Downtime Notice: 8:00 AM - 11:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) Thursday, August 20th

[Kompera_Oberon]

What you are missing in your analysis is that this game is so small that there likely is no budget to provide what you are after. Our choices are likely to accept what we have now, warts and all, or see DDO shut down. Which would you prefer?

I cannot accept this as being the status quo. I have worked for a number of <50 person companies who held customer service to be of the utmost importance, and I will not accept any statement other than one from Turbine itself that they are simply incapable of providing good customer service. Your acceptance of the 'warts' is not of any importance to me. If you accept a sub-par service for whatever reasons, then don't expect it to ever improve. I'm asking for improvement. I don't think this is an impossible task. No, I know that this is not an impossible task.

And it's easy to say they shouldn't attempt to provide time estimates because they are often wrong. But this ignores the fact that even more people scream about "non-communication" when they don't provide such estimates.

Please note that it is not I who am saying that "shouldn't attempt to provide time estimates because they are often wrong", that would be Cordovan, who is the current Turbine customer liaison. Whether or not people complain about the information they receive is a completely separate issue from the simple desire to receive timely and accurate information.

Here's a thought: how about they do their best to communicate with us what's going on, and we understand that they are doing their best and give them a break if they mess up? You know, like we would want to be given a break when we do?

Here's another thought: I suggested something exactly similar in my original post in this thread.

Please share with the class!

Communication of new push backs of the restoration of service are great, even if the news is bad. Better by far than just going past the latest deadline with no communication. But communicating more fully and freely with your customer base might engender some sympathy, and soothe some ruffled feathers.

Cordovan chose not to address that point when he responded, which spoke volumes about how important such a solution was to him and his management.

Actually, he did sort of respond. He claimed that posts like my post asking for improved time estimates was the reason why Turbine typically did not provide estimates at all, and stated that providing time estimates at all was beyond the capabilities of Turbine. An admission of failure which I hope that Turbine itself does not agree with.

[eldrytch75]

DDOLIVE.EXE has been broken for months and months with the end result being missing DAT files in the installation directory. Click the link in my signature called Download DDO for more information.

Stoner81.

Not sure I will be able to get it all done before I go to work in a hour but I got the bin files and am going to install it later. Hopefull I will be raiding with the wife tonight as we off timer for everything

Thanks for this but mediafire must have had me to 35 captcha's to download the 12 bin files. Maybe I could have went out the shed and got my old DVD I bought in the days before F2P.

I wlll be saving them on my server thanks for the work on this.

[Cordovan]

I'm not saying that we can't provide estimates. I'm saying that when unexpected issues occur, sometimes things come up when working quickly to resolve those issues, so some patience and leeway needs to be considered when we do announce estimated possibilities of when things might resolve.

Ultimately, given yesterday's work, I probably should have not provided an uptime estimate, and simply repeated, "We continue to work to resolve the issue. We will let you know when the worlds reopen." But I know that tends to also cause people to become understandably upset, so I did my best to provide an uptime estimate. Given the amount of time it takes to put together and process a build, then do the various things it takes to deploy a build to the live worlds and check things out prior to reopening, my initial estimate of late afternoon was accurate, provided nothing came up to disrupt the schedule. Things came up that disrupted the schedule. So, I provided later estimates of uptime. Something came up to disrupt that later estimate, so I provided a later estimate based on currently-available knowledge.

As I said originally, this is exactly why it is unwise to answer calls to give a "rough estimate" of expected uptime during unexpected downtimes that involve creating new builds and deploying them. It tends to cause more rather than less stress for everyone involved.

[eldrytch75]

I cannot accept this as being the status quo. I have worked for a number of <50 person companies who held customer service to be of the utmost importance, and I will not accept any statement other than one from Turbine itself that they are simply incapable of providing good customer service. Your acceptance of the 'warts' is not of any importance to me. If you accept a sub-par service for whatever reasons, then don't expect it to ever improve. I'm asking for improvement. I don't think this is an impossible task. No, I know that this is not an impossible task.


Please note that it is not I who am saying that "shouldn't attempt to provide time estimates because they are often wrong", that would be Cordovan, who is the current Turbine customer liaison. Whether or not people complain about the information they receive is a completely separate issue from the simple desire to receive timely and accurate information.


