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.

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Originally Posted by LittleSparrow

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?

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my thoughts? your post sounds whiny , entitled and like you are exaggerating how much the server is actually down.

As others have said, you agreed to these terms of service and you are welcome to rescind your monthly subscription if this is too much.

As a suggestion, if you DO have a valid problem with server downtime and lengthy maintenance, you are far more likely to get SE's attention and even a response if you take a professional and reasonable tone: "I've found there to be what seems to be excessive maintenance and it cuts into my playtime a lot since my only available gametime is during the scheduled windows. Is there any way we could split these up more or possibly give more notice so I can plan out my playtime?"

Like I said in the last maintenance complaint thread, first world problems. They gave plenty of notice and if you have played any amount of time or pay attention, you'll know these are actually few and far between and they usually end earlier than scheduled. And as someone already posted, this sort of thing is in the Terms and Conditions so what exactly are you whining about? I got home from work right in the middle of the update last night and couldn't play but that's fine because I have other games I can play or just catch up on my sleep, it's literally a non issue.

My thoughts are I'm shocked it took this long for someone to create a second thread about patch maint times.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

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.

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This basically. People often forget as well, all of SE's servers don't exist in the same physical space either. Maintenance is coordinated across multiple data centers in multiple countries, each with fairly decently sized staff. The coordination aspect of it has always been what I assumed the windows were designed for, as making sure all servers are updated similarly and making sure they're capable of going up at the same time.

The only people that post these typical whine threads are those that can't comprehend everything that goes into maintaining and doing upgrades to their servers as well as why it needs to be done. I also hate to burst your bubble but even WoW has plenty of 6-8 hour maitenance days, most of the time they get extended not only once but multiple times from unexpected issues and kinks they need to solve before bringing the servers back up. It's 8 hours, you'll survive. I promise.

"8 hours is normal" ? Hah...

Perhaps you should look at the maintenance history..
Generally speaking the only downtime that lasts longer than 4hrs is for major patches with a lot of content.

This is likely because of the physical time it takes to update the client on the server-side, paired with all the testing etc that is required so they don't flip the "on" switch to a broken game.

Be grateful that the game isn't a buggy mess 90% of the time after a patch.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LittleSparrow

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?

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My thought is that 8 hours isn't extremely long. It is slightly longer than average for other MMOs but no more than that. Actual updates for most MMOs usually involve downtimes of 2-8 hours, with downtimes of less than 1 hour only happens when they just restart the servers.

As for compensation, I know of no MMO company which gives any compensation for downtimes less than 48 hours or so.

I think 8 hours is standard for games the scale of FFXIV and WoW.

Don't you have other things to do in your life during the downtime ? Other games to play perhaps ?

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Originally Posted by LittleSparrow

Square Enix is a big company. They're bigger than Blizzard I think,

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???????????????????????????????

The FFXIV team is pretty small btw... especially compared to the Team of WoW

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

Don't you have other things to do in your life during the downtime ? Other games to play perhaps ?

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Sleep? Work? Jerk off? Spend time with your family or SO?

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Originally Posted by Rinuko

Sleep? Work? Jerk off? Spend time with your family or SO?

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Yeah anything really. I can't imagine FFXIV being the only thing in somebody's life. Even if he has no life, he at least has to have some other games to play.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LittleSparrow

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?

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I would rather they make sure the patch is stable before they open the flood gates.

As to the compensation part, the cost of playing this game breaks down to roughly 0.50 cents a day.
8 hours down time is roughly equivalent to 0.18 cents. For me, that's not worth getting butt-bent about...
JMO

Or maybe just maybe find something else to do?

My thoughts are that I'm sick and tired of seeing these threads AFTER EVERY SINGLE MAINTENANCE.

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Originally Posted by NorthernLadMSP

My thoughts are that I'm sick and tired of seeing these threads AFTER EVERY SINGLE MAINTENANCE.

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I agree it doesn't take a genius to understand that patches will have bugs and take time. What surprises me is that people still make these threads. We play the fees , yet play by their rules. We agree to these things when we sign up and why should SE offer compensation for maintenance? If every company would do that how nice the world would be for the consumer. Sadly it's a business world, if you don't like it play something else. Now if its becomes an issue as excessive days in the past they did compensate with extra days. But for a small patch people should really use common sense rather than complain.

FFXIV's one of the few MMORPGs where maintenances usually end on time / early without any extensions, and yet I see people still whining about it simply because it was too long.

I guess some players just can't be content with whatever they have.