How about they do something about it... Instead of giving us the chill down talk...
[INFO] Official Updates Discussion
- Thread starter Flimgoblin
- Start date
How about they do something about it... Instead of giving us the chill down talk...
Don't you think if it was that simple they'd of done it by now? They're giving the chill down talk to stop spreading the panic and stop people stirring up the nest.
MagnusGOA
English WAR Community Manager
- Joined
- May 12, 2008
- Messages
- 224
Posted some new information in the original thread.
The servers are slowly filling up and as more players leave the starting areas, we can increase the population caps. General situation now is that we don't have an ETA on when the account registration and key authentication pages will be up. GOA seniors and mythic staff is meeting in Paris and we are awaiting word from this meeting.
-Magnus
The servers are slowly filling up and as more players leave the starting areas, we can increase the population caps. General situation now is that we don't have an ETA on when the account registration and key authentication pages will be up. GOA seniors and mythic staff is meeting in Paris and we are awaiting word from this meeting.
-Magnus
pez
Can't get enough of FH
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 1,076
You mean the Open Beta Servers worked fine. Thats hardly surprising since only Closed Beta testers could access them. So basically nothing changed from closed beta to open beta. Essentially the same people were playing (probably) the same oreven more servers, and thats somehow a victory?
Flimgoblin
It's my birthday today!
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2003
- Messages
- 8,324
- Thread starter
- #68
it's a brand new set of servers - in open beta we had 1 server for each language....
There's now: 8 english, 5 german, 4 french, 1 spanish, 1 italian and they're hosted in the new datacentre.
You're right though that there's not huge numbers to tax the servers yet. Still, they are there
small victories and all that.
pez
Can't get enough of FH
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 1,076
it's a brand new set of servers - in open beta we had 1 server for each language....
There's now: 8 english, 5 german, 4 french, 1 spanish, 1 italian and they're hosted in the new datacentre.
You're right though that there's not huge numbers to tax the servers yet. Still, they are there
Well maybe I am in the wrong then since both yourself and Magnus see the performance of the 'Open Beta Servers' as a ''success'.
I would have thought though that to be successful Open Beta Servers they would have had to successfully serve an Open Beta.
Flimgoblin
It's my birthday today!
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2003
- Messages
- 8,324
GOA, the story so far....
Well after a day a anger and dissapointment I thought I'd look back at what an almighty clusterfuck this has been. Don't get me wrong, GOA can still deliver by launch day. If they get all their servers up and running on early start launch with limited lag and sane account creation and offer say a months free play for anyone who actually paid money for the Beta as compensation, then there may be some forgiveness. 100,000 or so are SE or CE edition who will perservere with the game, and many of the 50,000 free beta will stay. That said, who knows how many will never touch the game again after the farce of today? No doubt Mythic and GOA will discuss taht.
Not to say that Mythic aren't blame free. It started with Mythic giving GOA the European license despite the groans of the player base, who have had to live with GOA's poor customer service on the EU English language servers. But we were told taht it would all be different this time with the Customer Service Department moving to the Emerald Isle where peopel are actually allowed to work sometimes. GOA had learned their lesson we were told. They understood the important challenge of a serious competitor to WoW.
Of course there were the rumblings of the diehard GOA haters who forecast doom but, on balance, the assurances were enough to swing the EU/US server debate in GOA's favour.
Then we started to get near the date. First concern was the dire flash website that was down for significant periods coming up to launch. Thren the confusion over SE access to Beta. Concerns were raised but written off as negativity.
Open Beta approached and serious concerns were being raised about the viability of logging 100,000 into account creation, downloading patches, activating beta keys and getting into the game without any pre testing. Goa's CS contemptuously dismissed the possibility that GOA needed any test. It would be all right on the day we were assured and we would be up and running.
The day dawns. I, sensibly as it turned out, didn't emerge from my pit till late on the assumption that there was loads of time to register and the site would be jammed early on. Pretty soon the complete nightmare became apparrant as I tried to register. Absolutely nothing from GOA. Eventually one of the CSR's in the US said on VN, they would chase GOA for something and later on a post was made there.
