Well for one reason nobody really gives a company credit when it does have a smooth launch. LOTRO was nearly flawless at launch, but nobody gives them credit for it.
It isn't that we accept the ordeal that is going on. It's that the people saying that people should just wait know we can't really do much about it and understand that servers aren't that easy to keep standing with HUGE load. Sure Square has done this before, they launched the game before and it wasn't nearly this bad. But this time they have both the PS3 players and the PC players, with access to servers not in your time zone, all converging into the servers at once. The problem with this being they capped the game at 20 before launch, which in the open beta they had issues but they managed to get everything working. I don't think they realized how many legacy players were going to be using the dungeons right off the bat. And how many level 20's there were going to be attempting to use the dungeons. The problem with all of those players doing that at once is that it completely OVERLOADED their dungeon servers so that unless you got extremely lucky you would get stuck trying to go into them.
Now they tried to fix the server population issues by limiting players connecting (horrible idea but at least they tried) and the people who are able to connect are actually having a decent time from what I've heard. So it's working in that respect. Now the issue at hand that is pissing me off is the fact that they aren't communicating with the people attempting to play their game. They post maybe 1 or 2 times early in the morning on twitter saying they are working on it but never continue to follow up with any sort of information. You can't tell me there isn't one person who can't alt tab and say to the community "Hey guys we are still working on this" or "this is how far we are, you can expect it at this time". No we get none of that. I understand the issue, but I can't tell whether or not to be mad, just because of how square is handling it. They aren't doing a good job, but they aren't really doing nothing either, they are attempting to do what they think is right. I really really hope that by the actual launch they have it all sorted out or their game is going to die real quick, I know a lot of people who are already out of patience but I have to keep trying to get them to stay on board simply because I really think this is a great game and a lot of people really enjoy it, when it's working.
I think the main issue I have with all this is, this is not a launch issue, this was an issue last weekend with the open beta, it was an issue in the beta before that. They knew they had a problem, they hot fixed it and kicked the can down the road, and now at launch time it's biting them in butt. They should know better than that, they should have done proper long up time testing, and stress testing. They did neither. They instead did this psydo science trick where they give you a little, take it away, give you a little more, and so on to make you feel like you need the game. It didn't give them a proper sample set for testing, it just worked as a marketing ploy.
I myself am playing just to hang out with a friend, I bought the game for the same reason, I am ticked off because I keep getting the error telling me my world is full tough #%%#% you can't play. It means either there is a serious issue and they are using a false error to cover it, or they have restricted server access so much that some of their player base can't play. The only reason for the latter is they didn't tool the servers to handle the load right, which means they didn't test the game right, which falls right on their heads.
There is no excuse for this type of failure. FFXIV 1.0 was horrendus in everyform. So don't you think they would have prepared for this moment to make up for that catastrophe? Instead you get thousands of people unable to even log into their game to even try the damn game to see any improvements.
And this is just early access, I can't even imagine the true launch.
I for one agree this is not acceptable, this is not the 1st time an MMO is launched, technology has come a long ways. I agree it cant be 100% perfect. but I think we deserve better.
Seems the gaming industry in general find it ok to release a half finished product , charge people, and then finish at their own pace .
Quite a number of recent MMO's had no problems at launch, I for one am glad this happened since I paid 90 bucks 3 years ago for a POS that couldn't be called a game and I don't even get early access for it.
Originally posted by jonesing22 Anyone who understands how server technology works are the ones saying give them time, they're working on it.
Actually, no.
Many people I've been talking to (and myself included, though I don't primarily work on servers) realize how much of a joke this is. Server tech can definitely be complicated. There's no denying that. What is painfully obvious (to those not looking for any excuse to give SE free passes on every mistake), is that this is primarily a result of lack of preparation / incompetence. Not a result of things just being 'difficult'. This is a problem Square-Enix has created for themselves. This is not some new, unforseen issue that's never been experienced in MMOs before. They aren't testing out some brand new server tech.
They're using old server tech, that they haven't calibrated to handle the current stress load (not even remotely close). They've set up NO backup systems to handle such a situation, should it occur (oh no! people are playing our game. I guess the solution now is to just disconnect them all until they go away or we can figure something out!).
