[US Herald] - Server Update - All Servers

[Garthilk]

From the Customer Service category we have: Server Update - All Servers

Greetings!

All servers will be coming down at 4:15EDT for an update. This update will address the server stability and social issues players have been experiencing throughout the night.

Thank you everyone for your cooperation and feedback throughout the day, it's enabled us to better prepare the game for launch and has been a valuable experience for all of us.

We don't anticipate this will take an extended period of time, however, there is no ETA. Please check this thread for updates and keep up the great work...WAAAGH!!!

Source (http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=260)

[Danlo]

Status: Update in Progress

Greetings!

All servers will be coming down at 4:15EDT for an update. This update will address the server stability and social issues players have been experiencing throughout the night.

Thank you everyone for your cooperation and feedback throughout the day, it's enabled us to better prepare the game for launch and has been a valuable experience for all of us.

We don't anticipate this will take an extended period of time, however, there is no ETA. Please check this thread for updates and keep up the great work...WAAAGH!!!

Update - 4:20AM EDT: All servers are down for an update, the estimated downtime is 2.5 hours. Thank you!


so the difference between extended downtime and not is 30 minutes, interesting :(

[Xantex]

oh well

Im going to the kitchen to make some breakfast, does anyone want anything?

[Endersama]

open server up, at least. should make for some fun tomorrow.

the day draw near

[jarger22]

Nice to see mythics commitment to server patches during oceanic peak time continues. Lets hope this doesnt run into live otherwise there will be some very unhappy people.

[Riavan]

I hope they realise heads will roll if Australia gets extended maintenance at 6:00pm on a friday night when the game is actually released.

[antiherozero]

*edited for content*

[Bokn]

It's always 6:00 PM somewhere. In the history of MMOs people have gotten mad about maintenance times. WAR won't be any different.

[jarger22]

It's always 6:00 PM somewhere. In the history of MMOs people have gotten mad about maintenance times. WAR won't be any different.

Worst attitude ever. Have a quick think for a minute, you advertise oceanic servers...now you take down said servers at peak time 3 nights week....good business..you be the judge.

[antiherozero]

It's always 6:00 PM somewhere. In the history of MMOs people have gotten mad about maintenance times. WAR won't be any different.

Yes, you're absolutely right about the 1st part, however there is no need to bring all servers down simultaneously for updates. At least let us spread our characters out a bit and play during maintenance times on different servers. Companies don't do this because they're lazy, and they take the easy route of convenience for them, but we're the ones paying their wages and deserve better treatment about it. My guess is you'd be a lot less apathetic about this if you weren't in EST.

[James_EAMythic]

Guys we update when it's optimal,

In this case we would have updated at 8PM East Coast time if we could have. This IS Beta and we will update it as necessary to ensure a smooth launch come Sunday.

Your experience in Open Beta is important to us, but not as important as your experience when the game goes live and you're playing for keeps.

We try to be as accommodating as possible when we update, however, no matter how hard we try someone will always be inconvenienced. As always we thank you for your cooperation and patience but I'm not going to lie when I say that you can expect large updates at this time, though they should be far less frequent than our current schedule during Open Beta.

Thanks for your understanding all :)

[jarger22]

Guys we update when it's optimal,

In this case we would have updated at 8PM East Coast time if we could have. This IS Beta and we will update it as necessary to ensure a smooth launch come Sunday.

Your experience in Open Beta is important to us, but not as important as your experience when the game goes live and you're playing for keeps.

We try to be as accommodating as possible when we update, however, no matter how hard we try someone will always be inconvenienced. As always we thank you for your cooperation and patience but I'm not going to lie when I say that you can expect large updates at this time, though they should be far less frequent than our current schedule during Open Beta.

Thanks for your understanding all :)

Does this mean that the Oceanic servers will be running updates on a US schedule after release? ie peak Oceanic time?

[James_EAMythic]

Antiherozero,

Just a quick fun-fact for you:

The reason we bring all servers down at once is due to the fact that if you leave half of them open you're risking causing performance issues on the ones you leave up, you're essentially forcing twice the normal load onto servers, not a smart move.

In addition when you change versions its risky if not dangerous to update the version on some but not others at the same time, players patching the game may not be able to play at all due to a version mismatch.

I appreciate your concern but I want you to understand that there are well thought out and planned reasons behind our methodology...we're not out to "get anyone" we're just working to make a better game.

Thanks :)

[Griswelda]

I think what the OC people would like to know is will updates on servers that are based in Australia take place during Australian primetime?, and if so why is it nessecary?.

Most of us can accept it in beta, but will this also continue into launch?

[toolowdown]

i understand someone will alway's be hit with server's down when they are playing. but for the love of god cant it be shook up a little like maybe morning some mid day some and then some night's that way everyone takes a hit lol.

i play 1am to 8am on weekday's because i work second shift hope it alway's isnt during this time. but once again i do understand the need to get stuff straight for sunday and kudo's to mythic im really likeing the game cheers.

[Awaiting]

I think what the OC people would like to know is will updates on servers that are based in Australia take place during Australian primetime?, and if so why is it nessecary?.

Most of us can accept it in beta, but will this also continue into launch?

From above poster:

In addition when you change versions its risky if not dangerous to update the version on some but not others at the same time, players patching the game may not be able to play at all due to a version mismatch.

I.E. In order for OC servers to run updates on a different schedule the OC players would need a separate client. Since the client is the same for both NA and OC servers its very likely they will be patched all at the same time. At least this is my understanding.

[Tharin]

Relax guys. This is kinda what BETA is for.

[antiherozero]

Look, James, we're not unsympathetic that you guys are doing a great job and busting your @sses to fix bugs as fast you can crack the whip at Mythic, but we just want some more fine-tuned consideration about downtime, being sensitive to time zones outside of the US east coast. It would be one thing if we all believed the maintenance schedule would be far better come release time, and with enough complaining I think it eventually will be, but right now I believe we'll see this inconsiderate scheduling in early release too.

