Need IN-GAME Downtime Warning

KerinKor

First, I totally understand the need to take servers down to fix problems at short notice, BUT if I'm playing the game I'm not lurking these forums so posting a message HERE is no good to warm players about it.

We need an IN-GAME warning BEFORE the servers simpy disappear from underneath us.

Greydog

Absolutely. Unscheduled maintenance on a new game is understandable. But some forewarning in-game would be appreciated.

solarsisky

Agreed. I took the day off, I should have known.

Severan

Yeah, they tested the global admin function thing in beta, so we know that it's possible for them to warn us. Next time devs!

GartzF

I was just about to mention the same thing about being understanding about downtimes but wanting an in-game alert about it. It would also prevent the Forum from going stupid slow immediately after a server down due to EVERYONE checking what the heck happened. And the forums being super slow after the server went down was what really frustrated me. Just my 2 cents though. Loving the game! Just wish the quests weren't so glitchy. Keep having to log out and back in to fix them. And that has worked 3 out of the 4 quests I had an issue with.

Willow

Agree! If they crashed then let us know afterwards. This appears to be an unexpected maintenance. They really need to have a broadcast message in game at least 15 minutes before they bring the server down.

Nox_Aeterna

Atleast 5 minutes would have been enough lols.

Hope i did not lose stuff

Govalon

Guys, they might have a really good reason for this. I have seen this happen before and it usually has something do with a gamebreaking bug such as dubbing items or gold or gaining levels. if there are people who are dubbing millions of gold, they had to take servers down ASAP.

This has happened with other MMO's before.

DelraelNavarre

Govalon wrote: »

Guys, they might have a really good reason for this. I have seen this happen before and it usually has something do with a gamebreaking bug such as dubbing items or gold or gaining levels. if there are people who are dubbing millions of gold, they had to take servers down ASAP.

This has happened with other MMO's before.

If this is the reason, then I totally agree. It is not unusual early in an MMO's life for certain not-so-scrupulous folks to have discovered exploits, and once the company finds them and discovers how to stop them, whammo. No warning, nothing, just pull the plug and hotfix it immediately. If this is the case, I'm fine with it.

Generally, though, some kind of warning would be greatly appreciated.

Elvikun

Maybe the are fixing some of the glitchy quests in 1-10 areas. Nah, just joking. Who wants to do Mage Guild anyway.

On a serious note, ingame warning would be cool and changing what the message says when server is offline would be even cooler, being kicked and then getting "You do not have the right to acces the server" is a rather scary combo.

Mendoze

In-game warning would have been nice, but more importantly, please do not make these scheduled maintenances on EU server during prime time. Thank you.

Sakiri

I've only ONCE in my 10 years of MMO gaming seen a server go down for even emergency maintenance without 5 minute warning in game.

WoW typically does 15, as does EQ2.

The one time I saw less was an actual physical emergency and there's reports of it on the internet. Was World of Warcraft, and the datacenter the servers were hosted in(think it was either beta, or just after release) was hit by a tornado.

When the storm hit we got a 5 minute warning. When the tornado touched down, we got "Server shutdown: NOW" and booted offline.

LimeFox

Elvikun wrote: »

Maybe the are fixing some of the glitchy quests in 1-10 areas. Nah, just joking. Who wants to do Mage Guild anyway.

On a serious note, ingame warning would be cool and changing what the message says when server is offline would be even cooler, being kicked and then getting "You do not have the right to acces the server" is a rather scary combo.

Agreed! Something like, "Molag Bal has temporarily shut down these servers in an attempt to regain control of Nirn. We hope to restore game access as soon as possible."

Pyr0xyrecuprotite

I suspect that this was of the "imminent server crash expected" type of problem, where they had no choice. An in-game broadcast warning would be very welcome and helpful, but is not always possible.

That said, I am very grateful that they put up a notice on the forums here right away, so that I didn't have to search for other bug reports, or post one myself.

