Yes, just double their tech staff... Except then the servers are on the wrong continent and what they can do during maintenance is significantly limited, including but not limited to having almost no recourse when a problem comes up except waking up the US team and extending maintenance for things that the US team would incur a delay of a whole minute taking care of.
Or separate servers. Split the community of an already not huge game. I know European players like to talk about how many of them there are, but compare European peak hours to US peak hours (assuming roughly the same proportion of players from both play off peak hours, and those European servers will be fairly sparse. And guess what happens if they prove unprofitable or just significantly less profitable?
Well, once again, shard maintenance is happening at 2:00 p.m. here in Europe, to 6:00 p.m.
Would it hurt them to just Once ? in a while, do it at a time that is Not so unfair to
Europe? It's Always at a time that goes good with the West! (And I know, it's cause that's where the game originates), yet how bout us Europe Customers eh?
It wouldn't kill them just to switch the times around more Often for us so that the shard maintenance happens at like 7 am here as it does in the west !
Oh I don't know. It's just extremely annoying that it seems they don't give a care about those in Europe as much as they do in the usa. Typical.
God forbid if the usa wasn't number one! ooooh oh no!
Sorry but 2PM isn't exactly "Prime Time" in Europe either ... most Europeans have to work at that time ... people in Siberia or Kazakhstan are the real victims here :P
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
true, yet couldn't they just hire a team in Europe?
possibly. but would need great team work between them both each would need same files data perfect coyps of each others work most likely make things go a bit slower and be a bit of a waste of resources for small convience to europe. only real issue is finding something to do for 4 hours :rolleyes:
I'm european myself and I couldn't care less about what time exactly they patch.
Most people here are fairly level headed and understand there's always noon some place,
so any downtime will fall into someones prime time hours (altho, of course, there are times where only some poeple living on a couple of islands would be affected).
Possible rant incoming but there's no exploding KDF ships to distract me so blame Crypyic:
I'd like the devs to spend some time fixing the bugs and texture problems that make the game look shoddy.
Along with obvious errors in some textures (Galaxy-X hull having a weird triangle on all but 1 texture) there's the long standing error with special shields not altering the nacelles on the Vesta or the ring on the Vulcan ship.
The KDF 1000 day ship doesn't show as extended during sector travel but should as it extends when leaving a system and contracts when entering. This hasn't worked properly since it was released.
What annoys me is these aren't rarely occurring errors or difficult to see; they are always there and would have been spotted if they'd been checked. Not extensive testing either. I spotted the Vet ship was bugged the day I got it as soon as I left the system. So why didn't a dev? With the texture problems these are so blatant they also couldn't have been missed if the most basic of testing had been done.
There are lots of other problems but these are the ones that whenever I see make me think the devs aren't taking as much care as they should be and not giving things sufficient testing.
Tl;dr please fix long standing texture bugs and errors, they make the game look bad
I'm european myself and I couldn't care less about what time exactly they patch.
Most people here are fairly level headed and understand there's always noon some place,
so any downtime will fall into someones prime time hours (altho, of course, there are times where only some poeple living on a couple of islands would be affected).
Mmm logicaly speaking if one designes a universal buisness then its only good buisness sense to cater for an all round time frame after all if one had to make a delivery of a produce you wouldnt deliver at closeing time LOL.
They should specify in the notes that they're doing that; they can't sit there and claim they have common sense and expect people to be content with it taking 4 hours to correct 4 typos.
I personally don't mind the downtime, it can be down all day, I have other things I can be doing, but I just don't see the reasoning in not letting people know they're doing larger maintenance behind the seems, else they build a stigma of, well, laziness.
Every other mmo I've played does this (the last I know).
Ok, let's say they were running Debian-Sid/Aptosid (Linux) for some odd reason on their game-servers. You could expect a new kernel-patch at least once per week, gcc/g++ (C/C++-Compilers) updates and so on. Would you like them to merge all these updates to the Patch-Notes?
Even if they were only using Ubuntu, you would get Patch-Notes that would fill pages...
So please, don't complain about too less information about "what is done during this maintenance".
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
They should specify in the notes that they're doing that; they can't sit there and claim they have common sense and expect people to be content with it taking 4 hours to correct 4 typos.
I personally don't mind the downtime, it can be down all day, I have other things I can be doing, but I just don't see the reasoning in not letting people know they're doing larger maintenance behind the seems, else they build a stigma of, well, laziness.
Every other mmo I've played does this (the last I know).
There could be any number of reasons it's down for four hours, but Cryptic isn't under any obligation to tell us why.
They could be attempting to fix an exploit, transferring the data to a new server, the data centre could be undergoing their maintenance and shutting off all servers for 4 hours, upgrading the database, pre-patching for the anniversary event, hardware maintenance, OS upgrade or even just ensuring the patch gets installed without a hitch.
The EULA does state clearly that they can take the servers down with no warning and keep them down as long as they like, we're getting notice that they're taking them down for an extended maintenance and that's more than they're obliged to do by the EULA.
They should specify in the notes that they're doing that; they can't sit there and claim they have common sense and expect people to be content with it taking 4 hours to correct 4 typos.
