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TOR claims 99.5% up time outside schedule maintenance. I call Shenanigans.

2

Comments

  • NaralNaral Member UncommonPosts: 748

    Hmm, doesn't matter what they claim to me, either way. I have been able to log in and play every single time I have wanted to and been able to (which was a lot for December and the first half of January).

    Every single time.

    For me, it seems they have a 100% up time. ;-)

  • jdnewelljdnewell Member UncommonPosts: 2,237

    When I played the servers were up all the time, the only exception being scheduled maint. times.

    I may not give them much credit, but for the servers being up I have to give it to them. The few hours that they might have been down outside of scheduled times is very minimal, especially for a new MMO.

    Nitpicking everything they say and calling BS is getting old. Honestly who gives a shit if they claim 99.5% but in reality its 95%? does it really even matter? no one can argue the servers uptime % is unusually high for a new release.

  • ProfGetzProfGetz Member UncommonPosts: 182

    Originally posted by Souldrainer

    I have not seen any downtime outside of maintenance for SWTOR... at all.  I have never heard anybody talk about a server suddenly crashing, nor have I seen it happen.  In fact, I don't even know where .5% down time comes from.  A server must have crashed for a few hours during non-peak hours or something.  Anyway, how is it a ridiculous claim, if it is true?

    Same here, my servers have always been available outside of maintenance days. People just LOVE to pick apart anything SWTOR related, and "call BS".  Whateva

    Every MMORPG is AWESOME, until it's released!
    I don't want a game so much as I want a WORLD!
    --
    o·pin·ion –noun
    1. a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.
    2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.

  • Jimmy562Jimmy562 Member UncommonPosts: 1,158

    Its not BS at all. Outside the maintenance hours I haven't experienced any downtime at all and I've played a lot. 

  • InFaVillaInFaVilla Member Posts: 592

    Originally posted by Jimmy562

    Its not BS at all. Outside the maintenance hours I haven't experienced any downtime at all and I've played a lot. 

     

    The problem is that whenever they want to take down the server, they can just give an announcement  "maintenance starting in 5 minutes" and then consider it to be scheduled . That's the problem with how "scheduled maintenance" is defined and it gives a wrong picture of how things are unless you exactly know the technical definition of "scheduled maintenance", which I doubt investors do.

  • bbbmmmlllbbbmmmlll Member Posts: 79

    It's a poor metric for an MMO. A better choice would be overall game availability which at the end of the day is the most important thing for players. IT has been abusing 'scheduled maintenance' for decades, but often this work is off hours and a fairly short duration. I'm lucky to get four hours a month in the middle of the night. Of course almost every service I run is active-active so I can take parts down without any customer impact. MMOs seem to be stuck in the stone age when it comes to infrastructure. I'm not sure why the maintenance windows are so long and why every single server needs to be down at once.

  • FratmanFratman Member Posts: 344

    Originally posted by InFaVilla

    Originally posted by Jimmy562

    Its not BS at all. Outside the maintenance hours I haven't experienced any downtime at all and I've played a lot. 

     

    The problem is that whenever they want to take down the server, they can just give an announcement  "maintenance starting in 5 minutes" and then consider it to be scheduled . That's the problem with how "scheduled maintenance" is defined and it gives a wrong picture of how things are unless you exactly know the technical definition of "scheduled maintenance", which I doubt investors do.

    They did that a bunch of times shortly after release. Apparently as long as they announce it more than 30 seconds in advance, it's perfectly acceptable to have the servers down for hours at random times like a Friday night. 

  • zWolfzWolf Member Posts: 88

    Originally posted by nikoliath

     

     

    ...Server "uptime" is a common statistic in the IT industry when dealing with server based services.

     

    Outside of scheduled means when the servers go pop, without warning. I have yet to see a server outage, unannounced, that has lasted more than the time it takes to log back in.

     

    Ya, that makes sense Nikoliath.  and in that case, I'd have to agree... threre really havn't been many times... (none that I can recall) where the servers just went 'belly up' with no "premeditated shut down".  On that front, they certainly ARE doing an excellent job aren't they... I've played in a bunch of MMO's and crashing servers is quite annoying...

     

    That said, I think it's my 'frustration' at the fact that they get to give really short 'notice' on what they call 'maintenance'...  thereby avoiding the negative numbers in the 'unplanned downtime' catagory.... it just seems like there ought to be perhaps 2 areas to measure.

