Really love the game, but your service forced me to quit.

[Taemek]

So let me use this analogy.

If you were at the Movies and the power went out, would you ask for your money back?

What if you went in to a restaurant and ordered a meal, only to get half of it because the restaurant was low on stock and could not complete your order but offered you with an alternative that was of the same value, but not what you ordered?

Now people will try and use every card under the sun to justify the constant maintenance, truth is, given the financial situation and reputation of Square Enix, one would assume they would be much more professional then they have been.

People are quick to judge or seem to forget that not everyone works a day time only job, is single with no responsibilities or can simply sit down when ever they choose too to play the game and some planning needs to go in to scheduling time in to playing. These people can not simply factor in or even get a decent, singular frame of time where they can sit down and play when ever they want. When there is constant downtime every day or two, it impedes on their play time and thus, they becoming angry customers and rightfully so.

I never played FF XI, but I had heard horror stories of their customer support. I didn't believe them and thought them to be a tad over exaggerated, however, after playing this I am starting to agree.

Some of these posts in this thread are disgusting. Shooing people away is bad form from anyones book and only serves 2 things:

• Making you look like a douche bag and you represent a guild or linkshell which makes the people you play with look like they share the same attitude.
  
  
• Makes people truly quit when all they might of needed was some words of encouragement and if they leave, it is bad for the entire community, at what expense? Someones egotistical epeen that they felt needed to be voiced because there is no consequences to peoples petty and cruel actions over the internet.

[Blimbeard]

Clearly you are new to MMO's. What I think is funny is EVERRRRRRRRRRRRYBODDDDDDDYYYY always forgets how other MMO launches were. Like they seem to think that every other mmo but FFXIV ARR was silky smooth for the first year with hardly no maintenance. Guess what?? WRRRRRRRRRRRRONNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG! Clearly you didn't experience WoW's launch, or EQ's launch or FFXI's launch or Rift's launch or SWOTR's launch... do I really need to keep listing them? THey were all just as bad IF NOT WORSE than this one's launch.

At least compare apples to apples instead of comparing apples to coffee.....

Sorry but this is just blatantly not true. I played all but one of those games from launch, plus several others and although they were certainly not flawless launches, they were pretty much all considerably smoother than ARR's

I'm glad you and your friends quit. We don't need people like you.

Posts like this really exemplify just what is wrong with MMO gaming communities.

[Astarica]

The amount of maintenances for FF14 is high for a MMORPG but not unprecedented. What's unprecedented is SE's ability to ensure almost every maintenance falls under prime time for NA.

[Alexb150]

Less than 3 months actually. And yes, you can still consider it launch. And there is nothing unprofessional on working on their working hours.

which means you'd be happy if it was during your prime time(i'm assuming you're American)? after all that is during the Japanese work hours

[BobtheBlackMage]

Nope

Its not a movie. Its not a meal. Its not a cell phone provider, nor a cable service.

You accepted an EULA. It included maintenance. It included the ability to cancel or end your service at their convenience.

This is part of the deal. Maintenance happens. Deal with it. Making post #9001 on how you hate maintenance is not going to change that it needs to be performed, or serious issues will disrupt the game for many, many players. We know maintenance will typically happen during SOMEONE's peak hours, being the nature of the beast. SE chose hours that affected the smallest number of players.

[Rekujen]

Its not a movie. Its not a meal. Its not a cell phone provider, nor a cable service.

You accepted an EULA. It included maintenance. It included the ability to cancel or end your service at their convenience.

This is part of the deal. Maintenance happens. Deal with it. Making post #9001 on how you hate maintenance is not going to change that it needs to be performed, or serious issues will disrupt the game for many, many players. We know maintenance will typically happen during SOMEONE's peak hours, being the nature of the beast. SE chose hours that affected the smallest number of players.

This is exactly what I've done, the problem is that I truly want to play the game and give them a monthly subscription. I just don't feel that it's reasonable to screw the same people every time.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

I'll bite. Let's see…

• Maintenances on ARR usually happen anywhere between 9:00 PM and 2:00 AM Pacific Time (UTC-8).
• WoW's maintenances usually happen during morning from 6:00 AM to 11:00 AM PST (UTC-8).
• GW2's extremely rare maintenances usually happen anywhere from 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM PST (UTC-8), often for an hour only.
• SW:TOR maintenances usually happen between 12:00 AM and 3:00 AM PST (UTC-8).
• Rift's maintenances usually happen at 8:00 AM PST (UTC-8), for about an hour at most.

Now let's assume, naively, that people do 'digital entertainment stuff' roughly at the same hours during the day. Like, for instance, playing a MMORPG or using Netflix. So let's observe Netflix's traffic, to see how that goes for California, shall we?


(Source: http://www.wired.com/business/2010/1...s-bandwith-use)

On a side-related note, that's actually a good representation of what we usually call "prime time".

OK, so I don't know about you, but of the 5 games I've cited,

• I see a pattern that *most* follow, but not one.
• I see that particular game performing maintenance quite in the middle of prime time for US Pacific inhabitants.

We can probably inform this 'Pacific zone' by a density map, just to see if California's not just a desert, right?


(Source: http://www.populationlabs.com/US_Population.asp)

Oh look! There actually are some big cities over to the west! Astounding…
— There must be more than 13 States now… how long have I slept??

Let's part with this notion: the standards in customer service are defined not by companies' expectations, but by customers' expectations, should they be realistic within the market you're operating in.

I rest my case and will now let you draw your own conclusions.

[BobtheBlackMage]

• Maintenances on ARR usually happen anywhere between 9:00 PM and 2:00 AM Pacific Time (UTC-8).

That is 11PM-3PM JST (UTC+9), where the maintenance is organized. Every other game you listed is run from the United States.

These hours are designed to be convenient, not for the maintainers, or EST players, or GMT+1 players, or basically anyone but JST players.

Not really surprising, considering FFXI.

To further that, WoW scheduled maintenance during their normal workday too...with an average overrun of 5+ hours.

[Nadrojj]

See eu later! Don't let the door hit'cha.

[Taemek]

Its not a movie. Its not a meal. Its not a cell phone provider, nor a cable service.

You accepted an EULA. It included maintenance. It included the ability to cancel or end your service at their convenience.

This is part of the deal. Maintenance happens. Deal with it. Making post #9001 on how you hate maintenance is not going to change that it needs to be performed, or serious issues will disrupt the game for many, many players. We know maintenance will typically happen during SOMEONE's peak hours, being the nature of the beast. SE chose hours that affected the smallest number of players.

The point is not the hours, but the frequency.

Yes people expect updates and maintenance, but not every 1 to 2 days.

Yes people can accept maintenance, but not every sitting when they plan to play.

If you want to play the EULA card, I suggest you read the section where they state they will minimize the disruption from downtime at all costs so as to not effect gameplay too much, but have the right to do so when needed.

Now, justify needed. Most the time, the maintenance is not even explained OR justified on the forums with notes.

This is what is referred to as poor customer service when there is a clear break down in communication when they can't even get the simple basics right to begin with, which is also covered in their EULA.

Again you fail to see the context behind peoples examples, this is a service like any other regardless wether it be a movie or a restaurant. It is up to the digression of the owner/operators to reimburse people where and how they see fit and they do so to keep people happy and continuing customers, something you seem to fail to grasp.

Running a successful business model is not a dictatorship, it is about community and customer relations. I think you need some educating in the matter.