Can we have an update on the situation.

[Gadanae]

because the game could not function properly that way for just $13 USD a month. The bandwidth to synchronize all that data to support the game worlds for players across all regions, pay the additional ISP fees, dealing with differing regional laws, hiring the additional staff.. the overhead would shoot through the roof. That's just the obvious reasons.

To effectively do what you are asking, the game's player base would need to be striclty divided by region (NA only play with NA, and their would be JP only servers, the two regions couldn't play together--think Blizzard's Diabolo series) in order to manage it more effectively. For whatever reason, SE was determined to keep each game world open to all regions, and for logistically and financially, I'm sure it looked a heck of a lot better to house them all in one location. The choice for that location (Japan versus other nations) is open to another debate...but sure they had their reasons for that as well.

It is what it is. Would have never been an issue if not for the first disaster I am aware of that could/would have affected uptime in roughly a decade. Another disaster (fire, tornado, hurricane) could have had the same end effect elsewhere. Sometimes things just happen that are beyond our control.

Raist

You're a smart man Raist, so I have a question for you. Let's say that SE had other servers, at the ready, in another area of the world, whatever area that may be. How hard would it be, in the event of a stoppage to the game, to copy the information from the servers in Japan, to the back up servers at X location, and then turn the switch back on. So that the game as we know it wouldn't change, JP's, NA's, EU players all still play in the same servers.

That's what i'm looking at anyways. I believe you're right having dedicated servers for each region that plays this game would be extreme overhead. But a back-up plan that i'm suggesting would be feasible, would it not?

[RAIST]

I check everyday and almost every couple hours to the information section, and still not a single thing since march 13th.

You may be reading what he said but you're still not getting it. He's asking for more info to be provided to us now, not wait a week to tell us that we are going to wait another week. He wants an update on the progress.

He said he was checking it every couple hours. I get he wonts update on the progress. Here's a thought... maybe there is not progress to report? After all, that is what SE stated... if there was new information available, it would be posted here.

No news, safe to assume... no progress (or at least none worth mentioning).

Raist

[RAIST]

You're a smart man Raist, so I have a question for you. Let's say that SE had other servers, at the ready, in another area of the world, whatever area that may be. How hard would it be, in the event of a stoppage to the game, to copy the information from the servers in Japan, to the back up servers at X location, and then turn the switch back on. So that the game as we know it wouldn't change, JP's, NA's, EU players all still play in the same servers.

That's what i'm looking at anyways. I believe you're right having dedicated servers for each region that plays this game would be extreme overhead. But a back-up plan that i'm suggesting would be feasible, would it not?

This has been brought up repeatedly in other threads as well...should just start looking for them and linking them... it's getting frustrating beyond all measure to keep repeating it...

They just moved the POL server. JUST PLAYONLINE. And it took just over 12 hours.

Expand that out to the lobby servers, 25 game worlds... god knows how many other servers. This was done in-house too--ie, across their internal network. Now, if you have to move that data offsite via an online transfer--wait.. power outages, not a good idea. So, it has to be done by physical medium, than transported. So, they have to put it all on a SAN and ship that device over there, or put it all on Tapes, or Blu-Ray media... something, then ship it and restore it.

Without knowing the exact amount of data involved, it's hard to quantify. But I can tell you this...it pretty much takes me all afternoon to ghost my 1TB system disk to disk, than burn that to Blu-Ray and verify integrity of that backup.

Raist

Edit: oh yeah, and once you get that site up and running, have all the 4 local DNS servers, and Acive Directory replication set up for the messaging system... then you have to propogate the DNS records, which could take up to 72 hours to spread out world wide, depending on how often the records are pushed out.

This could be the initiall "at least a week" time frame they stipulated. They could very well be relocating, who knows. That would actually make some sense...until they have the servers restored so they can test them and go ahead with posting DNS changes... they really can't predict any kind of success/fail, much less a time frame just yet.

[Gadanae]

He said he was checking it every couple hours. I get he wonts update on the progress. Here's a thought... maybe there is not progress to report? After all, that is what SE stated... if there was new information available, it would be posted here.

No news, safe to assume... no progress (or at least none worth mentioning).

Raist

No news is not a good thing from a business perspective. Now I know this is a GAME. But let's take a service like oh.... phone service for example. Someone hits a pole and knocks out 7 city blocks of phone service. Now I don't know about your area, but in my area if I call the phone company and ask what's going on, they tell me what happened, when it will be back on, and that crews are out there doing the repairs as we speak. And 95% of the time, the time they give me when service will be restored, it is. That's because they are responsible people. and they understand that there are other phone service providers out there and you can take your money there just as easy as you brought it to them. They are "accountable". SE has never been known for it's "accountability" and that needs to change.

Now, before someone goes off on here and says "phone service is a necessity and a game is not" let me beat you to the punch. It's still a business. We pay for a service we expect to recieve without major downtime. And i'm sorry, but giving us a message that says "at least a week" is too dam vague. Bring this into focus SE. Tell us what you are doing to get the service we pay you for back up and running and give us a timeline we can rely on, not "at least a week".

These kinds of things are what kills businesses. SE is already struggling to make a dollar on their MMO's. FFXIV is a flunk, has so many glitches with it they have had to make it free to play while they work it out, and now FFXI is down. I fear that if the downtime for FFXI continues past a week, or more, then alot of your customers will be taking their money elsewhere, to an MMO that doesn't have a difficulty staying active during things like this. And a loss of players right now not only affects SE's bottom line, but in a negative way affects all the players.

