The limited availablity on release

The email / announcement says it will be open 22/7 ....

Why the limited hours? This is a concern for me before I start paying.... on all other MMOGs I have played (priced from $10 to $13 / mo before discounts) were open 24 /7. I'm kinda hestant to fork over that much per month for a system that can't stay up 24/7.

It seems that with the subscription fees support staff should be possible to keep it up all 24 instead of just 22....

How long is it going to be 22/7? Indefintaly? Or will it move to 24/7 fairly quickly, assuming certain subscription goals are met?

Good point, other subs run $10-$12, stay up 24/7. I guess I'll have to ponder this a bit more. Should I stay or should I go, now?

There is one other thing to consider. The other games all charge you to buy the software ... usually $50 a pop ... you don't have that extra fee here.

I would assume that the 2 hours they aren't online are to reboot the servers and perform maintenance. Who knows.

I would rather have the $50 fee if it meant the servers were up 24/7.

Its not even really the two hours downtime that bug me, hey I gotta sleep sometime, its that they are asking me to pay more than other MMOGs for what is potentially a less stable game. At least that is the implication since they aren't up 24/7.

LOL your all as additicted as me read my OPEN OPEN OPEN post


2 hours that is so unreasonabe i only need 1 hour of sleep a day roflmao!

The two hours are for maintenance and updates.

Hell, better to have scheduled in two hours that everybody can know rather than having what Planetside does (and will be doing) where they take down the servers at completely random times that nobody knows for a period of time that nobody knows.

Er, nobody told me any of this, it's mostly assumption

The best strategy is announced downtimes at least 1 week in advance when possible, and limited to once a week except in cases of emergencies.

The issue for me is that I'm not sure I want to pay $15 a month for a service that isn't stable enough to be up 24/7 when other MMOGs cost less and are able to stay up 24/7.

I won't comment on what other MMOGs do, but Dave's got it right - we'd rather have a scheduled maintenance period than random downtime. Nonetheless, I admit that 2 hours every single day is atypical, and our intent is to try to reduce this when possible. The fact remains though that we can't patch the servers without taking them down.

So here's a quick poll (we're not going to change our availability at launch because of this but I'd still like to know):

Say we release a bug into the system that's pretty bad, think of the stuff we've patched quickly after releases in the past. Would you rather:

a) we patch the problem during daily scheduled downtime
b) we patch the problem during daily, optional downtime (time during which we *might* take the servers down)
c) we patch the problem as soon as we have the fix, kicking everyone off the system for an indeterminant amount of time
d) we hold off on the patch for up to a week, so that we can have less frequent downtime

Willing to comment on others or not you will be compared to them. :/ I can think of no other MMOG that charges as much (special service options aside) OR has daily 2 hour down time.



Do you plan on having bugs released into the system of a 'pretty bad' nature on a daily basis?

My responce to the question depends on how bad it is...

- If anything using the listen event in a semi common way causes a sim to crash or anything of that level then I want C. Actually if its anything that is bringing down sims (as in more than one) then I want C.

- If the bug is merely -really- annoying - people or things don't look quite right, or something, then option B. With warnings an hour or two before the it goes down.

- If the bug is only slightly annoying or effects very few people or there is an easy temporary work around then D.


A set always down 2 hours a day downtime is a bit much though. And it sounds like there are no plans to move from this. And yes, this seriously effect my decision about continuing past beta. I will have to think about it.

hmm i think i vote for daily optimal time... of course the only answer that will make the entire populace happy is, open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and even then, i bet someone would come up with something to complain about heh

That's my vote. That way I don't get kicked and wonder why the heck I can't get back in. This way if it's between times I know about then I just figure that you're patching something.

B) maybe with a 6 hour warning - say the servers will be down tonight during the maintinance time 2-4am (or whatever) and only take them down when you need to, but still let people know that 2-4 am is an "iffy" time.

I say B, because... it's better

i say (C) with a 6 hour warning

Option C wouldn't bother me because I would rather play as bug free as possible.

I think it's fine the way you have it.

I need to be kicked off every once in a while so I don't completely lose my real life.

I'm not sure I see the point of comparing SL to other MMOGs. Yes, they are all MMOGs, but the similarity really ends there. I can think of no other MMOG that does what SL does. I may or may not be alone here, but I'm willing to put up with 2 hours of down time every day in order to play this amazing game. If others would rather go play a massively multiplayer rat hunt that's open 24/7, that's their perogative.

Very well spoken I must say. Which means I agree with him 100%

I'm all for this option. If LL has an issue with the game, I'd rather it was fixed than deal with potentially frequent crashes and/or loss of items/money -- or worse.

Whatever the case, 22/7 doesn't seem bad to me.. my exact thoughts were those of Dave Zeeman's in regards to the intended hours. Sure, SL is going to cost a bit more, but it's also WORTH a lot more to me as an online experience so having a loss of two hours isn't upsetting in the least. The fact that we as beta testers get a discount is only icing on the cake!

