Are we going to get some form of refund ?

Hexanon

I for one would like to some some form of refund. I pay per month for access. I expect 30 days of access to play. I can expect the occasional downtime (but this is taking the ***).

In addition, please take a look at the time zones affected when you bring a server down. 5am BST is already 8am on the other side of EU. Add in 4-5 hours maintenance and most of EU have lost the days play. Should maintenance be started at 1am BST (yes there are those that play, but across EU I bet the volume is lower between 1am BST and 6am BST than between 5am BST and 10am BST).

Agreed the previous maintenance slots were disastrous. Some of us are UTC +2 and lost the evening's playing (We work so sadly for us the day is lost). I have calculated that the servers have been down for almost 43% of my available game time. As I paid for this time, this is more becoming criminal than negligent.

(I changed the date formats so that Americans could understand them)

4/4 - Played
4/5 - Played
4/6 - Played
4/7 - Server down
4/8 - Server down
4/9 - Played
4/10 - Played
4/12 - Server down
4/13 - Played
4/14 - Played
4/15 - Server down
4/16 - Played
4/18 - Server down (Easter??)
4/19 - Server down
4/20 - Played
4/21 - Server down (Easter??)

Is this all a big money-making scam?

Saerydoth

You are apparently new to MMO's. Planned downtime (maintenance) is already factored into the subscription price.

Now, if there are long periods of *unplanned* downtime, they will usually give a day credit here and there. But 3 hours of planned maintenance isn't "server down all day". Patches here take about 3 hours, which is *insanely* quick for an MMO. WOW patches took anywhere from 8-16 hours.

steven_shidiwenb16_ESO

Never played an MMO before have you? especially during launch.

No you aren't getting your money back. You are paying for everything that comes with an MMO this includes downtime - patches - maintenance etc etc.

So no its not a scam, its how MMOs are run.

Laurai

Yes, it is all a big money-making scam. Most Company's decide that the best time for a scam might be right after release, when games usually are in their most stable state.

Slash8915

Pretty sure it says something about server maintenance in your user agreement. Good luck with your refund, tell me how that works out for you.

illogicbh

Wow gave extra days all the time when it launched. An extra day of playtime vs losing a sub...

Drakonklenok

Got to love the entitlement generation. MUST HAS NAO, and if I don't gimmie gimmie. Welcome to the launch of an MMO.

LadyMamoulian

Every one of you is right - maintenance is neccessary, but the truth is the server downtimes are extremely unfortunate here in EU. Do notice that no maintenance, planned or not, is happening overnight when the traffic is the smallest. That is a fact. And there is no other reason for this except a complete and utter negligence of players needs.

Saerydoth

illogicbh wrote: »

Wow gave extra days all the time when it launched. An extra day of playtime vs losing a sub...

Blizzard gave extra days because the game was *completely* unplayable for nearly 3 months. Not unplayable as in "a few quest bugs here and there" or "a bit of lag". Unplayable as in "I can't log on at all 90% of the time, and when I can log on I can't move or take any actions because the servers aren't working."

There is a BIG difference between what's happened here so far and what happened at WOW launch.

steven_shidiwenb16_ESO

LadyMamoulian wrote: »

Every one of you is right - maintenance is neccessary, but the truth is the server downtimes are extremely unfortunate here in EU. Do notice that no maintenance, planned or not, is happening overnight when the traffic is the smallest. That is a fact. And there is no other reason for this except a complete and utter negligence of players needs.

Players need vitamin D, they understand thats a need.

Douglas.Strattonb14_ESO

This is par for the course; more so than most launches. You will not get a refund, they will not extend your time. You have 2 options: 1) Accept it; they are fixing things for everyone and making the server more stable. 2) Don't renew your subscription.

ghost151

I am always amazed at the number of people who defend MMO companies and their BS business model. Rush an incomplete product out and have people pay you to continue beta testing and development.

There are no other businesses that operate the way MMO companies do and get away with it.

