Counting the down time

So, not the end of January yet, and the 4th set of downtime with little or no warning (and for a MINOR update!!); the LAST one was particularly galling; only the European servers were taken down, yet they did it mid evening Euro time, so peak gaming time for most European players. Not only that, the warnings were very late going up, I only caught one at "THIRTY SECONDS TO SHUTDOWN", after logging in about 30 minutes prior.

Lets just hope they fix some of the MANY nasty bugs introduced over recent months.

yes very sloppy team work hope it does not get like a game i used to play called mir lol

Oddly enough,

After years of the game being down 1 time per week for sometimes less than 3 hours,
perhaps it would be expected?

The benefits?

Well, you could clean up the countless Snack wrappers, used paper with the mistakes, organize the various screws and parts used to tweak your computer, refill the zippo, throw away the Urine bottles collecting around you play area.


Just a thought ;)

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Originally Posted by Rmurjuri

Oddly enough,

After years of the game being down 1 time per week for sometimes less than 3 hours,
perhaps it would be expected?

The benefits?

Well, you could clean up the countless Snack wrappers, used paper with the mistakes, organize the various screws and parts used to tweak your computer, refill the zippo, throw away the Urine bottles collecting around you play area.


Just a thought ;)

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Brew a pot of tea. Make a sandwich. Read a good book. Sweep the floor. Oranize the bookshelves. Do a bit of yoga.

This is always assuming you're at home at this hour, not at school or at work, when you wouldn't be playing anyway (I hope).

I won't stomp my cane on the floor and remind you all that when I got into computers there was downtime for PM every morning from 6 to 8 AM. Not this time.

pmsl

Yeah, this was a surprise. I left early from work to have some own time to spend in Middle Earth just to find out that servers were down (again...). Now searching the forums I see a note from Gordovan. It's just that note was written very late last night (our time) so no change to catch and read it yesterday.

Would it be possible to have these announcement published well in time so that player base knows when to expect these downtimes? Changing some texts doesn't sound like a critical bug that needs to be fixed ASAP with very short notice.

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Originally Posted by Forodir

Yeah, this was a surprise. I left early from work to have some own time to spend in Middle Earth just to find out that servers were down (again...). Now searching the forums I see a note from Gordovan. It's just that note was written very late last night (our time) so no change to catch and read it yesterday.

Would it be possible to have these announcement published well in time so that player base knows when to expect these downtimes? Changing some texts doesn't sound like a critical bug that needs to be fixed ASAP with very short notice.

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From a legal or business perspective, it may well be more important. I imagine they may have some contractual obligations here with regard to timing due to the transfer to SSG.

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Originally Posted by Forodir

Yeah, this was a surprise. I left early from work to have some own time to spend in Middle Earth just to find out that servers were down (again...). Now searching the forums I see a note from Gordovan. It's just that note was written very late last night (our time) so no change to catch and read it yesterday.

Would it be possible to have these announcement published well in time so that player base knows when to expect these downtimes? Changing some texts doesn't sound like a critical bug that needs to be fixed ASAP with very short notice.

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I don't know where you are on planet Earth, nor what server you play on.

But on Arkenstone, in the US Pacific time zone, there was an announcement on the launcher about today's downtime all day yesterday.

Edit: My husband points out that getting the WB and Turbine logos off all the screens may be necessary for legal reasons.

I was on and playing from long before until within five hours of this "scheduled downtime".
There were no in-game announcements, warnings or alerts.
I find their continuing lack of concern for customer happiness and satisfaction disturbing.

Thank goodness for downtime. I can't remember the last time I used the bathroom.

Like a good boy, I do all that BEFORE sitting down to play; so it is highly frustrating to find the game is down (again), for the 2nd time this week.

For all the bug fixes, they still havent fixed the notifications bug in the launcher; I havent seen it give a down time warning until AFTERWARDS since I started playing the game a year ago.

They have an in game announcement system, so why not use it a little more effectively, like starting the warnings 12 hours ahead of the shut down (if possible); and on other occasions, I have seen the warnings broadcast at T minus 60 minutes, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes; so why last time, was there no warning between sometime prior to T minus 30 minutes and T minus 30 seconds??

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Originally Posted by hhsdad

Thank goodness for downtime. I can't remember the last time I used the bathroom.

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how is this possible?

you must have the time to eat and drink in order to use this bodily function.