Dear Mr Linden,

I agree with Ama on this. It is best to keep in mind the impact of the problem and the impact of the solution. If the impact of the bug is not more potentially painful to the users than the downtime, then it would be best to collect those changes for inclusion in a less frequent downage.

So, if it is for a feature, or an tuning, or an only-annoying exploit, I'd recommend collecting the updates until the lowest weekly usage period - whatever usage stats say that is. Set this as the typical optional weekly maintenance period.

If the problem needs to be dealt with in a timely manner, but does not cause the loss of user data, then it should be fixed during the next optional daily window - again determined by usage stats.

If the problem endangers user data, then it may need to be fixed immediately. Users will understand when told that the fix was necessary to keep them from suffering personal loss.

This kind of triage may sound tedious and needless, but I think it will pay off later, and I'm sure this is what you will end up doing in the end.

Thanks for listening,

That is all fine and good for someone who has played the game. But that isn't really the issue, the issue is that anyone looking into getting into the game is not going to just look at SL. They are going to be looking at SL and all other MMOG games. They will be comparing them, whether you think they are comparable or not. And pricing and stability will be major concerns (or should be at least). In fact another company at E3 announced plans to allow entry to at least 4 games, of an extremely popular nature, for only $22 a month.

Saying "SL doesn't compare to other games" isn't going to convince new gamer Joe Bob that he should pay more $$ on a per game basis for a game the developers don't think is stable enough to be up 24/7.

yes severe bugs need to be fixed, yes there needs to be warning before down time. There should not, however, be expected daily downtime for severe bugs. Thats like trying to sell a car you thought the buyer would have to take into the shop once a day, when someone else is offering a cheaper car that only needs to be taken in once every other week.....People who already own that first car are saying "Hey! Its worth it! Its like no other car!" and people looking to buy a car are gonna go "Wha?! Repairs once a day?! Can't they make a better car than that? Especially for that much money?"

As always just my opinion.

Why not? It convinced me. I read reviews of other MMOGs, and I read previews for SL. I saw that they were entirely different kinds of games, and as I'm generally not a huge fan of MMOGs, I went for SL. And I'm willing to pay the money, regardless of 2 hours of downtime per day, to play the game.

The simple fact, though, is that Linden Labs has to be able to make enough money to keep providing this service. They're not selling CDs in game stores for $50 or even $30 a pop, so their subscription prices have to be a little higher. Their servers have to be able to do more than the servers of most other MMOGs, so they have to up the price. SL is costing Linden more than something like EverQuest would, so it has to cost us more, too. Otherwise, the game won't last. It's that simple.

Consider also how much the Linden servers have to do in a typical day. Compare that to what a normal computer has to do. If you don't restart a normal computer once a day, or once every few days, it gets slower and more susceptible to crashes. Stands to reason that a computer doing as much as the Linden servers would suffer the same fate. So, in order to keep SL running smoothly, they have to take the servers offline briefly every day. Why not let them do routine maintenance and such during that time? Why begrudge them that?

What it all boils down to is this: you have the choice to stop playing SL when it goes public, if you disagree with what they're doing. I'm willing to bet that most people won't. Linden is going to do what they have to do in order to run this game and make enough money to support it and pay their staff; you can't expect them to deliberately lose money. They're also going to do what they have to do in order to keep the game running smoothely. If you're going to get upset over 5 extra dollars per month (consider that you're saving $30-$50 up front) and 2 hours of down time per day (consider that, eventually, that probably won't be every day), that's your perogative. I'm going to stick with it, though, and most other people probably will, too.

I think if there's a bad bug introduced or other serious issues they should be fixed asap. Yesterday the lag in Freelon was so bad you could barely move. I sent a bug report. Shortly thereafter Feelon was taken offline. I went and played around elsewhere for a half hour or so. When Freelon went back up the lag was greatly reduced and I was able to go back to doing what I wanted to do which was work on my house. If a bug or other issue was preventing you from playing how you wanted to play would you be content to wait a week? or even 12 hours?

I think it depends on the severity of the problem. If it would require substantial downtime then people need to be warned in advance so they can make other plans. If it's something that can be solved in 30 minutes or an hour then it should be done as soon as possible.

I think that quite a few of you are looking at the 22/7 the wrong way...

The 22/7 is a minimum guarantee. LL isn't saying that the system couldn't run 24/7.

As Ian said, they are going to reduce this downtime as much as possible, and I have a feeling that unless a server gets hung up horribly and has to be rebooted, it'll probably be up 24/7 until it has to be patched.

And (flame me in your minds only, not on the forums) are you really going to be on here for 22 hours in a single day?

If the auto-kick after 30 minutes is still in place you can't stay that long anyhow...

Even eBay has nightly server maintenance... and I'm pretty sure it sees far more use than most MMOG's combined...