WOW

No in-game notice or warning? Just rip the servers down... Well done. I wonder how far back we will be when they are back online. They have the Wal-Mart of server admins apparently.

Could be worse - you could live in Hawaii and get that advance warning.

I saw warnings spamed for 30 minutes in my chat box. Make sure you have server messages allowed for your chat window.

any online game patch without notice?

I received the 25 minute warning and countdown in game prior to servers coming down.

There was warning, just not a countdown. It has shown that the server would be down today since at least yesterday afternoon (the time I actually noticed it).

There is/was no announcement on forums or news as to date or length or start time is what I thought OP meant.

Absolutely NO notice on Povar....... 4 dead toons as we were mid-battle.... and yep, my server messages are enabled....

As well as no posting upon log - in ....

"Scheduled Maintenance" Doesn't that mean there should be a schedule somewhere?

Status: 2/21/2018 6:17 PST - The game is currently down for scheduled patching.

Funny nearly 19 years of EQ and still there are people who dont know then monthly patchtimes. Funny every month the same.

To be fair, not everyone has played for 19 years.

Would you care to tell us when said patchtimes are on a monthly basis then?
In my experience they always post scheduled downtime in news and announcements.

Like me, so standard 8 hours down with a hot fix to fix the first patch so 12 hours downtime?

since more then 2 years (small exception on AddOn Day las December) Every 3. Wendsday of the Month there was a patch.

How long are the servers usually down for?

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/game-update-faq.246622/

I still don't see an estimated down time on there?

Same, mid-fight and voila....

Are they typically down all day?

$ grep SYSTEMWIDE *Smokebane*
[Wed Feb 21 09:04:03 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 25 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:09:04 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 20 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:14:04 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 15 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:15:04 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 14 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:16:05 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 13 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:17:04 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 12 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:18:04 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 11 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:19:05 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 10 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:20:05 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 9 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:21:04 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 8 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:22:04 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 7 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:23:04 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 6 minutes. Please plan accordingly.
[Wed Feb 21 09:24:05 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 5 minutes! Please camp in a safe location.
[Wed Feb 21 09:25:06 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 4 minutes! Please camp in a safe location.
[Wed Feb 21 09:26:04 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 3 minutes! Please camp in a safe location.
[Wed Feb 21 09:27:05 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 2 minutes! Please camp in a safe location.
[Wed Feb 21 09:28:05 2018] <SYSTEMWIDE_MESSAGE>:Server coming down in 1 minute! Log out immediately!