No one's suggesting moving the time to 6 PM to midnight. The suggestion is to move it to the same time as the US, from 2 AM to 10 AM, European time. That affects fewer people than during the day or evening. Technically it's page 234, we've already had 2 previous incarnations that went unanswered.

I've been sending Stephen Reid tweets about the matter, but he's ignored every single one. BioWare as a whole is ignoring this issue. As a result I won't be buying more game time once mine expires. It's not only this issue, but the overall arrogance BioWare is displaying towards its customers in general and its European customers in particular has made me decide that they don't deserve my money for now.

Except that wouldn't happen. Why? 1. People that work at night roll on servers on the other continent right off the bat, they are NOT added traffic. 2. People that happen to be online during a maintenance night probably won't bother rerolling on a new server with a slightly higher ping just to bridge the few hours that the servers are offline. I've already covered the exact same pros and cons in a post a while back, big list, you should look it up.

You wouldn't be affected if the maintenance was done like it is in America, right? From 2 AM to 8 AM. In fact, quite a lot of people would be unaffected. More people would be unaffected during this time than during any other time. Which brings us to the actual request: give America its own schedule for maintenance, and give the same to the Europeans. It's better than giving Europe the finger.

And still no response of any kind, not on these unofficial forums, and not on Twitter, the official information outlet for SW:TOR...

If it were just a matter of training the crew, why hasn't BioWare come forward and told us that? I'm pretty sure almost everyone making a fuss in this thread would've been content knowing that the crew is being trained and that they're working on separate maintenance schedules. But so far, nothing... I have a nagging suspicion that BioWare is working on a very wordy and very carefully formulated, diplomatic way of saying that Europe can drop dead. Why else would they maintain complete and total silence if not to find a way to ?

You're the one making the statements. You should back them up. Otherwise people will say all kinds of things and then tell others to prove them wrong. That's not how things work And also, this thread is just a fancy version of the "told you so"-dance.

Hiring a European crew to work in Europe on the European servers located in Europe in the official launch territory called Europe also works fine. We even pay more than the Americans ($15 vs $17), so it's the least they can do. It works better than leaving things as they are. It's a matter of service, it's not a matter of who works when or who is a majority or a minority. US customers get nighttime maintenance as part of the service. We pay more, and we get jack squat. That's what we don't like. PS: If BioWare had not put all its eggs in the smooth launch basket, but actually bothered to invest in actual customer support half the complaints wouldn't even exist. People are fed up with being ignored by BioWare. People are fed up with getting lousy GM responses from BioWare. People are fed up with being told to suck it up by BioWare. Yes, SW:TOR had a smooth launch, yay for BioWare. And now, post-launch, the whole thing is crumbling at the foundations of it.

It's simple: - Hiring a nighttime maintenance crew is more expensive than letting them work during the day. - BioWare is paying more money to ensure the maintenance is done during the night. - In essence, they pay more for maintenance because it's part of the service for US customers. - Not inconveniencing US players is worth more money. The question is then: why not do Europe the same courtesy? If service is not a concern, but money is, they would do it during the American day, since putting the maintenance crews to work then is cheaper than letting them at it at night. So clearly a decision was made to cater to one half of the playerbase, and not to the other.

No one's asking to move the maintenance. Read the thread please

Obviously each region where the game has been launched officially, including the Oceanic region later on, should have its own maintenance schedule. This thread is mostly about Europe because it affects Europe now as an official launch territory. The argument would apply to any officially launched-in territory down the road though.

Such a typical comment. Thing is though, not only are you wrong, you're missing the point entirely.

And another 9am - 3PM maintenance slot on the 24th, hurray...

Seeing as how BioWare is formulating a response apparently, I'll give them a list of points and counterpoints that have been seen in this thread (I may miss some). The suggestion is as follows: leave the US maintenance schedule as it is. This does NOT affect American players. What we want is a second, separate schedule for European servers (and by extension obviously a schedule for Oceanic servers once they go up). Some of the replies: - Europeans should suck it up, be glad you get to play at all. * BioWare has launched The Old Republic officially in America and Western Europe. Not just America. In fact, the European servers are located in Ireland (which is in Europe). However, the maintenance times are tailored entirely to players in the CET zone. The question to BioWare is why? Does your fabeled "BioWare level of quality" not extend beyond the US borders? How will this be handled when you officially launch in Oceanic countries? - LOLz0rx if they split maintenance schedules the Euros will swarm our servers and we get bogged down, so no way! * The fact of the matter is that if our solution is implemented, most people would be asleep. The few that are not will not bog down servers, if they even bother to start all over with fresh characters on a server on the other continent. And people that work night shifts usually roll on the other continent's servers anyway, to ensure a social playing experience, so they won't actually be "added traffic". The question to BioWare is then: is this a concern for you? What metrics would you base this concern on? - There are more American players than Europeans, so Europeans need not be tailored to. * We don't have exact numbers, but if one can infer the number of players by looking at the continent's total population (US has 300 million, Europe has 850 million) it would be a safe bet that the European market is larger than the US one. However, for the sake of argument, I will assume a 50-50 split between European and US markets. In that case Europe would be responsible for a larger portion of income, since converted we pay 17 dollars per month, versus the American 15 dollars per month. In essence, we pay more for an inferior service. The question to BioWare would be: even assuming a virtually equal split in income per continent, what made you decide Europe would be the one to receive the inferior service? - Normal people work during the day, you shouldn't be affected anyway trololol. * Even ignoring the fact that the global economy is shrinking and more and more people lose their job every single day, this is a silly argument at best. As said, some people don't work for whatever reason, but other people may work very irregularly, or they may work during evenings or nights, or their job demands great flexibility in work hours. Regardless, the argument in its entirety is irrelevant to the issue, because this is a matter of service. And the maintenance is planned during the US night to minimise the impact, yet the Europeans are not given the same quality level of service, even considering they are far from an inferior portion of the market. The question to BioWare would be: why? - The Europeans should just stop their entitlement and quit crying epic tears. * First off, without feedback, no matter the nature, nothing would ever improve. The right to complain about a paid service is a given. We are exercising that right, most of us in a decent, well-thought out manner. Also, entitlement is implied in the fact that we pay money for this game. Second, if the maintenance was planned during the American daytime, the outrage would be similar if not greater. We can all agree on this point, I believe, and so we can drop this particular style of arguing. - Oh em gee, BioWare plans it during off-peak hours globally. How hard is that to understand?! * As was said before, the game is not, in that sense, a global service. The service is officially offered only in the US and parts of Europe. Part of that service for the US means nighttime maintenance, yet Europe doesn't get that privilege, despite dedicated resource on the actual continent itself. An odd decision. Linked to that is the inevitable question: what metrics is that decision based on? The decision was made to use this window during headstart, and it continued after launch. The only actual metrics BioWare could've gathered was from beta game activity. Is beta traffic really all that this decision was based on? You can see for yourself that during the European daytime all of the servers are at standard population or higher! That hardly seems to qualify as off-peak, especially considering that BioWare has no reliable post-launch average game activity metrics to base this decision on. So the question to BioWare would be: why are you using global off-peak estimates based on pre-launch metrics instead of localised ones, especially considering that it is not officially a global service and you have dedicated equipment and staff on the European continent? That concludes my little post, I hope I covered the major points here. BioWare can use this as a template to formulate their official response to the issue, making sure they covered all bases so that the Europeans can stop badgering them.

I'm not arguing against that, I'm all for it, in fact. I'm just pointing out the servers are back up ^^