Please "rotate" the Emergency Maintenances (unable to play)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sixmp

I have a way to fix this, instead of trying to put a whole company on a strange time table to enable you to play why don't you change your working hours. I mean you think it is fine for SE to do it so why don't you do it. That way it only effects you.

---

its kinda funny that when maintenance was during American peek hours they all bitched and moaned but now its affecting others they have their usual "suck it up" attitude

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rekujen

The difference being I'm paying Square, Square isn't paying me.

I don't see why you people agreed when Square changed maintenance to suit Americans, but when Oceanic and Graveshift players want something done all of a sudden it's unreasonable.

what...

Like I said, rotation is a perfectly reasonable solution to this problem. I want to continue playing this game, but losing an entire day every 2-3 days will be enough for me to cancel.

---

hello sir/ma'am

I definitely don't give a damn if the maintenance 'suits' the Americans. however, I also don't care if it suits Australians - OR my fellow Europeans. you know why?

it's like going to a club at 2 complaining you have to pay the full price even though you leave at 3 to catch your bus. you are paying the club, after all. going by your logic the club should either change their working hours - or their price (ARR is cheaper than most of the other MMOs currently out there)

ps: I really love the thought-process in here that people who say you should 'suck it up' are the same people who complained about the maintenance affecting americans. like I care...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alexb150

its kinda funny that when maintenance was during American peek hours they all bitched and moaned but now its affecting others they have their usual "suck it up" attitude

---

Hello :) You quoted me and you seemed to think i am an American. I happen to live in England.

I happen to believe that SE should decide when they do their work. If it effects me then tough and if it effects someone else then tough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sixmp

Hello :) You quoted me and you seemed to think i am an American. I happen to live in England.

I happen to believe that SE should decide when they do their work. If it effects me then tough and if it effects someone else then tough.

---

I do agree and I'm an "American" that SE should do their work when it best fits their employees. Like I said before what you are asking is for SE to rotate their entire work schedule just to fit you which has already been done once because of "Americans whinning and complaing which I thought was pathetic as well) I doubt they will do it again, because like I said you do want to keep your audience happy, but you would want your employees to be happy too, and having to change your shift or have a dynamic shift sucks, and puts more strain on their workers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rekujen

Hi,

Square-Enix please consider "rotating" the Emergency Maintenance as most of your Oceanic players are getting hit with 3-4 hour maintenance straight after usual work times.

I come home and every 2-3 days there's a maintenance at 7PM NZ Time all the way to 10pm or 11pm, meaning I get no play time whatsoever. This basically means I am paying £14.95 (24-25 NZ dollars) to play 20 days a month.. there has been a total of 13+ maintenance this month alone, meaning for 13 days I have missed out completely.

I understand you try your best to do these things when less people are playing, but it's not fair the same people are getting hit day after day with maintenance and having no game-time whatsoever.

Things happen, deal with it right? I understand, I really do.

All I'm asking is that people put themselves in my shoes and many other Oceanic players struggling with this problem.

I once proposed they shift the hours a little, but as we all know if they try to help one region, another will get screwed in the process. A suggestion came up in a different thread that if they rotate the "emergency maintenance" so the same region isn't screwed every. time. this would be beneficial.

As of right now, Oceanic players (excluding Perth, Australia) are hit with maintenance soon as they come home from a long day at work, I just don't see myself continuing to pay for a service if I'm only getting 20 days a month out of it.

I don't want to quit, I really enjoy this game and the communities that have formed, but at this rate I'm feeling ripped off and quite unhappy about this whole thing.

TLDR: Please switch the hours around whenever an emergency maintenance is due, it's not fair the same region can't play whenever you need to shut the servers down... have it so one day Oceanic gets hit with prime time, then another day Americans, then the next day Europeans, etc etc.

Thanks.

