Well, today was an interesting day. Brett Favre starts for the J-E-T-S and Chad Pennington (who I still think is a great leader I just wish he could throw a football further than me) almost leads the Fins to a come-from-behind (no jokes please) victory. Oh yea, on a minor side-note, we launched Open Beta for WAR today in the US and Oceania and we had a semi-launch in Europe.
Semi-launch is a good phrase because at times it felt like I was being run over by a gaggle of semis. The US/O launch was fantastic, nary a hiccup and almost 50K (about what Freddy Mac is worth today) concurrent players. Not too shabby for an Open Beta’s first day. Unfortunately, Europe had more than its share of problems. So, I spent about 10 hours today dealing with the situation and reading some of the type of stuff that gives humanity a black eye.
Why do some people feel it is okay to threaten, curse, abuse and be downright hostile to other people over a game, especially in this case when it is only over access to a game that is still in testing (Open Beta Test = Not Yet Ready For Prime Time, Players)? While I’ve become quite cynical over the decades, I still find myself amazed at times at certain people’s reactions to stuff like this. I don’t mind when people get upset but to treat other people in such a callous, mean and immature manner is really a bit much. Again, it’s not the complaints I mind and nor am I excusing GOA or Mythic when we mess up but to apparently take things like this so personally is just hard for me to understand even though I know that most of the very hateful things are being said just for effect. However, I’ve worked with online communities for a long time and I do know that some of what was being said around the ‘Net was really coming from people’s hearts. I won’t quote any of it here, since doing so would simply encourage more of it, but I would ask anyone who said those kinds of things and who reads this blog to look at yourself in the mirror and ask how you would like it if you were treated this way in the real world? Are you really the kind of person who thinks it’s socially acceptable to threaten people just because you are having problems with a game? Are you and your life so perfect that you don’t have your own issues or make your own mistakes?
Like I said earlier, this is not an excuse for GOA. We had a number of conversations with them today about everything that happened. GOA messed up and their CEO has apologized and promised to do better going forward. While this isn’t enough to mollify everyone it’s still a good start. It’s just a shame that we had to wade through hours and hours of anger, frustration and bile to get where we are now. None of the actors in this little play came out of this unscathed and only those people who took these problems for what they were or who were able to register their disappointment/unhappiness/complaints without resorting to foul language, threats, etc. can hold their heads up high.
Oh what a night…
– Update –
So, since I wrote this post I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on it, some of it quite critical of GOA and of my defense of them. While some of it centers around defending players’ rights to be angry some of it also centers around comments made by IanC regarding the situation. Let me be really clear on this:
1) GOA messed up, they apologized and they are working hard to do better. This is a good start but not an excuse for them. Neither their CEO nor I am defending what happened yesterday. It was an ugly day.
2) I think that the players have every right to be angry, disappointed and frustrated. I agree with them 100% but what I do notagree with is the level of threats and abuse that followed. I know why some players feel that way but my not agreeing with their reactions does not mean that I’m excusing GOA, clear?
3) I have read IanC’s post on the situation and I have just communicated to GOA my thoughts on it. I’ll simply say this, I do not agree with what he said, I do not support what he said and his comments were, in my opinion, way out of line.
Mark
Online Games Are a Niche Market 
Sep 08, 2008 @ 02:38:53
What you say is true and the mind boggles as the extremes people can and do use when they are on this medium. That said however the key to this issue was information or lack thereof. I may be mistaken but I have always felt that keeping players in the communication loop goes a longway in preventing the majority from blowing their gaskets.
The main issue today wasn’t the technical problems most of us can and will accept them as a matter of course. The issue was not being informed of how serious the issue was till most people had been attempting to connect for over 10 hours.
I remember being impressed with DAOC because they were the first mmo to give a estimate of how long they expected downtimes to be and if they went over there was a message saying sorry and giving a new estimate. This sort of customer service was what I was expecting in WAR regardless of whether it’s in EU or US.
Remember Equal does not mean Identical BUT it should mean equal value and atm are the EU being offered a service of equal value to the one offered to the US.
just my 2 cents
Gadareth
Sep 08, 2008 @ 02:48:12
I think people are taking it so personally Mark is because they were assured that it would work out fine which it didn’t – that sort of thing is guaranteed to get peoples emotions high – coupled with the anonymity of the internet people let fly with both barrels – consequences ? they don’t care because their rage is controlling their actions, I’m sure that a majority of people will ride it through – some of them due to the fact that they can vent and scream and insult on the net.
I’m a lucky one, the oceanic servers are a dream, Mark your communication with the community is mind blowing really.
Thank you
Sep 08, 2008 @ 02:58:38
My opinion is and always has been that people should be grateful that they are even in the beta. Too many people out there feel the beta should work exactly like support of a live game. If the game was live, then I’d agree with the complaints that communications and expectations need to be high. But this is beta–you’ve agreed to test a non-released game, with the added benefit that you might just have some fun in the process, at no monetary obligation.
I feel most of this comes from the sheer number of people that are invited to join said beta and how they’re selected. Granted, some of this is unavoidable, especially with a game this large, but if every single beta tester was hand-selected based on their experience and willingness to be a beta tester then there would be a lot less noise coming from the masses. Of course that isn’t a possibility here, and that is one of the reasons that large numbers of invitees just don’t understand what a beta is, don’t know what to expect, and as such just follow along with what they see other people doing.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 03:05:06
The net would be a much nicer place if everyone could get over “hey, I’m anonymous, I’m free to be a complete jackass.” I can only imagine how bad it can be for a full fledged MMO’s team — I have enough issues dealing with criticism from the tiny little player base I work with.
One would think that MMO developers would have psychiatrists on staff with the kind of negativity that people can spew. Ah well.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 03:34:21
High anticipation = high emotions when things go south. Open Beta launch in NA seemed to go well. Lots of fun in the first scenarios with alts, just because nobody on my server seems to be in T2 open RvR yet and I was tired of pve. Good times.
Only 50K concurrent? I thought it would be more than that. Be interesting to know how many total got in and tried it. Anyway, you’ve got a great game going, with plenty of work left to do to iron out minor wrinkles.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 03:49:43
I can’t excuse it, I didn’t participate in it but I do understand it. Many of us work in unrelated industries, myself in the service industry. Perhaps part of the challenge we feel is that if we rolled out a product to our customers even on a soft launch they way GOA did it would cost our jobs. Its particularly irksome when parts of the community have been suggesting for some time now that it was all last minute and inviting trouble.
All of us that have been following this game have an emotional attachment of sorts with it. The emotion evident on the forums seemed to me like betrayal, a volatile emotion at the best of times.
GOA dropped the ball and betrayed the EU community. In one post I described the community response as a lynch mob. Maybe we aren’t as civilized as we sometimes think.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 05:09:18
I agree with your opinion on the subject. Although I guess there really is a reason for their reaction. Now I’m really not on the side of the people that get so agitated over a game, but they do have a thought process that should be acknowledged.
The way I think of it. Think about the millions of people that tune in to watch a football game. They want to root and cheer for their favorite team, because not everyone can afford to get to a live game whenever their team is played.
Now imagine if that game that was supposed to be televised doesn’t. Imagine the anger most if not all of those people would have if that happened. They were promised something, and it wasn’t delivered.
Now of course video games (or MMOs in this case) aren’t as popular as football or other sports out there, but the people that play them usually have the same thought process as those that watch sports. Hell most people that play games also watch sports.
So this is my little 2 cents on the flip side of the situation, but I still agree with your statement.
Entertainment is taken way too seriously among people. Hell a lot of people usually mix up what they are suppose to really care about. I know people that also get pissed if a game isn’t released on time or if a game isn’t as good as they hoped, and they also couldn’t care less on world events such as Iraq, the weather, or other things going on that really matter.
Anyway that’s what I think.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 05:26:25
Ouch. I am sincerely sorry that you and your team were subjected to such vile treatment.
Yes, people feel betrayed, or hurt, or angry; yes, people are upset that things didn’t go as planned, and yes they do have the right to feel such. But this is, all in all, an online game in a pixel environment.
People tend to forget that there is someone else out there on the other end of the screen; there are in fact other people at other keyboards reading what they have to say, and they forget that. People tend to hide behind the anonymity of the internet, using it as a reason or an excuse to display what would otherwise be socially unacceptable behavior.
It is disappointing to see people react in such a way over something like this. I for one was exceedingly pleased with the launch today. Yes, I and my boyfriend were occasionally yelling at our computer screens, or at the game.
“WHY/WTF/NO DON’T TAKE THE SERVER DOWN!?!”
But all in all it seemed from my perspective to be a very successful day. I only hope the next 6 continue in the same vein, and that game-launch is even better!
Hats off to you guys Mark. You truly have created a wonderful game, a great environment, and something that is just damned fun!
Sep 08, 2008 @ 05:44:31
I know, it’s sad to see people behave. I was trying to talk to people about EU open beta yesterday(Yes, I was surprised too that people were already freaking out before open beta.) but nothing I could have said would have done anything.
The problems come from too many places, I’m really not sure what anyone can do about it.
Although, maybe not for you since you guys are on the receiving end of it, I do find at least some sense of humor in observing human behavior and emotions, especially in things that are gifts to them.
I could see if people started cursing you guys if you nuked on the real release, which is very improbable(I hope. :)), but since open beta is nothing but a gift from you guys people have no right no blame you guys.
Just stay calm and know that you guys are doing a great job,
stewie-Y
Sep 08, 2008 @ 06:48:31
Yeah Mark. I can understand your thoughts there, its just immaturity and part of the kneejerk reaction and being upset at- as the Heath Ledger as the Joker said wasn’t part of the plan.
If the plan works everyone is happy, if it doesn’t- well that’s what happens from the more pent up and frustrated people.
I’m an American, and watching GOA from Dark Age of Camelot on to Warhammer Online and how both times they seem to be well- I hate to use the terminology but desperate times call for desperate wording:
Incompetent.
I understand that they want to do better, and it is a major hassle to deal with lots languages. I can understand that, but from all that has come out over all these years, and closing to a decade now it makes it look like the Americans have preferable treatment and Europeans are second class citizens. Its just frustration is all. It’ll pass.
I’m not gonna say “Suck up and deal with it” but I read something that was said before and I think its really something to realize when times like these happen:
People bitch about your game, because they love it and most of all they want to see the right thing being done.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 07:08:34
There’s no need to show one’s displeasure with personal attacks and abuse. That’s simply a childish way to let out one’s frustration.
