SE you have a Worldwide Franchise, and your support is a let down.

[Vedabe]

Hello guys, ok; before you starting banging and bashing the thread with, "you are a selfish, childish, and a lot more stuff", let me say this.

I am not going to go with the hole catastrofic disaster that Japan has suffer, in fact i feel so bad for those guys, and i have already donated for the cause, they are in my prays, and i watch the news really close, cause i´ve been in Japan and i really enjoyed my time over there.
Also, Final Fantasy Xi is not my life, sure enough is my favorite game, and i can live without playing it anymore; but what i am about to say is a fact and period.

For a buisness point of view, the service of the game quite frankly is really poor, and let much to be desired, i honestly can´t understand how a worldwide franchise did not have a backup plan for this kind of unexpected issues, i know you can never control stuff like this, but i am still asking myself, why they never thought of having alternative servers, specially when the game has been online for YEARS.

I don´t know about you guys, but, if people have been giving me their hard earned money for a service i am providing, i would make sure i could offer the best experience and quallity, specially when the service i am providing depends on the INTERNET, and THAT is the main reason i see why FFXIV is just a complete let down, because you are not focusing on providing the best experience, instead you are just not understanding that there are differences in the way people think from other countries, and from the other side of the world. And to make things worst, you are forcing us to adapt to what you offer just because you used to have a good solid reputation, and we are still expecting for you to get back, to what you, as a company used to be, there is a rule, for every single buisness, and that is "the customer is always right" and you used to be like that.

For example, i don´t see any time Burger King or McDonalds, stop providing and supplying food from the restaurants all over the world, just because the main factory is unavailable, that would cause millions lost every single day.

Also, people have been paying their montlhy fee, and some of them since the beggining, and i am sorry for what i am about to say, but the truth is the way you based your philosophy of the company lately, is really "Square" minded.

I have been a huge Fan of the FF franchise over the years, and no matter what i used to buy your stuff, because you prove yourself of releasing good quality games, but i think it is time to ask yourself what are you doing with your company philosphy, and actually learn something from this catastrofic disaster.

"Start listening your community or else, you will loose it".

Once again, i repeat, i think this is a fact from a buisness point of view.

Just my 2 cents, and hope all your work and development team is all right. Life and health comes first no matter what.

And also sorry for my english, Spanish is my native lenguage.

[Nattack]

comcast your a nationwide service provider, your support is a letdown.

hello dead horse and desperate players. also fast food restaurants do close down in times of emergency, ie, a water pipe break, etc. suck it up princess, and wait a bit longer

[Nattack]

mcdonalds was truly an apples and oranges example, by the by. servers and the like are a little bit more delicate than cardboard burgers.

[Alhanelem]

"you are a selfish, childish, and a lot more stuff"Well, you are, there's not much else to say, other than you clearly don't understand the nature of the situation. I don't mean offense, but it is necessary for you to realize that posting this was not a good idea.

Going on other things, if McDonald's supply chain broke down (e.g. food production facilities disabled, warehouses destroyed, etc, they absolutely would probably have to temporarily close, at least in the area of the problem event, until the supply chain is re-established. (In many areas, while not closing down, many fast food stores have had to limit access to certain food items, e.g. not put tomatoes on burgers or other items, because the supply of tomatoes was disrupted by a hard freeze.)

SE did not shut down the game because the servers were damaged, or infrastructure damaged, or anything like that. They are simply complying with power company demands to eliminate unnecessary electricity usage until power capacity can be increased. It would be extremely bad publicity for them in japan to have kept the servers running throughout this.

SE is not being irresponsible or letting down it's customers, it is doing what it feels is right in the given circumstances.

[Vedabe]

I don´t have trouble waiting, i have a life you know, but at the end of the day, you also pay for a service, or am i wrong?, and i think we have the right for say something to improve the experience, that is all i am saying.

Cheers

[staley]

Wall of text full of crying, please just start removing and banning people that make these cry post, ffs.

[Alhanelem]

On a side note, I don't see what a temporary server shutdown has to do with the support department.

[Vivik]

Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, is an international company and they let me down.

[Vedabe]

On a side note, I don't see what a temporary server shutdown has to do with the support department.

I meant the support of the onlince service, when you have ppl playing from other countries you can´t just based all your support in the country you have based the main company.

[Alhanelem]

you also pay for a service, or am i wrong?Yes, you're wrong. They've already stated they will not be charging us for next month as compensation for the server shutdown.

They disrupt service for less than a month, and give us a free month. How is that bad support?

[RAIST]

Except you in effect are not being charged for the time the service is down. The next month will be free. Granted, their billing technically prepays for the coming month, but you dind't pay anything when you started to play, but paid after you played for a while. So from the beginning you have used play time before you paid for time--after you were billed, it catches up and then you are paying before you play. In the end, it balances out. Again, it will balance out in this scenario--you will get to play before you have to pay again. Now, if you cancel your account when the servers come back up...then you can contact SE and argue your case to get a refund for the 3 weeks or so of March that you did not get to play.

Raist

[Vedabe]

Yes, you're wrong. They've already stated they will not be charging us for next month as compensation for the server shutdown.

They disrupt service for less than a month, and give us a free month. How is that bad support?

I am sorry but, the best experience does not include "oh we are really sorry, we did not have a back up plan and now you will have to wait, but don´t worry we won´t charge you"

Not charching us, is the least thing they could have done, a real support would be " hey guys, we will have to shut down the servers for a couple of days, but don´t worry, we are activating our back up servers from other side, we are really sorry for the inconvenience the disaster have caused, and for the trouble of the unexpected issue, we will not charge you a month", that is a good servie right there.

[Nattack]

I meant the support of the onlince service, when you have ppl playing from other countries you can´t just based all your support in the country you have based the main company.

arent, theres an english hotline. i have called it, a very pleasant man answered and resolved my issue.

service ++!
also yes you can, you totally can. its happening right now.

[Alhanelem]

I am sorry but, the best experience does not include "oh we are really sorry, we did not have a back up plan and now you will have to wait, but don´t worry we won´t charge you"It's not about not having a backup plan. what part of this don't you understand: They Voluntarily shut down the servers, sacrificing a month's worth of profits, in order to do it's part to help stabilize the situation in Japan?

They felt it was inappropriate to keep the service running in the given circumstances. It's not because they were FORCED to shut down the servers and had no plan for what to do if their service was disabled forcibly.

They very likely do have backup data in an offsite locaiton. But you're asking them to double the amount of equipment they need so that you can keep playing while the Japanese try to recover from entire towns being leveled and an impending nuclear disaster?

[Nattack]

only my country matters and international happenings have no effect on my friday night

[Vedabe]

Guys, i know all i am saying sound really cold heart, but if we are talking buisness, and money is involved, there is no place for feelings or emotions.

Do not get me wrong, i feel terrible from what is happening right now, i really don´t care about the game at this moment, in fact the game is the only thing i am not worried about.

Japan is one of my favorite countries all over the world, and i have travelled quite frankly a lot.

and what i´ve originally posted, is my idea of something that it could improve the actual Game.

Cause i think i have the right to say what i think.

[Alhanelem]

Guys, i know all i am saying sound really cold heart, but if we are talking buisness, and money is involved, there is no place for feelings or emotions.There absolutely is a place for feelings and emotions. Businesses have a reputation, and if they do things that look bad in the public's eye, it can impact their future success. Both from a business standpoint and a respect from the public stand point, it was the smart thing to do.

No one's telling you you can't say what you think. But we also have the right to tell you your thinking is wrong or misguided. Do you think the Japanese public would approve if they knew that while they were being forced to conserve electricity and deal with rolling blackouts, and those servers in that datacenter kept on humming away, sucking massive amounts of power?

[Kindra]

He did say English isn't his first language lol.

Vedabe, I think you said it in a polite way. And I do understand both sides of this issue. While I don't agree that a game should come before the lives of fellow mankind, I do believe that if they don't have a back up in place atm that they will plan for a back up in the future.

Thank you for not ranting it out like some have.

[Vedabe]

There absolutely is a place for feelings and emotions. Businesses have a reputation, and if they do things that look bad in the public's eye, it can impact their future success. Both from a business standpoint and a respect from the public stand point, it was the smart thing to do.

No one's telling you you can't say what you think. But we also have the right to tell you your thinking is wrong or misguided. Do you think the Japanese public would approve if they knew that while they were being forced to conserve electricity and deal with rolling blackouts, and those servers in that datacenter kept on humming away, sucking massive amounts of power?

So why they did not thought, of having back up servers from other place, or at least other countrie, i know WOW does.

Lol i hate WOW, so bad, but i have to admit the service is way better.

[Alhanelem]

It seemed like a rant to me. =\

It is very likely that their business team is coming up with ideas of what to do in a catastrophic emergency that was greater than anyone predicted.

I do hope you realize that this is the most powerful natural disaster to hit japan in well over a century, and that it was beyond the worst that anyone might have predicted. It's even possible they did have an emergency plan, but it was not good enough for this exceptional situation.


So why they did not thought, of having back up servers from other place, or at least other countrie, i know WOW does.They do not have "backup servers." The game is regionalized, and run by different people in each region. People from different regions cannot play with eachother, either. If your server goes down, your server goes down. You can play on another one if that happens, yes, but your character won't be on it. If the USA were devistated by a major disaster, you wouldn't suddenly be able to play on the servers in china or europe. They'd still be for those countries' people only.

FFXI was designed differently. It was designed for people from all over the world to play on the same servers, together, instead of forcing people to only play with their own country.


Lol i hate WOW, so bad, but i have to admit the service is way better. I strongly disagree. Not only did my server go down very often, but their customer support was horrible. When my Bnet account apparently got jacked (during a time when my WoW account was not even active), it took me a week to convince them that I wasn't even subscribed to WoW at the time of the incident, where some guy from the oth er side of the country apparently tried to subscribe to WoW with their card on my account and it bounced for nonpayment.

Eventually I got my account restored, but they still wanted to charge me for the chargeback the other guy's card put on my account.

[Vedabe]

Lol, yup enlgish is not my main, i used to live with an EX girlfriend over West Virginia, i guess i did not learn english at 100%, anyway, yeah, i don´t care about the game, but this came to my mind a couple of days ago, i guess because i am starting my own company XD.

wish me luck loool

[RAIST]

I get the feeling the OP has never experienced poor broadcast quality/outage of his TV service, Telephone, or ELECTRICITY (the real issue at hand here, btw), or gone through the drivethrough, gotten back to work only to find they didn't put the right condiments on his sandwich, or got a diet drink-- instead of a normal one.....or my favorite: no straws or no ketchup for my fries.

At least in this case, we are being inconvenienced for a luxury service and being compensated for it. Again, this is, after all, a LUXURY service and not an ESSENTIAL service like, oh I don't know... Electricity, clean water, fresh food and refrigeration to prevent that food from spoiling, HEAT in the middle of freaking SNOWY WEATHER.....

Get a grip.

Raist

[Awezomeos]

WOW Can we plz have people like the thread poster have permanently banned form FFXI and all the forums?
I dont understand this kind of humans, somethings must be wrong with them.

[jeffanddane]

I understand what your saying Ved even though these guys dont understand. I am sorry for what happened in japan. I could care less about playing since i dont play often but your right there shouldve been some sort of back up plan.

[Nattack]

i main english and sub perl.

[Alhanelem]

Lol, yup enlgish is not my main, i used to live with an EX girlfriend over West Virginia, i guess i did not learn english at 100%, anyway, yeah, i don´t care about the game, but this came to my mind a couple of days ago, i guess because i am starting my own company XD.

wish me luck loool
I will go on the record and point out despite our difference of opinion, your English is perfectly fine, better than a lot of native speakers that post on forums.

[Kindra]

I do understand that Alhanelem. I have seen this same thing said in much ruder ways.

I am also very aware that an 8.9 earth quake followed by a Tsunami is not an every day thing. XI has been up for what 10 years? And this is the first time this has happened. I don't agree that this is something that should be handled right this second. But for "just in case" purposes for the future I would support.

Vedabe Yes Blizzard has multiple servers for WoW in different places. But, are those servers world wide or EU server's, US server's and so on?

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Yeah SE. How dare you listen to what the governmant mandates fo you!

[Auriga]

"Start listening your community or else, you will loose it".

Once again, i repeat, i think this is a fact from a buisness point of view.

Just my 2 cents, and hope all your work and development team is all right. Life and health comes first no matter what.

And also sorry for my english, Spanish is my native lenguage.

=======

I think the original idea aimed for was this person was upset that the company
did not take up better emergency practices for situations like this. Rather than
shoot the guy down an flame the thread beyond ashes people should open their
eyes a lil an try to see things for what they are rather than what they "feel"
things are.

I hear ya on the whole "should have-could have" rebound for whoever goes
there, but back at the original starter here.. not everything works out the way
you want; simply because other people just aren't YOU.

Cold hard fact.. an someone will inevitably say to "live with it" or
"deal with it yo" and in the ultimate end.. all you have to realize is despite
what majority of people say here.. far far too many really are
"reason-challenged kids"; of which no matter what you say or do nothing
will ever change their minds.

But if this is all too cryptic (the truth that is) then I recommend some
more soul searching or in techie language "sskkshhh fwhhaa.. search your
feelings luke.. you KNOW it to be true!".

[Alhanelem]

But, are those servers world wide or EU server's, US server's and so on? WoW's servers are region locked. If the US is devistated by a massive disaster and the US service shuts down, you can't play on another region's servers in the meantime.

The exception here is Oceania (e.g. Austrailia and New Zealand) players and US players can play together. But since the "Oceania" servers are actually housed in the US (the only difference is the server time is set to be in Australia/NZ's time zones), the game would go down for them too.

[jeffanddane]

I have family that lives in Japan that play this game as well. Like i said i feel for whats going on in japan. But like i said there should of been a back up plan like most companies have. Everyone is viewing this as ohhh this cold hearted bastard dah dah dah dah lalalalala. But what everyone fails to read is he did put this as "Looking at a BUSINESS stand point".

[Rambus]

>I did not read other posts in this topic, I am just replaying why SE may not made such servers<

There is something you need to analyze when making backup server in a different place and that is a cost/risk ratio. When is the last time Japan has power plants nearing meltdown? It is wasted money if they make servers and they are never used. An analyst would show that the cost of making such servers is greater than the cost of the loss in service in such a rare event. That is why you wouldn't do those backup servers that you are saying SE should do. I am sure there is greater cost in running a backup server in a different country then you realize, and making such of a thing most likely has a greater cost then just eating the loss of business we have now. Not only do you have that the cost of making such servers is higher than the lost but the chance of running into this problem we have now is low.

so to respond to your OP, it is not worth doing is probably the case.

[Alhanelem]

"Looking at a BUSINESS stand point". From a business standpoint, Having secondary servers on the other side of hte globe to be broguht online in an emergency would cost them a lot more than having a service interruption and compensating their customers for it.

[Randwolf]

Personally, these threads make me laugh. Just be glad I wasn't running the company. And, everything I say below, I would expect of anyone who worked for me.