---

This one plays from Hawaii and often gets the shaft from MX times. /signed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by amnie

hello sir/ma'am

I definitely don't give a damn if the maintenance 'suits' the Americans. however, I also don't care if it suits Australians - OR my fellow Europeans. you know why?

it's like going to a club at 2 complaining you have to pay the full price even though you leave at 3 to catch your bus. you are paying the club, after all. going by your logic the club should either change their working hours - or their price (ARR is cheaper than most of the other MMOs currently out there)

ps: I really love the thought-process in here that people who say you should 'suck it up' are the same people who complained about the maintenance affecting americans. like I care...

---

This is a bad analogy. I think he's speaking more towards the tune of 'general prime time hours' for his entire timezone. So not only is it affecting him, but everyone in his time zone (which is a lot of people).

A more proper analogy would be someone opening nightclubs worldwide that strictly go off of American/whatever timezone hours. This all being said, I'm a NA player and don't get affected by maintenance all that much. I just feel for timezones that do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LovelessG

I do agree and I'm an "American" that SE should do their work when it best fits their employees. Like I said before what you are asking is for SE to rotate their entire work schedule just to fit you which has etc etc

---

I haven't asked for anything, i think you are getting me mixed up with someone else :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sixmp

I haven't asked for anything, i think you are getting me mixed up with someone else :)

---

No No I was just saying that I agree that we should just work with SE schedule for maint.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sixmp

SE isn't a 24/7 company. They might have skeleton crews keeping things running here and there. You honestly expect them to wake up in the middle of their sleep time and do maintenance just so it is fair in your eyes?

---

Just FYI, S-E used to do maintenance starting at 1 am, 2 am, and etc. JP time for FFXI.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sixmp

Hello :) You quoted me and you seemed to think i am an American. I happen to live in England.

I happen to believe that SE should decide when they do their work. If it effects me then tough and if it effects someone else then tough.

---

oh I was just speaking generally. Going from other threads in the past I noticed a lot of Americans complaining but now its others being put out their attitude has changed from "why are we missing out?" to "that's too bad". I completely agree that it should be whatever time suits SE.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LovelessG

I do agree and I'm an "American" that SE should do their work when it best fits their employees. Like I said before what you are asking is for SE to rotate their entire work schedule just to fit you which has already been done once because of "Americans whinning and complaing which I thought was pathetic as well) I doubt they will do it again, because like I said you do want to keep your audience happy, but you would want your employees to be happy too, and having to change your shift or have a dynamic shift sucks, and puts more strain on their workers.

---

Hmm not really. The only change they`d need to make is from doing it from first thing in the work day to mid/late afternoon.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alexb150

its kinda funny that when maintenance was during American peek hours they all bitched and moaned but now its affecting others they have their usual "suck it up" attitude

---

I'm American and I was against the complaints. Still stands to this day, let them fix the game.

I'd say you are taking it even lower by labeling/blaming an entire nation of players.

Because of work and family, I have a fairly limited amount of play time. Every single maintenance has landed on a day that I can actually play. The time change that happened didn't really help me much even though I'm east coast US, but if they used various days of the week it would help a lot. Ultimately though I don't care when they do it as long as the problems get fixed and maintenance slows down altogether.

I'll just repeat myself too. :D

Quote:

---

You do realize these are mostly emergency maintenances? I'm pretty sure no one was sitting around, making up the normal maintenance schedule, and said "3 times a week is good".

They find out there's a problem, find out the time period the least amount of people are playing, and schedule it then so they can fix it as soon as possible. They're not going to find a problem, then wait until regular maintenance to fix it.
This is a brand new game, so it has a lot of things that may go wrong until it smooths out enough that the only maintenance we have to look forward to is the scheduled weekly/monthly/whatever they go with. When they go wrong, sometimes it's best to fix them as soon as possible.



By the way, although I'm in North America, my sleep/work times means that when maintenance happens, it's almost always an hour or less after I wake up and eat and would like to play, so it's not like I don't understand. And my main is a dps, so I'm going to spend almost that full hour just in the queue, with no time to actually do the dungeons if they pop. I just see outside my own personal bubble.

