There is too much downtime IMO

Lylith · June 30

WhisperLFE wrote: »

Yeah, this is...a bit much. Seems like pretty poor planning.

very.

bloody frustrating as i had no idea there was MORE maintenance after the previous LONG maintenance.

Abelon · June 30

JJBoomer wrote: »

[snip]

Uh... Alrighty? Everything okay over there?

Believe it or not, some of us already do "coding" (though I certainly didn't go to school for coding, whatever that is, I got a degree in computer science). And some of us already work at companies where we provide a product to clients. And believe it or not, we are usually expected to provide functional product with minimum downtime, and we have entire support teams ready to jump in if something goes wrong. Not going to apply for a job at ZOS, because I'm pretty sure they pay significantly less, game industry isn't exactly competitive...

Not sure what any of that has to do with wanting to play a video game though. Nor why somebody would get so aggressive over this topic.

[edited to remove quote]

LouisaB75 · June 30

karthrag_inak wrote: »

Why do both NA and EU at the same time? Khajiit would gladly log into EU and play his baby characters over there while NA was down, if he could.

For me it is reverse. Baby characters on NA that I could play on if they didn't keep taking them down at the same time.

Bushido2513 · June 30

JJBoomer wrote: »

[snip]

There are a few problems with this. You can't get a job that isn't likely there or that you wouldn't be given proper resources or pay for. What people here are pointing out is simply that the technology and design to avoid this type of downtime are already there. It's just that ZOS has chosen to not update to that model over the years. In truth it's not cheap by any means.

So it would be more accurate if you said if anyone here thinks they can do better, start your own game/company, design them to not only be about profit but for the player then come back and say something.

I'm not a coder but I can tell you it would be fairly easy for me to walk into ZOS and point out how this game could be made technically better. It would just be the point where I would ask them to break out the check book that I'm sure we'd have issues.

Remember when they said if adding/updating servers would fix performance they would have done it already? Then they went and added or updated servers and it somewhat fixed performance? When things like that happen for a product you're paying for you start to see the issue where it concerns money and time being spent making the game better. Not to say that they don't do that because they obviously do but it's fairly clear where they could still spend more for a better player experience.

[edited to remove quote]

Petoften · June 30

Seven hours...

Vonnegut2506 · June 30

It literally tells you how long the maintenance is going to be at the top of the forum page, so I'm not sure why you keep counting hours. It will be up in about two hours if their estimate is correct.

Hamiltonmath · June 30

I would much rather have downtime and a playable game than no downtime and a terrible game. Pick your poison.

Abelon · June 30

Hamiltonmath wrote: »

I would much rather have downtime and a playable game than no downtime and a terrible game. Pick your poison.

I'd rather have a playable game with normal downtime (aka 2 hours or less, not every single week, not in the middle of the day) like all the other playable MMOs have.

Petoften · June 30

Hamiltonmath wrote: »

I would much rather have downtime and a playable game than no downtime and a terrible game. Pick your poison.

Those are not the choices.

tomofhyrule · June 30

They've specifically said that there will be a maintenance required when changing campaigns over, which includes Vengeance. And since Vengeance is on all servers, then all servers need this maintenance.

Spoiler alert: we'll get another downtime on the 8th or 9th (depending on server) when the Vengeance campaign ends as well.

Petoften · June 30

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

It literally tells you how long the maintenance is going to be at the top of the forum page

I hadn't seen that. In the game client it doesn't say.

Nydarisa · June 30

Update the servers! Rewrite that spaghetti code!! Fix PvP!!

What you you meeeaaaannnn there is downtime?? *grabs pitchfork*

barney2525 · June 30

SalamanNZ wrote: »

As the game gets bigger it takes longer to defrag the hdd's unfortunately

but don't I keep seeing claims that there are fewer and fewer players ?

RealLoveBVB · June 30

barney2525 wrote: »

SalamanNZ wrote: »

As the game gets bigger it takes longer to defrag the hdd's unfortunately

but don't I keep seeing claims that there are fewer and fewer players ?

More content, less players

LunaFlora · June 30

maintenance is over.
play ESO!

ZOS_Icy · June 30

Greetings,

As we've removed a few comments that were flaming and bashing, this is a friendly reminder that comments need to adhere to our Community Rules to avoid thread derailment.

Flaming: It’s okay to disagree and debate on the official ESO forums, but we do ask that you keep all disagreements civil, constructive, and on-topic. If a discussion gets heated and turns into a debate, remember that you should stick to debating the post and/or thread topic. It is never appropriate to resort to personal comments or jabs about those participating in the thread discussion.

Bashing and Slanderous Comments: We do not permit the bashing of individuals (including ZeniMax employees), groups, or other companies on our forums. We believe that doing so is neither constructive nor in spirit of our game and community.

