Extended Downtime, Thanks for your Patience!

salamiinferno · June 2015

First off, I would like to apologize for an incredibly long stretch of emergency downtime. I know how frustrating it can be when a game you're planning to play is unavailable. I'd like to take a moment to explain why we were down for so long and how we're going to compensate you for this inconvenience.

We've had some problematic hardware in our network for some time, but have had trouble triaging exactly the best way to deal with the issue. The malfunctioning hardware has been the cause of regular stability issues on Holodeck for some time, but we needed a solid plan for replacing and integrating something new. The extra maintenance Tuesday and the extended maintenance today enabled us to completely replace the problematic hardware and integrate replacements. This update is nothing but great news for every Cryptic game, including STO. The maintenance was successful but took significantly longer to complete than we'd hoped. Again, I truly apologize for the inconvenience.

As I mentioned before I know how frustrating it can be when a game you want to play is down. My goal is to ensure everyone in the community can get into the game, have fun things to play when they're in there, and earn great rewards. Since the game is up now I'm going to make good on the other two goals right now. From shortly after this post through Monday at 10 a.m. we'll be running a 75% Dilithium Bonus weekend, the Elachi Red Alert event which includes a 50% mark bonus to marks awarded by that event, and I'll be extending the Summer Event by a day for those that couldn't get in today. I hope these bonuses, and our continued commitment to creating a smooth and stable play experience will make up for this necessary but unfortunately long downtime. Thank you for your patience, and I look forward to seeing all of you in game this weekend!

Steve Ricossa
Executive Producer

capemike4 · June 2015

As my New Zealand friends like to say..."Good n 'ya!"

reisnow · June 2015

TY for the information ^_^; I'm still waiting for my game client to completely patch again >.>; I followed the support page's advice earlier because I thought the connection trouble was on my end... I deleted the Live folder in my Arc folder. It was actually on your end. ^_^; I don't mind, but >.> I am wondering if my keybindings and graphics settings are going to be reset lol. It's good that you are extending the event though.

I'm sure a lot of players are going to be happy about that. I didn't get the game to work on my Windows 8.1 version laptop until this week.

It's ok. I'll catch the next event.

nikephorus · June 2015

I'm impressed with this response.

random909 · June 2015

Excellent. Time to kill more "Shroomies" I think they're called.

josan369 · June 2015

Looks like good news all around. Thanks for the update.

stumpfgobs · June 2015

Sorry for bad news but, the fx fix for the graphic performance on risa/new romulus (for example) seems to be not working. My gpu still pretty much switches off and idles when i'm entering those locations and i get like 3-4 fps.

Thanks for sharing those infos though. I do look forward to the extra dilithium.

vern1701 · June 2015

Hardware can be a TRIBBLE to replace, if you'll pardon the language. The process can easily take longer if the new hardware doesn't take. New hardware doesn't like it when shortcuts are taken, and it is a step by step process. Skip a step and you have to start over at the step you messed up and/or missed.

danimb80 · June 2015

Thank you, I appreciate it. And on a side note: very excited about the new Fleet Holding announcement.

toiva · June 2015

This is beyond any realistic hopes. Well done, salamiinferno and thanks.

fcaptkmton · June 2015

I approve.

jcsww · June 2015

WOW! I would just like to say how impressed with @salamiinferno as STO's Executive Producer! Keep up the amazing work!

tazurensavulen · June 2015

Who shall be given up as a sacrifice to the players?

reisnow · June 2015

I'm finally up to 90% patch installation. Hopefully, I'll be playing again soon ^_^ by the way, I was wondering >.> how you participate in the dilithium event that's coming up. Will it be for duty officer missions too? How does that work?

reisnow · June 2015

I was just wondering because I haven't been able to play in a year so I'm not sure how Dilithium events work.

gulberat · June 2015

I have to say, this is a great way to handle the problem.

Even though this downtime has not really had a great effect on me, I am glad to see the trend of communication and addressing problems (both the stability ones and the customer impact) that you set continuing.

jcsww · June 2015

gulberat wrote: »

I have to say, this is a great way to handle the problem. Even though this downtime has not really had a great effect on me, I am glad to see the trend of communication and addressing problems (both the stability ones and the customer impact) that you set continuing.