People can argue with me all they want, but my thinking will not change, there is absolutely no reason why SE cannot give us an update at least every 2 days about the steps being taken to restore a service that we pay for.

[Laraul]

I'm sure some of the developers have missing or lost loved ones...[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.]

[RAIST]

agreed, and supported.. but there is one gotcha. how long have Telco's been effecting the same types of repairs and already have an educated idea of how long a type of repair whould take? how many times has SE experienced this?

You know the saying...your back up plan is no good until you've tested it. As much as I hate to admit it....it is not a common practice for companies to actually fully test their recovery plans. I get the impression this is their first test. And we are the guinnea pigs (sp?).

Raist

[Gadanae]

This has been brought up repeatedly in other threads as well...should just start looking for them and linking them... it's getting frustrating beyond all measure to keep repeating it...

They just moved the POL server. JUST PLAYONLINE. And it took just over 12 hours.

Expand that out to the lobby servers, 25 game worlds... god knows how many other servers. This was done in-house too--ie, across their internal network. Now, if you have to move that data offsite via an online transfer--wait.. power outages, not a good idea. So, it has to be done by physical medium, than transported. So, they have to put it all on a SAN and ship that device over there, or put it all on Tapes, or Blu-Ray media... something, then ship it and restore it.

Without knowing the exact amount of data involved, it's hard to quantify. But I can tell you this...it pretty much takes me all afternoon to ghost my 1TB system disk to disk, than burn that to Blu-Ray and verify integrity of that backup.

Raist

Edit: oh yeah, and once you get that site up and running, have all the 4 local DNS servers, and Acive Directory replication set up for the messaging system... then you have to propogate the DNS records, which could take up to 72 hours to spread out world wide, depending on how often the records are pushed out.

This could be the initiall "at least a week" time frame they stipulated. They could very well be relocating, who knows. That would actually make some sense...until they have the servers restored so they can test them and go ahead with posting DNS changes... they really can't predict any kind of success/fail, much less a time frame just yet.

/clap. A very informed and informative response, thank you. Clearly by what you have mentioned here, just the act of "copying" the servers to another set of servers in another location would also be a rather large time sink.

Speculating, that "could" be what SE is doing. But how do we know? I'll tell you why we don't know and it's because SE IS NOT UPDATING US WITH THE PROGRESS OF GETTING THE SERVERS BACK UP. If this is indeed what they are doing I certainly wouldn't expect such a technical jargon-filled response such as yours, but how hard would it be to say "hey, we're moving the entire operation to a back up, it will take blah blah blah time and you should expect your service back on and blah blah blah date.". Not the vagueness of "at least a week".

Again, i'll fall back to it, SE NEEDS TO UPDATE US ON WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO GET THE SERVERS BACK UP. PAYING CUSTOMERS WANT TO KNOW AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW BECAUSE WE PAY YOU MONEY.

Rule 1 in business: The customer is always right.
Rule 2 in business: If the customer is ever wrong, refer back to Rule 1.

I'm your customer SE, now kindly tell us what you are doing to get our service back on in a prompt manner. And God-forbid if you tell us that you haven't done jack-@#$@ the past 4 days......

[Gadanae]

I'm sure some of the developers have missing or lost loved ones... [Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XI FORUM Guidelines.]

Thank you troll, I have fed you to the Moderator Lions.

[RAIST]

/clap. A very informed and informative response, thank you. Clearly by what you have mentioned here, just the act of "copying" the servers to another set of servers in another location would also be a rather large time sink.

Speculating, that "could" be what SE is doing. But how do we know? I'll tell you why we don't know and it's because SE IS NOT UPDATING US WITH THE PROGRESS OF GETTING THE SERVERS BACK UP. If this is indeed what they are doing I certainly wouldn't expect such a technical jargon-filled response such as yours, but how hard would it be to say "hey, we're moving the entire operation to a back up, it will take blah blah blah time and you should expect your service back on and blah blah blah date.". Not the vagueness of "at least a week".

Again, i'll fall back to it, SE NEEDS TO UPDATE US ON WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO GET THE SERVERS BACK UP. PAYING CUSTOMERS WANT TO KNOW AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW BECAUSE WE PAY YOU MONEY.

Rule 1 in business: The customer is always right.
Rule 2 in business: If the customer is ever wrong, refer back to Rule 1.

I'm your customer SE, now kindly tell us what you are doing to get our service back on in a prompt manner. And God-forbid if you tell us that you haven't done jack-@#$@ the past 4 days......

MEEEE... TEEEE... ORRRRR!

I'll be on the banks with all the INT/MAB gear I can equip....

Raist

[Gadanae]

agreed, and supported.. but there is one gotcha. how long have Telco's been effecting the same types of repairs and already have an educated idea of how long a type of repair whould take? how many times has SE experienced this?

You know the saying...your back up plan is no good until you've tested it. As much as I hate to admit it....it is not a common practice for companies to actually fully test their recovery plans. I get the impression this is their first test. And we are the guinnea pigs (sp?).

Raist

LOL, Raist I don't know how well I sit with being a "guinea pig". It never works out so well for them.....