by Moorgard on 2001-08-23
The official word was short and sweet:On Thursday, August 23rd, at 3AM PST (10AM GMT), all servers will be brought down for a scheduled patch. The estimated downtime is 90 minutes.
The EverQuest Operations Team
What brought about this "scheduled" patch? I can tell you from personal experience.
My guild cleared Fear post-patch to get to one target: Cazic Thule. The big mudpile may be old news, but he still drops some great items.
Anyway, we wipe out his minions and prepare for the big fight. Nothing new, we've done this many times before.
The Twinkie-addicted troll who calls himself our raid leader gave the order, and we charged.
I see my monkly fists start flying, and I get in about two combat rounds before ol' CT casts his typical AoE snare spell. All of a sudden I see the message that fills every player with sickness and dread:
YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED.
Unlike the usual linkdeath, I was dropped immediately to the character select screen. I attempt to re-enter the fray, and get the even more nauseating message:
THAT ZONE IS UNAVAILABLE
Aw, hell.
Similar reports came in from guilds raiding Trakanon and Inny in the Plane of Hate. Just like Klandicar and Sontalak before them, these big AoE-using mobs were bringing zones down left and right.
After a few minutes we could re-enter the game. A GM arrived shortly to apologize, and told us that when the zone went down new code was patched to fix the AoE problem. Unfortunately, we'd have to clear the zone again because he couldn't just pop one mob for us.
There was grumbling, but three hours later Cazic was dead.
Shortly after that, all servers were brought down for a "scheduled" patch that was announced only a few hours before it had been "scheduled."
Well, whatever.
In any case, let's hope this "scheduled" maintenance took care of the problem, and things go back to business as usual.
On the plus side, some lucky folks get two days worth of ubermob farming... or at least have a shot at Emperor Crush again.