PR Nightmare

[DarthSabreth]

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, Bioware/EA has dropped the ball in a big way and this has resulted in a customer relations/public relations nightmare. Regardless of the debate on who should/shouldn't get in early, it being 7 days instead of 5 the failure of communications to the customer base on progress of early access has been massive.

 

I understand they may not have wanted to release what day has been invited or how many people this constituted. The people number would have been economically sensitive. However some simple metrics such as "x" % of pre-orders have received invites would have gone a long way. Now everyone is bent out of shape comparing pre-order dates and saying thing like "I know someone who bought the game last month and got access..." and "my servers empty why did Bioware go home early..." . The depth of anger of the forums is amazing. I lived through so many EQ1 expansion crashes and sudden patches waiting on the forums but the complaining was never like this.

 

This whole dragged out and uncommunicative process has sensitized people to the point that every in game issue is going to a game breaker/deal breaker. At the end of the day this will impact on their subscriber base. I know my brief experience with customer service was less than stellar. I downloaded the game client and got the error message about not having an active subscription. I sent a polite email to customer service asking if I was supposed to be seeing this and how to subscribe and was actually told to go read the forum.

 

I spent 30 years as an environmental manager in the oil industry. I had the happy job of answering environmental complaints. You don't tell someone to go to the internet and look. That's for troll chat... You answer their question as well as you can and if it's common enough, you have a ready to go answer. I helped write these for our CEO.

 

Hopefully they'll have a debrief tonight and get on their A game tomorrow. Alienating your subscriber base before the public release date (it's semantics... if people are playing and it's not beta, the game has launched...) is not good business sense.

 

Most people work during the week, i honestly dont think them starting on a tue is a PR nightmare lol, tue - fri most of us will be consumed by RL then games, the only thing that effects most of us is saving our names, but there are still plenty of servers and plenty of time if the name i want isn't on one server then ill try another.

[EricJS]

Why couldn't they simply have mailed everyone the day/time of their EGA beforehand?

 

Because they didn't know it. After seeing how today was going, they added a fifth wave to today's invites. For those people, it would have been wrong. And we've all seen that people will whine over getting access earlier than they've been told they will as well as later.

[DevinUp]

http://www.swtor.com/server-status

[iDepth]

tortilla

[Mitchyslick]

They TOLD us why, they want to remain flexible with the initial loading.. they want to make sure servers are fully utilized... bah, never mind. It's all been posted, so you're intentionally being obtuse or refusing to actually gather any information. Either way, it's on you, not BW.

 

You have to remember 95% of the fanbois here went to public school and either didn't finish and are now working a cash register, or finished and are the assistant manager at mcdonalds. Using words like obtuse is not going to register with them.

[Wren_Atticus]

B.S. Red Zone has nothing to do with laws. The grace period also has nothing to do with retailers. If the EU can ship copies on the 15th, it's obviously not American retailers fault for not being able to ship earlier.

 

Can you provide documentation supporting anything you said?

 

If not, I shall attribute it to you throwing a tantrum.

 

Also, what makes people in the Red Zone think they are entitled to ANYTHING? Bioware has no obligation to open the game to any part of the world. That is purely their choice. What right does anyone have to get mad over that?

Edited December 14, 2011 by Wren_Atticus

[Savantster]

Wrong.

 

The only people who aren't happy with things are those who did not get in today. .

 

Wrong. Many of us that didn't get in aren't the slightest bit angry because we bothered to learn what was planned, and understand the reasoning behind it. In fact, with millions of pre-orders, you're only seeing a few hundred people screaming about how unfair life is that they didn't get in, or that things weren't done their way.

 

There is no PR problem, there is no early access problem, there simply are no problems. There are only those noisy minority throwing tantrums.

[lividspiral]

it's a bad PR move, when you have millions of people who want to use your product but you only allow a special, magical few thousand to actually use it.. then that magical few thousand get a competative and game-based economic advantage with said special access while everyone else does not.

 

as for the arguement that pre launch days are freebie bonus from bioware. that would be true if they invented this on their own as a gesture of good will; as soon as they began marketing pre-release access as a perk of pre-order then it became something people bought and paid for.

 

when you pay for something and then do not get it, you tend to get pissed off.

[Cynvael]

What pisses me off is they quit for the day and should still be letting waves in right now.

[Vember]

I feel that one of the largest upsetting factors is that the staggered admittance is not a constant process based on how their servers are working, rather 4 or 5 waves then they called it a day.

 

 

This is what I find most upsetting. Seen numerous reports that the vast majority of the servers are practically empty in the starter zones. The waves should be continuous all day every day until everyone is in.

[Lionhearth]

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, Bioware/EA has dropped the ball in a big way and this has resulted in a customer relations/public relations nightmare. Regardless of the debate on who should/shouldn't get in early, it being 7 days instead of 5 the failure of communications to the customer base on progress of early access has been massive.

