[INFO] Official Updates Questions

[Flimgoblin]

Post your questions here. No discussion. Use This thread for that.

 

[pez]

Can those of us who have not yet authenticated our beta keys realistically expect to play before midnight?

 

[Flimgoblin]

Questions from old thread:

mrbandersnatch (and others)
1) Is there an ETA for account registrations to be re-opened and will GOA be working through the night to resolve this issue?
2) Can the 200MB patch be released as a torrent so that the patch servers aren't hammered quite so heavily.

Etzel:
What happens on the 14th when you have a rush of CE's registering live keys? Will I have to wait in some time restricted queue on live day?

Fizzy:
The news section of the Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning is great but exceptionally dated and gives the impression that only certain people within the goa heirarchy can approve / publish positive posts only.

Certainly today, that has not been helpful.

So are there any plans to have a 'server status' page, and keep this updated with the timescales mentioned in the other posts, what the technical issues are and what is being done to resolve them?

A status page that says
'We are looking at the authentication key not appearing issue, and are looking into this as a result we have taken the authentication down. We hope to have this resolved by 18:30.

This post will be updated when authentication services are back in place (or at 18:30 whatever comes first)."

This type of status comment from the supplying company is a vital communications tool to keep your userbase in the loop as to
a) the problems are acknowledged
b) work is underway to resolve them
c) a timescale estimate of when the problem will be resolved
(or if not resolved when the community will be updated).
and
d) what the user community can do to overcome them


Zoldot:
My question is: When will more servers come up? (not a question of if, cause apparently it will be needed with 55.000 CE + 50 000+++ randoms)

Krazeh:
Given that you have a server cap of 1000 with a queue of 1500, and are planning to increase the cap by about 25% every few hours, when exactly do you expect to have raised the server caps to a sufficient level to allow everyone with a key to login and play?


Draylor:
One obvious thing missing: any sort of ETAs on

1. Opening registration on website.
2. If different from #1 - Allowing keys to be added to accounts that are already created.

5 mins, 5 hours, 5 days ... doesnt need to be accurate guesses, but something wouldnt hurt.

 

[humza]

What I want to know is why do the servers need maintenance after having been open for open beta testers a few hours?
I am the first to admit that I barely know anything about this so please do not flame me.

 

[Vell]

What steps are being taken to ensure the same situation does not arise next Sunday when half of us try to register our CE codes for the headstart?

 

[Moriath]

Whats the point in all the questions if no one is going to answer them?

 

[mini-hammer]

1. Why is the american beta going so smoothly compared to us and how comes they don't have only 5000 people in their servers because of this starting area issue?

2.Will CE pre-orderes get priority over other beta keys that were given away for free? If not why?

 

[Flimgoblin]

Repost from the discussion thread:

Oh Oh, I have sensible question!!! (Well, that is questionable in itself!!)

Ok, I've tried to register previously and I got the timeout failure. When I've retried later, it has told me my login name is already in use. I am 99.99% certain that no one else has this and its a result of my earlier registration attempt.

Now I've managed to get to step 4 of the process, where I am just confirming my details. Is there a chance that I am going to be sent the confirmation email and my details have been saved? - or will I need to reregister with a different login name, username and email address?

I'd be much obliged if I could have an official-sounding answer (No "A bloke down the pub told me... " answers please :wub

 

[Aada]

Can we actually have hope that sometime in the next 6 days we will actually be able to play?

You handed out 200,000 beta keys but your servers only take 1000 people at a time increasing it by 25% every few hours (btw how long is a few hours?) which actually adds up to around 50k players into the open beta by wednesday/thursday.

 

[Guyton]

the original announcement stated we had to create a new account, which i managed to do though i am still waiting for the activation/confirmation email. I have also read that that was an error so will our original logins we used on the war-europe site work when the account pages are working again

 

[Hanso]

You said you'll keep it updated.. why is it behind WHA state?

