About the Eu Us Dilemma

Faeldawn

Fledgling Freddie
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Thanks for the great info Gahn.

Very annoyed at the USA and Euro only versions though, I hated this from DAoC and am very unhappy they are adopting the same crappy strategy again.

I'll try US from the get-go, no way im going to play another GOA run server.
 

AngelHeal

Part of the furniture
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So they admit goa sucked at DAoC and they didnt have any confidence about the game beeing suc6full..
 

Flimgoblin

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hurrah, we won't have to put up with the bitter "WAAH GOA SUX" broken record people :) as they can go play on the US and leave those of us without chips on our shoulders to enjoy the game in peace.
 

Faeldawn

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hurrah, we won't have to put up with the bitter "WAAH GOA SUX" broken record people :) as they can go play on the US and leave those of us without chips on our shoulders to enjoy the game in peace.

It's a simple conclusion for me to draw that GOA's customer support has to date been notably inferior to Mythics (having played both US and Euro DAoC for over 5 years). Trying to incite a reaction about it by posting such off-hand inflamatory comments doesn't make that any less true.

I'm not bitter, I just know I can get a better service for the same price elsewhere. My objection was that, as with DAoC, you will be forced once again to choose between Euro or US and will not be able to buy a keycode which allows you to play on any server (at least that is my understanding of the posted quote).

Mythic/EA are essentially forcing players to choose, so I choose US for a host of legitimate reasons that I feel will get me a better quality of service for my cash.
 

pez

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I've played both regions.

In my mind GoA have always done a pretty good job, its just that the mythic service was superior. I also have no problem with being forced to choose a region, it is perfectly reasonable as far as i am concerned and unless i start playing WaR with a bunch of friends i will almost certainly go with Mythic because it will be a better service for the same (possibly less) money.
 

Flimgoblin

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It's a simple conclusion for me to draw that GOA's customer support has to date been notably inferior to Mythics (having played both US and Euro DAoC for over 5 years). Trying to incite a reaction about it by posting such off-hand inflamatory comments doesn't make that any less true.

You're quite entitled to not like the GOA servers (or prefer the Mythic ones).

Sorry about the snarky comment, though it wasn't aimed at you but at certain posters we'll no doubt see pop over from the daoc forums to whine. (we had an example in this thread till Jupitus cleaned it up)

I've no objection to people having rational comments on which servers they prefer, it's the "omgwfwlolbbq goa suxxors!" lot that I object to and will be glad to see the back of.

You prefer the Mythic service, go there, that's good :) I have no problem with that.

I'm happy to disagree with you though - the noticeable latency on the US servers annoys me and the /appeal system isn't all it's cracked up to be, nor is RightNow as bad as people say it is.

They're different systems and I can see why people prefer /appeal

Alt-tabbing out to post a complaint _is_ a barrier to entry, but having more than 80 characters (or so) to fill in your complaint is handy.. ideally something like RightNow embedded within the game client would be good, along with an external system for if you can't get the game to run .

(Mythic seem to use the same/similar FAQ software for their technical help...)

I prefer the style of the CS from GOA (compare the handling of Dark Wolves in Darkness Falls on the US to Chaos Theory on the european servers).

Server uptime hasn't been a problem.

Opentransit was crap for a few months a couple of years ago - it wasn't GOA's fault but obviously it's going to affect people's decisions to play there or not. However there's not been any major problems for a long time - they've got their act together (and GOA have a big red telephone to phone up and shout at them on by all reports, though doesn't seem like they've needed to use it ;))

The Prydwen crash was a pretty miserable blip ;) but I'd hope lessons were learned there... Perhaps if I'd lost anything from it I'd be much less favourable towards GOA... but I didn't and I'm not.

The fact the GMs did the work to restore the items should at least be reassuring, they could have just said "sorry, go farm it again" and just reset everyone's artifact credits... but they didn't.
 

Ctuchik

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hurrah, we won't have to put up with the bitter "WAAH GOA SUX" broken record people :)


probably the only good thing thats comming out of it. but i guess they still will be posting crap here even if they play on a US server.

think i'm gonna start to make copies of their whine posts on the US forums about how much Mythic sucks when the game goes live :)

because they will whine, just as much on Mythic as they did on GOA.
 

Ctuchik

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It's a simple conclusion for me to draw that GOA's customer support has to date been notably inferior to Mythics (having played both US and Euro DAoC for over 5 years). Trying to incite a reaction about it by posting such off-hand inflamatory comments doesn't make that any less true.

shrug. heres another one that thinks that a 6 year old DAoC hosting/support contract will still be viable come warhammer...

both Mythic and GOA have said time and time again that the EU servers will have JUST as much customer support as the US servers have.
 