     

    Statistic # 1 - Uptime other than the maintenance window on Tuesdays. (or when ever they want to do the 'once a week' maintenance that the industry is accostomed to.)

     

    This is the # that I think that every one, wants to see increase. Players, BioWare, Investors etc.  This would be the Metric that would be fun to see increase as all the bugs get ironed out etc.  This is what 'I' was wrongly assuming that 'uptime out side of scheduled maintenance' would mean.

     

    Statistic #2 - Uptime that wasn't a 'server crash' this one would mean that BioWare could see things going 'wonky' and knew they needed to pull down the servers, so they had at least (what should we say here, fifteen minutes? 2 Hours? a Day? ) some time to warn all the users to 'get outta the pool' as it were, and were in control of when they brought the servers down.

     

    I imagine that in the past, in those games that I remember 'crashing servers' in, had they had the diagnostic tools availavble to them, they may have been able to predict a failure - then slap a 'were going to maintain this' tag on it, re-boot em and be on their way.  

     

    Either way - I'll keep on playin.  and I suppose thats the 'true' Metric they want to measure, right?

     

    (also, I changed the title of this thread to be less... um, Flameworthy - I used the term 'Shenanigans' instead of my original Two Initial Term.)

    Thank you,

    zWolf -out.

  • KaocanKaocan Member UncommonPosts: 1,270

    I call BS on the OP who is calling BS. I have yet to find my server down, period, ever. I am at work when they run thier scheduled maintenance, and not once has it hit me. 

    What server are you on OP that has seen all this extra down time your saying is happening?

    (DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)

  • zWolfzWolf Member Posts: 88

    Originally posted by Kaocan

    I call BS on the OP who is calling BS. I have yet to find my server down, period, ever. I am at work when they run thier scheduled maintenance, and not once has it hit me. 

    What server are you on OP that has seen all this extra down time your saying is happening?

    Ya, ahem, I changed the 'BS' thing it was a tad inflamitory, and that wasn't what I was going for kaocan, Mostly, I just wanted to express my dis-satisfaction with defining 'Sceduled' maintenance as anything other than the Tuesday Maintenance Window, when (as you have allready pointed out, ) most of us are at work.

     

    Gratz, that you havn't run into any of the 'non tuesday' Maintenance Windows - I'd postulate however that perhaps you haven't played much... or, just been extreamly lucky.  I doubt that there are manny that would pick up the banner on claiming that the other non tuesday 'scheduled' maintenance windows haven't effected them.  but like I said, good for you for not getting touched by them!  (with that luck, perhaps we could all go in and have you buy a lottery ticket for us? :-)  

     

    That said, I do feel bad that in my title I used thoes two little intitials... it now says 'shenanigans' which I feel is a bit less inflamitory.

    Thank you,

    zWolf -out.

  • RobsolfRobsolf Member RarePosts: 4,607

    Originally posted by zWolf

    .  who knows, you may be able to 'schedule' maintenance with even 'less' notice than 5 hours. 

    Have they done that?  My experience says "no".

    Least amount of notice I've seen is about 24 hours.

    So yes, you can point out the significant qualifier("scheduled") and fairly opine that it seems like scheduled maintenence happens alot.  But I don't see the point of arguing what "could be" that "hasn't been".

    I could point out that the .5% unscheduled downtime doesn't mean much IF "scheduled maintenence" occurs 23 hours a day, too.  But it doesn't, so what's the point?

  • RobsolfRobsolf Member RarePosts: 4,607

    Originally posted by zWolf

     

    Ya, ahem, I changed the 'BS' thing it was a tad inflamitory, and that wasn't what I was going for kaocan, Mostly, I just wanted to express my dis-satisfaction with defining 'Sceduled' maintenance as anything other than the Tuesday Maintenance Window, when (as you have allready pointed out, ) most of us are at work.

    Fair enough.  I agree that there's alot of scheduled downtime, or at least FREQUENT scheduled downtimes.  But in most cases they've been fixing things.

    I'd rather have that than more uptime.

  • zWolfzWolf Member Posts: 88

    Originally posted by Robsolf

    Originally posted by zWolf

    .  who knows, you may be able to 'schedule' maintenance with even 'less' notice than 5 hours. 

    Have they done that?  My experience says "no".

    Least amount of notice I've seen is about 24 hours.

