Topic

Downtime is also needed after launch!

Why would I say something like this you might ask?
During downtime I get very creative thinking of things to do, activities, events, roleplay stuff.
Seems I am not the only one, lots of people get  creative when they are not distracted by harvesting, planting, donating.
Also, I think many people will mostly check forums or their own home page or groups pages when the game is down.

So I say some regular downtime is good.
A few questions regarding maintenance.
1.) Will there be regular maintenance?
2.) What will be the time between maintenance? (a week, 2 weeks, month)
2.) Any idea how long a maintenance window will be?
3.) Which day do you prefer for maintenance? (May I suggest: Not on a day that competing games have maintenance, and preferably in the beginning of the week, tuesday?

And as I said, I think some regular downtime is good for the community, makes them more active on the forums and makes more players active on the forums (and groups, homepage, planning events etc..)

Posted 16 months ago by Miriamele Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I think we wil adjust.

    Yes, the forums won't have explosions of activity... but there also (thank the Giants!) won't be that driving need to be in game for every free moment of a test. The idea of "Oh, I'm gonna log out and check the forums and groups. I know that game will be up all week and next week and the week after that... no need to stress about it."

    The idea of "forced" down time makes it sound like we, as players, don't have the self-control to monitor ourselves.
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I would prefer there be no downtime.  No matter when it would be imposed, it would be unfair to somebody.  Downtime can be self-imposed if people need it.

    So that's the day I pick.  If I had to be pinned down to a specific day, I'd say February 29th would be okay.
    Posted 16 months ago by Parrow Gnolle Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Next year actually has a Feb. 29. ;-)

    Downtime should be up to the devs. If they need to reboot a server, so be it. Forced downtime would be unfair to someone because I'm sure people in all time zones play/will play Glitch.
    Posted 16 months ago by Tonya Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm not sure if I have the self control to monitor myself o_o
    Should be interesting finding out if I do or not though! 
    Posted 16 months ago by Ebil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Given that after launch any subscriptions really start to run, I would expect any down time to be minimal. If any, normal downtime for planned updates/maintenance should only be for around an hour - 2 at most and scheduled on, perhaps, a weekly or fortnightly basis perhaps.  Unplanned, well, they are unplanned and have to be expected at times, but they should be handled and reacted to on an as and when basis.

    Whilst I expect my playing time to be less condensed than it is now, I would be pretty peeved if I found I had some time to play and the game was down for a whole day unless it was totally unavoidable.
    Posted 16 months ago by ♥joby♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10451426-52.html paragraph 4

    I hope this is still the vision. 

    Once we have the ability to play at our leisure, it will be much easier to step away and enjoy the rest of the world either way. I have heard something exists beyond my monitor. Maybe I'll peek around someday. ;)
    Posted 16 months ago by JW Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Those of us who played Faunasphere remember that there were short down times for maintenance and other things.  These downtimes were only about an hour, very quick.  I expect there will be similar downtimes here but how long or often they will be, we will eventually find out.  They are testing "rolling resets" as the game moves between servers.  It is possible that we may not even notice maintenance if it is done during "rolling restarts".   There will be announcements about new content, etc. unless they want to surprise us by sneaking something in.  It shouldn't take long for someone to find a thing like that though.  Whatever they may do, it is fine with me.  I look forward to just about everything!
    Posted 16 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Rolling restarts were being tested in the last test, and (I think) the one before that.

    There is no reason that a website has to go down for maintenance.  When the game goes live, I expect 24/7 access, barring an unpredictable catastrophic even.

