Inaccurate maintenance times

[Tsukino]

Every time they announce maintenance for the NA DC, we get messages telling us to log out starting before the announced time, then it takes an hour or more for the servers to actually go down. Even for this latest emergency maintenance, the notice says 3:30AM but servers were up until just past 4:35AM, not even remotely close given the total time is only two hours.

Anyone have any idea why these times are so far off every time?

[Inosaska]

You checking to make sure its your time zone?

[Adaros]

Worlds are brought down sequentially and not all at once, this might explain the timing differences.

[Fateslayer]

Its the same with the EU servers an hour after the time they announce i think someone at square needs to go back to school n learn how to tell the time lol

[Tsukino]

You checking to make sure its your time zone?

Yes, for instance this latest one:

[Date & Time]
From Sep. 12, 2013 to 3:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. (PDT)
* The completion time may be subject to change.

We got messages telling us to log off because maintenance was about to start around 3:30AM PDT, but servers were up until around 4:35AM PDT.

I don't have numbers for past maintenance periods, but it's been the same since the game started. For the first several times I'd log out around the time the messages appeared and then my friends would say they were still on much later.

[amnie]

if you aren't entirely sure, check for the time given in GMT/UTC and +/- your time zone

(SE is going by actual GMT, not summer time savings, so for example when you live in the UK and they say it's going down at 0 gtm it means it will be going down at 1 in england and 2 in france/germany/whatever)

Its the same with the EU servers an hour after the time they announce i think someone at square needs to go back to school n learn how to tell the time lol

that is incorrect.
the announcement said the servers would be going down at 11:30 GMT. that was ~30 minutes ago. the servers went down ~30 minutes ago.

[Cadwgan]

Its the same with the EU servers an hour after the time they announce i think someone at square needs to go back to school n learn how to tell the time lol

Irony. They announce GMT, the UK is currently using BST due to daylight savings, who needs to go back to school again?

[Tsukino]

if you aren't entirely sure, check for the time given in GMT/UTC and +/- your time zone

(SE is going by actual GMT, not summer time savings, so for example when you live in the UK and they say it's going down at 0 gtm it means it will be going down at 1 in england and 2 in france/germany/whatever)

So you're saying they're getting the announcements right for GMT and not for PDT? Because it was off by an hour for the given PDT start time. If it was PST (unadjusted for daylight savings/summer time) it would have actually been off by two hours.

Here's what it says in French:

[Date et heures]
Le 12 septembre 2013 de 10h30 à 12h30 (GMT).
* La durée de la maintenance est sujette à changement.

Servers actually went down around 11:35 GMT, not 10:30.

[amnie]

as far as I know not every damn county in the PDT time-zone actually uses summertime savings. I fail to see how it could be off by 2 hours if they had used PST since you said it was an hour 'late' and afaik PST is PDT+1 (unless for whatever reason the USA does their summer time savings backwards, which would be news to me)
and yes, the french announcement indeed seems to be off by an hour.



edit: I stand corrected, and america needs to make their time zones less confusing :P


that being said I can really only go by the in-game announcement, and that said 11:30 GMT, which I thought the OP was about (I still think that's what the OP was about since that's what it's saying)

[Ixim]

Incorrect time for Behemoth (US/NA), stated time was 3:30AM PST which equates to 6:30AM EST, was able to login at 7:15AM EST. So Square Enix posted inaccurate times.