The reason we bring all servers down at once is due to the fact that if you leave half of them open you're risking causing performance issues on the ones you leave up, you're essentially forcing twice the normal load onto servers, not a smart move.

In addition when you change versions its risky if not dangerous to update the version on some but not others at the same time, players patching the game may not be able to play at all due to a version mismatch.

Didn't WoW bring their servers down for maintanence in a staggered fashion without a hitch?

[Danlo]

Guys we update when it's optimal,

We just want EST players to test our game.

Thanks for your money all :)

Least thats what I read :p lol

[Griswelda]

Antiherozero,

Just a quick fun-fact for you:

The reason we bring all servers down at once is due to the fact that if you leave half of them open you're risking causing performance issues on the ones you leave up, you're essentially forcing twice the normal load onto servers, not a smart move.

In addition when you change versions its risky if not dangerous to update the version on some but not others at the same time, players patching the game may not be able to play at all due to a version mismatch.

I appreciate your concern but I want you to understand that there are well thought out and planned reasons behind our methodology...we're not out to "get anyone" we're just working to make a better game.

Thanks :)
Thats a fair point. I guess the OC folks will just have to wear it since we are running the NA version. Thanks for the explaination.

[ZoSo]

Servers may go down but life still goes on.

I think we all may love this game a bit too much. Ya think?

[december]

as long as my target doesnt stay out of range and lets me hit it in its back, they can bring down the servers whenever they want

and i too will probably be up for 4 more hours yiffing

[Tharin]

Servers may go down but life still goes on.

I think we all may love this game a bit too much. Ya think?

spot on big guy!

[Griswelda]

Servers may go down but life still goes on.

I think we all may love this game a bit too much. Ya think?
I believe you might be right.

[Deepweb]

Servers may go down but life still goes on.

I think we all may love this game a bit too much. Ya think?

Best post of the thread.

[antiherozero]

Besides the maintenance schedule, I will honestly say I have not been this excited about an MMO in a very long time. This game is tremendously diverse, fun, great graphics and ambiance, and every original idea in the game (to which there are many) I have marveled at the brilliance of. Such as: faction reputation, PvP levels, RvR objects and rewards, guild levels, brilliant guild rewards, fantastic lore and in-game wiki features, widely varied class mechanics, trophies, and so far fun BG-type scenarios. Since my other posts have been so critical of the schedule, I just wanted to make it clear my feelings are overwhelmingly positive about this game, which is why I want to be able to play it when I can. The only design decisions I think need polish are more crafting potential (additional professions to make gear and maybe even trophies) and faction balance (currently in favor of Destruction).

So, keep up the good work, and use those creative minds to help us find some compromise about a senstive maintenance schedule.

[apes]

I can deal with the 1 night a week of downtime...been like that as long as I've been playing MMO's.
I just hope they choose to not do it during this time every week, it would kill the Oceanic player base.


A great time to do it would be midnight in NA on a monday...at least it would be outside primetime over here.

[Kalphite]

=\ I really do hope they do not have extended server down time after the 2.5hours is up. lastnight I was waiting for 3hours on my buttox and found out im going to have to sit on it 3 hours more +D 3 + 3 = 6 hours ( = Red Buttox! ) - Not a comfree Chair +D

[James_EAMythic]

=\ I really do hope they do not have extended server down time after the 2.5hours is up. lastnight I was waiting for 3hours on my buttox and found out im going to have to sit on it 3 hours more +D 3 + 3 = 6 hours ( = Red Buttox! ) - Not a comfree Chair +D

Trust me, neither do we :)

Many of us have been here over 24 hours now. It's part of beta though and we've learned a lot today. Like Open Beta has done here so will our Public Test servers allow us to address issues such as these before they go live post launch.

While I wish I could promised extended downtime will never happen the reality is it probably will, and in that case we'll continue to do what we need to do in order to address the problem and communicate it to all of you :)

It's unfortunate when we have to change the ETA but that's why we always give broad estimates in most cases to let you know "This might take some time" ;)

Thanks again everyone, we have an awesome future ahead of us, look forward to playing in it with all of you!

[nykolas]

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[oscarkool]

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[Wolfborn]

Thanks James for you responses but not in one have you directly answered if the Oceanic servers will be brought down during our peak time. Ie at about 7pm?......Understand i love the game but would like something offical if thats ok ?....my bet is that us aussies will need to get used to the dark old days of wow were they used to patch servers in our peak, but am I right in thinking that ?

[Gman02]

Having the Australian servers update at a different time is a bad idea because we dont really need the entire world being on our 3 servers or whatever it is during maintenance.

However if when the game does go live there is maintenance at Australian peak times 4 or 5 out of 7 days a week for the first weeks there wont be an Australian player base.

[Wolfborn]

*edited for content*

[Koroj]

Guys we update when it's optimal,

In this case we would have updated at 8PM East Coast time if we could have. This IS Beta and we will update it as necessary to ensure a smooth launch come Sunday.

Your experience in Open Beta is important to us, but not as important as your experience when the game goes live and you're playing for keeps.

We try to be as accommodating as possible when we update, however, no matter how hard we try someone will always be inconvenienced. As always we thank you for your cooperation and patience but I'm not going to lie when I say that you can expect large updates at this time, though they should be far less frequent than our current schedule during Open Beta.

Thanks for your understanding all :)

What experience in Open Beta?? We, in Oceanic, have been unable to play the game due to the downtimes in our prime time. A few hours might not seem like much to the average person. But to the person that those 2 hours fall into the after dinner and before putting the kids to bed .. those 2 hours out of the 3 he has to play that night becomes pretty big. :(

[antiherozero]

The reason we bring all servers down at once is due to the fact that if you leave half of them open you're risking causing performance issues on the ones you leave up, you're essentially forcing twice the normal load onto servers, not a smart move.