I'd shut down the servers, forward the calls to voice mail, turn off the lights, and walk out of the building. I wouldn't sit in my office worrying if you were happy enough. And, if I part of the reason you weren't happy was because I didn't plan ahead, oh well, what's done is done. I'll fix it when I get back to work, when I get back to work. If you aren't there when I get back to business, so be it. I need to take care of my family and my community. Because, I know from experience the odds of someone in my neighborhood pulling me out of an earthquake collapsed building the next time is a lot higher than a team of $12.95 a month players hopping on a plane to come over and rescue my sorry ass. And, in the unlikely event that the company does collapse, I will have buried my dead, searched for survivors, taken care of my family, and, perhaps, bolted out of town so I didn't glow in the dark. And, if you got an update from me at ANY time during my personal emergency, you'd be extremely lucky.

So, be happy I don't run the company.

[Vedabe]

I do understand what a lot of people are saying, but the truth is FFXI, is known for being a very good community that would actually help other newbies around, and i really have no argue about that, every since i started playing the game, from the very first day, i did got a lot of help, so that´s why i will always keep faithful to the community, now, what i am saying is SE have the privilage of having a faithfull community, for the most part they have earn it, my OP refers to the lately years, no matter what some of us keep supporting the game, and my complain is that we deserve at least the very best experiencie, and SE used to provide that, now a days i don´t feel like it.

[RAIST]

Um.. how do you know they aren't still in the process of trying to implement their back up plan? They could have run into difficulties with their plan. Their plan may be something that takes an extended amount of time to complete (hello, 12 hours downtime to move just one database recently, obviously things happen slowly there). They never released any information as to just what their plans are, so it's not fair to criticize something for which none of us have any knowledge.

About 3 years ago, Sumter County called me because their back-up plan failed (bad tape set) and were trying to find a way to recover their email server after their botched restore process. It took us two weeks to get things going right. Then, I sold them on new hardware/software and 2 weeks later we had them swapped over. It was a whole month before anyone outside of the chief administration was allowed to send emails through their server.

The point is, you can have a plan in place that goes wrong when you need it the most. There is a rating on nearly EVERY conmputer component you purchase--MBT. It is normally an indicator of how long you can expect a device to function before it FAILS. There is always that 1 in XXXX chance for component failure. Maybe something dind't happen that was supposed to happen--just like with the reactors. Deisel backup power failed because....the tsunami knocked them out.

Raist

[Awezomeos]

It clearly shows, what happens in Japan atm ,is way to much for some peoples understanding. They cant even immage the scale of the Apocalyptical events up to date, not to mention the nuclear Worst case scenarios that propably wil happen.

[Auriga]

I will have buried my dead, searched for survivors, taken care of my family, and, perhaps, bolted out of town so I didn't glow in the dark.

lmao @ glowing in the dark.. awesome. For some reason I imagined a taru bolting out of
town at looney tunes speed making the sounds that road runner made.

[Alhanelem]

SE used to provide that, now a days i don´t feel like it. I really cannot understand how this incident would diminish people's opinion of them in this way.

What if the game servers were housed in Sendai? They probably would have been destroyed. You're lucky we still have the game at all (Yes, they most likely have a data backup at an offsite location, but they would need to replace all their server equipment).

I think it's borderline cruel and heartless for anyone to be demanding that they should have handled this better.


MBTMy understanding is it's MTBF: Mean (average) Time Before Faliure. Equipment such as hard drives and other data storage are usually rated on how many hours of continuous operation they can be expected to last, on average.

[Vedabe]

Also, i think some of you guys, are mixing 2 situations that they are related, but they don´t depend each other, when you have planned your strategy of market.

The situation of japan is horrible, if someone ask me to stop playing the game forever so that Japan would rise again, i would do it without even thinking it.

[Alhanelem]

Those things depend on each other a lot more than you think, that's all I'll say there.

[Ryland]

You are selfish, childish, and a whole lot of other stuff.

[Randwolf]

lmao @ glowing in the dark.. awesome. For some reason I imagined a taru bolting out of
town at looney tunes speed making the sounds that road runner made.

When they bring up the plans at my work for our nuclear crisis evacuation, I told them "you can look for my tail lights heading south on the 81."

[Auriga]

The situation of japan is horrible, if someone ask me to stop playing the game forever so that Japan would rise again, i would do it without even thinking it.

I could certainly see myself leaving the game if say.. the jp gov said that's what it'd take to
revive the country. Granted I could say more based on my emotions here.. I don't wanna
pull a "kanye west" from katrina an say something incredibly stupid @ the risk of being shot
for real >.> // <.< // >.> /exits stage left.

[Lexin]

I would like to know why this is the 100th thread of it's kind? Every single time someone says "I want to play" and the rest of us explain the why not's and the starter and a few others don't understand and keep pushing the same thing over and over.

As said I'm sure 500+ people said it's not cost effective to have more then one set of servers.

[Vedabe]

=======

I think the original idea aimed for was this person was upset that the company
did not take up better emergency practices for situations like this. Rather than
shoot the guy down an flame the thread beyond ashes people should open their
eyes a lil an try to see things for what they are rather than what they "feel"
things are.

I hear ya on the whole "should have-could have" rebound for whoever goes
there, but back at the original starter here.. not everything works out the way
you want; simply because other people just aren't YOU.

Cold hard fact.. an someone will inevitably say to "live with it" or
"deal with it yo" and in the ultimate end.. all you have to realize is despite
what majority of people say here.. far far too many really are
"reason-challenged kids"; of which no matter what you say or do nothing
will ever change their minds.

But if this is all too cryptic (the truth that is) then I recommend some
more soul searching or in techie language "sskkshhh fwhhaa.. search your
feelings luke.. you KNOW it to be true!".

LOL, yeah i know what you meant, thanks for your time and your opinion :).

[Xensai]

Even from a business Stand point NO business out there would be prepared for you know.. an Earthquake following a tsunami followed by a nuclear reactor on the brink of possible meltdown, and if you have been watching the news as you have said you'd also know that They have currently timed Power outages in most parts to compensate the Electricity and to conserve what little there is right now so im sure if they kept the servers running we'd be going offline more and you'd still be here QQing because you cant play a video game,

We all agree it sucks we cant play but its not SE's Fault saying their support is lacking because of this just shows how you really cant accept the situation at hand

[Vedabe]

the truth is i don´t play the game that often now a days, i just keep my character alive just for the sake of it, like i said before we are talking money and business, and the way i think the philosophy of the company needs to evolve, so they could get better, is just an opinion. nothing else either you take it or refuse it, and i am not going to get mad if you completely disargue about that.

[Auriga]

LOL, yeah i know what you meant, thanks for your time and your opinion :).

^.^ in the words of an old cartoon "if it weren't for those pesky kids! I'd of gotten
away with it too!" hehe yw an all that. I have to deal with these kids "hatin" on me all
the time, fight the power tho press on if you have an idea, never give up. Otherwise
nothing will ever change =)

[Vedabe]

^.^ in the words of an old cartoon "if it weren't for those pesky kids! I'd of gotten
away with it too!" hehe yw an all that. I have to deal with these kids "hatin" on me all
the time, fight the power tho press on if you have an idea, never give up. Otherwise
nothing will ever change =)

completely agreed, like the apple commecial lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE have a look :D

[Flunklesnarkin]

How many BAWWWWW threads do we need >_>

Yes it sucks the servers are down.. yes they could bring them up if they wanted too.. but they don't view that as being socially responsible...

and they have given us an update on info.. SE said they will re-evaluate the current situation on the 22nd.. Q.Qing for more isn't gonna make it change.

[RAIST]

I vote for a thread lock... we have too many of these things going on as is.

Raist

[Randwolf]

I vote for a thread lock... we have too many of these things going on as is.

Raist

Chop off one head, and two will grow back.

[Auriga]

completely agreed, like the apple commecial lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE have a look :D

======

Precisely.. exactly the angle I'd want to put into words =)

[Vedabe]

I vote for a thread lock... we have too many of these things going on as is.

Raist


You know what´s funny, i actually think that i could say an idea over this forum, cause i read it a lot, i guess i was wrong, people over here really are not open minded, they just wanna shut your mouth. not all of them, but the majority.

Don´t worry i´ll never post again, i see it is completely useless XD. cheers and have a nice day.

[Xensai]

You know what´s funny, i actually think that i could say an idea over this forum, cause i read it a lot, i guess i was wrong, people over here really are not open minded, they just wanna shut your mouth. not all of them, but the majority.

Don´t worry i´ll never post again, i see it is completely useless XD. cheers and have a nice day.

See you again!

[Vedabe]

Some of you guys, complain about me having a different opinion, and how Selfish, cruel, bastard i am.

But at least once a day i take my time to read what most of you guys have to say, i think it is worth thinking about.

I don´t see how a closed mind personm could feel bad over japan´s situation.

[RAIST]

no, its just that this has gone on in like 12 other threads.. there's consistently 3 or 4 of them on the first page, and ones from pages further back occasionally are getting bumped back up again--and it's not so much from new contributors, it's people reposting in them.

Raist

[Miera]

So what you are saying is that you don't care about people conserving as much energy as possible?

What you want is FFXI, use up all that energy, we don't care about the rolling blackouts or if other thousands and millions of people are suffering because you want to use up the energy to play a video game. Who cares about all that right?

And if we were to have SE turn its servers back on and we were able to go frolic and play on the servers, a possible rolling blackout could occur and maybe be out of FFXI anyway, then you'd probably be back here, complaining about how its unstable, how SE sucks for letting the servers go down, yadda.

Did I get that right?

[Alhanelem]

It's not people not being open minded. They simply disagree with you. The fact that they can't be convinced that SE is doing a bad job handling this is not a matter of openmindedness. Sometimes this is a problem, other times it's not.

It's not useless for you to post here, you just need to engage people on the right topics. You gave people here the impession that you were being insensitive to SE's situation. You also implied that SE is handling it poorly, when they're really doing the best they can with the cards they were dealt.

No one here wants you to leave, though some people do want to communicate that this isn't a good topic for discussion.


I don´t see how a closed mind personm could feel bad over japan´s situation. Like I said, not a matter of closed/open mind. The only true problem people here are the ones that were demanding a refund from SE before they even said they already planned to do that.

[Vedabe]

======

Precisely.. exactly the angle I'd want to put into words =)

Lol it was nice talking with you Aur, i am leaving, way to childish ppl around :), i hope we meet again.

[Randwolf]

I'm pretty certain most people are in their camps and will not be swayed to the other side.

[Anon]

It's not useless to post bro! Some of us from another forum rather enjoy the pearls that fly though here. But you knew you were going to get wrecked for posting. Like I knew. Yet you posted anyway. If the Raist and others would shut up and not post in these threads... well it would be a bit more constructive. At least after reading through their rhetoric I think what they are trying to say is be calm... wait it out... it will be ok. How about all you hippies go hug a tree somewhere together and let those of us that are mad... be mad?

[Alhanelem]

Lol it was nice talking with you Aur, i am leaving, way to childish ppl around :), i hope we meet again.
There are a few people like that, but the majority of us here were being civil and (reaosnably) intelligent. You can fault some people, but it's unfair to label all of us this way.

You shouldn't take me, or other people, disagreeing with you as a sign of disrespect. We may disagree with you, but we still respect you, your opinion, and your right to have it.

[Auriga]

Lol it was nice talking with you Aur, i am leaving, way to childish ppl around :), i hope we meet again.

We will =) I'd hope your char name was your name here but sadly.. I think you might have picked
a new name for here so people wouldn't socially ruin you =)

[Vedabe]

It's not useless to post bro! Some of us from another forum rather enjoy the pearls that fly though here. But you knew you were going to get wrecked for posting. Like I knew. Yet you posted anyway. If the Raist and others would shut up and not post in these threads... well it would be a bit more constructive. At least after reading through their rhetoric I think what they are trying to say is be calm... wait it out... it will be ok. How about all you hippies go hug a tree somewhere together and let those of us that are mad... be mad?

Thanks m8, i do have to thank all the people that took the time to read to my thinking, and i respect theirs all the way, is just an opinion nothing, else, lol i know Square-enix won´t read this thread and all of the sudden change their entire persepective, i didn´t pretend that, it´s a forum, and forums are made for discussing XD.

Thanks guys, all of you. Time is something really valuable, and taking a lil of yours to discuss about this, it´s been a privilage to me :).

[Vedabe]

We will =) I'd hope your char name was your name here but sadly.. I think you might have picked
a new name for here so people wouldn't socially ruin you =)

Lol that is my actual name from In-Game, server Quetzalcoatl, i´m not afraid to say what i think, i know i can´t please everyone :).

[Alhanelem]

Square-enix won´t read this thread and all of the sudden change their entire persepectiveIt might not change their perspective, but do keep in mind they do read stuff here.

[Kindra]

I'm pretty certain most people are in their camps and will not be swayed to the other side.

Very True.

[Vedabe]

It might not change their perspective, but do keep in mind they do read stuff here.

got a bit scared, right now, you think they are going to ban me over, for this thread.

[Miera]

No they wont ban you. They may lock your thread because there are about 7 of these threads floating around.

[Alhanelem]

got a bit scared, right now, you think they are going to ban me over, for this thread.
No. You haven't done anything wrong, and they're not about to ban someone for being critical of them (even though I know a few companies with forums that do)

[Kindra]

Naw. You haven't been attacking anyone and you have tried to treat it like a discussion. :)

[Djinnrb]

I thought this was gonna be talking about SE's HORRIBLE customer support... I think it is the worst customer support for anything, let it be games or any kind of product that has a customer support. It is the reason why I quit this game 2 times in the past.

I love this game so much but the customer support is so shitty. If they added more GM's that could help, more people on the phone who could actually solve problems, omg this game would be freaking amazing.

[Auriga]

Lol that is my actual name from In-Game, server Quetzalcoatl, i´m not afraid to say what i think, i know i can´t please everyone :).

I'll find ya on the online AH then an msg u from there, since this place has no
/msg system i'm aware of. If you don't have a name on there yet to take claim of\
ur char then I'll wait till the game is back up an msg u then =)

Note: Anyone thinking my forum name = my char name = very mistaken =p
I won't have any server hunts for me tyvm I enjoy my peace for what little I have.

[Vedabe]

I'll find ya on the online AH then an msg u from there, since this place has no
/msg system i'm aware of. If you don't have a name on there yet to take claim of\
ur char then I'll wait till the game is back up an msg u then =)

Note: Anyone thinking my forum name = my char name = very mistaken =p
I won't have any server hunts for me tyvm I enjoy my peace for what little I have.

Awsome, i hope we could meet in game :), all of you ppl msg me XD if you´d like.

[Auriga]

Awsome, i hope we could meet in game :), all of you ppl msg me XD if you´d like.

http://www.ffxiah.com/ <-- you do have a user name here right?

[RAIST]

If the Raist and others would shut up and not post in these threads... well it would be a bit more constructive. At least after reading through their rhetoric I think what they are trying to say is be calm... wait it out... it will be ok

So any form of disagreement is bad? Even when it's supported by reasonable arguments-or sometimes <gasp> FACTS?

To criticise a process or policy without knowing whether it actually exists is pointless, so forgive me if I challenge such criticsm.

