Isn't the context of the word a proactive thing and not a reactive thing? When I come to the website and see that the Game World is Undergoing Maintenance it leads me to believe that there was a plan to bring the server down for a period of time to pro-actively enhance the ability to deliver the game. When I'm in the game and everything crashes I realize that there is nothing proactive about this at all and in fact everyhthing just crashed.
Can we have a more honest Server Status Message? Perhaps - it crashed and we're working on it?
All kidding aside though - isn't it time to start firing people? If capacity is a problem then should the guy responsible for planning get walking papers? If your network team is incompetent shouldn't they be canned and replaced?
If you guys didn't have the Star Trek IP - if this was just ... "space ships flying around shooting other space ships in the 24 century" (long title but I'm not in marketing) you'd have already sunk as a developer.
I wonder how many "life time" subscriptions we can find on eBay
main⋅te⋅nance [meyn-tuh-nuhns]Can we have a more honest Server Status Message? Perhaps - it crashed and we're working on it?
All kidding aside though - isn't it time to start firing people? If capacity is a problem then should the guy responsible for planning get walking papers? If your network team is incompetent shouldn't they be canned and replaced?
Can we have a more honest Server Status Message? Perhaps - it crashed and we're working on it?
how about...."it crashed...(again)...and it's the weekend, so the most junior IT guy on call is considering coming into the office to reboot the login server"
Isn't the context of the word a proactive thing and not a reactive thing? When I come to the website and see that the Game World is Undergoing Maintenance it leads me to believe that there was a plan to bring the server down for a period of time to pro-actively enhance the ability to deliver the game. When I'm in the game and everything crashes I realize that there is nothing proactive about this at all and in fact everyhthing just crashed.
Can we have a more honest Server Status Message? Perhaps - it crashed and we're working on it?
All kidding aside though - isn't it time to start firing people? If capacity is a problem then should the guy responsible for planning get walking papers? If your network team is incompetent shouldn't they be canned and replaced?
If you guys didn't have the Star Trek IP - if this was just ... "space ships flying around shooting other space ships in the 24 century" (long title but I'm not in marketing) you'd have already sunk as a developer.
I wonder how many "life time" subscriptions we can find on eBay
Hey, you think you have it bad? Imagine being one of the senior developers on this game, being called in at odd hours of the night and on the weekend because something went wrong, even though it probably wasn't your fault.
In a perfect world, QA would catch every issue, and server uptime would be 100%. But, being a software developer myself, I can tell you that this is (sadly) not the case. Things will inevitably slip through the cracks, especially when you have such a short turnaround period between patches (1 week!). If you're lucky enough to catch something in the first 24 hours after a bit of software goes live, you're extremely lucky. Sometimes it's severe enough to take the system offline briefly to ensure that more users (that'd be us) aren't affected.
It's also possible that they're suffering from hardware problems (it happens, even with the most reliable of hardware manufacturers), denial of service attacks, etc. Trust me, these guys want this thing to run smoothly just as much as you do, probably more so, because for them it's not just an hour or so of not being able to play the game--it's hauling their butts into the office at 3am and digging through millions of lines of code to find out what went wrong. So cut them some slack, they're only human you know .
All kidding aside though - isn't it time to start firing people? If capacity is a problem then should the guy responsible for planning get walking papers? If your network team is incompetent shouldn't they be canned and replaced?
Atari
417 5th Ave # 7
New York, NY 10016-2204
(212) 726-6500
For most of what you said Mike I agree whole heatedly. I used to work in one of those "big" companies where hundreds of people were doing the absolute best they can with the resources available to them. That said - some person or some group is responsible for the extraordinary "surprise maintenance" and I sincerely hope they are being held accountable for their poor performance and that the management position isn't "well, it's star trek" so we can get away with it cuz the nerds won't quit.
haha side note, I'm with Snyderson that was funny !
Comments
I couldn't agree more!
Have a look, there are quite some of them.
It is not "server crash" - it is "surprise server maintenance".
I know I should NOT laugh about such a disgusting joke, but I just can't stop doing so...
how about...."it crashed...(again)...and it's the weekend, so the most junior IT guy on call is considering coming into the office to reboot the login server"
one
http://cgi.ebay.com/Star-Trek-Online-Deluxe-with-Lifetime-Membership_W0QQitemZ140381698579QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVideo_Games_Games?hash=item20af66ba13#ht_500wt_1182
In a perfect world, QA would catch every issue, and server uptime would be 100%. But, being a software developer myself, I can tell you that this is (sadly) not the case. Things will inevitably slip through the cracks, especially when you have such a short turnaround period between patches (1 week!). If you're lucky enough to catch something in the first 24 hours after a bit of software goes live, you're extremely lucky. Sometimes it's severe enough to take the system offline briefly to ensure that more users (that'd be us) aren't affected.
It's also possible that they're suffering from hardware problems (it happens, even with the most reliable of hardware manufacturers), denial of service attacks, etc. Trust me, these guys want this thing to run smoothly just as much as you do, probably more so, because for them it's not just an hour or so of not being able to play the game--it's hauling their butts into the office at 3am and digging through millions of lines of code to find out what went wrong. So cut them some slack, they're only human you know
Atari
417 5th Ave # 7
New York, NY 10016-2204
(212) 726-6500
For most of what you said Mike I agree whole heatedly. I used to work in one of those "big" companies where hundreds of people were doing the absolute best they can with the resources available to them. That said - some person or some group is responsible for the extraordinary "surprise maintenance" and I sincerely hope they are being held accountable for their poor performance and that the management position isn't "well, it's star trek" so we can get away with it cuz the nerds won't quit.
haha side note, I'm with Snyderson that was funny !