In addition when you change versions its risky if not dangerous to update the version on some but not others at the same time, players patching the game may not be able to play at all due to a version mismatch.

Update: I'm afraid I don't buy into the "we'll overstress our server populations by leaving some of them up" statement, at least not if you only bring them down during off-peak hours in their respective timezone.

[1] Didn't WoW bring their servers down for maintanence in a staggered fashion without a hitch?
[2] At 2-6 am for a country I assume that less than 50% of the server's population is still playing that late, based on my experiences trying to get groups during these hours.
[3] As for the risk of players playing with an outdated client, all you'd need is a simple version check between client and server, and once a client has been updated, lock it out of connecting to a server with an older version.

[boneyxboney]

why not bring the aussie servers down first, then after the aussie servers are patched bring the NA servers down. this way, there won't be over crowding in the NA servers when aussie servers are down becoz thats only gonna be like 5 servers of people. and when NA servers go down north americans cannot log onto aussie servers becoz their games are not patched and won't be able to log onto patched aussie servers. hmm i'm not too sure if that would work. but would be great if it worked.

[oscarkool]

*edited for content*

[boneyxboney]

*edited for content*

[antiherozero]

staying up in the middle of the night to flame aussies on a mmo forum is having a life?

I don't believe he has the IQ to feel the sting of this statement.

[Orenthi]

*edited for content*

[Tri]

*edited for content*

[Gman02]

*edited for content*

[Griswelda]

*edited for content*

[Koroj]

*edited for content*

It's not just the Aussies, plenty of us Americans overseas in the Oceanic area too.

It's not the middle of the day, it's the evening, hence the word 'prime time'.

And it's not WAAAAH .. get it right at least!

It's WAAAGH!

[oscarkool]

[To all you people] that are curious why they bring down all the servers at the same time, clearly you didn't read Mythic's posts. Oceanic and NA use the same client. They borth show NA and Oceanic servers. Therefore, they must patch those servers at the same time. If they only patch the NA servers, then all the NA people will have a different client than you aussies and thus havoc will wreak when client and server versions are different resulting in chaos. Get it? It's really not that hard to understand.

Mod Edit: cleaned this up a little bit.

[Orenthi]

On an aside, could this be one of the yanks saying that it isnt financial for blizzard to host in australia...then screamed when an aussie pointed out it would be even better for blizzard to host in china?
Thanks for the info mark. Mythic is doing a lot better than the last few mmo developers i was sub'd to. If there is any way you can avoid taking the oceanics down in peak then itd be much appreciated. If not, we'll get used to it. It can be our weekly "LF life" night :D

edited the last bit out

[oscarkool]

*edited for content*

[oscarkool]

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[Gman02]

[To all you people] that are curious why they bring down all the servers at the same time, clearly you didn't read Mythic's posts. Oceanic and NA use the same client. They borth show NA and Oceanic servers. Therefore, they must patch those servers at the same time. If they only patch the NA servers, then all the NA people will have a different client than you aussies and thus havoc will wreak when client and server versions are different resulting in chaos. Get it? It's really not that hard to understand.

You see I dont really like to take my time on the forums, cause there alot of noobs ^ like that guy, on the threads.

[Seregul]

*edited for content*

[Gman02]

Fill this in a sec.

[Revoran]

I hope they realise heads will roll if Australia gets extended maintenance at 6:00pm on a friday night when the game is actually released.

I'm an Aussie. I'm sure Mythic aren't idiots, they won't patch Oceanic servers during Oceanic peak times unless it's absolutely necessary. They don't want to lose money - stop being so bitter.

[Xantex]

guess im going to do a little more research on item drops and such.

Now is a good time for everyone to go on the curse DB and fill in any descriptions of items, npcs, and quests and put in screenshots.

Its what i do.

[Orenthi]

edit: don't feed the trolls

[doberman8u]

I must say the attitude of some testers is downright shameful.

As James stated, some of the devs, etc have been at it for over 24 hours now working to tune, as diligently as they can, a product that both they and us love playing; and this is the attitude of some of the group? I would hate to be at one of your family's get togethers - I'm sure you are a lovely person to be around when things don't go exactly as you would have it. Calling the people at Mythic idiots and 30 minutes later telling them to keep up the good work because you are so eager to play their product is quite a worry as well; you may want to have a doctor check into that issue.

We are indeed testing the product. The last of the dev's worries is to systematically come up with staged downtimes to appease the masses at all times. I would tend to think they attempted to do their best by bringing them down at 3am rather than primetime in efforts to limit these kinds of absurd responses as much as possible.

[Finko]

They're in crunch time. It's about getting the game as perfect as they can for launch and waiting around till 'a good time for everyone' to push out a patch won't get the job done.

[Onephathotdog]

edit: don't feed the trolls

[apes]

edit: don't feed the trolls

[beeblebrox42]

stop feeding the troll people.

1st for those complaining about the curent downtime, remember that is BETA, we are here to help test and server fixes are to be expected as and when they are needed.

2nd if (like wow) there is a regular downtime on a tuesday night for oceanic servers, we can work with that, we always have. Tho like others posting here I would prefer not to see patches and extended downtime during Australian peak hours.

Keep up the great work Mythic, this is the game I have been waiting for for years without even realising it.

[boneyxboney]

not all of us are dissing the devs. most of us are merely suggesting servers ought not be brought down during aussie peak hour. while the beta testing period is for mythic to find out problems and fix them, its also the perfect opportunity for players to pitch suggestions.

but some americans seem to think that they represent mythic and should have the right to flame suggestions made by non-americans. i do know that it is general american behavior to flame non-americans at every chance available, but dun u think this is a bit too much. look at that oscarkool guy.

[Orenthi]

Keep up the great work Mythic, this is the game I have been waiting for for years without even realising it.

I second this statement :D

[Warenthu]

No complaints here, just a simple woe to me. I was unable to play last night so I woke early to play before work this morning and DOH! Oh well, keep the fixes coming and to all the players, keep on breaking it!

