What's with ALL THE SERVER MAINT?!?!?!!??!!?
By
Aett_Thorn,
Posted on: 2011-09-30 06:15 in Player Questions
I understand why maintenance is needed. I have even bit my tongue the past few weeks over it.
But I'm sick of scheduled maintenance taking longer than expected. Don't tell me about a 2 hour window if it takes 6 hours. It's a waste of my time and energy. It begs the question why I'm paying for VIP service when I can't even play on my days off. I might as well change to free and only play when the servers finally stabilize. It's a waste of time and money on my end due to poor scheduling. The frequency of the downtime is annoying but it is more about the unexpected lengths to me.
In spite of a fair amount of over-reaction and under-reaction, in a modern MMO climate, we have a fair expectation of a certain amount of downtimenot no downtimebut a certain amount.
And while reasonable and rational-thinking people can understand the changes involved with the big release and rollout of Freedom and all the new players, the point of view of a modern MMO player (myself included) has, again, a reasonable expectation of a certain amount of downtime.
The amount of downtime weve experienced recently exceeds this amount.
Now what I will agree is annoying is that we're now an hour past the scheduled end of downtime without an update.
Someone needs to post the "Sorry, it's taking longer than expected but we're still working hard on it. No ETA at this time" message.
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I'm in Australia, so I've been losing out on my main gaming time as well.|
Originally Posted by Giant2005
I know of almost two dozen people who have quit due to this.
The downtime might not seem a big deal to those of you in America, but it is very significant in Australia. The OP's statement about the server being down more than it is up may be hyperbole but not so much down under. When it comes to Australian Prime Time, the game is down more than it is up. The subs lost might not seem very significant but trying to downplay their loss as non-existent isn't sensible nor logical at all. |
On the other hand, I'm not real big on entitlement and am able to understand then when a big change to the game like this rolls around theres going to be kinks to work out.
Just go do something else. If you don't feel you're getting your monies worth, stop paying. Play for free.
Here you come with a stupid name like Fixer - brutalkillz_
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Wait, when has the game ever been down for over 20 hours at once, let alone in the past month? Sounds like someone needs to learn how to tell time.
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Originally Posted by xaosdark
The OP is right! The game has been down at LEAST 3-4 times per week over the last month. Sometimes 2-4 hrs, MOST TIMES its 8+ hours. And a few days the game was down for over 20 hrs!
As great as Freedom is, us VIP members are paying for a Month of gametime, not three weeks of gametime. We are OWED at least 2-3 days credited to our account for all the time lost due to ridiculous maintenance and patching. All VIP members, that is. |
Characters:
- Dawnshift (50 Peacebringer/Virtue)
100 PP would be good as compensation.
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That's only a subjective opinion. |
Originally Posted by Doctor Wishbone
The amount of downtime weve experienced recently exceeds this amount.
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There are thousands of players who haven't been affected by the downtime because it hasn't interfered with the times they play the game.
Then there's other players that had the misfortune to have every downtime smack dab in the middle of their preferred playing hours.
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Originally Posted by Giant2005
I know of almost two dozen people who have quit due to this.
The downtime might not seem a big deal to those of you in America, but it is very significant in Australia. The OP's statement about the server being down more than it is up may be hyperbole but not so much down under. When it comes to Australian Prime Time, the game is down more than it is up. The subs lost might not seem very significant but trying to downplay their loss as non-existent isn't sensible nor logical at all. |
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
That's only a subjective opinion.
There are thousands of players who haven't been affected by the downtime because it hasn't interfered with the times they play the game. Then there's other players that had the misfortune to have every downtime smack dab in the middle of their preferred playing hours. |
Here you come with a stupid name like Fixer - brutalkillz_
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IBM RPT in 2005, 6.1 if I remember right. Lets see...best modern tool? It's speculative, but I'd say my money is on SilkPerformer.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
2004? What magical new ways to prepare for load are you talking about that are that new, that everyone hasn't been using for a long time? Stress testing is fine and dandy, but stress testing only really works the best if you know very accurately how the servers will be hit. Every time things get changed, that usage model will change, and predicting how it will change is extremely hard (I'm always reminded of when the Invention system was first added... on Test, 'Boresight' was what everyone thought was going to be a very hot item... on live? people were deleting them).
