Kudos on a well managed downtime event

[Skandragon]

I've been fairly harsh in the past with SoE's poor customer support and technical prowess.  However, as harsh as I can be, I also give praise when it's deserved.In this full-day upgrade, SoE's operations and development staff have done an exceptional job.  They performed all the things that a good customer relationship needs:<ol><li>They set expectations properly.  That is, 24-hour window, 14 hour expected downtime.</li><li>They met their windows.</li><li>They kept us informed of the progress.</li><li>When their progress page did not render in Firefox, they fixed it.  Granted, since they use Firefox as the in-game browser, they should have tested it first.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></li><li>They told us a long time in advance before the outage happened.</li><li>By choice or by good luck, they picked a day that would probably be otherwise quite low: the release of another long-awaited game.</li></ol>Once again, thanks for a job well done.

[PhroZenAssassin]

Yep, they managed to get everything sorted for the US players, all up and sorted for US Prime time. Wonder how long I and my fellow EU players will continue to take this...

[ashen1973]

<p>Yes, SOE did do well keeping people informed with this upgrade.</p><p>But I wouldn't say they have done an exceptional job, and I'm guessing neither would the rest of us that dwell on Splitpaw, still can't log in and have no dev response yet <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Skandragon]

They still have time in their window.  I hope they continue to update their status page and post about things...

[Chondrichtheyia]

/agree with OP.This could have gone a LOT worse.

[ashen1973]

<p>I was impressed with the way SOE had handled this update, and the communication it had given all day</p><p>Until now</p><p>This just copied from the Update page</p><p>Updated at 2:16pm PDT on 9/25/07 </p><p>Here is our latest information on a game by game basis: </p><ul><li><b>EverQuest</b> - All servers are up </li><li><b>EverQuest II</b> - All servers are up save for the French and German servers. </li></ul><p>Splitpaw is still inaccesable and no update for over an hour</p><p>Just a nod from a Red name telling us that the issue is being looked at would be appreciated</p>

[Seffrid]

<p>I agree with the others, Splitpaw is inaccessible and we're now running out of gaming time for the night - it's 11:35pm here in the UK as I write this.</p><p>I'm glad for the US customers that their prime time wasn't affected by this downtime, not overly bothered that we Europeans' downtime was, but immensely frustrated that yet again we on Splitpaw have login problems when we're being told that the server is up. The Splitpaw login server arrangements clearly need to be reviewed.</p><p>SOE have stepped up their communication levels, and I personally think that Gnobrin is largely due the credit for that. However, regular communication is only worthwhile if it is accurate.</p>

[Gromph]

Despit claiming that all servers are up except Test PVP, it is still impossible to play (on servers claimed to be up).If we can not play on a server it should not be claimed to be up. This is not good. OP should have mentioned that.Furthermore, I must disagree with OP for an additional reason. I find the timing extremly ill chosen. If it had been from Monday 11:30 pm GMT I could have been more willing to support the OP. Even if it is hard to believe I think that some of the people, now claiming that this downtime is nothing to mention, would be more as screaming pigs if the downtime had started 11:30 pm GMT.

[Ozu]

Splitpawn getting screwed as allways

[Freliant]

<cite>Gromph wrote:</cite><blockquote>Despit claiming that all servers are up except Test PVP, it is still impossible to play (on servers claimed to be up).If we can not play on a server it should not be claimed to be up. This is not good. OP should have mentioned that.Furthermore, I must disagree with OP for an additional reason. I find the timing extremly ill chosen. If it had been from Monday 11:30 pm GMT I could have been more willing to support the OP. Even if it is hard to believe I think that some of the people, now claiming that this downtime is nothing to mention, would be more as screaming pigs if the downtime had started 11:30 pm GMT.</blockquote>Because it doesn't conform to your "ideal" situation, doesn't mean it wasn't well executed. That goes to everyone on all server and games accross the world as the 24 hour window is still going, and will continue for about 5 hours or so.

[ganjookie]

Dang you UK peeps are bitter about not playing a game.  Go out to a pub and have a few drinks with your mates!

[Skandragon]

Some things to consider:Someone has to lose.  I suspect SoE has graphs showing play times across the day, and unfortunately you lose.Most outages start at 7am PST, which is right around the time I tradeskill while eating breakfast.  I lose then.  Once again, bad luck, someone has to lose.I don't have any characters on Splitpaw, so I didn't know it was still down.The fact is that someone has to be last up, and in any outage someone loses more than others.  They could have just kept the servers down the full 24 hours.  I for one am glad they brought them up as they could, and did not just flip one large switch at the far end of the outage window.

[godzil]

<cite>Huxley@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yep, they managed to get everything sorted for the US players, all up and sorted for US Prime time. Wonder how long I and my fellow EU players will continue to take this...</blockquote>Yeah , abandon ship and join one of those great EU based MMO's - that'll show em !It is a US game . In the USA you have to pay people time and a half or even double time to work off hours . That would be a bad business move . If you don't like working within the US time frame play a game that is based somewhere else . It is one of the craziest complaints i have ever seen yet I see it in every game I play when there is downtime . You don't see Americans on the Lineage forums asking them to change their ways for a small % .

