Server Update Suggestion

DevManiac

DevManiac

Swashbuckler
I have an idea that I think would help with player loyalty. Many of us have limited times that we can play the game. Friday night and Saturday night is a prime time for us to play.

My suggestion is: don't do server updates on the weekend and especially Friday night which is a prime playing time. Perhaps early Saturday morning would be appropriate if they MUST be done on a weekend. But any week day would be ideal. A week night would be a good "Plan B" if week days are not possible due to schedule conflicts.

The more you leave the weekends alone, the more you will build up your player base! Which I am sure is something you desire to do. Also, folks like me who play regularly are more likely to spread the word about the game to friends if we know that our friends are not going to have a bad experience by installing the game on a weekend, only to find the server is down.
 
That sound nice but the TLOPO crew have limited times to get these done not just a M - F 9 - 5 job per say ! Keep wishing though ! lol
 
ThunderStorms said:
That sound nice but the TLOPO crew have limited times to get these done not just a M - F 9 - 5 job per say ! Keep wishing though ! lol
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Unfortunately that is an irrelevant reply. There are 120 hours in the week besides an additional 12-20 on weekends when population is really low. Perhaps you should not comment if you can't do the math? Your reply does not disqualify my suggestion in any way! Thanks though... I think.
 
DevManiac said:
Unfortunately that is an irrelevant reply. There are 120 hours in the week besides an additional 12-20 on weekends when population is really low. Perhaps you should not comment if you can't do the math? Your reply does not disqualify my suggestion in any way! Thanks though... I think.
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You're a Rude lil kid aren't you ???"
 
I disagree with your assessment that Thunder Storms post is irrelevant. The developers are working hard on their own time and it is certainly true that the time they have free to implement updates is often the same time as testers have to play the game. At this point in the development I suggest it is most important to let the developers do their thing when ever they have time to do it. It certainly would be nice if they could implement updates midday midweek and I have no issue with that suggestion I just don't think it's practical. I also would like to say that I disagree with Thunder Storms escalating the negative side of this thread.
 
Eric Sailcutter said:
I disagree with your assessment that Thunder Storms post is irrelevant. The developers are working hard on their own time and it is certainly true that the time they have free to implement updates is often the same time as testers have to play the game. At this point in the development I suggest it is most important to let the developers do their thing when ever they have time to do it. It certainly would be nice if they could implement updates midday midweek and I have no issue with that suggestion I just don't think it's practical. I also would like to say that I disagree with Thunder Storms escalating the negative side of this thread.
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lol
 
DevManiac said:
I have an idea that I think would help with player loyalty. Many of us have limited times that we can play the game. Friday night and Saturday night is a prime time for us to play.

My suggestion is: don't do server updates on the weekend and especially Friday night which is a prime playing time. Perhaps early Saturday morning would be appropriate if they MUST be done on a weekend. But any week day would be ideal. A week night would be a good "Plan B" if week days are not possible due to schedule conflicts.

The more you leave the weekends alone, the more you will build up your player base! Which I am sure is something you desire to do. Also, folks like me who play regularly are more likely to spread the word about the game to friends if we know that our friends are not going to have a bad experience by installing the game on a weekend, only to find the server is down.
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From my time working there, many of their staff are full time students and/or have full time jobs. They do their best to get these updates out at a reasonable time, but sometimes it doesn't work that way.

This seems to be a MASSIVE update according to their status page:
e3d3b5783fedc5b6ecaf825ad077eee8.png


Now this might just be me, but it always seems like no matter what TLOPO does they're somehow wrong. If they deploy the update at 5AM, they'll get screamed out just as much. The updates usually do not take long - and often the game is much more stable as a result of them. Building off this, frequent updates are not necessarily a bad thing. It means the team cares about the game and the community and tries to get as much content out as possible.
 
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DevManiac said:
Unfortunately that is an irrelevant reply. There are 120 hours in the week besides an additional 12-20 on weekends when population is really low. Perhaps you should not comment if you can't do the math? Your reply does not disqualify my suggestion in any way! Thanks though... I think.
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I think you probably just misunderstood Thunder's reply. Basically, the Dev's have the same schedule you do, they all have full time jobs as well, and evenings and weekends may be their free time to work on Tlopo. Free time is appropriate here because I believe all Dev's on this team are not paid and volunteer their time.
Gl.

OOps, sorry Mr. Wass, I did not read ahead and see you've spoken from experience. Thanks.
 
Mike Wass said:
From my time working there, many of their staff are full time students and/or have full time jobs. They do their best to get these updates out at a reasonable time, but sometimes it doesn't work that way.

This seems to be a MASSIVE update according to their status page:
e3d3b5783fedc5b6ecaf825ad077eee8.png
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Thanks Mike for the info. I have a question though. Before I posted this OP at 6:48 PM, I went to the status page (https://status.tlopo.com/) and all it said was the game was down for an update. Can you tell me where you found the update announcement you referenced above? I would like to track it rather than the one that just told me the obvious : "game is down..." message.