Eventually MagnusK makes a post here that has been updated at increasing speed. Included is a personal apology. Despite all the flame, it is not personal about the CSR (though I doubt IanC has gained many fans with his confident assertions). Unfortunately, the CSR's are the only bit of GOA we have to let know our feelings.
GOA's high point was the German CSR who said it was a complete cock up and heads would roll. They were desperately trying to sort stuff out and would give eta's if and when they knew stuff (the Germans got much better customer service in DAOC by all accounts). If we had an honest assessment from the start alot of angst and anger could have been avoided. Basically ' We were overconfident and did not allow enough resources to develop and time to test our systems. Go away and come back tomorrow when we may have fixed it.'. Would have pissed people off but much less than keeping us hanging around in the dark all day. not only did you not get us into beta, you wasted our precious time.
If only...
A system was tried and tested before mass swamping.
When it was apparant that the system would not be tested staggered entry was planned. Sunday morning closed beta, sunday pm CE, Monday morning CE Monday PM free keys.
CSR's gave honest updates from the start on forums. The website was updated with truthful and complete picture.
Yes we would have laughed at GOA and the flame would have been fierce but keeping people in the dark whilst breaking your promises and wasting their time has made an embarrasing situation a disaster.
Truth is, Mythic have rolled out the game with minimal problems. There can be no excuse for GOA not having done so. It will be such a shame if this game fails in Europe or is a shadow of what it might be because of the most basic mistakes. GOA still has time but some root and branch rethinking is badly needed. I feel sorry for us players and I feel sorry for the people in GOA who have worked hard to try and get this to work properly to be let down by their colleauges. Sad day for us all. Lets hope next week brings better things.
Well after a day a anger and dissapointment I thought I'd look back at what an almighty clusterfuck this has been. Don't get me wrong, GOA can still deliver by launch day. If they get all their servers up and running on early start launch with limited lag and sane account creation and offer say a months free play for anyone who actually paid money for the Beta as compensation, then there may be some forgiveness. 100,000 or so are SE or CE edition who will perservere with the game, and many of the 50,000 free beta will stay. That said, who knows how many will never touch the game again after the farce of today? No doubt Mythic and GOA will discuss taht.
Not to say that Mythic aren't blame free. It started with Mythic giving GOA the European license despite the groans of the player base, who have had to live with GOA's poor customer service on the EU English language servers. But we were told taht it would all be different this time with the Customer Service Department moving to the Emerald Isle where peopel are actually allowed to work sometimes. GOA had learned their lesson we were told. They understood the important challenge of a serious competitor to WoW.
Of course there were the rumblings of the diehard GOA haters who forecast doom but, on balance, the assurances were enough to swing the EU/US server debate in GOA's favour.
Then we started to get near the date. First concern was the dire flash website that was down for significant periods coming up to launch. Thren the confusion over SE access to Beta. Concerns were raised but written off as negativity.
Open Beta approached and serious concerns were being raised about the viability of logging 100,000 into account creation, downloading patches, activating beta keys and getting into the game without any pre testing. Goa's CS contemptuously dismissed the possibility that GOA needed any test. It would be all right on the day we were assured and we would be up and running.
The day dawns. I, sensibly as it turned out, didn't emerge from my pit till late on the assumption that there was loads of time to register and the site would be jammed early on. Pretty soon the complete nightmare became apparrant as I tried to register. Absolutely nothing from GOA. Eventually one of the CSR's in the US said on VN, they would chase GOA for something and later on a post was made there.
Eventually MagnusK makes a post here that has been updated at increasing speed. Included is a personal apology. Despite all the flame, it is not personal about the CSR (though I doubt IanC has gained many fans with his confident assertions). Unfortunately, the CSR's are the only bit of GOA we have to let know our feelings.