---

So much for this train of thought that somehow everyone defending it is doing so because they're unaffected. Some of us just care more about the big picture than ourselves.

And yes, it sucks that the time when the least amount of people is your special time, but it's probably always going to be your special time. Moving it around isn't going to do anything but inconvenience more people than it does now. It's called a necessary evil. Someone's going to be put out, and if you have to choose between 100 people and 35 people, you go with the 35.

And again, this isn't even a long term thing. It is a brand new game with lots of things popping up that couldn't have been anticipated until massive amounts of people ran at them. Eventually that becomes rarer and rarer. So there's no need in complaining about it now, like it's a permanent or long term thing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alexb150

Hmm not really. The only change they`d need to make is from doing it from first thing in the work day to mid/late afternoon.

---

You do understand the company is in Japan right and they are not 24/7

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LovelessG

You do understand the company is in Japan right and they are not 24/7

---

They used to do maintenance starting at 1 am, 2 am, and etc. JP time before.
7 am, 9 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm JP time.
(I googled FFXI maintenance time)

I say they were pretty close to be 24/7..., back then :p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LovelessG

You do understand the company is in Japan right and they are not 24/7

---

You do understand time differences? 9am in japan would be roughly 5pm in the US(I`m not up to date on the time difference), and 2pm in Japan would be roughly 5pm in NZ. I may be out by an hour or so but I`m sure you get the idea :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ReplicaX

I'm American and I was against the complaints. Still stands to this day, let them fix the game.

I'd say you are taking it even lower by labeling/blaming an entire nation of players.

---

I`m not blaming an entire nation at all. if people complaining are from American then that means they`re American, correct? I never said others didn't complain but a majority of the people complaining that maintenance was during American peek times were Infact Americans. shocking I know

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alexb150

I`m not blaming an entire nation at all. if people complaining are from American then that means they`re American, correct? I never said others didn't complain but a majority of the people complaining that maintenance was during American peek times were Infact Americans. shocking I know

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alexb150

its kinda funny that when maintenance was during American peek hours they all bitched and moaned but now its affecting others they have their usual "suck it up" attitude

---

Generalization, try not to use it multiple times when attempting to prove a point in a discussion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ReplicaX

Generalization, try not to use it multiple times when attempting to prove a point in a discussion.

---

you`re right, next time I`ll go and count how many complained and how many didn't. I`ll even put it into a little pie chart if you`d like?

I work nights, and tend to keep to that schedule even on my days off... So far both emergency and scheduled maintenance has been on my days off during the time when I'm usually on.

My reaction to this has been... "Well, guess I'm playing GTA tonight."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SaintAjora

And yes, it sucks that the time when the least amount of people is your special time, but it's probably always going to be your special time. Moving it around isn't going to do anything but inconvenience more people than it does now. It's called a necessary evil. Someone's going to be put out, and if you have to choose between 100 people and 35 people, you go with the 35.

---

This isn't exactly true. You're not choosing between just inconveniencing one group of 100 or one group of 35, end of, you're choosing between inconveniencing one group of 35 EVERY TIME or inconveniencing both groups, but not so severely. It wouldn't even have to be a large shift to completely change the group - shift it a few hours forward and everyone's at work, shift it a few hours back and everyone's asleep. Right now it falls slap bang in the middle of NZ primetime EVERY SINGLE TIME. We're not asking that it permanently be shifted to another time so that it never hits us, we understand that you need to do maintenance, but equally the maintenance is what, 3 hours? If your working day is 8-10 hours long you could comfortably shift that to a different time every once in a while.

Yes, NZ (and the rest of Oceania) is probably going to be disproportionately hit because we have a smaller population, but it's possible to run maintenance at other times too. Just for a change.

Oh, and a maintenance that's scheduled more than a day in advance is no longer an "emergency", at least not in the sense that it has to be done at a specific time. If the game can stay live for a day then a few hours forward or back won't hurt the situation much. Turn 5 being taken down because of glitches, THAT was an emergency. Balance changes, not so much.

