Spiral Knights - Dear OOO (about the 7/30 downtime)

Dear OOO (about the 7/30 downtime)

40 replies [Last post]

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 00:24

Likal

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/60914
"We will be keeping players appraised via our Twitter and Facebook outposts"

Dear Three Rings,
When you say that you're going to "keep people appraised", you kind of have to tell them things. Even if these things are "Downtime has started", "Not sure how much longer", or "It's going to be a while", bad news is preferable to no news. Not so sound bitchy, but people tend to get upset when you lie to them. (Prove me wrong, OOO, prove me wrong.)

Signed,
~Vanguard Likal

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 00:33

Dataa

I actually have to agree with

I actually have to agree with this.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 00:39

Sypsy

I agree.

Dear Vanguard,

If you're really a vanguard, you would put your commas inside your quotation marks.

Signed,
Someone else

---
On topic:
I agree, even if someone were to work late (like 9, 10 or 11pm server time), an update before they retire for the night would have been appreciated. I realize the people upgrading the server and those who have access to facebook/twitter are most likely not one and the same, but OOO committed to updating us and that didn't materialize.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 00:40

Shoebox

Dear people who spend every

Dear people who spend every waking moment playing this game,

Please find something else to do for a few hours.
It's not the end of the world that the game is down.

Signed,
~A guy who hates these stupid signatures.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 00:40

Likal

Grammar Nazi!

Gah, grammar nazi! Back to the pit from whence you came!

(I am aware of that punctuation rule, and I disagree with it. The comma is part of ~my~ sentence, not part of the quote, so I don't put it inside the quotation marks.)

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 00:53

Sypsy

@Likal

LOL

I figured that you knew, because your grammar and punctuation was on the mark (unlike your average internet user) so I thought it'd be fun to be nit-picky on you. (Yay for my own twisted sense of grammar humour.) (Also, you used a formal letter format in a thread, which is just begging for a few shots from other people.)

Yeah, I know what you mean, infact, I do it myself sometimes. I had to google the rule about commas to be sure that it wasn't just a style thing. At the end of the day, I do think it looks a bit strange having a comma just floating around after a quote. I'm sure no one really thinks that someone who would say one of those quotes as a standalone phrase would end it in a comma instead of a period.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 01:07

Fehzor

I think they might just be asleep, and that it might take a bit longer than just one day to get everything sorted out. That or they just forgot.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 01:10

Glacies

I doubt it'd take up an entire day or even more. I have a feeling we'll get it the normal reboot time: 5am Pacific Time.

At least the site is up so we can complain about the game not being up!

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 01:11

Fehzor

lol, I know right???

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 01:30

Ranzoh

Doesn't these downtime events

Doesn't these downtime events usually happen after promo events especially or when there is a bug in the server, like that one time when people kept getting cr out of nowhere or was fighting infinite fiends.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 01:29

#10

Shoebox

The reading comprehension sure is hard.

It might even be that they aren't the ones doing maintenance on the servers and it's an entirely different company who hosts them.
Hmm...

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 01:43

#11

Forumchat

who the eff knows what

who the eff knows what happened if you just post a link at twitter just refering back to forum, and that time the forum is down??
dumb notice. my mist tank was forced to made full again, 50% reduced price elevator for a few hours is just as useful as doing no responses.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 01:49

#12

Mirmae

Kids!

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 01:56

#13

Incineron

*facekeyboards*

Maybe because its almost 3 AM PST time. Im not sure if OOO's times are actually PST time, but they are close to the time anyway. So i think they are not awake now.

EDIT: They are based in America, and its like something AM everywhere there now.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 02:05

#14

Forumchat

@mirmae

oh, adult. So does that make you look cool?
take a look at this @ twitter
"SK has some maintenance downtime coming up this evening at 6pm Pacific. Be sure to read the details here -> http://ow.ly/cBE5w "
that url referred back to forum, and you couldn't visit the forum before they reopened it ~1 hr ago.
i won't mind if i am well-informed about everything, not just a sticky at the announcement forum, but sticky on every forum or even ingame mail..

