More Maintenance?

bearbelly

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Community: ZOS FIX YOUR DAMN GAME!
Also Community: ZOS STOP TAKING THE SERVERS OFF TO FIX YOUR DAMN GAME!

It's a necessary evil to take the servers offline for a fix.
But it also to mention that this was something they broke with the prior patch and that in times of an ongoing event and a new dlc drop 3 maints a week are a bit cumbersome.

Or to say it in other words: if you do it right the first time, you don't have to do it twice. Or thrice.

It's really hilarious ( /s ) that no matter which gaming forum one might visit, that community acts like that company is the only one who has these exact same problems.

Things get unexpectedly broken in the course of software development and need to be fixed. It doesn't matter which game is in question; minor and major problems plague all of them, all of the time. This is not unique, nor uncommon.
The only way to avoid it on the development end is to stop developing games, and the only way for us to avoid it, is to stop playing video games.

TheShadowScout

I can imagine the conversation with the code jockeys...

- This update is buggy!
- Oops, sorry, we may have overlooked something, many moving parts and interacting files in a game this large...
- Don't care. Fix your darn game! Nao!
- Okay, maintenance downtime incoming...
- No, fix it without extra maintenance downtime!
- What? That's not possible, we cannot edit game files while they are in use...
- Do I look like i care about what's possible? I'm a troll, not an software engineer...

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Multiple maintenances are normal in big update weeks. The pain this time is that it overlapses with an event that has extremely tight timer constraints.

And yeah, that's the issue.

Wish they would give out something to compensate... like, give everyone double limited rewards (dremora skulls and event tickets) in the day after maintenance downtime...

Turelus

Wraith66 wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Azurya wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Community: ZOS FIX YOUR DAMN GAME!
Also Community: ZOS STOP TAKING THE SERVERS OFF TO FIX YOUR DAMN GAME!

we have any information how long this will take??

Nope. ZOS generally doesn't provide any times these days. The average time is 4 hours.

About 2-3 hours. There was a link attached, but was removed when it started

From Jess:
Hi everyone,

We will be pushing a hotfix tomorrow, Thursday, October 25, to resolve the issue with monster corpses not desapwning on the PC/Mac servers. This hotfix does require downtime, so we will be bringing down the North American and European PC/Mac servers for maintenance at 6am EDT. We anticipate the maintenance to last 2-3 hours.

The console servers will not be impacted by this maintenance. We will update this thread when the maintenance is complete.

Thank you!

Thanks, I missed that one.

germanit_84b16_ESO

at least they could tell us how long the maintenance will last!

bearbelly

germanit_84b16_ESO wrote: »

at least they could tell us how long the maintenance will last!

The banner last night said 2-3 hours.

Jayman1000

lordrichter wrote: »

FlyingSwan wrote: »

Just got a pop-up for more EU maintenance at 10am UTC.

These guys are incredible. And when I say incredible, I mean cretins.

This is to fix the problem with monster corpses not desapwning. It's a real problem for Imperfect

Really? it takes hours of downtime to fix a problem with monster corpses not despawning?

Jayman1000

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Multiple maintenances are normal in big update weeks. The pain this time is that it overlapses with an event that has extremely tight timer constraints.

Only "normal" in ESO. Other MMO's don't have these kinds of frequent long downtime.

Chickenstein

bearbelly wrote: »

It's really hilarious ( /s ) that no matter which gaming forum one might visit, that community acts like that company is the only one who has these exact same problems.

Things get unexpectedly broken in the course of software development and need to be fixed. It doesn't matter which game is in question; minor amd major problems plague all of them, all of the time. This is not unique.
The only way to avoid it on the development end is to stop developing games, and the only way for us to avoid it, is to stop playing video games.

I'm quite happy that this is not the mindset of all companies, or otherwise we'd be stuck with an endless non-evolutionary row of games. Anybody who disagrees that you're kind of stuck in the past if you need 8 hour plus maintenance times a week for anything server-based (not only games) needs to learn that technologies evolve, and you have some serious management issues in your company if you think that this kind of architecture is fine for 2018. Not that this could be changed now (well it could, probably), but putting your finger in this wound is absolutely legit for paying customers - no matter if other companies are doing it wrong, too.

I find it hilarious that no matter which gaming forum you visit, there are people who think that giant companies need white knights.

bearbelly

Chickenstein wrote: »

bearbelly wrote: »

It's really hilarious ( /s ) that no matter which gaming forum one might visit, that community acts like that company is the only one who has these exact same problems.

Things get unexpectedly broken in the course of software development and need to be fixed. It doesn't matter which game is in question; minor amd major problems plague all of them, all of the time. This is not unique.
The only way to avoid it on the development end is to stop developing games, and the only way for us to avoid it, is to stop playing video games.

I'm quite happy that this is not the mindset of all companies, or otherwise we'd be stuck with an endless non-evolutionary row of games. Anybody who disagrees that you're kind of stuck in the past if you need 8 hour plus maintenance times a week for anything server-based (not only games) needs to learn that technologies evolve, and you have some serious management issues in your company if you think that this kind of architecture is fine for 2018. Not that this could be changed now (well it could, probably), but putting your finger in this wound is absolutely legit for paying customers - no matter if other companies are doing it wrong, too.

