Server maintenance times

daemonios · June 2016

ZOS, can we please not have European maintenance times during the daytime in Europe?

This would be understandable IF you only had one server OR if you hadn't done maintenance for the EU server during nighttime for the better part of two years.

The recent change to 11am BST seems to be set in stone now, considering the post here. It reeks of US-centrism and is incredibly disrespectful towards your EU customers.

sparafucilsarwb17_ESO · June 2016

They don't care, people were complaining about the new times and they still changed it. The old time was perfect. What has changed that they now can't do it during the old times?

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO · June 2016

I'm not sure, but I think ZOS decided to do both PC/Mac servers at the same time, due to "quality issues". Back when we had separate maintenance times, the updates on the EU server seemed to get screwed up occasionally, while the updates on the NA server went without a hitch.
That said, for fairness reasons it would be nice if the americans had to endure server maintenance during daytime, every other week.

Zinaroth · June 2016

Completely agree but prepare yourself for EU white knights and NA know-it-alls to come in here and tell you you're just being ungrateful.

stevepdodson_ESO888 · June 2016

whatever time they go with i just hope they stop buggering thing up...more broken than fixed

Tandor · June 2016

I agree. It's a nuisance always having the EU server down in the day. It was perfect before, and I don't recall seeing any clear announcement about a permanent change which is what it seems to have become. There were one or two special circumstances (which is fine) and then it suddenly seemed to be a fixed thing.

daemonios · June 2016

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm not sure, but I think ZOS decided to do both PC/Mac servers at the same time, due to "quality issues". Back when we had separate maintenance times, the updates on the EU server seemed to get screwed up occasionally, while the updates on the NA server went without a hitch.
That said, for fairness reasons it would be nice if the americans had to endure server maintenance during daytime, every other week.

It would help if ZOS actually talked to us and explained these "quality issues". As it is, I have to assume they do it because it's convenient to them. Also, I remember more than once the update going wrong on NA and being postponed in EU while they worked out the issues. That's actually an argument for separate patch times.

Tandor wrote: »

I agree. It's a nuisance always having the EU server down in the day. It was perfect before, and I don't recall seeing any clear announcement about a permanent change which is what it seems to have become. There were one or two special circumstances (which is fine) and then it suddenly seemed to be a fixed thing.

The announcement by @ZOS_KaiSchober was buried in the Maintenance Announcements sub-forum. I linked to it in my original post.

mihaiisraging · June 2016

The worst part isn't only the day time, but leaderboards (I was ready to log in to do a vMA run <<like it wasn't enough stresfull>>) and the server is off in the middle of the day. Also I have a day off after weekend and I wanted to play some houra before to go outside cause now it is hot like hell, but no, I will go outaide when the server will be up (y).
If they would fix some important bugs I would be 100% ok, but not...

Zoner · June 2016

They take it down at 8pm in Australian times, I feel your pain

Tandor · June 2016

daemonios wrote: »

ola.wilhelmssonb16_ESO wrote: »

I'm not sure, but I think ZOS decided to do both PC/Mac servers at the same time, due to "quality issues". Back when we had separate maintenance times, the updates on the EU server seemed to get screwed up occasionally, while the updates on the NA server went without a hitch.
That said, for fairness reasons it would be nice if the americans had to endure server maintenance during daytime, every other week.

It would help if ZOS actually talked to us and explained these "quality issues". As it is, I have to assume they do it because it's convenient to them. Also, I remember more than once the update going wrong on NA and being postponed in EU while they worked out the issues. That's actually an argument for separate patch times.

Tandor wrote: »

I agree. It's a nuisance always having the EU server down in the day. It was perfect before, and I don't recall seeing any clear announcement about a permanent change which is what it seems to have become. There were one or two special circumstances (which is fine) and then it suddenly seemed to be a fixed thing.

The announcement by @ZOS_KaiSchober was buried in the Maintenance Announcements sub-forum. I linked to it in my original post.

Thanks, I don't always catch links when they're embedded in a post and I missed this one. In any event, it doesn't make any reference to the reasons for the change.

MickeyBN · June 2016

I'm in AUS, servers just went down and its 8pm which is prime game time for me

Zinaroth · June 2016

Zoner wrote: »

They take it down at 8pm in Australian times, I feel your pain

Yeah you're worse off.
I feel bad for just complaining.
Let's just agree to hate the NA guys telling us not to complain.

Zoner · June 2016

Zinaroth wrote: »

Zoner wrote: »

They take it down at 8pm in Australian times, I feel your pain

Yeah you're worse off.
I feel bad for just complaining.
Let's just agree to hate the NA guys telling us not to complain.

