maintenance constantly eating up game time

Why are the hours and days not reimbursed to our subscription time. Its like 5 days out of every 30 that we cannot play but we still pay for. Please add the time to our accounts. Some of us are not made of money. Sometimes we cant even raid in savage. The lag for half the people in our party doesnt allow it some days. Then you need maint to fix that? Causing more days removed from our subs. You sure count down the hours to when we have to pay again. Why not add back the hours that we cant even pay?:mad:

This thread always comes up a lot and it's such a troll. Game time is more expensive than subs 99% of the time, and maintenance is a necessary evil in order to get the new content that gets added to the game very regularly

Don't be selfish, the maintenance is there to implement the new content created FOR YOU.

Also... 5 days out of every 30? other than emergency maintenance, which is rare (and fairly quick), scheduled maintenance happens 2 or 3 times every 3 months.

You go ahead and put this in the "not going to happen" file along with the rest of the threads like this when ever there is maintenance.

I don't know, out of the 1 month I've payed for so far I've had an entire day down for the patch, and 3 nights and 1 day of maintenance. For someone who just started playing the game, That seems like an extraordinary amount of time that I couldn't actually log in. Plus all the random times is somewhat annoying. Mind you, i'm not exactly complaining about maintenance time, Just pointing out that is a lot of downtime. I see the need for maintenance, but I'm fairly sure they aren't doing it very well if they've had to shut down the servers 5 times for 1 patch :P.

Imagine being a player who paid for and started the game on June 29th around 5 PM PDT. That player is never logging in again.

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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.

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The TOS you agree to when subscribing to the game.

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Originally Posted by ChiiSoSeriouz

The TOS you agree to when subscribing to the game.

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Thanks for letting me know I can't sue, Captain Obvious. Your services are appreciated, perhaps you'd like to tell me the Bears aren't going to win the next Super Bowl?

Very well aware of that. I'm not even demanding reimbursement, Simply stating that in 1 month they've dropped the server multiple times. People just starting out aren't going to want to stay around for that. You should be concerned about that as well, the less people who stick around equals less content delivered in the future. I've been playing MMOs long enough to know that the majority of a games respective forums are filled with people who will defend the company regardless of the companies behavior, and that's cool.... I mean it's not really, taking a different view on something every once in awhile wouldn't hurt many people :P

It's not really that bad. I mean I've had loads of time to play in between scheduled maintenance. I know emergency maintenance is frustrating but be a little patient.

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Originally Posted by sonseray

Thanks for letting me know I can't sue, Captain Obvious. Your services are appreciated, perhaps you'd like to tell me the Bears aren't going to win the next Super Bowl?

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Bears won't win the next super bowl.

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Originally Posted by Transient_Shadow

It's not really that bad. I mean I've had loads of time to play in between scheduled maintenance. I know emergency maintenance is frustrating but be a little patient.

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It may not be that bad for you, but these maintenance times have so far landed everyday I get off work and run the allotted time I have to play, and now on my day off. So It's effectively barred me from multiple days of play. I can't stress enough that I'm not even raging or furious over this. Merely pointing out that it is in fact, frustrating as you said. I've been playing MMOs for awhile, was very excited to pick up this game because I'm a fan of Final fantasy, And I'm here to tell you, people who aren't major fans of the series aren't gonna poke around when multiple days of the 30 they paid for cant be played. And the whole "see ya later! we don't want ya!" response, Is actually more detrimental to the player base then you'd think. Not to say you did, But I can see that general idea forming in this small thread haha.

You can complain all you want about maintenance, but like people have said, it's a necessary evil. Sure you can't play for the duration, but if they didn't do it the game wouldn't even exist, or the game would lag so bad it wouldn't even be playable.

Think of it this way: you alone use your computer, or maybe you share it, either way if you don't restart it, clean it, keep it free of dust/dirt, etc what will happen to it? It will slow down and become sluggish, to the point that you probably wouldn't even be able to browse the internet easily.

Now, imagine the servers for FFXIV which has over 5million players. Each person is making multiple connections when you add in every time someone loads the game. Which you do multiple times a day most likely. So let's say that's at least 10 million connections, if there was never any maintenance done on that, what do you think would happen? The same as your computer, it slows and becomes sluggish to the point people wouldn't even be able to play it. So what do you prefer? Not being able to play for just a few hours, and that's seriously the length of a maintenance, or would you rather just lag to death until you can't even play it anymore because you don't like maintenance happening for a few hours every once in a while?

