I am sorry, but that is incorrect.

 

You did NOT roll out the patch Friday night/Saturday morning. You rolled out the patch Saturday afternoon for us Europeans. Smack center, middle of the day. It probably was US-centric thinking like the one you display in your post that lead to this decision in the first place.

 

Here is what that should have read:

 

 

I hate going on a nerdrage and, yes, I did spend my day pleasantly without SWTOR, thank you, but your statement just made me very angry.

 

Mind you, I am not complaining about you fixing the game. Like somebody above me said: take it down every day if that makes the bugs go away faster. It's just the "Oh, right, and then there's Europe, too..."-thinking expressed in your statement that gets me riled up.

When the hell did 8 AM become noon? Is AM and PM backwards in the EU?

I am sorry, but that is incorrect.

 

You did NOT roll out the patch Friday night/Saturday morning. You rolled out the patch Saturday afternoon for us Europeans. Smack center, middle of the day. It probably was US-centric thinking like the one you display in your post that lead to this decision in the first place.

He's referring to Friday night/Saturday morning, to where he is. If I were to arrange to meet someone for lunch, I'd quote my time zone. Why would it be customised to you?

If players get disconnected, yes it's frustrating and yes, it could have been held off until Tuesday, but what no one seems to realise is, if a mass flood of people get disconnected at once, then everyone tries to log in at once, they'll hammer the servers and cause even problems.

You already know they're very delicate about the servers, so why moan about it?

Get back in your basket.

 

To those of you in Europe, I want you to know that we'll be discussing maintenance windows and how we can improve their timing this coming week. We may not have an update immediately (and not before the scheduled maintenance on January 31st) but we have been paying attention to your opinions.

 

Thanks again for the feedback - it helps us know where to improve.

i cannot express my thanks enough for this

the best solution to give our time back ( us = EA )

is give the maintaince windows the the americans.:p

ofc i mean, one month = 4 weeks , do 2 weeks while EU times and 2 weeks while US

Hey everyone; I appreciate everyone's views on this topic and I can understand the feelings being expressed here.

 

etc.

I do not expect every topic or complaint in the game answered to this degree, but it's something we've been needing a little more of on the important issues. It goes a long way to making people happy, that we get a little insight and a detailed response that you do care instead of a 2 line response that feels like firefighting.

So thanks for this and I for one am really happy that you are discussing the EU maintenance time window.

I do not expect every topic or complaint in the game answered to this degree, but it's something we've been needing a little more of on the important issues. It goes a long way to making people happy, that we get a little insight and a detailed response that you do care instead of a 2 line response that feels like firefighting.

 

So thanks for this and I for one am really happy that you are discussing the EU maintenance time window.

So true - one comment from Mr. Redi and the QQing goes away. I guarantee this thread would be 70 pages by now otherwise.

I am sorry, but that is incorrect.

 

You did NOT roll out the patch Friday night/Saturday morning. You rolled out the patch Saturday afternoon for us Europeans. Smack center, middle of the day. It probably was US-centric thinking like the one you display in your post that lead to this decision in the first place.

 

Here is what that should have read:

 

 

I hate going on a nerdrage and, yes, I did spend my day pleasantly without SWTOR, thank you, but your statement just made me very angry.

 

Mind you, I am not complaining about you fixing the game. Like somebody above me said: take it down every day if that makes the bugs go away faster. It's just the "Oh, right, and then there's Europe, too..."-thinking expressed in your statement that gets me riled up.

US thinking on a US based game?!?!?! THATS MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bioware is wrong and brainless about customer service.

They got no excuse to act the way they do. Bioware is not the only company that act like this, most of them actually do.

And it's players' fault if this keeps going on.

To many fanboys and/or no brain players flame those that complain just for the fun of it. I know it's the internet, i know we all are human being and as such animals.

But, come on...

I can understand we like a game and if someone attacks it because of something ridiculous (as all the bugs claimed as game breaking which i never experienced or never found that bad...) or because some idiot bought the game not knowing what kind of game this is, they get flamed and they deserve it.

