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Network Maintenance @ 6AM on 5.12.13 Pacific Time
dezstravus
Posts: 2 Arc User
Hey Everyone,
We'll be doing network maintenance on Sunday Morning (5.12.13) at 6AM Pacific time. We expect the maintenance to take 90 minutes but will keep you in the loop if it is extended or finishes earlier.
This maintenance is part of a proactive effort to increase server uptime and further prevent additional outages moving forward. Thanks for your patience and understanding while we continually work towards addressing these issues.
Thank you!
-Dezstravus
We'll be doing network maintenance on Sunday Morning (5.12.13) at 6AM Pacific time. We expect the maintenance to take 90 minutes but will keep you in the loop if it is extended or finishes earlier.
This maintenance is part of a proactive effort to increase server uptime and further prevent additional outages moving forward. Thanks for your patience and understanding while we continually work towards addressing these issues.
Thank you!
-Dezstravus
Post edited by dezstravus on
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How long was the Nevermind complaints forum thread,this time? Last one was 201 pages
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Really?
I started my subscription in December, but this past week is making me rethink that.
I am a huge CO fanboy, but you keep smacking me with the hammer of disappointment.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
There are much better things to be disappointed with in CO.
This is on top of the outages yesterday, the day before, and the day before that.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Said this before.
Definitely with the outages being in prime time, those of us that sub (gold) and LTS are deserving of SOME SORT of compensation for the massive inconvenience and head-aches. Especially when it's prime time on a weekend.
@Liath | My PRIMUS Page | Altaholics | New Vehicle Models | New Emblems | Flag Tights
Asterelle's Forum Enhancement Extension | Game Side Panel Add-In | Game Server Status Add-In
If you're going to have dezstravus post important updates like this, could you please add him to the Dev Tracker?
@flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
I hope this means no more outtages for the sake of both the players and the maintenance crew.
It's not like Cryptic or PWE like the game being down, after all.
Stop whining and thank the people working on the issue.
Thanks.
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@Moustic in game.
Gold since 2009. Lifetime since May 2012.
I play with freeforms AND archetypes.
Maybe people are just annoyed that our "cure" is something only being done because it's affecting Neverwinter too. and we also need a "cure" for the millions of bugs that CO is riddled with
Well the "illness" was afflicting the servers, not the people who play on the servers, so telling the "whiners" to "stay ill and in bed" sounds kind of silly does it not?
If you're going to use analogies for the sake of sounding like an arrogant smart-alec, at least use one that makes sense.
Are you the devil's advocate or what? skark seemed to perfectly understand what I meant.
Of course the point is not being arrogant smart alec or whatever it means, nor meta-communicating on the content of my post. Why are you loosing time to point it's defaults?
If you can't read between the lines, it's okay, for your sake (and the thread's), let's go first degree. And if my english is not good enough to you, I always could post in french here; you could feel free googletranslate it.:biggrin:
The point here is there always people complaining, even when there is some announce of maintenance to prevent further issues. Always looking at the empty half.
There is still some thanks or funny jokes, and it's good to read them, it helps rise the spirit that others look down.
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@Moustic in game.
Gold since 2009. Lifetime since May 2012.
I play with freeforms AND archetypes.
If people complain during scheduled maintenance periods, that's unreasonable. I don't see it being done often on that note.
If people complain during unexpected maintenance during the weekend, they have every right to.
There's indication that the recent outages had something to do with NWO. Only shortly after its launch, the outages started happening. Obviously since NWO and CO share the same account server, CO gets taken down with it. CO players who don't play NWO at all are undoubtedly going to be unhappy. It also happened during weekends where most players would have free time to play.
Maybe get a perspective on that before dismissing people as "whiners".
Sure it does.
But what's the better: a maintenance of one hour and half to minimize the risks of random outages, or more chance to have random outages for an unexpected duration? Especially the week-end.
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@Moustic in game.
Gold since 2009. Lifetime since May 2012.
I play with freeforms AND archetypes.
1- "I like this game, and therefore assume it as part of my identity. To criticize it is to criticize me."
2- "I will simply tell everyone to shut up and deal with it like adults, because that makes me seem superior and more mature."
3- "These problems have no effect on me whatsoever, therefore I do not see any reason to complain."
Cryptic is a business. While some of the 'cheerleader' squad here may be a little confused as to what this is... let me help you out.
Yes, we -could- go quietly and just let these problems get fixed. However, not vocalizing dissatisfaction does absolutely nothing to improve quality. It's called customer feedback, and it's a very important part of a business. In businesses that are successful, this part of the process is very important in both current and future business decisions.
