Hofix changes¿

[Loriandra1979]

10:00am US Eastern time is currently -4 GMT, so my guess is more like 02:00pm (14:00) in the land of GMT (and Tolkien)

correct.

My 2 cents on this matter: some people should learn to have patience... if there's something they want you to know, they'll tell you.

[Kaynith]

I'd imagine, (and hope) that we should be getting some patch notes shortly.

I'm a patient individual. In my line of work, you have to be.

I don't mind downtime, or waiting, as long as I know what I'm waiting FOR, and WHY I'm waiting.

But, for it to be 'scheduled' to be down from 8 - 10 EST, means there is more than just a little fix or two. It's likely quite substantial.

And Mondays are traditionally patch days for Turbine. This is on a Tuesday morning. So it's most likely something quite important.

But I hate speculating, and all this could be clarified by the folks who are doing it, by being a wee bit more specific. It's not that much to ask for, really. And it would pay untold dividends for them.

They already have the 'patch notes' before the do they patch. They'd have to. To think or perform otherwise would be ludicrous. What's being patched has long been approved, and when you are told that there will be downtime, it's already been given the green light.

They aren't going to risk the stability of every single server by throwing some hastily tossed together junk-coded patch on there at the last minute. Nosiree.

This means, what is being applied, should have 'patch notes'. Heck, get some intern to type them up and post them. Not that hard, really.

Think of the difference between these two paragraphs:

Oct 03, 2011 21:08 EST The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Tuesday, October 4th, from 8:00 - 10 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) for a hotfix. Thanks for your patience and we'll see you back in the game soon!

And, a hypothetical:

Oct 03, 2011 21:08 EST The LOTRO Game Servers will be brought down on Tuesday, October 4th, from 8:00 - 10 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) for a hotfix. Please see (insert internet link here) for the full notes on the hotfix. Thanks for your patience and we'll see you back in the game soon!

Now, you tell me...

Which one of these paragraphs would make threads like this not even get created?

It's not that difficult. Really, it isn't. People DO care about the 'little things'. They show your customers that you care.

People would tolerate almost anything as long as they are kept in the loop and not given the silent treatment. Also, when people are ignored, they tend to feel like they are being treated as children, and that is not some place you want to be, as it will aggravate and disenchant your customer base extremely quickly, perhaps more than anything else. It's akin to 'talking down' to people, and they simply do not like it.

I improve customer service for a living, and have done so for nearly 20 years. But folks usually just don't want to hear it, and they don't want any outside 'help'. (Then they'd have to admit that they have a problem that needs fixing.)

You see, realizing that you have a problem is the first step in recovery.

[Kaynith]

but England is currently on BST not GMT I think, so 3PM there if my math is correct.

It's daylight savings here in the US. so GMT -5.

[Korrigan]

That's 6pm in England (Tolkien country) isn't it???

http://www.worldtimezone.com/
Or if you have Vista or Windows7, just put a clock widget with local time and EST time on your desk

For info, it's 9am EST right now - so the servers should come back up in one hour.

[Urshurak]

That's 6pm in England (Tolkien country) isn't it???

We are curently on +1 GMT in England so, actual uptime will be -5 GMT. 10am EST + 5 hours = 3pm in England.

[hallasan]

"The customer is always right..."

Disagree. The Customer is never 'always right'. Guessing the is a bit of irony.

Some customers are bad for business. The obnoxious customer with no sense of expectation management that consistently fails the waiter test on the forum is a good example.

Listing what will be fixed leads to unreasonable expectations, demands and vilification if something does not happen as planned.

It's better to give a generic notification then follow-up with details of what was accomplished.

Even then, people will absurdly berate Turbine for not fixing what that specific customer thinks is important.

Many forum posts are examples of John Cleese's comment that some customers interfere with running a business.

[Neumi]

Well, let's hope they fixed a few crashes related to looting/crafting/mining (item generation).

[Kaynith]

Today's hotfix is server side only. It's to address stability and some lag issues.

Thank you for the speedy response. And kudos. All folks need 99% of the time, is an official confirmation of what's actually going on. Well done.