Now, I do know there have been a lot of emergency maintenances lately, and while they are irritating at times, they are still necessary. Be glad they even tell you why they are doing it, most games won't bother to even tell you that. They just say there is a maintenance and that's all there is to it. Square tries to keep people involved and up to date on what is going on, but with there being so much going on sometimes things mess up. Everyone is only human, mistakes will be made.

TL : DR version - Shut up and get used to it - it's necessary - and maintenances don't even last that long. They aren't trying to purposefully make your life horrible, or make you unable to play the game. It's just a necessary evil.

Or they could just stop doing maintenance and we can slowly watch the servers deteriorate until the game is straight up unplayable. You aren't paying a subscription JUST to play the game... you are paying the subscription for them to make sure the game is running optimally and so they can keep producing new content.

Would you purchase a car and expect the required maintenance to be reimbursed by the dealer?

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Originally Posted by BlairCrosszeria

Its like 5 days out of every 30 that we cannot play but we still pay for.

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With the exception of the 24 hour June 6th patch that gave us 3.3, all of the other maintenances were for 4 hours. Even the Primal/Aether unplanned maintenances over the last week were fixed within the same sort of time frame. You do realise you can actually play for the other 20 hours of those days?

Also just because we can't play doesn't mean SE don't still have operating costs. It's in the user agreement that we agreed to that they can have maintenance from time to time and it's because of that the game servers are generally quite stable.

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Originally Posted by BlairCrosszeria

The lag for half the people in our party doesnt allow it some days.

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There's no lag on the servers, that's your ISP giving you some bad routing. It probably won't do much good, but you need to complain to them.

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Originally Posted by sonseray

Imagine being a player who paid for and started the game on June 29th around 5 PM PDT. That player is never logging in again.

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Well neither of us know for sure, but given that the player has already paid for the game, it would seem very unlikely to me that they're just going to walk away and never try it again. The alternative that you're proposing is that SE just let the servers have problems and surely an unstable game is going to turn players away much faster?

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Originally Posted by sonseray

Thanks for letting me know I can't sue, Captain Obvious.

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I have another helpful suggestion then, you should probably try getting the user agreement changed BEFORE you agree to it.

Have you tried sending them the schedule you plan on being online? i am sure they will be more than willing to compromise and never schedule a routine maintenance to interfere with your play time

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Game time is more expensive than subs 99% of the time, and maintenance is a necessary evil...

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Originally Posted by Wyrdhare

True, but...

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

...maintenance is a necessary evil in order to get the new content that gets added to the game very regularly

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Originally Posted by Wyrdhare

Seriously, that was all you contribute to your defense of that statement?

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Don't be selfish, the maintenance is there to implement the new content created FOR YOU.

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Originally Posted by Wyrdhare

I must correct you, Lambda. They DO NOT create the content for us; they create a product, put it on the shelf and we eat them up, because we are dumb like that. So, in actuality, they create it for themselves, because it keeps the license fees rolling in; they couldn't care if we all like it, because one day, everyone will forget about it when they new content comes along. That's consumerism for you!

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Originally Posted by Layhe

You can complain all you want about maintenance, but like people have said, it's a necessary evil.

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Originally Posted by Wyrdhare

Still true; however...

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Originally Posted by Layhe

TL : DR version - Shut up and get used to it - it's necessary...

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Originally Posted by Wyrdhare

...but that tone wasn't...

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Originally Posted by Ferth

Or they could just stop doing maintenance and we can slowly watch the servers deteriorate until the game is straight up unplayable.

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Originally Posted by Wyrdhare

Hehe...

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Originally Posted by Seezur_Undies

Have you tried sending them the schedule you plan on being online? i am sure they will be more than willing to compromise and never schedule a routine maintenance to interfere with your play time

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Originally Posted by Wyrdhare

I would dig at this, but it is at least witty in its sarcastic overtones. so "pass".

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This is what I would contribute...

We may not like waiting for maintenance when it unexpectingly comes around, but that's just how it is; while I concede that there have been an unusual number of scheduled maintenance periods of late, at least they give a few days notice. As for emergency maintenance, that is technically the definition of "emergency"; it had to be done.

