Server Again....

[maximona]

Is the server still down again or is it just me??::cool:

[maximona]

What no body here??.. any body.. huh....:D

[charlesuk]

Still down....

The competitive element of this game is really becoming a lottery. If you're lucky enough to actually catch the server up and post a score there's every chance you'll finish well up any list.
With all the outages in the last season some of the winning scores were quite low simply because no-one could get on to play them.

[Keith]

It was mentioned yesterday in another thread.

There is no official support here. I have already sent a message to my contacts at Sierra about the servers last night. I'm just a volunteer moderator there, but I try to keep on them until the servers are come back up. That's all I can do.

[Keith]

I just rattled their cages again.

[charlesuk]

Hi Keith

Thanks for all your efforts, I'm certainly not criticising you and really do appreciate your work done on all of our behalves.
I would however really like to talk to someone at Sierra about how they run their business.

[Keith]

No, I know you aren't criticising me. I just feel sort of "responsible" for Caesar IV since I moderate boards for it there and I'm about as direct a connection to Sierra as most people will see on average. So I'm your "pebble in their shoe" for Caesar IV at Sierra.

A lot of people would love to have Sierra employees to speak their mind to..... ;)

[ADJB]

The lack of the most basic support for the online game means that when I go into town later today I will be looking for a new game to replace CIV on my laptop.

Given the experience of CIV I wont be including anything by Sierra or Tilted Mill in my shopping basket.

Sierra obviously don't care about CIV as a game (because there is no online revenue stream I suppose) so I see no reason why I should be adding to the sales figures. This is such basic support that is lacking from any professional IT standard.

Even my own servers text and email me when there's an outage.

It seems as if somebody has had a holiday project of "Knock up an automated web site to run a simple competition, has to be a standalone machine" or something similar. Then left said machine is a dusty cupboard out of the way never to be seen again.

Tilted Mill can't care much or if it was my company name being dragged into it I would be kicking Sierra to get something done or even brought the job in-house once its obvious Sierra have no intention of improving the standard of service.

I would suggest the reason is a simple money matter. Although there are a good few regular players I doubt if more than 100 players compete any given months comp. It doesn't have any revenue coming in so there is no incentive whatsoever to provide any support. That's just an avoidable overhead that will upset a very small number of people.

If this was WoW, HALO or any of the big online revenue producing titles you can bet that the person in charge of support would have been sacked by now. This level of service would have destroyed the above but those games produce big money online so its worth employing somebody competent to keep them running.

I'm not surprised by Sierra, I assume being shafted by big corporates is the norm nowadays, but I would have thought a smaller company like Tilted Mill would have had a lot more reason to protect there reputation.

Because TM work in a niche market (Compared to Sierra) they only survive by producing a quality product. The game itself is a quality product (I know there is the odd bug but they don't tend to be show stoppers and in games as complex as CIV I would be surprised if there wasn't a buglet or two lurking) but it is very easy to lose a reputation even if the reason is only by association.

As CIV is the first "City Builder" I have played it has set the standards of what I expect from online play and I am not impressed.

ADJB

[tobing]

The server is run by Vivendi, not TM. I'm very sure that the TMs are as angry as all online players are, but there's not much to do if Vivendi doesn't want to continue running an online CIV server. I tried to contact someone from Vivendi during the Games Convention, without success so far. I don't know if TM would be allowed to run another instance of that server on one of their machines, and I also don't know if they would be allowed to help fans to run such a server, too. In the long run, this will be the only viable way to go: Some fans pay for a server, and TM helps them run the server software required for CIV online play.

[Keith]

If you haven't already noticed the servers are back up again this morning.

I PM'd them yesterday and my administrator flagged it again for the people in the IT department.

[Jules]

looks like the server is down again or is it just me?

[sirius]

I wish I could just finish one city...

[Keith]

On it.

[Keith]

They are still down. I sent a message off last evening. My Sierra admin fired off a message flagging the problem.

Edited by Keith

[Rnett]

This is like the republicans & democrats, nobody takes responsibilty for anything.:mad:

[Governer Silius Cirilius]

The server is run by Vivendi, not TM. ..., but there's not much to do if Vivendi doesn't want to continue running an online CIV server... I don't know if TM would be allowed to run another instance of that server on one of their machines, and I also don't know if they would be allowed to help fans to run such a server, too.

What does this mean? How long will it last? How long will the option to play on any server last?

The game is advertised to be played online. It is on the box, and it is diplayed in bold @caesariv.com.

Is anybody responsible? Why don't we have a reliable server?

Thanks!

[Keith]

Just hang in there. They are aware of the failures, and are working on solution. That's all I can tell you.

[elebit]

This is like the republicans & democrats, nobody takes responsibilty for anything.:mad:

priceless answer!

[King Faticus]

you mean a permanent solution or just a quick 'get everybody to shut up' solution?

[Keith]

As of right now, the servers are back up and running. I now have a more direct contact to IT so as soon as I know they are down I can email them directly and let them know there is a problem.

[charlesuk]

The next issue beyond the servers being up and running is that we're now doing an exact repeat of the six cities from the last season?
If the seasons are set up on a rolling programme then it's gone wrong or if it's actually set up each season by someone at Sierra then they've been spectacularly lazy this time.
Also no medals are shown again. Is this going to be the third season skipped?

[Rnett]

Indeed, not a very astute group working over there.

[Kiya]

Also no medals are shown again. Is this going to be the third season skipped?
We here on TM forums can't do anything about the city issue (the same set of cities again) but I can offer you winners consolation medals if you like. :) ;) :)

[shellybell29]

Bah

Sometimes I get the feeling I won't be able to play online. I tried logging in and it says Server time out.

Earlier I was able to get a connection and then it says Cannot restablished Connection.

then I get something about to play reset orginal game files? Whatever that means.

So is anyone playing at this moment? Or can get a connection?:mad:

[Rnett]

I can log on, make sure your firewall isn't blocking you from logging on.

[shellybell29]

I disableld my firewall and it still isn't working. I'll try again. *sighs*

[Rnett]

Is it me or did the challenge contest completely collapse...:eek: