Staggering, worst or best tactic for a MMO this day and age?

[Endlesness]

Almost everything said in this thread is effectively moot, because the game hasn't actually "launched" yet. The game releases on the 20th.

 

If you get in early, awesome for you. If you don't, oh well, you would've had to wait till the 20th anyways.

 

Please stop with the it hasn't launched stuff. It has launched, the front page says it launched, the launcher says it launched, and the small % of people playing the game definately think its launched. IT LAUNCHED.

[lueckjathom]

The whole thing is mind boggling in this day and age. The money they dumped into producing this you would think they could handle a little server management.

 

They know how much each server can handle from their beta stress tests. They know how many people redeemed pre-order codes for early access. Open up more than enough servers for all of them, and let them all play. People logging in will sort out the server population on their own.

 

I've been in several early access launches for MMO's over the last 7 years and have never seen a mess like this. Avoiding queue times? Are you kidding? Maybe in 2nd rate F2P games but that isn't what this is.

 

Open enough servers, let everyone who pre-ordered play. So maybe some of the servers will be ghost towns till official launch. Who cares? Don't like that, join a server with a higher population going.

[rastaah]

Cancelled my CE, not a huge deal as I will still have a DDs, but its 70 bucks less in their poorly managed pockets.

[Jirian]

what i dont understand is when they started the rolling waves. ending at 130 cst? wth is that? im sure the majority of people are either in school or at work, how can you get a good read of what u can take in if most of the invites you r sending arent getting utilized at the time.

[Jigss]

Stick with a launch date. Not forcing multi day ques.

[HangmanBones]

You weren't in the beta, were you? If you were, you'd probably know that you're 100% wrong.

 

i was in beta, and i do know bioware can shard zones, so stop white knighting for bioware and acting like you have inside knowledge. I also know the mythic employees they had for warhammer know how to shard the starting zones about 7-10 times from my time in warhammer online. so keep white knighting.

 

ea/bw is claiming to keep lag down by doing the laziest thing they can ever do, not let more people on when the servers can support it. no new player waves for about 10 hours now, way to go bw server teams, hard at work 24/7 my ***.

[Kabushi]

I think they should of not gone ahead with the staggering invites. I know it might of caused some problems on the servers if everyone was allowed in at once, but I would prefer to see everyone playing at the same time, even if there is a bit of downtime.

 

All of my friends are waiting for their invite and i'm the only one who has mine and playing. I feel alittle guilty playing the game and talking to them about it when they are so excited to play, but have no idea when they will be let in.

[ReiperX]

I think its amazing.

 

This is by far the smoothest launch I've seen to date. Yes, you can't make everybody happy but they invited tons of people today and everything was great when I was playing.

[ReiperX]

i was in beta, and i do know bioware can shard zones, so stop white knighting for bioware and acting like you have inside knowledge. I also know the mythic employees they had for warhammer know how to shard the starting zones about 7-10 times from my time in warhammer online. so keep white knighting.

 

ea/bw is claiming to keep lag down by doing the laziest thing they can ever do, not let more people on when the servers can support it. no new player waves for about 10 hours now, way to go bw server teams, hard at work 24/7 my ***.

 

So keep letting in new people without having good data tracking usage and stuff.

 

You've never worked in the IT field have you?

[TalonCarrade]

Clarification: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=66561#edit66561

 

No more tears, theres an answer for you all.

[ExCinisCineris]

I think its amazing.

 

This is by far the smoothest launch I've seen to date. Yes, you can't make everybody happy but they invited tons of people today and everything was great when I was playing.

 

Keyword =

when I was playing.

[Zones]

Clarification: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=66561#edit66561

 

No more tears, theres an answer for you all.

 

What answer? It's not a stress test! They are just observing the stress on the servers! NOT TESTING!

[mastersloup]

Very bad way to launch a mmo. I actually hope they listen and let everyone who preordered play tomorrow. It's still not too late but it's most likely not going to happen. Edited December 14, 2011 by mastersloup

[Sedayeen]

I'm all for cautious launches, but there are three glaring things about today's early access process that are quite unacceptable in this mature state of the MMO industry:

 

1. They should have maintained rolling waves 7x24 as the server population sustained the load (and/or add more servers) instead of calling it a day at 1:30PM. Especially with reports at "prime time" of empty questing zones.

 

2. They should have limited each account to a single character on a single server until retail launch. There is no reason 1% of the players should get a head start to reserve multiple names for all their alts when other players still haven't gotten access.

 

3. Upon hearing of the PVP XP "feature" to level quickly, they should have removed XP from that system, or turned off PVP queueing during the early access period, or capped the amount of XP obtained from that venue per day/week, etc.

 

Other than that, I think their cautious approach will ultimately keep them from suffering from login queues and server crashes.

 

Good points.

 

I really don't understand why they stopped invites today. I know they wanted to see what would happen when people came home from work or school, but I really feel that by 9 or 10 o'clock the servers should have been stable enough (barring disasters) for further invites.

 

If not limiting to 1 character, 1 server.... something.

[Allegata]

I started off kind of on the sidelines of this discussion as far as my opinion of good launch or bad launch. Waiting a few days doesn't seem so bad etc. but the more I read in this thread, the more I tend to agree with the people who are upset at how the launch has been handled.

