Extremely long downtimes.

Why on earth is the downtime so god damn long? We don't even get compensation for the downtime, and on top of that Square Enix is a big company. They're bigger than Blizzard I think, they should be able to have quick patches and updates.

I know it was maintenance for the server, but it's like this with every single update. 8 hour downtime is normal for Square Enix it seems, whereas WoW for example has a max of 1 hour. And that's usually not even the case, usually it's about 10 or 20 minutes.

What are your thoughts on this?

My thoughts? This has been happening for every MMO in existence since their birth. SE handles XIV's servers better than most in that they make sure things are stable and mostly bug-free 24/7. Issues happen as they always have, so sometimes the game needs to be taken down to fix them. I prefer a company takes the time to iron out the details instead of releasing a patch with 10,000 little bugs like WoW tends to. TLDR version: It's part of playing an MMO. I play WoW, and their maintenances on average take a few hours. Restarts usually happen over the course of an hour, and hotfixes are applied while we play the game. Usually. They've gotten a bit quicker in recent years because they can let people download a patch days before it goes live.

I think people need to deal with the fact that sometimes maintenance can and will take some time. This game is not WoW and we need to stop comparing it, as well as dropping any kind of compensation entitlement for the down time. We all knew that the recent works were going to be down a little longer than normal, because it was "infrastructure maintenance", it isn't always 8hrs. We are also well informed of other planned maintenance in advance and SE try their best to work around prime time as much as they can but regardless, we accept this as part of our subscription. Having any down time to ensure a smooth playing experience should be money worthy, and it is.

For your convenience, here is the terms of service you accepted.


5. INTERRUPTION TO THE SERVICE
From time to time, in order to provide our customers with the optimal gaming experience, it is necessary for Square Enix to conduct routine maintenance on the computers and/or servers that support the Game. During these times, access to the Game or support services may be interrupted. Access may also be temporarily suspended in whole or in part, without notice, due to emergency repairs, fire, flood, explosion, war, strike, embargo, governmental action or failure to act, the act of any civil or military authority, act of God, or by any other causes beyond Square Enix's control, or any other reasons for which Square Enix, in its sole discretion, deems that temporary suspension is necessary. You acknowledge that disruptions of service may occur and waive any causes of action against Square Enix in any way arising from or related to any such disruptions of service.

Compensation wont happen as maintenance is an expected part of upkeep on any online game, especially something as massive as mmorpg, and this is covered in the ToS.

Anyone unfamiliar with the tech actually involved in allowing you to play seemlessly online with people around the world has a serious lack of understanding of how many 'moving parts' make that happen.

90% of the servers I work on take 5-10 minutes just to POST. A patch? 30 mins. so thats 40 mins right there. Any work on those servers themselves, firmware updates, then verification, testing, and all that? Yeah, it adds up.

I had a 9 hour window to replace 1 part on a blade enclosure. 9 hours. it took 2 and a half. Companies don't mess around when it comes to maintenance window,s because something can and will go wrong.

Sometimes we don't get the weekly maintenance at all. I am pretty confident that there is a reason for them requiring an "extended" maintenance from time to time. Bear in mind, not everything they did was necessarily included in the patch notes.

Cheers,
D.

My thoughts? It's only 8 hours and I needed sleep anyways.

My thoughts says:
This isn't WOW so I won't compare it to that
That maintenance is needed to add new content to the game
Were already compensated since we'll be getting rested exp while we wait
And you appear to showing a case of video game withdrawal symptoms and the 8 hour down time is probably good for you

Clearly you haven't seen WoW and their downtimes.
Their shop alone is 20 hours offline.