halldorr

OK, here's what I did.  
I updated the game in Steam (had no choice really)
Then I looked for my server, and couldn't find it
So I ran the update on the server
This time I found my server, logged into it, and got the game creation failed message
I posted here that I had the problem
I ran the update and validate step from the control panel
Now I can log into the game

My server recently went down. I checked and saw there was staff intervention.
Now it's back up and we've lost the last 10 or so hours and have a different IP.
I know, I'm telling a familiar story for these forums, but I'm not here to complain.
I'm here to offer constructive feedback.
 
My personal experience up until now, I had no complaints. The server would stop here and there but I expected some technical hiccups given the under developed state of multiplayer on this game and it was easy enough to just start it again, at most a couple minutes were lost.
Now we lost around 10 hours of progress and I have to communicate a new IP to all of my players. So we traded a very mild annoyance for a big pain point, purely due to this occurring without any communication or loss mitigation occurring.
 
I started my server a couple days ago and read in these forums at the time that some sort of optimization was occurring with some servers which was causing this problem for some people. I started my server after this began and so I reasonably presumed my server would have been created with this already present. If it's such an urgent fix that warrants an “emergency” style fix being applied, surely new servers are being deployed with this integrated...right?
Apparently not.
I was in fact manually saving the server periodically, just in case, but it just so happened that this occurred for me shortly before I was about to start my day. So in that sense it was just unfortunate timing in terms of the actualized loss but the point however remains. The fix should have been integrated into new server deployment.
Stopping the proverbial fire from spreading should be given top priority, otherwise you're just ensuring all your new customers become pissed off customers.
 
Now what should have happened, is this should have been performed in a maintenance window and stakeholders like me should have been notified before hand.
All of the pain points this has created for me could have been prevented simply by following basic change deployment standards.
Had I been informed something to the effect of:
“We'll be performing a migration on your server between X and Y time today. This will result in a change of IP. Game progress during this window may be lost.”
I could have planned for this. I could have informed players. I could have gotten up an hour earlier to log on and do a manual save.
Since it was a surprise though, I had no such opportunity. It's just loss and angry players that could have been prevented or at least mitigated.
 
I'm not asking for an apology or compensation. I'm asking you to do better.
All of these pissed off customers you have now, including me, it doesn't have to be this way and it's not hard to prevent.
Simply organize your deployment and communicate with your customers.
Develop a change management process.
If you had a proper one in place, you wouldn't have 99% of these pissed off customers.
 
This is my humble advice as a long time Survival Servers customer and an IT professional.
I have long found your server performance to be good and your prices quite reasonable. I would very much like to continue using your service and recommending it to others.
This however, has to change. You can't go flying by the seat of your pants when you're charging people for a service, it's not professional.
Moreover, I hope you see that it is in your best interest as a business to do this. Quantify the time and expense caused by your unhappy customers and compare it to creating and following a proper change management standard. There's a reason this is the industry norm.
 
Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope you will sincerely consider improving your process.
 
 

Just went to pre-order and couldn't select New York. Will some be available soon?
 
- never mind, ended up getting one

We're working on getting stock up as we speak!

Are there no New York servers available? Was trying to preorder a server and I couldn't select it from the drop down.

I have an update to this issue. I found something on a forum somewhere, probably Steam, where someone suspected an issue with dino settings. I did have these settings modified and ever since I had reset them to the default "1" I have not had any further issues with dinos dying on loading in. This has been a couple weeks now.
 
The settings:
Dino Water Drain Multiplier
Dino Food Drain Multiplier
Dino Stamina Drain Multiplier