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

Shimond

Industry standard, far as I'm concerned. I'm almost never impacted by it as they're usually down when I'm at work anyway, so I really don't care.

mips_winnt

Judge_Mental_One wrote: »

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.

Never fear my friend it WILL become the new standard once MMO customers figure out that it can be done that way without a great deal of effort using readily available technology. I find it surprising that MMO customers can't make the connection that huge online application platforms like Google, AWS, Microsoft, Rackspace, etc.., all do constant maintenance without taking their customer facing systems offline, they somehow think that MMO infrastructures are a "special case" that can't be maintained without enormous amounts of downtime....

nerevarine1138

mips_winnt wrote: »

Judge_Mental_One wrote: »

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.

Never fear my friend it WILL become the new standard once MMO customers figure out that it can be done that way without a great deal of effort using readily available technology. I find it surprising that MMO customers can't make the connection that huge online application platforms like Google, AWS, Microsoft, Rackspace, etc.., all do constant maintenance without taking their customer facing systems offline, they somehow think that MMO infrastructures are a "special case" that can't be maintained without enormous amounts of downtime....

Despite MMOs being quite popular, none of them have quite the customer base of Google or Microsoft. Those companies not only have the money, they have a real-world incentive to keep an extremely costly system up at all times. People need those services in order to do their jobs. MMOs are games. Believe it or not, you'll live without access to the server for a few hours a week.

Trouvo

Judge_Mental_One wrote: »

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.

It wasnt like that at launch...and its just small things that maintenance happens in the background for for GW2, they still have full down time once a week, which I understand if this is not noticed by most people but I work the graveyard shift and am awake when it happens, usually every other week however, and ESO hasnt even been out 2 weeks yet(since launch), how long has GW2 been out now?

HarryWolfe wrote: »

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).

At least in Taz it starts at 10pm XP

cubansyrusb16_ESO

mips_winnt wrote: »

Judge_Mental_One wrote: »

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.

Never fear my friend it WILL become the new standard once MMO customers figure out that it can be done that way without a great deal of effort using readily available technology. I find it surprising that MMO customers can't make the connection that huge online application platforms like Google, AWS, Microsoft, Rackspace, etc.., all do constant maintenance without taking their customer facing systems offline, they somehow think that MMO infrastructures are a "special case" that can't be maintained without enormous amounts of downtime....

Last time I updated my computer I had to turn it off, same as game maintenance

Zershar_Vemod

Well I want to just write out a long post detailing how maintenance exists to fix bugs, etc. But I'm already bored to death of posting those types of posts over and over...

I'm just going to assume that the OP is brand new to MMOs (like a lot of others in TESO apparently .....) and I welcome them, but OP, please do some research; we have enough of these threads.

You know what I want to add something: I pay so that we get downtime.

ManiacMcLaughton

Personally, as a Systems Engineer, I would applaud daily downtime of 15-30 minutes, even if it was in the middle of my prime time. You don't know how many servers i work on that operate 24/7/365 that people "can't live without", yet they don't maintain properly.

Give Zenimax some time. They have a revenue stream to work with now. Remember, they didn't go to a major publisher (Thank the Nine!)... they funded all of this IN HOUSE. We are paying them now, and I suspect there will be a lot of changes coming in the next 3 months.

Is this your first time on the ground floor of a new MMO? I really don't ask that as an insult, its a genuine question. Most MMO's have a similar pattern they follow. There have been a few outstanding launches above and beyond, but they are very few and far between. On your next major MMO, if this kind of thing is bothering you, I HIGHLY recommend waiting 3-4 months before buying in.

Ulvich

Would you rather the game be filled with bots, gold spammers, and broken quests?
In order to keep the game running smoothly it needs to be taken off line. And I'm sure the more they get caught up with patches and hot fixes the less down time we will have.
Perhaps you can use this time to look up quests you are working on.

Saihung423

Because I knowingly chose to be part of this game.

