Maintenance during prime evening time for NA servers

If the servers open in just less of an hour, it will be oceania primetime, thats a nice change for us living in this neck of the coral beds.

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Originally Posted by TTiscancer

And who do you think solves issues with the code if an emergency patch is needed? The server technicians? No, it's the developers IN JAPAN.

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Very true.

Tho that could be fixed with having JP maintanance first (like they currently have "10-19") then NA later (like lets say 2 am - 11 am NA time like EU) with said "emerengy patch". But I dont think any of us are devs or server techs here so this is just speculation.

It is what is is. Thankfully we dont have long maintanances every week or something..

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Originally Posted by InkB

Very true.

Tho that could be fixed with having JP maintanance first (like they currently have "10-19") then NA later (like lets say 2 am - 11 am NA time like EU) with said "emerengy patch". But I dont think any of us are devs or server techs here so this is just speculation.

It is what is is. Thankfully we dont have long maintanances every week or something..

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Yes they could do what WoW does and roll out the patches and such in different times, but people cry about that too all the time. How it's unfair that EU gets to play a new patch first.

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Originally Posted by TTiscancer

Yes they could do what WoW does and roll out the patches and such in different times, but people cry about that too all the time. How it's unfair that EU gets to play a new patch first.

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I think people are just slightly annoyed that someone else gets to have fun before them. Which is slightly ridicilous since we are talking about few hours 2-3 times expansion (in wow) (and ~5 times in XIV)

If its new raid tier, WoW players are annoyed because of whole "world first race" is supposedly sooo important (spoiler: its not) and "its unfair they might know mechanics before us".

Thats why new raid tier at "same time" for all regions is better in XIV. If you are world first racer you probably dont care if you have to start raiding at 2 am in NA or 10 AM at EU.

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Originally Posted by InkB

I think people are just slightly annoyed that someone else gets to have fun before them.

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I think the difference with WoW and XIV in this regard is that there's actually story for this game, and those are in the same patches as the raid content. And people don't want that story spoiled before they have a chance to get to it.

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Originally Posted by Violyre

I think the difference with WoW and XIV in this regard is that there's actually story for this game, and those are in the same patches as the raid content. And people don't want that story spoiled before they have a chance to get to it.

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Eh no, the way WoW does it pretty unique in the MMO landscape.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's a Japanese game, so if important maintenance is to be conducted then that time is going to align with Japanese friendly hours...

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This is complete B.S.

FFXIV is a global game.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

This is complete B.S.

FFXIV is a global game.

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It might be global, but we are second string when it comes to feedback and when servers go down. And I am 100 percent ok with that.

Maintenance is usually 11pm pst till like 2-4am, this Maintenance involved some server infrastructure which is usually much longer. Either way its not that big of a deal still looking at 3 months till EW plenty of time!

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

This is complete B.S.

FFXIV is a global game.

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Which means no matter when maintenance takes place, it will be prime time somewhere.

Y'all need more hobbies than just FFXIV. I recommend drawing.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

If it's something that needs to be done in every region then it will be done for every region at the same time. That way there isn't situations of various areas being behind. My question on this is why so many people in NA seem to think the entire world needs to revolve around their schedule.

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It's not necessarily specific to NA. There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?" Maybe there's a perfectly valid reason for all the datacenters to have to undergo maintenance at one time, but a well-designed system would have allowed for staggered maintenance schedules so that no datacenter would be stuck in maintenance mode in the middle of its most active period.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

It's not necessarily specific to NA. There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?" Maybe there's a perfectly valid reason for all the datacenters to have to undergo maintenance at one time, but a well-designed system would have allowed for staggered maintenance schedules so that no datacenter would be stuck in maintenance mode in the middle of its most active period.

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Or better yet, why not just suck it up and find something else to do with your time for a few hours or a Day, and let the game do its Maintenance so everyone across the board in all datacenters all at the same time can enjoy the benefits of the update.
Apologies if that comes off as rude or mean, but I stand the idea that everyone should suffer the downtime, and so everyone should enjoy the patches at the same time. I find it a fair system. Everybody picks up trash around the neighborhood, everyone gets to go to the Pizza Party afterwards.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?"