Faeldawn

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shrug. heres another one that thinks that a 6 year old DAoC hosting/support contract will still be viable come warhammer...

both Mythic and GOA have said time and time again that the EU servers will have JUST as much customer support as the US servers have.

Once again I refer you to my actual comment that this is based on my personal experiences with both companies customer representatives and not necessarily the /appeal or the right-now system (in fact I never mentioned either).

I know pleanty of players who are happy with GOA's service, my brother for example has no issues with them. I, on the other hand, have had some very frustrating and ultimately fruitless interactions with GOA CR's which led me to cancel my account for the best part of a year and go and play US (yes Flim, the Prydwen crash :)).

Just because EA/Mythic say the service will be the same, that doesn't make it necessarily so in practice.

FAO Flim: My initial commetn was a bit abrupt and did not explain my reasons, so im equally at fault. I think we have had this discussion before on this forum tbh ;) Also the Dark Wolves thing was difficult because most of the time they didn't actually break the rules, just bent them backwards (Nerners crafting exploits are a perfect example). Consider also the griefing performed in Excali/Hib by Xioeen and Barker where they stole many arti drops, leached on pulls, sent abusive pm's and emptied 3 guild's vaults by worming alt chars into their guilds and got away with it for years.
 

Flimgoblin

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I'm surprised about Xioeen/Barker not getting a slap, but Nerner was pretty obviously griefing, just not breaking the letter of any law.

Maybe he would have got away with the things he did on the european servers, but I'd like to think not :)
 

Raven

Happy Shopper Ray Mears
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Well I for one will also be going to the US simply because I don't trust GOA to have learnt from their mistakes.

They do seem to be making an effort for WAR with expansion to new offices, getting the GMs in place etc but I just don't want to take the risk.

As for the right now thing, the main problem with it was it was much like talking to an Indian call centre, if they didn't understand your problem straight off it meant sending messages back and forth, taking longer to get the issue resolved. It was good when it worked, fire off a note when you log and the next day its sorted but for complicated queries it just didn't work.

I guess the way they treat griefers/scammers is all down to who handles the particular case, they (GOA) did take far to long to do something about Barker but likewise it took Mythic a while to deal with Nerner. Its odd that this sort of player got away with things quite obviously against the "SOTG" for months yet the more recent events were dealt with ruthlessly over night without warning. Maybe because Hibernia has never had any real representation due to no GMs actively playing there and at one time no active E&E people.

GOA seriously need to improve their communication skills, its good having req come on here and post (hats off to him for having the balls) but there is rarely any useful information on the home page (most players don't read FH ofc :p) which leads to rumours and quite often negative speculation (just look at the current "we are planning something, but its a secret" farce) They tend to treat their customers with little respect and I get the feeling that its just a carrot to keep people playing. (I hope i am wrong)

Anyway, I do hope GOA make a success of it, I just think if they carry their DAOC attitude to the player base over to WAR that they will be left with a lot of frustrated players and problems from the start.
 

Faeldawn

Fledgling Freddie
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I'm surprised about Xioeen/Barker not getting a slap, but Nerner was pretty obviously griefing, just not breaking the letter of any law.

Maybe he would have got away with the things he did on the european servers, but I'd like to think not :)

I remember the screenies DW posted (As Dark Puppies at that time i think) of the DF roleplay evil merchant purge was very funny, but yes, obviously griefing.

The crafting thing where someone gave Nerner his item/weapon etc was a tricky one because it is the players own volition to click the trade button, so techinically it can't be stealing. I think salvaging players prized posessions then dropping the bars on the ground saying "oops" was perhaps a bit too far, or just dropping them no the floor and watching them scream until the item despawned claiming "pick i up, i don't have your weapon" ;)
 

d34k

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The only really good reason to play in the US previously was because of the difference in patching schedules. Something that is now a non-issue. I always found Goa's support to be more than acceptable; I guess people were just unlucky?
 

eble@work

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hurrah, we won't have to put up with the bitter "WAAH GOA SUX" broken record people :) as they can go play on the US and leave those of us without chips on our shoulders to enjoy the game in peace.

hehe I hope your right mate, because WAR will pull in vastly higher numbers of players, so even given the same percentage of people get pissed off with GOA's shite service.

You are talking 1000's and 1000's instead of a few 100.

But on the plus side FH won't be an official outlet for GOA info, so you can keep this site secret!

Eble
 

SkarIronfist

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My issues with GOA are simple.

The account storage was poor. Especially where you had the same email address on multiple accounts. There is nothing wrong in that, yet the system just failed to handle it when it came to logging support issues.

