Guild Wars 2

Just a thought, but most other games have learnt to release updates, patches, etc at quieter times so it doesn’t crash and take the forums along with it.

5.30pm isn’t a good time to release new content.

I know you base the updates on US time but try and think of your EU customer base too, and maybe we can avoid the problems experienced today.

It’s always 5:00 somewhere.

It doesn’t matter what time they release the update, it will always affect someone.

So, you rather want them to release it in the middle of the night EU-time?
Because that is basically the only other option, seeing as they don’t get to work long before the patch is usually released.

How do I into time zones?

I think they do a really good job with the update process.

10-20 minutes of errors isn’t that much. After this it installed the patch in 5 minutes.
I can wait for so long.

Baldrick.8967:

Just a thought, but most other games have learnt to release updates, patches, etc at quieter times so it doesn’t crash and take the forums along with it.

5.30pm isn’t a good time to release new content.

I know you base the updates on US time but try and think of your EU customer base too, and maybe we can avoid the problems experienced today.

It has been covered lots over the few years and it will not change—-it’s based on the working day PST. Always has always will be.

Most mmorpgs take a full day to fix these things GW2 IS the best at this type of thing. Other mmorpgs should be shamed taking 2hr+ to make there game work.

While I agree there’s no really good set time to do it, doing it right before EU wvw primetime or during it is very detrimental to the EU playerbase, which I assume is the second largest/largest they have. Idk who, but a lesser populated time should probably take the bullet, I know it wouldn’t be fair to them, but it’d have a smaller effect on overall people. WvW used to reset at midnight so some midnight time for NA or EU seems like it’d be most beneficial, and would give servers who get nightcapped a tiny break.

And how in the world are they supposed to release it so that it’s not in someone’s prime time?

And no, they aren’t going to come at night to release it and be on hand to watch for bugs. That’s not reasonable.

An NA-based company will release updates based on NA working hours. Kind of how you’d expect an EU-based company to release updates based on EU working hours.

They’re not going to release an update outside their working hours just to mitigate a server overload that normally doesn’t last more than an hour. There’s also the issue with bugs and such which all of their patches has as they haven’t release an update yet that has been bug free.

Andred.1087:

How do I into time zones?

This. So much this.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We don’t announce release times in advance, but historically it’s true that most have happened in the morning (Pacific time). The reasoning behind that is to allow the maximum number of developers (programmers, server team, network team, designers, etc.) to be available to monitor any situations that may arise. As you noted, a short-term issue did arise today, and because of the timeframe of the rlease, we had all hands on deck to correct the problem quite quickly.

And, as others pointed out, releasing on “off hours” in North America makes it “primetime” somewhere else.

Can I thank you (or the team) for this timing. I like the idea that you have most of the day to solve issues that arise from patching. It totally makes sense.

Baldrick.8967:

Just a thought, but most other games have learnt to release updates, patches, etc at quieter times so it doesn’t crash and take the forums along with it.

5.30pm isn’t a good time to release new content.

I know you base the updates on US time but try and think of your EU customer base too, and maybe we can avoid the problems experienced today.

9:30 AM Pacific is a great time to release new content, since that’s when the maximum number of ANet staff are available to deal with any issues that arise. Further, unlike a lot of other companies, ANet doesn’t take the game down during this time — if you’re in-game at patch time, you can stay in (usually for about 60 minutes); this isn’t true for every game.

However, the OP does imply an interesting question:
What else is ANet doing to reduce the chance that this happens and to decease the downtime if the servers are overwhelmed?

Today, the authentication servers and even the forum became unavailable for roughly 30 minutes (more for some, less for others). We know that tons of people will download the patch within the first hour of availability and that hammers the GW2 infrastructure. Since this ‘fact’ is predictable and ANet should have metrics on the intensity of DL requests, it seems to me that it should be possible to diminish the impact to the community.

As someone who has managed Large Scale Applications across multiple time zones I’ll have to give Gaile and ArenaNet a big two thumbs up for the handling of the drops. Yes, it’s always Prime Time somewhere but at least we don’t get auto-kicked very often. Like maybe 3 – 4 times since pre.

Also, having support staff available is the top priority. As many pointed out we hit a speed bump today. Not that big a deal looking at the whole picture.

Moreover, the Server availability during these last two plus years is amazing. A truly great job especially compared to other (cough) Blizzard (cough) companies.

In all, a dang good job. Have one on me.

A hiccup or two and hitting some people’s prime time as compared to hours offline while they update. I know which I prefer.

I want to thank ANet for having the best update and patch system around. At worse, minor problems and having to log out for while.

just think that you Americans get this new content on Tuesday while a a good sized chunk of the player base have to wait until Wednesday.

Just think, a good-sized chunk of the playerbase got until Wednesday to finish up their Wintersday goals/activities while the Americans had their time cut short on Tuesday.