[apes]

Yet americans have to spell words in the ENGLISH language how they sound (color instead of colour for example ).:rolleyes:

Sorry could not resist.


*sigh* weak argument.

American English uses different spellings b/c of the colonies defiance to the English during the American Revolutionary Period. This can be purely credited to Noah Webster...writer of the American Dictionary. ;)

[kirbyy]

Update - 6:20AM EDT: Due to additional maintenance requirements downtime has been extended to 8AM EDT. Thank you for your patience!

goddamnit. im not one to usually complain but does every server update have to be extended by 2 hours? I appreciate them trying to fix the game but it would be far less tedious if they just stated up front how long it's going to down instead of making halfway updates.

[Fahadius]

Americans are dumb and Aussies @#%# kangaroos. We get it. Let's get back to yelling about Oceanic downtime.

[boneyxboney]

Update - 6:20AM EDT: Due to additional maintenance requirements downtime has been extended to 8AM EDT. Thank you for your patience!

goddamnit. im not one to usually complain but does every server update have to be extended by 2 hours? I appreciate them trying to fix the game but it would be far less tedious if they just stated up front how long it's going to down instead of making halfway updates.

i'm sure they dun do it just to piss us off or for their amusement. i'm sure we've all dealt with technical problems and issues that we just don't know how much time we need to fix them.

[antiherozero]

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[doberman8u]

not all of us are dissing the devs. most of us are merely suggesting servers ought not be brought down during aussie peak hour.

Understood, but you do realise that the servers were down most all of yesterday until late afternoon for Americans as well right? That makes it easy to believe James when he states some of them have been there for 24 hours now. I think that, for this go around, it would be safe to state that just about every time zone had some significant downtime yesterday.

but some americans seem to think that they represent mythic and should have the right to flame suggestions made by non-americans. i do know that it is general american behavior to flame non-americans at every chance available, but dun u think this is a bit too much. look at that oscarkool guy.

I think it's easy for anyone to take a post here and there from a person of any Nationality and see them as a cross-section of their country. I think this is a mistake - especially in the MMO community where it seems that people from all over the world tend to forget the real life outside the doors and the real relationships they could maintain while their games are being patched up.

[Strazku]

Update - 6:20AM EDT: Due to additional maintenance requirements downtime has been extended to 8AM EDT. Thank you for your patience!

goddamnit. im not one to usually complain but does every server update have to be extended by 2 hours? I appreciate them trying to fix the game but it would be far less tedious if they just stated up front how long it's going to down instead of making halfway updates.


Only if you knew man. A lot of the times they don't know how long situations will last because they have to fix what ever the problem is, test it, if if it still acts up, fix it, test it again, if it's still messed up again, fix it, test it. Once they're all done with problems they have to then apply the update to all the servers. It's a tedious venture, and definitely time consuming.

However, I do feel your pain, but I'm not going to complain because I know what they're going through. They're working for us, hehe. Just be patient. ;). You've probably played/tested a hell of a lot more then I have... 14-16 hour work days leaves to no time to really test anything out, specially when you have time off to test they're patching ;). Haven't played in the past 2 days, but it's all good because it'll make it even better when I can.

[Spiggy]

Mythic has done something that Blizz never did and that's place Oz servers in Oz, top marks for that guys. Finally no more crying about playing with US based players on 30ms pings whilst the Aussies are on 300-600ms pings.

With regards the issues of taking down the Aussie located servers during non-peak time for the Oceania region, this should be possible if there is a will to do it. (Once the game is live, whilst in beta expect them to go down all the time) Admittedly there will always be someone not happy about the time, but I guess the point people are making is that some consideration to the Oceania time zone players playing on Oceania servers would be nice. Blizz for example totally ignore the Oceania region by charging them the same as the US players yet only providing the service 6 out of 7 days. It would be nice to see Mythic prove that it is possible to perform maintenance without this kind of bias.

The issue of overloading the Oceanic servers with US based players when the US servers go down is a relatively easy one to remedy. Mythic has the stats on every account and how long they have played on a given server every day. During US maintenance periods it should be possible to prevent players who have less than 'x' hours played on those servers in the past week, 2 weeks, month from logging in. Problem solved, only those people who actually play on those servers can log in. The same the other way around, when the Oceania servers are down anyone who doesn't normally play on the US servers can't log into them. This is just one suggestion, but I'm sure where there is a will there's a way.

As for all those people just telling the Oceania based players to suck it up, try putting yourself in their shoes for a little while and stop being so selfish. The only reason you seem to think this way is because you never have to experience it. I recall shortly after AoC came out and they had to take the servers down during US prime time on one occasion (just once!), OMG the number of posts on their forums from people complaining was staggering. They had to delete a number of threads and edited quite a number of posts due to the absolutely unecessary language being used.

[Logan Casius]

Welcome to an American made game. If you don't like the way things work, then stop playing our sweet, sweet games.
You know, I could swear that Paul guy, you know the one who's in charge of all that stuff, Im sure it sounds like he's from England...

Yeah, it's annoying that the servers are going down about 5pm every day, but it is beta, and Id much rather not play now, and have a good, solid launch.

[Wolfborn]

All im asking is something offical about down times in oceanic servers. Is it the same as the North American ones ?

Thats all, Im not rubbishing or whining, Im just wanting something concrete so that i can be forwarned

[kirbyy]

Only if you knew man. A lot of the times they don't know how long situations will last because they have to fix what ever the problem is, test it, if if it still acts up, fix it, test it again, if it's still messed up again, fix it, test it. Once they're all done with problems they have to then apply the update to all the servers. It's a tedious venture, and definitely time consuming.

