Why can't SL update this way...just an idea

This is my first post on the sl boards. I had this thought after seeing today that instead of the usual 3 hour update we have a 5 hour one. Why can't SL pick just one day a month (like the 1st so it's easy to remember for us players) and do do a long update (even 12 hours) and do it all at once? If there is an emergency situation maybe do a one hour one once a week at a very slow time. I think it's terrible that members pay RL money to play and have to deal with all this downtime. Of course I'm not a paying member so I really can't complain too much but all this down time doesn't make me want to become one anytime soon. It's bad for them if they are trying to attract new members.

My other idea was why can't they make it so that individual members can download update patches to their computer whenever it's convenient ? I guess because it's an online game and not a program stored on the computer...right?

Any thoughts?

If you wait a month after, say, the update that broke building tools, you would have people quitting in droves.

Or waiting a month to fix the exploit that had everyone's stuff getting returned.

Or a ton of other crap.

A weekly update is just fine. Go read a book.

I'm not a techie but reckon that it would be more convenient your way. I'm guessing Linden Labs have a reason for not doing it. They must lose a lot of business; I was about to upgrade from the free package to the premium one, but am having second thoughts if this turns out to be a regular occurrence - so that's $9.95 a month they've lost already. Think how many other thousands of people there might be out there who are in the same position, and will not upgrade because they can't be guaranteed the service they'd be paying for. I, for one, can't complain about the maintenance since I haven't paid, but I'm sure Linden Labs wouldn't risk the loss of potential Premium accounts if they didn't have too.

Guys, it's three to five hours a week to upgrade, fix, and maintain a system that is bleeding edge technology. That's not bad, seriously.

WoW goes down once a week too, doesn't it?

We get enough issues after small, weekly patches. Would hate to get a whole months worth in one go >.<

So its fine for me a is.

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They would nt be able to make it that you can choose when to download patches at your convenience as it affects how the client communicates with the grid theres probably some better techy way to say it but escapes me in english at the moment. Yes, simply is because its actually two programs running that need to interract with the same "language" that would make it undoable.

the bigger the update, the bigger the chance that something unexpected happens, aaand voila, we got ourselves even more downtime. i have a premium account, and the weekly downtime really doesnt bother me much. sure, sometimes its inconvinient, but its all done to improve SL.

like lordfly said; go read a book. or oh, dance! look at the clouds, they can be pretty.

It's funny because as we speak...type...whatever...I'm sitting at home waiting for the cable guy to come to my house and fix an ongoing problem we've been having with our digital cable service. They gave me a block of 4 hours that they could show up in. So basically this kills my entire afternoon if I needed to go anywhere (fortunately I don't). Guess this type of thing happens everywhere in life. Just a little more often in SL. We're frustrated with the cable folks because they were already here once and "fixed it" but it's still having issues. We're on the verge of canceling and getting a dish but we also have the cable modem and I'll be damned if I'm going back to dial-up...LOL! Oh well. Sorry for the vent...just frustrated.

Outside of the US, many of us are on 'capped' broadband packages where we have a bandwidth allocation a month. I have 30gb allowance, the highest my ISP allows, and downloading 25mb patch every week does add up.

Lewis

It's a dynamic, large scale world that's never been tried. It's not gonna be built in a day.
Weekly updates let us get bugs fixes, new features, and things solved faster, and if something is a little fooked, we can correct it.

I am not sure what is a slow time - but I assume morning PST time might be - which is really my prime time and I am a paying customer and has been for a couple of years. Yes, its annoying to have down time when you really wanna be in world, but bugs and expolits would be so much worse.
The Lindens would not take the grid down if they didnt have very good reasons for doing so - have some patience

yep 'bleeding edge technology' etc, etc, ad infinitum, be great if it actually worked instead of causing even MORE problems, ah technology for technology sake, who cares if it works?

I would suspect that others, like me, get some housecleaning done in the down time, sort of refreshing really, and an adventure when ya log on next.....Gee, What works Right THIS week.......................

LOL! That's actually what I should be doing now. What an idea...housework.

My only thought is that 5 hours has been the usual update time for the last, at least, 3 weeks.

7AM-12noon, SLT. As usual, and then, the patches that night and the next day, along with the rolling updates (rolling blackouts).

Housework, what a concept (yeah, it's what I do too hehe).

Put the new features team on bug fixes. Less new shinies, more fixes, and Id stop complaining - at least then it would be for good reason.

I do work while it is down - I would much rather have weekly updates. While if I had my way - they would start the update 6 hours earlier But its a good thing that they keep it updated.
Some games go down every day for maintanence.... and the rolling update I think is a neat way to fix things.

I am just a lurker, but everytime I come to these forums during downtime....all ppl do is complain about it. It needs to be done and even if not, LL WANTS it done...so just get over it and do something else....
I know its a travesty, but it will pass.

VV

In the "Of Previews, Feedback & Testing" session during the Second Views meeting on June 30th, I asked Joe Linden about using smaller patches instead of having to download the whole client each time there was an update. He said that it was a high priority for Linden Lab to move toward a system of patches. He didn't give a timeline, but it sounded like something they were actively pursuing.

Yes, it adds up to 100mb a month, which is less than three percent of your allotment.

Spyware uses more bandwidth than this.

Microsoft updates once a month. Second Tuesday, also known as Black Tuesday. People complain they don't update often enough and aren't responsive.

Second Life updates once a week, known as "1st Life Wednesday". People complain that they update too often.

Is consistency too much to ask?

Not even Doom music would justify implelenting this.

Furthermore, your idea is bad, and you should feel bad.

You'll use up at least that much bandwidth by being in-world for an hour. If you go to a really busy place with lots of textures, and have a fat enough network pipe, you can use up that much in five minutes. I suspect that the client downloads are the least of your problems.

How come Google is not offline every Wednesday? They need to upgrade, fix and maintain the system, too.