As to the server side only... *sadface*

Guess we'll have to wait a bit longer to get world lootables in Dunland working again. It was very nice looting a dead Hobbit and getting 5 high grade skarn. And not just because it was a dead Hobbit, either, but serious bonus points for the dead Hobbit!

[Morat]

It's daylight savings here in the US. so GMT -5.

I stand corrected. Should have checked World Clock before chiming. Hate daylight savings time! Some do it, some don't, no standard on when it starts and ends...

[Rosiebelle]

I usually use this site

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/full.html

But still manage to confuse myself somehow!

[Sapience]

It's daylight savings here in the US. so GMT -5.

Actually it's -4. GMT itself never changes. However, England does have times that shift (British Summer time BST) and if I recall they are currently +1 GMT. Which means while we (Eastern US) are -4 GMT, England who is currently in BST is -5 GMT. So the "time in England" and GMT are not always the same thing.



Also, 2 hours is the shortest maintenance time you'll probably ever seen unless it's a simple world start. Running backups, shutting down the words, making the changes, verifying those changes, starting the worlds (and all the attendant systems), and then doing a QA pass to insure everything is where it should be takes a considerable amount of time. The actual update is the shortest part of the process most of the time.

[Feraxks]

I'd imagine, (and hope) that we should be getting some patch notes shortly.

I'm a patient individual. In my line of work, you have to be.

I don't mind downtime, or waiting, as long as I know what I'm waiting FOR, and WHY I'm waiting.

But, for it to be 'scheduled' to be down from 8 - 10 EST, means there is more than just a little fix or two. It's likely quite substantial.

Its a server side hotfix -- no patch notes for server side hotfixes and I think a couple of hours to patch 29 server clusters is more than reasonable.

[MajUntagent]

Aye would be nice, it melts my poor laptop.

I have a feeling it's linked to the NPC density. There are two things which cause slowdown even on my pretty beastly main PC, very long distance draw on frills in the Dunbog and anything with a huge number of NPCs (see the Dunbog cluster and the meeting instance in the same place).

I'm hoping if they remove some pointless NPCs from Galtrev and give the central suppliers/provisioners/healers and legendary weapon npcs their own little hut then it should help the problem immensely.

think it's more than that. i've noticed the client is using a lot more ram now than it used to (used to be less than 1gig, now it gets above 1.3gig before it crashes) even when in older areas. think there's some shoddy coding wasting system resources which is possibly to blame for some of the lag/crashes people have been experiencing.

[Rosiebelle]

A memory leak of some kind in the game?

[Laucian_Nailor]

Actually it's -4. GMT itself never changes. However, England does have times that shift (British Summer time BST) and if I recall they are currently +1 GMT. Which means while we (Eastern US) are -4 GMT, England who is currently in BST is -5 GMT.

I know where you are going, but actually England (UK/GB) is at +1 GMT as you first said not -5 GMT. I think you were trying to draw out that there is still a 5 hour differential between UK and East Coast....... -4 to +1

[Kaynith]

Actually it's -4. GMT itself never changes. However, England does have times that shift (British Summer time BST) and if I recall they are currently +1 GMT. Which means while we (Eastern US) are -4 GMT, England who is currently in BST is -5 GMT.

Correct. I should have been more specific, that I was referring to that it was effectively -5 GMT for the folks in England who had the question. Though you are right that GMT itself does not change. Very confusing for folks overseas most of the time. Thanks for the clarification.

[Sapience]

I know where you are going, but actually England (UK/GB) is at +1 GMT not -5 GMT as you first said. I think you were trying to draw out that there is still a 5 hour differential between UK and East Coast....... -4 to +1

Correct. I should have been more specific, that I was referring to that it was effectively -5 GMT for the folks in England who had the question. Though you are right that GMT itself does not change. Very confusing for folks overseas most of the time. Thanks for the clarification.

Yep. That's where I was going. We're -6 CET, -5 BST, -4 GMT

Math is hard. Especially before coffee!

While today's hotfix is server side only and meant to improve server stability, we are working on a patch as well. Exactly what is or is not in it I don't know yet. Currently I have no ETA on when that will be released, but I'll keep you posted and let you know as soon as I do.

[Kaynith]

Its a server side hotfix -- no patch notes for server side hotfixes and I think a couple of hours to patch 29 server clusters is more than reasonable.

