Spiral Knights - For the third time, scheduled maintenance

For the third time, scheduled maintenance

15 replies [Last post]

Mon, 06/13/2011 - 17:37

sawa0122

Legacy Username

its my third complaint and my 6th time , the server reboots when i'm in the middle of FSC run.
last post i already explained how much a cost it is to me.
this time, we had a prior announcement that "there will be a longer maintenance later today" and "later today" doesn't really mean anything does it?
and ofcourse in the middle of the run "server will be rebooted in 30 mins".

its a simple task, its my third complaint, and i'm not the only one.

make a change, or else its leaving to 1 single conclusion, the GMs are not reading this.

its really simple.

it is, really, simple.

Mon, 06/13/2011 - 17:43

Providence

Legacy Username

This time, there was actually

This time, there was actually an announcement an hour and a half before the patch.
How often do you want announcements? I'm not really seeing a new suggestion from your post...

Mon, 06/13/2011 - 17:48

sawa0122

Legacy Username

re-read my post, its not

re-read my post, its not long.

Mon, 06/13/2011 - 17:53

Shidara

Legacy Username

Providence is right

There are no suggestions in the OP, therefore allow me.

An ideal warning system could go like this (it is merely based on my own opinion, so take it with a grain of salt):
1 hour 30 minutes
1 hour 15 minutes
1 hour
50 minutes
40 minutes
30 minutes
Proceed regular countdown.

If they should be tweaked then for the love of all things good and holy say so and make a move. Feel free to change these intervals as you see fit.

Mon, 06/13/2011 - 17:56

Providence

Legacy Username

I did read your post----I

sawa0122: I did read your post----I still don't see what your actual suggestion is. I told you that an announcement was made as early as an hour and a half before the patch.
You made a vague complaint that "later today" doesn't mean anything. What do you actually want to have happen? How often do you actually want announcements?

Nobody can read your mind, you know.

Mon, 06/13/2011 - 18:30

Eurydice

Community Manager

> make a change, or else its

> make a change, or else its leaving to 1 single conclusion, the GMs are not reading this.

The GMs are also not the ones in charge of releases/reboots/bugfixes.

If you have a concrete suggestion to make, I'll put it in my notes.

Mon, 06/13/2011 - 19:21

Sunless

What were you doing that

What were you doing that takes more than half an hour to find an elevator? Were you having a Tea Party with Vanaduke that you just could not get away from?

Mon, 06/13/2011 - 22:36

Senshi

Legacy Username

It's not finding an elevator...

Pretty much, you are losing value if you are playing above the terminal and gaining value if you are playing below the terminal. That means you need to complete your runs, or at least a substantial portion of the lower strata, to come out ahead. (Of course, in T3 you might luck out with a good 5* mat drop... or you might not get anything above 2*, it's, well, random, but the longer you're down there the better your chance).
For that reason, people want clear warning with enough time to run the entire tier, not just finish the depth they are on, otherwise they are losing value.

By losing value, I mean financially they'd be better of not spending that energy running the clockworks - they could sell cash bought CE on the market or convert mist into CE or crowns with a crafting, or simply not buy crown bought CE and be ahead. How true it is that you lose value depends, of course, on the AH and the current cost of CE, and it is a kind of borderline value loss at current CE prices, probably a borderline value gain if you're selling all your mats. Probably. Depends on your drops and what levels you get.

The earlier table is a little odd though. I think an announcement at 2hrs, 1.5 hours, and every fifteen minutes after that until the tighter countdown of the last half hour with 20/10/5/2/now is a good set. The 2 hour announcement will probably go mostly unnoticed, and in truth, a vanaduke run by a party not already intimately familiar with FSC can take quite a bit longer, but, you have to draw a line somewhere and 2 hours warning is plenty for most purposes and yet short enough for reasonable scheduling on the OOO side of things.

