Roll on the PA Comedy of Errors

[Andy_r]

As one of the old players who left, I'm one of the people who Jolt/PA are trying to entice back with this free mini-round.

Frankly, I'm not impressed with the current performance.

We all know PA has server issues, and probably always will. The issue here is that it seems to come as a complete surprise to the creators each time, there is still no set procedure for coping with it, and we have this sort of shambles where the ops in #planetarion don't seem to know any more than the players.

Is it really so difficult for the ticker code to check if pages are being served and automatically stop if they are not?

Is it really so difficult to backup the database each tick and restore to that data if there is a problem?

Is it really so difficult to establish a procedure (such as announcements, giving us a few hours warning of the restart so we don't have to hang in #planetarion for hours in case we get 1 minute's warning that it will tick, where attacks are affected automatically compensating both sides, and so on) for dealing with server issues - I don't mind what the procedure is, but it needs to be standardised, so we all know where we stand when things go wrong again.

I understand the decision to stop development on round 9, but round 10 needs to be built to cope with the server problems that are (unfortunately) inevitable.

[Dave]

Originally posted by Mit
there are now 6 (at least) servers for pa.

Then where the hell are they?

Perhaps Mr Spinner would care to contact Morglum (RR) and ask him how to run a game (SS) with a similar number of planets on just 1 server.

And its often faster.

[MrL_JaKiri]

What I want to know is why is it INFINITELY slower now that Jolt have moved the servers to a 'faster connection'?

[GavGull]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
It's pointless blaming the creators for a server problem when all the server issues are Jolt issues.

PA Team would have more servers if they had the chance, so whining to the creators is hardly going to change anything.

Don't turn this into a server thread, I personally have no problems with the servers as such. I don't mind if pages are slow, and if the game goes down from time to time it's not a big deal. Lag time is a problem, but it's admissable.

What's irritating is when it goes down and ticks aren't stopped. When players are quite obviously put at a severe disadvantage and their planets (mega time investment) jeapordised it's nothing short of disgusting. Ultimately I'm not that knowledgable about IT, but I'm guessing that stopping ticks is a matter of management and not resource? Correct me if I'm wrong of course.

And well, giving out misinformation.

[Heartshunter]

(ado using hearts account)

Firstly to leshy and your analogies regarding restarts, Arcchas is very correct is his statement regarding a restart, is something is restarted it does not conttitute a NEW thing, if a football match which is the closest analogy yet is restarted you dont see the doors opening and new people being let in, and then the flood lights failing and poeple being told "well this is a new free match"

Secondly I seem to remember when p2p was first announced that 24/7 support was EXACTLY what we were being promised. All I see p2p having done, is paying spinner and co for a experience which is not that superiour to when it was free and for a service thats not garenteed.

Are you people that accomodating that you will accept all this BS from jolt/spinner and co. They are allegedaly providing a service, which we pay for, we pay X ukp (or whatever currency) for a average round length, if this is restarted we are STILL paying for it, so support should be continued.

Its amazing just how much people will tollerate when the view is that "people are trying their best" or its a IT project as is PA. Its NOT that hard to run a online game, or to develop stable servers / projects. Hell 4k users which is what pa nomally has is NOTHING for a stable hosting environment to run.

As someone who I fail to remember mentioned the ONLY thing that would cost the money here is the bandwith and colocation. I pay 100 ukp a month for a decent spec server with 100 gigs a month of traffic that I am fairly certain could run PA pretty effectivly.

Its their failing, not ours so lets not carry on this 'their trying' philosophy and demand a service for our money...

[Heartshunter]

Originally posted by GavGull
Don't turn this into a server thread, I personally have no problems with the servers as such. I don't mind if pages are slow, and if the game goes down from time to time it's not a big deal. Lag time is a problem, but it's admissable.

What's irritating is when it goes down and ticks aren't stopped. When players are quite obviously put at a severe disadvantage and their planets (mega time investment) jeapordised it's nothing short of disgusting. Ultimately I'm not that knowledgable about IT, but I'm guessing that stopping ticks is a matter of management and not resource? Correct me if I'm wrong of course.

