All of our games and websites (but not forums), including this blog, were down this morning from about 1 am to about 1 pm. Our ISP’s upstream provider, above.net, screwed up and it took nine of those twelve hours for our ISP to convince above.net that the problem was on their end. Needless to say, I am not pleased.
There is absolutely nothing that I hate more regarding the professional side of my life than downtime. Nothing. I get physically nauseous when our games are down, particularly when it’s essentially out of our control. I rage at our ISP to my CTO. I pace around the room and get nothing done. I hit ‘reload’ on my browser pointed at ironrealms.com every few seconds. I call our ISP and alert them to my current level of unhappiness with their service. I apologize to players on the forums, feeling completely impotent because though it’s our responsibility to stay up, we are powerless to change the situation for the moment. No minute is ever longer than a minute where we’re down. It doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does…ugh. Just…ugh.
On the plus side, we have incredibly understanding players who, though annoyed and sometimes distraught at being unable to play, are almost to a man or woman, supportive. Our players rock.
5 comments
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July 13th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Kyle
As somone thats played Achaea for a few years now I just feel I should say that While downtime sucks, especialy when you have things you want to deal with in the game, like giant rampaging bulldeamons, It should be understood that you guys can not keep things running 24/7. Stuff breaks, people make mistakes. But you guys always keep the players updated as best you can and while I don’t know about the other games, every time Achaea has been done we all get the treat that is Anarchaea. So we’re provided with something which is better then what one would normaly get from any other MMO. So I want to thank you and your staff for always working hard and showing you care.
July 14th, 2006 at 5:25 am
Greg121
For a minute, I thought your server was located in Lebanon.
July 14th, 2006 at 8:37 am
Matt
No no, San Jose. I’ve never been to Lebanon, but I bet it’s more fun than San Jose is.
July 14th, 2006 at 11:36 am
Darrell
Downtime isn’t such a bummer considering you often put on credit sales to make up for the downtime. Although only doing credit sales gets a little old. =P
But rewarding the players for being tolerant is a great idea. Other game companies usually just say sorry and send the players on their way. That’s why players are much more hostile about it on other games.
July 16th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Psychochild
Actually, downtime has usually been awarded with free play time in most other games I’ve played. I remember WoW giving out a free day here or there when I started playing. Of course, they didn’t do much when the game was laggy and almost completely unplayable. Such is life.
One time Meridian 59 was down for an entire weekend while I was on vacation and nowhere near an internet connection (visiting my grandmother-in-law), and we gave everyone a free month to compensate. Most developers hate downtime and try to make up for it.
My thoughts and experiences.