[INFO] Account center

[Thimble]

Alrighty let's have a little post mortem on the situation.

Firstly let's get the obvious stuff out of the way. Yesterday was in no way, shape or form a success. A lot of things went very wrong. Funnily enough however they didn't go wrong in the way most people thought they would or for the reasons that were being thrown around.

The website and our entire platform got hammered yesterday - which we expected. We knew how many open beta keys we'd given away and what sort of traffic to expect as a result. We got a lot more than we were expecting and yet the platform held up, the site slowed down (which was inevitable with the sheer volume of traffic, even a basic HTML page would have been slow under that onslaught) but everything stayed up.

The account system broke. This wasn't down to the traffic (although that was a factor), nor the fact that the page was in Flash. There was a problem with our database server which didn't surface during testing. As you can read in the news, we have been working on this all night and we expect this to be resolved soon. Ultimately the system didn't work but we're glad we found the issue now in beta rather than before the headstart or live begins. Many of you criticised the decision to bring the account pages online the same day as the beta began but this was not the cause of the problems. While yesterday was a very painful day for us, there is a silver lining because it means that our headstart and live launch will be significantly more robust.

There was some miscommunication as well which falls entirely on us. The confusion over people with war-europe accounts not needing to create a new beta account was the main issue, other than that the team who were in the office yesterday worked very hard to keep you updated. Magnus and the other CMs who were working yesterday were in the office from 7:30am through to 3am this morning. During that time our teams were working on several different situations at once and the situation was often in a state of considerable flux. We had technical teams working on various solutions, management teams dealing with our partners and, for the most part, these people were busy fixing things rather than writing status reports that were likely to be out of date by the time they hit the CM team. Despite that, Magnus and the others posted what they had, when they had it both on the official news site and around the various fan forums.

Overall then, some things went right - not many to be sure and the important things certainly didn't. We made some mistakes, we expected many problems and we found some entirely different ones. We disappointed many of you by not letting you get into the open beta when we said you would and for that I am sorry. All of us are disappointed that we couldn't bring you the service you expected. I wasn't at work yesterday, Magnus was the man on the scene covering the situation, but I did keep a close eye on forums and was in contact with the guys in the office. A lot of what was said yesterday here and on other forums was entirely out of line. Of course you were disappointed and criticism is certainly warranted but frankly many of the posts made about the situation were borderline sociopathic. If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.

Today we have a lot of people at the office who are preparing to put in a long week after a long weekend to make things right. This isn't magically going to make yesterday alright but we are very much committed to making sure that you aren't disappointed again.
__________________
Iain 'Requiel' Compton - English Community Manager
European Warhammer: Age of Reckoning team

I can accept this. Things breakdown, it happens and even if we plan for everything we can think of, sods law dictates what can go wrong will go wrong.
I'm sure they're working their ass's off to correct the problems and get everyone online to enjoy the game. There's a lot of preasure there and I'm as dissapointed as everyone else. Been waiting for this game for quite some time now but to be fair, it's Beta. This is the time for them to work out the bugs so that when the CE and ER editions go live it's as smooth as butter

 

[Lexican]

1 Can of Anger... check
1 Jar of Fury... check
1 Log.. check
and somewhere i got an IT so thats a check to

 

[Heta]

Thimble, do a quote around the quote, looks like its you that are saying all that while its actually requiel

 

[dee777]

The arrogance from somebody representing a company which just failed to show any degree of competence is staggering.

I really think you cannot put it any better. PR disaster of enormous proportions.

 

[Drakamir]

Yikes, IainC just does'nt learn, he's just stirred up a hornets nest over at WA. I put my head in my hands and despair of common sense when adressing an angry and frustrated player base.

Sanity is for the weak!

 

[Heta]

anyone even able to get onto there homepage atm?
I just load for ages, then nothing

 

[Tiani]

I can accept this. Things breakdown, it happens and even if we plan for everything we can think of, sods law dictates what can go wrong will go wrong.

Joe Blogs, his mum, his mums dog and his mums dog's favourite humping pillow dictates that thousands of people trying to reg accounts on the same day is going to cause problems.

I dont accept any of the bull they throwing around for the simple fact that its completely and utterly down to their pathetic project planning and thinking they know everything.

As mentioned before doesnt take genious to work out that opening the AC on the same day the beta starts is going to cause problems and probably break down.

+100% stupidity on GoA's part. GG!

 

[Thimble]

Thimble, do a quote around the quote, looks like its you that are saying all that while its actually requiel

Ya i quoted the wrong person and then tried to fix it but i buggered it up anyway so i just thought i'd leave. my brain has gone to mush from so many error pop-ups

 

[cristi13]

Lol I got my old e-mail on my old account coz I made 2 accounts one on my gmail and one on my yahoo ^^

 

[Enz]

I think most are frustrated and angry because there have been lots of worrying about GOA's history with DAOC and hoping that things would have improved.

But, after yesterdays "events".... are we really surprised? Honestly?

