Lack of notice (again!)

Thanks BB, once more you've shown complete contempt for players in different timezones and those who play at later hours.
Despite being a so-called "scheduled" maintenance, we're logging in to see for the 1st time a notice for a maint that's already underway, made even worse this time by holding it at an hour guaranteed to sabotage the login bonus.
The most favoured nation of course got 24 hours notice again allowing them time to adjust (rather pointless really as they rigidly logoff at 9:30pm every night and reappear at 6am the next morning), but all the other language versions get zero warning despite catering for every time zone.
So now, a large number of players will lose their weekly login bonus and a complete cycle of explorer searches as well as losing valuable resources in unbuffed buildings.
Please do us the courtesy of advanced notice for everybody, not just 1 language version.

Also, is this "database maintenance" going to address the server flag issue, or can we expect another disruption on the 31st?

I agree that advance notice for an extended downtime would be appreciated. I would assume a database maintenance is something that would be planned in advance, not a last minute emergency. A simple notice to the program users to allow them to adjust/prepare for a 10 hour downtime versus an announcement with less than 12 hour notice would have allowed for players to adjust buffs, guild quest, explorer schedules etc.

Explain this to me, how was I able to predict the OP was going to start this thread 7 days ago.

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Originally Posted by Dorotheus

Explain this to me, how was I able to predict the OP was going to start this thread 7 days ago.

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Easy cause they always complain about notice

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Originally Posted by hades8840

Easy cause they always complain about notice

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With good reason.We always get thrown into disarray when this happens and it's completely unnecessary.
If they can give the German servers at least 24 hours notice of these "scheduled" disruptions then there's no reason why they can't do the same for everyone else.
Last night was particularly harsh for the French servers as no maintenance was even suspected, the game update one having been installed the week before but even if it had they'd have been preparing for the customary 7am downtime, not 1am which straddles both the login award and system update times. I know somebody who was waiting for the "rescue script" to run at 2am to cure a bug that had stuck their game.

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Originally Posted by Nogbad

Last night was particularly harsh for the French servers as no maintenance was even suspected

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Really? How? There was an announcement on the front page of the game and as for the French servers, there has also been a post about the downtime since 3pm yesterday afternoon in Facebook...
MOD's also tend to share the info in G1. Up for players, guild leaders and officers to then dispatch the info within their guilds.
Might not have been a 24 hours notice, but almost 12 which is plenty for all to prepare accordingly and the game was back much much earlier than expected, which was nice for plenty of players in order to complete GQ's, activate their xmas market etc.

Part of the issue is based on your timezone also. The timeframe was not posted before I went to work, came home to less than 2 hours to prepare for a downtime and run an adventure for the gq..sorry I am not going to get out of bed at 4am to finish a gq. Add to the mix that downtime occurred on a holiday evening when many were planning on spending the evening onine.

You make a big deal out of nothing ...so what so your island is buffed for a few hrs we all knew the game would be down days in advance as for the login bonus you have a day to log in plenty of time even if the game is down for a few hrs within that period

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Originally Posted by Nogbad

With good reason.We always get thrown into disarray when this happens and it's completely unnecessary.
If they can give the German servers at least 24 hours notice of these "scheduled" disruptions then there's no reason why they can't do the same for everyone else.
Last night was particularly harsh for the French servers as no maintenance was even suspected, the game update one having been installed the week before but even if it had they'd have been preparing for the customary 7am downtime, not 1am which straddles both the login award and system update times. I know somebody who was waiting for the "rescue script" to run at 2am to cure a bug that had stuck their game.

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Originally Posted by hades8840

You make a big deal out of nothing ...so what so your island is buffed for a few hrs we all knew the game would be down days in advance as for the login bonus you have a day to log in plenty of time even if the game is down for a few hrs within that period

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You still don't get it.
For a lot of people, the first time they're seeing this is minutes before the server goes down, quite often it's already too late.
I had taken precautions based on the usual 7am downtime, short-searching explorers, lesser buffs etc...but that got screwed over by the surprise "scheduled" db maintanance starting at 1am. Just managed to catch 1 world as it was about to go down, so kept the login bonus there, but lost it on 3 others. Servers went down before I had a chance to pause expensive buildings, so things like FT castle and tit smelter were left running unbuffed for 24+ hours.
Explorers have missed an entire day and will have to come off ideal searches to bring them back into schedule.
Like Gracie says above, those of us in different timezones still have to sleep, and other necessary things to do, no way could I cancel a medical assessment nor a meeting with a support worker who already has a full diary without people cancelling at short notice to fix a game.
Posting a message at what is the middle of the night for some just doesn't cut it, especially when one language version does get 24 hrs notice, and a lot of people don't do Fakebook, check back in forum for BB's promise not to rely upon that as the only medium.
Elco, guess you don't have any guild members in Quebec, if you did you'd have noticed they were asleep when that "notice appeared", and by the time they finished work/school, it was already too late.

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Originally Posted by Nogbad2

You still don't get it.
For a lot of people, the first time they're seeing this is minutes before the server goes down, quite often it's already too late.
I had taken precautions based on the usual 7am downtime, short-searching explorers, lesser buffs etc...but that got screwed over by the surprise "scheduled" db maintanance starting at 1am. Just managed to catch 1 world as it was about to go down, so kept the login bonus there, but lost it on 3 others. Servers went down before I had a chance to pause expensive buildings, so things like FT castle and tit smelter were left running unbuffed for 24+ hours.
Explorers have missed an entire day and will have to come off ideal searches to bring them back into schedule.
Like Gracie says above, those of us in different timezones still have to sleep, and other necessary things to do, no way could I cancel a medical assessment nor a meeting with a support worker who already has a full diary without people cancelling at short notice to fix a game.
Posting a message at what is the middle of the night for some just doesn't cut it, especially when one language version does get 24 hrs notice, and a lot of people don't do Fakebook, check back in forum for BB's promise not to rely upon that as the only medium.
Elco, guess you don't have any guild members in Quebec, if you did you'd have noticed they were asleep when that "notice appeared", and by the time they finished work/school, it was already too late.

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Oh i do get it but its a game its not a big deal i would hope you wouldnt cancel or change real life things for a game ..even if you missed a entire day of things and i have its not the end of the world you can recover pretty fast only time when time is a issue is when it involves events because they themselves are time sensitive

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Originally Posted by Nogbad2

guess you don't have any guild members in Quebec, if you did you'd have noticed they were asleep when that "notice appeared", and by the time they finished work/school, it was already too late.

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As hades rightfully wrote, so what? Not BB's fault if you assumed maintenance would take place at 7am GMT. If you know other servers got 24 hours notice then surely you also could have guessed this would happen on "our" servers (and the timeframe perhaps?).
Anyhow with players from all around the globe, there's no pleasing everyone so next time there's a maintenance and you know the date 7 days in advance, then adapt accordingly even if that means it will take you just a couple of days to set everything back to your liking on your islands.

PS: at least one of my guild members is from Canada. She hasnt complained so far because at best it would have been a "meh".

Just thought I'd let you all know the next update is planned for 4th February. So you have a week's notice ahead of time.