If you don't understand a business, then perhaps you have an understanding of relationships. Let's pretend Cryptic is your girlfriend. She buys you stuff for Valentine's day, and it sucks- maybe it's an ugly sweater with your name on it or something. Well, the first time- it's cool. But for every gift exchange, when you try to give her what she wants (with Cryptic, it'd be money)- you instead get a keychain that makes fart noises at random or a Nicki Minaj shirt or some gadget that doesn't work after 15 minutes. Of course, by this time you should have given her some feedback- tell her what you like, show her what you're into, etc. Of course, if you don't say anything and smile and say 'Aw, thank you puddin'-poot!' whenever you get handed some piece of garbage... you've got no one to blame but yourself.
If your business model is 'shovel things out there and run away with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears' then prepare to be 'not a business'. Feedback is important. Silencing this feedback isn't going to help anyone. It, without any exaggeration, as bad for everyone involved except for the guy who is having to do less work- and I promise you, he's not going to find you and stick his hand down your sweatpants and thank you for being so supportive of him.
No one's saying that the maintenance shouldn't be done...you're missing the point.
Maintenance is an obligation on Cryptic's part. Obviously they're not going to leave the problem hanging to create repeat problems. The outage took down all three games after all. The important point I was making that it's unfair to label people as whiners because they've complained about it, for reasons I've already stated in the previous post.
I'll add one. Those who find the atmosphere here, in the forums in particular, so toxic as to start feeling turned off to the game and the people playing. I believe much of what's left of the Boycott NCSoft crowd serves as a cautionary tale. Many there seem bitter, unable or unwilling to move on, and not healthy or fun people to hang out with. A vocal part, a minority perhaps, of CO players (and ex-players) seem headed in that same direction.
Personally, I enjoy reading well positioned, toned, and written critiques and feedback for Cryptic, and I've found some here. I enjoy the discussion of the changing nature of MMORPGs' business models and learning about what developers and publishers do it well and the failings of others. Well constructed opinions challenge my own thoughts and help me to form new ones.
Most of what tries to pass as feedback here, however, reads as vitriolic, speculative spew of little interest to me as a player or consumer, and, I suspect, to the intended audience.
In the absence of any of us actually having telepathy, I'd like to see more fact based posts with the numbers and citations to back up criticism and speculation. "Everyone know this is true," usually means people can't find proof and "They don't give a flying **** about their customer base," sound like a bit of overlap with cheerleader #1. "Why is Cryptic hurting me like this? Don't they know I care?"
And seriously. We all know none of us can have telepathy because they're still working on that power pass.
I wonder if creating a new, community moderated post, "What we Know, What we Assume, and what We've Heard," might help us sort though the chaff.
Getting back to my original thought. I posit the toxicity of the forums increases the difficulty in attracting and maintaining players as much as the current state of the game. I can offer up only my own feelings and those of a few friend to back this thought, and I state it as nothing more than a point for consideration.
a
I think she may have meant that while obviously the problem has to be fixed, people are dismayed by the fact it was let to reach this state of disrepair to begin with.
The problem is the cryptic servers are like a power board that can only handle 4 power plugs up to a max wattage output, but cryptic added 2 slot plugs into each socket to make it into 8 and thus exceeding the limit it was intended for.
Since i feel i may be using the wrong words to explain that, as i don't know what other countries would call them i'll use another example too, which may be more relevant but lengthy, so feel free to skip this paragraph if the first one made sense. Well one website in australia which i believe was Scoupon, aimed at giving bulk deals for certain stores/services if enough people opt in to buy the specific deal, at one point was hosting a major sale for many many stores at once, even big brand stores, the amount of sales they were catering to was a very large number none the less. However the website quickly broke down as too many people were going to their website, effectively being a DDoS attack because while they planned for lots of website visits, they didn't make plans to improve their server infrastructure to allow for so many people. As a result, i don't think many people if any were able to get any deals. Even the websites of the stores part of the deal were shut down because all the traffic moved to them when the main one closed
So in that sense, people were frustrated about missing out on something because the people running it didn't think to make sure their systems can handle it, which is very similar to this.
I don't play CO as much any more and i don't think i was even affected by this, but i can sort of understand where the people who are affected are coming from, and i think it is fair for them to be annoyed about it and expect things like this shouldn't happen to begin with.
*Clap clap*
Congratulations.
Please, though, get rid of your cheap psychology, it won't get you very far.
A lot of "If...", that mean you aren't telepath either. Let your package of hypothesis in your closet.