My issue is that I have been sitting on this for the last few updates, and there actually has been no actions towards issues I am experiencing, but even if you go through the process of reporting issues, it always has be rectified in an order of priority; there are just some issues too damaging to ignore. If we can learn to be patient, give them four hours of one day of your week to do what they must, then just maybe, we could at least not have to have threads on the forum, like this, where people will abuse (or at the least, humiliate you) because you aren't so.

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Originally Posted by sonseray

Thanks for letting me know I can't sue, Captain Obvious. Your services are appreciated, perhaps you'd like to tell me the Bears aren't going to win the next Super Bowl?

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If he was really being a Captain Obvious this thread wouldn't exist.

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Originally Posted by Layhe

You can complain all you want about maintenance, but like people have said, it's a necessary evil. Sure you can't play for the duration, but if they didn't do it the game wouldn't even exist, or the game would lag so bad it wouldn't even be playable.

Think of it this way: you alone use your computer, or maybe you share it, either way if you don't restart it, clean it, keep it free of dust/dirt, etc what will happen to it? It will slow down and become sluggish, to the point that you probably wouldn't even be able to browse the internet easily.

Now, imagine the servers for FFXIV which has over 5million players. Each person is making multiple connections when you add in every time someone loads the game. Which you do multiple times a day most likely. So let's say that's at least 10 million connections, if there was never any maintenance done on that, what do you think would happen? The same as your computer, it slows and becomes sluggish to the point people wouldn't even be able to play it. So what do you prefer? Not being able to play for just a few hours, and that's seriously the length of a maintenance, or would you rather just lag to death until you can't even play it anymore because you don't like maintenance happening for a few hours every once in a while?

Now, I do know there have been a lot of emergency maintenances lately, and while they are irritating at times, they are still necessary. Be glad they even tell you why they are doing it, most games won't bother to even tell you that. They just say there is a maintenance and that's all there is to it. Square tries to keep people involved and up to date on what is going on, but with there being so much going on sometimes things mess up. Everyone is only human, mistakes will be made.

TL : DR version - Shut up and get used to it - it's necessary - and maintenances don't even last that long. They aren't trying to purposefully make your life horrible, or make you unable to play the game. It's just a necessary evil.

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5 Million Players ? Hahahaha it's 500,000 active players at best, and even if it was 5m it wouldn't be 10m connections. The definition of connection is someone or something linked or associated with someone or something else

ill assume Japan has more of the playerbase. Or at least maintenance is catered towards their play times. It would be nice if it started at like 3 or 4 am central time and go until 7 or 8 am. Or have a different maintenance time for each Region.

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Originally Posted by BlairCrosszeria

ill assume Japan has more of the playerbase. Or at least maintenance is catered towards their play times. It would be nice if it started at like 3 or 4 am central time and go until 7 or 8 am. Or have a different maintenance time for each Region.

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Idk, I am in the US and the maintenances generally fit in well for me. They usually go somewhere from 2AM to 6AM EST for me

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Originally Posted by BlairCrosszeria

It would be nice if it started at like 3 or 4 am central time and go until 7 or 8 am. Or have a different maintenance time for each Region.

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SE seem to be keen on maintenance from 6am to 10am GMT (1am to 5am EST) and a lot of the planned maintenances fall into that window (+1 hour to those times when on summer time like now). In Japan that's 2pm to 6pm (they don't use summer time).

I have no idea exactly how they picked that window (combination of when staff/support contracts are active as well as to impact on least number of players), but whenever they schedule a maintenance it's always going to cause problems for someone.

Realistically they can't do a different maintenance time for each region as a lot of the planned maintenance are for all worlds, it doesn't make sense to have to do 3 separate maintenances when they could the whole lot at once and that also assumes players are on the server of their region. With North America also having timezones with a difference of over 5 hours, it's just not possible to make everyone happy.

Ugh, another entitled player whining about their about their precious playtime. You pay $15.00 a month. That's roughly $0.02 an hour. Would you like your refund of 8 cents for a maintenance?

Honestly, if there's one thing that gets on my nerves more than anything else regarding this game, is people who constantly cry about maintenance.

Seriously? Maintenance to give us new content, or maintenance to fix issues - and people just whine about it, as if they'd rather just not have new content or go on playing with something that is broken.