That's hilarious, considering my posting history and suspension from the forums history. But no, I'm just not a whiny child that cries about the realities of life. Its also funny people claiming they aren't asking for "compensation", when its literally in the OP subject line. BTW, where is the application to be a paid shill? I'd love to get in on that, along with the antifa check!
It is my mistake for using the word "compensation." I should have used the phrase "to smooth things over." Apparently, the whole line of your protestations is based off of the thread title instead of the actual body of arguments. As I said in previous responses, the crashes, downtime, and lag are becoming more commonplace. This is far from the norm. Remember the server-wide crashes on Derakor raid release? This isn't just an issue from the last 2 weeks. This is a concerning trend. Daybeak/Darkpaw can smooth things over and inspire confidence by being proactive. I'd like this thread to stay civil. Edit: Feel free to make your own thread with counterarguments.
The Derakor outage was less than a day. I'll admit we've had more downtime this past month the normal. But, with everything they've had going on this month I'm honestly not surprised. Server Merges for the first time in how long, New Servers Launching, a New Raid Unlock Script that was just rolled out, Overseer, and so on. Yes, the downtime sucks. But, who's to say this is the new norm? I'll agree, if this is the new trend and we can expect the servers to be down regularly every month, then they might need to ramp up their CS support. But with as much that has happened this past month, I'm going with this was more of a fluke month and not the actual norm. The new Servers are up and running, Overseer is in place, the server merge is complete. Yes. there's still some bugs to work out/fix for Overseer and the Server Merge. But, I have no doubt those will be rectified with the next patch. This is EQ, nothing ever goes as planned. That's the one thing you can count on after 20 years. Yes, it may take a little bit of time to fix, but it will get fixed. Those who expect things to happen the instant something goes wrong are in for a reality check. It never has and it's not about to start now.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I agree for the most part. I will say that the point of this thread is to proactively and pragmatically address the disappointment or dissatisfaction that came with the increasing frequency of outages, downtime, and lag. We could be reaching a tipping point in terms of non-hardcore (casual, professional, or seasonal) players drifting away (staying on fairly generous F2P) due to the abovementioned problems. Yepmetoo wants to reframe this argument with a sweeping generalization as a sort of self-interested, petty ("gauche") reponse. (Yes, some players will be ridiculous and threaten to cancel multiple accounts unless they get a $1 back). In reality, my response is quite pragmatic in the sense that it is important to keep the playerbase happy so that even when the pandemic gravy train ends, players will be satisfied and loyal to the brand (good memories, good reviews).
First of all, I'm glad the games back. (Crosses fingers) But anyway. If I could get some good will from DBG. I would want a free Siren or Bellikos mercenary. Yeah, I know they were Beta awards. But what the heck. I would love to have one of them. Or Fairy mercs and pet illusions. I'd be extremely happy.
Totally bad analogy. Nothing like that. 20 minutes of a 1 hour and 20 minute movie that is nothing like a few days out of 21 years. I mean really? one sixth of an experience compares to that? It is really sad when I keep seeing these blown out of proportion analogies. I guess if you wanted to say are as upset as if 20 minutes of a movie was lost that might be closer to home. For me I was as upset as if I missed a part of a scene because I looked down at my popcorn for a second.
And to address other comments. Any time the servers have issues Daybreak tries to learn from what happened and always is trying to ensure these things do not happen. Of course you also have to look at how much money they can throw at these issues. Everquest is not top of the heap anymore. They do not have endless money but I can promise you they do the best they can with the resources they have. To think otherwise is just well..... I won't say. The IT folks at Daybreak do not get vacations when the servers go down. In fact people are more likely working extra hours to fix the problems. So it is insane to think they aren't trying to keep these things from happening.
The analogy is based on the scale of 1 month of All Access (average $15/month which is a comparable price to a movie ticket, 3-4 days out of 30 days so proportionate to 20 minutes out of 2 hours) and not 21 years. Otherwise, yes, if the scale was intended at 21 years that's a hella bad analogy. (I would have added all of the downtime for 21 years). LOL.