    If you need help stepping away from the game for a healthy length of time, there are software packages that allow you to lock yourself out of various websites.  No need for the rest of us to wait around while you take a break.
    Posted 16 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I know Kingdom of Loathing has planned maintenance for one hour every night (I've forgotten the exact time -- 10pm? 11pm?), and that seems to work well. Sure, it's agitating that you can't play for that time, but as long as it's quick and planned, it shouldn't be too much of an inconvenience. I'd rather have one-hour a day downtime than an entire day of downtime.
    Posted 16 months ago by Napoleon Bonaparte Subscriber! | Permalink
  • 24/7 access is what they are planning on, with zero planned downtime (barring technical problems, I'm sure). This is a wonderful, and challenging thing to strive for, but I think the very intelligent people at Tiny Speck can accomplish it (the rolling restarts is how they will do it, it seems). For those that don't want to click on JW's link, here is the relevant text:

    "But one thing that hasn't changed is the Tiny Speck founders' determination that no matter what, they will be able to update and modify the contents of the live game--once it's live, that is--very quickly and not have to take it offline in order to do so, as is often the case with large-scale massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft."
    Posted 16 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • These folks ran Flickr for years without planned downtime that interrupted user access.  I have no doubt they can continue to do so on this site.
    Posted 16 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Everything I've seen suggests that Tiny Speck's server architecture is specifically designed to minimize or eliminate downtime for scheduled maintenance.
    Posted 16 months ago by Varaeth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with the "no downtime" sentiments. As to the question of forums in particular, the last MMO I played was up 24/7 (with one-hour downtime once every two weeks only), and the forums were extremely active. Because when the game is always there, you don't feel you HAVE to spend every spare minute playing and thus you have time to contribute to the forums at your leisure, and many people will. Also, as regards creativity: I think that will be the same idea. When the game is available all the time, we won't feel so distracted by the constant need to play and can step away anytime to be creative. My two cents...
    Posted 16 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • + 1 RM

    The way it is right now with the forums is only because when the game is open, everyone wants to be able to play before it closes again.
    When the game goes live, people won't feel the need to be in the game constantly and then I'm sure that the forums will become as almost active as the game, itself.
    Posted 16 months ago by sgjo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yep, I agree with RM, I frequently play with a game tab and a forum tab next to it. Now I think group tabs will join if it goes Live.
    Posted 16 months ago by KitkatCat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I can handle a scheduled downtime. I know a number of MMOs do it. Even when this game goes live I'm sure an occasional bug will still be found, and there are other service issues as well. Flickr is a pretty compartmentalized system compared to this game. Downtime is needed just to database optimizations and other routine stuff. I do it on my own simple BBSes
    Posted 16 months ago by Fokian Fool Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It seems to me that the reason Tiny Speck wants to do updates while the game is still running, is not specifically so the game is always available, but rather so that they can constantly apply updates whenever they have them, rather than waiting for scheduled maintenance times to do so. We could conceivably get new updates every day... or every hour... or every minute... whenever they have new stuff or bug fixes. I think this is really cool, and will help make Glitch run more smoothly, and be more consistently awesome.

    As for needing game down-time to force yourself off the computer: It's hard to stop playing when you know the game will only be open for 3 days, and who-knows-when it will open again after that. The last time we had a week long test (it's been awhile), I noticed that my gameplay became much more casual--I didn't mind taking an entire evening away from Glitch to do something else. It was nice. This next test will be for a week as well: wait and see how that changes your attitude toward the game. If you can play a full week non-stop... wow, I don't know what to say about that. At least when it goes live you could theoretically play indefinitely, but I'm pretty sure that everyone will get bored at some point and have to go do something else for awhile. So, I'm not too worried about this issue.
    Posted 16 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I guess I should have phrased my post different. I think the core of what I was trying to say is that people are more creative during downtime because they're bored. I got a bit sidetracked in my post about downtime and maintenance, as that seemd like a more "valid" question then something as vague as "bored = creativity?".

    Being bored can bring to life ideas that you would otherwise dismiss. Being bored for some means getting silly.
    Ofcourse, being bored can also be possible when the game is open. But when we're all bored at the same time, then things start rolling. People jump on the wagon and give it more speed.

    Most people will be able to get away from the game, but will they also get away long enough to be bored while still wanting to play (not bored of the game itself) and get creative and think outside the box instead of doing what is in the box?
    Posted 16 months ago by Miriamele Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Interestingly, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame just wrote an article on "boredom leads to creativity" in the WSJ last week. I would link to it, but, well, I think Scott Adams is kinda a jerk.

    BUT, here is a short piece saying why he is wrong. LINK.
    Posted 16 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink