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


darthbored

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How many other game have you waited for that let you play them 7 days early......ill wait while you look for one.

 

i'd say 90% of the game out there with open beta. sure most the time you have a lvl cap, limited contents in open betas but it's better than doing nothing at all while 10% get to play.

 

Atleast open beta dont screw over the market/economy and/or allow lucky player to reach the lvl cap before everyone else and gank lowby on first day.

 

They're simply doing it poorly. They are doing it too slow. the whole wave thing would not be as bad if they added more and more player all the time. not 5 wave and call it a day.

Edited by mastersloup
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I would say staggering is probably the worst method in any competitive multiplayer game. I don't play competitively but I used to and this would have made my younger self rage I suspect.

 

Some good will come from it at least. It will be used as a case study for future MMOs on how not to launch so we should not see this sort of thing happen again. Annoying a large portion of your community on day 1 in a game that heavily depends on community is not the smartest move.

Edited by Korvenn
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Playing with friends. We planned what server we'd play on in Nov.

Being the first to 50. Could care less

Any server firsts. Refer to answer 1

Getting the name you wanted. The random name generator is what I'm looking forward to seeing.

Taking time off work to play hard the first few days. My last exam is on the 15th, and my boss also pre-ordered SWTOR...so yeah

Not being pissed off at prelaunch. I'm not

Not getting ganked by others who launched first. Such is the life of those who play on the PvP server, I say bring it on!

 

my answers are in red

 

you mean your answers are in your dumb sorry I cant read that

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Just trying to get an understanding of the way that bioware does things, considering i MAY be spending quite a few years with them if this game is a success...

 

I hear that the queues would be long and dreadful, but at least those queues would tell you an estimate on when you could play. Unlike the current queue were in with an unknown wait time.

 

I also hear that the servers would lag and crash but... What lag would there be if there were queues that prevented too many people to be on the server thus causing lag?

 

And the word on the street is that there would be ghost town servers, and server mergers would have to occur. But couldnt that happen now anyway?

 

well your right, they did mess up a *LOT* so +1

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I dont think there would be as much flaming against Bioware if they kept to what they stated before that if the servers were looking good, which they are, that they would continue to invite players to join. Bioware stopped at 2:00 pm and basically said too bad, you will have to wait another 18 hours to see if your hopes are true or false.

 

Its the lack of communication that is what bothers most. If they said "Purchases/Pre-orders made up to July 27th will get in on the 13th. July 28th to August 21 will get the 14th, blah blah blah." But alas, there is no communication. They still could have been very conservative with their assigned dates, and most people would have been accepting. Not knowing, that, that is what is hurting.

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Just trying to get an understanding of the way that bioware does things, considering i MAY be spending quite a few years with them if this game is a success...

 

I hear that the queues would be long and dreadful, but at least those queues would tell you an estimate on when you could play. Unlike the current queue were in with an unknown wait time.

 

I also hear that the servers would lag and crash but... What lag would there be if there were queues that prevented too many people to be on the server thus causing lag?

 

And the word on the street is that there would be ghost town servers, and server mergers would have to occur. But couldnt that happen now anyway?

 

2-3.5 million pre orders. No idea how many will actually sell on launch day or be opened for Christmas.

 

Only way to handle those numbers is a staggered launch.

 

I understand why there was lack of info but it might have giving at least some relief to some of the complaints.

Edited by Lord_Scythe
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Okay, I'm reading things that confuse me in this topic. When I was in the Thanksgiving beta weekend.. I seem to remember there being different instances of planets. How do I know that? Simple, I got recruited into a team for a quest that was in a different instance of the world and it told me that and asked if I wanted to zone into that instance of the world. So, why would it be a big deal to have a lot of people come into the game for the starting areas? They'd just automatically do more instances, meaning your instance shouldn't have /too/ many people.

 

Can anyone tell me what they think about what I posted here? I didn't get any responses and I was curious. I'm not complaining, I just sincerely got confused there by what people were saying and my experience there.

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Can anyone tell me what they think about what I posted here? I didn't get any responses and I was curious. I'm not complaining, I just sincerely got confused there by what people were saying and my experience there.

