Vary Maint times PLEASE!!!

[Babekeke]

So another Maint Update, and what a surprise... 17:00 GMT.

At least this one is planned ahead, but when you look back through the history of maint, even all of the All Worlds Emergeny Maint is carried out at 17:00 GMT.

I sometimes can't believe it when I see the announcements 10 hours in advance that so-called "Emergency Maint" will be carried out at 17:00 GMT. If it's that much of an emergency, it should be done immediately!

But yeah, many people have had this rant before, and I'm sure many will have it again, but for the couple of months following an expansion release, it's almost impossible to plan anything for in the evenings GMT as it's almost guaranteed to be interrupted by more maint.

All that I ask is that SE stops being racist and waiting for the beloved JP players to go to bed so that maint doesn't disrupt their play time. We all pay to play! Spread the maint out and have maybe 4 6-hour rotations for the maint.

eg. you do 1 at 17:00 GMT, then the next one will be at 23:00 GMT, the next at 05:00 GMT then the 4th at 11:00 GMT, then do the rotation over again.

[Zarchery]

These maintenances last like 3 hours tops. Is your life really so empty that you can't find something else to do for 3 hours every few weeks?

The racism accusation is a real gem. It's most likely that because the servers are physically located in Japan, and have Japanese people working on them, that they do the maintenance in the middle of the night because that's when good network admins do server maintenance.

[Babekeke]

These maintenances last like 3 hours tops. Is your life really so empty that you can't find something else to do for 3 hours every few weeks?

We have a static that meets every Monday and Wednesday. Every other Monday lately there seems to have been Maint during our static time. It's getting annoying. We play to be able to play, yet us EU players get more than our fair share of downtime. Of course if you're American, then this likely doesn't affect you, unless you work strange shifts, or not at all.

As for accusations about how empty my life must be, I shan't bite.

[Sfchakan]

Yes, all of us Americans are lazy and unemployed. Oh, and SE is racist.

Sounds like someone's got some issues.

[Imakun]

17 GMT is actually a rather recent trend for SE. If you really go and look up the old maintenance times you'll see that they were almost always right in the middle of EU prime time (especially if you were part of an End Game LS), around 19/20 GMT, and lasted for more then 2h and a half.

My only real problem with that was that it reset the HNM timers to be in our time, and I hated camping lol

[Tamoa]

Wasn't aware that europeans are considered a race.

[Alhanelem]

Why should SE's NOC employees write their schedules around you, OP?

They're going to piss somebody off no matter when the maintenance hits, so there's no point in complaining about it.

"hey, they have us scheduled to work on the servers at 3AM JST."

"Yeah, I saw that. Screw em, they don't pay us enough to ruin our beauty sleep."

[RAIST]

I would hazard a guess that part of the planning may be based on the diversity of the playerbase as well. As in, try to take things off line when it is most likely to affect the least number of players. At least, that's how we used to plan things when we had to take a webserver down for a client. Often times when you are crossing time zones, you have very narrow windows to work in when traffic is lightest, so a lot of thought goes into these decisions (usually).

[Glamdring]

if there's an update involved it screws everyone's statics anyway, server congestion to download updates is a big problem, often kills the night entirely.

[Riggs]

This has been discussed a number of times before and always the same responses, SE will not comment at all, all the US players who are not effected will call the op a whiner for complaining although they are the first to bitch about anything that effects them. the EU player base will agree with the OP and nothing will change.
We need to face the facts, we represent the lowest segment of the player base and by holding the maintenance when they do they effect the lowest number of players.

[Elexia]

This has been discussed a number of times before and always the same responses, SE will not comment at all, all the US players who are not effected will call the op a whiner for complaining although they are the first to bitch about anything that effects them. the EU player base will agree with the OP and nothing will change.
We need to face the facts, we represent the lowest segment of the player base and by holding the maintenance when they do they effect the lowest number of players.

While true US players bitch about everything all the time, the OP is indeed whining about a non issue. If you play an NA based MMO, guess what times their maintenance will be? Either early AM when people are asleep, mid day when people are at work (the shock!) or school or it would be a full day offline. People who connect to it outside have no choice but to deal with those time frames because the world is a much bigger place than people seem to want to realize.

The times are in off hours in Japan. SE is a Japanese company. FFXI is a Japanese MMORPG. Not hard to comprehend.