Here's another thought: I suggested something exactly similar in my original post in this thread.

Cordovan chose not to address that point when he responded, which spoke volumes about how important such a solution was to him and his management.

Actually, he did sort of respond. He claimed that posts like my post asking for improved time estimates was the reason why Turbine typically did not provide estimates at all, and stated that providing time estimates at all was beyond the capabilities of Turbine. An admission of failure which I hope that Turbine itself does not agree with.

Thank you for having the courage to point this out. My efforts in the bad have been met with some real bad overreactions. I think at this point there attitude is they want us to leave the hardcore gamers like my wife and I and our over 500 bucks we spent last year. I know people spend more but I have lost faith in the staff around here about the second day I joined the forums. So DDO staff your mission is to restore faith in the loyal. This like it or lump it will eventually kill the game. Your Move Cordovan! make it a good one. We are all waiting.

[Qaliya]

I cannot accept this as being the status quo.

Oh, well, if you can't accept it, then this is a very big deal to everyone, clearly!

If you accept a sub-par service for whatever reasons, then don't expect it to ever improve.

Accepting something and wanting it to improve are not mutually exclusive. But there are limits to what can be improved, and costs associated with the improvements. This is an old game with a small userbase and limited resources. The people on the DDO team generally do not determine what resources they have available.

And regardless of resources, sometimes the amount of time a task will take cannot be accurately estimated.

Actually, he did sort of respond. He claimed that posts like my post asking for improved time estimates was the reason why Turbine typically did not provide estimates at all, and stated that providing time estimates at all was beyond the capabilities of Turbine. An admission of failure which I hope that Turbine itself does not agree with.

Your post last night was accusatory and discourteous. His post was not an "admission of failure", it was a slight crack, after a long difficult day, in what is usually a seamless veneer of professionalism. Revealing that Jerry is also human, and confirming the obvious: that people don't like to be mistreated.

What people such as yourself don't seem to understand is that how you try to improve something matters a lot. There's a difference between asking someone for improvements and berating them.

[Thalmor]

I'm not saying that we can't provide estimates. I'm saying that when unexpected issues occur, sometimes things come up when working quickly to resolve those issues, so some patience and leeway needs to be considered when we do announce estimated possibilities of when things might resolve.

Ultimately, given yesterday's work, I probably should have not provided an uptime estimate, and simply repeated, "We continue to work to resolve the issue. We will let you know when the worlds reopen." But I know that tends to also cause people to become understandably upset, so I did my best to provide an uptime estimate. Given the amount of time it takes to put together and process a build, then do the various things it takes to deploy a build to the live worlds and check things out prior to reopening, my initial estimate of late afternoon was accurate, provided nothing came up to disrupt the schedule. Things came up that disrupted the schedule. So, I provided later estimates of uptime. Something came up to disrupt that later estimate, so I provided a later estimate based on currently-available knowledge.

As I said originally, this is exactly why it is unwise to answer calls to give a "rough estimate" of expected uptime during unexpected downtimes that involve creating new builds and deploying them. It tends to cause more rather than less stress for everyone involved.

Maybe when giving an estimate you should say it will take a couple of hours, that way when you come back later you can say we are on schedule for a couple of hours.

This way they can't get upset ( I know that not true) because you have given then an time estimate. it maybe vague but it is a time estimate.

[Ebondevil]

I'm not saying that we can't provide estimates. I'm saying that when unexpected issues occur, sometimes things come up when working quickly to resolve those issues, so some patience and leeway needs to be considered when we do announce estimated possibilities of when things might resolve.

Ultimately, given yesterday's work, I probably should have not provided an uptime estimate, and simply repeated, "We continue to work to resolve the issue. We will let you know when the worlds reopen." But I know that tends to also cause people to become understandably upset, so I did my best to provide an uptime estimate. Given the amount of time it takes to put together and process a build, then do the various things it takes to deploy a build to the live worlds and check things out prior to reopening, my initial estimate of late afternoon was accurate, provided nothing came up to disrupt the schedule. Things came up that disrupted the schedule. So, I provided later estimates of uptime. Something came up to disrupt that later estimate, so I provided a later estimate based on currently-available knowledge.

