Early access - a slap in the face by ea

[Thunderstriken]

It says right at the top that you must be subscribed on the below dates to qualify for the reward. The date under early access is 8/10-10/19.

 

"you must be subscribed on the below dates", It does NOT say that. That is what you inferred from what was actually said. It only states that you must choose to be a subscriber from one date to another date. If it said you must be subscribed on the dates below, as you have inferred, that would certainly change the context, as would any number of simple changes that would have removed any confusion in the matter.

[Thunderstriken]

If I told you I was going out of town from Aug 10th to October 19th, would you ask me what days I was going to be gone? If you did, I think you'd get some weird looks from people as they repeat the same dates back.

 

From...to is a merely a range. Sure you can create a situation where from...to implies inclusivity, however you can just as easily create a situation where it does not, as I have done many times already, as you well know.

 

Buy a Snickers bar from Aug 10 to Sep 19 to be entered into the million dollar sweepstakes!

[VanorDM]

Did BW intentionally mislead anyone?

 

That's really been my whole point... Anyone who tries to claim that BW was being intentionally misleading is either lying or delusional.

 

Could the terms been made clearer? Sure apparently a lot of people didn't understand them. But there's a rather large bright line between something that could be better and fraud. The information was there, it was not hidden, was not misleading, or worded so poorly that a typical person could not understand it.

 

But would they have far fewer subs if they had updated their page after august 10th to say: Early access is CLOSED for anyone not subbed by or prior to August 10th.

 

I'm sure they figured there would be people who subed thinking they'd get something they weren't actually eligible to get. But those people like me, still got something. I will get a new coat and a speeder on the 27th. So I got all the rewards I was eligible for.

 

For those who subed after Aug 10th thinking they'd get early access... Once again they can't blame anyone else for not reading the information that was there. Also none of the emails I got after the 10th said a single word about early access, only the rewards that were still possible to get.

[Thunderstriken]

Did BW intentionally mislead anyone?

 

I don't prescribe to malice that which can be easily attributed to incompetence. There doesn't seem to be an upside for them in this. Early Access is nothing to them, absolutely nothing, so withholding it does absolutely nothing for them other than ensure the flood of returning subscribers remain frustrated and disappointed. Doesn't seem like a solid plan to me.

 

I think they are just too lawyered up to apologize for the misunderstanding because their lawyers know if someone cares to pursue it they have a very solid case. Personally, I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. So disappointed I cancelled my sub and it'll expire 2 days after the official launch, which sounds like it's more than enough time to run several dozen characters through the story.

[VanorDM]

If I told you I was going out of town from Aug 10th to October 19th, would you ask me what days I was going to be gone?

 

No one who can make legible posts could really be making the kind of arguments he is. While I can see why some people who read that statement quickly and then rushed off to the subscribe page could claim they didn't understand.

 

But there is no way anyone can claim that the statement made is in any way misleading. Basic reading comprehension leaves no other interpretation of that phase. From X to Y can only ever mean that everything from X to Y is included by default. For the statement to be read as what he's claiming it would have to be something like...

 

Between X and Y. Because the word from makes the following inclusive by default. The word Chose does not change how from works.

[Jadescythe]

"you must be subscribed on the below dates", It does NOT say that. That is what you inferred from what was actually said. It only states that you must choose to be a subscriber from one date to another date. If it said you must be subscribed on the dates below, as you have inferred, that would certainly change the context, as would any number of simple changes that would have removed any confusion in the matter.

 

"BE A SUBSCRIBER ON THE DATES BELOW TO EARN REWARDS IN-GAME AT LAUNCH*"

 

Is what it says before anything else appears, including what rewards are available.

[otterscrubber]

Did you try contacting support to let them know, a 24 hour interruption of otherwise consistent subscription seems like something they could work around? Ya, that would annoy me as well.

[Rantank]

I think they are just too lawyered up to apologize for the misunderstanding because their lawyers know if someone cares to pursue it they have a very solid case. Personally, I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. So disappointed I cancelled my sub and it'll expire 2 days after the official launch, which sounds like it's more than enough time to run several dozen characters through the story.

This doesn't need lawyering up for. In fact I suspect the more lawyers look at something the more precise it becomes and the less a lay person might be able to understand it.

 

You are quick to say they should apologise for this misunderstanding but don't see how your comprehension skills may have been a considerable factor. Could BW have made it more idiot proof? Probably, and perhaps they should have. Given how much they're simplifying this game they might need to consider writing in a more simplified style... with more pictures.... however, snark notwithstanding, that doesn't negate your responsibility to take due care.

 

Consider this a cheap life lesson in taking the time to eliminate assumptions and actually read what is written, not what you think is written. After all, this comprehension failure could have occurred with a bank instead and actually cost you something tangible.