I personally don't mind the downtime, it can be down all day, I have other things I can be doing, but I just don't see the reasoning in not letting people know they're doing larger maintenance behind the seems, else they build a stigma of, well, laziness.
Every other mmo I've played does this (the last I know).
Basically people want PWE to spell out word for word every single line of code that needs fixing/is being changed. Because OMG we HAVE to know what you're doing, and if you don't tell us what you're doing then you must not be doing anything at all....
Yes, I'm sure that's what many players think. I've worked support for a large ISP for about 10 years, and that is EXACTLY what most users tend to think.
1 - If PWE would have to list every single fix/change in every single update, writing that down for you would take longer than the actual downtime. The added time to do all this would be calculated into the playing fees / ZEN costs, and you lot wil have something else to mope about.
2 - I dare say not a single one of you will actually READ the entire thing.
3 - Most complainers still wouldn't be satisfied, even if every single issue would be resolved.... they'd just find something else to moan about. It would take them some time, but they'll find something.
OMG 4 hrs is not the end of the world,stop complaining:)
I don't think anyone here cares if the maintenance is 20 hours, as long as they have more than correcting 4 typos to show for it.
Said NO to Arc. Gets punished by not being given a free outfit, free lobi, and free shuttle. Now forced to use Arc's site when trying to get to STO site. Still not rewards for beta testing the Arc website by force. Bravo Cryptic.
I think given the size their farm must be, and given that they've had 2hr down times recently as well, this 4 hour period points to something other than just cache clearing, dirty memory purges and the like. I think the suggestion that there is some patching and updates going on under the hood at the OS/hardware level is most likely and none of that would really belong in the patch notes because, technically speaking, it's not part of the patch. Those notes list code changes to the game and it wouldn't be appropriate to list anything else. There are very good reasons MMO companies don't publicly disclose their infrastructure specifications.
Then again, it could be they had a late holiday party last night and so they scheduled the patch longer to make sure everyone necessary could manage to stumble in. (heh, I was still young and on the agency side in the late 90s, I remember how all that went!).
It *would* be pretty nice if there were more than one production environment, so at least the downtime wouldn't be as significant to the player-base, but either way. meh. don't care. I have work to do anyway. Happy not-STOing!
(oh my take on the bugs that are being addressed, since everyone is interested? Better some small issues resolved than none at all, thanks devs and others at Cryptic for doing even a little bit of work after the holidays!)
i like how they put a time converter in their announcement. if we need that do we really need to know what they are fixing? at least they could have told us why we cannot open the windows on an airliner while in flight
Its a shame that all the servers go down all at once, surelly Cryptic doesn't have all the servers in one place? If they dont and have say 3 groups of servers ie.. US, Europe and Far East I cant understand why they cant bring it down one at a time during night hours?
The team just got back into the swing of things on Monday, so it's understandable since this just went to Tribble yesterday
Brandon =/\=
Really?? Well, that must have been one hell of a New Years party we all paid for. Hopefully nobody decided to do any behind the scenes ninja drunken coding in the process.
List me as one of those thankful for the Tal Shiar redeployment in the Mountain Pass - hopefully that means that the Mountain Pass area will actually be worth visiting now during the Vastam Peaks daily and Red Alert instead of just going circles around the Peaks so we aren't risking two or three squads of Tal Shiar at a time ganging up on our little two-person away teams.
I hope I don't sound like a whiner asking this, but does this mean that you'll also be looking into some of the other problems found on New Romulus, like say... the 'River Troll' and 'Brave New Waterfall' accolades being almost impossible to get?
Don't get me wrong, I like New Romulus - I feel that it's the epitome of what an adventure map should be, not just go in and wander around shooting enemy after enemy and never really feeling like you've accomplished anything. I'm thinking it's the Red Alerts provide a sense of urgency and import, you're walking around and suddenly there's a situation breaking out, you need to get there and solve it, do something.
Or maybe it's the Epohhs.
Yeah, I think it's the Epohhs.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid." -- Q, TNG: "Q-Who?"
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
Comments
Why would they, it's all the same server.
Precisely good point.
Or separate servers. Split the community of an already not huge game. I know European players like to talk about how many of them there are, but compare European peak hours to US peak hours (assuming roughly the same proportion of players from both play off peak hours, and those European servers will be fairly sparse. And guess what happens if they prove unprofitable or just significantly less profitable?
An entire continent reduced to KDF status.
Ok how bout hiring a night shift out there in the west then?
This would work, and it would mean Cryptic doing their small part to help the economy along :P
Sorry but 2PM isn't exactly "Prime Time" in Europe either ... most Europeans have to work at that time ... people in Siberia or Kazakhstan are the real victims here :P
Not if your retired... or disabled.. or on a day off... or ...
possibly. but would need great team work between them both each would need same files data perfect coyps of each others work most likely make things go a bit slower and be a bit of a waste of resources for small convience to europe. only real issue is finding something to do for 4 hours :rolleyes:
If you're one of these 7am isn't exactly "better" .... it's just not EU Prime Time !
Some Europeans might want to play at 2PM, some at 7AM ... but thats not really the point here ... or is it ?