There are just really basic, standard, server functions that are plainly lacking in this situation. Proper queing (with a proper que they shouldn't be having congestion issues nearly as sever. That's the point of a que). Server redundancies (especially for the login server), so if an error happens, it doesn't tank the whole system. The ability to drop bad connections automatically (while yes this can cause connection drops, they are already having connection problems, DCs, and thus the benefits far outweigh the potential risks). I could go on, but I think my point is pretty clear.
This is a case of them being unprepared. Not a case of some fluke circumstance (i.e. Vanilla WoW), where some unprecedented event happened that no one predicted. These are all issues that have been around, have been reported & explained repeatedly, and just never dealt with. And now, since there's 100s of thousands of people playing their game, they've decided (or rather been forced to accept) that this MIGHT be a problem. Only, because they waited so long to deal with these issues, it's going to be MUCH harder to fix.
Originally posted by NetSage When nearly every MMO has messed up launch in some way or some form. Those saying X game had a perfect launch I guarantee it had problems. I also guarantee the ones you're probably going to name had tons of server merges shortly after launch.
do you realize this game has been out for like 3 years..... it's a relaunch....... dang..... well that's what ma friends say... they are way past launch fail phase... it's 2.0....
diffreant servers and diffreant code all togeather
OP is right. This is intolerable. Why are people defending this mess? There is in fact NO time to fix this server crap. The game will start TOMORROW.
I can't believe what SE is doing actually. After the horrible 1.0 version they have a second chance - for most players (taking out die-hard fans who really seem to be blind to any reason) their last one. And what is this bunch of clowns doing?
Is this arrogance, ignorance, incompetence or simply stupidity? I don't know.
Don't get me wrong - the game itself is quite ok. I have played 1.0 (well, not very long), betas and some hours of the so called "early access" in which the word "access" has somehow a very ironic meaning. But obviously they are (again) unable to master the technology behind the game.
I don't know if this is in some way a cultural problem (pride?) but why not hire people who are capable of doing the job? The SE amateurs are obviously not. Seems to me somehow they WANT to ruin their game.
Originally posted by Kobin04 Before you troll all over this post, take a moment and read it please. Most of what I'm seeing on MOST forums is something to the likes of....Just give them time, stop whining that you can't play, this is still early release, what MMO's have good releases....etc,etc,etc. When did we start to accept that we would pay for something and simply not receive this? When did this mentality begin? I'll leave you with a simple concept: Let's say I'm opening a new restaurant. I put an ad in the paper or online stating whoever want's to pre-pay can come and try my food early. I then present a menu of the foods those members who have pre-paid can try. So when I have my first customer, it's probably best I NOT bring them out half of the sandwich or steak that they ordered. The point I'm getting at is this, that above situation would not be tolerated under any circumstances. So why because it's a game do we as consumers tolerate this kind of behavior? Simply because the only alternative is to NOT play? I'm 1 single customer I realize that and I know they won't care of they lose my business, it just has me thinking; since when was all of this standard?
You want to know something sad about games these days? The fact that the vocal minority can tell the silent majority what types of games to play by telling the developers that they speak for everybody.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
The fact that the same thing that is happening to Final Fantasy XIV has happened to other games and the opinion that we should accept this because it is normal is the result of companies trying to be as cheap as possible with start-up costs in order to make as much profit as possible. It's just another symptom of the capitalistic "race to the bottom" society that we live in. If SE had spent a load of money on servers and tech support and the players for this game had not turned out en masse like they did, then the company would have been severely criticized by its shareholders, who, let's face it, are much more important to them than us customers. As it is, they count on us as customers being tolerant of them for their initial cheapness until they get things running properly and spend as little as they can to do so.
It came to be acceptable because in the early days of this genre we forgave these things because the genre was just being created and pioneered.
Unfortunately companies did not take that forgiveness with gratitude,they instead they have taken it for granted and so haven't tried to improve things they've even shortened or gotten rid of real betas because why pay people tot est your game when people will pay to test it for you?
This will continue to be the norm till consumers actually force them to do proper QA and testing before releasing a product to the public.Which is not going to happen till people stop making excuses for them and start acting like consumers.