Sunbite

As the above posters have said, it's par for the course in a game's early life. It's to be expected (although not welcomed) and should come as no surprise. It is frustrating, I totally agree on that.

I wake at 5am each morning and rely on my games to pass the time before going to work, so this is a horrible time for me personally. But I also fully understand that no time slot will suit everyone - that is an impossibility. I also understand that I am in the minority.

I know things will get better, they always do. Then you laugh when you look back and wonder why you got so frustrated.

And ref the free time - isn't the first month's sub 'free' (albeit included in the price of the game) anyway? And I believe we're still in that 'free' month. People happily pay £30-40 for an offline game that they complete after a few hours, yet they are unhappy about paying the same for an online game and demand reimbursement when they feel they lose time. People are strange

Solution - make a character on the NA server. So when one's down you can play the other (as they never seem to be down at the same time).

Drakonklenok

ghost151 wrote: »

I am always amazed at the number of people who defend MMO companies and their BS business model. Rush an incomplete product out and have people pay you to continue beta testing and development.

There are no other businesses that operate the way MMO companies do and get away with it.

It is also fairly unique... You cannot test for *every* eventuality till its live, granted they could have done a few more betas, but the core issue is that there will always be issues and bugs that present themselves in unusual ways. The complexities of modern programming as astounding, we are talking billions of lines of code.

Remember Windoze ME, or Vista, totally stable at release and beyond, right? Same bitter pill that people swallowed, and that affected a thousand times more people than some video game.

Saerydoth

steven_shidiwenb16_ESO wrote: »

LadyMamoulian wrote: »

Every one of you is right - maintenance is neccessary, but the truth is the server downtimes are extremely unfortunate here in EU. Do notice that no maintenance, planned or not, is happening overnight when the traffic is the smallest. That is a fact. And there is no other reason for this except a complete and utter negligence of players needs.

Players need vitamin D, they understand thats a need.

But...I tried this "outside" thing the other day. I opened my door, and everything was weird. There were no walls. And there was this big yellow ball in the sky, and it burned. I screamed and ran back inside.

Anyway, sarcasm off now. I am VERY happy with this game so far. It has exceeded my expectations, as far as server stability/bugs/etc for a brand new MMO. WOW had orders of magnitude more problems (and still does to an extent), and yet I still played WOW for almost 8 years.

Yes, there is always room for improvement. Their spam reporting system, and their ticketing system need massive improvements. We need to be able to right click - report spam - done, without having to fill out a ticket. We need to be able to view our tickets on the website (and add to them from the website, thus no longer having to reply to emails with our information). But those are minor gripes in the grand scheme of things. And...WOW didn't have website-viewable tickets or a report spam option this early on either. That all came later.

HappyHero

If you used credit card and bought from zenimax. You can do a charge back on the bases that the product you bought is broken.

I'm considering doing that my self. I have been too scared to play! as accounts get banned for no reason at all. To top that off they give you no reason for the ban. So to make sure I don't get banned! I stopped playing 2 weeks a go., Until they fix the banning bugs.

Moobs

Not sure what you're talking about. Compared to most other MMOs, there's been hardly any downtime.

felixgamingx1

This type of post makes me laugh... And I'll tell you why...

It's always going to be 8am somewhere in the world.

Yazir

felixgamingx1 wrote: »

This type of post makes me laugh... And I'll tell you why...

It's always going to be 8am somewhere in the world.

This is megaserver on Europe , the time of maintenance gets in hours 2 AM - 6AM.
The majority of the countries of Europe this Catholics we have holiday and free time today

Hexanon

felixgamingx1 wrote: »

This type of post makes me laugh... And I'll tell you why...

It's always going to be 8am somewhere in the world.

Except an EU Server is played mainly be people in the EU. (Asia and Australasia tend to play US). There is a +- 3 hour time difference between UK and Moscow (Add an extra hour for some middle east time zones - for a 4hr difference). So yes, I would expect that an EU server take this into account.

