GMs: You cant please everyone...

[Esselinithia]

Requiel: It might be a bit off topic, but some people can't log in with SI client, one of them is the friend I gave the 14 days key to. Are you aware of this problem? What should he do to solve this problem?

Also I experienced a case where one mob was missing from a dungeon task instance. (Yes I know it is a known bug even on US edition) Even if you expected to see it work well in EU it still has this bug.

 

[Zagantia]

Why wasnt/cant this be done?

Why cant GOA issue a temporary Catacombs key that will be valid for say 7 days maximum until such time as people will get their boxed Catacombs expansion.

Granted it will put strain on patching/dl servers but most be people have worked out how to get the files from elsewhere (US) and Im sure some hosting could be found somewhere.

This way ALL players who pre-ordered can play Catacombs. Whats more, all the retailers will be happy because people will still buy their copies (and get their nice boxes) from the companies they have pre-ordered them from .

 

[Esselinithia]

Easy answer: They aren't authorized to give out 7 days cata keys. For this they would have to sing a contract with Mythic, etc. and it would be slow.

 

[Gamah]

good idea in thorey...bad idea in practice...helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllo lag!

 

[Esselinithia]

One could avoid lag with offering to download in a way different from patcher, say with torrent, or offering for guild sites, etc to host their own copies for their members, etc. the legal problems are worse.

 

[IainC]

Why cant GOA issue a temporary Catacombs key that will be valid for say 7 days maximum until such time as people will get their boxed Catacombs expansion.

Granted it will put strain on patching/dl servers but most be people have worked out how to get the files from elsewhere (US) and Im sure some hosting could be found somewhere.

This way ALL players who pre-ordered can play Catacombs. Whats more, all the retailers will be happy because people will still buy their copies (and get their nice boxes) from the companies they have pre-ordered them from .

1: By the time those arrangements could be made and the necessary database adjustments made and tested, the boxes would be in stores anyway.
2: You run a retail chain. You've paid a lot of money for boxes which you want to sell as fast as possible to get the maximum return from. The company who sold you those boxes then gives the product away free (even as a temporary measure). How fast would you call your lawyers?

 

[Zagantia]

Easy answer: They aren't authorized to give out 7 days cata keys. For this they would have to sing a contract with Mythic, etc. and it would be slow.

So you have a copy of their contract with Mythic then?

IF there is such a clause, I would have thought Mythic would recognise they are in a jam and be good enough to help them out. Its only a tempory thing and whats more via this route the retailers will be more inclined to handle the next expansion. The way it is now, with lots of them losing pre-orders to DL-gamer they might not be so keen to handle it next time.

 

[Esselinithia]

Requiel: Most retail chains don't mind game demos...

But your chances are probably far morelimited than chances of a publisher with 20-30 products on market.

 

[Gamah]

DL-Gamer is out of stock as well..

 

[Job]

OK
I'm all whined out, big fuk up, but a solution was found at least for most of the hard-core whiners on this board (holds hand up)

Any new UK players? I doubt it.

who ever it actually was that prevented the game being sold on time in the UK
(chief suspect MEGA)
I hope they're ashamed of themselves

A gaming company?...my yellow hairy arse.

What they were saying I guess is that they have contracts to force everyone to go as slow as they do.

If it's true, those scumbags have no right to be in this industry.

 

[Esselinithia]

So you have a copy of their contract with Mythic then?

IF there is such a clause, I would have thought Mythic would recognise they are in a jam and be good enough to help them out. Its only a tempory thing and whats more via this route the retailers will be more inclined to handle the next expansion. The way it is now, with lots of them losing pre-orders to DL-gamer they might not be so keen to handle it next time.

I am pretty confident, that if Mythic would develop code to support temporary activations of expansions and would allow such practice in contracts it would be used to gain more players by offering trials to almost anyone. Since it would be good. If Mythic doesn't provide support for it, reaching them, signing an agreement, speaking with distributors about it, etc would take more than a week, not to mention the coding required.

 

[Zagantia]

1: By the time those arrangements could be made and the necessary database adjustments made and tested, the boxes would be in stores anyway.
2: You run a retail chain. You've paid a lot of money for boxes which you want to sell as fast as possible to get the maximum return from. The company who sold you those boxes then gives the product away free (even as a temporary measure). How fast would you call your lawyers?

Thanks for the reply Requiel.

In respect of your point 2, I would disagree. Surely the retailers are going to be happier because they still get the business when they were expecting it. With the DL-Gamer solution you have put up many of them have lost business which I would view as worse if I were them.

Well, was only an idea. If it cant be done we will have to wait til next week. I will shut up now but as youll understand son and I very disappointed at not being able to get expansion.

 

[Esselinithia]

Zagantia: What about asking some german / french / ... friends to buy you a copy?

 

[Zagantia]

Zagantia: What about asking some german / french / ... friends to buy you a copy?

