Dear S-E: Fuck you

[thistlechaser]

You're telling me you cannot come up with a better way of dealing with version updates? I changed my lunchtime at work so I could come home and start it... but of course it timed out and it wanted me to click buttons to make it try again. (Why? YOUR servers timed out a process I started, so WHY do you think that I might not want to have it try again? If it times out, why not have it just start the damned process again on its own? Why do you FORCE people to sit at their damned computers to try to make this happen?)

I got home three hours ago. Three fucking hours. And I'm still sitting here.

It takes many tries to get the version to check. 95% of the time that times out so it STARTS OVER FROM THE BEGINNING. On the very rare occasion the version check actually finishes, the download times out 98% of the time... which requires you to start at the beginning, with the version check.

You are honestly and seriously telling me that you could not come up with a better system than this?

Well yay, now the whole POL window is frozen. I'm going to have to X out of it, then the damned thing will cheerfully tell me to use the correct process for logging out, otherwise data could be lost.

S-E, why does it seem like everything you do is intended to make me hate this game? Guess what. You're succeeding.

Edit: Four hours of sitting here, trying and getting no where. Why is it that the one single time it got through the version check in the last hour, it failed the second it tried to start downloading, and had to start at the BEGINNING? It just checked the version a second ago, nothing changed other than the connection timing out...

I swear, the programmers/server admin/planners should be beaten. This could be handled so much better. More servers through the US and JP, some of the files downloaded days ago, but most importantly: WHEN THE PROCESS TIMES OUT, RESTART ON ITS OWN.

And no, typing in all caps is not making me feel any better at all. :(

Edit2: Yay. Five hour mark. Hitting "retry" over and over and over. Almost 9 PM. What a damned waste of the night this is. (But on the plus side, at least I didn't have to figure out anything to do online tonight! Bah...)

Edit3: Going on six hours. Six fucking hours. I have never, ever experienced a wait on updates this bad. And in the last two hours, how much progress have I made? I've only reached the download screen twice. Twice. "FFXI: When an in-game grind isn't enough!"

Comments

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

Your bouncing kitty head has clenchy fists of rage.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Don't mess with the bouncing kitty head of rage!

[eilonwey.livejournal.com]

We tried to get the version update from 6:30 last night until almost midnight. No dice.

I really think that it was the denial of service attacks from Chinese hackers that were causing the problems more than normal server overload. Because I've never had a version update that sucked as much as this one. Ever. Not even when CoP came out. And the only thing that was different this time was the Denial of Service attacks. The update didn't even turn out to be that big.

I was finally able to get my update at 8am this morning, and was able to start Neil's although I'm not sure if his went through or not.

It sucked, because this ruined our plans last night for our first static party in a few weeks. :(

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh, do they know the attacks are coming from China? Interesting. I had wondered if it was disgruntled players or WoW folks having a little fun... Maybe it's the gillsellers trying to show how mad they are about the crackdowns... or maybe just bored Chinese kids.

Sorry about your plans! Last night would have been great for partying or anything -- when I finally got on a few minute before 11, there were only 700 people on the whole server! Amazing. I almost considered staying up just for the chance to do some great farming, but I was so pissed at the game I wanted to do anything but play.

[eilonwey.livejournal.com]

There have been protests going on in China for weeks against Japan's bid to get on the UN Security council and for past atrocities during World War II.

Apparently the protests have now taken the form of hackers in China attacking Japanese websites. Including FFXI.

That's what I've heard, anyway.

[eilonwey.livejournal.com]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/10/china.japan.protest/

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

How very, very odd.

Thanks for the link!