Database Migration Downtime Notification

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by dreamweaver, Mar 17, 2020.

  1. dreamweaver Well-Known Member


    We're going to be extending slightly.
  2. DemonNfrendz New Member

    Man, even if you guys give a weeks worth of notice it's not good enough for some of these guys.
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  3. Piratelordcarroll New Member



    Isn't for me, a professional game company taking 24 hours to change the database is not acceptable in 2020, even community ran games could manage to do it faster. Though most of those use a professional server company, guess everquest 2 uses some low end old stuff in the corner of some dark forgotten room. With modern SSDs, Raid, and backups no game should go down for 24 hours. I guess it is because I have dealt with servers, professional and my self that I think it is unacceptable. It is like going to a car dealer and they tell you your alternator is broken, and it takes then 8 hours to fix it. Even if they told you IN advance it still isn't acceptable.
  4. Ingerimm Well-Known Member

    It seems you have no idea what DB Migration means, and that with a database that is over 15 years old.

    It is better that the team takes all the time in the world so that everything works properly in the end and many of the existing problems are a thing of the past.

    This has very little to do with the speed and type of hard drives and raid systems.

    DB migration means everything from defragmenting, cleaning, repairing and correcting the data in the database to transferring all the data to a new database.

    We don't know exactly what our Darkpaw team is doing, but the size of the EQ2 server databases should include several terabytes of data that need to be processed.

    Here it is better to work thoroughly and safely and to give the players an appropriate break from the game instead of having to mess around.

    Thanks to the Darkpaw team for their constant work to improve the preformance of our EQ2 servers.
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  5. Tannie Member

    Always something to complain about. My suggestion is since your skilled, is to show up quickly at their offices, and solve the downtime, rather than blindly stab at their architecture or business model. As far as I know games aren't mission critical like some communication companies, where there is an agreement on how much downtime is acceptable. There may be a design flaw that has to be regression tested or redesigned. If we as a user base cant accept a 24 hour downtime then perhaps some form of rehab is needed.

    Since it is database related and they opted out of Oracle, and most likely didn't use MS Sql, many of the online defrag and modification features cannot be done online. Keeping Oracle means we would probably be paying considerably more for the monthly service guaranteed. I can assure you it is more than defragging though. Also even if it is just defragging, doing it online is considerably slower than offline and somethings cannot truly be defragged online, especially if you have thousands of records being updated by live activity. I can assure you that these guy are aware of the pain is causes players, and somewhere someone made a decision to do this after careful consideration.

    Just my 5.346 cents (after inflation)....
  6. adaria Member

    so all my toons are on down servers. Not all my toons are showing up. The main window is asking me if i want to make a new toon. the issue is I know i dont have any extra slots available.so what would happen if i did make another toon? would one of my old ones be locked out?
  7. Prox Well-Known Member

    Looks at some of the comments and thinks out loud , you can please most of the people most of the time . Other are just chronic complainers, who just can't be made happy.
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  8. Adene Member

    Nifty new launcher look :) Thank you from Kaladim for the very early completion time!
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  9. Piratelordcarroll New Member



    Well what does it have to do with then lol? Magic fairy people from the greater fay dark? A data base is a on a hard drive, and it should be backed up, and there should be multi versions of the server on multi hard drives. There fore they could fix what ever it is they wanted to fix while keeping the server going. In fact on all the server I have ever rented, they upgrade the hard drives and system with out ever shutting it off.

    So even if they had to copy the entire thing to a new rack it shouldn't be taking a whole day. Hey though you want to make excuses for them, that's fine. I have never seen any game company take a server down for 24 hours ever, from ultima online to project 1999, to swg emu, to shadow bane, to private uo server, to huge corporations like wow. Yet here you are going yep fine DPG THANK YOU SO MUCH lol. Each to their own, you want to make excuses for poor server quality, and I call it out.

    Ill use the car again, you are going well the garage is 15 years old we gotta make excuses why it takes 8 hours to change a alternator the garage is so great isn't it. Vs me going it doesn't take 8 hours to change a alternator that is poor working order.

    Maybe I missed all those games taking their servers off for 24 hours, but you would think playing mmos since 1999 I would of hit a server being taken down for 24 hours before march 24th 2020. I mean it is not a good idea to take a game down when new people are joining for a day, what you think they are gonna do wait 24 hours? When there are literally 100s of games that are almost identical to Everquest 2. There was already some one in this post saying they left the game.
  10. Adene Member

    I mean, it is a long time, and no one likes it, on either side of it happening. But your memory is foggy if you don't remember EQ1 being down for multiple days occasionally, or WoW, or SWTOR, or FFXIV having 24 hour maintenance for every major patch, etc.
  11. Piratelordcarroll New Member



    lol aren't you complaining about people complaining? Just because you don't want to voice your opinion about a professional game company takes their server down for 24 hours, in a time of quarantine doesn't mean every one who thinks it shouldn't take 24 hours to move a server is complaining. It is just the fact about this game, apparently they have come to the conclusion they aren't going to get new players, and the people who do play will pay them regardless if they put the sever down for 2 weeks or not. They also must not care about the quality of the server, if this forum post is to be believed, the one guy said he thinks the server hasn't been put on new hardware in 15 years lol, and the others said the servers are so bad they lag all the time, and have for years. There is literally nothing good to be said of a game company taking 24 hours to fix a database. Other than you think people should be positive about everything no matter what.
  12. Piratelordcarroll New Member



    Could be, don't recall any of them doing a database transfer taking 24 hours, think I would remember such a thing, but maybe not. I never played any of them for years at a time either, so its possible.
  13. Snuke New Member

    My first day of being locked in the house/social distancing and the server is down all day......looking forward to the improved game play :)
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  14. Kuulei Well-Known Member

    I think it's nice they didn't do all the servers at once. If one really must get some game-time in, there are servers up to play on.:)

    Maybe finally pop over to Public Test and make a character! You can pop to level 110 I believe as a bauble is placed in your bags upon creation, or you can level your own way.
  15. dorotea Well-Known Member

    >Please explain why this is being done on the last day of the ChronoPortals?<

    Um ...maybe because we have been asking them to do something about lag and server instability for months if not years?
    Maybe because there always seems to be an event going on and it would be ridiculous to plan a major operation to try to find that one day when nothing was happening. After which some raider would gripe that it wasn't convenient for his or her raid schedule. Maybe because there is a pandemic going on and one gets something important done when possible without delaying it for trivia.

    Asking for an event extension is reasonable. Criticizing this long overdue work because there is an event is not. Even apart from the fact that since we have known about the maintenance for a while we could have planned our activities around it to get things done.
  16. Prox Well-Known Member

    Holy crap you're right ...I am a complainer complainer .......Aurgh!!!!! I am my own worst enemy !!!!
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  17. Prox Well-Known Member


    Kuulei :) !!
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  18. Ra'Gruzgob Well-Known Member

    You perhaps and even very likely just won’t be able to save newly created character. While they are doing what they are doing, in meantime and you be also refrain from actions on maintenanced servers. If you can’t wait to play, try one of running servers or another game for now.

    For others. Before drawing conclusions, compare with current activities of other gaming companies that also moved their employees to remotly mode of operation. In any case, this is temporary phenomenon (that is, maintenance time will again be reduced to minimum), unlike virus that is mutating right now in its next carrier
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  19. Chikkin Well-Known Member

    All servers are back up right now
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  20. dreamweaver Well-Known Member

    That they are.
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