I'm willing to give SE the benefit of the doubt. Until I hear something about SE's efforts to for recovery, I'm willing to accept that (under the situation) they are having difficulty dealing with the situation and am willing to wait for service to resume. I've been in those difficult situations...I've had it take away precious time with my daughter, had to work remotely on servers while trying to eat dinner with my family. I've missed birthday parties and funerals because of a critical system was down.

Guess I just have a different perspective than you. I'm sorry you don't have it too.

Raist

[Birdkiller]

Am I too late for the pitchfork mob?

[Vedabe]

http://www.ffxiah.com/ <-- you do have a user name here right?

Yep Same name as here

[Basher]

I'll find ya on the online AH then an msg u from there, since this place has no
/msg system i'm aware of. If you don't have a name on there yet to take claim of\
ur char then I'll wait till the game is back up an msg u then =)

Note: Anyone thinking my forum name = my char name = very mistaken =p
I won't have any server hunts for me tyvm I enjoy my peace for what little I have.



I happen to agree with both of you. From a business stand point it wouldnt be overly expensive to maintain a backup set of servers in the US or Europe. I'm sure SE has plenty of hardware laying around from all the servers they have merged in the last year or so. The other impact the disaster has had on Japan is economic, and by not being able to supply a service to its customers SE has become part of the problem. They have to pay wages and they have no income. The great thing about gaming is they dont have to grow, manufacture or produce anything. All they needed was a backup. People are crying expense, well what about their insurance? Dont tell me a company the size of SE doesnt have any? Heaven forbid a nuclear reactor does meltdown, more people die, infrastructure is lost. If they lose all their data they lose their entire FFXI customer base. What does that do for the people of Japan who need money food and housing, where are they going to get an income from? The beauty about gaming and monthly charges is its if you have remote backup's you're up and running fairly quickly and maintaining an income which is vital for recovery. People are saying "How were they to know". Well they sit on the edge of the "Ring of fire" and they have had previous disasters ie Kobe's Quake. No one is saying we dont feel bad for Japan. We do. But from a business standpoint, there wasnt any real planning in place for this. Does that make us mean and cruel? No, it just means we are being a little more honest than flamers who think we're picking on SE.

[Auriga]

Yep Same name as here

I'll msg you over there then, fairly soon.

=======

@ Basher - Hell if SE sent me a server to hook up & host I'd do it, I'm fairly
sure I got the space for one or 2 servers. As for the bandwidth.. that's another
story.. they'd have to supply the t3 line or w/e.

[RAIST]

it is common practice for software firms to archive there source code with a third party. There is an entire industry built around it. Even the small local Firm I used to work with archived their java apps with Iron Mountain on a weekly basis. I'm sure if their building got wiped off the map, the code would be somewhere where it could be retrieved and rebuilt if they were driven to do it.

I would really like to see someone who has any information on their backup and recovery policy so we can actually know if it's truly worthy of all the criticism they are getting. Again... for all we know, they could be in the middle of doing exactly what their policy calls for, and doing exactly what so many people have been crying for--but for whatever reason it is proving to be a long, drawn out process. It may have well een a process expecting to take one week once they reviewed it, only to find that it is taking longer thatn they expected.

We simply have no details on exactly what is going on, so I really don't see why they deserve criticism for that--if anything, they deserve criticism for non-disclosure of just what is going on. THEN, maybe all this other criticism may have a foundation.

Raist

[Vedabe]

All right see you there Auri :)

[Auriga]

All right see you there Auri :)

Sent! =p 1234567890 because SE says the post is too short lol.

[Basher]

Yup, agreed but that was one of the points the OP made, poor communication with the customers. Its always been an issue with SE. Its similar to what happened here in NZ after our quake. People were frightened to send them purchase orders for goods and services after the quake because we were all trying to be considerate. But thats the opposite of what they needed. They needed those orders to keep the money flowing, keep their minds occupied. Japans intellect economy is a beautiful thing and its invaluable to them, it needs to be up and running for them as quickly as possible.

[Auriga]

Yup, agreed but that was one of the points the OP made, poor communication with the customers. Its always been an issue with SE. Its similar to what happened here in NZ after our quake. People were frightened to send them purchase orders for goods and services after the quake because we were all trying to be considerate. But thats the opposite of what they needed. They needed those orders to keep the money flowing, keep their minds occupied. Japans intellect economy is a beautiful thing and its invaluable to them, it needs to be up and running for them as quickly as possible.

Once again.. what should be done.. could be done.. wasn't done.. and sadly none of said people
in charge are any of us.. nor will they hire us towards any of these ideas. Though if any of us
are wrong it would be cool if one of their own would come down here to be like "this an that
is the logic behind why we didn't" but I'm considering too much.. far far too much.. a childrens
forum will never be taken "seriously" by any company.

So in the words of Prof. Hubert J. Farnsworth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_J._Farnsworth):
"Yes, but they won't listen! Everybody's always in favor of saving Hitler's brain. But when you put it in the body of a great white shark - uuuh, suddenly you've gone too far." // "Wait... wha?"

[Glitch]

To all of you who are complaining about SE not having "backup" servers:

SE certainly has backup servers. The backup operating servers are in Japan with the rest of the live operating servers. This is how they manage to restore the game so quickly after emergency maintenance due to hardware failures. They also have backup data servers, some of which probably are in other countries since many companies outsource server space. But these servers only function to store information so that it can be restored to operating servers when they are back to a functional condition.

Very few businesses of any kind have servers in other countries. If they do, they are not operating servers, they are simply data servers. In fact, the only businesses I can think of at the moment that would have redundant operating servers are very large banks/financial institutions, airlines, or data processing companies (like Axiom) who would be bankrupt if they had complete shutdown for only a matter of hours. Delta Airlines was quoted in an IT magazine (I can't remember which one or when) as saying that they would go out of business if they lost data resources for more than one hour.

From a "strictly business" point of view, and this has already been partially addressed, there are entire teams of people in any large organization that calculate and weigh the risks vs. investments. Some of these risks absolutely include the risk of losing angry customers due to their inability to provide services (this was part of the reason for Delta Airlines' statement). A few million dollars a month do not warrant the type of backup resources it would take to operate something as huge as a global MMORPG. Millions of dollars a day; "We need redundant operating servers somewhere else in the country." Tens of millions of dollars a day; "OK, now we're seriously considering global backup servers." Hundreds of millions of dollars a day; "Yeah, we need operating servers in another country." Not only does it cost a fortune to have such resources, having those resources in a different country opens up a whole new set of tax and regulation concerns that can get tremendously expensive on their own. Get the picture?

No video game has redundant operating servers in multiple countries. Any servers that are in other countries are either regional servers, which, as others have already pointed out, mean that different countries cannot play together in the same "world", or are simply data backups and cannot actually run the game.

It is most definitely not wrong to voice your opinion, but you should really make sure you know what you are talking about before you do or you are simply flexing your ignorance muscle in public.

I would also like to point out that they provided us with an update that the servers would be down for a couple of extra days a full three days before their original projection was to arrive. Most of us can't even imagine what it would be like to have to make that decision until the last possible moment in hopes of not having to suffer an incredible financial loss. I think this is an exemplary example of how dedicated SE is to us and I applaud them for it.

Additionally, Glitch IS my character name, and if you want to flame me in /tells go right ahead. Prove how much of a child you really are. I have a /blist entry with your character name on it. t('.'t)

Finally, I apologize for my lack of candor. I wish I could be more tolerant of unsympathetic boobs, and no I'm not referring to funbags.

[Basher]

lmao.. scarey @auriga

[Tsukino_Kaji]

I wish I could be more tolerant of unsympathetic boobs, and no I'm not referring to funbags.Not to say that I don't, but why should people be sympethetic of a multi national corporation?

[Nacht]

boobs, and no I'm not referring to funbags.

Well, damn... Why not?

[Anon]

So any form of disagreement is bad? Even when it's supported by reasonable arguments-or sometimes <gasp> FACTS?

To criticise a process or policy without knowing whether it actually exists is pointless, so forgive me if I challenge such criticsm.

I'm willing to give SE the benefit of the doubt. Until I hear something about SE's efforts to for recovery, I'm willing to accept that (under the situation) they are having difficulty dealing with the situation and am willing to wait for service to resume. I've been in those difficult situations...I've had it take away precious time with my daughter, had to work remotely on servers while trying to eat dinner with my family. I've missed birthday parties and funerals because of a critical system was down.

Guess I just have a different perspective than you. I'm sorry you don't have it too.

Raist

Well at least one of you admits it. In summation I disagree with your train of thought therefor I am wrong. I never bashed any of you that were ok with the wait. I never made a negative remark concerning your bright sunshiny day outlook. Yet over and over again you (& others) have taken every chance to slam those of us who do not have your outlook. I'm glad this moment happened and you were honest with the "Sorry you don't have MY perspective" remark. My apologies. I have my perspective. And it looks good from here. And don't worry OP. You've done nothing wrong. Keep with-in the context of the conversation and don't let these guys bait you into anything else.

[Auriga]

I saw a bunch of text an blanked out.. then remembered what I wanted to say.. to the above post!

Prof. Farnsworth: That proves nothing! And furthermore, you'd think I could remember a thing like that! Plus, who are you anyway?

=====

It's all getting too serious.. WHY SO SERIOUS FORUM!?

[Basher]

@glitch you're telling me it would cost SE millions of dollars a day to have a multimode 12f fiber connection networked into some loaded 38ru free standing server cabinets anywhere else in the world apart from japan? Because they already have offices in London and California. You sir love to over exaggerate

[Flunklesnarkin]

Glitch was mostly describing how unrealistic having multiple servers in different countries would be for ffxi

some games do regional servers.. but then you don't play with people from other countries and that's an entirely different thread / discussion lol

[Glitch]

@Basher

Yeah you obviously read my post carefully before replying. Moving on...

[Auriga]

Char: Vedabe - Dec. 4, 2010 = last seen activity.

Very slick.. using a dead char name.

[lowkey]

i honestly can´t understand how a worldwide franchise did not have a backup plan for this kind of unexpected issues,

It might be a good idea to learn what 'backup plan,' and 'unexpected' mean. How can someone plan for the unexpected? The fact that one makes a backup plan, implies that they expected things to unfold in a certain way.

[Zarchery]

Why would Square Enix need backup servers? It took a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, which was among the top 5 largest earthquakes in history, AND near meltdowns at several nuclear power plants, to trigger their FIRST INTERRUPTION IN NINE YEARS.

You can plan for contingency, but not every contingency.

[Glitch]

It might be a good idea to learn what 'backup plan,' and 'unexpected' mean. How can someone plan for the unexpected? The fact that one makes a backup plan, implies that they expected things to unfold in a certain way.

Laughing my $%# off at the moment. Great point!

[Auriga]

ZOMG! SERVERS BACK UP! GO LOOK!























lets hope no one notices I lied..

[Basher]

maybe you should re-read ours or at least read ours before you jump right in there old son.

[Auriga]

maybe you should re-read ours or at least read ours before you jump right in there old son.

SHHH!! you'll bring them back! >.<

[Insaniac]

@ OP

So what you are saying is SE should have a 2nd set of servers constantly being updated but only used in the event of one of the most catastrophic events in the past 100 years? They should pay out of pocket from their already limited FFXI budget to store and maintain these servers JUST in case a 9.0 earthquake happens to cripple their entire nations infrastructure? I guess the lower budget for game development such as updates and patchs and new model design is acceptable for you. They should put these servers in place for something that happened once in the entire 8 year history of the game and will probably never happen again. All of this so the rest of the world doesn't have to deal with 9 days of having to find something else to do.

Business Logistics.. please look into them.

[Glitch]

You are implying that I didn't read your posts when I specifically addressed the main points you made.

Hmm... What was that comment I made about an ignorance muscle? Oh yeah! /em looks at the bulging one that just got bigger.

[Rezeak]

For a buisness point of view, the service of the game quite frankly is really poor, and let much to be desired, i honestly can´t understand how a worldwide franchise did not have a backup plan for this kind of unexpected issues, i know you can never control stuff like this, but i am still asking myself, why they never thought of having alternative servers, specially when the game has been online for YEARS.


Are you dumb do you think SE or any company to have a plan for a 9.0 earthquake(largest ever recorded) + Tsuami + There Nation grid being unable to meet demand.

Either way ur basically saying SE spend Millions on a back up server that might be used once every 40 years.

[RAIST]

Since you asked about the cost of fiber networks... here's pricing info for Dark Fiber in Palo Alto, CA:

$250-425 mile/month for first fiber, price varies by route
166.67 mile/month for each additional fiber

Drop cable Management fees (per 12 fibers) $179-213 mile/month
Custom cable management fees (First 12 fibers) $0.25 ft/month
($.05 ft/month each add'l 12 fibers on same project route)

Raist

[Glitch]

Thank you Riast.

This is just a drop in the bucket of the total cost of maintaining operating servers. It would also be nice if someone could provide some insight about the tax and regulation implications of having your service run from hardware based in a country rather than shooting the information over the network from that which is in your home country, which you are already paying taxes and regulatory fees in. Obviously you have some tax liability in all countries you provide services to, but laws for these types of business models are tricky and can cost an obscene amount of money when you start using a country as the source of the services.

I hope we are starting to understand why it is so cost prohibitive to have operating servers in a foreign country.

[Flunklesnarkin]

so a million + dollars a month for long distance cables not to mention server costs of actually setting up servers in other countries..

I'd rather just wait a few days next time a huge earthquake strikes than have these extra costs reflected in my monthly bill

[Auriga]

Thread starter left along time ago morons.

[Vedabe]

Char: Vedabe - Dec. 4, 2010 = last seen activity.

Very slick.. using a dead char name.

WHAT, lol that sure enough is not my last seen activity and i am very much alive and is my actual in game character

[Vedabe]

Thread starter left along time ago morons.

lol sorry, i went to take my dog out :), i have a life besides FFXI.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

lol sorry, i went to take my dog out :), i have a life besides FFXI.OMG realy?! How dose that work?

[Vedabe]

OMG realy?! How dose that work?

It´s called, enjoying the lil pleasure of doing simple things :), how about you, do you have a life?

[Tsukino_Kaji]

It´s called, enjoying the lil pleasure of doing simple things :), how about you, do you have a life?It starts in another 3 hours, it's only 8pm.

[Auriga]

WHAT, lol that sure enough is not my last seen activity and i am very much alive and is my actual in game character

Very true though: http://www.ffxiah.com/player/Quetzalcoatl/Vedabe

[Babygyrl]

wow just wow.. you are just ridiculous? why don't they have back up servers its simple its COST effective. If you want back up servers guess what wed be dishing out 30 bucks a month for this game.. not just 13.00 I mean really do you know how business works? its all bout the most cost effective way to run that business to maximize profits. mmos aren't squares only income you know so losing a month of service is not that bad for them. and secondly "they should be prepared for this" How often does a 9.0 earth quake followed by massive tsunamis happen? on top of nuclear fall out no less. um like very freakin rarely. Businesses have Contingency plans but not to deal with something on this scale, because it happens like once ever 100 + years, that's simply not cost effective to "prepare for" human LIFE and necessities (heat food shelter) come before economic gain, grow up seriously.