Unfortunatley dont know any French/Germans well enough where I would have thought they would be prepared to purchase two copies on my behalf and send me the keys. None of my guildes have been able to get it yet.

So, by the time I mail cash/transfer to them I will probably have the boxed copies that I ordered from play.com some weeks back.

Will just have to wait I guess. Not too much of a problem for me and great for my wife as she is seeing alot more of me atm but my son is driving me mental because he cant start his Vampiir

 

[Kami]

Whinge, whinge, whinge, bitch, whinge, whinge, bitch, whine.

Just quit, subscribe to the US servers or WoW and you'd have a far less stressful life peeps.

Personally I'll just go play DAOC - Catacombs (EU).

 

[Oboy]

Whinge, whinge, whinge, bitch, whinge, whinge, bitch, whine.

Just quit, subscribe to the US servers or WoW and you'd have a far less stressful life peeps.

Personally I'll just go play DAOC - Catacombs (EU).

enjoy playing with yourself then but i guess u do that in bed every night

ppl whine bcs they want full active servers and cata is the way to solve it

but this major fuck up no mather who caused it can be a the thing that prevent new player to come to the game

 

[Kami]

enjoy playing with yourself then but i guess u do that in bed every night

I used the same sorts of insults when I was 12 too.

 

[Elendar]

one of the virgins in london (huge store) was actually aware it was meant to be in on friday, although they didn't get it

at least after this mess cd keys can be brought online, something thats been needed for ages, should make it much easier for people in the uk to play the game
and after seeing myself in catas doubt i'll buy it, no point in fluff when my norse looks out of proportion and rolling a new char is out with the grind of toa

 

[semanon]

baiting mods is a bad idea

no I'm not a GOA employee, I was made a mod by the admins of barrysworld and the founders of Freddyshouse then made me a mod here.

You sir, however, are banned. Have a nice holiday.

Damn Film way ban him. If you use tactics like that, you could be accused of being a bully and trying to stifle peoples opinions. I realise by just giving an opinion to this thread will get me banned but I cannot stand by and let that go.

Goodbye FH I expect this will be my last thread before I'm banned.

 

[Tilda]

People are welcome to give oppinions, however, as has been said before, they are not welcome to bait mods, nor flame GOA Reps or any other forum users.
Poms post was flame bait and provocative to say the least. You want Pom to be entitled to his oppinion that Flim kisses goa ass... sure, he can have that oppinion if he really wants, but not on these boards.
If Flim hadn't banned him, I would have...

 

[semanon]

I still think this is bordering on Bully boy tactics.

 

[GReaper]

A few thoughts...

From what I can gather, GOA's (contractual?) obligations is that they're not supposed to offer any CD keys online as it would be bad for the business of the main seller, GAME, as well as other retailers. However, looking at the other side of things, why wasn't there any contract to ensure that the game was released on the 25th March? I'm not entirely sure on the details as they're not given out, however having the release date of an expansion pushed about due to one company seems rather pathetic.

Also, considering the success of online downloading - even if it was rather limited, would GOA consider using it again in future? Considering how fast all the CD keys to DLgamer.com went, surely it shows that many people would like to download the game for convenience? I'm sure GOA has all the statistics on just how many customers are using a broadband connection to play the game, so that would potentially show how viable it is.

If online downloading was made more available, then this wouldn't leave GOA at the mercy of GAME when releasing expansions.

 

[Gengi]

It was confirmed back in January. Our distributors and our other partners were briefed and ready to go shortly after Christmas. Until a couple of weeks ago, all of our distributors including those in the UK were fully prepared for the launch this week and all indications were that it would go ahead as planned.

A couple of Caveats before I start, I do not play DAoC anymore and I am not a lawyer.
Now, if this statement above is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, when will GAME or MEGA be taken to court for breach of contract ?
Or was none of the above subject to any contractual obligation, just word of mouth and a hand shake or two after a pint to seal the deal ?
If I have missed something glaringly obvious, please let me know, but I cannot see how, after the above quoted statement, one distributor/retailer could bring a court action, or even the threat of a court action, to halt the release and sale of the expansion on a given day. I understand the Friday tradition, I understand that some retailers/distibutors have more clout than others, I do not understand how this translates into the rest of the retail world in the UK, both online and offline not selling the game ?
An analogy if you will, Killogs decides to release a new serial, 'Chunky Crunchies' next Tuesday, and then a couple of weeks later release a variety pack with all the cereals leading up to 'Chunky Crunchies' and Including 'Chunky Crunchie ' to try and lure a new group to the 'Chunky Crunchie' brand. Now Tisco, the large foodshop chain, decide on Saturday nope, bugger it, we are not going to re-arrange the cereal shelves for this new box, we will do it next week. Does this mean that Dainsbury, Adsa and Muirissons have to knock back the release of the 'Chunky Crunchies' if Tisco tells them too ? Does this not have a material affect on Killogs, who would have, like GoA done some prelaunch advertising, giving a date for people to get their grubby mitts on the new box of 'Chunky Crunchie' loveliness?

