Maintenance during prime evening time for NA servers

[Ronduwil]

If it's something that needs to be done in every region then it will be done for every region at the same time. That way there isn't situations of various areas being behind. My question on this is why so many people in NA seem to think the entire world needs to revolve around their schedule.

It's not necessarily specific to NA. There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?" Maybe there's a perfectly valid reason for all the datacenters to have to undergo maintenance at one time, but a well-designed system would have allowed for staggered maintenance schedules so that no datacenter would be stuck in maintenance mode in the middle of its most active period.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

It's not necessarily specific to NA. There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?" Maybe there's a perfectly valid reason for all the datacenters to have to undergo maintenance at one time, but a well-designed system would have allowed for staggered maintenance schedules so that no datacenter would be stuck in maintenance mode in the middle of its most active period.

Or better yet, why not just suck it up and find something else to do with your time for a few hours or a Day, and let the game do its Maintenance so everyone across the board in all datacenters all at the same time can enjoy the benefits of the update.
Apologies if that comes off as rude or mean, but I stand the idea that everyone should suffer the downtime, and so everyone should enjoy the patches at the same time. I find it a fair system. Everybody picks up trash around the neighborhood, everyone gets to go to the Pizza Party afterwards.

[Sotaris]

There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?"

Basically - manpower and cost efficiently.

[Ranaku]

It's not necessarily specific to NA. There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?" Maybe there's a perfectly valid reason for all the datacenters to have to undergo maintenance at one time, but a well-designed system would have allowed for staggered maintenance schedules so that no datacenter would be stuck in maintenance mode in the middle of its most active period.

Holy shoot hydaelyn send your servants some brain, please.

THE DEVELOPERS ARE JAPANESE. THEY HAVE TO BE AWAKE WHILE MAINTENANCE. THEY WORK, AT JAPANESE DAYTIME. WHICH...IS...THE...MAINTENANCE...SCHEDULE. SO THEY CAN REACT TO STUFF THAT MIGHT GO WRONG. SO...YOU...DONT...HAVE...TO...DEAL...WITH...A...GIANT...MESS...WHEN...IT...COMES...TO...BUGS.

It is not that hard to understand, really you guys make me cry. They do it when they are awake so if something goes wrong you don't have to wait like 12 hours until the developers wake up. I know deep down in your basement cave you might already transcendet beyond having the need for a good rest but i can tell you many of us have to sleep everyday.

Edit: This isn't WoW where they let the players basically betatest the game ten months in advance so you can catch all the bugs etc. for them as a unpaid slave.

[Sotaris]

Imagine how they will feel when game will be down for like 2 days in november.

[Unholychinchilla]

It's not necessarily specific to NA. There are different datacenters, so the question is really, "Why can't each datacenter have its own maintenance schedule that is convenient for that datacenter?" Maybe there's a perfectly valid reason for all the datacenters to have to undergo maintenance at one time, but a well-designed system would have allowed for staggered maintenance schedules so that no datacenter would be stuck in maintenance mode in the middle of its most active period.

Because your client can connect to all data centres and make characters on any of them, thus they all need to receive the patch at the same time. There are players who live in one region and play in another due to their schedule, friends, etc. Having some data centres suddenly be incompatible with some players clients would not work.

[Kolsykol]

So.
Did y'all survive this horrific experience that is time zones?
I hope none of you were traumatized for life.

[Sotaris]

So.
Did y'all survive this horrific experience that is time zones?
I hope none of you were traumatized for life.

I had to like work since server didnt go live until 11am here in EU. It was terrible. Me? Work?

[Ronduwil]

Or better yet, why not just suck it up and find something else to do with your time for a few hours or a Day, and let the game do its Maintenance so everyone across the board in all datacenters all at the same time can enjoy the benefits of the update.

That's pretty much what I do now? I was really responding to the sentiment that this is an "entitled NA player issue." It's a more general issue than that.

Holy shoot hydaelyn send your servants some brain, please.

Classy.

THE DEVELOPERS ARE JAPANESE. THEY HAVE TO BE AWAKE WHILE MAINTENANCE. THEY WORK, AT JAPANESE DAYTIME. WHICH...IS...THE...MAINTENANCE...SCHEDULE. SO THEY CAN REACT TO STUFF THAT MIGHT GO WRONG. SO...YOU...DONT...HAVE...TO...DEAL...WITH...A...GIANT...MESS...WHEN...IT...COMES...TO...BUGS.

I don't know if you've ever worked at a software company before, but the developers don't typically do server maintenance. Large companies with a global presence have IT teams spread out across the globe (which is where the term "global" comes from) that handle stuff like server maintenance. As long as the initial deployment is scheduled in a manner that leaves the devs available for emergency hotfixes, bugs aren't an issue. If things go south for the initial deployment, the subsequent ones can be postponed pending the fix. It actually works out better from a "fix all the bugs" perspective.

Because your client can connect to all data centres and make characters on any of them, thus they all need to receive the patch at the same time. There are players who live in one region and play in another due to their schedule, friends, etc. Having some data centres suddenly be incompatible with some players clients would not work.

Sure, but it's not rocket science to have the client defer the version check until the point where you try to connect to the data center. When it detects you're connecting to the patched datacenter, then it prompts you to update with the caveat that you will no longer be able to connect to unpatched datacenters. This isn't some revolutionary new paradigm. It's a problem that's been solved by many other companies.

[HolyReign]

I mean, it works out pretty well. 9PM EST to Completion is pretty grand to me, and it's only one day a week, so things can be planned out to do on other days or earlier in the day.

I believe it should stay as is, works out very well.