How long to wait today?

[TheRock]

Hi,
Forgot it was maintaince day :(
Surprised to see it still down.....6:35pm here now.
Anybody know aprox. how long before live shards will be up?

thanks

[Guaran]

Another 3 to 8 hours, as a rough guess from previous patches in recent history. (between 7pm and 12am cst)

[TheRock]

Thanks for the reply.
Well I guess I will play tomorrow....no point in waiting tonight :)

[Peaches]

No eta's as of yet, but then again, giving out eta's is not benefitial to anyone.

[Fratricide]

I havn't actually heard an eta in over a year... I only hear.. Shards up.. time to play

[Yardbird]

Would it be hard for the Dev.. to give an ETA??.. would be nice to have some type of timeline....

And I want to Play now!! :)

[Peaches]

We all want to play, and will do so, when the work is done to bring the worlds up. ETA's only lend themselves to much anger from players when that eta is not met.

[Seranthor]

and it came down from the mountain... they will start no server before its time...... :)

[Decon]

There is nothing wrong with giving the paying public an ETA.
It shows (to me personally) an commitment and an understanding of their system and procedures.
The game has been out for over 2 years now and since this has become a regular event - there must be some common stages that are measurable.
If they are unable to provide an ETA - well that to me worries me and I hope their backups are better now then what they were before when they had to go back a few days for a recovery.
It has been mentioned before and asked how long does it take to place the update on the test server - it has been answered that the test server is different from the actual shards - which brings up the questions - why is that? Should not the test server be identical to the real live ones? It only makes sense - I am sure alot of these after the patch problems might not have been encountered or might prevent further problems.
If the do not want to provide an ETA because it will show some flaws in their procedures or the game structure itself well there is nothing we as the paying public can probably do about that.

To say that an ETA benefits no one is pretty bold as we do not know everyone's schedule when it comes to playing the game (except that when no one can play because it is off line - then we do know their playing schedule :) )

All in all - I think we should have ETAs just so that we have an update on the progess of what is going on.

No ETA and saying it will be up when it is up is not re-assuring on what is transpiring - if it is going to be down for a longer period of time then we go do somehting else and are not looking back every 30 minutes to see if it is up yet.


Decon out

[Peaches]

Why not simply find something to do and check back now and then? That works too! Their comittment alone, shows a lot, in the fact that we are getting downloads. My opinon only!

[specterdragon]

Bah! Waiting is no fun!! [:P] Besides that, I'm on the free trial and I'm just now getting to the point of being adicted to Horizons... If I can't get online... well... I may forget that I liked it so much! [;)]

Looks like the test server is up... guess it's time to see what the dragon craze is all about!

[Machivelli]

There is nothing wrong with giving the paying public an ETA.
It shows (to me personally) an commitment and an understanding of their system and procedures.
The game has been out for over 2 years now and since this has become a regular event - there must be some common stages that are measurable.
If they are unable to provide an ETA - well that to me worries me and I hope their backups are better now then what they were before when they had to go back a few days for a recovery.
It has been mentioned before and asked how long does it take to place the update on the test server - it has been answered that the test server is different from the actual shards - which brings up the questions - why is that? Should not the test server be identical to the real live ones? It only makes sense - I am sure alot of these after the patch problems might not have been encountered or might prevent further problems.
If the do not want to provide an ETA because it will show some flaws in their procedures or the game structure itself well there is nothing we as the paying public can probably do about that.

To say that an ETA benefits no one is pretty bold as we do not know everyone's schedule when it comes to playing the game (except that when no one can play because it is off line - then we do know their playing schedule [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-1.gif[/img] )

All in all - I think we should have ETAs just so that we have an update on the progess of what is going on.

No ETA and saying it will be up when it is up is not re-assuring on what is transpiring - if it is going to be down for a longer period of time then we go do somehting else and are not looking back every 30 minutes to see if it is up yet.


Decon out

ETA's are great for customers, but hell on techs! Anyone who has worked with servers and patching custom apps knows there is always an X factor. If you think it will take 6 hours to fully patch, then better prepare for 12, and even that might not be enough time.