So you could have multiple accounts with the same email address, yet when that data was transferred to rightnow, you couldn't log issues with both accounts due to them having the same email address.

I find rightnow as very substandard product.

Multiple activations with the same credit card in a "time period" caused alot of issues for people.

So you people had real issues with re-activating account and add-on close together. This was inept.

The handling of failure to enter credit card details was inept. You cannot expect people to have to wait x hours to retry and put in the credit details if one part was wrong.

Seriously the whole account management side of DAOC cannot be taken forward into Warhammer with some serious process analysis. Warhammer is going to be alot bigger, you cannot afford to have same account issues that you had with DAOC on a vastly magnified scale that warhammer will ring along..

Look at WoW please and learn from Blizzard. This is one area that will piss of clients more that anything.

PS - Online payments using credit cards. When you pay with barclay cards and GOA site, you have to re enter separate online password for barclaycard, yet when I use card with Amazon. I am not having to provide this extra level of security. Pour Quo ?
 

Sharkith

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There is no dilemma.

The split that happened here and the divide in the community that posts here will come good if players who play in two different places can compare notes on their experiences and try and inform each other. Hopefully everyone will be better informed.

An MMO takes a lot of time investment on the part of the players and service and trust are major issues. Don't underestimate them. You don't own the framework of your in game experiences and so when someone abitrates over that it can get sensitive and personal very quickly. When people are angry or complain I think it would pay both the industry and the mods on this board well to listen.

At the end of the day just for once seriously put yourself in the shoes of those that were affected and try to see it from their perspective...

People lost tons of time in the server crash on Prydwen and we know that this was the result of faulty hardware. It had nothing to do with incompatible databases. Once your experiences are jepordised in this way by things well beyond your control, trust evaporates. Unfortunately that has happened in this case. There were other instances not worth dragging up where someone arbitrarily and unilaterally decided for everyone how they should experience the product they played for. The result? People cancel subs.

The answer - try not to be so paternalistic in the way people are managed. Try not to tell them how to play whilst handing out bans when they do not comply. I have looked around the web at a few blogs since I stopped playing actively on Prydwen and I see some good stuff and some awful stuff coming from people who are in charge of customer in game experience. In places the industry makes me cringe with the things they say about players.

Anyway this is still a good board - if I hear Flim talk I listen. If I hear for example Xest (over on Prydwen), or Gahn or Crom and the others I respect talking I listen. The difference in the views is useful. Hopefully it makes for a smarter consumer because the MMO industry as a whole is in its infancy and many people working in that industry have a lot to learn about the dynamics their games and the impact their decisions can have on those people.

I hope with WAR I get the right place to play. I hope that GOA are excellent because there are a lot of people about to experience an MMO for the first time. They need to get this right.

My first post in over 3 months. :m00:

hi!

Sharkith
 

Flimgoblin

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My issues with GOA are simple.

The account storage was poor. Especially where you had the same email address on multiple accounts. There is nothing wrong in that, yet the system just failed to handle it when it came to logging support issues.

So you could have multiple accounts with the same email address, yet when that data was transferred to rightnow, you couldn't log issues with both accounts due to them having the same email address.

I find rightnow as very substandard product.

Multiple activations with the same credit card in a "time period" caused alot of issues for people.

So you people had real issues with re-activating account and add-on close together. This was inept.

The handling of failure to enter credit card details was inept. You cannot expect people to have to wait x hours to retry and put in the credit details if one part was wrong.

Seriously the whole account management side of DAOC cannot be taken forward into Warhammer with some serious process analysis. Warhammer is going to be alot bigger, you cannot afford to have same account issues that you had with DAOC on a vastly magnified scale that warhammer will ring along..

Look at WoW please and learn from Blizzard. This is one area that will piss of clients more that anything.

PS - Online payments using credit cards. When you pay with barclay cards and GOA site, you have to re enter separate online password for barclaycard, yet when I use card with Amazon. I am not having to provide this extra level of security. Pour Quo ?

All good points with the billing, it never bugged me that much because once I was subscribed I didn't have any problems. But I'd hope to see a vast improvement here.

No idea with the barclaycard, though it's possible amazon store your password (would hope not...) or just don't support the additional security. All that password is is a way for the credit card company to go "no, it was you, you used your supersecret password!".
 

Flimgoblin

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I hope with WAR I get the right place to play. I hope that GOA are excellent because there are a lot of people about to experience an MMO for the first time. They need to get this right.

My first post in over 3 months. :m00:

hi!

Sharkith

Agreed :) and ello ;)
 

SkarIronfist

Fledgling Freddie
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All good points with the billing, it never bugged me that much because once I was subscribed I didn't have any problems. But I'd hope to see a vast improvement here.