I had my share of horrible experiences with GOA in the times of Dark Age of Camelot, and I was 99% sure that they would have failed their first real test, one way or another. How they will move from now on, I can’t say, but I hope they learned their lesson.
As an European though, i’m not willing to take the risk. I won’t show my displeasure towards GOA with swearwords and abuse, but in the most simple and effective way: with my wallet. Just like with DAOC I moved to the US servers as soon as i saw the quality (or lack of thereof) of GOA’s service, I didn’t even think twice about it and, for Warhammer, just preordered an US copy. I will play on the US servers and I’m pretty sure i won’t look back once. I’d much rather my money go directly to Mythic anyway, than to have them pass trough the middle man.
In any case, awesome launch of the beta in the US, Mark. I really enjoyed both the PW+ and the first day of OB. Thanks and Kudos.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 07:54:07
It is was exceptionally disheartening to see the overreactions of some of the short sited lynch mobs, but I think it helps to keep things in perspective.
For some reason whenever you get large groups of mostly anonymous people they do things they would never even dream of in real life and probably don’t appreciate how hateful they are being because the victims of their attack are not anonymous. However these people are the minority, unfortunately they also happen to be be speaking with super-hyper-dwarven megaphones and are the least aware of the consequences of their actions. There will always be people who act like this but just because they shout the loudest does not make them right or representative of the community as a whole.
Have no fear, we may not have SHD megaphones but we still appreciate all the work that has gone on behind the scenes and minor ‘pre-launch’ hiccups are part of the course when playing a game in beta.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 09:57:10
When you have more than half of your EU player base who does not want to deal with GOA such reaction can be expected.One thing that Mark and Mythic have, is the respect of the gaming community due to past actions from which you learned not to make the same mistakes twice.Mythic has never left his player base in the dark.When things are not working,you(Mark) make a simple,truthful post with no sugar coating or arrogance.
Yesterday,we witnessed GOA’s incompetence once again by launching a (supposedly tested)system 2 hours before Open Beta servers went live.During the past weeks the whole EU community has warned them that their system will not cope with such influx of data in a short period of time.They replied that their system can handle it and they know what they are doing.We all knew it was a recipe for disaster but we kept our fingers crossed,hoping GOA has changed,they are prepared…and we all knew what happened
It’s only after 8 hours than someone from GOA made an official post by then we were told that if we are registered with WAR-EU there’s no need to create a new account.If this was stated on the official website they would have removed about half the stress from their server as most people(including myself) was already registered.
What happened yesterday,forbode what kind of service we might have in 10 days.Like Abriael said, we are the customer and we better pay Mythic than paying GOA for incompetence when the game goes live.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:33:14
I also thought that was way out of hand, but I also think the way IainC replied to it today was very unprofessional. I personally am not an EU customer, but the way he talked to them seemed like he was trying to mock them and pretend that it wasn’t that bad. Then ontop of it, calling part of the fanbase Sociopaths and asking what is wrong with them? I understand he meant it in a different way, but that erupted into its own fireworks show.
After yesterdays messy launch, a comment like that from IainC will not do any good, and even if he tried to rectify it, it still went nuts. Saw people posting order cancellation screenshots and asking the best place to order the US version. Not a good sign if a single post like that can push them to cancel.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:34:14
I completly agree with what Mark said there is no need ever to resort to the kind of abuse that was on the forum yesterday.
I can only thank Mark for his help to get some arses kicked yesterday and hope that the sudden realisation means we start to get some better service from GOA.
Yes it was disappointing yesterday and it continues to be into today that we are not all able to get into the actual OB. However lets all take a step back let the servers get fixed (the auth and reg servers) and then hopefully we’ll all get in.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:40:41
I would say that John Gabriel’s Internet F***wad theory compounds on itself when MMO players, or dare I say gamers, are involved. Maybe I am a bit harsh, but for some reason MMO players seem to think that something is owed to them.
Anyway, saw a few kinks yesterday, but I know you guys will get them worked out. Had a great time otherwise!
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:41:23
I messed up formatting above. Sorry. Only “owed” should have been emboldened.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:43:25
Hi mark,
I’m one of the european players that didn’t get to register his beta codes yet. I agree with what your are sayng but i do think that the anger didn’t come out all togheter from anyone. It was built up exactly like the sorceress eheh.
We kept having arrogant and nonesense answers from GOA CMs (a part from the German Hero 🙂 ). Still today IANC is answering to someone in this way *if having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury then -there is something wrong with you, wich he for sure may be right, but this isn’t the way you promote yourself infront of milion people imho.There are moderators of the forums for this. And i think that all GOA should be doing is apologising instead of keeping up this attitude that leads the players to move on to a different and better quality support.
I feel bad thinking about this,but on the other hand i feel confortable to talk with you sencerly like you allways did with us. I’m down here with the rest of the people and i can see that by the minutes that passes, alot are giving up on this game and it sucks to see that this is happening because of GOA.Not because they failed, but because they made us feel like nothing for the past months, never listened to us, the customers,allways being arrogant and giving us a very big lack of information. Plus after yesterday i think that having you to come down and speack to us,while GoA wasn’t giving us any information for 12 hours of pain and panic it was practically sayng enough itself.
We love the game, and yes we do envy the players of NA for the way they’r treated.. And also if this would’ve happened the other way around im 1000% sure that for the way you are so close to them none of this anger would’ve came out.
With this i wish you a nice day, and i’m back tryng to pass the cod: 414.
Tnx again for the game, its a very nice one.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:46:06
Nvm this post, just testing to see where my previous comments went. Maybe they’ll come up later, but I can’t see them now.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:48:23
I dont think that kind of behavor have any excuse but come on guys , when you sell a pre order with the bonus of enter in an open beta you can understand the expectations , i can understand the disappointment in many ppl who was waiting like me to play the open beta. And i trust that most of the things that people writed was just disappointment , nobody feels true hate for GOA or Mythic , we just want to enjoy this great game for many months to come. A good day and hope to play today when i come back home lol , luck and good work people. 🙂
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:49:20
I dunno why people feel the need to get so personal over a game. Games are meant to be fun, I mean yeah I would have loved to have been able to start the OB straight away but there are always problems on game launches so I went and did something else. Something useful. I think were this four years ago I might have been as angry and frustrated as some of these people.
What is scary is that man’s inhumanity to man is all too evident in all walks of life including something as silly and fun as a computer game!
I think IanC is right, we should all be asking ourselves if we really do believe it is normal to make racist remarks and death threats over something that is mean to be used for nothing more than light entertainment.
I used to be a game addict, EQ, DAOC, WOW and I hope to be nowhere near as addicted to WAUGH! as I was to previous games. Given my leanings towards being sucked in to the addictive nature of these games I don’t hold out much hope though.
At least before the need to mainline the game into my system for 5 or 6 hours a day starts, I can be thankful for the delays. It means I can go do other stuff, real world stuff. I can be thankful that today I don’t have that pasty faced, red eyed from staying up way too late staring at the screen look. Next week, however, it might be a different story *grin*
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:53:28
Oh and Mark, you are showing your age with that lyric 😉 and now you have me singing it in the office and my colleagues have joined in too. I think that deserves far more abuse and nasty comments over the intarwebz than something as silly as a crashed up system on OB launch day teehee
Sep 08, 2008 @ 11:54:34
I won’t excuse the behaviour of the minority, but perhaps the attitude of certain community managers on the forums may have fuelled the fire.
If those CM’s hadn’t taken such offence when the community politely pointed out that failure at such a late stage was suicide and the CM’s stating categorically that they were well prepared and their systems could handle it, then perhaps they wouldn’t have gotten an earful.
Those same CM’s then spend most of the day saying virtually nothing until Mark kindly steps in. Look at their website now. Updates appearing where previously there were none. A few cages were rattled yesterday it seems. And they shouldn’t have needed rattling at all. Customer relations on either side of the Atlantic are an ocean apart. Perhaps Mythic would be happier to take control of the running of the game and let GOA just host the servers? I’m sure their EU fans would be happy with that.
GOA have a long way to go to restore the community’s faith in them. And I suspect that of Mark and the rest of EA/Mythic may have had enough of them too (in not so many words).
Sep 08, 2008 @ 12:14:48
Obviously no excuse…but ponder this…
You [the MMO industry] have spent time enveloping people in an alternate reality. In this reality, anything goes. They can be as much of a [best word here] as they want to, and it works. Hell, the entire internet is an alternate reality.
I honestly am not surprised…I’ve seen the “Onyxia is Serious Business” video 🙂
Sep 08, 2008 @ 12:57:45
Congratulations on the US launch Mark, great news for all, and that includes the EU folks as we all benefit from that in the long run.
The EU launch was extremely disappointing for us but we will all hopefully come out of it stronger and leaner. You are also spot on about some of the language and verbal abuse that is being displayed in the forums and on the internet. Some of it is disgusting, and I am not easily offended. Hopefully you won’t focus too much on this minority as they are, it would appear a global problem.
What ever was said to the GOA CEO and senior management team yesterday and last night is slowly working through. The GOA site actually has some real news including times (!) instead of airy fairy news that all is well (apart from the odd hiccup).
That is definitely an improvement in the right direction and that approach must be maintained and improved upon for launch, if it is GOA will make a lot of us much happier.
Now we just need regular comms (get to know you chatter and news is good) from the CM’s and a more open response from GOA with respect to the use of flash on their web site, especially when it comes to disabled acess and security concerns, as that would put paid to a lot of the current flack we are seeing, especially as some of that flack is made in well founded statements by knowledgable people, and we’ll be well on the road to Waaagh!!
Good luck for the rest of the open beta week and into full retail launch.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 13:01:15
Mark, you and Mythic has been doing a great job so far from what I can tell. With the actual game and the NA CB/OB that is, I’ll be getting to the GOA part later.
I’ve been follow this game for years now. Reading the official site, community sites and when I didn’t get into the closed beta, even a site posting leaked beta info. Simply put I am very excited by the game and have been looking forward to a chance to test it myself.
Then I actually had the joy of getting my hands on an EU betakey (and later a NA one as well). Unfortunately all I can do now is wait and see if my download of the NA client finishes before the EU problems are fixed or if the whole beta will be over before any of those things happen. I’m annoyed and disappointed by the current situation but I can live with it. It just has me considering canceling the CE I’ve ordered and trying to import a NA one or waiting to see in what state the EU servers are before buying it.
