Downtime....inexcusable

FlyLeaf30 · October 2016

human151 wrote: »

BFT88 wrote: »

Another thread about inconvenient downtimes. Come on people ZOS has been doing this for almost 2 years lol.

so that means we should just blindly accept it? Its still BS, whether its 2 years in or 20.

ZOS has changed their downtimes several times over the past couple of years so chill. It will NEVER suit everyone at any given time. Someone is always going to be effected by the maintanence.

itehache · October 2016

Every week there is a post like this one.

We already know when maintenance is happening, find something else to do

ronrobaina · October 2016

ElBiggus wrote: »

Tyrion87 wrote: »

Such threads are boring already... Be adults and deal with it! No matter what time ZOS would perform maintenance, there will be always people who are affected by it. If you want it to be performed e.g. during the night EU time, then some people outside EU would start to complain that it's their play time. ZOS doesn't perform their scheduled maintenance during peak hours/prime time. Nights, mornings or even early afternoons serve well as a time for maintenance.

People complain about bugs, lags and bad servers, but when there is a maintenance, people complain about... maintenance. Wow.

Name one other product or service you use that only works 95% of the time.

Excuse the shouting, but I've said it a lot of times and people still don't listen: THE SERVERS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE TAKEN DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE EVER, AND REQUIRING A MINIMUM OF 5% DOWNTIME EVERY WEEK SUGGESTS A FUNDAMENTAL DESIGN FLAW THAT THEY SHOULD ADDRESS.

Seriously, it's not rocket science, it's server admin 101, and people have been doing it for decades; if your server infrastructure doesn't provide a test/deployment/production server distribution to allow for live maintenance then you're doing it wrong. Rather than giving us houses or other new features ZOS would be better off spending the time and effort redesigning their underlying architecture.

Do you even know why server are being patched? Half of us cant even play cause of the bugs.....

Read this and still tell me it doesnt need to be taken down....

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/295251/invisible-attacks-not-firing#latest

What they really need to do is give time to QA to test stuff before going online... thats what they need to do

Regards

ElBiggus · October 2016

Tabbycat wrote: »

I'm sure ZOS would be absolutely thrilled if you were to design for them for free a workable server system that never has be taken down for maintenance or patches ever.

But (and here is the point I keep trying to make) I don't need to design it -- being able to do this is common industry practice. Still, if they're unsure how it works, here's the basic rundown.

Test the patches on a test server.
Once you're sure it works as intended, push the updates to a deployment server, leaving the production (i.e. live) server running.
Once the update has been pushed, switch the point of entry -- the deployment server now becomes the production server. New users logging on will automatically connect to the updated server, and you can push out a message to users still on the old server that they should log out and back in again when it's convenient (maybe giving a deadline of a couple of hours before forcibly ejecting them).
Once the old server is empty it becomes your deployment server for the next update.

Well look at that. You've pushed out a new update, and the only inconvenience is that some people have had to log out and back in again. No massive downtime or anything. I wonder why nobody thought of that befo... oh, wait, they did. I remember learning about it at college nearly 30 years ago...

Taternater · October 2016

Of course people are going to complain about maintenance. It's annoying. And every time, people join in and complain about the people complaining. And here I am complaining about the people complaining about the people complaining! Someone help us!

ChapterMasterV · October 2016

I was honestly thrilled when I saw the ingame message "server will be coming down for maintenance in 15 minutes" because that meant that some of the game-breaking bugs that they had announced that THEY HAD A PATCH FOR and were going to be implemented on WEDNESDAY were actually going to be fixed early, and I wouldn't have to type in the autoinvite string every 5 minutes in Cyrodiil.

Slammer99uk · October 2016

human151 wrote: »

Mickey_Ox wrote: »

Get a new job with more sociable hours maybe??

I get paid %10 more for working nights and dont have to deal with office politics. plus, more freedom at night. WHen its not busy, I bring my laptop to work and play ESO, or wath netflix of whatever.

Only 10% huh? I too work in a DC for a US owned company here in the UK. Glad to say we get 30% for working shifts

I guess I am just boasting cos I can.

human151 · October 2016

Slammer99uk wrote: »

human151 wrote: »

Mickey_Ox wrote: »

Get a new job with more sociable hours maybe??

I get paid %10 more for working nights and dont have to deal with office politics. plus, more freedom at night. WHen its not busy, I bring my laptop to work and play ESO, or wath netflix or whatever.

Only 10% huh? I too work in a DC for a US owned company here in the UK. Glad to say we get 30% for working shifts

I guess I am just boasting cos I can.

wow, 30. Thats awesome. I dont actually work for the DC, I work for a Corp that has space in the DC so luckily I dont have to hang out in the windy and cold place all night, I have an office BLDG and a cube to work in. It'd be nice to get thirty but I guess im happy with 10, companies are stingy these days.