     

    ya, they have done that - Friday the 28th, and there are post's from the adminsitrators that state it was a 5 hour notice prior to the actual shut down. (I don't wana dig up the link, but it's there.) that statement was made to defend against the acusations from users that they had only given the 15 minute 'in game' warning, which was the first that most people that were playing knew about it.

     

    I would like to point out, that in responce to the 'back lash' from that experiance, BioWare now puts up a nice big announcement screen as you log in, that lets you know about up coming server down times.  

     

    That really was a great addigion!  Kudo's and my hat's off to them.

     

    but, to answer your original question, yes they have done 'short term' announcements for their 'scheduled maintenance' I used 5 hours, specifically because I was 'there' for that one, and had read the 'official' post from BioWare that addmitted such... I suspect that there have been other times, perhaps with even less of a notice, but I don't 'know' that so I stuck with what I 'knew' in my post.  

     

    hope that answers your question.

     

    Thanks.

    Thank you,

    zWolf -out.

  • zWolfzWolf Member Posts: 88

    Originally posted by Robsolf

    Originally posted by zWolf


     

    Ya, ahem, I changed the 'BS' thing it was a tad inflamitory, and that wasn't what I was going for kaocan, Mostly, I just wanted to express my dis-satisfaction with defining 'Sceduled' maintenance as anything other than the Tuesday Maintenance Window, when (as you have allready pointed out, ) most of us are at work.

    Fair enough.  I agree that there's alot of scheduled downtime, or at least FREQUENT scheduled downtimes.  But in most cases they've been fixing things.

    I'd rather have that than more uptime.

    I think you are right... I imagine that I'm still 'bitter' about the fact that I'd aranged to play TOR, with my buddies back on Fridayl... these are friends that live far away, and we really aren't able to get together often, so I was really looking forward to this play time on the weekend, that we'd all planned for... so, I have all my caffinated energy drinks out, Head set out, in Ventrillo, we are running along doing flash points and havging a blast, and 'boom' 

     

    "15 minutes for a 5 hour down time" 

     

    So, I logged out mad, threw a tizzy fit, and have been acting quite immature since then... canceling my account (on a game that I love) and looking for other things that might be 'wrong' with the game...  hense this thread.

     

    Sure I should 'grow up' and 'get over it' your not going to say anything along that line that I don't already know (or wouldn't say to some one else,) but, I'll be honest, expressing my dissatisfaction, and my opnion on the matter really does make me feel better.  It is with this that I justify my posts.  What are the forums, but a place where we can discuss our opions? I have tried very hard not to be TOO flame worthy in this thread, yet still get my thought's accross in a rational.  how ever now, you know the back story, and my motivation for such posts.  

     

    All that said, and the truth is that you are right, down time to fix things is greatly appreciated... though appreciated MORE when it's not done on a friday night... specificaly one when 'I' am playing.  (that was a bit of a joke. :-P )

     

     

    Thank you,

    zWolf -out.

  • WicoaWicoa Member UncommonPosts: 1,637

    I agree with OP

  • RobsolfRobsolf Member RarePosts: 4,607

    Originally posted by zWolf

    Originally posted by Robsolf


    Originally posted by zWolf


     

    Fair enough.  I agree that there's alot of scheduled downtime, or at least FREQUENT scheduled downtimes.  But in most cases they've been fixing things.

    I'd rather have that than more uptime.

    I think you are right... I imagine that I'm still 'bitter' about the fact that I'd aranged to play TOR, with my buddies back on Fridayl... these are friends that live far away, and we really aren't able to get together often, so I was really looking forward to this play time on the weekend, that we'd all planned for... so, I have all my caffinated energy drinks out, Head set out, in Ventrillo, we are running along doing flash points and havging a blast, and 'boom' 

     "15 minutes for a 5 hour down time" 

     So, I logged out mad, threw a tizzy fit, and have been acting quite immature since then... canceling my account (on a game that I love) and looking for other things that might be 'wrong' with the game...  hense this thread.

     

    Yep, I can understand that!  It's similar to an issue that LotRO folks on the other side of the pond tend to have even some 5 years out:  scheduled downtime during the morning/day here in the state really cuts into their prime time!  They pay just as much as we do, yet, they usually lose an entire evening every time LotRO goes down for maint.!  image 

  • WickedjellyWickedjelly Member Posts: 4,990

    Originally posted by Fratman

    99.5% up time. 90% retention rate. 200 hours of story per class.

    Bioware loves throwing ridiculous numbers out there.

