Regular maintenance times are unfair

jelliedsoup

I saw a page on here, which I can no longer find, which said NA server maintenance will always be at certain times (up to twice per week). These times were during when I will play ESO.

Surely these times can be rotated slightly to make the maintenance times more fairly distributed. Unless ESO plan to subsidise subscriptions to those always effected, otherwise I can only play 5 days out of 7.

I play from 6pm-11pm, which I would imagine are fairly standard and not unusual.

Apathy

Clearly, everyone plays in your timezone.

Sakiri

You're Australian or Kiwi aren't you?

jelliedsoup

eq2imora_ESO wrote: »

You're Australian or Kiwi aren't you?

Unfortunately so.

Kemono

Timezone are of course diffrent for most players- but choosing ANY time on Sunday for maintance is just TERRIBLE.
What they expect me to do: go to a mass or something?

This should be moved to monday -after all most players work or go to school

jelliedsoup

Apathy wrote: »

Clearly, everyone plays in your timezone.

Is "everyone" American?

Etchesketch

Been like this on every online game.
The fact is, the time you play is the dead zone. Typically they want to do it when the least number will be affected and sometimes also when the company is actually open.

Generally the least number of players is between 2a.m. est and 8a.m. est. and best day during that time for least is on Tues.

jelliedsoup

Yes I accept that fact. Why should I pay for a full subscription when the time I play in is a "dead zone" and used for outages?

Etchesketch

Sure, they could always go back to charging by the minute. We'd all love that, I am sure.

Nothing to do about it. It's just something you live with, nobody makes you play.

I can't go to Mcdonalds at three a.m. when I really have the munchies. Sucks but there you go.

jelliedsoup

I switched off when you said "nobody makes you play".

move along.

Sakiri

Because out of the three major regions that play this game, the distance is so large that to put EU or NA in that dead zone would screw over half the player base.

Basically, here's how it works: the area with the higher populations get the maintenance revolved around them. There's fewer Oz gamers, and that's what ends up happening.

Its kind of funny. Blizzard ran some tests on peak times and usage. Their downtime is scheduled for the lowest average usage.

That low point is 5 am Pacific time, on Tuesdays. This happens to be right in the middle of Australian prime time.

Basically, it affects the least amount of players, therefore that's when they do it.

For example, the times listed were Sunday at 6 am ET and 8 am ET Weds.

That ends up being noon Sunday and 2 pm Weds for central Europe, when presumably people will be at work/school. Their Sunday midday gets screwed.

Can't please everyone.

When a game releases that's based in Australia, then we can complain. People in NA/EU that play on Korean/Japanese servers for games have the same problem.

It's unfortunate, but there's a reason they do it.

Not trying to sound snarky. ><

Etchesketch

Tough deal when you ask a question or post a topic then can't take the answers.

What do you want them to do? Rotating times as you first suggest is a no go because they have to have a crew to do the maint and it's real life business. They will do what is cost effective and when the least number of people are affected.

My comment about nobody makes you pay is in direct response to your comment on why you shouldn't have to pay for a full subscription. That's your choice... nobody else made you pay.

jelliedsoup

eq2imora_ESO wrote: »

...

Not trying to sound snarky. ><

Thanks for your response, I understand why. It would just seem fairer to rotate maintenance so the same people are not contiunually punished for living in a certain timezone. Potentially we have 104 days per year of being unable to play during prime time in OZ/NZ, that seems pretty harsh to me given we're expected to pay a full subscription fee.

chipz88b14_ESO

I am a web dev. The site I spend most of my time on serves users in the US, Canada and UK, exclusively... that is simply the nature of the client's business. Disruptive maintenance is done during 'off-peak hours' - the times when the least amount of users are typically hitting the site. As you might guess, that impacts the UK users the most. New bugs or regressions that are introduced are most commonly uncovered by UK users first as a consequence. That's just how it works... the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. If we rotated when we did maintenance then more users would be affected overall. It's a numbers game and sometimes the odds are stacked against you.

A phrase I heard often growing up: Life isn't fair.

KidKablam

I have absolutely no respect for people who go to demanding reimbursement because they don't get things 100% their way (at the expense over others). The gaming generation has no pride. When they feel they haven't gotten fair treatment they resort to begging and when begging falls on deaf ears they turn to outright extortion. As a last resort comes the last impotent threat before they quit (or pretend to) where they suggest that because the game company didn't bend the knee to their forum terrorism it's surely fated to demise.

This may seem overly harsh, but today has been full of this attitude (and the people who seem to have it seem entirely unaware that there are other threads covering it) and it's beginning to chafe. You'll have to trust me that I'm usually a happy-go-lucky carebear who is all out of care today.

You owe Zenimax a debt of gratitude if you haven't learned this lesson yet:

Life isn't fair.

I assume that life will make a whole lot more sense now from here on forward. Congratulations, you've just become an adult.

Felarrond

Etchesketch wrote: »

Sure, they could always go back to charging by the minute. We'd all love that, I am sure.

Nothing to do about it. It's just something you live with, nobody makes you play.

