starving while Server Down for Maintainance?

[Krn3ll]

"Server Down for Maintainance!

The Server is down for maintainance! Please be patient and come back later! Your SlipShift Team!"

Ok, obviously sometimes the server should be fixed or updated.

Just a question: lets say my army is in negative food production and lives upon raids, and its time for them to find new food by raids and the servers is down, will they starve due to server side decision?

[Buffius]

jees, this sucks. half an hour my lilly white a**, got valuable farming time im missing.
starving troops need to be fed.....

[Snipah]

You won't lose troops if you have 0 food. No need to worry about it.

Snipah

[Mr PA]

I agree server needs maintenance sometimes and I have no problem with that. But Reborn Empire being a strategy/building/war game, it would have been respectfull and a simple mark of courtesy to warn the players!

Get that cute girl in leather that always welcomes me to warn me instead of the game stopping and having the server down message . Alot of players probably had there troops out and might have to leave before server is back up.

If I wanted to send my troops to help a friend or simply hide them, what will I do with no computer at my disposal???

Will my troops be anihilated by some1 who will take advantage of this situation?

Will there be a general truce for every player until he logs back on?

Will the resources saved for a big upgrade I was about to start still be available or will I have been raided and lost all the time I put into farming them?

I know my situation would be different if I was given time to prepare. This unannounced maintenance has kept me from using my usual strategies and has left me vulnarable. How will you handle this situation and allow players to come back and be at the same point they were before maintenance?

Will there be a warning next time?

I completly understand maintenance but without warning ? Not even a thread on forum before it started ? Is maintenance that random? Come on DC, you can do better then that!!!

[Excrucio]

Game is back up btw.

[Snipah]

Hi Mr PA,

There was a warning in the chat before the maintenance. One of SlipShift Employees always comes into the chat and warns about 30 minutes before the maintenance.

Snipah

[Sinful]

I agree server needs maintenance sometimes and I have no problem with that. But Reborn Empire being a strategy/building/war game, it would have been respectfull and a simple mark of courtesy to warn the players!

Get that cute girl in leather that always welcomes me to warn me instead of the game stopping and having the server down message . Alot of players probably had there troops out and might have to leave before server is back up.

If I wanted to send my troops to help a friend or simply hide them, what will I do with no computer at my disposal???

Will my troops be anihilated by some1 who will take advantage of this situation?

Will there be a general truce for every player until he logs back on?

Will the resources saved for a big upgrade I was about to start still be available or will I have been raided and lost all the time I put into farming them?

I know my situation would be different if I was given time to prepare. This unannounced maintenance has kept me from using my usual strategies and has left me vulnarable. How will you handle this situation and allow players to come back and be at the same point they were before maintenance?

Will there be a warning next time?

I completly understand maintenance but without warning ? Not even a thread on forum before it started ? Is maintenance that random? Come on DC, you can do better then that!!!

When the server goes down for you, it goes down for everyone. You do not need to worry about whether or not you will get attacked during this time, no one can access the game when they take down the server for maintenance.

For the others near the top of this thread, playing this game takes planning. When the server goes down, who's fault is it that your food is at a deficit in production? Not the developers or staff.

[Krn3ll]

When the server goes down for you, it goes down for everyone. You do not need to worry about whether or not you will get attacked during this time, no one can access the game when they take down the server for maintenance.

For the others near the top of this thread, playing this game takes planning. When the server goes down, who's fault is it that your food is at a deficit in production? Not the developers or staff.

Well, the fact that the server goes down for everyone does not change the point about attacking: if i send an attack to a player who cannot detect it for 30 minutes right after the warning in chat, he will never see it coming and i will take advantage of the server downtime to hit him while he have no chance to know it.

On the other hand, as you said this game is based on planning, that's why those like me who upkeep their troops with raids calculate the right timing to be back and raid more food and avoid starving. If when the time comes the server is down (and not for a minute or ten but for half an hour or more) then its exactly the planning thing that is screwed.

Then again, advising in main chat some minutes prior the blackout is nice, but not really effective. Some may not see it, some may not have the chat active, some may just log in after the message is gone and the like. If a maintenance downtime is planned from long time, then a global game message should be much effective to inform everyone. Of course when the server goes down for a minute or two the problems will be a lot mess, even if, for some coordinate attacking/defending issues it may ruin plans. Anyway, very short downtimes are in the order of things for an online game.

To avoid pretty all problems I would suggest instead to activate a simple clock-stopping for everything during the downtime of the server - be it a minute or two hours. When server goes down it just freezes everything and restart it when it comes up again. This way all people should have to change some planning but noone will be able to take advantage or sustain losses.


One more thing: snipah stated you will not lose troops even if food is at 0. How is that? I mean, troops will NOT starve and die if you are in negative production and run out of food? What the upkeep limit is about, then?

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Krn3ll

[Cannonfodder57]

The upkeep limit is about to be introduced, but hasn't yet. Currently maintenance will not affect upkeep in any way. However it is a valid concern once the next update kicks in. Personally I'm in favour of an opt in where Dchoc could send out a mail a few hours ahead of time to say it was happenning. It's not like these things aren't generally planned in advance.