 

[Swellzong]

let's go 3k posts and 200 pages, olol

 

[Heta]

But, after yesterdays "events".... are we really surprised? Honestly?

nope, everything I expected happend, and still I bought the EU version so I'm not really that upset at GOA, a bit more at myself tho... but mainly all my friends who were going EU so I had no choice

 

[Thimble]

Joe Blogs, his mum, his mums dog and his mums dog's favourite humping pillow dictates that thousands of people trying to reg accounts on the same day is going to cause problems.

I dont accept any of the bull they throwing around for the simple fact that its completely and utterly down to their pathetic project planning and thinking they know everything.

As mentioned before doesnt take genious to work out that opening the AC on the same day the beta starts is going to cause problems and probably break down.

+100% stupidity on GoA's part. GG!

You might be correct and i'm not disputting that. I will however try (dear god please know that i am trying) to reserve judgement until it goes live. I accept that it is Beta, everything is on trial and they're working hard on solutions. I'm hoping that once early release goes live, things will run smooth and GoA will delivere as promised.

 

[Jupitus]

i would have been ok with that statement untill the red writing

"If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you"


I know alot of people who went out and had to buy the open beta key for £10
and they wont even get a CE box because HMV have messed up . i know this is not goa fault but that statement adds insult to injury.


but at least its something

I think you need to bear in mind that that was posted not on FH but another forum where apparently some even more over the top things have been said.



Folks - you have your update from GOA regarding yesterday... I too wasn't very impressed but at least they have given us insight about it and what they are doing now so please get your posting back to better standards of politeness please

Thank you all





*polishes his ban stick anyway*

 

[tickles]

"Since very early this morning there have been recurring problems with the open beta servers. This is an issue that affects all servers equally and so we have been working with Mythic to resolve this. Currently all of our servers are down with the exception of Athel Loren while our team works on a solution. We expect to have an update on this situation within two hours.

We are sorry for the inconvenience."



woooo more problems

 

[Flimgoblin]

lol so in short Ianc is saying that those people who said they was annoyed are basically loony, i wonder in what official capacity he can call people one can short of a four pack and get away with it ?

Iain 'Requiel' Compton - English Community Manager
European Warhammer: Age of Reckoning team
War-Europe
And today a psychiatrist tomorrow who knows ....

to be fair, if people are suggesting suicide bombers they've probably gone a bit too far.

Don't think FH has been too bad but I've not been through this thread nearly enough so I can't swear on that

 

[arknor]

You might be correct and i'm not disputting that. I will however try (dear god please know that i am trying) to reserve judgement until it goes live. I accept that it is Beta, everything is on trial and they're working hard on solutions. I'm hoping that once early release goes live, things will run smooth and GoA will delivere as promised.

same im just waiting for that magic gold code to come streaming down my internet connection because beeing the gullible sod i am i know on that day the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow will be delivered into our hands as promised :worthy:

 

[Tiani]

You might be correct and i'm not disputting that. I will however try (dear god please know that i am trying) to reserve judgement until it goes live. I accept that it is Beta, everything is on trial and they're working hard on solutions. I'm hoping that once early release goes live, things will run smooth and GoA will delivere as promised.

I held out high hopes also..until they said that the AC wouldnt open until the sunday the beta started, as soon as I read that I knew it would just horribly fail, and what do you know.

I wish I could look on this from a pro-thinking optimistic point of view but after 10 years of failing MMO launches its starting to really annoy me that these companies who employ so called 'proffesionals' can still make such obvious and rudimentary mistakes.

 

[Jeremiah]

lol so in short Ianc is saying that those people who said they was annoyed are basically loony, i wonder in what official capacity he can call people one can short of a four pack and get away with it ?

Meh, I would agree with him. People were so desperate to play they spent the whole day trying to register. Just analyze that for a moment. They spent their whole day trying to register with a system which GOA said was either off-line or broken. People spent their whole day waiting to play a game! When they couldnt, they just went crazy - some of the hate and anger spouted was just plain nasty.

To put it in another context... I play football outdoors a lot. I look forward to my games all week because I really like playing (although being Scottish, I don't actually have any ability hehe).

Right, I usually kick off at 5:30pm - suppose at 5:29 the heavens open up and theres a storm of epic proportions. Thunder, lightning, flying cows caught up in a tornado, the whole shebang. Would you not think I was crazy if I kept stepping outside despite there being no chance of playing? I checked the forcast all day to make sure I could play, and all signs pointed to a clear sunny day. The forcast was wrong! But hey, I will keep trying to get out my door and down to the pitch, just in case somehow I get through.

See, GOA messed up - their database had a bug in it that they should have found before hand. But they put a news item up on Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning saying the registration system was down until they could fix the problem. That went up in the afternoon. How many people continued to try register because there were rumors of people still registering their key, getting emails and viewing the holy server browser? And then when it didnt work, they continued to abuse GOA.

People feel let down (again), they wasted part of our time on Sunday. But I think what IanC was trying to say is that if you take the open beta of a game serious enough to invest your whole day in it, and then continually vent your anger when it doesnt do what you want it to do (or even do what they promised it would do) then you maybe need to get out more and see there are more important things in life.

 

[arknor]

I held out high hopes also..until they said that the AC wouldnt open until the sunday the beta started, as soon as I read that I knew it would just horribly fail, and what do you know.

