Why do we do it? (Pay monthly and have to deal with downtime)

Posivatedb14_ESO

I'm just curious on what other peoples opinions are on having a maintenance every week. We pay our monthly fee of 15$ and are not able to play 4-10 (Sometimes more or less) hours a week due to maintenance. I would think in 2014 we would be beyond having to bring a server down for hours at time, and at a time that conflicts with some peoples schedules every single week. I know this topic has come up much in other MMO forums, but I was hoping ESO would be different. I think of this like having a car that you pay for every month that requires you to not use it for a day every week of its existence. What are your thoughts on this? I am also well aware this won't change anything, I'm just interested to see what other's think.

tecfall

They are a new company to mmo's. they arent quite up to the speed of blizzard where they can push 90% of a patch to you while your playing because of a shiny new launcher. It may take some time but they will get there

moonfell

Dude. Its a fledgeling game. They are going to need to maintenance. Last time I checked, blizzard brings its games down for maintenance. I'm sure all other MMOs do....

Wait a second. I'm feeding. the. troll. *runs away*

luckyjoemcb14_ESO

I think that having the server downtimes to apply patches fix/reset bugged quests, and just generally tune the game is a good example of what our 15$ a month goes for. They could just as easily apply no patches, fixes,resets, not ban gold farmers and spammers, not address serious issues etc.

When you pay for a game you pay for fixes/patches , as well as development for more content, game access and other things. I doubt that we will see the tech to patch a game while playing it anytime soon, as that would mean the data that you are currently using would be changing as you are using it.Even the bigger games have to at the very least do server resets .

My 2 copper

Posivatedb14_ESO

I guess I just expected more from Zenimax/Bethesda.

Iago

The game is still a new born babe, and that being said its got a lot of stumbling to do before it starts walking.

rawne1980b16_ESO

It's one thing that has never bothered me.

They need to do it and I have yet to find an MMO that doesn't have downtime.

If they didn't hug the servers and tell them everything is going to be alright people would complain when things go horribly wrong and the servers crash and burn.

mark.markandb16_ESO

To Op.
It sounds like you'd rather have a broken game full of bugs...and no content update. Hmm perhaps the new version of Darkfall would be more suitable for you.

Thete

Nothing to do with the game being new as such, that only affects the irregularity. Everything needs maintaining. When you get a car, will you be complaining that you can't drive it while it's being serviced? The maintenance today was done at during off peak playing times for most of the playerbases and ensures that the game is working much better when we are able to logon.

Trouvo

Well all the left over monkeys from the banned cheaters and hackers are clogging up the server, they have to take it down and upload more bannanas to keep them from destroying the whole game, we wouldnt have maintenance if it wasnt for the gold sellers, hackers and cheaters, so blame them not ZOS...silly people ...OOOOH SQUIRREL!

KerinKor

tecfall wrote: »

They are a new company to mmo's. they arent quite up to the speed of blizzard where they can push 90% of a patch to you while your playing because of a shiny new launcher. It may take some time but they will get there

While I'm a great admirer of Blizzard's download tech. that's irrelevant here, Blizzard STILL take the servers down for 8 hours when a content update is implemented even though everyone has downloaded it all pretty much.

I'm not sure why you think this is relevant to the OP's complaint since Blizzard has a WEEKLY downtime of many hours, their attempted 'rolling restart' regime didn't last long.

Lalai

I view the downtime as something I'm paying for. I think a better example would be that you buy a new car, you're told the car is going to have to go in for maintenance regularly (check-ups and oil changes), and that they'll provide some upgrades to the car as well. During these check-ups and all your car is going to be unavailable for you to drive.. but it's part of what the payments are going towards.

Aside from that, software doesn't work like a car.. nor do servers. They need to come down for maintenance. Every MMO does it at least once a week, and the only other MMO I know of that's been released recently actually tends to have downtime more than once a week as well (and it's been out for six months now).

I think your expectations for MMOs may be too high if you're expecting no down time, regardless of sub or F2P.

therover8511

This game is still new, there will be bugs. I have played several MMO launches and this one isn't that bad. I have had plenty of time in game.

There are going to be downtimes, at least weekly. They have to do maintenance. The other thing is you do not have to pay. You could choose not to. There are plenty of free to play, but IMHO free to play feel less put together than subscription based games.

jeremylthb14_ESO

I err... what?

This is an excellent example of why it is impossible to please the gaming community. In the last 24 hours of posts, you can probably find a thread in this same section about bugs that aren't fixed yet. And then we have this one complaining that they brought the server down to fix things.

KerinKor

Posivatedb14_ESO wrote: »

I know this topic has come up much in other MMO forums, but I was hoping ESO would be different.

I know many TES fans want to think of ESO as not 'just another MMO' but it really is, below the surface, and the realities of running a server-farm hosting a large MMO is no different for Zenimax than anyone else.

The ONLY MMOs I know of whose servers run for weeks without scheduled maintenance are those from Square Enix (FFXI and FFXIV), who don't have 'scheduled' downtime at all and the servers usually run for weeks without so much as a reboot; and FFXIV did so from not long after launch and re-launch.

It's not unreasonable to expect downtime in ESO right now given the large number of problems, but I don't expect them to follow SE's lead any time soon.

mips_winnt

Posivatedb14_ESO wrote: »

I'm just curious on what other peoples opinions are on having a maintenance every week.

