This is beyond a joke

Sir_Gentleman777

Sorry, but this whole maintenance issue is getting beyond a joke.

I am an IT Professional since good 30 years. I worked mainly in Systems, Networks and IT-Security as Keyboard Monkey up to first line Management in large companies and also did my fair share of software development in various programming languages. That just as a background that i am not one of the "I don't have a reason, but i do it anyway" Moaners, but that i have a very extended knowledge of very large IT Systems serving millions.

Every time there is a maintenance announced i get however now a very bad feeling that something will go horribly wrong. I truly do understand that a maintenance can go wrong and that there will be a extended downtime. IT is simply to complex to always run smoothly. But we had the last few maintenance times that went completely *** up. Announced were 4 hours and it ended up to be an entire day. And it is always the same notices we get as customers. But the worst thing is the lack of communication we receive from ZOS. It is always the same: Announcement -> Extension -> possible 2nd Extension -> We are experiencing issues SOME players are having. "Some players" is synonymous with essentially "all players". Last time we had in our guild of 150 players a total of 2 players that were able to logon during a very brief window after the servers came back online. that is 1%. And then to talk about "some players" is a bit over the top.

So here is a question for ZOS: What is actually going wrong lately with the maintenance? And since it is a repeat issue, why doesn't it get addressed?

Dovakhan

My theory? The useless IT dude in charge there is the utterly incompetent son of X ZOS director (or, alternatively, the only dude that knows how the servers/their maintenance works), and thus he can have the luxury of being neckbeard-basement-dweller-levels of incompetent without anything happening to him.

I work on IT, too, although on a way smaller scale. But if my company had to go offline for a full day, I'd be fired next morning.

Fazuszek

I also work in IT.

Its not funny, coz in my company, when something does not go with the plan, we immidietly start to check what was the problem, so it will never happen again. Not to mention we apologize every time our costumers.

Im 100% sure, that there is somekind of stinky problem, that Zenimax wants to keep secret, and all the problems are around this. I cant and i wont belevie that the issue is some animals in alik desert or nods on trees.

Sir_Gentleman777

Dovakhan wrote: »

My theory? The useless IT dude in charge there is the utterly incompetent son of X ZOS director (or, alternatively, the only dude that knows how the servers/their maintenance works), and thus he can have the luxury of being neckbeard-basement-dweller-levels of incompetent without anything happening to him.

I work on IT, too, although on a way smaller scale. But if my company had to go offline for a full day, I'd be fired next morning.

I doubt that it is an issue with a "useless IT dude". I can understand your frustration, but such answers are not really constructive.

A setup like ESO is anything but small and once a design decision is made, it will be hard to change this. There will be also a lot of business decisions that influence how and what will be used purely based on a cost analysis. Yes, the bean counters are actually the main culprits, as always.

Dovakhan

Sir_Gentleman777 wrote: »

Dovakhan wrote: »

My theory? The useless IT dude in charge there is the utterly incompetent son of X ZOS director (or, alternatively, the only dude that knows how the servers/their maintenance works), and thus he can have the luxury of being neckbeard-basement-dweller-levels of incompetent without anything happening to him.

I work on IT, too, although on a way smaller scale. But if my company had to go offline for a full day, I'd be fired next morning.

I doubt that it is an issue with a "useless IT dude". I can understand your frustration, but such answers are not really constructive.

A setup like ESO is anything but small and once a design decision is made, it will be hard to change this. There will be also a lot of business decisions that influence how and what will be used purely based on a cost analysis. Yes, the bean counters are actually the main culprits, as always.

I do believe it. Seen many similar things in my work experience :P

Infectious1X

I’m also in IT as well with 38 years of experience. I’m also a lawyer and a doctor making well over 400k yearly. I’m also making crap up because that’s how the internet works and you wouldn’t know the difference, but I just want to sound like I know what I’m talking about so other people will believe me.

Quit claiming you’re “this” or “that” in an effort to make your argument come off as more “legit,” whether or not it’s true. Nobody knows what you do and you claiming it doesn’t make it true.

