Why are we all down again?

#0 - Dec. 11, 2007, 4:39 p.m.

Once more I must ask, why are all we down? What are the game managers doing that requires that every realm be taken down all at once? Are the servers not redundent systems? IF you do something that affects one server, does it have any affect on the other servers? Only maybe, and only if you take into account the battegroups (or whatever they are called, we are nightfall). But I do know that if they want, they don't have to take all servers/realms down at once, or even affect them all at once. I know this because not all servers were upgraded to voice at once. What's more, if I recall correctly, the voice options were tweaked while others were playing or even using them, though that may be inaccurate.

A free game I play is called Kingdom of Loathing. They use multiple servers to let all of their free online players play without bogging down one server. From 11-12:30ish every night they take down their servers for maintainance. But you know what? in that hour and a half, they don't take them all down at once. They do it in a series of rolling restarts. Every server gets taken down one at a time. That way the most players possible are playing as much as possible. And that game is free.

Now why can't the game that millions world wide are paying for take a lesson from a free game that has a better way of doing things. I want a gm's response or someone higher up. I also would love to hear what other players think. If anyone else has had experience with KOL they can authenticate what I said.

Drysc

#29 - Dec. 11, 2007, 5:34 p.m.

I won't go into the technical nature of "why" we have Tuesday maintenance, I think that's better answered at another time and by someone more qualified than myself, but that didn't seem to be your real question anyhow.

The reason why we take down all realms at the same time is because it's quicker, it doesn't restrict some realms more than others, and it doesn't force players to swamp other realms that are up. If anyone remembers some of the larger issues we had back a couple years ago or so, when a realm or group of realms go down, everyone on those realms would converge on a single realm and more or less grief the entire population of that realm. Not fun for the original players of that realm. It's quicker because the maintenance can take a while, and doing one group of realms at a time would mean some group of realms, or multiple groups, would not be available near or during prime time, and we like to avoid that whenever possible of course.

We have made some great improvements though in our maintenance times, and we're now able to schedule rolling restarts every other week which only require realms to be down for 15 minutes or so. We're continuing to refine the process, and make improvements where possible.

We attempt to schedule for a time when most people are asleep and/or at school or work. For those that have neither, think of Tuesday like a sorbet, cleansing the gaming palette and allowing you to focus on getting some of your day-to-day things done. Water the gourds, wash your stuffed hawk-catching-a-mouse diorama, eat frozen peas, take your Orange GoJo "shower"... you know, really just spend time on the normal stuff for a while.

Drysc

#43 - Dec. 11, 2007, 5:48 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Thanks for the info, but your not answering the real question. Why is it taking so long ? What maintenance could possiblly require 8 hours of downtime ? Most others MMO do maintenance and they need an hour or 2 maxium. Why is WOW always need at least 6 or even 8 hours every week ?

Hrm, no I think I did answer the OP's question of "why are all the realms down at the same time?", your question is "why are they down so long, or at all?" and as I said that's a technical answer best reserved for someone else to answer. I don't think it's a bad question, and it's something I personally would like to see us post in greater detail for everyone to get a better understanding of what's going on.

Drysc

#74 - Dec. 11, 2007, 6:27 p.m.

Q u o t e:

Thats never stopped you from answering questions before! ;)

BURN