[Wingrider01]

<cite>godzilla wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Huxley@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yep, they managed to get everything sorted for the US players, all up and sorted for US Prime time. Wonder how long I and my fellow EU players will continue to take this...</blockquote>Yeah , abandon ship and join one of those great EU based MMO's - that'll show em !It is a US game . In the USA you have to pay people time and a half or even double time to work off hours . That would be a bad business move . If you don't like working within the US time frame play a game that is based somewhere else . It is one of the craziest complaints i have ever seen yet I see it in every game I play when there is downtime . You don't see Americans on the Lineage forums asking them to change their ways for a small % . </blockquote><p>Actually when EQ2 first came out, the down time was at 4AM Pacific, in June of 05 they moved the downtime from 4 AM pacific to 7 AM pacfic</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=64210" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...?topic_id=64210</a></p><p>Moorgard wrote:</p><p>We wanted to let everyone know that, starting this week, regularly scheduled US-English server downtimes will take place at <b>7AM Pacific</b> instead of 4AM Pacific. This new time will apply to both major live updates and restarts for minor hotfixes. Although the 4AM restart time technically occurred during the lowest amount of server traffic, it negatively affected a specific population of players: those in the Asian and Australian regions. In order to support these players more fully, and based on feedback received at our community summit, we have decided to move the update times a few hours later to give subscribers in those regions a better opportunity to play. Our apologies to anyone negatively affected by this change, but we feel it to be in the best interest of our EverQuest II subscribers. We also wanted to let everyone know that we will not be bringing the servers down for a daily restart unless there is a necessary update or fix. Previously we have been restarting the servers most days, whether there was an update or not. Based on server optimizations the team has performed since launch, we are confident in our server stability and intend to keep them running between necessary updates. Please note that there may be times when hardware or network maintenance will require downtimes earlier or later than the 7AM norm. However, all regularly scheduled game updates will follow the 7AM standard. Thanks again for your continuing support of EverQuest II.</p>

[Chuffed]

<cite></cite><cite>godzilla wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Huxley@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yep, they managed to get everything sorted for the US players, all up and sorted for US Prime time. Wonder how long I and my fellow EU players will continue to take this...</blockquote>Yeah , abandon ship and join one of those great EU based MMO's - that'll show em !It is a US game . In the USA you have to pay people time and a half or even double time to work off hours . That would be a bad business move . If you don't like working within the US time frame play a game that is based somewhere else . It is one of the craziest complaints i have ever seen yet I see it in every game I play when there is downtime . You don't see Americans on the Lineage forums asking them to change their ways for a small % . </blockquote>Thats what I have come to love about US people, the understanding of others, the empathy they show. Kudo's to you.Strange that the links I posted, on another thread, to movies about US people got deleted by a moderator, no sense of humour I guess <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Gnobrin]

<p>Calling your fellow posters names and then linking inappropriate videos, whether they be of a differing nationality or not, is not acceptable.  Such behavior can result in the removal of the poster that thought such a post was in some way humerous.  Please, respect your fellow posters.</p><p>~Gnobrin!</p>

[godzil]

Not going to go on after this post but empathy ? For real ? Ha . I don't get how people miss a day or a couple hours of playing a game and act like they just lost a loved one . I don't get how people would expect a company who is based in one country to adjust their schedule for a minority of players in another part of the world . It would not be smart business . If Americans are such bad people why are you supporting us ? I guess it is empathy ...haha

[Chuffed]

Please show me where I called anyone a name and then explain how they are inappropriate? It is a joke. But you did prove my point so thanks.On a side note another person posted a screenshot showing the server message that Splitpaw was down and it was deleted, was that insulting someone too?Edit: Just to add, the above poster is doing what you accused me of more so than me and he also proved my point twice lol.

[Iseabeil]

<cite>godzilla wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not going to go on after this post but empathy ? For real ? Ha . I don't get how people miss a day or a couple hours of playing a game and act like they just lost a loved one . I don't get how people would expect a company who is based in one country to adjust their schedule for a minority of players in another part of the world . It would not be smart business . If Americans are such bad people why are you supporting us ? I guess it is empathy ...haha </blockquote><p>Have you ever stopped and asked yourself <i>why</i> europeans are a minority on these games? There are 700 million europeans compaired to 300 millions americans. Europe is probably the biggest untapped market for mmorpgs with plenty of money to spend, and still... Do any of these massive companies even try to entice europeans to play? Do they even care if they have europeans play their games at all? Ive seen a few attempts made here and there trying to improve the issues, but as long as europeans are treated as second rate customers I doubt there will be many of us playing. I played eq2 since early beta without leaving a single time, but as soon as a good game comes out that actually cares about their non-american customers... I doubt Ill stick around here for long.</p><p>Just as everythin else in the mmorpg world.. as long as the options are limited people have only two choises, play or not play, when more options come.. well, just take a look at EQlive's domination over mmorpg market today compaired to +5 years ago.</p>

[godzil]

DAoC had Euro servers that were a few months behind all changes . They had there own servers , own schedule and an easier way to gain RPs . This did not stop many of the Euro people from playing on the US servers cuz it is human nature to want things first but they never bitched about downtimes since they had another option . Hell , I was one of the only Americans in my guild - most were Aussie with a few Azns and Euros and 2 Americans . We competed against and with tons of Euros , many Danish . They understood they were dealing with an American company but thought the benefits outweighed the bad .Maybe you could finance an MMO maker over there or a EU branch of one of the existing companies since it seems to be an untapped market .