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Basically - manpower and cost efficiently.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

It's not necessarily specific to NA. There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?" Maybe there's a perfectly valid reason for all the datacenters to have to undergo maintenance at one time, but a well-designed system would have allowed for staggered maintenance schedules so that no datacenter would be stuck in maintenance mode in the middle of its most active period.

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Holy shoot hydaelyn send your servants some brain, please.

THE DEVELOPERS ARE JAPANESE. THEY HAVE TO BE AWAKE WHILE MAINTENANCE. THEY WORK, AT JAPANESE DAYTIME. WHICH...IS...THE...MAINTENANCE...SCHEDULE. SO THEY CAN REACT TO STUFF THAT MIGHT GO WRONG. SO...YOU...DONT...HAVE...TO...DEAL...WITH...A...GIANT...MESS...WHEN...IT...COMES...TO...BUGS.

It is not that hard to understand, really you guys make me cry. They do it when they are awake so if something goes wrong you don't have to wait like 12 hours until the developers wake up. I know deep down in your basement cave you might already transcendet beyond having the need for a good rest but i can tell you many of us have to sleep everyday.

Edit: This isn't WoW where they let the players basically betatest the game ten months in advance so you can catch all the bugs etc. for them as a unpaid slave.

Imagine how they will feel when game will be down for like 2 days in november.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

It's not necessarily specific to NA. There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?" Maybe there's a perfectly valid reason for all the datacenters to have to undergo maintenance at one time, but a well-designed system would have allowed for staggered maintenance schedules so that no datacenter would be stuck in maintenance mode in the middle of its most active period.

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Because your client can connect to all data centres and make characters on any of them, thus they all need to receive the patch at the same time. There are players who live in one region and play in another due to their schedule, friends, etc. Having some data centres suddenly be incompatible with some players clients would not work.

So.
Did y'all survive this horrific experience that is time zones?
I hope none of you were traumatized for life.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

So.
Did y'all survive this horrific experience that is time zones?
I hope none of you were traumatized for life.

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I had to like work since server didnt go live until 11am here in EU. It was terrible. Me? Work?

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Or better yet, why not just suck it up and find something else to do with your time for a few hours or a Day, and let the game do its Maintenance so everyone across the board in all datacenters all at the same time can enjoy the benefits of the update.

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That's pretty much what I do now? I was really responding to the sentiment that this is an "entitled NA player issue." It's a more general issue than that.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

Holy shoot hydaelyn send your servants some brain, please.

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Classy.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

THE DEVELOPERS ARE JAPANESE. THEY HAVE TO BE AWAKE WHILE MAINTENANCE. THEY WORK, AT JAPANESE DAYTIME. WHICH...IS...THE...MAINTENANCE...SCHEDULE. SO THEY CAN REACT TO STUFF THAT MIGHT GO WRONG. SO...YOU...DONT...HAVE...TO...DEAL...WITH...A...GIANT...MESS...WHEN...IT...COMES...TO...BUGS.

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I don't know if you've ever worked at a software company before, but the developers don't typically do server maintenance. Large companies with a global presence have IT teams spread out across the globe (which is where the term "global" comes from) that handle stuff like server maintenance. As long as the initial deployment is scheduled in a manner that leaves the devs available for emergency hotfixes, bugs aren't an issue. If things go south for the initial deployment, the subsequent ones can be postponed pending the fix. It actually works out better from a "fix all the bugs" perspective.

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Originally Posted by Unholychinchilla

Because your client can connect to all data centres and make characters on any of them, thus they all need to receive the patch at the same time. There are players who live in one region and play in another due to their schedule, friends, etc. Having some data centres suddenly be incompatible with some players clients would not work.

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Sure, but it's not rocket science to have the client defer the version check until the point where you try to connect to the data center. When it detects you're connecting to the patched datacenter, then it prompts you to update with the caveat that you will no longer be able to connect to unpatched datacenters. This isn't some revolutionary new paradigm. It's a problem that's been solved by many other companies.

I mean, it works out pretty well. 9PM EST to Completion is pretty grand to me, and it's only one day a week, so things can be planned out to do on other days or earlier in the day.

I believe it should stay as is, works out very well.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

So.
Did y'all survive this horrific experience that is time zones?
I hope none of you were traumatized for life.

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Nope. Am now ghost writing this post. Experience too traumatic. Had to spend an entire night without game.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

That's pretty much what I do now? I was really responding to the sentiment that this is an "entitled NA player issue." It's a more general issue than that.


Classy.


I don't know if you've ever worked at a software company before, but the developers don't typically do server maintenance. Large companies with a global presence have IT teams spread out across the globe (which is where the term "global" comes from) that handle stuff like server maintenance. As long as the initial deployment is scheduled in a manner that leaves the devs available for emergency hotfixes, bugs aren't an issue. If things go south for the initial deployment, the subsequent ones can be postponed pending the fix. It actually works out better from a "fix all the bugs" perspective.


Sure, but it's not rocket science to have the client defer the version check until the point where you try to connect to the data center. When it detects you're connecting to the patched datacenter, then it prompts you to update with the caveat that you will no longer be able to connect to unpatched datacenters. This isn't some revolutionary new paradigm. It's a problem that's been solved by many other companies.

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You do realize what you're saying is not how SE run these things. No one said the devs are doing the work but they have most likely their infrastructure teams in japan as well.

They have this setup cause it they do it themselves in-house. Not via a partner/vendor/3rd party.
This is the process and it probably would be a huge undertaking to change it to something more agile.

Plus they might just prefer doing it themselves for quality assurance.

I work in IT in a development team, not as a software company but a service provider. We have business in 5 countries but all server maintenance happens in Sweden and Finland (that's where we have bulk of our maintenance and development teams) but we have data centers in all 5+ countries and the largest internet backbone network in the world. It wouldn't make sense to offshore that work in each data center location.

I can see why they run the things they do for various reasons.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

You do realize what you're saying is not how SE run these things.

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I do realize that. Obviously it's not how they run things because if it was, they wouldn't have to bring all the servers worldwide down at the same time to roll out an update.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

No one said the devs are doing the work but they have most likely their infrastructure teams in japan as well.

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Except for this guy, who said it in all caps in as insulting a manner as possible:

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

Holy shoot hydaelyn send your servants some brain, please.

THE DEVELOPERS ARE JAPANESE. THEY HAVE TO BE AWAKE WHILE MAINTENANCE.

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How SE chooses to run their company is how they choose to run it. My only dispute is with players claiming that it just can't be done. This argument you're putting forward is the equivalent of, "We just can't travel 8 miles in an hour without running, and since we've all decided to walk, it just can't be done." I realize that SE has their own way of doing things and that their way of doing things is causing all the servers to go down at the same time. I'm just saying that if they were to bring their procedures in line with industry standards, they wouldn't have to do this. It's not like this is a never-before-seen problem with no known solution.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

They have this setup cause it they do it themselves in-house. Not via a partner/vendor/3rd party.

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I work for a multi-national software development company that does all its IT in house, too, and they never bring down all of the company's servers worldwide at the same time. When they put out planned maintenance outages, they do so in staggered intervals. The APAC servers go down at one time, the NA servers go down at another time, and the European servers go down at a third time. Just because your IT is all in house doesn't mean you have to inconvenience all your clients all at once.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

I work in IT in a development team, not as a software company but a service provider. We have business in 5 countries but all server maintenance happens in Sweden and Finland (that's where we have bulk of our maintenance and development teams) but we have data centers in all 5+ countries and the largest internet backbone network in the world. It wouldn't make sense to offshore that work in each data center location.

I can see why they run the things they do for various reasons.

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And I 100% guarantee you that you're not bringing down all 5+ data centers at the exact same time on a monthly basis. I understand if SE decides that it's not worth their while to make things more convenient for their players, especially when it probably won't even impact their sales. I'm not demanding changes from SE. I'm only pointing out the difference between "They can't change it," and, "They won't change it."

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

So.
Did y'all survive this horrific experience that is time zones?
I hope none of you were traumatized for life.