 

well you are right ... also they did Stress test beta weekend to monitor stability of servers so why are they using staggered early access: What about staggered launch next time?

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I normaly wouldnt be pissy about something like this happening, If it had been clearly posted about the "first come first served" policy. Im not someone who has been following this game every day since its inception so if it was in the forums I didnt see it. I did go back through the ordering process and it didnt say "first come first served" anywhere. If it had, I would have waited. Im not pissed off just yet however I did expect to be in game on the 15th, and if that doesnt happen then it will be a dissapointment and a letdown.
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well you are right ... also they did Stress test beta weekend to monitor stability of servers so why are they using staggered early access: What about staggered launch next time?

 

I shudder at the thought.

 

I understand that physical copies may take up to Jan 9th, or was it the 19th, to arrive. Atleast thats was Amazon said. Bioware also stated that there would be no grace period (dont know if that is still true).

 

I am glad that I bought the digital copy on this one. I feel for the ones that pre-ordered in June or July and are going to have to wait till mid Jan to play.

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Deal with it. I think you'll manage.

 

I'm not even playing until the 20th regardless of when I'm allowed to play. Your statement is meaningless, but I'm guessing you didn't see any of my previous posts. It's okay considering this thread has quite a few pages now. If you have time, just look back on them; you may then retract your statement. Anyway--

 

It's a legitimate concern that they won't tell people when they can play. In fact it's one of the only complaints I'll accept from yesterday. I was merely stating that it is a fair and sound argument on behalf of players that AREN'T worried about playing the game so much as they are worried about a time which could simply have been told to them from the time they began inviting.

 

Think about it carefully now. They invited people in waves and everything. They have to know the exact time people put in their codes, so why couldn't they have just organized them reasonably? It'd be foolish not to. From there, they can easily tell people when they'll be able to play ahead of time, rather than just waiting until the last minute.

 

I mean I know they have a lot to do at Bioware, but that much would've help ease up the work load and please several people simultaneously. Why not do it?

Edited by Smurfsauce
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I'm not even playing until the 20th regardless of when I'm allowed to play. Your statement is meaningless, but I'm guessing you didn't see any of my previous posts. It's okay considering this thread has quite a few pages now. If you have time, just look back on them; you may then retract your statement. Anyway--

 

It's a legitimate concern that they won't tell people when they can play. In fact it's one of the only complaints I'll accept from yesterday. I was merely stating that it is a fair and sound argument on behalf of players that AREN'T worried about playing the game so much as they are worried about a time which could simply have been told to them from the time they began inviting.

 

Think about it carefully now. They invited people in waves and everything. They have to know the exact time people put in their codes, so why couldn't they have just organized them reasonably? It'd be foolish not to. From there, they can easily tell people when they'll be able to play ahead of time, rather than just waiting until the last minute.

 

I mean I know they have a lot to do at Bioware, but that much would've help ease up the work load and please several people simultaneously. Why not do it?

 

100% agreement!

 

I would have accepted if they told me I wouldnt be able to play until the 19th. Atleast I would know. (Sept 8 pre-ordered and entered)

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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

 

Agreed, I know for a fact people would be nerd raging just as much if they were forced to wait in ANY que, whether it was 5 minutes or 5 hours long, they would be storming the forums demanding purges and executions.

 

Then if any servers crashed people would be spewing hatred for TOR all over the web, about how TOR had the worst early access launch EVER!

 

If you have half a brain and have been a part of game launches before, you would know that people are going to scream and cry no matter what! You're either going to be in the game, enjoying it or you'll be sitting on here crying your little eyes out over a video game, you weren't expected to play till the 15th.

 

Bioware knew you were going to cry, that's why they are ignoring you by going about their plan; why? Because it's working and only a small number of you are on here going emo over it. When you have a business that caters to MILLIONS of people, the shallow opinions of a few people no matter carry any weight. Thank God for that.

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This day and age?

 

I think the developers and publishers should take the number of sales and pre-orders, and prepare for that number of people to join. Let there be enough servers that people have to queue for the first week or so. That way you dont have the problem of underpopulated servers once everyone figures out your game is just more of the same.