However, I do feel your pain, but I'm not going to complain because I know what they're going through. They're working for us, hehe. Just be patient. ;). You've probably played/tested a hell of a lot more then I have... 14-16 hour work days leaves to no time to really test anything out, specially when you have time off to test they're patching ;). Haven't played in the past 2 days, but it's all good because it'll make it even better when I can.

yeah I know they are trying their best, I do appreciate that so I guess just needed someplace to vent. to be honest I've only played 5 hours in total maybe. today and yesterday I was planning to play the game a lot but the downtime fits so precisely in my time off between sleeping and work that I haven't got a chance to play anymore (and won't be able to do tomorrow either).

still, you're right, considering they're doing anything they can to ensure a steady playing experience upon release i'll refrain from complaining ;)

[Onephathotdog]

*sigh* weak argument.

American English uses different spellings b/c of the colonies defiance to the English during the American Revolutionary Period. This can be purely credited to Noah Webster...writer of the American Dictionary. ;)


It was not meant to be an argument, just a friendly yet sarcastic remark nothing more. Im sorry if this did not come across as such.

Also i have no intentions of getting into a debate/argument about the English/American language.

[Illusions]

I hate how annoying some of my Aussie brethren are about whining during Open Beta. You're testers, not actual players yet.

Also, I guess that troll has packed his bag and is off to school now. Got to love the American kid.

[Danlo]

Then let us test?

[Helenne]

Well, I apologize that Americans are more intelligent than Aussies. Keep the flames coming, there isn't anything more fun than watching aussies cry over downtime. I really enjoyed this in wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ3RrqBqk14

I don't believe you have anything to apologise for.

[apes]

It was not meant to be an argument, just a friendly yet sarcastic remark nothing more. Im sorry if this did not come across as such.

Also i have no intentions of getting into a debate/argument about the English/American language.



You would have won anyway....Japanese beer renders my arguing skills. :mrgreen:

[James_EAMythic]

Servers are up!

[Rayuki]

good job and now send the stability fix over to the EU so we get that hella great patch too

[Orenthi]

Servers are up!
thank you :D

[Tri]

Servers are up!

Woohoo! \o/ stompy time! <- ( can we get that as an audio emote? :P )

[James_EAMythic]

Looks like the oceanic servers are still coming up, and should be up very shortly.

Thanks :)

Edit: NM They came up faster than I could post.

Have fun guys!

[Riavan]

Antiherozero,

Just a quick fun-fact for you:

The reason we bring all servers down at once is due to the fact that if you leave half of them open you're risking causing performance issues on the ones you leave up, you're essentially forcing twice the normal load onto servers, not a smart move.

In addition when you change versions its risky if not dangerous to update the version on some but not others at the same time, players patching the game may not be able to play at all due to a version mismatch.

I appreciate your concern but I want you to understand that there are well thought out and planned reasons behind our methodology...we're not out to "get anyone" we're just working to make a better game.

Thanks :)

Obviously your not in place to answer the question if we're going to see maintenance at peak oceanic times after release, it makes me quite sad that mythic don't seem to care enough to have already thought about/worked this out by now.

[Katas]

They have already answered this question.

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1439674#post1439674

[Chaot]

I'm so glad the servers are up...but

I haven't been able to log onto any server for 24 hours because of the

account logged in already bug......

how many patches and down times and still this is broken....?

"your account is already logged in to a diffre"

arrghhhhh!!!!

[Krittez]

"your account is already logged in to a diffre"

I'm so glad the servers are up

Yeah, i got that one too..:S
Atleast you have Mytic ppl communicating with you, I'm not sure GOA even know about this quite common and what I know of, unfixable error.
Havent been able to play for 36 hours now..:(
All this will be forgiven once this wonderful game goes live, after all its just a beta and i prefer to have lots of errors now and a clean game on launchday when my progress actually counts..:D

[Chaot]

lets hope you will actually be able to log in on launch day...eh

If anyone has any bright ideas about how to resolve this issue and where to post please let me
Know...cheers

[Sueme]

Your always gonna get server downtime in MMO's......fact of life. I didn't mind the fact it came down tuesday night for WOW. Cheap arse tuesday at the movies woooot!!!!

[krighton]

eh, save the complaining for when the game goes live...like he said it's a beta..i'd rather they fix it now than later.

[nero99]

I've lost some faith in Mythic after today, and for the love of Baby Jesus, spare me the "this is beta" crap. Mythic made a tremendously fun game with DAoC and with WAR, both very polished on (in this case near) release, and both with excellent support. This game has my money and I'm going to love playing it, but veteran devs like these guys should be smarter about their server maintenance schedule. I assumed that since most of my chars are on one of their test realms they've kept down pretty much all f#cking day, come update time they'd keep those test servers up because they had already done the updates on them. Nope, basically those of us on Crag Mere are just less important.

Whoever the idiots are in charge of this at Mythic, they need to try only bringing half the servers down for an update so we can at least still continue to play/test the game. Sure this doesn't impact those on the east coast nearly as heavily since they're all sleeping when this happens, but this has happened nearly every night at 1:00 am PST, where I happen to live.


But it is beta, they are finishing up the game and the more patches the better as far as im concerned. You people will whine about anything and everything. You sound like a spoiled child ,get over it. Mythic have a lot of money invested in this game, so they can patch during beta whenever they want.

[antiherozero]

* Edited for Content *

[Riavan]

It's not that we have an issue with them doing this during the beta, it's just that, if they're really doing it now, what reason is there for you to believe they won't do it during launch?

[Gruffyd]

I don't suppose anyone has an official end date for the open beta?

I still want to try out one more class ><

I have been searching all around and people are throwing around 12th 13th and 14th but nothing official.

One person even posted that they aren't wiping the characters which would be hilarious but very unlikely.

[Shedevilish]

Relax guys. This is kinda what BETA is for.

Exacly,

Guys dont forget we are playing a beta! This is the moment for Mythic to do this kind of stuff... Or would u like to have the servers down on the lauchday?