And well, giving out misinformation.

(ado using hearts account)

This is 100% correct, throwing more servers at PA isnt the answer, stability isnt really the issue, what is the issue is the action taken when problems occur.

It is incredibly simple to have say 10 processes running on a linux box, checking the output of each page and comparing it to a "template" if it differs then pa has trouble and the ticker should be stopped.

I know a company that will do remote checks on up to 50 servers (or unique pages) against a template and email / sms if they differ.

Automating a tick stop is bl**dy easy.. so why does it seem beyond the pa team ? we wouldnt need true 24/7 cover then.....

[SYMM]

Originally posted by Heartshunter
stuff

We have not paid for r9.5.
A football match is a pretty bad analogy really, as (i guess by restart you mean half-time?) they don't let new people in to watch, not for free anyway- and the "score" is carried over half-time- not the case in PA.

you don't pay for an "average length" round, you pay for a round which lasts exactly as long as creators decide it lasts.
And support now is a hell of a lot better than it ever was in the free rounds.

the situation isn't great, but there really is no need to get this worked up about what is a GAME, just have fun and get on with it

[hAl]

Originally posted by Heartshunter
(ado using hearts account)

Its NOT that hard to run a online game, or to develop stable servers / projects. Hell 4k users which is what pa nomally has is NOTHING for a stable hosting environment to run.

As someone who I fail to remember mentioned the ONLY thing that would cost the money here is the bandwith and colocation. I pay 100 ukp a month for a decent spec server with 100 gigs a month of traffic that I am fairly certain could run PA pretty effectivly.

Its their failing, not ours so lets not carry on this 'their trying' philosophy and demand a service for our money...

You ever build a large scale application that needs to serve thousand of transactions in a few minutes and still do a full batch run on the whole database at the same time ? That is no picnic. Performance on large scale transaction processing is extremly difficult. I hardly think it is the connection that has a problem but the combination of mass transactions whilst the ticker is still running. Might even be that one sql statement somewhere does not use the indexes on the db and you have a serious problem. These kind of things can be very tricky.

hAl

[ArcChas]

Originally posted by Leshy
"Quoting the rules I signed up to and agreed with, which directly contradict what I'm saying, will have no effect because I'm not listening."
You can restart a round, thus creating a new one. You can restart your computer, thus creating a new uptime period. You can restart your microwave, thus creating a new cooking session.

So you're not listening - no change there then.

[Heartshunter]

Originally posted by hAl
You ever build a large scale application that needs to serve thousand of transactions in a few minutes and still do a full batch run on the whole database at the same time ? That is no picnic. Performance on large scale transaction processing is extremly difficult. I hardly think it is the connection that has a problem but the combination of mass transactions whilst the ticker is still running. Might even be that one sql statement somewhere does not use the indexes on the db and you have a serious problem. These kind of things can be very tricky.

hAl

A few thousand transactions in a few minutes is actualy very light load, if we say 1000 transactions in 1 minute (lets be average here) then were looking at 16-17 per second, split across multiple front end machine and serving from "1?" backend DB machine, those sortof figures hardly scare me having helped write a asset management system dealing with 50k pictures and associated data with a LOT more load, and thats with a 5 minute batch processing subsystem, using less server resources.

The issue here is not the programming hell Ill even go so far as to say that its "ok", give them the benefit of the doubt. The issue is when things go wrong they are incapable of rectifying them in a timely manner. How hard is it to get ONE external server (plenty of people would offer) and parse the output for a standard input of all the pages, if they differ , stop the ticker. Its not rocket science.

My gripe here is that people are all too ready to defend spinner, to say its not his fault, to say that PA is a complex piece of code, well if it is, its their OWN doing since the concepts and implementation are NOT hard.

As someone else mentioned about SS its done on ONE server with as many users , less downtime and less bitching people.