But, when it comes to lack of customer service (there is none actually), then i can't understand those that keep defending Bioware.

WE ALL pay, even if not that much, to play this game and as for anything else in this world we want and pretend some sort of customer service.

What would you say if after having bought an appliance you got a problem with it and the seller nor the maker is willing to tell you what's wrong and/or how to fix it?

Or if the shop where you bought it is closed until further notice with no explanation whatsoever?

Ok, that appliance costed you only 15$, not much, so what do you want now? Go somewhere else and buy a new one, possibly another maker; they are all the same anyway

I bought DDE and 2 further months of game time to play it. I PRETEND AS CUSTOMER to have some customer service, be notified in time when the servers will go down and why if possible. Plus, i'ld like to be threated as anyother customer, which isn't happening as i live in Europe and maintenance times are not when most of European are in bed....

Now feel free to quote my post and bla bla bla with your immature selfish non sense, i don't care as i'll be playing (yes, i'm one of those who come on these forums once in a while and spend most of their free time playing the game).

Hey everyone; I appreciate everyone's views on this topic and I can understand the feelings being expressed here.

 

Our Live team took the decision to roll out today's 1.1.0c patch during Friday night/Saturday morning with the knowledge that it would affect a higher than usual number of players. Unfortunately, we had to make changes that required server downtime. The Live team felt those changes were urgently required and that was why the maintenance was scheduled. Generally speaking, we try and ensure all required maintenance happens during our weekly maintenance period, but this was one situation where we had to move forward quickly; to not do so could have led to severe performance issues across the service as a whole.

Thanks for taking the time to respond Stephen. Explainations like this go a LONG way to reducing animosity and bad feeling. There will always be people berating every decision you make, just at there will always be people worshiping you and throwing petals in your path whatever you do. For the majority however, the sane and reasonable ones, we appreciate being kept informed. Whilst we may not agree with some decisions, post like this at least let us know what's going on.

It's like when you're sitting on a train that's stopped in the middle of nowhere. If nothing comes through the speakers, you check your watch every few minutes, getting angrier and angrier, not knowing if you should reschedule your meeting because you won't make it, book a taxi because it's gonna be close, or leave things as they are because you'll be moving again imminently. With regular updates and explainations of the stoppage, you can plan accordingly, and even if you 'tut' when you find out the reason (I'm english, tutting is what we usually do at times like that), at least you feel you're being kept in the picture rather than ignored.

Once again, thanks for the reply, and I hope for more interaction with the playerbase in the future

I was very critical of BioWare during the 1.1 patch day, when BioWare was slow to act on the issues concerning world PvP on Ilum.

So I feel I should chime in here to say thank you, BioWare, for acting as soon as you could in this instance. You saw the problem, created a fix for it, and implemented that fix as soon as it was ready. This was an issue that affected many players, and affected them in one of the harshest ways a customer can be affected; it prevented them from using the product. A hot fix, in this case, was justified and prevented many players from experiencing such a debilitating bug.

Others, and specifically those in the EU who were most affected by the server downtime, must understand that fixing bugs is a part of the early stages of an MMO, and sometimes that requires server downtime. It is unreasonable for the player base to expect zero downtime outside of scheduled weekly maintenance, this early in the life of an MMO.

Each individual player will never know whether they would have been one of the victims of the bug had this patch been put off until the regular maintenance. Thankfully we don't ever have to find out, because you acted quickly. So thank you for that, BioWare.

-Macheath.

I am sorry, but that is incorrect.

 

You did NOT roll out the patch Friday night/Saturday morning. You rolled out the patch Saturday afternoon for us Europeans. Smack center, middle of the day. It probably was US-centric thinking like the one you display in your post that lead to this decision in the first place.

Congratulations, you just failed relativity.

The servers were back up before the United-Liverpool match was even over. That's not late afternoon. That's about 12PM.

except it wasnt it was later than that when they came back as the maintenance was extended by a couple of hours in the long run.

and to the OP, see that "patch" bit, thats what we had the maintenance is referencing Tuesday coming, so they didnt call it scheduled maintenance as it was.