Perhaps a more intuitive message on the status.tlopo.com would be advantages to to those who play the game regularly as we make up a massive (unpaid) QA team for the developers.

Lastly, as a software developer myself who has been programming since FORTRAN IV in 1976, I understand the need for quality updates. But I also realize much more can be obtained to help the developers by just opening up the lines of communication between the dev team and the end users. It should be a win/win, not a lose/lose competition.
 
DevManiac said:
Thanks Mike for the info. I have a question though. Before I posted this OP at 6:48 PM, I went to the status page (https://status.tlopo.com/) and all it said was the game was down for an update. Can you tell me where you found the update announcement you referenced above? I would like to track it rather than the one that just told me the obvious : "game is down..." message.

Perhaps a more intuitive message on the status.tlopo.com would be advantages to to those who play the game regularly as we make up a massive (unpaid) QA team for the developers.

Lastly, as a software developer myself who has been programming since FORTRAN IV in 1976, I understand the need for quality updates. But I also realize much more can be obtained to help the developers by just opening up the lines of communication between the dev team and the end users. It should be a win/win, not a lose/lose competition.
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I just look at https://status.tlopo.com/ for the information. They were doing an update just now, but the one I referenced above was last nights.
 
I have been very impressed by the communication between the testers and the TLOPO Devs here on the forums.

I've been on many games and their forums in their testing stage as well as finished product, and I hardly ever saw a developer personally reply to anyone's questions or problems. Almost like it's below them to talk to general testers.

Here you could be a new member and write you very first post asking about the game, and often see a staff member happily talk to you about it.

Together, the TLOPO team and this community have the mutual aim of making this project successful.
And that ONLY happens with teamwork and constructive feedback and general strong communication.

As far as update timing..
All the staff at TLOPO as well as on the Forums are doing all the work outside of their own busy collage/work/family lives and that means they might only find that spare time at the weekends or evening just like the rest of us. They don't do it on purpose but sometimes it just can't be helped.
People want bug fixes and they try their best to deliver as soon as they can.
 
DevManiac said:
Perhaps a more intuitive message on the status.tlopo.com would be advantages to to those who play the game regularly as we make up a massive (unpaid) QA team for the developers.
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Just wanted to point out that, on the other side of things, the developers are also unpaid. The game is a hobby project run by volunteers who donate both their time and money (they pay out-of-pocket to keep the game running) to give this massive group of people a completely free game. That's not to say there's no room for improvement, but it's important to put things into perspective.

The updates coincide with peak periods because the developers also have day jobs and lives outside of working on the game, meaning most of their spare time to work on it coincides with your spare time to play it. For this reason, updates will generally occur during the daytime hours (weekends included). I understand it's not ideal, but that's the situation we're working with.
 
Davy Darkrage said:
Just wanted to point out that, on the other side of things, the developers are also unpaid. The game is a hobby project run by volunteers who donate both their time and money (they pay out-of-pocket to keep the game running) to give this massive group of people a completely free game. That's not to say there's no room for improvement, but it's important to put things into perspective.

The updates coincide with peak periods because the developers also have day jobs and lives outside of working on the game, meaning most of their spare time to work on it coincides with your spare time to play it. For this reason, updates will generally occur during the daytime hours (weekends included). I understand it's not ideal, but that's the situation we're working with.
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Can you like, sticky this or make it a permanent message header on the forums or tlopo main page? Many many new people jump on the forums and complain without reading the forums or whats happening. I'm pretty sure 95% of these new people do not mean to come off as mean or derogatory, they just don't read first and know what's up.
I think it may help the general community.
Thanks for all you guys do Dev's and forum people.
 
squintz said:
Can you like, sticky this or make it a permanent message header on the forums or tlopo main page? Many many new people jump on the forums and complain without reading the forums or whats happening. I'm pretty sure 95% of these new people do not mean to come off as mean or derogatory, they just don't read first and know what's up.
I think it may help the general community.
Thanks for all you guys do Dev's and forum people.
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As a person who spends his daily life making signs for people to read so they do not have to bug someone for answers to questions that get answered multiple times a day. As well as someone who runs an unrelated forum and have for almost 20 years. No matter how many times a question like this is asked ans answered and repeated. Those that want to come on here solely to complain about something that is beyond anyone here's control they will just start a new thread because they are lazy and it is too easy to do so.

Just go look in the bugs sub-forum. There is a thread from just the other night from a guy informing us that cannon defense mini-game doesn't work. When I told him it wasn't and had been disabled we wanted to know where it was stated. If you search just that sub-forum you will find dozens of posts with related information as well as several dedicated threads. But they could not be bothered with the search feature. Takes too much effort on their part.
 
I don't know how often I actually get to play on here earlier then 8 pm but most often when I do there always seems to be an update running or about to run ( Seldom am I on before 8 PM BTW ) .... lol ... oh well ... onto something in between time , read forum , answer questions if able to and just listen to some U Tube ! I just chill , More then I can say that the TLOPO Crew get to do just after completeing their full day of Mayhem !
 
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