As for overreacting, I think I have a right so, as a paying customer I expect a certain level of service which I just dont get, I should mention the shocking downtime of the forums for example, measured in days in some instances.. there is simply NO justification for this that warrents so much downtime.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by ArcChas
So you're not listening - no change there then.

Next to not listening, you also appear to be unable to read.

What you are saying directly contradicts the very rules you signed up to, yet you keep claiming that you are right, and that quoting those rules will not make you think otherwise. Which is kind of the "I can't hear you, I have banana's in my ears" approach.

The rules you agreed with when you signed up in no way stated that a round has a certain length. As such, the round 9 that you paid for has ended. Filing a complaint about service in a free round is ok, claiming that you are somehow paying for this round is not.

[zenopus]

Originally posted by Heartshunter (or ado)
As someone who I fail to remember mentioned the ONLY thing that would cost the money here is the bandwith and colocation. I pay 100 ukp a month for a decent spec server with 100 gigs a month of traffic that I am fairly certain could run PA pretty effectivly.

That should be able to serve pages to about 1k players.
More than that and you run out of traffic.
More interestingly - does your host expect you to use your full 100 gigs / month? Most of them rely on most of their customers only using a fraction of their allowed traffic.

About the football analogy - I don't know much about football, but I don't think it is normal for spectators to participate...

[pablissimo]

I don't post on this forum, but there's a whole bunch of utter crap being spewed here so I'll throw my two cents in before going off and getting my Fray Bentos out the oven.

1) To those who say 'oh, but I paid for this round'. Bollocks. You had the round you paid for, it ran for 'a reasonable amount of time'. This is not round 9, this is 'round 9.5' (a crap title). Those two are not the same. Read the user agreement, move on.

2) This problem with not being able to stop the ticker should never have happened. This is a simple fact. If Spinner didn't write in a failsafe of some form, you can't blame anyone else.

3) The idea of this round was, from announcements I read when it was being planned, to bridge the gap between round 9 ending and round 10 beginning, and to introduce new blood to the game to swell the ranks of round 10. Regardless of whether this round is free or not, FS* should be running it like people have paid for this round because they are expecting them to next round.

Now Spinner is saying that Round 10 is going to be all new, bells and whistles, shock and awe-stylee. Great! The concept of PA has been redone so many times it's become stagnant, the marketplace has moved on, he's doing the right thing. But if he is unable to manage this, simpler version of the game in any kind of professional manner, he shouldn't be expecting a great deal of consumer confidence for the next round in his abilities to run an even bigger, more complex system.

I understand that the servers are now hosted at Jolt. I would therefore assume there is some SLA between FS* and Jolt. I also understand that the (seemingly four) servers are not directly accessible by the Team as they were in previous rounds, and that would have hindered any remedial action needing to be taken. However, by not having forethought of the possibility (read: probability, given the time scale) of problems such as requiring to flick a panic button, even by not having come up with a standardised strategy for dealing with any game-related problems, he* has shown a lack of respect for previous and future customers.

And that's unacceptable.


*Every time I refered to Spinner, FS or 'He' (not God), I mean 'those running the game' as I'll be buggered if I can keep up with who's team and who isn't nowadays.

[Leshy]

What pab said.

[djcomplex]

/msg RR|Away help me run an online game!!



go on spinner you know you want too!

[Mushroom]

Originally posted by djcomplex
/msg RR|Away help me run an online game!!

go on spinner you know you want too!

Heh, PA isn't quite lucky enough to have free hosting from australia etc etc.

[djcomplex]

Originally posted by Mushroom
Heh, PA isn't quite lucky enough to have free hosting from australia etc etc.

erm..... u smoking crack?

[Mushroom]

Originally posted by djcomplex
erm..... u smoking crack?

Nope

[whoop]

I had stopped posting here, but you guys really need to learn how to do some public relations. The below stuff is just ludicrous.

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
It's jolt's fault, they're in charge of the servers.

