Maintenance on Maintenance

Lauranae

May be, just a thought, rather than bring the world down for hours again and again, put it down a full day and do a complete check up ?

Actually, all the maintenances you did since the launch of Blackwood, nore the hot fixes have worked for good. And unfortunatly as you are not very open to explain what are the real problems, i feel rather ennoyed and mad to have all those downtimes.

Thank you

Addendum : As i said i reacted on the moment. I do know that those maintenance are a necessity to clear up the game so we can have a smooth playtime. I just wish we could avoid some of them. Also, may be the PTS environment need to correspond to the live more closely may be ? and for more longer to allow Devs team to correct those alert bugs before a launch ?

Arunei

They could take the servers down for a week, or a month, and still not be able to find a way to fix everything. While it's frustrating that things which were reported in the PTS often make it to live and for weeks afterward no less, they can only get fixes out as they discover them. If it takes them that whole day/week/month to find the solution, you best believe the next day it would get pushed.

I don't know anything about coding other than it doesn't work as simply as "just take it down for a day and fix it all". Don't get me wrong I give ZOS flak all the time on a lot of stuff they do, but I also realize there are things that are largely out of their immediate control. Maybe if their QA was better, or the devs were given more time to work on content instead of being forced to stick to ZOS' schedule for new content despite the pandemic stuff going on, things wouldn't be like this. Though the COVID argument doesn't really hold up well when you consider things have been this way even before that became a thing.

Dalogan72

Lauranae wrote: »

May be, just a thought, rather than bring the world down for hours again and again, put it down a full day and do a complete check up ?

Actually, all the maintenances you did since the launch of Blackwood, nore the hot fixes have worked for good. And unfortunatly as you are not very open to explain what are the real problems, i feel rather ennoyed and mad to have all those downtimes.

Thank you

Just fixing the stamina bug may take these dudes a full moon.

Lauranae

i know you are right. I reacted on the instant. But a little more communication would really help to digest those maintenances and hot fixes.

NeKryXe

This is crazy! I tried to play on Saturday but there was a maintenance going on when I launched the game: and I'm sure that I read that there was no maintenance scheduled for today. So, I decided to work on Saturday and get Monday free to try the new Blackwood update. Now, once again, I launched the game and it's on maintenance... What the hell!? What's so wrong with Blackwood? Is it that bad?

purple-magicb16_ESO

Not sure about hotfixes (patches that occur while the server is live) but they have taken the servers offline for maintenance more often with this than any other dlc in my recent memory. While there are various (and numerous) bugs needing fixing, I think the main culprit is the companion system. People are collecting companion gear only to have it disappear from their inventory, which is a major problem. This is why, while I've been collecting some companion gear (just through the treasure chests), I haven't actually gotten a companion and begun equipping him/her with gear. It's not always so great to be first in line. Lol! xD

Dovahkiin02191973

I never used followers in any of their games. It's a big waste of time to set up a halfway decent follower in Skyrim. I am not even going to touch the companions in this game. If this down time is due to companions only I will just ride it out but I highly doubt it. ESO's long history of server problems is most likely the real reason and this history will just keep getting longer the longer they put off replacing out of date servers. Read the reason for the maintenance. A back end server issue was found. They had no choice but to put the game into maintenance and now it seems the issues are more serious than at first thought as it is now extended maintenance.

techyeshic

I will never complain about attempts to fix this game. Whether several different downtimes daily, even more than once; or if they decided to take the game down an extended period. If they fix things for the better; they have my full support.

Sylvermynx

techyeshic wrote: »

I will never complain about attempts to fix this game. Whether several different downtimes daily, even more than once; or if they decided to take the game down an extended period. If they fix things for the better; they have my full support.

Fully agree!

priestnall.andrewrwb17_ESO

Its the @attempts part that's worrying... I can attempt to fix your boiler, but I will probably fail because I am not a professional Plumber.... I don't know what I am doing. I can attempt to give you a cardiopulmonary bypass, but its wont go well.... because I don't know what I am doing, but I will do my BEST!

jedtb16_ESO

Lauranae wrote: »

May be, just a thought, rather than bring the world down for hours again and again, put it down a full day and do a complete check up ?

Actually, all the maintenances you did since the launch of Blackwood, nore the hot fixes have worked for good. And unfortunatly as you are not very open to explain what are the real problems, i feel rather ennoyed and mad to have all those downtimes.