[Pagy]

Consider this a cheap life lesson in taking the time to eliminate assumptions and actually read what is written, not what you think is written. After all, this comprehension failure could have occurred with a bank instead and actually cost you something tangible.

i read what was written. it wasn't clear and worded poorly.

 

as evidenced by myself, countless others, and multiple threads on the subject.

[DOHboy]

super simple solution, never unsub, keep playing and never risk losing any content or subscriber rewards, otherwise you play with fire and likely to get burned.

[Pagy]

super simple solution, never unsub, keep playing and never risk losing any content or subscriber rewards, otherwise you play with fire and likely to get burned.

this is a great plan if you want to continue to reward bioware for terrible game support and a horrendously random and chaotic roadmap.

[RichT]

i read what was written. it wasn't clear and worded poorly.

 

as evidenced by myself, countless others, and multiple threads on the subject.

 

 

Agreed.

 

And when you honestly take a look at this, and see that people are finishing it as early as the exact same day they go it....well for Bioware/EA to be doubling down on making people wait 7 days makes no sense.

 

Anyone who got early access is already done with the content for crying out loud. Nothing is spoiled for them by letting the other subscribers in. It's free to subs anyway...so nothing is lost by anyone, but much can be gained in the way of player retention and the feeling that they do infact care if some felt it was a misleading pitch.

 

I think some of the community are cutting off their noses to spite their face, as shedding subscriptions in a game they are playing will sooner or later catch up with them. You always rally behind your fellow gamers IMO if you like the game you are all playing, even if you might not agree 100% with them, as bottom line, games like this need players in them.

 

I used to see it a lot on Warhammer online when people would tell others "hey you should have read about the differences between magus and Bright Wizard"..it's your fault for picking the weak one. LOL...where's that game now?

Im sure it felt good dotting down a Magus in 5 seconds while it lasted.

Edited October 23, 2015 by RichT

[DOHboy]

this is a great plan if you want to continue to reward bioware for terrible game support and a horrendously random and chaotic roadmap.

 

i've enjoyed playing the game since day one, never have to worry about missing any subscriber rewards. I think the only time I 'unsubbed" might have been the 5 months while in India, but even then might have just kept it so didn't have to worry about unsubbing/resubbing and all that hassle.

 

If you truly care about things like early access and subscriber rewards, don't unsub or sub and stay subbed when first identified, otherwise, live with the chance something goes wrong.

 

People who subbed by end of july and stayed sub, never had to worry about losing early access or missing any of the rewards. If you let your sub lapse for a day or two inthere, well you played with fire, and if you got burnt, well it happens.

[VanorDM]

this is a great plan if you want to continue to reward bioware for terrible game support and a horrendously random and chaotic roadmap.

 

That has nothing to do with what he was saying though. If you want to never miss out on a subscriber based event or reward, the simplest thing to do is never unsub. Then you'll never miss anything.

 

If you want to pick and chose when you subscribe, you run the chance of missing something. Depending on how well you keep up with what's going on.

 

Myself I unsubed some time ago and pretty much ignored all BW's email about SWTOR. So the fact that I missed out on early access for KotFE is no one's fault but mine. If I bothered to read the email they sent me I could of subed in time to be eligable for early access. But I didn't so I'm not. If that fact really bugs me there is a really simple way to fix it.

[Pagy]

i've enjoyed playing the game since day one, never have to worry about missing any subscriber rewards. I think the only time I 'unsubbed" might have been the 5 months while in India, but even then might have just kept it so didn't have to worry about unsubbing/resubbing and all that hassle.

 

If you truly care about things like early access and subscriber rewards, don't unsub or sub and stay subbed when first identified, otherwise, live with the chance something goes wrong.

 

People who subbed by end of july and stayed sub, never had to worry about losing early access or missing any of the rewards. If you let your sub lapse for a day or two inthere, well you played with fire, and if you got burnt, well it happens.

i dont necessarily disagree with anything you said.

[Tilvius]

I think it was pretty self explantary the whole pre reqs for getting Early Access. Sub for 4 but they changed it to 3 months in a row starting with said date. How hard is it to understand that?

 

Ive got EA but I havent even started Chapter 1. Been busy smashing through those weekly heroics which has been awesome credits wise and resources for KotFE.

[X_Vindictuz_X]

i've enjoyed playing the game since day one, never have to worry about missing any subscriber rewards. I think the only time I 'unsubbed" might have been the 5 months while in India, but even then might have just kept it so didn't have to worry about unsubbing/resubbing and all that hassle.

