Today's maintenance has been extended until 2:00PM Eastern Time

[belogvorn]

Someone forgot to check the lights before they put them on all the trees, and as normal there's a blown bulb somewhere so now they had to test them all,
and you know what its like they lost track of the wiring in the branches and missed the one bulb that was faulty, so they had to go back to the beginning and are currently checking them all again.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

I'd have to disagree. It seems to me that most of the time, downtime may be extended an hour or two, but they usually have it up before then, unless something bad happens. It's a Monday morning anyways. It's mid-day in Europe and early in the US. I'd assume many Eastern Europeans are just getting home and Americans are getting up and going to school and work. The only ones that are largely affected would likely be Western Europe and East-Asia as West-Asia and Oceania probably in bed now.

Given this is an MMO, Turbine is actually in a pretty decent place when it comes to downtime as their timezone (EST) makes their work-time affect a relatively small portion of players. Good thing they're not on the west coast or downtimes would likely be started four hours later than usual.

Two words : Managing Expectations.

[Heather87ea]

Someone forgot to check the lights before they put them on all the trees, and as normal there's a blown bulb somewhere so now they had to test them all,
and you know what its like they lost track of the wiring in the branches and missed the one bulb that was faulty, so they had to go back to the beginning and are currently checking them all again.

Thumbs up

[Macroscian]

I was about to

log into game
log into forums
read patch notes
compliment the team on an excellent choice of time of day for a downtime - with most of EU just off work at server-up and most of US at work or in school still

But...well. An hour on a half more, I guess.

Not that I saw that anywhere. At least not on time. Instead I check the three twitter feeds (I hate that place) and I look here and I check launcher. Nothing. I try to log in again. Nopes.

Just be on time with postponement messages and post those within the regular venues for communication: relying on bigger companies to have better stability on their servers (fb, twitter) isn't really OK. Basic info should be more...readily available. And on time.

[belogvorn]

What's truly fantastic is that this is the norm for this game. As a customer, I would far rather a company make a downtime schedule that is excessive from the outset and be done earlier than expected, than to do what they traditionally do....give us a timetable and not be able to hold up their end of their own schedule. I understand it's just a game and all of that, but above all else it's bad business and a customer it feels disrespectful when it happens as often as it does here. Cheers.

Actually this company's one of the best out there for patches,
just be glad this is not soe,
with them you always double the down time then don't bother logging in after the servers come back up because they will only be back up for 1 hour before they are brought back down for a patch to repair the patch, then they will be brought down again the next day for a patch to repair the patch that repaired the patch,

anyone remember when they released sol for eq, the game was being brought down every other day for a couple of months, in the end they ended up refunding thousands of players who could no longer play due to the new expansion.

[Tarmuar]

Someone forgot to check the lights before they put them on all the trees, and as normal there's a blown bulb somewhere so now they had to test them all,
and you know what its like they lost track of the wiring in the branches and missed the one bulb that was faulty, so they had to go back to the beginning and are currently checking them all again.

LOL, can you image this as the scene at Turbine when they tried to turn the servers back on?

[CheeseFan]

but ...what time noon is ??? that's kinda relative....and where are the patch notes?

Or; Noon for the place that the server start time was supposed to be 10:00am.

"We have extended today's downtime until Noon Eastern Time. We apologize for the inconvenience."

[andracy]

poor Sapience, he must always pay for others.
Anyway, not an drama here. I am tired to argue with the walls.
I arrived home. Started PC and launched Lotro to install the update. I was expecting to see the Patch notes. There was not. I start Lotro Official Forums. Nothing here. I must read some topics to understand that from twitter and facebook ppl find out that Lotro have an delay. GOOD AWESOME WORK TO HAVE AN OFFICIAL FORUMS WHERE NO ONE IS POSTING. Why you keep them I wonder? I need to see these news either on Lotro launcher, either on official forums not on some social networks.

Just my 2 cents. Anyone would do the same as me. Sugest to stop the forums and invest the time/work/money in Lotro. Seem that Lotro need them more.

