All Day Maintenance and Compensation: My Thoughts

[Usho]

A day is worth 50¢...

A Day, is a day that shouldn't be wasted either.


/2 cents

[Vhailor]

A Day, is a day that shouldn't be wasted either.


/2 cents

Iunno, I don't see that much of a problem. I actually have a far larger issue with the 2-3 follow-up maintenance windows following updates than I do with the 24-hour maintenance coinciding with its launch; I mean, if you're going to take such a long amount of time, get it fucking right, you know? And these windows typically come at the tail end of NA prime time, while most of the 24-hour period is going to inevitably fall during work / school / sleep time.

I'd also be leery of giving SE any incentive for minimal maintenance times. We are already suffering immensely from the atrocious structural decisions SE has made around FFXIV's back-end, a problem rearing its head every time we hear the dreaded phrase 'server limitations'. Clearly FFXIV would be a better product now and into the future were time taken to appropriately resolve this technical debt. And yet, nothing is done: because the incentives are strongly weighted toward churning out content as rapidly as possible, be damned the long-term scalability concerns. Do we really want to see the same situation arise for basic server maintenance? Servers crashing routinely and kicking people out but kept 'up' because corporate doesn't want to reimburse people for longer maintenance windows? It's a real possibility if compensation were something players insisted on.

Anyway. Like I said, there's at most one of these every few months. I don't personally think it's a big deal, but to each their own.

Edit / Addition:

It won't kill any one to play something else for one day. My goodness.

No offense, but posts like this really aren't helpful. It's not about whether maintenance windows are an onerous burden; it's about whether we should be paying for service we don't get. It's the principle of the matter, and it's on principle (and potential consequences of it) that the situation is properly discussed.

[Usho]

Anyway. Like I said, there's at most one of these every few months. I don't personally think it's a big deal, but to each their own.

I feel a bit of hypocrisy in your post and I sense mixed feelings about the matter despite you saying "I don't personally think it's a big deal".


I'm just gonna quote what you just said because it's basically what I was getting at:

It's not about whether maintenance windows are an onerous burden; it's about whether we should be paying for service we don't get. It's the principle of the matter, and it's on principle (and potential consequences of it) that the situation is properly discussed.

[Gemina]

I feel a bit of hypocrisy in your post and I sense mixed feelings about the matter despite you saying "I don't personally think it's a big deal".


I'm just gonna quote what you just said because it's basically what I was getting at:

The thing is, maintenance is a service you also pay for. Without them, patches and expansions would not be possible, and the game itself would become unplayable.

No one is going to argue with you that is sucks when you can't play when you want to. Everyone paying a sub shares this frustration with you. You can take comfort knowing that on these days, everybody's progress comes to a screeching halt. However, you won't gain a whole lot of sympathy when you gripe about something you signed up for.

[NephthysVasudan]

People actually...still..complain about this?

Someone throw this guy a couple of pennys....

Cause that's all its worth.

Utterly sad...and just flat.....depressing to see people sink to this level.

[Brill_]

I feel a bit of hypocrisy in your post and I sense mixed feelings about the matter despite you saying "I don't personally think it's a big deal".


I'm just gonna quote what you just said because it's basically what I was getting at:

When you sign up, you agree to this:

5. INTERRUPTION TO THE SERVICE
From time to time, in order to provide our customers with the optimal gaming experience, it is necessary for Square Enix to conduct routine maintenance on the computers and/or servers that support the Game. During these times, access to the Game or support services may be interrupted. Access may also be temporarily suspended in whole or in part, without notice, due to emergency repairs, fire, flood, explosion, war, strike, embargo, governmental action or failure to act, the act of any civil or military authority, act of God, or by any other causes beyond Square Enix's control, or any other reasons for which Square Enix, in its sole discretion, deems that temporary suspension is necessary. You acknowledge that disruptions of service may occur and waive any causes of action against Square Enix in any way arising from or related to any such disruptions of service.

[Sigma-Astra]

No offense, but posts like this really aren't helpful. It's not about whether maintenance windows are an onerous burden; it's about whether we should be paying for service we don't get. It's the principle of the matter, and it's on principle (and potential consequences of it) that the situation is properly discussed.