Understand that crap happens and learn to deal with it. I’m sure you can handle going a day per month without playing the specific 1 out of the 240 games in your steam list.

The 6000 other threads like this one make it sound like you’re all being so TERRIBLY ripped off of your COMPLETELY OPTIONAL 50 cents per month....

volkeswagon

it's cause they are working remotely. The first person to know there is an issue with maintenance is them so I don't see any purpose complaining about it. If they could eliminate or reduce downtime they would.

SweepsAllClowns

Fazuszek wrote: »

Not to mention we apologize every time our costumers.

Well things sure go quite differently here, this is the pinnacle of customer service in 2020!

mikejezz

Also keep in mind, the US servers rarely has problems while EU servers gets screwed each time.

Gorreck

volkeswagon wrote: »

it's cause they are working remotely. The first person to know there is an issue with maintenance is them so I don't see any purpose complaining about it. If they could eliminate or reduce downtime they would.

The surprise is NOT extra and extended maintenance followed by NOT being able to log into the EU server.

The surprise is NO extended maintenance and being ABLE to log into the EU server


Which shows how bad the situation is for the EU server these days.

drakthir

With covid you get less people in the office, the rest homeworking.
Just because they repeatedly have issues doesn't mean it's the same issue with the same fix.
They have been communicating a lot more, but people will always come here to to make moan posts and claim a lack of communication because ZOS aint doing the thing i want them to be doing bla bla bla

I don't see a problem with how they talk about their downtime, they simply tell you how long, if something changes they tell you how much longer and when its done they tell you its done and that's fine, the intricate details are not needed, if they thought they were they would probably say

Found it, yeah they did do a post explaining the problem

'As many of you noticed, today we needed to extend PC maintenance due to running into some backend issues (we understand this is a pretty vague statement, but in this case, it basically took longer than expected for things to spin back up). Once we were able to open, we were right in the middle of EU primetime, and the server was flooded with people trying to log in. In an effort to avoid taking the server down a second time, we implemented a login queue to throttle how many players could get in, reducing the load slightly. While it’s frustrating to encounter a queue, this has allowed players to successfully get in, and we are actively raising the queue to get more people in faster'

Mancombe_Nosehair

It's been going wrong ever since Stadia was introduced.

Gorreck

drakthir wrote: »

With covid you get less people in the office, the rest homeworking.
Just because they repeatedly have issues doesn't mean it's the same issue with the same fix.
They have been communicating a lot more, but people will always come here to to make moan posts and claim a lack of communication because ZOS aint doing the thing i want them to be doing bla bla bla

I don't see a problem with how they talk about their downtime, they simply tell you how long, if something changes they tell you how much longer and when its done they tell you its done and that's fine, the intricate details are not needed, if they thought they were they would probably say

Found it, yeah they did do a post explaining the problem

'As many of you noticed, today we needed to extend PC maintenance due to running into some backend issues (we understand this is a pretty vague statement, but in this case, it basically took longer than expected for things to spin back up). Once we were able to open, we were right in the middle of EU primetime, and the server was flooded with people trying to log in. In an effort to avoid taking the server down a second time, we implemented a login queue to throttle how many players could get in, reducing the load slightly. While it’s frustrating to encounter a queue, this has allowed players to successfully get in, and we are actively raising the queue to get more people in faster'

Except the queue wasn't actually working either............

Muzza45

I work in the field of Industrial Automation, and I'm responsible for a team of sales guys to sell Industrial PC's & PLC's to End Users. We have to delight our customers and add value every day to ensure we not only get orders for projects we are working on, but indeed the next project when CAPEX is available to that end-user. We proactively go out of our way to ensure our customers are happy & informed, and if there's any issues we communicate as we fix. This is NOT the case with ZOS - communication is dire... Indeed, it's even a bit like the "Stockholm Syndrome" where hapless folks in forums defend extremely poor service no matter what goes down!

