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Forums > Home› Neverwinter Discussion › General Discussion (PC)

Shard Maintenance....

pspoonpspoon Member Posts: 24 Arc User
in General Discussion (PC)
What is the deal with this game? The number of back to back downtimes is absurd. Weekly maintenance is bad enough but this is getting rediculous.

Comments

  • horizonxaelhorizonxael Member Posts: 152 Arc User
    surely there are some problems, as usual, 180% ridiculous
  • johnnystranger#5900 johnnystranger
    johnnystranger#5900
         Member Posts: 467 Arc User
    I would at least appreciate them to tell us how long the shard will be down
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,513 Arc User
    johnnystranger#5900 said:

    I would at least appreciate them to tell us how long the shard will be down

    The message in the launder is 7am to 9am Pacific. So, they told us but believe that or not is a different story.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
    "If if that was the case, if it was something then I probably was chasing. I would have never gotten it. That was the whole point, if you chase something, then sometimes you never get it. uh huh if you put forth to work and all the attitude, next you know it's bestowed upon you." -- Michael Jordan
  • pspoonpspoon Member Posts: 24 Arc User
    Seems like no matter what they do, bringing the servers down and up again takes at least an hour or so, 2 hours gives them some leeway if things don't go smoothly. the time isn't a big issue, it's the number of them and what seems to be a recurring theme of having a maintenance one day and another one the next day... Someone is phoning it in...
  • horizonxaelhorizonxael Member Posts: 152 Arc User
    the fact is that they are ridiculous they put events all together and then take away the time to play invoke etc should give a multiple invocation when they do so.
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,513 Arc User
    By the way, it is up now.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
    "If if that was the case, if it was something then I probably was chasing. I would have never gotten it. That was the whole point, if you chase something, then sometimes you never get it. uh huh if you put forth to work and all the attitude, next you know it's bestowed upon you." -- Michael Jordan
  • hotfrostwormhotfrostworm Member Posts: 448 Arc User
    Weekly maintenance has to be done, otherwise you could risk even more downtime and eventually data loss. I was LAN Admin for UTA back in 1996 to 1998 and I set nightly server backup for 3 AM to 4 AM to assure the server ran smoothly. The plants ran 3 shifts but 3 AM to 4 AM is just the blue collar workers on the floor. They are not up in the office working on the PCs. Each day the system gave 30 minute notice, to all stations that the server was going down for backup at 3 AM. "Please save all work and exit all programs!"

    One night, I was woke up by my pager, the little device said 911 - and an office phone number. I called back to find an irate Dave Harpster, Materials Buyer Planner, yelling at me telling me this was unacceptable! I gave him several options, but not the option I really wanted to say. I told him to save his work to the C: drive and continue working as normal then when the server comes back up at 4 AM he could save the continued work on the M: drive. All of the suggestions I made were unacceptable. I ended up driving to the plant that morning, I didn't stop maintenance as he desired, instead I saved his work to the C: drive. Then in the morning I had a little talk with the plant manager.

    She told me Dave was working overtime, 65 hours a week, and was probably headed for a nervous breakdown. I pulled his files after he left work and placed them back on the network drive. I don't know what ever happened to Dave, but he was definitely stressing out over nothing. I did server maintenance on the weekends when nobody was around. Servers run 24/7, carrying out strenuous jobs. They need to be continually checked, fixed, and updated. This is just a game, imagine if you get the job in a corporate setting, where you need to do this nightly. I can still recall my check list for maintenance.

    Daily
    New packages and updates
    Backup all files to HQ
    Check Restores are working

    Weekly
    Sever Access Review - Security
    Firewall integrity
    Resource Usage - Drives scanned and fragmentation checked.

    Monthly
    Confirm All User Password Change
    Hardware cleaned, dusted, and visually inspected for damages.
    Disk Integrity checked.
    Old or Broken Hardware Replaced.

    What happens when you fail to do regular server maintenance is a lot worse. You lose data and that could be your whole account, then you login to complain and they say, Hotfrostworm who?
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  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,513 Arc User
    Nice story but it is not about weekly maintenance which was done yesterday already. The one this morning is the extra one this week.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
    "If if that was the case, if it was something then I probably was chasing. I would have never gotten it. That was the whole point, if you chase something, then sometimes you never get it. uh huh if you put forth to work and all the attitude, next you know it's bestowed upon you." -- Michael Jordan
  • hotfrostwormhotfrostworm Member Posts: 448 Arc User
    plasticbat said:

    Nice story but it is not about weekly maintenance which was done yesterday already. The one this morning is the extra one this week.

    I see. So you believe they shut the server down for 45 minutes just to annoy the players?
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  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,513 Arc User
    edited May 2021
    hotfrostworm said:

    plasticbat said:

    Nice story but it is not about weekly maintenance which was done yesterday already. The one this morning is the extra one this week.