[Glitch]

Thread starter left along time ago morons.

...and the OP posts again 4 minutes later; priceless. Btw, I'm not meaning to make fun of you sweetie, I just found it hilarious.

I want to apologize to Vedabe for my first post being so critical, to Basher for the provocation of my response to his reply, and to everyone else whose eyes I made bleed. I should know better than to post on a forum while agitated by other issues. I simply wanted to shed some light as to why it's not practical for SE to have the kind of backup servers we all wish they could have.

/em stops flexing his own ignorance muscle.

[Auriga]

wow just wow.. you are just ridiculous? why don't they have back up servers its simple its COST effective. If you want back up servers guess what wed be dishing out 30 bucks a month for this game.. not just 13.00 I mean really do you know how business works? its all bout the most cost effective way to run that business to maximize profits. mmos aren't squares only income you know so losing a month of service is not that bad for them. and secondly "they should be prepared for this" How often does a 9.0 earth quake followed by massive tsunamis happen? on top of nuclear fall out no less. um like very freakin rarely. Businesses have Contingency plans but not to deal with something on this scale, because it happens like once ever 100 + years, that's simply not cost effective to "prepare for" human LIFE and necessities (heat food shelter) come before economic gain, grow up seriously.

ahh youth.. u just got here, why the need to slam & burn others? love & peace how about that?

[Auriga]

...and the OP posts again 4 minutes later; priceless. Btw, I'm not meaning to make fun of you sweetie, I just found it hilarious.

I want to apologize to Vedabe for my first post being so critical, and to Basher for the provocation of my response to his reply. I should know better than to post on a forum while agitated by other issues. I simply wanted to shed some light as to why it's not practical for SE to have the kind of backup servers we all wish they could have.

/em stops flexing his own ignorance muscle.

/shakes head - i try to get the senseless violence to calm down oh well >.>

[Vedabe]

Very true though: http://www.ffxiah.com/player/Quetzalcoatl/Vedabe

Sure enough that´s the last time i have sell something, but that does not mean that´s the last time i´ve played the game, you could always ask my mates on the linkshell, even though i don´t need to prove myself over my identity.

[Auriga]

Sure enough that´s the last time i have sell something, but that does not mean that´s the last time i´ve played the game, you could always ask my mates on the linkshell, even though i don´t need to prove myself over my identity.

http://www.chatzy.com/144542738582 <-- hop on others are here

tho how do u survive w/o gil??

[Glitch]

Sorry if I offended you Auriga, I truly didn't mean it that way. You have to admit that it was fantastic irony. :)

[RAIST]

In case anyone isn't following it too closely, they made a lot of progress to day:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/2807-Power-is-being-restored-to-cooling-systems-of-the-reactors

Raist

[Auriga]

Sorry if I offended you Auriga, I truly didn't mean it that way. You have to admit that it was fantastic irony. :)

Indeed.. epic fail for me i suppose..

[Vedabe]

Guys, this is getting way to agressive, calm down, remember they are just opinions to discuss, i didn´t mean to offend anyone :)

[Cenz]

only thing i have to say about this thread is .... I want a BIG mac now ; ; ... buy me 1 im all outta gil >.<

[svengalis]

I just purchased Rift as I know the servers are not going to be back up anytime soon. I am bored out of my mind so I had to do something.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

I just purchased Rift as I know the servers are not going to be back up anytime soon. I am bored out of my mind so I had to do something.Played the beta, have fun on your WoW clone. ^^

[Kailea_Nagisa]

I still don't get how even after showing a few good reasons why SE never made a full set of backup servers, people still complain.

Making a complete copy of the servers is expensive
moving the data electronically or even physically is expensive and dangerous to the data.
no other MMORPG has a complete physical backup of their servers. (again would be to expensive)

and trying to do any of this now would take way to long.

[Auriga]

Still so many serious fools.. FOOLS I SAY! THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU WHO DARE TO FIGHT ELECTRONICALLY!

/fiddles with a rubix cube

[HFX7686]

I can wait for FF11 to come back, so can you!

[jeffanddane]

OK crazy lady I am starting to have second thoughts about.

[breau]

It's not useless to post bro! Some of us from another forum rather enjoy the pearls that fly though here. But you knew you were going to get wrecked for posting. Like I knew. Yet you posted anyway. If the Raist and others would shut up and not post in these threads... well it would be a bit more constructive. At least after reading through their rhetoric I think what they are trying to say is be calm... wait it out... it will be ok. How about all you hippies go hug a tree somewhere together and let those of us that are mad... be mad?

yes go cut a tree or whatever and be as mad as you like, telling raist should shut up , he is the only one who brought up constructive posts at all
breau, alexander/bastok

[Nu-Hir]

Why would Square Enix need backup servers? It took a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, which was among the top 5 largest earthquakes in history, AND near meltdowns at several nuclear power plants, to trigger their FIRST INTERRUPTION IN NINE YEARS.

You can plan for contingency, but not every contingency.

Yes, you are correct. You don't have to plan for a Hat Trick of Suck, you plan for server interruption. This could be from many different sources:

Your backbone could go down.
You could have a fire start in the server room.
Your power line could be cut.
Problems with local bandwidth provider (if you're not directly linked to the backbone).

There's other problems that can get you to the same outcome. Granted, most of these problems would only cause a few hours to a few days of downtime, but the point is still the same. You don't plan for a large earthquake, Tsunami, and Chernobyl pt2. You plan for extended downtime.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

There's been plenty of interuptions, just not major ones.

[Auriga]

OK crazy lady I am starting to have second thoughts about.

/hurls a rabit cat at you an makes insane jibberish words - in hopes of ending this crazy thread.

[Cream_Soda]

ITT: Saying "I'm not selfish" before making a selfish post makes the post not selfish

[Basher]

im pretty sure they had rolling blackouts after the Kobe Quake. point im trying to make is its a good investment to protect an industry

[Kailea_Nagisa]

im pretty sure they had rolling blackouts after the Kobe Quake. point im trying to make is its a good investment to protect an industry

They had many things planned for times like this, the problem is things got way worse then they expected. People expect this complicated answer, but to be honest, it is as simple as what I just said.

Their emergency plans where set at an 8/10 and they got a 9, not that hard to understand.

[Basher]

You missed my point Kailea. If they had rolling blackouts at Kobe then they should be prepared for rolling blackouts now. Surely you would at least base any emergency plans on previous experience?

[Nacht]

Yes, you are correct. You don't have to plan for a Hat Trick of Suck, you plan for server interruption. This could be from many different sources:

Your backbone could go down.
You could have a fire start in the server room.
Your power line could be cut.
Problems with local bandwidth provider (if you're not directly linked to the backbone).

There's other problems that can get you to the same outcome. Granted, most of these problems would only cause a few hours to a few days of downtime, but the point is still the same. You don't plan for a large earthquake, Tsunami, and Chernobyl pt2. You plan for extended downtime.

You don't know that they didn't plan for such things. The problem is electricity is an issue for the entire country for over a week. That's not something you plan for.

Planning around this involves setting up a backup in another country. That's pretty extreme.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

You missed my point Kailea. If they had rolling blackouts at Kobe then they should be prepared for rolling blackouts now. Surely you would at least base any emergency plans on previous experience?They probably do, but this was more then rolling black outs. It was government imposed conservation.

[Basher]

Yes Tsu understood. But from the economics of it, which is what i thought this thread was about is, is that although there maybe immediate costs, and we all vary in opinion on what those costs would be, the cost to their gaming industry would be massive. The longer they go without being able to charge people, the more gamers they lose, the more the tsunami costs them.

[Basher]

Raist you there? They charge you guys in the US how for your broadband? By the line usage or by the volume usage

[JMMC1978]

You are absolutely correct. Most if not all buisness have what is called a DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan). This plan especially is important with an buisness that has a large network and infrastructure. The DRP can only plan for what they are known to have happen in the country. In order to have what they would call a cloned network to support a nation wide user base they would have to have it set up in another country. The point is they did not need a cloned network as SE's network never went down it did not fail so there was no reason to have one. They as most have said already were just complying with the need to conserve energy for the people as a nation. That is the most important thing.

To the originator of this thread I understand what you are saying from a buisness aspect yes a DRP is extremely important for a nationwide network service, however if your service never fails which in this case it still has not there is no need to spend more than needed. SE choose their DRP based on what they felt was needed. Their services still have not failed so from a buisness point the chose best for the company in terms of preperation and money. They are supporting their nation and giving back to their customers. Does not matter what buisness you are you can plan all you want but in the end you can not keep everyone happy even in a time like this.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Raist you there? They charge you guys in the US how for your broadband? By the line usage or by the volume usageWe have flat rates, and only certain providers have data caps.

[Nacht]

You are absolutely correct. Most if not all buisness have what is called a DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan). This plan especially is important with an buisness that has a large network and infrastructure. The DRP can only plan for what they are known to have happen in the country. In order to have what they would call a cloned network to support a nation wide user base they would have to have it set up in another country. The point is they did not need a cloned network as SE's network never went down it did not fail so there was no reason to have one. They as most have said already were just complying with the need to conserve energy for the people as a nation. That is the most important thing.

To the originator of this thread I understand what you are saying from a buisness aspect yes a DRP is extremely important for a nationwide network service, however if your service never fails which in this case it still has not there is no need to spend more than needed. SE choose their DRP based on what they felt was needed. Their services still have not failed so from a buisness point the chose best for the company in terms of preperation and money. They are supporting their nation and giving back to their customers. Does not matter what buisness you are you can plan all you want but in the end you can not keep everyone happy even in a time like this.

Kudos, sir. /clap

[Nu-Hir]

Raist you there? They charge you guys in the US how for your broadband? By the line usage or by the volume usage

It depends. DSL/Cable providers usually have differing tiers depending on how much bandwidth you want. Usually you get a set speed per month, then a bandwidth limit (comcast has a measly 250GB, i hate you comcast). I've seen some ISPs want to charge you for going over their bandwidth limit per month, so you can be charged by both speed and volume.

If you're going for dedicated lines, it depends on what you need. The ISP I used to work for had two providers, each provided us with 15mnps fractional DS3. The difference between the two was that our one from Time Warner was capped at 15mbps, and the one from I think it was Worldcom was burstable, meaning that we got charged extra from anything over 15mbps (the line speed we negotiated for our contract). In this instance we were both paying for usage and volume.

[JagerForrester]

I was going to make a new thread about SE as a company and what I think they have done and doing, but since this thread already exists, I'm gonna stick my thoughts here.

SE made FFXI, and it is/was a successful product.
But... SE found out there was an upcoming problem, probably knew around the time they made ToAU. Limitations to expand.
They had to think of a solution, and their solution was FFXIV.

FFXIV ultimately is a clone to FFXI, as some would say, it is FFXI-2. It looking like a clone worried me even with new graphics and more customizable faces. That is as much as I know about FFXIV. I was not paying too much attention to FFXI or FFXIV at this time. One other thing I know about FFXIV is that it failed, exactly why is basically what I'm hearing is mainly the economy and for experimenting new things like they always do for their games, but it failed so bad that SE apologized for it.

Nevertheless, they lost money on making FFXIV. So now they are stuck with a game that is running out of space to release more entertaining content, and a game that was not entertaining.

They needed to fix something. I talked to a friend yesterday about dropping PS2 support, and it made me realize that it was going to take a whole lot more money than I thought it would. In other words, dropping the PS2 support is not very cost-effective. So they planned to fix FFXIV only. The base for the game is still there (storyline, jobs, etc.), they just need to tweak gameplay.

But how are they going to fix a game they lost money on, and now have to put more man-hours into. I don't think they have a whole lot of money to really play with. So, they turned to FFXI, their main source of profit right now.

Right now, I feel they are squeezing every last drop of their hopes and dreams onto FFXI by making it more attainable to be high level. They increased the LVcap, created Abyssea and made EXP gain nuts, created Empyrean Armor and Weapons, increased exp for non-Abyssea areas, and they commented on the Gym idea to fix skill ups. All this has pulled in new players.

I've seen a lot of new low level players around, as if they flocked in like a bunch of fruit flies to a fruit basket. SE ultimately increased the amount of fee money they are accumulating, to where it probably off-balanced the amount of players leaving because of the lack of new content for FFXI. But, SE does have a good plan, imo.

With the money ranking in with what they can with FFXI, FFXIV is in the process of being remade, and they will aim for the best of their ability towards this. This means that we may not see a future for FFXI because they are squeezing the life out of it for the sake of profits. And FFXIV will be reborn, with the hopes of it doing what FFXI could not, expand.

This is what I believe is happening. This is not fact, everything I said is a guess. I don't plan on replying to anyone about this, because I may be very well wrong about everything and have no solid evidence to back up anything I said. I am taking nothing but an educated guess here. I still enjoy FFXI despite what I believe they are doing to it though. You can deny any of this to be true, but you'll have to ask SE what they really are doing and trying to change my mind isn't going to do much good. For all who want to troll and flame this post, I recommend you to listen to Verse 1 of "One Step Closer" by Linkin Park.

One thing is true. You can either support SE right now in hopes they fix what is wrong or flame them and stop any kind of support they desperately need from their players. And they need even more support as they not only lost profits due to a failed product, but now losing profits due to the disaster and turning off their services to both.

[Basher]

It depends. DSL/Cable providers usually have differing tiers depending on how much bandwidth you want. Usually you get a set speed per month, then a bandwidth limit (comcast has a measly 250GB, i hate you comcast). I've seen some ISPs want to charge you for going over their bandwidth limit per month, so you can be charged by both speed and volume.

If you're going for dedicated lines, it depends on what you need. The ISP I used to work for had two providers, each provided us with 15mnps fractional DS3. The difference between the two was that our one from Time Warner was capped at 15mbps, and the one from I think it was Worldcom was burstable, meaning that we got charged extra from anything over 15mbps (the line speed we negotiated for our contract). In this instance we were both paying for usage and volume.

KK. TY..

was gonna go through the costings of a temp server setup but then I realized it involved far too much effort for a saturday afternoon. Especially when theres a BBQ going.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Usually you get a set speed per month, then a bandwidth limit (comcast has a measly 250GB, i hate you comcast).They don't inforce it. I average 350-550g with no extra charges.

[Heroheart]

Ohhhhhhhh! Ching Chong Ling Long Ting Tong........... sounds familiar? someone needs a lollipop

[Nu-Hir]

KK. TY..

was gonna go through the costings of a temp server setup but then I realized it involved far too much effort for a saturday afternoon. Especially when theres a BBQ going.

To give you an idea http://www.creativedata.net/index.cfm?webid=168

You'll be looking at the full rack price, let's assume 20 full racks (it's probably more): $14.7k/month
I would assume they'd want at least one person at the datacenter to babysit 24/7: $14.5k/month
I don't knwo what kind of decent contract you'd get from them on bandwidth, so I'm going to assume they'll use a third party and pump it in, let's round up and go for bust on an uber connection: $40k/month

I'm probably lowballing bandwidth, but that's up to almost $70k/month. To pay for that, you'd need subscriptions of over 5000 people, or roughly the population of two servers.