Soliduparrow

Drakonklenok wrote: »

Remember Windoze ME, or Vista, totally stable at release and beyond, right? Same bitter pill that people swallowed, and that affected a thousand times more people than some video game.

People did not swallow those pills. Both of those releases are considered failures.

Lovely

This is a paid product. I cannot even start wrapping my head around you guys making excuses like this is normal for an MMO and whatever.

What is it that's different to you? I am assuming all types of things: you don't work, you don't go to school, you don't value your time because you have all the time in the world, you are used to not getting what you paid for, you are just trolling, you are educated in a way that anything is better than nothing so you take the punches and like it, you are very young, you don't understand respect and thought-out planning. What is it? How can you guys make excuses like 4 maintenace windows in a week's timespan is normal and we should be ok with it. What part of the world do you live in, how is this even possible to be so blinded?

We are asking for something that we paid for (gametime) and you are making *** excuses? For what? What purpose do they server? You are happy to have this many days of server down in week? What is wrong with you people?

felixgamingx1

Lovely wrote: »

This is a paid product. I cannot even start wrapping my head around you guys making excuses like this is normal for an MMO and whatever.

What is it that's different to you? I am assuming all types of things: you don't work, you don't go to school, you don't value your time because you have all the time in the world, you are used to not getting what you paid for, you are just trolling, you are educated in a way that anything is better than nothing so you take the punches and like it, you are very young, you don't understand respect and thought-out planning. What is it? How can you guys make excuses like 4 maintenace windows in a week's timespan is normal and we should be ok with it. What part of the world do you live in, how is this even possible to be so blinded?

We are asking for something that we paid for (gametime) and you are making *** excuses? For what? What purpose do they server? You are happy to have this many days of server down in week? What is wrong with you people?

I stop reading after the third line but sounds like you're taking your gaming too serious.

Squishy

ghost151 wrote: »

I am always amazed at the number of people who defend MMO companies and their BS business model. Rush an incomplete product out and have people pay you to continue beta testing and development.

There are no other businesses that operate the way MMO companies do and get away with it.

Apple. IPhone needs a new feature, we'll just release a brand new version, at the same price than yours. .

broer

felixgamingx1 wrote: »

I stop reading after the third line but sounds like you're taking your gaming too serious.

It is clear that this comment confirms Lovely's previous remark.

radoslaw85eb17_ESO

Saerydoth wrote: »

You are apparently new to MMO's. Planned downtime (maintenance) is already factored into the subscription price.

Now, if there are long periods of *unplanned* downtime, they will usually give a day credit here and there. But 3 hours of planned maintenance isn't "server down all day". Patches here take about 3 hours, which is *insanely* quick for an MMO. WOW patches took anywhere from 8-16 hours.

cant agree to that cos for instance i have a lot of free time, but there are ppl who can squeeze only few hours a week or an hour per day and if that person tries to play the written schedule above may apply making it as unaccesable as it is...

now I am GMT user and in my time zone (GMT poland) best time formaintence is 1 AM - 7 aM cos most ppl are sleepng then

and besides

THIS IS SCHEDULED MAINTENCE

the only bad thing about it its on holiday.
also i find strange 1 more thing

i heard about so many diffrent bugs / errors / loosing items / slots that i find it very weird

what happened to me
- frog race quest was bugged but eventualy i finished it
- sometimes icould leaveor enter ay door cos i jumpout in the same spot i tried to leave...
- - and until now i had once a loading screen that was endless

so i find it particular weird that some1 has so many errors ...
maybe its not becouse zenimax but becouse of ur PC?

