The Official Downtime's A' Comin' Thread

[Khrystanna]

Then u simply Estimate time of hours of downtime + Couple more hours if somethin went wrong?

Like the downtime should be 24 hours.. and 24 hours for checkup and to know everything is working good
This is what should be happening

but not after 48 hours u come and say "A PROBLEM HAPPEND.. GIVE US 12 MORE HOURS"


Why not simply stay from the beginning 3 days down time .. for server changes & checkup the whole thing




BUT no.. This is Funcom.. "GOD BLESS THEM"
48 hours to move to new server and run the system all over again..
and JUST 20 mins befor the estimated downtimes is over.. "There's been some unforseen problems with the hardware infrastructure. We're estimating another 12 hours of downtime"

These problems showed up in the last 20 mins!? Although u had 48 hours to move server & check it up like the first post what said.. "Everything is going on okay and we are on time.."

dude... problems accure... let them have 12h more downtime, its better! let them fix the stuff that didnt work out... ever happened 2u that u fix ure car and after spending 2h on it, when u finaly start it, it just wont fire up? and have to recheck and stuff?

meantime.... there is this here (u should try it )

[thandar]

Here is my 2 cents worth...I am not mad at the extra downtime.....I am not mad about the 65cents its gonna cost me not to play AO. What bothers me is (and I too have woked in the IT field for quite awhile) that AO Customer Support hasnt and wont come right out tell us what is going on. Just vagueness. How about "Sorry funcom customers, but because of this/that/the other, we will experience 12 more hours of downtime." If I tried to tell my customers something as vague as "Sorry, we have hardware ifnrastructer problems" the first thing they would say is HUH? and want an explanation as to the EXACT problem. Come on funcom, we are your customers and desrve to know what happened in the last 10 mins that was unforseen and what you are doing to fix it.

[Luiza]

in the last 20 minutes before they opened servers they say there is a BIG PROBLEM and needs 12 more hours to FIX IT.

....Riiiiiiiiight

[boggengie]

relates to arguments on closed thread:
on how big database would be, just on items, potentially could have 2770 items per character, with bank and inventory full of full packs.

there are 557699 characters according to auno

2770*557699=1544826230

that's over 1.5 billion items

now I'm not saying it's anything close to this, but each item would have at minimum, 1-2 item IDs, a ql, and a container ID, each container ID per server at least being unique, and a quantity for stacks
depending on items, there may even basically be a serial number on each item in existence to prevent duping.

that doesn't even get into towers(type, ql, placement, orientation, owner info), AI cities(buildings, with ql placement, orientation), stuff in buildings and apartments, and even stuff players can't change, like regular cities like borealis buildings contents and texture ids and placement may be in the same set of changeable databases.

so don't claim that it's anything comparable to things like websites, there's too much data of too many types and categories to assume that it's all in 1 database, or that the databases can be moved quickly, and probably cleaned up(some hours, removing old entries(deleted loot, stuff sold to shops, etc)), and possibly even have changes made to how the data is stored, fields added or removed from database, etc.

anything FC needed or wanted to do to the database that would take hours to do, may have waited up to a couple years for this move to be done

and on why such late notice on extension?
well, it is a bit extreme just how late the notice was, but ...
probably, after doing all the other stuff, and going through all the testing, about to go live, there was an IP problem or something.
with up to 3 hours for DNS changes to propagate, after they fix it, they could have decided to fix some minor issues during the wait that would have made 17.5.1 tomorrow, but could have waited a day.
or, some of the new hardware, crashed with the new load, not long before it was to go live, and they are replacing it, rather than relying on the backup, fix it now rather than take servers down to do it tomorrow.

Rather than demand an explanation, think about reasons it could have happened.
They won't tell us what happened right now, they may or may not when it does go live.

We WILL all forget about this, and not care anymore by next week

though changing the dates on accountings computers back 3 days would be nice.

[Khrystanna]

if ure expecting them to say, ooops forgot to put the 16gb needed memory in this server rack wich was holding borealis... or... some UPS system not working, or ... there is something wrong with the database restoration, or its... 7 am GMT or who knows what else... it wont happen. hehe. i think this works on a need to know basis... like they are broke. ok. can u do anything to fix them? or help fixing them? no, then why know whats up... and personally beeing secretive about this is better in one way.

might be a wrong assumtion, but for me is good enuff tha they are changing the servers, patching 17.5 at the same time, and if problems accure, they have more downtime to fix, instead of starting the servers not been 100% operational.

[thandar]

Khrystanna

You might be well and ok with "doesnt concern you why its broke" and keep your head in the sand and blindly follow. As a matter of fact, I would love a customer base like you that dont ask questions and just take whatever excuse (if any) is given to you, and still be charged for my services. I, on the other hand, ask questions. I want to know why its broke, how it broke, and what needs to be done to fix it. Thats GREAT customer service. Thats all I am asking FC to do too.

