Let's talk about D2's maintenance schedule

Have Bungie given us any definite answer as to why they need a multi-hour maintenance down-period every single week?

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Have Bungie given us any definite answer as to why they need a multi-hour maintenance down-period every single week?

It's not every single week, but Destiny 2 is definitely getting patched way more often than D1. We've known about today's update for weeks (and even got a preview about it in last week'a THAB).

This isn't a bad thing per se, but it can be frustrating to those who aren't used to games that update often (especially since the auto-download is wonky enough as it is for Destiny).

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Have they missed a week yet? Also, I'm not terribly annoyed by it, just slightly vexed by the length of them, given the frequency.

IIRC, EvE Online, for example, has a daily scheduled downtime, but it's usually less than an hour.

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Have they missed a week yet? Also, I'm not terribly annoyed by it, just slightly vexed by the length of them, given the frequency.

IIRC, EvE Online, for example, has a daily scheduled downtime, but it's usually less than an hour.

You realize that's that several hours a week, right?

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EvE is pretty damn massive and complex. I'd expect it to take much longer to maintain than Destiny, as opposed to about the same.

Did D1 take this long to apply its patches? I honestly don't remember how long the downtimes lasted.

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IIRC, EvE Online, for example, has a daily scheduled downtime, but it's usually less than an hour.

Correct. It's usually only a few minutes. I think they just restart things most of the time. It's also in the middle of the night, at least for people near my time zone.

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IIRC, EvE Online, for example, has a daily scheduled downtime, but it's usually less than an hour.

Correct. It's usually only a few minutes. I think they just restart things most of the time. It's also in the middle of the night, at least for people near my time zone.

That's the real struggle right there, they are always going to impact someone. We actually have it pretty good in the US since the updates are usually when the average person is either at work or in school. In most of Europe it's right around when they get out of school or work.

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IIRC, EvE Online, for example, has a daily scheduled downtime, but it's usually less than an hour.

Correct. It's usually only a few minutes. I think they just restart things most of the time. It's also in the middle of the night, at least for people near my time zone.

That's the real struggle right there, they are always going to impact someone. We actually have it pretty good in the US since the updates are usually when the average person is either at work or in school. In most of Europe it's right around when they get out of school or work.

Couldn't they just shift the time based on the server? I mean, they don't apply it to every server at once do they? I understand the consequences... for 12-24 hours every week, the version would be different on the servers so you wouldn't be able to play with those people...

I guess it's just not worth the effort.

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Couldn't they just shift the time based on the server? I mean, they don't apply it to every server at once do they? I understand the consequences... for 12-24 hours every week, the version would be different on the servers so you wouldn't be able to play with those people...

I guess it's just not worth the effort.

Yeah I imagine that'd be a bigger headache since you can play with people on different servers in different regions. With something more simple (like a file server) that's not a big deal because it doesn't really matter what version the server you're connecting to is, but with a game that could get really complicated. I'm sure it's possible, but man I wouldn't want to be in charge of programming the code to let the servers and clients handle that well.

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Couldn't they just shift the time based on the server? I mean, they don't apply it to every server at once do they? I understand the consequences... for 12-24 hours every week, the version would be different on the servers so you wouldn't be able to play with those people...

I guess it's just not worth the effort.

Yeah I imagine that'd be a bigger headache since you can play with people on different servers in different regions. With something more simple (like a file server) that's not a big deal because it doesn't really matter what version the server you're connecting to is, but with a game that could get really complicated. I'm sure it's possible, but man I wouldn't want to be in charge of programming the code to let the servers and clients handle that well.

Yeah, but how is a version number any different than say a console type?
If Player1.version != Player2.Version OR Player1.ConsoleType != Player2.ConsoleType
Then don't match them together

It's just one more logic statement. I'm also entrenched in code right now so this is how my brain is working.