[Pulli]

<cite>Iseabeil wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>godzilla wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not going to go on after this post but empathy ? For real ? Ha . I don't get how people miss a day or a couple hours of playing a game and act like they just lost a loved one . I don't get how people would expect a company who is based in one country to adjust their schedule for a minority of players in another part of the world . It would not be smart business . If Americans are such bad people why are you supporting us ? I guess it is empathy ...haha </blockquote><p>Have you ever stopped and asked yourself <i>why</i> europeans are a minority on these games? There are 700 million europeans compaired to 300 millions americans. Europe is probably the biggest untapped market for mmorpgs with plenty of money to spend, and still... Do any of these massive companies even try to entice europeans to play? Do they even care if they have europeans play their games at all? Ive seen a few attempts made here and there trying to improve the issues, but as long as europeans are treated as second rate customers I doubt there will be many of us playing. I played eq2 since early beta without leaving a single time, but as soon as a good game comes out that actually cares about their non-american customers... I doubt Ill stick around here for long.</p><p>Just as everythin else in the mmorpg world.. as long as the options are limited people have only two choises, play or not play, when more options come.. well, just take a look at EQlive's domination over mmorpg market today compaired to +5 years ago.</p></blockquote><p> Europe is hardly an untapped MMO market with WoW hitting a million over there at one point, yet WoW has more downtime than EQ2 does. However, the biggest market for MMOs is still Asia with a MUCH larger population of people who don't play MMOs yet than Europe. Lastly, EQ2 is a USA based MMO with a larger USA population than Euro, thus the downtimes are going to correlate with the larger population to maximize play time for the most people. You play on a foreign based MMO.</p><p> EDIT: WoW hit its numbers and can patch to Euro times because it has a Euro division (Uk.blizzard.com). <strike>A division that I believe SoE does not have, so patches are done from over here to Euro servers. Correct me if I am wrong <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></strike></p>

[Anker]

Everyone seems to indicate the servers are up but I haven't been able to reach the login server for the last 4 hours. Keeps telling me to try later. Have any of you actually gotten into the game this evening?

[godzil]

If you have Vista right click and run as admin . Once in game you can log off then back in normally . The untapped was a bit of sarcasm with a bit of truth . Many players there but no big games based there .

[Defeat]

Always wondered why SOE hasn't taken flack from its parent division on its handling of the European market. It has always since the EQ1 days completely failed to exploit it, and it must be significantly hitting the bottom line. The old example of WoW really should be used to show possible player numbers in Europe - its estimated at around 1.5 million subscribers, where WoW has close to 2 Million US subscribers.Now lets look at EQ2 given the Europe servers are so low population compared to the US you can at most be talking 30,000 subscribers (even including the ones who play on US servers) yet how many US subscribers are there - 200,000+ maybe 400,000 - what ever the figure is its nowhere near the almost parity that the US and Europe markets have with WoW.As said given this lack of any significant revenue out of Europe I am amazed that nobody has ever kicked up a storm in SOE's parent about SOE's lack of exploiting Europe. After all if you look at the WoW figures they are potentially missing out on almost doubling there revenue.Really SOE needs to setup a proper Europe division with its own offices and own people. Once it has people dedicated to exploiting the European market then it will start to treat the European customer with some respect.A slight asside but given SOE's involvement in the PS3's online side it really doesn't give me much hope as a European in that service, a service which will in time be probably essential to the console.

[Zahmekos]

<cite>godzilla wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not going to go on after this post but empathy ? For real ? Ha . I don't get how people miss a day or a couple hours of playing a game and act like they just lost a loved one . I don't get how people would expect a company who is based in one country to adjust their schedule for a minority of players in another part of the world . It would not be smart business . If Americans are such bad people why are you supporting us ? I guess it is empathy ...haha </blockquote>Its not about changing the working time for patches, its about to change the order they work on the servers. Europe servers are the first ones to loose playing time in the evening prime time. Therefore why not patch them first? Is that smart business? Maybe thats the reason that there are not more european players?US players lost the morning and early afternoon, but could play after work. Others lost the whole day.

[Athit]

<cite>godzilla wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Huxley@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yep, they managed to get everything sorted for the US players, all up and sorted for US Prime time. Wonder how long I and my fellow EU players will continue to take this...</blockquote>Yeah , abandon ship and join one of those great EU based MMO's - that'll show em !It is a US game . <b>In the USA you have to pay people time and a half or even double time to work off hours</b> <b>. That would be a bad business move .</b> If you don't like working within the US time frame play a game that is based somewhere else . It is one of the craziest complaints i have ever seen yet I see it in every game I play when there is downtime . You don't see Americans on the Lineage forums asking them to change their ways for a small % . </blockquote>The update was mostly done during the night in the US. Isn't that off hours?

[Ansek]

Personally, I thought it was a better-than-expected downtime event. Can't help thinking a lot of people are missing the point of EU players gripes tho. Lets go back a bit shall we? Say to the beginning of August. Six weeks or so. How many times have the EU servers been down in our prime time? How many times have the US servers been down in their prime time? Do the maths and I'm sure you can understand why we're feeling a bit hard done by.And hey, downtime is a fact of life with MMOs so we should just suck it up - and for the most part we do. But how many times have the US servers come up after an outrage, have there been posts proclaiming "All servers are up" when what they ACTUALLY mean is "All servers are up except the EU ones cos gee we forgot all about you guys"?The most OMG! moment I've had reading these forums was during the LoN launch debacle when Grimwell discovered that actually the English language EU servers came under his remit. I personally find it incredible that it took almost three years before anyone realised that no one was watching out for us. To his credit he's making a concerted effort to rectify this shortcoming and for that he has my thanks. Kirstie posted then to say that just because the US based servers go [Removed for Content] up (and yeah this includes Runnyeye) doesn't meant the Amsterdam based servers should too (which includes Splitpaw.) She said a fix would be applied (two+ years late again, but still...) and it shouldn't happen again. And the very next outrage it does. All we're asking for is a little parity. Treat us with a bit more respect. Don't tell us ALL servers are up if what you mean is ALL US servers. Don't then come all heavy handed, deleting screenshots showing that actually you're telling porkies and post snotty nosed comments about treating people with respect while letting some really quite nasty comments - yes godzilla (isn't that a trademarked name btw?) I'm looking at you! - remain. I have friends in other games who are bored and looking for a new home. They're all ex-SOE customers (EQ, Planetside, EQ2 or SWG - indeed I've played them all over the last decade) and not one will come to EQ2 because their experience as an EU player of an SOE game has scared them off for good. Don't believe me? RoK launches in six weeks time. Just try and find a UK version of the expansion. Amazon.com is accepting preorders. Amazon.co.uk doesn't even have it listed. Neither does play247. Or DLGamer. Or any other game site I've tried. Yesterday I went to Southampton - thats our fourth (?) largest city and a couple of hours drive away so hardly local - and asked about preordering the expansion in NINE game shops. EIGHT didn't know the expansion was coming out, the other did but wasn't planning on stocking it - the sales assistant actually suggested trying Amazon. The loss of primetime playing, the lack of information about our servers, the disregard we feel as far as customer service is concerned, the hoops we have to go through simply to BUY the bloody game... none of these are earth shattering. None of these is why the EU player base is so small compared to other games. But add them all together and, well, you begin to see why WoW and LotRO have more EU players. Those of us who play this game do so cos we like it. Its incredibly frustrating to be treated this badly in return. And THATS why we're upset.

