Temporary Suspension of the Services Due to an Earthquake

[Dragen]

I'd like to point out to people reading here that just because someone posts in this thread using the English language does not automatically make them American. Some folks are too quick to make assumptions. Considering all the people in Europe, North and South America, as well as China, India, and other countries that speak English, I wouldn't be surprised if Americans represented under 25% of the English speakers of the world. Pet peeve of mine I had to address first. ^^

I fully understand and agree with why SE decided it was best for their company to close their servers to help their nation conserve on electricity. Aside from a month's worth of service fees, they'll probably lose a few customers over the decision as well, but not only was it a question of doing "the right thing", they likely realized that they couldn't guarantee their service regardless. Imagine how upset you'd be if you were playing as normal, camping some mob with that less then 1% drop item you've always wanted that actually drops this time... only to have a rolling blackout hit the SE servers and the game goes down without saving your progress.

I had plans to meet up with friends tonight @ 4pm for a Dynamis Windurst run. Obviously we'll all be doing different things tonight instead. Some of us are chatting in IRC, others are adrift who knows where. Hopefully the trolls here will be banned and we can do a lil weeding on the forums during this time off from the game. ^^

[JagerForrester]

SE has a lot of issues to deal with. This disaster is just another problem piled on their plate. If after their recovery, they have the finances to learn from their mistakes, I hope they can.

[Kraatos]

Ok, well after readin this and thinkin bout all the jerks and self centered people and the ruthless comments like Umbrion
people like that make me disgusted but hey thats what the human race has become now day. . . grow up n get a life if thats how u think honestly as Far as ur comment Zidian now... if u think hard and realize you dont make a multibillion dollar game with out some sort of back up server located away from the main server .. . . which im sure SE has done long long ago. but honestly There main concern isnt ffxi or ff 14 like ur is obviously n between the main headquaters n japan and n cali im sure they will fix the problem in time but right now stop cryin bout not having the game n stead worry bout what u can do to help them and get things better etc.. . am i mad a little but guess what nothing we can do bout it cause like someone said earlier Its a natural disaster You cant stop that , you shouldnt be worryin bout a damn game atm rather what effect if anything further goes wrong in japan how thats gonna effect us and the economy... better yet Hawaiii/ cali since there next door to japan. stop worryin bout ur self for a second and the game which yes WE ALL LOVE TO PLAY
worry bout others for a change donate some money for crist sake or something to help them out, you realize japan is one of the major trades to the US if japan goes think of how fast the economy will be effected where u live...
FOr the ppl who defended whats going on atleast u have some humanity. for those who are crying cause They shut ff down for a week if not longer to worry bout THERE NATURAL problem and POWER.... GROW UP
the current event in japan has not only effected japan it has effect cali/hawii/ parts of the east coast.... so seriously think before u speak. but gonna leav eit there before i say things i shouldnt cause you guys have disgusted me n your the reason some people are the way they are today thanks

[Delani]

when has ANY country sent support to help us? when has ANY country came to OUR aide in a time of natural disaster?

This moron from that locked thread can go jump into an active volcano. 97+ countries either offered aide or gave aide during Hurricane Katrina... I may not have read down enough, but I was so shocked by their total lack of education. How do you post something so blatantly not true on the internet without using some search forum to do a bit of research. It took me 2 minutes to find the information and count the countries, and what those countries offered us. One person from Japan alone donated a million dollars to the red cross during our hard time.

I am just completely shocked by people. Has anyone heard about the people finder on google being spammed by disgusting people, falsely trolling the people finder and "confirming" people as dead? Also being horrible to their families, and stating how they were doing graphic things to their loved-one's bodies. You can go to the people finder and search "A" and see just how absolutely horrible some people ( I can't even think of them as people they are MONSTERS) can be toward their fellow man. I was up until 6 am changing their status' back to what they should be so some older loved one with not-so-much internet experience wouldn't believe these awful things.

To Japan and also to SE I want to express my deepest sorrow that this tragedy has befallen unto you. I will gladly donate anything I can toward your relief effort. If I were rich in any sense, I would be able to donate more. I gave my time last night, and feel horrible that I didn't make it even to the E's before I became overwhelmed. I can only begin to imagine your suffering, and fear for the future. From my family to your nation, we hope that you all find some sort of peace during this time of turmoil. Words cannot express how we feel, and hurt for your losses.

Please forgive my long rant. I have been deeply saddened by this, and shocked at some monsters' reactions to this event. I lie awake at night, and worry about some mother worrying about her lost child. I can just go and check on mine and cry and hold her.. not knowing what I would do should this happen to her. I also have friends in Japan in the military who are doing what they can, and also a friend who was teaching in Tagajo City who played ffxi (Shamaya on Asura). He was missing for a time, but his mother heard from him today, and so far he is ok at the school. (Living off chips and candy). Such small blessings need to be counted for so much during such times that grief could overwhelm a person. /endrant

[Naturebeckles]

People are gonna hate this post, please understand my intention is not to troll...

Maybe its time to spread out your servers SE...

Sucks about Japan, really a horrible situation which should be addressed and dealt with, but as a paying consumer who plays to engage in an escapist fantasy world, I am disappointed that FFXI is down. Obviously there is nothing to do but focus on the tragedy and help those who have lost loved ones and who are still missing, but as things have already unfolded i would like to say that perhaps it is time to spread out your servers in case this happens again.

