Patch: Tuesday 14th August

[Tony Evans]

All EQ servers will be brought down on Tuesday, August 14th around 4:00 AM
PDT for approximately 8 hours. In addition, all services including
subscription services, character transfer service, customer service tools
and other billing services, will not be available at various times during
this period. This downtime will help enable the Legends of Norrath beta.
Thank you for your patience during this downtime, and enjoy Legends of
Norrath!

[the wharf rat]

Post by Tony Evans
All EQ servers will be brought down on Tuesday, August 14th around 4:00 AM

Maybe they should just put up a notice when they're NOT
having a patch.

[Tony]

All EQ servers, forums and services will be brought down on Tuesday,
August 14th around 4:00 AM to approximately 12:00 Noon PDT. In addition,
all SOE services including subscription services, character transfer
service, customer service tools and other billing services, will not be
available during this period. This downtime will help enable the Legends
of Norrath beta. Thank you for your patience during this downtime, and
enjoy Legends of Norrath! ~ Zatozia

Slight change.

[Eric D. Braden]

Post by Tony
All EQ servers, forums and services will be brought down on Tuesday,
August 14th around 4:00 AM to approximately 12:00 Noon PDT. In addition,
all SOE services including subscription services, character transfer
service, customer service tools and other billing services, will not be
available during this period. This downtime will help enable the Legends
of Norrath beta. Thank you for your patience during this downtime, and
enjoy Legends of Norrath! ~ Zatozia
Slight change.
--
Tony Evans
Saving trees and wasting electrons since 1993
blog ->http://perception-is-truth.blogspot.com/
[ anything below this line wasn't written by me ]

Heh, oddly enough, I was on the forums this morning :p Apparently
they forgot to bring them down ^^

[Lance Berg]

Post by Tony Evans
All EQ servers will be brought down on Tuesday, August 14th around 4:00 AM
PDT for approximately 8 hours. In addition, all services including
subscription services, character transfer service, customer service tools
and other billing services, will not be available at various times during
this period. This downtime will help enable the Legends of Norrath beta.
Thank you for your patience during this downtime, and enjoy Legends of
Norrath!

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/forums/list.m

had all that info.

So, lets take a look at where you'd expect it to be featured:

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/index.vm

which is where you go when you hit Home, or go straight to the web site
from the login. Anything? No. A note saying that for current game
update info people should go to the Forums page (the one above?) No.

So lets try the logical place to look for game update info:

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/game_updates.vm

The updates tab. What do they know? Nothing. As far as they are
concerned the most recent update occurred on 7/25 and they have no info
about any upcomming updates.

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/servers_index.vm

is the tab marked servers. No good, that just talks about what the
names of the various servers are and what type they are and gives links
to their individual forums.

How about this one down here, Network Status

http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/network_status.vm

hey that works! Well not really, because secretly I happen to know that
whether the servers are up or down isn't the critical info, the
question is, when they come UP again, are they open to the public or
just to SOE techs doing their minimal testing. But it sure looks good.
At the bottom we see the message:

Scheduled EverQuest Server Maintenance - 08/14/2007 4:00 am
Downtime Update
All EverQuest servers will be coming down at 4:00 AM PDT (-7 UTC) on
Tuesday 08/14/2007 for an update. Estimated downtime is 8 hours.

The EverQuest Operations Team

OK, guys, the forum page, where you'd only look by chance or because
someone told you, has more info than this. It would take LESS effort to
copy the same info to both places than to write seperate and less
informative text to go here.

This isn't brain surgery. Or, as it turns out, Brraaain surgery.

Berg

[Eric D. Braden]

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Tony Evans
All EQ servers will be brought down on Tuesday, August 14th around 4:00 AM
PDT for approximately 8 hours. In addition, all services including
subscription services, character transfer service, customer service tools
and other billing services, will not be available at various times during
this period. This downtime will help enable the Legends of Norrath beta.
Thank you for your patience during this downtime, and enjoy Legends of
Norrath!

