Maintenance
Latest
Large Hadron Collider stops for two years of tune-ups, goes out on a high note (video)
We've long known that the Large Hadron Collider would need to take a break, but that doesn't take the edge off of the moment itself: as of Valentine's Day, the particle accelerator has conducted its last test for the next two years. The giant research ring will undergo sweeping repairs and upgrades that should should give it the superconducting connectors needed to hit the originally planned 14TeV of combined collision energy, versus the 8TeV it's been limited to almost since the beginning. CERN's machine arguably earned the downtime. After a rough start, it went on to produce rafts of collision data and healthy evidence of the elusive Higgs boson. If you're still down, think of the hiatus as doing us a favor -- it postpones any world-ending disasters until around 2015.
The Daily Grind: Does major downtime impact your opinion of a game?
If you haven't noticed, Lord of the Rings Online has been offline for a while. Like, a long while. It's the sort of thing that can produce a lot of ill-will from players despite the fact that technically the game itself hasn't changed in the slightest. The fact that the game has been down solely to address back-end issues is irrelevant -- players can have long memories and can be quite bitter about not being able to play their favorite games. Back when World of Warcraft first launched, many players were equally angry about the game's long periods of unexpected maintenance. Obviously it didn't have a long-term effect on the game's overall popularity, but it was an early blow to the game's population. So do extended downtimes impact your opinion of a game, or do you understand that it's a real possibility in any genre with so many moving technical parts? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Turbine's servers down 34 hours and counting, studio comps players
A period of global maintenance for Turbine's servers is now pushing well into its second day of downtime for all of the studio's games. Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and both Asheron's Call titles have been offline since 6:00 a.m. on February 14th. The servers were scheduled to be brought back online after 24 hours, but as of the time of this writing, they are still down as the studio works on issues that "cropped up during the night." The downtime was to overhaul the billing system and other back-end projects. LotRO CM Sapience posted this update at 4:20 p.m. EST: "We are working to resolve ongoing issues with our system maintenance. At this time we do not have a specific estimate for when the game servers will be available. Our goal is to make the games available as soon as possible. However we would like to advise players that the service may continue to be unavailable this evening. We will continue to provide updates as we have them. "As a thank you for your understanding and patience during this downtime, all Premium and VIP players who have logged into their account in the past 30 days (as of 6:00 a.m. EST on 2/14/2013) will receive 250 Turbine points. In addition, all VIP players who have logged in during the same period will have their accounts credited one day of VIP time for each day of downtime, plus one additional day. All points and additional time will be granted automatically as soon as our regular service is restored and stable."
PSA: Emergency Nintendo Network maintenance Jan. 28 and 29
Various Nintendo services, as well as a small handful of specific games, may experience issues of varying frequency and severity from 3 p.m. Eastern on Monday, January 28 through 8 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, January 29, as Nintendo will be conducting emergency network maintenance.The full maintenance schedule, which can be found here, includes work on Wii, Wii U, DS and 3DS eShops, as well as matchmaking for Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper and network services for Pokemon Black & White and Pokemon Black & White 2. We're not tremendously sure what kind of emergency can be caused by Pokemon networking issues, but we assume someone left a Voltorb in the server room and things went south.
PSA: PSN undergoing maintenance this Thursday
PlayStation Network will undergo maintenance this Thursday: 4pm-4am GMT in Europe, and 11am-11pm EST in North America. The PlayStation Store will be down for that period, but online play will be available if you're already signed in.
Maintenance downtime extended
Blizzard's Customer Support Team has announced via Twitter that maintenance downtime has been extended to 1 p.m. PST for both World of Warcraft and Diablo 3. #WoW and #D3 #Maintenance has been extended until 1PM PST. We'll provide additional updates as they become available to us. - BlizzardCS (@BlizzardCS) December 11, 2012 As always, WoW Insider will keep readers abreast of any new updates to the situation, but if you're at a loss for what to do while the servers are down, Daniel Whitcomb put together this morning's Last Week In WoW, in which he predicted some downtime, as well as putting together the best of this week's news in one handy article. If that's not enough reading for you, WoW Insider has just put out a call for writers, and, of course, posted last night about the latest set of hotfixes. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
PSA: PSN down for maintenance Monday, December 3
PlayStation Network is scheduled for maintenance Monday, December 3, and will be down from 8am PT/11am ET to 4pm PT/7pm ET.Those that have signed in to PSN in the last few days or do so this weekend shouldn't be affected by the maintenance period and can play online Monday. PlayStation Home, the PlayStation Store and account management sections are off-limits, however.