They don't inforce it. I average 350-550g with no extra charges.

Yes they do. One of my co-workers got threatened to move to business class or he's losing his account for a year.

[Basher]

nicely done.

[Hanabira]

if mcdonalds closed for a week and a half but gave me a month of free food, id be okay with that

[Rocman]

As a small buisness owner myself i do agree with the OP on a buisness side of things. BUT, I do also believe as a human being this is the wrong time to post something like this. Wait untill things are back up and running again over inn Japan then express how you feel.

[Guardian]

It's not about not having a backup plan. what part of this don't you understand: They Voluntarily shut down the servers, sacrificing a month's worth of profits, in order to do it's part to help stabilize the situation in Japan?

They felt it was inappropriate to keep the service running in the given circumstances. It's not because they were FORCED to shut down the servers and had no plan for what to do if their service was disabled forcibly.

They very likely do have backup data in an offsite locaiton. But you're asking them to double the amount of equipment they need so that you can keep playing while the Japanese try to recover from entire towns being leveled and an impending nuclear disaster?

I'm really on the fence about both sides of this issue. If it was down RIGHT after the the incident, I wouldn't have said a thing. Personally though, with them having two days of service after the fact, they could have easily have sent most, if not all the server info to mirror servers in that time via the net. I think that's sorta what he's trying to say.

[jeffanddane]

Stop trolling him peeps jeese . . . .Would it be a surprise to tell you that my family that lives in japan and there friends that play FFXI want it back up so they can escape some of the sadness ? Although they helped the community by cleaning and donating is there wanting the server back up wrong ? To put it short i talked to my family in japan this morning because i like to keep up to date on whats going on over there for my families sake. But i can tell you alot of there friends who also play this game want servers back up because it would help them escape the crisis that there going through. Not a complete escape but just enough of an escape to have somewhat of a peaceful day after cleaning up the mess of tragedy that hit them. I would say even if the servers weren't brought up for us at least it could be put back up for them so my family and other players of FFXI could have somewhat of a normal day in this time of crisis for them. Yes its JUST A GAME I know this but a lot of people have there thing smoking/ drinking/ exercise/ gaming/ art/ reading etc. This just happens to be there thing and there are a lot of Japanese that want the servers back up just like us. Just because people play a game 24 hours a day don't mean they don't have a life . . That's just how they want to spend there life. . . And doing something is better then doing nothing.

[RAIST]

@Nu-Hir

I appreciate the effort, but I think your cost analysis may be a bit off. Typical markets start a generic Network Engineer at the equivalent of @$10/hour ($20k/yr)--14.5k doesn't even meet Minimum Wage in the US (7.25/hr, 40 hours/week = $15,080/yr). This wouldn't involve just one employee either--they do have labor laws, possibly even union restrictions in some areas (who knows), and you know.. they do need to sleep sometime. There will also need to be communications set up (ie, a phone perhaps), at least one terminal for the workers to use, among other expenses involved with highering employess (corporate needs for insurance, required UIB contributions to the government per employee, and various business related taxation/regulation).

And commercial bandwidth is a completely different animal. The same speed line as my residential line costs nearly 4 times as much per month simply because of the service agreement having a higher standard of service applied. If they have to build a circuit to you, it's an extra $200-300 initial setup cost--just for the SAME SPEED AS A RESIDENTIAL LINE. A dedicated dark fiber bundle can run upwards of 2k a month for a drop just one mile off the main trunk line. If you have to run say...10 miles, it could run upwards of 20k a month. If there is already a line nearby off the trunk that they can just tap and drop, the cost can be cut about 30%, but if they have to build to your site...you pay that full price, up to double that estimate depending on complications encountered along the route. Thats just to get the line to the site, then there are management services for breaking the connection out into the building, and whether you yourself are going to cut the lines to run throughout the complex and be responsible for their maintenance, or have the provider be responsible for that(upwards of $1 per foot per bundle PER MONTH to maintain them under the service agreement) and securing the ToS agreement and such (Quaranteed Quality of Service details like <10ms latency, guaranteed uptime and techinical response times, etc.). Regardless, you have to pay a hefty fee either way as you would need the right equipment and skillset for making fiber lines yourself, which again has a minimum market rate/hr for the technicians payroll. In the end a commercial line to support this large an operation could likely run more than 40k a month, depending on location and market. Remember, you have to account for the ongoing maintenance/operation cost for running this cost for TWO sites--source, and backup.

Raist

[jeffanddane]

You are talking about US wages right because cost of living in japan is super high so there wages are a bit different.

[Fallenone]

Yo! Idiot!! You do realize that you are running in circles and you have not given any valid points. Allow me to explain: TEPCO had not 1 but two contingency plans and both of those failed. I am sure that SE took not only the power issues into effect but what was in the best interests of their employees. You say you can live without game and you're concerned about the people of Japan. Then how about this... STFU and sit back and wait like the rest of us. Did it ever occur to you SE has willingly given up over 4million they would have made for our accounts. No company willingly gives up their profits for a month unless there's a damn good reason. You say this isn't about you not being able to play but that's just your way of disguising your whining.

I also advise you learn to suck it up because servers are gonna be down for a lot longer then 2 weeks. The power issues over there are long term and we'll be feeling it's effects for a while. I'm more worried about the people I care about who are over there dealing with this little things we all call "real life".

[RAIST]

You are talking about US wages right because cost of living in japan is super high so there wages are a bit different.

The example was givien in dollars, so it stands to reason that a country that uses the dollar as currency would apply (ie, US estimates). Rates would adjust accordingly--industry standards are industry standards. And the debate is over setting up an alternate site in another country, not Japan.

Raist

[RAIST]

The Criminologist: And crawling, on the planet's face, some insects, called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space... and meaning.
---Rocky Horror Picture Show

[Atomic646]

For a buisness point of view, the service of the game quite frankly is really poor, and let much to be desired, You clearly have not met Sega and there MMO RPG's...

[chubrocka]

Wow, i really thought we played on servers here in the states???

[Eisensword]

None of this is SE's fault. I mean i admit ive got my problems with SE, but when the Govt orders the power out not much they can do about that. Alot of people take this or anything for granted. Take a moment think about all the problems in japan and stop crying about the petty problems of not being able to play. Hers a thought pick up a book and read it....

[Miera]

I believe SE really had no choice of the matter anyway, if the government told them they need to shut down their services to reserve power you have to do what they say.

[Vedabe]

None of this is SE's fault. I mean i admit ive got my problems with SE, but when the Govt orders the power out not much they can do about that. Alot of people take this or anything for granted. Take a moment think about all the problems in japan and stop crying about the petty problems of not being able to play. Hers a thought pick up a book and read it....


You clearly have not seen my point, it is not about the game, forget the game, is about the service they are providing as a company, my concern is not beeing able to play the game, is that they did not have a plan of emergency for situations like this, specially when there are records of pretty strong earthquakes before. You can just based your hole strategy when you are offering a world wide franchise, for instance now a days when you buy a world wide product like ipod, the warranty is valid world wide, or how would you feel if you buy something in other countrie, and all of the sudden it fails, and the warranty is not valid world wide, and I will REPEAT this again, i am not a selfish bastard, i feel really bad for the japan region, it is not about being desperate of playing again.
You guys are mixing two completely different scenarios.

I see you are excusing bad service, with the feeling of a catastrofic event, i feel horrible too. But what would you say, if instead of an earth quake, something else happens and only the building with the servers are wrecked, the result is the same stuff, the servers are offline.

[Vedabe]

Yo! Idiot!! You do realize that you are running in circles and you have not given any valid points. Allow me to explain: TEPCO had not 1 but two contingency plans and both of those failed. I am sure that SE took not only the power issues into effect but what was in the best interests of their employees. You say you can live without game and you're concerned about the people of Japan. Then how about this... STFU and sit back and wait like the rest of us. Did it ever occur to you SE has willingly given up over 4million they would have made for our accounts. No company willingly gives up their profits for a month unless there's a damn good reason. You say this isn't about you not being able to play but that's just your way of disguising your whining.

I also advise you learn to suck it up because servers are gonna be down for a lot longer then 2 weeks. The power issues over there are long term and we'll be feeling it's effects for a while. I'm more worried about the people I care about who are over there dealing with this little things we all call "real life".


You know, i have not disrespect anyone even though they think different than me, seriously all of your comments show how "intelligent" and mentally skilled you are. Anyway, i don´t even know, why am i bothering in answering to this, you would not understand it either way. Have a nice day. :)

[Retsujo]

I don't understand how it's bad service. POL and SE phone support is still running, we're being kept up to date with little updates of the situation, and have been apologized to for the inconvenience of suspended service. Maybe it's not the ideal service you wish to have, having compared this with your ideals for your up-and-coming company you say you're starting, but just wait until your company becomes successful and something happens that you have to make a split-second decision based on recent events and your government. It was the most efficient decision, and has given most of us the opportunity to spend our month's payment on a donation towards the effort to rebuild what's been lost.

I'm not saying you're insensitive for your words, but I certainly don't think you have a very good idea of 'the business.'

[Ahana]

You clearly have not seen my point, it is not about the game, forget the game, is about the service they are providing as a company, my concern is not beeing able to play the game, is that they did not have a plan of emergency for situations like this, specially when there are records of pretty strong earthquakes before.

I am honestly starting to wonder if you are reading the responses you have gotten.

The earthquake DID NOT knock the servers offline. The tsunami DID NOT knock the servers offline. TEPCO shutting down the power and the government requesting everyone, large and small, to curtail power usage since there was a country-wide 33% supply shortfall DID.

You keep claiming that SE lacking a complete duplicate set of operating servers in another country represents poor service. You are WRONG. Get that through your head now. Wrong. Incorrect. Not right. Counterfactual. However you want to interpret it. This is not a standard practice in this industry. Hell, it is not a standard practice in ANY industry, that I am aware of. The second largest company in the world maintains separate server clusters in each of their worldwide regions, but does not integrate them with each other in real-time.

I understand that you feel like they should be doing this. You are welcome to that opinion. That neither makes it correct nor shared by anyone else, though. The bandwidth costs alone for real-time duplication between the server farm in Japan and the backup are millions of dollars. Daily. It is not cost-effective for SE to do so. It is not reasonable to expect them to. Quit with the poor analogies like worldwide warranties and look at the facts.

SE is providing excellent service to their customers in this case -- a free month of usage for the week+ downtime. Any claims to the contrary are ignorant at best.

[Auriga]

Holy hell in many hand baskets.. this is still going on? I went to sleep for 9 hours an this crap has
raged on and on and on.. starting to think alot of people have forgotten their meds b4 posting.

[RAIST]

personally, I haven't had trouble with their support. The few time's I've contacted them, they've been very helpful, got to the root of the problem, and fixed it. Granted, I would have preferred not to wait so long to have my toon restored when I got hacked a few years back, but it was during a peak period of hacking and they were trying to gather as much info as possible so I dind't mind so much swappping some information with them. In the end, my toon was restored to about 3 days prior to the incident, which was the closest point in time they found.

Granted, others may have had more difficult issues because of the screwy way the payment methods and what not are designed, but those are now known flaws and have known methods for avoiding them now, so those incidents are now diminished--but when they first encounter an issue on a massive scale there will always be backlash...which leads to this event.

There have only been 4 other events in recorded history equivalent to this one. Not even in Japan--we're talking Alaska, Russia, and I think it was India and somehere in the south-east of the pacific area. This was a, by any measure, unforeseen circumstance.

There was a contingency plan for the 9.0 earthquake. Systems were activated and functioned as intended. If it had JUST been the earthquake (as has happened on a fairly basis there--Japan has tremors like some areas get hurricanes)--they were prepared for it, and protected as evidenced by us not loosig service during the previous quake that happend on MARCH 09, JUST A FEW DAYS PRIOR.

What caused the problem was the unforeseen event of a frekaing 13 meter Tsunami that wiped entire towns off the map--including one with a DOUBLE 10 meter barrier wall built to protect it from tsunami waves (which had been protecting it in past events). The tsunami waves (plural, it was more than just one btw) ripped up all the resources needed to support secondary and backup systems. Yes.. that's right--two failover systems were rendered useless, not by the quakes, but by the ocean.

This has resulted an a crisis never seen, never imagined, and thus unprepared for. It is a testemant to their design of everything in general over there that there is still a data farm for us to even be concerned about bringing back online in the first place.

Again...until we hear anything about just what they are/aren't doig about the situation, you really have no leg to stand on for criticizing their actions or lack there of in that regard.

Criticism for lack of communication is a whole other animal though....

Raist

[Kailea_Nagisa]

what meds? *hides the tray full of pills and things* ^.^

[Auriga]

what meds? *hides the tray full of pills and things* ^.^

Prof. Farnsworth: Yes, yes, yes. You sound like a broken mp3. =p

[Vedabe]

Prof. Farnsworth: Yes, yes, yes. You sound like a broken mp3. =p

Lol, how are you Auri, did you have a good sleep :P

[HFX7686]

You clearly have not seen my point, it is not about the game, forget the game, is about the service they are providing as a company, my concern is not beeing able to play the game, is that they did not have a plan of emergency for situations like this, specially when there are records of pretty strong earthquakes before. You can just based your hole strategy when you are offering a world wide franchise, for instance now a days when you buy a world wide product like ipod, the warranty is valid world wide, or how would you feel if you buy something in other countrie, and all of the sudden it fails, and the warranty is not valid world wide, and I will REPEAT this again, i am not a selfish bastard, i feel really bad for the japan region, it is not about being desperate of playing again.
You guys are mixing two completely different scenarios.

I see you are excusing bad service, with the feeling of a catastrofic event, i feel horrible too. But what would you say, if instead of an earth quake, something else happens and only the building with the servers are wrecked, the result is the same stuff, the servers are offline.

You believe that SE should have had a plan for a triple disaster that has knocked an entire country sideways?

If Apple was in an area with a huge catastrophe, where people were dying and hurt, and was unable to guarantee my iPod warranty for a month or two, that would be okay.

Anyone who can't put up with a company facing unforeseeable events is an insensitive jerk.

[TearValerin]

OP is a selfish, selfish, little person. There are people dead, hungry, and without homes, and the government asked them to cut power, yet you demand they keep your game up? They are give you a free month of service for the delay, keeping you updated, and apologizing for the inconvenience. Grow up, op. The world does not revolve around you and your fixation on FFXI. The poor Japanese people have lives that matter too.

[Vedabe]

OP is a selfish, selfish, little person. There are people dead, hungry, and without homes, and the government asked them to cut power, yet you demand they keep your game up? They are give you a free month of service for the delay, keeping you updated, and apologizing for the inconvenience. Grow up, op. The world does not revolve around you and your fixation on FFXI. The poor Japanese people have lives that matter too.

All right, now i got really mad.
You guys are calling me insensitive, childish bastard, how about this, i´ve been in japan, and i loved the culture, i have stayed there for a couple of months teaching spanish for free, just because i feel like it.
I have learned so much from the japanese culture, and i loved it.

