NEW servers, again? (question inspired by 12 hours downtime on 17/10/2023)

ghost_bg_ESO

Another loooooooooong maintenance - 11 hours and they should have become shorter with last hardware upgrade.

(kind of busy now with all released recently outside of eso, but seeing announcements like this makes me wonder what happens)




Edited title for clarity as there is another discussion about same maintenance redirected here.

Necrotech_Master

thats interesting lol

ill be sleeping most of that timeframe (3am to 2 pm) lol

Vynera

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

thats interesting lol

ill be sleeping most of that timeframe (3am to 2 pm) lol

But for EU it's ~9am to ~8pm, so basically the whole day

Danikat

Vynera wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

thats interesting lol

ill be sleeping most of that timeframe (3am to 2 pm) lol

But for EU it's ~9am to ~8pm, so basically the whole day

Yeah I just noticed that. It ends at 7pm for me so (assuming there's no delays) I may have time to do a few bits in the evening, but it doesn't look like a good day to plan for doing more than a few dailies.

(Also my other MMO's Halloween event starts that day, and they don't need to take all the servers down together for updates, so I guess that's my plans sorted.)

Necrotech_Master

im more surprised there was no heads up that they are doing an extended maintenance

the last time i remember them having a maintenance this long was when they installed the new servers, which was over a year ago for most of the environments

edit: apparently i cant read dates correctly lol

sarahthes

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

im more surprised there was no heads up that they are doing an extended maintenance, and on a saturday (not a normal maintenance day)

the last time i remember them having a maintenance this long was when they installed the new servers, which was over a year ago for most of the environments

That date is a Tuesday...

Necrotech_Master

sarahthes wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

im more surprised there was no heads up that they are doing an extended maintenance, and on a saturday (not a normal maintenance day)

the last time i remember them having a maintenance this long was when they installed the new servers, which was over a year ago for most of the environments

That date is a Tuesday...

lol, i really should try to read more carefully instead of just glancing it over, but happens while im browsing the forums while im working lol

The_Boggart

There in no information in the maintenance forum. A major outage such as this deserves some information

sarahthes

The_Boggart wrote: »

There in no information in the maintenance forum. A major outage such as this deserves some information

It's almost certainly something boring but necessary like swapping out switches or something like that.

SeaGtGruff

Getting the Crown Store ready for the Witches Festival.

Decorating and populating the game zones in preparation for the Witches Festival.

Those would be my guesses. But I'm often wrong-- so very wrong. (Sigh)

sarahthes

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Getting the Crown Store ready for the Witches Festival.

Decorating and populating the game zones in preparation for the Witches Festival.

Those would be my guesses. But I'm often wrong-- so very wrong. (Sigh)

The game zone decor would be handled via a patch some time in the recent past. That sort of thing is then turned off or on by code that triggers when a condition is met (i.e. a start date/time).

TaSheen

@ZOS_Kevin, could you give us some info on this please?

disintegr8

I guess they have to look after the North American population, a 3am start there won't hurt too many people.

For me the servers will come down at 6pm, pity anyone who has to work for a living and can only play in the evenings.

Elsonso

This is one of the few times during the year that all the NPCs get to shower and hit the bathroom.

TaSheen

Elsonso wrote: »

This is one of the few times during the year that all the NPCs get to shower and hit the bathroom.

ROFL!

ArchangelIsraphel

Elsonso wrote: »

This is one of the few times during the year that all the NPCs get to shower and hit the bathroom.

So that explains the sour look Rolis Hlaalu gives me as I turn in my six billionth master writ.

Shagreth

I frigging hate maintenance days as a European, it literally removes one day from my ESO plus every single time. In an ideal world we'd have brand new servers, but nope, gotta deal with this *** instead.

Treeshka

There is also a maintenance for accounts at the same time with the servers. Either they are related or just something extra needs to be done.

Wolfkeks

The old hamsters are retiring. That's why there's an 11-hour maintenance party.