[Zumi]

They do them at 10am pst because thats when the least amount of people play. The game is like 45% JP 45% NA, 10% EU. Probably why they do it at that time.

[Zagen]

"hey, they have us scheduled to work on the servers at 3AM JST."

"Yeah, I saw that. Screw em, they don't pay us enough to ruin our beauty sleep."

I guess they should hire american network guys or specifically from Southern California and Southern Nevada because all of the ones I met work on call when they're off and offset the hours during their "normal" hours when they have to make updates during the on call hours. Only exceptions are when they're on vacation and when they are they have someone else to cover them.

[Alhanelem]

I guess they should hire american network guys or specifically from Southern California and Southern Nevada because all of the ones I met work on call when they're off and offset the hours during their "normal" hours when they have to make updates during the on call hours. Only exceptions are when they're on vacation and when they are they have someone else to cover them.You work on call for emergencies, not for pre-planned regular mainetnance work. "On-call" activities are by their very nature unscheduled.

Again, why should they be forced to work random hours when the mainenance schedule is given in advance and you should be able to plan around it?

This maintenance isn't even long enough to be worthy of complaint in the first place.

[Zagen]

You work on call for emergencies, not for pre-planned regular mainetnance work.
Maybe for your but not the network guys I've known in the game industry or software companies. When management says we're making changes at X time it's an "emergency".

Edit:


Again, why should they be forced to work random hours when the mainenance schedule is given in advance and you should be able to plan around it?

It's a company catering to a world wide customer base varying the times goes a long way to ensure your global customer base is happy, instead of believing the stereotype Japanese game developers don't give a damn about the other markets and only focus on the Japanese market despite aiming at a global market.


This maintenance isn't even long enough to be worthy of complaint in the first place.
I'm not discussing that I don't care about the time they do it, but your short story was terrible. I mean seriously if you don't want to listen to your boss's work orders why the hell are you working for them?

[Alhanelem]

I'm not discussing that I don't care about the time they do it, but your short story was terrible. I mean seriously if you don't want to listen to your boss's work orders why the hell are you working for them? The intent was partially for humor. Obviously, you didn't see it. I'm not actually suggesting that the NOC team ignore orders. I suppose I could have better word it to illustrate my point.

[Yinnyth]

Maint times usually affect my online activities in one way or another, but I am not so selfish as to tell not just SE, but everyone else playing the game to adapt to my play schedule.

While it is true that people usually only complain when something affects them negatively, it's also true that forums are a breeding grounds for people who will not shut up about everything that affects them negatively and lack the common courtesy to stop, think about it objectively, and understand that there are very logical and good reasons why things happen this way.

[Babekeke]

While true US players bitch about everything all the time, the OP is indeed whining about a non issue. If you play an NA based MMO, guess what times their maintenance will be? Either early AM when people are asleep, mid day when people are at work (the shock!) or school or it would be a full day offline. People who connect to it outside have no choice but to deal with those time frames because the world is a much bigger place than people seem to want to realize.

The times are in off hours in Japan. SE is a Japanese company. FFXI is a Japanese MMORPG. Not hard to comprehend.

You may not realise but you actually agreed with me in your post. If they varied their maint times to do it at LUNCH TIME JST every other time, it would be fine. At least then it wouldn't ALWAYS be specifically EUs that were affected.

[JouriStarz]

It's not specifically EU players that are affected it is EVERYONE regardless of where you live and who you are that plays normally during that time. It really isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be and my suggestion for people with static groups who meet at that time is to reachedule your event for that day it's not like you didn't have enough advance notice to do so.

[frydanny]

They do them at 10am pst because thats when the least amount of people play. The game is like 45% JP 45% NA, 10% EU. Probably why they do it at that time.

It would help to if they actually sold the game to XBOX owners, The eu version of FFXI is RARE EX 0.1% Drop rate. Amazon no longer sell it only the expansion discs. There could be more players if they actually sold the whole game package and not just aim it at pc players.

Also they keep doing server maintenance yet still restrict the speed to 56 KB/s. The solution to the lag like I have said on the phone to support is to open the taps up and allow faster server exchanges and people may actually spend more time playing the new content. Many MMO's have more online players than FFXI does and you don't get lag when a ton of people get together.

Just my 2p's worth.

[Horadrim]

I would hazard a guess that part of the planning may be based on the diversity of the playerbase as well. As in, try to take things off line when it is most likely to affect the least number of players. At least, that's how we used to plan things when we had to take a webserver down for a client. Often times when you are crossing time zones, you have very narrow windows to work in when traffic is lightest, so a lot of thought goes into these decisions (usually).

