You can build a system that requires less or no downtime. 3, 4 even 5 nines are achievable if you are willing to put the effort and dollars into it. But it does cost. It requires better planning, more redundancy, better training, smarter people and all that means more money. WoW and TOR have extended downtime because they know they can get away with it and it it cheaper and easier to simply plan for weekly downtime. There are lots of companies with financial systems that run on mainframe hardware that have had no significant downtime in YEARS despite both regular software and even hardware updates. It can be done. It is done all the time. The question it, is it worth being done. The systems were are concerned with do run games after all, not financial systems. And yet, they do make a ton of cash, so lack of funding is not really an excuse either.

In the end, they have downtime because they can get away with it and they don't really value the customer's experience as much as they value their bottom line.

Originally posted by VikingGamer

In the end, they have downtime because they can get away with it and they don't really value the customer's experience as much as they value there bottom line.

+1

Exactly what I was trying to say.

wow gets away with it but the eu server downtime is 3am to 11am whereas swtor we will see in 6 months and the 8am to 4pm downtime is a big kick in the nuts to any paying customer, but i think most people tolerate wow's downtime as the rest of the game runs so smoothly and swtor seems to be causing people quite a bit of hassle and this is just one extra problem.

I know downtime sucks but didn't they announce both Saturdays and Todays downtime a good deal ahead of time?

Originally posted by Professor78

Sorry my point is not about any of the gameplay or contents, just that the techology (servers) under it subpar, which lead to long down times.

Well okay then. Far as that goes....yeah, I have no clue.

Lol, not going to comment on something I know so little about. Could very well be far as I know.

So if tonight Bioware announce that the game will be down 7 days in February from  noon CST to midnight CST that will be OK because 'they announced it in advance'? How about 14 days? Still Ok. What about 28?

There are better techs available - BigWorld is another that springs to mind. And failing that simply doing the minimum that other companies do these days would be an improvement.

Originally posted by BarCrow

I know downtime sucks but didn't they announce both Saturdays and Todays downtime a good deal ahead of time?

Saturday's wasn't and in fact where it was announced was in the first bit about the 31st downtime which some say was edited in later. Don't know myself because since it related to the 31st I didn;t bother to read it at the time.

This one was.

So far as I'm concerned I can see where they're coming from about Saturday's. This one...not so much.

This is why I love Everquest, they rarely shut down servers for maintenace, they keep the game online while working on it every week, and hotfix during game. If they find anything, they just announce they are RESTARTING the server, and not shutting it down.

What I find extremely funny is that a major "benefit" of using the Hero Engine is "Real Time Updates"!

"Game development happens in real time!  No builds, no client restarts – create your game in real-time and get instant feedback. Enjoy rapid prototyping and easy collaboration whether you are in the same room or across the world.  Switch from building to playing instantly and see your work come to life!"

http://www.heroengine.com/herocloud/tech-features/

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

Originally posted by BarCrow

I know downtime sucks but didn't they announce both Saturdays and Todays downtime a good deal ahead of time?

Saturday's wasn't and in fact where it was announced was in the first bit about the 31st downtime which some say was edited in later. Don't know myself because since it related to the 31st I didn;t bother to read it at the time.

This one was.

So far as I'm concerned I can see where they're coming from about Saturday's. This one...not so much.

I think the moan on todays maintenance is that all they planned on doing was one on a Tuesday, and doing one for US time and one for EU time. "We are aiming for this weekly maintenance period to take place in an off-peak time for both North American and European players."

All month the game has had maintenenace virtually every day, and not when it is mean to be being postponed and changed at the last minute, and when it went down Saturday, then perhaps Tuesdays could have been avoided too, or avoided Saturdays and waited until Tuesday.

Downtimes is only affecting EU people mainly. I thought SOE was bad with theirs,  but this is even worse. All other MMOs handle it better too.  Usually when other MMos have downtime not on the normal day, they do not do the maintanace on the normal day as well.

They post changes about 11pm or 2 am EU time, for the next day, and that is plenty not enough notice for EU customers - go to bed thinking there is no maintanance and got a day off work, but wake up to find there is now maintenance and unable to play. It is basically been too unreliable with SWTOR, that even when having maintenance on a regular day, then becomes a pain.

Originally posted by jacklo

What I find extremely funny is that a major "benefit" of using the Hero Engine is "Real Time Updates"!