 

I understand they may not have wanted to release what day has been invited or how many people this constituted. The people number would have been economically sensitive. However some simple metrics such as "x" % of pre-orders have received invites would have gone a long way. Now everyone is bent out of shape comparing pre-order dates and saying thing like "I know someone who bought the game last month and got access..." and "my servers empty why did Bioware go home early..." . The depth of anger of the forums is amazing. I lived through so many EQ1 expansion crashes and sudden patches waiting on the forums but the complaining was never like this.

 

This whole dragged out and uncommunicative process has sensitized people to the point that every in game issue is going to a game breaker/deal breaker. At the end of the day this will impact on their subscriber base. I know my brief experience with customer service was less than stellar. I downloaded the game client and got the error message about not having an active subscription. I sent a polite email to customer service asking if I was supposed to be seeing this and how to subscribe and was actually told to go read the forum.

 

I spent 30 years as an environmental manager in the oil industry. I had the happy job of answering environmental complaints. You don't tell someone to go to the internet and look. That's for troll chat... You answer their question as well as you can and if it's common enough, you have a ready to go answer. I helped write these for our CEO.

 

Hopefully they'll have a debrief tonight and get on their A game tomorrow. Alienating your subscriber base before the public release date (it's semantics... if people are playing and it's not beta, the game has launched...) is not good business sense.

 

In addition, the servers that are currently online have been ruined by pvp exploitation.

 

I'm actually somewhat glad I didnt get in, cause now I can start on a clean fresh server that hasn't been ruined

[Wren_Atticus]

Wrong. Many of us that didn't get in aren't the slightest bit angry because we bothered to learn what was planned, and understand the reasoning behind it. In fact, with millions of pre-orders, you're only seeing a few hundred people screaming about how unfair life is that they didn't get in, or that things weren't done their way.

 

There is no PR problem, there is no early access problem, there simply are no problems. There are only those noisy minority throwing tantrums.

 

I wasn't saying all people who didn't get in are unhappy. I'm saying the only ones who are unhappy are those who didn't get in.

 

All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

[Ganiccus]

it's a bad PR move, when you have millions of people who want to use your product but you only allow a special, magical few thousand to actually use it.. then that magical few thousand get a competative and game-based economic advantage with said special access while everyone else does not.

 

as for the arguement that pre launch days are freebie bonus from bioware. that would be true if they invented this on their own as a gesture of good will; as soon as they began marketing pre-release access as a perk of pre-order then it became something people bought and paid for.

 

when you pay for something and then do not get it, you tend to get pissed off.

 

THIS. Not to mention, they quit inviting at 1:30 pm CST, and servers are not even close to full. Quite the opposite.

[Zenjim]

You have to remember 95% of the fanbois here went to public school and either didn't finish and are now working a cash register, or finished and are the assistant manager at mcdonalds. Using words like obtuse is not going to register with them.

I hope you know that using ad hominem arguments is also a sign of low intellect.

[Wren_Atticus]

What pisses me off is they quit for the day and should still be letting waves in right now.

 

Why should they be?

 

Because you say so?

[Surebleak]

Perception is reality, that's the unfortunate truth in today's world. The anger in the forums is feeding the perception that Bioware has dropped the ball and the lack of communication only reinforces that.

 

I wasn't making an issue out of 7 days early access rather than 5 however there are several ways of looking at that. That extra two days isn't making a difference if they just put in 5 waves and have preceived low server pops. So far the one that seems most consistent with the situation is that Bioware wasn't properly prepared for the subscriber base and realized at essentially the last minute that it was going to take more time to get everyone in. It is quite possible that the people who got in today were the ones that they originally thought they'd get in by noon two days from now but realized it wasn't going to happen. To only put in 5 waves to judge server stability indicates they are taking it very slow which doesn't speak well to their readiness.

[btsager]

The information about this has been available for Months. They have been very up front about how they were going to proceed. The only change is that they added 2 extra days and really if you are going to complain about that you don't deserve to play at all.

 

 

It is a very small % of the players that is complaining. And most of those are people who pre-ordered yesterday expecting to be able to play today.

[DasWsup]

i spent 30 years blah blah....LOL

 

ty for the laugh.... great comparison btw you should write a book!

[MadCuzBad]

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, Bioware/EA has dropped the ball in a big way and this has resulted in a customer relations/public relations nightmare. Regardless of the debate on who should/shouldn't get in early, it being 7 days instead of 5 the failure of communications to the customer base on progress of early access has been massive.

 

I understand they may not have wanted to release what day has been invited or how many people this constituted. The people number would have been economically sensitive. However some simple metrics such as "x" % of pre-orders have received invites would have gone a long way. Now everyone is bent out of shape comparing pre-order dates and saying thing like "I know someone who bought the game last month and got access..." and "my servers empty why did Bioware go home early..." . The depth of anger of the forums is amazing. I lived through so many EQ1 expansion crashes and sudden patches waiting on the forums but the complaining was never like this.