Wrong. This cannot be compared to when you were a child and you can simply say "it wasn't my fault, it was Timmy that broke the window, don't punish me".

The game failed. Period. Maybe it was the servers, the connection, the phase of the moon, the fact that the price of coffee has gone up in Brazil. All irrelevant. "Planetarion" is down - it is "Planetarion"'s fault. Jolt is one facet of the composite that is "Planetarion". If it truly was Jolts fault, then clearly "Planetarion" should have done a better job of choosing a connection provider.

Originally posted by Mit
It cannot feasibly be done with the current set up.

Then the current setup is defective, and needs to be fixed.

Originally posted by Mit
As for this mornings 'incident', I was the one who WOKE Spinner up to get it fixed, got him online, brought him up to speed and let him get on working out what was going on.

OMFG. you woke him up. Please excuse me while I cry a river of sympathy for having interrupted spinners sleep. If you don't want to sacrifice sleep, GET A NINE TO FIVE JOB. If you want to run your own business, GET USED TO LOSING SLEEP. This is how the real world, the place where some of us live already, works.

Originally posted by Mit
Now, he TRIED to stop the ticker, but the shear load on teh servers was stupidly high (10+ mins to stop apache alone) Not sure exactly why, but it was...

The "shear load on teh servers". 12k users ? This is _nothing_. Stop spreading FUD. If apache takes 10 minutes to stop, then something is seriously misconfigured.

Originally posted by Mit
Once the ticker starts... there isn't a lot that can be done to stop it, and as spinner said in his announcement, no chance of a rollback - fudge is the practiced one at that, and he's away today.

And this strikes you as an effective way to run a business ? How hard is it to document what should by now be a straighfoward procedure ?

Originally posted by Mit
Don't forget - at 5S AS, we had a 8 servers powering the game alone... here we've got 3 (jpaweb01, speed and the db box) so load is bound to be higher per machine.

More FUD. You can rest assured that this game absolutely does not require 3 servers to run.

Originally posted by Mit [b]
You PAY for a FREE round, now theres a good one. Don't forget that.

And the free one is supposed to provide new customers with a taste of PA, so they are encouraged to pay money to play for real. Now, more than ever it is important that the game work. Don't forget that.

Originally posted by Leshy
as Fudge and Spinner are focussing on R10, and have no physical access to the server to boot (pun not intended).

Then Fudge and Spinner should have

• created some sort of remote admin interface so physical access is not an issuue
• not put the machines where they couldn't be accessed.

Either way its a failure.

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
It's pointless blaming the creators for a server problem when all the server issues are Jolt issues.

"Planetarion" goes down, its "Planetarion"'s fault. Jolt is one of the components that makes up "Planetarion".

Originally posted by Mit

It would indeed be nice to have more servers, but jolt have put a lot of money into PA already (buying, new servers etc) - there are now 6 (at least) servers for pa.

Hmmm. I thought that on the last page you said there were three. Oh - now I get it. When the game goes down "ooooo, its not our fault, there only THREE servers". When people say buy more servers, then the answer is "ooooo, its not our fault, we spent all our money buying AT LEAST SIX servers".

[Leshy]

Originally posted by whoop
If it truly was Jolts fault, then clearly "Planetarion" should have done a better job of choosing a connection provider.

Jolt aren't just the Planetarion provider. They are the Planetarion owners.

Then Fudge and Spinner should have

• [+] created some sort of remote admin interface so physical access is not an issuue
  [+] not put the machine where it couldn't be accessed.

• If the machine is not responding, or responding with a serious delay, the remote admin interface is useless. No remote setup can replace direct physical access to a machine.
• Spinner & Fudge didn't 'put' the machine in the UK. Jolt is the Planetarion owner and hosts the game on their machines in the UK. Spinner & Fudge live in Norway and are employed by Jolt.