And about GOA: They said everything was going to be fine, it wasn’t. Shit happens. That in itself is not the problem, it’s (as I’m sure you are already aware) the lack of foresight in bringing the account center up the same day and the lack of communication.
The things some people have been saying is awful and just plain wrong. Then I saw the GOA response and I was simply shocked. On one level it was justified and called for, I’ll give they that. But, simply put, what were they thinking? Very unprofessional and can only be harmful to relationship between the community and GOA. All that did was throw fuel on the pyre that the lynch mob players already wanted to burn GOA on.
I have great faith in Mythic and this being a great game, but I have little faith left in GOA and I’m getting doubtful about the chances we europeans have about getting to enjoy the game.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 13:49:40
Sorry, but three strikes, you’re out. I remember Euros being very upset about the way GOA was handling DAoC, and many were shocked to learn that they were chosen for WAR. Find a way to rescind that contract, Mark.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 14:29:44
To be honest i’m really not proud of how some of my fellow European players acted yesterday.
Having said that, even though i have a lot of respect for you Mark, you have not been listening at all to players concerns about GOA.
I pre-ordered the WAR collector’s edition back in June at an “official partner store” named “Micromania” in Paris. While it was announced that the CE would cost 70-80 euros at the time, they have since then upped the price to 102 euros… I called them today to ask if it was a mistake and they stated that no, that’s the real price, on TOP of that:
1) They don’t know when the game is coming out.
2) They claim that the CE pre-order box does not guarantee that they’ll hold a copy of the CE for you on launch day.
3)They might not receive any CE copies AT ALL.
There’s less than 10 days before release…
Hundreds of people on French WAR forums are experiencing the same problem , may it be with other stores like the “FNAC” or “ALAPAGE.com”. This has been a hot topic of discussion since May apparently. Still no answer. This is apparently how good GOA are at communication.
Add to this the worry of GOA reenacting the DAOC days, Europeans getting treated like 2nd class customers (get less and pay more!) , or simple obvious fact that nothing of what we say gets taken into consideration (we’ve flamed/whined/told GOA to not make their website in FLASH…) and even people such as myself who are trying to keep it civil, really are gonna turn into a bunch of IanC’s “sociopaths”.
What would you do in the same situation? Imagine popping over to the store on the 18th, pre-order box and purchase ticket in hand, ready to buy the game you’ve been eagerly awaiting for 2 years only so that the cashier tells you hes given all the copies away to anyone who happened to show up earlier than you that day.
I would litterally explode.
Sincerly,
A long time WAR fan. (who hates GOA)
Sep 08, 2008 @ 14:32:52
lol i like the title mark it actualy works on the song, tho you do show your age there 😉
i agree with you thosome of the things said and done where out of order.
the tube hitler dub vid was nicely made for instance and quite funny, however the hindlying comparison of goa to nazis is clearly a bridge to far
however may i kindly suggest that ea sends goa on a pr course. as siberwolf said there was nothing till you stepped in where communication wouldve avoided a lot of grievances. not to mention the outburst of rage after ianc’s ..unfortunate constructed letter.
i hope (and quite suspect) that goa is gonna be under close scrutany from EA for some time to come. and i do hope they manage torub of on GOA cause i am quite impressed with the way us/o side of things
so on a last note i would like to grongratulate you on the succesfull launch of beta and i hope that that will continue to go as relativly problemless at it goes now
Sep 08, 2008 @ 14:52:20
Kudos again to Mark and the guys and gals at Mythic for a smooth US open-beta-launch at least!
And dude, seriously… I just can’t understand how any of y’all can keep your sanity reading half the drivel that got thrown around regarding the EU beta opening… I swear, reading through some of those comments made me wish that there were a way to slap somebody over the internet. Some things could have gone better, sure, but I agree 100% that people blew it WAY out of proportion, and took it WAY too personally. It’s just a damn shame that the majority of the vocal minority on the internet seems to forget how to be polite when there’s even a minor slight against them…
Anyhow, keep up the momentum, can’t wait for the game to go live so I can finally play a character I’ll have for more than a week, WAAAGH!
Sep 08, 2008 @ 14:59:49
“Are you really the kind of person who thinks it’s socially acceptable to threaten people just because you are having problems with a game?”
I understand where you’re coming from, but remember, what you’re creating here isn’t a ‘game’ per se: by your team’s own admission, you’re creating an entire hobby. I’m speculating here, but I’m guessing that the kind of individual who would make the kind of outbursts you’re talking about falls into that category: they want WAR to be the hobby they are searching for, and are getting as pissed off as anyone who is denied access to their own hobby (insert pun about Europeans + soccer here).
Granted, to build a hobby on a game that hasn’t even come out yet is a little strange, but then, behind the veil of the Internet, most people are pretty strange. Rather than get upset over the negativity, I’d take a step back and consider that if an individual is getting this agitated over a game that hasn’t even been released, they probably don’t possess the requisite social skills to KNOW when they’re offending people. Treat them for what they are: children throwing an unreasonable tantrum. Don’t take it to heart.
Congratulations on the successful US/O launch.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 15:17:51
People mad on the Internet? That is unpossible.
I’m glad someone has the balls to challenge the egos of the Internet and call them out for what they are.
What I don’t get, is that people are using this as an argument for Mythic to have official forums, so “everyone is on the same page with official info”. Wouldn’t it be a complete waste of manpower and money to manage a crisis like this on your own forums? Which would set back any possible fixes by hours, if not days?
Sep 08, 2008 @ 15:21:08
Good post Mark!
Sep 08, 2008 @ 15:31:54
I think that you’re right, that nothing that has happened justifies insults or threats.
Unfortunatly this “thing” isn’t over yet and GOA’s still messing things up; Currently with an ingenious asynchronous system that allows them to tell you hours later by mail that you messed up the beta-key validation form and made some mistake putting in your data. There’s still no password retrieval or new account registration – the most basic things any authentication system should be able to handle. It doesn’t look like they are really making any real progress.
Please just send them a “copy” of the complete infrastructure for accounts.eamythic.com and the warhammeronline.com page they can use to ensure that the (headstart) launch will work. You’ve got the working technology and the required know-how. Please use it!
Warhammer’s open beta goes great in US, epic failure in EU - Tome of Knowledge
Sep 08, 2008 @ 15:41:19
Sep 08, 2008 @ 15:47:22
Mark,
It’s all about the info man. GOA totally fubared the situation and why they even acknowledge the nut jobs as part of the “we’re sorry” post i have no idea. Those sorts are best left ignored and focus on the majority of the people, those with legitimate concerns for their track record and their ability to deliver…of which they have a poor history (lets not kid ourselves). They were forewarned but in their hubris decided to do it their way or the highway…well, we see where that leads eh?
And to word their apology in the manner they did? That’ was like a backhanded “im sowy”, topped off with a nice big s**t sammich to go with it. On the other hand, if they would taken a page out of Jacob’s book of ‘customer relations’ then maybe the situation wouldn’t have gotten out of hand. To top it off, Ian goes on to blame some other dood for the issue because he wasn;t even at work on beta launch day. I think magnus is still walking around with a choppa pommel sticking out of his back LOL.
Yup, and then the next morning the goof ball posts another flame trying to dictate the reason of why people buy games…seriously. LOL.. I can go on and on, but simple solution would have been immediate communication to calm the troops, that and get a new CM or get him a long vacation cause he needs it.
Oh, and I’m proud to be American, especially when my WAR experience has been flawless. Peace!
Sep 08, 2008 @ 15:51:45
Sucks to live in Europe, I guess.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 15:51:55
Hey Mark, totally agree there, yes i was annoyed I didn’t get in but hey
1. I have other things to do other than play Warhammer, so it’s not that important
2. I really dont understand people who shout abuse over the internet, any real points they have are lost as a result,
Even though I don’t paticularly trust GOA anymore, I’m willing to give em another go,
Cheers, and thanks for the update
Sep 08, 2008 @ 15:55:41
The hard work is appreciated. Not every EU player is a socially inept cretin, some of us are understanding enought to accept the situation. It’s just a shame GOA didn’t listen to the warnings.
Oh well, keep up the good work 🙂
Sep 08, 2008 @ 16:39:20
Thanks for the update, Mark. Keep up the good work, and please, tell GOA to shape up and stop their CMs from posting insulting comments.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 16:41:07
Hey Mark, you might remember me from Only-War and i believe i have to convey a few points that have been on my mind.
I am from the EU myself and never had dealings with GOA before and yes i was dissapointed when it became clear that i wouldn’t be able to log on and enjoy the war yesterday.
Mythic still has my support because you guys have proven to me that you are a competent developer and with your near flawless OB start. If you still have faith in GOA that they will provide the service that you yourself would be happy with if you were an EU player (and im asking you to be completely honest here) then i will be happy myself and keep my fingers crossed.
Thats pretty much it from me, wish us luck Mark!
-Jackrum
Sep 08, 2008 @ 16:55:17
re: Update.
Thanks for the candor you are showing here. I agree that some moronic(not to mention illegal) threats where made against GOA and its employees. But IainC’s response was suprising to say the least and at the same time symptomatic of his disdain (at least from my perspective) of your customerbase.
At least now some proactive steps are taken to get more people into the european beta. I have great hopes for this game but if this continues I will most likely buy the US version and bypass GOA as I did with DaoC.
And for all those who are shouting about terminating GOAs contract: think about it how long would that delay the european launch?
Sep 08, 2008 @ 17:00:09
Hi Mr. Jacobs,
I have to be honest and say here and now that knowing you have taken an interest in the situation in Europe really has relieved me. After seeing your posts on WHA and on this blog I must say you still never seize to amaze me after so many years.
The situation here in Europe is getting grimmer by the week. We unfortunately anticipated a lot of this would happen. Ever since they decided to not mention anything and create the mess of confusion with information nearly a month ago, everyone’s been very worried and on edge that this will be a repeat of DAoC. We had warned them endlessly to change their website to an HTML website but they want to keep it flash, and they want to leave things to the last minute when we told them the consequences of that.
The funniest thing is when they apologise, it’s barely what you could call an official apology. They actually make it sound like they made no faulter or barely any faulter and that it was all badluck. You, Mr. Jacobs put them to absolute shame by apologising for them and you apologised for their mistakes the best, cause we never really got a real proper apology from the GOA reps, nor the CEO.
Now it’s Deja Vu, because I just came across this thread in Freddyshouse.com (the most popular European Dedicated Fansite+Forum). In the thread is the start of the migration to the US servers for europeans because they’ve lost all faith in GOA. It is that bad!