- I was on Arkenstone today before the servers went down. I saw in-game announcements - those big, orange ones - appearing from 60 minutes prior the servers coming down.

- The previous one was about server restart and that concerned 2 'European' servers. I wasn't on one at that time but I guess that was quickly done, as it was supposed to be a restart only.

- They have just separated from Turbine, forming a totally new company. Or studio or whatever. I think we can handle a few extra maintenances/updates while they get the transition managed properly.

- Cordovan said that they had some matters related to logos and texts that needed to be changed before U19.3, so yeah, that's probably some legal stuff.

That's why we put the section in the FAQ as part of our transition to Standing Stone Games, to let people know that while we are working to keep our downtime to a minimum, there will be a bit more downtime during the transition as we make necessary changes. For the most part, we're doing the work as part of our regular update or maintenance process, but there are some things that are requiring their own separate downtime.

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Originally Posted by Rmurjuri

how is this possible?

you must have the time to eat and drink in order to use this bodily function.

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Not necessarily. I'll try to avoid TMI, but I was once in the hospital, marked NPO (Latin for "nothing by mouth"); I couldn't even drink water (I was on an IV), and I still had to go to the bathroom.

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Originally Posted by hhsdad

Thank goodness for downtime. I can't remember the last time I used the bathroom.

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+10! Haha! Just about the only post in this thread that merits a response.

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Originally Posted by djheydt

Edit: My husband points out that getting the WB and Turbine logos off all the screens may be necessary for legal reasons.

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From what I've seen over the years, you have a considerable amount of time to make the transition. It is often one sometimes two years to get it done.

I can understand why they want to break up this very long complicated process into bite sized chunks that are easier to deal with.

Fortunately, they are not having to deal with all the physical have to dos that occur with a business that has lots of physical items that needs to be changed.

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Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

From what I've seen over the years, you have a considerable amount of time to make the transition. It is often one sometimes two years to get it done.

I can understand why they want to break up this very long complicated process into bite sized chunks that are easier to deal with.

Fortunately, they are not having to deal with all the physical have to dos that occur with a business that has lots of physical items that needs to be changed.

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What sort of business would allow (or require) two years to do the transition of branding? For most deals I've been involved with, the longest transition period for something like this has been 90 days or less, especially if you are talking changes to a website, etc. Longer periods of time where there is a significant amount of inventory in stores beings sold, etc.

Just interested to see what sort of deal took a year or longer.

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Originally Posted by Cordovan

That's why we put the section in the FAQ as part of our transition to Standing Stone Games, to let people know that while we are working to keep our downtime to a minimum, there will be a bit more downtime during the transition as we make necessary changes. For the most part, we're doing the work as part of our regular update or maintenance process, but there are some things that are requiring their own separate downtime.

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I understand that these legal issues are mandatory and there is a set timeline for them. But still there has been enough time to plan the changes properly to avoid sudden last minute shutdowns.

My biggest concern is the communication. Please communicate these shutdowns to customers well advance, lead time counted in just hours is not enough. Like in this particular case, note came night time in our time zone and that reduced the lead time even more. In normal update there should be a warning at least few days before the shutdown, but in any case some kind 24 hour rule should followed. I understand that some critical server reboots may require braking that rule, but fortunately I haven't seen much those.

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Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

From what I've seen over the years, you have a considerable amount of time to make the transition. It is often one sometimes two years to get it done.

I can understand why they want to break up this very long complicated process into bite sized chunks that are easier to deal with.

Fortunately, they are not having to deal with all the physical have to dos that occur with a business that has lots of physical items that needs to be changed.

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Since SSG's copyright date is 2015, it has already been over one year since it began. We the public may only have known about it for the past 2 months ago, but Turbine and SSG have clearly known about it for much longer.

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Originally Posted by Mar-Evayave

Since SSG's copyright date is 2015, it has already been over one year since it began. We the public may only have known about it for the past 2 months ago, but Turbine and SSG have clearly known about it for much longer.

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But they couldn't have started changing the logos to public view until the change went public. Otherwise there would have been an untimely spill of beans.

Kudos, not only for posting the downtime alert several days in advance, but also managing to get the launcher to display it.

I have saved up lots of little jobs to do while the game is off line.

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Originally Posted by djheydt

But they couldn't have started changing the logos to public view until the change went public. Otherwise there would have been an untimely spill of beans.

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Yes of course, but that doesn't mean the transition wasn't already underway. :)