 

[Bluetribal]

Kai Shober, German community manager of GOA was willing to say this:

"Guys, if the technicians gave me an ETA i would give it to you but double the hours before posting it. Unfortunately, my only info is "maintenance is over, give us feedback asap.

i know you want hard facts and honest aplogies, but facts are hard to give atm

Today at GOA, the word Catastrophe fell very often, and if today's events have no consequences, it would surprise me.

and Mythic apparently had similar probs in their first PW
(and GOA knew that and still decided not to launch sooner)
which doesnt justify todays misery"

OnlineWelten Forum - Einzelnen Beitrag anzeigen - kurzen Wartung


So the obvious question would be: why did GOA go ahead with this last minute plan when they have beforehand knowledge that Mythic had similar problems?

A question not related to the above quote: closed beta testers have said and shown that all but 2 servers are empty or have very low population, then how can the lowbie zones be stressed too much and be a reason not to let in open beta testers?

 

[Cromix]

Can we expect the issues to be solved today? I mean it is arround 22:00 in france right now, will GOA techs be working extra hours on a sunday night or better forget it and try tomorow.

 

[MagnusGOA]

Posted a couple of updates in the original post. I'll get back as soon I can with more.


-Magnus

 

[Aurelius LH]

If one major reason account creation has fallen down so spectacularly is that a lot of people created unnecessary second accounts should there not be a 'weeding' of the unnecessary ones? And if so can we help by not replying to 'authentication' emails, or should we report duplicate registrations to some address at GOA so they can delete them?

Surely we don't want an even more unwieldy database at the genuine live date!

If the actual intent was to only slowly open up servers, and gradually activate accounts, why didn't someone explain this was likely to happen beforehand and avoid a lot of the hard feelings that have developed through the day? Managing expectations always works better than firefighting.

 

[Padraig]

I bought the CE box and would like to know what provisions are being made so that I may register in a timely manner?

I have so far tried all day to log in and register my key for the open beta

 

[Lunatari]

Think I posted my question in the discussion forum.

Anyway, when I login the system said something about my account being suspended, whats that?

 

[vitorh]

i managed to register an account, but when i try to log on the website to validate my key, it says my account is suspended(code711). why?

 

[Cromix]

Posted a couple of updates in the original post. I'll get back as soon I can with more.


-Magnus

Honestly nothing important was added, and there is alot of valid questions still to be answered that you so inteligently dodged.

Tough i have more questions:

How many players are allowed on each server at this momment, and are they still full?
How long until we can expect to have our confirmation e-mails and website pages working? Tonight? Tomorow? Tuesday?
And why are custumer that pre-order having OB as part of that package being treated as some random guy that typed is e-mail on some website?

Don't mean to sound harsh, but GOA/Mythic sold alot of pre-orders based on the OB access and they are failling to keep up with their side of the bargain. I dont call a good job on putting 8 server with a total of 8000 players online(1000 x 8), at least not by any MMO standard. I worked as comunity manager before and i know your work ain't easy, but as custumers we deserve more and better info.

EDIT: If the ath server & register server are down, how is possible that are reports of ppl being able to register and activate accounts?

 

[MagnusGOA]

If one major reason account creation has fallen down so spectacularly is that a lot of people created unnecessary second accounts should there not be a 'weeding' of the unnecessary ones? And if so can we help by not replying to 'authentication' emails, or should we report duplicate registrations to some address at GOA so they can delete them?

Some traffic to the registration servers could certainly have been avoided, had we made this clear from start. When we realised our mistake and clarified this in our news, the damage was already done. Now we're focusing on cleaning up this mess and although your suggestions are creative, I doubt they will help. We'll get this sorted out soon enough.

If the actual intent was to only slowly open up servers, and gradually activate accounts, why didn't someone explain this was likely to happen beforehand and avoid a lot of the hard feelings that have developed through the day? Managing expectations always works better than firefighting.

