Maintenance times. For real now?

[Riryz]

1 minute ago, Elano said:

LoL yeaaaah right...!

of course we will. 2 free solar energy for us...

[Hirukaru]

57 minutes ago, Galandriel said:

no, u missed the point. Ok, ur right, u are now at work. but if u come home, u can play, or not? First EU people are now at home from school or work (i had my end of working day 45mins ago and i am home since 15mins) and can´t play. I hopefully can play in 5 hours, but then i have to go to sleep, because i go tomorrow at 6 o´clock to work.

U come home after work, play fo 2-3hours (?), then watch a little TV and go to bed. End maintence after 3 hours, just like in NA, and i wouldn´t say anything, and could now play after work.

You dont get the point.

NA update during night or early morning -> At home 17:00 local time -> can login and play 
NA update during night early morning -> wakes up -> can login and play (all day maybe need to wait 1/2 hours max) (Near 0 downtime)
EU update during the day -> at home 17:00 -> can't login because of maintenance 
EU during the day -> wakes up -> can play for a few hours -> patch -> can play again at 17:00  (always 3+ hours downtime) (This time extended to 8,5 only EU) 
If you can't see the difference you should go back to school. 

So US can play all day
EU can't play all day  

That is the difference. 

[Galandriel]

Hmm, should i answer this? Read the Quote (answer to chickenpoodle) again and say to me what is the difference to this what u wrote?

22 minutes ago, Hirukaru said:

You dont get the point.

NA update during night or early morning -> At home 17:00 local time -> can login and play 
NA update during night early morning -> wakes up -> can login and play (all day maybe need to wait 1/2 hours max) (Near 0 downtime)
EU update during the day -> at home 17:00 -> can't login because of maintenance 
EU during the day -> wakes up -> can play for a few hours -> patch -> can play again at 17:00  (always 3+ hours downtime) (This time extended to 8,5 only EU) 
If you can't see the difference you should go back to school. 

So US can play all day
EU can't play all day  

That is the difference. 

My Post:

 

no, u missed the point. Ok, ur right, u are now at work. but if u come home, u can play, or not? First EU people are now at home from school or work (i had my end of working day 45mins ago and i am home since 15mins) and can´t play. I hopefully can play in 5 hours, but then i have to go to sleep, because i go tomorrow at 6 o´clock to work.

U come home after work, play fo 2-3hours (?), then watch a little TV and go to bed. End maintence after 3 hours, just like in NA, and i wouldn´t say anything, and could now play after work.

 

iI Marked the Lines with Underline and italic for u :)

[amokk]

1 minute ago, Galandriel said:

Hmm, should i answer this? Read the Quote (answer to chickenpoodle) again and say to me what is the difference to this what u wrote?

My Post:

 

no, u missed the point. Ok, ur right, u are now at work. but if u come home, u can play, or not? First EU people are now at home from school or work (i had my end of working day 45mins ago and i am home since 15mins) and can´t play. I hopefully can play in 5 hours, but then i have to go to sleep, because i go tomorrow at 6 o´clock to work.

U come home after work, play fo 2-3hours (?), then watch a little TV and go to bed. End maintence after 3 hours, just like in NA, and i wouldn´t say anything, and could now play after work.

 

iI Marked the Lines with Underline and italic for u :)

I'm home, 6:20pm, can't play. 3 hours left until maintenance is finished. It will be 9pm by then. No time to "play 2-3h then watch a little TV".

[Crahzi]

I'm confused as to why the eu maint takes so long in the first place, like wtf are they doing differently to the eu servers that takes an extra 5+ hours? I'm from the US and I agree that is bullshit. 

[Galandriel]

Sry, but i have to change quick language.

 

Was versteht ihr nicht? Ich schreib genau das selbe, das mit den 2-3Stunden spielen dann bissel TV ist auf die Amis gemünzt. Das war Antwort auf chickenpoodle. Darauf war bezogen, das er jetzt wohl auf Arbeit ist. Ich hab doch geschrieben, das die ersten EU  Spieler jetzt (also vor 2 Stunden nun) von arbeit kommen und nicht spielen können, wenn er vonArbeit kommt aber spielen kann.