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Been here since HW, nothing I cant handle bby

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

So.
Did y'all survive this horrific experience that is time zones?
I hope none of you were traumatized for life.

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Somehow. I was told a moon was dropped on my head but I can't remember anything. Feels like this has happened before...

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's a Japanese game, so if important maintenance is to be conducted then that time is going to align with Japanese friendly hours...

Why would it need to not inconvenience North American players, specifically? The game also has a sizeable portion of European players...so no matter what time of day or night the maintenance happens to be, a portion of the game's population is going to 'lose out'. Even then, though, they can just do something else for a few hours.

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Maintenance during prime evening time for NA servers what and how did you missed this ?


Are you saying they have 0 NA empoyees and all servers are controlled from Japan only ?

North American players, specifically? BECAUSE IT IS NA SERVERS?


Only makes sense when they have literally 0 employees in US and all is controlled only and around Japan working hours quite strange for global company.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

I do realize that. Obviously it's not how they run things because if it was, they wouldn't have to bring all the servers worldwide down at the same time to roll out an update.


Except for this guy, who said it in all caps in as insulting a manner as possible:


How SE chooses to run their company is how they choose to run it. My only dispute is with players claiming that it just can't be done. This argument you're putting forward is the equivalent of, "We just can't travel 8 miles in an hour without running, and since we've all decided to walk, it just can't be done." I realize that SE has their own way of doing things and that their way of doing things is causing all the servers to go down at the same time. I'm just saying that if they were to bring their procedures in line with industry standards, they wouldn't have to do this. It's not like this is a never-before-seen problem with no known solution.


I work for a multi-national software development company that does all its IT in house, too, and they never bring down all of the company's servers worldwide at the same time. When they put out planned maintenance outages, they do so in staggered intervals. The APAC servers go down at one time, the NA servers go down at another time, and the European servers go down at a third time. Just because your IT is all in house doesn't mean you have to inconvenience all your clients all at once.


And I 100% guarantee you that you're not bringing down all 5+ data centers at the exact same time on a monthly basis. I understand if SE decides that it's not worth their while to make things more convenient for their players, especially when it probably won't even impact their sales. I'm not demanding changes from SE. I'm only pointing out the difference between "They can't change it," and, "They won't change it."

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We don't care because it's 1 night every few weeks, and sometimes every few months.

The game has lots of spoilers, and story is a focus, so of course we don't care since maint happens at the same time for everyone, so no one can access the content before the rest.

You'd have people transferring their chars to the jp datacenters before patch day, to play early.

This is just simpler.

imagine the screaming if...

SE decides to implement a better regional maint schedule to baby the poor north americans who feel put out, so they stagger the maint schedule, starting in Japan and moving east to Europe, then finally NA. Imagine the frustration when patches get implemented a day later than than in Japan, the people whining about spoilers etc because things released in Japan and Europe a day earlier than NA.

there is no pleasing people. just grow up and accept that there are things in life outside your control. outside your schedule that may inconvenience you a bit. Unless you can produce a contract that was signed by you and life at birth, saying everything would be done at your convenience, then you have no grounds for complaining. life is happier if you just accept that and move on. many, if not most reasonable adult types understand the universe does not revolve around them, just because you game, doesnt make you immature.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

imagine the screaming if...

SE decides to implement a better regional maint schedule to baby the poor north americans who feel put out, so they stagger the maint schedule, starting in Japan and moving east to Europe, then finally NA. Imagine the frustration when patches get implemented a day later than than in Japan, the people whining about spoilers etc because things released in Japan and Europe a day earlier than NA.