Yeah SE...your emergencies aren't very accommodating to my play time!

Why? You make up a tiny proportion for the player base.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tercino

Oh, and a maintenance that's scheduled more than a day in advance is no longer an "emergency", at least not in the sense that it has to be done at a specific time.

---

As someone else pointed out, they do have to code the fix. They take the servers down to actually install and test it as best as they can. Sometimes it takes an hour to write code. Sometimes it takes a day or more. It doesn't write itself, and it would be stupid to take down the servers when they're not even ready to put the patch in yet.

And every time they have to do it, they look at their numbers and say "when are the least amount of people on?" and that's when they do it. Sorry, I can't elaborate on that any more than I already did. :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SaintAjora

As someone else pointed out, they do have to code the fix. They take the servers down to actually install and test it as best as they can. Sometimes it takes an hour to write code. Sometimes it takes a day or more. It doesn't write itself, and it would be stupid to take down the servers when they're not even ready to put the patch in yet.

And every time they have to do it, they look at their numbers and say "when are the least amount of people on?" and that's when they do it. Sorry, I can't elaborate on that any more than I already did. :(

---

The thing is, they don't write the code then go "Blam, servers down now", they write it and then look at when is the best time to put it in (or schedule a time then write the code before that, the exact order isn't important). You're arguing this just as much as me when you say they look at when the least amount of players are on. All we're suggesting is that they use a different metric as well, instead of one that perpetually hits the same people.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but the current maintenance time is at like 2am or something for the NA server location (Montreal)? This is already inconvenient for anyone working there, so that's no longer an excuse. There's actually even less people on NA servers later (I know, I've tried to make groups at 11pm NZ time - would be about 6am at servers). It could be scheduled then, affecting even less people. I don't know about Japan, but surely there's other times where not many people are on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tercino

The thing is, they don't write the code then go "Blam, servers down now", they write it and then look at when is the best time to put it in (or schedule a time then write the code before that, the exact order isn't important). You're arguing this just as much as me when you say they look at when the least amount of players areon. All we're suggesting is that they use a different metric as well, instead of one that perpetually hits the same people.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but the current maintenance time is at like 2am or something for the NA server location (Montreal)? This is already inconvenient for anyone working there, so that's no longer an excuse. There's actually even less people on NA servers later (I know, I've tried to make groups at 11pm NZ time - would be about 6am at servers). It could be scheduled then, affecting even less people. I don't know about Japan, but surely there's other times where not many people are on.

---

Careful, you're giving them too much logic... you need to be slow and gentle with these selfish people, otherwise they will spit in your face and say you're wrong.

Like I said, everyone was MORE THAN HAPPY to suit american prime time when Square announced it... but when oceanic players want a simple rotation? OH LAWDY LAWD NO SIR

I'm EU and do not support. 8 years of my prime time mait in 11. I just had to deal with it.

As an EU player I distinctly remember being told to suck it up in XI because literally every maintenance was in EU prime time. When we get to 10 years of maintenances all in your prime time you can complain how it isn't fair.

Tough. I'm in UK and had to put up with maint on UK prime time for 7 years. EU servers will have downtime in mornings. Same as other servers. So choose wisely when selecting your server. UK finally have decent maint times. This must not be altered.

I think there is already a time rotation.
last month it was in the NA primetime. This month it is in the oceania primetime. And next month it would be in the EU primetime.

I live in EU and I can remember that in 1.0 the maintenances was in the morning, at noon, or in the evening/night

This complaining never stops...

As Felis (and probably many others) said, there is a rotation (I remember SE saying they rotate the schedules). Maintenance schedule has hit Oceania primetime for the current month, while it was America primetime last month. Guess who are going to QQ next month?

I'm EU player, but meh, I can do something else in the meantime. If XIV is your only life, you have issues.

Yeah I highly doubt they are rotating them per "month"

as for EU players saying they dealt with it for 10 years, get over it?

