Server Shutdowns

Q u o t e:
This is really getting annoying. Two days in a row (9/1 & 9/2) for "scheduled maintenance"? Maybe I will go back to playing Guildwars for free online where I never had these issues! Does Blizz really care?? If I can't play a game to it's fullest, while paying for it, why should I have to pay full price?

Full price figures in necessary downtime, Splosion. While I can truly appreciate the frustration players feel if their chosen realm isn't available, that's not what is promised. I do believe part of this frustration is in the misconception there is guaranteed uptime, there isn't. Nor is access to any particular realm, character or activity guaranteed.

The nature of MMOs in general require maintenance, fixes to software, hardware upgrades, etc. It's simply unavoidable. We never remove any realm from service unless it's absolutely necessary, and we never keep them offline any longer than is required to do the task at hand.

In cases of truly extensive issues it is not unknown for days to be added to accounts, but those are extraordinary and not required of us by contract. Those are also done across the board to the accounts that would have been affected.

Our goal is to keep you as happy as possible and your playtime as issue free as we can. To do that, it is sometimes a necessity to tinker under the hood in ways that cannot be done if the realms are online.

We do our best to not only put up Breaking News on the login screen, but put posts up in the Service Status Forum and we also mirror those here quite often in an attempt to keep players as updated as possible. We don't always have an ETA, and any times given - ever - are estimates, our best estimate of when a realm may return to service. Sometimes those are short - about as often the realms actually return sooner than originally expected.

Q u o t e:
So for the servers that were down for +12 hours on 9/1 and will be down for 3-10+ hours today, I certainly hope every single player that pays for your game is credited with time on their account.

Not realy sure what took 12+ hours to do on maintanence yesturday with those dallas servers being down.

Instance cap certainly wasn't fixed, thats for sure.

You didn't read what I wrote did you, Stegg.

That is all part of what's being worked on Stegg.

Hence, the unavoidable part.

Q u o t e:


no!

all of this could have been prevented if your programmers and design leads used proactive methods in system design versus being reactive to what they create, and everything was passed thru QA before release to live servers, etc

and...

there was a list put out last week or the week before of about 140 servers on which the instance problem was supposedly fixed

I dont recall 2 days of maintenance being required to fix those servers

so whats different about these servers?

Then you memory happens to be faulty Sorn, some of those did indeed. Since it wasn't your realm it's perfectly understandable it wouldn't have stuck in your memory, but this isn't unprecedented on this issue.

I didn't post that to stir a hornet's nest folks, it's simply what every player agrees to when they sign up and make an account.

That is often overlooked.

Q u o t e:


That may be true, but it doesnt make millions of customers any happier when theyre not told why theyre NOT getting full use of what they're paying for (a monthly subscription for a MONTH's service) but they ARE told 'Hey, deal with it, we told you that the game would have issues and you'd lose time playing.' That sounds like buying a used car from a guy that tells you it needs service only to have the car die on you 4 days a month. The difference is Lemon Laws (at least in the States) protect auto buyers.

As I said, I totally understand frustration when you want to play and the realms aren't available.

When you pay for June, you get June, we don't charge by the hour. Necessary maintenance is part of the package. I was only pointing out that unrealistic expectations often result in excessive frustration. Many players don't realize the terms of the contract, they don't know what to realistically expect. It was my desire to simply point out that this is necessary from time to time, and that we are very upfront about it whenever a player creates an account. It's not a secret, it's not hidden, it's actually in the contract.

Q u o t e:
" I was only pointing out that unrealistic expectations often result in excessive frustration"

Expectations largely set by...you!!! (blizzard in general that is). If it took 2 days for other servers, why not just say the same thing yesterday?

It took that for some Battlegroups, not all. And I really think we are done here.