Please "rotate" the Emergency Maintenances (unable to play)

[Pandastirfry]

I work nights, and tend to keep to that schedule even on my days off... So far both emergency and scheduled maintenance has been on my days off during the time when I'm usually on.

My reaction to this has been... "Well, guess I'm playing GTA tonight."

[Tercino]

And yes, it sucks that the time when the least amount of people is your special time, but it's probably always going to be your special time. Moving it around isn't going to do anything but inconvenience more people than it does now. It's called a necessary evil. Someone's going to be put out, and if you have to choose between 100 people and 35 people, you go with the 35.

This isn't exactly true. You're not choosing between just inconveniencing one group of 100 or one group of 35, end of, you're choosing between inconveniencing one group of 35 EVERY TIME or inconveniencing both groups, but not so severely. It wouldn't even have to be a large shift to completely change the group - shift it a few hours forward and everyone's at work, shift it a few hours back and everyone's asleep. Right now it falls slap bang in the middle of NZ primetime EVERY SINGLE TIME. We're not asking that it permanently be shifted to another time so that it never hits us, we understand that you need to do maintenance, but equally the maintenance is what, 3 hours? If your working day is 8-10 hours long you could comfortably shift that to a different time every once in a while.

Yes, NZ (and the rest of Oceania) is probably going to be disproportionately hit because we have a smaller population, but it's possible to run maintenance at other times too. Just for a change.

Oh, and a maintenance that's scheduled more than a day in advance is no longer an "emergency", at least not in the sense that it has to be done at a specific time. If the game can stay live for a day then a few hours forward or back won't hurt the situation much. Turn 5 being taken down because of glitches, THAT was an emergency. Balance changes, not so much.

[KiriA500]

Yeah SE...your emergencies aren't very accommodating to my play time!

[Garnatian]

Why? You make up a tiny proportion for the player base.

[SaintAjora]

Oh, and a maintenance that's scheduled more than a day in advance is no longer an "emergency", at least not in the sense that it has to be done at a specific time.

As someone else pointed out, they do have to code the fix. They take the servers down to actually install and test it as best as they can. Sometimes it takes an hour to write code. Sometimes it takes a day or more. It doesn't write itself, and it would be stupid to take down the servers when they're not even ready to put the patch in yet.

And every time they have to do it, they look at their numbers and say "when are the least amount of people on?" and that's when they do it. Sorry, I can't elaborate on that any more than I already did.

[Tercino]

As someone else pointed out, they do have to code the fix. They take the servers down to actually install and test it as best as they can. Sometimes it takes an hour to write code. Sometimes it takes a day or more. It doesn't write itself, and it would be stupid to take down the servers when they're not even ready to put the patch in yet.

And every time they have to do it, they look at their numbers and say "when are the least amount of people on?" and that's when they do it. Sorry, I can't elaborate on that any more than I already did.

The thing is, they don't write the code then go "Blam, servers down now", they write it and then look at when is the best time to put it in (or schedule a time then write the code before that, the exact order isn't important). You're arguing this just as much as me when you say they look at when the least amount of players are on. All we're suggesting is that they use a different metric as well, instead of one that perpetually hits the same people.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but the current maintenance time is at like 2am or something for the NA server location (Montreal)? This is already inconvenient for anyone working there, so that's no longer an excuse. There's actually even less people on NA servers later (I know, I've tried to make groups at 11pm NZ time - would be about 6am at servers). It could be scheduled then, affecting even less people. I don't know about Japan, but surely there's other times where not many people are on.

[Rekujen]

The thing is, they don't write the code then go "Blam, servers down now", they write it and then look at when is the best time to put it in (or schedule a time then write the code before that, the exact order isn't important). You're arguing this just as much as me when you say they look at when the least amount of players areon. All we're suggesting is that they use a different metric as well, instead of one that perpetually hits the same people.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but the current maintenance time is at like 2am or something for the NA server location (Montreal)? This is already inconvenient for anyone working there, so that's no longer an excuse. There's actually even less people on NA servers later (I know, I've tried to make groups at 11pm NZ time - would be about 6am at servers). It could be scheduled then, affecting even less people. I don't know about Japan, but surely there's other times where not many people are on.

Careful, you're giving them too much logic... you need to be slow and gentle with these selfish people, otherwise they will spit in your face and say you're wrong.

Like I said, everyone was MORE THAN HAPPY to suit american prime time when Square announced it... but when oceanic players want a simple rotation? OH LAWDY LAWD NO SIR

[Namko]

I'm EU and do not support. 8 years of my prime time mait in 11. I just had to deal with it.

[Aegis]

As an EU player I distinctly remember being told to suck it up in XI because literally every maintenance was in EU prime time. When we get to 10 years of maintenances all in your prime time you can complain how it isn't fair.

[Husband]

Tough. I'm in UK and had to put up with maint on UK prime time for 7 years. EU servers will have downtime in mornings. Same as other servers. So choose wisely when selecting your server. UK finally have decent maint times. This must not be altered.