Send out a world broadcast when daily server maintenance commences

[Smitey]

Most forum users know that at 9am GMT the vendors; Auction House; Bank will be slow to open and searching/repairing/selling/depositing or retrieving items takes an inordinate amount of time.

However newer players will be less aware invariably call it lag; blaming the game and either quit/logoff whilst it occurs or just generally build up a bad impression of DDO and its servers.

To the best of my knowledge the cause is actually scheduled database maintenance.

I say that because In Europe the exact same circumstances were escalated to the admins and they advised it was a database-related task. Shortly afterwards the task was disabled by Codemasters because players complained about the effect it was having. It came back one time after maintenance and again it was made clear this was database-related and again disabled - never to reoccur and neither did the vendor slowness.

Presumably Turbine still need to run this process on the F2P servers due to greater numbers of players, leading to higher levels of fragmentation so there is little point requesting it cancelled as one would hope they are aware of this situation. I do feel something needs to go out to logged-on players over what may be important technically for performance but to players is seen as a major annoyance.

If the job cannot be delayed until the servers are offline for scheduled downtime I would suggest a timed world broadcast go out on all servers announcing that servers are performing online maintenance; that players don't need to logoff but the vendors; AH and banks will run slowly during this period for up to 30 minutes. Additionally advise that they may also experience slightly longer zoning during this time.

Pros:
Users will be made aware it's not the client; network or game lag but are informed of the cause along with how long it will last.
Players can work around this allotted maintenance time and use the vendors/bank/AH beforehand and hopefully they won't use these facilities as much, reducing the time online maintenance takes place somewhat.
Less players restarting the game believing it's them or quitting because they don't enter instances in the usual amount of time.

Cons:
Time taken to script a timed world message to coincide with the database scheduled task.

[sirgog]

/signed.

[Smitey]

This is still occurring.

Auction house after U9 actually seemed faster to search during normal times; it's just the 4am EDT server-side scheduled task causing extreme delays for this and other vendors.

The impact was an unusable Autction House/Bank/Mailbox/Barkeep for around 20 minutes today at 9am GMT.

Raised ticket 2208246 but this was closed without contact in less than 1 minute.

Greetings Citizen of Stormreach, I am a Game Master for Online Support. I will investigate this incident and take appropriate action. We appreciate your Lag Report. Thank you for helping us maintain a great community

[Smitey]

Ticket 2209047 raised for today's 9am server-side lag yielded a more promising response:

Thank you for your help request. We are aware of a service issue related to what you have reported, and are working to have the issue resolved as soon as possible. Official updates and additional information will be made available on DDO.com if necessary

[Terebinthia]

/signed

It's very interesting that it was able to be resolved on the EU servers.

It's particularly annoying when you are GMT +8 - +10 as it occurs in primetime.

[Infant]

Most forum users know that at 9am GMT the vendors; Auction House; Bank will be slow to open and searching/repairing/selling/depositing or retrieving items takes an inordinate amount of time.

I already heard that it happens at 9am GMT, 11 am GMT, 3am GMT...
Thus, it would be really nice to have an announcement when a maintenance/backup is about to start.

/signed

Infant

[Vellrad]

Why not put down server for 5-10 minutes each day, make all this things, and put it back?

[dunklezhan]

This is a really nice idea. They can automate global messages when a guild hits L60, they can automate this.

For me, lag o'clock seems to be about 11am (which would make it about 6am EST). I rarely experience it because I work mon-fri and rarely play daytimes at the weekend.

Either way, it should be not be a massive chore for Turbine to set up a notice to say "/global daily maintenance tasks will be starting in 5 mins, and will take 10 mins. We advise you refrain from raids, trades and inventory management activities until then"

[DoctorWhofan]

/signed. IF you can't fix the bugs that happen durign that time, nor will you replace stuff; at least you can do is warn your players not to do stuff with items during that time.

[Gkar]

I already heard that it happens at 9am GMT, 11 am GMT, 3am GMT...
Thus, it would be really nice to have an announcement when a maintenance/backup is about to start.

/signed

Infant

If the server lives at a server farm they may not know or control backup times.

[ceiswyn]

/signed.

I've had small items go missing occasionally when I transferred not realising it was lag-o'clock; I'd rather not lose any important ones.

[NaturalHazard]

/signed.

kinda sucks cause down under lag o-clock is norm prime time for us.

[insaneuou]

/Signed but dont think its possible for bussiness point of view

[rodallec]

/Signed
great idea.
If people know what's going on it might help with congestion ragequits and items vanishing

[Buggss]

....IF you can't fix the bugs ......

I can't help being me.....



OT: Haven't had the "pleasure" of lost items yet, just the awful lag during these times so far (touch wood) but some warning would be good, especially for those who aren't forum members too.

[Requiro]

/signed

[yk49]

/signed

[Dawnsfire]

/signed

This seems like a very reasonable request. It seems like it would solve most of the 'missing stuff' problems and almost daily 'rage' posts