I won't answer further to provocation, so you can get rid of your venom. Or sprad it. Or spare it.:cool:
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@Moustic in game.
Gold since 2009. Lifetime since May 2012.
I play with freeforms AND archetypes.
Er....what?
Clearly you don't understand the context of "If" in that post.
1. Few players ever read these forums.
2. Even fewer actually post on these forums.
3. A tiny minority (maybe 20-30) post regularly.
4. Devs do not read the forums.
5. Trailturtle reads the forums, to some extent, but responds selectively.
Posts here have little to no impact on the playing population at large.
Go ahead and whine all you like.
TELEPATHY NOW!
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
This.
This is one of the big problems. Is that 'criticism' is being lumped in with 'speculation' and 'vitriolic bile'.
Fine, you want to voice your grievances and concerns about the game? By all means, do so. But do so in a matter that is actually conducive. So much of what we see on the forums and in-game, even in private channels is this venomous pointless biting that has absolutely no redeeming value, it's just "OH CRYPTIC MUST HATE US", "CRYPTIC DOESN'T WANT OUR MONEY", "CRYPTIC IS GREEDY", etcetera.
What point does any of that have? You ABSOLUTELY ARE chasing new customers away from the game with the overt borderline violent negativity, the level of 'bad vibes' in the forum is enough to make us cringe. Given that everything with the game isn't rainbows and sunshine, but s@#t people, come on! Wallowing in a perpetual state of absolute self consuming negativity is not going to solve anything, and don't try to justify it with the claim that you're saying it because you 'care' about the game, if you care about the game then voice your concerns in a legitimate and level-headed fashion that leaves out the vitriolic nature of your spite out.
You're actually harming the game by being so negative because if you're chasing new customers away with 'cautionary tales' or whatever you want to call it, do you think that Cryptic is going to want to re-invest in the game or bother with it at all?
Short answer, NO.
They're going to want to bother with it if they get more customers because they're a business, they're going to go with the most profitable choices. Right now you're aiding CO in failing to be a profitable game, because with each person you chase off with the vitriolic venom spewing, you're taking money from Cryptic which may not sound bad to you but that's ultimately leading to CO's downfall.
Maybe things won't get better even if you're nice and decent about it, but at least you won't be destroying the game you're claiming to be trying to crusade to save.
Believe it or not, there are some misguided souls on these forums who seem to believe that running maintenance on the server is a bad thing. Some want more stuff added first; others seem to simply want our entire enterprise to go the way of CoH and Acheron's Call 2. Thankfully, their numbers are in the single digits - but they do exist, and one of them has recently been adding his vitriolic touches to every thread that can be conceivably tied into this concept.
And Jade, "criticism" is being lumped in with "vitriolic bile" because in the eyes of some, if you aren't castigating Cryptic and declaring this game an utter failure, you're a "cheerleader". It's very offputting, when you do try to offer constructive criticism...
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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-Criticism, and 'calling it like it is' isn't driving away customers. It's that 'like it is' part. Any booger-eater can tell the difference between stupid, senseless whining and legitimate frustration with a product at a glance. Or, well, I'd like to think, but sometimes these forums prove me wrong when it's a bad thing for me to be wrong...
-I feel better if negative criticism with merit runs away a customer. Maybe then it will coax the service provider into altering his business practice. The complaints would not be in place if the problem wasn't there in some shape, form, or fashion.
-If these complaints are what causes CO to 'fail' as a game, then Cryptic shouldn't be manufacturing games. Very rarely does a LARGE portion of a playerbase have negative criticism without merit. And, all it takes is a few minutes to analyze the performance and see that something is wrong.
Am I saying the employees suck? No. I am saying the practice of development needs improvement, and that is very likely not the call of the 'keystrokers' but more on the 'boardroom' guys, for lack of better terms.
Last but not least, if my legitimate criticism destroys this game- then let's just say I won't feel guilty. If the 'vocal minority' shuts down the game as a whole, your game wasn't strong and you lacked the care to improve it- further proving us 'doomthreaders' correct in our worst case, exaggerated assessments.
But go on, have 'faith' in Cryptic. I'm still playing, and that's support. But I don't put 'faith' in someone who can't even come forward and tell me what their plans for the future or, produce something that isn't half-finished and shovel it out, or communicate with a supportive fanbase that has been pleading for some kind of words from the provider.
With that said, this game is in horrible shape. It does seem that cryptic could careless about it's fan base at the moment.
All one has to do is look at how the communication has fallen off from the start of this game up until now! Things used to be discussed by the community along with the game staff, changes were made, for better or worse.
