Change the maintenance downtime to suit a least impactful time

[QuakeGod]

The only way it wouldn’t be a problem is if the belts had unlimited content, and they aren’t going to do that.

[Kezrai_Charzai]

@Gerard_Amatin

I don’t think the largest player base is in the US though.

Keep in mind the USA is quite a large, wealthy and populous country. Many games find that as a single country, the USA is both their largest and most profitable market. The USA alone has something like 74% of the population and a higher GDP (depending on measure used) than the entire EU. US market is also spread across six time zones, as opposed to 3 for the whole EU.

So while I agree ‘peak in-game population’ corresponds to EU prime time, by CCP statistics that’s spread across many countries. The EU could be half the player base but most games don’t break it down that way.

[Ping_PangWang]

Another cry post, wahhhhh I’m slightly inconvenienced.

[Gerard_Amatin]

@Kezrai_Charzai

So while I agree ‘peak in-game population’ corresponds to EU prime time, by CCP statistics that’s spread across many countries. The EU could be half the player base but most games don’t break it down that way.

Yes, but the topic of this thread is the least impactful time window for maintenance downtime, which means that QuakeGod’s talk about country sizes is irrelevant.

What matters is not the amount of countries nor the size of countries playing during that time window, but simply the amount of players playing in that time window.
In other words, what matters is the population in those timezones.

And you said it yourself: EU prime time is the peak in-game population.

[Count_Felix]

@Gerard_Amatin

While the server population is even lower a few hours earlier, you have to realise that the server maintenance happens during the day while the developers at CCP (in Iceland) are working and may require preparation time on patch days, so it cannot be done much earlier than it is now.

Excellent presentation and delivery, could we perhaps shift the maintenance 2 hours forward then?

[Gerard_Amatin]

When you say ‘shift 2h forward’, do you mean earlier or later than it is happening now? 9 UTC or 13 UTC?

(Just to make sure we’re on one line.)

Both options have issues:
13 UTC is when the population is quickly ramping up and is already above average, so that’s an unfortunate timing.

9 UTC is when the workday begins for CCP I assume, which leaves no time to prepare the maintenance window, which also is an unfortunate timing.

11 UTC has neither of those issues.

[Count_Felix]

@Gerard_Amatin

11 UTC has neither of those issues.

Thanks, it looks like we are locked with zero option for further debate.

@Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras

They have experimented twice removing DT.

Interesting that it had been tested at least.

@Kezrai_Charzai

You can at least take comfort in the fact that EVE’s downtime, although daily, is shorter by far than most games

Agree.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

Ccp was worried about asia and oceania

[Jonah_Gravenstein]

The Tranquillity server is hosted in a datacentre in the UK, and Iceland’s time zone is GMT; as such downtime is scheduled to happen during CCP’s office hours and when the datacentre hosting the server has a full complement of staff to handle any physical problems.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

Not that they were missing, but were not being replinishes. The quote above this, was ccps words

[MB_ThePhotographer]

Downtime works perfect for me anyway. I have an hr to drink my coffee while hardly anybody’s on before I go to work.

[ISD_Drew]

bumped this to Player Features & Ideas - EVE Online Forums

[Nyx_Viliana1 (Nyx Viliana)]

The average downtime is over in minutes. Players have no idea how easy they have things these days.