Worse Launch Ever

[Hellfarer]

While I will agree that having the waved entry does facilitate a lack of overcrowding of starting areas, as a beta tester SWTOR has already shown that they have systems in place such as instanced planets with set population levels to help mitigate this issue. That being said it should cut down on camping quest mobs and quest objectives by people being spaced out in their access time. What I do not understand and do agree with the OP on is the fact that their were only 5 waves and the last was implemented at 2:30pm eastern. If Bioware is not willing to run their pre-release program 24/7 releasing waves every 2-3 hours then what does that say for the hopes of future support. Does that mean that if I have an issue after 5 p.m. that I will not be able to get support for my issue because it is outside normal operating times. In a MMO that is by definition a 24/7 venture systems like release waves, patches, support, and all other customer service related functions owe it to the client base to be available when the clients are. I know that many people had to work today and would have loved to get home at 6 or 7 p.m. and see that Bioware was still at work getting people into this long awaited game. I am more than willing to wait for what Beta testing has shown me is going to be a wonderful game, but I would like to see Bioware focusing a little more on what the customer base wants, and if the number of threads complaining about early access practices(several being closed due to post limits) are any indication then Bioware needs to seriously look at what the customer base wants and act accordingly. As we all know MMOs are driven, live, and die based on the games ability to cater to its customer base. Well that is just my two cents.

[YurikArkady]

I will be charged by Origin on the 16th, and provided my key. =)

 

 

Exactly, just prior to when the game launches in your area.

Edited December 14, 2011 by YurikArkady

[Zoltin]

They you should be mad with EB games not BioWare and EA. Would you rather nobody got early access and we had to wait for the actual launch on the 20th. C U Next Tuesday!

 

Didnt Origin buy/change names with EBgames? Which Origin is EA which is the parent company of BIOware who made the game? So everyone is tied together here in this LOL

[Abyrr]

From the looks of things, all they've done wrong is permit early access.

 

If they had just made launch day 12/20 for everyone all this idiocy would have been completely avoided...

[Gazzzenn]

got my invite earlier today, can't get the game to even install yet, somehow i suspect you'll all be playing before me regardless.

 

some of us are having installer issues, so don't worry you'll get in.

 

me well i'm all out of idea's and now just trying to figuire out whats gone wrong, 21 attempts later and still the game refuses to install, all out of ideas but hey i could play if i was able to get the game installed.

 

only whinging about the amount of downloading i've had to do and the fact i've spent the last 36 hours at my computer trying everything under the sun to get the installer to work.

 

carry on complaining about your invites though.

[Seidan]

Didnt Origin buy/change names with EBgames? Which Origin is EA which is the parent company of BIOware who made the game? So everyone is tied together here in this LOL

 

I bought my copy from Amazon and got my code the same day. Don't be mad because you bought your copy from the wrong place.

[Masanis]

The Jurassic Park post was awesome, but on to the topic of the thread...

 

Does anyone remember the WoW release? That game was a nightmare to play for the first month or so. I think I earned a week in "we're sorry the servers crashed" consolation time.

 

I hope that the EA tells them what they need to know about what they can handle (and where they need to improve.) I didn't get into the early access yet, but I'm hoping to be there by the weekend. In any case, the game comes out on the 20th so you can freak out if you don't get to play then.

[Sinemetu]

From what I've seen, the launch is going great. I'm not in yet, but I've seen my brother playing and it looks great. There's enough people in the starting areas to get a group, but not so many that you're just tripping over other players. I understand he's only had a few lag spikes and seen some non-game-breaking bugs.

 

I really don't see what the big deal is. So you didn't get in--neither did I. Wait a few days. I think their early access program is a great idea.

[Zoltin]

I am going to regret participating in this conversation....

 

I have read the blog entry, so please no "learn2read" comments.

 

Early Access and Launch are not the same thing. Launch is when you can go into a store, buy a copy of the game, go home, install, update, and play.

 

Early Access is bonus free time on the servers given to people who pre-ordered the game, a headstart over the general populace who will buy the game on the 20th or later.

 

Whether or not the co-founder said that the game has launched is irrelevant. The difference is tiny, and mostly a matter of semantics, but it is there.

 

Thank you and have a wonderful night/day/morning/afternoon (that should cover all timezones of people reading this)

 

 

 

I guess the big quetsion is, Warhammer only had a 100k early access limit and codes. DID Bioware just gone wild and gave eveyrone early access? LOL because it looks like they did. How many access codes was there.

[Zoltin]

From what I've seen, the launch is going great. I'm not in yet, but I've seen my brother playing and it looks great. There's enough people in the starting areas to get a group, but not so many that you're just tripping over other players. I understand he's only had a few lag spikes and seen some non-game-breaking bugs.

 

I really don't see what the big deal is. So you didn't get in--neither did I. Wait a few days. I think their early access program is a great idea.

 

This wasnt about who got in, this is a post about how Bioware went about it. In the end we all will get in.

[Seidan]

I guess the big quetsion is, Warhammer only had a 100k early access limit and codes. DID Bioware just gone wild and gave eveyrone early access? LOL because it looks like they did. How many access codes was there.

 

I think I read they had something like 900K pre-orders a lot of that was on the first day, hence the small window of dates. I think we'll all be just fine.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Seidan

[Dar-Ell]

how many codes? how many preorders? everyone who preordered and registered their code get's in. It's just a matter of when. Me? I'll probably get in tomorrow...when I'm working a 24 hour shift and won't be able to play...*shrug*

[lithiumblade]

got my invite earlier today, can't get the game to even install yet, somehow i suspect you'll all be playing before me regardless.

 

some of us are having installer issues, so don't worry you'll get in.

 

me well i'm all out of idea's and now just trying to figuire out whats gone wrong, 21 attempts later and still the game refuses to install, all out of ideas but hey i could play if i was able to get the game installed.

 

only whinging about the amount of downloading i've had to do and the fact i've spent the last 36 hours at my computer trying everything under the sun to get the installer to work.

 

carry on complaining about your invites though.

 

reformat

[Quaxo]

When you are able to keep your charactor and no restarts, yes I consider it a launch

 

Doesn't matter what you consider it. The launch is the 20th.

[cipero]

From what I've seen, the launch is going great. I'm not in yet, but I've seen my brother playing and it looks great. There's enough people in the starting areas to get a group, but not so many that you're just tripping over other players. I understand he's only had a few lag spikes and seen some non-game-breaking bugs.

 

I really don't see what the big deal is. So you didn't get in--neither did I. Wait a few days. I think their early access program is a great idea.

 

I'm not mad about the way they are doing it. I get mad when people just disregard opposing views and opinions without being able to constructively debate about it.

 

This is not preventing ANYTHING server wise. Literally, come the 20th there is going to be a massive influx of people in starting areas no matter what.

[Vudustorm]

What's the big deal here guys, really?

 

When you pre-ordered the game, the only "promise" made to you was that you will get early game access.

 

It wasn't until a few weeks back that it was announced that you would get "up to five days" early access time.

 

This isn't a guarantee that you would get a FULL 5 days, but UP TO 5 days... Low and behold, they have granted a few of us UP TO SEVEN days, this is above and beyond their promise to the players, and should be praised, not criticized...

 

And from the very beginning they have been crystal clear that your early access would be based on when you redeemed your pre-order code.

 

So... Is this really the worst launch ever? Or, are you simply upset that you didn't get in on day one?

 

BioWare has upheld their promise to you if they allow you in on the December 19th @ 11:59PM... 1 minute early is still "early" and still satisfies the "Up to 5 days" promise as well.

 

If I may make a suggestion...

 

When you DO finally get your early access (which I would bet will be in the next couple of days), try to leave your sense of self entitlement at the door when you come in.

 

In the mean time, go spend time with your family...

 

Oh, and BTW, I am not alone when I say that this is one of the best launch systems ever. It was extremely well planned out, avoids overpopulation of servers / zones, and will greatly enhance your experience when you do get in. You may not get world first 50, or whatever it is you're upset about, but in the end does that really matter? Breathe in, breathe out... Relax...

[Adi_Wan]

I have played many games over my years of Gaming (12 MMO's) and I have never seen a game where random wasnt a factor with its customers. yes it was a nice idea for first come first serve, but didnt take into acount of EB Games and others game retailers of sending emails late with codes and such.

 

As a whole, the customer base does run games and content and should have been voted on with its customer base in how to enter the game with waves in mind. We all paid for the game, with that mind, 1 game does equal basicly 1 vote (or 1 Opinion)

 

It was nice to see waves going in at certain times of the game to get players moved out of the way for others to come in, but lets face it here, its a 24/7 game. The Waves should keep going. NOT stop at 2 in the afternoon. What are you thinking!!!! To make 50% of its customer base mad cant be good for any Business owner when he/she unlocks it door for its first day of business.

 

Dont think it was handle well and to have no CSR's talking to its customers in the forums about the issues just makes things worse also. Dont do WHAT SONY did to Star Wars Galaxies!!!!! After they purchased the game.

 

Learn from what they did, customers pay for you to keep your job... Classic eco 101

 

All in all, randomizing should have been the way to go.