Oceanic have always dealt with it, always even now.

oh look, another 7pm maintenance, right on schedule.

No maintenance: "I'm paying for a game that I can't play because you never fix it!"

Maintenance: "I'm paying for a game that I can't play because you're always fixing it!"

I guess I have to agree with the OP, especially upon logging in and seeing ANOTHER maintenance for tonight. I'm on Pacific time and play later in the night (as well as most of my cohorts in WA, CA and especially Hawaii), and this is really starting to kill our groove.

What got me more fired up was checking out the last JP maintenance. Guess what time their server group was down? 6AM to 8AM Tokyo time. WTF? You're going to kill some of our prime play time, but when it's Japan's turn, of COURSE they're going to pick dead times. I logged onto my server this morning at 8, only 2 people by the aetheryte in Grid. If that's any indication...

Is there a place on the forums where they specify what they are doing with every single maintenance? All I'm figuring is a whole lot of time they spend fixing something (and often breaking something else in the process) only to have to come back and fix the NEW broken thing, which one more again breaks something else. What. Are. You. Doing. SE?

We hear plenty of 'get over it' from all directions, and I get that some people don't care. It doesn't REALLY burn me - I just go play Mechwarrior Online. But to put it into perspective, if you pay for tickets to a football game, but you only get to watch the first 3 quarters, would that be okay? If you pay for a 4 course meal, but don't get that juicy steak that is supposed to come with it, would you still leave a good tip? Let's face it... folks pay for a service, and it is completely reasonable that they should expect to only see a few maintenance periods a month.

Just sayin'.

Heyell no.

North American servers already rotate between NA and EU friendly maintenance times, so no thank you. SE really should not also cater to people on the opposite side of the planet just because they decided to play in the wrong data center.

Australia and New Zealand should obviously be playing on Japanese data center servers. All the maintenance times would be friendly to peak demand times. The connection should be much better. Nobody talks/types in pub groubs anyway, and why wouldn't they have official 'Oceania' data centers in Japan the way they have official EU servers at the NA data center.

I honestly don't see a problem with them rotating maintenance and, emergency or not, they plan them somewhat in advance. I'm surprised, frankly, that there have been so many in such a short period of time. I'm sure they're tweaking things, but it's a bit absurd. The argument here is one side saying it would be a nice quality of life improvement for many if the same group isn't affected time and time again and the other side saying, well, that Square-Enix doesn't need to do anything just because you want it...

And I find that kind of strange.

A company's job is to provide a satisfactory product for the customer and this is such a small thing that I feel like the benefit greatly outweighs any negative impact. An MMO is a constantly shifting and changing product at that. Saying that SE shouldn't do something because, ugh, effort, is a very peculiar argument. SE wants to fix problems that affect players concerning their game, and this is one of them. I don't see the problem with everyone sharing the burden of maintenance a little more. Even if it was changed by a few hours, it could make a major difference. The maintenance doesn't tend to affect me but I feel like the pros outweigh the cons and it's perturbing to see people argue otherwise.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Selkie

The maintenance doesn't tend to affect me but I feel like the pros outweigh the cons and it's perturbing to see people argue otherwise.

---

Well said. I CAN see the other issue being the work times at SE. I'm not keen on if servers are maintained US side, or JP, or whever, but IF they are maintained JP, you may deal with office hours. For example... when they did JP server maintenance, it was 6A-8A. Sounds like it coincides with a lot of typical work days. Our 11P/12A PST maintenance falls at 3P/4P there, so again - kinda sorta typical work day. If the servers are maintained HERE, though... why couldn't they do it during those same hours? Easier to have folks do the updates say, 10A-2P than it is to drag people in at midnight and put them to work for 2-4 hours.

Quote:

---

I honestly don't see a problem with them rotating maintenance and, emergency or not, they plan them somewhat in advance.

---

Emergency maintenance won't be rotated, because it's an EMERGENCY! They'll just do them when necessary and schedule for the next available window.