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/forums/list.m
had all that info.
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/index.vm
which is where you go when you hit Home, or go straight to the web site
from the login. Anything? No. A note saying that for current game
update info people should go to the Forums page (the one above?) No.
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/game_updates.vm
The updates tab. What do they know? Nothing. As far as they are
concerned the most recent update occurred on 7/25 and they have no info
about any upcomming updates.
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/servers_index.vm
is the tab marked servers. No good, that just talks about what the
names of the various servers are and what type they are and gives links
to their individual forums.
How about this one down here, Network Status
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/network_status.vm
hey that works! Well not really, because secretly I happen to know that
whether the servers are up or down isn't the critical info, the
question is, when they come UP again, are they open to the public or
just to SOE techs doing their minimal testing. But it sure looks good.
Scheduled EverQuest Server Maintenance - 08/14/2007 4:00 am
Downtime Update
All EverQuest servers will be coming down at 4:00 AM PDT (-7 UTC) on
Tuesday 08/14/2007 for an update. Estimated downtime is 8 hours.
The EverQuest Operations Team
OK, guys, the forum page, where you'd only look by chance or because
someone told you, has more info than this. It would take LESS effort to
copy the same info to both places than to write seperate and less
informative text to go here.
This isn't brain surgery. Or, as it turns out, Brraaain surgery.
Berg

Have you forwarded these complaints to Sony in any way? It is a
pretty straightforward and seemingly obvious problem. Seems like it
might be slightly more effective to tell them (or at least post on
their boards) than yelling into the void. Especially when the void
has a tendency to get all snippy back.

To each his own, I suppose :)

[Don Woods]

Post by Eric D. Braden
Have you forwarded these complaints to Sony in any way? It is a
pretty straightforward and seemingly obvious problem. Seems like it
might be slightly more effective to tell them (or at least post on
their boards) than yelling into the void. Especially when the void
has a tendency to get all snippy back.
To each his own, I suppose :)

Dunno about Lance, but I did post on the forums about this stuff
during last week's thread on the topic. Didn't get any useful
response last I checked...

-- Don.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- See the a.g.e/EQ1 FAQ at http://www.iCynic.com/~don/EQ/age.faq.htm
--
-- Sukrasisx, Monk 68 on E. Marr Note: If you reply by mail,
-- Terrwini, Druid 58 on E. Marr I'll get to it sooner if you
-- Teviron, Knight 58 on E. Marr remove the "hyphen n s"
-- Wizbeau, Wizard 36 on E. Marr

[Tony]

Post by Lance Berg
OK, guys, the forum page, where you'd only look by chance or because
someone told you, has more info than this. It would take LESS effort to
copy the same info to both places than to write seperate and less
informative text to go here.

And different teams own and manage different spaces. Shame we're not in
your perfect world Lance.

[Lance Berg]

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
OK, guys, the forum page, where you'd only look by chance or because
someone told you, has more info than this. It would take LESS effort
to copy the same info to both places than to write seperate and less
informative text to go here.

And different teams own and manage different spaces. Shame we're not in
your perfect world Lance.

There's a whole Team to write two sentences?

And a separate team to write four sentences?

And the first team can't include all the information the second team did?

I can write 8 sentences complaining about this state of affairs in under
two minutes, and I'm working on my own and not on the clock.

Its ridiculous, and your attempts to hand wave it away with a Voltair
reference aren't effective.

You know I'm right, I know I'm right. We both know nothing is going to
be done about it, but that doesn't make this sad state of affairs any
more palatable.

The minimal effort that would be required to do this right, compared to
the larger (still minimal, but larger) effort required to get it wrong
in the current way... it just gets under my skin, like nails on a
chalkboard. Sure, its trivial, but its very triviality makes it all the
worse.

Lance

[Tony]

Post by Lance Berg
Its ridiculous, and your attempts to hand wave it away with a Voltair
reference aren't effective.

You attribute me with far too much intelligence.

Post by Lance Berg
You know I'm right

No, you gave up the position of being right when you started saying the
same thing over and over despite the fact that this forum isn't the
place to get those issues fixed.

Post by Lance Berg
I know I'm right

Indeed and it doesn't matter how anyone else feels.

Post by Lance Berg
We both know nothing is going to be done about it

Strictly, not true. I suspect that if enough people brought pressure in
the correct location, it would get fixed or looked into. I believe that
your fruitless and futile venting in the wrong location will achieve
nothing, in that we both agree.