As selfish as this sounds, we do not need to suffer for SE's poor management decision to have all servers running in one of the most environmentally skewed countries in the world. MMO's are games that are global, and therefore, SE should aim to globalize its game. Like most other MMO's, servers are spread out across the world for many logical reasons. I'm not sure why SE has never followed chase, but perhaps it should.

99% sure SE will never move their servers, but something worth being mad about... just saying.

I for one, don't hate your post and I understand what you're saying. I took a break from reading the forums today to color my friend's hair and cut her husband's hair and go out to dinner with them. Surprise! I have a RL! Anyway, her husband is an IT buff who works IT for a couple places. One of them, he's part of a disaster recovery plan. Meaning, if something happened to their servers in Arizona and they lost everything, what would they do? He said it would take 2 days to get some things up and running, and another 4 days to have everything running as normal with new servers and data recovery at the new location. He suspects that SE is telling us a week because they are planning on migrating. It sounds about right to me if the Power Company is Japan is planning on rotating blackouts through at least the end of April to conserve energy and prevent massive blackouts. This would mean SE is migrating to either another country temporarily or to at least another section of Japan that may not be affected by this. I can only speculate. It's either that or they don't want to make us too angry that it's going to be longer than a week (which would by why they're going to wave April's monthly fee I guess). But all we can do is see what happens. I won't be on here in a week wondering what's going on. Things might get worse in Japan before they get better for all we know... and if that happens, they're going to need all the prayers from as many people as possible (no matter how you pray or who you pray too... spiritual strength is definitely needed during this time).

I agree that people should not be mad for some of us thinking about this stuff. Some of us are just business minded like that and not just being "selfish". I"m sorry that I'm not one of those people with my eyes stuck on the TV or disaster videos on the internet. I honestly can't handle watching destruction and suffering of that magnitude for more than about 20 minutes. It just becomes too much for me. That's not entertainment.

平和、私の日本の兄弟と姉妹への回復と精神的な力。
(Peace, recovery, and spiritual strength to my Japanese brothers and sisters.)

[Aniero]

I hope the trolls know who is watching this thread. Mods are the least of your worries.

[Kuwabaraone]

This is a wise decision. And in this time of crisis it REMINDS us that this game is not what is important; LIFE is. When Japan is able to resume some normalcy, then MAYBE they can re-open the servers, but for now, focus on getting things back in order. The Playground known as Vana'Diel won't go away anytime soon, and we can come back whenever, but when things like this happens you step back and focus on reality. Yeah yeah, I know, preaching to the converted; but I'm glad that they are doing this. My prayers go out to those victimized by this catastrophe, both in Japan and the entire Pacific Rim.

Quoted by Umbrion:
This will upset a lot of people and i am one of them, hope your feed back center is ready to work double over time.. and i hope when a quake hits North America you shut down the game again just to see the response from are friends over the ocean.

They will probably want to send us relief aid as well (doubtful, but very MUCH possible) if such a thing happens. That's all I'll say to that.

KB1

[Kraatos]

i mean do you really think im enjoying hangin gout on facebook playing facebook games im really not its boring as anything but hey its what i gotta live with for now.

[Kraatos]

I for one, don't hate your post and I understand what you're saying. I took a break from reading the forums today to color my friend's hair and cut her husband's hair and go out to dinner with them. Surprise! I have a RL! Anyway, her husband is an IT buff who works IT for a couple places. One of them, he's part of a disaster recovery plan. Meaning, if something happened to their servers in Arizona and they lost everything, what would they do? He said it would take 2 days to get some things up and running, and another 4 days to have everything running as normal with new servers and data recovery at the new location. He suspects that SE is telling us a week because they are planning on migrating. It sounds about right to me if the Power Company is Japan is planning on rotating blackouts through at least the end of April to conserve energy and prevent massive blackouts. This would mean SE is migrating to either another country temporarily or to at least another section of Japan that may not be affected by this. I can only speculate. It's either that or they don't want to make us too angry that it's going to be longer than a week (which would by why they're going to wave April's monthly fee I guess). But all we can do is see what happens. I won't be on here in a week wondering what's going on. Things might get worse in Japan before they get better for all we know... and if that happens, they're going to need all the prayers from as many people as possible (no matter how you pray or who you pray too... spiritual strength is definitely needed during this time).

I agree that people should not be mad for some of us thinking about this stuff. Some of us are just business minded like that and not just being "selfish". I"m sorry that I'm not one of those people with my eyes stuck on the TV or disaster videos on the internet. I honestly can't handle watching destruction and suffering of that magnitude for more than about 20 minutes. It just becomes too much for me. That's not entertainment.

平和、私の日本の兄弟と姉妹への回復と精神的な力。
(Peace, recovery, and spiritual strength to my Japanese brothers and sisters.)

i Absolutely agree, i think the worst has yet to come n i think its gonna take some time before it gets better. All them reactors over there they are tryin to stop from blowing... if they go its gonna be worse then a nuke

[Zidian]

I think your missing the point Kraatos.

We DO care about what happened and we DO heavily sympathize with the tragic loss of life. There is just something to be said about how our lives could have avoided being impacted like this if SE had planned better.

My particular comment was to help SE realize that when you run a massive scale game like this you need backup servers all over the world (Something they CLEARLY don't have).

I also don't agree with you that we need to throw ourselves into helping Japan, Im sorry but not everyone believes in globalization or can bring themselves to sympathize with strangers. I think thats perfectly normal and you should respect peoples decision to politely refrain from donating money. You may think your right and righteous for throwing money at the Japans cause, but do not tell people what is right and wrong when you have no frame of reference.