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

[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)