HedgeHugger

You'd think that by now there'd be some sort of server swap over.
Have a nice, new, shiny and fresh instance for people to join after a certain time/date, so no disruption to service. People still sat on the older/unrefreshed servers get a warning that they will be disconnected in X time (like we get now).
No disruption to everyone else, game goes on as usual.

Danikat

HedgeHugger wrote: »

You'd think that by now there'd be some sort of server swap over.
Have a nice, new, shiny and fresh instance for people to join after a certain time/date, so no disruption to service. People still sat on the older/unrefreshed servers get a warning that they will be disconnected in X time (like we get now).
No disruption to everyone else, game goes on as usual.

That's how Guild Wars 2 does it and I was genuinely surprised to find that ESO didn't when I started playing. Partially because I just assumed down-time for maintenance was a relic of the past since it seemed to have stopped happening for most types of software (even the tiny charity I worked for could keep our database online while doing server maintenance) and partially because GW2 said they could do it because they use a 'mega server' system, and ESO says the same so I assumed it would work the same way.

It seems like MMOs are the one area where regular down time for maintenance is still accepted, or even expected, by customers.

SeaGtGruff

sarahthes wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Getting the Crown Store ready for the Witches Festival.

Decorating and populating the game zones in preparation for the Witches Festival.

Those would be my guesses. But I'm often wrong-- so very wrong. (Sigh)

The game zone decor would be handled via a patch some time in the recent past. That sort of thing is then turned off or on by code that triggers when a condition is met (i.e. a start date/time).

Yeah, I was sort of being facetious or funny, trying to suggest the NPCs setting up decorations or whatever. I realize most of this stuff has already been set up years ago, although there might be a few changes once in a while, such as the new quest that was added last year or the year before.

On the other hand, I have no idea how this stuff works on a technical level. For instance, is it basically like another instance of the game that needs to be copied over onto the live servers, then they can flip a software switch to toggle the event stuff on or off as needed? And then for the next event they have yet another instance or whatever that needs to be copied over onto the live servers?

Elsonso

.

Danikat wrote: »

HedgeHugger wrote: »

You'd think that by now there'd be some sort of server swap over.
Have a nice, new, shiny and fresh instance for people to join after a certain time/date, so no disruption to service. People still sat on the older/unrefreshed servers get a warning that they will be disconnected in X time (like we get now).
No disruption to everyone else, game goes on as usual.

That's how Guild Wars 2 does it and I was genuinely surprised to find that ESO didn't when I started playing. Partially because I just assumed down-time for maintenance was a relic of the past since it seemed to have stopped happening for most types of software (even the tiny charity I worked for could keep our database online while doing server maintenance) and partially because GW2 said they could do it because they use a 'mega server' system, and ESO says the same so I assumed it would work the same way.

It seems like MMOs are the one area where regular down time for maintenance is still accepted, or even expected, by customers.

In this case, it is possible that a simple server swap over would not work. Whatever they are doing, it certainly looks like they need to have everyone logged out, not just moved out of the way, so they can do whatever it is they are working on.

Danikat

Elsonso wrote: »

.

Danikat wrote: »

HedgeHugger wrote: »

You'd think that by now there'd be some sort of server swap over.
Have a nice, new, shiny and fresh instance for people to join after a certain time/date, so no disruption to service. People still sat on the older/unrefreshed servers get a warning that they will be disconnected in X time (like we get now).
No disruption to everyone else, game goes on as usual.

That's how Guild Wars 2 does it and I was genuinely surprised to find that ESO didn't when I started playing. Partially because I just assumed down-time for maintenance was a relic of the past since it seemed to have stopped happening for most types of software (even the tiny charity I worked for could keep our database online while doing server maintenance) and partially because GW2 said they could do it because they use a 'mega server' system, and ESO says the same so I assumed it would work the same way.

It seems like MMOs are the one area where regular down time for maintenance is still accepted, or even expected, by customers.

In this case, it is possible that a simple server swap over would not work. Whatever they are doing, it certainly looks like they need to have everyone logged out, not just moved out of the way, so they can do whatever it is they are working on.

