Thanks for info Keith, also i really hope that you will release a roadmap this month as you promissed.

^^^^ this.

Many thanks for keeping us informed, Keith! Always nice to see the gold-posters letting us know what's up. Monthly plans for maintenance will be a welcome change!

Hope things go well tomorrow, for the sake of our European brethren.

Hey all,

 

I’ve noticed a lot of concern about maintenances and the impact it has on your game time. We probably should have just given you a schedule of activity for the month of May and explained what was going on. Going forward, toward the beginning of each month, Eric will provide a schedule of that month’s maintenance.

 

So, what’s been going on this past month? Essentially, we have been migrating from one Datacenter to another and upgrading the Game Server hardware and supporting software. You won't directly notice improvements in performance, but these changes dramatically help us maintain the game and improve its overall reliability. As you can imagine, it’s an enormous undertaking to move absolutely everything – all servers and related hardware, supporting hardware, network infrastructure, upgrading the operating systems, management systems and tools, and more.

 

For the most part, we’ve been able to do it without a ton of downtime, but there’s been a couple times this month where the migration didn’t go as planned. As a result, we had to extend the maintenance window. Not fun for you nor for us!

 

Typically, we have a maintenance every two weeks and usually on a Tuesday. There’s a lot of coordination required between teams, as it’s not just turning servers off/on, but making sure all services spin up properly, databases are in good shape, all server hardware is checked, supporting software is updated, and more. No excuses, just means to keep the game healthy we need to validate everything and much of the work requires players to be offline.

 

What’s happening on Thursday should be the last of the migration components, but some of these impact our game services. So, this requires us to ensure no in-game activity is happening, and shutdown the Live Game. Our sincerest apologies to everyone as we did not realize it was a holiday (our bad for not looking at the calendar). We still need to have the maintenance, but I’ve asked the team to start an hour earlier and if at all possible shorten the window. We will get SWTOR back online as fast as possible.

 

The next scheduled downtime is June 13th and that maintenance is for Game Update 5.2.2. It’s possible we may need to restart everything on June 6th to flesh out any potential issues, but we’ll let you know.

 

Thanks for understanding and again, we’ll continue to improve our communications with you.

 

---Keith

Much appreciated, Keith!

Keith, previously we were given 3 IP addresses to ping against to work on access problems. With the change in datacenters, those addresses should probably be updated.

we’ll continue to improve our communications with you.

You said this I believe after your 3 week unannounced vacation. I have no problem with you spending your time with your father but it seems like this is just lip service.

Maybe someone can finally look at tickets 13759082, 13786565, 14250689 and 14252006. Only been asking since October 2014.....

a maintenance during a public holiday is just not very smart, to be polite..

It is but unfortunately like they said they didn't know and considering what they are doing it would be too late to change it. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. They need to have a list of holiday's for both US and UK to avoid this again.

I complain a lot, but I give credit where credit is due, this is probably the most honest and open communication we have seen from the Dev team in a very long time.

Kudos's to you Keith and keep the communication coming. It's a welcome change to the way things were in the past.

Hey all,

 

I’ve noticed a lot of concern about maintenances and the impact it has on your game time. We probably should have just given you a schedule of activity for the month of May and explained what was going on. Going forward, toward the beginning of each month, Eric will provide a schedule of that month’s maintenance.

 

So, what’s been going on this past month? Essentially, we have been migrating from one Datacenter to another and upgrading the Game Server hardware and supporting software. You won't directly notice improvements in performance, but these changes dramatically help us maintain the game and improve its overall reliability. As you can imagine, it’s an enormous undertaking to move absolutely everything – all servers and related hardware, supporting hardware, network infrastructure, upgrading the operating systems, management systems and tools, and more.

 

For the most part, we’ve been able to do it without a ton of downtime, but there’s been a couple times this month where the migration didn’t go as planned. As a result, we had to extend the maintenance window. Not fun for you nor for us!

 

Typically, we have a maintenance every two weeks and usually on a Tuesday. There’s a lot of coordination required between teams, as it’s not just turning servers off/on, but making sure all services spin up properly, databases are in good shape, all server hardware is checked, supporting software is updated, and more. No excuses, just means to keep the game healthy we need to validate everything and much of the work requires players to be offline.