When you made an account to play this game, you also agreed to the ToS as well and it's even stated in the ToS as someone else has pointed out. That's all there is to it. If you're complaining about something you've longed since agreed to now, SE is going to look at you with a canted head and just point you to the contract you willingly agreed to. They're not going to suddenly feel you've been "cheated".

[Vhailor]

I feel a bit of hypocrisy in your post and I sense mixed feelings about the matter despite you saying "I don't personally think it's a big deal".


I'm just gonna quote what you just said because it's basically what I was getting at:

There's no hypocrisy, and your sense is mistaken. My comment about principle was in reference to your post, which clearly has absolutely no legal argument behind it, nor an argument that the situation is significantly onerous.

If you really have a problem with it then start a petition to change the ToS. As it stands you accepted the terms in order to play the game. Now I certainly don't agree with companies that try to shoehorn in obscene stipulations into the ToS, and I'm always very careful to read them now just to make sure there is no tomfoolery being proposed. But that's kinda where it starts - with consumers actually reading the damn things and protesting them to be changed before agreement.

When you made an account to play this game, you also agreed to the ToS as well and it's even stated in the ToS as someone else has pointed out. That's all there is to it. If you're complaining about something you've longed since agreed to now, SE is going to look at you with a canted head and just point you to the contract you willingly agreed to. They're not going to suddenly feel you've been "cheated".

Duh? Injecting the ToS again distracts from the argument. The OP was not making a case about the ToS, nor indicating there was some legal wrong. Clearly the thrust of the argument was therefore about principle. Bringing up the ToS is akin to derailing the thread.

[Sigma-Astra]

Duh? Injecting the ToS again distracts from the argument. The OP was not making a case about the ToS, nor indicating there was some legal wrong. Clearly the thrust of the argument was therefore about principle. Bringing up the ToS is akin to derailing the thread.

It doesn't? When you agreed to the Terms of Service, you agreed that not only do you accept that a 24 hour maintenance period can virtually occur sometimes and that it's not the fault of SE, but you also agreed that they also don't owe you a dime on the principle of it. You can argue against it as much as you like, but there it is in writing. If anyone thinks making a forum topic about it now is going to change SE's stance on it, you're sadly being way too optimistic about it.

You acknowledge that disruptions of service may occur and waive any causes of action against Square Enix in any way arising from or related to any such disruptions of service.

Once you clicked that little button that says you've agreed to the ToS, you've essentially thrown out your rights to complain against it. The OP feels that they deserve a "free day of play" as a paying customer because of 24 hour maintenance and while SE has sometimes reimbursed us for such things when it was an emergency, they will not over scheduled content updates. There's never been a history of such a thing. That is the principle of the matter. You may not like it, but that portion of the ToS was explicitly designed to counter people like the OP.

It is not something that SE needs to compensate their subscribers for at all nor will it logically harm anyone to not play this game for one solid day and half of the time, who on earth would be playing this game for exactly 24 hours with no kind of rest, bathroom, social, or food breaks? That's extremely unhealthy. I've never known anyone to be playing this game straight for 24 hours.

If losing one day equals out towards a person feeling that they're not getting their money's worth, then unsubscribe and talk with your wallet. But, if you're still paying the sub fee while complaining, well.....

[Vhailor]

Once you clicked that little button that says you've agreed to the ToS, you've essentially thrown out your rights to complain against it. The OP feels that they deserve a "free day of play" as a paying customer because of 24 hour maintenance and while SE has sometimes reimbursed us for such things when it was an emergency, they will not over scheduled content updates. There's never been a history of such a thing. That is the principle of the matter. You may not like it, but that portion of the ToS was explicitly designed to counter people like the OP.

You throw out a right to legal recourse. That's why these agreements exist - not to restrict discussions about a given policy's fairness or properness on the forums. If the OP was suggesting that we sue SE, or that there's a legal case against them, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly. They aren't. They're venting on a social platform about something they feel isn't a just practice. That's fine and dandy, and an entirely independent argument from the ToS.

That's why the appropriate response is to argue on the same grounds: principles / a sense of fairness. Even on those grounds, you'll know that I disagree with the OP. But discussion on those grounds is far more likely to be productive.