It feels kind of like we're beating a dead horse here, but we want to attack this problem from a different angle this time around. We understand what Blizzard are going for with Diablo 3, and we respect them for pursuing that vision with earnest. We understand that maintenance is part of a new online game launch, especially one attracting over 4 Million players.
What we don't understand however, is the need to lump the Australian and some Asian players into one collective blob, and tell them that joining a USA server is "good enough". To add insult to injury, on top of the problems one already faces while trying to play a fast-paced action game on an international server, Blizzard insist on running weekly (and sometimes almost daily) maintenance times in peak Australia and Asia playing time.
As mentioned, we understand the need for maintenance, and aren't complaining (too much) about the fact that it's happening. We simply want an answer as to why in our peak time? Before you all raise your hands to answer "because our peak time in USA off peak", how about you actually do the math, then think logically about other times of the day that are suitable to bring the USA servers down.
For arguments sake, let's list an example. Last week, the Australian servers came down from 6PM-12AM Australian EST. That's 6 hours of peak play time for Australia, while in the USA (more specifically California where the servers are hosted) it's 1am-7am maintenance, where you would assume there are very few people playing. That's true, there would be lower numbers playing at that time than normal, but there would also be nearly no people playing from 7am-4pm their time, and that would allow Australian gamers to keep their peak time, as the time for shutdown would be midnight-9am Sydney time.
The point we're trying to make here is there are other alternatives, with downtimes that could work on a global level, that have benefits to all nations. However, it appears Blizzard would rather keep the unemployed Americans playing the game before mid-day happy, while screwing over the hundreds of thousands of Australians, new Zealanders and Asian players who paid just as much to play.
Let's not even get started on the whole idea of staggering down time between SCII, WoW and D3, becasue that would also be too logical.
What do you think? Is there room for improvement on maintenance time allocation? Or should we just learn to live with the fact the game can't be played on Tuesdays?
