Daily Server Maintence

[cevik]

This announcement has been posted on the CoH page, they are scheduling 2 hours of maintence daily during the morning time.. I suspect this will be the first thing from Cryptic to cause much gnashing of of teeth around here:

Starting tomorrow, Saturday, May 1, CoH will be undergoing server maintenance daily from 8am to 10am CDT. Please note: while we are reserving this daily two-hour period for maintenance updates, they will not necessarily require the entire two hours and additional updates may be scheduled outside this time-period as needed. We may also perform maintenance on additional CoH-related servers, such as the web servers, message boards, or login servers.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=308317&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

[Venkman]

Daily and on weekends?!. Wow, yea, that'll cause a stir. I guarantee that'll be the exact two hour period someone can play, maybe my Eastern European friends or something.

Ah well. If it makes the game continually playable, then it's filed away under 'Greater Good'.

[Alluvian]

I don't understand why they need that?  The game is very playable.  I could see a daily reset if there is a memory leak or something, but nothing that would cause more than a few minutes.

[cevik]

I don't understand why they need that?  The game is very playable.  I could see a daily reset if there is a memory leak or something, but nothing that would cause more than a few minutes.

From the post it kinda sounds like they are alloting this time for potential hot fixes, they may or may not have one everyday, but each day that they do it can take up to two hours to install.. I'm hoping that that NCsoft redname who posted in a different thread around here might comment.  One thing that I would like to know is how long will this go on?  For the next few weeks, or from now on?

[tittergrrl]

Gaffer's just responded to this on the official boards

We're going to be changing the server maintenance window starting tomorrow (Saturday, May 1) to be 8-10AM CST daily. This is the lowest point in our usage graph right now.

Even though it's a two hour window, it should be pretty rare to have anything happen at this time other than flicking the servers off and on again (which we do mostly to make quick diagnostics, and make sure there aren't any memory leaks or such (none are known at this time) which might slow things down over time. This usually takes 15 minutes or less.

Sometimes, we may do more extensive maintenance and take up more of the window - but frankly, this will be pretty rare. Patching is generally a pretty quick process for us (well, there's a lot of work to it, but it doesn't necessarily require a lot of downtime) - but the times we'll use more of the window than others are if we put up a patch and it has an issue and we need to revert. This should be a rarity, especially once we have our public test server up and running. However, sometimes I'm sure that the full window will be needed.

(and hi, long time lurker, first time poster)

[cevik]

Good, that is kinda what I was hoping for..

[Bitter Beard]

Just registered so I could come here and say 'shit'

Hopefully these won't last after a month or two.

[Soukyan]

I don't understand why they need that?  The game is very playable.  I could see a daily reset if there is a memory leak or something, but nothing that would cause more than a few minutes.

From the post it kinda sounds like they are alloting this time for potential hot fixes, they may or may not have one everyday, but each day that they do it can take up to two hours to install.. I'm hoping that that NCsoft redname who posted in a different thread around here might comment.  One thing that I would like to know is how long will this go on?  For the next few weeks, or from now on?

Well, I believe Eve still does this same thing everyday on their server, so, it could be an indefinite thing. Of course, I'm not pleased about it as it does affect some gamers (myself not included thanks to time zone), but I have to agree with Darniaq that if it prevents long patch days and other inane crap like that, then file it under greater good, but this is still a "wait and see" issue.

[CmdrSlack]

meh.  It only effects me if I'm trying to game in the 2 hours before work or class, and I generally don't play right when I get up.

Can someone tell me WHY this is such a big deal?

I mean, it's two hours.  Out of 24.  And they might not USE it all.  So, at worst, you're losing 60 hours of playtime a month.  And it's 60 hours at EIGHT IN THE MORNING.  

Is there some assumption that servers need to be up 24/7?  I mean, is taking them down during the time of lightest load that big of a sin?

[Alrindel]

One man's eight in the morning is another man's four in the afternoon: it was always very frustrating to have SWG go down every Saturday and Sunday when I was in the middle of playing it.

[angry.bob]

One man's eight in the morning is another man's four in the afternoon: it was always very frustrating to have SWG go down every Saturday and Sunday when I was in the middle of playing it.

Bingo. Once again server maintenance in the middle of the only regular time I can play means I probably won't be playing past the first month. I'm really starting to wish they'd announce shit like this before it goes to store shelves so I know whether to bother buying it or not.

Oh well, I guess I'll see how the first month goes.

[Venkman]

Can someone tell me WHY this is such a big deal?

Time zones.

[Alkiera]

Can someone tell me WHY this is such a big deal?

Time zones.

I'm in EST, so that's 9-11am for me.  I work from 2-10:30pm, and generally get up between 9:30 and 10:00am.  If it's just a quick reboot at 9, it's not a big deal to me, but that morning period comprises a decent portion of my potential playtime.

Not everyone works 8-5 CST.

--
Alkiera

[HaemishM]

meh.  It only effects me if I'm trying to game in the 2 hours before work or class, and I generally don't play right when I get up.

Can someone tell me WHY this is such a big deal?

Because hell hath no fury like the whiney bitches making up the playerbase of all MMOG's.

Meh, I don't even fucking see 8 AM unless I'm at fucking work. If you see my ass on at 8 AM, I better be drunk or I'm liable to be one pissed-off motherfucker.

[kaid]

Meh somewhat like the swg server reboots honestly not totally unexpected during the intial month. Basically they are just saying if it is down during that time that its their maintance time. It is possible even likely there will be many times it will not be down for those two hours or even at all.

Kaid

[Mesozoic]

Server shutdown at 3 PM on a Tuesday...hmmm.  

Apparently some people were getting stuck in King's Row.