Maintenance during prime evening time for NA servers

[RitsukoSonoda]

As opposed to now when the patch is made available sometime between 2 and 5 am depending on which side of NA you're living in? Now I really feel like you guys are reaching for excuses on behalf of SE for not implementing a better patch release process. Like anyone will care that the patch isn't available until 5 pm the next day. I know it's hard to understand if you're in college or unemployed, but most players wouldn't even notice the servers being down for maintenance for 18 hours a day, even if it was every day. It's silly that SE picks the one window where NA players actually do notice to perform their maintenance. Honestly, I don't feel all that strongly about this issue, but it's kind of disheartening to see you guys pile on players just for suggesting that this could be done better.

And the entire NA continent shuts down and sleeps at the same time? Most of the country doesn't operate only between 9am-5pm. The only part that's silly in your post is that you seem to think they deliberately chose the time to grief the NA population. People seriously need to stop trying to portray themselves as a victim in every situation that inconveniences them in the slightest way.

[Ranaku]

I mean we all know that people from NA don't need sleep right? Must be a dream to have your internet or other stuff fixed in a instant. I bet if something is wrong with your router they send a technician in a black hawk out just for you even if it's in the middle of the night, right?

Companies having schedules, what a strange foreign concept.

[Ronduwil]

And the entire NA continent shuts down and sleeps at the same time? Most of the country doesn't operate only between 9am-5pm. The only part that's silly in your post is that you seem to think they deliberately chose the time to grief the NA population. People seriously need to stop trying to portray themselves as a victim in every situation that inconveniences them in the slightest way.

You are reading way too much into what I wrote. I never said it was deliberately chosen that way. I said that it worked out that way, and people are understandably annoyed by it. The vast majority of people are busy all day long, and they're freed up at night time. The current maintenance schedule shuts the servers down right about the time many parents in NA are finally getting their kids settled for bed. When I was in college I would happily play from 2 am until noon, go to class, do my homework, crash, and do it again. When I took on a job that ended. When I had children, my time was even more restricted. Thankfully my children are grown now so I have more flexibility, but I still remember what it was like. I definitely see why people are annoyed about it. I don't know how you're defining "most of the country." The vast majority of jobs I've ever seen operate between the hours of 9 and 5 pm give or take a couple of hours. If you're working service jobs, your hours might go a little longer. The number of graveyard shifts at the local grocery store is not huge.

Apparently everything is all or none on these forums though:

• Understandably annoyed == suffering victim
• It would be nice == I demand.

[Kes13a]

As opposed to now when the patch is made available sometime between 2 and 5 am depending on which side of NA you're living in? Now I really feel like you guys are reaching for excuses on behalf of SE for not implementing a better patch release process. Like anyone will care that the patch isn't available until 5 pm the next day. I know it's hard to understand if you're in college or unemployed, but most players wouldn't even notice the servers being down for maintenance for 18 hours a day, even if it was every day. It's silly that SE picks the one window where NA players actually do notice to perform their maintenance. Honestly, I don't feel all that strongly about this issue, but it's kind of disheartening to see you guys pile on players just for suggesting that this could be done better.

there is no time they can pick that wont inconvenience SOMEONE.

I really feel you are reaching for excuses to be entitled and just ignore the reality that not everything lives and breathes by NA time zones. they want everyone to be able to experience the content at teh same time. does that not make sense at all to you?

[CrystalPenguin]

They usually let us know when maintenance is going to happen. They have a post pop up when you log into the game about maintenance. It even shows in the chat when you first log in. Maybe you should see in your time zone when the maintenance will happen. Also FFXIV is a big game, think of how many servers there are and what they have to put in each and every server across the entire world.

[Ronduwil]

there is no time they can pick that wont inconvenience SOMEONE.

I really feel you are reaching for excuses to be entitled and just ignore the reality that not everything lives and breathes by NA time zones. they want everyone to be able to experience the content at teh same time. does that not make sense at all to you?

