[A little advice Bioware/EA/LucasArts]

"Early Access" to SWTOR has been a complete PR disaster due to the poor

communication with your customers. As a business, one of the biggest

blunders you can make is to sideline the tenet of service for SYSTEMS that

don't serve customers, living breathing people.

 

Creating a system without level-setting customer expectations by

communicating effectively to them results in confusion and inefficiencies

that inconvenience your customers¹ lives as well as your servers.

 

So many people have waited for years in anticipation of this launch only to

be greeted by confusion and disappointment of its lackluster orchestration.

 

I would have created a simple Early Access ramp-up schedule like this...

 

Tues 12/13 - Invites to all players who redeemed code in July/August

Weds 12/14 - Invites to all players who redeemed code in Sept/Oct

Thurs 12/15 - Invites to all players who redeemed code in Nov/Dec

 

Or evenly distribute early access with more conservative estimates for load

balancing your servers. At least with a plan like this, your customers would

have been able to schedule their lives according to the launch schedule

without feeling like mushrooms -- you keep them in the dark and feed them

crap.

 

Bottom line... serve people and you will win. Treat customers like dross

dumb dumbs and don't count on them being around for long. Great products

without customers never lead to business success. I believe you have a

great product; just match the quality of service and you'll be successful.

 

Best wishes,

 

Stephen (ArcaKahn)