Thank you

Addendum : As i said i reacted on the moment. I do know that those maintenance are a necessity to clear up the game so we can have a smooth playtime. I just wish we could avoid some of them. Also, may be the PTS environment need to correspond to the live more closely may be ? and for more longer to allow Devs team to correct those alert bugs before a launch ?

to discover where it's broken you need to see it running...

Wolfenbelle

Arunei wrote: »

They could take the servers down for a week, or a month, and still not be able to find a way to fix everything. While it's frustrating that things which were reported in the PTS often make it to live and for weeks afterward no less, they can only get fixes out as they discover them. If it takes them that whole day/week/month to find the solution, you best believe the next day it would get pushed.

I don't know anything about coding other than it doesn't work as simply as "just take it down for a day and fix it all". Don't get me wrong I give ZOS flak all the time on a lot of stuff they do, but I also realize there are things that are largely out of their immediate control. Maybe if their QA was better...argument doesn't really hold up well when you consider things have been this way even before that became a thing.

I've played ESO since pre-launch in 2014 (with a break whenn moving from West Coast to East Coast). ZOS always had frequent maintenances, hot fixes, etc. Although we can't know for sure, they never seem to use a test system to put new code and test it before releasing to production. Yes, they have the PTS which is a watered down form of User Acceptance Testing, but it is no substitute for rigorous testing before release to production.

Taking down their product so often (thus denying themselves whatever revenue ESO provides) is really quite shocking from business and customer satisfaction perspectives. But again, they have been doing it from the beginning.

CountonMe

NeKryXe wrote: »

This is crazy! I tried to play on Saturday but there was a maintenance going on when I launched the game: and I'm sure that I read that there was no maintenance scheduled for today. So, I decided to work on Saturday and get Monday free to try the new Blackwood update. Now, once again, I launched the game and it's on maintenance... What the hell!? What's so wrong with Blackwood? Is it that bad?

You are right. They specifically said "No maintenance the week of June 7" Well....heeeeere we are!

madman65

I wonder if it is due to the block bug? Cast a block and use resource, uncast a block and use resource. Not to mention in some area I couldn`t even use block at all, yesterday I was in Rivenspire and no block. So I went to Deshaan and checked, I got my block back then went back to Rivenspire and was able to block. So it`s at random when this happens.

Arunei

Lauranae wrote: »

i know you are right. I reacted on the instant. But a little more communication would really help to digest those maintenances and hot fixes.

They've been promising better communication and we keep waiting for it, but it almost never happens. Maybe one day they'll give us the communication they had Gina tell us they'd give...what, three or so years ago now? And maybe we'll migrate all of the Earth's population to Mars by the end of the week. Personally I think we have a better chance of the latter.

Wolfenbelle wrote: »

I've played ESO since pre-launch in 2014 (with a break whenn moving from West Coast to East Coast). ZOS always had frequent maintenances, hot fixes, etc. Although we can't know for sure, they never seem to use a test system to put new code and test it before releasing to production. Yes, they have the PTS which is a watered down form of User Acceptance Testing, but it is no substitute for rigorous testing before release to production.

Taking down their product so often (thus denying themselves whatever revenue ESO provides) is really quite shocking from business and customer satisfaction perspectives. But again, they have been doing it from the beginning.

I've been playing since closed beta myself, I remember when we had weekly maintenance and all that fun stuff. They really do need to QA stuff more, and honestly, I think they shot themselves in the foot wanting to get four content things out every year. I'd have said go with three and give each new thing more than just a handful of weeks to be tested, both by players and by QA.

They also really should be able to have both servers copied to the PTS at once. When one server or another is locked out for a majority of the testing period, it prevents more people from being able to, you know, test stuff.

RedMuse

purple-magicb16_ESO wrote: »

Not sure about hotfixes (patches that occur while the server is live) but they have taken the servers offline for maintenance more often with this than any other dlc in my recent memory. While there are various (and numerous) bugs needing fixing, I think the main culprit is the companion system. People are collecting companion gear only to have it disappear from their inventory, which is a major problem. This is why, while I've been collecting some companion gear (just through the treasure chests), I haven't actually gotten a companion and begun equipping him/her with gear. It's not always so great to be first in line. Lol! xD

Maybe my memory is better than yours but Greymoor was definitely worse and Dragonhold was absolutely terrible. Server burned down consistently for over a week and they had to cancel Undaunted.

Starlight_Whisper

Arunei wrote: »

They could take the servers down for a week, or a month, and still not be able to find a way to fix everything. While it's frustrating that things which were reported in the PTS often make it to live and for weeks afterward no less, they can only get fixes out as they discover them. If it takes them that whole day/week/month to find the solution, you best believe the next day it would get pushed.

