Maintenance timeframe disparity

[Forsedar]

WoW did at points in it's life, especially after release or release of an ex-pack or major patch.
SWTOR did and does still as far as I know.
Rift does weekly maintenance.

Really any online game that has any amount of things going on server side need maintenance, especially shortly after a release, ex-pack or major patch. Things need to be changed, optimized and re-tuned. Even a restart on a server takes much longer than your standard PC. I know our server at work(albeit it's kinda old) takes like 10-15 minutes to shut down and 20-30 to boot up. So if you have to shut it down to DC everyone, start it up in a different mode to make changes to things, then restart it for those changes to take effect, it can take time. If you make a mistake applying those changes and have to go through the whole process a second time, that adds an hour.

TOR has yet to be down that long to be fair. I know Rift isn't down that long either. Most patches seem to be implemented within 2-4 hours, and are taken offline around 3am and up by 7am.

Its just a bit ridiculous on Blizzards part. They are known in the industry for having terrible servers and always taking too long to deploy a patch. I guarantee I could go google a Blizzard meme and find thousands of hits for it >.>

And just because I thought it was funny:



Despite my obvious annoyance with Blizzard, I will still be sitting here like a good boy eagerly awaiting servers to come online so I can continue playing.

[Aquamonkey]

WoW did at points in it's life, especially after release or release of an ex-pack or major patch.
SWTOR did and does still as far as I know.
Rift does weekly maintenance.

Really any online game that has any amount of things going on server side need maintenance, especially shortly after a release, ex-pack or major patch. Things need to be changed, optimized and re-tuned. Even a restart on a server takes much longer than your standard PC. I know our server at work(albeit it's kinda old) takes like 10-15 minutes to shut down and 20-30 to boot up. So if you have to shut it down to DC everyone, start it up in a different mode to make changes to things, then restart it for those changes to take effect, it can take time. If you make a mistake applying those changes and have to go through the whole process a second time, that adds an hour.

How about something that isn't an MMO? Because, you know, D3 isn't one.

[Lathais]

As Blizz has stated, it is not a single player game. It was designed as a co-op game. Built to be a co-op game, and is a co-op game with a single player option. If you choose to play it as a single player game, that is you. It was designed as something else. I know saying this can start arguments, but really a game is what the makers want it to be and that's what it is. So the argument it is single player doesn't fly.

As to being an MMO, I've had that argument too. It IS NOT an MMORPG, but it is still a Online Multiplayer game with Millions connected to the same server. Not all MMOs are Persistent World MMORPG's, there are other types of MMO's as well. Seeing as everything happens server side(loot drops, HP, map generation, how far you move, everything really) it behaves and functions like an MMO. If the servers gotta come down to change things(like how loot is dropped, how the loot database is configured, any changes to the game really) then it's gonna be down for a while cause these things take time.

Is it really that hard to find something else to do? Is D3 the center of your world? If you think you can do better, go start your own gaming development company and put out a bug free game that servers never go down longer than expected.

[Tradu]

Interestingly enough EU doesn't seem to have the regular big maintenance scheduled. It says here that the maintenance will begin at 5am and the servers should be back up at 6am.

I was really surprised to see that as well. I think thats just a typo, though, because why would they need so much less time to fix stuff on EU than the other ones?

[Deleted]

Semi OT: Funny thing, I was talking to a friend from Rift the other day in D3. Haven't seen him on Rift in a while. He says he can't play two different games. He plays one and that's it. I really do not understand this concept. I can't play just one game. I play D3 for a couple hours and either hit a wall or just get bored. I play another game for a couple hours, or watch a movie, or go do something with friends. The next day, I play D3 for a couple hours, same thing happens. I can't just play one game 6 hours a day every day, I gotta mix it up a bit. I guess that's why maintenance and down time don't really bother me. The different games I play are rarely down at the same time, and if for some reason they are, I play a single player game for a bit, or go over to my friends house, or watch a movie, or something other than whine.

People are different in this respect I guess. I'm a lot like the friend you mentioned; I like to dedicate myself to one game at a time, or at the very least, one that is what I play primarily. I can still play some other, single player games but I can't dedicate myself to time sinks, like D3 or most MMOs. If I do, I will inevitably neglect the other title and feel I wasted money on it, since I'm not really playing it much. This, I feel, isn't really why most people are upset about downtime in D3. I had downtime in WoW and it didn't upset me much, unless it was often, irregular, and extensive periods of time.

With D3, it's more the fact that it feels like a game that should have an offline mode. I don't want to get sucked into the whole co-op vs. single player flame war. I honestly don't feel you can say either way, since it seems people play it equally for both reasons, and isn't even really the point. Starcraft 2 is excessively a multiplayer game, yet has an offline mode. That is how D3 should have been as well. I don't mind being online, and I like that I can at times play with other people. However, it doesn't justify making it an exclusively online experience. The single player is such so strong in D3, that it really gets neglected by the way it's designed.

That's my opinion anyway.

[Aquamonkey]

Is it really that hard to find something else to do? Is D3 the center of your world? If you think you can do better, go start your own gaming development company and put out a bug free game that servers never go down longer than expected.

Can't play WoW because servers are down at the same time.

[Ferocity]

Can someone confirm EU maintenance from 5am to 6am on 13th of June? Can't find info on it anywhere. I thought it already occured, downloaded patch and bam - can't login on EU servers due to patch disparity...

P.S.: How hard is it to write maintenance times on official forums >.<

[Deleted]

Can someone confirm EU maintenance from 5am to 6am on 13th of June? Can't find info on it anywhere. I thought it already occured, downloaded patch and bam - can't login on EU servers due to patch disparity...

P.S.: How hard is it to write maintenance times on official forums >.<

Yeah, it's on the Breaking News of the login screen; June 13, at 5 am and they expect to last an hour.