[Andu]

<p>Well said Ansek.</p><p>The whole thing can be traced pretty much back to launch. All the way through the pre-release hype for EQ2 SoE were promising dedicated European servers for all languages. Then quite literally days before release they backtracked spectacularly on all that and said there would be no European English speaking server. They did  relent and label Runnyeye as "European" but it was based in America and suffered from all the lag you might expect of a distantly located server at the launch of a game.</p><p>Only after countless complaints did they finally relent and give us Splitpaw which is based in Europe. It's pretty clear now though that the community relations aspects of Splitpaw were never resolved at that time and so it has fallen into this black hole where noone has taken any responsibility for it ever since its launch. From the server status page, to information on the forums, every single patch or downtime has us left completely in the dark or even worse, staring at a screen saying "all servers are up" even when ours blatantly isn't.</p><p>Only in the past few weeks has Grimwell acknowledged this. I guess kudos to him for letting us know but having had two years of fairly appalling customer service you can at least try to understand why our patience is wearing a little thin.</p>

[Tid]

Personally, the down time for me was great, being away from the game I got time to smell the roses so to speak.I cracked out the Gamecube and played Resident Evil 4! Yes, we do get owned on the SP and RE servers with patches but we should be used to being bent over for the US servers by now...

[Jynnan]

<cite>Ansek wrote:</cite><blockquote>Personally, I thought it was a better-than-expected downtime event. Can't help thinking a lot of people are missing the point of EU players gripes tho. Lets go back a bit shall we? Say to the beginning of August. Six weeks or so. How many times have the EU servers been down in our prime time? How many times have the US servers been down in their prime time? Do the maths and I'm sure you can understand why we're feeling a bit hard done by.And hey, downtime is a fact of life with MMOs so we should just suck it up - and for the most part we do. But how many times have the US servers come up after an outrage, have there been posts proclaiming "All servers are up" when what they ACTUALLY mean is "All servers are up except the EU ones cos gee we forgot all about you guys"?The most OMG! moment I've had reading these forums was during the LoN launch debacle when Grimwell discovered that actually the English language EU servers came under his remit. I personally find it incredible that it took almost three years before anyone realised that no one was watching out for us. To his credit he's making a concerted effort to rectify this shortcoming and for that he has my thanks. Kirstie posted then to say that just because the US based servers go [I cannot control my vocabulary] up (and yeah this includes Runnyeye) doesn't meant the Amsterdam based servers should too (which includes Splitpaw.) She said a fix would be applied (two+ years late again, but still...) and it shouldn't happen again. And the very next outrage it does. All we're asking for is a little parity. Treat us with a bit more respect. Don't tell us ALL servers are up if what you mean is ALL US servers. Don't then come all heavy handed, deleting screenshots showing that actually you're telling porkies and post snotty nosed comments about treating people with respect while letting some really quite nasty comments - yes godzilla (isn't that a trademarked name btw?) I'm looking at you! - remain. I have friends in other games who are bored and looking for a new home. They're all ex-SOE customers (EQ, Planetside, EQ2 or SWG - indeed I've played them all over the last decade) and not one will come to EQ2 because their experience as an EU player of an SOE game has scared them off for good. Don't believe me? RoK launches in six weeks time. Just try and find a UK version of the expansion. Amazon.com is accepting preorders. Amazon.co.uk doesn't even have it listed. Neither does play247. Or DLGamer. Or any other game site I've tried. Yesterday I went to Southampton - thats our fourth (?) largest city and a couple of hours drive away so hardly local - and asked about preordering the expansion in NINE game shops. EIGHT didn't know the expansion was coming out, the other did but wasn't planning on stocking it - the sales assistant actually suggested trying Amazon. The loss of primetime playing, the lack of information about our servers, the disregard we feel as far as customer service is concerned, the hoops we have to go through simply to BUY the bloody game... none of these are earth shattering. None of these is why the EU player base is so small compared to other games. But add them all together and, well, you begin to see why WoW and LotRO have more EU players. Those of us who play this game do so cos we like it. Its incredibly frustrating to be treated this badly in return. And THATS why we're upset. </blockquote><p>This is the best post I've read on these forums in ... well, probably, ever! Good work, fella! 100% agree.</p>

[CHIMPNOODLE.]

