All Day Maintenance and Compensation: My Thoughts

[wizisi2k]

there's a reason that SE did 24 hours for patch 4.1 and said it wouldn't come up earlier and that was to ensure people got a fair shot at Shirogane housing. Granted (and I own a small plot) said wards/apartments were all sold in less than 120 minutes, safeguards failed, and SE apologized, thus adding more housing with restrictions, I would take a full day of down time to ensure we never have something like Rahaban EX or Pipin savage during Stormblood's early access period occur again. FFXI I do believe wasn't all 1 and 2 hr down times for patching-it may have SEEMED like that because of all the downloading you did which was at a fixed speed (on console, installing a expansion from disc took between 30 and 60 minutes to finish)

[Bracken]

The actual hell, I want compensation from this post wasting my time. I spent 10 mins of my day trying to comprehend what you're going on about.

(The above statement may also fall into all the said catagories in the said first paragraph of the OPs post for reasons out of the universe's control, due to unforeseen stupidity)

[GunksFoy]

Snip

I'm pretty much done with this conversation as I've made my point, however, I'm going to address this last post.

You're response is, in short, disingenuous and dishonest. I compared the CUSTOMER CARE QUALITY of the car company to a POTENTIAL CUSTOMER CARE IMPROVEMENT for a gaming company. How in the actual hell does them shipping you a car to test drive have anything at all to do with getting you killed? Your response doesn't even make sense. I'm questioning your reading comprehension at this point, and I don't find this to be a worthy debate if you're going to straw man everything I say. (mine wasn't a straw man btw as I compared customer service to customer service, but you do you). Believe what you will, but it is never a bad idea to attempt to improve something in your life, even if the idea is not probable or feasible at the end of the day.

[Maero]

It is in the tos you know when you first signed up to pay and play this game.
Most people never bother to read it, but it is listed about maintenance and so on..

Surely you can find something else to do for 1 day?

[Malzian]

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.

It's in the TOS, you agreed to it and you're legally bound by it as are they. You are not entitled to refunded time due to maintenance, though in the past when SE has deemed that downtime was excessive and beyond their control they have credited us time. That is solely at their discretion. There's nothing more to be said about this.

[NephthysVasudan]

<snip>

Again....how the hell is a car even remotely close to a video game?

Until you can resolve this....you're just ignorance incarnate.

You can compare an orange to an house...but I'd advise not eating the house.
And that is what your doing here. Customer Care for either one is entirely different and worlds apart.
SE doesn't have to worry about their product KILLING PEOPLE.

Your ignorance is astounding.

Also...learn to read the ToS.... you have zero say or choice in the matter.

[GunksFoy]

Snip

Once again, you straw manned the argument. Customer Care has fuck-all to do with the car killing people. Explain to me how delivering a car to someone's doorstep so they can test drive it because they don't live close to a dealer is preventing anyone from being killed. You just don't understand the basics of business and quality care.

Also, I read the ToS, and I learned something miraculous!!! THEY CAN BE CHANGED IF SE WISHES! OMG! Seriously though, if SE thought it would help retain customers, etc. They would gladly change any point in the ToS.

[whiskeybravo]

I don't think anyone said they couldn't be changed. I'll quote my first comment:

But that's kinda where it starts - with consumers actually reading the damn things and protesting them to be changed before agreement.

Now how "we'd" actually get a change I'm not sure. I looked over the ToS from my cable company and there is indeed a separate clause dealing with customer reimbursement for down time of service. I'd imagine to start any change you'd need a petition, of some sort, with enough signatures to make a meaningful impression. Language of how exact the clause would read (an example, let's say) and probably some sort of financial data to back up the claims and impact. But, I've never done such a thing so all that is just my best guess. (I mostly just try to avoid.. Like, part of me even wants to delete my Facebook because I don't want to agree to their terms lol)

[Tridus]

They absolutely should be compensating people for downtimes this long. Doing so sends two messages:
1. That you value your customers
2. That 24 hours to deploy a patch is too long, and we're giving ourselves a financial incentive to do better

Removing that sends the message that day long downtime for patch deployment is acceptable, and in modern IT, it's really not. In any IT shop outside of the games industry, you'd be laughed out of the room if you pitched that.

Sometimes I'm amazed at just what a low bar gamers set for what's considered acceptable.

[Talraen]

They absolutely should be compensating people for downtimes this long. Doing so sends two messages:
1. That you value your customers
2. That 24 hours to deploy a patch is too long, and we're giving ourselves a financial incentive to do better

FFXIV used to have shorter maintenance windows, and longer and more frequent emergency maintenances. I feel much more valued as a customer by having a longer, pre-planned maintenance window than by waiting all day to play a brand new patch only to be kicked off for the duration of primetime due to some unforeseen issue that they could have caught with a longer maintenance. Overall maintenance time has been decreasing since they started doing longer maintenances. There's more than one way to value your customers.