Relax :D

[skyydragonn]

Look, James, we're not unsympathetic that you guys are doing a great job and busting your @sses to fix bugs as fast you can crack the whip at Mythic, but we just want some more fine-tuned consideration about downtime, being sensitive to time zones outside of the US east coast. It would be one thing if we all believed the maintenance schedule would be far better come release time, and with enough complaining I think it eventually will be, but right now I believe we'll see this inconsiderate scheduling in early release too.



Didn't WoW bring their servers down for maintanence in a staggered fashion without a hitch?

No, they dont
every weds from 5:00a.m. to 11:00 a.m PST thats 7a.m. 1:00 p.m. my time most of the morning. and often runs at least an hour longer than posted.

what your refering to is thier method of rolling restarts when they dont need to take the servers down for maintenance. (which is rare as of late) Instead they just reboot the servers to clean out the cache files etc.

[mangocurry]

Antiherozero,

Just a quick fun-fact for you:

Hi James, here's quick fun filled fact for you. About 20 years ago server programmers had a similar problem that you did, they had to patch all of their servers at once otherwise their users would get desynced sessions.

Then some smart guy, some who might call a super geek, invented a thing called a "domain server".

Please don't treat your customers like idiots, some of us are really smart.

[mangocurry]

They have already answered this question.

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1439674#post1439674

Except his answer isn't a "good answer". In fact the start of it is almost insulting.

There's some very old, and pretty easy techniques to implement to stop clients getting on desynced servers that are actually pretty trivial to implement. James's non-answer is simply that, a non-answer.

[skyydragonn]

Update: I'm afraid I don't buy into the "we'll overstress our server populations by leaving some of them up" statement, at least not if you only bring them down during off-peak hours in their respective timezone.

[1] Didn't WoW bring their servers down for maintanence in a staggered fashion without a hitch?
[2] At 2-6 am for a country I assume that less than 50% of the server's population is still playing that late, based on my experiences trying to get groups during these hours.
[3] As for the risk of players playing with an outdated client, all you'd need is a simple version check between client and server, and once a client has been updated, lock it out of connecting to a server with an older version.

your not listening.

1) No, they dont, if servers come down for maintenance they ALL come down. your refering to rolling restarts which is entirely different.
2)If i want to play WAR but my normal U.S. server is down, where do you think players will go? thats right the OC servers thats a lot of people from a LOT of servers all trying to cram onto what 3 OC servers?
3) Simple sounding doens't always mean simple to implement. Nor does it mean that its honestly worth the time/effort/cost when the current system (post launch) is much more streamlined.

[Arcton]

Look, James, we're not unsympathetic that you guys are doing a great job and busting your @sses to fix bugs as fast you can crack the whip at Mythic, but we just want some more fine-tuned consideration about downtime, being sensitive to time zones outside of the US east coast. It would be one thing if we all believed the maintenance schedule would be far better come release time, and with enough complaining I think it eventually will be, but right now I believe we'll see this inconsiderate scheduling in early release too.



Didn't WoW bring their servers down for maintanence in a staggered fashion without a hitch?

When they were bringing them down for maintenance, yes...not when they were APPLYING A PATCH, which is what Mythic has been doing.

If you connect to the same client US players do, download the same patch US players do, but then try to play on a server based in AUS that hasn't been patched...what happens?

As far as regular server maintenance goes, I believe you guys will get your maintenance on a staggered timetable. But when it's patch time, you're gonna have to bite the bullet.

[Raistaran]

As for the risk of players playing with an outdated client, all you'd need is a simple version check between client and server, and once a client has been updated, lock it out of connecting to a server with an older version.

Not that simple. Since NA and Aussie players have the same client, NA and Aussie players will patch at the exact same time. So let's say that they push out patch 10.2 (i.e. all NA and Aussie players get patched). If they only update the NA servers to patch 10.2, then all Aussie players wouldn't be able to play (since they have the 10.2 client but the Aussie servers are 10.1). If they only update the Aussie servers to patch 10.2, then all NA players wouldn't be able to play.

As someone who lives in the Eastern time zone, I sincerely hope they get something worked out for you guys. But please don't assume it's an easy problem to solve. From my experience, all problems (especially software problems) are much more difficult than it seems at first glance due to all the details involved.

[Tinuva]

Update: I'm afraid I don't buy into the "we'll overstress our server populations by leaving some of them up" statement, at least not if you only bring them down during off-peak hours in their respective timezone.

[1] Didn't WoW bring their servers down for maintanence in a staggered fashion without a hitch?
[2] At 2-6 am for a country I assume that less than 50% of the server's population is still playing that late, based on my experiences trying to get groups during these hours.
[3] As for the risk of players playing with an outdated client, all you'd need is a simple version check between client and server, and once a client has been updated, lock it out of connecting to a server with an older version.
Mythic is not going to pay their tech guys OT to do maintenance at 2am est. You need to realize their work schedule is 8-5 like any other company. So, on maintenance days it's going to be 8-10 in the morning est. Is it fair if that's your prime time? No, but its a NA made game and hosted here so that's when it's going to have maintenance. Doesn't matter when they bring the servers down it will be prime time somewhere, they are going to do it when it fits their schedule not ours.

And no, WoW doesnt stagger maintenance, they tried 1 time and it borked things for a week.

And BTW, my main character is on crag mere, level 20, and I havent been able to play him for over 24 hours. It's beta, things happen. Now if this was head start I'd be right here with ya throwin' down. Let them get it right so we have a solid 4 days of head start with out the problems they just had yesterday.

[XImpalerX]

* Edited for Content *

[Bardion]

Servers are up!


What he means is this: servers are still down!!
And we have no ETA:confused:

[Bardion]

This is only open beta???
Guys Mythic is only 5 days away from releasing the game.
And with each aspect of bringing it they have major problems, at least in Europe.

So is this only open beta?

Let's face it all: GOA is totally incapable of handling this game.
Mythic: dismiss GOA and get yourself a decent partner, please do it for the sake of thousands european players, please:)

[Aegorian]

This is only open beta???
Guys Mythic is only 5 days away from releasing the game.
And with each aspect of bringing it they have major problems, at least in Europe.