<p>Very happy with the way this turned out.</p><p> Raided Monday night until almost midnight......went to bed.....got up in the AM......went to work......got hom from work....and everything was up (for my server anyway). </p><p>Literally Zero downtime for me. Seems like it was all fit into the perfect slot for East Coast day workers (which is the majority of my server judgeing from peak times).</p><p>Well done.</p>

[UlteriorModem]

<p>Wait a minute... there was a down time ?? <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p><p> All that fussing and fuming.</p><p> Ill gaurentee you there are still angry Eu folks. I guess its just there nature.</p>

[Seffrid]

<p>Ansek's points were well made.</p><p>As for the argument that European MMO players are a small minority of the market, I suggest anyone who believes that counts up the US WoW servers and then counts up the European WoW servers. </p><p>Also, by way of nailing the argument put forward by US players that we Europeans are just whinging over nothing, I would respectfully ask SOE to stage the next major downtime at US prime time, and then let's see how quietly and passively the US players cope with that <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />!</p><p>Someone said they couldn't imagine US players asking for special treatment on Lineage. Heck, I remember the absolute carnage on the boards when the US players of Lineage 2 discovered they had to play on Japanese servers!!!!</p><p>Incidentally, I wanted to come back on last night and post that I had got into the game at last on Splitpaw, but guess what? I couldn't access the forum <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />!</p><p>All any of us ask at the end of the day is that we all get treated with fairness and respect as equal paying customers, irrespective of who we are or where we live. Of course, there will be some servers that come up later than others, of course there will be some servers that have login problems. All anyone can ask for in those circumstances is to be kept informed - accurately - as to what is happening. I'm delighted that SOE's CSRs have picked up on this, and I applaud them for their response to a recognised need to improve their handling of the European playerbase. I hope that our American fellow players can also pick up on it and echo the call for fair and equal treatment.  Earlier I singled out Gnobrin for praise in respect of the CSR actions, and I should have included Grimwell as well. My apologies to him for the omission.</p>

[chopsya]

Btw Gnobring have any of the US people here that are insulting EU people been banned?Because I know you banned Chuffed for what he said. Doesnt seem like there is a similar treatment for US or EU people in the end. And I do salute Grimwell for his info and feedback to EU people on Splitpaw.Also I have seen the US people here say it was perfect for them, which it was, however it wasnt for the EU people, can you not understand that?Too Godzilla: SoE = Sony = Japanese. So we are supporting a Japanese game run by americans.

[Gunath]

<p>Not that I am being argumentative, since I can empathize with the Euro players who lost game time, but...</p><p> SOE is a division of Sony that is based in San Diego...so,  SOE = American Division running a game based in America.</p>

[chopsya]

<cite>Gunath wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Not that I am being argumentative, since I can empathize with the Euro players who lost game time, but...</p><p> SOE is a division of Sony that is based in San Diego...so,  SOE = American Division running a game based in America.</p></blockquote>I know we splitting hairs now <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />, but in the end its owned and making money for the Japanese.

[Gunath]

<p>Oh, I fully realize that in the end it is a Japanese owned company.  Like I said, I wasn't trying to be argumentative.</p><p>As to the topic of this thread,  without malice or bias, how would the European players fix the current situation?  It seems to me that other than stating that all the EQ2 servers were up (and not all were) as well as the timing of the down time, there isn't much to get uptight about.  I can agree that at times SOE has not been at the forefront of information sharing, but in the last several years, they have gotten better by leaps and bounds (anyone remember the Thursday that EQ2 fell down and went boom, but no one knew anything about what was going on until late Friday night?).</p><p>How should SOE fix the problem?  </p>

[DngrMou]

<cite>Seffrid wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Also, by way of nailing the argument put forward by US players that we Europeans are just whinging over nothing, I would respectfully ask SOE to stage the next major downtime at US prime time, and then let's see how quietly and passively the US players cope with that <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />!</p></blockquote><p>If it would put a stop to this incessant, and pointless cross-atlantic sniping, I'd gladly sacrifice an evening of 'prime time'.  </p><p>There was an outage, which was planned to impact as few players as possible.  If SOE were headquartered in Paris, and the majority of their players were in Europe, I would expect them to cater first to the larger segment of their player base, and I would spend an evening doing something other than playing EQ.  One.  Evening.  </p><p>/shrug</p>

[chopsya]

Well for one, I would have the login servers connected to the actual servers in EU and not too RE which is in the US. Thats what kills us the most tbh.If US servers have a problem then it normally affects us in EU even though our servers are fine, due to the Login Authentication stuff is all done on RE servers for splitpaw. So if you are logged on before the problem happens its ok, but if you then zone or log out you cant get back on.Have Splitpaw on server status page so we can actually see our servers status instead of All Servers are up message.When giving times for downtimes etc put them in GMT or some other standard EU time zone instead of PST or EST.Grimwell has started communicating very well, only recently though, to the Splitpaw community and is doing his best to keep us informed. Things are getting better slowly I think. The problem is we have waited for years for this to happen and patience is a virtue that can wear thin over time.

[Seffrid]

<cite>chopsya wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Well for one, I would have the login servers connected to the actual servers in EU and not too RE which is in the US. Thats what kills us the most tbh.</p><p> <span style="color: #990000;">I agree.</span>If US servers have a problem then it normally affects us in EU even though our servers are fine, due to the Login Authentication stuff is all done on RE servers for splitpaw. So if you are logged on before the problem happens its ok, but if you then zone or log out you cant get back on.</p><p> <span style="color: #990000;">Exactly.</span>Have Splitpaw on server status page so we can actually see our servers status instead of All Servers are up message.When giving times for downtimes etc put them in GMT or some other standard EU time zone instead of PST or EST.</p><p><span style="color: #990000;">You obviously mean messages in respect of the EU servers, but I'd make it so that all downtime messages in respect of all servers are given in both US and EU times. There are lots of Europeans that play on the US servers and vice versa.</span>Grimwell has started communicating very well, only recently though, to the Splitpaw community and is doing his best to keep us informed. Things are getting better slowly I think. The problem is we have waited for years for this to happen and patience is a virtue that can wear thin over time.</p><p><span style="color: #990000;">Agreed. Many Europeans remain embittered by the mess that SOE dumped them into with Ubisoft (EQ).</span></p></blockquote>

[Tae]

<cite>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>If it would put a stop to this incessant, and pointless cross-atlantic sniping, I'd gladly sacrifice an evening of 'prime time'.  </blockquote>It's not JUST this. EU servers go down at 3pm our time at least once a week. Doesn't mean anything to you, but it's a pain for us. Also there is one big EU game. EVE.