Post by Lance Berg
but that doesn't make this sad state of affairs any
more palatable.

If you find the taste unpleasant, don't eat.

Post by Lance Berg
The minimal effort that would be required to do this right, compared to
the larger (still minimal, but larger) effort required to get it wrong
in the current way... it just gets under my skin, like nails on a
chalkboard. Sure, its trivial, but its very triviality makes it all the
worse.

And in the real world, those of us who work for large corporations
understand how they got to this position, and have decided that
actually, it doesn't really make any difference to me day-to-day, since
I know when they're patching, and I know what status the patch is at.

[Lance Berg]

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
Its ridiculous, and your attempts to hand wave it away with a Voltair
reference aren't effective.

You attribute me with far too much intelligence.

I'm a generous person.

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
You know I'm right

No, you gave up the position of being right when you started saying the
same thing over and over despite the fact that this forum isn't the
place to get those issues fixed.

No at all. Truth is truth whether its written down in code on a remote
beach just before the next wave hits, or whether its written in english
in permanent marker on the relevant person's video monitor.

Doesn't matter WHERE I say something, its true or its not true on its
own merits.

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
I know I'm right

Indeed and it doesn't matter how anyone else feels.

Because truth isn't relative. Its true, or its not. I'm right, or I'm not.

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
We both know nothing is going to be done about it

Strictly, not true. I suspect that if enough people brought pressure in
the correct location, it would get fixed or looked into. I believe that
your fruitless and futile venting in the wrong location will achieve
nothing, in that we both agree.

AH, I don't agree that my venting will achieve nothing. Its working
very nicely at what I'm trying to achieve with it... I'm releasing
pressure. Thats what venting is for, not for doing work, but for
releasing pressure so the system doesn't explode.

Perhaps something will get done about it after all, heck, as far as I
can see -something- is getting done, that forum you pointed me at is now
being updated every half hour... with the information that the servers
won't be up for another half hour. Much better than the previous state
of affairs, where the guess was posted and then just left to turn out on
target or not, with no updates. What I'm looking for though is the post
which says They Are Up NOW.

And that still wouldn't address the core problem I'm complaining about
which is that the information is being posted over by the coffee pots
while either no information, incomplete information, or outdated
information is being broadcast over the company PA system where you'd
expect the information to be.

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
but that doesn't make this sad state of affairs any more palatable.

If you find the taste unpleasant, don't eat.

That would not make what I'm saying less true. Truth remains truth,
regardless of whether I check to see if its still true or not. By
checking, I at least have the chance of being pleasantly surprised by
improvements. E.G. the improved posting in the Forum section.

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
The minimal effort that would be required to do this right, compared
to the larger (still minimal, but larger) effort required to get it
wrong in the current way... it just gets under my skin, like nails on
a chalkboard. Sure, its trivial, but its very triviality makes it all
the worse.

And in the real world, those of us who work for large corporations
understand how they got to this position, and have decided that
actually, it doesn't really make any difference to me day-to-day, since
I know when they're patching, and I know what status the patch is at.

You do? HOW? You don't. You don't know the difference between
patching complete but testing going on, and servers open but you can't
log in due to congestion. Unless you've got a source I'm still not
familiar with.

The information is something that people at SOE have access to, and
could share, but thus far, I've never seen them share it. Perhaps today
will be the first time.

I'm not holding my breath (I'm using an EB item)

[the wharf rat]

Post by Lance Berg
Because truth isn't relative.

Of course truth is relative.

[Faned]

Post by the wharf rat

Post by Lance Berg
Because truth isn't relative.

Of course truth is relative.

Politician? Accountant for Enron? Tell me when I guess your job title...

[Tony]

Post by Lance Berg
Because truth isn't relative. Its true, or its not. I'm right, or I'm not.

Truth is based on perception. There is no absolute truth. However,
that's irrelevant in relation to the issue here that you're shouting
into the void.

Post by Lance Berg
Perhaps something will get done about it after all, heck, as far as I
can see -something- is getting done, that forum you pointed me at is now
being updated every half hour... with the information that the servers

The status post was often updated regularly before you started moaning,
the one time you looked at it previously it wasn't. Your set of
knowledge on that announcement is small.

