Poorly thought out maintenance times and their conflict with economy mechanics

Stump

Dread_Viking wrote: »

wow a Na Player saying what the Eu players have been saying for ages

NA has been just as vocal about it for many months. ZOS seem to be ignoring everyone equally.

Still waiting to see if we got our trader for the week. YAY monday

IcyDeadPeople

hiyde wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

How does this work currently?

On Mondays...

7:55A EDT/4:55A PDT: Bidding Closes
8A EDT/5A PDT: Bids Process
As soon as the bids process, you know the result and you know if a kiosk is "open"

5-10 Minutes later: Any guild with 50+ members and 100 gold can directly "hire" an open trader for the week (regardless whether or not store has anything for sale)

This all happens whether the server is up or not. "open" kiosks remain open until someone hires. They are generally all gone within 15 minutes.

With maintenance now happening at 4A EDT Mondays, here's how it works for Trade Guild Officers dealing with bid-spying:

Get up at 3:45AM EDT or stay up til almost 1AM if you're west coast. Tougher choice if you're in a time zone in between.
Put final bids in to try to fend off bid-spyers, though this doesn't work so well because the servers go down whenever they go down. 4AM, 4:05 or later.

Get up again at 7:45AM EDT to see if the servers are back up.
Yes? Log in, top off the bid again, then see if you won. Go look for a kiosk if you didn't.
No? Go back to bed, or to work, see how things turned out whenever you're able to log back in.

Got the day off? Sit in front of your computer waiting for patch to download, hope it's fast, or those with quicker download speeds will snap up any open kiosks long before you get online.

Moving kiosk bid deadlines to primetime Sunday night would eradicate all issues but bid-spying.
While another alternative would be optimal, simply concealing bank balance based on permissions would eradicate bid spying.

Two simple steps, the exploiters can't exploit and guild management can actually sleep Sunday night.

Wow, this sounds insane - I had no idea trading guild GMs had to go through this every week!

You guys work so hard to keep these guilds going and what seems like a small change could make your lives easier. Hoping there is some plan to tweak the schedule.

Anslay

When a known game-mechanic exploit has been brought to a developer's attention for well over a year with no resulting fix, that raises eyebrows. To then remove the only defense to such exploit and create a bad situation for those that double down / invest extra to support in-game communities, that's very concerning. To add to this the deafening silence on the matter for an extended period of time, I believe we can draw an important conclusion here:

ZOS supports cheaters.

silvereyes

Anslay wrote: »

I believe we can draw an important conclusion here: ZOS supports cheaters.

I doubt ZOS thinks about it long enough to support or not support the bid spies. I don't think the "they're doing it on purpose as a gold sink" conspiracy theory has much evidence either. There are already plenty of gold sinks already (cough... motifs ... cough). But yes, whether intentionally or not, the bottom line is that they don't care enough to stop the cheating.

At this point, I'm kind of fed up with the whole bidding system. Maybe it made sense at first, but a 2k-30k per member cost per kiosk on top of taxes and listing fees is just getting silly. Especially when you consider that the median sales are probably not much more than double that. I say *probably* because, while I'd love to log in and check the exact figures in MM, the maintenance is *still* ongoing over 9 hours later. <grumble>

THWIP71

Maintenance for the week of August 22:
• North American and European PC/Mac megaservers for patch maintenance – August 22, 4:00AM EDT (9:00 BST)

12:37 EST, and servers are STILL down. WTF ZOS ?!?!

silvereyes

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Just got an update: We're still working on the outstanding issue that has resulted in an extended maintenance window for the EU and NA PC/Mac servers. At this time, the maintenance window has been extended to 4PM EDT. If that gets pushed out further, we'll let you know.

Hey. At least it's an ETA.

zerosingularity

In all honesty, it is kinda embarrassing that there has been no dev post on this serious issue. I highly suggest any GMs who can make it to PAX West this year to go and be aggressive with getting answers. They can't keep silent as easily when they are surrounded with sleepy and frustrated people.

...Bring Coffee, so you can stay awake long enough to write down info.

Also, a big shout out to our trade GMs who put up with this crap each week. Without you the game economy would be non-existent.

silvereyes

Anslay wrote: »

When does trader flip happen on the EU servers?

Tuesday 4am (CET). I just found out.

So it makes sense why those on the EU server would be a bit annoyed by suggestions to move the maintenance to Tuesday. Sorry about that, EU friends.

sylviermoone

zerosingularity wrote: »

In all honesty, it is kinda embarrassing that there has been no dev post on this serious issue. I highly suggest any GMs who can make it to PAX West this year to go and be aggressive with getting answers. They can't keep silent as easily when they are surrounded with sleepy and frustrated people.