ZOS_AmeliaR

We appreciate the feedback, all. Going forward, we will work to provide alerts further in advance if we need to take the servers offline.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

Mendoze wrote: »

In-game warning would have been nice, but more importantly, please do not make these scheduled maintenances on EU server during prime time. Thank you.

LOL! This is an american game by an american company. Unless the EU starts making mmo's for themselves don't expect downtime during EU off hours. Especially since the majority of players are in the US

Nox_Aeterna

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Atleast 5 minutes would have been enough lols.

Hope i did not lose stuff

And yeah , i lost nothing , was exactly where i stopped playing.

Not such a huge issue then , still think the 5 mins heads up would be nice :P.

vizionblind_ESO

agreed. MMO101

Yankee

ZOS_AmeliaR wrote: »

We appreciate the feedback, all. Going forward, we will work to provide alerts further in advance if we need to take the servers offline.

Hopefully you mean in advance, and to players inside the game.

I do not know why I sympathize with people lucky enough to be playing the game now.

While I am stuck at work.

k9mouse

I agree with others, we do need a warning when the servers go offline. May be bigger forum servers to handle the load better when they get flooded after a server crashed?

Orchish

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

Mendoze wrote: »

In-game warning would have been nice, but more importantly, please do not make these scheduled maintenances on EU server during prime time. Thank you.

LOL! This is an american game by an american company. Unless the EU starts making mmo's for themselves don't expect downtime during EU off hours. Especially since the majority of players are in the US

Once the EU server is actually located in the EU they have no reason to bring it down during our prime time. So what if it's an American game? We pay too so your pathetic excuse don't cut with me i'm afraid. Two servers, two populations, Unless they were patching an urgent exploit/game breaking bug, each server should go down during non peak hours in future.

Hyperventilate

There was a notification at the top of the forums for about 30 minutes before it went down. Not exactly an in-game notice but there was one.

Orizuru

Orchish wrote: »

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

Mendoze wrote: »

In-game warning would have been nice, but more importantly, please do not make these scheduled maintenances on EU server during prime time. Thank you.

LOL! This is an american game by an american company. Unless the EU starts making mmo's for themselves don't expect downtime during EU off hours. Especially since the majority of players are in the US

Once the EU server is actually located in the EU they have no reason to bring it down during our prime time. So what if it's an American game? We pay too so your pathetic excuse don't cut with me i'm afraid. Two servers, two populations, Unless they were patching an urgent exploit/game breaking bug, each server should go down during non peak hours in future.

Unless they begin region locking the megaservers then "peak hours" is rather subjective. It's always peak hours somewhere in the world, so there will always be players impacted during what they consider to be peak hours.

Surragard

It's Early Access so it's whatever. After launch as things calm down I would like to see a warning but I'm also confident that Scheduled Maintenance will be announced in advance. They'll probably have a schedule posted and I'm sure we'll get notifications. As for unscheduled maintenance it's kind of just that so while it sucks that's life.

GartzF

Thank you for the in-game alert this time guys! VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!

k9mouse

GartzF wrote: »

Thank you for the in-game alert this time guys! VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!

Indeed, Thanks ZOS!

Willow

Thank you for the Alert!

joshweps

Any mention on how long they'll be down for?

urahara0

Elvikun wrote: »

Maybe the are fixing some of the glitchy quests in 1-10 areas. Nah, just joking. Who wants to do Mage Guild anyway.

On a serious note, ingame warning would be cool and changing what the message says when server is offline would be even cooler, being kicked and then getting "You do not have the right to acces the server" is a rather scary combo.

demonlkojipub19_ESO

I think they should add vocal system message that is voiced by the prophet that tells us that the servers will be going down soon

urahara0

i dont mind all the fixing things cuz its understandable but dont make all of us who have dished out a substantial amount of money at the drop of the hat cuz u love the game and want to play before others lose out, if the maintenance is gonna be 8 hours or more come on give an additional day or so free, its not fair to the ones who paid for the full 5 day additional access to lose out on 8 hours.... just saying....