Maintenance for the week of March 2:
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – March 2
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – March 2
How about consistency in server downtimes
-
WhisperLFE✭✭✭I agree with the post above. The annoying part isn't the maintenance itself; as has been mentioned, it's a new game, and I expect above-average amounts of maintenance to be occurring. The trouble is that Zenimax has thus far done a fairly horrible job of communicating with their subscribers when it comes to things happening outside the posted maintenance windows.
Even if it's an emergent issue, it really doesn't take very long to have someone pop in and post up a, "hey all, sorry for the inconvenience, but we're going to need to start maintenance/we needed to start maintenance a couple hours early this week to fix a few unexpected issues. Thanks for your patience." message. It just shows a basal level of respect for your customers.6 -
Blackwidow✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I actually posted this a week or two ago, but it still goes with today's downtime and the lack of communication from ZOS.
I just want to say I have no problem with ZOS taking the servers down. If there is something they need to fix and plan to fix it early in the morning when there is not so many people on, it is fine with me personally.
However, I would like to say that communication goes a long way.
If they knew this was going to happen last night, they could have said so last night. If they knew 3 hours ago, then tell us three hours ago.
Sure, it is possible something bad just happened and they needed to do it right then. So, if that is the case, we really can't complain about the timing or lack of warning.
Now my last point. When ZOS does bring the servers down like this, one of those guys should take a minute, just to post some kind of nice information.
"Sorry, but we had a small glitch we needed to fix. We should be up within the hour. Thank you for your patience."
Just an example.
Anyway, have a nice day.
5 -
Hypertionb14_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭Its kind of sad that suddenly they are trying to keep just this one topic for people who are pissed about the unannounced 2hour early Downtime...
its like they are trying to hide it....I play every class in every situation. I love them all.0 -
Srugzal✭✭✭✭✭Not impressed. I specifically checked for announcements in the announcement section before I played today and nothing.
The world doesn't revolve around USA and Europe. It may not be much of an inconvenience in the USA to run maintenance at 6am rather than 8am, but running them for Australians at 8pm instead of 10pm has quite a significant impact - especially when it's on a public holiday.
Please be cognisant of people's needs outside of the USA. And if there is an absolute need to shut down two hours early, then please plan forward well enough and ANNOUNCE it.
As the OP has posted, the idea was to be consistent with server down times. Since I've started playing consistency has been extremely poor.
Actually, 6am EDT is when I usually play (I'm in Eastern US). Clearly these random maintenance times aren't about USA/EU centric policies, it's about gross incompetence and "who cares" attitude on the part of the game management.
It's not that they don't care about people outside the USA. It's that they don't care, period.Edited by Srugzal on June 9, 2014 11:06AM4 -
steveb16_ESO46✭✭✭✭✭emergencies happen. This wasn't an emergency. It was just planning to do something and then not bothering to take any steps to give reasonable notice.
LOTRO, and Turbine are hardly the poster-child for giving a crap about their marks, will have and hour's countdown with reminders posted every ten minutes so everyone knows.1 -
Hypertionb14_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭Actually, 6am EDT is when I usually play (I'm in Eastern US). Clearly these random maintenance times aren't about USA/EU centric policies, it's about gross incompetence and "who cares" attitude on the part of the game management.
It's not that they don't care about people outside the USA. It's that they don't care, period.
Well Said.
I play every class in every situation. I love them all.1 -
ozgod22_eso wrote: »
Wouldn't it be nice if the processes learned and used to apply hotfixes for other games (say like like WoW) were used in future games?
The thing is, WoW has been out for 10 years. Blizzard has had 10 years to learn how to manage maintenance, manage customer base, do hotfixes, etc. It's entirely possible that doing hotfixes isn't part of Zenimax's skillset (yet).
There is a big Community of Practice regarding Release Management. It isn't a rare skillset, it's a commodity and has been for a number of years.
Just sayin' you don't hear about your Bank's ATM network going off line all that often, but it happens all the time and it rarely impacts you the end user.
But then again Service Management is also part of that Practice and they seem to have missed that one as well.
