Final Wave Sent!

[Jesseria]

Hey everyone.

 

Hello Stephen Reid!

 

We absolutely understand you want to get in and play the game early. It's one of the reasons we expanded our Early Game Access from a maximum of five days to a maximum of seven days. However, there are a couple of important points to realize about today's opening salvo of invites, and the procedure in general for Early Game Access and launch.

 

Thank you very much for this bit of information. It assures me that BioWare at least cares about customer relations. I personally do not blame BioWare for this fiasco, as it wreaks of EA tampering. So, let me being this post by saying that I respect BioWare and I love your product. No matter what happens, I will continue to wait and I will play this game for a long time to come. However, you must know how this feels for your customers; and that is the point of this thread.

 

First, Early Game Access and launch is not supposed to be a stress test. In our previous Beta Testing Weekends we got up to very large concurrent number of players and brought invites into the game at a very high rate. That was done to stress test every aspect of our systems and servers, and essentially to see if they broke. In some cases, they did, but that helped us improve for launch.

 

You are absolutely correct in saying that Launch is not about stress testing. Early Access is a launch event as the majority of people who will play this game on December 20th have pre-ordered. As such, I believe that it is important to understand that since this is a launch event, the servers should have been prepared appropriately for a larger number of concurrent users; enough to provide for the demand. The hesitation to open the servers up to more players is a clear indication of lack of confidence, and that makes me nervous as well.

 

For us, launch isn't just about stuffing our servers with as many people as possible. As anyone who's been through a large MMO launch can tell you, that experience can be painful. Our aim with this launch was to ramp things up gradually, to spread our player population out amongst a variety of servers, to maintain all server types, and to keep queuing to a minimum (although we expect that to happen as we head towards December 20th). So far, all that has been successful for us on Day One.

 

Again, you are correct Stephen; launch is not about stuffing your servers with as many people as possible. It is about making your product available to ALL of your customers. I have been through 7 different AAA MMORPG releases since 1995. I understand the pains and frustrations associated with launching an MMORPG. However, I can say with confidence that this is by far the most tortuous MMORPG launch I have ever been through.

 

As of this moment, 40 of my guild mates are in the game. They are leveling up and accomplishing quests. They will take down the world boss in Coruscant tonight, or early tomorrow morning; and I will not be able to join them in this. More than likely, I never will have enough guild members to take down that boss from now until SW:TOR closes its doors to customers. This has cost me a significant amount of potential enjoyment with your product because I won't be able to do it with my friends.

 

I understand that you may want to reward your players with early access; and I think that this is a great idea. However, the method in which you are doing this is creating the feeling of entitlement - and entitlement based treatment. You are more than welcome to reward us for making a commitment to your game; and all of us have made an equal commitment. However, you want to reward us, reward all of us, or none of us at all. Otherwise, you are going alienate your customer base.

 

The second thing to realize is scale. We invited more people to play Star Wars: The Old Republic today than many other MMO launches manage in their entire head-start process. As I mentioned earlier today, when we opened pre-orders we had a huge spike in numbers - far more than most MMOs capture at launch. That was the initial rush. After that, our pre-orders settled down.

 

Stephen, I don't care about other MMORPG launches. I care about SW:TOR's launch, and creating an appropriate opportunity for the game's customers to gain access to the product. You had a metric to base demand off of since July. There is is no excuse for not being ready. As such - this entire paragraph is nothing more than a lame excuse, and your customers see right through that.

 

What this means is that tomorrow, you'll effectively start to see the pre-order timeline expand. You'll see people who have pre-ordered later than July getting invites. The day after that, more people will be invited. We're actually planning to invite more tomorrow than today, and invite the same number again on Thursday - at which point we'll be into the original 'five days of Early Game Access'.

 

Stephen, this doesn't reassure your customers in the slightest. Getting invited tomorrow, or Thursday doesn't fix this problem. In fact, that is exactly what the problem is. This entire process has been deplorable to say the least; and holding the carrot on the stick in front of us tortuous to people who have pre-ordered months in advance, including myself.