Probably, but either Guild Wars 2 is able to do work like that while keeping the game online, or for whatever reason they're able to get away with not doing it.

It's so unusual that when they did have to take a whole data centre offline to fix a problem they wrote an article to explain to players why it was necessary, which mentioned that it was the first time in 4 years it had happened and only the second time in the game's lifetime. (If I remember correctly the first was a planned downtime when they physically moved the data centre to a new building.)

TechMaybeHic

Servers have been runninguke crap so I'm all for it. I'd give up a day every week if it improved the rest of the week. Problem is, it doesn't usually help much lately

zaria

Danikat wrote: »

HedgeHugger wrote: »

You'd think that by now there'd be some sort of server swap over.
Have a nice, new, shiny and fresh instance for people to join after a certain time/date, so no disruption to service. People still sat on the older/unrefreshed servers get a warning that they will be disconnected in X time (like we get now).
No disruption to everyone else, game goes on as usual.

That's how Guild Wars 2 does it and I was genuinely surprised to find that ESO didn't when I started playing. Partially because I just assumed down-time for maintenance was a relic of the past since it seemed to have stopped happening for most types of software (even the tiny charity I worked for could keep our database online while doing server maintenance) and partially because GW2 said they could do it because they use a 'mega server' system, and ESO says the same so I assumed it would work the same way.

It seems like MMOs are the one area where regular down time for maintenance is still accepted, or even expected, by customers.

Now this surprises me, I assumed the issue with ESO is that all data is in one huge database.
With an game with lots of servers you can have lots of databases, you also has an main account database and databases used for the dungeon finders who was over multiple servers but they had much less work to do.

zaria

Shagreth wrote: »

I frigging hate maintenance days as a European, it literally removes one day from my ESO plus every single time. In an ideal world we'd have brand new servers, but nope, gotta deal with this *** instead.

Not much an issue for the normal ones at least since they moved the quest resets and at work until maintenance is done but not the extended.

green_grapebird

Again maintenance for 11 hours!!! no mention why.
And for europe this means from 9 in the morning to 7 in the evening, a whole day playing gone..

This keeps happening more and more often these extreme long times.
I'm glad I'm without subscription at the moment, that would have been one day wasted.
Can't say things are improving either, nor is there any explanation why it takes so long.

green_grapebird

Shagreth wrote: »

I frigging hate maintenance days as a European, it literally removes one day from my ESO plus every single time. In an ideal world we'd have brand new servers, but nope, gotta deal with this *** instead.

this indeed, they totally ignore us europeans, we lose access from 8 in the morning till 9 in the evening, or better said all day.
Nice, another day of your subscription wasted.

And the worst, never a detailed explanation why in these circumstances when it takes so long.
I'm sick and tired of this, and it may lead to quitting ESO alltogether.

green_grapebird

TaSheen wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin, could you give us some info on this please?

offcourse not, they never explain what they are doing..

Elsonso

.

zaria wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

HedgeHugger wrote: »

You'd think that by now there'd be some sort of server swap over.
Have a nice, new, shiny and fresh instance for people to join after a certain time/date, so no disruption to service. People still sat on the older/unrefreshed servers get a warning that they will be disconnected in X time (like we get now).
No disruption to everyone else, game goes on as usual.

That's how Guild Wars 2 does it and I was genuinely surprised to find that ESO didn't when I started playing. Partially because I just assumed down-time for maintenance was a relic of the past since it seemed to have stopped happening for most types of software (even the tiny charity I worked for could keep our database online while doing server maintenance) and partially because GW2 said they could do it because they use a 'mega server' system, and ESO says the same so I assumed it would work the same way.

It seems like MMOs are the one area where regular down time for maintenance is still accepted, or even expected, by customers.

Now this surprises me, I assumed the issue with ESO is that all data is in one huge database.
With an game with lots of servers you can have lots of databases, you also has an main account database and databases used for the dungeon finders who was over multiple servers but they had much less work to do.

From what they have said, no, I would not assume everything is not in one huge database. I am led to assume everything is in several huge databases.