Edited by ja-elkmmorwb17_ESO on June 9, 2014 11:10AM1 -
Sallakat✭✭✭GrimlockSaves wrote: »It is 2014... How about no server down times? Having downtime makes no sense with the current capabilities of technology and data center infrastructures.
Since apparently you hold good knowledge on the current technology and how it could help achieve MMO games not go through downtimes, please do share, I would be interested to hear because sadly I do not posses such information.
Rebuilt - Aldmeri Dominion
Kaia Linnea - templar
Ruusu - sorcerer
Aino - nightblade3 -
KaizerXul✭✭✭I don't care if they take the server down for -whatever- --- it just seems like it would take 2 minutes to just pop on here and put up an announcement that says they did it earlier for xyz reasons. I think that is all people are wanting if they don't announce it days or hours in advance."When I left you, I was but the learner. Now *I* am the master."2
-
wrlifeboil✭✭✭✭✭ZOS CS should have covered their behinds and posted it to the Twitter feed.
But advice like this isn't, um, appreciated I guess. The thread I made the suggestion in was closed within minutes. 0 -
dbishop✭✭✭They even have a twitter and bookface account but it just notifies us of what we already know which is that the server is down.
Howabout a little notice considering this is the new schedule or is it a one off?
So what is the new scheduled maint times?
6,8,10
Maybe just roll the dice and see which time comes up?2 -
RentlekSoul ShrivenGrimlockSaves wrote: »It is 2014... How about no server down times? Having downtime makes no sense with the current capabilities of technology and data center infrastructures.
Since apparently you hold good knowledge on the current technology and how it could help achieve MMO games not go through downtimes, please do share, I would be interested to hear because sadly I do not posses such information.
Well I don't possess the knowledge you speak of. I do believe it is possible to have two master servers though. Update the secondary server while people play. Announce a server reset in 15 minutes. Switch master servers. update the primary server. Rinse and repeat. This could be done for major updates as well I imagine (although it may cause a sudden influx in update downloads). Again, I don't possess any special knowledge of data center infrastructures. This just seems to be a common ground for all the users who pay to play this game.0 -
nawlinzbilly✭✭I woke up 2 hours early to get some play time today (since my evenings are limited due to work) and they take the server down 2 hours ahead of normal time. This is [snip]!!!!! Why is there a need to do server maint. weekly? If you have to reboot the server weekly, then you need to re-vamp your system!!!
[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]Edited by ZOS_JuhoJ on June 9, 2014 11:19AM2 -
GrimlockSaves wrote: »It is 2014... How about no server down times? Having downtime makes no sense with the current capabilities of technology and data center infrastructures.
It's not so much about the "Infrastructure" and how highly available or resilient the design is (not that they shouldn't be) but it's about the applications and databases (et.al.) that make up the game. They're just too complicated to take partially off-line or update in stages. If you can work out a way to get that to work consistently I think that there are a LOT more industries rather than the entertainment industry that will be beating a path to your door.
Stateful systems don't like part of their code being taken down, it's a recipe for disaster so we have downtime. Most of the time you never see it but it happens everywhere all the time.
The disagreement here is more about the quality of communication and Management of the Service as a whole.Edited by ja-elkmmorwb17_ESO on June 9, 2014 11:25AM2 -
Hypertionb14_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭A: Mirroring. Upload Patch to a Copy server, when fully uploaded, transfer player data and swap Severs, Upload patch on primary, again transfer Save data. This can be done on a single Machine, Simply by creating the files in the background, a restart can be done to transfer to the new files, then delete the old ones, taking only as long as it takes to turn the Server off and on...
B: Silent Patching. Upload patch in backgroup in a Go active package. Simply restart the sever to make the changes Live. (I have seen this one in Minecraft servers, Hell i HAVE DONE THIS in a minecraft server)
there are alot of ways that you can make maintence only impact the players long enough to kick out and download the new patch, which can be as little as 10 minutes if your internet is fast and the patch is small.. and on thing that a client patch isnt even needed, would only impact them for a minute at best.