    I see. So you believe they shut the server down for 45 minutes just to annoy the players?
    No, they probably missed something in the previous maintenance and they did not say what that was neither.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
    "If if that was the case, if it was something then I probably was chasing. I would have never gotten it. That was the whole point, if you chase something, then sometimes you never get it. uh huh if you put forth to work and all the attitude, next you know it's bestowed upon you." -- Michael Jordan
  • pitshadepitshade Member Posts: 5,665 Arc User
    "All platforms will undergo maintenance tomorrow, May 28, 7-9am PT to properly stock the Wondermaker of Gond with Fizzy Brew"



    Seems kind of a poor reason but that was on Twitter.
    "We have always been at war with Dread Vault" ~ Little Brother
  • therealprotextherealprotex Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 526 Arc User
    hotfrostworm said:

    Weekly maintenance has to be done, otherwise you could risk even more downtime and eventually data loss. I was LAN Admin for UTA back in 1996 to 1998 and I set nightly server backup for 3 AM to 4 AM to assure the server ran smoothly. The plants ran 3 shifts but 3 AM to 4 AM is just the blue collar workers on the floor. They are not up in the office working on the PCs. Each day the system gave 30 minute notice, to all stations that the server was going down for backup at 3 AM. "Please save all work and exit all programs!"

    One night, I was woke up by my pager, the little device said 911 - and an office phone number. I called back to find an irate Dave Harpster, Materials Buyer Planner, yelling at me telling me this was unacceptable! I gave him several options, but not the option I really wanted to say. I told him to save his work to the C: drive and continue working as normal then when the server comes back up at 4 AM he could save the continued work on the M: drive. All of the suggestions I made were unacceptable. I ended up driving to the plant that morning, I didn't stop maintenance as he desired, instead I saved his work to the C: drive. Then in the morning I had a little talk with the plant manager.

    She told me Dave was working overtime, 65 hours a week, and was probably headed for a nervous breakdown. I pulled his files after he left work and placed them back on the network drive. I don't know what ever happened to Dave, but he was definitely stressing out over nothing. I did server maintenance on the weekends when nobody was around. Servers run 24/7, carrying out strenuous jobs. They need to be continually checked, fixed, and updated. This is just a game, imagine if you get the job in a corporate setting, where you need to do this nightly. I can still recall my check list for maintenance.

    Daily
    New packages and updates
    Backup all files to HQ
    Check Restores are working

    Weekly
    Sever Access Review - Security
    Firewall integrity
    Resource Usage - Drives scanned and fragmentation checked.

    Monthly
    Confirm All User Password Change
    Hardware cleaned, dusted, and visually inspected for damages.
    Disk Integrity checked.
    Old or Broken Hardware Replaced.

    What happens when you fail to do regular server maintenance is a lot worse. You lose data and that could be your whole account, then you login to complain and they say, Hotfrostworm who?

    Agreeing with all, except this:
    Corporate servers are usually local, so maintaining them does not affect many people (if the admin knows his job). This is different with Cryptic/PW, since they have only servers in the US. Local servers would greatly lower the "pain" that comes from
    these irregular downtimes.
  • armadeonxarmadeonx Member Posts: 4,952 Arc User
    edited May 2021
    Arenanet on GW1 ran mirrored servers and would make players log out and back in when maintenance or updates were needed, effectively making players switch servers. Zero down time.
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  • rockster#6227 rockster
    rockster#6227
         Member Posts: 1,860 Arc User
    My view is that when there is an extra shard 'maintenance' in addition to the usual weekly one, it's something urgent they didn't foresee or something which is still not working or suddenly not working as intended, I did see complaints about the drop rate of the gond stuff, some people saying the epics weren't even there and then they had that extra downtime it might have been just tweaking that and nothing more.
    Apparently pointing-out the bleeding obvious is a 'personal attack'.
  • greywyndgreywynd Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 7,170 Arc User
    And they added the Fizzy Brew to the store.
    I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
  • hotfrostwormhotfrostworm Member Posts: 448 Arc User
    armadeonx said:

    Arenanet on GW1 ran mirrored servers and would make players log out and back in when maintenance or updates were needed, effectively making players switch servers. Zero down time.

    Yes, with multiple servers this is the best method for online games. I know ArenaNet either owns or leases a huge server farm in Austin, Texas. Cryptic Studios is obviously operating out of one building in California and the entire server is shut down for maintenance the games all go down.

    I wasn't going to point this out before, but the title of the thread is a misnomer. Shard maintenance would only effect one game. This is on the Dragon shard, Preview is on the Mimic Shard, I believe they have a third shard for the beta testers. Shards are like partitions on the same hard drive, if the drive fails all the partitions are toast. I don't know if they only disabled the one shard for this update or the whole server. I wasn't online at that time to check.

    I have seen players make the statement that shards are the same as servers, they are not, the shard cannot function without the server to run it. While I have witnessed experts call server blades, "shards" and while they can contain the data for a single shard, a single blade can house multiple shards as well. Shards are the database software and not so much the hardware.
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  • autumnwitchautumnwitch Member Posts: 1,141 Arc User
    It never ceases to amaze me when they do stuff to make the game better or to prevent problems so many people whinge and moan. Yet, these would be the very same people losing their minds if the fixes/repairs weren't put into place in the first place and something bad happened.

    Please remember, what the Sorcerer Supreme said to Dr, Strange, "It's not about you."

    Things have to be done and they will not always be to cater to you and your time schedule. NW is a big endeavour with 1000s of players and these things will and do happen.
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