I myself have wasted 2 days trying to activate my account, thinking ok within the next hour I’ll probably be able to get my account activated and can check out the game. This is because GOA keeps hiding information from us for example, they still have yet to tell us or admit that the email (confirming that our OB Key was accepted and our accounts authenticated) is still not being sent out. No word on this has come from GOA yet. And noone from Europe who is on IRC at least has gotten this email, nor has anyone on the forums. It’s like one big balls up, after another. As soon as you’re out of the frying pan you’re in the fire.
GOA keep this up as they’ve done for the past 7 years, and they won’t have a european community left as what happened with DAoC. Remember we always knew this was going to happen. We knew GOA was taking it too easy.
Anyway enough ranting, doom and gloom. It’s been a hectic weekend for you and today is probably no exception either. I think you guys have done a great job at Mythic. The US OB went extremely smoothely which is just as good news for us Europeans for when this OB Account mess is over…hopefully it will be over anyway, cause knowing GOA’s track record and attitude till now, it’s probably going to carry on to Head-start.
Anyway Mr. Jacobs, I thank you again. You have made a huge difference in the whole mess with your posts and words. And I agree….noone has the right to react inappropriately and below a civilised manner. There is proper criticism and then there is just plain unnecessary comments.
Regards,
Mikey.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 17:03:21
Cancelled my preorder. While this game looks like fun (from my time in closed beta), I refuse to be a second-rate customer who gives money to a company that’s clearly incompetent. I simply don’t trust them with my CC details. Might be looking into getting a US copy of the game but I’m unsure of how the time-difference will affect me, might try and get some friends to join me so that we’ll atleast have an EU guild.
Mark, good job on the game, it’s fantastic. But selecting GOA to run the EU side of things, especially after how they dropped the ball with DAoC (and instead of finding the ball, losing it in some bushes), was probably Mythic’s biggest mistake I’ve seen.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 17:11:14
Can we have you over here in Europe permanently Mark? What would it take? Name your price – we’re all used to saving up the necessary experience and gold.
Your posts have saved a customer here that GOA seem determined to drive away.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 17:18:26
Hey Mark.
Yeah, I saw some of the bile over on WHA. I have never understood why people feel the need to do stuff like that on the internet (I hold up 4Chan as proof that “anonymity” does weird things to people’s brains, myself included occasionally).
That said, I also read IainC’s response over on WHA, and frankly, I’ll be blunt: While I recognize the man was probably a tad upset, and stressed out from what was undoubtedly a very bad night, it -no way- does it justify what he said. It was the truth, yes, but he could have stated such in a much more eloquent and less insulting way.
Ultimately, two wrongs do not a right make. Both sides should be a little embarassed.
Oh, and Mark….I’d agree with Cedia on this one. I don’t deal with GOA, but I’ve heard horrific stories. Why you guys do business with them, I don’t understand.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 17:20:53
I have now canceld my order of Warhammer Online, because GOA sucks.
I hope Mythic will host the EU Server in the near future.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 17:21:30
Mark, I’m a EU frustated “waiter”, and I have to thx you for the updated add to the GOA failure.
I play Daoc on EU server, too so i could anticipate GOA attitudes but … ATM it’s impossible after 36 hours from WAR OB takeon that we, EU players, cannot still partecipate to the Open Beta.
I hav to clarify this because some outstanding false GOA PR are flying around the forums sayying that the situation is now solved: IT’S FALSE.
Atm only Closed Beta members are able to log on EU servers.
All other PPL are still waiting.
We want Mythic-like quality service (tech and human): this is all we want 😦
Sep 08, 2008 @ 17:40:30
IainC is waaaay out of line here.GOA should be get ridden of ASAP.i cant pay the guys that tells me im a sociopath and there is something wrong with me.
You know what IainC; customer is ALWAYS right and they are the ones paying you for doing your job right.
My dad never told any customer that they are sociopaths and there is something wrong with them neither did i.
of course i don’t support immature people with their out of line criticism but IainC is doing the same while he is a representative of the company in charge.get a grip smartguy.
I don’t know if i should cancel my pre-order and wait for some time after release to see what happens…
Sep 08, 2008 @ 17:54:13
I think most people don’t know what Beta means. Maybe they participate the first time in such an event. For example: Yesterday I was trying 3 hour to log into the WOTLK Beta server. You see, other games have the problem. 😀
In Germany we have a saying:
“Einem geschenktem Gaul schaut man nicht ins Maul!”
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
gyshall wrote “Sucks to live in Europe, I guess.”
Feel free to visit us 🙂
Best regards from Germany
Theo
Sep 08, 2008 @ 17:54:40
A nice written report here. Some thing like that i had ecpected for the European community earlier.
But it wasn t nice on Sunday. Most fans woke up early to get into the game and then they weren t able to get into it after hours of trying.
For hours the European fans didn t get a statemant from GOA or Mystic. I wouldn t have been angry if it was a normal beta but the sold PO packs of the game for money and wrote in it that you will be granted a Open beta account.
I hope the game will make it up for the troubles now.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:12:01
So your update is: GOA didn’t do their job, the players should be pissed, and you disagree with the CM’s response.
I can only imagine how busy you must be, flying around the office as well as the internet, but let’s be frank a moment: the company you contracted to deliver a service has failed. All of the issues and excuses in the world boil down to the simple fact that these people did not do their job properly. This paints a pretty bleak picture.
Community outrage aside, can YOU, as head of Mythic, continue to trust GOA, given that headstart lies a week away (depending on where you live) and launch hovers just on the horizon? Doesn’t their lackluster response to the community fill you with dread for the turmoil to come? Surely GOA’s flustercuck is enough to warrant a breach of terms.
But what are your other options? Attempt the impossible, scrap GOA, and get another company in to handle the EU distribution within seven days? You would truly have to be gods among men to pull that off. Delay the EU launch to give a new company time? You risk alienating what few EU supporters remain. Delay the launch worldwide so that the EU can catch up? Think of the attitude you’ve received over the past 48 hours, from a few embittered EU players, and extrapolate that to every preorder customer on the planet.
For better or worse, it seems, you’re stuck with GOA for now. You told the community that they have to work to regain the community’s trust. I can’t help but wonder if they’ll be able to regain yours.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:23:49
Part 2.
I feel disappointed you feel the need to reiterate yourself, especially in a defensive manor. I believe the EU community on the whole has nothing bad to say about you or mythic, and as the days go on GOA may start to redeem themselves.
I say we stay optimistic especially here on your blog, i enjoy coming here for a light read, lets try keep it up beat 😉
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:26:36
Mark,
It gives me a good feeling that you are personally involved to work out a solution for the GOA debacle.
I do trust Mythic Entertainment and will continue to do so in the future. I really enjoyed DAoC for about 3 years in a row and I am looking forward to Warhammer Online.
In GOA on the other hand I lost my trust, they messed up things badly and still aren’t very communative at all. Their latest post on their website was from 16:00 CET stating that a confirmation email wil arrive “shortly” after submitting the registration key. Now i do know those messages should be taken with a pinch of salt, but it’s now nearly 5hrs after i pressed the submit button and still no confirmation mail.
Is it possible at all to join US servers upon Live Launch of the game? I’dd really hate the idea that I’m stuck with a French company whom I don’t trust anymore.
Mythic and you are doing a wonderful job and if I am half as much fun as I did have in DAoC, I’dd be real happy 🙂
Greetings from Amsterdam!
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:28:46
Well, I’am too, can’t agree with the tone some players used. But to be absolutly honest with you, when Mythic announced that GOA will run the European servers everybody said “Oh no, please leave them out of this game”. These are exactly the same problems we had over all the years in which they hostedt DAOC (and when you didn’t care). Now it’s your new baby, you care, but face it…. everybody who played DAOC has told you so. The problem is, GOA is to arrogant to learn from theire mistakes in the past and your people are to arrogant to believe us european users who had to live with this crap the last 6 years.
And it’s not like we didn’t talked to GOA. We told them that theire page sucked. Everybody said way before that the page and the connection to the database can’t handle that kind of traffic. And guess what, it couldn’t handle it. It failed totally.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:28:50
If threats and curses were allowed to be posted, I blame Warhammer Alliance as well. They are quick to “moderate” silly posts but tend to look the other way for others.
Unfortunately, they own the forums…a cost benefit to Mythic amongst other things.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:29:35
i bet only a minority of players get aggressive in the forums and threaten GOA
most players i know just laugh about that company – for years now.
but we have no other choice here in europe, you know.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:40:34
I find that to truly enjoy MMOs, I can’t go to the forums. Kudos to WAR for not having official forums like WoW. Those were good for nothing but elitist pie throwing from one idiot to another. Once they got into fights about people trolling people’s trolling threads on the wrong server because someone said something about their momma’s arena rating, they lost me.
I was sad to hear about GOA’s shortcomings in this matter. Mythic has done such an amazing job at providing information to the gaming community, I hope it’s a small bump in the road and launch goes as well as we all expect. As other commenters stated, I think people are more upset because Mythic has provided an incredibly high standard of excellence during this whole process thus far. I am sure it will work out.
The verbal lashing people unleash to eachother on these forums is unfortunately no longer surprising to me. The funniest part to me is seeing something like “Omg, it doesnt work, screw this, I’m going back to WoW even though I hate it with every fiber in my being.”
It never occurs to some people (myself included) to just -go do something else- that isn’t an MMO. Or a videogame. Maybe go outside. Bake a cake, and a pie, and debate with yourself which one is better.
Epic battle right there.
Srsly though, forums are a place (like videogames) where people can create an alternate version of themselves where they can take no responsibility for their actions and crappy personalities. Don’t let it get to you, oh mighty Mark Jacobs.
(Because seriously, in reality, they just all want to be you.)
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:50:58
As far as I’m concerned, GOA has accomplished absolutely nothing in the past 24 hours. Either they severely lack the resources to handle anything of this magnitude, or they are just not doing their jobs. Every single turn they have taken in order to solve these issues has proved to be futile. And every time they have ‘fixed’ something, it’s being presented to the community as something to be grateful of.
Vast majority of us still can’t even patch, or even register our beta keys / create an account for the website.
Today, they launched the new key validation pages, which proved to be yet another link in the chain of failures. It’s been now nearly 5 hours since my key was supposedly successfully activated, but I’m still waiting for a confirmation mail – or the patcher to start working. I bet the ‘asynchronous treatment’ in which they claim to go about activating keys really just means ‘manually, by hand’.