[Mushroom]

PA did not 'choose' Jolt exactly. When PA was put up for sale, Jolt's bid was chosen by the 5S board of investors to be the new holder of Planetarion. It was a saviour for the game, but there are obviously new problems - mainly that the game's creators are in one country and the servers are in another. As Leshy pointed out, remote access isn't always an option in cases such as this, so all we can do is try to get someone at Jolt to do what needs to be done. Of course it's a problem, but it's not really a problem PA had much control over getting into, and one it has very little it can do about. And if you're suggesting that PA moves providers, well that would be a tad difficult since Jolt (or SimTech if you're being pedantic) owns PA.
It's all very easy to stand in an outside viewpoint and tell us exactly how it should go. Generally we do everything possible to make sure the game goes smoothly, and we know it's annoying when it goes down (do you think it's any better for us?) but sometimes there is very little we can do about it.

[whoop]

Originally posted by Mushroom
Generally we do everything possible to make sure the game goes smoothly, and we know it's annoying when it goes down (do you think it's any better for us?) but sometimes there is very little we can do about it.

Maybe you can change things, maybe you can't. The bottom line is that you guys need to do a far better job of public relations.

Don't make excuses, give facts. When you pair up lies and excuses, then you will breed animosity.

For example, the ticks thing screwed someone's game. Fine - give them their money back and delete their account.

5S (and now Jolt) is a black hole when it comes to consumer complaints, which is NOT the way to run a successful business.

And guess what ? 5S wasn't financially successful, and more than likely, Jolt won't be either.

Surprise, surprise.

-whoop

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by whoop
For example, the ticks thing screwed someone's game. Fine - give them their money back and delete their account.

WHAT money?

[SYMM]

Whoop, i think your first line was enough. If you don't know the situation, and your post showed this in many places, then commenting just makes you look stupid.

[whoop]

Originally posted by SYMM
Whoop, i think your first line was enough. If you don't know the situation, and your post showed this in many places, then commenting just makes you look stupid.

You can feel free to

a) point out the "many" places I am wrong
b) stop insunating that I am stupid

I suspect that neither will happen, and you will continue your apparent current practice of randomly tossing out baseless commentary on the relative knowledge of posters on this board.

-whoop

[whoop]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
WHAT money?

I was providing an example of how a normal business deals with customer dissatisfaction as a result of poor product quality.

Ironically enough, the only things in my post that you find subject to contention are semantics.

-whoop

[whoop]

Originally posted by Mushroom
PA did not 'choose' Jolt exactly. When PA was put up for sale, Jolt's bid was chosen by the 5S board of investors to be the new holder of Planetarion.

???

-whoop

[whoop]

And by the way, since it appears that some of you PA stooges are getting a bit prissy.

I still maintain that PA is cheap entertainment, and that the game is well worth $10.

My only contention is the total and utter lack of customer service in any form, and the endless stream of lies and excuses emanating from PA.

If you don't want to provide customer support (and for a measly $10, I wouldn't either), that's fine - but don't pretend to.

Either do customer service right, or don't do it all.

-whoop

[HobbieRogue4]

Originally posted by whoop
???

-whoop

To be nitty-gritty about it, it's that the "Fifth Season Investors" ('laugh') aren't what we'd call "Planetarion's Community." That's how I interpreted what Mit said... oh, and the fact that Jolt is ****.

[Bashar]

It is quite simple this in my view. PA is crap at customer support, and most of the 'officials' don't have the foggiest what is going on, I know this from experience, they have to either make it up as they go along, or try and apply some common sense. They then give out this info in #planetarion whilst it is moderated, and as such, it is taken (rightly) as an announcement. Then, when it durns out that their announcement was BS - rather than doing what they should and apologise and prevent it from happening again, they just blame someone else and claim they did a good job in difficult circumstances. The only problem is, they don't realise that most people are laughing at them when they do this, and rapidly losing faith (if they have any to start with).