Mon, 06/13/2011 - 23:37

xStaticDonut

Legacy Username

an even better idea would

an even better idea would actually have a clock in game counting down till the official time of patch.

so if OOO decides that they will be shipping a patch out within 2hours.

They put up the clock and have it count down from 2hours down to 0 then there is absolutely no way you weren't warned.

the clock would be hidden until a timer is placed on it. so it would never get in the way and it could easily be placed just above the CE bar (Crystal energy) and be in red numbers. as well as the chat notifications......

As for you missing the notification its your own fault im afraid, but they could add this clock that i speak of, or add a notification every 15minutes till it gets to the 30/20/15/10/5/2 ,, but i would personally prefer the clock to be added to show a countdown of when next update will launch... and it could be called the update clock. :)

Hopefully that is explained well :)

Wed, 06/15/2011 - 05:39

sawa0122

Legacy Username

other companies in the

other companies in the business dont run things like this, i thought there's a universal rule.
but this is the first game the maintenance isn't given 24~48 hrs ahead notice and states the exact time and date, in the mail box, and on the website.

edit: ofcourse unless there's a urgent bugfix that's causing chaos then an instant shut down is reasonable.

Wed, 06/15/2011 - 16:48

#10

Sunless

other companies in the

Are you 5?

Wed, 06/15/2011 - 17:55

#11

Duskdash

@Eurydice

@Eurydice: In much nicer words than what sawa is saying, here are some more concrete suggestions:

- Make players aware of the maintenance/update schedule on the official website - both time and date. (Tuesday tends to be a common patch day among MMOs for ... whatever reason. It's a common trend I've noticed, but I don't know the particulars of why! It may just be when the least amount of players tend to be online.)
--- Side note to the above: Make the maintenance schedule regular so people can orient a regular weekly routine around it, if need be. (I'm actually unsure IF SK has a regular schedule already or not; I'm just unaware of what times they are if they have one.)
- In the event that there is a need for emergency maintenance that needs to be run ASAP, the message in-game should say as such. This will mollify the response of players and create an understanding that something critical needs an immediate response and cannot wait until scheduled maintenance.
- Announce the content of patches some amount of time before the actual patch: a sort of "patch preview," if you will, that contains a teaser of what's to come and (more importantly) the date that the patch will be applied.

Wed, 06/15/2011 - 19:03

#12

sawa0122

Legacy Username

says someone lacking common

@Replicant
says someone lacking common sense of how the business world works
get a job, understand society.

Wed, 06/15/2011 - 19:04

#13

sawa0122

Legacy Username

says someone lacking common

@Replicant
says someone lacking common sense of how the business world works
get a job, understand society.

Wed, 06/15/2011 - 23:27

#14

Zargulis

Legacy Username

@sawa0122 Feel

@sawa0122

Feel self-righteous, cry on forums

Thu, 06/16/2011 - 02:27

#15

Kathoric

Legacy Username

@Eurydice - here's some

@Eurydice - here's some concrete suggestions for you:

1. The devs (or whoever is responsible) "arm" a reboot, with a minimum 2 hour timer unless it's a genuine emergency situation (such as "oh hell, that patch we installed earlier is spawning T3 monsters on T1"). I'd suggest a 4 hour minimum for updates - it's not like these just appear out of nowhere, so there's no excuse for not having the required reboot for them scheduled well in advance.

2. Once a reboot has been "armed", a warning message (stating the time remaining) will be sent under the following conditions:
a. To all players, on a scheduled basis (2 hours, 1 hour, 30 minutes, etc).
b. To an individual player, upon logging on to the server
c. To an individual player, upon taking any elevator in the clockworks.

That way, there's *no* possibility of a person being caught unaware that the reboot is pending before entering the clockworks. If a player chooses to enter the clockworks knowing that a reboot is pending, it is that player's own fault if logged out of the server by the reboot before completing whatever the player was hoping to do.

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For the third time, scheduled maintenance