I’m not personally all too frustrated about not being able to play the beta, I’m more worried that services and products of this quality have room in this multimillion market. This is just outrageously subpar quality of service, no matter how low you set your standards.
P.S. What is it with GOA and these horrid Flash based sites? Even their own site poops out errors, is slow and unresponsive and just generally plain unusable.
WAR European Beta: The Saga, The Opinion, The Only Solution. | I am Keith Neilson
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:53:03
Apparently Mark Jacobs agrees with me on the GOA situation. « Realm Vs. Realm
Sep 08, 2008 @ 18:59:36
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:09:45
You bet it does Gyshall. Atleast when it relates to Warhammer online 🙂
Prehaps with the next MMOG Mythic makes, they will do what Sony Online Entertainment have done, namely allowing the entire world to play where they chose.
It really is a shame that the world gets sliced up into parts because you end up with customers who feel they are considered second rate. To me MMOG’s are about making the world smaller, not forcing some bounderies on them.
I would like to thank Mark though. There are two reasons I’m still bothering to hype my friends up about Warhammer, and his level of professionalism is one of them.
The other is of course the WAAAAAAGH!
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:11:21
Mark, what Mythic have achieved in the US is fantastic, unfortunatley GOA are on their way to tainting your creation with the smell of death before it even launches. Latest wheeze is apparently hand checking authorisations and then sending out acceptance to beta emails. Following WHA, it seems no emails are bieng sent out. I am too old and crusty to get stressed by this but can definitely see how others feel; the 50,000 free keys that were handed out but now can’t get into beta are possibly lost purchases for you. I’d willingly bring my guild Stateside if things do not improve.
Best wishes
Graham
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:13:02
People will always threaten other people it basically boils down too perspective. There are those that treat this game as exactly as it is, a game. And then there are those people who play 16 hours a day, live on benifits and don’t work…
As many people said Mark, the ‘euro’s’ were unhappy about about the hosting in daoc. We had poor quality hardware – 53 animists at HMG brought odins gate down 2 nights in a row completely nullifying a relic raid.
I think a lot of ppl also mentioned that leaving the account registration servers offline until the sunday was also a bad idea. It wasnt because they simply wanted to play.
It was because they know, first hand, what level of service you can expect from goa.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:15:19
I’m a french player, and i have played on DAoC and T4C with GOA.
I’ve hated GOA for T4C, I’ve hated GOA for DAoC….
And for what i see i’m going to hate GOA for WAR…
“Find a way to rescind that contract, Mark.”,
please…
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:23:15
A Mythic Europe Division would have been so nice.
Ah well, one can dream.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:23:25
Oh and I forgot to add, they are updating different forums in different threads with different information and their website hasn’t changed with this information at all.
The phrase “A Bunch of cowboys” comes to mind 😦
Jas
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:25:25
Thanks for the update of the entry. I’m in line with your opinion. No abuse should have been done, from both side.
Oh, and i’m waiting since 4 hour the validation of my beta code, and there is a big glith of ink on the code so i’m not even sure i gave a good one so i should shhot at everyone but i remain calm 😉
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:28:34
From what I’ve read in the French community yesterday (which was for the most part of it waiting on JeuxOnline boards), there was frustration and sadness, but no threats, curse, abuse and whatever else too much immature. Nothing more than confused and sad fans.
However, one thing was clear for everyone : nobody wants to deal with GOA anymore, ever. Some of WAR biggest fans are even ready to import the game and play on US realms, just not to have to suffer with the awful way GOA is handling its games. There way already known in our MMO community for being awful with DaOC (and with The 4th Coming, before that), and we’re all sad to see that they are repeating the same mistakes again and again with such a great game as Warhammer Online.
From what I have read, a lot of people won’t buy the game as long as GOA is handling it. It’s not a threat or a way of pressure, just a simple fact. And I am one of these.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:31:37
Hello Mr. Jacobs,
First off I am sorry that you got threatend something like that should never happen, but since this game is also available to a younger generation which can be hormonal this was something obvious to be happening, if GOA doesn’t inform the community for eight full hours.
My question is why could this problem not be predicted? First the community told GOA in almost every Forum related to WAR that there will be problems if they don’t release the registration Website before the launch of the open beta, which is logical. (As far as I heard in the US you could reg. already two weeks before the open beta) Second, GOA knows how many open beta key are out there so why is it “surprising” for GOA that there was this amount of people around?
( Quote: “…combined with an exceptional amount of traffic…” (war europe page)) Third, why was nobody absolutely nobody talking to us? I know it was a sunday, but if you launch the beta that day you need someone to talk to us.
I trust in Mythic, but I think I can speak for the whole EU there must be HUGE steps taken to get back our trust in GOA (also after DAOC). I mean of course I have been to betas, there will be always problems because it is a beta not a final version, I understand that. But people payed for the game already, saying we have a right to go to the open beta. But then nobody gives us answers for half a day, which is unacceptable and a problem many people predicted before.
I hope you will help me and the rest of the community to understand this. I am from a different country (Germany) with a different language, but for us to get information I needed to spend my time typing this in english so I hope, no, I know you will spend the same time answering what I wrote.
P.S: It is Monday 21:31 (9:31 P.M) and I am still not logged in and so are none of my friends.
Mit freundlichen Grüße (Greetings),
F. Zimmermann
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:38:01
Mark. Really. Listen to me please. I’m so sick of empty promises that are widely popular in country where I live. So please listen, answer and hear a voice of a tricked EU player of your game, that I still HAVEN’T seen on my eyes. Because of who? Not Mythic or you actually.
There. I could tell my friends that this is game is fun. Sadly I cannot prove it. I cannot. Because the GOA is making a developing onto p2p mmo like it was damned asian f2p made by some wierd guys on a off-job weekend.
I’m not also losing patience but faith that game will be there 18th. You know what to do Mythic? Go to EA. Show them money they are losing in EU. They will react like a big company – no mercy for the weak, no pity for the screwers. Just build up a new Mythic company in EU (EU Mythic ?). Well you said that nearly all of your senior devs are already IN Paris (saw it on WHA), so now it’s not that big of a deal.
And I’m saying propably for all of the community – don’t stay on the 18th. Make a new branch in EU. Revamp site and accounts. Delay it a day or two in EU. Now it is only OB and so but if the same will be with pre-paid cards? Or credit card numbers? Or whatever else? It’s the only chance! Mark! Even you are starting to lose patience! IN DAoC you had no option. Now you have. Remember deep there it is still EA (!!) Mythic.
This is such a failure that I dunno what to say now. Okay the Sunday was terrible but it could go. But today it’s just silly. But lefts a bad taste in mouth.
And I am suggesting a punishment to GOA taking a form of a big axe slashing their legs off. And next hands. Then make them write a novel using tongue. Maybe THEN they will listen.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:49:56
Hey mark just wanted to say i aboslutely love your blogs and teh amount of information you spit oun on various community sites
now im from the EU and im one of the poor bastards who is getting screwed by GOA
the lack of communication from the EU CM´s is horrible to say the least after you had a talk with them aboubt communication they stepped up and communicated for about 5 hours then it all stopped and as i write this no news from them in 4 hours noi news why our validation emails arent being sent out no new about the current state of the account management servers
this is exactly what leads ppl to grab the pitchforks and head straight for GOA speacially the CM´s they are being so overly arrogant in their posts and it makes me think of the Iraqi generel sitting in baghdad saying there is no american tanks in Iraq and at the same time you see soldiers taking down the statue of MR saddam(R.I.P)
/rant off
ps. Mythic are doing a fantastic job on this prelaunch thing im just amased you didnt force GOA to put up account servers 2 weeks before the beta launch
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:50:51
Sweet, crafted post with questions/opinions disappears into the ether of moderation but “Sucks to live in Europe” is an approved reply.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 19:54:49
What surprises me most about your post here is the fact that while you obviously share similar sentiments to IainC regarding some of the attitudes expressed by the players you then go on to hang him out to dry by denouncing him here and on the forums.
Yes his choice of words could have been better but I think, especially given his second post to clarify his original statement, he was more than justified in making his comments.
My own business deals directly with the public and I understand you do have to take a lot of shit from them at times and bite your lip but there is always a line. When insults go beyond slating a business or a product and devolve into personal attacks I think that is a step too far.
Some of the comments were, in my opinion, posted by the lowest form of scum and I fully agree with IainC that people who sink that low over nothing more than a bit of light entertainment seriously need their heads examined. Of course most of them are nothing more than snot nosed pimple faced brats who suddenly grow a pair as they’re hiding behind a keyboard.
Then to add insult to injury they throw up the “We’re customers. We can insult you all day and all night in any way we see fit and you better just stand there and take it, and whatever you do don’t open your mouth to give us any backchat”
Personally I hope IainC doesn’t end up being made a scapegoat due to your actions.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:11:20
i must say that i fully support IanC. i think it’s refreshing to see a community manager who doesn’t just put up with everything,
i think it is quite clear that he is only referring to those crazy people who was sending death threats(!) or shouting for instant firing of practically everyone in GOA because they – at that time – had lost a day of beta testing. after all as a manager his jobs is also to make sure there is a healthy working environment and all those crazy posts has to affecty you if you’re working at GOA
he did apologize for the poor planning and information and i really think it is people’s own fault if they take offence from his post.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:12:08
Casting one million beta keys was a very optimistic attempt to give big b a wipe. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:13:19
@ Burfo
You are saying and I quote:
“My opinion is and always has been that people should be grateful that they are even in the beta. Too many people out there feel the beta should work exactly like support of a live game. If the game was live, then I’d agree with the complaints that communications and expectations need to be high. But this is beta–you’ve agreed to test a non-released game, with the added benefit that you might just have some fun in the process, at no monetary obligation.
I feel most of this comes from the sheer number of people that are invited to join said beta and how they’re selected. Granted, some of this is unavoidable, especially with a game this large, but if every single beta tester was hand-selected based on their experience and willingness to be a beta tester then there would be a lot less noise coming from the masses. Of course that isn’t a possibility here, and that is one of the reasons that large numbers of invitees just don’t understand what a beta is, don’t know what to expect, and as such just follow along with what they see other people doing.”
Well I am sorry to be the one to tell you this but pretty much everything you wrote is crap.
A. 6 days OPEN beta is not as any other beta. It is basically a preview weekend that was given as a gift to people who preordered the CE or SE.
B. I actually bought a box that pretty much contains the open beta key and the early start key. So it was not exactly free, is it?