I'd say that's about the swing of it. Mid-day in the US is a great time to do it because most of us are at work. 10:00 PDT correlates to 6:00 PM in Japan -- making it a decent time for an update for a Japanese game, since it ends right around 9:00 PM.

I just wish they didn't make us wait until the update starts to release the notes.

[Tamoa]

I'd say that's about the swing of it. Mid-day in the US is a great time to do it because most of us are at work. 10:00 PDT correlates to 6:00 PM in Japan -- making it a decent time for an update for a Japanese game, since it ends right around 9:00 PM.

I just wish they didn't make us wait until the update starts to release the notes.


This update starts at 2AM JST and ends at 4:30AM JST.

[Horadrim]

This update starts at 2AM JST and ends at 3:30AM JST.

Thought it said 10 PDT?

Oh well. All i really care about is the update notes, I probably won't even get on today unless they add RUN/GEO AF.

EDIT:

Oh, I see, the time zone converter I used was off. It -is- 10:00 PDT so 10:00 PDT = 2:00 JST.

Good to know... not sure why it said 6:00 PM...?

[hiko]

Thought it said 10 PDT?

Oh well. All i really care about is the update notes, I probably won't even get on today unless they add RUN/GEO AF.

EDIT:

Oh, I see, the time zone converter I used was off. It -is- 10:00 PDT so 10:00 PDT = 2:00 JST.

Good to know... not sure why it said 6:00 PM...?

in GMT+1(europe) area it's 6PM (7PM if DST )

[Shadax]

They do them at 10am pst because thats when the least amount of people play. The game is like 45% JP 45% NA, 10% EU. Probably why they do it at that time.

Actually, according to SE's own census (http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/guide/development/census/11/index.html), the servers bottom out around 6am JST, which kinda makes sense considering it's early morning in JP, just after EU prime time and just before NA prime time.

Anyway, as just about everyone has said, someone is getting pissed off no matter when they do maintenance. That's just part and parcel to having global servers. Sucks that it seems to affect EU players disproportionately, but you just need to plan your events more carefully is all.

[Kanjitai]

What drives me nuts is when they do an update and hours after it's done you still can't update because the update server or servers can't handle the volume of people.

[Payadopa]

As an aside, is anyone else not being able to DL the update? I've been trying for the last 3 hours or so..

[cyric]

From the time servers went up until now, no I haven't. A lot of people were saying the same thing in chat rooms. It seems to get stuck alot on downloading the text patch of the update; if it gets to that point.

[Payadopa]

It's weird you see no threads about it popping up in here so I was wondering. lol
It is slightly annoying, though, but to be expected. It's been ten years after all~ ^^'

[cyric]

Chat rooms in playonline lol. But finally it's downloading on my computer. It was my xbox which I started downloading first.

[SpankWustler]

From the time servers went up until now, no I haven't. A lot of people were saying the same thing in chat rooms. It seems to get stuck alot on downloading the text patch of the update; if it gets to that point.

For anyone having this particular issue who doesn't want to download the patch directly from elsewhere: I recommend turning off all thingies that aren't the vanilla POL thingy until you've successfully updated. After downloading the update, most thingies will work fine.

Except the teacup thingy, but that's always been a thingy to use at one's own peril anyway.

[Zirael]

Yes, all of us Americans are lazy and unemployed. Oh, and SE is racist.

I believe you.

[Payadopa]

I give up now. @.@

[Kanjitai]

Got my download to work around 11:30 PM EST last night. I know FF11 might not make that much money but I would think it make enough so SE could upgrade their server's capabilities from time to time.

[RAIST]

may not necessarily be an issue with SE's servers. There could be an ISP/infrastructure issue as well. Some regions are prone to throttling or otherwise have issues with high loads. My downloads from the Asian regions can range from 1 Mbps to 6Mbps depending on the time of day....from the same servers. Likewise, sometimes I get updates from SE over 2Mbps, sometimes it's 200kbps.

Just saying...there's a lot at play here, and ramping up their network/servers may not necessarily fix the issue. And before someone pulls out Redmond or something like that....this is a company based in a region that is known to have some issues with high load international traffic.

[Babekeke]

Probably a PoL thing anyway, and nothing to do with SE.