Haha yup

Aliniel · June 2016

As a beta player I cannot help but wonder... "What happened?!" and "When it happened?!"

I used to tell people how amazing ZeniMax is, how respectful towards their customers and how effectively they respond to players' suggestions and complaints. Now with the whole fiasco with Sorcerers in the last patch, ignoring the mass complaints and these stupid maintenance times, I can never again praise ZeniMax. Maybe times will change, who knows.

NeKryXe · June 2016

i understand that this time may be bad for australians, but in europe at this hour most people are working or at school, so how can this be a "prime time"?

i work mostly at night, but i think that most people don't.

MickeyBN · June 2016

Zinaroth wrote: »

Zoner wrote: »

They take it down at 8pm in Australian times, I feel your pain

Yeah you're worse off.
I feel bad for just complaining.
Let's just agree to hate the NA guys telling us not to complain.

Try not to cry...cry a lot

Zinaroth · June 2016

NeKryXe wrote: »

i understand that this time may be bad for australians, but in europe at this hour most people are working or at school, so how can this be a "prime time"? i work mostly at night, but i think that most people don't.

Maintenance during the night or the early morning hours will always be better than during the middle of the day.
We used to have maintenance during the night and now we're having maintenance during the middle of the day.
This is a step in the wrong direction.

The "work/school" argument doesn't change that.

Noone should feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are at work and it doesn't mean they forfeit their right to complain about the unfairness.

NeKryXe · June 2016

Zinaroth wrote: »

Noone should feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are at work and it doesn't mean they forfeit their right to complain about the unfairness.

i don't feel bad for being able to play at this hour, in fact i feel bad because i completely forgot the maintenance today and started to play exactly 5 minutes before the shut down :') ...i'm just referring that monday at 11am in europe doesn't seem a "prime time" for game play.

Tryxus · June 2016

NeKryXe wrote: »

Zinaroth wrote: »

Noone should feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are at work and it doesn't mean they forfeit their right to complain about the unfairness.

i don't feel bad for being able to play at this hour, in fact i feel bad because i completely forgot the maintenance today and started to play exactly 5 minutes before the shut down :') ...i'm just referring that monday at 11am in europe doesn't seem a "prime time" for game play.

It will be prime time during summer break

All the kids rushing to the forums en masse, complaining about maint times...

ZOS, for the love of Sithis, MOVE THE MAINT TIMES. HURRY!

I_killed_Vivec · June 2016

Zinaroth wrote: »

NeKryXe wrote: »

i understand that this time may be bad for australians, but in europe at this hour most people are working or at school, so how can this be a "prime time"? i work mostly at night, but i think that most people don't.

Maintenance during the night or the early morning hours will always be better than during the middle of the day.
We used to have maintenance during the night and now we're having maintenance during the middle of the day.
This is a step in the wrong direction.

The "work/school" argument doesn't change that.

Noone should feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are at work and it doesn't mean they forfeit their right to complain about the unfairness.

"Unfairness"? So when could they "fairly" perform maintenance? Your argument seems to be purely based on "They used to do it at a time that was good for me, now they don'. It's unfair". I'm sure there are other people who now prefer the maintenance times. Is it then "unfair" on them to change the scheduling again? Do you want people who are playing at 2AM on a Tuesday to be made to feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are asleep?

The school/work argument doesn't imply that people should be made to feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are at work, just that the majority of people won't be affected by a daytime schedule (majority, hence fairness).

shadowwraith666 · June 2016

11am bst is when most people are either at school or working anyway, really not a big deal.

negbert · June 2016

They schedule it for when the engineers are at work and they can apply the patch to both servers with full resources available. It's common sense. Do something else for a bit.

SiAScORCH · June 2016

They need to change the times on US as well. It's *** because when the maintenance is going on the traders switch over. They either need to move the day the traders switch over to Sunday being technically considered the beginning of the week or move the server maintenance to Tuesday.

zzerogg · June 2016

Yes yes EU whinger, it comes down right in the middle of Australian internet peak hour but i am able to recognise that a company must cater for it's largest audience, which is the USA. Do i like it? no, but i do this thing where i recognise reality.

ADarklore · June 2016

They have started doing them at the same time ever since the one time they brought down the PC-NA server for maintenance and it crashed the EU server... since then they've been bringing them down and performing maintenance at the same time most likely to avoid a repeat of the fiasco they experienced previously.

jan.denaanb16_ESO · June 2016

I don't mind maintenance in the day... To bad I have a day off today

.

Anyone know how long these maintences take? When will the server be up again?

Graydon · June 2016

Sometimes I want to go swimming, but the pool is closed for maintenance.

