Community Response: 24-Hour FGO Maintenance

In the 871 days since June 25, 2017, when Fate/Grand Order first released its Global/English version, there have been server downtimes, there have been connection issues, and of course players have dealt with the trivial and irritating interruption of real life now and then. However, the bravest and boldest few have always managed to squeak in a login every day before the daily server reset, whether that meant waking up at 3 AM or excusing oneself from a work meeting to 'go to the bathroom', despite the windows of opportunity to do so sometimes being as short as 2 hours in the middle of the night.

In fact, having an unbroken series of logins from the very first day of the server (colloquially known as a 'day 1 streak') is sometimes considered a sort of badge of honor by veterans. The subset of players who'd managed to hold onto that achievement tended to take a good deal of personal pride in it... But everything changed when the fire na- when the Christmas 2018 Revival Lite event began.

Standard server maintenance before an event takes anywhere between 2 to 6 hours. Yet when players attempted to log in, they were met with everyone's least favorite message: extended maintenance. Over the course of Nov. 12, players began to get more and more nervous as the messages continued to update with later and later times until eventually just announcing the end time for maintenance as 'TBD'.

The previous longest-ever maintenance was a nerve-wracking 21 hours in Sep. 2018, which spawned a colossal amount of bizarre memes, like a running joke about drawing Servants longer and longer as the maintenance wore on that persists to this day. But last night at 8 PM PDT, the unthinkable happened as the maintenance hit a full 24 hours. Every login streak in FGO Global went kaput. Players with day 1 streaks who managed to log in and continued to hope beyond hope that some miracle would save them were met by the cold truth.

Even worse, the interrupted logins came during the 8 Million Downloads Campaign, denying players one or more login rewards, including a whopping 10 free Summon Tickets, among other things. Therefore, players lost cumulative login streaks, weekly login streaks, an event login streak and the pursuant rewards, and a full day of event farming (which is relevant for many players due to Revival events being on a much shorter schedule than standard events). 

Normally, server maintenance comes with compensation for the downtime to begin with. But extended or unexpected maintenance brings a larger reward most of the time, and this time wasn't an exception. A large amount of in-game premium currency and energy refill items was handed out to all players, and compensation for the lost event rewards was also promised.

However, the responses to the promised compensation were... mixed, to say the least. While almost all players were thankful that at least compensation was forthcoming, there were many different reactions. From players who were more than happy about the maintenance due to the influx of Saint Quartz, to those insistent that the compensation should have been greater, to the unhappy day 1 streak players who would gladly return the rewards in exchange for an intact streak. And of course, there were the people making memes reveling in the chaos as usual.

"At least we get something out of it!"

• "Yeah, I feel for the players who had long streaks, but as a new player those apples and apologems [community nickname for maintenance compensation Saint Quartz] are going to really help." 
   
• "I'll be the guy to say I don't really care. If I had been offered a choice between keeping the streak or getting 30 quartz and 30 apples, I'd have taken that trade in a heartbeat."
   
• "I see a lot of people complaining that their streak is broken, and I feel for them. But there are many players that can use the tickets and gems more than I can use a number. I gladly sacrifice my year+ long streak for this"
   
• "I’ll gladly take 34 sq for my meaningless login streak."
   

As well as a subset who are merely befuddled by the attachment to the login streak shown by some players:
 

• "I have a genuine question, I hope this doesn't come off as rude to anyone because I don't mean it to be. Why is the loss of the login streak upsetting people?

  I had a ~270 something login streak that I lost but getting the saint quartz and the tickets seems like a really good trade-off because they offer me a tangible benefit and help in getting servants I want. Is there a special bonus for having a really long login streak or is it just sentimental? I see a lot of people upset about losing their bonus and I am trying to understand why this is."

  • "At the risk of getting downvoted, they're just too emotionally invested into the game. It's an entirely meaningless number that holds no value except sentimental. The people raging at DW on this subreddit are nuts - and let's not even get started on Twitter."

• "Don't feel shame or regret over something that is literally just a psychologically manipulative tool to promote engagement metrics and such.

  It's just part of the various systems mobile games use to keep people hooked. Not something that should be actually important to your emotional well-being."

"Yeah, but at what cost?"

• "Already saw someone who was able to get in has their streak from day one discontinued. So much sadness and rage"
   
• "Words cannot describe how irate I am over losing the day 1 streak. I know it's just a game, but I actually had a bit of pride over not missing a day. And now, through no fault of my own, it ends."
  • "Honestly, they can keep the tickets. Just give me back my streak. That's what I really care about."
     
• "Like a lot of other Day 1-xx peeps here, I couldn’t care less about the 10 tickets or compensation. What hurts the most is losing the login streak we were diligent enough to keep going."
   
• "I’d take my perfect login streak over 10 tickets any day"
   
• "The longer you've played, the less important a single roll is. If you had an 870+ day streak, you've been playing this game every day for over two years - what's $20 in SQ really amount to at that point? Your streak is something unique, 34 SQ is eating at McDonalds for lunch twice. Meh."
   
• "Are they really just going to let our streaks die like this...my perfect login streak was what kept me going in this game :("
   
• "Honestly considering quitting now that my day 1 streak is gone. Seeing it off sync is going to bother me forever."

"Fine, but give me more!"

Note that some of these are probably tongue-in-cheek, but... you never know.

• "We should start a hashtag #ripdayonestreak

  DEMAND 300 APOLOGEMS AND FREE 5 STAR MAID WAIFUS."

• "1 SQ for every day of previous login please."

• "If they suddenly hand out a 4star servant ticket, I don’t even know if will be enough."

• "Free SSR ticket ffs just do it"

And memes.

She will be able to reach the Aurora if the maintenance keep extending. from r/grandorder

Hope everyone gets his 10 tickets! from r/grandorder