Spinner and Fudge are contracted by Jolt to run PA, and as such they are jolts representatives within PA. PA team are then appointed and derive their powers directly from Spinner and fudge, and as such, they are effectively able to be thought of as Sinner and fudge as that is where their powers are derived from. Now, this also applies to Spinner and fudge with Jolt, Jolt make Spinner and fudge their representatives to allow Spinner and fudge to run the game, and as such, Spinner and fudge can be seen within PA as Jolt, as that is who they represent.

Just to apply this to another similar situation, GP's (in the UK) are the same - they are not employed by the NHS directly, they are self employed contractors who have a contract from the NHS, exactly the same as Spinner and fudge - do they avoid all accountability to you because they are not directly employed by the NHS???? I think not!!

If PAteam are responsible directly or indirectly to Jolt, then they have to act it, they can't be representatives of Jolt only when credit is there, when something goes wrong, they cannot expect to be able to lump the blame elsewhere, it is unprofessional. Then again, I have long seen that the most professional part of PA is the players, PA team doesn't even come close.

[Bashar]

Oh, and on a side issue, I did discuss the whole thing of support, or lack thereof with Spinner, his idea of making it better was bringing PAteam and creators closer together, look to CH now, and look at announcements, jobs, responsibilities, status etc - in all those places, there is evidence of this philosophy of Spinners, hell, the creators even stopped using their own private IRC channel and moved into the PA team channel! Yet despite this, we are yet to see PA team ACTING like creators and taking RESPONSIBILITY like creators (in this I am using the term creators more as an ideal of what creators should be, not necessarily what they currently are).

So - PA team, get your heads out from licking your arses, hold your chins up, start being polite, and take whatever is yours to take, taking credit and status alone is not right, it is unbalanced, and therefore inefficient - gorw up and stop acting like spoilt little children who just want more of the good things - good things never come without bad, ignoring the bad just escalates it.

[Ad0]

Originally posted by Leshy
Jolt aren't just the Planetarion provider. They are the Planetarion owners.

Um... is it only me who remember seeing that it WASNT jolt who bought PA... infact another company who paid jolt for hosting.. or was that a naughty financial trick.... it matters not really.. we have a SLA in effect with spinner et al, both written and verballs in the CH (which is official iirc)

Its been broken many many times....

[Bashar]

Originally posted by Ad0
Um... is it only me who remember seeing that it WASNT jolt who bought PA... infact another company who paid jolt for hosting.. or was that a naughty financial trick.... it matters not really.. we have a SLA in effect with spinner et al, both written and verballs in the CH (which is official iirc)

Its been broken many many times....

Simtech is the company, it is a financial trick, a way of making sure that if PA goes down, it doesn't drag Jolt down with it.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by Bashar

PATeam are a pretty good group considering that it's entirely volunteer based.

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Ad0
we have a SLA in effect with spinner et al, both written and verballs in the CH (which is official iirc)

The only party you have an agreement with is SimTech.

[Bashar]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
PATeam are a pretty good group considering that it's entirely volunteer based.

It may be volunteer base, but it takes little effort for volunteers to ACT professional, and this is something they don't seem to manage. They are all decent people, I have met many of them in real life, when I am at uni, I live in the same house as one of them - but their professionalism is lacking severely.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally posted by Bashar
It may be volunteer base, but it takes little effort for volunteers to ACT professional, and this is something they don't seem to manage. They are all decent people, I have met many of them in real life, when I am at uni, I live in the same house as one of them - but their professionalism is lacking severely.

Which areas are we referring to here?

[SYMM]

Originally posted by whoop
I had stopped posting here, but you guys really need to learn how to do some public relations. The below stuff is just ludicrous.




Wrong. This cannot be compared to when you were a child and you can simply say "it wasn't my fault, it was Timmy that broke the window, don't punish me".

>>err...It is Jolt's responsibility for the servers

The game failed. Period. Maybe it was the servers, the connection, the phase of the moon, the fact that the price of coffee has gone up in Brazil. All irrelevant. "Planetarion" is down - it is "Planetarion"'s fault. Jolt is one facet of the composite that is "Planetarion". If it truly was Jolts fault, then clearly "Planetarion" should have done a better job of choosing a connection provider.


