This is completely insane

whenever my cable, phone, internet provider goes down (i have a 3 in 1 pkg) for more than a few hours...i think its 4, i get compenstated an entire day on my bill

I hate being addicted to SL....

Come on LL, put OUR money where YOUR mouth is. This is getting beyond a joke.

Some of us pay a subscription... monthly, annually, whatever... imagine if you had to refund us for the downtime. How would you feel? That's right, it would suck because you'd be losing money. Ok, so individually we're not losing a great deal of RL money, but you're still earning for a service that you're not providing. Can we at least get a barrel and a tube of KY jelly when we subscribe? Fair's fair after all.

Most, if not all, ISPs compensate their users for extended loss of service.

Nope, it's called shift work and is practiced by all respectable companies who give a damn about their customer base... :|

i go to a dentist that accomodates me on Saturday, i use a bank that stays open till 7pm every weekday nite, is open Sat & Sun, and ATMs that run 24/7, i use a Dr that can give me late after 5 appts, seems like the real world can accomodate ppl that need services that arent 9-5, this being said, no i dont expect them to come in the middle of the night to do updates, unless they are this often and this long, because now they are in MY pocket...and thank you for your sermonette, ill grab my cat and snuggle up to watch Big Brother or some other inane TV show...

Simply Amazing...

Popcorn, did someone say they had popcorn (and booze)?

I'm not so sure they've not been doing that much bug-squashing all along... it's just they're actually crowing more about the bugs they've fixed recently, and that is a Good Thing.

This is actually the first time I've noticed they actually took the time to list exactly what they fixed, rather than lumping it all under 'other bug fixes' like they've done so many times in the past.

And on that, I thank them. In fact, I would love to see them never say "Other miscellaneous bug fixes" again. It would go a long way to helping restore the perception we have of LL.

Even if nothing they actually DO changes, the image we have can color how we see changes they make.


For example, had every release up until now been flawless, we all would be more willing to write this off as an anomaly, and look forward to the next update.



Unfortunately, our perceptions (bolded for emphasis) of LL is that 1) they won't listen to Joe Average user but bend over backwards to please their showhorses at the expense of the majority of the population, 2) they don't seem to care about fixing issues that are currently in the system, and 3) opting instead to throw us some shiny new features that bring in even more bugs and 4) give us half-finished features to work around problems we already have. When this perception becomes reaffirmed every week, there IS a problem.


Image truly IS important... if something looks brown and smells bad, not everyone's gonna look much farther than that, and it does nothing but keep people away.

Some may think 'well, it really can't be that bad' and jump in... only to find it's smooshy as well. I'd imagine quite a few people get grossed out and get out ASAP.

I think you know where this analogy's going, and I'm becoming less able to convince myself I'm standing in a pile of mud...

Some paying customers in other games wishes they would go thru this weekly. At least we get update.

Things happen..and I would rather be out now while things are worked on than walk around in a broken world.

I like the updates, I love what they add. I feel LL is doing great in the fact that they make a continuing effort to improve SL.

As for timing of the updates:
1 It works well for LL employees.
2 The majority of users are in the US, so if you can't make every one happy, try to please the largest group of customers.

No but then these also aren't in the same class of service providers. Welcome to the internet, someones here all the time.

I work as a sysadmin, and to do major network/systems upgrades that affected our entire network, your damn right I've had to come in at odd hours. Software/Systems/Network engineers are used to it, its WHAT WE DO. Why? Because its good customer service, you do what is best for the largest number of your subscription base. We call the time period between midnight to seven AM the "Maintinence Window" this is when we can safely take servers offline and the smallest percentage of our customer base will be affected.

If I took my companies EMC offline in the middle of the day I would flood my support department with calls, then I'd get fired for probably losing us something like $10,000 or more worth of revenue.

To make it worse with open registration you can't even get a decent idea of what the true economic impact of this level of downtime is. But I geurontee you they are losing a fair ammount of money each time they do several hours of downtime during peak hours.

See my comment above yours....

Name me one game that is down for more than 15 hours on a weekly basis.

Over here!

I agree with Melonie, TSO players would love these updates!

But I do think they are unnecessarily (and deleteriously) often.

coco

can you back up that claim. I seem to spend most of my life in sl at the moment and i dont recall it being offline that long every week.