Post by Lance Berg
information is being broadcast over the company PA system where you'd
expect the information to be.

In this forum, only you continue to expect it to be there Lance.

Post by Lance Berg
checking, I at least have the chance of being pleasantly surprised by
improvements. E.G. the improved posting in the Forum section.

It's not improved, just you're finally experiencing what I've been using
for over a year.

Post by Lance Berg
patching complete but testing going on, and servers open but you can't
log in due to congestion. Unless you've got a source I'm still not
familiar with.

/shrug, you're the one interested in black and white.

Can login? No.
Can login? Yes.

Those are the only two states that matter to me. The announcement tells
me why, I let them get on with the detail.

[Lance Berg]

Post by Tony
Can login? No.
Can login? Yes.
Those are the only two states that matter to me. The announcement tells
me why, I let them get on with the detail.

But thats the key issue, all the others are of lesser importance; as
currently arrange, there are two sorts of Can't Log In, which can be
distinguished from each other simply by looking at the status page, but
which as you note, are irrelevant, and there is Can Log in, which Cannot
be distinguished from the second form of Can't Log In.

Can't Log In: Servers Down
looks different from
Can't Log In: Servers Up but testers monkeying around

Can't Log In: Servers Down
looks different from
Can Log In: Server's Up and the game is playable, but you're getting
congestion preventing you from logging in

Can't Log In: Servers Up but testers monkeying around
LOOKS THE SAME AS
Can Log In: Server's Up and the game is playable, but you're getting
congestion preventing you from logging in

Now since you'll rarely go directly from the first set to the third set,
the second set is of small interest.

The third set, however, is very common, and it doesn't address the core
issue thats important to me... and to you.

If the announcement page is normally updated in a timely manner, as it
was yesterday, then that information is available after all. Its being
done in a sloppy halfassed fashion, but since its associated with SOE
patch policies, thats par for the course.

[Tony Evans]

Post by Lance Berg
Can Log In: Server's Up and the game is playable, but you're getting
congestion preventing you from logging in

I strongly suspect this condition no longer exists.

However, it still doesn't matter to me. If I can't login, I can't login.

If it's post patch, I wait.

If it's no post patch, I resolve fault.

[Richard Carpenter]

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
I know I'm right

Indeed and it doesn't matter how anyone else feels.

Because truth isn't relative. Its true, or its not. I'm right, or I'm not.

Ahh, but we all know that only the Sith deal in absolutes... ;)

[Faned]

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
You know I'm right

No, you gave up the position of being right when you started saying the
same thing over and over despite the fact that this forum isn't the
place to get those issues fixed.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Three hundred seventy-five rights still
don't make a wrong.

[Richard Carpenter]

Post by Faned

Post by Tony

Post by Lance Berg
You know I'm right

No, you gave up the position of being right when you started saying the
same thing over and over despite the fact that this forum isn't the
place to get those issues fixed.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Three hundred seventy-five rights still
don't make a wrong.

I'd say that's a bit of an oversimplification.

Crying, "Rage against the dying of the light!" or William Wallace riding
back and forth before his troops giving the same, "They'll never take our
freedom!" speech loses it's effectiveness by the 375th time it's offered.
The message is no less noble or correct, but it becomes little more than a
self-serving diatribe at some point. If it's therapeutic for Lance, then
good for him, but I can't really fault people for being a bit baffled by
his frequent revisiting/rehashing of the subject.

[the wharf rat]

Post by Richard Carpenter
his frequent revisiting/rehashing of the subject.

Think of it as a quest. He's trying to get Sony's rare
drop: an actual bugfix.

I wish him luck. I've been camping that mob for years and
all it ever drops are bugs and zone updates.

[D.J.]

On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:26:49 -0400, Lance Berg
<***@NOSPAM.dejazzd.com> wrote:
]There's a whole Team to write two sentences?
]
]And a separate team to write four sentences?
]
]And the first team can't include all the information the second team did?

It may boil down to who is allowed/has access to which web page.
edit, ftp, etc.

Corporate anal-retentativness at its worst.

It should be setup to allow one group, and someone logs in even from
Ren Faire to keep it updated, to change all pages that mention
server status.