The Elder Scrolls Online Team

LadyGP · June 30

Eso players - "Fix the game.. it's broke... too many bugs"

Devs pushing out updates/fixes - (maintenance)

Eso players - "We have too much maintenance"

People who have never worked in IT have ZERO idea how much effort it takes to shut down servers/services... push updates... verify updates were implemented correctly... then book systems back up.

And this is just for the most basic updates.

Plus I'd imagine ZoS has a fall back server stack where things are being mirrored.. theres so much more that goes into it than people know.

Keep in mind how old this game is and how the systems were then vs things are now.

You don't just push a button that says push to production and then "magic happens".

alternatelder · June 30

LadyGP wrote: »

Eso players - "Fix the game.. it's broke... too many bugs"

Devs pushing out updates/fixes - (maintenance)

Eso players - "We have too much maintenance"

People who have never worked in IT have ZERO idea how much effort it takes to shut down servers/services... push updates... verify updates were implemented correctly... then book systems back up.

And this is just for the most basic updates.

Plus I'd imagine ZoS has a fall back server stack where things are being mirrored.. theres so much more that goes into it than people know.

Keep in mind how old this game is and how the systems were then vs things are now.

You don't just push a button that says push to production and then "magic happens".

Again, they did not have to do maintenance for Vengeance during an event already taking place. Zos has the worst planning apparently when it comes to events, like zero communication between teams. I swear this should convince people that hardly any of the devs actually play the game. Vengeance and MYM could have been delayed...

WhoRU · June 30

Xbox eu...hour later than expected completion time...is it too much to expect an updated timeframe?

Appreciate completion time will only be an estimate but very frustrating when we are not updated

Renato90085 · June 30

EU down?
It doesn't seem long enough.

Gabriel_H · June 30

Abelon wrote: »

All I know is, their maintenances don't maintain the servers either. Judging by all the lag and whatnot.

Flawed premise. You don't know what it would be like if they didn't do maintenance.

Eluvetil · June 30

Try the european megaservers, they still dont work

And this is the second time we couldnt login, after the maintenance was "complete". I have never seen a game with such long server downs because of "maintenance" (after the 18h maintenance the crab boss was still bugging in Solstice) or DDos attacks, that doesnt offer a compensation. Other games I played either never had such a long server down or they offer a whole bundle of stuff to compensate the fact that we couldnt play, what we bought. and not just one exp scroll. I mean that kind of respect to us wouldnt make them poorer.

LadyGP · June 30

alternatelder wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Eso players - "Fix the game.. it's broke... too many bugs"

Devs pushing out updates/fixes - (maintenance)

Eso players - "We have too much maintenance"

People who have never worked in IT have ZERO idea how much effort it takes to shut down servers/services... push updates... verify updates were implemented correctly... then book systems back up.

And this is just for the most basic updates.

Plus I'd imagine ZoS has a fall back server stack where things are being mirrored.. theres so much more that goes into it than people know.

Keep in mind how old this game is and how the systems were then vs things are now.

You don't just push a button that says push to production and then "magic happens".

Again, they did not have to do maintenance for Vengeance during an event already taking place. Zos has the worst planning apparently when it comes to events, like zero communication between teams. I swear this should convince people that hardly any of the devs actually play the game. Vengeance and MYM could have been delayed...

You think Zos Internal teams don't communicate? You don't think they have tons of stand ups/ planning meetings / teams channels where they talk about this stuff?

Do you know how devleopment works in general (serious respectful question)?

There is pretty much always an event taking place in this game. Do you know how long it takes to take down servers, push stuff to prod, bring them up (without turning on login) verify the changes were implemented correctly, then bring up the login servers? I can promise you.. just from what maintenance I've done in the past.. thats min 5 hours just to implement the most basic thing. I can't imagine doing it at scale like ZoS with NA and EU servers and then I'm assuming 1:1 backups of those databases.

Even that aside, sometimes you have to push stuff to production so development of internal stuff can continue work. There are literally times where devlopment can not move forward a single bit until certain tools/systems get put on production.

And ZoS isn't going to come out and tell you those things.

Relax, it's really not that serious. It's impossible for them to take the game down without irritating at least someone.

LadyGP · June 30

Eluvetil wrote: »

Try the european megaservers, they still dont work And this is the second time we couldnt login, after the maintenance was "complete". I have never seen a game with such long server downs because of "maintenance" (after the 18h maintenance the crab boss was still bugging in Solstice) or DDos attacks, that doesnt offer a compensation. Other games I played either never had such a long server down or they offer a whole bundle of stuff to compensate the fact that we couldnt play, what we bought. and not just one exp scroll. I mean that kind of respect to us wouldnt make them poorer.

every time there is even a "blip" there are threads on here screaming for free stuff. IMO.. 1/2 a day of downtime.. even 1 full day.. you're not gonna get anything. A few days - then yes.

