MithraPride

It's about 10 to 1AM EST and PlayOnline just crapped its pants. I got d/c'd then absolutely NO response from PlayOnline at all for quite some time. WTH?!

EDIT: And it seems their website shat its pants too. WTF is going on over there in California!?

Game just dropped me. Full moon just started too.

Server status says "Partially down" lol

JUST POSTED BY POL: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news2629.shtml

I don't care what the "From" section says - the thing just appeared on their site about 2 minutes ago. Apparently they broke something in the process. 23:00PDT = 1AM EST Coincidence?

What's odd is I can hit the update servers (POL viewer version check finishes OK), but I can't log in. Hrm ...

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From:PlayOnline
Sep. 15, 2004 21:50 [PDT]

PlayOnline Viewer Update (Sep. 15)

At the following time, we will be performing an update of the PlayOnline Viewer. There will be no server maintenance at this time. PlayOnline, Tetra Master and FINAL FANTASY XI will be online and play may continue as normal.

*The client software will also be updated at this time. Once this maintenance is completed, the client update will start automatically after connecting to PlayOnline. Please follow the instructions that appear on your screen.

[Date & Time]
Sep. 15, 2004 23:00 (PDT)

[Affected Services]
PlayOnline

[Main Content Changes]
An issue wherein the Information page accessed from the PlayOnline login screen is not displayed properly will be remedied.

Double post! Woo!

I got into PoL far enough to find an announcement saying they had to do an emergency all-world maintenance. Would explain a few things.

This is what we Everquest veterans refer to as a Expansion Meltdown. It's quite common in EQ, where SOE(Sony Online Entertainment) can't be bothered to properly test things in thier new big expansion on thier own Test server before cramming the badly made code onto all the Live servers. As a result, the game tends to be unplayable for no less than a week, and up to a month while they patch thier spaghetti code.

SE has been pretty good about this sort of thing so far....but then, most of us weren't around when Zilart went live, either...

First one: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news2660.shtml
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From:FINAL FANTASY XI
Sep. 15, 2004 22:06 [PDT]

All Worlds Technical Difficulties (Sep. 15)

We are experiencing technical difficulties in all areas on all Worlds in FINAL FANTASY XI. The issue is currently being addressed. New updates will follow as additional information becomes available.

We apologize for any inconvenience.



Second one: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news2666.shtml
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From:FINAL FANTASY XI
Sep. 15, 2004 22:24 [PDT]

Emergency All World Maintenance (Sep. 15)

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties when connecting to FINAL FANTASY XI. At the following time we will be conducting recovery maintenance on all worlds. During this period FINAL FANTASY XI will be unavailable.

An update will be posted as soon as the recovery work is finished. We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused.

[Affected Period]
Sep. 15, 2004 from 22:30 (PDT)

[Affected Services]
FINAL FANTASY XI

[Important Details]
Cannot connect to FINAL FANTASY XI

Crysta wrote: This is what we Everquest veterans refer to as a Expansion Meltdown. It's quite common in EQ, where SOE(Sony Online Entertainment) can't be bothered to properly test things in thier new big expansion on thier own Test server before cramming the badly made code onto all the Live servers. As a result, the game tends to be unplayable for no less than a week, and up to a month while they patch thier spaghetti code.

SE has been pretty good about this sort of thing so far....but then, most of us weren't around when Zilart went live, either...

Ahhh EQ, how I don't miss thee.

I was around for Zilart, and I don't know it it was because of it being the beta server, or dispite it, that expansion went smoothly. Disappointing to say the least.

www.playonline.com is deathly slow too. I don't think this is an expansion problem at all. I almost think it's some sort of DoS against Square Enix... wouldn't be the first time.

Updated info: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news2689.shtml

Seems bad network hardware may be to blame. More to come from PoL.

Oh, they also delayed the PoL Viewer update for a bit because of the trouble.

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From:FINAL FANTASY XI
Sep. 16, 2004 00:29 [PDT]

Emergency All Worlds Maintenance (Sep. 15): Addition

The cause of the technical difficulties occuring in FINAL FANTASY XI appear to be issues with the network hardware, however the specific cause has yet to be determined.

The client patch program may still be performed, however you may recieve an error when trying to connect to FINAL FANTASY XI.

We are still investigating the issue, and apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing.

[Affected Period]
Sep. 15, 2004 from 22:30 (PDT)

[Affected Services]
FINAL FANTASY XI

[Important Details]
Cannot connect to FINAL FANTASY XI

[Cause]
Still being determined

I have to be somewhat impressed at the hardware that's involved in this game, if they can lose a piece of hardware and not even be able to track it down after a whole hour.