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As opposed to now when the patch is made available sometime between 2 and 5 am depending on which side of NA you're living in? Now I really feel like you guys are reaching for excuses on behalf of SE for not implementing a better patch release process. Like anyone will care that the patch isn't available until 5 pm the next day. I know it's hard to understand if you're in college or unemployed, but most players wouldn't even notice the servers being down for maintenance for 18 hours a day, even if it was every day. It's silly that SE picks the one window where NA players actually do notice to perform their maintenance. Honestly, I don't feel all that strongly about this issue, but it's kind of disheartening to see you guys pile on players just for suggesting that this could be done better.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

As opposed to now when the patch is made available sometime between 2 and 5 am depending on which side of NA you're living in? Now I really feel like you guys are reaching for excuses on behalf of SE for not implementing a better patch release process. Like anyone will care that the patch isn't available until 5 pm the next day. I know it's hard to understand if you're in college or unemployed, but most players wouldn't even notice the servers being down for maintenance for 18 hours a day, even if it was every day. It's silly that SE picks the one window where NA players actually do notice to perform their maintenance. Honestly, I don't feel all that strongly about this issue, but it's kind of disheartening to see you guys pile on players just for suggesting that this could be done better.

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It may surprise you, but people do take time off for patches. And the game coming up in the AM means they can wake up early and immediately hop into the new content, instead of waiting until, in your example, 5pm.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

As opposed to now when the patch is made available sometime between 2 and 5 am depending on which side of NA you're living in? Now I really feel like you guys are reaching for excuses on behalf of SE for not implementing a better patch release process. Like anyone will care that the patch isn't available until 5 pm the next day. I know it's hard to understand if you're in college or unemployed, but most players wouldn't even notice the servers being down for maintenance for 18 hours a day, even if it was every day. It's silly that SE picks the one window where NA players actually do notice to perform their maintenance. Honestly, I don't feel all that strongly about this issue, but it's kind of disheartening to see you guys pile on players just for suggesting that this could be done better.

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And the entire NA continent shuts down and sleeps at the same time? Most of the country doesn't operate only between 9am-5pm. The only part that's silly in your post is that you seem to think they deliberately chose the time to grief the NA population. People seriously need to stop trying to portray themselves as a victim in every situation that inconveniences them in the slightest way.

I mean we all know that people from NA don't need sleep right? Must be a dream to have your internet or other stuff fixed in a instant. I bet if something is wrong with your router they send a technician in a black hawk out just for you even if it's in the middle of the night, right?

Companies having schedules, what a strange foreign concept.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

And the entire NA continent shuts down and sleeps at the same time? Most of the country doesn't operate only between 9am-5pm. The only part that's silly in your post is that you seem to think they deliberately chose the time to grief the NA population. People seriously need to stop trying to portray themselves as a victim in every situation that inconveniences them in the slightest way.

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You are reading way too much into what I wrote. I never said it was deliberately chosen that way. I said that it worked out that way, and people are understandably annoyed by it. The vast majority of people are busy all day long, and they're freed up at night time. The current maintenance schedule shuts the servers down right about the time many parents in NA are finally getting their kids settled for bed. When I was in college I would happily play from 2 am until noon, go to class, do my homework, crash, and do it again. When I took on a job that ended. When I had children, my time was even more restricted. Thankfully my children are grown now so I have more flexibility, but I still remember what it was like. I definitely see why people are annoyed about it. I don't know how you're defining "most of the country." The vast majority of jobs I've ever seen operate between the hours of 9 and 5 pm give or take a couple of hours. If you're working service jobs, your hours might go a little longer. The number of graveyard shifts at the local grocery store is not huge.

Apparently everything is all or none on these forums though:

• Understandably annoyed == suffering victim
• It would be nice == I demand.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

As opposed to now when the patch is made available sometime between 2 and 5 am depending on which side of NA you're living in? Now I really feel like you guys are reaching for excuses on behalf of SE for not implementing a better patch release process. Like anyone will care that the patch isn't available until 5 pm the next day. I know it's hard to understand if you're in college or unemployed, but most players wouldn't even notice the servers being down for maintenance for 18 hours a day, even if it was every day. It's silly that SE picks the one window where NA players actually do notice to perform their maintenance. Honestly, I don't feel all that strongly about this issue, but it's kind of disheartening to see you guys pile on players just for suggesting that this could be done better.

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there is no time they can pick that wont inconvenience SOMEONE.

I really feel you are reaching for excuses to be entitled and just ignore the reality that not everything lives and breathes by NA time zones. they want everyone to be able to experience the content at teh same time. does that not make sense at all to you?