Originally posted by Kobin04 Before you troll all over this post, take a moment and read it please. Most of what I'm seeing on MOST forums is something to the likes of....Just give them time, stop whining that you can't play, this is still early release, what MMO's have good releases....etc,etc,etc. When did we start to accept that we would pay for something and simply not receive this? When did this mentality begin? I'll leave you with a simple concept: Let's say I'm opening a new restaurant. I put an ad in the paper or online stating whoever want's to pre-pay can come and try my food early. I then present a menu of the foods those members who have pre-paid can try. So when I have my first customer, it's probably best I NOT bring them out half of the sandwich or steak that they ordered. The point I'm getting at is this, that above situation would not be tolerated under any circumstances. So why because it's a game do we as consumers tolerate this kind of behavior? Simply because the only alternative is to NOT play? I'm 1 single customer I realize that and I know they won't care of they lose my business, it just has me thinking; since when was all of this standard?
The problem is that you (Square Enix) didn't have enough seating in the restaurant. There's plenty of food there (really good food), but right now there's a line stretching around the city.
Metaphors aside, the majority of people today are simply impatient. It's understandable that if you pay for services you should expect to receive said services. However, early access is just that. No where have I been asked to set up a payment method or pay to play in this phase of launch. Yes, I bought the Collector's Edition of version 1.0 before it came out and yes, I hated it and threw it in the garbage. However, once this game launches I plan on playing it for a long time because the game is fun and enjoyable. The difficulties right now are not with the content of the game, they are with server management and the high traffic that SE was not prepared for. People keep saying "give them time" because once they are able to relieve the congestion then we will all be able to play and enjoy the game.
I can understand what you are trying to say with this metaphor, but other than buying the box, no one has had to set up a payment method yet. Therefore, SE doesn't technically "owe" the players anything as long as they get this fixed before signing us up for our monthly fees. We will get access, but they need time.
I agree we should expect better but ,there is a small difference,this is a networking team problem and not a game issue.
I think would be far worse if you could enter the game and maps are bugged,creatures are bugged,quests don't work,,,ahem sound familiar?
If the worse problem you face is early networking/server structure,it is not all that bad.
However i continue to point out that there was an issue during last Beta on this very problem ,they knew of this,THOUGHT they fixed it.They should not relay on THOUGHT and instead should have had another week of testing.The last thing you want to do is make anyone mad,not sure who to blame,but media should get to the top of the food chain and ask who decided to launch after seeing server issues during last beta.
ONLY reason it bothers me is because a guy like Yoshi is the face of this game right now,we don't really know how much power if any he had to delay launch,he is merely an employee like everyone else.I want to start seeing those who are actually responsible,so we can get rid of those that put a HUGE black mark on a whole company.If these decisions come from the very top,then the investors should tell them to keep their nose out of decisions before they ruin the company.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Lets clear a few things. I seen a lot of people in this and other topics about the launch stating the following things:
1. We paid for the early access we should get our money back.
2. The game is broken cause we can't login
3. Since when is it acceptable, this is a outrage, omg its the end of the world, this game sucks so hard, omg omg omg
4. I'm gonna quit! F them! In no other industry they have this. When i open a restaurant i can't give them half a sandwich either at launch!
Now i know many people are upset during the launch days. And almost ever MMO had this issue when it was launched. I think people need to start realizing a few things before they post silly things with weird examples.
1. No you did not pay for the early access. You pay the exact same money as anyone else who buys the game in the upcoming months. If i buy the game next week it still costs me 40 euro's for the deluxe edition and 25 euro's for the regular edition, just like the pre orders did.
2. The game isn't broken, the queue's for the servers are just full. They could make the same mistake Age of Conan and Warhammer online made by opening a great amount of new servers. Just to see people leaving after the first month and having a sh*tload of ghost town servers where only a few players still play. You want that? You want pretty much dead servers that only make the game look dead? Just so you can play right now?
3. I take people who say that are rather new to the MMORPG scene? My first MMORPG pre order experience was with WoW and for those who remember those days in Europe atleast know how hard it sucked back then. Long queue's down times of days when they had a maintenance days etc etc. This is what 9 years ago? People accepted it back then already and probably before so as well. You knew this could happen, even in the recent it happened with GW2. Don't go cry and whine about it, its something that comes with MMORPG's, you know this so its your own fault if you get all upset and angry about it.