Bushido2513 · June 30

LadyGP wrote: »

Eso players - "Fix the game.. it's broke... too many bugs"

Devs pushing out updates/fixes - (maintenance)

Eso players - "We have too much maintenance"

People who have never worked in IT have ZERO idea how much effort it takes to shut down servers/services... push updates... verify updates were implemented correctly... then book systems back up.

And this is just for the most basic updates.

Plus I'd imagine ZoS has a fall back server stack where things are being mirrored.. theres so much more that goes into it than people know.

Keep in mind how old this game is and how the systems were then vs things are now.

You don't just push a button that says push to production and then "magic happens".

So your explanation is hey it's old so this is working as expected?

Here's the thing, can it be better, yes

Would it cost more money to make it better, yes

So it's simple, it can be done better, the money just isn't being paid.

That's the beauty of computing, it's not like changing a crankshaft while the car is running. Instead you duplicate the car and implement fixes then transfer the occupants to the new car seamlessly.

This downtime frequency and length is in no way required. Again, I'm not saying this is cheap or easy just that it's technically possible.

At the end of the day eso is a audio visual representation of massive amounts of client and server interactions just like so many other services that run with little to no disruption while being updated on the back end fairly often.

I don't mind if you want to make the argument that it's hard work but it also needs to be clear that how hard it is also comes down to how much money you want to spend on your infrastructure.

Some use raid controllers that allow for hot swapping and others use raid setups that require a shutdown. Don't come at me saying blah blah these systems are old and do you know how much work goes into maintaining such and such and such because I'm going to say you know this could be better if you were willing to spend the money.

Bushido2513 · June 30

alternatelder wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Eso players - "Fix the game.. it's broke... too many bugs"

Devs pushing out updates/fixes - (maintenance)

Eso players - "We have too much maintenance"

People who have never worked in IT have ZERO idea how much effort it takes to shut down servers/services... push updates... verify updates were implemented correctly... then book systems back up.

And this is just for the most basic updates.

Plus I'd imagine ZoS has a fall back server stack where things are being mirrored.. theres so much more that goes into it than people know.

Keep in mind how old this game is and how the systems were then vs things are now.

You don't just push a button that says push to production and then "magic happens".

Again, they did not have to do maintenance for Vengeance during an event already taking place. Zos has the worst planning apparently when it comes to events, like zero communication between teams. I swear this should convince people that hardly any of the devs actually play the game. Vengeance and MYM could have been delayed...

With proper planning, adequate staffing, and good management there would be no need for delays to this extent.

Planned events should not be getting interrupted this often.

MidniteOwl1913 · June 30

WuffyCerulei wrote: »

I’m just gonna say, I’d rather have a game like ESO have a lot of maintenances in order to keep the game running in the long term than little-to-no maintenances where the game suffers a lot. Sure, a small recompense would be fine though. I’m thinking like a daily endeavor being tripled its normal worth.

It's doesn't though. There are still lots of disconnects, rubber banding, and slow performance. I

sarahthes · June 30

There sure are a lot of MMO infrastructure experts who play ESO!

Bushido2513 · June 30

sarahthes wrote: »

There sure are a lot of MMO infrastructure experts who play ESO!

Different games/platforms have always attracted certain types of crowds.

You're talking about a fantasy role playing game that has PC gaming roots. Go into any IT org and sooner or later you'll find an ESO target audience member.

That being said, we live in a world where basic tech like this isn't as mysterious as it once was. We've seen many companies now that do similar things with better planning and resource management and sometimes just loyalty to the customer.

What's going on here isn't special or ground breaking, it's just being executed in a sub optimal way.

Danikat · June 30

Bushido2513 wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

There sure are a lot of MMO infrastructure experts who play ESO!

Different games/platforms have always attracted certain types of crowds.

You're talking about a fantasy role playing game that has PC gaming roots. Go into any IT org and sooner or later you'll find an ESO target audience member.

That being said, we live in a world where basic tech like this isn't as mysterious as it once was. We've seen many companies now that do similar things with better planning and resource management and sometimes just loyalty to the customer.

What's going on here isn't special or ground breaking, it's just being executed in a sub optimal way.

Two of the server engineers at my old job play/ed ESO. One I'd talk to regularly about the game and the other would often be wearing an ESO t-shirt.

I've been playing MMOs for about 20 years now (and played Ultima Online in the late 90's/early 2000s but quit the genre for a few years after that) and a lot of people will assume everyone else in any game works in IT until told otherwise, so I think it must be pretty common.