:wub:

Just some random thoughts from an ex-player, I hope, when you all finally receive the game, to see many posts about how good it is.

Later

Gengee

 

[Skaven]

Nope it means the boxes left the distributors warehouse and arrived at retailers warehouses on tuesday. Most webmerchants do 48hr delivery as standard or 24hr for an extra charge. High street stores would have been able to send the boxes out with their usual end of week deliveries. Most games are shipped to retailers at the last minute as retailers don't like having stock sat in their warehouses and distribution centres for longer than absolutely necessary.

As working for the formentioned 'mega' fyi 99% of the time the game doesn't arrive in store until usually 3-4 days before the street date. As of 26th March the game still hasn't arrived, at least in our store. I would follow it up, if we actually had any customers that wanted the game and if I actually played it anymore. Ive not had one enquirey about it, and none have been recorded by our staff. Nice to see all that extra advertisement has paid off.
I don't see why you don't move all your purchases to online only, as your excellent marketing team seems hell bent on not doing their job properly - also you'll make more profit not having to deal with koch media who I believe are your distributors.
Just a intresting side note, Camelot is the only game in the two years ive been with the company that I can remember we haven't received display sleeves for to get pre-orders, not for the Classic cam, SI, TOA or catacombs releases.

 

[Skaven]

Nerf edit button -

Also just reading back through some of the old threads, it's easy to bash certain companys when you only have one side of the story. You might want to wait a while before you make any assumptions.

 

[Esselinithia]

I still think this is bordering on Bully boy tactics.

Nothing new... As he said, you can't say bad things about mods nor goa people since they all can ban you and all protect each other this way. How it will influence their reputations is another question. Why they don't like when they get blamed for problems and after breaking trust noone believing them is another. Why they don't like it there are ideas that can strenghten the trust... just another. They doing everything fine.

What Skaven said is true, and probably he isn't the only one who sees the problems. Not willing to listen, willing to flame, and know people can't defend since some people can just ban them and close the threads is an easy looking way for many.

They keep saying people is free to go to almost anywhere, prydwen is already getting severaly underpopulated, and if people keeps going elsewhere it will stay that way. And they can point fingers call people names, but that won't bring profits nor new players for the game. In 3 years no big new success happened, and as Requel doesn't believe in changes from patches, people learning new things, adjusting to patches, etc. some might not believe much in improvement about these topics...

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

Ill repost this here as its slightly more relevant:
Esse does make good points if its a little subjective and opinion based in places requiel.

""That bank holiday release date has been nothing but trouble from the damn start though - its like starting selling a new brand of kids toys on christmas eve - great people might rush out and buy them but your overall sales would have been better if you did a comprehensive marketing campaign and gave suppliers time to stock them!

I really feel sorry for some of the GMs and public GoA personalities who it seems have been overidden by the GoA execs/management.The top tier of GoAAOC seem to have made some pisspoor decisions and the poor front end staff have to publically support and justify them to the community.

Been there myself - banging my head against the desk while the phone is on hold in my office screaming "WHY FOR GODS SAKE WHY YOU RETARD DIRECTOR-I SAID IT WAS A BAD IDEA - WHY DONT YOU LISTEN TO ME - HAVE YOU ANY IDEA HOW OUR BUSINESS ACTUALLY WORKS?!!!" at the top of my lungs, then calmly picking up the phone again and placating the irate business partner/customer on the end of the line...
My sympathies Requiel and co.

Its late and im rambling.Answers on a postcard.""

Now im going to fooking bed.

 

[gervaise]

In response to above post about play.com having it in stock the last reference I read was that this referred to the full boxed set.

Also read the interesting comment that stores didn't believe they would have enough time to get it from the distributors and onto shelfs so they would not commit to the date. The Bank Holiday does make a difference - period.

Yes if everyone had bought into a release date how could there be 'heavy handed legal action' - comething doesn't add up here.

I did ask earlier whether anyone had seen any advertising - guess the answer is no. Some nice GuildWars posters have appeared (hint, hint)

Was the game available in Chech and Slovakia - gorget which but there was a post about difficulties there. Musthave been OK as only UK, Belgium and Holland (was it) were quoted as having problems. Were some German problems reported earlier ...

Previous 3 releases messed up so life goes on as normal.

 

[rampant]

Dear GOA can you please ensure that www.play.com have got enuff stock to fulfill all orders they have?

redirect all of the stock that was/is at the MEGA shop to www.play.com

 

[haarewin]

Nerf edit button -

Also just reading back through some of the old threads, it's easy to bash certain companys when you only have one side of the story. You might want to wait a while before you make any assumptions.

well i'd like to hear GAME's side of the story, but im sure that it will be kept under wraps.