 

This whole dragged out and uncommunicative process has sensitized people to the point that every in game issue is going to a game breaker/deal breaker. At the end of the day this will impact on their subscriber base. I know my brief experience with customer service was less than stellar. I downloaded the game client and got the error message about not having an active subscription. I sent a polite email to customer service asking if I was supposed to be seeing this and how to subscribe and was actually told to go read the forum.

 

I spent 30 years as an environmental manager in the oil industry. I had the happy job of answering environmental complaints. You don't tell someone to go to the internet and look. That's for troll chat... You answer their question as well as you can and if it's common enough, you have a ready to go answer. I helped write these for our CEO.

 

Hopefully they'll have a debrief tonight and get on their A game tomorrow. Alienating your subscriber base before the public release date (it's semantics... if people are playing and it's not beta, the game has launched...) is not good business sense.

 

Thank you, but what does oil drilling and online gaming have in common again?

[-NovalGaraint-]

This isnt anything knew........all the fanboys are going to flame you for this just like they flammed me for posting the EXACT same stuff in beta........

 

Bioware is HORRIBLE at responding to their community or showing any involvement aside from one sided "This is whats up, we'll let you know anything else we want you to know when we want you to, peace"

 

This has quickly brought back nightmares of the old NAZI csr regime from EQ1

[Wren_Atticus]

The information about this has been available for Months. They have been very up front about how they were going to proceed. The only change is that they added 2 extra days and really if you are going to complain about that you don't deserve to play at all.

 

 

It is a very small % of the players that is complaining. And most of those are people who pre-ordered yesterday expecting to be able to play today.

 

 

Seriously. I'm seeing a lot of people with November 2011 and December 2011 sign-up dates on the site complaining about not getting in.

[Mayams]

This guy seems bright to me. He's saying it could have been done a little better.

 

I ordered in Nov. with no delusion of being in the front of the line. Some sort of loose timeline would possibly have been the spoonful of sugar to quell some complaints here though.

 

I tend to think, with zero grounds for it, that today was just a shot in the dark. Tomorrow, and progressively as more waves are sent their e-mail a better picture or timeline of who should expect what will become clearer.

 

You guys saying that we have no right to expect anything until the 20th though. You're just rebounding the defensive stance WAY too far back. Now, I'll admit I haven't studied every last post or official statement but I felt pretty certain that my preorder included early access maybe 5 days, then 7, maybe 1, but not 0. Or I took that e-mail with the client download link telling me to prepare for early access way to literally. Well, no I didn't, there was no vague suggestion to prepare for a possibility (I don't really need to quote it do I?)

 

In regaurds to the OPs statement, I have ZERO PR experience, and I saw this as pissing off a decent amount when I read it even before the date was moved up to the 13th. How did anyone who has ever played an MMO fail to see that?!?! The SW:TOR community sucks because of what was posted today? Did those proclaiming this expect a whole new bunch of MMO players, never before in any MMO or making dire posts of exagerated complaints?

 

This launch was bound to have this effect. After today it seems reasonable to ramp up the numbers per day to me (with no experience in launching an MMO). At any rate, day by day more will be playing and less will be posting complaints. In the future this style of release should maybe be rethought though (not a failure, just leaves too much room for pissed off people to scream gloom and doom in my opinion at least here in day 1).

 

Flame away.

[Dodia]

it's a bad PR move, when you have millions of people who want to use your product but you only allow a special, magical few thousand to actually use it.. then that magical few thousand get a competative and game-based economic advantage with said special access while everyone else does not.

 

as for the arguement that pre launch days are freebie bonus from bioware. that would be true if they invented this on their own as a gesture of good will; as soon as they began marketing pre-release access as a perk of pre-order then it became something people bought and paid for.

 

when you pay for something and then do not get it, you tend to get pissed off.

 

Except that you NEVER paid for early access, it's a gift from Bioware, you paid for the 20th and after. And you especially did NOT pay to play 2 days earlier than the 5 days EA that they originally promised.

 

All the QQ and nerd raging on these forums is gonna make me cry, I swear to god.

[Surebleak]

The point wasn't about the respective industries it was how to communicate to your customers. It' doesn't matter what industry it is, it's how you deal with issues and the public.

[Dizkazk]

you know what thy had information in hand to prevent the leveling exploit. They did nothing and this the main problem I have. I knew not getting in early was a disadvantage for many reasons but this takes the cake.

 

A game breaking issue ironically caused by lack of playerbase which is the funniest part. If they just opened to capacity they would have no problems. They sandbagged the whole operation and are now paying the piper big time.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Dizkazk