Why is Maintenance so long?

[Nekodar]

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

Don't get your hopes up for that... If I don't mis-remember, the scheduled end time for the maintenance corresponds to the weekly reset time.
It's not likely that they're bringing the servers online before the weekly reset.

[Lemuel81]

I would rather have them take the bit of extra time to ensure it goes smoothly than a dozen emergency maintenances we normally see with other games. 24 hours isnt very long, will be up in no time

[Xanikk999]

I would rather have them take the bit of extra time to ensure it goes smoothly than a dozen emergency maintenances we normally see with other games. 24 hours isnt very long, will be up in no time

I don't see a dozen emergency maintenences with other games after they patch. As far as I can tell from my experience FFXIV is alone in how long their maintenences are.

[Alahra]

I'd much rather have a planned 24 hour maintenance than weekly Tuesday maintenance that frequently extends past its scheduled downtime period (which was the case for WoW for bloody years, but they did eventually get better). WoW frequently also had massive issues post-patch in the past, resulting in a lot more emergency maintenance than we get here, generally (though again, they've gotten better about that).

They've only taken the game down for this long a few times that I can recall, and since we know in advance, I never really mind it.

[Xanikk999]

snip.

I have played WoW for 7 years since BC and the longest maintenance I can remember was that when ulduar was released in 3.1 during wrath of the lich king. Servers went up at 9 pm my time which was 7 hours late for a total amount of 15 hours down time. Even with their worst extended maintenance in my time playing it beats every single maintenance that FFXIV has done. This tells me they have severe inadequacies in their maintenence process.

[Teslo]

I have played WoW for 7 years since BC and the longest maintenance I can remember was that when ulduar was released in 3.1 during wrath of the lich king. Servers went up at 9 pm my time which was 7 hours late for a total amount of 15 hours down time. Even with their worst extended maintenance in my time playing it beats every single maintenance that FFXIV has done. This tells me they have severe inadequacies in their maintenence process.

Yes, but I don't know if you remember, Ulduar was buggy as hell. Some of the fights were virtually unplayable. There were several downtimes in the following months, one hour, two hours at a time just to fix it all. FFXIV Patches have all gone through smoothly with one or two very minor exceptions.

[Gokuhan]

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.

It's not just about the size of the update.

[xXRaineXx]

People jus come up with the weirdest complaints lately... people ask for candy, they get the candy, then they complain they don't have x and x flavors... rinse and repeat.

[NolLacnala]

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

Probably not, since they're aiming to push it over weekly reset

[Rizon]

As stated in the notice SE will be taking this time to do Infrastructure Maintenance as well as installing the patch. This is where the vast majority of the time will be spent. Remember the EU Servers are barely a month old. Corrective Maintenance and adjustments are probably needed. I'll give them this one.