All Day Maintenance and Compensation: My Thoughts

[Sigma-Astra]

No offense, but posts like this really aren't helpful. It's not about whether maintenance windows are an onerous burden; it's about whether we should be paying for service we don't get. It's the principle of the matter, and it's on principle (and potential consequences of it) that the situation is properly discussed.

When you made an account to play this game, you also agreed to the ToS as well and it's even stated in the ToS as someone else has pointed out. That's all there is to it. If you're complaining about something you've longed since agreed to now, SE is going to look at you with a canted head and just point you to the contract you willingly agreed to. They're not going to suddenly feel you've been "cheated".

[Talraen]

That's not the point. It's the principle of the matter. If I'm paying for a service, even if this is only a handful of times a year, I'm still paying for that day I'm not able to play. That's a day out of a 30 day monthly period that I'm paying for that I can't play.

Real talk, do you actually want the 43 cents back every 3 months, or do you just not want 24-hour maintenances? If I sent you $40, enough to cover every maintenance so far and a few years yet, would you be satisfied? I get the impression you would not.

EDIT: I found this post on Reddit calculating total maintenance over the life of FFXIV: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...iv_really_had/

tl;dr, for the period of 6/18/15 until 3 months ago, the most maintenance any server had was just a smidge over 21 1/2 days. Given the standard subscription ($14.99/30 days), someone who has played that entire time has arguably lost out on $10.75. Even if you paid for 7 extra retainers for that entire period (which isn't possible, but whatever, let's make the math easy!) you'd be out $20.78.

[Andevom]

Coming from 10 years of playing Final Fantasy XI, the version updates (patches) we got, wither minor or major, only took maybe 1-2 hours tops.

Most patches in XI were *far* more minor than a full content patch in XIV. The three mini expansions (ACP, MKD, ASA) provided less content than a XIV patch and they *charged* for it. $10 per quest line to get one item. Also, when ACP came out, the initial maintenance was 5 hours, and the amount of downtime to fix broken stuff after was crazy.

[DrWho2010]

you agree to maintenance times when you signed up for the game. don't like it? you can always uninstall. they only compensate for downtime when it will be unusually long - example was when the data center move happened.

[LittleChickenNugget]

I love when people cry over one day of not being able to play the game. That's a sign you really should consider getting some outside hobbies. Spend some time with family, friends. Clean up the place. Play another game that's been collecting dust. Go on a hike. Sleep all day and bask in the glory that is a comfortable bed.

[ManuelBravo]

Wow love how people can't seem to understand simple maintenance procedures. Shows how much common sense is dead. I mean you can't play if program is being updated and to top it of it's only in black and white under terms of use. Always good for a good laugh though. What is even funnier is that this is not something new lol

[Linx0r]

Use the day to do something else - go outside, meet a woman, catch up with rl friends....one day shouldn’t make a difference in satisfaction in playing the game

[Linx0r]

I love when people cry over one day of not being able to play the game. That's a sign you really should consider getting some outside hobbies. Spend some time with family, friends. Clean up the place. Play another game that's been collecting dust. Go on a hike. Sleep all day and bask in the glory that is a comfortable bed.

This all day. If you can’t miss one day, you may have an addiction issue....

[NewAgeDoom]

As someone who works in IT, I can sympathize with SE for occasions where the maintenance lasts a little longer than usual.

As long as they manage a large amount of uptime (Which they do, I feel), it's not a huge deal for me. I have a huge backlog of Steam games I've yet to break open that I use for just such occasions.

[Vaer]

The game had been up for almost 7 weeks straight until the maintenance for 4.3. I think we're fine IMO. You can give them the 50 cents or however much it is every 2 or 3 months.