They usually let us know when maintenance is going to happen. They have a post pop up when you log into the game about maintenance. It even shows in the chat when you first log in. Maybe you should see in your time zone when the maintenance will happen. Also FFXIV is a big game, think of how many servers there are and what they have to put in each and every server across the entire world.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

there is no time they can pick that wont inconvenience SOMEONE.

I really feel you are reaching for excuses to be entitled and just ignore the reality that not everything lives and breathes by NA time zones. they want everyone to be able to experience the content at teh same time. does that not make sense at all to you?

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Again, this is not an NA-specific issue. It just so happens that NA and SA are the most inconvenienced, but I can't imagine that it feels great in SA or Europe either. And you clearly didn't read any of my previous posts, which pointed out that they can pick out a time that's convenient for the majority of players in a given region by simply staggering the maintenance windows by region. I don't know what you mean by everyone "experiencing the content at the same time." Like most players are going to stay up until 4 am on a Tuesday and blow off work the next day for a patch.

You also ignored the part where I said that it would be nice for them to fix it, but I'm not going to cry if they don't. Apparently holding an opinion is now entitled. I like chocolate cake, too. Does that make me even more entitled now? I like to sleep in on weekends. How much more entitled can I get?

I don't understand why we can't express opinions nowadays without immediately being called self-centered and entitled by someone with a different opinion.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

Again, this is not an NA-specific issue. It just so happens that NA and SA are the most inconvenienced, but I can't imagine that it feels great in SA or Europe either. And you clearly didn't read any of my previous posts, which pointed out that they can pick out a time that's convenient for the majority of players in a given region by simply staggering the maintenance windows by region. I don't know what you mean by everyone "experiencing the content at the same time." Like most players are going to stay up until 4 am on a Tuesday and blow off work the next day for a patch.

You also ignored the part where I said that it would be nice for them to fix it, but I'm not going to cry if they don't. Apparently holding an opinion is now entitled. I like chocolate cake, too. Does that make me even more entitled now? I like to sleep in on weekends. How much more entitled can I get?

I don't understand why we can't express opinions nowadays without immediately being called self-centered and entitled by someone with a different opinion.

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and you have ignored the part where its been their desire to have content release at the same time everywhere for everyone. this alone negates the staggering concept.

there is nothing wrong with having an opinion, even one that ignores the fact that this has been complained about in more games than this since the beginning of online games.

perhaps they can spend some money on a referendum of all their players to find out what times work for them and adjust accordingly to make it so the least number of players are affected by their desire to make it a coordinated release of new content. but I suspect that everyone who didnt like the chosen time would again post that they didnt put enough effort into making sure it wasnt an inconvenience...for them.

basically, in terms of maintenance... they cant please everyone... ever.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

and you have ignored the part where its been their desire to have content release at the same time everywhere for everyone. this alone negates the staggering concept.

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I didn't ignore that. I asked why they would want that. What advantage is there for that, other than it's slightly more convenient for their IT team because they don't have to write a script to kick off the upgrade on the other servers later? I'm not sure what is negated. Some players have expressed the opinion that they would rather have server maintenance take place while they're at work or asleep. Replying, "We want everyone to endure server maintenance at the exact same time regardless of where in the world they reside," doesn't change that fact. I guarantee that the percentage of NA players who are actually staying up until 2-5 am to "experience the content release" is in the single digits or lower.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

basically, in terms of maintenance... they cant please everyone... ever.

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No one can please everyone, ever. That's never been the goal of software development. However, good developers try to please the largest percentage of players that they can. I have yet to be convinced that the majority of NA players are happier with a 6 pm-2 am PDT maintenance schedule than with a 12 am-8 am PDT maintenance schedule. The most compelling argument I've seen is that a handful of fans would be sad at having to wait six hours longer than they would otherwise to experience the latest patch. When game developers exclusively cater to their most die-hard defenders, then their games go the way of WoW.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

I didn't ignore that. I asked why they would want that. What advantage is there for that, other than it's slightly more convenient for their IT team because they don't have to write a script to kick off the upgrade on the other servers later? I'm not sure what is negated. Some players have expressed the opinion that they would rather have server maintenance take place while they're at work or asleep. Replying, "We want everyone to endure server maintenance at the exact same time regardless of where in the world they reside," doesn't change that fact. I guarantee that the percentage of NA players who are actually staying up until 2-5 am to "experience the content release" is in the single digits or lower.