Yeah. I can honestly say my MMORPG of choice has been down on me less than once a month if that. And only once for a period of more than an hour or so. SL has either been offline or in such a state (crashing, update bugs) that it's required going offline soon after most of the times I've attempted to go on in the last two weeks.

As a lifer on the MMO train (10 years, can't even count the number of MMO's I've played) I have to say NONE have had *weekly* updates except SL. The one's that did end up having downtime reimbursed their customers. And it still wasn't *weekly* downtime. Those of you saying it's the price of an MMO have played some very crappy MMO's and I'll be happy to steer you to some with much better customer relations.

Secondly, I wouldn't sit around and complain about people complaining. First of all, *someone* will *always* complain. We are human, there's always at least *one*. Second of all, it amazes me the crap people will put up with just because it's the computer. Would you put up with this kind of service if it was your electricity down every week for several hours? What about your fridge? What if Dell made you send your computer back every WEdnesday morning for an update, and one that isn't that good in the overall picture? When did the ethics of business get a break? (I could tell you, but that's a whole 'nother rant) No longer is the customer right, or even heeded. It's ok to put out a crappy product because well...you really shouldn't complain. They dont' really *owe* you anything. In fact, you should be glad there are people out there willing to work our electricity and make our fridges. Don't complain if something isn't *exactly* right. And when Dell's customer service sucks and they make you spend 4 months trying to get a part you ordered to start with, hey, man, you ought to just be grateful Dell is even *there* to sell you a computer.

Now, I'm not saying SL is crappy, I happen to enjoy it quite a bit. However, a product will *never ever ever* improve if someone doesn't complain somewhere that there's a problem. I'm sure you would adore SL stagnating, but if anyone's angry, it's because they've paid for a product in some form or fashion that isn't living up to decent standards of workmanship in their opinion. I myself will listen to the griping, give points where they are due and ignore those that just gripe tohear the sound of their voice. You can't fix a problem if you don't know it exists.

any ideas when its going to be back up!?

/agree

All other MMO's have shift workers. Most of them go down early AM USA time, because it's 'sleep time' for majority of US players and 'work time' for most European players.

EQ2 on larger updates, goes down at 4 and 5am PST til about 11am, smaller updates 7am, but they are done by 10am.

If I remember correctly, WoW follows the same path, so does Horizons.

All these games also don't have the major bugs that SL gets from these large updates.

I know there are more but can't think of any at this time.

None of my ISPs ever have... and they've all been major providers.

But I geurontee you they are losing a fair ammount of money each time they do several hours of downtime during peak hours.[/QUOTE]

Peak time for the majority would be the US evening hours (I am guessing). So I think SL is updated during non peak hours. But as you point out there is always use 24/7 so if the update is in your normal play time, does not matter if it's good policy or not. It just sucks.

Ok so I dont know how to quote lol

I JUST have to say it...... this sucks and I am never paying for SL again!!!! Whew, ok, now that I got that bullshit out of my system, I look around for the person with the popcorn and booze.... figure if I am going to sit here in front of my puter waiting, instead of being outside in the beautiful weather... I may as well stuff my face & get drunk!!!

I am addicted....as are many of us.... but a few people made good points ( ok, maybe more than a few, I didn't count ) the down time sucks, but at least SL TRIES to continue to better things for us... the world is an imperfect place, not everything goes the way we want it to.. worse things could be happening... like.... ummm..... ok, can't think of anything game related that could be worse right now... don't forget, I AM AN SL ADDICT. lmao

Ok, enough of my lame ranting..... who the hell has the popcorn?!?!?


BTW... I played TSO for wayyyy too long, and I know for a fact the friends I have that still play it, would love to get upgrades more than once every blue moon.

*again I ask.... " WHO THE HELL HAS THE POPCORN?!?"

Yes and after you have been in a game where they give you no info no updates it really makes you appreciate a world where they keep you informed and give frequent updates.

LAFFINNNN, try and call customer service during these episodes...they turn it OFF!


ok ill take that drink now....

Europe is... Europe- is Europe is not America, thats why they get the short end of the stick along with all the other places that arn't britan, france, china, or japan. Its not our fault that we are- sjpgnudbnidf;nbuidfbkdb (cannot talk, mouth full of popcorn).

*sits back in chair again.....*

Runs by the crowd, Grabs a handful of popcorn drops off some kleenex, Makes a hard right back to City of Heroes.. See ya all when its up and running.. Oh thanks for the Popcorn.. Dammit my mouse is slippery now. Crap Crap Crap!!