The downtime directly effects me by being during my playing hours. I am okay with that, why? Because I am a well adjusted adult human who understands that the Universe does not revolve around me in either a macro or micro sense. Patience is undervalued in society.

Why am I okay with paying money for this game monthly and not other games I play?

Because there is a certain standard I expect from ESO and Bethesda and I am confident that I will be at least minimally satisfied with their efforts. I expect things out of this game that I only expected out of Everquest 2 prior.

I also understand that the game in its current state is going to be vastly changed over the next year or two. There will be features and content added that will be gigantic compared to many of the so called FTP games.

I don't need to ptw here. And I like that.

mips_winnt

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

mips_winnt wrote: »

Judge_Mental_One wrote: »

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.

Never fear my friend it WILL become the new standard once MMO customers figure out that it can be done that way without a great deal of effort using readily available technology. I find it surprising that MMO customers can't make the connection that huge online application platforms like Google, AWS, Microsoft, Rackspace, etc.., all do constant maintenance without taking their customer facing systems offline, they somehow think that MMO infrastructures are a "special case" that can't be maintained without enormous amounts of downtime....

Despite MMOs being quite popular, none of them have quite the customer base of Google or Microsoft.

That's not what's keeping MMO companies from going to a zero downtime model, factors that are contributing to are

1. The MMO customer base has come to expect enormous amounts of planned downtime so the competitive opportunities are not yet very deep to offer a product that doesn't do this.
2. Gaming companies don't attract top talent with respect to systems and network engineers, they throw the majority of the OpEx at app devs and creative folks (understandable).
3. MMO companies are app and creative design focused and thus have a tendency to have the wrong people driving infrastructure design.

Those companies not only have the money, they have a real-world incentive to keep an extremely costly system up at all times.

I suspect money isn't the major issue since the CapEx for HA systems has dropped to the point where even small business can afford HA infrastructures, not to mention the availability of IaaS and PaaS for companies that want to avoid the CapEx and OpEx for building and maintaining these types of infrastructures.

Believe it or not, you'll live without access to the server for a few hours a week.

Obviously since I remain a customer, my observations are from a professional standpoint given that I've been doing systems and network engineering for more than a quarter century. If I went to my management with a proposition that involved multiple hours of downtime on customer facing system every week for maintenance they'd think I'd lost my mind and the same goes for most businesses, MMO companies will eventually get to the same place with respect to customer facing systems downtime.

Korah_Eaglecry

moonfell wrote: »

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*

Careful. Theres quite a few about that will report you for acknowledging what it is they are.

Korah_Eaglecry

rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »

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.

Having Devs from other games doesnt mean they get to call the shots. Thats something the Executive Producer does and he does what hes told from his bosses. But thanks for trying to drop a bomb on everyone..Too bad it was a dud.

Pelerin2014

Because Maintenance downtime is normal.

jonal11_ESO

Welcome to the world of MMO's, get used to it. Every MMO does it. (I don't know about WoW because I never played that horrible game for more then 5 mins)

crowfl56

Come on grow up and stop whining, if you are paying $15 a month, that broken down to how much you are paying per hour of play, its only approx. 0.02 cents.

commandline

I agree with @mips_winnt from a professional point of view as well.

I am a Sysadmin and I understand that maintenance is necessary and if it requires down time... well, it requires down time

Daverios

Queue the defenders all ignoring the fact that other online services I pay for can maintain 99% or greater uptime thanks to using and paying for top of the line cloud technologies.

You can knock Microsoft all you like but if they managed ESO you would never worry about maimtainence again.

zaria

KerinKor wrote: »

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.

Yes, WOW has weekly downtimes 10 years after launch, after content updates they might have extra ones too, game has been out in 10 days and has bugs who must be fixed.

I don't like the morning downtime as i might want to play before going to work however night reset also hurt people.

ZiRM

I expect it to make the game better, especially in an MMO. Scheduled and unscheduled downtime is the norm.

nerevarine1138

Daverios wrote: »

Queue the defenders all ignoring the fact that other online services I pay for can maintain 99% or greater uptime thanks to using and paying for top of the line cloud technologies.

