Nothing like a timely notification of being down for patches

After 4pm the day before the patch eh? And it wasn't on the in game calendar either.

Patches happen 3rd Wednesday of the month (Test gets it a week before). It's not like this was some sort of big secret.

Hmm, then why announce it at all? Come on now: Daypaw is not even close to being well enough organized for us to assume that anything will happen as expected. Just today friends were asking if there was a patch tomorrow and I said "well there's no announcement, and there's nothing on the calendar in game indicating a patch."

For players like you that don't pay attention, clearly!

They have been doing the 3rd Wednesday of the month and patching test the week before for a while now so it shouldn't be that surprising. Having the post is a nice reminder and it will also inform of the expected down time and when the servers should be up as that might change from patch to patch.

HEADS UP! Gonna be a patch next month around the same time, on a Wednesday, a week after the Test patch.

This is how it happens every month. The forum announce is mainly to tell you what time and how long.

"around" With that kind of accuracy you have a future position at daypaw.

I just checked the in game calendar; starting with October of last year and backwards through July, there was always a calendar announcement for the patch. I guess I just failed to note that as of November 2021 DB dropped yet another ball in informing players of planned outages.
If you want to track backwards from July 2021 feel free.

Oh, also, in November 2021, the first month when the dummies at DP neglected to put the patch on the calendar, they announced the patch 5 days before, rather than 14 hours before.

But you apologists keep doing what you do so well.

This would not be the first year where they did not have the in game calendar up to date at the start of the year and it likely won't be the last one either.

Almost tempted to find the dev post where he said it will always be on the calendar. /funny

I'm pretty sure the person who is in charge of the calendar has to do it for all of Daybreak Games. They probably have people spread so thin in that company that they can hardly pay attention to details.

Heads up guys, some patches coming:
1/19/22
2/16/22
3/16/22
4/20/22
5/18/22
6/16/22
7/20/22
8/17/22
9/21/22
10/19/22
11/16/22

Servers are down so here is that amazing calendar post that will always be updated and accurate. Its not a human that updates it, it is automated ... uhuh

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/unlock-dates.279286/

64bit update. Test got it last week.

No, they said that the 64 bit upgrade would be on test at least a month before live gets it. The February patch will be the earliest we get it. Seems like the want to have plenty of time for players to test it before it goes live since it means 32 bit support is going away with that upgrade.

The patch notes which have been out for over a week also have the date the patch is going live on them--and the patch notes also specifically mention the 64 bit client will remain test only for now. You guys are like children with the need for handholding, this information has been on the forums since the 11th.

The client has existing ways of showing notifications for Daybreak and EQ related information. The F2P players are familiar with the All-Access upgrade window which randomly pops up on a regular basis. There is also a box which has notification icons for scheduled things like expansions being released on TLPs or whatever. It seems like those systems could also be used for notifying people about planned outages. For the same reason that it's effective to have the TLP unlock messages show up in the game client (even on non-TLP servers), it would be good to announce the planned downtime in the game client. I know that they typically announce the downtime in the chat window, but that's easy to miss if it scrolls off the window before the player can notice it. If instead it was a popup window or one of those notification icons, more people would get the message.

No thanks I don't need my hand held. I can find the information in multiple locations myself.

Let's not overthink the THIRD Wednesday of every month unless otherwise stated. Or when in doubt read the test server patch update a week in advance. Almost like leaving breadcrumbs to follow isn't it?

Calendar has been wrong so often I dont even use it unless there is no other way to get the information. Its a good idea though.