I find it hilarious that no matter which gaming forum you visit, there are people who think that giant companies need white knights.

How the frak am I a white knight for pointing out that every gaming company out there gets slammed by its community when a problem arises?

Name one that doesn't.

Chilly-McFreeze

bearbelly wrote: »

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Community: ZOS FIX YOUR DAMN GAME!
Also Community: ZOS STOP TAKING THE SERVERS OFF TO FIX YOUR DAMN GAME!

It's a necessary evil to take the servers offline for a fix.
But it also to mention that this was something they broke with the prior patch and that in times of an ongoing event and a new dlc drop 3 maints a week are a bit cumbersome.

Or to say it in other words: if you do it right the first time, you don't have to do it twice. Or thrice.

It's really hilarious ( /s ) that no matter which gaming forum one might visit, that community acts like that company is the only one who has these exact same problems.

Things get unexpectedly broken in the course of software development and need to be fixed. It doesn't matter which game is in question; minor and major problems plague all of them, all of the time. This is not unique, nor uncommon.
The only way to avoid it on the development end is to stop developing games, and the only way for us to avoid it, is to stop playing video games.

If you say it's fine to have several multi-hour downtimes in a row + many unsolved bugs (like fps drops, people lost banked items,) + horrific new balance issues despite feedback from pts (enchantments) all while a time-limited event is going on, then I certify you mediocre standards.

There is no excuse for some of these issues. PTS was long enough to react to feedback and to have them filter out bugs. See, I'm fine that they don't wait until next week or even february to fix what issues have arisen. Or at least a single one of them. But we are at a crossroad: either they should take more time to test their code before they load them up or they should speed up their maintenance duration. 3 hours are quite a long time for those who don't live in time zones where off hours are now etc.

And this sloppy testing doesn't even touches how questinable it is to have a dlc roll out while an event is going on. I mean you say it yourself: obviously it's normal for them to take the servers off for the better part of the week when a dlc drops. So it might would have been better to reshedule one or the other?

Chickenstein

bearbelly wrote: »

How the frak am I a white knight for pointing out that every gaming company out there gets slammed by its community when a problem arises?

Name one that doesn't.

Getting out the "it's normal because everybody does it" argument sounds a lot like white knighting to me. Because it's not normal. It doesn't make it right if everybody does it wrong. If you want to really go there, let's talk about a self-contained industry where employees and management gets passed around and thus, bad decisions are passed around with them. But it is no excuse for a tech company to deploy problematic architecture just because everybody does it.

Wizhunter

What annoys me about maintenance is that rarely they give an estimated time, but when they do it takes a lot longer than the estimated time they say, always due to unforeseen circumstances. I would prefer not to know how long it's going to take because it generally always takes longer.

Wiz

todokete

Are they giving us the 100+ items we lost from our banks because of Murkmire?

evildemoncat

My issue is with my FPS. It's been crap since WolfHunter dropped. I'm on a brand new rig and it shouldn't be running at under 30 frames. When I drop everything to minimum, I MIGHT see 50. I'm at a complete loss with what to do. The Nvidia Game Experience no longer recognizes ESO in their software. I've tried uninstalling that, didn't help. Just from browsing the net and the forums here, I've found I'm not the only person with this issue. If I'm in a big city, my FPS can drop to 23 or even lower at times. As a healer, I can't be having my FPS dropping that low, I might miss a huge tank buster move and end up killing my group. I've been staying out of trials because of this issue until I figure out how to fix it. Mind you, on the older machine, it still runs ESO at a solid 50-60 FPS, so I have zero clue what's going on.

I do applaud games that fix issues that arise, but I really wish that games would fix the BIG issues instead of these little, apparently minor ones. I also play FFXIV, and when the latest expac Stormblood came out, there was a HUGE gamebreaking bug that caused my datacenter to stop in its tracks. To progress, the player had to enter a solo duty by talking to an NPC. Well, there was a huge bottleneck to enter the duty servers, and barely anyone was getting through. We were constantly being kicked out, and occasionally disconnected from the game entirely. SquareEnix had to turn that duty off for a short time to stabilize the duty server. The only reason we were able to get through it was one of the other populated servers fully crashed so ours was able to flood that duty and get it done quickly. Usually FFXIV's hotfix maintenance sessions are like an hour to an hour and a half. The planned ones are scheduled for 3 to 4 hours, but usually finish in 2 to 3. And they ALWAYS fix more than one issue. Their list always has several issues they've resolved in it.

I should also note that FFXIV never rolls out big update patches during seasonal events. Everything is strictly scheduled out. 4.4 dropped a couple weeks ago, and the halloween event just started a few days ago.

I love ESO. I just wish some things would be focused on instead of cosmetic things.