This is a little inaccurate. I'm not sure where your timing comes from, but our original post regarding the downtime was posted at 5:10PM CST (Austin time). At that point, we were unsure of the start time for the maintenance so posted without it. The post was updated with the exact timing of the maintenance at 8:54PM CST, which would give just over five hours notice of the exact timing.

I don't know if you realise, but 5:10PM CST is 12:10AM in the UK, 1:10AM in most of Europe. Many of your customers over here had no notice of the maintenance whatsoever because we had already gone to bed when you made that post. The first I knew of the maintenance was when I got up in the morning to try and play, and found everything was down.

You MUST give better notice in the future, taking into account that this is a global operation and not purely in the US market.

 

To those of you in Europe, I want you to know that we'll be discussing maintenance windows and how we can improve their timing this coming week. We may not have an update immediately (and not before the scheduled maintenance on January 31st) but we have been paying attention to your opinions.

 

Thanks again for the feedback - it helps us know where to improve.

And it took you the customers to realize this? Do not get me wrong, I am happy you finally acknowledged the existence of European players, but you should have taken care of them without all the drama and outrage that happened on the forums.

If the combined European market is less than the US one, it is of minimal difference.

For the person that said it was up before the Liverpool/ManU match ended, don't forget to add a +4 hours for those in parts of Russia and Eastern Europe. That would take it into late afternoon.

And in response to all the 'waahh, it's an American game, so they favour Americans, GO USA!!11' type posts: I hope this game succeeds on American subscriptions only when everyone you deem as second class, takes their money to something else.

And thank you Mr Reid for letting us know that at the very least, we might get a convincing argument as to why we're being stuffed this time, and none of the 'oh, you'll all complain if you don't get the patch at the same time as the US so it's for your own good, really!' guff this time please

You sure, mate? Because it looks a lot like I relativized my comment, and the whole point of my criticism is that he didn't do that with his...

No, you failed relativity. He's right because his relative time was correct. Because of that, he can't be wrong.

His relative time was not your relative time, because of relativity.

That doesn't make him wrong. It makes you a stubborn, semantic, self-entitled, pedant.

I don't know if you realise, but 5:10PM CST is 12:10AM in the UK, 1:10AM in most of Europe. Many of your customers over here had no notice of the maintenance whatsoever because we had already gone to bed when you made that post. The first I knew of the maintenance was when I got up in the morning to try and play, and found everything was down.

 

You MUST give better notice in the future, taking into account that this is a global operation and not purely in the US market.

Oh come on!

You're upset because Bioware made an announcement while you were asleep???

Really?

I'm sorry, but that is really, really sad.

This game will be around for YEARS, and you all are freaking out over not being able to play a few hours in a month.

You're upset because Bioware made an announcement while you were asleep???

Nope. I'm slightly disgruntled because I had no forewarning of a maintenance period at all.

Stephen was claiming we had about 5 hours notice, but that really wasn't the case for many people in Europe. I pointed this out, and suggested (quite strongly) that they improve their procedures for this type of maintenance in the future.

Nope. I'm slightly disgruntled because I had no forewarning of a maintenance period at all.

 

Stephen was claiming we had about 5 hours notice, but that really wasn't the case for many people in Europe. I pointed this out, and suggested (quite strongly) that they improve their procedures for this type of maintenance in the future.

It is called emergency maintenance for a reason. Most times you don't get days to make sure everyone knows. Most people are fine with it and I doubt even .001% would quit over something so trivial and petty.

To those of you in Europe, I want you to know that we'll be discussing maintenance windows and how we can improve their timing this coming week. We may not have an update immediately (and not before the scheduled maintenance on January 31st) but we have been paying attention to your opinions.

No. Just NO. It's not just Europeans that are screwed by this 0200 CST across-the-board crap. It's also everyone in the US who works a shift other than 0900-to-1700. I work a second shift as a surgical tech. I can deal with being completely unable to play one out of seven days. Two out of seven is absurd. For me, 2 out of 7 = 8 days a month. As someone who wants to treat SWTOR as his new serious raiding MMO, that's actually a large amount of time.