Staggered Access: The Good and the Bad

[Jengie]

Hello Bioware,

 

I've been reading the forums yesterday, and am reading the forums today as well. There's a lot of unchecked rage out there (understandable in a way, but poorly put into words)

Where does patience connected to this staggered early launch end and frustration begins.

 

Im a 35 year old gamer with 21 years of gamingexperience, 10 years of MMO experience. Ive seen horrific launches (horizons), questionable launches (wow), perfect launches (Rift) and everything in between.. I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

 

This is the first ever staggered launch i've been a part of, i'm following it closely, and there seem to be a few things that can be improved upon.

 

Here's a few issues that really mindboggle me:

 

1. The size of the waves: Several of my guildies were in the 1st and 2nd wave on tuesday, and they told me the zones they played in are as good as empty. I've gotten reports from them of 14 people on Ort Mantell after an hour, and 25 on tython after 90 minutes. When i was in beta there were around 400 people on tython, and i had no lag and only had to wait for respawns here and there, it was fine. It seems to me you're running your servers on a fraction of their capability. Which seems weird after extended beta stress tests. with tens of thousands of people jumping to get in.

 

2. Im sitting here in the EU and the first wave is planned for 14:00 my time. It seems to me a perfectly fine morning to get EU players into empty EU servers goes to waste here. Why on earth are we stuck on US office times for EU entry into this early launch. This seems very poorly planned to me.

 

3. Your communication towards us. I sat on Teamspeak yesterday with about 5 or 6 of my guildies and we were chain refreshing to see if we got in or not. Only 1 did, the dissapointment of that put aside.. how difficult is it for you to send out mails in the morning with information regarding which wave we're in, and what time approximately that wave is planned to go live. It would prefend us sw and bw fanboys/girls to actually plan our day, walk the dog, go for groceries and such. To me, its really rediculous im having to sit here like a morron checking my mail and the launcher every hour if im in already.

 

4. see you at 50 my friends. Im also quite sad that several of my buddies are already outleveling me by a good 20 lvls. I was planning to do instances with them while lvling, joining for groupquests and such. all those plans are in the trashcan. I'll be lvling alone most likely. This is dissapointing to me.

 

5 Goodbye competative edge. also, i can forget about any competative edge for serverfirsts, both in my class and for instances and such. This may not matter to most players, but it matters to me. Even with that, im not fuming with rage about it, but it does have me irritated.

 

I know Bioware is doing it this way to guerentee a good gaming performance. And it is doing that. The reports from my guildies that are in also include no lag and no glitches.

It does seem to me though (and to my buddies) that bioware is being overly carefull with their servers atm, and that it could go much faster then its going atm.

It may leave the perception on the game of the people playing atm very possitive, but you'll have tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people feeling rather annoyed.

 

Bioware, plz plz, work on that communication. try to make the waves a little bit bigger please. 25 people in a starterzone each wave is on the low side, and thats putting it mildly. also consider the EU here. Already wasted a perfectly fine wednesday morning here with empty starterzones.

 

Im an old geezer (redeemed code on the 30th of july), i dont post this our of spite, or because i feel entitled to anything. I post this because i have the feeling that hundreds of thousands of people are being frustrated atm for no good reason, and that a lot of that frustration could be solved with a few tweaks to the execution of this process.

 

high regards from amsterdam,

Jengie

[Andyonme]

Could you condense that into a few words please?

[Seravie]

Could you condense that into a few words please?

 

Welcome to college.

 

Also OP #1 and #3 contradict each other. You stated that several of your guildies got in the 1st or 2nd wave yet state in 3 that only one got in. >_>

Edited December 14, 2011 by Seravie

[Axemaxor]

Could you condense that into a few words please?

 

Condensing would involve using many forbidden words, considering what OP is trying to state.

 

For myself, i can relay the idea in 3 such words.

[Jengie]

only 1 got into wave 1 the other got into the 2nd wave

[Outbreakz]

Bioware screwed up and they will never admit it, get used to it.

[Aethusa]

There is no good about it, sorry.

[bigoldbear]

Bioware screwed up and they will never admit it, get used to it.

 

You speak with such authority I feel compelled to believe you.

[Jengie]

There is good, the game runs well, from what i hear.

But thats at the cost of frustrating the customerbase.

 

The EU scedule thing is frustrating the most tbh. Its 13:40 here in amsterdam, and there's no 1st wave live yet today. almost seems they didnt give that any thought.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Jengie

[jonklon]

There is good, the game runs well, from what i hear.

But thats at the cost of frustrating the customerbase.

 

The EU scedule thing is frustrating the most tbh. Its 13:40 here in amsterdam, and there's no 1st wave live yet today. almost seems they didnt give that any thought.

 

i really dont think they did to be honest. Ive spoken to some friends about it and none of us can remember when a MMO didnt have seperate working spaces in different parts of the world.

 

if you take blizzard and WoW, they have server maintenance for the US when they are sleeping, then for the EU the day after, when EU are sleeping.....much better way to do it in my oppinion.