Extended maintenance

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Perhaps a red overhead banner to illustrate 'extension' would be better, but red is used for 'outages'...

Hmm...

Perhaps orange

langewapper

probably some people from the animal liberation front liberated the poor hamsters

xXSilverDragonXx

6xTx wrote: »

I'm so sorry for this everyone but I must ask a question:

I'm a long-time gamer but I didn't play any MMORPG except ESO* so I don't know any other MMORPG's maintenance schedules or maintenance time frames. Well, Here's my question:

Is this normal? I mean, there's too much maintenance going on in ESO especially in the last months. Honestly, the total downtime is unacceptable for me since Bethesda and Zenimax Online is not a small - indie companies.

Today's maintenance and it's extension which is currently going on is really testing my patience. Really.

Thanks for advance for the replies.


* I play ESO because I still remember the day that Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind released. I'm a huge fan of the ES lore.

We all want to have access all the time of course and I feel where you are coming from, but think of it this way: if they don't do this then eventually the game would grind to a halt. If it didn't need to be done, they wouldn't do it. They also did some kind of hardware update some weeks back that was intended to improve over all performance which had deteriorated over time but vastly after the last update for dungeons a few months back. I suspect these longer maintenances are related to that update. Might be a lot of work to do on the back end that cannot be done when the game is online.

Another way to look at it is that it is still a business that needs to maintain its ability to function. All businesses have hours they do not operate. ESO never really has that except for maintenances. Sometimes you don't even notice they have them because over time they have found the best time to do them. But sometimes they take longer.

itsfatbass

They're now 30 minutes past the "extended". So I guess we're in the extended extension time now. These server better purr like kittens after this!

ceiron

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Perhaps a red overhead banner to illustrate 'extension' would be better, but red is used for 'outages'...

Hmm...

Perhaps orange

Just a picture of the middle finger tbh would suffice

radiostar

This is longer than MxO used to be.

Lugaldu

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Perhaps a red overhead banner to illustrate 'extension' would be better, but red is used for 'outages'...

The red one will come later...

ceiron

Lugaldu wrote: »

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Perhaps a red overhead banner to illustrate 'extension' would be better, but red is used for 'outages'...

The red one will come later...

Your assuming some form of communication lol

BazOfWar

itsfatbass wrote: »

They're now 30 minutes past the "extended". So I guess we're in the extended extension time now. These server better purr like kittens after this!

it's 14.29 EDT they have 30 mins left.

Ttree

Have to say it dose seem a lot for a company this size

Sidonius

I'm more curious of their work hours and pay, the average work day here is eight hours (A 20 minute and 30 minute break) if you were needed to stay back, it is classed as overtime and you were either paid "time and a half" or "double time".

Then there are the jobs that will have you doing a twelve hour shift but as far as I know/remember they normally won't ask you to work back due to safety etc.

Anyway, maybe the "new" servers need a grease and oil change?

ghost_bg_ESO

Lugaldu wrote: »

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Perhaps a red overhead banner to illustrate 'extension' would be better, but red is used for 'outages'...

The red one will come later...

if it is true about one click to log in buton and 5 min cooldown until next try, may be will go without red banner*

*there was some picture circulating today somewhere...

ClavicusVile_20

[quote="6xTx;c-7603773"

Is this normal? I mean, there's too much maintenance going on in ESO especially in the last months. Honestly, the total downtime is unacceptable for me since Bethesda and Zenimax Online is not a small - indie companies.

Today's maintenance and it's extension which is currently going on is really testing my patience. Really.
[/i][/quote]

Yeah it's insane. They've replaced old hardware in their datacenter specifically to make maintenance less common, and in the last two or three weeks since then, they've had to do maintenance several times. The irony is absolutely torturous. It's so annoying because I don't often have time to just sit and play and enjoy my free time. If I log into the game during the week, it's at night when I should be sleeping so I can't stay on for long, so weekends are basically it for me. Two days per week.

I know that upgrading a datacenter is no small feat, but the people who did it are supposed to be professionals. It's as if they went to the nearest high school and gave a couple of teenagers who are into computers 50 dollars to upgrade their *** for them instead of hiring people who actually know what they're doing. I know I shouldn't be so bothered by it, but it just irks the hell out of me. What they did to solve a problem had the opposite effect, how did they screw it up so extraordinarily? Did someone hook *** up wrong? Is the new hardware incapable of handling what it's trying to do? Did they have to change some *** around in software/code for the replacements and just didn't do it right? It just blows my mind that whoever handled the datacenter refresh failed so stupendously that it's taking multiple attempts to fix whatever the issue is. I get back into the game after a few years away barely two weeks before the refresh, and everything was fine.