Yes it is. As I said, I have no problem with waiting, as long as I know what I'm waiting for.
It eliminates the endless threads on speculation about what's really being fixed/patched.

That little sentence that was posted about it being server side only could have been included in the client notice, and threads like this probably would not have originated.

(Or if they had, one could point out that it was stated thus in the client notice.)

Besides, I don't so much mind downtime these days. It means something is being FIXED!

It also gives me a good chance to read, and comment, and learn from the other members of the forums here.

I know I can be critical at times, but I call a spade a spade. I am as free with my kudos, when appropriate, as I am with my criticism.

And trust me when I say, people who make real decisions in a company, don't ever want things sugar coated. They want to know what people REALLY think. As long as it is conveyed in a respectful, and non vulgar manner. It's how they stay in touch with their customer base, and earn the respect of their customers. By responding to concerns of the community.

Criticism, as long as it is honest and not a rage-fest, is a gem to be cherished. It's low hanging fruit, just waiting to be seized and made into wine.

[Majesto]

think it's more than that. i've noticed the client is using a lot more ram now than it used to (used to be less than 1gig, now it gets above 1.3gig before it crashes) even when in older areas. think there's some shoddy coding wasting system resources which is possibly to blame for some of the lag/crashes people have been experiencing.

There are a lot more resources in the game than there used to be. All those nice new textures take up space, as well as the sounds, animations, etc. It makes sense that the game's footprint will grow over time. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a memory leak, but that's definitely possible, considering I had my first client crash in years a few days ago.

/poke Turbine

[Domine]

Actually there's a lot of time zone confusion going on here... technically EST (Eastern Standard Time) is -5 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)... but right now, it's actually EDT (Eastern Daylight Time - despite the server messages claiming it is EST) which is -4 GMT (what the server messages are claiming is conversion from EST), but still -5 BST (British Summer Time - which is what England is on right now)...

So to answer the question, the servers were brought down at 8 AM EDT until 10 AM EDT, which will be 3PM BST when they should be back online. Or about 42 minutes from now...

[Kerin_Eldar]

Actually it's -4. GMT itself never changes. However, England does have times that shift (British Summer time BST) and if I recall they are currently +1 GMT. Which means while we (Eastern US) are -4 GMT, England who is currently in BST is -5 GMT. So the "time in England" and GMT are not always the same thing.

Yes, but you're also in 'savings time' so while what you say is true, the fact is US East Coast is 5 hours behind the time in Britain all year round and the West Coast is hours behind; and also the differential between EU zones and the US is likewise constant (6 to 9, 7 to 10, or whatever). I'm not sure if you refer to PST and PST+1, or whether PST itself changes.

This only doesn't hold true for the brief periods of time when Europe and the US are out of step with respect to when they switch 'savings time'.

So yes, GMT doesn't change, but most people in Britain work on the basis of your being between 5 and 8 hours behind us, and Europeans will have a similar idea of your being 6 to 9 hours behind, hence the reason he said -5.

[Floxxx]

Actually there's a lot of time zone confusion going on here... technically EST (Eastern Standard Time) is -5 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)... but right now, it's actually EDT (Eastern Daylight Time - despite the server messages claiming it is EST) which is -4 GMT (what the server messages are claiming is conversion from EST), but still -5 BST (British Summer Time - which is what England is on right now)...

So to answer the question, the servers were brought down at 8 AM EDT until 10 AM EDT, which will be 3PM BST when they should be back online. Or about 42 minutes from now...

actually it only says "Eastern", not "EST"

[Raven-EU]

correct.

My 2 cents on this matter: some people should learn to have patience... if there's something they want you to know, they'll tell you.

I'm sorry but I think Patience left this Forum some time ago...

I really hope this will address the (server side) lag issues (ping 100ms, skill delay 3+ seconds) I've had the last couple of days. I've not been able to stomach more than one hour of "well, 3 second delay for a fast skill isn't that bad after all...". My other games have been thriving though

[Domine]

actually it only says "Eastern", not "EST"

Touche.

It was another poster than said EST. My mistake.

[Floxxx]

Touche.

It was another poster than said EST. My mistake.

My post said EST, the mistake is mine