But if they use the same corporate 'structure' as some companies I
have worked for, different workgroups have access to different web
pages. And no amount of 'but its better customer service to do it
this way' memos will sway the idiots who set it up.

JimP.

[Lief]

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Tony Evans
All EQ servers will be brought down on Tuesday, August 14th around 4:00 AM
PDT for approximately 8 hours. In addition, all services including
subscription services, character transfer service, customer service tools
and other billing services, will not be available at various times during
this period. This downtime will help enable the Legends of Norrath beta.
Thank you for your patience during this downtime, and enjoy Legends of
Norrath!

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/forums/list.m

<snip>

can we expect this complaing every time there is a patch? :P

[Tony]

Post by Lief
can we expect this complaing every time there is a patch? :P

Based on the past time since Lances' return, yes.

[Lance Berg]

Post by Lief
can we expect this complaing every time there is a patch? :P

Yes. On the bright side, its simple enough to skip over, and bandwidth
on this newsgroup really isn't a problem.

Or... no. When I can't find anything new to say, I might skip a few
patches before the fact that the same old same old still hasn't been
repaired bubbles back up to high enough pressure requiring me to vent in
some way.

Thus far, I've found something new or different each patch, either SOE
changing its behavior, or me finding some facet I'd overlooked
previously, or acting on new information based on something someone else
says.

If you just chalk it up to venting, agree or disagree quietly to
yourself and don't post a reply, you're looking at one post per patch,
hardly a big deal even if you can't stop yourself from reading it.

Complain, and I'll likely have a reply to address your complaint. We
can end up putting more posts up about their crappy information system
than about any other facet of the game.

If it helps, I also post a bunch about other facets of the game that
interest me, my signal to noise ratio is pretty good even if you count
all posts about the patch info system as noise.

Lance

[murdocj]

On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:05:23 -0400, Lance Berg

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Tony Evans
All EQ servers will be brought down on Tuesday, August 14th around 4:00 AM
PDT for approximately 8 hours. In addition, all services including
subscription services, character transfer service, customer service tools
and other billing services, will not be available at various times during
this period. This downtime will help enable the Legends of Norrath beta.
Thank you for your patience during this downtime, and enjoy Legends of
Norrath!

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/forums/list.m
had all that info.
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/index.vm
which is where you go when you hit Home, or go straight to the web site
from the login. Anything? No. A note saying that for current game
update info people should go to the Forums page (the one above?) No.
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/game_updates.vm
The updates tab. What do they know? Nothing. As far as they are
concerned the most recent update occurred on 7/25 and they have no info
about any upcomming updates.
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/servers_index.vm
is the tab marked servers. No good, that just talks about what the
names of the various servers are and what type they are and gives links
to their individual forums.
How about this one down here, Network Status
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/network_status.vm
hey that works! Well not really, because secretly I happen to know that
whether the servers are up or down isn't the critical info, the
question is, when they come UP again, are they open to the public or
just to SOE techs doing their minimal testing. But it sure looks good.
Scheduled EverQuest Server Maintenance - 08/14/2007 4:00 am
Downtime Update
All EverQuest servers will be coming down at 4:00 AM PDT (-7 UTC) on
Tuesday 08/14/2007 for an update. Estimated downtime is 8 hours.
The EverQuest Operations Team
OK, guys, the forum page, where you'd only look by chance or because
someone told you, has more info than this. It would take LESS effort to
copy the same info to both places than to write seperate and less
informative text to go here.
This isn't brain surgery. Or, as it turns out, Brraaain surgery.
Berg

Lance... I agree with you as much as anybody. But at this point, you
aren't flogging a dead horse, you're hammering bare entrails.