I was enjoying the game again. I was having fun. All of these interruptions are really just souring the game for me. I get on feeling excited to spend some free time in eso, only to see that they're doing even more maintenance, or that they've extended maintenance like today. After a while I start to lose the excitement and the will to even bother trying to log in to enjoy what little free time I have these days because of the fear of opening the launcher and seeing "The servers are down for maintenance" again and again, and feeling that utter disappointment each and every time. It just feels like ***.

wenchmore420b14_ESO

I'm just curious why they have been doing them on Tuesday lately? And the extended time runs over into Guild Trader flips.
I wonder how many GM's didn't get their bids in yesterday and now can't. Saw quite a few last week that didn't.
Glad I got mine in yesterday as I just knew it would be extended.
FYI ZoS~ Trader Flip Times IS NOT a good time to schedule maintenance.
Just saying...
Huzzah!

Inaya

I honestly don't see what the big deal is. It's not like they wake up and say "hey let's extend maintenance to make everyone mad and inconvenience them". I'm sure they are doing what they need to and want it back up for us as soon as they can.

Maybe cuz I played FFXI which had an 18 hour maintenance once a week, WOW maintenance and extended maintenance once a week, then hot fixes, then taking server down to remove something from the game that wasn't supposed to be released thereby allowing some people to complete things earlier than others.

BrightOblivion

6xTx wrote: »

I'm so sorry for this everyone but I must ask a question:

I'm a long-time gamer but I didn't play any MMORPG except ESO* so I don't know any other MMORPG's maintenance schedules or maintenance time frames. Well, Here's my question:

Is this normal?

I can't speak to the MMO industry as a whole (outside of ESO, I've only played GW2 and FFXIV), so I can't definitively say what's normal or not. That said, I think those two are of similar ages to ESO (GW2 turns 10 in August, FFXIV 2.0 will be 10 next year), and neither of them has a maintenance schedule like ESO's. GW2's is such that, even while they're releasing an update, there's no downtime. It informs you a new update is available and gives you two hours to finish what you're doing and relog before it disconnects you. If/when you relog, you download the update from the launcher and continue on about your business.

By comparison, FF's patch updates vary in downtime length. For smaller patches, like the one today, the downtime was scheduled for approximately 1am to 5am EDT, and they actually posted a follow-up message on the website and the launcher informing players they would finish 50 minutes early (interestingly, despite the news being that the maintenance would be shorter, they still apologized for any inconvenience the change caused). Major updates, however, will have intentionally-scheduled 24 hour downtimes as they implement them, though they'll also generally allow you to pre-download the patch at some point during it.

Neither of them has these non-patch-related "routine" server maintenance downtimes like ESO does, though. At least not ones which the customer experiences.

And it wouldn't be so frustrating if they accurately listed the maintenance time from the get-go (even allotting a longer time and then having it not take as long as expected would be better) or provide more communication than updating the banner on the forums less than 10 minutes before the original window was set to expire. It's a combination of regularly overshooting their estimated times by several hours (tacking on three entire hours to an already eight hour maintenance isn't a small thing) and giving next to no word about it that grinds my gears.

Those have far less to do with wanting access all the time (or wanting to know exactly what's going on at any given moment) and more to do with just general customer consideration. As to this being necessary or what is being accomplished, I don't know. Because they don't communicate, all we can do is speculate. And when those (sometimes unfounded) speculations seem to prove untrue and also go unaddressed, grow frustrated.

sarbonn

As much as I don't like not being able to play the game, the maintenance people gotta do what the maintenance people gotta do so that the game runs smoothly the rest of the time. So, I sit out waiting until the game comes along, and I realize that getting upset doesn't get me or anyone anywhere.

The Uninvited

sarbonn wrote: »

As much as I don't like not being able to play the game, the maintenance people gotta do what the maintenance people gotta do so that the game runs smoothly the rest of the time. So, I sit out waiting until the game comes along, and I realize that getting upset doesn't get me or anyone anywhere.

Merenwen_812

Does the new motif page that will drop from portals start today? Am wondering what could have possibly went wrong with maintenace...if anything new being added today....

StevieKingslayer

I wouldn't care about long maintenances if the issues in the game were actually fixed.

Just this week for me personally:

• Group bug constantly with dungeons
• Lag creeping back into pvp (Probably, Im guessing due to the server not being restarted last week)
• Issues zoning
• Slow mail again
• Missing weapons
• Observed peoples emp buffs still missing after months and months of ZOS not addressing it
• People going invisible in trials/arenas and unable to do anything
• Rez targetting getting worse and worse especially in trials.
• Coag's not registering in Trials
• Server delays in dungeons (whole group - not just me, so no it's not my net)
• Bosses vanishing on taunt (again, been around for months)
• Blocks not being registered by the server.

The issue is, there is all these maintenances and nothing big ever gets fixed. Extended maintenance for what? Nothing I care about or that effects my gameplay is being addressed. And if it is, they never say anything? We're like Harry Potter in the damn closet at this point. They ignore us, and that's that.