C. A short open beta is like the last rehersal before a big concert. Everything is and should be EXACTLY as it is ment to be released. Everything should be basically ready. This is not AoC where they were patching like crazy 2 hours before release.
D. Just so you know, LOTRO had a month long open beta where they basically didn’t patch anything. Not even one patch. And that is why their release has been legendary in the MMO world.
In short, stop making excuses for incompetent people.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:17:30
More important – what happened to Tom Brady?
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:17:43
Bladenstock,
There is a fine line between what is acceptable and not acceptable in dealing with customers and potential customers. What is unacceptable for anyone to say when they represent a company is that the customers comments are “borderline sociopathic”. That sort of comment, especially when delivered by a representative of a company (especially when that company caused the problems that led to the remark) is equally as bad as some of the comments made by a small percentage of the community. What made it worse was those comments were part of a message that he delivered to the community as both part of the company he represents (GOA) and by reflection, Mythic.
The bottom line is that those comments and frankly his entire update did nothing but further inflame a community that was already upset by what happened at GOA.
Oh, and the whole “I hope Ian won’t be made a scapegoat thing” is quite frankly, nonsense. Ian made those comments and for better or worse, he has to live with them. What he should have done is had the post taken down and apologized for writing it if he believed his comments were out of line.
BTW, I do not share the sentiment that some of the comments were “borderline sociopathic” that is a very, very strong term and one that should not be bandied about lightly.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:28:10
I suggest Mythic distance itself from GoA at the moment. Let GoA be the scapegoat, this is no time for you to post this while the anger is still fresh. You need to come out and say that GoA screwed up royally here and not elaborate more.
Mythic is still viewed by many to be the good ones here and you need to associate WAR with Mythic and NOT GoA that is if you want to retain the European customers. But, if people conceive that Mythic is even endorsing GoA at the moment, the anger will be directed at the game and Mythic. Let the anger be directed at GoA and make it clear that WAR is associated with you and not GoA.
A statement such as this “GoA screwed up, THEY are sorry, WE Mythic promise you a great game come release.” would work wonders.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:34:03
Mark, what sort of assurances have you had from GOA that this coming weekend’s early access launch will firstly be registerable for and secondly actually launch?
Do you have any faith that they will be able to satisfy the rabid hordes of EU players?
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:35:47
Kudos to you Mark and Mythic for all the hard work. The communication alone assures me the game will be a success. Hang in there and keep the water hose on the GOA fire.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:36:30
I’m still serving a long suspension from that forum for offenses considerably more timid than what IanC posted and even some of his past comments.
His record speaks for itself. No one needs to make a scapegoat out of him. He’s not held himself above making personal attacks, nor has he even attempted to understand why people might attack him; prefering instead to interprete it through a pre-concieved filter where criticism is the result of ‘nasty people’ and has nothing to do with his own behaviour. He sees it as a case of ‘ you can’t please everybody’ when in reality he hasn’t pleased anyone except those that can’t be convinced of any position other than the unspoilt perfection he and GOA naturally represent. His interpretation would only be valid if he pleased most people who had previously been critical, leaving only a bitter tiny minority with absurd complaints left out in the cold. Despite how he has tried to convince others that this is really true, it isn’t.
I’ve made it explicitly clear what GOA would have to do to make me happy and what IanC would have to do to make me happy. I did so repeatedly before he accused me of being a member of the fictional clan known as ‘those people’ who are never happy. The conditions were simple and had perhaps a patronisingly low threshold for what I would consider a ‘success’ for GOA, but they didn’t even manage them. If they had, IanC may have had a point, but it didn’t. This doesn’t stop him continuing to claim black is white, up is down, war is peace and the Earth goes round the Sun.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:38:08
Penny Arcade guys had it right in there cartoon. Internet + Anonimity = Dickwad.
Screw ups are going to happen. We are all human. It’s how you handle these screw ups that either make you great, or mediocre.
But with all the high emotions, it’s proving one thing Mark, your making a product people want to play, and that’s a good thing, sir.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:40:26
Was what IanC said wrong? Yes.
Was it unprofessional? Myeah.
Do I agree with him? Yes.
Not the smartest thing to say, but lets keep in mind the stress and pressure WE put him under. I do feel with him on this. I don’t want to be in his shoes right now, nor do I wish to be in the shoes of anyone else working at GOA.
And Mark… Your right, the comments coming from the community wasn’t borderline sociopathic, some of them was far worse. All the hate was targeted towards two or three persons. No one should experience such hatred over virtual pixels.
I hold the deepest respect for you, your company and your partners, but considering what have been said by the EU costumers, I would rather you supported your CM’s than denouncing them.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 20:41:50
First at all thanks for your statements. As an european Warhammer fan I can’t understand why Mythic gave GOA the chance to publish and handle this game in Europa. GOA has already shown with DAoC that they are not able to handle such a big thing. It’s frustrating to compare the the start of the public beta in the USA and in Europe.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 21:00:05
Mark, thanks for your updates. it is your comments, that are keeping the situation under some sort of control.
i am the owner of a German CE edition preorder, and want to give you my point of view on the EU start.
i am not in the game at the moment, because i do not have a login for the site. so at the moment i can t even try to get in, as account registration is down. i am a big warhammer fan, but a casual gamer. real life issues are keeping me from spending hours trying to log in. i don t need extra stress, so instead of hammering an F5 key in frustration, i have only tried to get in a couple of times, but have been following the discussion during my spare time.
the English community managers did not do a good job, before or during the crisis. and several of their posts were inexcusable. but the real problem is a different one:
GOA was told, that bringing up accounts on the same day of the start, would not work. they were laughing at us. but before and after the disaster, it was obvious that the CMs were not give the information they need to do their work.
this is a serious problem in higher level management. communication did not get the required priority, when the extend of the problems became obvious. neither during open beta start, nor before (website barely working, providing zero information in time, dealing with frustration over the US-euro differences….).
and i am sorry, it still has not. (several hours between the last updates)
this is, what i would expect as a minimum:
1. GOA needs to admit real failure. no more “good news first” or “did not go was well as planned” or “but we succeeded in”. simply admit that it is a total mess, and that it is entirely your fault.
2. explanations. nobody wants to keep engineers away from their work. but at this time, we really need answers to background question. the most important one is: why was the account center started that late? (and who made this decision? what were the alternatives?)
3. consequences. i think that regaining faith will require consequences for personnel. GOA will not be able to avoid compensation this time. life long free admission on the 7th of every months looks like a good start to me.
at the moment, i have serious difficulties, seeing GOA succeeding with the game in the future. it will take a massive effort, to even win the player base back to “neutral”. what they are doing at the moment, is far from enough.
actually nothing they have done in the past, does suggest that they can pull it of.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 21:02:09
‘BTW, I do not share the sentiment that some of the comments were “borderline sociopathic” that is a very, very strong term and one that should not be bandied about lightly.’
I strongly dislike the guy and believe he should get a strong rap on the knuckles for that post. I happen to agree with him for once but I’m allowed to say things like that. I’m not getting paid to keep quarter of a million angry fans on side, he is.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 21:05:31
People need to realize this is after all a game, a very fun one, but just a game. One that is in the last stages of production, but it isn’t released yet. And that is what people have to realize. It is best to find out these issues and work out these problems now before the game goes live. After all, Open Beta is a privilege, not a right. I know it must have been frustrating for those in the EU servers to not be able to participate at this time, but if I was in their shoes, I rather see this happen now that once the game is live. This is the time to deal with these problems, and as far as I know every MMO has had more than its share of issues like this pre-launch. I rather see it all fixed now so we can all play when WAR launches.
I have been pointing out to my girlfriend (which is also playing the OB with me and reader of this blog) how much I love the feedback we as a community get from the development team at Mythic, and how honest and forward you guys are about the issues and problems encountered during development and testing. It is new for me as a gamer seeing the enthusiasm with which you guys talk about the game, and it is very refreshing. I admire your honesty as I have never seen anyone in your position be so forthcoming and regularly addressing the community to keep us updated. Hats off to you and your team at Mythic.
I can only begin to imagine how frustrating these last couple of days must have been, not only for the player base but for everyone involved. If it helps counteract the effects of this, the PW+ was a very nice surprise to those of us able to participate in it. When my girl told me the servers would be available on Friday to play I jumped with glee and rushed home, and I enjoyed as much as I could of the game play. Some of the server restarts were at less than optimal moments, aka being in the middle of an all out brawl in RvR, but overall it was fantastic.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 21:13:09
Thank you for the update on your post.
Once again you (Mark) are showing the skills and natural ability it takes to make a great pr-spokesperson.
There is a clear difference in skill level shown between you and IainC. I believe anyone who reads a few post of both can see this.
I do indeed hope they dont make him a scapegoat for the bad planning or hardware/software failures.
BUT:
I do hope that GOA and Mythic both realise that he is not the right person to adress the customers in situations like these.
ps. personally the current situation made me unhappy, but IainC’s posts made me ticked off.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 21:14:20
Hey Mark,
I really enjoyed reading your post here – I’ve never seen a GOA or Blizzard official talking to players like that!
As a future EU customer I am off course very sad and angry about the situation and how GOA reacted.
I think the main reason for the huge aggressiveness and anger by the community are:
1. the shi*ty communication on GOA’s side and
2. the arrogance of GOA
EU players have warned them weeks before the Open Beta “start” that serves will crash if they start the Registration page on the same day as the game servers. What have they done?
Nothing, just denied and said their system could handle this…
To state the situation, this is how Open Beta started for me:
1. After 4 hours of waiting I could register and GOA’s page, email “supposed” to be on its way
2. When I came back to my PC about 7 hours later (19:00 or 7pm), there was NO (!!!!!!) email in my inbox
3. email came at 21:00 (9pm)
4. registration could not be finished
(error: account banned, no access! dont ask me why)
5. next day i registered a new account, this time a little quicker, new code validation page doesnt work
6. hours later it finally works, since then i am waiting for the email that says my code is valid
It is now 23:11 (11pm)! Is this a joke? Since 16:00 (4pm) which was when i registered the code on the “new” page, there is NOOOOO sign of any email in my inbox!
I am really pissed I must say, I am considering either not buying the game, or ordering the US version.
Something like this has NEVEr happened to me in years of MMO experience.
This can in no way be compared to any Blizzard beta start I know of…
regards,
Luu
(hopefully) EU customer
Sep 08, 2008 @ 21:15:47
Agree with Theeriver; no one would be complaining this much if they didn’t really, really care.