Mady · October 2016

These stupid maintenance-cry-threads every week are inexcusable.

kevlarto_ESO · October 2016

Have been online gaming since the 90's and down time is the necessary evil we all love to hate, with out down time noting would be fixed or updated, it is a big world and a lot of time zones it will always affect someone some where, and if this is something that some people cannot tolerate then maybe online gaming is not for you, it will always be around in some form until there is a technology change that lets them apply the update and you get the update the next time you login , so until then it is what it is, and it is a good thing for the most part.

Dread_Viking · October 2016

i know some other mmos are doing that and i dont get why zeni cant do it it has to be a bad data center if thy cant do it

Asardes · October 2016

Same posts every Monday morning. Do you ever get bored?

Bryanonymous · October 2016

Reminds me of the guy I saw the other day in a local restaurant. Dude was tweaked out, and asked the cashier for some salsa while me and my cousin were ordering. She ignored him and continued to take our order. The guy just flips out and tells her that she didn't have to serve him if she didn't want to. On our way out... He was on his phone leaving a bad Yelp review.

Everyone believes they are entitled to demanding a business they chose to make a purchase from do whatever they want. The servers are out of your control. Deal with it.

human151 · October 2016

kevlarto_ESO wrote: »

Have been online gaming since the 90's and down time is the necessary evil we all love to hate, with out down time noting would be fixed or updated, it is a big world and a lot of time zones it will always affect someone some where, and if this is something that some people cannot tolerate then maybe online gaming is not for you, it will always be around in some form until there is a technology change that lets them apply the update and you get the update the next time you login , so until then it is what it is, and it is a good thing for the most part.

Ive done patching. It does not take 3 hours or more to push out patches unless theyre doing one server at a time, which would be hilarious.

As I said in the first post, which you apparently didnt bother to read, the servers are in a cluster, they can move the resources off of half the servers (since the load isnt too heavy on a Sunday night) and patch those then to the same with the other half.

You've played online games since the 90's? You know, technology has advanced since then right?

Banana · October 2016

I work shift to but it doesn't worry me. Surely theres something else you can do while they try to fix things. Which is beneficial.

human151 · October 2016

Asardes wrote: »

Same posts every Monday morning. Do you ever get bored?

Considering this is the first week ive been back to playing ESO in quite a while, thats amazing.

Berenhir · October 2016

ChapterMasterV wrote: »

I was honestly thrilled when I saw the ingame message "server will be coming down for maintenance in 15 minutes" because that meant that some of the game-breaking bugs that they had announced that THEY HAD A PATCH FOR and were going to be implemented on ]WEDNESDAY were actually going to be fixed early, and I wouldn't have to type in the autoinvite string every 5 minutes in Cyrodiil.

Bad luck. Grouping won't be fixed.

PaddoPaulus · October 2016

I think the main point should be imo, why does ESO have the most frequent and longest downtimes then other successful MMO's?

I have played about 5 of MMO's and i do think ESO is the worst with uptime.

ElBiggus · October 2016

Bryanonymous wrote: »

Everyone believes they are entitled to demanding a business they chose to make a purchase from do whatever they want. The servers are out of your control. Deal with it.

Hello, phone company? Yeah, once a week you cut me off for eight hours, and I was wondering if there's any way you could, I dunno, not do that, maybe? There is, but you're deliberately choosing not to do it? OK, that's cool, I can live with that. And I'm not allowed to complain, you say? RIght, sure, sure, that's great.

Hello, Krups customer service? Yeah, once a week my coffee maker just refuses to work; it says it's repairing itself or something, but it still randomly makes undrinkable cups of coffee or squirts water all over the place. Unavoidable, you say? OK, fine, I will deal with it.

Hi, I bought a car from you, and you said I have to bring it in to be serviced all day once a week and you refuse to offer me a courtesy car, and the thing is it still keeps cutting out, so I'm not quite sure what is is you're actually servicing. Can't do anything about it? OK, fine, I'll put up with it then.

Seriously, it doesn't have to be this way, but as long as there are people who defend the practice it's never going to change. Can any of you "it can't be avoided" folks honestly say you wouldn't be happier with less downtime? It does not have to happen. Complain. Moan. Rant. Object. Maybe if we all stand up and tell ZOS to get their act together they'll do something.

Bryanonymous · October 2016

This isn't a phone company.

Some businesses do actually close for one or two days a week.

This is not a car.

You are comparing products that have almost nothing in common, and now you have lost ALL credibility with your faulty logic.

If it doesn't have to be this way... Go make your own MMO and run it how you wish.

Meilinka · October 2016

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Universe · October 2016

I presume that ZOS employees are actually checking the bugs on Live after the implementation of the patch.
Only this step can take hours.

I would rather lose a few gameplay hours to have a more stable server with less bugs.
The average time of maintenance is about 6 hours(sometimes 7-8 hours or a bit more).
It's only 6 hours out of 168 hours in a week.
That's acceptable.

human151 · October 2016

Bryanonymous wrote: »

This isn't a phone company.

Some businesses do actually close for one or two days a week.

This is not a car.

You are comparing products that have almost nothing in common, and now you have lost ALL credibility with your faulty logic.

