Servers are Down

[Geist]

People. It's a game. It's made by Japanese and run by Japanese. Why should they have servers anywhere else other than in Japan? Just in case an earthquake occurs in Japan so non-Japanese people can continue playing?
Sure, maybe it's a good idea simply because it's a WORLD played MMO, but for any other reasons. (Like keeping the game running due to special circumstances, that's just ridiculous.)

This, exactly. There's a limit to the amount and variety of contingencies you can devise, and more importantly, we're talking about an unprecedented calamity, a natural disaster.

It is perfectly understandable the servers are down, and I would prefer all of the Japanese people, and FFXIV staff go somewhere safe, instead of continue working so people can continue playing a game.

Seconded. The road ahead looks hard and winding enough as it is for them, let's pray for the best.

[Sheeoni]

The fact that anyone is complaining during a crisis is beyond compare here... I am at a loss for words, I have never been disgusted with the NA community totally up until reading these posts this AM.

^^^THIS

To those bothering to stir the pot with "They should have backup servers" ..May whatever higher power you believe in have mercy on you in your time of need regardless of your lack of compassion or understanding. Who can even bring something like this up at such a horrible time? I felt stupid logging into my sever yesterday to craft, understanding full well that so many people are without even basic life necessities.
Here some people are, trying to justify their greed by saying that SE isn't running a successful business model. Anyone with two brain cells should be able to understand that resources are needed elsewhere. Take this time to breathe.. appreciate your life, and that you are still here to even post on the internet.

My prayers and thoughts are with the Japanese people. I hope that you can forgive the ignorant.

[Paksenarrion]

This, exactly. There's a limit to the amount and variety of contingencies you can devise, and more importantly, we're talking about an unprecedented calamity, a natural disaster.

Seconded. The road ahead looks hard and winding enough as it is for them, let's pray for the best.

Couldn't agree more.

[Elkwood]

^^^THIS

To those bothering to stir the pot with "They should have backup servers" ..May whatever higher power you believe in have mercy on you in your time of need regardless of your lack of compassion or understanding. Who can even bring something like this up at such a horrible time? I felt stupid logging into my sever yesterday to craft, understanding full well that so many people are without even basic life necessities.
Here some people are, trying to justify their greed by saying that SE isn't running a successful business model. Anyone with two brain cells should be able to understand that resources are needed elsewhere. Take this time to breathe.. appreciate your life, and that you are still here to even post on the internet.

My prayers and thoughts are with the Japanese people. I hope that you can forgive the ignorant.

Honestly I was surprised after the event the servers stayed up as long as they did. Hell after yesterday I started reading up on the progress of Diablo 3, turned around installed Diablo 2 (Which blows to get working on Windows 7 BTW) started playing that to pass the time. There is plenty to do outside of a world which we don't pay for atmo. Am i worried about how many will not return after said downtime, yes I am, but it is a game and sadly people seem to think that something is owed to them by SE.

As far as contingencies to keep the game up, yes SE is a 2 billion dollar company, that is the profit they made last year outside of what the FF series brings in. However the cost / benifit analysis on this one as a buisness man, I would also not have had another set of servers setup in a different country. 100k a month, for the 1x in 10 years your servers go offline for a week due to a national catastrophe get real people. SE would have wasted 84 million dollars over the last 8 years on FFXI for the 1 week in 2011 they had to shut servers down. Lets see 84 million over 1 week to shut the NA community up, or 2.4 million for this months refunds that they should be issuing, not a hard decision here for a business.

These figures are based on 40k Datacenter rates, and 60k for 3x OC3 lines for bandwidth = 100k a month in server costs not including staff Hardware and training costs.

[AuctionGirl]

You have to prepare for the worst if you make money with the internet. ISPs shut down for unknown reasons, maybe the data center loses power and now everything is down. This isn't only a plan against earthquakes, its a plan against unknown failures.

Also you need to look at the fact that because they might have servers in another location/country does not mean they will sit idle and do absolutely nothing waiting for this disaster. They should have them deployed and used the whole time operating in 2 or more locations at the same time. Also there would have to be nightly or scheduled data backups across locations to each location this way if 1 place goes down for ANY reason, not just earthquakes, but could be simply the data center goes down for any unknown reason.

How many servers/locations do you think Google, Microsoft, WoW or any other successful gaming company has? I know google has servers everywhere in the world... Tell me why they would do something so stupid? Because they understand that the internet is an uncontrollable and the more locations you have, the more control over 1 or more failed locations.

Please don't post if you are ignorant to how Companies setup/use multiple servers/locations in case of anything. Maybe after this issue, they might think about splitting their servers into multiple locations.

Again, I could care less if the game is running, just pointing out a major flaw in their business process.

And to the one who said they don't have a staff in another country, have you heard of remote access? You can SSH/SFTP or anything else across the internet and control everything somewhere else.

Another benefit to multiple locations is that clients whom are closer to one of those locations can get reduced ping times better game play, and possibly less lag.

Who buys OC3s anymore? This is old technology for phones/voice, Data plans are purchased 10mbit/100mbit/1000mbit increments. If any of you know in California USA, you can purchase 1000mbit or 1gigabit up/down bandwidth for under $20,000/mo. Yes OC3s are still being used today by ISPs and phone companies.