 

What’s happening on Thursday should be the last of the migration components, but some of these impact our game services. So, this requires us to ensure no in-game activity is happening, and shutdown the Live Game. Our sincerest apologies to everyone as we did not realize it was a holiday (our bad for not looking at the calendar). We still need to have the maintenance, but I’ve asked the team to start an hour earlier and if at all possible shorten the window. We will get SWTOR back online as fast as possible.

 

The next scheduled downtime is June 13th and that maintenance is for Game Update 5.2.2. It’s possible we may need to restart everything on June 6th to flesh out any potential issues, but we’ll let you know.

 

Thanks for understanding and again, we’ll continue to improve our communications with you.

 

---Keith

Make it on 30th may?!

Why you don´t looking on calender?!

And we know your window... one houre erlyer and for 4 hours longer...

why you cant do this ond 23th or 30 May and do this *** perform back end updates that doesn´t matters?! every *** Tuesday you make back end updates and now on a holiday what isn´t a patch day?! and this patch doesn´t matters!!!

seriously do you think about things that you do

Make it on 30th may?!

Why you don´t looking on calender?!

And we know your window... one houre erlyer and for 4 hours longer...

why you cant do this ond 23th or 30 May and do this *** perform back end updates that doesn´t matters?! every *** Tuesday you make back end updates and now on a holiday what isn´t a patch day?! and this patch doesn´t matters!!!

seriously do you think about things that you do

Did you not read his post? He gave pretty a pretty reasonable justification for the date of the back-end work. It's likely they're coordinating with a third party on this hardware move and simply can't get it done a different date - multiple companies are committed to getting it done 5/25.

Also, as someone else has stated, this game is produced by an American company, who are far more likely to pay more attention to American holidays. Keith apologised for the oversight, and will try to avoid inconveniencing EU players in the future. Could you name the date of US Father's Day without looking it up? Sorry, we just don't keep track of every single holiday everywhere in the world.

a maintenance during a public holiday is just not very smart, to be polite..

It's only a public holiday in some countries. And the home country of the studio is the US, and no holiday.

With so many holidays scattered across so many countries and cultures, it would be pretty difficult to work around them all... for a few hours of maintenance.

I am slightly concerned there is actual communication going on here these days had to double check it was indeed the SWTOR forums.

Musco must be so delighted to not have to come up with same lame excuse for once.

Will be very happy if the communication continues

Did you not read his post? He gave pretty a pretty reasonable justification for the date of the back-end work. It's likely they're coordinating with a third party on this hardware move and simply can't get it done a different date - multiple companies are committed to getting it done 5/25.

 

Also, as someone else has stated, this game is produced by an American company, who are far more likely to pay more attention to American holidays. Keith apologised for the oversight, and will try to avoid inconveniencing EU players in the future. Could you name the date of US Father's Day without looking it up? Sorry, we just don't keep track of every single holiday everywhere in the world.

that isn´t the first time..

that isn´t the first time..

Doesn't matter in this case. It's already set and there are far to many parties involved to just change the date. It's more then just BW involved based on what they are doing. While it is unfortunate and hopefully won't happen in the future it's too late to change the date at this point.

It is but unfortunately like they said they didn't know and considering what they are doing it would be too late to change it. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. They need to have a list of holiday's for both US and UK to avoid this again.

it will happen again maybe not this year but it will be happen fast as possible

it will happen again maybe not this year but it will be happen fast as possible

Where did you get your crystal ball from, Nostradamus? Also, aren't you dead?

Or are you just saying things will absolutely be a certain way in the future because you want a reason to complain and so you're making things up?

MMO downtimes happen. It's not the end of the world. Spend your holiday doing something else you'll enjoy!

Where did you get your crystal ball from, Nostradamus? Also, aren't you dead?

 

Or are you just saying things will absolutely be a certain way in the future because you want a reason to complain and so you're making things up?

 

MMO downtimes happen. It's not the end of the world. Spend your holiday doing something else you'll enjoy!

If it was tuesday I would not complain but its thursday

They have tell it on last hollyday patch that tell us that this will be not happe again... an now...

