In today's world, things like server maintenance and upgrades are normally painless processes that can be done without issues. Sometimes there might be downtime if it's an intensive update, but that's typically as extreme as it gets. Niantic, the makers of Pokemon GO have posted an alert that it will be performing server maintenance over a few days that could potentially interrupt players.
Niantic sent out a tweet from the company's Support Twitter account stating that it will be doing server maintenance that will go on for a few days. Pokemon GO will still be playable, but it warns that there may be some interruptions. These interruptions may affect certain interactions in the game that could even impact the Weekly Research Task progression. There are no indications as to what it will be addressing with this round of maintenance. Still, some longtime players heard of this round of maintenance, saw its length, and couldn't help but have flashbacks to the days when the game first launched.
The server maintenance will run from November 3 - November 6 and does not have a specific time that the brunt of issues may occur; only that it began as the calendar hit November 3rd in the PST timezone. Neither is there any clue that maintenance may affect a particular region over others. This server maintenance will still be happening when the next big in-game event Festival of Lights begins.
Some comments in the tweet thread have been joking, but others have focused on serious things occurring like lost rare and shiny Pokemon, lost purchases, raid passes, and things of that nature that Niantic has responded to slowly or not all that well with in the past. When server maintenance began at exactly 1 PM PST and the Niantic Support account alerted players, those in the European region were quick to point out that their weekly Legendary Raid Hour had just begun. There was one quote tweet from a player reporting that their name was changed and they couldn't change it back. Other than that, the replies are mostly showing mild annoyance at the timing of maintenance.
Players are already expecting a make-up mini-event or reward for their troubles. It's not a certain thing, but Niantic has a history of giving some grace to players when there are certain issues in the game that are out of the players' control. With a host of new Pokemon coming out, one of which will debut during the Festival of Lights, and ongoing issues with Go Battle League, this intensive round of maintenance will help stabilize the game more and hopefully help it all run as smoothly as possible.
Pokemon GO is out now on iOS and Android.