This will be my last post about this. Have fun with your week plus off, I hope all of you find another game you enjoy more than XIV during this downtime.

[Ava]

You have to prepare for the worst if you make money with the internet. ISPs shut down for unknown reasons, maybe the data center loses power and now everything is down. This isn't only a plan against earthquakes, its a plan against unknown failures.

Also you need to look at the fact that because they might have servers in another location/country does not mean they will sit idle and do absolutely nothing waiting for this disaster. They should have them deployed and used the whole time operating in 2 or more locations at the same time. Also there would have to be nightly or scheduled data backups across locations to each location this way if 1 place goes down for ANY reason, not just earthquakes, but could be simply the data center goes down for any unknown reason.

How many servers/locations do you think Google, Microsoft, WoW or any other successful gaming company has? I know google has servers everywhere in the world... Tell me why they would do something so stupid? Because they understand that the internet is an uncontrollable and the more locations you have, the more control over 1 or more failed locations.

Please don't post if you are ignorant to how Companies setup/use multiple servers/locations in case of anything. Maybe after this issue, they might think about splitting their servers into multiple locations.

Again, I could care less if the game is running, just pointing out a major flaw in their business process.

And to the one who said they don't have a staff in another country, have you heard of remote access? You can SSH/SFTP or anything else across the internet and control everything somewhere else.

Another benefit to multiple locations is that clients whom are closer to one of those locations can get reduced ping times better game play, and possibly less lag.

Who buys OC3s anymore? This is old technology for phones/voice, Data plans are purchased 10mbit/100mbit/1000mbit increments. If any of you know in California USA, you can purchase 1000mbit or 1gigabit up/down bandwidth for under $20,000/mo. Yes OC3s are still being used today by ISPs and phone companies.

This will be my last post about this. Have fun with your week plus off, I hope all of you find another game you enjoy more than XIV during this downtime.

How much money do you really think SE is making off the "internet" via FFXIV atm? For all we know when the game bombed they could have shut down their other server farms to save money. IIRC there was a pre release interview that stated they were using multiple international server farms, so idk.

[cloverkitty]

Even if there are backup servers which i would not be surprised if there were at least for FFXI. The game is worldwide (unlike other games) all servers share across the world the same information live. If you take down 1 set of servers it would have an impact on the entire play world as an entire audience and some of the load balancing would be affected.

Even if it was possible to split the servers like that I would still be supportive of shutting down the world for a week or 2 if nothing else just out of support of Japan and respect to the players in Japan that would be missing out also as the world changes without them.

However as a company faced with 2 choices below, it is really a no brainer and if nothing else I would just do it out of support. The fact that on XI they will be not charging for April is very nice, although I kind of wish they allowed people to opt in for an April charge and donate and donate all that was collected to the Japanese that need it or services there that need it.
1. Keep and Support a Virtual World so that those not affected can play and risk increased power issues to a ravaged nation, as well as life and death just to keep this Virtual world afloat

2. Turn off the Virtual world, get the cities and towns and power up and running again, then turn it back on taking Real Life and Safety first and Virtual World second. <---- This one is the no brainer

[Ouka_Ranbu]

Too lazy to copy and paste some ignorant people's post and rebutt. People are dying (Earthquake isn't over) and still embracing for maginitude 7 aftershocks that they don't know when they are going to hit. Any power/water reserve that they can save should be reserved for those that are in dire need of help. Japan's main priority isn't whether or not You can play online game, their priority is to save people's live and reduce any more casualties. You think government isn't aware of the economic hardship that they are going to face by shutting down global company's income producing operations? Of course they are well aware of that, but right now it's more important to save people's lives and reduce casualties rather than worrying about off terriotry customer who looses few playing hours. Half of self defense force is mobilized to rescue works (news said 100,000) and US is sending air craft carrier, that's how dire the situation is. Stop bitching about your play time and pointing out business operation contingencies (which is method to reduce not prevent loss from unexpected event, and the event is unexpected as they can get) rather show some respect to those who just lost family, friend, and their entire livehood in blink of an eye.

[Far]

might be hard for people to understand their power issues have to do with a nuclear power-plant shutting down its reactors and that 2 of its reactors are reaching critical and have thought to have had a partial meltdown that could expand to a full meltdown, so international servers or not we could be with out FFXIV,XI for a lot longer than a week

[ShalindraCelesti]

I'm at a loss for words really - a country is facing multiple disasters within a short time in addition to thousands of citizens either missing or dead and people here are leaving comments about how SE fails because they don't have backup servers to keep the game running.

Is a game all you can think about at a time like this? I even don't want to imagine how someone could be able to enjoy playing FFXIV during a time like this.
Maybe as soon as you fall victim due to a natural disaster like this, I want to see your face when you hear from people how they give a damn about you losing family members or your home and they rather want their game to be running...

I'm wondering myself that SE did keep their game servers on for this long and I'm happy to see that they are supporting the idea of conserving energy for those, who need it most right now. I could care less how long that will last as long as Japan will manage somehow to avert a much bigger crisis.