4. You won't quit. The hardest whiners here are those who play the most. They will not admit it, but we all know it and so do you. Yes its true no other industry has this problem, name one industry where thousands of thousands of people want to join the product at the same time at the exact same minute. Cause that is what you people forget. During the opening days everyone wants to login at the same time instead of being spread over the day. When a new car comes out, lets say a fiat, that is only avialable at the fiat dealers so there are only so many stores around the world. Each store represents a server. Now thousands of people have pre orderd this Fiat and can pick it up a week before others can get it. Thousands of people before each store want to get it at the same time. This store can only allow so many people into it so queues will happen. Let's see how other industries will deal with it when thousands and thousands of people want to get access to their products at the same time. Just like that restaurant example. It will not have so many visitors on one day even so how the hell can you compare it? Early access is like Rush hour, to many cars on the same road, and road constructors know this happens yet they stick to building the roads as they are. And guess what, we keep accepting that as well as car drivers. Just leave a little later from home and rush hour won't be so bad anymore. And unlike the poor souls stuck in traffic you don't have to be in time in the game cause otherwise your boss gets angry at you. You surely can wait a little longer before able to play as you will probably play for a longer then a month and for 90% of the time have a blast.
Could SquareEnix do this better? Yeah i suppose they could have done somethings to ease their servers a little. Like not having the early access in the weekend cause then most people have free from work/school and want to login all day. And if its true you can go afk all day without being booted then yeah they should fix that cause it prevents others from getting into the game. But other then that its more a logistic problem with to many people trying to enter at the same time, just like the roads during rush hour. This is not something they can fix unless they limit the amount of early access players and then you will see the same people here shout "OMG OMG unfair i pre-ordered the game but i don't have early access bad game if i open a restaurant i can't tell people they can't come in while i allow a select few too eat here". If you get so upset about it, then please do yourself and us all a favor, don't play early access. Go play a MMO after two weeks after launch, saves us countless of posts here on MMORPG that are all the same because you still don't know how it works and fail to see how complex it is. I saw someone say its not that complex. Well then by all means you go do it better then all these companies. Go present them the fix for the problem instead of whining here.
Somebody is unhappy, something goes wrong. There have not been too many clean releases these days. TSW was decent, Rift was pretty damn good.
Still, they were not perfect. See, I always assume that early access = final beta test anyway. This is not launch. People always forget that.
With that said, SE clearly did not prepare for the amount of players who pre-ordered. It has not been pretty. But the game is damn fun, when you play.
Wait what? Rift was pretty damn good? They where ..fast with adding new servers but most servers had huge queues to get on some even had 100+ hour queues, the game it self was in a accepteble state on most parts but their security....
Personally I havent had much trouble getting on myself and havent had any stability issues, granted that is parcially because I chose to skip my early access. It may not have been the smoothest launch, but sadly it hasnt been the worst by a long shot.
Regardless of the problems are accepteble or not patience and understand IS required on our part, if you truely want to be treated like a customer start acting like one first instead of a raging self-entittled brat. Funny enough every single game or what ever product I had , excersising some patience and understanding Always got the issues resolves AND I have Always received some form of compensation. Hence the reason why the EA players effectively received 48 hours of extra free game time.
What do you mean "When" did we come to accept this kind of thing?
It has ALWAYS been pretty much accepted for MMOs. Because since the very first MMO, server issues have affected the ability of customers to play. And guess what, most of the customers who like the games accept it.
The issue is not that suddenly some time in the recent past us MMO players who accept this got too-soft. Its that suddenly the MMO customer-base got a lot bigger and a lot of people with entitlement issues jumped on the bandwagon, and they whine about those of us who accept reality.
There is a reason we accept the issues. Because it is software and it is servers and there is absolutely no way to test the stuff completely adequately in a test environment. So issues CAN and WILL happen. We just have to be patient until they sort them out and fix them. We understand all of this, because it is reality and it is fact. We also realize that an MMO is meant to be enjoyed over YEARS and YEARS of play...so a couple of days, or a couple of weeks even, to fix the issues is just a minor inconvenience in the long view.
Buck reality all you like. You will never change it. And it is not something that CAN be changed. Just not possible to be 100% sure that code is perfect before launch and also not possible to ensure hardware is 100% fail safe (without having so many redundancies that the pentagon would be impressed).
Here is something that might be a shocker for you, but those of us who "accept it" do get frustrated by the issue. But then we think "Man, a week ago I couldn't even play this game. I was really Jonesing for it, and I really, really like it. I'm willing to accept some problem while they sort it out because it is still better than a week ago when I could not play at all. I LOVE THIS GAME."
I could not have said it better. Kudos.
"Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"
I'm going to try and keep this as short and to the point as possible.