--EDC

anitajoneb17_ESO

Jayman1000 wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Multiple maintenances are normal in big update weeks. The pain this time is that it overlapses with an event that has extremely tight timer constraints.

Only "normal" in ESO. Other MMO's don't have these kinds of frequent long downtime.

I don't believe that. I personally don't play any other MMO but from what I hear and read it's more or less the same, with more or less the same reactions on the respective forums. The grass always looks greener elsewhere, but it tastes the same in reality.

Chickenstein wrote: »

I find it hilarious that no matter which gaming forum you visit, there are people who think that giant companies need white knights.

Which illustrates my previous point.
Besides, ZOS belongs to a large consortium but it is BY FAR not a giant company. It is a rather small group of people with a huge pressure to keep the ROI of a giant company.
And finally, we're far less "defending" ZOS than actually blaming the usual spoilt forumers that love to complain and complain and complain over and over, always about the same things without any obvious knowledge of what they're talking about.

Chickenstein

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Besides, ZOS belongs to a large consortium but it is BY FAR not a giant company. It is a rather small group of people with a huge pressure to keep the ROI of a giant company.

And finally, we're far less "defending" ZOS ...

I like that follow-up to your first sentence

ESO_Nightingale

lets hope they fix the 5+ bugs i reported in the last 2 months. that would be neat.

VelvetLeChance11

I'd be curious to know how many people actually pay for ESO subscriptions, pruchased Summerset etc. or general profit data versus cost to run an MMO like this. I just find it hard to believe they're not making enough money to run a larger team if it's a manpower issue?

Idk, very much ignorant to what is required behind the scenes cost to run such large servers etc. From the outside, the pay as you go model & Crown store makes it seem like they've got a pretty good thing going.

ESO_Nightingale

VelvetLeChance11 wrote: »

I'd be curious to know how many people actually pay for ESO subscriptions, pruchased Summerset etc. or general profit data versus cost to run an MMO like this. I just find it hard to believe they're not making enough money to run a larger team if it's a manpower issue?

Idk, very much ignorant to what is required behind the scenes, cost to run such large servers etc. From the outside, the pay as you go model & Crown store makes it seem like they've got a pretty good thing going.

It would be good in times of extended maintenance, if paying customer

all i know is that i am a paying customer.

albesca

Chickenstein wrote: »

Getting out the "it's normal because everybody does it" argument sounds a lot like white knighting to me. Because it's not normal. It doesn't make it right if everybody does it wrong. If you want to really go there, let's talk about a self-contained industry where employees and management gets passed around and thus, bad decisions are passed around with them. But it is no excuse for a tech company to deploy problematic architecture just because everybody does it.

The point is that "normal" here means that it happens everywhere or at least not only in ESO.
You read that as being considered acceptable and therefore a white knight kind of argument, when it was intended (at least that's how I read it) as a simple statement of facts.

I think we all agree that this kind of things should not happen (I don't know if they could be avoided, I work in the IT and sometimes really bad bugs make their way into production environment) and that some kind of apology is due, to us eso+ subscriber and also for the disruption of event related activities.

MornaBaine

And it's done! Not too bad.

Bevik

VelvetLeChance11 wrote: »

I'd be curious to know how many people actually pay for ESO subscriptions, pruchased Summerset etc. or general profit data versus cost to run an MMO like this. I just find it hard to believe they're not making enough money to run a larger team if it's a manpower issue?

Idk, very much ignorant to what is required behind the scenes cost to run such large servers etc. From the outside, the pay as you go model & Crown store makes it seem like they've got a pretty good thing going.

The problem is everything these days is so profit oriented. Even if they can afford a bigger team they won't do it or just get 1 good guy for a huge price aka the LoL guy, sorry never played LoL don't know his name. I'm not saying don't do this. I'm saying that if the company grows stronger hire more people to the bigger job as ESO is growing rapidly aswell, 4 big updates a year. Massive job needs more people. Can't continue working as a small team on a huge project, or can but you see the results, game is more and more broken after every patch. Should someone take responsibility and make decisions like "look we are going to slow down a bit, doing only 3 massive updates a year but still gonna fix small bugs weekly or every 2nd week, but we are going to deliver quality over quantity."

Haashhtaag

Turelus wrote: »

Community: ZOS FIX YOUR DAMN GAME!
Also Community: ZOS STOP TAKING THE SERVERS OFF TO FIX YOUR DAMN GAME!

If they didn’t release a patch that broke the game they wouldn’t have to fix the broke game. FeelsThinkingMan

JKorr

germanit_84b16_ESO wrote: »

at least they could tell us how long the maintenance will last!

Uh huh. Yeah. That would work.....

Devs; Maintenance will be 3 hours and 30 minutes.

Community: Thanks for the information!

Unforseen issue occurs; maintenance goes to 3 hours and 35 minutes....

Community: WTH?!?!?!? TEH DEVS LIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [add comments about money-grubbing, greedy, incompetent nincompoops that lasts for longer than the maintenance]

I'm really not surprised they don't give definite time for how long a maintenance will take, and I don't blame them. They get enough abuse as it is.