I think it's about time for an extended maintenance break

Kelbris

Obviously something needs to be fixed, and this game seems to only have the server down for planned maintenance for a maximum of two hours. Most big games have much longer periods of downtime

If the game went down for maybe 12 hours, could the devs actually do some significant work to the servers to make them more stable? Whatever the plan is now doesn't seem to be working.

Oh, and fix the ambiguity on goon countdowns.
You can do it. I believe in you somewhat!

Unknown

Heck take 10 days to sort out all your issues for all I care. Not sure they can take a day without any revenue to be honest.

Kelbris

futongus wrote:

Heck take 10 days to sort out all your issues for all I care. Not sure they can take a day without any revenue to be honest.

the server crashes in the past 27 hours have taken away more than 12 hours of gameplay time at this point

it's a net benefit for both parties

Dayv

futongus wrote:

Heck take 10 days to sort out all your issues for all I care. Not sure they can take a day without any revenue to be honest.

I think a ten-day outage would be close to a death sentence for player retention. A lot of players would just move on or change their gaming habits.

CNash

A couple of hours of scheduled server maintenance per week (timed around events - yes, that means rearranging the event schedule), occurring at a time when it's not likely to affect the largest group of users, would probably be a benefit to overall stability.

GrumpySmurf1002

I agree.

And not at all because I have to spend the next 2 weeks packing and moving so am not going to play much anyway.

Unknown

I think they need to take the Wednesday between-events break and turn it into a recurring maintenance downtime period. They could announce and schedule it ahead of time, it's when everyone should be in the office, and it could either completely avoid interfering with events, or - if a PVE and LRs are on - at least minimize interference.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Every time they try to nerf the Master of Magnetism,

BLAM

Their electronic servers go down for some reason. It's a mystery.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

I think they need to take the Wednesday between-events break and turn it into a recurring maintenance downtime period.

I'm having WoW flashbacks

Cragger

I agree. find a way to PREPARE things instead of FIXING them.

We used to have scheduled downtime, and no one really had a problem with it.

Unknown

The length of maintenance is probably exactly where it needs to be. Adding more time to it arbitrarily doesn't increase the complexity of the maintenance plans, many of which can run automated and don't require downtime. With this game, there's probably a cluster of servers that rotate in and out of operation to handle most of the server-side logic. With something like WoW, you have a cluster of servers for each realm, and software upgrades are far more complicated since everything is processed server side in that game. Also take into account the number of database entries for an account on WoW vs the number of database entries for an account in this game. You could store your entire MPQ account in less space than a small bag requires in WoW for a low level character.

The last few outages most likely have nothing to do with lack of maintenance or the idea that simply turning the servers off for longer makes them better, and is far more likely related to a software defect that caused an outage in specific circumstances and required an actual software developer to correct, rather than the normal IT staff that normally maintains the servers. It takes time for the IT staff to realize it's outside of their ability to resolve, takes time to roust their emergency point of contact out of bed, takes time for that person to identify the issue and realize that they need to roust a specific developer out of bed, takes them time to identify the issue in the code, correct it, deploy the fix, get the systems back online, monitor it to make sure there weren't any adverse reactions, and get players reconnected. From the time of the initial failure to the correction is a few hours, easy.

Production systems can be fickle beasts sometimes, and even with good QA, you can have a crippling defect slip through. To switch to the WoW analogy again, look how long it takes Blizzard to react to unexpected incidents, such as the Corrupted Blood outbreak.

Unknown

You are ignoring the fact that they added a new character that implements new features into the game. Deadpool sort of has a daily quest. Any number of things could have caused a bug when the day rolled over for new quests or the new character rewards went out. Who knows? What I do know is that you have no idea what you are talking about, or what it going on in the databases behind the scenes, and talking about it is pointless.

People also seem to forget that there haven't been any major outages in months. Relax.

Unknown

+1 better planned down time than unplanned down time.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

+1 better planned down time than unplanned down time.

If unplanned downtime could be planned for, it wouldn't be unplanned downtime, would it?

Creating a significant amount of downtime in the hopes of preventing a small amount of downtime seems counter-intuitive to me. Weekly maintenance can't ensure that things won't break; and what are players doing during server downtime? Playing other games.

Unknown

GhostWolfe wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

+1 better planned down time than unplanned down time.

If unplanned downtime could be planned for, it wouldn't be unplanned downtime, would it?

Creating a significant amount of downtime in the hopes of preventing a small amount of downtime seems counter-intuitive to me. Weekly maintenance can't ensure that things won't break; and what are players doing during server downtime? Playing other games.

If they did something like 4 hours of maintenance on a monthly basis and it probably prevent 3+ hour down times when I'm planning to push before bed. I'm still saying go for it.

Unknown

I would probably die if I had to go more than an entire day without playing puzzle quest.

Bacon Pants

shmau wrote:

I would probably die if I had to go more than an entire day without playing puzzle quest.

If this isn't sarcasm...you need some help.

Kelbris

GhostWolfe wrote:

and what are players doing during server downtime? Playing other games.

Most people that have figured out how to play minimally already are.

Playing this game consistently is made counter-productive merely by the game's system itself.

I really don't see any issue with something like 3 hours of downtime every other Wednesday from 1-4.