For those who wonder why we rant about Verant's poor customer service,
and their seemingless unfathomable denials when presented with a mistake
they made ("We test extensively"), read these these 4 updates from the
EQ offcial network status pages (I have compiled them from the two
seperate lists, and cut out any ones not related to scheduled patching
downtime).
http://www.everquest.com has the entire network status messages.
(more comments below)
Scheduled Server Update Tue Feb 15 12:59:25 EST 2000
The patch, which was originally scheduled for tomorrow at 7am, has been
moved back one day. The EverQuest
servers will now be coming down on Thursday the 17th at 7am pacific. We
apologize for the late change in the
schedule.
- The EverQuest Team
Scheduled Server Update Tue Feb 15 18:46:24 EST 2000
The patch, which was originally scheduled for tomorrow at 7am, has been
moved back one day. The EverQuest
servers will now be coming down on Thursday the 17th at 8am pacific. We
apologize for the late change in the
schedule.
- The EverQuest Team
Update Thu Feb 17 13:34:23 EST 2000
The amount of time that the servers will be down is approximately 6
hours. That would put the time at 2 PM PST
for the servers to be back up.
- The EverQuest Team
Patch Update Thu Feb 17 17:45:13 EST 2000
The patch is progressing as planned, and all servers should be available
around 3:00pm PST.
- The EverQuest Team
(My note: I was able to log on at 6:30 EST, thats 3:30 PST, and was
unable to at 6:27.)
This last message is the kicker, and I almost fell out of my chair when
I read it. When looking at 3 messages stating delays, they post it as
"progressing as planned".
I have a few problems with this.
1. This the second time in 2 weeks they changed the date on a major
scheduled downtime. My bother scheduling downtime, if you;re not going
to keep it? My cleric group plays once a week (and is the main reason I
play EQ, I love my bard, but I think i would leave the game if I didn;t
have my regular cleric group). We make sure our day does not coincide
with their scheduled downtime since we face such time constraints
(normally play from 5ish to 11ish). The rest of the group was able to
get in around 7, so our time this week was cut by 1/3, despite our best
efforts.
2. Why aren't these downtimes scheduled about 3-5 horus earlier, when
there are many less paying customers trying to play? I feel bad for the
people in Europe in Asia, but America represents the majority of their
customer base. I would even be happier if they would rotate down times
so different people were affected each time.
3. How much time was wasted writing the True North spell. I'm sure we
could all name about 20 things which everyone in the game would rather
have seen that time spent fixing. Has anyone thought of a use for this?
4. How do things which directly contradict the patch messages make it
past their "extensive testing?"
{rant mode off}
--
We now return to the non-stop rock.
Matt DeBarger