You can knock Microsoft all you like but if they managed ESO you would never worry about maimtainence again.

Cloud storage is a necessity for many businesses to actually function properly.

An MMO doesn't fall in the same category, and most companies aren't going to waste money when they can just take the servers down for a few hours a week instead of creating extremely expensive backup systems.

commandline

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

most companies aren't going to waste money when they can just take the servers down for a few hours a week instead of creating extremely expensive backup systems.

Yup!

UniscornScarebear

A lot of games have weekly maintenance so I'm pretty okay with it (though I wish I could play of course )

Shimond

Daverios wrote: »

You can knock Microsoft all you like but if they managed ESO you would never worry about maimtainence again.

This is absolutely true, just look at the MMOs Microsoft ran...no longer among the living :P

georgeisbusting

@OP have you ever worked at a job where people used computers and they were networked together? How about attended a university or school that had their own network? They have maintenance windows. Most of the time it occurs after work hours, overnight or on weekends to have the least amount of impact on users. Some patches and fixes cannot be applied "hot." The server needs to be taken down. Rebooted. Settings reinitialized. Space cleaned up. New hardware applied. Tested.

People who do not work in IT should not be passing judgement on how things should work in the IT industry. I don't go into an operating room and tell the surgeon how he should be operating, or that it's taking too long. Why? Because I'm not a surgeon. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about when it comes to surgery.

So when you come in here and say "I would think we would be beyond bringing a server down in 2014", know what you are talking about before you make such a statement. What nugget of knowledge do you possess that would help us understand why hardware does not need to be brought down in this day and age? I'm curious, I would love to know. Please tell me, because it would save me time. It would prevent me from having to work a maintenance schedule after midnight.

And how inconvenienced are you and other people where their time is conflicted with the maintenance schedule. When do you recommend they perform maintenance. When you are in bed? Might that affect another time zone?

Wow. Think before you start talking out of your ass.

Narrator

Are we really doing this again? The game has to go down for maintenance, otherwise how would all the stuff you are ranting about in other threads get fixed? Seriously, stop with the "We Pay X and should get X" If you are that upset because you cant play, then obviously the game is doing something right. ESO is in its infancy and honestly judging by other MMO releases in the last 3 years.. this has gone rather smoothly. Be patient and I'm sure the servers will be up by the time you get home from school.

Yasha

Because we have no choice.

RiverWalker

Posivatedb14_ESO wrote: »

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

I have absolutely no problem with it. I am 99% sure that in time they will get it down to probably an hour or less.

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.

1) its a worldwide game, and not everyone lives on the same schedule even in a given time zone. it will *always*, no matter what the time, conflict with someone's schedule.
2) why would you think that "we would be beyond" having to have downtime? I mean really thats just an arbitrary and seems to me, entirely ignorant sort of thing to assert.

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.

I think you're being whiny and overdramatic for no reason.

but again, the last MMO I played was EVE. and they have DAILY downtime.

oh and EVE's downtime wasn't ALWAYS only 15 minutes-half hour. it used to be longer most of the time.

mips_winnt

Shimond wrote: »

Daverios wrote: »

You can knock Microsoft all you like but if they managed ESO you would never worry about maimtainence again.

This is absolutely true, just look at the MMOs Microsoft ran...no longer among the living :P

Apples and Oranges, Microsoft's lack of success with gaming has nothing to do with their infrastructure and everything to do with poor app dev, game design and/or marketing. Microsoft does infrastructure reasonably well, unfortunately they have had mixed results with respect to software development and game design.

Best of both worlds let companies like ZOS design the games and companies Microsoft provide the IaaS and PaaS

commandline

@georgeisbusting Well put.

Though sometimes as a Sysadmin I do feel like doing this somedays

ChrisGoesAFK

commandline wrote: »

@georgeisbusting Well put.

Though sometimes as a Sysadmin I do feel like doing this somedays

LOL Right there with you