[Tony]

"All EQ servers, SOE forums and services are undergoing maintenance.
Everything is expected to return to normal around 12:30pm pdt. Forums
and login may be available sooner. We'll keep you updated if this
timeframe changes. ~ Zatozia (10:21am pdt)"

[Tony]

"All EQ servers, SOE forums and services are undergoing maintenance.
Everything is expected to return to normal around 12:30pm pdt. Forums
and login may be available sooner. We'll keep you updated if this
timeframe changes. Yes, you may be listed as General until the
maintenance is completed; doesn't anyone pay attention to our notices?
n00bs! ~ Zatozia (10:36am pdt)"

[Tony]

All EQ servers, SOE forums and services are undergoing maintenance.
Everything is expected to return to normal around 12:30pm pdt. Forums
login should be available again. You may need to relog in to refresh it.
No status change on the servers. ~ Zatozia (11:40am pdt)

[Tony]

All EQ servers, SOE forums and services are undergoing maintenance.
Everything is expected to return to normal around 2:00pm pdt. Forums
login should be available again. You may need to relog in to refresh it.
No status change on the servers. ~ Zatozia (11:40am pdt)

[Don Woods]

Post by Tony
All EQ servers, SOE forums and services are undergoing maintenance.
Everything is expected to return to normal around 2:00pm pdt. Forums
login should be available again. You may need to relog in to refresh it.
No status change on the servers. ~ Zatozia (11:40am pdt)
--
Tony Evans
Saving trees and wasting electrons since 1993
blog -> http://perception-is-truth.blogspot.com/
[ anything below this line wasn't written by me ]

I do appreciate you posting these over here, Tony.

I was also cynically amused that the ETA changed from 12:30 to 2:00pm PDT
without any change to the "11:40am pdt" at the end (which one would assume
is the time the post was last edited).

But hey, it's better than nothing, which is all the "game updates" and
"server status" pages are good for.

-- Don.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- See the a.g.e/EQ1 FAQ at http://www.iCynic.com/~don/EQ/age.faq.htm
--
-- Sukrasisx, Monk 68 on E. Marr Note: If you reply by mail,
-- Terrwini, Druid 58 on E. Marr I'll get to it sooner if you
-- Teviron, Knight 58 on E. Marr remove the "hyphen n s"
-- Wizbeau, Wizard 36 on E. Marr

[Tony]

Post by Don Woods
I do appreciate you posting these over here, Tony.

It passes the time between chatting on my guild boards, trying to get
Eclipse PDT working and reading the ever increasingly amusing ranting on
the Sony boards.

Post by Don Woods
I was also cynically amused that the ETA changed from 12:30 to 2:00pm PDT
without any change to the "11:40am pdt" at the end (which one would assume
is the time the post was last edited).

I basically forgive Zat the slight typing errors, since she's only human
and she's spending time updating the status message, since she knows it
makes our lives a little easier. So, I forgive her.

Post by Don Woods
But hey, it's better than nothing, which is all the "game updates" and
"server status" pages are good for.

Indeed, they have fallen by the wayside, to the lament of several people
on the Sony boards.

[Tony]

All SOE services are undergoing maintenance. Everything is currently
expected to return to normal around 2:30pm pdt. The EQ servers will
remain unavailable until the overall maintenance is completed. Forum
access and other services that require login may be available before the
maintenance is completed, however they will most likely continue to
experience slow periods due to the heavy traffic. We will keep you
posted if the complete timeframe is changed. ~ Zatozia (12:53pm pdt)

[Tony]

Maintenance Update: All SOE services are undergoing maintenance.
Everything is currently expected to return to normal around 3:00pm pdt.
The EQ servers will remain unavailable until the overall maintenance is
completed. Forum access and other services that require login may be
available before the maintenance is completed, however they will most
likely continue to experience slow periods due to the heavy traffic. For
the forums, you may need to relog in to get your forum rank to update
correctly. We will keep you posted if the complete timeframe is changed.
~ Zatozia (2:25pm pdt)

[Tony]

Maintenance Update: All SOE services are undergoing maintenance.
Everything is currently expected to return to normal around 3:30pm pdt.
The EQ servers will remain unavailable until the overall maintenance is
completed. Forum access and other services that require login may be
available before the maintenance is completed, however they will most
likely continue to experience slow periods due to the heavy traffic. For
the forums, you may need to relog in to get your forum rank to update
correctly. We will keep you posted if the complete timeframe is changed.
~ Zatozia (2:43pm pdt)

And now, off to bed for me :)

[Tony]

Maintenance Update: The EQ Servers are being unlocked. Forum access and
other services should now be available however they will most likely
continue to experience slow periods due to the heavy traffic. ~ Zatozia
(4:14pm pdt)