Think of it like release dates. It's better to keep quite on that topic than to announce a hard date that when missed has the public up in arms.

[TheRock]

I agree with what you are saying here Decon. I have not been able to play much in the past several months because of RL situations cropping up.
I am not complaining because they are down...I was just curious because this happened to be one of the evenings that I am able to play thats all.
Maybe I haven't had a chance to play on Tuesdays or it was late in the evening when I did and they were up and running by then.
I just figured that when one of them were on a coffee break they may quickly post a rough estimate.
From what I can remember in the past they usually shut down around 8:30am my time so when I tried to log in at 6:30pm and they were still down then I decided to ask. Maybe they didn't shut down at that time today.
If it was going to take 12 hrs or whatever then it would be great to know...instead of coming back every 30 min. and checking.
Didn't mean to get anyone angry...just asking :)

[Decon]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Decon wrote:

There is nothing wrong with giving the paying public an ETA.
It shows (to me personally) an commitment and an understanding of their system and procedures.
The game has been out for over 2 years now and since this has become a regular event - there must be some common stages that are measurable.
If they are unable to provide an ETA - well that to me worries me and I hope their backups are better now then what they were before when they had to go back a few days for a recovery.
It has been mentioned before and asked how long does it take to place the update on the test server - it has been answered that the test server is different from the actual shards - which brings up the questions - why is that? Should not the test server be identical to the real live ones? It only makes sense - I am sure alot of these after the patch problems might not have been encountered or might prevent further problems.
If the do not want to provide an ETA because it will show some flaws in their procedures or the game structure itself well there is nothing we as the paying public can probably do about that.

To say that an ETA benefits no one is pretty bold as we do not know everyone's schedule when it comes to playing the game (except that when no one can play because it is off line - then we do know their playing schedule [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-1.gif[/img] )

All in all - I think we should have ETAs just so that we have an update on the progess of what is going on.

No ETA and saying it will be up when it is up is not re-assuring on what is transpiring - if it is going to be down for a longer period of time then we go do somehting else and are not looking back every 30 minutes to see if it is up yet.


Decon out


ETA's are great for customers, but hell on techs! Anyone who has worked with servers and patching custom apps knows there is always an X factor. If you think it will take 6 hours to fully patch, then better prepare for 12, and even that might not be enough time.

Think of it like release dates. It's better to keep quite on that topic than to announce a hard date that when missed has the public up in arms.

14+ years as a Systems consultant with clients:

1. Give an ETA and get the go ahead (based on testing, history, knowledge, environment, resources, etc)
2. Not met - inform the client as to what was occurring while still finishing the project/task
3. Evaluate and document after the project/task as to better prepare for next project/task.
4. Inform client on what has/is transpiring.
5. One of the most important skills - communication (it is key).

Decon out

[Death-knell]

is it soup yet?

[ssylva]

Actually ETAs arent necessary but something closer to an anti-ETA...

IE not -- It will likely be up at 9pm tonight... More like -- It is unlikely to be up before 9pm.... The former sets a goal -- the latter just says dont bother to look before a certain time.

[Saharas]

So we need an ETA.

Tuedays, Feb. 14th,11:59 Pacific Time

(This is just an unoffical estimate)

[imported_Rhyssa]

I can certainly see their reasons for not giving an eta. But an "anti-eta" as Ssylva called it would be a great idea.


Sure, we can check back every 30 mins and I'm sure most of us do. But I'd much rather be told it won't be up for at least 6 hours, come back and check again then for more news.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has other things to do that take several hours, but doesn't start them because we're checking the boards every 30 mins in case the servers are back up.

[Kerik]

At the very least they could tell us what is involved and give a generic time-frame.

Sorry, but after browsing through the last 2 hours of IRC chat all I see is, applying delta 103,104 and 105.

Ok. Whatever that means.

"Hey folks, we're patching 50 gigs of new data and adding 3 new fields into thetables today.. we're looking at 10-12 hours minimum."

That would be a good message to get across, tellsus not to bother and for my wife and I to order some pay-per-view tonight.

[Fratricide]

at least you can get into IRC... I cant even do that...