Scheduled Downtime on Wednesday, 7/25

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

We want to make players aware that this Wednesday (7/25) there will be a window of downtime scheduled between 10:00am and 12:00pm EDT. We will be using this time to add more capacity to our infrastructure. This procedure may conclude earlier than the scheduled 2 hours, however we are setting aside that amount of time to ensure the procedure is successfully completed.

During this downtime, Marvel Puzzle Quest will be inaccessible. All events will continue to run, and players can resume play immediately after the downtime.

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

wymtime

Brigby, I appreciate the heads up on the down time.  With the down time schedule that is the 2hrs leading up to the sub end of PVE for slice #2.  It might not be a big deal for most players but it will cause an issue for top appliance placement.  Most competitive players clear within the last hour of the sub end and the clear at the start.  In the future or even now if the down time could be 1-3 EST it would not interrupt sub end time or close times.

bluewolf

This is honestly the first scheduled downtime that I recall, so hopefully there are not going to be many scheduled downtimes in the future.

huktonfonix

@Brigby The majority of the game’s top pve alliance plays S2, which means they’ll all have to grind early and miss significant points for that sub. You couldn’t have announced this a few hours ago, before people chose their time slice for Simulator?

jgomes32

You coudn't mention this before Simulator? Or schedule when there's no conflict with PvE? Really?

Brigby

We understand that maintenance like this can hinder player progression and experience, so rest assured that the team will be working as quickly and efficiently as possible when completing this procedure. 

As mentioned before, it's possible the procedure could be concluded much earlier than the 2 hour window we've set aside for the downtime. (One estimate even came back with a total required time of a mere 5 minutes!)

Thank you for understanding!

Thanos

@Brigby why do they need more capacity? Is the game really doing that well or is there some big new feature coming soon? If there is a new feature coming i doubt it'll top supports....*snicker*

LLohm

Dear @Brigby,

for ease of management and fairness, can I suggest that the whole period that is defined be shut down totally?

that way, there will be no calls of unfairness and people are playing by the same available amount of server lapse.

i am sure this can easily be achieved by simply not switching on the game until the announced end time. At least everybody plays on a level field.

Phumade

LLohm said:

Dear @Brigby,

for ease of management and fairness, can I suggest that the whole period that is defined be shut down totally?

that way, there will be no calls of unfairness and people are playing by the same available amount of server lapse.

i am sure this can easily be achieved by simply not switching on the game until the announced end time. At least everybody plays on a level field.

I would prefer this as well.  Its fine to have scheduled outages.  but for game integrity reasons.  The outage should last the entire 2hrs, so as to eliminate the issues with the s2 pve finishes.

JHawkInc

Put me down as another vote for 1pm-3pm outages, avoiding overlapping with story event end times, and making these announcements with enough heads up that people can adjust their play schedule if needed (like a day's notice before an event starts so they can pick a different end time).

Glad to have notice anyways, especially as this is the first planned outage in known memory, but it's a tiny bit exhausting having to deal with issues like this that the forums can identify and solve in 30 minutes. (there may be reasons this is the only/best time to do it, but that only does us any good if someone explains WHY)

Bzhai

Phumade said:

LLohm said:

Dear @Brigby,

for ease of management and fairness, can I suggest that the whole period that is defined be shut down totally?

that way, there will be no calls of unfairness and people are playing by the same available amount of server lapse.

i am sure this can easily be achieved by simply not switching on the game until the announced end time. At least everybody plays on a level field.

I would prefer this as well.  Its fine to have scheduled outages.  but for game integrity reasons.  The outage should last the entire 2hrs, so as to eliminate the issues with the s2 pve finishes.

^This^ Eliminates the need to constantly check if the game is back up again and just finish up our nodes 2 hours ahead of usual end time.

0_efx_0

Wow Dazzler CONFIRMED* 

The rockett

I agree with the others on the shut down.  Even if you get done early, it should just stay shut down since players in S2 will have to make a call on when they grind. 

kenshohmer2

I say just give 4 4*Spidey Covers and 2 LT to everyone who started S2 before this announcement

NotBAMF

Thanks for the update. As long as it's back by 1pm EST, I'm fine.

RPIJG

Not much help when you play in slice 2.  This is the sort of "planned" event that you announce before people lock themselves in.  Kinda dealing the S2 folks a short straw.

LavaManLee

RPIJG said:

Not much help when you play in slice 2.  This is the sort of "planned" event that you announce before people lock themselves in.  Kinda dealing the S2 folks a short straw.

Agreed.  Technically, dealing the S2 folks two short straws:

1) The server maintenance time itself from 10 - 12.  Many people choose the slice because of work/life options and this definitely affects the finish.

2) The possibility that it might be 2 hours.  Or 5 minutes.  Or 20 minutes.  Or not.  If you are going to do the maintenance for something competitive, then have as firm a window of downtime as possible so all are given the same short straw.  This is a huge benefit for anyone with the time to keep checking when it is up.  Or maybe it won't be.

Just another ridiculous thing being done that could have been avoided in so many other ways (i.e. announce it before the slices are picked, choose a time like 1 - 3 PM EDT (as suggested by others)).  Just a little bit of thought put into this would have provided a much better playing experience for those in S2.

And, as an FYI, I am not in S2 so would be even more upset if I actually were in S2.  I feel for them.

Smart80

Some ideas:
- do it during 48h sub, as far from a sub end/start as possible
- if you really think it’ll take 5 minutes perhaps, that should be even easier to plan, not to be close to an event end
- as said, dont keep people guessing when to grind, just keep it down as long as you think is possibly needed
- announce it a week in advance, this is never planned last moment, is it, even if individual rankings arent affected, it still could affect alliance placement..
- do it during first hours of a pvp event, so just after s5 ends
- also give notice in in-game pop up

spatenfloot

Give everyone who logs in that day some tokens to make up for any inconvenience.

LifeofAgony

I love how easily this could have been avoided and yet still ends up a complete mess.  Communication fail again.  Delay the maintenance by a day and it allows people to make reasonable accommodations.

huktonfonix

If it had been announced at the beginning of the day, before people joined S2, instead of the end of the day it would be a non-issue.

I'm struggling to understand why we couldn't have been warned prior to the impacted event.  Server maintenance is not something you dream up at lunch time and then throw on the schedule for 48 hours later.  Planning for this must have started weeks ago.