GOA's high point was the German CSR who said it was a complete cock up and heads would roll. They were desperately trying to sort stuff out and would give eta's if and when they knew stuff (the Germans got much better customer service in DAOC by all accounts). If we had an honest assessment from the start alot of angst and anger could have been avoided. Basically ' We were overconfident and did not allow enough resources to develop and time to test our systems. Go away and come back tomorrow when we may have fixed it.'. Would have pissed people off but much less than keeping us hanging around in the dark all day. not only did you not get us into beta, you wasted our precious time.
If only...
A system was tried and tested before mass swamping.
When it was apparant that the system would not be tested staggered entry was planned. Sunday morning closed beta, sunday pm CE, Monday morning CE Monday PM free keys.
CSR's gave honest updates from the start on forums. The website was updated with truthful and complete picture.
Yes we would have laughed at GOA and the flame would have been fierce but keeping people in the dark whilst breaking your promises and wasting their time has made an embarrasing situation a disaster.
Truth is, Mythic have rolled out the game with minimal problems. There can be no excuse for GOA not having done so. It will be such a shame if this game fails in Europe or is a shadow of what it might be because of the most basic mistakes. GOA still has time but some root and branch rethinking is badly needed. I feel sorry for us players and I feel sorry for the people in GOA who have worked hard to try and get this to work properly to be let down by their colleauges. Sad day for us all. Lets hope next week brings better things.
pez
Can't get enough of FH
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 1,076
And if the Yanquis hadn't managed it in one. And if GoA has just said earlier that it was fucked and we should all give up for 12 hours.
As many people have said, that German GM is the only GoA employee I have any time for right now.
Trottimus
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2008
- Messages
- 48
Oh lord, I was so close to thinking I had my key activated, and I noticed this thread.
I'm at the stage where I click 'Yes' to confirm my key, but it just keeps failing. Looks like I'll have no luck tonight, I'll try tomorrow.
Thanks to this forum, I was able to keep awake throughout the day!
I'm at the stage where I click 'Yes' to confirm my key, but it just keeps failing. Looks like I'll have no luck tonight, I'll try tomorrow.
Thanks to this forum, I was able to keep awake throughout the day!
Howley
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2004
- Messages
- 1,257
u cant play US server that's the dam problem
from Mythic Entertainment | Warhammer Online
Will Americans and Europeans be on the same servers?
No, our partner GOA is handling all European distribution and all the European servers. They're also handling the translation issues for the German, Italian, Spanish, and French players. We are working much, much more closely with GOA than we did on Camelot. The experience of the typical GOA player, and that of the typical player in North America, should be exactly the same with all content being released simultaneously.
M8 keep ur
for urself coz i ofc meant buying the US version... i dont think many (if any) are that naive to think if i buy the EU version in store "A" that i can play on the US servers where they bought from store "B"Even in ur sig i can see u played US and EU.. its the same mentality as with daoc.. new accounts for a new location/server database!
EDIT: after reading that after nearly 24hours when it was supposed to open the authentication part is still unavailable... /wave GOA. 'IF!' i decide to play WAR after this service i most certainly will start on US cyaz!
MagnusGOA
English WAR Community Manager
- Joined
- May 12, 2008
- Messages
- 224
Final update for the evening
Good morning Freddies!
You will find a couple of final updates in the Official Update thread.
Thanks for your titan patience and support throughout the day. We will be back tomorrow in full force, as will the European WAR effort!
-Magnus
Good morning Freddies!
You will find a couple of final updates in the Official Update thread.
Thanks for your titan patience and support throughout the day. We will be back tomorrow in full force, as will the European WAR effort!
-Magnus
if they'd fallen over I'd have classed that as a "failure"
Since they haven't... you could argue it's "too soon to tell" though.
Presumedly there haven't been enough new OB testers to stress the servers yet.
This is indeed the same as Magnus stating, quite simply, that the auth and reg servers have fallen over while the game servers continue humming along smoothly. No shit, Sherlock! Hardly surprising when many (most?) of us OB/CE testers can't even enter our beta key.