Poor systems architecture design across the board with MMO companies, in this day and age of infrastructure virtualization there's really no reason to have to take your front line systems infrastructure completely offline for software changes but apparently the mentality of "we have to take everything down to implement patches" is very entrenched (maybe the CapEx for redundant systems is too prohibitive for the business model?) in the MMO world so it's just something we have to deal with if we want to enjoy MMO products. :shrug:

Lalai

KerinKor wrote: »

The ONLY MMOs I know of whose servers run for weeks without scheduled maintenance are those from Square Enix (FFXI and FFXIV), who don't have 'scheduled' downtime at all and the servers usually run for weeks without so much as a reboot; and FFXIV did so from not long after launch and re-launch.

FFXIV: ARR isn't doing so hot in the maint department. They actually have multiple maintenances a week usually.. and they all tend to be marked as "emergency". So they're not even impervious to the need for maint.

Selstad

If there are bugs, people complain about that. If they take down the servers to solve the bugs, people complain about that too. It's an MMO, bugs happen, and the best way to make sure the bug goes away is to bring the server down and fix it. If they weren't to have servers down, they would have to have a whole server park off-line most of the time until maintenance and route everyone to that while maintenance went on, how costly do you think that would be?

If you play an MMO, that's the price you have to pay for a stable and good service. If you find that your money's worth isn't met, you're of course free to cancel. I do however wish you the best in your quest to find an MMO that doesn't have down time.

Dimachaerus

They take down servers to fix the issues you would otherwise be whining about.

That's about it, really.

hrdndv_ESO

Obviously Bethesda/Zenimax is addressing the gold sellers/spamers problem. They are also fixing other bugs. They may even add new content. All games need maintenance. Even board games had to be cleaned up once in a while and all the pieces returned to order. BTW don't complain about paying for this yet, save those whines for the end of the month when you actually start paying.

Every maintenance fix and patch makes playing the game better. Hurrah! To the programmers that bust their brains making ESO work. Hurrah! To the programmers and designers that come up with neat new lore and quests to solve.

fredarbonab14_ESO

You don't HAVE to. Cancel your subscription and play another game already 'perfected', till this game meets your super-high standards.

Sallakat

Many MMOs have a weekly maintenance, usually on scheduled and same time every week so nobody should get their panties in a twist about that, not even all the single player gamers that are starting MMOs with this game :P

Hakoke

To be quite honest I'm used to eve where they have matainence every day. And to be quite honest whenever they actually put out an update you could plan on not playing for atleast a day. Heck the game could be almost unplayable for a few days after the updates.

Now when it comes to eso, the mantainence times haven't been bad. I've been through several mmo releases and this one has been one of the bests in my opinion.

So in short I am glad they are taking the server down for mantainence, keep fixing it guys.

mips_winnt

Selstad wrote: »

If there are bugs, people complain about that. If they take down the servers to solve the bugs, people complain about that too. It's an MMO, bugs happen, and the best way to make sure the bug goes away is to bring the server down and fix it.

Actually that's not the BEST way to do it, the best way to do it is to have redundant systems where you do a stateful failover to your backup systems while you implement changes on your primaries. That way your customers aren't suffering an outage while you're implementing changes and if your changes blow up your production systems you have an easy rollback, this is how most enterprises operate their infrastructures with respect to customer facing systems.

icengr_ESO

I hate to complain (I'm kidding, I love to complain, who doesn't) but I work a normal week (40 hrs mon-fri) and I have yet to see a maintenance period that affects me at all. I think ZOS is doing a wonderful job. So I have to say to the OP if this maint time is bothering you...get a job.

(my apologies to those that work odd hours)

nerevarine1138

If I'm leasing a car, should I demand a refund for any time spent changing the oil or putting gas in?

MMOs require maintenance. As for "I thought Zenimax would be better," have you seen Blizzard? WoW's been going strong for a decade, and it still requires regular (and unscheduled) maintenance.

rawne1980b16_ESO

tecfall wrote: »

They are a new company to mmo's.

No, no they aren't.

While the company might be new the people working for that company certainly aren't new to MMO's.

We have devs from Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Age of Reckoning and various other MMO's.

This whole "they are new to MMO's" thing is false.

Downtime exists in all online games whether that company is new or not. It happens.

Januk

Planetside 2 has maintenance were all servers go down. Just saying.

But the reason they're doing it like this is because there are still people out their in the world with limited bandwith, yes I know it's horrible.

So they can't push out a patch behind your back cause that would just result in even more people quitting cause hey that patch you just downloaded behind my back pushed me over my monthly bandwith.

Trouvo

icengr_ESO wrote: »

I hate to complain (I'm kidding, I love to complain, who doesn't) but I work a normal week (40 hrs mon-fri) and I have yet to see a maintenance period that affects me at all. I think ZOS is doing a wonderful job. So I have to say to the OP if this maint time is bothering you...get a job.

(my apologies to those that work odd hours)

*works the graveyard shift and plays ESO at work, think im good win-win for me, maint fixes bugs, and i like having less bugs, idc if its up 24/7, what i do care about is playing with less bugs, and finally being able to finish banished cells

Judge_Mental_One

GW2 generally only had downtime for major content patchs, and occaisionally if something drastic had gone gone wrong. The majority of the time maintanence was done while you were playing and when it was finished you would get a msg telling you to log out to DL the new patch.

After playing GW2 for awhile I had hoped that since they had now shown it can be done this way it would become the new standard. Part of the reason it isn't is that people are still too accepting of it's "nesessity" even though it has been demonstrated that a better way is possible.

Seems we will have to wait and dream for a little longer.

Cry_Wolfe

GW2 rarely have DT except for the big big stuff, they patch live with a warning to restart your client in the next 10 minutes or it will automatically restart itself.
Yes EvE has daily DT, but its usually around 15 minutes give or take.

Hopefully once the game has gotten a few days under its belt we'll see less DT, I for one hope that day is soon -_- current Maintenance Times fall into Australasian peak times (6pm-10pm start time).