 

Last thing. Why aren't we continuing to send waves over time? Two main reasons - one, because we need to see that the servers are maintaining stability over time; adding a lot of players in a short period (in other words, stress testing) can cause stability issues.

 

But wait a second, you said that launch and early access is NOT a stress test. Why is it that you are intentionally stress testing during a Launch event? You have had over five months to prepare, and appropriately develop your servers to accommodate the obvious massive demand for this game. Once again, this reads like a very lame excuse, and you contradict yourself from the second paragraph.

 

Two, our plan is to continue to add servers - but carefully, and in response to demand. We need to monitor that demand and role out servers accordingly. A long-term recipe for MMO failure is to add a lot of servers early on, and then when population decreases, have to close those servers and merge them together.

 

Two points on this paragraph. This event is not helping you balance your server populations. Over 90% of those who pre-ordered aren't able to access the game, and your server lists read as, "Full." I understand that the population limits on each server are limited to encourage load balancing, but this is doing nothing more than limiting population when all players are able to connect. You can achieve the same results by queuing players who are actively able to play.

 

This system has created an artificial queue, one that is not based on log in attempt time, but based on pre-order date. Instead of going through the frustration of waiting through a 1 - 2 hour queue, we must go through the frustration of going through a 1 - 3 day freeze on any and all access to the server. We are still in a queue, the largest and most deplorable queuing system ever deployed by any game in history. This isn't an exaggeration, its the truth.

 

Our aim is for Star Wars: The Old Republic to be around for a long time to come. Today's just the first step in that - an early step, too - and we'll be running smoothly, with a stable population, before too long.

 

Stephen, at what cost is coming from this expense? To be honest, you are hurting your customers more with this scheme than a traditional MMORPG launch could ever hurt them. I believe that more people will quit because of this, than what would have happened if you decided to take a more traditional approach. You have taught your customers to distrust you, and to be nervous about server stability.

 

Your customers expect some hiccups during a massive launch. Your customers expect queues, and would prefer them to what we have now. With queues we have the hope of playing after waiting for 1 - 2 hours. Now, we have absolutely no hope whatsoever of getting into the game for at least another 16 hours.

 

This success that you mention may be nice for the players who are in now. But, for the majority of your customers, this success came at too great of a cost. Please reconsider your invitation process and make this right.

[Sarabela]

I think the way they are launching was pretty smart and will make it go much smoother than other game launches. I hope to get in tomorrow or the next day. I don't understand all this complaining. Do you people really think that 1 or 2 or 3 days is really going to make such a huge difference in your game experience that it's ruined? That is a bit ridiculous IMHO. Time to learn some patience.

[Hordequester]

Copied this from another thread which was randomly closed..

Completely illogical and uninformed responses from someone that obviously has very little knowledge in game design or massive launches. Not sure why you'd agree with any of it nor why you'd feel the need to repost it.

[Tauon]

Completely illogical and uninformed responses from someone that obviously has very little knowledge in game design or massive launches. Not sure why you'd agree with any of it nor why you'd feel the need to repost it.

 

 

Have you really read it?

I think it is a great post...

[sweet]

Bioware said that they had a huge spike of requests to pre-order the game as soon as it was available, so that means that as time goes on the amount of people with further dates apart will be accepted into the game

[Entarri]

-snip for quote length-

 

Amazing post and absolutely well said! +1 to this, completely agree with everything you brought up.

[Sedi]

Bioware said that they had a huge spike of requests to pre-order the game as soon as it was available, so that means that as time goes on the amount of people with further dates apart will be accepted into the game

 

Starting tomorrow it breaks July as SR said.

[Dizov]

Hmmm... Redeemed preorder code on the 27th of July and no early access code and yet I'm hearing of some who did. Maybe I should have pre-ordered it 3 hours sooner?

[PessimiStick]

Have you really read it?

I think it is a great post...

It's a great post if you like meaningless whining and baseless assumptions.

 

Otherwise, not so much.

[DrAidennwitz]

Read this. The OP have a realy good post. Thread closed by BW:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=9124&page=13

 

It's still whining, he just used more words.