ISPs have outages.
Google has outages.
Power has outages.
All of those things have been around A LOT longer than FFXIV. You pay for all of them (except Google, but even then their outages are rather light) and probably complain when they go down too. If it makes you feel better, complain.
I will, in the mean time, enjoy my game when it is up and do something else when it is down happy to get time with the game when I am next able. Why am I able to execute this amazing practice? Patience is it called? Because my life is not ruled by the technical ability of whoever makes these servers. Argue with that, go ahead.
People think it's fun to pretend your a monster. Me I spend my life pretending I'm not. - Dexter Morgan
There's only one way that you can have a "perfect" launch with no queues or server crashes due to overloading.
calculate the maximum concurrent player limit for each server.
sell only as many game copies as can comfortably fit on each server concurrently
But that's not practical, of course, because if the server cap is 5K players concurrently, it's unlikely that all 5K will be logged on simultaneously 24/7. So just like airlines, ISP's, health clubs and countless other businesses, MMO developers "oversell" game copies.
This is not a problem in "normal load" conditions, but at the launch of a new MMO, the "overselling" becomes painfully obvious as every single player tries to login simultaneously.
Sure, you can open 3 times as many servers as you would need under normal conditions (i.e. 4 weeks after launch). But that will mean that a month after launch, you will need to merge all those servers down to 30% of the total at launch.
If your game uses a "single server" design, you will have to have a login system that can handle 3 times the normal load. All the substantial technical effort and expense will be for a situation that will only ever occur for the 3-week launch window of your game.
It's simply not worth the effort and/or cost, because the end result is the same. If the game is good, players will play it. If it's bad, they'll be gone in a month.
Am I upset my early access was basically denied? Sure.
Am I glad that Yoshi publicly apologized for it? Yup.
Will this effect my decision of subscribing in the future if I get bored? A little.
Will I forgive SE if they give a time reward for those that preordered, such as a free month? You betcha.
Ohh look, I came to my own conclusions as a rational adult without freaking out on a public forum. (No I am not talking about the OP, he seems very rational and proposed a good question.)
Comments
It isn't that we accept the ordeal that is going on. It's that the people saying that people should just wait know we can't really do much about it and understand that servers aren't that easy to keep standing with HUGE load. Sure Square has done this before, they launched the game before and it wasn't nearly this bad. But this time they have both the PS3 players and the PC players, with access to servers not in your time zone, all converging into the servers at once. The problem with this being they capped the game at 20 before launch, which in the open beta they had issues but they managed to get everything working. I don't think they realized how many legacy players were going to be using the dungeons right off the bat. And how many level 20's there were going to be attempting to use the dungeons. The problem with all of those players doing that at once is that it completely OVERLOADED their dungeon servers so that unless you got extremely lucky you would get stuck trying to go into them.
Now they tried to fix the server population issues by limiting players connecting (horrible idea but at least they tried) and the people who are able to connect are actually having a decent time from what I've heard. So it's working in that respect. Now the issue at hand that is pissing me off is the fact that they aren't communicating with the people attempting to play their game. They post maybe 1 or 2 times early in the morning on twitter saying they are working on it but never continue to follow up with any sort of information. You can't tell me there isn't one person who can't alt tab and say to the community "Hey guys we are still working on this" or "this is how far we are, you can expect it at this time". No we get none of that. I understand the issue, but I can't tell whether or not to be mad, just because of how square is handling it. They aren't doing a good job, but they aren't really doing nothing either, they are attempting to do what they think is right. I really really hope that by the actual launch they have it all sorted out or their game is going to die real quick, I know a lot of people who are already out of patience but I have to keep trying to get them to stay on board simply because I really think this is a great game and a lot of people really enjoy it, when it's working.
I think the main issue I have with all this is, this is not a launch issue, this was an issue last weekend with the open beta, it was an issue in the beta before that. They knew they had a problem, they hot fixed it and kicked the can down the road, and now at launch time it's biting them in butt. They should know better than that, they should have done proper long up time testing, and stress testing. They did neither. They instead did this psydo science trick where they give you a little, take it away, give you a little more, and so on to make you feel like you need the game. It didn't give them a proper sample set for testing, it just worked as a marketing ploy.