Actually, Mark Jacobs has clarified this before. That aside - yes, in hindsight we should have announced this in our news to manage people's expectations. A great challenge in communication is to see things from another's perspective. We should have foreseen that the average player will not expect a gradual opening of the Open Beta servers, but will expect to be able to log in at the given time.

-Magnus

 

[Apollyn]

Some traffic to the registration servers could certainly have been avoided, had we made this clear from start. When we realised our mistake and clarified this in our news, the damage was already done. Now we're focusing on cleaning up this mess and although your suggestions are creative, I doubt they will help. We'll get this sorted out soon enough.


Actually, Mark Jacobs has clarified this before. That aside - yes, in hindsight we should have announced this in our news to manage people's expectations. A great challenge in communication is to see things from another's perspective. We should have foreseen that the average player will not expect a gradual opening of the Open Beta servers, but will expect to be able to log in at the given time.

-Magnus

Cheers for the continuing updates Magnus. Guess you lot have had as miserable a day as some of us (maybe worse - bit of abuse on the boarss :S)

I can occasionally log into the key entry page, should I just keep trying to validate/login? - Are you opening/closing auth servers to allow a steady trickly of ppl through?

 

[MagnusGOA]

Posted some new information in the original thread.

Updates:
Added "Retailer updates"
Updated "Account registration and key authentication unavailable"
Updated "Key has expired"
Updated "Patching"
Added "General update"

There are many, many more questions need answering and I'll do my best to get back to you as soon I can. Many of the more pressing issues, such as ETA on account registration and key authentication remain unsolved for now and we don't expect any major changes tonight. Tomorrow is a new day, but the CM team will stay here for a good while longer.


-Magnus

 

[Bullitt]

A question which I haven't seen yet:

When will the forgotten passwords section be available?

My other option is to try and make another account, but I fail to see how that would help me or GOA.

 

[Major Horrigan]

Hi there
I have been following this discussion for a while now ..
I also got preordered a collectors edition and went through the various stages of despair during the day 414 1107 and finally 711
I got two questions
1 will the now suspended new account be working some time in the future?
2 Is there a way to retrieve the password of my original account which I opened months ago, when I bought the game, only using the password once
since then?

I guess that might be of interest for others as well ...

 

[Cromix]

Thx for the updates magnus, wish there were more good but, will wait and see.

Another question though.

Alot of people like me have been waitting for the confirmation e-mail for ages while others that registered after us have gotten it. Is there any issue or problem with it? what should we do?

 

[Lunatari]

Silly but if you make it to cd key insertation, do not click the OK button if you get 414 or such. just drag it to the side and continue. I just managed to confirm mine by not clicking the error window away.

 

[arknor]

if you didnt realise some people were getting there keys sorted when you kept putting the auth servers on and offline every few minutes.

there was a work around that involved spamming the buttons and ignoring the error pop up, everytime the auth servers came back up you would get a step further.

someone mention it towards the end of the auth servers coming up and down every few minutes and quite a few people were succesful.

is there no way you could just limit the number of concurrent connection to the auth server so it doesnt get bogged down and stop working?

 

[nosebleed]

Hi, was just wondering what security is in place, as when I'm putting my personal details into the registration thingymabob, the little padlock in the bottom of IE is missing

 

[Rayko]

posted this in the discussions thread, but it actually belongs here:

with the key authentication service split from the new account creation section, people with an existing account should be able to enter their code right now? is there any way to do this directly, because I keep getting these messages about "the service being unavailable at the moment" when trying to log in

 

[mrbandersnatch]

Another question : Many of us worked through the..."process" of creating an account and actually got to the "You are now registered with War-Europe" (stage 5) step. HOWEVER the emails to activate those accounts do not appear to have been dispatched (reports of no-email received after 13+ hours).

Are there any plans to allow us to get these confirmation emails resent so that we dont have the further annoyance of having to register accounts again, and thus avoid having to reregister with login/account names that would NOT be our prefered choice?