 

Guys, you got what you paid for, nothing more, nothing less. And it started two days before it should. If some friends got separated because of the staggering - that's not Bioware's fault. You knew this could happen and you could have bought the game together.

 

I simply fail to see where the problem is. They came out with this plan ages ago, they explained it, everyone accepted it when they bought the game (whether they cared enough to read about it or not) and now they're rolling it even more smoothly than planned.

 

Sure, you can argue that the system itself is not good (I, for one, like it very much), but all your arguments and whining are null and void because you agreed to this (whether you know it or not) and nothing will change it now.

[tehrikard]

It's a great post if you like meaningless whining and baseless assumptions.

 

Otherwise, not so much.

 

Yeah, well, based on your name, I doubt there is much in this world that you experience and don't find "meaningless."

 

Thanks for your opinion though. That sure has a lot of meaning.

[Lutherus]

Anyone who thinks BW is doing it wrong, I'd like to see a VIABLE solution that wouldn't end up with everyonhe logging in at the same time and crashing servers and making beginning areas unplayable.

 

You're limited by

 

1) today's server technology,

 

2) cost effectiveness of adding a bazillion extra servers for launch only to have to merge them later on after initial surges die down (if that was your solution).

[Jarlathe]

SERIOUSLY? You close that amazing post FOR THIS ONE? Christ...

 

My thoughts exactly. Leave the trolling and whining threads open, but close one that makes some good points without sounding entitled.

 

/shrug

[Aldan]

What annoys me is that people don't understand why they are doing it like this. It's not a stability test, they are try to grow servers and their populations organically... i genuinely a major part of it is because they are looking at the long haul and populating server that will last!!!

 

Come on people vent your frustrations after reading all the info and find out what is going on! complaining about the way thay are handling the process is fair enough, even if i disagree... but get your facts straight and dnt assume that because you've played mmo's you understand the absoloute best way to do thing, there is no best way, but i genuinely believe BW are doing this with the best intentions.

[KypDurrron]

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenReid

Hey everyone.

 

Hello Stephen Reid!

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenReid

We absolutely understand you want to get in and play the game early. It's one of the reasons we expanded our Early Game Access from a maximum of five days to a maximum of seven days. However, there are a couple of important points to realize about today's opening salvo of invites, and the procedure in general for Early Game Access and launch.

 

Thank you very much for this bit of information. It assures me that BioWare at least cares about customer relations. I personally do not blame BioWare for this fiasco, as it wreaks of EA tampering. So, let me being this post by saying that I respect BioWare and I love your product. No matter what happens, I will continue to wait and I will play this game for a long time to come. However, you must know how this feels for your customers; and that is the point of this thread.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenReid

First, Early Game Access and launch is not supposed to be a stress test. In our previous Beta Testing Weekends we got up to very large concurrent number of players and brought invites into the game at a very high rate. That was done to stress test every aspect of our systems and servers, and essentially to see if they broke. In some cases, they did, but that helped us improve for launch.

 

You are absolutely correct in saying that Launch is not about stress testing. Early Access is a launch event as the majority of people who will play this game on December 20th have pre-ordered. As such, I believe that it is important to understand that since this is a launch event, the servers should have been prepared appropriately for a larger number of concurrent users; enough to provide for the demand. The hesitation to open the servers up to more players is a clear indication of lack of confidence, and that makes me nervous as well.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenReid

For us, launch isn't just about stuffing our servers with as many people as possible. As anyone who's been through a large MMO launch can tell you, that experience can be painful. Our aim with this launch was to ramp things up gradually, to spread our player population out amongst a variety of servers, to maintain all server types, and to keep queuing to a minimum (although we expect that to happen as we head towards December 20th). So far, all that has been successful for us on Day One.

 

Again, you are correct Stephen; launch is not about stuffing your servers with as many people as possible. It is about making your product available to ALL of your customers. I have been through 7 different AAA MMORPG releases since 1995. I understand the pains and frustrations associated with launching an MMORPG. However, I can say with confidence that this is by far the most tortuous MMORPG launch I have ever been through.