[Amy Jade]

No wonder they don't get more players engaged in the game and playing the game when it's the same thing over and over and over again, the compensation they supposedly give is NOT worth it, how much can a gold farmer make in the hours lost because of this, people that come on and can play 1 hour before going to bed cause of work lose out on daily dash, lots of Daily challenges which means lots of gold lost, lots of upgrade materials lost and much more than that lost because of NCsoft american favortism bullcrap... Gods country my bare butt, god do not favor one country over the other not that I even believe in him, but point is, it's not a wonder NCsoft is doing so bad and constantly losing their fan base and playerbase and hardly ever gets players back when they quit... They are bad at business and that's a fact... For them this is all about money, that's a fact but even that they are extremely bad at which is kind of sad to say it in a mild way... We get what a few event tokens from these 5½ hours lost, who cares about that event thing when we could of made way more gold and way more upgrade materials and had 1-2 less tokens, not like you can buy a whole oil for that, if we should be compensated they should look at what the average person makes everyday and give that to make it fair, not that tiny piece of candy hoping we gonna go kiss their feet after.. It's just.. I can't fathom how it can take them that much longer, not like they have to hire new actors to make voice over for EU, like come on, give me 1 single good reason this is happening.

[Zini]

I'm wondering myself. 3h for USA and 8-9h for EU. What is the difference?

 

Also, since i see now, that you can finish the maintenance at different times; this means, you can start at different times as well. EU-Start at night, like in USA. Why do you still refuse this?

 

Different continents, different time zone, different server, different starting time for maintenance. So hard to do that?

[MassiveEgo]

I think you guys underestimate the complexity of the entire gig. It's not as simple as switching a few files around. A properly written server software is going to take time to reconfigure for an update. And you can bet your hide that it's not going to be the same for all server racks. The configurations required to run the same server software on two different server machines are different. How different? Depends. Which in turn means that the maintenance will not take the same time. Even more so if NC doesn't have a hand's on access to the EU server infrastructure. So if they've pre-tested their patch on their US infrastructure, there's no guarantee it'll work in the same way on EU's server infrastructure. There's no guarantee the patch will run as smoothly on live maintenance than on a  test one either. You can never know. Server administration is a tedious, annoying, aggravating job that involves tons of failures all the time in order for people to be on top of things. Even then, when you think you've seen it all, the stupid system will find a way to surprise you. One half dead/dying diode somewhere on some server board is enough to screw everything up. Not even kidding.

Or maybe they're just lazy. Or incompetent. One can never know xD

[FrozenB]

Well..maybe EU players didn't pay enough to this game so that they don't have enough staffs to do the maintenance upgrades in EU side?

 

Time to spend more money!!!!

[MassiveEgo]

49 minutes ago, FrozenB said:

Well..maybe EU players didn't pay enough to this game so that they don't have enough staffs to do the maintenance upgrades in EU side?

 

Time to spend more money!!!!

We are the consumers. If they want money, they'd bloody well make sure to deliver a product that's worth these money first. Here in EU we aren't the same breed of spenders like the people from NA. There is no "this is cool, have my money". We care exactly how cool it is. Either deal with it or close shop. Wasting people's time is about as bad a strategy a company can go with as they come.

[Amarathiel]

There's 2 choices, either its downtime for Na or downtime for Eu. obviously they will choose downtime for Eu because that works for them the best.

NcWest workers have their own normal daytime working times as well. That work does not just include maintenance only. Maintenance crew cannot do the normal work times and the maintenance times at the same time so they do their daytime work during the day and the maintenance during the night. Of course i don't know how their daily workdays are in there so this is just a guess. So don't complain, they most likely have tons of other work to do as well during their day than just doing maintenance.

[DirectorTseng]

Are we seriously going to go through this every friken wensday? It's been two years people, time to suck it up and realize there is one day a week you might have to actually go out and be social and join the real world instead of playing zombie in front of your computer. Or oh.. I don't know.. play another game! go pick up a controller and play another game for a few hours or read a book. 

 

NA maint depending on where in the country you live can be early morning to mid afternoon or later. It's been two years and it hasn't changed.. 

 

 

[FrozenB]

1 hour ago, MassiveEgo said:

We are the consumers. If they want money, they'd bloody well make sure to deliver a product that's worth these money first. Here in EU we aren't the same breed of spenders like the people from NA. There is no "this is cool, have my money". We care exactly how cool it is. Either deal with it or close shop. Wasting people's time is about as bad a strategy a company can go with as they come.

Wasting people's time? No one puts a gun on your head to play this game. Don't like it, leave it. Time to find another game that fits your schedule?

 

Or maybe all EU players (whales) can get together and open a private server there and then they can do maintenance whenever they want?

 

It is just similar to my other old online game. After NA server was merged with EU server, all the in-game content times changed (clan battle was supposed to be during the afternoon and evening in my time zone). After the merge, it changed to like early morning (4am in my time zone). So, I just have to quit the game because no matter what, they won't change back the original time for the events in the game. There is no freaking way for me to wake up at 4am on weekend just to play the game.

[Kirakishou]

My game keep crashing on character screen, is it for this?

[MassiveEgo]

53 minutes ago, FrozenB said:

Wasting people's time? No one puts a gun on your head to play this game. Don't like it, leave it. Time to find another game that fits your schedule?

What are you going on about? I'm not talking from a subjective standpoint. This is simply how most europeans are. We don't pay for things which are not worth it. If they want to get our money, they'll simply have to provide a value which we feel comfortable paying for. And here's the kicker - their product is aimed to make money, which means that the ingame environment has limiting factors in order to instigate the feeling of need in you, so you can give them some of that dosh. But if they want unreasonably high amount of money, that means they are not going to get it and ultimately all the time we've spent in that game might be considered waster (depends on more than one factor of course). No guns.

[Alkaa]

One thing you guys need to understand,  it's been 2 years, do I think that this sucks, yes, do I care, yes. am I from EU, yes, but this wont change, if anything we should have gotten used to it. ( the big old D ( inner ) down our ... yeah ) 

 

NA people keep telling EU players to get over it, now, I don't care as much about the maint time because as another post sayd, I can actually do something else in that time, but I am getting tired of NA getting all the biching that NA is showing as well... EU at least have the right, NA from what I was told have the maint at night time when more or less no one plays.

 

Now a 3 hour maint is ok, we as EU accept it, and we only accept it because it normally ends right when people get back from work / school etc. many times the main starts at 13:00 PM and ends at around 16 / 17 PM . when people get home, get to wash up and eat... play for a few hours and end it at 22:00 - 23:00  that I would say is the normal play time for some. 

 

The people that complain, me included I would say they end up to play at around that time and if you come out and announce that in 3 hours sv. will be up, then push it at 8:30  hours of downtime maybe when some people wanted to have some relax time, it dose get the community angry.  because you take away +1 day without so much of a "here, take a candy, sorry" .. you just get the "sorry and bite me while your at it"

 

I would love to see the roles turn and EU get the downtime at 4 AM in the morning when the game is dead and NA get there time cut in prime time.... to see them cancel maybe BT or VT right after the maint...    because it's just a lost day were you don't get the chance to do your daily or anything.

 

So..  EU population is in decline , we all know that, save it or loose it,  I'm not saying people are leaving because of this downtime in prime time, BUT it is a factor that leads to more stacks against them.

[Grimoir]

17 hours ago, Chibilove said:

It's freaking 5 hours difference, kidding me? Easy to speak if you play on NA.

Have you read the announcement? they clearly stated why it is longer for EU. If it bugs you that much play on NA.

And before you start some useless arguments, i live in EU and play on NA.

 

Now to the people crying here:

 

This is a game, its not life, you all complain and shout how things are broken, dont work, how things are trash....welll here you go 8h maintenance to fix some things, bring a new update etc.

 

Not to mention ncsoft is an american publisher hence maint times are US zone driven. If someone really cant bear for a few hours without the game on a single day a week, then its time for you to quit.

[FrozenB]

16 hours ago, MassiveEgo said:

What are you going on about? I'm not talking from a subjective standpoint. This is simply how most europeans are. We don't pay for things which are not worth it. If they want to get our money, they'll simply have to provide a value which we feel comfortable paying for. And here's the kicker - their product is aimed to make money, which means that the ingame environment has limiting factors in order to instigate the feeling of need in you, so you can give them some of that dosh. But if they want unreasonably high amount of money, that means they are not going to get it and ultimately all the time we've spent in that game might be considered waster (depends on more than one factor of course). No guns.

Well...EU servers are still there, meaning that there are whales in EU still paying them despite of having this same maintenance time for 2 years.

 

Playing online games are also a waste of time. What do you gain from this game? 

[Gennady]

Probably some people should stop whining and get educated and start thinking. Game server consists of:
1. Executable files. It's like average program on your PC.
2. Database. This one stores all game data - all your characters, items they posses, quest log.

Updating executable files is pretty simple - you just replacing old files with new ones. Using some installer (most probably) or manually (less likely). But updating database takes time. If it's big - a lot of time. Regular maintenance may not need that part, or need some "light" update. But yesterday we had not a regular maintenance but a big content update. With removing items and adding new ones. There also could be changes "under the hood" which are not known to us (nobody in their mind would announce to players something like "we changed database structure blah-blah-blah because blah-blah-blah"). And after updates in big project like this you should run some tests (to know that everything seems ok and not broken completely) which also takes time.  It's possible that EU servers have more characters than NA servers. So database update takes more time. 

Also, they are professionals, compared to average player, and they made this game. So if they say that they need 8.5 hrs, they need that time. It's not to annoy player base, don't be childish. For NC B&S is a business. No businessman in the world would annoy they customers just for fun or "revenge for complains" or other childish things.

Also, it's impossible to have maintenance schedule that will satisfy everyone. Some people work during day and can play only in the evening. Some people could play during the day and work in the evening. Because of different time zones, different occupation, different schedules.

[MassiveEgo]

9 hours ago, FrozenB said:

Well...EU servers are still there, meaning that there are whales in EU still paying them despite of having this same maintenance time for 2 years.

Playing online games are also a waste of time. What do you gain from this game? 

I gain entertainment. In regard to the whales, of course they're there. But they are NOT the bulk of the playerbase. If you don't aim your product toward the bulk, the bulk will go someplace else. The addiction to a game won't carry that game forever. As for the maintenance taking that long - the more the server is down when I want to play, the bigger the chance that at one moment I'll just uninstall this game permanently. I have plenty of hard drive space, but I'm not going to waste space on software which I can't use due circumstances beyond my control. Especially when I consider the kind of authority they demand from me over the space their files occupy.

 

7 hours ago, Gennady said:

Also, they are professionals, compared to average player, and they made this game. So if they say that they need 8.5 hrs, they need that time. It's not to annoy player base, don't be childish. For NC B&S is a business. No businessman in the world would annoy they customers just for fun or "revenge for complains" or other childish things.

Hm. Here's what I have to say about this. A premium/elite status lasts 30 days. That's 720 hours you pay for. If in NA a maintenance takes 3 hours, you get a total of 708 hours pretty much guaranteed. If a maintenance here takes 8 hours, that means we get 688 hours for our money. Now here's the kicker - in NA they do the maintenance on the time when the least amount of people would be affected. Here they do it at gaming hours. There's no justification for such stupid practice. And I have absolutely no intention of "dealing with it" cause dealing with it, means I'll just delete the game and play something else. If player retention is something they care about, it might be better for them to stop doing these half day long maintenance that ends when people go to bed. And before someone open their mouth that I'm just being stuck up - look at the amount of players we have. One and half years ago we had enough player to keep 6 times as many servers alive. Now we are down to three. "But players probably just lost interest". No kidding? Why would players be interested into waiting for hours to play what they want to play? It's much more efficient to find something else that doesn't have 8 hours down time which overlaps with their play time. If NC and some people here think that the player is supposed to have infinite patience just cause the game is f2p, they need to think again.

And ultimately, here's the pecking order. NC<Consumers. NC wants the cash, NC makes the compromises. No compromises, no cash. It's that simple. And in their case, no compromises not only equals no cash, but also less players. And seeing how the players are the dough of this game's world... yeah. Excellent idea to do maintenance in the least convenient for the player time.

[Gennady]

9 hours ago, MassiveEgo said:

A premium/elite status lasts 30 days. That's 720 hours you pay for.

No. I paid for 30 days. That includes times when I can't play (and that's quite often - I have other games to play, social media to read and a job to do). And they compensated long maintenance by giving out 3 CS resets.