After Mythic announced the class and city cuts, I was so impressed by their un-FunCom-like honesty that I resolved to try WAR for at least a couple of months no matter what. Even though GOA are causing me at this moment in time(5% Hope left that they will finally start listening to real criticism), I will play because Mythic have given me great confidence in it.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 21:56:48
I’m a collectors edition customer, I’m spending 14 hours of my life being abusd by teenage thugs throwing their drinks on the floor to create more work for myself, managers shouting at me because I haven’t got the ability to be in more than one place at once and cleaning up after people who haven’t got the faintist idea what the basic tennants and obligations to be a member of a civilised soceity entail. On top of this I’m constantly given a shift patten that means I have little to no chance for a social life outside of whatever MMO or other game I’m currently playing. (To clarify this last point I work nights and weekends what other time I have I spend doing uni work.)
I really, really so not take kindly to being refered to as a borderline sichopath(sp), or basically being told to get a life by somebody whose job is to pacify my anger, not to rile me up. I haven’t sent any threating or insulting emails to the guys over at Goa, thougth I have rather rebustly made my feelings known to friends and the readers of my very own blog.
I’ve paid a premium to get open beta access by purchasing the collectors edition, and the way Goa has handeld this situation is sheer incompatence. Opening your website the day of release was an idioctic mistake. Giving away 50’000 free codes to those who have not the commitment to actually preorder the product was utter incompatence. The beta registrations for existing customers should have been opened up months ago like Mythic did on the other side of the pond (not actual sure abiout the factual accurauracy of this but they where sure open when I checked on the US site last week). This was just the beta as well, how is Goa going to cope when the general public decide to get involved in only 10 days time?
Sep 08, 2008 @ 22:29:23
Mark,
Of course there is a fine line in acceptability and unfortunately we do not always get it right.
As I said his choice of words could have been better, especially when speaking in his capacity as an employee of GOA, and it’s clear you took offence at Iain using “borderline sociopathic” to describe the vitriolic comments I and many others read on numerous forums regarding yesterdays disastrous EU open beta launch.
You do seem to be saying above though that a lot of the attacks were OTT or maybe I’m misreading your third paragraph?
I’m in no position to say what Iain believes regarding what he posted. Given the position he holds what he posted was a surprise to me. However as a bystander (I have neither love nor hate for GOA) I think it was a fair comment.
I personally find it extremely tiring sifting through pages and pages of these types of comments. I wonder to myself are these people for real? Are their lives really so empty that they can get this worked up over something which (and I certainly don’t mean to belittle your (personally and collectively) efforts in bringing this to fruition, I intend to have many happy hours playing over the coming months) overall is pretty meaningless? Of course more likely they’re like infants who cry as loudly as possible in the hopes of getting attention.
Sep 08, 2008 @ 22:54:50
That’s the second day gone and counting for something I had payed for. This will do warhammer online’s reputation in EU good, wont it? 🙂 The sales must just be dropping for every second.
Didnt you see this coming Mark? How could there have been such huuge differences between the EU launch and the US launch?
Anyway, I headed over to this homepage I saw at Warhammeralliance.com for the US version of the game and whaddyaknow? 30 minutes after I got the key I have it installed and patched up, ready to go. However, this was a freebie key. I expect to be duely compensated for what I have payed for. I recently got a letter from GOA that was supposed to confirm my account so I could patch my payed EU version. However, it turned me down and said that the exact key I entered wasnt recognized by their system.
Thanks again GOA!
(I’ll just sit here another night waiting for a patronizing message from Magnus or Ian again then, shall I?)
Sep 08, 2008 @ 23:02:57
Hi Mark,
Firstly I remain a great fan of your dev’s team’s honesty. It was a refreshing change from my experiences in the other triple a game recently launched. However I feel you are being unduely defensive of your GOA counterparts, in particular IanC. if you are sick of reading criticism of GOA skip on. I’ve tried to be polite.
Now, under the moniker blite on warhammeralliance, I raised the questions about the potential issues and was assured by IanC that I was wrong and none of it would come to pass.
He was wrong. i, like many others, was right. I’ve spent £60 and still can’t get into the OB in spite of all the ’emergency work’. So I really, really understand the anger and frustration. I know the money’s for the mousemat but actually i paid it to be part of the excitement. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
I’m a mental health social worker. I routinely get death threats and occasionally one is real. Having read through many of the posts nothing is particularly unusual and suggesting there’s an actual ideated sociopath with an address to stalk IanC and, I’m reassured that I’ve yet to see one where I’d consider ian to be under any kind of threat. But lots of people are plenty angry.
Yes, it is not nice but try being an asian storekeeper in Bradford or a korean storeowner in certain areas of LA. You’d giggle at the comparative inoffensiveness.
But we have to protect him because his boss has apologised in spite of GOA’s failure to retract his comments? No. It’s easy to do better. I try to avoid it but I make mistakes. When confronted by my patient or their family where I have made a mistake I apologise and retract my comments where I am wrong.
I’ve also prepared before i meet them and worked out a couple of options i’m going to offer them but not until I hear what they want. Why isn’t GOA doing this? They have not offered a fix to the predicted problem of customer registration. They only have a few more days until Early Entrance when they’ll formally be in breach of contract. That’s a lot of people to break a contract with.
Please, I want this game to succeed. But as you’ve pointed out elsewhere this game has a fanbase with high expectations. A couple of fan sites I’m a member of are starting to list people who’ve gone back to ‘the other game as they ‘saw this last with the other pvp game’.
If their actions speak as loud as their words that means you are already losing lots of people who were committed to playing your game since at least six months ago. How is that going to work with word-of-mouth? This is before you’ve even launched. it’s worried me and that’s just ‘cos I want friendly people to game with.
My guess for you would be that’s the hundreds of thousands of people who recently felt they got burnt waiting to hear whether they should hand out another £40 or pay for another 6 months of WoW instead checking game forums. They’re not going to like what they’re reading.
Yes the CEO has apologised. No, people with an EU OB code but no account can’t play. No, the 1-2 hours before the asynchronised accounts fire out an authorisation email ain’t really happening. No, the viral marketing from the OB isn’t going well. Actually I can’t imagine a way it could have gone less well.
This is a tipping point. You managed not to get dragged into the mire caused by HG:L’s misuse of metrics so that all the literate geeks did not feel the need to paint a big target on WAR for people to shoot at but GOA’s gone and done it for you instead. The credit crunch shows (a) EU and US markets are linked and (b) people don’t have as much spare cash as they did a year ago.
Please, please have a word with your partners so they (a) stop insulting your customers and generating more of the hate you are so worried about and (b) deliver the same standard of service as the folks in the US are getting.
And by the way, It’s been 6 hours since I input my codes and to the GOA patch-up and nada. it would be ok if I was unlucky but it seems I’m not the only one. I was a demonologist in a certain other game and got used to being lied to. i got so used to it I upped and cancelled in spite of thinking its a potentially fabulous game.
I’m really hoping history does not repeat itself.
Ali
Lessons of a Community Manager | Tome Of Warhammer
Sep 08, 2008 @ 23:10:25
Sep 08, 2008 @ 23:26:43
Please fix the lag 😦
Sep 08, 2008 @ 23:50:44
sorry to repost but there’s no way I can see you making the half mil mark of gamers six months down the line considering the massive hole you are going to have in europe. please spend some of the dev money you have left on pve content.
The RP carebears I love gaming with tell me this is where WAR is weakest at present and we want this game to work for us as well. We get RvR but we need stufff to encourage our more casual other halves into. It never was going to be so easy with WAR due to the niche you are aiming for but I hope it’s not imposible.
Ali
Ali
Sep 09, 2008 @ 00:26:04
1. Now with EA behind Mythic, I doubt Mythic would have a need to deal with GOA in the future.
2. With all the complaining, whining and fingerpointing going on, there isnt much incentive for Mythic to ever…. EVER guarantee an open beta to pre-order customers…ever again.
Lesson learned: Never guarantee an invite to OB because the fan base will eat you raw if you don’t deliver to their expectations.
Hell, you have to ask yourself if the devs, CMs and mngt ever ask themselves “Is this worth it?” I would bet that they have many times over.
Patience….it’s just a game.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 00:37:53
I have been really impressed how the hype etc all went, and especially how down to earth you all are at mythic, and really do care about things going on.
But I would just ask you take a quick look from our side in Europe (forget Sunday for a moment), just open up the european website, and pretend you know nothing. Now look up what the game is about, the armies etc. Hidden right down the bottom you find under “Universe” (spaceships and stuff?) the description of the game. This on the US site is placed rightfully on the top left and labelled “Game”.
The order of all the links is nothing more than random, on EU.
Now try to go back to the start, click on the Home button, the one that doesnt exist, and the back button on the browser throws you right off the site.
With such an appalling lack of navigation, most people just use the US Site .
So a few days before OB and EU disable registering to the site, ( I really expected a fully revamped site to appear), but what do we have.
We get directed to register to the EU Site (whether we are members or not already), no cohesive instructions to follow, no confirmation of anything, well, I’ll leave it there.
I know nothing of who GOA are, nor do I care, but to play Warhammer in Europe, I need to go to a website that is clearly ill thought out, and unnavigable.
You have heard of “First Impressions”, well this is it for Europe. And it Sucks
Sep 09, 2008 @ 00:46:09
Youve become quite cynical?
Now imagine what GOA has done to those of us that have had to deal with them over the years.
The continuing fiasco of the European account pages was completely expected: I rest my case.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 00:47:45
I’ve been sat here for 10.5 hours…… Waiting for an email……
Its now almost 2am and I have given up.
The communication from GOA started bad, became appalling and then just dried up….
I am just so disappointed that your company could fail us so badly…… and the attitude of the community staff is that we should be grateful that they are trying anything at all.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 00:57:01
It’s beta, problems happen. That’s why they have beta. If this happens when the gave is live, then you have all the rights to complain.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 00:58:33
Hey mark,
enjoyed the blog but had a question I would like to ask regarding the comments ianc made, if some of the comments that were made regarding GOA and there employee’s were made against Mythic employee’s how would you have reacted? Over the last few days I’ve seen people make death threats use racist comments and generally be complete (insert expletive).
I know the phrasing he used was a poor choice but I’ve seen you say before how much you will defend your team against things like this.
I’m not defending anything/anyone or taking any standpoint I’m just curious as you’ve been pretty critical of what he did, surely you can understand the reasoning if not the methods.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 01:03:27
Thanks for a good blog mark, and thanks for a truely great game that could have reached the 1mill mark in under a year in europe.