"This will affect not only connectivity to the game, but access to billing, support, and the Spiral Knights website including FORUMS and wiki. Elevator passes and upgrades will automatically extend to COMPENSATE for any downtime. Any auctions that are running will also be EXTENDED."
reason i rage on mist tank, adult.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 02:01

#15

Pooet

agreed

They said they would update us.
It's been several hours, and not a single tweet or facebook.
I do think it's bad customer service.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 02:12

#16

Likal

Stuff and things

It's not the downtime that I'm actually annoyed at, it's the complete lack of information after information was promised. Maybe I'm just spoiled, but some games ~do~ give constant updates on downtimes, even at this time of night. And even if the updates were sparse, that would be better than nothing. But after 6 hours (at time of my original post) and not a peep? That's not cool, and it's definitely not "keeping players appraised".

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 02:17

#17

Gulliverbfg

Agree with Likal, OOO should do as they said they would do

We were promised notifications via Twitter and Facebook. Okay, so I have been popping in there every so often looking for some news, and nada...

I see a bunch of gamers who are also looking for some feedback, and a few condescending know it alls who act like caring about this game is a bad thing. The rest of us can gain some solace knowing that such curmudgeons feed on the same sour grapes they choose to cultivate. That is to say, they reap what they sow.

I speak with the masses who have a life, and a job, and all that goes with it... but would still like to see the promised status updates posted, so we can plan for when in our real lives we can take time to play this game. I work long hours with lots of time spent waiting for patches to download and then for machines to reboot, and this game helps fill some of that time.

I don't care who is in control of the hardware updates, or how smooth or complicated that process is going. Someone from Sega/OOO is getting updated on that process, and following their promise to do so, we should likewise get some version of the general news after they do. Just my opinion here, but next time, I would ask OOO not to promise to post updates if they have no intention of following through. If they had not promised, I would never have looked, and would just have put it off until morning. So that is the rub.

Sidebar: As for the grammar issue, I am one English major who agrees trapping sentence punctuation inside quotation makes no sense. The quote is basically an appositive, so belongs more logically inside the commas or end punctuation. I know the official ruling by Grandma Thistlebottom and her followers at the MLA, however, I routinely put sentence punctuation outside the quote marks just to show my grass roots support for a future rule change when they come to their senses.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 02:31

#18

Asukalan

Yeah, if they would not say

Yeah, if they would not say anything about updates, it would just be "another update where OOO does not care about informing players about anything" and then there would be bunch of people who would be like "oh silly whinners, OOO have take care of servers, blabh blabh lbha, busy busy etc."

But this time its difrrent. OOO actually promised us updates upon maintenance status yet, after 8 hours there is no single updated information.

OOO really want to step into wise path of informing players about stuff and showing that they care about them they should work on it because they doing it really wrong.

Oherwise OOO should stick to their old way of "players shall know nothing" and dont even give us hope and false promises of keeping us informed.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 03:08

#19

Shoebox

IT'S EXPECTED UP WHEN IT'S EXPECTED UP!

STATUS UPDATE GUYS: THE SERVER IS STILL DOWN.

MORE NEWS AT 11!

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 03:11

#20

Prismata

....the server is back now.

....the server is back now. At least for now

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 03:14

#21

Littlerocketman

Nah, still can't connect. :(

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 03:34

#22

Asukalan

servers back up, At least now

servers back up,
At least now we know how OOO understands "keeping players informed"

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 08:24

#23

Tersakaff

Well, seriously speaking, the Twitter is moderated by Eury. Who most likely wasn't present at the moving of the servers. The only information she'd get would be from those present there. If she'd gotten no information, no information could be posted. It also might be that nobody from OOO was, actually, /there/, and the only information would come from outsiders, which, again, might have not given information. And posting uninformed is bad, right?
Let's not forget it was late in the night too lol.

I believe this is most likely what happened. Though getting an admin to post on this wouldn't hurt.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 08:58

#24

Draycos

Perhaps they had nothing to mention of importance or were presented with one of the scenarios Ters described.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 09:05

#25

Fallconn

FALCON PUNCH!

Well, I was asleep while they was breaking their backs moving their stuff, And besides...Everyone needs a little time away from SK, Maybe like a week at a time? Sounds good to me :D

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 09:24

#26

Tersakaff

Yeah, that too. I would have rather stayed quiet than saying "Ok it's moving... yeah. That's all."

