance is to complete the City of Heroes server upgrades. We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience |
Actually, there may well be excellent reasons for the devs not to give compensation.
It's a lot easier to say some of these things than for them to actually do it.
Adding points, for example - for starters, you're going to need to write a script to add the points. Make sure it only adds to VIPs. Make that VIPs that were subscribed at the time of the outage. Wait a minute, check your date math. Oh, what happens if someone is buying points when the script runs. More QA. Umm, what happens if someone is buying at the store when the script runs. Hey, let's just take account services and the store offline while the script is running. Moar downtime ?!?!? Oh, by the way, QA just told me that the game servers crash if you take the store offline. How many more hours can we prop the Zwill in front of a camera?
Honestly, unless they already have the capability to do something already, developing a new compensation method can be a pretty big mess. Which is why, if there is compensation, it's most likely to be something that they can already do. Like a DXP weekend. (Cue complaints about people who work on weekends.)
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Sighhhhh I'm used to it, believe me. I used to get "DarkGlob" all the time on AOL in the late 90s.|
Originally Posted by akarah the hunter
DarkGob..sorry, I'm really bad with typos.
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Originally Posted by Texas Justice
It's that avatar he has. It's distracting enough to make anyone mistype his name.
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"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
All of this downtime is the result of Freedom. The first few extended downtime was due to installing the new servers. Emergency downtime due to unforeseen instabilities with the new equipment.
They start the head start and more unforeseen problems crop up. More emergency downtime.
Then these last few because for some reason they needed to move the servers to somewhere else. More emergency downtime to handle instabilities.
Add that to the frequent patches we had leading up to and after the Freedom head start I can understand why people are annoyed but all of this is so the game can grow.
Anywho don't most of you have jobs/school during the scheduled downtime anyways (at least for those in North America)? I can understand if you are in Europe that it's cutting into your evening play or Oceania's late night play but that's because the servers are in Texas, USA. Not a lot they can do about that.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
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Sorry I just re-read this and really??? I don't think you understood the meaning behind the image I posted, I was most definitely demeaning, if not his opinion, then certainly his argument.
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Originally Posted by akarah the hunter
Finally a voice of reason without trying to demean other's opinion. I say reward Dark Glob
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"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
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They do. The system is already in place to add points to accounts so your issues have already been addressed. Furthermore, when they do a 'one-off' award of anything, it's usually done during weekly maintenance so your issues are non-issues anyway.|
Originally Posted by Brillig
Actually, there may well be excellent reasons for the devs not to give compensation.
It's a lot easier to say some of these things than for them to actually do it. Adding points, for example - for starters, you're going to need to write a script to add the points. Make sure it only adds to VIPs. Make that VIPs that were subscribed at the time of the outage. Wait a minute, check your date math. Oh, what happens if someone is buying points when the script runs. More QA. Umm, what happens if someone is buying at the store when the script runs. Hey, let's just take account services and the store offline while the script is running. Moar downtime ?!?!? Oh, by the way, QA just told me that the game servers crash if you take the store offline. How many more hours can we prop the Zwill in front of a camera? Honestly, unless they already have the capability to do something already, |
I'm not one of the people demanding compensation. I'm just saying they could do it easily if they wanted to.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Really? "The prime of all prime times"? Have you checked the percentage of Oceanic players?|
Originally Posted by Giant2005
The only form of compensation they need to offer is to stop screwing over Oceanic players.
Yes maintenance has to happen and is isn't actionable. However, the Devs are doing at a time which is either done with malice or done with extreme stupidity. This is the second week in a row Friday night has been out for Oceanics, Friday night is as prime as primetime gets. How about instead of Thursday morning, the Devs do their thing Wednesday morning, or Tuesday morning, or Monday morning, or any morning that doesn't equate to the prime of all prime times. It isn't unreasonable to expect courtesy. |
The vast majority of the playerbase is in North America; following that, in Europe. I believe the most recent downtime was in the wee hours of the morning (~4am?) CST, which would put it close to midday in the UK. That's far from prime time for the vast majority of the playerbase, who are asleep (NA) or at work/school (EU). If I were to make an executive decision on when to take down my servers, that's a time period I would go for, certainly.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
Really? "The prime of all prime times"? Have you checked the percentage of Oceanic players?
The vast majority of the playerbase is in North America; following that, in Europe. I believe the most recent downtime was in the wee hours of the morning (~4am?) CST, which would put it close to midday in the UK. That's far from prime time for the vast majority of the playerbase, who are asleep (NA) or at work/school (EU). If I were to make an executive decision on when to take down my servers, that's a time period I would go for, certainly. |
He means that Friday evening/night, is not the time for an online game to go down regardless of region.
It's sort of one of the unoffical/offical rules of MMO development, up there with don't release a patch right before you all go on holiday.
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
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Yes this.|
Originally Posted by CactusBrawler
He means that Friday evening/night, is not the time for an online game to go down regardless of region.
It's sort of one of the unoffical/offical rules of MMO development, up there with don't release a patch right before you all go on holiday. |
On a side note, has anyone else noticed the game has become insanely laggy since the new upgrades? Trying to street hunt in AP is akin to running a 24 man BAF before the fixed it, there is much much power recharge lag. This wasn't the case prior to the downtime.
As a customer, who is always right 
I think 210 PP sounds like fair compensation.
To fairly compensate players for downtime the devs would have to tabulate exactly how many hours the servers were down and then add up how much that time actually cost the players out of their subscription fees.
30 days = 720 hours
Dividing the hours into the monthly $15 dollar subscription fee gets you just over .02 cents an hour, and since our devs are generous they'd most likely round it up to .03 cents an hour.
So the game would have to be offline for at least 83 hours just to be equivalent to 210 PP. That would be about three and a half straight days of server downtime.
Your formula sucks and so do you!
*legs it*