And all of the downtime for 21 years would still not be significant. Fact is missing 20 minutes of a movie is far more devastating then a couple of days of downtime. So still a very very very bad analogy. And picking the time frame you want to use is also bad. I guess you could say out of one day the game was down 100% of the time. OMG so terrible 100% downtime. You can't pick one month as the time frame for many reasons UNLESS you are only talking about the usual downtime we experience MOST of the time for the monthly patch. Over many years the monthly down time has been insignificant. Server mergers are not a monthly event so measuring this on a monthly basis makes no sense at all. Instead we should be saying how much downtime has there been over the years for server mergers. Again we come to an insignificant amount of time. Over the whole length of the game the amount of downtime to server mergers is next to nothing. Over the life of the game is downtime due to server mergers signifcant? No. Over the life of the game is downtime due to other reasons significant? No. Here is an apt analogy/sayng. Making a mountain out of a molehill. Thisl is the problem of picking analogies to suit an argument instead of picking analogies because they accurately describe the situation.
You are literally responding to my post focused on server mergers. If you bothered to read any of the previous exchanges, I am talking more broadly about the increasing frequency of outages, downtime, and lag and to pragmatically "smooth things over." People are paying for a service (and no, I won't be ridiculous about compensation). I get it. You are pushing your "merge the servers" agenda again. You are worried that the backlash (including this thread) may sour the appetite/push for future mergers. You fret that the 48-hour outage gives the "anti-merge" folks a strong argument and you want to preempt the furor. Cool. You don't have to derail a totally unrelated thread into server merge cheerleader ("Oh, server mergers aren't too bad") thread. SMH.
I am pushing a server merger agenda? And where did I say server mergers aren't bad? The ONLY thing I said is downtime due to them is insignifcant. That is ALL I said. You are one funny dude If you want my comments on the recent mergers I don't think they should have any more until they address the problems they had with the recent ones. There have been too many issues to consider any more until they work those out. *shrugs* I am not pushing any agenda other then reasonableness. Take off the tin foil hat the martians are not trying to control your thoughts. LOL if you talk more broadly about all outages you have even less of a leg to stand on. Sorry I was being as generous as I could be with reading what you said.
"The ONLY thing I said is downtime due to [mergers] is insignificant." That statement is your agenda. You are putting lipstick on a pig. Not gonna take the bait (1 v 1). You already have the reputation as the one of the major server merge cheerleaders on the forums.
LOL I dont put lipstick on anyone. No agenda. Just because I think server mergers free of technical issues are a good thing doesn't mean I am pushing any agenda in this thread other then being reasonable. Seriously Benito you are way out there on the conspiracy theory thing. Maybe this is how you think but not me. I don't live and breath crafting every message to push any agenda. Have we had a fair bit of downtime lately? Yes. But it is still insignificant when you look how long the game has been running. I have played the game for 21 years with no breaks. I have seen the downtime from almost day 1 to now. Its just not that much when you think of it that way. Fact is it probably does a lot of us some good to NOT be in the game as much as we are.
Evidence for this please? Again, some evidence? As in actual evidence not just something you've extrapolated from a passing dev comment To think otherwise is just well..... I won't say. Again - do you have some evidence that all leave was cancelled/people were brought in and worked tirelessly until it was fixed? many companies shout it from the rooftops when they do that. Here - silence. How *hard* are they trying? how many people have been sacked/given final warnings? It sounds to me like you're guessing on the basis of - nada I will apologise profusely if the evidence is forthcoming
Evidence? Evidence that they try to have as few problems as possible is that they are a company that wants to make money. And I never said leaves were cancelled. Frankly a little down time is certainly not a reason to cancel vacation time. When problems occur in the middle of the night and they get fixed in the middle of the night it is pretty darn proved that people are working longer or later hours. And you assume the problems were something warranting people being fired. Again.. the small amount of downtime the game has overall is no reason to fire anyone. Rather it the fact you expect it further speaks to the unreasonableness some of you out there express. We will never ever agree on this. You can call me whatever you wish..call me a Daybreak apologist if you wish but the fact is from my worldview I am just being completely reasonable.