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Neither available in 2004. There have been dozens of innovations since 2004.
But you do make a good point. Prediction is still not as good as application.
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Silk is good, but I wouldn't rely on it to catch more than half of my load issues.
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Originally Posted by quickfire
IBM RPT in 2005, 6.1 if I remember right. Lets see...best modern tool? It's speculative, but I'd say my money is on SilkPerformer.
Neither available in 2004. There have been dozens of innovations since 2004. But you do make a good point. Prediction is still not as good as application. |
Dear OP,
I understand your frustrations at the downtime of the game and hope you have a good day in spite of it. I too consider it a misfortune as I am returning after a long break (my old 'puter sploded) and seem to find that some of my time is spent watching the server status, hoping for them to boot up again.
I find it difficult to hatch my insidious machinations when the world does not exist. Many kittens have perished in the interim, and much of the fur is still in my teeth. My dental hygienist will likely cry on my next visit. I hope I won't have to aggressively silence him, as it is difficult to find a good dentist with industrial strength hardware. Kittens, while seemingly innocuous, are murder on the molars, you know... but so sinfully decadent!
And to some of you other forumites... you realize, I'm sure, that as often as people might post a repetitive topic, that responses like "Another of the same thread..." or "This doesn't belong here", or "The OP's title is blah-blah-blah" is not unlike the behavior you choose to chide. It is, in my opinion, a tad hostile and trite... generally I can respect that. Even still... this I find irksome, as I only want to hear admonitions from one dictator... myself. So how 'bout we each agree to rule our own fiefdoms, and only try to take over others when need for expansion demands it? After all... this council is to exchange ideals and information as well as being the occasional sounding board. If there is truly a violation we have moderators to handle it. It's the greatest perk of being dictators after all... delegating authority while alighting our thrones and gobbling up kittens. Perhaps those predilections are not shared though. Hmm... a world without kitten crunching... too horrible to ponder.
Well... I really need to mop up all this kitten juice before it shorts out another 'puter.
Regards,
Priesteater.
"What in tarnation's a Rofflemow!!!?" -Priesteater on ROFLMAO
Real Objections Of Genius
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Those are nothing special. They won't help you in detecting where your hot-spots will exist, because you won't know what usage patterns there will be (you'd need an amazing understanding of not only your server, but the client, and the user to predict that with any amount of accuracy). Even in Beta, people don't play the game the same way they do on Live (again, look at my Boresight example- even if it was just a virtual item, it illustrates well enough that results from test and results from live can be totally different), so any data gathered will be presenting a false (that doesn't mean useless) picture.|
Originally Posted by quickfire
IBM RPT in 2005, 6.1 if I remember right. Lets see...best modern tool? It's speculative, but I'd say my money is on SilkPerformer.
Neither available in 2004. There have been dozens of innovations since 2004. But you do make a good point. Prediction is still not as good as application. |
Those sorts of software are really better for regression testing than finding new and unusual issues... but, if you've limited resources, they can cause you to waste money on 'problems' that wouldn't have been a problem in practice anyways. It's almost more of an art than a science, at this point.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Of course its subjective. My entire point was aimed at what is reasonable and what is acceptable and expected in the current MMO climate. But even courts make judgements on subjectives like accepted practices all the time.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
That's only a subjective opinion.
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I AM NOT venturing into legal realms, only pointing out that my subjective this amount of downtime exceeds an acceptable amount opinion is not without merit. Again, even though it is perfectly understandable, given the circumstances, as a player, I FEEL this recent frequent downtime is in excess of what is reasonable.
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Indeed, if this ever did go into a court, the court might spend some time trying to determine what a reasonable amount of downtime is in this area. They would then look at some of the market leaders, like that really big one that takes the servers down for huge amounts of time.|
Originally Posted by Doctor Wishbone
Of course its subjective. My entire point was aimed at what is reasonable and what is acceptable and expected in the current MMO climate. But even courts make judgements on subjectives like accepted practices all the time.
