Extremely long downtimes.

[Krotoan]

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? 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?"

[SilverObi]

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.

[Alien_Gamer]

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

[SwdVengeance]

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.

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.

[Selova]

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.

[Altena]

"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.

[MistakeNot]

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 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.

[Kohdo]

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

[Freyyy]

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

[Charisma]

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