Now?? Nothing. Yes, i still love this game. But, i'm not blind. People can speak up all they want. I don't think anybody on the other side is listening or cares.
You're completely unable to get over your overt aggression and spite. Seriously, it's sad.
You know what? We'll just say this. It's not that we have faith in Cryptic, it's merely that we don't feel like doing extra harm to the game when doing such is pointless and merely expediting its ultimate end.
But you're not willing to listen to reason. Your hate and spite blind you to the facts and lead you down a self-destructive path where you lash out at anyone that disagrees with you including other players.
Furthermore if you feel that way about the game, wouldn't the logical thing to do be to quit? Oh wait, no. Then your misguided negativity and aggression wouldn't have anything to be directed at.
So whatever, guy. Just whatever.
And he's got a point - while I do grow weary of the screamers, if they were indeed able to kill the game simply through their nonsense in here, why then the game would have been pretty weak indeed. As it happens, they have absolutely zero effect on the game itself (just like the rest of us
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Until we see a major improvement in consistent content updates and regular SotGs, expect negativity and vitriol.
And if you feel that you can't handle that, quit reading and responding to it all. Telling people to quit the game, especially when they have passion for it still, gets you nowhere.
EDIT: By the way Jade, if you think cybersoldier represents nothing but spite and hate, you clearly haven't been seeing his constructive posts, especially the recent one where he made the effort to list out costume bugs for awareness.
The irony here is interesting.
The self contradictions in the post are similarly intriguing.
I don't agree with Cybersoldier often. I think that his approach is excessive (at times), but he generally seems to be working for the betterment (as he sees it) of the game. I can't say that your posts give the same impression.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
1. Few players ever read these forums.
2. Even fewer actually post on these forums.
3. A tiny minority (maybe 20-30) post regularly.
4. Devs do not read the forums.
5. Trailturtle reads the forums, to some extent, but responds selectively.
Posts here have little to no impact on the playing population at large.
Go ahead and post what you like
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
How do YOU know who reads the forums? Perhaps the devs would just rather not get involved in all this ******** and moaning, we see going on here. I mean, if you have an Analytics account setup for this domain, then by all means, share the statistics. Until then, stop attempting to flood the forums with such nonsense, as it does absolutely nothing productive. You make about as much sense with this post, as the idiots posting here about how paying customers shouldn't make complaints when not getting what they paid for, due to circumstances involving some other game that they don't even play.
Yes, I'm sure we're all thankful that the staff are working out the kinks, but the problem is that the kinks came, to begin with.
I continue to remain hopeful. I believe that not too far from now, Cryptic / PWE may surprise quite a few people with an awesome CO update. I cannot say exactly when, but I just have this feeling.
I'd also like to give a shout-out to Cybersoldier, for being one of the few people involved in this thread that actually makes sense. I can rant on about the people bashing him for the comments he made here, but I choose not to. Instead, I'd just urge you guys to just go back and read his posts.
But, at the same time- you should see how I deal with people in real life. Everyone close to me knows that if you want the truth, I'll give it to you. I'm not fond of sugar-coating, because that doesn't get anyone anywhere. Am I a jerk about it? Not always. But I'm not going to ease the blow if you need it.
I'm doing this for me, other players, and hopefully- it benefits Cryptic.
I genuinely LOVE this game.
But, I've loved someone that had bad habits that were hurting her in the long run, and this is far too familiar. In the end, being nice about it wasn't working so I had to put on my big boy panties and be an A-hole about it. It got results.
So, you want more positive? I give you an idea.
'Not a lot of people read the forums, and fewer post on the forums'. Well, hold on to my big boy panties and put your mouthguard in- this is gonna get wild.
Cryptic: Advertise, or place in the game a survey for the players. Reward them with some Zen or something for completing the survey... on YOUR game. Call it a 'sensing session' or a 'come to Jesus' talk. I don't care what you call it.
Ask what the players want to see AND ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR- costumes, vehicles, costume lockboxes, adventure/comic packs, etc.
Ask them what part of CO they are most unsatisfied with- Playable content, costumes, ETC.
You know what? It's too easy to compile a multiple choice thing. You can send in-game emails to people with instructions on how you want this done. Reward them with something for their time.
Hey, they aren't really listening to us here- so maybe they'll listen to the 'unspoken majority'.
Oh, and be big boys about it and post the results for everyone to see so we can stop assuming we know what 'everyone wants'.
It's REALLY easy to say 'the lockboxes are making money!' when that's all that you seem to be offering. Of course cheeseburgers will be a big hit at my diner if they are all that I produce.
Most of the people spewing venom the harshest then burn out and quit. Get so worked up about it that they forget what they liked about the game in the first place, and just see the bucket of flaws they've decided to champion. And, I've been fighting for some of it too. Yes, we need bug fixes. Yes, we need our unlocks back. Yes, we need new content, especially for endgame. Yes, we need our lair pass. We also need a bit of civility when bringing these things up. Nobody will ever listen to you if you're yelling at them. And you can say "Well, I've tried talking. They still didn't listen". You might even be right. But I can guarantee you that they won't if you're being spiteful and vitriolic. Nobody ever does, there's a reason why interventions always start out with "you know we love you...".
I find a certain humor in the fact that people are complaining about a lack of dev communication, and bug fixing, on a thread communicated from a dev about a server reset to fix hardware bugs.
RIP Caine
Trailturtle deals with the forums, and the Devs don't, based on TT's own statements. I know a few Devs at Turbine studios (one is a friend and neighbor of mine) and he never reads the forums, largely because they are often filled with negativity. That studio has community reps that deal with forums and try to distill info for the Devs. CO has that, too.
As far as who reads the forums, I am making an educated guess based on players I talk to in game, plus my daughter (who plays), and some of my students that play this and other games. None of the teenagers in my experience ever have read the forums for any game they play. Likewise, it's apparent from zone chat that few of those folks read the forums (or even the web site news page).
Finally, it is easy to count the number of folks that post here, and even easier to count folks that post regularly. It is a small number when compared to the number of people playing CO at a given time.
I will add that I am, by all accounts on this forum, a CO fanboy. I love the game, make apologies for many of its failings, and continually hope for better.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
We have been told, on a number of occasions, by devs, that devs do read the forums (selectively).
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
The absence of Dev voices on the forums says a lot.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
Dev statements made in private chat channels contradict this.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Any chance you guys could do something about the way the service is slogging under the weight of three games?
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
Careful what you wish for...
They may decide that removing CO is the answer.
:biggrin:
CellarRat33 :: formerly Bsquared
***
"The great thing about glory unending is that it's dirt cheap!" - Tateklys
From the Adventures of Thundrax (canadascott)
***
I don't think they'll come to the decision to remove an income stream. Especially an income stream that's pretty much passive for them. Over the last 851 days, I know I've personally invested over $700.00 USD, into this game, and I'm just 1 person.
More or less how we feel.
And honestly, we've never let our dislike for the way Cryptic has conducted themselves consume us. But those that have and do have actually burnt us out without us even having to have gotten worked up.
So we've come to the point where we simply don't care. We'll make comments occasionally in the forums here and then wonder why we bothered in the first place, because clearly these people with their smugness and superfluous sense of self entitlement and importance know everything, so why bother refuting their complaints or arguments with something like facts?
They're kind of like Bill O'Reilly in the sense that no facts matter to them except for the 'facts' they fabricate in their own minds ( Otherwise known as baseless speculation and assumptions / complete paranoia )
Basically the forums give the impression that if you're not hating on Cryptic with every fiber of your being, you're wrong and you're a 'cheerleader,' even if you pointedly don't agree with Cryptic but choose to voice your displeasure in a most conducive and less vitriolic fashion.
Which is why in the end, we just say 'whatever' and walk away.
Let whoever wants to take hits at us take hits at our back, we can take it. We don't care.
People not privy to these private channels will be out of the loop, and therefore perceive accordingly.
And THAT is the problem with CO: it's passive. No change, no major content... it's going to get to the point where that passive income will trickle to zero since nobody will see any need to pay money into a stagnant game. The only "content" they have really thrown at the game is the rare "event" that disappears from the game for months if not forever, events that are basically one mission in length.
Honestly, I stopped paying money into this game, because if they aren't going to do anything to attract me as a customer or new customers, I'd rather spend my superhero game money in places that the dev team cares to add things to their game, such as DCUO and the upcoming Marvel Heroes and Infinite Crisis.
Where City of Heroes was Travis Alexander to NC Soft's Jodi Arias, Champions Online is like Teri Schaivo... and unless they change some things REAL quick, people are going to wish that Perfect World would be like Jack Kevorkian and kill CO as a mercy killing.
-END OF LINE
Actually I was referring to the possibility that if they have a problem with server load and need to sacrifice one of the three games, CO is going to be the first on the chopping block.
CellarRat33 :: formerly Bsquared
***
"The great thing about glory unending is that it's dirt cheap!" - Tateklys
From the Adventures of Thundrax (canadascott)
***