Consider this an open letter to the folks who run the PTCGO servers:
Hi.
You are probably busy. But I just wanted to mention that I haven't been able to log on for what seems like days.
Worse, there is no information about how long the maintenance window will be, or any information about what is going on. There is the little box in the upper right on the pokemontcg.com site, but those times are so random as to be irrelevant.
I really like the online game a lot. You have done a really nice job with it. But your change management procedures are terrible. Little or no warning. Downtimes that stretch past the posted maintenance window. Poor communication with users as to what is going on.
I know that the site says "beta". But your company is giving out a card in every pack of their product inviting people to use your site. Pokémon is in effect selling this as a product. You really need to find a way to make the site more dependable, and you need to work on better IT practices in terms of upgrades and changes. That isn't about whether the site is "beta" or production. Its just about establishing and following better methods of doing your work without so badly disrupting your customers experience with your site. Having your game go down for long periods of time with no real information as to why or when they will be back up is not only bad business, its bad IT.
Again, I like the online game. It is a wonderful accomplishment. I just like it a lot better when it actually lets me log on to play.
Cheers,
Dan
Hi.
You are probably busy. But I just wanted to mention that I haven't been able to log on for what seems like days.
Worse, there is no information about how long the maintenance window will be, or any information about what is going on. There is the little box in the upper right on the pokemontcg.com site, but those times are so random as to be irrelevant.
I really like the online game a lot. You have done a really nice job with it. But your change management procedures are terrible. Little or no warning. Downtimes that stretch past the posted maintenance window. Poor communication with users as to what is going on.
I know that the site says "beta". But your company is giving out a card in every pack of their product inviting people to use your site. Pokémon is in effect selling this as a product. You really need to find a way to make the site more dependable, and you need to work on better IT practices in terms of upgrades and changes. That isn't about whether the site is "beta" or production. Its just about establishing and following better methods of doing your work without so badly disrupting your customers experience with your site. Having your game go down for long periods of time with no real information as to why or when they will be back up is not only bad business, its bad IT.
Again, I like the online game. It is a wonderful accomplishment. I just like it a lot better when it actually lets me log on to play.
Cheers,
Dan