Anyway, marketing spiel, in old-school GOA tradition.
krillerill
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2008
- Messages
- 3
you still can sign up even thou "servers" are down..
there's a direct link to signups in the news section wich still works.
(i just want to point out the incompotence of the devs and want to ask why i dont make the big $ like they do)
so infact.. servers arent taken offline like they claim. ? it has just been removed from the master DB?
you cant confirm your signup in the confirmation mail you get..anyhow
there's a direct link to signups in the news section wich still works.
(i just want to point out the incompotence of the devs and want to ask why i dont make the big $ like they do)
so infact.. servers arent taken offline like they claim. ? it has just been removed from the master DB?
you cant confirm your signup in the confirmation mail you get..anyhow
servers just went down. Well all but 3 it seems. I was lvl 6 chosen. It was pretty nice.
When I tried to relauch the program. All servers namse were gray except for 3 being white, looking normal.
Anyone know how long they'll be down or if they are updating them or something?
When I tried to relauch the program. All servers namse were gray except for 3 being white, looking normal.
Anyone know how long they'll be down or if they are updating them or something?
krillerill
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2008
- Messages
- 3
managed to sign up & enter beta key- all while the server where "down for maintenence"
proof http://i34.tinypic.com/abtriv.jpg
signup @ http://www.war-europe.com/#/registration/
w8 for activation mail
login and enter beta key @ http://www.war-europe.com/#/myproductkey/
just a tip. server with enter beta key will pretty mutch go down after 10.-15 sec so be fast.
proof http://i34.tinypic.com/abtriv.jpg
signup @ http://www.war-europe.com/#/registration/
w8 for activation mail
login and enter beta key @ http://www.war-europe.com/#/myproductkey/
just a tip. server with enter beta key will pretty mutch go down after 10.-15 sec so be fast.
krillerill
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2008
- Messages
- 3
yeah and btw.. no haxxor skills where involved i just followed the links provided in news section of war-europe.com since the clueless admins dont know how to shut down a service no wonder they have had problems with the page.
fyi. i can play.
oh an on another note, i only got the activation mail, pressed on it a couple of times, generating atleast 2 diffrent errors in html code so i guess one was "failed to complete comfirmation" and one was "failed to open comfirmation complete html"
after that i did the proccess above.. damn, i need to be a test player with my mad unlock the shit skills
fyi. i can play.
oh an on another note, i only got the activation mail, pressed on it a couple of times, generating atleast 2 diffrent errors in html code so i guess one was "failed to complete comfirmation" and one was "failed to open comfirmation complete html"
after that i did the proccess above.. damn, i need to be a test player with my mad unlock the shit skills
Yellowflash
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2008
- Messages
- 8
woooho, im downloading patch atm ;d woke up tried to log in (worked)and entered my key and also worked ! wth xD and patcher goes really fast 
Fenderon
Can't get enough of FH
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2004
- Messages
- 1,673
Sort of felt like they had one out of five auth background servers working. After a few refreshes around 6am of the website I managed to log in and enter the key - it validated ok.
The e-mail arrived shortly after saying that open beta is activated for my account. patching now.
However I wonder what this part of the email talks about:
The e-mail arrived shortly after saying that open beta is activated for my account.
patching now.However I wonder what this part of the email talks about:
Anyone else laughed their asses off at the "update" that included the usefull information that the patching, the login server and the game servers were handling the load just fine.. kinda laughed hard at it sitting there with "auth. server temp unavailable"...
Anyway, two Q's,
1) any chance we can get an extra day of beta out of this, or will that interfere with the early start access of the CE people?
2) Has the project manager been fired yet?...
Anyway, two Q's,
1) any chance we can get an extra day of beta out of this, or will that interfere with the early start access of the CE people?
