If someone said for example “I’ll give you a call in aprox 2 hours” would you consider 5 hours later within the time frame? What if 4+ appointments in a row “aprox” more than doubled?
Blizzard has never been good about telling us what they are fixing during Maint. We find out when patch notes or hotfixes come out. There are some exceptions like announcing tuning or balance changes ahead of time before they go in on a Tues. Major patches also have patch notes ahead of time.
They don’t get into explaining data backups, server restarts, database or server side software changes, etc. If it is not customer facing and shown in game they rarely talk about it. Major data center or database migrations aside.
I do agree that it would be better to just schedule it for 6 hours or 8 hours then bring it up earn if done.
They don’t seem to do that though.
Yes, I think most everyone agrees with that. It would not be “honest” either, but it would at least set lower expectations so there would be less disappointment.
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No. If you don’t like it you stop paying your subscription and stop playing. Social contract be damn
I think the servers should be set to be down for 12hrs by default. From 7am PDT to 7pm PDT, if the severs come up anytime before that great.
Reality is that they are never really down for that long and the HARD reality is that the “window” that we are given days in advance is or generally has been completely inaccurate.
When I went to bed last night it was 9am -11am when I woke up it was the same. Came home after the stated time. Actually 30 mins after, to read it was pushed to 11am. And then after that, less than 30 mins it was 12.
That’s a 4 hour jump and that is if it comes up on time. It’s called over promised and under deliver. We want the opposite. It provides a more positive experience.
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Bwahahahahahahahaha!!! Oh my, good one.
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Absolutely because:
Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if these now common, ever extending maintenance’s have to do with the merger. It certainly seems to coincide with it.
Perhaps WoW’s maintenance crew was canned, and now we’re dealing with Microsoft’s team or a combination of WoW skeleton crew, with a Microsoft support crew, which would explain why the weekly maintenance’s have gone so awry as they have.
Preach it! This was the best, most honest explanation so far. I hope that it actually reaches a few who may not understand that IT and software work is not as simple as saying it will take “X” amount of time and that’s it.
I do agree with most though that Blizzard is horrible at communicating anything to the player base about what is going on, and why the need for the extensions. No, I don’t think we need a detailed note saying it’s this and that. But, maybe just a “hey, we ran into a few problems and we will need some more time”
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Forums are always the best place during maintenance times.
sips tea
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i would be espically since you can make apps that can send notifications that say hey game is playable
They rarely drop us info on hotfixes right away either, they will nerf something overnight and make everyone deep dig to find the notes about it. It’s just lazy and I can’t say that I blame them, the majority of the employees at blizzard are getting paid what they could make at McDonald’s for doing something thousands of times more complicated than throwing a burger on a grill and hitting a timer.
Under promise over deliver. Set the maintenance schedule for 2 PST (or whatever the maximum matrixed timeframe that can data pull.) If they get it up and running beforehand, they look like rock stars instead of a bunch of hamsters that can’t figure it out. This is an industry best practice, and I can’t fathom why Blizzard (indie company or not) doesn’t adhere to this.
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It’s a bad look, sure, to repeatedly state 1 or 2 hours maintenance that always ends up 4-5 hours. But as long as we keep paying the subs, they DGAF. They’re immune to tears…they don’t impact the bottom line. They know they have a product people WILL pay for, so they don’t need to be perfect or even accurate.
Whenever they post an upcoming maintenance, I know the time is BS from the jump, so I just do other stuff in the meantime, knowing it’ll go over.
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Oh absolutely. I 100% agree communication is needed. These daily/weekly extensions are crazy and should not be a thing. I can only retort on the actual maintenance and how it can be shorter or longer. But the company does need to address continuing extensions as they are not reasonable
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They could extend an hour or two out to set loose expectations and build in some wiggle room, that seems to be the norm for these extended updates. I don’t think what they’re asking for is unreasonable. Being in the field myself, generally it’s a good idea to under-promise a little and over deliver. Nobody gets mad at it being done early
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Not the point, being honest of what your clients need to expect about a maintenance is a must, is a skill not all devs has, in fact, I dare to challenge this: how many devs you know with Customer Service skills?
Not my problem you seem to have difficulty understanding words. Not in one of my posts do I defend or promote Blizzard but what I do instead I point out the obvious to what is happening with the “extended period.” I’ve even suggested that people drop their subs if they do not like it. I take note to things not being clear as to why it may be happening. But you, and those like you, whine and cry every time maintenance happens and make multiple posts whining and crying about it. That’s all you guys do. Find something else to do. WoW isn’t going anywhere. I hope they extend even longer so people like you do quit. May get rid of the toxicity that has flooded this game.
It’s time for community managers to learn to see patterns.
If there’s been extendedx maint. every week this expansion, then keep expecting it.
Other threads about this are getting purged, this is my entertainment when I can’t play the game 
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I hear your point and expect some unexpected glitches to arise. But this is every week. It’s getting old. But then again, the base game is getting old. I am not a programmer but is the age of the game making updates and patches much more complex, hence the unforeseen problems?