I myself am playing just to hang out with a friend, I bought the game for the same reason, I am ticked off because I keep getting the error telling me my world is full tough #%%#% you can't play. It means either there is a serious issue and they are using a false error to cover it, or they have restricted server access so much that some of their player base can't play. The only reason for the latter is they didn't tool the servers to handle the load right, which means they didn't test the game right, which falls right on their heads.
Killing dragons is my shit
There is no excuse for this type of failure. FFXIV 1.0 was horrendus in everyform. So don't you think they would have prepared for this moment to make up for that catastrophe? Instead you get thousands of people unable to even log into their game to even try the damn game to see any improvements.
And this is just early access, I can't even imagine the true launch.
I for one agree this is not acceptable, this is not the 1st time an MMO is launched, technology has come a long ways. I agree it cant be 100% perfect. but I think we deserve better.
Seems the gaming industry in general find it ok to release a half finished product , charge people, and then finish at their own pace .
Actually, no.
Many people I've been talking to (and myself included, though I don't primarily work on servers) realize how much of a joke this is. Server tech can definitely be complicated. There's no denying that. What is painfully obvious (to those not looking for any excuse to give SE free passes on every mistake), is that this is primarily a result of lack of preparation / incompetence. Not a result of things just being 'difficult'. This is a problem Square-Enix has created for themselves. This is not some new, unforseen issue that's never been experienced in MMOs before. They aren't testing out some brand new server tech.
They're using old server tech, that they haven't calibrated to handle the current stress load (not even remotely close). They've set up NO backup systems to handle such a situation, should it occur (oh no! people are playing our game. I guess the solution now is to just disconnect them all until they go away or we can figure something out!).
There are just really basic, standard, server functions that are plainly lacking in this situation. Proper queing (with a proper que they shouldn't be having congestion issues nearly as sever. That's the point of a que). Server redundancies (especially for the login server), so if an error happens, it doesn't tank the whole system. The ability to drop bad connections automatically (while yes this can cause connection drops, they are already having connection problems, DCs, and thus the benefits far outweigh the potential risks). I could go on, but I think my point is pretty clear.
This is a case of them being unprepared. Not a case of some fluke circumstance (i.e. Vanilla WoW), where some unprecedented event happened that no one predicted. These are all issues that have been around, have been reported & explained repeatedly, and just never dealt with. And now, since there's 100s of thousands of people playing their game, they've decided (or rather been forced to accept) that this MIGHT be a problem. Only, because they waited so long to deal with these issues, it's going to be MUCH harder to fix.
diffreant servers and diffreant code all togeather
OP is right. This is intolerable. Why are people defending this mess? There is in fact NO time to fix this server crap. The game will start TOMORROW.
I can't believe what SE is doing actually. After the horrible 1.0 version they have a second chance - for most players (taking out die-hard fans who really seem to be blind to any reason) their last one. And what is this bunch of clowns doing?
Is this arrogance, ignorance, incompetence or simply stupidity? I don't know.
Don't get me wrong - the game itself is quite ok. I have played 1.0 (well, not very long), betas and some hours of the so called "early access" in which the word "access" has somehow a very ironic meaning. But obviously they are (again) unable to master the technology behind the game.
I don't know if this is in some way a cultural problem (pride?) but why not hire people who are capable of doing the job? The SE amateurs are obviously not. Seems to me somehow they WANT to ruin their game.
I am just curious what will happen tomorrow ...
You want to know something sad about games these days? The fact that the vocal minority can tell the silent majority what types of games to play by telling the developers that they speak for everybody.
"Possibly we humans can exist without actually having to fight. But many of us have chosen to fight. For what reason? To protect something? Protect what? Ourselves? The future? If we kill people to protect ourselves and this future, then what sort of future is it, and what will we have become? There is no future for those who have died. And what of those who did the killing? Is happiness to be found in a future that is grasped with blood stained hands? Is that the truth?"
It came to be acceptable because in the early days of this genre we forgave these things because the genre was just being created and pioneered.
Unfortunately companies did not take that forgiveness with gratitude,they instead they have taken it for granted and so haven't tried to improve things they've even shortened or gotten rid of real betas because why pay people tot est your game when people will pay to test it for you?
This will continue to be the norm till consumers actually force them to do proper QA and testing before releasing a product to the public.Which is not going to happen till people stop making excuses for them and start acting like consumers.
The problem is that you (Square Enix) didn't have enough seating in the restaurant. There's plenty of food there (really good food), but right now there's a line stretching around the city.