I wish I could look on this from a pro-thinking optimistic point of view but after 10 years of failing MMO launches its starting to really annoy me that these companies who employ so called 'proffesionals' can still make such obvious and rudimentary mistakes.

lets not be hard on GOA they obviously hired a bunch of people who blagged there way into a job.

GOA can not be held responsible for the actions of its employees.

trust me the day of reckoning is at hand! the cdkey fairy will deliver as promised just place those cdkeys under your pillows and hit the sack when you awaken your account will be live !

 

[Everz]

to be fair, if people are suggesting suicide bombers they've probably gone a bit too far.

Don't think FH has been too bad but I've not been through this thread nearly enough so I can't swear on that

It's actually been quite tame and jokey on here when compared to most other WAR forums.

 

[llama]

if having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.

qft

 

[Lexican]

A better post should of gone along the lines of this

We at GOA are sorry we droped the ball on open beta start day we did say we would treat this like our full launch day but we messed up somewhat.

We are make all the efforts we can to get the ball back in our hands and score the winning goal

tho we are a little dishearted at some of the comments we saw on some of forums we aim to make sure we dont have to see more posts like them

That would of been a way more dipolmatic style of post but at least ian c has sort of tried to say sorry with this

Yes, to clarify, before people take things out of context the 'there is something wrong with you' comment was indeed aimed at the particularly vile minority who posted all kinds of really inappropriate stuff here and elsewhere. Most of you expressed your concerns without resorting to racial slurs, threats of violence and other totally unnecessary language. Sadly however a vocal percentage didn't.

It wasn't my intent to insult the vast majority of you who were disappointed and said so but kept their criticism within reasonable bounds, if you felt that I was then I am sorry for that.

 

[Jaberwocky]

i would have been ok with that statement untill the red writing

Ah that was me I'm afraid, I did it to highlight the interesting part.:touch: while I agree with the sentiment it could have be phrased better to avoid the inevitable comeback RAGE.

 

[Hendrikxs]

well..... i dont know whether i should laugh or cry

 

[arknor]

It's actually been quite tame and jokey on here when compared to most other WAR forums.

its all good i hear basshunter is going to make a song about 414 !

all you do is sit in freddys house hitting 414!
while goa was sleeping there auth servers were creeping !

DO YOU FEEL IT MAN!
YouTube - Basshunter - Dota

 

[Thimble]

I held out high hopes also..until they said that the AC wouldnt open until the sunday the beta started, as soon as I read that I knew it would just horribly fail, and what do you know.

I wish I could look on this from a pro-thinking optimistic point of view but after 10 years of failing MMO launches its starting to really annoy me that these companies who employ so called 'proffesionals' can still make such obvious and rudimentary mistakes.

True, DoaC, WoW and AoC were all cock-ups to name a few. There are more, lots more to add to that. So we could say "Damn, when will they all learn"? But I think that's what it's all about, learning. Each game is different from the last so there's going to be a whole unique set of problems. Yes, I agree, bring the Auth servers up the same day as OB release is/was probably not the greatest decision. But from what we're told it wasn't because of that? I dunno. I'm defending them because I don't know the ins and outs but what I do know is that companies like GoA rely on their player base so pissing us off isn't going to intentional. They need us so they need things to work. I'm sure they're doing everything they can to fix things. Just gonna take some time I guess.

 

[Tiani]

Right, I usually kick off at 5:30pm - suppose at 5:29 the heavens open up and theres a storm of epic proportions. Thunder, lightning, flying cows caught up in a tornado, the whole shebang. Would you not think I was crazy if I kept stepping outside despite there being no chance of playing? I checked the forcast all day to make sure I could play, and all signs pointed to a clear sunny day. The forcast was wrong! But hey, I will keep trying to get out my door and down to the pitch, just in case somehow I get through.

Even if you knew for weeks prior the forcast was wrong, no in fact it wasnt just wrong, it was so blatently wrong and uneducated that the kid down the road could have told you it was gonna piss it down, would you still play that day ? or would you decide to play a few days earlier to beat the storm ?

 

[tryus]

I accept that it is Beta, everything is on trial and they're working hard on solutions. I'm hoping that once early release goes live, things will run smooth and GoA will delivere as promised.

While the purpose of beta in general is exactly as you say; to iron out the problems for release, its role is altered somewhat when many thousands of keys are given out, including keys given to the majority of people that have preorderd the game (i.e. has some level of interest in it at this stage).

Although the testing of systems is still a function of the beta it could be argued that the main purpose is now one of marketing and generating hype before release.

I'm sure the account system will be running fine for early access, but from a public relations/marketing point of view it's not exactly good news when the majority of your pre-order customers would have been aggrieved to some extent yesterday.

There's still time to pull it round however, especially with MMO players being as fickle as they are, but yesterday definitely had a wider ranging effect than purely a technical hiccup.

 

[Frosty]

Ah that was me I'm afraid, I did it to highlight the interesting part.:touch: while I agree with the sentiment it could have be phrased better to avoid the inevitable comeback RAGE.

lol your showing a red rag to a bull

well a pussy cat really so the wife says