Downtime on patchday will happen on holiday and its ok but this time it isn´t a patch day and a international company must know this... sry

If it was tuesday I would not complain but its thursday

 

They have tell it on last hollyday patch that tell us that this will be not happe again... an now...

 

Downtime on patchday will happen on holiday and its ok but this time it isn´t a patch day and a international company must know this... sry

You know there's no international guidelines set up by the UN stating when MMORPGs are supposed to have their patches and maintenance, right? Tuesday is just the day they've historically chosen to do most of those server shutdowns. EAWare can take down their servers whenever they find it necessary, period. Since they are US-based company, with headquarters in California and the branch in charge of SWTOR in Texas... then yes, they are inevitably going to have those downtimes during US working hours whenever possible.

I understand the timing sucks for you, but again... it wasn't an intentional "Ha ha, we're going to screw over the EU players" action on their part, and since it's part of a datacenter migration they obviously can't reschedule it now.

You know there's no international guidelines set up by the UN stating when MMORPGs are supposed to have their patches and maintenance, right? Tuesday is just the day they've historically chosen to do most of those server shutdowns. EAWare can take down their servers whenever they find it necessary, period. Since they are US-based company, with headquarters in California and the branch in charge of SWTOR in Texas... then yes, they are inevitably going to have those downtimes during US working hours whenever possible.

 

I understand the timing sucks for you, but again... it wasn't an intentional "Ha ha, we're going to screw over the EU players" action on their part, and since it's part of a datacenter migration they obviously can't reschedule it now.

Why do they always do so.

It isn´t only a holiday in Bavaria it´s in the most EU countries

and It is always the same

Hey all,

 

I’ve noticed a lot of concern about maintenances and the impact it has on your game time. We probably should have just given you a schedule of activity for the month of May and explained what was going on. Going forward, toward the beginning of each month, Eric will provide a schedule of that month’s maintenance.

 

So, what’s been going on this past month? Essentially, we have been migrating from one Datacenter to another and upgrading the Game Server hardware and supporting software. You won't directly notice improvements in performance, but these changes dramatically help us maintain the game and improve its overall reliability. As you can imagine, it’s an enormous undertaking to move absolutely everything – all servers and related hardware, supporting hardware, network infrastructure, upgrading the operating systems, management systems and tools, and more.

 

For the most part, we’ve been able to do it without a ton of downtime, but there’s been a couple times this month where the migration didn’t go as planned. As a result, we had to extend the maintenance window. Not fun for you nor for us!

 

Typically, we have a maintenance every two weeks and usually on a Tuesday. There’s a lot of coordination required between teams, as it’s not just turning servers off/on, but making sure all services spin up properly, databases are in good shape, all server hardware is checked, supporting software is updated, and more. No excuses, just means to keep the game healthy we need to validate everything and much of the work requires players to be offline.

 

What’s happening on Thursday should be the last of the migration components, but some of these impact our game services. So, this requires us to ensure no in-game activity is happening, and shutdown the Live Game. Our sincerest apologies to everyone as we did not realize it was a holiday (our bad for not looking at the calendar). We still need to have the maintenance, but I’ve asked the team to start an hour earlier and if at all possible shorten the window. We will get SWTOR back online as fast as possible.

 

The next scheduled downtime is June 13th and that maintenance is for Game Update 5.2.2. It’s possible we may need to restart everything on June 6th to flesh out any potential issues, but we’ll let you know.

 

Thanks for understanding and again, we’ll continue to improve our communications with you.

 

---Keith

Thank you for elaborating on this. While having server downtime on a holiday is hardly desirable, I applaude you adressing the reasons behind it. "Background Maintenance" is always a very vague term and knowing what is going on always goes a long way. I am very happy with what seems to be a more open communication policy ever since you have become the producer.

You could have said so from the start?

Something like "Hey guys, we're going to migrate the servers to a new datacenter in the next couple of weeks, so there will be some more maintenance than usual".

Noone would have said a thing.

That tomorrow is a holiday for most of europe is a mistake that shouldn't happen, but hey, we're all humans after all.

 

Noone would have said a thing.

