Sony Stop giving us downtimes estimates Plz.

[Zeronx]

Please stop telling us that downtimes are approximately 1 hour when they are ALWAYS 2+ hours.  What I am counting includes the Servers being Locked.  Unable to log into a server and play = downtime.

[ZUES]

Well most of the daily downtimes and hotfixes are usually an hour. But during a special event like today I agree that this should have been estimated for a longer period of time. They did say all servers being merged will be down for 24 hours but what about live?

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p>Estimates, are just that estimates.</p><p>If you are totally addicted (as I am), roll a character on the test server, and play over there during 'normal downtime'.</p><p>You might even like it over there with always on  bonus XP, friendlier atmosphere, yada yada yada</p><p> Other than that, please just back off the coffee. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Ever-Befallen]

<cite>ZUES wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well most of the daily downtimes and hotfixes are usually an hour. But during a special event like today I agree that this should have been estimated for a longer period of time. They did say all servers being merged will be down for 24 hours but what about live?</blockquote><p> That was on the Server Status page, as well.</p><p>All US Live servers will be coming down at 7:00 am PDT on Monday, April 30th, 2007 for an update. Downtime is expected to be 1 hour.</p><p>However, what is todays special event? I don't think the mergers are to begin until tomorrow.</p>

[Akureisan]

CoLD MeTaL wrote: <blockquote><p>Estimates, are just that estimates.</p><p>If you are totally addicted (as I am), roll a character on the test server, and play over there during 'normal downtime'.</p><p>You might even like it over there with always on  bonus XP, friendlier atmosphere, yada yada yada</p><p> Other than that, please just back off the coffee. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote> screw decaff, I need my fix

[ZUES]

<p>Todays special event? Merging servers and preparing all live severs for the mass voyage so many players are about to take. Anytime something big like this happens expect a hefty downtime. </p>

[Ever-Befallen]

<cite>ZUES wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Todays special event? Merging servers and preparing all live severs for the mass voyage so many players are about to take. Anytime something big like this happens expect a hefty downtime. </p></blockquote> I disagree. They're merging euro servers, and including one US PVP server which was already taken down @ 12am pst for that "special event" .. sure, more than usual characters will be moving, however it isn't anything that should take 2h 30m .. btw, servers up.

[PsiberDaemon]

Ok, on the regular maintenance cycles they run, usually SOE says 1hr and I'm able to log back in within 1 hour (sometimes I've even tried it just for kicks and found that I could log in 30 minutes after the servers went down) ...  So I think on REGULAR maintenance cycles, they've pegged it pretty decently. When a major update comes out, there are always problems.  No transition is 100% smooth.  Servers come up, start processing and crash.  Updates are corrupted...  heck, maybe even once or twice the new update doesn't play well with others and eats the Character/Item/Location/Whatever database and you have to restore a backup. Lots of things can go wrong, and it can be a major pain.  I myself have had a 'routine' update that took an hour on 10 other machines turn into a major disaster on 1 server and it lasted for 4 hours.  It's just the luck of the draw. What SOE CAN do is be a bit more liberal with the downtime estimate and post it on the Network Status page.  I'd rather see an update that says 'downtime is estimated at 3 hours' and have the servers back up in 2 than see 'estimated downtime is 2 hours' and be stuck waiting for 3 hours.

[liveja]

<p>If they didn't even give "estimates", this board would be flooded by posters whining that SOE won't give them an idea of when the servers come back up.</p><p>If they tried to give hard-&-fast "it will be up by this time" statements, they'd get skewered by posters whining that they missed the "up by this time" number by .38 seconds.</p><p>If they give estimates, they get the OP, whining because the estimates are "inaccurate", which is pretty much what an "estimate" is in the first place.</p><p>SOE can't win for losing <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Mimzel]

<p><i>Please stop telling us that downtimes are approximately 1 hour when they are ALWAYS 2+ hours.  What I am counting includes the Servers being Locked.  Unable to log into a server and play = downtime.</i></p><p>Are you serious?? I think you are definately going out on a limb on this one, as the general population of EQ2 would hate for them to stop giving an ETA.  On the contrary, we the players, have fought hard and long for our ETA's <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>So what if the downtime takes 2 hours? At least you know from the ETA that SOE is planning for just a small update and you will prolly be able to play again later today. If they give an ETA 4 hours, you know it's gonna take the rest of the day and chances are you are better off doing something else completely.</p>

[JamesRay]

<p>Miss Cleo demands you stop giving any ETAs for anything involving server downtime.</p><p>Miss Cleo would also like the players to know that a new phone service is now available, just dial</p><p>555-4ETA</p><p><i>(All calls are charged $1.99/min.  All predictions of ETAs are estimates, and are not guaranteed.  Please use Miss Cleo's ETA prediction service for entertainment purposes only.)</i></p><p>Thank you.</p>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>JamesRay wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Miss Cleo demands you stop giving any ETAs for anything involving server downtime.</p><p>Miss Cleo would also like the players to know that a new phone service is now available, just dial</p><p>555-4ETA</p><p><i>(All calls are charged $1.99/min.  All predictions of ETAs are estimates, and are not guaranteed.  Please use Miss Cleo's ETA prediction service for entertainment purposes only.)</i></p><p>Thank you.</p></blockquote> The servers are going down at 7AM Pacific for a patch, estimated downtime will be between 1 millisecond and 24 hours