...Bring Coffee, so you can stay awake long enough to write down info.

Also, a big shout out to our trade GMs who put up with this crap each week. Without you the game economy would be non-existent.

I live in Seattle, so I am going to be at PAX, at least for one day (not sure which yet...).

I would LOVE to meet up with any GM's that happen to be in town.

hiyde

sylviermoone wrote: »

zerosingularity wrote: »

In all honesty, it is kinda embarrassing that there has been no dev post on this serious issue. I highly suggest any GMs who can make it to PAX West this year to go and be aggressive with getting answers. They can't keep silent as easily when they are surrounded with sleepy and frustrated people.

...Bring Coffee, so you can stay awake long enough to write down info.

Also, a big shout out to our trade GMs who put up with this crap each week. Without you the game economy would be non-existent.

I live in Seattle, so I am going to be at PAX, at least for one day (not sure which yet...).

I would LOVE to meet up with any GM's that happen to be in town.

What's your guest room situation?

sylviermoone

hiyde wrote: »

sylviermoone wrote: »

zerosingularity wrote: »

In all honesty, it is kinda embarrassing that there has been no dev post on this serious issue. I highly suggest any GMs who can make it to PAX West this year to go and be aggressive with getting answers. They can't keep silent as easily when they are surrounded with sleepy and frustrated people.

...Bring Coffee, so you can stay awake long enough to write down info.

Also, a big shout out to our trade GMs who put up with this crap each week. Without you the game economy would be non-existent.

I live in Seattle, so I am going to be at PAX, at least for one day (not sure which yet...).

I would LOVE to meet up with any GM's that happen to be in town.

What's your guest room situation?

Lol. I have one couch.

Immortal_Dark410

sylviermoone wrote: »

hiyde wrote: »

sylviermoone wrote: »

zerosingularity wrote: »

In all honesty, it is kinda embarrassing that there has been no dev post on this serious issue. I highly suggest any GMs who can make it to PAX West this year to go and be aggressive with getting answers. They can't keep silent as easily when they are surrounded with sleepy and frustrated people.

...Bring Coffee, so you can stay awake long enough to write down info.

Also, a big shout out to our trade GMs who put up with this crap each week. Without you the game economy would be non-existent.

I live in Seattle, so I am going to be at PAX, at least for one day (not sure which yet...).

I would LOVE to meet up with any GM's that happen to be in town.

What's your guest room situation?

Lol. I have one couch.

that's better then nothing lol

silvereyes

Well, EU is up. NA ... waiting ... waiting ...

JHartEllis

The current system is absolutely CRUEL and PITILESS towards trading guild leaders and their members. On-the-ball guild leaders have to disrupt and lose sleep to get in bids and then wait endlessly (going on 8 hours right now today) to scramble for an open guild trader, and after all that, there's still a likely possibility of not having a trader at all and being kneecapped for the week. I feel for other players that are not able to play during server downtime, but at least they don't have ~500 people waiting for them to go hire a trader the instant the server is back up. Guild leaders break down in tears. They call in sick to work. It's brutal.

Many, many players prioritize the in-game economy over other aspects of gameplay (and why not? there are tons of items in the game, and getting them to people that can best use them is what trading is all about). Imagine if you're a PVPer and you were not able to seize keeps for a week because a rival paid more gold than you had. Or imagine if you couldn't enter a dungeon because you had been outbid on all available dungeon slots. Trading guilds live for the in-game economy and die when treated so miserably. There are several ways to fix this that have been brought up which are seemingly not difficult to implement yet still go ignored.

If there's too much gold in the game, turn off some spigots, or otherwise have value-added things for players and guilds to sink gold into, but trading guilds ought not to continue to be treated as the game's whipping boy for gold sinks.

silvereyes

JHartEllis wrote: »

The current system is absolutely CRUEL and PITILESS towards trading guild leaders and their members.

ZOS: "The insects fight back! "

ElfFromSpace

CONGRATS ZOS you have reached a new record! This is the longest maintenance yet! Time for celebration! Your customers are the least happy.

phaseadept

"Guild leaders break down in tears. They call in sick to work. It's brutal."

This game really isn't that important. . . One should never call in sick to work. If one loses their job, how does one pay for Internet?

esofan86

Calling off of work to play a game ... Serious signs of addiction ... Maybe quitting would be the healthier choice for some ?

silvereyes

phaseadept wrote: »

This game really isn't that important. . . One should never call in sick to work. If one loses their job, how does one pay for Internet?