The problem is it's a captive audience. ZOS are gambling on the hope that the vast majority of their customers remain loyal. If another new MMO were to raise its hand, then there may well be a few shocks in-store for ZOS - just sayin'

Magenpie

Infectious1X wrote: »

I’m also in IT as well with 38 years of experience. I’m also a lawyer and a doctor making well over 400k yearly. I’m also making crap up because that’s how the internet works and you wouldn’t know the difference, but I just want to sound like I know what I’m talking about so other people will believe me.

Quit claiming you’re “this” or “that” in an effort to make your argument come off as more “legit,” whether or not it’s true. Nobody knows what you do and you claiming it doesn’t make it true.

Understand that crap happens and learn to deal with it. I’m sure you can handle going a day per month without playing the specific 1 out of the 240 games in your steam list.

The 6000 other threads like this one make it sound like you’re all being so TERRIBLY ripped off of your COMPLETELY OPTIONAL 50 cents per month....

People are allowed to complain when a service they pay for doesn't work as it should. It's not up to you to be the gatekeeper for ZOS Customer Service, they have paid employees to do that.

redgreensunset

drakthir wrote: »

With covid you get less people in the office, the rest homeworking.
Just because they repeatedly have issues doesn't mean it's the same issue with the same fix.
They have been communicating a lot more, but people will always come here to to make moan posts and claim a lack of communication because ZOS aint doing the thing i want them to be doing bla bla bla

I don't see a problem with how they talk about their downtime, they simply tell you how long, if something changes they tell you how much longer and when its done they tell you its done and that's fine, the intricate details are not needed, if they thought they were they would probably say

Found it, yeah they did do a post explaining the problem

'As many of you noticed, today we needed to extend PC maintenance due to running into some backend issues (we understand this is a pretty vague statement, but in this case, it basically took longer than expected for things to spin back up). Once we were able to open, we were right in the middle of EU primetime, and the server was flooded with people trying to log in. In an effort to avoid taking the server down a second time, we implemented a login queue to throttle how many players could get in, reducing the load slightly. While it’s frustrating to encounter a queue, this has allowed players to successfully get in, and we are actively raising the queue to get more people in faster'

Execpt the explanation is at best incorrect. It is now the next morning, the queue is gone but the problems persist for several players. So either they're lying or they don't know. Either way EU have been screwed out of a day, again, with no compensation, again, and are just supposed to put up and shut up according to you and every other white knight on here.
Another thing is that this predates covid and the lockdown so all the people saying this is due to that are either lying, new or have very bad memories.

Gorreck

redgreensunset wrote: »

drakthir wrote: »

With covid you get less people in the office, the rest homeworking.
Just because they repeatedly have issues doesn't mean it's the same issue with the same fix.
They have been communicating a lot more, but people will always come here to to make moan posts and claim a lack of communication because ZOS aint doing the thing i want them to be doing bla bla bla

I don't see a problem with how they talk about their downtime, they simply tell you how long, if something changes they tell you how much longer and when its done they tell you its done and that's fine, the intricate details are not needed, if they thought they were they would probably say

Found it, yeah they did do a post explaining the problem

'As many of you noticed, today we needed to extend PC maintenance due to running into some backend issues (we understand this is a pretty vague statement, but in this case, it basically took longer than expected for things to spin back up). Once we were able to open, we were right in the middle of EU primetime, and the server was flooded with people trying to log in. In an effort to avoid taking the server down a second time, we implemented a login queue to throttle how many players could get in, reducing the load slightly. While it’s frustrating to encounter a queue, this has allowed players to successfully get in, and we are actively raising the queue to get more people in faster'

Execpt the explanation is at best incorrect. It is now the next morning, the queue is gone but the problems persist for several players. So either they're lying or they don't know. Either way EU have been screwed out of a day, again, with no compensation, again, and are just supposed to put up and shut up according to you and every other white knight on here.
Another thing is that this predates covid and the lockdown so all the people saying this is due to that are either lying, new or have very bad memories.