When you bought ESO was there any information stating theyre closed 5 or more hours every week, one one particular day? Companies do tell you their business hours. Your faulty logic has made you lose all credibility.

I never could understand why some people feel compelled to defend corporations...

Qyrk · October 2016

These posts doesn't surprise me one bit; rather it just makes me note the person in the OP and should I see them in game, I just emote /spit at them for the lowlives that they are

Bryanonymous · October 2016

human151 wrote: »

Bryanonymous wrote: »

This isn't a phone company.

Some businesses do actually close for one or two days a week.

This is not a car.

You are comparing products that have almost nothing in common, and now you have lost ALL credibility with your faulty logic.

When you bought ESO was there any information stating theyre closed 5 or more hours every week, one one particular day? Companies do tell you their business hours. Your faulty logic has made you lose all credibility.

I never could understand why some people feel compelled to defend corporations...

I'm pretty sure there is some fine print that their lawyers can use to defend anything, but if you feel entitled to sue, then by all means... Good luck with that.

And I'm not defending them. I'm telling you that your complaint is futile. Like complaining that the sun is too bright. Just stfu and deal with it like the rest of us.

ElBiggus · October 2016

Bryanonymous wrote: »

This isn't a phone company. Some businesses do actually close for one or two days a week. This is not a car. You are comparing products that have almost nothing in common, and now you have lost ALL credibility with your faulty logic.

No, this is a business whose primary, and indeed only, function is to run an online game, and the fact that they can't manage to do that for more than 95% of the time on a good week suggests that they're doing it wrong. I've already explained the incredibly simple process (which every server admin on the face of the planet learns pretty much on day one) that allows you to update a server-side service without requiring huge downtime, and still people like you insist that there's no other way of doing it. Even businesses whose online presence is merely a portion of their business will probably do it the no-downtime way, so for a company that relies entirely on online services to make such a mess of it is inexcusable and (in case I haven't said it enough times) EASILY AVOIDABLE.

HatchetHaro · October 2016

People are going to complain about maintenance and downtime because it is not supposed to be a thing in this day and age.

And people are going to whine and *** because it is a major contribution to their overall gameplay experience. The game experience and the access to the game are such a great factor in MMOs, so to be honest, any downtime is just stupid, whether it's been 2 years or not. 2 years of suffering in the hands of the players and so many complaint threads and posts: I think the players are trying to tell you something...

ElBiggus already gave you the gist of it. If you don't understand it, you should be able to understand this.

ZOS's current server maintenance and patching system:

What pretty much every other MMOs use:

Qyrk · October 2016

human151 wrote: »

Bryanonymous wrote: »

This isn't a phone company.

Some businesses do actually close for one or two days a week.

This is not a car.

You are comparing products that have almost nothing in common, and now you have lost ALL credibility with your faulty logic.

When you bought ESO was there any information stating theyre closed 5 or more hours every week, one one particular day? Companies do tell you their business hours. Your faulty logic has made you lose all credibility.

I never could understand why some people feel compelled to defend corporations...

Umm look into their terms and conditions that YOU accepted. ZOS CAN have their downtime (I.e. lose of service) at no notification to you

human151 · October 2016

Lord wrote: »

I presume that ZOS employees are actually checking the bugs on Live after the implementation of the patch.
Only this step can take hours.

I would rather lose a few gameplay hours to have a more stable server with less bugs.
The average time of maintenance is about 6 hours(sometimes 7-8 hours or a bit more).
It's only 6 hours out of 168 hours in a week.
That's acceptable.

one might presume that an online gaming company might have a testing environment with a clone of the live server that they could use for testing before they roll out an update...unless you presume theyre amateurs.

Bryanonymous · October 2016

ElBiggus wrote: »

Bryanonymous wrote: »

This isn't a phone company. Some businesses do actually close for one or two days a week. This is not a car. You are comparing products that have almost nothing in common, and now you have lost ALL credibility with your faulty logic.

No, this is a business whose primary, and indeed only, function is to run an online game, and the fact that they can't manage to do that for more than 95% of the time on a good week suggests that they're doing it wrong. I've already explained the incredibly simple process (which every server admin on the face of the planet learns pretty much on day one) that allows you to update a server-side service without requiring huge downtime, and still people like you insist that there's no other way of doing it. Even businesses whose online presence is merely a portion of their business will probably do it the no-downtime way, so for a company that relies entirely on online services to make such a mess of it is inexcusable and (in case I haven't said it enough times) EASILY AVOIDABLE.

You think you can do it better? Who's stopping you?

You feel entitled? Then sue.

You don't like it? Then leave.

Or deal with it like the rest of us. Seriously. You probably have no clue how their programs are setup on their servers, and why they need to do a weekly maintenance. For all we know, the servers need a weekly reboot because they suffer from the same memory leak as our personal games. And as Gena said before, rebooting the servers takes about an hour. They also do micro patches often after big updates. You think you know how to do that? Well, make your own game and do it, or apply for a position with them. Just for the love of everything, the entitlement is driving all of us crazy. You are not special. Get over yourself.