I don't care about long maintenance if stuff get's fixed, or even mentioned. Nothing is being mentioned. Nothing is being said.

lylanya

6xTx wrote: »

I'm a long-time gamer but I didn't play any MMORPG except ESO* so I don't know any other MMORPG's maintenance schedules or maintenance time frames. Well, Here's my question:

Is this normal? I mean, there's too much maintenance going on in ESO especially in the last months. Honestly, the total downtime is unacceptable for me since Bethesda and Zenimax Online is not a small - indie companies.

Today's maintenance and it's extension which is currently going on is really testing my patience. Really.

Most other games do maintenance weekly... like every Wednesday. I prefer this. It keeps maintenance time short and the servers working well. I feel that if ZOS would do weekly maintenance, we wouldn't have so many of these days where maintenance takes all day and gets extended.

geng14159

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

I'm just curious why they have been doing them on Tuesday lately? And the extended time runs over into Guild Trader flips.
I wonder how many GM's didn't get their bids in yesterday and now can't. Saw quite a few last week that didn't.
Glad I got mine in yesterday as I just knew it would be extended.
FYI ZoS~ Trader Flip Times IS NOT a good time to schedule maintenance.
Just saying...
Huzzah!

Exactly! It's not only about getting your bid in. If you don't win your bid, you need to hire an empty one after the flip. In my guild, we have a group of people who get online every Tuesday to find open traders in case one of the free guilds doesn't win a bid. Right now, we are all waiting for the servers to come back online.

Rikkadir

The Uninvited wrote: »

sarbonn wrote: »

As much as I don't like not being able to play the game, the maintenance people gotta do what the maintenance people gotta do so that the game runs smoothly the rest of the time. So, I sit out waiting until the game comes along, and I realize that getting upset doesn't get me or anyone anywhere.

I feel this is not about the game but about the Crown Store, which seems more important to them.

ClavicusVile_20

Merenwen_812 wrote: »

Does the new motif page that will drop from portals start today? Am wondering what could have possibly went wrong with maintenace...if anything new being added today....

That comes tomorrow.

StevieKingslayer wrote: »

I wouldn't care about long maintenances if the issues in the game were actually fixed.

Just this week for me personally:

• Group bug constantly with dungeons
• Lag creeping back into pvp (Probably, Im guessing due to the server not being restarted last week)
• Issues zoning
• Slow mail again
• Missing weapons
• Observed peoples emp buffs still missing after months and months of ZOS not addressing it
• People going invisible in trials/arenas and unable to do anything
• Rez targetting getting worse and worse especially in trials.
• Coag's not registering in Trials
• Server delays in dungeons (whole group - not just me, so no it's not my net)
• Bosses vanishing on taunt (again, been around for months)
• Blocks not being registered by the server.

The issue is, there is all these maintenances and nothing big ever gets fixed. Extended maintenance for what? Nothing I care about or that effects my gameplay is being addressed. And if it is, they never say anything? We're like Harry Potter in the damn closet at this point. They ignore us, and that's that.

I don't care about long maintenance if stuff get's fixed, or even mentioned. Nothing is being mentioned. Nothing is being said.

^^ This exactly. It would be so much more understandable if it actually did anything to help the game, but all it ever seems to do is screw people over.

Jaraal

esogamer2021 wrote: »

The on and off switch gets stuck from time to time so they usually leave it another 4 hours before they try it again

Maybe they need to unplug the router and wait ten seconds.


Or more likely that they sent somebody to Best Buy to get a can of compressed air to blow the cobwebs out of the server, and they are still stuck in traffic.

Dolphinsgal

What is truly frustrating is that zos changed trader flip from Sunday to Tuesday and now maintenance on Tuesday's are messing with GM's being able to bid.

Merenwen_812

waiting for the banner to be updated, it is time and they still down apparently

Dolphinsgal wrote: »

What is truly frustrating is that zos changed trader flip from Sunday to Tuesday and now maintenance on Tuesday's are messing with GM's being able to bid.

and YES. Flip time or maintenance needs to go to a different day. These two should NOT be on the same day, ever.

ceiron

Lugaldu wrote: »

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Perhaps a red overhead banner to illustrate 'extension' would be better, but red is used for 'outages'...

The red one will come later...

Your assuming some form of communication lol

Dolphinsgal wrote: »

What is truly frustrating is that zos changed trader flip from Sunday to Tuesday and now maintenance on Tuesday's are messing with GM's being able to bid.

Ironically it was Tuesday originally and was moved due to the timings of the switch and maintenance

ApoAlaia

Merenwen_812 wrote: »

waiting for the banner to be updated, it is time and they still down apparently

Extended extended maintenance?

sarbonn

Merenwen_812 wrote: »

waiting for the banner to be updated, it is time and they still down apparently

Where is the banner at?