My wife and me have preordered 2 copies of the CE here in europe, I am going to buy them, and leave them on the shelf to look at, at least I owe you that for making this great game. I have been a betatester in the closed beta, and have been thrilled to see all the great changes unfold before my eyes, seeing how great this game was going to become.
Now for the situation with the GoA branch of Orange ( france telecom).
It all comes down to two things :
Broken promises and lies.
These very human terms, leads to anger, resentment and feeling sad and sorry.
If you do not understand the value of keeping a promise, you do not have children yet, and trust me, lie to a child and you have left a splinter in their hearth for eternity, and that is why they react with threats online towards someone that piled more grief ontop of what they already are carriyng around.
People get to a certain point in life where they do not want to take more lies and broken promisses from other humans, be it the dude at the restaurent telling you the lobster is great today and then serving porridge, or the carsalesman telling you this car is brand new, when you can see the rust under the new paint. I think the reason people play online games is there is an element of fairness in the game, there are rules and they are upheld by the company running the game. Its not like in real life where politicians promise stuff, then steals money, sell drugs to kids, and then never gets nailed for it, the world isnt fair, but an online game can give you the fun and peace you need from the real world.
“Its only a game”, yes, and so is life, the one who steals the most wins seems to be the rule to go by in real life.
But a broken prommise is a broken prommise, and it states clearly on my preorder box that access to open beta is Guaranteed.
And besides that, Orange has had a terrific last 10 years in europe, I dont think a single worker in the ombudsmans offices around europe do not know that company and its business practises, but hey, when you have government support its easy to just steal more money from the little people out there.
So, when you figure out how to give the europeans a decent service, we might consider paying to play your fantastic game, until then, ill be playing (and paying) at another french company that actually knows what it is doing, its called vivendi.
(sorry for my mishandling of the english language, it isnt my main language)
Kind regards and thanks for making a great game.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 01:31:42
I don’t see why people are freaking out. It’s Open Beta – not Release. A lot of immature whining is going on. Mythic should have put an age limit on the OB because obviously these kids don’t know what Beta means and then come onto forums and run their mouths off.
I wonder if these cryers will even submit bug reports? What use are they for testing other than checking load balance?
Oh, and I realise IanC was obviously stressed, but his post was very unprofessional.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 01:38:15
I agree that the threats and such were completely out of line. However I can’t even begin to describe how arrogant some the GOA staffers have acted. I work part time in a college cafeteria and although that is unrelated to the gaming industry; it is still somewhat relevant to what GOA is doing(providing a service). If there is one thing that I’ve learned it’s that you do not piss off the customer, no matter how asinine they are. Now that doesn’t mean just sit there and take peoples’ shit; but you don’t respond by throwing shit back. This is what Ian has seem to done. Ian acted in a completely unprofessional manner, I mean really telling your customers and potential customers that “There is something wrong with you” is not the best way to handle something. All people(or at least the vast majority) in the service industry know that you’re going to have to deal with ass holes. I mean really, the world is full of them. I can’t help but think that GOA has somewhat brought this upon themselves, though. I mean it’s not like they had their account creation set-up for weeks or something and it just crashed and had a database wipe(I’m not an IT guy so I have no idea if this is even possible). No, they put it off until the last minute and then something bad happen. This is why you don’t wait till the last minute. I mean hello this is why they are betas, test products, etc. “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst” is a motto by which these companies should operate by. I would really hate to see this game get poor sub numbers in Europe due to an obviously careless company who does not seem to care about Mythic or it’s customers. MBJ, you seem to be a great guy and it is really sad to see that you have to waste your time and resources defending a company that is supposed to make things easier for you, not harder. I know this thing was thrown together incoherently because I just typed whatever came to my mind so some of it might seem redundant. But ya I just hope that you guys don’t suffer because of the mistake of someone else.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 01:46:56
Dear Ballian
If someones sell the right to get into the OB then it is a right of the customer to complain. Else they should write on the pre order packages that your entry is absolutly granted….
And then you have to wait, and all the non payers get in first….
I don t think that s right.
It s like you are paying the gas for next driver and you don t get anything…
Oh and the best is the codes they sold in the pre oder are shit (sry for that word) but if and O looks like a D how should you get the code right the first time you use it…( I had no luck in that part).
Sep 09, 2008 @ 02:00:09
Dear Ruari!
A little question. Where should i send the bug report. Mythic or Goa don t have a forum or and e-mail adress where we could send it to them.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 02:25:27
Hello Mark.
I’m a European and I managed to get into the open beta on the day it launched. Just. I think it was 10 minutes to midnight.
Anyway. I just wanted to say, its an excellent game, despite GOA. And you should be fealing happy and proud at a time like this not weighed down with all these problems. Just hang on to the fact that youve made a truely world class MMO. Some peaple in my guild have been saying that this launch (soft launch whatever your calling it) was worse then what happened to Age of Conan. What I have been trying to stress to peaple, (and unfortunately I have been defending the game to a number of angry friends recently) is that the GAME is good. It WILL stand the test of time. And in the long run, problems with an account system will seem so trivial. So yeah. Relax. Have a beer. You guys deserve it.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 02:51:11
Hmm, couldn’t find my comment earlier so I’m assuming I may have said something stupid or worded my praises in some offensive way.
Anyhow, I found it particularly amusing upon reading IanC’s comment on the small masses that contributed to the death threats and etc. While I tend to disagree with community managers who outright degrade a playerbase, no matter how small, I found this situation to exceptional. Not to say I agree with this sort of action but in the end, when someone is motivated to take things on a personal level into their own hands over a video game that will not be going anywhere any time soon, there really is SOMETHING wrong with them.
In any case, thanks for the hard work, Mark. I am in anticipation of Warhammer Online.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 04:17:34
Hello Mark
10 hours later and still no confirmation mail.I guess we must admit the obvious.
3 years of PR and enthusiasm from both your Team and EU community doused within 48 hours.
If you want this game to succeed in EU, EA and Mythic will have to remove GOA from the project as soon as they breach their contract on Sept 18th.It’s easy to say as I`m not in your chair but this (re)action or will have a lot of consequences some for the best and some for the worse on your side.
The Only bad move you did until now was not listening to EU when they told you to not let GOA handle WAR in EU.
Looks like the “Age of Migration” has just started.May be you should open a US server and name it Migration,so that EU migrators can play there 🙂
Sep 09, 2008 @ 08:31:57
This is my third try to get a comment published – so here goes. 🙂
I just have to say Mark that you have, by just being honest, and writing here has taken away a lot of the more excessively aggressive feeling from a lot of the EU community.
What you seem to know is that PR is about information, honesty and humility (even when the customers really don’t deserve it).
I just wish you luck with the US beta and final game launch and that you get support from EA to cut all ties to GOA.
Right now I am actually, as a EU citizen, playing the US beta and it works like a charm (a few too many “enemy not attackable” bugs) but except that I really, _really_ love the game.
I just feel bad that you have to give so much time and effort to take care of the problems that really isn’t your job – it’s GOA’s.
Regards,
Sebastian
Sep 09, 2008 @ 08:32:57
What you’re doing here is the exact opposite of what GOA are doing every single day. It’s no use communicating top down from management to fan-base with exactly that attitude showing. Nobody cares if the president of GOA doesn’t regularly communicate with the players, she has to. And in plain language, with facts behind it.
Europeans as a whole seem to be missing the sincerity in GOA’s statements. It’s all “Look, we couldn’t do anything else, shit happens, you know…”. And while every single player over here would empathize with a publisher who’s database burned up, nobody will take sides with the aristocratic “It doesn’t work, but you don’t need to know why”.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 10:50:02
I greatly agree on 3), that was very a insulting post where it looked like he was blaming US, the players when it was their freaking fault lol…
Sep 09, 2008 @ 12:21:21
Oh fine the last 10k player can go into the game ….
I AM STILL waiting for the evaluation letter…. that sucks.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 12:33:58
Sry the last was a wrong msg. They didn t send out cofirmation mails anymore. (At least i didn t get one)
But finally i can start to patch the game too.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 12:58:50
Well, lucky you Stormhand… have fun inside.
I still am unable to patch the game, neither have i gotten an confirmation email after for more then 22hrs now.
Sep 09, 2008 @ 13:01:14
Go Chiefs!
That counts as a legitimate contribution, right?
The Charlotte Hornets don’t play anymore. 😦
Sep 09, 2008 @ 16:24:28
Try to log into the game i also didn t get a confirmation email. I tried it and suddenly i was through to the patcher.
Sep 10, 2008 @ 00:52:52
You Truly are a brave and Honest man to keep your Blog running during OB Start .
And I’ll wager your efforts here, are responsible for many like myself to give it one more day for Goa to get sorted.
The feelings you inspire, that somebody with Clout is really listening, go an awful long way, for me at any rate.
I would love to know if Goa’s claimed signup rate is anywhere near what you would have expected.
For myself, I am still playing Goa’s Lottery.
One account registered now, without having received any emails, but can now play, one account that received an email but is banned by Goa and cant be logged onto,(and they try to imply the input is incorrect), and with no way of contacting them, what can I do to correct it.
Yet they tell us to wait for our confirmation email, and late evening they admit their email server is screwed too.
I have serious misgivings of entering any bank details with them, so whether I remain playing for launch, I really cant answer as yet.
Three days ago, I was looking to log in, create/join a guild, and let WAR be my life.
Now I may just cancell with EA (EAOnline Shop order), and forget I ever heard the name GOA.
I did hear tho, about a new game in US recently, its called WAAAAARGH, you log in and 5 minutes later you play, I must look into that tommorow, a stress free game, hard for us over here to believe .
Well Done
Sep 10, 2008 @ 14:44:53
I agree with you Mark,
GOA dropped the ball, but it is definitely time to move on…
Head start is in 5 days, Launch is next week.
Let’s look on the Bright Side!
Sep 10, 2008 @ 15:10:41
Latest fantastic news from Goa
“All valid codes entered will be able to log in and play within a few minutes of successfully submitting your details.”
There are two ways to achieve this.
1. Register the codes and let the players enjoy the game.
2. Invalidate >50% of the codes submitted to them, then claim the valid ones left are OK.
The US enjoyed option 1, and GOA Europe employed option 2.
We cant contact them, we cant get new codes, we cant even reregister the codes we had.
You Declared Waaaaaargh – and gave Europe blanks to shoot with, – thats cheating