Compensation for Downtime

Almost every time there is unexpected downtime in CoH an argument quickly ensues on the forums between the folks who think we should get game time back for the time we were unable to play and those who say this is an unrealistic expectation. I have stayed out of the discussion because I think both sides of the argument have merit. But another MMO that is still rather new just gave subscribers a free day to make up for an unexpected downtime following a major release. I wonder if other MMOs may start to follow their lead...

I don't want to start another flame war, but I'd like to know what people think about this* in a civil, constructive discussion. Have other MMOs done such things before now, or does this set a precedent? I do think this lends a bit of weight to the idea that we are entitled to something back for outage time, since at least one MMO has apparently agreed with that concept, but I don't plan to ragequit if it doesn't happen.

*By which I don't mean the entire old argument, but how the fact that another MMO is doing it bears upon the issue.

Pretty sure it's been down by other MMO's previously, so no precedent.

Don't expect any change soon for CoX.

No, it doesn't lend weight to it at all.

If it were an extreme - the game were down for an entire weekend, say - then they may consider something like that. But just for "unexpected downtime?" No. And it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that they don't.

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There has been times where servers themselves have been down for quite a long time and in response they've given that server double xp.

The only time though in our history where i personally think people had a point to ask for something in return was when all the servers were being relocated back in september? That downtime took up a good percentage of access for that month.

It's not really a new point, though. This is quite a deadhorse topic at this point.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Here's the way I feel about it.

Some unexpected downtime is just a fact of life for an MMO. Things go wrong. Servers go down. Bugs make it live and need to be fixed. As long as the unexpected downtime is infrequent and doesn't last too long (and in CoH it qualifies), I have no complaints.

Now if it was something like the servers being unexpectedly down for an entire weekend, then I might be among those asking to get something in compensation.

It wouldn't be until I had lost access to the game for a significant portion of a month (say the servers were down for an entire week) that I would start expecting to be compensated and would consider leaving the game if I wasn't. I think the chances of that happening are pretty small though.

Asking for a free day for downtime doesn't really make sense to me when there are already players that play for free as it is. How do you compensate them?

If things happen and a server goes down, then it happens: it's no big deal to me. I just go find something else to do, and it'd be the same thing even if I have a nice, shiny subscription.

I don't see downtime as a significant problem here. Only once have I felt that Paragon Studios (then NCSoft) should have done something to compensate players for what was then a weeks long period of nearly unplayable east coast servers. That kind of thing is severe enough to lend itself to doing something to make up for the loss.

Weekly maintenance, occasional patches, and only major downtime during major updates is par for the course.

By comparison another MMO that launched recently was down every frapping day for weeks, unscheduled maintenance, out of the blue 'we're taking the server down' maintenance. There I didn't feel entitled, but I sure didn't stay.

If they could plan for unexpected outages, then it wouldn't be unexpected.

This is a game, not a mission critical application which would require a lot more resources, hardware and software development wise, than what players could afford.

I have expect a rant that we get shortchanged for February because we pay for 30 days.

Each company has it's own way of dealing with the issue, to date for Paragon it's a non-issue and they are more than happy to see their mouth pieces trot out the EULA.

The company that make the ruthless space game with two E's in it's name handle's it quite differently. They have on occasion provided free in game items for really bad overtime downtime's regardless of the reasons. The again if their downtime goes over by as much as five minutes they start apologizing and giving regular update's every 15 mins to an hour and the expected return time and tell you why they are down.

They don't have to do any of that according to their EULA, they just have a VERY different philosophy regarding company and community interaction.

The "game with two E's in its name" is a bit of a different beasts, as RMT isn't just allowed, it's a huge part of the game. And I'm not just talking about buying items with money, I mean getting real money by selling in-game junk (you can even buy gametime with in-game money!).

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I've been here for most roughly six years, and not once have I ever thought "wow, this UNEXPECTED DOWN TIME is really harshing my mellow! I DEMAND COMPENSATION!"


I mean, I wouldn't kick it out of bed if they offered, but why would they?
The game has been remarkably stable over the years.

i can see some sort of compensation if the servers were unexpectedly down for more than 12 hours or so, or down more than 25% of the time for a day or more, but a couple hours here and there doesn't really justify it in my opinion.

Regardless that's up to Paragon Studios to decide to do. As pointed out they are not obligated to do so, and compared to the first several years where as a matter of routine the servers were down several days a week sometimes for several hours at a time the current game uptime is excellent.

In my opinion the downtime we've had in the recent past does not really justify any sort of compensation. This is posting as someone who has been a continuous subscriber since late May 2004. YMMV