I think it would be better for them to do it at a non peak time. look at their records and see if taking that time away is taking the time away from when the most players are on. i can only speak i guess from my experience that most of my friends are on when it gets shut down. it is a real bummer. it takes time away from good play. maybe they did already check and it is the best time according to their records, i dont know but it sure does suck for me.

As has been said many times - I believe most recently by Tacofangs in a thread about this last week during maintenance - the time is chosen based on when the least number of people are online. Cryptic's server data tells then when the least number of people will be affected. Unfortunately that just happens to be the time you want to play on Thursdays.

I also want to add to thecosmic1's statement: it was mentioned that the maintenance timeslot happens at the beginning of the work day at Cryptic Studios, which allows them to have "all-hands-on-deck" with the full day ahead of them in case problems show up.

Lunch time(EST) on a Thursday is not "peak time" by any means. Most people are at work/school/eating lunch.

3pm to 6pm bst? this is when there are least players online? im not one to post negatively on a subject but this is like prime time in the UK and Europe following an hour later, it has basically stopped any hard working person from coming home to play a few hours especially in Europe. while i do want to see the game patched, it should be brought a little further out of this time zone, made 2 hours earlier. i would like to ask tacofangs to go on holiday to europe a few days, use his other account, when the patch comes, would he be willing to then give us an insight if this patch is the correct time to be doing it? all i am asking for is for it to be looked at and if this is acceptable even if the server numbers may or may not support it.

Look, they have explained why they do it when they do it. No matter when they do it, someone will be inconvenienced.

If they have determined that the time when they currently do it is both the least impactful to the majority of players and the most beneficial time of the day for thier employee availability, then what do you think Taco logging in from Europe will accomplish?

Zip.

i already explained that.

It's during my peak time... It sucks... But that's the way it is...

It's the ideal time for cryptic... Nothings going to change that.

Their downtime is at a really inconvenient time for me too. It usually falls between 10 or 11 am to 1 pm where I live (east coast USA) and I work 3:30 pm to 12:00 am so it happens right when I am available to play the game each day.

I seriously doubt that they have the least server pop at this time. It's a western game, I suspect most of the player base live in North America and Europe. Why would their maintenance fall exactly during North American business hours?

Because its convenient for Cryptic to do maintenance during business hours. They could do it during the night when there are fewer people online, but then the maintenance guy wouldn't be able to catch some sleep that night, now would he?

I have zero data to support it but i doubt 3-6 is prime time for the UK. I would imagine at lot of people would still be at work/getting home from work and the peak time would more likely be 6pm-9pm (give or take).

but either way they have changed their maintenance times over the years. ive seen it at 9am, 12 noon and what it is now, so they certainly have adjusted it over the years for what ever reason. if they see a reason to adjust it again, they will.

player numbers is something that they can monitor easily so they will know if the data is suggesting they should use another time.