>>planetarion didn't have the choice of provider, as was said they were bought...by JOLT



More FUD. You can rest assured that this game absolutely does not require 3 servers to run.



And the free one is supposed to provide new customers with a taste of PA, so they are encouraged to pay money to play for real. Now, more than ever it is important that the game work. Don't forget that.

>>the free round was initially to keep the existing PAYING customers happy, letting freebies in is a bonus. tbh, they have no right to expect anything


Then Fudge and Spinner should have

• created some sort of remote admin interface so physical access is not an issuue
• not put the machines where they couldn't be accessed.

Either way its a failure.

>>-if the server is down, what do you plan on remotely connecting to?

"Planetarion" goes down, its "Planetarion"'s fault. Jolt is one of the components that makes up "Planetarion".

err...Jolt is the most major of components, no jolt=no game


Hmmm. I thought that on the last page you said there were three. Oh - now I get it. When the game goes down "ooooo, its not our fault, there only THREE servers". When people say buy more servers, then the answer is "ooooo, its not our fault, we spent all our money buying AT LEAST SIX servers".

>>there are 3 GAME servers, the other 3 are for extra-game things (forum,portal,toolkit,AH,manual <--not sure on what is where but you get the idea?)
All of the servers cost money, not all the servers are used for the running of the game.

Happy?
[edit] my comments are indicated by >>s for those apparent selective-readers amongst us

[Bashar]

Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri
Which areas are we referring to here?

?? Sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

[SYMM]

well, the PATeam is split into lots of bits (Support, Beta, Forums etc.) and he wants to know which specific bit of the team you are talking about. As around half of them have no public-side, it seems a bit of a harsh generalisation to me.

Oh, and with your NHS/GP analogy, i think you hit the nail right on the head. GP's don't get blamed (rightly so) for underfunding in hospitals, as its not their responsibility. Its the people who own the hospitals (NHS in the UK) who look after stuff like that.

[Bashar]

Originally posted by SYMM
well, the PATeam is split into lots of bits (Support, Beta, Forums etc.) and he wants to know which specific bit of the team you are talking about. As around half of them have no public-side, it seems a bit of a harsh generalisation to me.

Oh, and with your NHS/GP analogy, i think you hit the nail right on the head. GP's don't get blamed (rightly so) for underfunding in hospitals, as its not their responsibility. Its the people who own the hospitals (NHS in the UK) who look after stuff like that.

The relationship between GP's and hospitals is different, VERY different. They have no direct connection to hospitals, except that they have the ability to refer you there. If you go to a GP and he treats you the wrong way, would you allow him to say "Sorry, the NHS don't let me treat you properly, not my fault"??

And as for which area of PA team, I don't know a member of PA team that isn't public. I mean PA team in general.

Ohhh, and PA team is very small anyway, 10-15 people max, though I think it is less than this

[SYMM]

OK, replace GPs with Surgeons in hospitals.

Karm and Noctu coding the portal/forums?
Mit (in role as toolkit-guy)?
The payment centre people?
Beta Manager/crew?

Ok, maybe nearer to 1/3.

[pablissimo]

PA Team do a very good job considering, as Jacksey has said, most of them are entirely unpaid. Their problem is that they can only work with the information they're given, and assuming they are representing Spinner-et-al who are on the payroll, they should be given a corporate line to follow so to speak.

That means properly outlined procedures, properly defined roles and properly defined responsibilities.

PA Team are free of blame on this occassion imo.

[Ad0]

Originally posted by Leshy
The only party you have an agreement with is SimTech.

Yes leshy and since officially jolt are the server hosting agents of simtech then we indirectly have one with them too...

[pablissimo]

Originally posted by Ad0
Yes leshy and since officially jolt are the server hosting agents of simtech then we indirectly have one with them too...