2) Has the project manager been fired yet?...
what are we suposed to do if our keys come up as invalid?
im confident i had all the letters and numbers correct but after many hours of trying it said invalid twice :|
i have 2 pre order packs though so i will try the second one
btw is it possible the o's are suposed to be Q's like some americans codes have been? i dont have the patience to play around with the key when it almost impossible to get the validator to work
im confident i had all the letters and numbers correct but after many hours of trying it said invalid twice :|
i have 2 pre order packs though so i will try the second one
btw is it possible the o's are suposed to be Q's like some americans codes have been? i dont have the patience to play around with the key when it almost impossible to get the validator to work
Yellowflash
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2008
- Messages
- 8
Sort of felt like they had one out of five auth background servers working. After a few refreshes around 6am of the website I managed to log in and enter the key - it validated ok.
The e-mail arrived shortly after saying that open beta is activated for my account.
However I wonder what this part of the email talks about:
Exactly the same for me
but i'm playing atm on a french servah LoL: / no EN servers are up 
Lunatari
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2004
- Messages
- 39
Once you get to the validator. Do not press OK on the error window, just move it to the side and keep pressing validate as it shows.
Hint: You can also open another window and go to the myproductkey site and refresh there, when you see that you are being logged in (retreiving data from payment.goa.com) you know that you have a connection to the authid.goa.com server.
Is how I did it and my friend did it this morning and it works.
Aurelius LH
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- May 26, 2008
- Messages
- 149
Magnus,
Much as I appreciate you answering things, and trying to sort out the current mess, and know it's certainly not your fault we are in the current situation, GOA are performing very, very badly. Those of us who were in the European DAOC have mixed impressions of the company already - not your fault, but it meant as a community rep, you already had an uphill hike when you set out. Sadly, the mess this weekend has done nothing but damage to the GOA reputation, and it seems nobody there has much of a clue how to set it right - and some comments being made are making things worse!
It's not particularly impressive as a customer to see the GOA posting part way through yesterday
"We are expecting the Open Beta servers to be online soon(TM) and when they do, tens of thousands of closed beta testers are standing by the door, only to be followed by myriads of new testers who have managed to validate their keys."
"Tens of thousands standing by the door" was also the situation at the END of the day. From the numbers GOA are quoting, Open Beta wasn't even able to accomodate the numbers who were in the Closed Beta. If GOA 'expected' tens of thousands, it's more than fair to be unimpressed and ask why they were not able to cope when what they 'expected', happened.
Meanwhile, I also keep seeing comments that 'we got the play servers up almost as fast as Mythic managed in the US" as if this is in some way a huge achievement and offsets the other problems the players have had. Sorry, but no. Let's looks at some of the detail and numbers - according to Mark Jacobs, the US experience is -
Here are the early results from the first day of our North American + Oceania Open Beta.
Incredibly stable game experience:
- 47K total users playing concurrently. We're not up to where DAoC was at peak yet but we're off to a good start eh? When Europe comes online we hope to shatter DAoC's numbers before we launch.
- 27 servers deployed and running smoothly. We have 23 servers in NA, 2 in OC and 2 more Test severs.
Europe - by the end of yesterday, we'd heard of 5k or so people able to log in - under one ninth of American and Oceanian totals. We had maybe ten servers running at best,(I'm still not clear how many are up for non-English speakers), regularly fewer than that, compared to 27. Getting enough capacity for far less than 10% of your registered OB players, when GOA determined how many of those there would be since they issued the keys to let them in, is NOT much of an achievement, and certainly not a balance for the rest of what went so badly wrong.
I look at what has happened, and then look back on comments I picked up official sources - not just players ranting, these are from the people who we'll be paying to play the game...
It's why we consider the 7th as our true launch date. From this date forwards we will be providing services to paying customers.
The 'paying customers', I presume, refers to those who paid for the CE pre-order - but are stuck in the same morass as all those other folks with OB codes just now, because there's no sign that anyone with a code gets any priority of access over others, regardless of if they have paid anything or not. Whether they should or not, is a different argument - if GOA have what they call 'paying customers' and the services those people have 'paid' for are not working, GOA have let them down.
Ever since GOA and Mythic started this joint venture, both parts have been very clear on the importance on equal (not identical) treatment.