[Avanya]

<cite>Skandragon wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been fairly harsh in the past with SoE's poor customer support and technical prowess.  However, as harsh as I can be, I also give praise when it's deserved.In this full-day upgrade, SoE's operations and development staff have done an exceptional job.  They performed all the things that a good customer relationship needs:<ol><li>They set expectations properly.  That is, 24-hour window, 14 hour expected downtime.</li><li>They met their windows.</li><li>They kept us informed of the progress.</li><li>When their progress page did not render in Firefox, they fixed it.  Granted, since they use Firefox as the in-game browser, they should have tested it first.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></li><li>They told us a long time in advance before the outage happened.</li><li>By choice or by good luck, they picked a day that would probably be otherwise quite low: the release of another long-awaited game.</li></ol>Once again, thanks for a job well done.</blockquote><p>I couldn't agree more.  Excellent job.  Keep up the good work! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[DngrMou]

<cite>Taear@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>If it would put a stop to this incessant, and pointless cross-atlantic sniping, I'd gladly sacrifice an evening of 'prime time'.  </blockquote>It's not JUST this. EU servers go down at 3pm our time at least once a week. Doesn't mean anything to you, but it's a pain for us.Also there is one big EU game. EVE.</blockquote><p>I understand it's a pain..but 3pm is hardly prime time either.  And here in the U.S. the servers come down at least once a week at 10am eastern...again, hardly prime time, and in either case, the argument can be made they are doing their maintenance during off peak hours for both the U.S., and Europe, presumably to accomodate their customers. </p><p>Oh...and I'm not saying there is'nt an EU based game, only that I'm not playing one now, and if I were, I'd expect their downtime to coincide with the off peak hours of the majority of their customers.</p>

[Wingrider01]

<cite>Taear@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>If it would put a stop to this incessant, and pointless cross-atlantic sniping, I'd gladly sacrifice an evening of 'prime time'.  </blockquote>It's not JUST this. EU servers go down at 3pm our time at least once a week. Doesn't mean anything to you, but it's a pain for us.Also there is one big EU game. EVE.</blockquote><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=64210" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...?topic_id=64210</a></p><p>Moorgard wrote:</p><p>We wanted to let everyone know that, starting this week, regularly scheduled US-English server downtimes will take place at <b>7AM Pacific</b> instead of 4AM Pacific. This new time will apply to both major live updates and restarts for minor hotfixes. Although the 4AM restart time technically occurred during the lowest amount of server traffic, it negatively affected a specific population of players: those in the Asian and Australian regions. In order to support these players more fully, and based on feedback received at our community summit, we have decided to move the update times a few hours later to give subscribers in those regions a better opportunity to play. Our apologies to anyone negatively affected by this change, but we feel it to be in the best interest of our EverQuest II subscribers. We also wanted to let everyone know that we will not be bringing the servers down for a daily restart unless there is a necessary update or fix. Previously we have been restarting the servers most days, whether there was an update or not. Based on server optimizations the team has performed since launch, we are confident in our server stability and intend to keep them running between necessary updates. Please note that there may be times when hardware or network maintenance will require downtimes earlier or later than the 7AM norm. However, all regularly scheduled game updates will follow the 7AM standard. Thanks again for your continuing support of EverQuest II.</p>

[Seffrid]

<cite>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite> <blockquote><p>I understand it's a pain..but 3pm is hardly prime time either.  And here in the U.S. the servers come down at least once a week at 10am eastern...again, hardly prime time, and in either case, the argument can be made they are doing their maintenance during off peak hours for both the U.S., and Europe, presumably to accomodate their customers. </p></blockquote>The difference is obviously that when the servers go down at 10am there's a bigger chance of them being up in time for prime evening time than when they go down at 3pm. Server populations really pick up from no later than say 4pm.

[DragonMaster2385]

<p>When I see posts as long as that of Ansek's, I normally pass right over them, as there are a lot of morons that can't type coherent paragraphs on these forums.  However, I decided to read every bit of it and I completely agree and sympathize with your situation.  I am a US customer on Butcherblock, so this problem has no direct impact on me, but it still irritates the hell out of me.  SOE has always been known for the lack of customer service, and it is absolutely appalling when you melt all of the EU problems together.  I can't believe that this highly anticipated expansion is nowhere to be found in your location.  I thought the marketing was bad in the US, but I guess it is simply non-existent over there.  Sony is one of the largest companies in the world, so you know they can afford that kind of marketing campaign. </p>

[Ozu]

<p>i'm just waiting for a Swedish made mmorpg to come out, would be great if it was eq3 hehe.</p>

[Meio]

I guess it will not help to make peeps happy, when they silently delete a whole thread with critic on the splitpaw forum.

