Does the game really need 4-8 hour maintenances every week?

Subversus

I would be fine with it if they actually improved the state of the server, but they make absolutely no difference. PVP servers' quality is at an all time low, despite the weekly maintenance times being at an all time high...

tbe_loki

@stewhead2ub17_ESO oh yes. It is different of course. But as an administrator worked in many fields and meet some people doing MMORPG hosting, I tell you: there are only a few reasons fornthe need of such a weekly downtime:

* pure software quality or design or both
* bad trained admins
* no staging environment for pre-live
* not enough hardware

Look at eve online. 5 to 15 minutes daily maintenance. No 6 to 12 hours. If a patch is rolled out maybe 2 hours. That is minor.

purple-magicb16_ESO

Lol! They're not being malicious by doing long maintenance! xD They not punishing us either. You really can't compare companies. I don't care how tech you are, it's a different system and unless you have worked for ZoS on ESO you really don't know.

Beardimus

Yep OP they do. They wouldn't do it if they didn't think k it was needed. It's a vast game, multi platform, complex and as commercials grow they can / and need to reinvest in the game.

Find other things to do in the few % of the week you can't game.

Tactical32

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

honestly - to me it seems that the engine might be the issue...i only experienced one time when they didnt do maintenance and the following days the game played much worse...maybe the engine is not optimized for the sheer amounts of content and people (what would be strange for an mmo tough)?

I was curious if anyone remembered what happened when they DIDN'T do maintenance?!

It was horrendous!

Deheart

Eve online, I havn't played that game for a couple of years, but I remember 8 hour downtimes on patch days. And I seem to remember regular downtime lasting about an hour average, not 5-15 min. Has it really changed that much? or is someone exaggerating?

tbe_loki

Deheart wrote: »

Eve online, I havn't played that game for a couple of years, but I remember 8 hour downtimes on patch days. And I seem to remember regular downtime lasting about an hour average, not 5-15 min. Has it really changed that much? or is someone exaggerating?

Oh it changed a lot since this:

https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/tranquility-tech-3/

Shado187

tbe_loki wrote: »

https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/tranquility-tech-3/

Why cant Eso Devs be this informative ^^^?

Mondini

Did the fat kid in school really need that much time to run 1500 metres? Probably not, but he was lazy and didn't want to strain himself too much.

XDragonDoomX

One thing to note - Eve Online has been going a little while longer (released 2003 in USA) than ESO, so has had more time to deal with their own downtime / patching issues, some of which are likely to be unique to each game / system. So yes, praise their current record by all means - however at the same time remember ESO is still dealing with their own unique issues.

tbe_loki

Shado187 wrote: »

Why cant Eso Devs be this informative ^^^?

Because for ccp there game is life and the gamers are more then just milk cows.

Zenimax is not interested in the customer satisfaction. They only want our money. They just Don't care.

Or how to you explain the bad/non existent support and the huge amount of now, unfixed issues?

Feanor

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

@tbe_loki yes minor. 5 hrs a week is a minor inconvenience. I'm not a tech guy but I suspect whatever it is you're doing is different than what occurs with a MMO. Since you felt the need to list your pedigree I can only wait with great anticipation for your MMO to come out so there's only a 15 minute inconvenience window. Grow up.

The best argument in those discussions. The "you-can't-do-it-better-yourself-so-everything-is-just-dandy" argument. It's what doctors should tell their patients when their operation has gone wrong too.

WNAPosadzkib16_ESO

Oh no, not again...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=G2eUopy9sd8

Philio

tbe_loki wrote: »

@stewhead2ub17_ESO oh yes. It is different of course. But as an administrator worked in many fields and meet some people doing MMORPG hosting, I tell you: there are only a few reasons fornthe need of such a weekly downtime:

* pure software quality or design or both
* bad trained admins
* no staging environment for pre-live
* not enough hardware

Look at eve online. 5 to 15 minutes daily maintenance. No 6 to 12 hours. If a patch is rolled out maybe 2 hours. That is minor.