Diablo 3 Paragon update rolling out today
Diablo 3 patch 1.0.4, which features end-game changes announced just yesterday, is set to be released sometime today. Servers will be down for maintenance throughout the day in order to prepare for the patch.Maintenance is already underway in North America and should be finished by 1:00pm PDT. European maintenance will run from 8:00pm PDT tonight through 6:00am tomorrow, and Asian maintenance will begin tomorrow at 11:00am PDT and run through 11:00pm. Once the maintenance is complete, the patch will begin rolling out in each region. Blizzard warns players in the Americas that global play will be inaccessible in Europe and Asia until the patch is deployed in each region.The patch is designed to improve the experience for high-level Diablo 3 players, most notably adding the Paragon system. The system features 100 new levels for level 60 players to achieve, replete with bonuses to base stats, increased magic find and ... nifty character portrait frames. Head over to the Diablo 3 forums for the full patch notes.
iFixit produces repair manual for MacBook Pro with Retina display, tests DIY's limits
While we've been fans of the MacBook Pro with Retina display, iFixit hasn't been so keen -- a company based around DIY repairs isn't fond of a system where most components are glued or soldered into place. That hasn't stopped the team from developing a repair manual for those who want to give maintenance a try. A total of 16 guides show us how to disassemble or remove those parts that stand a realistic chance of leaving the system unscathed. While that does include some key components, iFixit continues to fly some caution flags: getting to one part often requires taking apart others, and removing the battery carries the very real possibility of permanent damage. If you'd still prefer to upgrade the SSD yourself (when an option) than pay Apple more for a custom order, there's now a helping hand for your thriftiness.
PSA: PSN maintenance tonight, should last two hours
Starting at 12am PT (3am ET), PSN will be down for around two hours in North America. It looks like Europe won't be affected this time.The routine maintenance will go down basically the same as last week's maintenance – if you signed into PSN in the last few days, you should have no problem accessing apps and playing games during the downtime; however, if you haven't logged in recently, you'll be shut out. Relax, you still have some time to log in!The PlayStation Blog says PSN should be back up and running around 2am PT (5am ET). During the maintenance, both the PSN Store and Account Management will be inaccessible.
PSA: PSN scheduled downtime hits Europe on Thursday
PlayStation Network is scheduled for a bit of summer cleaning in Europe this week, and will be offline from Thursday, July 26 at 4 p.m. to Friday, July 27 at 8 p.m. BST. The downtime affects Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates.Players in thee regions will be unable to access the PlayStation Store via the PS3, PSP or Vita, and the account management and registration pages will be down. To play online during the maintenance, sign into PSN before maintenance begins, though the aforementioned services will still be unavailable. Any trophies earned during the downtime will be added to profiles once PSN is back up and shiny.
EA's Origin servers offline tonight for maintenance
Electronic Arts has posted a notice stating that its Origin servers will be offline tonight from 10 p.m. until 11:59 p.m. Pacific. The notice adds that Origin will only be available in offline mode during the maintenance and that multiplayer in Origin titles will be unavailable. Presumably, this applies to both the PC and console versions of titles that require an Origin login. Furthermore, any Origin purchases made during the outage will only be fulfilled once the maintenance is complete.EA notes that regular maintenance allows the company to prepare Origin for "for bigger changes in the weeks and months ahead." Such updates could include the promised additions and fixes that will be implemented in Origin 9.0.
PSA: Diablo 3 down for maintenance today
If you were about to load up Diablo 3, you might want to think about going in to work today instead. Blizzard has taken the game down for maintenance starting today at 3am PDT, so it can get patch 1.0.3 ready. The game will be back online at "approximately" 1pm PDT (4pm EDT), Blizzard reports, so you'll be able to download the patch and get back online sometime around then. Europe and Asia won't go under maintenance until 3am CEST tomorrow (9pm EDT tonight), running through 1pm CEST, so don't expect to log into Global Play (or into the game, if you're in Europe or Asia) at that time.