You sorely underestimate the playerbase lol

Hey all,

 

I’ve noticed a lot of concern about maintenances and the impact it has on your game time. We probably should have just given you a schedule of activity for the month of May and explained what was going on. Going forward, toward the beginning of each month, Eric will provide a schedule of that month’s maintenance.

 

So, what’s been going on this past month? Essentially, we have been migrating from one Datacenter to another and upgrading the Game Server hardware and supporting software. You won't directly notice improvements in performance, but these changes dramatically help us maintain the game and improve its overall reliability. As you can imagine, it’s an enormous undertaking to move absolutely everything – all servers and related hardware, supporting hardware, network infrastructure, upgrading the operating systems, management systems and tools, and more.

 

For the most part, we’ve been able to do it without a ton of downtime, but there’s been a couple times this month where the migration didn’t go as planned. As a result, we had to extend the maintenance window. Not fun for you nor for us!

 

Typically, we have a maintenance every two weeks and usually on a Tuesday. There’s a lot of coordination required between teams, as it’s not just turning servers off/on, but making sure all services spin up properly, databases are in good shape, all server hardware is checked, supporting software is updated, and more. No excuses, just means to keep the game healthy we need to validate everything and much of the work requires players to be offline.

 

What’s happening on Thursday should be the last of the migration components, but some of these impact our game services. So, this requires us to ensure no in-game activity is happening, and shutdown the Live Game. Our sincerest apologies to everyone as we did not realize it was a holiday (our bad for not looking at the calendar). We still need to have the maintenance, but I’ve asked the team to start an hour earlier and if at all possible shorten the window. We will get SWTOR back online as fast as possible.

 

The next scheduled downtime is June 13th and that maintenance is for Game Update 5.2.2. It’s possible we may need to restart everything on June 6th to flesh out any potential issues, but we’ll let you know.

 

Thanks for understanding and again, we’ll continue to improve our communications with you.

 

---Keith

While I understand its needed this is unacceptable and this maintenance seems certainly able to be put on a regular tuesday so make it happen. Thursday is UNACCEPTABLE.

But of course you don't care about your EU playerbase so this falls on deaf ears.

Expected much better of you. Disappointed in you Keith and I wonder if this is a sign if nothing has changed.

While I understand its needed this is unacceptable and this maintenance seems certainly able to be put on a regular tuesday so make it happen. Thursday is UNACCEPTABLE.

 

But of course you don't care about your EU playerbase so this falls on deaf ears.

 

Expected much better of you. Disappointed in you Keith and I wonder if this is a sign if nothing has changed.

They've already scheduled the move with their datacenter people, kiddo. EAWare has to coordinate with other companies for this move, companies that have their own business schedules to deal with and do not care that Thursday is a holiday for some countries in Europe. They can't just throw all their plans away and hold up the migration of the entire datacenter because YOU find their schedule OMG UNACCEPTABLE. It's not like the servers are going to be down for only the EU even... as has already been mentioned, the downtime will be during the APAC evening playtime block. Entitled much? Get a grip. Do something else with your holiday time that you'll enjoy!

While I understand its needed this is unacceptable and this maintenance seems certainly able to be put on a regular tuesday so make it happen. Thursday is UNACCEPTABLE.

 

But of course you don't care about your EU playerbase so this falls on deaf ears.

 

Expected much better of you. Disappointed in you Keith and I wonder if this is a sign if nothing has changed.

The UK has nothing at all special happening Thursday.

Our Holiday is the following Monday.

My point here is this: pick a random day of the year - I 100% guarantee that THAT DAY is a Holiday SOMEWHERE.

So who do Bioware upset?

PS: Keith, thank you for the in depth explanation.

All The Best

While I understand its needed this is unacceptable and this maintenance seems certainly able to be put on a regular tuesday so make it happen. Thursday is UNACCEPTABLE.

 

But of course you don't care about your EU playerbase so this falls on deaf ears.

 

Expected much better of you. Disappointed in you Keith and I wonder if this is a sign if nothing has changed.

Too little to late to change the date. You clearly don't understand the complexity of data center moves or the number of parties involved. It's more then just BW, otherwise they could change the date. Only thing you can hope for is that it doesn't happen again going forward in the future.