ITS NO BIG DEAL! I FIND SOMETHIG ELSE TO DO.

Wow. Cool concept.

Zinaroth · June 2016

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

Zinaroth wrote: »

NeKryXe wrote: »

i understand that this time may be bad for australians, but in europe at this hour most people are working or at school, so how can this be a "prime time"? i work mostly at night, but i think that most people don't.

Maintenance during the night or the early morning hours will always be better than during the middle of the day.
We used to have maintenance during the night and now we're having maintenance during the middle of the day.
This is a step in the wrong direction.

The "work/school" argument doesn't change that.

Noone should feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are at work and it doesn't mean they forfeit their right to complain about the unfairness.

"Unfairness"? So when could they "fairly" perform maintenance? Your argument seems to be purely based on "They used to do it at a time that was good for me, now they don'. It's unfair". I'm sure there are other people who now prefer the maintenance times. Is it then "unfair" on them to change the scheduling again? Do you want people who are playing at 2AM on a Tuesday to be made to feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are asleep?

The school/work argument doesn't imply that people should be made to feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are at work, just that the majority of people won't be affected by a daytime schedule (majority, hence fairness).

Twist or turn it however you want.

Maintenance at 03.00-08.00 will always be better than maintenance at 12.00-17.00.

I am just tired of the zealots on this forum judging people who are complaining about the new EU maintenance times which are worse than the old ones.

More people will be on during mid day than in the middle of the night, hence it is *** to take servers down in the middle of the day instead of the middle of the night, like they used to.

This has nothing to do with my personal preference. I usually work at these times but now I am on vacation. Even before I went on vacation I advocated that they change the times back.

Stop trying to discredit the notion that the current maintenance times are worse than the previous ones with insignificant arguments like; "you should be at work/school anyway" or "you only want it changed for you own best".

NeKryXe wrote: »

Zinaroth wrote: »

Noone should feel bad for conducting a life where you are able to play while other people are at work and it doesn't mean they forfeit their right to complain about the unfairness.

i don't feel bad for being able to play at this hour, in fact i feel bad because i completely forgot the maintenance today and started to play exactly 5 minutes before the shut down :') ...i'm just referring that monday at 11am in europe doesn't seem a "prime time" for game play.

It's more "prime time" than their previous maintenance which was in the middle of the night.
They made maintenance times worse without telling us why and they haven't adressed the issue, and yes it is an issue when people complain about it.
Almost noone complained about the previous maintenance times, guess why? Because they were better.

daemonios · June 2016

Graydon wrote: »

Sometimes I want to go swimming, but the pool is closed for maintenance.

ITS NO BIG DEAL! I FIND SOMETHIG ELSE TO DO.

Wow. Cool concept.

Imagine the pool you go to had maintenance during the night for years. Then one day you happen to have the morning free go there and see it's closed without warning. Following week it happens again. And then again. And only about a month later do they bother to post some tiny notice where nobody can find it if they didn't know it was there.

I'm not arguing against maintenance, it is and always will be necessary. I'm arguing against a schedule that, despite anything you may say, is different from what it used to be.

Night_Watch · June 2016

White Knights? Know it alls? Whingers or whiners?

Come on people, surely we are better than that! Let us keep it civil.

Not to whine or whinge, I too dislike it when downtime happens in prime time. I dislike missing out on my playtime as much as anyone theirs. I question the validity of any downtime by any gaming company that is disruptive to the player base, fans and paying customers. I wonder sometimes if the people that initiate downtime are so uncommonly unaware that the idea of looking at a world clock, many of which are available online, simply does not occur to them.

Not to be a White Knight, I also understand that most downtime is done for the good of the related game, to fix issues or to update stuff. I would agree that downtime is, usually, essential and not done solely for the reason to infuriate gamers. It also seems, to me, that many gamers are all too quick to bite the hand that feeds them when they are disrupted but unable to offer praise when it is due.

As for the 'know it all' versus the 'no you do not' crowd; games are played by many people and there is, undoubtedly, a very varied amount of knowledge and experience per person! Those with a high amount of knowledge and experience are very welcome to share it but they should not be offended when asked to verify their level. Those with a lower level should know that making statements that they cannot verify makes them appear somewhat foolish. Most of us will, likely, be somewhere in the middle and should think before we post!

This particular downtime is inconvenient for me - that is all. I'm hoping that when we can get in game it will be good and the issues of multiple sudden disconnects I had yesterday (making the game unplayable) will be gone. In the meantime, I'll find something else to do.

Kind regards all.

EDIT: By the way, as I was writing this, the servers came back online!