Count Down

Hown

I know it's not maybe not that great of a suggestion, but I'd really enjoy having a Count Down Timer for these types of occasions. The game has been offline for a good 14 hours now? I don't think it'd be a huge annoyance to notify us at least with a timer that estimates the current situation and notify the community when the game may be up by. Not exactly guaranteeing the servers to be running, but just guesstimating. For instance, once every 10-20 minutes someone updates a clock on the MapleStory.Nexon.Net website when the game servers aren't running to let us know that you guys are making some progress.

I know I'm a very impatient person, and being left to just wonder how long is it going to take, or am I wasting my time just waiting here hours and hours at a time? Maybe I could be doing something better. Maybe the maintenance is going to take a couple of hours longer and I could get something I've been putting off for a while now because my addiction is currently off limits. I'd appreciate to at least have the slightest amount of knowledge on the current estimated time for the servers to be up, and I'm sure others would too.

Sorry if I seem like I'm ranting, but this is an honest suggestion at then end. Hopefully this will be seen and considered down the line.

AkihikoT_

And when they don't know how long it'll take?

Hown

AkihikoT_ said:

And when they don't know how long it'll take?

An estimate with with a potential text describing whether or not the issue has been found is always better than:
"[Update] MapleStory is going back into maintenance until further notice, while we investigate an issue that was discovered. Please check back here for updates."
Or Even
"[Update] The maintenance has been extended until further notice."

Putting up a 4 or 6 hour clock timer initially then increasing or decreasing it on the 15 minute update queue, is way better than," Hey, come back and check later." Every 2-3 hours.

Aggraphine

So you want them to add a 4- or 6-hour timer that they can increase or decrease in 15 minute increments that you'll have to check on every 2-3 hours to see if it's done?

Hown

Aggraphine said:

So you want them to add a 4- or 6-hour timer that they can increase or decrease in 15 minute increments that you'll have to check on every 2-3 hours to see if it's done?

No, I don't think you understood. A timer that starts with an initial estimate depending on the reason for downtime. For instance if it's a patch starting at 6 hours or so, or an unexpected maintenance maybe 4 hours until the problem has been clarified. The 15 minutes is meant to be possibly how often the clock is updated, every 10, 15, 20, or so minutes. It'll give a more accurate estimated time for the servers to come back online and we wouldn't have to wait 2 - 3 hours for them to just say come check back later. They won't really need to say that unless they wanted to add text on top or below the clock explaining the reasoning for downtime, just having like 4 hours slowly counting down is better then their current system of updating their players.

Aggraphine

But what you're saying is that, rather than a simple "it's down and we don't have an estimate to give" that forces you to check back every couple hours, you want a timer displayed somewhere that, basically, does the same thing, but without the "we don't have an estimate" part.

Hown

Aggraphine said:

But what you're saying is that, rather than a simple "it's down and we don't have an estimate to give" that forces you to check back every couple hours, you want a timer displayed somewhere that, basically, does the same thing, but without the "we don't have an estimate" part.

The thing is that for most part there usually is an estimate, they always start off by saying it should be up by xx:xx PST or whatever, complications occur and that's when the timer is updated depending on what they know. Of course they don't always, but usually they do. Or if they suddenly bring down the servers to patch a bug, that bug is for the most part known and know where to look but for those times they don't always put in an estimated time. For times such as now I'm sure somewhere down the line they've already found out the main cause or if not at least some portions of error and could update depending on that. The whole reason for the suggestion is that a timer is more descriptive than a few words saying come check later. Just like an actual picture is much more descriptive than you explaining the picture. There are times when the cause is unknown, but that's why I said a description could be attached to such clock for that reason.

Aggraphine

Hown said:

Aggraphine said:

But what you're saying is that, rather than a simple "it's down and we don't have an estimate to give" that forces you to check back every couple hours, you want a timer displayed somewhere that, basically, does the same thing, but without the "we don't have an estimate" part.

The thing is that for most part there usually is an estimate, they always start off by saying it should be up by xx:xx PST or whatever, complications occur and that's when the timer is updated depending on what they know. Of course they don't always, but usually they do. Or if they suddenly bring down the servers to patch a bug, that bug is for the most part known and know where to look but for those times they don't always put in an estimated time. For times such as now I'm sure somewhere down the line they've already found out the main cause or if not at least some portions of error and could update depending on that. The whole reason for the suggestion is that a timer is more descriptive than a few words saying come check later. Just like an actual picture is much more descriptive than you explaining the picture. There are times when the cause is unknown, but that's why I said a description could be attached to such clock for that reason.

I get that you want an estimate. They did do estimates, and "maintenance is extended for another [one or two hours]" updates to the maintenance newspost. But the problem is, people started whining about how they always extended their maintenance periods and were never on time(which is hyperbole in its purest form, since long run-overs were a rare thing). So now we don't get any estimates, just "it'll be up when it's done" sort of updates.

You're welcome, complainers!

AkihikoT_

We think it'll be an hour or two.. you come back in an hour or two and it isn't finished and they say until further notice V.S
We have a timer saying 2 hours, which most will think that means it HAS to be 2 hours so if it increases people will get dismayed, but come back in 2 hours and it has 2 hours up still or even an hour, so come back in an hour and it says an hour sill (they won't give themselves under an hour because that's just being stupid honestly. If they thought it'd be under an hour they would just push the end time out an hour instead. and really they'd give themselves at LEAST 30 minutes more time than they thought they needed.
That means you'd have a count down not reflecting an accurate time at all, especially since with programming sometimes you actually have NO clue where it's gone wrong, or you can have a "it should be x hours, we were wrong, so instead of playing with you we'll just be honest and say we don't know when it'll be back up."

gamechanger

Well in this case they experienced an actually game breaking bug which is why the game was taken down again. There is no telling on their part how long it will take to fix because they first have to find the damn bug. And its a pretty serious one to have gotten through testing, allowing people to be dealing way more damage than they should be (as in, people were capping in Dojo, where there is a 10x damage reduction). Its understandable that they don't even have an estimate for the time yet

AkihikoT_

gamechanger said:

Well in this case they experienced an actually game breaking bug which is why the game was taken down again. There is no telling on their part how long it will take to fix because they first have to find the damn bug. And its a pretty serious one to have gotten through testing, allowing people to be dealing way more damage than they should be (as in, people were capping in Dojo, where there is a 10x damage reduction). Its understandable that they don't even have an estimate for the time yet

Is that why I feel so weak in Dojo? Holy crap I never knew that.