No idea with the barclaycard, though it's possible amazon store your password (would hope not...) or just don't support the additional security. All that password is is a way for the credit card company to go "no, it was you, you used your supersecret password!".

Film,

A couple of times with friends coming back, we had whole reams of grief with re activating accounts, failure on credit cards etc etc. Nowadays an MMORPG has to look at returning customers as a viable revenue source. So you all the issues I have stated above with credit cards are barriers to them returning successfully. People will give up.

Also one more really poor area, is to do with changing account details and the sending of email to the old email address. Now this can be a real pain in the ass if the old email address is defunct, or you have moved company, since you can't accept those changes (Which may be a change of email address), because you can't get to the email address account that has the email in to accept the changes.

You have the subscription account passwords, so really that should give you the right to change details. As long as you have proper auditing on the account, customer support will be able to back track and see what has happened on the account, in the case of account disputes.


I am still not convinced of separate game and subscription account details, and don't really think this has come through the wash well.
 

GReaper

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The Prydwen crash was a pretty miserable blip ;) but I'd hope lessons were learned there... Perhaps if I'd lost anything from it I'd be much less favourable towards GOA... but I didn't and I'm not.

This is one point you need to remember, many of us have had a different level of service. Some people haven't been affected so badly by some of the issues (billing problems, hacking incident, poor rightnow support - the list goes on).

You didn't play on Prydwen, so the crash didn't make much of a difference for you. I was fairly fortunate as none of my characters were corrupted. Many other players were waiting for months to play their characters again.

I'm giving GOA a chance with WAR. I'd prefer to play on EU servers, as long as they don't provide yet another inferior service then I'll be reasonably happy.
 

d34k

Fledgling Freddie
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I'm giving GOA a chance with WAR. I'd prefer to play on EU servers, as long as they don't provide yet another inferior service then I'll be reasonably happy.

Same here. Goa were always prompt answering my RightNow tickets and I was unaffected by any database problems. I would much rather play on an EU server and enjoy the lower latency and ability to participate in prime time events without having to stay up until 2am!

Also, Warhammer is British! If the American developers needed to be shouted at until they "got" it, then the average Yank is gonna have no chance! The best thing about playing on an EU server is that you don't have to play with Americans! :england:
 

Tilda

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I'm tempted to say that the EU version of WAR will beat the US version, simply because warhammer is vastly more popular with EU/English players than in the US.
 

Bahumat

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I agree on this

"My issues with GOA are simple.

The account storage was poor. Especially where you had the same email address on multiple accounts. There is nothing wrong in that, yet the system just failed to handle it when it came to logging support issues.

So you could have multiple accounts with the same email address, yet when that data was transferred to rightnow, you couldn't log issues with both accounts due to them having the same email address."

Also why does the bloody password not sync with the game account?
 

Bahumat

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The best thing about playing on an EU server is that you don't have to play with Americans! :england:

This sort of sentence pisses me off no end.

I'd rather speak to an Alabaster Retard who I can at least partially understand, that some french guy who doesn't speak a word of english.

You can have german, english and french servers, but that means you split the population up.

With the USA servers if there are population issues, they can merge them without saying "err, guys you need to know Bosnian for the quests, Russian for the weapon names, and Kling'on to work out how to spec".
 

Tetley

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When it comes down to the cruch I will go where the guild goes. At the moment it looks like the US but nothing is sure, I personally prefer the EU. My major worry about the EU is not about what happened in other games in the past, but what the numbers may be like in a few years time. Allowing us to play the game without choosing EU or US would get rid of that as a worry, but its not going to happen unfortunately.
 

Dakkath

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Tricky one...

Signed up for the EU Beta but will reserve judgement on which side of the pond to play until later...

Hopefully feedback here (and other places) will assist the decision making process
 

xxManiacxx

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I still have nightmares from Prydwen crash and 1 of my chars never recovered from the itemloss.

But I will play in EU for starters. I prefer having primetime when I am awake :p
 

vavires

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I have to say that the goa thing is getting a little out of hand as usual.
Having talked with many GM's, i can say they always did their best to help where and when was possible, mistakes were made, but we're all human, hence we can all make mistakes.
I will put my trust in them for WAR as im confident that they can learn from the mistakes that happened.

I played daoc on both eu/us as well, i can say that i had more social and better contact with the gm's from eu, but that the fact that u could call for direct help (appeal) and get it fast was a godo thing on the us servers.
After moving to the us servers, i quit playing after a few months again, i prefer to have some decent action at prime time, and at that time most us ppl are still sleeping/school/work :).

So i say go GOA and do yer best. we put our faith in you.
 

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