 

If you truly care about things like early access and subscriber rewards, don't unsub or sub and stay subbed when first identified, otherwise, live with the chance something goes wrong.

 

People who subbed by end of july and stayed sub, never had to worry about losing early access or missing any of the rewards. If you let your sub lapse for a day or two inthere, well you played with fire, and if you got burnt, well it happens.

 

 

there is a difference between supporting the game and like not managing your finances very well....thats like saying i like mcdonalds so ill give them 15 bucks a month but won't eat? i dont get this logic if you aint playing the game why sub ya most people have disposable income but still its just such a waste.

[Pagy]

I think it was pretty self explantary the whole pre reqs for getting Early Access.

obviously it wasnt?

[VanorDM]

obviously it wasnt?

 

Obviously it wasn't clear to everyone. But that doesn't mean the wording was poor. The only way we could objectively say that the wording was bad is if knew just how many people really didn't understand it.

 

The posts on these boards is evidence that some people didn't get it, but doesn't come anywhere close to telling us what % of the playerbase didn't get it. But that is something we'll never really know.

[Eldrenath]

As someone pointed out earlier in this thread, the original rewards page is still up:

 

http://www.swtor.com/fallen-empire/rewards

 

I saw that same page when it was put up and read the details, and I the impression I got was that one had to be subscribed for the entire period. However, to confirm that I read the terms and conditions at the bottom, which make it abundantly clear precisely what was required. The terms and conditions state:

 

To qualify for the Early Access Bonus, you must have qualified for each of the four rewards by being a subscriber on each of the 4 listed reward dates. Once you qualify you may enter and play Knights of the Fallen Empire on October 20, 2015, seven (7) days prior to live launch on October 27, 2015.

 

The above is pretty clear and I honestly can't see how it could be more precise. That being said, there does seem to be a lot of people that think it was ambiguous. Some will say you should read the terms and conditions before agreeing to something. But practically speaking, a lot of people won't read the detailed terms and conditions. They might if they were buying a car or making some other significant financial transaction, but they might not think twice about something as trivial as a video game. And I can't say I entirely blame them though I do think one should always read the terms and conditions before expecting anything, even in a trivial financial transaction.

 

Still, it would seem that a lot of people did not read the fine print, and made an inference that turned out to be wrong. They maybe should have read more carefully but the fact remains that it seems a lot of people misunderstood. Given that, they maybe should have chosen more precise wording. Something like "maintain a continuous subscription from August 10 to October 20". That is very brief and will fit into a blurb while also being much more precise. I suspect this was not malicious intent, I think it's more likely they just didn't parse these statements nearly as much as has been done here.

[VanorDM]

That being said, there does seem to be a lot of people that think it was ambiguous.

 

I don't think anyone is actually saying that. Some people are trying to claim that the T&C part doesn't count though. Honestly if someone were to say they misunderstood the T&C, that would be a different thing then how some people are claiming that bioware committed fraud.

 

Something like "maintain a continuous subscription from August 10 to October 20".

 

That would actually be inaccurate, since you didn't actually need to maintain a continuous subscription, you only had to be subscribed on four different days. Wording it that way would actually be closer to false advertising then what they said.

Edited October 23, 2015 by VanorDM

[RichT]

As someone pointed out earlier in this thread, the original rewards page is still up:

 

http://www.swtor.com/fallen-empire/rewards

 

I saw that same page when it was put up and read the details, and I the impression I got was that one had to be subscribed for the entire period. However, to confirm that I read the terms and conditions at the bottom, which make it abundantly clear precisely what was required. The terms and conditions state:

 

 

 

The above is pretty clear and I honestly can't see how it could be more precise. That being said, there does seem to be a lot of people that think it was ambiguous. Some will say you should read the terms and conditions before agreeing to something. But practically speaking, a lot of people won't read the detailed terms and conditions. They might if they were buying a car or making some other significant financial transaction, but they might not think twice about something as trivial as a video game. And I can't say I entirely blame them though I do think one should always read the terms and conditions before expecting anything, even in a trivial financial transaction.

 

Still, it would seem that a lot of people did not read the fine print, and made an inference that turned out to be wrong. They maybe should have read more carefully but the fact remains that it seems a lot of people misunderstood. Given that, they maybe should have chosen more precise wording. Something like "maintain a continuous subscription from August 10 to October 20". That is very brief and will fit into a blurb while also being much more precise. I suspect this was not malicious intent, I think it's more likely they just didn't parse these statements nearly as much as has been done here.

 

 

Good post, and you are right.

 

In looking at this after the fact, I see where I went wrong...but at the time I acted thinking differently. It's easy to see now under the microscope and hindsight, but wasn't at the time to me anyway. To me it looked like the 4 item rewards were the exclusives tied to dates, and that a sub was enough in that timeframe to at least get early access.