So is this only open beta?

Let's face it all: GOA is totally incapable of handling this game.
Mythic: dismiss GOA and get yourself a decent partner, please do it for the sake of thousands european players, please:)

good call. 5 days away and they should definitely switch partners. That wouldnt cause any issues at all.

Not that i'm not sympathetic to your cause, because i am, but be realistic. You may get some issues from GOA come launch time, but it's nothing they wont overcome in a much shorter timespan and have things stable much faster than an alternate partner ever would at this point.

[antiherozero]

Guys, I'm not going to respond to all those replies and get into a technical wrestling match. However, I didn't mean to imply that it would oh so easy without any problems to have staggered server maintenance, only that it was possible, and once they have their support system in place and everything is running smoothly with their current system, I hope for our sake they'll exercise some consideration of additional ideas besides taking the servers down at the same time every week, all at once. It's not good customer service, and once Mythic is making the big dollars on this product, as we all know they will, I hope they get creative with solutions to make our downtime as fair as possible.

That is it, end of story, I am done with this thread which is full of flammers, but I do appreciate those of you who tried to have a legitimate and mature discussion about this. I myself did not contribute to this effort fully by early name calling, and for that I apologize. Mythic is a stellar company and I just hope they live up to their potential in the way of their maintanence planning.

[AtomicSilicon]

Ugh, to the know it all's like Antiherozero who seem to challenge Mythic's team: If you think you can do so much better, go program your own game. Then we can come to you and complain like mad why you need downtime to fix things.

The whole idea of supporting multiple client versions Antiherozero? Oh my lord. Clearly you don't know much about programming, version tracking, and how much of a pain in the a-- it already is to have a client that patches up. What you happen to see is only a fraction of the client/server versions they have floating around behind the scenes.

Then, as for schedule... people. They have a hard launch date now and they are trying to get their last features and bug fixes in place before the huge masses arrive. I have no doubt that many of their dev team members are surviving off red bull right now and probably have not gotten much sleep in the last week.

Sunday. 3 days. That is a SHORT amount of time and Mythic has been great about listening to our requests as players on how to improve the game. Everything they drop it to make it better risks causing a bug, which then has to be found. When your tired, this is hard work.

The last thing they need is crap about when they patch. Let them fix the server at any time - peak or no - so that we can get a better release. Otherwise all these bugs are just going to be around next week when hundreds of thousands of people swarm the servers. And at that point there will be far more complaining.

But really. If you feel so inclined to complain, go make your own game. Send me a PM and I will even supply you with a bunch of platforms to give you a head start on your MMO development journey.


Oh yea. Beta... that means unfinished. There is no guarentee with Beta. If you don't get that, be careful about how you use other Beta products (like from Google) because at any point someone running a Beta can simply kill it. Is isn't yours until you pay for it, and even then software is never yours anyway.

[XImpalerX]

And you sound like a complacent idiot too unimaginative to propose a positive change of events.

This is REAL mature, yea....way to try and make your self look innocent here at the end of your spree.

I could spend the next 15 minutes quoting your immaturity, but I'm done with this thread as well.

[Sparklehorse]

Ugh, to the know it all's like Antiherozero who seem to challenge Mythic's team: If you think you can do so much better, go program your own game. Then we can come to you and complain like mad why you need downtime to fix things.

The whole idea of supporting multiple client versions Antiherozero? Oh my lord. Clearly you don't know much about programming, version tracking, and how much of a pain in the a-- it already is to have a client that patches up. What you happen to see is only a fraction of the client/server versions they have floating around behind the scenes.

Then, as for schedule... people. They have a hard launch date now and they are trying to get their last features and bug fixes in place before the huge masses arrive. I have no doubt that many of their dev team members are surviving off red bull right now and probably have not gotten much sleep in the last week.

Sunday. 3 days. That is a SHORT amount of time and Mythic has been great about listening to our requests as players on how to improve the game. Everything they drop it to make it better risks causing a bug, which then has to be found. When your tired, this is hard work.

The last thing they need is crap about when they patch. Let them fix the server at any time - peak or no - so that we can get a better release. Otherwise all these bugs are just going to be around next week when hundreds of thousands of people swarm the servers. And at that point there will be far more complaining.

But really. If you feel so inclined to complain, go make your own game. Send me a PM and I will even supply you with a bunch of platforms to give you a head start on your MMO development journey.


Oh yea. Beta... that means unfinished. There is no guarentee with Beta. If you don't get that, be careful about how you use other Beta products (like from Google) because at any point someone running a Beta can simply kill it. Is isn't yours until you pay for it, and even then software is never yours anyway.

I appreciate your logical, sound reasoning but I am afraid, due to the tone of the posts by Mr. Zero that it will fall on deaf ears.

The good part of this is I now have reason to be happy that Mythic gave the Aussies their own servers. I certainly don't want to play with people like him. I shudder to think of what is going to happen the first time they have a REAL issue that takes some time to fix. That guy will need hospitalization.

What has happened with people nowadays? Do people have so little lives that they have to pitch a fit over a couple hours maintenance in a BETA? They were down all evening in prime time for NA yesterday and I took the opportunity to get some housework done. Stop looking at server down times as a personal attack and start looking at it as an opportunity to catch up on the things you should have been doing while you were wasting your time on a computer game for the other 6 days of the week.

[Skorgrim]

Man, people need to just relax. Regardless of what you WANT or DON'T WANT to hear.. THIS IS OPEN BETA. No ifs ands or buts about it. If some people would take the time read the Terms of Agreement before just hitting accept and launching the game, they might save everyone else a lot of headaches and make themselves look a lot less foolish in the process. These whiners might come to realize that a BETA of any kind, promises nothing... While in a literal sense. There are no guarantees, it is an unfinished product and it may or may not have common likeness with the final release. It is a large part of a developer's job to collect data from the playerbase and fix any problems they recognize within this data. The beta phases of a game are crucial in recognizing and eliminating these problems. In order to FIX these problems, they need to bring the servers down for proper and undoubtedly faster maintenance. It isn't as easy as just leaving half the servers up while they work on the other half. If this were the case, don't you think the talented individuals who were able to create and distribute a game of this magnitude, would have the sense to already be doing this?