PlayStation Network scheduled for maintenance starting at 8AM (PST)
Today's public service announcement is brought to you by the letter "M." That would be "M" as in maintenance, which is what the PlayStation Network will be going through from 8AM (PST) to 11PM. The outage means that both the PlayStation Store and PlayStation Home might not be accessible while Sony does its maintenance magic. "B-b-but, I'm supposed to be credit farming Firebase White with my Mass Effect 3 buddies during that exact, same time," you say? Chill, buddy -- the maintenance won't affect online play so you can continue to abuse those hapless, chirping Geth. Folks who signed in to PSN within the last five days will still be able to access apps like Amazon Instant Video and Netflix as well. Hey, it could always be worse, you know.
PSN scheduled maintenance tomorrow, some apps to be down
The following is a PSA for all the PSN users out there, calibrated in PSI and utilizing linguistic psychology: The PlayStation Network is undergoing scheduled maintenance on Thursday, May 24, from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. PDT.The PlayStation Store and PlayStation Home may not be accessible during this time, but online play and other apps such as Netflix and Amazon Instant will run as normal, provided you've signed into the network at least five days prior to Thursday. This means do it now if you have big PSN plans tomorrow.
Wings Over Atreia: 3.0 -- it's heeere!
Awwwww yeah! Update 3.0, baby! Come to me, features. Like Christmas for a five-year-old, this day seemed like it would never arrive for those of us who have been waiting for Aion's patch for what feels like forever. And ever. And then some. Aion: Ascension certainly took its jolly sweet time getting here, but now it finally has. Even better, you don't have to dodge creepy clowns or be sucked into a television screen to enjoy it. Now the question is, is the product really worth the hype? I know I have certainly dished out a fair portion of hype in Wings Over Atreia over the past couple of months while sharing my excitement. Too many delectable features were on the menu, things that would breathe more life into the game, for me not to indulge a bit. But as with any hype, there is always a chance for things to not live up to expectations. So is the new patch as grand and glorious as hoped? After my first few days in game, my answer is a definite...%Gallery-153202%
PSA: PlayStation Network goes down for maintenance from 9am EST
Sony is taking its PlayStation Network offline for another health check, starting this morning. During the 13-hour tune-up, you won't be able to access PlayStation Home, Store, their account or play online. Similarly, official PlayStation sites will also go down, but you can steel yourself through those offline hours by checking on the PlayStation Twitter account, which will provide all the latest details.
PSA: 13-hour PSN maintenance begins tomorrow morning
It's time once again for the PlayStation Network to be poked, prodded and generally fiddled around with by Sony's countless technicians and maintenance cyborgs. As per usual, 13 hours chock full of network rejiggering are scheduled to begin tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. EST, during which time the PSN Store, PlayStation Home, Account Management services and online play will be unavailable.PlayStation websites hosted on PSN servers, like the Official PlayStation Blog, will also be offline during maintenance. The official PlayStation Twitter account, however, will continue to function properly, since it's on Twitter and everything. Updates regarding maintenance can be found there, though extended periods of downtime are usually situations where no news is good news.
Star Wars: The Old Republic's patch 1.2 goes live April 12th
It's almost time for Star Wars: The Old Republic players to begin forging their legacies. BioWare announced today that the game's patch 1.2: Legacy update will be hitting the live servers this Thursday, April 12th, which will certainly come as welcome news to fans of the title. In addition to the next steps of the game's Legacy system, which our own Larry Everett has covered previously, the patch will also be bringing a wealth of new content for PvE and PvP players alike. For the former crowd, BioWare is adding a new Flashpoint known as The Lost Island and the new Explosive Conflict Operation. Players in the latter camp will be able to get their player-vs.-player jollies in the new Novare Coast Warzone, which pits Empire against Republic in a capture-and-control gametype. And of course, players of all playstyles will finally be able to tweak and customize their UIs as it suits their playstyles. For the full details on the upcoming patch and its corresponding maintenance, just head on over to the official site.
PSN down for maintenance tomorrow, for real this time
That "significant" PSN maintenance that was originally scheduled for last Thursday (and subsequently delayed) is so totally happening tomorrow, scheduled to start at 3 PM Eastern and expected to last until 5 AM Eastern the following morning.All users will be automatically signed out, and all PSN services (including online play, the PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home, Account Management and official websites like the PlayStation Blog) will all be offline and inaccesible. Thankfully, last Thursday's delay gave us time to prepare an Extended PSN Maintenance Survival Kit, which is essentially a Rainbow Brite lunchbox full of beef jerky and Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law DVDs.