 

My mistake as I see now.

 

I think the reason for my acting on this email without scrutinizing it more closely was that I had a positive instant reaction each time I think of the game. This was built on buying all the other expacs, and enjoying them and loving the game.

So trustwise, I guess I allowed myself to just pull the trigger and not chase an asterisk. That's the real damage here IMO. I had a layer of trust involved in TOR, which lead me to want to support what came in without reading as closely as I should have, which I now don't have.

Not sure of theres a metric for that kind of positive response, but there should be. I'll read more closely in the future.

[X_Vindictuz_X]

I don't think anyone is actually saying that. Some people are trying to claim that the T&C part doesn't count though. Honestly if someone were to say they misunderstood the T&C, that would be a different thing then how some people are claiming that bioware committed fraud.

 

 

 

That would actually be inaccurate, since you didn't actually need to maintain a continuous subscription, you only had to be subscribed on four different days. Wording it that way would actually be closer to false advertising then what they said.

 

Alot of people are saying that stop trying to discredit all the information in this thread.

Edited October 24, 2015 by CommunityDroidEU
rude

[Tilvius]

I think what its really happening is that people are trying to justify the fact they didnt get into Early Access with "wording" or "was not explained properly".

[Thunderstriken]

As someone pointed out earlier in this thread, the original rewards page is still up:

 

http://www.swtor.com/fallen-empire/rewards

 

I saw that same page when it was put up and read the details, and I the impression I got was that one had to be subscribed for the entire period. However, to confirm that I read the terms and conditions at the bottom, which make it abundantly clear precisely what was required. The terms and conditions state:

 

 

 

The above is pretty clear and I honestly can't see how it could be more precise. That being said, there does seem to be a lot of people that think it was ambiguous. Some will say you should read the terms and conditions before agreeing to something. But practically speaking, a lot of people won't read the detailed terms and conditions. They might if they were buying a car or making some other significant financial transaction, but they might not think twice about something as trivial as a video game. And I can't say I entirely blame them though I do think one should always read the terms and conditions before expecting anything, even in a trivial financial transaction.

 

Still, it would seem that a lot of people did not read the fine print, and made an inference that turned out to be wrong. They maybe should have read more carefully but the fact remains that it seems a lot of people misunderstood. Given that, they maybe should have chosen more precise wording. Something like "maintain a continuous subscription from August 10 to October 20". That is very brief and will fit into a blurb while also being much more precise. I suspect this was not malicious intent, I think it's more likely they just didn't parse these statements nearly as much as has been done here.

 

Replying to the bolded, underlined, yellow text first, emphasis mine, people didn't make an inference that turned out to be wrong, they came to the only logical conclusion one could arrive at given the layout and text of the promotion. That text lower on the page contradicts what was said very prominently at the top does not demonstrate that people came to the wrong conclusion.

 

Sure you can make the case of buyer beware, read the fine print and the like. That's not what's at issue, at least I don't believe it is for most, it certainly isn't for me. What's at issue here is that they promoted Early Acccess after it was no longer available and worded it as if it were.

 

Choose to be a subscriber... that is a single action event. Choose is a present tense verb. It instructs one to make a choice. A choice is a single action. Choose to be a subscriber is instructing players to take a single action. Since choose is present tense, it doesn't just suggest the single action is still possible, it outright clearly and openly states the action is still possible.

 

From Aug 10 to Oct 19. That is a time frame, nothing more. It's not in and of itself all inclusive. Buy your ticket today to see Elvis in concert at the Mirage in Las Vegas from Aug 10 to Sep 19!!! It's a single action event and a time frame.

 

Choose to be a subscriber from Aug 10 to Oct 19.... take a single action in this time frame...

 

Of course it could be interpreted differently!!! THAT'S THE PROBLEM. However, it most certain can be interpretted as taking a single action during that time frame. Especially when considering the verb is present tense and early access is on the far right of the time line.

 

We didn't make a mistake when we came to the conclusion that one need only subscribe during that time frame, they made a mistake when they weren't more clear with their promotion. Yes, had we scrolled down and read the part about all four days blah blah blah, then it would have been obvious. Since early access isn't such a big deal, I sure didn't feel like I needed to go searching for fine print! In fact, had I known I wouldn't qualify for early access I would have subbed anyway. For the 12x XP. I just wouldn't have been all excited on the 20th sitting there waiting for the servers to come up only to be frustratingly disappointed when I discovered I wasn't in.

 

Now I've got bunch of people I wouldn't pay minimum wage to bring me coffee calling me stupid because they don't understand how words work. It's pretty ironic considering the topic at hand.