 

Sir? i think you need to reread Dev's blog, it's.... Early access game not launcher...

[cipero]

Doesn't matter what you consider it. The launch is the 20th.

 

That's trivial garbage. IF the game is available to anyone and it's not a test, then its a launch.

[Justinjedi]

If what you're saying is that it's stupid to let some people that preordered play before other people that preordered then I'm with you. How is it fair that someone who can afford to preorder a game 6 months or a year in advance has preference over someone who had to scrape and save to buy the game at the last minute? This would be totally different if it were an offline game that didn't have world firsts or people racing to 50. This is why people are pissed off and it makes sense. I don't think this was the right way to handle an MMO prelaunch. Early access is great do it all at once, don't handicap people that paid the same amount to PREORDER the game just didn't do it 6 months ago. Game companies used to be happy with preorders now I guess we have to buy games when they're still in development to get a spot when it launches. Not kosher.

 

Yea bro I'm mad.

[Sinemetu]

This wasnt about who got in, this is a post about how Bioware went about it. In the end we all will get in.

 

Yeah, you said something about wanting it to be random. Whatever. This is perfectly fair. They're rewarding their most loyal customers who preordered the day it was available. I'm guessing you're in the same boat as I am (preordered a few weeks later). Again, what's the big deal? You and I will probably be playing tomorrow or the next day at latest.

 

As for the "waves" approach instead of 24/7--as a computer guy, this makes sense. You grab a batch of 20,000 (or whatever) players and send them codes. An hour or two later, if the servers are running light or overloaded or what, you can adjust and send a larger or smaller batch. Once they hit the number of players they wanted to give access to (presumably they know how many preorders they have and hence how many accounts they want to activate every day) they stopped activating accounts. Apparently, that happened around 2:30pm today.

 

They *could* have kept on rolling out access all day, but the fact is that most of their clients are probably in the US and a lot of us work or go to school from 6am-6pm. That means that in the late afternoon, they were bound to get a lot more people logging in. Bioware is obviously being conservative about this, but I can't really fault them.

[Gazzzenn]

reformat

 

again? i already did that on friday last week...

[cipero]

What makes this a bad launch in my opinion, stay with me now, is even if they give someone like me 1 day of early access...then come the 20th with no grace period I have to wait again until the game key comes in the mail.

 

It's just making me think why did I preorder at all? That's what upsets me the most. I feel I'm being punished for preordering and getting a EA code, when I'd probably fair better off just buying it on the 20th locally.

 

(just to clarify I had to buy online because the local gamestops wouldn't give out any codes)

[lithiumblade]

If what you're saying is that it's stupid to let some people that preordered play before other people that preordered then I'm with you. How is it fair that someone who can afford to preorder a game 6 months or a year in advance has preference over someone who had to scrape and save to buy the game at the last minute? This would be totally different if it were an offline game that didn't have world firsts or people racing to 50. This is why people are pissed off and it makes sense. I don't think this was the right way to handle an MMO prelaunch. Early access is great do it all at once, don't handicap people that paid the same amount to PREORDER the game just didn't do it 6 months ago. Game companies used to be happy with preorders now I guess we have to buy games when they're still in development to get a spot when it launches. Not kosher.

 

Yea bro I'm mad.

 

So you think they care about rich vs poor peeps? Ignorant IMO.

[Seidan]

If what you're saying is that it's stupid to let some people that preordered play before other people that preordered then I'm with you. How is it fair that someone who can afford to preorder a game 6 months or a year in advance has preference over someone who had to scrape and save to buy the game at the last minute? This would be totally different if it were an offline game that didn't have world firsts or people racing to 50. This is why people are pissed off and it makes sense. I don't think this was the right way to handle an MMO prelaunch. Early access is great do it all at once, don't handicap people that paid the same amount to PREORDER the game just didn't do it 6 months ago. Game companies used to be happy with preorders now I guess we have to buy games when they're still in development to get a spot when it launches. Not kosher.

 

Yea bro I'm mad.

 

Here is my problem with both your and the OP's opinion. Not everybody did pay the same price for the game. Therefore not everybody is equal in terms of what they purchased. Are you suggesting that those of us who bought the CE should have gotten in before everybody else? If we're gonna vote on how the early access starts we, the CE buyers, should get 2 votes to your one?

[Sinemetu]

I'm not mad about the way they are doing it. I get mad when people just disregard opposing views and opinions without being able to constructively debate about it.

 

This is not preventing ANYTHING server wise. Literally, come the 20th there is going to be a massive influx of people in starting areas no matter what.

 

Sure. But it won't be as bad as it could be with all the preorders out of the way.