As I said originally, this is exactly why it is unwise to answer calls to give a "rough estimate" of expected uptime during unexpected downtimes that involve creating new builds and deploying them. It tends to cause more rather than less stress for everyone involved.

I personally like to have an estimate, even if it's wrong, because it gives me a time frame to go away and do something else then check back.

An alternative would be: Will update post every 30min / 1hour with information, even if it's to say 'We have nothing new this time and continue to work on the issues, next update in 30 Minutes'.

Just being kept somewhat in the loop and knowing a rough time frame for when to expect any kind of update is really the most useful thing though for me.

I would personally love more details about what causes the delay though, and what is being done to fix things, like what specifically went wrong with the Tomes, but I understand it's not always easy, wise or even possible to share that type of information.

[RTN]

I'm not saying that we can't provide estimates. I'm saying that when unexpected issues occur, sometimes things come up when working quickly to resolve those issues, so some patience and leeway needs to be considered when we do announce estimated possibilities of when things might resolve.

I appreciated the rough estimates. You were clear that they were conditional to everything going smoothly. When that didn't happen, you told us that things hadn't gone smoothly and gave us a new rough estimate that was also qualified/conditional. I think this was reasonable and professional. Thank you for the conditional/qualified estimates and updates as this unfolded.

[Qaliya]

I appreciated the rough estimates. You were clear that they were conditional to everything going smoothly. When that didn't happen, you told us that things hadn't gone smoothly and gave us a new rough estimate that was also qualified/conditional. I think this was reasonable and professional. Thank you for the conditional/qualified estimates and updates as this unfolded.

Exactly. Most of us don't expect perfection, and a rough estimate is MUCH better than "we have no estimate at this time" repeated endlessly just to avoid the ire of a few people.

[Gratch]

I say ignore the haters and whiners. We're all just sad the game is down.

Please continue to provide best possible guess uptimes though maybe triple bold and oversize: "This is an estimate for the earliest possible uptime assuming there are no issues. Any issue during the many steps to serversUp could cause further delays."

[TPICKRELL]

I'm not saying that we can't provide estimates. I'm saying that when unexpected issues occur, sometimes things come up when working quickly to resolve those issues, so some patience and leeway needs to be considered when we do announce estimated possibilities of when things might resolve.

Ultimately, given yesterday's work, I probably should have not provided an uptime estimate, and simply repeated, "We continue to work to resolve the issue. We will let you know when the worlds reopen." But I know that tends to also cause people to become understandably upset, so I did my best to provide an uptime estimate. Given the amount of time it takes to put together and process a build, then do the various things it takes to deploy a build to the live worlds and check things out prior to reopening, my initial estimate of late afternoon was accurate, provided nothing came up to disrupt the schedule. Things came up that disrupted the schedule. So, I provided later estimates of uptime. Something came up to disrupt that later estimate, so I provided a later estimate based on currently-available knowledge.

As I said originally, this is exactly why it is unwise to answer calls to give a "rough estimate" of expected uptime during unexpected downtimes that involve creating new builds and deploying them. It tends to cause more rather than less stress for everyone involved.

Please give the rough estimates, they allow us to go do other things and have a rough idea when to check back in.

If you want to rephrase it to something like: "The current most likely scenario would have the worlds open at 5:00 PM EST but it will take longer if something new comes up." That might alleviate some of the complaints.

I for one am much more irritated when you don't give us your best guess at a time frame so I can make appropriate plans.

[Enoach]

I am also one that appreciates rough estimates as well as the speed in which the Turbine team reacted to bringing the game down to avoid any additional issues.

Of course I'm one that understands an estimate is just that an estimate and not a contract.

I am sure that if not Today but Next week the Turbine team will be putting together a "Lessons Learned" write up. Outlining what went wrong, how it was identified, how it was fixed and how to prevent this happening again. And not just the loss of Tomes, but what happened to delay the release of the fix that resolved it.

Please don't be afraid to give estimates even rough ones. But I do like seeing updates even if it is simply "still working on it" or "No update on the timeline just yet". Silence is much worse than an updated estimate on a regular basis.