You guys just keep judging away, when i have not even say anything to disrespect anyone, as a matter of fact i have thanked everyone just to post on this topic, because i value your time, on discussing on one matter.

Discussing is not the same as judging, and you guys need to realize that. I do feel horrible about the japanese situation, i have donated for the cause, my sister is giving home to 3 japense friends she have( cause she used to live there), we paid for half of their plane tickets, we know they have lost everything.

So do not come and tell me that i am a selfish bastard, because i know i have done more than all of you, combined, you guys are just posting all the regrets and shit, like little kids. It is impossible not feeling bad about the hole situation, it was just overwhelming, but you are actually not doing a shit. Just complaining, disrespcting and judging to people that just think different than you.

Most of you guys are just crying on your asses sitting all day long on the computer, saying "yeah, bitch i have a life you, don´t. well what a great life, why don´t you get up and do something on your community to get founds for Japan, i know that would help.

This is the last time i post on this topic, and the main idea of it, was "yeah shit happens", and we feel bad about it, but we have to learn from the mistakes, so this won´t happen again.

I am not insensitive at all, i just all the time learning to focus on what can i do today to improve things, feeling bad and doing anything, it just won´t help anyone.

Grow up little kids. (not all of you, some of you guys seems really nice folks)

[RAIST]

just gonna copy and paste from another post... eh.. call me lazy. Someone also pointed out that info says that mass transit runs through there as well. Maybe this draws a little more perspective on SE's precarious situation:

Interesting tidbit of info I just stumbled when another thread prompted me to look up some stuff on SE. Here's a link to some info on SE's 23 story building that houses 4 of SE's divisions (SE holdings, SE limited, Taito Corp, and SE Business Holdings):

http://www.tokyoarchitecture.info/Building/4083/Shinjuku-Bunka-Quint.php

If you map it and zoom in and out, you will notice it is fairly close to several key features like HOSPITALS and POLICE STATIONS, the Tokyo Metro Government building, post offices... In fact, there is a hospital and one police station within just a few blocks.

Raist

[TearValerin]

All right, now i got really mad.
You guys are calling me insensitive, childish bastard, how about this, i´ve been in japan, and i loved the culture, i have stayed there for a couple of months teaching spanish for free, just because i feel like it.
I have learned so much from the japanese culture, and i loved it.

You guys just keep judging away, when i have not even say anything to disrespect anyone, as a matter of fact i have thanked everyone just to post on this topic, because i value your time, on discussing on one matter.

Discussing is not the same as judging, and you guys need to realize that. I do feel horrible about the japanese situation, i have donated for the cause, my sister is giving home to 3 japense friends she have( cause she used to live there), we paid for half of their plane tickets, we know they have lost everything.

So do not come and tell me that i am a selfish bastard, because i know i have done more than all of you, combined, you guys are just posting all the regrets and shit, like little kids. It is impossible not feeling bad about the hole situation, it was just overwhelming, but you are actually not doing a shit. Just complaining, disrespcting and judging to people that just think different than you.

Most of you guys are just crying on your asses sitting all day long on the computer, saying "yeah, bitch i have a life you, don´t. well what a great life, why don´t you get up and do something on your community to get founds for Japan, i know that would help.

This is the last time i post on this topic, and the main idea of it, was "yeah shit happens", and we feel bad about it, but we have to learn from the mistakes, so this won´t happen again.

I am not insensitive at all, i just all the time learning to focus on what can i do today to improve things, feeling bad and doing anything, it just won´t help anyone.

Grow up little kids. (not all of you, some of you guys seems really nice folks)

It helps if you take your own advice, and not behave like a child throwing a fit when you get criticized for sounding like an insensitive twit. The coarse language, arrogance, and pretentiousness... what the hell is with the unwarrented sense of self pride? For all you know, one of these posters could have helped far more than you have, but that is irrelevant. Your original post is offensive, and outright insensitive, and your posting lies is the equivalent of saying "I HAVE A BLACK FRIEND SO I CAN SAY THE N WORD AND NOT BE RACIST." Rather than be a hypocrite, why don't you get off your computer and continue helping this cause you claim to support so much, infant, Lord knows we don't need a kid like you posting such slanderous dribble.

[Anon]

Would you guys please stay out of this thread with the white knighting. You just don't get it. Those of us who are unhappy with SE know how you feel. And have asked you a million times to just please... go post somewhere else. Your internet bravado is just dry and boring now. The op was a bit nicer than alot of us negative posters have been. And you guys still proceeded to jump on him and flame him all you could. He responded with thought out answers. He tried not to get into a flame war with you. He tried to respect your responses and answer in kind. But none of you would have it. If you didn't call him names or accuse him of being an insensitive jerk then you googled up some numbers and threw that at him.
The reason I personally am so upset is because for over 8 years now I've made my monthly payment on time. And the one time I'd like more than "Talk to you Tuesday" I get "Talk to you Tuesday". Seriously? That's adequate service? No. It is not. So please. Will you guys take all your rainbows and smiles to the million other threads you inundate with mindless banter? And leave the small portion of us with the gumption to not appreciate the current situation alone? I've attacked none of you anywhere. I have responded in kind. And will continue to do so.
As for the pm asking how I've not gotten banned. That's an easy answer kind sir. To ban me for responding to you they would have to ban alot of you for attacking posters like myself. Call it what you want. You guys have your internet torches burning and you flame everyone you can.

[Leatherman]

As much as people get all defensive due to the things happening in Japan I will have to agree with Vedabe. It's bound to have others saying something to defend or simply to oppose the topic, it will always happen. I completely understand his point of view, and when he said that he didn't refer it to the Japanese themselves. He was talking about a company. If it wasn't for this disaster all you pretend defenders would be up in arms with him, because I hear a lot of that in-game. The fact is Square Enix is not SquareSoft and that's the difference from the Final Fantasy Series being an excitement and being a disappointment.

Here is a challenge to SquareEnix, step up your game or consult the lead team from the old company, SquareSoft. Open your mind about server location and even multiple locations for that matter.

I'm glad the servers are down actually, because I get so much more done and I'm having a blast working out extra hours and hanging out with friends outside the game world. Yes, I miss it to a certain extent and am hoping they come with something refreshing when they are back online to set a "in memory of" type of event. Adversity brings forth excellence.

Oh and for all you defenders or pretenders in my opinion they should have their server somewhere else getting money and donating that money (that they are not making now) to the people of need in Japan.

Thanks for reading.

[Whirlingdervish]

Vedabe, just out of curiosity what field do you work in?

[Flunklesnarkin]

So much mayad in this thread....

I'm sure servers will come up eventually...

I suggest trying a new mmo during the server down time

"Outside"

From the makers the MMORPG "IRL"

Features:
*No monthly fee
*Massive world to explore
*Incredible NPC AI
*Over 56,400 character archtypes
*Fully PVP
*Highest resolution graphics

[Tsukino_Kaji]

"Outside"

From the makers the MMORPG "IRL"

Features:
*No monthly feeThat is the bigest lie I've ever heard. Only children get to play for free.

[TearValerin]

I think it is abolutely insane people expect a 9 year old game to still have the support it used to. Diablo 2 finally cut off support last September for its old dinosaur of a self... we should be lucky they still have phone representatives for a game that is considered ancient in the MMO world.

@Anon OP is a dunce, saying "I donated to Japan, so you better get my game back up, you failures." is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. If he wants to berate the company he can do it on one of the numerous fansites. If he wants to curse up a storm, this isn't the place for it either.

[Nattack]

welfare is a better mmo, they practically give you everything. and discourage exping

[Dale]

It helps if you take your own advice, and not behave like a child throwing a fit when you get criticized for sounding like an insensitive twit. The coarse language, arrogance, and pretentiousness... what the hell is with the unwarrented sense of self pride? For all you know, one of these posters could have helped far more than you have, but that is irrelevant. Your original post is offensive, and outright insensitive, and your posting lies is the equivalent of saying "I HAVE A BLACK FRIEND SO I CAN SAY THE N WORD AND NOT BE RACIST." Rather than be a hypocrite, why don't you get off your computer and continue helping this cause you claim to support so much, infant, Lord knows we don't need a kid like you posting such slanderous dribble.

TearValerin, everytime i read these threads you are always flaming some other person.

His post was not childish. There was no course language. Unwarranted sense of pride? Insensitive? Slanderous dribble? lol I really don't see how this mild post could have offended you so. Your post was far more offensive.

So he thinks Square should have had a back up plan and he doesn't like their service. That's basically all he said. You are exagerating the contents of his post to the max and in doing so you will undermine any point you ever had to make.

[Vedabe]

Vedabe, just out of curiosity what field do you work in?

hey, my social profession is psychologist, right now i am working as a volunter on a rehab center for drug young people, on the mornings, i live in Cancun, and as you all know we are having major issues with drug abuse, and also i just set my "shrink´s office" lol, on the evenings.

My pasion is electronic music, i just finished setting my music studio up, i am big fan of trance music myself, so my plan is getting to live from the music over the future.

PD: big fan of Nobuo Uematsu :D

[Tsukino_Kaji]

My pasion is electronic music, i just finished setting my music studio up, i am big fan of trance music myself, so my plan is getting to live from the music over the future.Have you posted anything you've made?

[Vedabe]

As much as people get all defensive due to the things happening in Japan I will have to agree with Vedabe. It's bound to have others saying something to defend or simply to oppose the topic, it will always happen. I completely understand his point of view, and when he said that he didn't refer it to the Japanese themselves. He was talking about a company. If it wasn't for this disaster all you pretend defenders would be up in arms with him, because I hear a lot of that in-game. The fact is Square Enix is not SquareSoft and that's the difference from the Final Fantasy Series being an excitement and being a disappointment.

Here is a challenge to SquareEnix, step up your game or consult the lead team from the old company, SquareSoft. Open your mind about server location and even multiple locations for that matter.

I'm glad the servers are down actually, because I get so much more done and I'm having a blast working out extra hours and hanging out with friends outside the game world. Yes, I miss it to a certain extent and am hoping they come with something refreshing when they are back online to set a "in memory of" type of event. Adversity brings forth excellence.

Oh and for all you defenders or pretenders in my opinion they should have their server somewhere else getting money and donating that money (that they are not making now) to the people of need in Japan.

Thanks for reading.


YESSS PLEASE we Want Squaresoft back, so bad, sometimes i feel FF lost the soul from the games, to me playing FF is like reading a awsome fantasy book :P.

[Kindra]

After seeing a lot of the other posts made on this topic I thought he was polite about it. Also I have read through this whole thread and not until this late did I see him get as angry as he is now. He was polite with his answers and pointed out many many times it is just his opinion. Also He did say in his OP that English is not his first language. While some words weren't the right words in the situation I still understood what he was trying to say.

I just think that people are refusing to try to understand where others are coming from. People have not even tried to look at both sides, choosing to be angry on 1 side or the other.

I also think that he was saying it for future plans reasons. Not demanding, but asking them to take this into consideration.

And last but not least everyone has their own way of seeing things. This is not a new concept. To each their own.

This is not an attack on anyone just saying what I see and feel.

[jeffanddane]

Seriously this convo is very one sided.

1 Person= I have an opinion about something.

147892378489127 People versus 1 person= I am right I am righteous so I am going to join the 147892378489127 to bring you down. Isn't it funny that a lot of Japanese think they should of had a back up plan too. . . . Like I said before even if it wasn't brought back up for us . . . . At least bring it back up for them so they can get there mind off of all the bad things that have happened in the past week or so.

[Vedabe]

Have you posted anything you've made?

Right now, i had to stop the music side, because of my work, but i started a podcast last year of trance music wich i hope i can continue this year.

Http://mikygarcia.podomatic.com have a listen if you like :) cheers.

[TearValerin]

TearValerin, everytime i read these threads you are always flaming some other person.

His post was not childish. There was no course language. Unwarranted sense of pride? Insensitive? Slanderous dribble? lol I really don't see how this mild post could have offended you so. Your post was far more offensive.

So he thinks Square should have had a back up plan and he doesn't like their service. That's basically all he said. You are exagerating the contents of his post to the max and in doing so you will undermine any point you ever had to make.


All right, now i got really mad.
You guys are calling me insensitive, childish bastard, how about this, i´ve been in japan, and i loved the culture, i have stayed there for a couple of months teaching spanish for free, just because i feel like it.
I have learned so much from the japanese culture, and i loved it.

You guys just keep judging away, when i have not even say anything to disrespect anyone, as a matter of fact i have thanked everyone just to post on this topic, because i value your time, on discussing on one matter.

Discussing is not the same as judging, and you guys need to realize that. I do feel horrible about the japanese situation, i have donated for the cause, my sister is giving home to 3 japense friends she have( cause she used to live there), we paid for half of their plane tickets, we know they have lost everything.

So do not come and tell me that i am a selfish bastard, because i know i have done more than all of you, combined, you guys are just posting all the regrets and shit, like little kids. It is impossible not feeling bad about the hole situation, it was just overwhelming, but you are actually not doing a shit. Just complaining, disrespcting and judging to people that just think different than you.

Most of you guys are just crying on your asses sitting all day long on the computer, saying "yeah, bitch i have a life you, don´t. well what a great life, why don´t you get up and do something on your community to get founds for Japan, i know that would help.

This is the last time i post on this topic, and the main idea of it, was "yeah shit happens", and we feel bad about it, but we have to learn from the mistakes, so this won´t happen again.

I am not insensitive at all, i just all the time learning to focus on what can i do today to improve things, feeling bad and doing anything, it just won´t help anyone.

Grow up little kids. (not all of you, some of you guys seems really nice folks)
Dale, read and mind your own business. If those bolded words aren't profanity, then I'm a horses rear.

[Myrrh]

volunter on a rehab center for drug young people

Hi, Irony.

[DukeDudeston]

Although, he does have a point "kinda", but what where square to do? have mirrors of the same game somewhere else?
They do HAVE backup's of the game data, ask anyone who has had their account compromised (you can start with me) I had nothing.. got it all stolen from me.. got my character back, a 3 week ago restore, but I had mostly everything I originally had.

You really expect Square to constantly make backups of their game, and transfer it to another server "just in case"?
they would do that, IF something like this happens on a monthly basis maybe.. lol if it happened that often, they would probably host the game somwhere else in the world.

The problem is, dedicated game servers, are not cheap, and having some wurring away in some remote location, on the off chance that something this big will happen again, will be a total waste of money, even if they do earn millions, it will still be.. a complete waste of money.

Even if they used both server centers at the same time, it will cause huge lag. you will have to ping the nearest server, then wait for that to ping the other data center (to make sure the data is the same), then wait....

You may pay money, but I don't think Square or "McDonalds" will really want to pay for a seperate set of mirroring servers.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Right now, i had to stop the music side, because of my work, but i started a podcast last year of trance music wich i hope i can continue this year.

Http://mikygarcia.podomatic.com have a listen if you like :) cheers.#24 is an hour long. lol

[Dale]

Dale, read and mind your own business. If those bolded words aren't profanity, then I'm a horses rear.