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Every MMO-esque game I've ever had meaningful contact with, barring self-hosted server ones, had mandatory downtime occasionally. Destiny is no exception. Very likely most of the code changes are not in the clients, but on the server side. It's not worth their time to add much much more time on their end to administer a much more complex system, rather than have a small amount of downtime each week. I'm sure everyone can agree it's not ideal.

So many games do this that there is no way that this is a simple fix. To suggest it's just laziness is missing the mark.

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Every MMO-esque game I've ever had meaningful contact with, barring self-hosted server ones, had mandatory downtime occasionally. Destiny is no exception. Very likely most of the code changes are not in the clients, but on the server side. It's not worth their time to add much much more time on their end to administer a much more complex system, rather than have a small amount of downtime each week. I'm sure everyone can agree it's not ideal.

So many games do this that there is no way that this is a simple fix. To suggest it's just laziness is missing the mark.

I by no means think they are lazy, I myself am a Software Engineer and I know about complexity in software. I was just wondering the thought process of choosing an across the board upgrade of servers as oppose to by region.

In my mind the two ways to do this would be:

1. Do it across the board at US convenience
Downside: but inconvenience certain regions because of when it happens

2. Do it by region at regions convenience
Downside: Different version/regions couldn't match together until all regions were updated (should never be more than 24 hours)

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Bro 1: Hey man, I saw you pop up on xbox live and thought we could shoot some aliens in the face.

Bro 2: Sounds good, I just put my kids to bed so I can play for a few hours. It must be early morning for you. I just got into Destiny.

Bro 1: Yeah man, I've got a few errands to run today, but Saturday morning is gaming time. Hey, I see you online, but I can't join you.

Bro 2: Yeah, same here. That's weird. Fix ur code Bungle!

Not a full rebuttal, but a situation I imagine occurring. Especially when the user-expectation has been that friends can always play with friends. Global server down-time may not be ideal, but it is immediately understandable by the user.

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Yeah this is a simple version of what I was going to say. Add on to that that there would basically be a time when the first region upgraded couldn't play with anyone else in the world outside their region.

And then, even further: what happens when maintenance takes longer than expected? Instead of the whole process for upgrading all servers taking a few hours it could take 24-48 hours depending on the unexpected extra time. Not only is that not ideal for international matchmaking but it also makes the server team's job much more arduous.

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Yeah this is a simple version of what I was going to say. Add on to that that there would basically be a time when the first region upgraded couldn't play with anyone else in the world outside their region.

And then, even further: what happens when maintenance takes longer than expected? Instead of the whole process for upgrading all servers taking a few hours it could take 24-48 hours depending on the unexpected extra time. Not only is that not ideal for international matchmaking but it also makes the server team's job much more arduous.

And this is why I posed such questions :D

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Couldn't they just shift the time based on the server? I mean, they don't apply it to every server at once do they? I understand the consequences... for 12-24 hours every week, the version would be different on the servers so you wouldn't be able to play with those people...

I guess it's just not worth the effort.

Yeah I imagine that'd be a bigger headache since you can play with people on different servers in different regions. With something more simple (like a file server) that's not a big deal because it doesn't really matter what version the server you're connecting to is, but with a game that could get really complicated. I'm sure it's possible, but man I wouldn't want to be in charge of programming the code to let the servers and clients handle that well.

Sounds like they'd just have to add a version check. (says the oversimplifying dogcow)

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If I were to guess, they're trying to keep the downtimes and their possible extension (in case something goes wrong) within work-hours, which is only fair.

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Have they missed a week yet? Also, I'm not terribly annoyed by it, just slightly vexed by the length of them, given the frequency.

Just checked, they have not. They are not always 7 days between them (sometimes more, sometimes less) but one has happened during each week since launch.

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Bungie has the annoying habit of Vexing people. Or are they Vexing the guardians? It's all so confusing.

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It's actually pretty common with online games like this. I'm pretty happy about it, I just wish they'd pick a day to do it consistently instead of it moving between Monday and Thursday every week.

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Let's talk about D2's maintenance schedule (Destiny)