I'm sorry, I disagree. I have been on these forums for a very long time, and you constantly push for whatever "the man" wants. You are a chummy little corporate cheerleader, a yes man, and argue for the stuff they want to do and have done, however illogical. Most of your posts are illogical, and corn fed propaganda, as if SOE/DBG/DPG were speaking directly through you as a "safe" account so nothing official can be tied back to them. Given everything lately, and over the last 10ish years, that seems like something some sniveling company rep would do. Although that's probably not the case, that means you are such an extreme fanboi that you could easily represent their unofficial interests. I'd hate to be you right now, you look like a fool, a company jester, supporting a company that hasn't even bothered to apologize in the least for bumbling this game up since before this latest glaring circumstance. You further compound it by telling us we have no right to be displeased with the circumstances, and that we shouldn't bother voicing those concerns on these forums. (Would you rather we riot? I'm sure we can convince San Diego rioters to make a detour somehow.) Their paying customers are PISSED, and you chime in here with posts with the equivalent effect of: "why so mad bra?", and then you go crush a beer can on your head and laugh like the monkey you are. Psychologically speaking, you probably hope that one day some GM will extend his hand to you like the Volta della Cappella Sistina because you have been loyal all these years and give you some handout or atta boy or something. Otherwise the only other motive for making the posts that you do is you like just going against the flow for no other reason than to see conflict, which is the mark of a narcissist with psychopathic tendencies to "watch it all burn". Maybe the proper question you are saying with your posts are more akin to "why so serious?" Has there been a fair amount of rioting and looting? Oh yes sure, but when you look at how many times we've done that in 100K years of human history it's no big deal right? Dude, seriously... you try and sound all philosophical and "proper", but you have ZERO idea what you are talking about. Your memory is also shot too. I have been around for pretty much the entire time also, and I can say there is EASILY been an entire year's worth of downtime over the last 2+ decades in some form or another, cumulatively. Did you forget about the 2 week period the servers went out for after Luclin live patch? Or how about maybe the month long of intermittent ability to log on after the release of LDON? Maybe the constant crashing of PoP zones only a week after release? Then you have all the "normal" downtime, which has always been GROSSLY underestimated, and we are just expected to wait patiently like good little sheeple. Those first two were pretty big events, and thanks to people like you (Who most of which are no longer around ironically enough) our concerns were made to look insignificant, when we really just wanted an explanation or even just an apology as to why we were paying for something that was unavailable or problem ridden and unplayable more often than not. That's where the "Always Something" guild name idea came from. Time to get off of here and go back to banging on the DPG lounge door begging them to let you in. We have no use for "Lifer's" that aren't paying a single red cent anyway, which is probably the only reason why you still support any of this HOT MESS. You aren't paying for it anyway, and you want them to continue to provide for your lifetime sub account(s). Okay we get it, you are one of the "HAVE's". You have a lifetime account sub, probably on multiple accounts too even though it was supposed to be 1 per person, have blown 20K+ into this game over the years, ya congrats. You also have a vested interest in promoting the continuation of this game so you can continue your privileged style of playing without paying. Well the rest of us "HAVE NOT's", we spend our hard earned money that DOESN'T come from a money tree, trust fund, government bailout, etc. etc. Even if it did, you wouldn't be a financially smart person if you continued to bleed funds with diminished returns on it, hobby or not. No one in their right mind would continue to pay for something that they got less and less from. (Although to be fair, it does happen every day, which is more a statement about the mental condition of the world right now.) The only "Good" that can be done is if you and your other fanboi buddies keep your non-paying Lifer privileged pie holes shut, and let the adults who actually pay money voice their concerns and displeasure as is our right to do so as consumers. Your final statement also doesn't even make sense. So we should play less for something we pay for, so what... we don't NOTICE the downtime as much? Or how about those that frequently experience when they go to log in, something happens or some patch, or some emergency repair. They are even more dissatisfied, and more likely to walk away. Fact is, it would probably do you a lot of good to NOT be in the forums as much as you are, spouting the nonsense that you do.
It boils down to - this is important to some folk. It is not important to others. i don't care a jot if the <insert random football team> lose by the biggest margin ever. Some people would be very upset indeed. I would never be on public forums telling them it didn't matter and they shouldn't care. What matters to someone is what matters to them - whether you or anyone else values it or not. In my business if something breaks - all leave is instantly cancelled - you better get back from your honeymoon or whatever and fix it or you'll be unemployed in the morning. I certainly don't expect anything from anyone else that I wouldn't do myself. It's also, it seems about very different standards.
