Minimise the downtime please.

[Dymlos]

Really, REALLY!? They're hell in a handbasket right now and you want them to minimize the downtime? Please! I would rather have them keep the servers offline until everything is a-okay. My main concern is the people of Japan to get their lives in order, not play an MMO.

Hell, right now I feel useless, not being able to do much to help out the Japanese in their time of need. I can donate food, and money and I still feel like it's not enough.

[Xensai]

go do what S.E is doing.. Filling out their social obligations meaning.. Their turning their servers off to help the people suffering right now.. sorry ur all tucked away in your little bed in the Fine outstanding Moral abiding country of the USA...

[viion]

You guys way to sensitive and emotional, need to chills outs a bit. This is nature.

Anywho i think the OP needs to realise the obvious here, businesses dont plan for: Earthquake/Tsunami/Meltdown events.

[Kjara]

instead of keeping raging threads like this up on the forum I'd like to see a thread to keep us updated on the situation in Japan to help us understand the situation better. I'm keeping a minute-by-minute news site up all the time when I'm at the computer to see what the news are, but I bet other countries (I'm in Italy) can get other if not better news.
It would sure help these stressed players to see that the Japan is working to get back in shape (and it is. Go check news.)

[Komori]

From my knowledge, not all of japan was even devasted; hence how you saw japanese players online after the quake and talking to some of us about it. It was the northeast coast bit. Not the whole island, if I'm mistaken. I'm sorry. And no, that doesn't change the fact that this was a needed thing to help solve the blackouts so that they can get back up and running and I very much hope that they can, and as quickly as possible. I would hope other countries would have more involvement besides putting it on their news also. Hell, if China got the slightest bit involved with their troops, I think it would be up a little faster. But dunno the odds of that happening <.< So I will just work around not having the game.

[Runespider]

Makes no sense to me how Square can continue to run FFXIV for free because they can't charge without losing mass numbers of players, an action which basically eats money and continue to do this for 6+ months yet can't rent some servers in their US offices or in another part of Japan to make sure an important set of titles does not take long term damage from loss of subs.

MMO's are addictive in nature, thats how they keep us playing for years. We won't go cold turkey well after weeks or months (even the high horse people will rage after they have been without their fix for months) we will either lose intrest and get on with our lives (unlikely for most) or play other games out of boredom and be forced to stick with those for an extended period of time, trying other games is one thing, being forced to play them weeks/months to the point you get into them is another. Any other business realises this is a bad idea, a popular TV station being down for months which has serious competition for ratings forcing people to watch the competition, if WoW was down for months and almost its entire playerbase going to Rift for months would that not be bad for business?

If this ends up being a weeks downtime no big deal but it could be months, Square have not said they will take action if it ends up being a long term deal.

[Kjara]

I would hope other countries would have more involvement besides putting it on their news also.

For my nation, I can say it was decided that it was decided to send on Tuesday a "team of experts on the field that will valuate with Japanese authorities about times and modality for an eventual operation of assistance from our country" (translating this from the Italian news site I'm reading). My country sucks so I wish Japan the best of luck and hope other countries will help because I can't expect much from Italy -.-; We're [Too Weak] and our leader thinks he's God so that doesn't help either.

[Kindra]

"I made a post yesterday and a lot of people got on their high horse, will be funny to make the post again in a month and see the difference. People like that are usually cool till it has a serious effect on them, then they change their whole outlook.

Suddenly the suggestion of a major company setting up rented servers or something in their american office to keep the game running will look a lot more appealing to everyone."

Rune I thought this post should go here. Rather then where you made it lol. Anyway I wanted to point out how this one post looks to me. When you say that in a month this will have a "Serious effect" on them you have taken your point and made it invalid. Why I say this is because if a Game has such a "Serious effect" on people then they need to really look around.

Saying that they should have had a back up plan is one thing. Saying what you said in this post says to me its not about worrying about SE profits, its about worrying if you can play the game or not.

Again its not in anger just pointing out how it looks to me.

[Imakun]

For my nation, I can say it was decided that it was decided to send on Tuesday a "team of experts on the field that will valuate with Japanese authorities about times and modality for an eventual operation of assistance from our country" (translating this from the Italian news site I'm reading). My country sucks so I wish Japan the best of luck and hope other countries will help because I can't expect much from Italy -.-; We're [Too Weak] and our leader thinks he's God so that doesn't help either.

All we're good for is assistance to the population, we're no good at giving opinion on earthquakes or nuclear emergency that's for sure lol

Anyway, SE is a worldwide major company. I'm sure they have emergency plans for situations like this and now they're merely acting according to the government's advice to save energy for the good of the nation.

[viion]

Also remember its not all SEs fault, i bet ISP companies have also been asked to reduce their threshold as well as power companies asking to store/redirect energy.