[ukn0wme]

Khrystanna

You might be well and ok with "doesnt concern you why its broke" and keep your head in the sand and blindly follow. As a matter of fact, I would love a customer base like you that dont ask questions and just take whatever excuse (if any) is given to you, and still be charged for my services. I, on the other hand, ask questions. I want to know why its broke, how it broke, and what needs to be done to fix it. Thats GREAT customer service. Thats all I am asking FC to do too.

corect
especialy that a big part of us are paying for it so is our right to know why servers are not up yet

[Khrystanna]

as i said, might be a wrong assumtion, but for the simple fact that i cant do anything about it, i wont bother to ask around, as i can get this info later on, when things settle down and all the fuss about the downtime is gone.

[Verta]

Khrystanna

You might be well and ok with "doesnt concern you why its broke" and keep your head in the sand and blindly follow. As a matter of fact, I would love a customer base like you that dont ask questions and just take whatever excuse (if any) is given to you, and still be charged for my services. I, on the other hand, ask questions. I want to know why its broke, how it broke, and what needs to be done to fix it. Thats GREAT customer service. Thats all I am asking FC to do too.

Besides, it'll give us something new to talk about. The three posts in this thread have already been quoted to death.

[thandar]

The reason why i want to know, I know I cant do anything about it, but would give me a better understanding of what they are doing so I can say "oh ok I see now why all the extra downtime". I would not let a mechcanic come up to me and say "we have had you car for 3 days...it was broke, here is a $1000.00 bill" and not ask question FAST.

[Verta]

The reason why i want to know, I know I cant do anything about it, but would give me a better understanding of what they are doing so I can say "oh ok I see now why all the extra downtime". I would not let a mechcanic come up to me and say "we have had you car for 3 days...it was broke, here is a $1000.00 bill" and not ask question FAST.

It doesn't cost you $1000, it costs you less than a cup of coffee so far

[thandar]

Verta...are you that nieve?..the money is not the point...regardless, I am a paying customer and have the right to know why my service is down....bottom line...end of posting

[Antimony]

The true reason why they need 12 more hours is that it takes a 12 hour flight from Oslo to arrive safely at an undisclosed South American location with no extradition treaty. Once there, the FC Execs will live lavishly off your subscription money and credit card information and will invest heavily in coca plantations. This in turn will lower the street value of all the recreational drugs which you will desperately need to overcome your addiction and depressions, once you realize that AO will never come back again.

Legal disclaimer: This is a complete dramatization. Any similarities with actual people or companies are purely coincidental. No leets were harmed making this announcement.

[Verta]

....bottom line...end of posting

Oh don't say that, it's still nine hours DT to go!

FC could be a bit paranoid about security after that incident early last year.

I don't really care whats gone wrong, just interested in serves being up and running.
*shrugs*

[Talien]

The reason why i want to know, I know I cant do anything about it, but would give me a better understanding of what they are doing so I can say "oh ok I see now why all the extra downtime". I would not let a mechcanic come up to me and say "we have had you car for 3 days...it was broke, here is a $1000.00 bill" and not ask question FAST.

Maybe because AO doesn't belong to you as your car would, so they have no obligation to tell you jack. If you took your private property to a mechanic, of coarse he would have to give you information regarding your property and have to check with you on any work being done. Is AO your private property because you pay 15 bucks a month to play? No. Does Funcom have to ask your permission to patch AO? No, of coarse they don't. Funcom allows you to play their game for a price, they arn't selling it to you, AO isn't yours. They can lifetime ban you from the game without giving you a reason if they so desired. While you may feel they have some obligation to the customers, they don't. They have an obligation to themselves to keep people playing this game so that you give them your money. Yes, you are paying for this game, and FC thanks you. If you want to tell them, "Tell me what you are doing with the servers and why specifically there is an extra 12 hour downtime OR ELSE I WILL QUIT!" they will give you a polite wave as you exit the door, inviting you to come back anytime.

[Mary]

seems official :

http://blog.touchstorm.net/public/hamsterpowered.jpg

[Mekh]

Doesn't take a smart person to figure out that when you swap out the whole infrastructure network,servers,power,etc that something can go wrong..

qft...

[landdog]

Doesn't take a smart person to figure out that when you swap out the whole infrastructure network,servers,power,etc that something can go wrong..

That's why I thought they (FC) would also understand that and when they said 48h I was pretty convinced they anticipated and included in the time estimation the probability of problems arising. That's why I thought that if everything would've worked ok the servers would've been up after 36-40 hours.

[Lynelmer]

The reason why i want to know, I know I cant do anything about it, but would give me a better understanding of what they are doing so I can say "oh ok I see now why all the extra downtime". I would not let a mechcanic come up to me and say "we have had you car for 3 days...it was broke, here is a $1000.00 bill" and not ask question FAST.

But you still would not have any rights to know what tools he used to fix you're car, the mecanic would say we fixed this and that. you still got the bill.

Let FC fix it, they usually does.
The servers wil come up again.
Lots of ppl is going to start complain about the changes.

[Peekiri]

That's why I thought they (FC) would also understand that and when they said 48h I was pretty convinced they anticipated and included in the time estimation the probability of problems arising. That's why I thought that if everything would've worked ok the servers would've been up after 36-40 hours.

They maybe did, but wasn't enough, as I said
Things can go wrong, spec. if you swap it all out.
Routing tables here,
UPS problems here
Cableproblems there, etc etc etc etc
alot can go wrong and if you where going to put all that into account when you wrote first downtime it could say "We are going down for server upgrade be back in 2-7 days"