[Glenolas]

<cite>Skandragon wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been fairly harsh in the past with SoE's poor customer support and technical prowess.  However, as harsh as I can be, I also give praise when it's deserved.In this full-day upgrade, SoE's operations and development staff have done an exceptional job.  They performed all the things that a good customer relationship needs:</blockquote><p>I'm sorry to disagree.   </p><p>Any staff coming forward with a plan to shut every game  and website down for 14 hours  to change the billing/authentication software and the web interface to it would have been sent packing by any competent management.     It just telegraphs incompetence to anyone who does this for a living.    </p><p>This isn't rocket science.    What they did could have been done  without anything more than a normal 1/2 hour shutdown like they do every couple of weeks.  Just install the new system,  do the  server reset ,  and all would be well.       </p><p>You were right in your very  first sentence.    It wasn't a full day upgrade. </p>

[Tae]

<cite>Wingrider01 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>We wanted to let everyone know that, starting this week, regularly scheduled US-English server downtimes will take place at <b>7AM Pacific</b> instead of 4AM Pacific. This new time will apply to both major live updates and restarts for minor hotfixes. </blockquote>Which is 3pm BST. 4am Pacific would be 12pm BST, which would be a much better time. Why cater to australian players, but not to us? Why is it that different servers can't have different downtimes?

[DngrMou]

<cite>Glenolas wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Skandragon wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been fairly harsh in the past with SoE's poor customer support and technical prowess.  However, as harsh as I can be, I also give praise when it's deserved.In this full-day upgrade, SoE's operations and development staff have done an exceptional job.  They performed all the things that a good customer relationship needs:</blockquote><p>I'm sorry to disagree.   </p><p>Any staff coming forward with a plan to shut every game  and website down for 14 hours  to change the billing/authentication software and the web interface to it would have been sent packing by any competent management.     It just telegraphs incompetence to anyone who does this for a living.    </p><p>This isn't rocket science.    What they did could have been done  without anything more than a normal 1/2 hour shutdown like they do every couple of weeks.  Just install the new system,  do the  server reset ,  and all would be well.       </p><p>You were right in your very  first sentence.    It wasn't a full day upgrade. </p></blockquote><p>How do you know it could have been done in half an hour?  You're awfully quick to throw out charges of incometence....so put -your- money where your mouth is, and back those charges up.</p>

[Sural_Argonus]

Working for an ISP myself, and having done a lot of PC Hardware upgrades....I can tell you that it DEFINITELY can take a long time to do maintenance on stuff.  Now I am not sure of all the details on what all happened....I can only surmise that probably some hardware was changed out, software installed and updated, equipment probably had to be configured.....It's not always a fast process.  The Login Servers and Account Management Servers are not simple little desktop computers.  They are server clusters...possbily looking like this:<img src="http://discolab.rutgers.edu/img/misc/cluster-front-medium.jpg" border="0" alt="" />These are not exactly your run of the mill desktop......I know from personal experience with our Network Operations department, even swapping out a simple router is not something that takes a couple minutes. 

[Oe]

<p>Yes it was well managed they have introduced a stelth increse to UK players by 33% not sure for the rest of Europe.</p><p>Way to go SOE.</p>

[Zahmekos]

<cite>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Seffrid wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Also, by way of nailing the argument put forward by US players that we Europeans are just whinging over nothing, I would respectfully ask SOE to stage the next major downtime at US prime time, and then let's see how quietly and passively the US players cope with that <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />!</p></blockquote><p>If it would put a stop to this incessant, and pointless cross-atlantic sniping, I'd gladly sacrifice an evening of 'prime time'.  </p><p>There was an outage, which was planned to impact as few players as possible.  If SOE were headquartered in Paris, and the majority of their players were in Europe, I would expect them to cater first to the larger segment of their player base, and I would spend an evening doing something other than playing EQ.  One.  Evening.  </p><p>/shrug</p></blockquote>If it just would be only one evening, splitpaw had a lot of problem allready this year^^Europe servers are allways the last ones who gets patched and on updgrades like this one where all servers go down together, also allways the last ones who get up.

[UlteriorModem]

<cite>Glenolas wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Skandragon wrote:</cite><blockquote>I've been fairly harsh in the past with SoE's poor customer support and technical prowess.  However, as harsh as I can be, I also give praise when it's deserved.In this full-day upgrade, SoE's operations and development staff have done an exceptional job.  They performed all the things that a good customer relationship needs:</blockquote><p>I'm sorry to disagree.   </p><p>Any staff coming forward with a plan to shut every game  and website down for 14 hours  to change the billing/authentication software and the web interface to it would have been sent packing by any competent management.     It just telegraphs incompetence to anyone who does this for a living.    </p><p>This isn't rocket science.    What they did could have been done  without anything more than a normal 1/2 hour shutdown like they do every couple of weeks.  Just install the new system,  do the  server reset ,  and all would be well.       </p><p>You were right in your very  first sentence.    It wasn't a full day upgrade. </p></blockquote>One word... "Bliss"

[Glenolas]

<cite>Arg0nus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Working for an ISP myself, and having done a lot of PC Hardware upgrades....I can tell you that it DEFINITELY can take a long time to do maintenance on stuff.  </p><p><b>None of which <i><span style="color: #3300cc;">requires</span></i> the client to be shut down. </b>Now I am not sure of all the details on what all happened....I can only surmise that probably some hardware was changed out, software installed and updated, equipment probably had to be configured.....It's not always a fast process.  </p><p> <b>None fo which <i><span style="color: #0000ff;">requires</span></i> the client to be shut down.</b>    </p></blockquote><p>The only thing <i>requiring</i> client shut down is to force client side updates, or to force a relogin to the new authentication system, once it's up and running.    Since their normal every week or so shutdown/bring up seems to take about 30 minutes,  I suggested that method should have been appropriate for the changeover to the new system.     </p><p>There is nothing out of the ordinary about major upgrades to software or hardware while maintaining  operations.  It's the norm in the industry.    Do you think the  New York times skips a day of publishing to upgrade software or hardware that goes from desktop to printing press to website?   Your local electric grid?  The airlines?   Walgren's pharmacy?  The fire department?  How do you think ISP's that guarantee 99.9% uptime to major clients do it?     The cost for that guarantee is trivial, and they stand to lose real money if they don't deliver.   It's not rocket science.  </p><p>I'd expect a 14 hour shutdown only if a major fire broke out in the server area,  people had to be immediately evacutated, and the fire department shut the building power down to fight the fire.      I.e a catastrophic happening. </p><p>It's a matter of attitude toward the customer.   In the EQ2 case, only the client suffers, not SOE.  He doesn't get to play but he still has to pay for the time anyway, per the monthly agreement.  No revenue loss on SOE's part,   so no incentive to do it right.      </p>