I used to work with someone who went to work for ZOS, I assume on ESO. He was an arrogant *** but very good at his job

stewhead2ub17_ESO

Feanor wrote: »

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

@tbe_loki yes minor. 5 hrs a week is a minor inconvenience. I'm not a tech guy but I suspect whatever it is you're doing is different than what occurs with a MMO. Since you felt the need to list your pedigree I can only wait with great anticipation for your MMO to come out so there's only a 15 minute inconvenience window. Grow up.

The best argument in those discussions. The "you-can't-do-it-better-yourself-so-everything-is-just-dandy" argument. It's what doctors should tell their patients when their operation has gone wrong too.

@Feanor your analogy is severely lacking. And nothing has "gone wrong". I stand by my assertion that a 4-5 hour a week maintenance is a minor inconvenience. Move along.

Feanor

@stewhead2ub17_ESO

Yeah I was sure you'd follow up with the "it's just a game" argument. These discussions are not innovative because they have been around forever. It's predictable.

To finish the circulus in demonstrando you'll just need to bring the "but-it's-only-€-0.016-per-ESO-plus-hour" and we're done.

BlueViolet

I believe there was a time if I recall correctly, when they didn't do maintenance for 2 or three weeks ( perhaps longer, I forget now ) and the server was hellish.
I don't particularly like the rather long maintenance times, as, being in Aussieland, it is smack in the middle of our evening when most people relax and play after work, but it has to be done.

God forbid the servers get any worse than they are.

Edit - I looked at that link to the EO dev blog. I wish Zenimax took the time to provide some insight like that, even half as detailed. It might help to cease some of the angry threads on maintenance night.

DeadlyRecluse

Probably, yeah.

DMuehlhausen

Kahina wrote: »

In Australia it is done during the prime playing time of late afternoon to early evening. At least you have your own server.

This has always been the only issue I have with weekly maintenance with every MMO. I'm sure there are enough Aus players to warrant a server there so you don't have it primetime.

greyman

XDragonDoomX wrote: »

One thing to note - Eve Online has been going a little while longer (released 2003 in USA) than ESO, so has had more time to deal with their own downtime / patching issues, some of which are likely to be unique to each game / system. So yes, praise their current record by all means - however at the same time remember ESO is still dealing with their own unique issues.

For the first three years of Eve (at least), there was a daily one hour down time at noon EU time. And patch days were like here: patch day, no play. Oh and lag on populated systems was completely horrendous and made the game unplayable. They fixed those issues in the end, but it took years.

So really... not all that much different. And honestly if you look at other MMOs, you tend to see the same pattern... things start off rocky, continue wobbly and eventually settle down after a while. For large MMOs, that "a while" can sometimes be measured in years.

Yarlenzey

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

@tbe_loki yes minor. 5 hrs a week is a minor inconvenience. I'm not a tech guy but I suspect whatever it is you're doing is different than what occurs with a MMO. Since you felt the need to list your pedigree I can only wait with great anticipation for your MMO to come out so there's only a 15 minute inconvenience window. Grow up.

If you aren't a 'tech guy' - then how can you compare MMO system admin against 'other' system admin?

I am more inclined to think that there is fundamental design flaw and that most of this maintenance can be best described as 'work-arounds'. But I don't pretend to know that.

The fact that a patch file is installed on the ESO client software immediately after the downtime, suggests that they are actually building the patch (or part of it) during the downtime. But I don't pretend to know this either.

What I do know, from 30 years IT experience, is that 8 hours every week is a long time by any measure in 2017.

A smaller weekly figure of 1-2 hours, together with a monthly or bi-monthly period of 5-6 hours would qualify for your 'minor inconvenience' label. For me, the only applicable label is 'unacceptable'.

CardboardedBox

So everybody complains the game doesn't work right.

Everyone also complains when the game is taken down for maintenance.

Huh. Neat.

ADarklore

Strange... because I don't recall 'weekly' maintenance... and this was a PATCH maintenance, which does take longer than a regular server maintenance... usually this occurs once or twice a month depending on how many issues they need to fix. Considering a major update was recently released, it is quite normal to see a patch every week or so until update introduced bugs are fixed.