Sure it might be an inconvenience to you for the 2-10 hours that you can't play this BETA, but if they don't do it now, you are going to encounter emergency and maintenance downtime during the live game.. Which IMO is a lot more inconvenient considering you are paying to play the live game. No one ever said these maintenance times were final or even hinted that they will be the same for EU servers. It is obvious that many of these "whiners" lack beta testing experience, especially in an mmo, which directly contributes to the overreactions that we are seeing. Simply put, this game IS STILL IN BETA regardless of what you think. A lot can happen in a week's time, or a lot can get neglected before final release. Whining, pointing fingers and name calling does little to help the progress of a beta or game release.. Good contsructive criticism, tedious bug testing and feedback are things that can help insure a better release. Stop complaining about how you THINK this is a reflection of the live game and wait til it is actually launched.

The guys at Mythic are a lot more intelligent than you give them credit for. If you want a game that caters to your very own opinions and wants... Make it yourself and then tell me how easy it is to do all the things you expect Mythic to do. I work with computers, programming and networking for a living.. It isn't easy to find a "quick fix" and patches are serious, well planned and executed ordeals. Give the guys a break, without their efforts you wouldn't even be playing this game.

It's beta.

Pull those panties out of the bunch.

[Philwolf]

Truble with launching the open beta.

Truble with the patching today.

Just hope you will start early enough for the headstart so you can interfear with possible truble in the headstart, otherwise we can loose all benefits of the CE preorder and i'm sure this would give a bad reputation to the whole game . . .

Phil

[Dunkelrot]

Biggest bunch of whiners in a beta I've ever seen! Take the servers down from yesterday until Saturday if it makes the launch go smoothly. End of story. Let the devs do their jobs, which is to make the launch go smoothly. This is the time for unexplained server outages, downtimes and random patches. If you don't like it, don't ever apply for another beta again, because -- guess what -- they're all like this.

Actually, I lie. They're not all like this. This one's been pretty good, comparatively.

-D

[Ylei]

Hi James, here's quick fun filled fact for you. About 20 years ago server programmers had a similar problem that you did, they had to patch all of their servers at once otherwise their users would get desynced sessions.

Then some smart guy, some who might call a super geek, invented a thing called a "domain server".

Please don't treat your customers like idiots, some of us are really smart.


"domain server"? what are you talking about? The reason they said they bring them all down is because if they bring half of them down then the people from those servers would roll characters on the other half that were still up, causing them to be crushed under the load.

during beta, and for several weeks after launch, people will be trying to play as much as possible, which means the servers will see much more load than they will as people's play times normalize.

Please explain this "domain server" that would allow them to patch servers individually, I'd like to hear what you think you know.

[Pkay001]

My guess is that the servers are still down ? :(

and as for the biggest bunch of whiners i was gunna ask if u happen to be in the AoC beta ? lol

[meltedboy]

My guess is that the servers are still down ? :(

I was gonna ask - I get to character select, push "play", get the load screen, then sent back to character select.

:confused:

[Pkay001]

I was gonna ask - I get to character select, push "play", get the load screen, then sent back to character select.

:confused:


i cant even get past Authinication.. ;(

[Skorgrim]

The thing about AOC is, people have a GOOD reason to be upset. It's in final release and it has WAY WAY WAY more bugs and problems than WAR does in its Beta phase. From previous MMO Beta experience, I would have to say Mythic has handled this OB quite well and I have faith that the launch will be very successful. As for the EU players, it is unfortunate that GOA hasn't gotten it together yet, but they will.. I don't know when, and for your sake I hope it is soon but they underestimated the OB and hopefully they have learned from their mistakes for launch.

Mythic produces great work and they have a lot of talent.. I think their previous games and success are evidence enough. Don't worry yourself over this stuff, just be optimistic and if for some reason everything doesn't go as planned.. It will be ok.. Afterall, it is just a game... Right?

[Mythra]

I don't mind them taking down the servers for patches, especially if it solves the crashing problems that many, many of us our having. I've spent more time out of game troubleshooting why my new gaming system isn't working than I have in-game anyway. Please, please may one of these patches address the crashes requiring hard shut downs, or crashed to desktop, and general unplayability of this game.

[DarkDweller]

Biggest bunch of whiners in a beta I've ever seen! Take the servers down from yesterday until Saturday if it makes the launch go smoothly. End of story. Let the devs do their jobs, which is to make the launch go smoothly. This is the time for unexplained server outages, downtimes and random patches. If you don't like it, don't ever apply for another beta again, because -- guess what -- they're all like this.

Actually, I lie. They're not all like this. This one's been pretty good, comparatively.

-D

/signed

Imagine the hurt a bad launch would do to this game. I don't think any of us wants that, right?

*boots up Day of Defeat while waiting for servers to come back*

[Pkay001]

*boots up Day of Defeat while waiting for servers to come back*

my guess is there still down.. nobody replyed to that aspect of my post.. but from this comment im guessing they are.. ;)

[oscarkool]

*EDITED for content*

[Ard Righ]

This thread is pure class... I haven't seen QQ'ing this bad since I stopped reading the WoW server forums.

Seriously - this game is beta - but whether or not it's prime time, the game is better to be updated to fix bugs... than to leave it running with the bugs.

Some of you QQ like you gave up your right nut, your first born child, and your life earnings to play this beta. This is a beta that Mythic have graciously allowed us to play for free.

If you don't like the patches, don't play the game. I am sure the other MMOs will be grateful for your subscription.