I agree! @salamiinferno has done an excellent job since he stepped into the role of EP for STO by being a part of the community, apologizing and offering explanations when needed, and for doing these little thank you's for the players among the many things he does behind the scenes that we don't know about.

Since he took over, we are getting content more regularly as well with little extra rewards to help us through the grind. As a player who wasn't impressed with the crafting system revamp, I like seeing the special tech rewards to help me upgrade my gear. I hope this new fleet holding will offer up more good for players. As one of a few leaders of a casual fleets Fed and KDF side, I am hoping we will see something to help out the smaller fleets catch up on the older projects. A couple of weeks of double fleet project XP via some special event or token for the current fleet related stuff and not the new holding. I think this would go a long way in helping smaller fleets catch up, even if it is a special project to basically boost a fleet's project XP earning by double until complete. With larger fleets that have already completed their holdings, it would just help them create extra provisions per project or something beneficial for them.

[Deleted User] · June 2015

reisnow wrote: »

I was just wondering because I haven't been able to play in a year so I'm not sure how Dilithium events work.

Basically, you do the things you normally do for dilithium, you just get bonus dil while doing it.

Anyway, thanks, Salami! Appreciate the response and how smooth things are running now.

kodachikuno · June 2015

THIS is an EXCELLENT example of great public relations and customer support/appreciation!!

supergirl1611 · June 2015

Now this is the type of man who looks after his customers and values them. Hats off to you my friend

farmallm · June 2015

Thanks for letting us know what was going on. Many games don't even bother. I'm glad to see some upgrades and replacing bad parts was finished. As a mechanic I know how it is trying to make it keep going by patching it up until a better repair is made. It can be a real headache.

Glad to see this fixed and should allow better gaming for us to enjoy. Thanks for the gift as well due to the down time. Most games won't even bother on this as well.

lolileveby · June 2015

It's always the one hour jobs that take half a day to complete, I think it's called sods law. It's 4am, I've got a bit of insomnia, looking forward to being ingame for a bit to get my sto fix

tancrediiv · June 2015

Game is not working for me. With the launcher, I patched, then attempted to "Engage", and the connection timed out and crashed to desktop. With ARC, the connection times out.

oldkhemaraa · June 2015

*cheers* Glad thats over with..poor buggers now get to go deal with issues in the game code.. Fun times! Keep on plugg'n.

I'd sword the calender moth was June, when did Murphy get a month named after 'em?

kozar2 · June 2015

Not good enough. It should be 200% extra dil and be extended for at least a week!

Someone had to do it.

majortiraomega · June 2015

Thanks salamiinferno, I hope you remain the EP for STO for a very long time. Things have turned around a lot since you took over. This event after the downtime was indeed a very nice gesture on your part. I've noticed a lot less lag on holodeck since the severs came back up. Your team did very nice work.

kimony · June 2015

Thank you for adding that extra day to the Summer Event for those who are going to need it. Thank you for the information, it's nice to know what's happening.

You have done a good thing here today.. and it wasn't the extra loot you've given away. It was the consideration of your players.

Cheers!

monkeybone13 · June 2015

We've had some problematic hardware in our network for some time, but have had trouble triaging exactly the best way to deal with the issue.

During which time we were constantly met with silence and/or told the problems are all on our ends. Drives me crazy when customer service is always telling me they can't see a problem and it must be on my end. It's why I don't bother filing support tickets anymore.

Thanks for the update on the situation and for finally admitting Cryptic has had issues on their end. It is nice to have someone in charge over there that is a bit more transparent then the last person. So thanks Salamiinferno and keep up the good work.

painfullylarge · June 2015

I'm getting 25% bonus on dilithium, not 75%. I SHOULD be getting ~103 dilithium per capped point on BZ, not 73.

bones1970 · June 2015

Thanks for the info but : salamiinferno Forsaken World User not Star Trek Online User !!

nyxadrill · June 2015

Steve,

I've worked in IT for longer than I care to remember so I know what its like to have something planned in the nth degree only to have those plans blown down by some random, unforeseen gremlin. I also know how soul destroying the negative comments that get levelled against you are.

You guys did good. Better to have the game(s) down and the problem fixed than to limp along to the next crisis.

I was happy to step out of the "loop" for an evening while your minions beavered away at the problem. Gave me time to do housekeeping on my own PC's

And that's a nice piece of customer service, right there with this announcement. Thank you.

Extended Downtime, Thanks for your Patience!

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