Again, this is not an NA-specific issue. It just so happens that NA and SA are the most inconvenienced, but I can't imagine that it feels great in SA or Europe either. And you clearly didn't read any of my previous posts, which pointed out that they can pick out a time that's convenient for the majority of players in a given region by simply staggering the maintenance windows by region. I don't know what you mean by everyone "experiencing the content at the same time." Like most players are going to stay up until 4 am on a Tuesday and blow off work the next day for a patch.

You also ignored the part where I said that it would be nice for them to fix it, but I'm not going to cry if they don't. Apparently holding an opinion is now entitled. I like chocolate cake, too. Does that make me even more entitled now? I like to sleep in on weekends. How much more entitled can I get?

I don't understand why we can't express opinions nowadays without immediately being called self-centered and entitled by someone with a different opinion.

[Kes13a]

Again, this is not an NA-specific issue. It just so happens that NA and SA are the most inconvenienced, but I can't imagine that it feels great in SA or Europe either. And you clearly didn't read any of my previous posts, which pointed out that they can pick out a time that's convenient for the majority of players in a given region by simply staggering the maintenance windows by region. I don't know what you mean by everyone "experiencing the content at the same time." Like most players are going to stay up until 4 am on a Tuesday and blow off work the next day for a patch.

You also ignored the part where I said that it would be nice for them to fix it, but I'm not going to cry if they don't. Apparently holding an opinion is now entitled. I like chocolate cake, too. Does that make me even more entitled now? I like to sleep in on weekends. How much more entitled can I get?

I don't understand why we can't express opinions nowadays without immediately being called self-centered and entitled by someone with a different opinion.

and you have ignored the part where its been their desire to have content release at the same time everywhere for everyone. this alone negates the staggering concept.

there is nothing wrong with having an opinion, even one that ignores the fact that this has been complained about in more games than this since the beginning of online games.

perhaps they can spend some money on a referendum of all their players to find out what times work for them and adjust accordingly to make it so the least number of players are affected by their desire to make it a coordinated release of new content. but I suspect that everyone who didnt like the chosen time would again post that they didnt put enough effort into making sure it wasnt an inconvenience...for them.

basically, in terms of maintenance... they cant please everyone... ever.

[Ronduwil]

and you have ignored the part where its been their desire to have content release at the same time everywhere for everyone. this alone negates the staggering concept.

I didn't ignore that. I asked why they would want that. What advantage is there for that, other than it's slightly more convenient for their IT team because they don't have to write a script to kick off the upgrade on the other servers later? I'm not sure what is negated. Some players have expressed the opinion that they would rather have server maintenance take place while they're at work or asleep. Replying, "We want everyone to endure server maintenance at the exact same time regardless of where in the world they reside," doesn't change that fact. I guarantee that the percentage of NA players who are actually staying up until 2-5 am to "experience the content release" is in the single digits or lower.

basically, in terms of maintenance... they cant please everyone... ever.

No one can please everyone, ever. That's never been the goal of software development. However, good developers try to please the largest percentage of players that they can. I have yet to be convinced that the majority of NA players are happier with a 6 pm-2 am PDT maintenance schedule than with a 12 am-8 am PDT maintenance schedule. The most compelling argument I've seen is that a handful of fans would be sad at having to wait six hours longer than they would otherwise to experience the latest patch. When game developers exclusively cater to their most die-hard defenders, then their games go the way of WoW.

[Kes13a]

I didn't ignore that. I asked why they would want that. What advantage is there for that, other than it's slightly more convenient for their IT team because they don't have to write a script to kick off the upgrade on the other servers later? I'm not sure what is negated. Some players have expressed the opinion that they would rather have server maintenance take place while they're at work or asleep. Replying, "We want everyone to endure server maintenance at the exact same time regardless of where in the world they reside," doesn't change that fact. I guarantee that the percentage of NA players who are actually staying up until 2-5 am to "experience the content release" is in the single digits or lower.

no, I think your estimation is wrong, many people I play with are night owls, so they are up and will play as soon as the server comes up. I suspect many more, like me, actually adjust sleep schedule so that I am awake when the server comes up. so, I know from personal experience, your "single digits or lower" is incorrect.