 

As of this moment, 40 of my guild mates are in the game. They are leveling up and accomplishing quests. They will take down the world boss in Coruscant tonight, or early tomorrow morning; and I will not be able to join them in this. More than likely, I never will have enough guild members to take down that boss from now until SW:TOR closes its doors to customers. This has cost me a significant amount of potential enjoyment with your product because I won't be able to do it with my friends.

 

I understand that you may want to reward your players with early access; and I think that this is a great idea. However, the method in which you are doing this is creating the feeling of entitlement - and entitlement based treatment. You are more than welcome to reward us for making a commitment to your game; and all of us have made an equal commitment. However, you want to reward us, reward all of us, or none of us at all. Otherwise, you are going alienate your customer base.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenReid

The second thing to realize is scale. We invited more people to play Star Wars: The Old Republic today than many other MMO launches manage in their entire head-start process. As I mentioned earlier today, when we opened pre-orders we had a huge spike in numbers - far more than most MMOs capture at launch. That was the initial rush. After that, our pre-orders settled down.

 

Stephen, I don't care about other MMORPG launches. I care about SW:TOR's launch, and creating an appropriate opportunity for the game's customers to gain access to the product. You had a metric to base demand off of since July. There is is no excuse for not being ready. As such - this entire paragraph is nothing more than a lame excuse, and your customers see right through that.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenReid

What this means is that tomorrow, you'll effectively start to see the pre-order timeline expand. You'll see people who have pre-ordered later than July getting invites. The day after that, more people will be invited. We're actually planning to invite more tomorrow than today, and invite the same number again on Thursday - at which point we'll be into the original 'five days of Early Game Access'.

 

Stephen, this doesn't reassure your customers in the slightest. Getting invited tomorrow, or Thursday doesn't fix this problem. In fact, that is exactly what the problem is. This entire process has been deplorable to say the least; and holding the carrot on the stick in front of us tortuous to people who have pre-ordered months in advance, including myself.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenReid

Last thing. Why aren't we continuing to send waves over time? Two main reasons - one, because we need to see that the servers are maintaining stability over time; adding a lot of players in a short period (in other words, stress testing) can cause stability issues.

 

But wait a second, you said that launch and early access is NOT a stress test. Why is it that you are intentionally stress testing during a Launch event? You have had over five months to prepare, and appropriately develop your servers to accommodate the obvious massive demand for this game. Once again, this reads like a very lame excuse, and you contradict yourself from the second paragraph.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenReid

Two, our plan is to continue to add servers - but carefully, and in response to demand. We need to monitor that demand and role out servers accordingly. A long-term recipe for MMO failure is to add a lot of servers early on, and then when population decreases, have to close those servers and merge them together.

 

Two points on this paragraph. This event is not helping you balance your server populations. Over 90% of those who pre-ordered aren't able to access the game, and your server lists read as, "Full." I understand that the population limits on each server are limited to encourage load balancing, but this is doing nothing more than limiting population when all players are able to connect. You can achieve the same results by queuing players who are actively able to play.

 

This system has created an artificial queue, one that is not based on log in attempt time, but based on pre-order date. Instead of going through the frustration of waiting through a 1 - 2 hour queue, we must go through the frustration of going through a 1 - 3 day freeze on any and all access to the server. We are still in a queue, the largest and most deplorable queuing system ever deployed by any game in history. This isn't an exaggeration, its the truth.

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by StephenReid

Our aim is for Star Wars: The Old Republic to be around for a long time to come. Today's just the first step in that - an early step, too - and we'll be running smoothly, with a stable population, before too long.

 

Stephen, at what cost is coming from this expense? To be honest, you are hurting your customers more with this scheme than a traditional MMORPG launch could ever hurt them. I believe that more people will quit because of this, than what would have happened if you decided to take a more traditional approach. You have taught your customers to distrust you, and to be nervous about server stability.

 

Your customers expect some hiccups during a massive launch. Your customers expect queues, and would prefer them to what we have now. With queues we have the hope of playing after waiting for 1 - 2 hours. Now, we have absolutely no hope whatsoever of getting into the game for at least another 16 hours.

 

This success that you mention may be nice for the players who are in now. But, for the majority of your customers, this success came at too great of a cost. Please reconsider your invitation process and make this right.

[Hordequester]

Have you really read it?

I think it is a great post...

Read it the first time and the second time skimmed to make sure it was the same. It's all nonsense from someone that's obviously butt-hurt but has no real understanding of why it was launched the way it was or why it is also the best possible way to launch a game of this size.

[Whitemane]

Bioware has no idea when you purchased your game. Only the company you bought it from does. Bioware issues a batch of keys and they are distributed by the reseller. The flow of information does not go back to BW. Only Money.

 

Considering I bought the key from EA/Origin and redeemed it through their POS systems I absolutely garuntee they know from whom and when I bought it from. That kind of information is usually encoded in the keys even if its not tracked via Database means directly.

[Gunblades]

Because some people don't understand the concept of waiting in line for something without crying?

 

Personally if the line is long I'll come back later. or spend the extra $$$ and buy the speed pass. I wish there was a Speed Pass for accessing this game. I'd gladdly pay.

Edited December 13, 2011 by Gunblades

[PessimiStick]

Yeah, well, based on your name, I doubt there is much in this world that you experience and don't find "meaningless."

 

Thanks for your opinion though. That sure has a lot of meaning.

My name has nothing to do with my personality. It's a name from Tribes, circa 1999. Regardless, my post is still accurate.

[alrighto]

I just want to add as well that opening servers on a needs basis is flawed as many users who have preorder have friends/guilds that have already started meaning that they dont have the option of picking a low POP server if they want to play with their guild and friends

 

its going to cause overpopulation on the original servers and low pop on the new servers that are going to be released later

[shodaihokage]

Everyone on this topic who is upset about early access needs to get over themselves. Nobody owes you anything, you are not the only person playing this game. And for the record, you are playing before the 20th for Free, you are paying nothing. And no do not talk about your pre order deposit, if pre orders did not exist you would still play the same price, so stop ************ because you are not in. If you loved this game as much as you claim, and if your loyalty is that high, then maybe you should have pre ordered on July 21-22. Otherwise, stop complaining.

[Provos]

Queues, it worked for Rift. I waited 2 hours but I got in first day.

[psysention]

word on the forum is around 960k pre-orders in US retail stores..

if there is 960k retail pre-orders in US, we can assume 2 million pre-orders from retailers rest of the world.. that makes around 3 million retail copy.

There is also digital deluxe and digital standart editions, if there is 3 million retail copy pre-ordered worldwide we can assume min 3 million digital editions pre-ordered..

 

When i pre-ordered i paid extra 5euro as Pre-order fee, this is unrefundable fee and paying this fee gives you the EGA code..

Aprox around 6 million pre-order world wide (6m*5eu) > that means 30 million EU = 40 million $

Not to mention with this much pre-order and potential subs any company can get bank loan etc..

 

Considering EA ownz Bioware, there shouldn't be much financial problems at bioware.. Not to mention extra 40 million $ coming from pre-orders instantly..

 

So a company that has all these financial power, how come the servers can not handle all the players at once? with all these money maybe a better server system could be developed?

[chrisishere]

Didn't Bioware say they raise the amount of invites day by day? So basically today 10, tomorrow 20, next 40 etc etc.?

 

Bioware has avoided any specific details. Which is where the confusion and annoyance is coming from - a big black hole where the information should be..

 

They've had tens of thousands of posts on the forum today - yet not a peep from bw about the issues being raised.

[Yoshitaru]

No matter how they handle it or what they do..people will complain. There's no learning curve involved. They did it the way it needed to be done and stuck to it. Let the whiners whine...they could have let everyone in and people would say there's a learning curve and they made the wrong decision because of wait queues to get in or unforeseen stability problems.

 

It's the exact opposite of doing the wrong thing. They did it right and people that don't see that don't understand how massive launches work.

 

they could have talked about how the ega would be handled a week or two in advance... I just wish i would have known before today...