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Early Access 'Waves' - Updating Here, PART II

Sarah_Kerrigan

By Sarah_Kerrigan
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Viralblack

Viralblack

Posted
Posted
November 30th here, guess I'll be waiting awhile for the "wave" to him me. Back to BF3:)

 

Least the expansion came out today, though I wanted to uninstall and focus here x.x

 

I agree with the not QQing post btw, for whatever its worth, Id have probably been a lot less angsty if theyd just said ahead of time "Email - Access Date is Blah" or youre in "wave eleventyseven"

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psysention

psysention

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Posted (edited)
Originally Posted by StephenReid

Hey everyone.

 

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.

 

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.

So actually servers can handle the stress... so why not let everybody in? why letting people go crazy

 

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.

 

Than provide your customers a server that can handle more people. This way there won't be much que, and not to mention people prefers waiting que to wait on forums.. Not to mention not everybody has job/school, some of us has to wait 24/7 for the invite mail, do you have any idea how that feel mister mmo expert? how many mmo launch or ega you experienced? Trash talk is easy it's just considered announcement when it comes from Stephen Reid

 

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.

How many mmo launch have you experienced in person? how do you know you invited more people than any other launch? i remember Rift letting everybody in on same day with no problem. why you guys scared of letting a lot of people log in? are we living in 1999 or 2011?

 

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 Eare Access'.

thats doesn't change the fact that people who started today will be level 20 by the time we log in to game. ask yourself is this fair?

 

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.

in your post you stated clearly that you already stress tested the servers with not much problem... why not let everybody in.. there is no good reason for stopping the waves right now

 

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.

 

This system already failed by Guild deployment system plus the staggered EGA is the seasoning over it.. one word terrible...

 

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.

 

we will play but let me tell you this is the worst launch ever

 

responses in red

Edited by psysention
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pdubby

pdubby

Posted
Posted
so we should keep shamelessly bump it?

 

Originally Posted by Kinegos

This isn't a troll, and isn't exactly QQ although there is some of that involved.

 

I just want to put it down for the record that the way this early access program has been implemented is truly one of the most poorly conceived ideas that I've ever personally encountered in over 25 years of playing video games. I've personally participated in launches of 6 other MMO games, and there is nothing in those experiences that compares to how ridiculous this process is.

 

When you are dealing with a pre-launch even that is only for pre-order customers, after an extensive and massive beta testing period that was a huge success according to nearly all sources involved - it begs the huge question as to what is the limiting factor in the way you have chosen to roll out this game. I personally participated in the beta in a very limited way (not by choice, mind you, I just wasn't lucky enough to get a key) and was only online during the big Thanksgiving weekend test. That test was wonderful - there were a huge number of servers, and a huge population of testers. The game performance was amazing.

 

So, EA/BW - what exactly are you afraid of?

 

The ONLY way this should have been done is to have given ALL pre-orders (perhaps separated only by level of game purchased - i.e. CE customers get 7 days, SE get 5, e.g.) access at exactly the same time. Of course it will overload the servers and queues would ensue and all that - but that's what we all expect. Making your customers wait unknowingly with no idea how long it will be or when to expect an email is just adding insult to injury. A poor alternative would have been to send out emails with a set time and day that your access would be available.

 

I read in the top post how you are monitoring the server performance and are rolling waves based on server performance. Are you seriously saying you have to wonder at this point if your servers can perform up to the task - when you probably still have 90% of the launch day players yet to even be able to play? That is not at all a good message to be sending at the beginning of an MMO franchise.

 

At any rate, I love this game. I love BW. But I truly despise and am sickened by the way you chose to put your customers through so much stress for absolutely no good or justifiable reason.

 

I truly hope you improve, because this is a very very poor way to start out.

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Parali

Parali

Posted
Posted

Greetings!

 

We already have a discussion dedicated to the final wave of invites, so we are encouraging our members to continue the conversation here:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=6488

 

We would also like to gently remind you that bumping threads without adding to the conversation is against the Rules of Conduct. We will be closing this thread now. Thank you for your cooperation!

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