Server hardware failure??

[LordFirefall]

You're talking about the same Quark that proudly announced top 25 in AppStore revenue? Queue expander and 3 res boosts are worth 200 gold that is good $10. Now just think about how much money Quark makes each time they open a new world and each week after that! Now obviously you're familiar with IT stuff and prices - how much do you think they'll need to build a double-resilience? I'm not talking about complicated scenarios with 2+ redundancy factors.

Without seeing their current operation, I couldn't say. However, when I look at the amount of job openings they have, the salaries those jobs command, as well as projects I know are in the works, its a matter of deciding where best to dedicate resources. I'm willing to deal with a 2-3 day outage, every 4-5 months, if it means they fill some of the positions they have open and are able to improve stability and MCM.

[mclueppers2]

Without seeing their current operation, I couldn't say. However, when I look at the amount of job openings they have, the salaries those jobs command, as well as projects I know are in the works, its a matter of deciding where best to dedicate resources. I'm willing to deal with a 2-3 day outage, every 4-5 months, if it means they fill some of the positions they have open and are able to improve stability and MCM.

It's a gambling when you put staffing without securing the only source of income. Quark just went all in for second time and without surprise lost again. The question is how longer the players will keep up with the company.
Btw. 3 days later all I hear is that people are actually intending to quit the game because of this unreliable service. I can't afford spending my money for such a service too. Every time Quark has a problem it's for more than 2 days.

[Plaperriere]

It gives you a better insight than most. In your case, double and triple redundancies would be appropriate. However, Quark does not have the same level of loss potential. As such, how is it a sound business decision for them to have that same level of redundancy?

We are approaching two days of outage right now. While I don't like it, it's not unreasonable for them.

Seriously Fire? Do you work for Quark? All you keep doing is protecting and defending them, when (as I posted yesterday, and others are posting today)...they told us last time they would not let this happen again. Period. Without the paying customers, all this glamour, the forums, the GAME, doesnt exist! Period. Do you comprehend that? The fact is, those of us who choose to continue to dump cash into this game, and make it free for everyone else...have an absolute right to complain and demand better service. Whether you like it or not, or throw every scenario how "cost effectiveness" versus "risk" is why this happened again...is irrelevant. You want to make money, you have to spend it. Stop spending it on the game for now, and spend it on reliability. This isnt Call of Duty, Company of Heroes, or other strategy games that require real time graphics and powerful graphics cards. We play on a Phone or Tablet for Christ sake. If it is a question of competent help, find someone else. They paid a lot of money I assume to bring in Orlor to make good changes to the playability of the game...do the same for the most important part of the game, and get Admins that understand what needs to be done to keep it up and running! The sad thing is, I am held hostage at this point to wait and play because I have gold sitting in my account that I paid for. I can't quit, because its like throwing the money out the window. So, I absolutely have a right to find out why they continue to blow smoke up my a** when it comes to empty promises of fixing things. If I wanted that, I would just continue to watch what Washington does in Congress!

[AIXV]

Where can I send my resume? Your team is so fired.

[BikerMike]

http://www.idera.com/en/ProductsSolutions/FreeTools/ServerBackupFree.aspx?utm_source=spiceworks&utm_medium=tpe&utm_campaign=SBft&utm_content=130424-TPE-SBft

[Pontiacguy]

Its better if they post something and nothing , its like ghost town no reply from any in Quark team
how hard can it be to fix a hardware problem many vendor have parts in stock
or do they drive to the colocation instead of plane
it shall not take over 2 days to fix it
it will be people dropping the game because of this and its alot of other online game simular to this
and many more if you turn it back to older working backup , putting all in truce will not solve anything
and the defender is the winner no mater what.
they will getting lost city back and knowing what will come later
and for me I just had just spent over 14 hours collecting scholarship from every city( +1400) that i had and no gold in the
world will bring that time back
and gold is not solving anything , its a easy way to make some happy and it not costning them 0$
I have played since world 2 in over 2 years now but this might be the end of it know

please update us more on what is happening or have you all gone home and closed the company.
and if you cant bring it back in an other 2 days you dont need to bring it back at all

[Bbloksma]

I guess it is more then just simple server failure by now. Any business server has a 24x7 4h support contract so after max 12 hours the physical server should be up again. So I guess it is now a database corruption which they are trying to fix but.. By now maybe they have a situation where they have realize there is going to be some data loss and they need to fall back on a "recent backup". In this case it is probably useless to spend another 12 hours to restore (most of) the last 12 hours game action.
Just let us know what will be lost, everything after mm/dd hh:mm VT and give us a preplanned up time, server will accept incomming at mm/dd hh:00 VT. Of course we will then all complain the server is overloaded because EVERYONE tries to get in at the same time, but what the heck. ;-)

[mclueppers2]

I guess it is more then just simple server failure by now. Any business server has a 24x7 4h support contract so after max 12 hours the physical server should be up again. So I guess it is now a database corruption which they are trying to fix but.. By now maybe they have a situation where they have realize there is going to be some data loss and they need to fall back on a "recent backup". In this case it is probably useless to spend another 12 hours to restore (most of) the last 12 hours game action.
Just let us know what will be lost, everything after mm/dd hh:mm VT and give us a preplanned up time, server will accept incomming at mm/dd hh:00 VT. Of course we will then all complain the server is overloaded because EVERYONE tries to get in at the same time, but what the heck. ;-)

Even if it sounds like a plan I don't accept a roll back in time. With or without gold some actions in this game require time and nothing can compensate it. Or you want to wait again until you have enough troops to cap your next target? What with the guilds that needed to cap only 20 LCs in order to win? All this hard work and coordination for nothing?

[DirtySouthATL]

This isn't exactly like they are hitting "restore to last know good configuration" on a windows computer. Lol.

[Carloboy]

I'd be interested to know how many of the tech experts here have ever actually ran a tech department in a decent size company. If so, did you have unlimited funds, or did you have constraints on what you could spend? Every decision I've ever had to make ended up boiling down to having more needs and wants than actual budget. As such, it forced me to make hard decisions and assume a fair amount of risk. Functional decisions boiled down to winnowing down a dozen great ideas down to the 1-2 I could afford, and everyone thought their great idea should be one of those 1-2.

I understand your point there on budgeting constraints, i do own a server company and while i dont have unlimited funds, i have in my budget a backup plan which is an integral part of my expenses that i consider essential. It doesn't even occur in my decisions to cut/reduce something that will, in a event of failure, keep my business up and running. For every server i host, i have a complete identical server ready on hand to replace as a whole or in parts.

you seem to at least get the management and financial part of any business, are you really going to think about not budgeting for risk management? Servers can run for months even a few years non stop, but the risk of it going down is still 100%, its not a question of if but when. Hedging this risk even with a minimal backup plan saves you money and clients in the long run. Running a company without one is a joke.

I worked for one of the largest IT firms in the world and we have fortune 500 comapanies as clients who rely on our IT expertise to run their infrastructure...you know what happens when an office goes offline (ie: lost power, no network connection, or building repairs)? We have in place an entirely secure separate office location pre-built ready for use anytime so client employees can work there. Business continuance practices....even minimal should be at the core of every company. If you dont have one, you're not worth putting money in.