The queue wasn't even working correctly, I sat in it for 1.5 hours between 9pm GMT and 10:30pm GMT (the queue showed 30s wait), which is normally when EU population is dropping off, just to try and quickly get yesterdays tickets.

drakthir

redgreensunset wrote: »

drakthir wrote: »

With covid you get less people in the office, the rest homeworking.
Just because they repeatedly have issues doesn't mean it's the same issue with the same fix.
They have been communicating a lot more, but people will always come here to to make moan posts and claim a lack of communication because ZOS aint doing the thing i want them to be doing bla bla bla

I don't see a problem with how they talk about their downtime, they simply tell you how long, if something changes they tell you how much longer and when its done they tell you its done and that's fine, the intricate details are not needed, if they thought they were they would probably say

Found it, yeah they did do a post explaining the problem

'As many of you noticed, today we needed to extend PC maintenance due to running into some backend issues (we understand this is a pretty vague statement, but in this case, it basically took longer than expected for things to spin back up). Once we were able to open, we were right in the middle of EU primetime, and the server was flooded with people trying to log in. In an effort to avoid taking the server down a second time, we implemented a login queue to throttle how many players could get in, reducing the load slightly. While it’s frustrating to encounter a queue, this has allowed players to successfully get in, and we are actively raising the queue to get more people in faster'

Execpt the explanation is at best incorrect. It is now the next morning, the queue is gone but the problems persist for several players. So either they're lying or they don't know. Either way EU have been screwed out of a day, again, with no compensation, again, and are just supposed to put up and shut up according to you and every other white knight on here.
Another thing is that this predates covid and the lockdown so all the people saying this is due to that are either lying, new or have very bad memories.

Yes the servers problems predate covid and the lockdown, devs basically said this whole year was gonna be alot of server changes because of server problems, and then covid hit, and then things got worse with increased server loads, increased loads for ISP's and such. Lockdown is still going on in a lot of places, to say lockdown is part of the problem does not make me a liar or a noob it's the truth.

'So there either lying or they don't know' You have no way of knowing this, you don't know if the problems people are having today are the same ones as yesterday
'Except the explanation is at best incorrect' i get your mad and that fine, but don't start talking as if you know what's going on

redgreensunset

Gorreck wrote: »

redgreensunset wrote: »

drakthir wrote: »

With covid you get less people in the office, the rest homeworking.
Just because they repeatedly have issues doesn't mean it's the same issue with the same fix.
They have been communicating a lot more, but people will always come here to to make moan posts and claim a lack of communication because ZOS aint doing the thing i want them to be doing bla bla bla

I don't see a problem with how they talk about their downtime, they simply tell you how long, if something changes they tell you how much longer and when its done they tell you its done and that's fine, the intricate details are not needed, if they thought they were they would probably say

Found it, yeah they did do a post explaining the problem

'As many of you noticed, today we needed to extend PC maintenance due to running into some backend issues (we understand this is a pretty vague statement, but in this case, it basically took longer than expected for things to spin back up). Once we were able to open, we were right in the middle of EU primetime, and the server was flooded with people trying to log in. In an effort to avoid taking the server down a second time, we implemented a login queue to throttle how many players could get in, reducing the load slightly. While it’s frustrating to encounter a queue, this has allowed players to successfully get in, and we are actively raising the queue to get more people in faster'

Execpt the explanation is at best incorrect. It is now the next morning, the queue is gone but the problems persist for several players. So either they're lying or they don't know. Either way EU have been screwed out of a day, again, with no compensation, again, and are just supposed to put up and shut up according to you and every other white knight on here.
Another thing is that this predates covid and the lockdown so all the people saying this is due to that are either lying, new or have very bad memories.

The queue wasn't even working correctly, I sat in it for 1.5 hours between 9pm GMT and 10:30pm GMT (the queue showed 30s wait), which is normally when EU population is dropping off, just to try and quickly get yesterdays tickets.

Oh I know. I sat in that queue almost from it was put in until about 11:50pm cest at which time I went to bed. Not once did I get past it.

Bhaji

And the loading screen for Shadowfen has been going round and round for 15 mins now

ZOS_ConnorG

Greetings all,

After review we have closed this thread as there are many instances of Bashing present. As this is in violation of our Community Rules we have closed the thread.

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