[Chefren]

<cite>Glenolas wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>There is nothing out of the ordinary about major upgrades to software or hardware while maintaining  operations.  It's the norm in the industry.    Do you think the  New York times skips a day of publishing to upgrade software or hardware that goes from desktop to printing press to website?   Your local electric grid?  The airlines?   Walgren's pharmacy?  The fire department?  How do you think ISP's that guarantee 99.9% uptime to major clients do it? <b>The cost for that guarantee is trivial</b>, and they stand to lose real money if they don't deliver.   It's not rocket science.</blockquote>No, it's not. High availability servers and network infrastructure is not cheap and writing software to meet HA standards is not trivial. 99.9% availability means less than 9 hours of downtime in a year. One overenthusiastic excavator digging up some cables will ruin that.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability</a>

[Kaedi]

<p>From the EULA: </p><p>13. SOE warrants to the original consumer purchaser only that the media furnished in this product will be free from defects in materials and workmanship under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase (as evidenced by your receipt). If the media furnished in this product proves to be defective, and provided that the original consumer purchaser returns the media to SOE in accordance with the instructions in this paragraph, SOE will replace the defective media: (a) free of charge to the original consumer purchaser, if the media proves to be defective within the ninety (90) day period following the date of purchase, or (b) for a fee of $5.00 per Compact Disc ("CD&quot<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, if the media proves to be defective after the expiration of the ninety (90) day warranty period, provided that the request is made within a reasonable time from purchase, and SOE continues to distribute the CD commercially. To obtain a replacement CD, please return the defective CD only, postage prepaid, to Sony Online Entertainment LLC, 8928 Terman Court, San Diego, CA 92121, accompanied by proof of date of purchase, a description of the defect, and your name and return address, as well as a check for $5.00 per CD made payable to Sony Online Entertainment LLC if after expiration of the warranty period. SOE will mail a replacement to you within 180 days of receiving your order.EXCEPT FOR THE LIMITED 90 DAY WARRANTY ON THE MEDIA AS SET FORTH ABOVE, WE PROVIDE THE CD-ROM, THE SOFTWARE, THE ACCOUNT, THE GAME AND ALL OTHER SERVICES "AS IS." WE AND OUR SUPPLIERS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. <b><u><i>Without limiting the foregoing, we do not ensure continuous, error-free, secure or virus-free operation of the CD-ROM, the Software, the Game, your Account or continued operation or availability of any given server.</i></u></b> Some states do not allow limitations as to how long an implied warranty lasts and/or exclusions or limitations of consequential damages, so the above limitations and/or exclusions of liability may not apply to you. This warranty gives you specific legal rights and you may also have other legal rights which vary from state to state.We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes beyond our reasonable control. <b><i><u>Further, we cannot and do not promise or ensure that you will be able to access your Account whenever you want, and there may be extended periods of time when you cannot access your Account.</u></i></b> You assume the entire risk as to the results and performance of the Software and the Game in connection with your hardware and software, and you assume the entire cost of all servicing, repair and/or correction of your hardware and software.</p><p>I highlighted the pertinent part.  Long story short, SoE gave plenty of warning that the servers would be down, on a predetermined date, for a length of time from 4-24 hours and on said day provided semi regular status updates.</p><p>Convenience is a matter of perspective.  The world did not end, get over it.</p>

[Vinlesu]

<p>Some people will keep beating a dead horse it seems, as if SOE could do a update in 2 seconds, they would complain about not being able to log-on for the time it took to bring the servers down and back up.</p><p>Comparing the work it takes to do a update to a base system between any normal business and a Multi-Player On-Line game is saying a apple is a orange. There is no way they are the same, one is normally centrally located, SOE is all over the country (US), and world. Hundreds of thousands subscribers, I would guess over a million accounts.</p><p>Maybe they could have updated it without shutting down the servers, but can you imagine the cry if something would happen and they get tripped-off during the upgrade? We've all heard the same crying a server crashed, people losing xp, armor, coin, killing epic. Even a home computer asks you to close all programs when your installing a Microsoft update. But guessing these same people goes crying about that also.</p><p>Well, it's past, the system been up for DAYS, SOE did a great job in keeping it to only 14 hrs vice 24. So keep whining and whining about how evil SOE is for global warming, the war in Iraq, tight underwear and hemorrhoids. While you do that, I'll be in game enjoying the time that I have with my guild mates, chat and everything else that SOE has brought us with Everquest.</p>

[OpethPA]

<p>If they would have done the upgrade with a minimal level of communication and had an issue that resulted in 10 hours of downtime then people would have been stating what a poor job they did. </p><p>Their is always someone that thinks they are right, they know it all , they can do better..</p>

[Zahmekos]

US servers:Downtime: goodInformation: goodnon US servers:Downtime: badInformation: some good, some completly falsebusiness as usual^^