Further, since some people want to throw in other MMOs... over on DCUO they have a server maintenance EVERY DAY for 30 minutes... add the up over a week that's 3.5 hours of downtime per week. On update days, it's not uncommon for six hours or more of downtime. So no, ESO's maintenance is not unusual or outrageous.

Feanor

CardboardedBox wrote: »

So everybody complains the game doesn't work right.

Everyone also complains when the game is taken down for maintenance.

Huh. Neat.

That's not a contradiction. Because the game doesn't work right despite the downtime for maintenance.

BloodWolfe

NoScopeGG wrote: »

XDragonDoomX wrote: »

I'm pretty sure ZoS only do it because they believe it is necessary.
From a customer service point of view it wouldn't make sense to take the servers down - people who cant play are unhappy.
From a commercial point of view it wouldn't make sense to take the servers down - people who aren't playing aren't buying from the crown store

So yes, its probably really necessary.

Most (perhaps all) MMOs I've played take their servers down for 5 minutes then put them back up (even when it's a big update patch), and I don't see why ESO is different than the others.

5 minutes? LMAO, ya sure, ok there bud. NO patch or update takes 5 minutes. Not sure which fantasy world you're living in.

Maintenance HAS to happen. They choose the least populated times but they can't make everyone happy but it HAS to be done and this is nothing new in the world of MMO's and online gaming. Relax, take a deep breath and go do other things in the meantime so that when the servers are back up you don't have to do those other things later.

The servers were back up no later than 8:30am (Eastern Time) as that was when I had a chance to log back in and check, That's not a bad time at all to be back up. People need to get lives outside of this game.

tbe_loki

OK, to bring some light into the dark magic of rolling upgrades: One way to do a update with much less downtime is the following:

* Prepare the client patch and distribute it in advance
* Prepare the server side patch on the second cluster ( if you have one ) or prepare some patched VM images
* Shut down the old cluster
* take a snapshot of your database
* run the highly optimized DB update script
* Start the new cluster
* Test

This can be done in a few minutes if your orchestration software is good enough. Nealry all parts are automated, gameplay could be tested on a testing instance in advance.

If there is a relay complex database upgrade: Create a copy of the tables you need, install a trigger on the old tables .. ok this is getting to much tech for the most, admins know what i mean.


This steps are independent from the used server software, but require a prepared infrastructure and enough man power to code the basics ( once ).

I can't see the point where it would take hours to do such a maintenance if the common best practice, used for so many huge scale server applications, would be used,

anitajoneb17_ESO

tbe_loki wrote: »

Minor? Ok. I'll tell u something. I work for one of Germany largest telcos.

Fine... how many employees are there in your Germany's largest telco ? I guess several thousands if not over ten thousands. ZOS has a few hundred.
How many customers are there in "Germany's largest telco" ? I guess 20 to 30 millions, all paying subscribers to some services.

ZOS has arguably 10 million unique original purchasers of ESO and only a few hundred thousand subscribers.

You can't compare NASA's maintenance infrastructure with the guy next door's garage. Well, ZOS isn't exactly the guy next door's garage either, but you see what I mean. Having seamless maintenance requires heavy investment in backup parallel infrastructure and ZOS probably doesn't have that kind of money. ZOS isn't the huge guy we tend to make them out to be.

Artemiisia

yeah every mmo have weekly server maintenance

I have played 3 others that have it as well

SoLooney

I dont mind the weekly maintenance, i see it as almost necessary to make sure the servers are upkept and running smoothly, but when there are so many bugs including extremely long and infinite load times to dungeon finder extremely bugged for so long. i question what they exactly do for maintenance

Kurkikohtaus

BloodWolfe wrote: »

Maintenance HAS to happen.

Why?

SoLooney wrote: »

I dont mind the weekly maintenance, i see it as almost necessary to make sure the servers are upkept and running smoothly,

Why?

What do they do? Do THEY even know?