[Emers-Lochingvyrr]

I'd just like to say there is a large, silent majority that knows the DDO team works very hard to keep a globally available game running. One day a month, if that, of fixing and updating is really quite impressive for a project of this scale. We appreciate you guys taking the time to double check work, make sure everything is in order. Could rough estimates be more often? Perhaps, but a rough estimate is not going to change the time when the work is complete. It will be done when it is done, and no sooner, especially with programming. There are those that have high expectations, but in honesty? I don't think its realistic to give estimates on when a job will be done. Perhaps in the future, the estimate could be 'DDO will be down this entire day' and then a happy surprise if its up sooner. You all do a very nice job, and I have yet to find an online game that matches the unique community, gameplay, and replay-ability of DDO. Thank you for a great game, and here's to many more future adventures.

-Emers the Emu

[Seikojin]

I appreciate any and all status and updates the company can provide. Even if they are off the mark, some information is better than no information. I have gone through great lengths to do this professionally and have never had anyone complain about getting more information.

So thanks for the updates Cordovan! People who have issue with it have too much negative time on their hands.

[BunBun]

Is the Craft from bank broken again? It doesn't seem to work...

[BunBun]

Is the Craft from bank broken again? It doesn't seem to work...

Nevermind, it does work now...sorry

[HungarianRhapsody]

I'm not saying that we can't provide estimates. I'm saying that when unexpected issues occur, sometimes things come up when working quickly to resolve those issues, so some patience and leeway needs to be considered when we do announce estimated possibilities of when things might resolve.

Ultimately, given yesterday's work, I probably should have not provided an uptime estimate, and simply repeated, "We continue to work to resolve the issue. We will let you know when the worlds reopen." But I know that tends to also cause people to become understandably upset, so I did my best to provide an uptime estimate. Given the amount of time it takes to put together and process a build, then do the various things it takes to deploy a build to the live worlds and check things out prior to reopening, my initial estimate of late afternoon was accurate, provided nothing came up to disrupt the schedule. Things came up that disrupted the schedule. So, I provided later estimates of uptime. Something came up to disrupt that later estimate, so I provided a later estimate based on currently-available knowledge.

As I said originally, this is exactly why it is unwise to answer calls to give a "rough estimate" of expected uptime during unexpected downtimes that involve creating new builds and deploying them. It tends to cause more rather than less stress for everyone involved.

I don't mind that you sometimes get the downtime estimate wrong. The thing that bothers me is that you don't get the programming changes right.

[drazic]

So...do I reinstall or not?...

[HAL]

Working on my second clean install myself still getting the same error as everyone else. So what gives and stop telling us things are not required when they seem to be necessary. Bad business here people very bad

What do you mean "everyone" else - I only see one person in the forums who had this error besides you. And I see many people all patching and logging in without incident. If uninstall and reinstall were required then EVERYONE would have to do it...

[Kompera_Oberon]

I'm not saying that we can't provide estimates.

Except that you did say exactly that.

This kind of response [asking why Turbine fails consistently when they provide time estimates] is why we typically do not provide rough estimates on uptime during unexpected issues like we've seen today, as they are seen as "moving the goal posts" when inevitably things come up during the build process, mirroring process, staging, backup, QA checks, etc.

Refute or revise your earlier words as you wish, but don't pretend that you didn't utter them.
You even put "moving the goal posts" in quotes, but didn't bother to otherwise define a different term for making many posts changing the time for the restoration of service. What would you like it to be called, if not moving the goal posts? You're the one doing the moving, after all! "Business as usual" comes to mind, but that isn't as flattering.

Thank you for having the courage to point this out. My efforts in the [past?] have been met with some real bad overreactions.[...] Your Move Cordovan! make it a good one. We are all waiting.

You're welcome, and thank you for recognizing my position. In the wave of "We love you so much! Please don't improve a thing!" posts I think that my message is easy to get lost.

Again, and I don't know why I need to repeat myself about this as my words should speak for themselves:
I am not ranting, I am not cursing, I am not demanding compensation, I am not asking for this or that to be implemented immediately. I see posts to that effect and I can only shake my head, as I also do when I see the posts from people saying what a great job is being done and how they love the status quo.

I am simply asking that the clear and evident failure to perform on the part of Turbine be recognized, addressed, and then corrected.

If any representative of Turbine would like to debate the statistics on their success of implementing upgrades without introducing unintended consequences, I would welcome that. It would be quite telling, but I don't anticipate a positive response from Turbine on the subject.