 

While it is true that Bioware doesn't "owe" anyone anything, vis a vis early access (Yes I do understand the UP TO argument) why torture the fanbase with this trickle launch? It is a launch, even the devs call it such, and to alienate such a percentage of the fan base for the trivial reasons given so far seems pretty silly.

 

I mean, the way it is being done, this launch feels like a taunt, as if BW is intentionally TAUNTING a large part of their PRE-ORDERS. I understand that I could have prevented them from TAUNTING me by pre-ordering earlier. I can also prevent PAIN by NOT SLAMMING MY FINGERS IN A DOOR.

 

I just cannot figure out what is gained....As others have pointed out, if they have already had a stress test and are staring at more widespread release on the 20th, why do they need to baby the servers now?

 

I think a lot of people, like me, figured that they would be conservative about Early Access and then go more widespread, and get everyone in as soon as possible. That could still happen. But if that doesn't happen, the trickle launch is going to be a black eye for the start of a promising MMO.

[darthpickles]

best ive ever done no crashes no lag or ques

[Diablo_the_lord]

Honestly its the worst tactic I have ever seen used on an MMO. It wouldn't be so bad if they released waves every hour or so until the 15th or whatever, but they invited like the first 4 days of pre-ordered today then took an 18 hour break.

 

There would be little que times as well because they should have been prepared for this from the beta stress test. They literally have no excuse for this, other than the fact that they apparently had it advertised since pre-orders started, even though I had no idea because I don't stalk swtor.com.

 

Aion had a better launch, and that launch was pretty bad. Only 30 min que times iirc, but there was a ton of lag and I believe my server crashed once, but they had it back up very quickly. After that it was nice, but it failed for different reasons.

[Diskoran]

well it seems to be working just fine. No server crashs health populations on the servers. I wil take this anytime over the norm of lag servers crashes and long hour+ ques

 

its working fine because all the servers are standard/light population... seriously, **** this noise.

[Mitchyslick]

Epic launch is epic. 2 day + Q time to get on.

[HangmanBones]

best ive ever done no crashes no lag or ques

 

OF COURSE THERE IS NO LAG OF QUEUES THEY ONLY LET IN MAYBE A TENTH OF THE PLAYERS THE SERVERS ARE DESIGNED TO HANDLE. To have no lag they gave a giant middle finger to everyone else who didn't preorder within the first few days of availability. they then took an 18 hour break to go ride bikes and play marbles instead of servicing their players by filling servers with a running game. The complete lack of communication and half statements regarding pvp xp glitches and customer early input of product codes also bodes ill for the game.

[Sharn-]

I am fine with them staggering access, and I am fine with being one of the last let in. I am a bit disappointed at how few they allowed in on the first day. A question though, did they change their plans because last I heard the servers are all shutting down sunday evening and will not be back up again until tuesday, so this is actually a little less then 6 days of early access.

[Skoobie]

OF COURSE THERE IS NO LAG OF QUEUES THEY ONLY LET IN MAYBE A TENTH OF THE PLAYERS THE SERVERS ARE DESIGNED TO HANDLE. To have no lag they gave a giant middle finger to everyone else who didn't preorder within the first few days of availability. they then took an 18 hour break to go ride bikes and play marbles instead of servicing their players by filling servers with a running game. The complete lack of communication and half statements regarding pvp xp glitches and customer early input of product codes also bodes ill for the game.

 

The biggest non-issue I've ever seen.

 

I bet you won't even think about all this 2 weeks from now.

[Aowar]

It is clearly a terrible tactic. By not allowing a major part of the customer base to play it gives them idle time spent bashing Bioware on various internet sites. The rage would not even be as high if there were queues. In Rift the rage lasted about a day and then it was gone for the most part. For this game it will last all week...

[azmundai]

There is nothing to support the idea that queues would be "long and dreadful." If their hardware can support single instances of different zones because people are all spread out over the game world, then their hardware can also support multiple instances of the same zone instead.

 

amazing right? ... so why the hell are they doing it like this? I mean actually following through with phased invites is one thing .. but stopping the invites at 2PM .. for EIGHTEEN HOURS!?!?! I could level 4-5 toons out of starter zones in eighteen hours .. is just mind-boggling.

[TalonCarrade]

I started off kind of on the sidelines of this discussion as far as my opinion of good launch or bad launch. Waiting a few days doesn't seem so bad etc. but the more I read in this thread, the more I tend to agree with the people who are upset at how the launch has been handled.

 

While it is true that Bioware doesn't "owe" anyone anything, vis a vis early access (Yes I do understand the UP TO argument) why torture the fanbase with this trickle launch? It is a launch, even the devs call it such, and to alienate such a percentage of the fan base for the trivial reasons given so far seems pretty silly.

 

I mean, the way it is being done, this launch feels like a taunt, as if BW is intentionally TAUNTING a large part of their PRE-ORDERS. I understand that I could have prevented them from TAUNTING me by pre-ordering earlier. I can also prevent PAIN by NOT SLAMMING MY FINGERS IN A DOOR.

 

I just cannot figure out what is gained....As others have pointed out, if they have already had a stress test and are staring at more widespread release on the 20th, why do they need to baby the servers now?

 

I think a lot of people, like me, figured that they would be conservative about Early Access and then go more widespread, and get everyone in as soon as possible. That could still happen. But if that doesn't happen, the trickle launch is going to be a black eye for the start of a promising MMO.

 

This may help alleviate some of your pain (or at least answer some of your questions): http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=66561#edit66561