No one can please everyone, ever. That's never been the goal of software development. However, good developers try to please the largest percentage of players that they can. I have yet to be convinced that the majority of NA players are happier with a 6 pm-2 am PDT maintenance schedule than with a 12 am-8 am PDT maintenance schedule. The most compelling argument I've seen is that a handful of fans would be sad at having to wait six hours longer than they would otherwise to experience the latest patch. When game developers exclusively cater to their most die-hard defenders, then their games go the way of WoW.

lets talk quality and economics.

6 pm PDT is 10 am in Tokyo.
to do update deployment, they are going to want teams in place to make sure whatever they deploy is not breaking their servers. like any company around the globe, they dont want to pay a ton of overtime, nor do they want to bring up a broken mess. so they will want as many support people on hand, at regular pay, in case something goes wrong. this isnt a "push a switch and it is done" kind of thing. they often do run a 10 or 12 pm PDT maintenance time, which is 2 to 4 pm local time start, typically those just seem to be small updates for the servers and game, requiring less people because its likely more hardware related.

so their choice of times may not fit into the NA or SA schedule, I doubt they care to be honest, since they are scheduling their employees on time that their employees would normally be at work. I doubt they have a board that they choose a time which will most impact NA/SA players

all this is however completely irrelevant since they notify us well ahead of time. yes, they have Emergency Maintenance which they cant tell us of a week in advance, but generally speaking, they advertise maintenance on the launcher, after the launcher, when you log into the game, so the argument of people taking time off, is baseless. you have to ask "why" when its been clearly and abundantly advertised as to the maintenance time coming up.

This is not the company catering to a small number of players. they have stated previously I believe, that it is THEIR WISH to have releases done at the same time for everyone, but I would have to try and dig that up. Their... wish. not a player request.

[Ronduwil]

no, I think your estimation is wrong, many people I play with are night owls, so they are up and will play as soon as the server comes up. so, I know from personal experience, your "single digits or lower" is incorrect.

Surprise surprise. You're a night owl, so naturally all of your online friends are going to be night owls. That's hardly representative of the player base as a whole. The dozens of people that you've met playing all night online are all night owls, so the vast majority of the the millions of players that this game has are obviously night owls too, according to you. I'm not buying that.

lets talk quality and economics.

6 pm PDT is 10 am in Tokyo.
to do update deployment, they are going to want teams in place to make sure whatever they deploy is not breaking their servers. like any company around the globe, they dont want to pay a ton of overtime, nor do they want to bring up a broken mess. so they will want as many support people on hand, at regular pay, in case something goes wrong. this isnt a "push a switch and it is done" kind of thing.

1. Most IT workers are salaried, so there is no overtime involved.
2. Once you've successfully done the update on a set of servers, then it pretty much becomes a queue a script and then you're done kind of issue. We're not living in the 1990s anymore. Automation is standard now. Do you seriously think an engineer is sitting on the other side of the server every time you run a Windows update or update your Zoom client?
3. I'm not saying that they can't start their maintenance at 10 am in Tokyo. I'm saying that they can stagger the maintenance windows so that once the APAC servers have been successfully updated, they can leave a script in place to update the NA and EU servers at later times. It would take days to work this out, not months.

they have stated previously I believe, that it is THEIR WISH to have releases done at the same time for everyone, but I would have to try and dig that up. Their... wish. not a player request.

And at one time, FFXIV 1.0 reflected their "wish." Their "wish" isn't the world of law. It's just their current philosophy. It's OK to ask them to revisit that point of view. It's OK for them to say no, but but it's also OK to ask. Their wish, at one time, was also for Viera to be exclusively female.