 

The staggered thing is cool if you pre-ordered early, otherwise it leaves a lot of people feeling bad. Everyone paid the same amount of money and I doubt we will ever see this sort of early access thing again.

 

Thats exactly what i was gonna say here as well.

 

I was in other threats about this and this was said even before EA started, so it not the ... OMG i want in logic.

 

Its plain logic!

 

If you work in the company and wanna do this right before EA starts this is what you do:

1) You know (check orders) how many people have preordered thus you know the number of people of EA attendees.

2) You know what your servers can hold without crashing (did a beat test just for that smartbunny didnt you?)

3) You will be on 24/7 to "check for issues" as you said.

 

Now this is what you do: Let people in waves if you like, but pull waves at least every few hours and have this done and over within the end of the day.

 

Any excuse for not doing this is just lame and pretty much making people sad and upset for no real reason.

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This is pretty hilarious. None of you had a problem with BioWare's system when you thought you would get in Day 1, even though they said first come first serve, you would get to play UP TO 5 days early, and decided to stop reading there.

 

See this is why you types shouldnt be allowed to post because your just trying to inflame people!

 

Speaking for myself, I never thought Id get in till the 18th or 19th so your claim is shot from the get go.

 

But hey, I honestly had no problem with that until it happened.

Cant explain it, once it was no longer theory and became reality, I knew it was wrong and Im not going to suck up to Bioware or anyone else calling it anything but what I see.

 

ITS WRONG.

 

 

Those of you who are so mad at this, well frankly, read more. Read better. The information on how this was going to go down was out there, plain as day, and you didn't read it. So now that you didn't get in, well rabble rabble rabble. It's like watching an episode of South Park.

 

Sorry dont respond to trollish taunts!

 

 

Early access is BioWare's GIFT to you. You are not entitled to 5 days. You are being given UP TO 5 days, and actually, they released a blog post stating it was extended to 7, AND that the downside was they were unable to tell you exactly when you would get in ahead of time like 5 days before today.

 

Gift huh?

So no one in the Early access had to agree to purchase a product of any kind?

OH WAIT THEY DID!

 

You and I have vastly different meanings of GIFT

When you have to buy something to receive something, its called A SALE, not a gift

 

 

TL;DR I didn't get in today? Oh then this is so unfair and I have a problem with it. I wouldn't have a problem with it if I did get in, so just ignore me because I am a hypocritical idiot.

 

and more trollish taunting :rolleyes:

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It's a legitimate concern that they won't tell people when they can play. In fact it's one of the only complaints I'll accept from yesterday. I was merely stating that it is a fair and sound argument on behalf of players that AREN'T worried about playing the game so much as they are worried about a time which could simply have been told to them from the time they began inviting.

 

Think about it carefully now. They invited people in waves and everything. They have to know the exact time people put in their codes, so why couldn't they have just organized them reasonably? It'd be foolish not to. From there, they can easily tell people when they'll be able to play ahead of time, rather than just waiting until the last minute.

 

I mean I know they have a lot to do at Bioware, but that much would've help ease up the work load and please several people simultaneously. Why not do it?

 

Just imagine what would happen if there is a problem, and they aren't able to get people in on that day/time. Currently, they have told people that they will get notified when they are allowed in, and people are raging. If they missed the day that they actually said, the rage would be even greater.

 

It's one of those situations where they can't win, and can only hope that the game is good enough, and enjoyable enough to make up for the experience this week.

 

Sadly, I can completely understand why they did not tell people when they would have access. I can envision the posts already "I took time off work for this, you OWE me now!" and then comes the demands for free play time, and such. That would be a worst disaster, publicly, then a group of people (myself included) who simply come off as being rabidly excited to play.

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Here we are getting additional free days to play... and people complaint?

 

As someone else mentioned, world/server first is not important and by doing it this way BioWare is indirectly saying so as well. Play the game, have fun, but dont let it turn into a grind.

 

I could easily pick 5 other MMO's with way more problematic release periods. This one has been smooth as silk so far.

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