Maintenance 21/04 Updates

[Qualan]

...

[topgearfan]

you should probably know better and stop them before the maintenance ?

To be fair regular (no big changes) maintenance has been a strong point in BBs otherwise poor performance. As a rule it has ended early. So early ive never been able to catch it still ongoing after waking up. Sad if that is also gone. I had gotten really good at predicting BBs failures but didnt see this one coming.
Maybe there were some hidden faults left from last weeks maint?

[SmurfAsH]

To be fair regular (no big changes) maintenance has been a strong point in BBs otherwise poor performance. As a rule it has ended early. So early ive never been able to catch it still ongoing after waking up. Sad if that is also gone. I had gotten really good at predicting BBs failures but didnt see this one coming.
Maybe there were some hidden faults left from last weeks maint?

There's a change log for this maintenance, so it's not a regular one.
30707-Change-Log-21-04-2015

[SwampHen]

Why does maintenance still come as a surprise to some? It's always on Tuesday. Yes they had a shocker last week. Cut the team some slack. My background is in IT. When servers don't work to plan, it is very stressful for the team, just like when your computer at home doesn't work the way it's meant to.

And don't run your special mines over maintenance if they aren't fully topped up and buffed properly. My arctics had 20k and a 24 hour buff on before maintenance. No problems.

[Xibor]

They need to change the line "End at approx 08:00 am BST" to "We really have no idea". Why even post an approximate time? Once again, my buffs are all off schedule, mines depleted that should have been refilled, buildings running that I would have shut off. 3 hours overdue is not within any definition of "approximate" that I have heard before. I'm in the habit now of making sure anything precious like my Arctic Mine is off before maintenance because I can't trust the time frame like I used to be able to.
*groan*

btw - if you post time with all digits (e.g. 08:00) it implies a 24 hour clock so the am is redundant - but that might be just me

[Gandelfthegrey]

Yes I probably should, heavy day at work yesterday and forgot about maintenance,

[Xibor]

Why does maintenance still come as a surprise to some? It's always on Tuesday. Yes they had a shocker last week. Cut the team some slack. My background is in IT. When servers don't work to plan, it is very stressful for the team, just like when your computer at home doesn't work the way it's meant to.

And don't run your special mines over maintenance if they aren't fully topped up and buffed properly. My arctics had 20k and a 24 hour buff on before maintenance. No problems.

My background is in IT also... and I maintain a QA environment. I post a realistic time frame (over-estimating if necessary) so expectations are not raised. But those decisions are made before posting the time for the outage. If I have any reason to be unsure of the time involved then I add a buffer so the users know it might take longer than usual. But I am able to test my upgrades before deploying, which it appears in this case is not possible (and I wonder why). I am well aware of the stress and the surprises that can occur, but I wouldn't post a 'generic' outage time every week when I know the scripts are running with deeper changes.

There must be a way to know if it's a "regular" maintenance or a "special" maintenance and adjust the estimated time frame accordingly.

And btw I have my buildings and buffs set appropriately assuming I can trust the posted outage. If you can't trust that, how much buffer do you give yourself - enough for days - weeks - months? In a game like this you need to be able to trust time because so many things are closely tied to it.

[Ozzymandeus]

Woke up, made coffee, logged in, immediately thought, "Here we go again!".

I have Red Flying Settlers running out about now, but it could be worse.
I might not have had forethought to skip my Arctic Mine.

I have rainbows running out this afternoon, but it could be worse.
I might not have had the forethought to skip my gold chain (including SGM).

Although, I really shouldn't be having to consider how long maintenance might over run when working out my buff schedule. I am almost wishing for the 'good old days', when all we really had to worry about was whether maintenance was gonna start earlier than advertised.

[AgyM]

Hmm how many here actually believe that it will be done at " 11:00"
It certainly looks like the bad old days are back and it will have to be a case of bite the bullet or spend 30 or so minutes making sure all is turned off in future.

[Sariath]

9 minutes from now supposably