"Game development happens in real time!  No builds, no client restarts – create your game in real-time and get instant feedback. Enjoy rapid prototyping and easy collaboration whether you are in the same room or across the world.  Switch from building to playing instantly and see your work come to life!"

http://www.heroengine.com/herocloud/tech-features/

 

BW just needs to figure out how to do it. :)

Originally posted by gervaise1

So if tonight Bioware announce that the game will be down 7 days in February from  noon CST to midnight CST that will be OK because 'they announced it in advance'? How about 14 days? Still Ok. What about 28?

There are better techs available - BigWorld is another that springs to mind. And failing that simply doing the minimum that other companies do these days would be an improvement.

And if I said "yes"... would you increase the downtime scenario to 6 months.... or a year ? Come on. An announcement for maintenance tomorrow and then some 3-4 days later is reasonable. Saying your down for a month is unreasonable..much like your example or rebuttal to my post.

Originally posted by BarCrow

Originally posted by gervaise1

So if tonight Bioware announce that the game will be down 7 days in February from  noon CST to midnight CST that will be OK because 'they announced it in advance'? How about 14 days? Still Ok. What about 28?

There are better techs available - BigWorld is another that springs to mind. And failing that simply doing the minimum that other companies do these days would be an improvement.

And if I said "yes"... would you increase the downtime scenario to 6 months.... or a year ? Come on. An announcement for maintenance tomorrow and then some 3-4 days later is reasonable. Saying your down for a month is unreasonable..much like your example or rebuttal to my post.

Well based on what you said: as long as Bioware announced it ...

Every 3-4 days is OK however? About 9 days a month? Well I suppose that's about what Bioware patched in January. I don't think it is good enough however so we obviously differ. No big deal but I think people deserve better - especially when better could be easily implemented.

Everyone has a small scream in the back of their head when they want something and then don't get it.

I remember back when I played EQ and servers would go down... Longest few hours of my middle school life. LOL.

Well guys, it is totally simple:

they should plan server maintenance just like EVE Online. Why? cause it is only half an hour to max 1 hour a day and their timing is exceptionally brilliant. This coming from the only MMO that is out there in the literal sense of the words.

It is 1 big gameworld, where EVERYONE plays TOGETHER. Massive Multiplayer Online, in case people forgot what those 3 words meant still.

Nobody ever complained about their maintenance time ever.

their maintenance time:

For EU:

 12:00-13:00 hours (lunchtime as you will) perfect for EU, go get food and before you know you are back ingame or else you are still at work.

For america:

this is even better, cause turn the clock back 6-9 hours, none of them should be up and running.

Result:

perfect working cluster of 12 servers providing 1 big gameworld.

no complaints about the server

no complaints about maintenance

EVER.

Edit: SWTOR, your servers suck balls and your maintenance even harder. 4-8 hours for not even a single decent patch.

Learn from others and fix your crap. *Cancel sub*

You know I am old school but I remember when companies use to have rolling down times, not patching all servers at the same time so they always had a block of servers up.

I also remember them never doing maintance on a weekend or prime game time.

Just like everything else now, they just don't care about servicing the customer.

Do us all a favor and the guy that said it was down 6 times hence he can't justify paying a monthly sub well cya buddy this website has honestly turned into the biggest bunch of cry babies i've ever seen for an mmo community there are no positve forum posts

Originally posted by rimaxo14

Do us all a favor and the guy that said it was down 6 times hence he can't justify paying a monthly sub well cya buddy this website has honestly turned into the biggest bunch of cry babies i've ever seen for an mmo community there are no positve forum posts

Fully understand your frustration, but why do you think there are no positive forum posts? like the old school post above your post(and i am like him btw) i agree with him.

it is time game companies lift their lazy butt and start making decent games, not a beta, released that and then keep patching for the next 2 months.

This isnt about gaming or anything else anymore, it is just about money as this economy comes crashing down and game companies just *need* to fill their pockets rightnow without sense for quality.

Happy enough of a post for you? cause i can put in a smiley too :)

Suprised they are not charging more for all this downtime yet, hey its extra work they are putting in, to help the players, right? ;)

Don't get me wrong by my prior posts. Off-peak updates or something that could stream behind the scenes would be great. It's just that most mmo's I've played have done this type of updates..regularly scheduled or other wise. Or at least it seems that way to me. Some players off-peak is always someone elses peak times. Speaking on an indivuduals schedule and not the "normal" peak/off-peak defined by conventional stats.