I play every class in every situation. I love them all.2 -
Enkil✭✭✭✭✭
✭Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »Actually, 6am EDT is when I usually play (I'm in Eastern US). Clearly these random maintenance times aren't about USA/EU centric policies, it's about gross incompetence and "who cares" attitude on the part of the game management.
It's not that they don't care about people outside the USA. It's that they don't care, period.
Well Said.
Exactly.. I live in Hawaii which is part of the US (even if a bunch of *** think its another country) and it sucks having my Sunday night playtime cut short....
Taking the server down two hours ahead of schedule unannounced is just another example of Zenimax Online's gross incompetence and ***-poor community relations skills.0 -
RentlekSoul ShrivenHypertionb14_ESO wrote: »A: Mirroring. Upload Patch to a Copy server, when fully uploaded, transfer player data and swap Severs, Upload patch on primary, again transfer Save data. This can be done on a single Machine, Simply by creating the files in the background, a restart can be done to transfer to the new files, then delete the old ones, taking only as long as it takes to turn the Server off and on...
B: Silent Patching. Upload patch in backgroup in a Go active package. Simply restart the sever to make the changes Live. (I have seen this one in Minecraft servers, Hell i HAVE DONE THIS in a minecraft server)
there are alot of ways that you can make maintence only impact the players long enough to kick out and download the new patch, which can be as little as 10 minutes if your internet is fast and the patch is small.. and on thing that a client patch isnt even needed, would only impact them for a minute at best.
I think this is what I was getting at above, you seem to have more knowledge of current technology than me.0 -
ferzalrwb17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭Hypertionb14_ESO wrote: »A: Mirroring. Upload Patch to a Copy server, when fully uploaded, transfer player data and swap Severs, Upload patch on primary, again transfer Save data. This can be done on a single Machine, Simply by creating the files in the background, a restart can be done to transfer to the new files, then delete the old ones, taking only as long as it takes to turn the Server off and on...
B: Silent Patching. Upload patch in backgroup in a Go active package. Simply restart the sever to make the changes Live. (I have seen this one in Minecraft servers, Hell i HAVE DONE THIS in a minecraft server)
there are alot of ways that you can make maintence only impact the players long enough to kick out and download the new patch, which can be as little as 10 minutes if your internet is fast and the patch is small.. and on thing that a client patch isnt even needed, would only impact them for a minute at best.
Yeah.. I don't think you have a handle on the scale here. They're not rebooting a single box here.
0 -
I'm adding my voice to this one. 2 hours early and 3 hour downtime means absolutely no chance to play ESO on their scheduled maintenance nights at all.
Come on guys, at least tell us when you are moving the maintenance, it surely can't take anymore than 10 minutes to post something up on your websites or on your client to let you customers know your availability to deviating from what you normally promise.
-1 Net Promoter Score... LOL2 -
Hypertionb14_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭It all comes down to how you Control the server.
Even if you are not doing it all at once, you can still stagger the actual Uploading and Going live of any patch so that only the "go live" phase has a impact.
If the operators are incapable of Running a command line to trigger a networkwide reboot and update, then they need to simply add it.
I expect them to eventually get to the point where these "downtimes" are barly drops in the bucket, since their current setup would easily allow for remote Command lines. It would be much harder if the Mega server was more spread out, but because the hundreds of componet servers are kept in MASSIVE data centers, its that much easier to affect the entire group as a whole.
it would not be going far to say that its how they have done this mega server system that makes it possible to sync it for minimal downtime.Edited by Hypertionb14_ESO on June 9, 2014 11:41AMI play every class in every situation. I love them all.0 -
wrlifeboil✭✭✭✭✭thageecub18_ESO wrote: »I'm adding my voice to this one. 2 hours early and 3 hour downtime means absolutely no chance to play ESO on their scheduled maintenance nights at all.
Come on guys, at least tell us when you are moving the maintenance, it surely can't take anymore than 10 minutes to post something up on your websites or on your client to let you customers know your availability to deviating from what you normally promise.