    In all fairness, the 80% retention rate was being tossed around by goobers on forums not BW.

    1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.

    2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.

    3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.

  • DaRoamerDaRoamer Member Posts: 249

    Originally posted by InFaVilla

    Originally posted by Jimmy562

    Its not BS at all. Outside the maintenance hours I haven't experienced any downtime at all and I've played a lot. 

     

    The problem is that whenever they want to take down the server, they can just give an announcement  "maintenance starting in 5 minutes" and then consider it to be scheduled . That's the problem with how "scheduled maintenance" is defined and it gives a wrong picture of how things are unless you exactly know the technical definition of "scheduled maintenance", which I doubt investors do.

    That's not a problem, it's the way things are.  If they decide to take the servers down to patch an exploit then it's scheduled and not counted.

    If you want an example of what they're talking about I was able to get into the Tera EU beta test last weekend.  1 min after the servers went up they crashed and they were never able to get them back up that weekend.  THAT is what they're talking about. 

    Taking down the servers for a maintenance or a patch is not unexpected downtime, even if it's done to fix an unexpected bug in the last patch.

  • Yeah, servers surprisingly never seemed to be down when I played, except for scheduled maintenance. They certainly know how to keep their servers stable.

  • NaughtyPNaughtyP Member UncommonPosts: 793

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_availability

    99.5% = 1.83 days/year = 3.60 hrs/month = 50.4 mins/week

    The game has only been out what... 2 months? So I'd be surprised if they were below 99.5% already.

    Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure.

  • cscurlockcscurlock Member Posts: 38

    Saw this post and LOL

    From: Star Wars: The Old Republic Customer Service via bioware-mailer.com

    Feb 1 (8 days ago)



    To: me

    Dear XXXXXX,



    We perfectly understand where you're coming from and we apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you.



    Knowing that we're on the early stage of the game lauch, please understand that we have these scheduled and emergency maintenance to better improve the game.



    All of us here on the Star Wars: The Old Republic team would like to thank you for your support, and let you know that we really appreciate your feedback.



    We appreciate that you're with us since we started and we would be more than happy that you take part when the game becomes well established and meet the expectation of the general public.



    Please do not hesitate to contact us again if there is anything further we can help you with.



    Regards,



    Adrian

    Star Wars: The Old Republic Customer Service

  • troublmakertroublmaker Member Posts: 337

    Whole thread of people looking too far into Bioware simply saying their servers are stable.

  • WickedjellyWickedjelly Member Posts: 4,990

    Originally posted by troublmaker

    Whole thread of people looking too far into Bioware simply saying their servers are stable.

    I have to agree this really does feel like overreaching. The servers do seem really stable to me.

    I have no clue if their percentage is true or not and frankly I don't care. Haven't seen any issues that would make me want to take them to task over it anyways.

    1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.

    2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.

    3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.

  • DeeweDeewe Member UncommonPosts: 1,980

    99.5 up time, lol!

     


    Availability %

    Downtime per year

    Downtime per month*

    Downtime per week

    90% ("one nine")

    36.5 days

    72 hours

    16.8 hours

    95%

    18.25 days

    36 hours

    8.4 hours

    97%

    10.96 days

    21.6 hours

    5.04 hours

    98%

    7.30 days

    14.4 hours

    3.36 hours

    99% ("two nines")

    3.65 days

    7.20 hours

    1.68 hours

    99.5%

    1.83 days

    3.60 hours

    50.4 minutes

    99.8%

    17.52 hours

    86.23 minutes

    20.16 minutes

    99.9% ("three nines")

    8.76 hours

    43.2 minutes

    10.1 minutes

    99.95%

    4.38 hours

    21.56 minutes

    5.04 minutes

    99.99% ("four nines")

    52.56 minutes

    4.32 minutes

    1.01 minutes

    99.999% ("five nines")

    5.26 minutes

    25.9 seconds

    6.05 seconds

    99.9999% ("six nines")

    31.5 seconds

    2.59 seconds

    0.605 seconds

     

  • smh_alotsmh_alot Member Posts: 976
    Originally posted by Deewe

    99.5 up time, lol!
     

     

    Man, the way you keep posting at it, I'd almost think you dislike the game or its company >.> They were talking about outside scheduled/planned/intended server maintenance, like crashes or that something has to be brought down quickly bc something is going wrong and not for planned patches, that kinda thing. Not that odd a term nor that strange figures in IT business.
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