I can't go to Mcdonalds at three a.m. when I really have the munchies. Sucks but there you go.

The Majority of McDonald's are now open 24/7, even in Middle-Of-Nowhere states like where I live!

jelliedsoup

Etchesketch wrote: »

Tough deal when you ask a question or post a topic then can't take the answers.

What do you want them to do? Rotating times as you first suggest is a no go because they have to have a crew to do the maint and it's real life business. They will do what is cost effective and when the least number of people are affected.

My comment about nobody makes you pay is in direct response to your comment on why you shouldn't have to pay for a full subscription. That's your choice... nobody else made you pay.

Yours wasn't an answer. I have already paid for the game, and then find out that the regular maintenance is during when I play.

If they have disclosed this information prior, then I would have been in a better position to assess whether I should play the game or not.

KidKablam

bjeardoeb14_ESO wrote: »

The Majority of McDonald's are now open 24/7, even in Middle-Of-Nowhere states like where I live!

You don't live far enough away into the middle of nowhere. My local Mick D's closes at 11pm, and like most Mick D's the service is awful and the hamburgers taste like garbage.

Let's not have ESO be like Mick D's.

Etchesketch

bjeardoeb14_ESO wrote: »

Etchesketch wrote: »

Sure, they could always go back to charging by the minute. We'd all love that, I am sure.

Nothing to do about it. It's just something you live with, nobody makes you play.

I can't go to Mcdonalds at three a.m. when I really have the munchies. Sucks but there you go.

The Majority of McDonald's are now open 24/7, even in Middle-Of-Nowhere states like where I live!

Lol, that's why I brought it up. I live in Leavenworth KS and ours is not. Nothing is really. I can complain but what's the point. There just aren't enough people doin munchy runs at 2a.m. in Leavenworth.

jelliedsoup

KidKablam wrote: »

I have absolutely no respect for people who go to demanding reimbursement because they don't get things 100% their way (at the expense over others). The gaming generation has no pride. When they feel they haven't gotten fair treatment they resort to begging and when begging falls on deaf ears they turn to outright extortion. As a last resort comes the last impotent threat before they quit (or pretend to) where they suggest that because the game company didn't bend the knee to their forum terrorism it's surely fated to demise.

This may seem overly harsh, but today has been full of this attitude (and the people who seem to have it seem entirely unaware that there are other threads covering it) and it's beginning to chafe. You'll have to trust me that I'm usually a happy-go-lucky carebear who is all out of care today.

You owe Zenimax a debt of gratitude if you haven't learned this lesson yet:

Life isn't fair.

I assume that life will make a whole lot more sense now from here on forward. Congratulations, you've just become an adult.

I don't care what you don't respect. You seem to be implying I should just take it for the benefit of the collective.

Chances are I'm from an older gaming generation than you, try not to stereotype.

Your post provided no words of wisdom at all. Disclosure of information prior to a purchase is beneficial.

I'm sure you complain about nothing, and rationalise everything with "life is not fair". You seem to think you're saying something of worth.

Auralia

Iam from Australia as well. It happens with most MMOs I play. Choice is either put up with it and do something else during maintenance or not bother with the game at all. Sure it's crap and I don't like it, but that's the way it is, they wont change it. I like this game so to play it I have to deal with maintenance in prime time.

darkkterror_ESO

Maintenance times will always be unfair for someone. There's no way to avoid it short of never having maintenance at all.

KidKablam

darkkterror_ESO wrote: »

Maintenance times will always be unfair for someone. There's no way to avoid it short of never having maintenance at all.

Exactly.

jelliedsoup

Ok then

***bends over***

Skirmish840

Always the same, sucks to be you attitude towards the OP of these kind of threads.

Maybe for us Aussies they could let us on the PTS server during maintenance or Stagger the EU Maintenance from the NA so when ones down the others up. Wouldn't be half as bad then for the Uber Minority Group of the World.

These suggestions help or maybe Oceanic players get a discount sub because they miss out on 8 nights of prime game time per month, that's 8 days out 30 that we payed for, hmmm the math isn't adding up. Maybe I can't count, I dunno, or How Dare I Even MEntion SUch Things Arrrrhhhh.......

(Hides in corner of shame, with flame suit ready, oh and the anti fanboy shield on the bar).

jelliedsoup

No we should pay the same and love it.

****touches toes****

Sakiri

As an aside, WoW in South Korea is prepaid and you're charged by the hour or minute. Can't remember.

jelliedsoup

That would be a better option for me. For those in the US (probably the people saying "life isn't fair") that would be worse as they only have outages when they're going to McDonalds. Unfortunately for me I have a job and responsibilities and don't go there at 2:00am to cure an attack of the munchies.

KidKablam

Are you seriously comparing your experience of not being able to play for a couple of hours to ***? Amazing. Let me get the nails; you've certainly built yourself a nice cross.

otis67

He's joking. He has to be joking.

Valethar

It wouldn't be a proper game launch if someone in Oceania wasn't crying about maintenance schedules.