The Curse of Downtime

WHY GOD WHY!?!

By: Savanja

It's the message that we dread to see, whether on the forum or when logging into game. You cannot log in! *cries*

EverQuest II log in servers went down for most of the day on tuesday. You could not log into the forums, EQ2 Players, or into the game. Not only that, but even Gallenite, the producer, couldn't log in! The few that were left on the forums, those that had already logged in before the servers went down, and those that managed to stay logged in, made great use of their alone time, some abusing their position to bump threads of interest to only themselves. This is what happens when posters are left to their own devices!

Downtime is one of those curses, that while usually necessary, we all hate. I remember reading a thread in the Gameplay section of the forums mentioning that the 7 am PST resetting of the servers was inconvenient for them. Well duh. Downtime is never good for anyone at anytime! Regular maintenance is very important though, especially if we want to avoid the horrors of unscheduled downtime during major playtimes. The red names did tell us long ago that the 7 am PST time was established because it was the time when the servers had the lightest load. Yes, it would be super if downtime were never needed, but isn't that a teeny bit unrealistic?

Any of you that have ever worked with servers, you know how obnoxious they can be. Previous to my oh so glamorous position as a fansite writer, I did server leasing to large websites. I thank all the powers in the universe that I wasn't the poor schmuck that had to actually fiddle with the server hardware and software, but I was the poor schmuck that took the complaints, and it is my deduction, that surprising very few people have any clue how rough that sort of work can be.

Let me spell it out for you. H A R D W A R E B R E A K S... S O F T W A R E I S B U G G Y.

Such is life.

However, I did think it was hilarious that Gallenite couldn't log in either. It seems that they would have some sort of backway in, but like I mentioned above, I'm not the techie type, so what do I know?

So does this mean we should expect this sort of thing regularly? Heck no! SOE is a solid company, and they can afford decent equipment and well schooled techs, so the surprise downtime should be minimal. But when it does happen, I think the players should rest (or sit chatting desperately with guildies outside of game) assured that they are doing all that they can to get things up as quickly as possible. I just somehow doubt that Gallenite is sitting there, sipping brandy in a smoking jacket, and madly giggling at the panic and chaos. Bwhahahaha! Dance for me silly little ants! DANCE!

Of course, I don't have official word on that. Maybe he does. If so, Gallenite? Can I have pics of that?

So my point? Downtime is one of those very bad things that make us all, including the people at SOE, very unhappy. It'll happen from time to time, and despite my lunatic ravings at people to keep in mind that sometimes shit just happens, there will still be loads of whining and "Omgz, SOE sux!!" every time those servers go down.

It's okay, that's what Raijinn (aka the BanHammer) is for.

As for the typical 7 am PST downtime, I'm actually afraid of what might happen if they take that away. I'd rather have the small bit of downtime and have happy servers, than to risk it and have days of no EQ2. They do what they gotta do, I'll trust their judgment on this one.

Questions? Comments? I know you all know where to find me, but I'll post it anyway.