Your original post is offensive, and outright insensitive, and your posting lies is the equivalent of saying "I HAVE A BLACK FRIEND SO I CAN SAY THE N WORD AND NOT BE RACIST." Rather than be a hypocrite, why don't you get off your computer and continue helping this cause you claim to support so much, infant, Lord knows we don't need a kid like you posting such slanderous dribble.

That is what you said Tear, clearly aiming your comments at his "original post". Nice try though - but as usual the facts destroy your arguments. He only got angry after being flamed constantly by people like you - and who can blame him, most people woud lose their temper after such a verbal onslaught.

These are public forums by the way. If you want people to "mind their own business" go into private chat or somewhere else entirely, as public forums are no the place for you to be.

[nobodyhere]

lol he right about not have backup server to host in a emergency due to things they cant control like what happen now in japan but this the first time in 500 to 600 year since they had this kind of disaster.
so suck it up princess next time they be ready but for now we just have to hope and pray they can controll there power plants meltdown = no so good.

[Kindra]

It did take him 18 pages to get angry enough to say what he said lol. I was just telling my BF that I would have prob gone off on page 1 lmao. (Anger management didn't help me much ; ; )

[TearValerin]

Your original post is offensive, and outright insensitive, and your posting lies is the equivalent of saying "I HAVE A BLACK FRIEND SO I CAN SAY THE N WORD AND NOT BE RACIST." Rather than be a hypocrite, why don't you get off your computer and continue helping this cause you claim to support so much, infant, Lord knows we don't need a kid like you posting such slanderous dribble.

That is what you said Tear, clearly aiming your comments at his "original post". Nice try though - but as usual the facts destroy your arguments. He only got angry after being flamed constantly by people like you - and who can blame him, most people woud lose their temper after such a verbal onslaught.

These are public forums by the way. If you want people to "mind their own business" go into private chat or somewhere else entirely, as public forums are no the place for you to be.
Facts destroying my argument lol? Rather than fuel a petty vendetta, just ignore my posts, you really do not have the caliber to be arguing with someone when you cannot cohesively form an argument to begin with. If anything it looks like you are angry over an argument over a trivial matter in another thread, if you want to take out a vendetta, do like you said and take it to a private message.

[Dale]

Facts destroying my argument lol? Rather than fuel a petty vendetta, just ignore my posts, you really do not have the caliber to be arguing with someone when you cannot cohesively form an argument to begin with. If anything it looks like you are angry over an argument over a trivial matter in another thread, if you want to take out a vendetta, do like you said and take it to a private message.

You flatter yourself Tear :)

This has nothing to do with any vendetta, i'm just tired of anyone who says anything the least bit critical of Square being flamed personally nonstop, and you are one of the main people who do it. That is why I am directing these posts at you - it has nothing to do with any vendetta lol

Nice dodge though. Just learn to disagree with people with a little more respect, and we'll get along fine. I could care less that you didn't like the plot on FF8. I do care that you are constantly flaming people in nearly every thread i look at. It's getting old - and i'm going to start calling you out on it.

Just because you are behind a computer screen and people can't punch you in the mouth doesn't mean you should stop showing them at least some form of basic respect.

[Vedabe]

#24 is an hour long. lol

Listen to the #20 XD have a listen to fire sign (Will Holland Remix) tune, i swear i close my eyes and just travel around my imagination. Lovely tune :) sorry for the off-topic. cheers

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Listen to the #20 XD have a listen to fire sign (Will Holland Remix) tune, i swear i close my eyes and just travel around my imagination. Lovely tune :) sorry for the off-topic. cheersDiggin' it so far.

[TearValerin]

You flatter yourself Tear :)

This has nothing to do with any vendetta, i'm just tired of anyone who says anything the least bit critical of Square being flamed personally nonstop, and you are one of the main people who do it. That is why I am directing these posts at you - it has nothing to do with any vendetta lol

Nice dodge though. Just learn to disagree with people with a little more respect, and we'll get along fine. I could care less that you didn't like the plot on FF8. I do care that you are constantly flaming people in nearly every thread i look at. It's getting old - and i'm going to start calling you out on it.

Just because you are behind a computer screen and people can't punch you in the mouth doesn't mean you should stop showing them at least some form of basic respect.
Call me out on what, on mild mannered epithets directed at those who display extreme ignorance? I've maybe insult 2 people, you and OP, saying what, you are ignorant and/or childish for pretending to be at my level of intellect? If he is going to berate people with his profanity, then he can follow his own advice and 'grow up.' Only children use cursing, now seriously, step off.

[Anon]

There are no facts to destroy your argument. nor are there any to destroy ours. This; like so many other things in life; is all about perspective. There is nothing complicated to it. A number of you are understanding and accept the situation as it is. Some of us are not quite as understanding and expect more in the way of communication. It's just that simple. "We'll look at it later" is not what we're after. We want a somewhat detailed approach to how they are handling this. And yes I do deserve to know. I paid them every month on time. I deserve to know in my perspective. I haven't once said the servers should be up. I haven't once complained about the apparent absence of a disaster recovery plan. I'm miffed about what they aren't saying now. Which is... anything... at all.

[Lilbitz]

SE, you didnt let me down. You invented the Ginger cookie, and i wovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvey~aru cookies. ^^

[Yugl]

Chances are that SE isn't making enough money to warrant multiple backups. Also, the OP's analogy is ridiculous to say the least. SE didn't loose their servers. They intentionally shut them down because of a nationwide problem. If you wanted to make a better analogy, you would have made a situation in which McDonalds ceases to provide burgers because it is possible that the meat source had mad cow disease (or something similar). In fact, similar situations have happened and they have stopped the production of burgers. Any other bright ideas OP?

[Vedabe]

SE, you didnt let me down. You invented the Ginger cookie, and i wovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvey~aru cookies. ^^

you have a point right there ^^:P

[Dale]

Call me out on what, on mild mannered epithets directed at those who display extreme ignorance? I've maybe insult 2 people, you and OP, saying what, you are ignorant and/or childish for pretending to be at my level of intellect? If he is going to berate people with his profanity, then he can follow his own advice and 'grow up.' Only children use cursing, now seriously, step off.



And i'll step off when you stop insulting people. Simple as that.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

SE, you didnt let me down. You invented the Ginger cookie, and i wovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvey~aru cookies. ^^No Wizard Cookies for you!

[TearValerin]

Did you really just write this? "you are ignorant and/or childish for pretending to be at my level of intellect?"

And yet you accused him of arrogance and hypocrisy? Lol - that is funny.

And i'll step off when you stop insulting people. Simple as that.

What is there to accuse? The dude flat out said "I bet I have aided Japan more than all of you combined." As if he is some godly tsunami/quake relief effort, therefore his demands should be met by SE. Read his page 18 post, my gosh. Trolls know no bounds... 'imma post logical fallacy for teh lulz.'

[Vedabe]

Chances are that SE isn't making enough money to warrant multiple backups. Also, the OP's analogy is ridiculous to say the least. SE didn't loose their servers. They intentionally shut them down because of a nationwide problem. If you wanted to make a better analogy, you would have made a situation in which McDonalds ceases to provide burgers because it is possible that the meat source had mad cow disease (or something similar). In fact, similar situations have happened and they have stopped the production of burgers. Any other bright ideas OP?

To begin with, i never meant about the servers not being on because of the disaster, i can totally understand that, and i have no argue about that, it´s way to obvious and reasonable why they did that.
i meant about the idea of not having an alternative after all of these years that ppl have been paying, when you have a world wide multiplatform business, you don´t have all the stuff that makes it work in one place, that is what i believe is wrong, i am sure other companies do that in order to ensure better and faster costumer support and service.

[Noelie]

You know the real prince and princesses on this thread are the ones that are not listening to the original poster. Long before this with many things that Square Enix has done has made me blink with the lack of planning and thought for customers. Just repeat to yourselves "FFXIV" if you need evidence.
To those posting that it was impossible for SE to set up a back up plan such as back up servers saying it is too impossible, that is something American business does daily.
The other real point is that some of you would be the same immature prince and princesses that would blithely post "Hate America first" post about "heartless" American Business.
The fact is SE is sometime questionable. Their lack of planning, Their lack of advertising for new player blood, their debuting a game that was not ready, and for as much as they copied to have the lack of content that they do is inexcusable.. any US business would be down the tubes at that point.
The problem in Japan is awful, it is something that makes me cry, but the lack of planning by SE part isn't hurting me. I have other things to do, but in the end it might hurt them badly. They need money now throughout the country and they have no real plan. The truth is from the wishy-washy announcement, I was pretty sure they would never come up again.
To keep customers if you are a real competitive business you find the contingency plan to keep it all floating during the bad times, If you don't think US business does it, I can name several right now for you, one of which I work for, and trust me. if they didn't plan for back up all over the world your lives would stop, so I know it isn't as impossible as some of you want to insist.
Besides I look at the time--long ago in past history with FFXI when they used to insist that there was no lag time for US players in trying to provoke first, because the servers were in the east..no indeed they said that complaint from US customers ( when trying to beat Asians at NM hunting) was a lie because servers were here in the US. That memory alone at this time makes me go huh???... search it out. that was the end result of questions in the early 2003--004 days of SE.

The original poster has a point. a good one, and if you weren't all just SE fan kids, you would note that yes. there is an issue. You might still play their games, you might still love the story line etc, but you would admit there are definitely issues with the SE business model.

[Vedabe]

What is there to accuse? The dude flat out said "I bet I have aided Japan more than all of you combined." As if he is some godly tsunami/quake relief effort, therefore his demands should be met by SE. Read his page 18 post, my gosh. Trolls know no bounds... 'imma post logical fallacy for teh lulz.'

Can i ask you a question, what have you done, to help japanese people?, you are mixing stuff way to far, all over the place.

[Vedabe]

You know the real prince and princesses on this thread are the ones that are not listening to the original poster. Long before this with many things that Square Enix has done has made me blink with the lack of planning and thought for customers. Just repeat to yourselves "FFXIV" if you need evidence.
To those posting that it was impossible for SE to set up a back up plan such as back up servers saying it is too impossible, that is something American business does daily.
The other real point is that some of you would be the same immature prince and princesses that would blithely post "Hate America first" post about "heartless" American Business.
The fact is SE is sometime questionable. Their lack of planning, Their lack of advertising for new player blood, their debuting a game that was not ready, and for as much as they copied to have the lack of content that they do is inexcusable.. any US business would be down the tubes at that point.
The problem in Japan is awful, it is something that makes me cry, but the lack of planning by SE part isn't hurting me. I have other things to do, but in the end it might hurt them badly. They need money now throughout the country and they have no real plan. The truth is from the wishy-washy announcement, I was pretty sure they would never come up again.
To keep customers if you are a real competitive business you find the contingency plan to keep it all floating during the bad times, If you don't think US business does it, I can name several right now for you, one of which I work for, and trust me. if they didn't plan for back up all over the world your lives would stop, so I know it isn't as impossible as some of you want to insist.
Besides I look at the time--long ago in past history with FFXI when they used to insist that there was no lag time for US players in trying to provoke first, because the servers were in the east..no indeed they said that complaint from US customers ( when trying to beat Asians at NM hunting) was a lie because servers were here in the US. That memory alone at this time makes me go huh???... search it out. that was the end result of questions in the early 2003--004 days of SE.

The original poster has a point. a good one, and if you weren't all just SE fan kids, you would note that yes. there is an issue. You might still play their games, you might still love the story line etc, but you would admit there are definitely issues with the SE business model.

That was my hole point, you described way better than me, thank you :)

[Shinjikoto]

I'm beginning to think posts of this nature are made simply to cause drama. I've played this game for several years. Not once has SE ever closed down their servers like this. If this was an ongoing problem, I would understand the criticism. It is not. This is the first time there has been a disaster this size in any industry, and this is the first time they had to take drastic measures such as this. Seems reasonable to me.
I said it before in another post. Maybe you are right. Maybe SE hates their customers, maybe SE hates money, maybe nobody at SE has ever been to college and doesn't know as much as you. OR maybe a 9.0 earthquake followed by a tsunami topped off by a nuclear crisis happened and they saw this as the best possible way to help take care of it. The only thing I would like to add is that in the future, would all those claiming to know how businesses of this nature should be run during times of crisis please reference us to your multi million dollar business and/or businesses so that we know you are truly the experts that you try to come off as online. Otherwise I'm gonna have to give SE a break on this one.

[Leatherman]

You know the real prince and princesses on this thread are the ones that are not listening to the original poster. Long before this with many things that Square Enix has done has made me blink with the lack of planning and thought for customers. Just repeat to yourselves "FFXIV" if you need evidence.
To those posting that it was impossible for SE to set up a back up plan such as back up servers saying it is too impossible, that is something American business does daily.
The other real point is that some of you would be the same immature prince and princesses that would blithely post "Hate America first" post about "heartless" American Business.
The fact is SE is sometime questionable. Their lack of planning, Their lack of advertising for new player blood, their debuting a game that was not ready, and for as much as they copied to have the lack of content that they do is inexcusable.. any US business would be down the tubes at that point.
The problem in Japan is awful, it is something that makes me cry, but the lack of planning by SE part isn't hurting me. I have other things to do, but in the end it might hurt them badly. They need money now throughout the country and they have no real plan. The truth is from the wishy-washy announcement, I was pretty sure they would never come up again.
To keep customers if you are a real competitive business you find the contingency plan to keep it all floating during the bad times, If you don't think US business does it, I can name several right now for you, one of which I work for, and trust me. if they didn't plan for back up all over the world your lives would stop, so I know it isn't as impossible as some of you want to insist.
Besides I look at the time--long ago in past history with FFXI when they used to insist that there was no lag time for US players in trying to provoke first, because the servers were in the east..no indeed they said that complaint from US customers ( when trying to beat Asians at NM hunting) was a lie because servers were here in the US. That memory alone at this time makes me go huh???... search it out. that was the end result of questions in the early 2003--004 days of SE.

The original poster has a point. a good one, and if you weren't all just SE fan kids, you would note that yes. there is an issue. You might still play their games, you might still love the story line etc, but you would admit there are definitely issues with the SE business model.

Awesome post Noelie. Some people defend blindly and religiously because they grew up with it. But in a business point of view they have a lot to improve. Final Fantasy 14 is again an example of waste of energy, money and resources. And for others that say that we are lucky to have customer support for an ancient MMO? It's an old MMO but I haven't seen any drop on monthly fees due to outdated graphics and to the fact that it's an old game. They should have implemented the new graphics from 14 into 11 and listened to customers better about User Interface to make the game more manageable.

I personally think that Final Fantasy 11 has better graphics than World of Warcraft and yet WoW knows how to keep players playing and how to get new players to play an old game.

Ok, it's understandable the fact of not having multiple location backup servers, but it has given them plenty of time to move locations by now and get their service back online. That would be my business strategy call.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

That was my hole point, you described way better than me, thank you :)Add more psyco babble next time. Work Freudian in there somwhere. lol

[Kindra]

He is not saying that the situation is a predictable nor is he faulting them for their choice. All he is saying is that in his opinion maybe a back up plan for something like this might be a good idea.

Se can't control mother nature any more then the rest of us can. Although I really wish someone would take her out!! I keep asking my BF to do it but yea... he wont ; ;.

