Why is Maintenance so long?

[YeaniNah]

In all fairness, I got a 3 day refund for the EU datacentre move (since I've had characters on the EU datacentre for a year and a half now), which I considered a nice bonus. I had American characters I could make so I didn't lose out on 3 days game time, so I wouldn't have been out of pocket. Just not on my main is all. Definitely a goodwill gesture from SE.

a 3 days i would understand that but 1 days offline refound come on. lets see if they pay the 15$ .that like 0.50$ the day. If you really act like that for 0.50$. i know there a lot of people who go crazy over tiny amount cos was crazy in Canada when they took off the 0,01$ ...people was yelling at cashier for their 0,01$ and that they will call cops (that is not a joke) i used to be cashier Helper. Some asked to be refund and went to another store.

[Xanikk999]

I don't get why it takes that long to update. I've seen major content patches for other games that only had 10 hours of Downtime.

I agree and feel the same way. As far as I can remember this is the only online game I have played that takes down the game for a whole day when they patch.

[Xanikk999]

and how many of those had emergency maintenances afterward through the week to fix small glitches? =D. its better that they take 24h and make sure they dont "forget" anything and set everything right, than to have it done quickly and end up beeing force logged out through the week at random times, because theres something they need to fix.
also have to take into account the game complexity itself and the fact that they have a huge amount of diferent servers to work on.

I can count the number of "emergency maintenences" on One hand from 7 years of playing World of Warcraft. I still prefer 8 hours to 24.

[Meirii]

its a big patch

[Paladinleeds]

a 3 days i would understand that but 1 days offline refound come on. lets see if they pay the 15$ .that like 0.50$ the day. If you really act like that for 0.50$. i know there a lot of people who go crazy over tiny amount cos was crazy in Canada when they took off the 0,01$ ...people was yelling at cashier for their 0,01$ and that they will call cops (that is not a joke) i used to be cashier Helper. Some asked to be refund and went to another store.

Yeah, as I said, a goodwill gesture. They didn't even have to refund the 3 days (I don't even think by law they'd have to refund 6 months downtime). Wasn't expecting it though. Didn't ask for it either.

[Kahnom]

There will be emergency bug fixes by the following day ... Prepare yourself ppl.

[Airget]

I agree and feel the same way. As far as I can remember this is the only online game I have played that takes down the game for a whole day when they patch.

In order to accompany Patch 3.1 as well as infrastructure maintenance, we will be performing maintenance on all Worlds at the time below. During this period, FINAL FANTASY XIV will be unavailable.

"infrastructure maintenance" is what causes this to occur and it might actually tie into patch content, the void ark is a new type of instance so they might be needing to rework the servers to account for that new system.

In a way it is a semi awkward system since I think they said 9 groups can enter so a max of 72 players can be in one instance, however each group has different timers which is another aspect that has not been seen in any other instance. So they need to be certain whena group enters it doesn't somehow give them the time of the group that went in first, aka Group A went in 30 mins ago, Group B goes in 30 mins later but they are given same amount of time as Group A, but see that logic makes sense with how all Duties have been since then since everyone in x instance has had the same universal timer left. With Exploration though each group has to have it's own unique time left which I imagine is something they have to make sure the server can handle/fix accordingly so that there aren't any emergency maint that cause the issue I stated above.

With that said, to an extent the patch is the cause of the long maintenance since the infrastructure most likely connects to unique way Exploration instances will be handled compared to any instance that has come out since release.

[Gilraen]

They only take the servers down for more than the usual 5-8 hours when it's a major patch. It's not usual for them to take this time so the fact they feel it necessary is a sign of just how major a patch this is. They aren't just adding a couple dungeons and a new gear set. They are adding practically two 24 player raids, two new dungeons, a multitude of both new and retooled monsters to fill those with, three full gear sets, new animation sets for players and minions, new hairstyles... list goes on. Again, let them take all the time they want, the world isn't coming to an end.

[Ehr]

We'll probably see a "Early completion time" post too, so don't lose hope.

I wouldn't count on it. They don't end maintenance's before the weekly reset anymore due to people logging on and rushing the content to get it in before the reset. It could end like 30 minutes early but I wouldn't expect more than an hour since weekly reset is an hour before maintenance ends.

[Adire]

and how many of those had emergency maintenances afterward through the week to fix small glitches? =D. its better that they take 24h and make sure they dont "forget" anything and set everything right, than to have it done quickly and end up beeing force logged out through the week at random times, because theres something they need to fix.
also have to take into account the game complexity itself and the fact that they have a huge amount of diferent servers to work on.

Not going to comment on maintenance length, but let's not pretend SE doesn't have to do plenty of emergency maintenances after patches. They often do. I remember times where they'd have multiple emergency maintenances in a week for weeks straight. If they're working on hardware and infrastructure, great, take your time. But SE isn't really much better and is sometimes even worse than many other companies have been with MMOs needing emergency maintenances after patches.

Many companies have testlive servers for this exact reason. It allows for short downtimes and better bug detection, and therefore less need for emergency maintenance. But alas, for whatever reason, SE does not. If they did, they could cut down on maintenance downtime and reduce the need for emergency maintenances like other games I've played have smartly done.