Perhaps not. But still, they are leaders. It's normal for them to feel the weight of responsibility that comes with that mantle. They have people depending on them, even if it is just a game.

I for one, appreciate my GMs for being so awesome! Thank you all again and again.

P.S. but please don't lose your jobs because of it

Immortal_Dark410

phaseadept wrote: »

"Guild leaders break down in tears. They call in sick to work. It's brutal."

This game really isn't that important. . . One should never call in sick to work. If one loses their job, how does one pay for Internet?

who in there right mind would call off work for a game? lol
now if someone procrastinates on there university work or something well....that's understandable no?

baratron

silvereyes wrote: »

Anslay wrote: »

When does trader flip happen on the EU servers?

Tuesday 4am (CET). I just found out.

So it makes sense why those on the EU server would be a bit annoyed by suggestions to move the maintenance to Tuesday. Sorry about that, EU friends.

Wait. EU server Guild Trader flip is on Tuesdays? So there really is no excuse for the NA server flip to coincide with maintenance.

Then again, 4am CET is brutal.

AzraelAcid

I'm giving up on ever getting a reliable response on this issue. And even if we did, I wouldn't trust it anyway. Congratulations ZoS on driving your economic community into the ground. I give the game maybe another year. 2 tops.

Epona222

I can't help wondering whether the lack of any response on this issue may be that there are major changes to the trader system in the pipeline but they don't want to announce anything yet.

My goodness today has been a long day, I can barely function right now *zzzzzz*

silvereyes

Epona222 wrote: »

I can't help wondering whether the lack of any response on this issue may be that there are major changes to the trader system in the pipeline but they don't want to announce anything yet.

I've had that same thought, but I refuse to get my hopes up. More likely, there's no canned answer for the forum mods to use, no team leads have ownership of the issue, and the high-ups are all on publicity tour right now and can't be bothered.

ElfFromSpace

esofan86 wrote: »

Calling off of work to play a game ... Serious signs of addiction ... Maybe quitting would be the healthier choice for some ?

The problem is that the system they have set up basically forces GMs to do these things to run a successful trade guild. All we're asking, all we've been asking for weeks is that they at least let us get on and get our stuff done in the half hour it normally takes to get it all set. Instead they've changed this to a 13 hour process. It's crazy, but if we don't do it we can't get backup traders and they also ignore our requests to make the bidding system less volatile.

silvereyes

There was a lot of kiosk churn this week on NA server.

Sorry to those of you who lost bids. Congrats to those that won them.

Sorry to everyone who had to put up with the stupid bidding system.

silvereyes

silvereyes wrote: »

There was a lot of kiosk churn this week on NA server.

To clarify, it's not that kiosks changing hands is necessarily a bad thing, if due to new guilds that are stronger taking their places. But this week, it seems like a lot of strong guilds aren't placed appropriately.

bottleofsyrup

They should just change the trader changeover to the day before or day after. Ez pz.

silvereyes

baratron wrote: »

Wait. EU server Guild Trader flip is on Tuesdays?

Depends on your timezone.

11 PM EDT on Monday == 4 AM CET on Tuesday

Moving the maintenance forward 24 hours would move it to 4 AM EDT on Tuesday, which is 9 AM CET, 5 hours after the EU kiosk flip. So moving the maintenance to Tuesdays wouldn't really cause a conflict with the EU flip time.

However, the bigger issue for EU is that, well, the 4 AM flip time is ridiculous. I'm sure they would much prefer a solution that involves moving the flip time to Sunday night CET. Or really, any time that isn't at the most godawful hour of the morning.

But what do I know? Maybe they like the 4 AM flip time. Any EU server GMs want to chime in?

Anslay

silvereyes wrote: »

Epona222 wrote: »

I can't help wondering whether the lack of any response on this issue may be that there are major changes to the trader system in the pipeline but they don't want to announce anything yet.

I've had that same thought, but I refuse to get my hopes up. More likely, there's no canned answer for the forum mods to use, no team leads have ownership of the issue, and the high-ups are all on publicity tour right now and can't be bothered.

Basically the same thoughts I had. Sure would be much more awesome if someone would respond so we didn't sit here and speculate on why we are receiving the silent treatment.

Funny enough, this maintenance was so long that while my officers that help with this horrid situation had to finally go to sleep, I was able to get home from work before the servers came back up. So, thanks for that, I guess?