Metaphors aside, the majority of people today are simply impatient. It's understandable that if you pay for services you should expect to receive said services. However, early access is just that. No where have I been asked to set up a payment method or pay to play in this phase of launch. Yes, I bought the Collector's Edition of version 1.0 before it came out and yes, I hated it and threw it in the garbage. However, once this game launches I plan on playing it for a long time because the game is fun and enjoyable. The difficulties right now are not with the content of the game, they are with server management and the high traffic that SE was not prepared for. People keep saying "give them time" because once they are able to relieve the congestion then we will all be able to play and enjoy the game.
I can understand what you are trying to say with this metaphor, but other than buying the box, no one has had to set up a payment method yet. Therefore, SE doesn't technically "owe" the players anything as long as they get this fixed before signing us up for our monthly fees. We will get access, but they need time.
Give it time.
I agree we should expect better but ,there is a small difference,this is a networking team problem and not a game issue.
I think would be far worse if you could enter the game and maps are bugged,creatures are bugged,quests don't work,,,ahem sound familiar?
If the worse problem you face is early networking/server structure,it is not all that bad.
However i continue to point out that there was an issue during last Beta on this very problem ,they knew of this,THOUGHT they fixed it.They should not relay on THOUGHT and instead should have had another week of testing.The last thing you want to do is make anyone mad,not sure who to blame,but media should get to the top of the food chain and ask who decided to launch after seeing server issues during last beta.
ONLY reason it bothers me is because a guy like Yoshi is the face of this game right now,we don't really know how much power if any he had to delay launch,he is merely an employee like everyone else.I want to start seeing those who are actually responsible,so we can get rid of those that put a HUGE black mark on a whole company.If these decisions come from the very top,then the investors should tell them to keep their nose out of decisions before they ruin the company.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Every. MMO. Forum. Ever. Made.
Somebody is unhappy, something goes wrong. There have not been too many clean releases these days. TSW was decent, Rift was pretty damn good.
Still, they were not perfect. See, I always assume that early access = final beta test anyway. This is not launch. People always forget that.
With that said, SE clearly did not prepare for the amount of players who pre-ordered. It has not been pretty. But the game is damn fun, when you play.
Lets clear a few things. I seen a lot of people in this and other topics about the launch stating the following things:
1. We paid for the early access we should get our money back.
2. The game is broken cause we can't login
3. Since when is it acceptable, this is a outrage, omg its the end of the world, this game sucks so hard, omg omg omg
4. I'm gonna quit! F them! In no other industry they have this. When i open a restaurant i can't give them half a sandwich either at launch!
Now i know many people are upset during the launch days. And almost ever MMO had this issue when it was launched. I think people need to start realizing a few things before they post silly things with weird examples.
1. No you did not pay for the early access. You pay the exact same money as anyone else who buys the game in the upcoming months. If i buy the game next week it still costs me 40 euro's for the deluxe edition and 25 euro's for the regular edition, just like the pre orders did.
2. The game isn't broken, the queue's for the servers are just full. They could make the same mistake Age of Conan and Warhammer online made by opening a great amount of new servers. Just to see people leaving after the first month and having a sh*tload of ghost town servers where only a few players still play. You want that? You want pretty much dead servers that only make the game look dead? Just so you can play right now?
3. I take people who say that are rather new to the MMORPG scene? My first MMORPG pre order experience was with WoW and for those who remember those days in Europe atleast know how hard it sucked back then. Long queue's down times of days when they had a maintenance days etc etc. This is what 9 years ago? People accepted it back then already and probably before so as well. You knew this could happen, even in the recent it happened with GW2. Don't go cry and whine about it, its something that comes with MMORPG's, you know this so its your own fault if you get all upset and angry about it.
4. You won't quit. The hardest whiners here are those who play the most. They will not admit it, but we all know it and so do you. Yes its true no other industry has this problem, name one industry where thousands of thousands of people want to join the product at the same time at the exact same minute. Cause that is what you people forget. During the opening days everyone wants to login at the same time instead of being spread over the day. When a new car comes out, lets say a fiat, that is only avialable at the fiat dealers so there are only so many stores around the world. Each store represents a server. Now thousands of people have pre orderd this Fiat and can pick it up a week before others can get it. Thousands of people before each store want to get it at the same time. This store can only allow so many people into it so queues will happen. Let's see how other industries will deal with it when thousands and thousands of people want to get access to their products at the same time. Just like that restaurant example. It will not have so many visitors on one day even so how the hell can you compare it? Early access is like Rush hour, to many cars on the same road, and road constructors know this happens yet they stick to building the roads as they are. And guess what, we keep accepting that as well as car drivers. Just leave a little later from home and rush hour won't be so bad anymore. And unlike the poor souls stuck in traffic you don't have to be in time in the game cause otherwise your boss gets angry at you. You surely can wait a little longer before able to play as you will probably play for a longer then a month and for 90% of the time have a blast.