12. ... we do not ensure continuous, error-free or secure operation of the Game or your Account. Some states / countries do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties, so the foregoing disclaimer may not apply to you. This warranty gives you specific legal rights and you may also have other legal rights which vary from region to region. We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes beyond our reasonable control. Further, we cannot and do not promise or ensure that you will be able to access your Account whenever you want, and there may be extended periods of time when you cannot access your Account.

We have no agreement with Jolt. SimTech do. There is no implication of an agreement with Jolt anywhere in the User Agreement, it isn't even identified as an entity. If we hadn't been told otherwise, we would neither:

1) Know Jolt were hosting the game
2) Be entitled to this information by default

[Ad0]

Originally posted by pablissimo
12. ... we do not ensure continuous, error-free or secure operation of the Game or your Account. Some states / countries do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties, so the foregoing disclaimer may not apply to you. This warranty gives you specific legal rights and you may also have other legal rights which vary from region to region. We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform resulting from any causes beyond our reasonable control. Further, we cannot and do not promise or ensure that you will be able to access your Account whenever you want, and there may be extended periods of time when you cannot access your Account.

We have no agreement with Jolt. SimTech do. There is no implication of an agreement with Jolt anywhere in the User Agreement, it isn't even identified as an entity. If we hadn't been told otherwise, we would neither:

1) Know Jolt were hosting the game
2) Be entitled to this information by default

Indeed but this doesnt effect my STATETORY rights as defined by Uk law, since PA is uk owned and operated this comes into effect. Goods or services have to be fit for the purpose in which they are supplied. For a length of time Jolt supply a service and if its deemed not to be active for a "unreasonable" percentage of this term I can demand a refund.

People take to much sh*t for granted here, i wonder what would happen if everyone who ordered with CC complained to their CC companies and they were inturn forced to remove jolts merchant status... wouldnt that be fun.

On another aspect that user agreement is on very shaky ground, you cannot veto peoples statetory rights even if people agreed to it, if the contract in itself is illegal then so are the agreements contained within and Jolt dont have a leg to stand on complains wise.

Dont try and quote me law pablissimo your out of your league.

[pablissimo]

Originally posted by Ad0

I did nothing of the sort. I simply showed you a clause of the user agreement. I'm fully aware that if the game is inaccessible for an unreasonable amount of time that your statutory rights would come into play. Two things impede this:

1) The agreement is with SimTech; not Jolt. If Tesco sell me rotten eggs I complain to the store, not the farmer.
2) The game has not been inaccessible for an unreasonable amount of time. In fact, relatively speaking uptime for this round has so far been excellent, even if page access has been a little slow at peak times.

I'm not quoting law. I'm quoting common sense. But I agree the User Agreement is a joke. I'm especially fond of the 'We can do whatever we want' bit.

[Ad0]

Originally posted by pablissimo
I did nothing of the sort. I simply showed you a clause of the user agreement. I'm fully aware that if the game is inaccessible for an unreasonable amount of time that your statutory rights would come into play. Two things impede this:

1) The agreement is with SimTech; not Jolt. If Tesco sell me rotten eggs I complain to the store, not the farmer.
2) The game has not been inaccessible for an unreasonable amount of time. In fact, relatively speaking uptime for this round has so far been excellent, even if page access has been a little slow at peak times.

I'm not quoting law. I'm quoting common sense. But I agree the User Agreement is a joke. I'm especially fond of the 'We can do whatever we want' bit.

Ok I was harsh but this kida thing pisses me off... tbh I think if simtech was investigated and found to be a umbrella company to protect jolt.. and this agreement was investigated jolt would get it up the ass

I wish we had an alternative.... "agree or dont play"

[G.K Zhukov]

I agree with whoop and Ado..

[Leshy]

Originally posted by Ad0
tbh I think if simtech was investigated and found to be a umbrella company to protect jolt.. and this agreement was investigated jolt would get it up the ass

Neither SimTech nor the User Agreement are illegal in any way.

I wish we had an alternative.... "agree or dont play"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless you agree to the EULA, you can't play. So the choice already is "agree or don't play".