I'm european myself and I couldn't care less about what time exactly they patch.
Most people here are fairly level headed and understand there's always noon some place,
so any downtime will fall into someones prime time hours (altho, of course, there are times where only some poeple living on a couple of islands would be affected).
Let Cryptic have downtime when it pleases them.
He's dead, Jim.
I'd like the devs to spend some time fixing the bugs and texture problems that make the game look shoddy.
Along with obvious errors in some textures (Galaxy-X hull having a weird triangle on all but 1 texture) there's the long standing error with special shields not altering the nacelles on the Vesta or the ring on the Vulcan ship.
The KDF 1000 day ship doesn't show as extended during sector travel but should as it extends when leaving a system and contracts when entering. This hasn't worked properly since it was released.
What annoys me is these aren't rarely occurring errors or difficult to see; they are always there and would have been spotted if they'd been checked. Not extensive testing either. I spotted the Vet ship was bugged the day I got it as soon as I left the system. So why didn't a dev? With the texture problems these are so blatant they also couldn't have been missed if the most basic of testing had been done.
There are lots of other problems but these are the ones that whenever I see make me think the devs aren't taking as much care as they should be and not giving things sufficient testing.
Tl;dr please fix long standing texture bugs and errors, they make the game look bad
ok I agree. I guess I was just bored LOL.
.. but Tricobalt mines aren't broken. There's nothing wrong with them.
Mmm logicaly speaking if one designes a universal buisness then its only good buisness sense to cater for an all round time frame after all if one had to make a delivery of a produce you wouldnt deliver at closeing time LOL.
Reposting of post indicating how the rest of thread will go.
Ok, let's say they were running Debian-Sid/Aptosid (Linux) for some odd reason on their game-servers. You could expect a new kernel-patch at least once per week, gcc/g++ (C/C++-Compilers) updates and so on. Would you like them to merge all these updates to the Patch-Notes?
Even if they were only using Ubuntu, you would get Patch-Notes that would fill pages...
So please, don't complain about too less information about "what is done during this maintenance".
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
There could be any number of reasons it's down for four hours, but Cryptic isn't under any obligation to tell us why.
They could be attempting to fix an exploit, transferring the data to a new server, the data centre could be undergoing their maintenance and shutting off all servers for 4 hours, upgrading the database, pre-patching for the anniversary event, hardware maintenance, OS upgrade or even just ensuring the patch gets installed without a hitch.
The EULA does state clearly that they can take the servers down with no warning and keep them down as long as they like, we're getting notice that they're taking them down for an extended maintenance and that's more than they're obliged to do by the EULA.
+10 to your Hat Dance skill! I will be the Frito Bandito IN SPACE!
"You seem to have gotten some of your blood in my raktajino. This is unfortunate."
Basically people want PWE to spell out word for word every single line of code that needs fixing/is being changed. Because OMG we HAVE to know what you're doing, and if you don't tell us what you're doing then you must not be doing anything at all....
Yes, I'm sure that's what many players think. I've worked support for a large ISP for about 10 years, and that is EXACTLY what most users tend to think.
1 - If PWE would have to list every single fix/change in every single update, writing that down for you would take longer than the actual downtime. The added time to do all this would be calculated into the playing fees / ZEN costs, and you lot wil have something else to mope about.
2 - I dare say not a single one of you will actually READ the entire thing.
3 - Most complainers still wouldn't be satisfied, even if every single issue would be resolved.... they'd just find something else to moan about. It would take them some time, but they'll find something.
I don't think anyone here cares if the maintenance is 20 hours, as long as they have more than correcting 4 typos to show for it.
im really hope so
Welcome to the KDF!
Then again, it could be they had a late holiday party last night and so they scheduled the patch longer to make sure everyone necessary could manage to stumble in. (heh, I was still young and on the agency side in the late 90s, I remember how all that went!).
It *would* be pretty nice if there were more than one production environment, so at least the downtime wouldn't be as significant to the player-base, but either way. meh. don't care. I have work to do anyway. Happy not-STOing!
(oh my take on the bugs that are being addressed, since everyone is interested? Better some small issues resolved than none at all, thanks devs and others at Cryptic for doing even a little bit of work after the holidays!)
Founder of the Greycloaks, Whitecloaks, Blackcloaks, Goldcloaks and Browncloaks (#NWPC)
Really?? Well, that must have been one hell of a New Years party we all paid for. Hopefully nobody decided to do any behind the scenes ninja drunken coding in the process.
I hope I don't sound like a whiner asking this, but does this mean that you'll also be looking into some of the other problems found on New Romulus, like say... the 'River Troll' and 'Brave New Waterfall' accolades being almost impossible to get?
Don't get me wrong, I like New Romulus - I feel that it's the epitome of what an adventure map should be, not just go in and wander around shooting enemy after enemy and never really feeling like you've accomplished anything. I'm thinking it's the Red Alerts provide a sense of urgency and import, you're walking around and suddenly there's a situation breaking out, you need to get there and solve it, do something.
Or maybe it's the Epohhs.
Yeah, I think it's the Epohhs.
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...