I AM NOT venturing into legal realms, only pointing out that my subjective this amount of downtime exceeds an acceptable amount opinion is not without merit. Again, even though it is perfectly understandable, given the circumstances, as a player, I FEEL this recent frequent downtime is in excess of what is reasonable. |
And then the case would be over.
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Actually regression testing can't be done effectively with load testing tools. Thats testing the GUI performance...usually browser initiated. Also load testing tools can't record like RT tools. Load testing focuses on analyzing the stack.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Those are nothing special. They won't help you in detecting where your hot-spots will exist, because you won't know what usage patterns there will be (you'd need an amazing understanding of not only your server, but the client, and the user to predict that with any amount of accuracy). Even in Beta, people don't play the game the same way they do on Live (again, look at my Boresight example- even if it was just a virtual item, it illustrates well enough that results from test and results from live can be totally different), so any data gathered will be presenting a false (that doesn't mean useless) picture.
Those sorts of software are really better for regression testing than finding new and unusual issues... but, if you've limited resources, they can cause you to waste money on 'problems' that wouldn't have been a problem in practice anyways. It's almost more of an art than a science, at this point. |
That doesn't in any way diminish your point which again is a good one.
No more post padding, servers are up, lol
Here you come with a stupid name like Fixer - brutalkillz_
I'm not bothered by the down time if it will help the game function smoother. If CoX goes down then i'll switch to STO, if STO goes down then i switch to The Sims 
Either way, they will be back up and running and hopefully the games will run smoother for all the Devs hard work.
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Actually, they'd also likely look at the historical uptime/downtime for this game as well. |
Originally Posted by Brillig
Indeed, if this ever did go into a court, the court might spend some time trying to determine what a reasonable amount of downtime is in this area. They would then look at some of the market leaders, like that really big one that takes the servers down for huge amounts of time.
And then the case would be over. |
They'd also likely factor in the reasons for the downtimes, including hardware upgrades, moving servers, completely new systems within the game being added, etc.
Also factor in that the Development team is in California while the servers are in Texas.
Also factor in that NCSoft offices are in Austin while the servers appear to be in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex so it's likely that the servers and technicians are not directly under the employment of NCSoft or Paragon Studios.
There are possibly other things that would factor into decisions about what is a reasonable amount of downtime.
But it's very possible that they'd likely look at downtimes and reliability throughout the MMO industry, not just with the market leaders.
All in all, I tend to think that a rational person weighing all of the factors would find that the recent downtimes are reasonable.
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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Although your name scares me, I think you'd be fun to team with.
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Originally Posted by Priesteater
Dear OP,
I understand your frustrations at the downtime of the game and hope you have a good day in spite of it. I too consider it a misfortune as I am returning after a long break (my old 'puter sploded) and seem to find that some of my time is spent watching the server status, hoping for them to boot up again. I find it difficult to hatch my insidious machinations when the world does not exist. Many kittens have perished in the interim, and much of the fur is still in my teeth. My dental hygienist will likely cry on my next visit. I hope I won't have to aggressively silence him, as it is difficult to find a good dentist with industrial strength hardware. Kittens, while seemingly innocuous, are murder on the molars, you know... but so sinfully decadent! And to some of you other forumites... you realize, I'm sure, that as often as people might post a repetitive topic, that responses like "Another of the same thread..." or "This doesn't belong here", or "The OP's title is blah-blah-blah" is not unlike the behavior you choose to chide. It is, in my opinion, a tad hostile and trite... generally I can respect that. Even still... this I find irksome, as I only want to hear admonitions from one dictator... myself. So how 'bout we each agree to rule our own fiefdoms, and only try to take over others when need for expansion demands it? After all... this council is to exchange ideals and information as well as being the occasional sounding board. If there is truly a violation we have moderators to handle it. It's the greatest perk of being dictators after all... delegating authority while alighting our thrones and gobbling up kittens. Perhaps those predilections are not shared though. Hmm... a world without kitten crunching... too horrible to ponder. Well... I really need to mop up all this kitten juice before it shorts out another 'puter. Regards, Priesteater. |
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase
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All likely true, since the lawyers get paid by the hour. Since I don't (for posting on the forums), I was abbreviating egregiously.