-1 Net Promoter Score... LOL
They said it was posted to the forums but who reads that part of the forum on a regular basis. ZOS could have posted it on Twitter which I bet more people do read/use on a regular basis but for some reason they don't post scheduled maint times on their Twitter feed. Just down and up server status.0 -
fromtesonlineb16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭
There are two MMOs I play, once since 2004, which don't have 'scheduled' downtime at all and can and do run for weeks and even a month or more without even a reboot: they're run by Square Enix, FFXI and FFXIV, and FFXI's downtime apart from very rare failures are only for content updates!GrimlockSaves wrote: »It is 2014... How about no server down times? Having downtime makes no sense with the current capabilities of technology and data center infrastructures.
1 -
Enkil✭✭✭✭✭
✭wrlifeboil wrote: »thageecub18_ESO wrote: »I'm adding my voice to this one. 2 hours early and 3 hour downtime means absolutely no chance to play ESO on their scheduled maintenance nights at all.
Come on guys, at least tell us when you are moving the maintenance, it surely can't take anymore than 10 minutes to post something up on your websites or on your client to let you customers know your availability to deviating from what you normally promise.
-1 Net Promoter Score... LOL
They said it was posted to the forums but who reads that part of the forum on a regular basis. ZOS could have posted it on Twitter which I bet more people do read/use on a regular basis but for some reason they don't post scheduled maint times on their Twitter feed. Just down and up server status.
They should post it to the launcher on any maintenance day... whenever you click the launcher is should say "the server will go down at 00:00 EST-US for maintenance. Posting it anywhere else doesn't really inform the player base...0 -
Skjlvald✭✭✭Did the maintenance schedule change?
Clearly for today, but I mean permanently. I hope so. Be great if I got to play shortly after getting off work as opposed to the server not even being down yet when I get off.Edited by Skjlvald on June 9, 2014 12:01PMUlyn Andrano
VR3 Dark Elf Dragonknight
Ebonheart Pact0 -
Curragraigue✭✭✭✭✭
✭Agree with the other posts. I came on the official website 3 hours before I planned on logging on and no message about a change in the maintenance time. I try to log on 50 mins before the stated usual maintenance time to try and fit in some quick crafting and research before scheduled maintenance to find it already was in maintenance.
You set the schedule and we are trying to fit around it no matter how inconvenient it is for us (it is already in the peak time for me starting at 8 pm my time on both nights). Please stick to your own schedule or give at least a few days notice of any planned changes.PUG Life - the true test of your skill
18 characters, 17 max level, at least 1 Stam and 1 Mag of every class, 1 of every race and 1200+ CP
Tanked to Undaunted 9+ Mag and Stam of every class using Group Finder for 90+% of the Vet Dungeon runs0 -
Woolenthreads✭✭✭✭
OK, I got Flame-slapped (that is, my post was GMed for flaming) last time for venting my opinion of people in the Australian Eastern States whining about this. That's how disgusted I was with your complaints.
I live in Perth, it's the middle of my gaming period, I got home 30 minutes before the server went down. Stop Complaining. Alternatively consider the instance of Eve Online Players living in Perth who regularly had/have GMT-Midday maintenance downtimes which, during British DLS is only 7PM at night. Do you honestly think you have it hard on the East Coast of Australia?
That being said I hope they don't think that this time is a good start-time for maintenance on a regular basis because it's extremely inconvenient for Western Australian Players. We are a small number it's true but we pay the same money.Oooh look, lot's of Butterflies! Wait! Butterflies? Get out of here Sheo, stop bugging me!
Having issues with Provisioning Writs? A list of problem Writs and people willing to help in game can be found in this Thread0 -
RentlekSoul ShrivenI just wish they would say what exactly they are doing and how long it will take. Yes its a scheduled day but it was early, and there was only 15 minutes warning (2 hours early). Sure scheduled downtime and 15 minute warning is MMO standard. I've never played MMO before as I'm sure some large percentage of people here havent.
I would like to play right now, but its not worth me sitting and checking the server every 15 minutes. It's nice they comped people playtime for all the downtime but what about all the time I didn't know the server was up and I was off doing something else (***, eating, drinking, and showering) waiting?0 -
ozgod22_eso✭✭✭They did mention it on the launcher about 30 mins before the server was taken off line I think.0