here are some ideas that can help and maybe even solve ur provblems

WINDOWS XP USERS
- clean "cookie" folder by hand
- clean "temporary internet files " folder by hand
- clean "temp" folder by hand

do it manualy cos many cleaning softweres can slow ur computer by even 50%

WINDOWS VISTA USERS
- change ur operating system to anything else that not vista

WINDOWS 7 USERS
- clean "cookie" folder remotly
- clean "temp" folder remotly

and now some advance stuff
- if ur computer isnt older then 1 year simply reinstall ur softwere and remake ur hdd into 2 particions (one with system only and installed programs and other for intalling games, or storage)
- if ur PC is older then 1 year you should demagnetized ur main hdd completle and install software as mentioned above

AND FINALLY
- try at least once a week reset ur router(turn it off for 10 mins) this will reset its buffer and will avoid sending bad data especialy whenu play a lot mmo games data stored can be responsible for some bugs and errors u have (and for all saying that might necccesery be the case - true, but there is a chance
of router sending bad data piggybacked on other signals -especialy when u did not reset it for longer then few months)

AND NOW SOMETHING THAT MAY WORK BUT DOESNT HAVE TO

if ur operating on Vista u should have at least 12GB of memory(RAM) cos vista is flooding RAM quite much with so called trash data

for win 7 8GB of ram shoul d be alright

and last thing:
- buy 2 sdd drives
(its working for me)
1st sdd - 128 GBs is for system storage
2nd sdd - 128 GBs is for games that are relativly new (june 2013 - now)

THX to this solution accesing data is way faster then SATA or usb drives

epoling

Even well-established games run into problems. Every game I have played have had a content patch somewhere along the line that causes these same problems. If you play a MMO you have to grow up and stop the complaining. They are extremely complicated and things don't always work right. It's a fact of life. And you know what, yeah - you paid for it - you paid for a product that will get continual maintenance whenever needed to make it work right. Most products don't get the continual fixes and additions that an MMO do, but do suffer from problems. If you don't like it you can either cancel your subscription and go pout in the corner like a spoiled child or you can realize how much fun this game is on the hole and understand the problems will get fixed. Whining that they are fixing them is the least intelligent solution. And remember, if they are fixing them on Monday morning it means that the devs didn't give up a few hours of playtime on your holiday - they gave up the whole weekend to make the fixes happen.

Chingis

OK, I appreciate that MMOs can be buggy at the start, etc atc, but...

1. This is a pay-to-use MMOs, not a micro-transaction one.
2. If the server is down in a PtU the only loser is the player.
3. If the server goes down in a FTP, theonly loser is the owner (as no-one can buy their crap.

Different business models. I prefer the RtU myself - but that implies a decent product.

KerinKor

Hexanon wrote: »

Is this all a big money-making scam?

I don't think you know what scam means.

We pay for 24/7 access and there was no 24-hour period when the game was unavailable, if was your fault (and mine) that we couldn't play during a few unavoidable and mainly understandable downtimes.

Annoying, yes, frustrating, yes, unexpected, HELL NO! Objectively though stability-wise this launch has been a LOT better than many for the majority of players I would suggest.

Squishy

Well, you can always catch up on this:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2600/2600-h/2600-h.htm

You're very weclome.

parfant2009b16_ESO

epoling wrote: »

Even well-established games run into problems. Every game I have played have had a content patch somewhere along the line that causes these same problems. If you play a MMO you have to grow up and stop the complaining. They are extremely complicated and things don't always work right. It's a fact of life. And you know what, yeah - you paid for it - you paid for a product that will get continual maintenance whenever needed to make it work right. Most products don't get the continual fixes and additions that an MMO do, but do suffer from problems. If you don't like it you can either cancel your subscription and go pout in the corner like a spoiled child or you can realize how much fun this game is on the hole and understand the problems will get fixed. Whining that they are fixing them is the least intelligent solution. And remember, if they are fixing them on Monday morning it means that the devs didn't give up a few hours of playtime on your holiday - they gave up the whole weekend to make the fixes happen.

You talk as if they do it for free they get payed for the work they do .
Played much mmo's , the game is good but never had this much buggs in any game , half of the quests you need to relog to the server just to see the quest person again .