Could SquareEnix do this better? Yeah i suppose they could have done somethings to ease their servers a little. Like not having the early access in the weekend cause then most people have free from work/school and want to login all day. And if its true you can go afk all day without being booted then yeah they should fix that cause it prevents others from getting into the game. But other then that its more a logistic problem with to many people trying to enter at the same time, just like the roads during rush hour. This is not something they can fix unless they limit the amount of early access players and then you will see the same people here shout "OMG OMG unfair i pre-ordered the game but i don't have early access bad game if i open a restaurant i can't tell people they can't come in while i allow a select few too eat here". If you get so upset about it, then please do yourself and us all a favor, don't play early access. Go play a MMO after two weeks after launch, saves us countless of posts here on MMORPG that are all the same because you still don't know how it works and fail to see how complex it is. I saw someone say its not that complex. Well then by all means you go do it better then all these companies. Go present them the fix for the problem instead of whining here.
Wait what? Rift was pretty damn good? They where ..fast with adding new servers but most servers had huge queues to get on some even had 100+ hour queues, the game it self was in a accepteble state on most parts but their security....
Personally I havent had much trouble getting on myself and havent had any stability issues, granted that is parcially because I chose to skip my early access. It may not have been the smoothest launch, but sadly it hasnt been the worst by a long shot.
Regardless of the problems are accepteble or not patience and understand IS required on our part, if you truely want to be treated like a customer start acting like one first instead of a raging self-entittled brat. Funny enough every single game or what ever product I had , excersising some patience and understanding Always got the issues resolves AND I have Always received some form of compensation. Hence the reason why the EA players effectively received 48 hours of extra free game time.
I could not have said it better. Kudos.
I'm going to try and keep this as short and to the point as possible.
ISPs have outages.
Google has outages.
Power has outages.
All of those things have been around A LOT longer than FFXIV. You pay for all of them (except Google, but even then their outages are rather light) and probably complain when they go down too. If it makes you feel better, complain.
I will, in the mean time, enjoy my game when it is up and do something else when it is down happy to get time with the game when I am next able. Why am I able to execute this amazing practice? Patience is it called? Because my life is not ruled by the technical ability of whoever makes these servers. Argue with that, go ahead.
People think it's fun to pretend your a monster. Me I spend my life pretending I'm not. - Dexter Morgan
But that's not practical, of course, because if the server cap is 5K players concurrently, it's unlikely that all 5K will be logged on simultaneously 24/7. So just like airlines, ISP's, health clubs and countless other businesses, MMO developers "oversell" game copies.
This is not a problem in "normal load" conditions, but at the launch of a new MMO, the "overselling" becomes painfully obvious as every single player tries to login simultaneously.
Sure, you can open 3 times as many servers as you would need under normal conditions (i.e. 4 weeks after launch). But that will mean that a month after launch, you will need to merge all those servers down to 30% of the total at launch.
If your game uses a "single server" design, you will have to have a login system that can handle 3 times the normal load. All the substantial technical effort and expense will be for a situation that will only ever occur for the 3-week launch window of your game.
It's simply not worth the effort and/or cost, because the end result is the same. If the game is good, players will play it. If it's bad, they'll be gone in a month.
Am I upset my early access was basically denied? Sure.
Am I glad that Yoshi publicly apologized for it? Yup.
Will this effect my decision of subscribing in the future if I get bored? A little.
Will I forgive SE if they give a time reward for those that preordered, such as a free month? You betcha.
Ohh look, I came to my own conclusions as a rational adult without freaking out on a public forum. (No I am not talking about the OP, he seems very rational and proposed a good question.)
It's been this way since the beginning of MMOs and do you really see such a huge lack of complaints that you think this thread is necessary?
I think the better question would be: Why do people keep falling for the "pre-order for early access" marketing scheme?