Give SOE a breakFollow

LOL. I can only hope thats sarcasm matey.

Edited, Sat Dec 18 15:01:09 2004 by Sloughter

Edited, Sat Dec 18 15:01:37 2004 by Sloughter

hardware issue that destroyed their database on every server from the inside out? Even though each server has an independent machine (quite a few machines in a cluster per server). I think not sir. You are misinformed. Their patch ate the database. And they obviously hadn't prepared for something as severe as this. Lets hope they learn from this and it doesn't happen again

SOE havent actually said what the problem is bar this generic 'its a hardware' fault nonsense. Sounds like a cop out to me.

Didnt they have a contingency for this kind of thing?

If I buy a car and the engines knackered I dont think oh poor BMW, their suppliers let them down, what shame.

I dont think its whining to expect appropriate levels of service for my hard earned cash.

Don't blame SOE? Are you serious?

In all the time I've played FFXI, unannounced downtime NEVER happened. NEVER. NEVER.

It's unthinkable there. And to actually have your characters rolled back to an earlier state does not even enter the mind of an FFXI player due to the impossibility of it happening.

If the economy there wasn't so completely and utterly shagged I'd still be playing that.

And put this in perspective, people. SOE have had EQ1, SWG, PS and now EQ2 to sort out their online service delivery.

Squenix have only had one game, FFXI, to work on the online gaming aspect of their business.

So if you knew nothing about these two and their history, what would you answer if asked the question 'which of these companies is worst at delivering an online game, with frequent unannounced downtime and even one character rollback?'.

Funny how you'd be wrong, isn't it?

How is it that Squenix can deliver a service with no unannounced downtime and DEFINITELY no rollbacks, whereas SOE, with their 4 games and many years of online gaming presence (I won't use the term experience as that would imply they knew what they were doing) can't?

So no, I do not feel like giving SOE a break. Were it not for the crappy economy now of FFXI I'd be there, not lining SOE's pockets with undeserved money. I still might go back, despite the economy. I don't know. It might take a while to earn money there, but at least you knew you'd keep it (or the item you bought with it).

Oh, and it being hardware issues makes it worse for SOE, not better - are SOE seriously saying that in a big online game that's a major revenue generator, they can't buy a few mirror servers in case hardware fails on one of them?

What's the difference between SOE's IT division and a bunch of braindead retarded idiots? No, I can't tell either.

Sorry but downtime due to hardware malfunctions is still their fault. That's what raid arrays with multiple controllers, multiple power supplies, DNS fail-over, software clustering, etc. are for. The normal things you'd find in any enterprise networking/software environment.

Even without those things in place, they should at the very least have replacement parts available on-site. Their official downtime thread says they are waiting on a solution from a hardware vendor for some of the servers (aka waiting for parts).

Yes it's expensive but it's less costly than a mistake like this. I can't imagine how much business they're going to lose because of this.

Edited, Sat Dec 18 16:11:59 2004 by subvert

hey dave..i played ffxi for almost a year and the server went down several times for emergency maintenance that was unannounced..and they never had the decency like soe does to tell anyone what was going on.

Unannounced downtime, I said. And there's been none of it in FFXI. It's always been announced beforehand.

I've played it for a year too. Squenix need downtime, they announce it, it happens, sorted.

SOE need downtime, they say nothing, they don't even know they need downtime, everything goes down and we get some idiot on their forums saying 'thank you for your patience, we are working diligently'.

If they really had been working diligently, all the servers would be up by now. As a last resort, the servers would have been swapped with servers THAT A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR COMPANY SHOULD HAVE IN RESERVE, then backups would have been loaded onto that and everything would be fine.

Again, no I don't feel like giving SOE a break. They don't deserve one. They could easily have avoided this length of downtime, and didn't.

Let's get the facts straight.

They said hourly updates - they didn't happen. LIE.

They say hardware issue on a day of a big patch - not likely - highly probably LIE.

Instead of working like dogs to get us our game back, they took the time last night to shut down a thread on their boards that was highly critical of them. It wasn't profane - it didn't violate any rules - sure, it was really harsh - but they shut it down. LIKE NO ONE NOTICED.

We pay them. We are their CLIENTS. They OWE us a lot in this relationship. But they consistently FAIL to respect us as clients. This goes way back.

Finally, for all you who mindlessly defend Fony - hey, if you wanna be their yapping little lapdogs, that's your choice. I find it pathetic. Just keep in mind that at least a real life lapdog gets the crumbs brushed off his master's table. As Fony lapdogs all you get is our distrespect.