[maartena]

What's truly fantastic is that this is the norm for this game. As a customer, I would far rather a company make a downtime schedule that is excessive from the outset and be done earlier than expected, than to do what they traditionally do....give us a timetable and not be able to hold up their end of their own schedule. I understand it's just a game and all of that, but above all else it's bad business and a customer it feels disrespectful when it happens as often as it does here. Cheers.

Actually, over the last 10 years there have been several MMO's I remember that were way, way worse with patching. Back in the day I played everquest, a patch window was often 12 hours, and often extended to 18. Now granted, the hardware was a lot slower back then, and virtualization didn't exist yet.

4 hours, then extended to 6.... is really not bad for downtime.

As far as you thinking it's bad business and disrespectful to customers..... if this would happen to any other product or service, wouldn't you switch the service? Go to a different store? You are completely free to speak with your wallet. But I have a feeling that 2 hours from now, you will be logging on to the game, just like everyone else here.

I mean, we have had two MAJOR outages this year, one in April or so for 3 days, and one about 2 months ago of about 2 days..... and one begs to wonder, what would it take for a customer to choose one of the 100+ other MMO games out there? Certainly not a 2 hour patch delay, I would imagine.

[vertigo07]

I'd have to disagree. It seems to me that most of the time, downtime may be extended an hour or two, but they usually have it up before then, unless something bad happens. It's a Monday morning anyways. It's mid-day in Europe and early in the US. I'd assume many Eastern Europeans are just getting home and Americans are getting up and going to school and work. The only ones that are largely affected would likely be Western Europe and East-Asia as West-Asia and Oceania probably in bed now.

Given this is an MMO, Turbine is actually in a pretty decent place when it comes to downtime as their timezone (EST) makes their work-time affect a relatively small portion of players. Good thing they're not on the west coast or downtimes would likely be started four hours later than usual.

I'm not sure if we've been playing the same game. There's a reason people always laugh at their downtime estimates and say, "take that downtime estimate and double it". They are notoriously bad at their downtime estimates and keeping with their schedules.

I fail to see how the timing of their downtime has anything to do with keeping a schedule that they themselves set forth. I've played many mmos over the years and Turbine is near the bottom of the pack in terms of delays and problems with downtime. As I mentioned before, I care far less about how long the game is actually down than I do about a company that can stick to schedules they set. The customers didn't say make the downtime 4 hours. It was their schedule to being with. At the end of the day they are running a business and to consistently be unable to stick with their own timetables is a disturbing trend when viewed from the standpoint of a customer. It would be like if every time you ordered a package from Amazon they gave you an estimate for delivery and it was delayed an inordinate number of times. At a certain point, the company becomes unreliable on their word (even for something as small as a timetable for downtime). You begin to not believe their timetables and act accordingly to your experience with them.

Regardless, I wait patiently like everybody else.

[maartena]

poor Sapience, he must always pay for others.
Anyway, not an drama here. I am tired to argue with the walls.
I arrived home. Started PC and launched Lotro to install the update. I was expecting to see the Patch notes. There was not. I start Lotro Official Forums. Nothing here. I must read some topics to understand that from twitter and facebook ppl find out that Lotro have an delay. GOOD AWESOME WORK TO HAVE AN OFFICIAL FORUMS WHERE NO ONE IS POSTING. Why you keep them I wonder? I need to see these news either on Lotro launcher, either on official forums not on some social networks.

Just my 2 cents. Anyone would do the same as me. Sugest to stop the forums and invest the time/work/money in Lotro. Seem that Lotro need them more.

Could be because the forums have problems. I have internal 500 problems a lot this morning. That said, it IS time for release notes.

[manstan]

Lets hope it works better then the forum does right now.

[Zvim666]

Actually, over the last 10 years there have been several MMO's I remember that were way, way worse with patching. Back in the day I played everquest, a patch window was often 12 hours, and often extended to 18. Now granted, the hardware was a lot slower back then, and virtualization didn't exist yet.

4 hours, then extended to 6.... is really not bad for downtime.

As far as you thinking it's bad business and disrespectful to customers..... if this would happen to any other product or service, wouldn't you switch the service? Go to a different store? You are completely free to speak with your wallet. But I have a feeling that 2 hours from now, you will be logging on to the game, just like everyone else here.