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Originally Posted by Texas Justice
Actually, they'd also likely look at the historical uptime/downtime for this game as well.
They'd also likely factor in the reasons for the downtimes, including hardware upgrades, moving servers, completely new systems within the game being added, etc. Also factor in that the Development team is in California while the servers are in Texas. Also factor in that NCSoft offices are in Austin while the servers appear to be in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex so it's likely that the servers and technicians are not directly under the employment of NCSoft or Paragon Studios. There are possibly other things that would factor into decisions about what is a reasonable amount of downtime. But it's very possible that they'd likely look at downtimes and reliability throughout the MMO industry, not just with the market leaders. All in all, I tend to think that a rational person weighing all of the factors would find that the recent downtimes are reasonable. |
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Have posted very little about this, but each time I have, I’ve stated that it’s perfectly understandable. Nevertheless, compared to other MMOs I play and have played, it feels like too much. This is not a court, it is not covered in the EULA, I am not demanding anything from anybody. Just saying it feels like too much downtime. Compile the data, and see how much downtime there’s been recently. It’s a lot. That’s all I’m saying.
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Originally Posted by Texas Justice
All in all, I tend to think that a rational person weighing all of the factors would find that the recent downtimes are reasonable.
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Recently, yes, there's been quite a bit. Is it too much? Well, that's where you start having to factor in things other than the amount of time itself.|
Originally Posted by Doctor Wishbone
Have posted very little about this, but each time I have, Ive stated that its perfectly understandable. Nevertheless, compared to other MMOs I play and have played, it feels like too much. This is not a court, it is not covered in the EULA, I am not demanding anything from anybody. Just saying it feels like too much downtime. Compile the data, and see how much downtime theres been recently. Its a lot. Thats all Im saying.
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It's been understandable when you consider that they are upgrading server hardware. And moving the servers. And putting new systems into the game that require more servers and more communications between the servers. And the location of the servers relative to those creating the game. And the location of the servers relative to the publishers offices. And other things that I may not be accounting for.
Things like the server people being sure that the upgrades they just did would handle the load and then finding out after putting the new patch in that the server couldn't handle it. Or an outlying problem was found that didn't show in testing but that needs to be fixed immediately before it crashes the servers. Or myriad other unforeseen events that may occur.
Looking at it over the historical perspective of the last 7+ years I think this has been a minor aberration from the norm. A statistical anomaly. Annoying, yes, certainly.
And if it is annoying us that much, don't you think the Devs that have been working on this for over a year are getting annoyed that things aren't going as planned (or as they did in the test environments) and they keep having to find fixes and take the servers down yet again to apply them?
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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Actually I don't think lawyers wouldn't even get involved. This would fall under the realm of small claims.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
All likely true, since the lawyers get paid by the hour. Since I don't (for posting on the forums), I was abbreviating egregiously.
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In small claims court the judge would likely take most of those things into consideration when determining what is a reasonable amount of downtime.
Even if it were handled as a Class Action the judges would likely take all of those matters into consideration.
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.
The difference a few extra hours of sleep can make! I'd read about the downtime last night, and stayed up a bit later and thus woke up a bit later.
Normally, I'm so irritated at server downtimes, I come on here and rant and rave. But, because they let me know last night, I was able to make alternative plans. So, I'm not so irritated.
I know that there are a number of folks who are. I do not think that any of us as players really know what's going in behind the doors at server maintenance time. However, if I read it correctly, this is a publish downtime, not maintenance. I'm not sure why they didn't do this yesterday - but I guess they have their reasons.
All I can say is when someone expresses frustration on the forums, try to realize that not everyone has had the benefit of the best education, and it's also possible that they are trying to communicate to the devs or just looking for someone that feels the same way.
Pointing out flaws in their logic, no matter how constructively done isn't going to do anything for anyone. That being said, I know I've bumped heads with a few people (figuratively, no real-life head butts) only to realize that it makes my head hurt and to not do it anymore.
Some of you write so well, and your thought processes are just seriously impressive. It's kind of troubling to see some of you use that to belittle someone just because they're frustrated.
There is a better way.
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase