Temporary Suspension of the Services Due to an Earthquake

[sasaya]

I want to ask for the help to the slightly embarrassing one with this story

Thank you Krystal

[Zarchery]

Bummer. Of course the bigger bummer is the dead in Japan and the disruption in the lives of the survivors. I wish you guys didn't make such a high quality game, so I wouldn't go through withdrawal.

Well no biggie. I have other things to pass the time, such as my recently purchased copy of Dragon Quest 6, another fine Square-Enix product.

Best of luck in your recovery from this terrible disaster. I also want to say that it's a real class act that you're waiving the monthly service fee for the next month. If the game is down for 1 week, that sucks, but then we get 3 free weeks, which is awesome.

[myrla-elphaba]

This is a repost from the other thread, but it's fascinating for me to see how many people come here and immediately whine and complain without reading the actual thing. How do I know? You're complaining about monthly charges. There are no charges for April, people.

If you have any hope for humanity at all, cease these nonsense attacks, and realize that there are many, many human beings whose lives will never be the same, who could be alive but no one knows it, and there are many more who will never see loved ones again, and will never know about them. If you are in a comfortable place with a full belly and are warm/cool at will and can read this, you are in a mostly better place than an incredible amount of people in Japan.

~

A friend suggested this last night:

Donate what you would have paid for April to a disaster relief fund. The Red Cross has been very prevalent, but there are quite a few places that are also offering relief. Or, you can wait until April 1 and do it then - they will need relief for more than just the immediate future.

~

I was a sackholder in a Japanese HNM on Alexander. I know that quite a few of my friends are still safe. I don't know about some of them. Most of them have quit, but stay in touch. I haven't heard from a few since the earthquake happened. My friends that live in Japan that can contact people outside Japan (cell phone networks are wrecked, the internet is spotty at best, rolling blackouts make things hard, etc) are doing so and relaying information as they can. I can think of two immediate people that lived north of Tokyo that we have absolutely no idea where they are. I believe the last count was there were 6 more people that no one's heard from since the disaster. We are lucky as a group because a lot of our people that I'm aware of were mostly in southern Japan, but not everyone.

Anyone - and I mean ANYONE - who complains about not being able to play the game should be immediately shipped to a disaster-stricken area and forced to help with the cleanup. I cannot BELIEVE - well, wait, I can, unfortunately, having played this game for years - that there are some people that are so narrow-minded as to think this will impact their lives on a bad way.

Go outside. Go to a library. Volunteer somewhere. Clean your room like you've been saying you'll do for a while. Go to class instead of skipping it for HNM camps. Call your loved ones. Be very, very, very happy that this did not happen where you live, and thank your lucky stars.

This is a REAL tragedy, one that will have ramifications for YEARS to come - not just in Japan but all over the globe.

Again - this is a natural disaster. "Disaster: a sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction; broadly : a sudden or great misfortune or failure"

~
Again:

Please consider donating even $10 via text message to the RC or a similar place. You already budgeted the money anyway - if every single person that played FFXI that wasn't Japanese or that was adversely affected by this (I mean losing your home, not losing your ability to log in the servers) donated, we could make a LOT of a difference - just think, your money could help some of those people that you've played alongside for years. (Many people seem to forget they are human beings as well, but not everyone, thank the gods.)

Sorry for the soapbox, and if you are the praying kind, or the kind of person to send good thoughts - please send them overseas for my friends - and everyone - that are missing. Thank you.

PS: If anyone knows anyone that was in ICBM on Alexander that is still in Japan, please have them post or have them contact me, if you can. I would appreciate it. (my email is 1girlarmy@gmail.com) I have Kaminari on Xbox Live but I haven't seen him online since the earthquake. The other people I have contact information on have not been online either.

[Kilue]

I wholeheartedly put my prayers to Japan since the earthquake happened. 95% of people understand the situation and will backup SE's decision, be it forced or voluntary, to do this action. As for those who play the game for the immense amount of time, myself included, I can only say that this is an excellent opportunity to at the very least take a much needed break. Go out, see that shiny yellow ball in the sky.

And donate.

[Mirage]

ok i think that what happen was very bad but this is just dumb this is why i think there should be seaver in the usa for stuff like this we all pay lots of money every month and we get craped on by the way this game favors the JP players and when 9/11 happen i bet this game would not have done a thing so way to go SE way to GO

Why did you not read the details before posting. You're not paying anything for this interruption, your entire next month will be free of charge. That means that unless this problem persists for over 4 weeks, you're actually saving money on it.

[Naturebeckles]

If I had the money, I would instantly go out there and help. I would do it in a heartbeat.

[Zarchery]

That said, what a crock to shut down the game!!! Calamities happen every day somewhere, some more devastating to the local population than others.

Calamities of this magnitude do not happen every day.

However, we are told over and over in their own publicity that SE is a global enterprise with major centers to serve their 3 main areas of gameplay: Japan, North America and Europe. So how about proving it and transfering game control to your servers either in the US or Europe and allowing your paying customers to continue on with their gaming lives.

I seriously doubt the game would grind to a halt had this calamity occured in the west coast of the the US (earthquake or volcano). No, they would have put out some cute sympathy article and everyone not in the affected areas would continue on without interruption. Ever hear of mirror servers so backup sites can take over the workload should the main site be affected?

I'm betting they have development servers and billing servers, plus servers to handle things like this forum, but the lion's share of their resources, used to run the game, are set up in Japan.

And we aren't talking about a global network of highly critical military tactical information relevant to national security. We're talking about a video game. Setting up that kind of redundancy to keep the GAME going even after an enormous earthquake just doesn't make sense. It's not that critical.

Will our monthly bill be reduced by 25% to compensate for this voluntary worldwide interruption of service, I doubt it as Final Fantasy customers outside Japan usually seem to be second class citizens.

I believe it was mentioned that our monthly bill will be reduced by 100%.

Summary: You are a horrible person, and a selfish, entitled jerk.

[Zarchery]

In response to some of the "SE are horrible for interrupting service after this disaster, they should have backups to prevent this!!!!", allow me to quote Weird Al Yankovic, from his song Why does this always happen to me?

I was watching my TV one night when they broke in with a special report
About some devistating earthquake in Peru
There were thirty thousand crushed to death, even more were buried alive
On the Richter scale it measured 8.2

And I said, "God, please answer me one question?"
"Why'd they have to interrupt 'The Simpsons' just for this?"
What a drag, 'cause I was taping it and everything
And now I'll have to wait for the rerun to see the part of the show I missed

[sasaya]

No3

To all FFXI users, I thank for the cooperation of the economy in power consumption.
Thank you
From the seismic center neighborhood...

Peape.caitsith

[Laotian_king]

It really saddens me to see people whine and complain because the servers are down, the devastation from this earthquake is probably hard to imagine within the comfort of your own home. So I recommend you sit and watch videos of everything that has happened over and over until you fully understand what is happening in the world before you post your little emotional post about the servers are down. I am a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps and I was stationed in Japan, at the moment I cannot get in touch with any of my Marines because they are probably working their ass off as part of the relief efforts. To all the people going "EMO" over the server situation, try to contain yourselves for the following week and if you can't say anything nice then just S.T.F.U.