Poor

[aavarn]

Yesterday was a clear example of truly, cataclysmically, awful project planning and implementation from start to finish.

What really upsets me however is that instead of the grovelling apology that should have been made we got a succession of weak excuses that just further highlighted the utter lack of organisation at Goa and the lack of care for or interest in their customers.

We are paying customers - the service for which we pay was unavailable to us for almost an entire day. We deserve a proper apology, at the very least, for the events yesterday.

The weather in the USA is not an acceptable excuse in any way, shape or form. There should have been sufficient flexibility in the project plan such that events such as these were not left to the very last minute. Force Majeure doesn't come in to it. I agree with the person who said if Goa had said that their dog ate the required files it would have been more palatable.

Congratulations to the teams at Goa for getting the game up and running eventually - it was good to patch to 1.57 even though I can't play SI until my copy is delivered from Amazon tomorrow. IMO yesterday was a classic example of a marketing team and project management team (if Goa indeed has one) imposing a software delivery date (they have to agree the date the boxed software hits the shelves in the shops) which the development teams were unable to meet. Its not the developers that are to blame.


Aavarn

 

[Pixie.Pebr]

This post reflects the truly non-existant ability in people to use the Reply button on existing whinethreads.

 

[g0ldenbone]

Bingo

And lets face it.. its not the end of the world now is it?

 

[Testin da Cable]

iirc some spots are having the worst weather in 80 years, in which people have even lost their lives. you should be glad they tried to give it the go-ahead all things considered :/

 

[Dubaxter1]

Dubaxter Sais

I think everyone has the right to their own opinion, and those that criticise this opinion our obviously plebs in their own minds.

I have to agree with Aavarn, and Pixie, if you dont like his opinion fair enough just dont slate others when u got a name like pixie.

And i think the new emote for you me old mucker is /rude /slap /cya /<have a nice day>

 

[Aravis]

Originally posted by aavarn
<snip> Its not the developers that are to blame.

GOA: "Mythic, we're patching on Feb 19th, that OK?"
Mythic "N/P, we'll make sure all the files are with you by the 17th"
GOA: "Ta"

....

GOA: "Err Mythic, where are those files then?"
Mythic: -----------
GOA: "Hello, anyone there?"
Mythic: "Hello, can you hear me? This is the cleaner. It's snowing here, no-one can get in"
GOA: "Bugger!"

 

[aavarn]

I am not going to argue with people who clearly don't understand the concept of proper project planning or those that don't understand the concept that the customer is right. You will learn these concepts later in life.

The dialogue snippet posted above is just a perfect illustration of how one would not implement a major systems change - it should be properly project managed - so thank you for reinforcing my point. Also Goa pointed out that it was only some staff who couldn't get in to the Mythic office - not all staff.

I didn't reply to existing threads because I wanted the point made that we should get an apology - we are paying customers. I didn't want it appearing below a load of uninformed, unintelligent, commentary on the situation - therefore I started a new thread.

Yes thats right - clearly it isn't the end of the world. But then if it was the end of the world I would be expecting a damn sight more than just an apology wouldn't I? At the end of the day its really not very much to ask for.

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

I have to agree with above poster...

Sorry to all you laissez-faire-I-have-all-day-to-wait-for-the-game people... you can apologize for GOA all you want - what really gets me is the lack of preparation registering-wise.

How about a non-flash page or a seperate server (golly gee..) to handle registration and account issues?

People had issues with prolonging their sub from day one and the fecking problem has never really been adressed (except here - but wait... that was just whining).

It's always whining, isn't it? Until you are the victim of GOA's poor management yourself.

 

[old.Normengast]

I'm not the whining kind for such kind of problems but there is one thing that bothers me. On the day the servers should have been patched, i read the patch procedure and all the news on the official site. It was all planned and looking good.

Then that same evening we have to hear that due to a snowstorm things are going difficult, even though the snowstorm began on monday.

I must be missing something.

Other than that: nice job whoever let his sleep to get things back up.

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

Originally posted by old.Normengast


Other than that: nice job whoever let his sleep to get things back up.

Whoever that is... hook up a back up server for the registration pages/server.
Oh, and get rid off that crappy flash monstrosity or at least make some non-flash version available.

 

[ormorof]

what really pisses me off is the fact that they just manage to fix the regustration pages (tuesday they were up and running) and i register again.... then the server goes belly up and now i cant play SI either