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no, I think your estimation is wrong, many people I play with are night owls, so they are up and will play as soon as the server comes up. I suspect many more, like me, actually adjust sleep schedule so that I am awake when the server comes up. so, I know from personal experience, your "single digits or lower" is incorrect.

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Originally Posted by Ronduwil

No one can please everyone, ever. That's never been the goal of software development. However, good developers try to please the largest percentage of players that they can. I have yet to be convinced that the majority of NA players are happier with a 6 pm-2 am PDT maintenance schedule than with a 12 am-8 am PDT maintenance schedule. The most compelling argument I've seen is that a handful of fans would be sad at having to wait six hours longer than they would otherwise to experience the latest patch. When game developers exclusively cater to their most die-hard defenders, then their games go the way of WoW.

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lets talk quality and economics.

6 pm PDT is 10 am in Tokyo.
to do update deployment, they are going to want teams in place to make sure whatever they deploy is not breaking their servers. like any company around the globe, they dont want to pay a ton of overtime, nor do they want to bring up a broken mess. so they will want as many support people on hand, at regular pay, in case something goes wrong. this isnt a "push a switch and it is done" kind of thing. they often do run a 10 or 12 pm PDT maintenance time, which is 2 to 4 pm local time start, typically those just seem to be small updates for the servers and game, requiring less people because its likely more hardware related.

so their choice of times may not fit into the NA or SA schedule, I doubt they care to be honest, since they are scheduling their employees on time that their employees would normally be at work. I doubt they have a board that they choose a time which will most impact NA/SA players

all this is however completely irrelevant since they notify us well ahead of time. yes, they have Emergency Maintenance which they cant tell us of a week in advance, but generally speaking, they advertise maintenance on the launcher, after the launcher, when you log into the game, so the argument of people taking time off, is baseless. you have to ask "why" when its been clearly and abundantly advertised as to the maintenance time coming up.

This is not the company catering to a small number of players. they have stated previously I believe, that it is THEIR WISH to have releases done at the same time for everyone, but I would have to try and dig that up. Their... wish. not a player request.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

no, I think your estimation is wrong, many people I play with are night owls, so they are up and will play as soon as the server comes up. so, I know from personal experience, your "single digits or lower" is incorrect.

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Surprise surprise. You're a night owl, so naturally all of your online friends are going to be night owls. That's hardly representative of the player base as a whole. The dozens of people that you've met playing all night online are all night owls, so the vast majority of the the millions of players that this game has are obviously night owls too, according to you. I'm not buying that.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

lets talk quality and economics.

6 pm PDT is 10 am in Tokyo.
to do update deployment, they are going to want teams in place to make sure whatever they deploy is not breaking their servers. like any company around the globe, they dont want to pay a ton of overtime, nor do they want to bring up a broken mess. so they will want as many support people on hand, at regular pay, in case something goes wrong. this isnt a "push a switch and it is done" kind of thing.

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1. Most IT workers are salaried, so there is no overtime involved.
2. Once you've successfully done the update on a set of servers, then it pretty much becomes a queue a script and then you're done kind of issue. We're not living in the 1990s anymore. Automation is standard now. Do you seriously think an engineer is sitting on the other side of the server every time you run a Windows update or update your Zoom client?
3. I'm not saying that they can't start their maintenance at 10 am in Tokyo. I'm saying that they can stagger the maintenance windows so that once the APAC servers have been successfully updated, they can leave a script in place to update the NA and EU servers at later times. It would take days to work this out, not months.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

they have stated previously I believe, that it is THEIR WISH to have releases done at the same time for everyone, but I would have to try and dig that up. Their... wish. not a player request.

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And at one time, FFXIV 1.0 reflected their "wish." Their "wish" isn't the world of law. It's just their current philosophy. It's OK to ask them to revisit that point of view. It's OK for them to say no, but but it's also OK to ask. Their wish, at one time, was also for Viera to be exclusively female.