Unless you live in Japan, FF11 is not comparable to EQ2. It was released there like a year earlier, so when you started playing it, it was not at all new. EQ2 has been out for about 1/12 that time, this is the first MAJOR problem they've had. Besides, FF11 is stupid and boring, the economy is shot, the classes are unbalanced, and it just basically all around sucks, and always did.

People are whining about wanting a refund and that Sony is taking their hard earned money? Boo hoo. I hope you never spend money to go to a movie or buy a book. You get, what, 2 to 6 hours of entertainment from those for around 10 dollars? For 2 bucks more, you can have as much entertainment as your schedule allows for AN ENTIRE MONTH!

Sep

My Lord but you people are dumb!!

Of course there was nothing wrong with the entire system, nothing. SOE just did this to teach everyone how meaninless to the company they are. The head office got together at the last board meeting and decided that it was time to put the peos (read customers) in their places. We have been getting uppity lately and making demands on the great God (read company) SOE. Never mind any whining they do, never mind any that leave, they are beneath the God's dignity, they are slime. We can trat them how we wish.

There, now don't all of you who have been bashing SOE and whining feel better? Justified? It was all an SOE plot and you were right, SOE doesn't care! VINDICATION Oh it is marvelous to be proven right about the evil SOE

It happened, it's over, we are getting recompense, let it go and get back to enjoying the game!!!




Edited, Sat Dec 18 18:23:54 2004 by DRHKerr

Wow... (and I don't mean world of warcraft) I'm sorry but crap happens. To all of you who said they (soe) are filling us full of bull; that very well may be the case, but unless you know that as a FACT, and can present us with those FACTS, then how on earth do you know its false?

Do you really honestly think that SOE planned this? Do you really think that they wanted this to happen? They've been at this a long time, and generally know their stuff. But to hear someone "HOPE" that someone loses their job, because they didn't get to play a stupid game for a couple days sickens me.

Have you ever made a mistake? Have you ever been unprepared? I imagine that everyone reading this will at least inside have to answer yes. Do you really want someone at SOE, who will likely never make this mistake again, to lose his/her job? To go home to their family and say "Sorry honey, I messed up, lost my job today, hope the kids are going to be ok".

Yeah, thats a worst case, sob story, but you don't know what happend, you don't know who's going to be affected. This is a game, I play it, I missed it, and I hope it doesnt happen again. But grow up, watch the news, there is a lot more out there you should be losing your hair over than missing EQ for a couple days.

So unless you are perfect, don't demand it of others. Forgiveness is divine... (btw 3 free days, accelerated EXP on Mon. or Tues. sounds like they are pretty sorry about what happend to me).

I agree with ascendacy, and Dave, you're just an arrogant moron. Just another one of them know-it-alls. **** happens, maybe the **** just happened with SOE, and not FFXI.

You know, they're trying they're absolute hardest to get the servres up and running, and trying there best to make sure it doesn't happen again. Give credit where it's due and stop bashing SOE. I'd like to see you do better.

Now now, children. Don't resort to petty name calling of other forum members - that's what SOE is there for.



Really? This isn't the first time one of their online games has gone down for a long period. There was a two-day downtime with Everquest 1.

So instead of getting in some sort of multiple redundancy setup to stop this happening again, to the point where even if 8 of their servers had a hardware failure (EIGHT, for fsck's sake - how the fsck do EIGHT separate servers all fail at once?), they could continue online, they just have primary servers and the sh*t hits the fan.

sh*t happens? Stretching the limits of probability here, aren't you? Two downtimes larger than 24 hours, one of them involving eight separate hardware failures all at the same time?

If this really was bad luck, then SOE need to get out of online gaming as they are far too unlucky to deliver any sort of reliable service. If it wasn't bad luck, then they're just incompetent.



Depends on your perspective.

To me, it sounds as if their 'milk the game for all the profit we can, without spending money on a structure which will guarantee customer service' has blown up in their faces, and now they're having to grovel to customers.



Whereas Square Enix have not been at this a long time, but can deliver a far better service, even if the ingame economy is shot.

Not only has there never been any unannounced downtime in FFXI, there has never been any downtime longer than 24 hours, and definitely not one EVER requiring a rollback of data.

If SOE 'know their stuff', how come the newcomer to the MMORPG market can do this and they can't?

Face facts people, SOE don't have the ability to do this, or have chosen not to in order to maximise profits. Maybe they do 'know their stuff', but they are acting as if they don't.


I STILL do not feel like giving SOE a break. As I said, they could easily have avoided this (and have had stuff like this happen to them in the past, so they could have prepared) but didn't. Square Enix avoid it, so why not SOE?