Now don't think that I agree with this idea being done right now or anything like that. If SE was to decide to do something along these lines for the future then that's up to them. But people should be able to express this as long as its done in a polite way. Then people can discuss this type of thing.

[Yugl]

To begin with, i never meant about the servers not being on because of the disaster, i can totally understand that, and i have no argue about that, it´s way to obvious and reasonable why they did that.
i meant about the idea of not having an alternative after all of these years that ppl have been paying, when you have a world wide multiplatform business, you don´t have all the stuff that makes it work in one place, that is what i believe is wrong, i am sure other companies do that in order to ensure better and faster costumer support and service.

Now you're backtracking because the bulk of your example, which indeed, supplements your point, is directed towards the effect of the disaster. Namely, it's that the company did not prepare for the disaster. The first sentence already answers your problem, so read again. The rest of it explains why you made a terrible example. An expanded version of the first sentence is the following:

The goal of a business is to make money. Despite your claims, longevity of the servers does not always correlate with this goal. Given the uncertainty of FFXI's future (Given Pre-Abyssea FFXI conditions and FFXIV), it's not unreasonable to save money by maintaining servers in one country. In other words, they take a risk by saving money. It's done all the time in business, and in fact, statistically, it's in their favor (100% chance of saved money if you don't make the excess servers). There is also uncertainty in how players will respond to this crisis. Are people crying and whining? Sure. Does that mean all the people who cried and whined quit? Not necessarily. Does it mean that the money it cost them for April and unsubscribers equals or surpasses the cost for backup servers? Not necessarily. After all, how many backups would they need to suffice? It could have easily been the case that they backup servers in California and a different earthquake hits Japan and California. In that instance, the investment is wasted. In short, until you can provide us with the specific number of people who left due to this incident, how much it would cost them to backup the servers, logistical costs, and predict future natural disaster events (So that two server places will never experience a disaster), your "business analysis" is nothing but nonsensical rambling because you don't understand that the business world is a game of chance.

[Alhanelem]

I just have one question, which I feel ls legitimate.

Why is this thread still going on? I mean, really. The OP's opinion was discussed and addressed pretty fully in the first 4 or 5 20 post pages.

[Kindra]

Yugl you have a good point.

[Vedabe]

I'm beginning to think posts of this nature are made simply to cause drama. I've played this game for several years. Not once has SE ever closed down their servers like this. If this was an ongoing problem, I would understand the criticism. It is not. This is the first time there has been a disaster this size in any industry, and this is the first time they had to take drastic measures such as this. Seems reasonable to me.
I said it before in another post. Maybe you are right. Maybe SE hates their customers, maybe SE hates money, maybe nobody at SE has ever been to college and doesn't know as much as you. OR maybe a 9.0 earthquake followed by a tsunami topped off by a nuclear crisis happened and they saw this as the best possible way to help take care of it. The only thing I would like to add is that in the future, would all those claiming to know how businesses of this nature should be run during times of crisis please reference us to your multi million dollar business and/or businesses so that we know you are truly the experts that you try to come off as online. Otherwise I'm gonna have to give SE a break on this one.

I think you are right at some point, it might seem that i think i know it all, wich to be honest most of the time i doubt about everything, but, i think objective criticism is the most powerfull tool, to grow, objective feedback it makes us grow.

Like i said b4, the best way to take advantage of bad times, is analyzing what i could of done, to don´t fall in the hole, is like attacking the issue with the most weapons i have at my resources.

And i think SE needs to do that.

[Vedabe]

For instance, i´ve just criticised myself, and i´ve realized i need to improve my english, cause i am having trouble getting to express myself with more acurrate words.

[Vedabe]

I just have one question, which I feel ls legitimate.

Why is this thread still going on? I mean, really. The OP's opinion was discussed and addressed pretty fully in the first 4 or 5 20 post pages.

Yup i think you are right, it´s getting tiring discussing this, and closely agressive too.

[Nu-Hir]

@Nu-Hir

I appreciate the effort, but I think your cost analysis may be a bit off. Typical markets start a generic Network Engineer at the equivalent of @$10/hour ($20k/yr)--14.5k doesn't even meet Minimum Wage in the US (7.25/hr, 40 hours/week = $15,080/yr).

I wasn't going off of how much it costs to pay someone to be there. I was going off of how much that particular colocation host charges for the service. Considering that they have other clients, they can charge less than Minimum Wage to each client, since they'll be making more than enough over multiple clients to pay for the support staff.


And commercial bandwidth is a completely different animal. The same speed line as my residential line costs nearly 4 times as much per month simply because of the service agreement having a higher standard of service applied. If they have to build a circuit to you, it's an extra $200-300 initial setup cost--just for the SAME SPEED AS A RESIDENTIAL LINE.

That's why I said I was lowballing it. :) I've never had to actually price bandwidth, and I was doing quick and dirty look up. I couldn't really find what I was looking for and pulled a number out of my ass. 40k seemed pretty low (since the ISP I worked at was paying 20k for two fractional DS3s). I just wanted a nice round number that seemed somewhat believable.

[HFX7686]

i meant about the idea of not having an alternative after all of these years that ppl have been paying, when you have a world wide multiplatform business, you don´t have all the stuff that makes it work in one place, that is what i believe is wrong, i am sure other companies do that in order to ensure better and faster costumer support and service.

That is a terrible, terrible idea.

I do not think you have thought this through completely.

First, if they had back-up servers in another location, they'd have to pass on the cost of maintaining those back-up servers onto the consumer. This means our monthly subscription cost would go up.

Second, if they had back-up servers they would not be able to back up the data continually. It would be weekly, or monthly (depending on how much they want to jack up our fees). Therefore, if they had switched to back up servers we'd have lost 2-3 weeks or possibly more worth of data on our characters.

Third, if any company is unable to maintain their service because of a huge disaster in which people have died and are suffering and the reason they have temporarily suspended services is to help those people, I do not see how anyone could possibly disagree with that decision. Especially since they're not even going to charge us for the downtime. It is absolutely mind-blowing to me that anyone could possibly disagree with this decision.

Finally, from everything I read all the 'hardcore gamer' people at BG are completely okay with the decision to shut down the game temporarily and are doing other things in the meanwhile. I don't understand why the majority 'casual gamer' player base is having a problem with it.

[Hanabira]

having replica servers running in a different country that would have been used once in the past 9 or so years would have been a extremely silly business decision, had OP be the lead of the operation and saw the bill for "alternate servers in case of earthquake + tsunami 400k/mo" he'd be like "wtf is this crap, why isnt this money going into my pockets??" it was far more expensive than offering a free month

in fact, odds are that peter griffin would have used his volcano insurance before those off shore servers were used

on a side note, the offshore servers would likely be housed in california, which sits on a fault thats believed to one day rip the state off of the continent.

[IT_76]

I was sent here, where it looks like some people think it's stupid to have a disaster-recovery plan. XD

I was told that there are around 500k users spread out over 30 servers. That's 500,000 x $15 US per month = $7,500,000. Using someone's previous pricing of $425,000 per month to have a backup server that I assume would be replicated once per day, (resulting in one day's data loss, if that), leaves a 7.1 million dollar gross income... MONTHLY... So, could the mathematicians in the house please explain to me why everyone continues to say it isn't possible to have disaster recovery? While it is true that it does come at a loss, what do you think the investors or player-base think about their decision to skip it? That's even if it comes at a loss... The simple truth is that they are already spending money on foreign trade, so why not add a disaster-recovery plan with the pre-existing costs that they were already paying to begin with?

=)

[RAIST]

you apparently didn't read this thread in it's entirety, seeing how quickly you posted here... but glad you took the advice and moved

Edit: and, fyi,... that 500k PLUS figure you quoted is just a rough estimate of online players one might expected to be on at any one given point in time. The game's original infrastructure for just FFXI alone was for 32 game worlds, capable of supporting 15,000 to 20,000 users--roughly up to 7 million users. A couple years ago, we hit 2 million. It also does not account for their company's own internal message system for 180,000 employees that uses redundate servers and data storage, that was laid out in detail in a PDF document I linked in one of these threads. Then there is also all the data for the Taito Corp. also housed in that building. You REALLY need to go back and read this thread, and follow the links.

[Aureus]

I was sent here, where it looks like some people think it's stupid to have a disaster-recovery plan. XD

I was told that there are around 500k users spread out over 30 servers. That's 500,000 x $15 US per month = $7,500,000. Using someone's previous pricing of $425,000 per month to have a backup server that I assume would be replicated once per day, (resulting in one day's data loss, if that), leaves a 7.1 million dollar gross income... MONTHLY... So, could the mathematicians in the house please explain to me why everyone continues to say it isn't possible to have disaster recovery? While it is true that it does come at a loss, what do you think the investors or player-base think about their decision to skip it? That's even if it comes at a loss... The simple truth is that they are already spending money on foreign trade, so why not add a disaster-recovery plan with the pre-existing costs that they were already paying to begin with?

=)
The real reason is, for better or worse, MMORPGs do not have any SLA. So downtime really doesn't have any actual "cost" to them, beyond having to refund some time or a theoretical amount of users leaving.

Compare this to a real service, with an actual SLA. Going under five nines uptime will have you losing millions almost instantly. These services have a real incentive to have live backups ready to go; FFXI does not.

[IT_76]

you apparently didn't read this thread in it's entirety, seeing how quickly you posted here... but glad you took the advice and moved

Edit: and, fyi,... that 500k PLUS figure you quoted is just a rough estimate of online players one might expected to be on at any one given point in time. The game's original infrastructure for just FFXI alone was for 32 game worlds, capable of supporting 15,000 to 20,000 users--roughly up to 7 million users. A couple years ago, we hit 2 million. It also does not account for their company's own internal message system for 180,000 employees that uses redundate servers and data storage, that was laid out in detail in a PDF document I linked in one of these threads. Then there is also all the data for the Taito Corp. also housed in that building. You REALLY need to go back and read this thread, and follow the links.

It sounds as if they do have a backup plan, which they should. Unfortunately, even though it is a global service, they did not upgrade their recovery plan. Since they're already paying or contributing money towards rent, utilities, backup servers, and high-speed data lines, then why is it so hard to just rent the building overseas and pay the same costs? The company I work for backs up their data in real time by mirroring it in servers on the other side of the country, at a building they are already paying costs on... Your post makes me question even more why this wasn't done. I wonder if anyone will lose their job over it...

[Auredant]

I understand what your saying Ved even though these guys dont understand. I am sorry for what happened in japan. I could care less about playing since i dont play often but your right there shouldve been some sort of back up plan.

LOL..are you bipolar? I am literally bustin a gut over here. On a previous thread the OP, not this OP but another, made an extremely long winded, look at me post about SE not having to "apologize to us" (which everyone agreed with) and how it was breaking his heart that they were and that we should be apologizing to them. People responded by saying that the Japanese were basically a very polite people and very bussiness savvy as well saying that they were apologizing as part of business 101. And you absolutely RIPPED those people. calling them heartless, among other things. And now you defend the OPs views. If this isn't the very definition of bi-polar then I don't know what is.

[Thizzerio]

Hello guys, ok; before you starting banging and bashing the thread with, "you are a selfish, childish, and a lot more stuff", let me say this.

I am not going to go with the hole catastrofic disaster that Japan has suffer, in fact i feel so bad for those guys, and i have already donated for the cause, they are in my prays, and i watch the news really close, cause i´ve been in Japan and i really enjoyed my time over there.
Also, Final Fantasy Xi is not my life, sure enough is my favorite game, and i can live without playing it anymore; but what i am about to say is a fact and period.

For a buisness point of view, the service of the game quite frankly is really poor, and let much to be desired, i honestly can´t understand how a worldwide franchise did not have a backup plan for this kind of unexpected issues, i know you can never control stuff like this, but i am still asking myself, why they never thought of having alternative servers, specially when the game has been online for YEARS.

I don´t know about you guys, but, if people have been giving me their hard earned money for a service i am providing, i would make sure i could offer the best experience and quallity, specially when the service i am providing depends on the INTERNET, and THAT is the main reason i see why FFXIV is just a complete let down, because you are not focusing on providing the best experience, instead you are just not understanding that there are differences in the way people think from other countries, and from the other side of the world. And to make things worst, you are forcing us to adapt to what you offer just because you used to have a good solid reputation, and we are still expecting for you to get back, to what you, as a company used to be, there is a rule, for every single buisness, and that is "the customer is always right" and you used to be like that.

For example, i don´t see any time Burger King or McDonalds, stop providing and supplying food from the restaurants all over the world, just because the main factory is unavailable, that would cause millions lost every single day.

Also, people have been paying their montlhy fee, and some of them since the beggining, and i am sorry for what i am about to say, but the truth is the way you based your philosophy of the company lately, is really "Square" minded.

I have been a huge Fan of the FF franchise over the years, and no matter what i used to buy your stuff, because you prove yourself of releasing good quality games, but i think it is time to ask yourself what are you doing with your company philosphy, and actually learn something from this catastrofic disaster.

"Start listening your community or else, you will loose it".

Once again, i repeat, i think this is a fact from a buisness point of view.

Just my 2 cents, and hope all your work and development team is all right. Life and health comes first no matter what.

And also sorry for my english, Spanish is my native lenguage.

Im going to MPK you.

[Auredant]

That is a terrible, terrible idea.

I do not think you have thought this through completely.

First, if they had back-up servers in another location, they'd have to pass on the cost of maintaining those back-up servers onto the consumer. This means our monthly subscription cost would go up.

Second, if they had back-up servers they would not be able to back up the data continually. It would be weekly, or monthly (depending on how much they want to jack up our fees). Therefore, if they had switched to back up servers we'd have lost 2-3 weeks or possibly more worth of data on our characters.

Third, if any company is unable to maintain their service because of a huge disaster in which people have died and are suffering and the reason they have temporarily suspended services is to help those people, I do not see how anyone could possibly disagree with that decision. Especially since they're not even going to charge us for the downtime. It is absolutely mind-blowing to me that anyone could possibly disagree with this decision.

Finally, from everything I read all the 'hardcore gamer' people at BG are completely okay with the decision to shut down the game temporarily and are doing other things in the meanwhile. I don't understand why the majority 'casual gamer' player base is having a problem with it.

The majority of the casual player base doesn't have a problem with it. Don't know how you came up with that assumption.

[Sesono]

arent, theres an english hotline. i have called it, a very pleasant man answered and resolved my issue.

service ++!
also yes you can, you totally can. its happening right now.

true³
Their telephone support became superb over the last years. I was surprised the last time i called in and very pleased :D thumbs up!

[Andylynn]

why did this thread rear its ugly head again? should have let it rot like it belonged instead of bumping this piece of garbage.

[Miiyo]

in fact, odds are that peter griffin would have used his volcano insurance before those off shore servers were used

lmao! priceless

[Airenn]

why did this thread rear its ugly head again? should have let it rot like it belonged instead of bumping this piece of garbage.

Talk about rearing ugly heads, TearValerin.

[Miera]

OP should be happy he got his wish. Gawd.

[IT_76]

So I've been on hold for customer support for 30 minutes and the login is broken... Is everyone else experiencing this? /sigh