I have to say this isn't the smoothest launch I've ever had in a game (of course, the first 48 hours of early access I was on the phone when I was at home, on hold, not getting through to customer support because of the stupid security questions which I pointed out was a bad idea when they were first introduced and I couldn't get into the forums due to them...)
But there's also this subscription thing. I thought I was supposed to get 30 days free to play the game after paying $60 for it. Apparently, this is not true. I get 30 days only after signing up to pay more money. While this is a given for an MMO, it kinda rubs me the wrong way having to do it before I can play rather than at the end of my "free" period. It may be a difference on the west side of the Pond, but I don't particularly like having to give out personal and account info to play a game. (I'd use a time card, except I don't have one and, it being Christmas, I don't plan on or want to go to a store for two weeks.
It's little things like this that make me not want to encourage other people to play a game or purchase a product.
After spending a total of 7 hours on hold over the course of two days and still never getting in, it's just another annoyance.
Of course, I thought, maybe I can just sign up and then quickly cancel the subscription. At least I can play the game.
No such luck, as apparently, due to high traffic/volume, I'm on hold to get into my subscription page to cancel my account. It just now ended...but didn't give me the option to cancel, rather giving me only the option to subscribe again (and then promptly kicking me out and making me re log-in.) Oh, and I should point out I had to try loging in over and over because, for SOME reason, it just WOULDN'T LOG IN.
Now, I'm generally the type to give people the benefit of the doubt and all that, but my experience so far has been fail with a capital F...and A...and also a capital I and a capital L.
Just to be clear there.
So I won't be recommending my friends pick this game up. If they do it on their own, fine, I'll tell them what server I'm on (if I'm still playing), but if they don't, I won't pressure them to.
As for me, I'm just treating it like KotOR 3, which is what I always intended to do. Pick it up, play through the class stories of my favorite classes, and then move on to another game or go back to WoW and Modern Warfare until Halo 4 comes out or something.
I'm not saying this is all totally your fault, but a lot of it is. You SHOULD have known this'd be a big deal and prepared for HIGH volumes of customer calls (there were times I couldn't even get into the que, since apparently it has a max size before it just says "try again later" to anyone else and hangs up on them.) You should have foreseen the problem with the security question thing. I and dozens if not hundreds of other people on the forums did months ago! And you shouldn't make people have to sign up to get their first 30 days which are supposed to be "free with purchase", not "free with subscription".
It's just one thing after another. As I'm writing this, I'm trying every couple minutes to log in again and spacing this with a match of MW3 because...well, it won't let me log into the forums! Or rather, even into my account to cancel my subscription (which if it did in the FIRST PLACE, I wouldn't even be writing this post while "waiting" on that.)
While I SHOULD be playing your fine game (and it is very lovely and I like the GAME ITSELF so far), I'm not because of all these other issues. It's funny, the server was so quick to let me in to TAKE my money and personal information...
You guys have a chance to do something really cool here, but you're screwing it up. Badly. At every turn. Please please PLEASE, don't do these sorts of things. x_X
EDIT: I should note, even though I'm logged into the forums, it STILL won't let me access my account information to change my subscription thing. o.O Wth, really?
Does this mean that I have to cancel my debit/credit card and get another one issued? REALLY? -sigh- Fail...