Server down 05/19/08

[acraig]

I guess we are not doing too bad if we can bring out this level of emotion

[Raa]

You know what, this thread needs to shut up. I request a lock.

[neko kyouran]

[Izzabella]

I lol'ed!

[Mythryndel]

I know that there is a fine line between too little and too much information... but if there is a known issue, or they are going to give a message in-game about some form of maintenance, it would be nice if they posted something either under server status, or even use the "News Box" that is always blank. We, as players, aren't concerned about which bits and bytes they are messing with. It would simply be nice to know if the server is likely to be flaky or not. Perhaps we need to add a PS weather gauge to the forums... there is a 50% chance of downtime today. 5 day forecast is as follows...

Seriously though, some status if they are actively making changes would be nice. Knowing that it is down "right now" doesn't tell you how long it has been down or any possible estimate for when it might be back.

[EDIT] neko... LOVE the pic!

[Izzabella]

If you want to know how long its been down you can get on IRC and join #Planeshift and ask pingo hes the pining bot. just say "pingo ping the server" however if the server is down for too long they mute him cause of all the flood he makes if too many people as him... but its worth a shot.

[Mythryndel]

pingo works on just the PS [EDIT]service? If http://laanx.fragnetics.com/ responds, then the physical server will respond to pings. It was my understanding that JUST the game was down, not the physical server. I am not trying to be contrary, just trying to make sure the suggestion covers what people really would like to know.

I have a service monitoring perl script that I use for lots of things. It is very basic, but it checks every X minutes and sends an alert (usually e-mail) to an admin when it is not responding... and again every X minutes until it starts responding again. I would be happy to modify this to put a status in the "News Box" and it would give a delta time since last responding. This should prevent a significant portion of the posts like this one.

The other thing that would be nice is if any intentional maintenance (AKA NOT a crash) would be announced and give players fair warning that the server might be flaky for a few hours/days. If this is pre-planned maint then it should not be too much to ask for a 30 second post before and after the maint event. If, as I understand it this time, there was an announcement made in-game. That is great... but what about those that weren't in-game to get that announcement?

PLEASE don't take this as griping, but as me seriously offering help and advice to keep the devs from getting frustrated with the players, and to keep the players from badgering the devs as much as possible while still keeping them informed.

[Hrothbert]

Hey I am sure that the devs appreciate all the help that people try to give but after being in game for maybe 6 months I have seen numerous warnings come on screen at 5 min to 1 min till server restart/shutdown for maintenance. I, in my sort time here, have found that they try hard to warn all the active players about when it is down for service.

Problem occurs here as well as the IRC that those who are just trying to log on that seem to ping pingo and leave, or start these server down threads, I find if one just stays around a little while even down time can be rewarding with a laugh or two in the IRC or Forums