I mean, we have had two MAJOR outages this year, one in April or so for 3 days, and one about 2 months ago of about 2 days..... and one begs to wonder, what would it take for a customer to choose one of the 100+ other MMO games out there? Certainly not a 2 hour patch delay, I would imagine.

Even if people don't leave because of that it is a poor reason to not strive to deliver things by timetables you set. Grievances are like paper cuts, one isn't going to kill you but you cut enough it will eventually, in a painful manner. A company that provides goods or services should be in the business of customer retention.

They should keep to timetables not because people will leave if they don't, it is just common courtesy to deliver on what you promise. Obviously, when something goes wrong you have to fix it, but you will probably find the same company wouldn't be as forgiving if you were tardy with your delivery time on paying them.

Games drive off players for many good reasons, they do not need bad reasons driving them away as well. It impacts everyone, the devs, the company and their owners and all the players. We are stuck with the present system because the game hasn't been able to generate or keep the players to have a larger player base. It has impacted everyone still here.

[Cluanar]

They were the same as the last 5.

"We've nerfed the Warden and added more mind numbing deeds. Please continue your VIP subscription for ongoing enjoyment of these in game content jewels we have worked countless hours to come up with."

[Maegren]

I think we are all missing something.

"Patch notes will be available in the downtime".

Hapless Turbine minion 1: "where are the patch notes?"

HTM2: "you had them"

HTM1: "sheeet, left them in that bar on Friday"

HTM2: "but we have to release them in the downtime"

HTM1: "I'll need two hours to re-write them"

HTM2: "Two hours? I've got a great idea"

the rest is history

[vertigo07]

Even if people don't leave because of that it is a poor reason to not strive to deliver things by timetables you set. Grievances are like paper cuts, one isn't going to kill you but you cut enough it will eventually, in a painful manner. A company that provides goods or services should be in the business of customer retention.

They should keep to timetables not because people will leave if they don't, it is just common courtesy to deliver on what you promise. Obviously, when something goes wrong you have to fix it, but you will probably find the same company wouldn't be as forgiving if you were tardy with your delivery time on paying them.

Games drive off players for many good reasons, they do not need bad reasons driving them away as well. It impacts everyone, the devs, the company and their owners and all the players. We are stuck with the present system because the game hasn't been able to generate or keep the players to have a larger player base. It has impacted everyone still here.

Well said.

[Sleepwing]

why do I stick with this careless company, I don't know.

when it's good, it's real good.
when it's bad---

[manstan]

I often wonder why people that profess to be fans of a game insist on tearing it down brick by brick at every opportunity.
So the patch is running a bit long, big woop, and only to be expected. It's not like Turbine just slapped you mother or something.

[Celebria]

I don't care that the patch time has been extended. I just want to know why the game acts like it doesn't approve of my login password, that's all.

[Chaoslord90]

Today's Downtime has been extended until Noon Eastern time. We apologize for the inconvenince.

[Cluanar]

I often wonder why people that profess to be fans of a game insist on tearing it down brick by brick at every opportunity.
So the patch is running a bit long, big woop, and only to be expected. It's not like Turbine just slapped you mother or something.

I can answer that with a football analogy.

RGIII is your franchise QB who you pay a lot of money for and have to start but he sucks so you're always looking for him to fail so you can tell ownership we don't want it this way, lets try something different. :-)

[Talep94]

I think we are all missing something.

"Patch notes will be available in the downtime".

Hapless Turbine minion 1: "where are the patch notes?"

HTM2: "you had them"

HTM1: "sheeet, left them in that bar on Friday"

HTM2: "but we have to release them in the downtime"

HTM1: "I'll need two hours to re-write them"

HTM2: "Two hours? I've got a great idea"

the rest is history

Thank you, at least i've laugh during those 2 hours !

[Tarmuar]

when it's good, it's real good.
when it's bad---

Just means the login server is not online.

[Iselin]

I don't care that the patch time has been extended. I just want to know why the game acts like it doesn't approve of my login password, that's all.

I know. Why use English when cryptic technobabble is available?

"Log-in server is down" ... now that was hard.

[Melunielsigh]

5 star thread.

Lold hard.