So far, what I've seen falls woefully short of 'equal'. US has a much bigger and frankly more professional system in place, with preview events and properly tested servers, particularly for account creation. EU looks completely amateur in comparison, to the point where the head of the US company is apologising for the mess made by his European partners.
The real killer question - if I find that I like the game (after all, I've a CE and supposedly European OB access, so I'll be able to try it out pretty thoroughly) should I pay a monthly subscription to a company that's messed up things pretty badly so far, or pay a company that's done things mostly right?
The next few days are essential to how that decision goes, but so far GOA have started badly, bungled things in a really disappointing way, and have a hell of a hill to climb if they want to persuade me to pay them any more money.
Much as I appreciate you answering things, and trying to sort out the current mess, and know it's certainly not your fault we are in the current situation, GOA are performing very, very badly. Those of us who were in the European DAOC have mixed impressions of the company already - not your fault, but it meant as a community rep, you already had an uphill hike when you set out. Sadly, the mess this weekend has done nothing but damage to the GOA reputation, and it seems nobody there has much of a clue how to set it right - and some comments being made are making things worse!
It's not particularly impressive as a customer to see the GOA posting part way through yesterday
"We are expecting the Open Beta servers to be online soon(TM) and when they do, tens of thousands of closed beta testers are standing by the door, only to be followed by myriads of new testers who have managed to validate their keys."
"Tens of thousands standing by the door" was also the situation at the END of the day. From the numbers GOA are quoting, Open Beta wasn't even able to accomodate the numbers who were in the Closed Beta. If GOA 'expected' tens of thousands, it's more than fair to be unimpressed and ask why they were not able to cope when what they 'expected', happened.
Meanwhile, I also keep seeing comments that 'we got the play servers up almost as fast as Mythic managed in the US" as if this is in some way a huge achievement and offsets the other problems the players have had. Sorry, but no. Let's looks at some of the detail and numbers - according to Mark Jacobs, the US experience is -
Here are the early results from the first day of our North American + Oceania Open Beta.
Incredibly stable game experience:
- 47K total users playing concurrently. We're not up to where DAoC was at peak yet but we're off to a good start eh? When Europe comes online we hope to shatter DAoC's numbers before we launch.
- 27 servers deployed and running smoothly. We have 23 servers in NA, 2 in OC and 2 more Test severs.
Europe - by the end of yesterday, we'd heard of 5k or so people able to log in - under one ninth of American and Oceanian totals. We had maybe ten servers running at best,(I'm still not clear how many are up for non-English speakers), regularly fewer than that, compared to 27. Getting enough capacity for far less than 10% of your registered OB players, when GOA determined how many of those there would be since they issued the keys to let them in, is NOT much of an achievement, and certainly not a balance for the rest of what went so badly wrong.
I look at what has happened, and then look back on comments I picked up official sources - not just players ranting, these are from the people who we'll be paying to play the game...
It's why we consider the 7th as our true launch date. From this date forwards we will be providing services to paying customers.
The 'paying customers', I presume, refers to those who paid for the CE pre-order - but are stuck in the same morass as all those other folks with OB codes just now, because there's no sign that anyone with a code gets any priority of access over others, regardless of if they have paid anything or not. Whether they should or not, is a different argument - if GOA have what they call 'paying customers' and the services those people have 'paid' for are not working, GOA have let them down.
Ever since GOA and Mythic started this joint venture, both parts have been very clear on the importance on equal (not identical) treatment.
So far, what I've seen falls woefully short of 'equal'. US has a much bigger and frankly more professional system in place, with preview events and properly tested servers, particularly for account creation. EU looks completely amateur in comparison, to the point where the head of the US company is apologising for the mess made by his European partners.
The real killer question - if I find that I like the game (after all, I've a CE and supposedly European OB access, so I'll be able to try it out pretty thoroughly) should I pay a monthly subscription to a company that's messed up things pretty badly so far, or pay a company that's done things mostly right?
The next few days are essential to how that decision goes, but so far GOA have started badly, bungled things in a really disappointing way, and have a hell of a hill to climb if they want to persuade me to pay them any more money.