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 15:56

#27

Gwenyvier

"This coming Monday, starting

"This coming Monday, starting at 6 p.m. Pacific, Spiral Knights will be unavailable for several hours ... ...We will be keeping players appraised via our Twitter and Facebook outposts:"

Several hours means more then just a few hours. When they said they would keep players updated it should be obvious that they meant if it goes greatly longer then expected, like last time when the updates on the down time was posted on the forums. If it is going as planned what do you want them to post, "All going as planned, check back in several hours"? That is rather pointless.

Also as Tersakaff said, it was probably Eury making the updates, and seeing as I am pretty sure she does nothing with the servers there is no actual reason for her to be there just so she can twiddle her thumbs and make Twitter posts about how it is going as expected. And it happened in the middle of the night (6pm pacific to early morning) so anybody that wasn't needed probably got to go home and sleep.

Calm down and let them work next time.

And to finish I think I will use Asukalan's absolute favorite line: Graveyard this. :p

~Gwen

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 13:03

#28

Thimol

-----

You are all idiots.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 13:32

#29

Tersakaff

:(
You need a mew avatar, Thimol.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 13:36

#30

Asukalan

=^.^=

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 22:49

#31

Likal

If the person(s) in charge of the social media pages are, for whatever reason, unable or unwilling to provide updates about the downtime, then they shouldn't promise us updates about the downtime via their social media pages.

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 23:00

#32

Softhead

Maybe, there wasn't anything to say.

I mean, what are we supposed to be updated with?

Wed, 08/01/2012 - 01:08

#33

Likal

A good place to start would have been "Servers are now down, maintenance is underway". And yes, that ~is~ different from "Servers will be down at [time]". Estimates as to how long is left would have been nice as opposed to "a few hours" (that turned into much longer - gee, that would have been nice to know). Even vague updates would have been preferable to none.

Wed, 08/01/2012 - 10:13

#34

Eurydice

Community Manager

We literally had no updates

We literally had no updates to give between the time the servers went down and the time they came back up. There was no estimate other than "several hours," so that's what we announced at the outset. In the future, however, we can phrase the initial notices as "We'll let you know when the servers are back up" rather than "We'll keep you posted," so that people won't expect blow-by-blow, detailed progress updates when there are none to give.

Wed, 08/01/2012 - 12:39

#35

Tersakaff

Aaand there you go.

Wed, 08/01/2012 - 12:39

#36

Likal

Thank you.

Wed, 08/01/2012 - 13:24

#37

Thimol

-----

A good place to start would have been "Servers are now down, maintenance is underway". And yes, that ~is~ different from "Servers will be down at [time]".
Oh my god.

Estimates as to how long is left would have been nice as opposed to "a few hours" (that turned into much longer - gee, that would have been nice to know)
It would be nice to know how long those kinds of things would take, wouldn't it? Problem is, no one ever knows even roughly how long without being off by half an hour at least, and tighty-whiteys such as yourself would start a riot over freaking server maintenance taking just a bit longer than expected.

Fri, 08/03/2012 - 01:22

#38

Naru-Narusegawa

BLEH~

Are you serious? There was no way to actually update anything?

Hmm.. maybe it's time to make the main site , in a way that actually shows the downtime, I mean , Instead of having a direct shortcut on the dekstop that launches the program, would it not be more prudent to have the game launched by the website directly?
So if the Sever goes down, The main site would show " The server is currently offline.." or something similar? Followed by, " Our admin's have been notified , and are working to resolve the issue, please check back later"............GAHHH.. what am saying? that will never happen.

Fri, 08/03/2012 - 01:24

#39

Sypsy

@Tech-Ally

that seems complex, not everyone wants to launch the game out of the website.

Though with that said, I think what you essentially want is a server status on the main website that updates in real-time. (you essentially suggested this.)

It can be done, at least, other games have done it.

Fri, 08/03/2012 - 01:25

#40

Naru-Narusegawa

But ya, I do agree with FALLCONN, sometimes a little time away will do a world of good.
And besides, if it's down, I mean SK is not the only MMORPG out there.. is it?

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Dear OOO (about the 7/30 downtime)