I don't know anything about coding other than it doesn't work as simply as "just take it down for a day and fix it all". Don't get me wrong I give ZOS flak all the time on a lot of stuff they do, but I also realize there are things that are largely out of their immediate control. Maybe if their QA was better, or the devs were given more time to work on content instead of being forced to stick to ZOS' schedule for new content despite the pandemic stuff going on, things wouldn't be like this. Though the COVID argument doesn't really hold up well when you consider things have been this way even before that became a thing.

Here's something about coding. The first lesson you learn is commenting on work. Lastly testing work. Clearly block issues has none of this. It was fine a week before but they did something they haven't even acknowledged they broke.

This isn't devs, coders or repair guys, it's management not caring about quality over money at this point. Remember we just had back issue Friday night too. Clearly they didn't make sure everything was okay and we are here now.

VelimOrthic

I just figure they *** up bad.

I'm not going to tell them their business. I'm not going to tell them how to conduct their jubs. But there certainly are times I wish I could be on their route to work.

Thrudra_Magia

It's not the week's worth of on-again/off-again maintenance that bothers me, it's the lack of respect they show their customer-base.

If you're going to disrupt services that have been paid for then the company should compensate its customers. How the company compensates its customers is up to them.

But they never do. And it's this unbelievable lack of respect that I find incredibly disgraceful.

I've only ever seen ZOS compensate the community once in all the time ESO has been live....once. And it's not the first time this has happened.

Starlight_Whisper

Thrudra_Magia wrote: »

It's not the week's worth of on-again/off-again maintenance that bothers me, it's the lack of respect they show their customer-base.

If you're going to disrupt services that have been paid for then the company should compensate its customers. How the company compensates its customers is up to them.

But they never do. And it's this unbelievable lack of respect that I find incredibly disgraceful.

I've only ever seen ZOS compensate the community once in all the time ESO has been live....once. And it's not the first time this has happened.

Not to mention, not acknowledging issues or giving timelines. Then there's bugs that have existed for months on months. They need better management of these issues.

Starlight_Whisper

Wolfenbelle wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

They could take the servers down for a week, or a month, and still not be able to find a way to fix everything. While it's frustrating that things which were reported in the PTS often make it to live and for weeks afterward no less, they can only get fixes out as they discover them. If it takes them that whole day/week/month to find the solution, you best believe the next day it would get pushed.

I don't know anything about coding other than it doesn't work as simply as "just take it down for a day and fix it all". Don't get me wrong I give ZOS flak all the time on a lot of stuff they do, but I also realize there are things that are largely out of their immediate control. Maybe if their QA was better...argument doesn't really hold up well when you consider things have been this way even before that became a thing.

I've played ESO since pre-launch in 2014 (with a break whenn moving from West Coast to East Coast). ZOS always had frequent maintenances, hot fixes, etc. Although we can't know for sure, they never seem to use a test system to put new code and test it before releasing to production. Yes, they have the PTS which is a watered down form of User Acceptance Testing, but it is no substitute for rigorous testing before release to production.

Taking down their product so often (thus denying themselves whatever revenue ESO provides) is really quite shocking from business and customer satisfaction perspectives. But again, they have been doing it from the beginning.

Sad part is block bug showed up on the week after they decided not have players test it.

Mahabahabtha

They will NOT patch or hotfix any bug !
Bugs are occuring on any platform, US Servers are down due to an HARDWARE failure on a server who hosts Backend-data...
only US shows....no bugs will be fixed....

Maskius

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

Lauranae wrote: »

May be, just a thought, rather than bring the world down for hours again and again, put it down a full day and do a complete check up ?

Actually, all the maintenances you did since the launch of Blackwood, nore the hot fixes have worked for good. And unfortunatly as you are not very open to explain what are the real problems, i feel rather ennoyed and mad to have all those downtimes.

Thank you

Addendum : As i said i reacted on the moment. I do know that those maintenance are a necessity to clear up the game so we can have a smooth playtime. I just wish we could avoid some of them. Also, may be the PTS environment need to correspond to the live more closely may be ? and for more longer to allow Devs team to correct those alert bugs before a launch ?

to discover where it's broken you need to see it running...

Public Test Server?

mekops_ESO

is the backend issue that someone drove a truck through the building? be honest

shadyjane62

mekops_ESO wrote: »

is the backend issue that someone drove a truck through the building? be honest

I think you are right. It must have taken out the outhouse.