Flimgoblin
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How happy are you with GOA's service as a "DAOC provider"?
Repost: GOA as Daoc service provider
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Bob007
Prince Among Men
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Quite happy, tho room for improvment. Up time is in the high 90's% Patching could be quicker. But now doing 4 languages won't help that.
Little things add up, Items on pryd, XML, Lag(not goa, But then not me either
) Could be worse, Could be blizzard.
Little things add up, Items on pryd, XML, Lag(not goa, But then not me either
) Could be worse, Could be blizzard.
Flimgoblin
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The delay between patches isn't really GOA's fault - Matt Firor said as much in a recent interview in Leipzig. The translations aren't what takes the majority of the time, the main difficulty is getting the international version of the servers/clients working (it's a different program from the US version).
My guess as to how it works (given as an E&E I see when the test servers go up etc. hopefully not breaking any rules posting this here but I'm sure bits of this have been stated by GMs on here in the past):
Patch hits the US (e.g. 1.80) and goes live, players play with it - live patch fixes happen
and once Mythic are happy with the patch (and say "right that's 1.80 done") they make the international version of the code (with support for all our crazy umlauts etc. - Herfølge Boldklub take note) and lob it over to GOA.
At some point they also send over language files which are translated.
GOA get the international version working for testing, run tests, check the translations are ok. If there are any problems with the server/client code it needs to go back to Mythic for fixing. If it's a crash to desktop bug on logging in (with character X etc.) that kinda slows down testing
My guess as to how it works (given as an E&E I see when the test servers go up etc.
hopefully not breaking any rules posting this here but I'm sure bits of this have been stated by GMs on here in the past): Patch hits the US (e.g. 1.80) and goes live, players play with it - live patch fixes happen
and once Mythic are happy with the patch (and say "right that's 1.80 done") they make the international version of the code (with support for all our crazy umlauts etc. - Herfølge Boldklub take note) and lob it over to GOA.
At some point they also send over language files which are translated.
GOA get the international version working for testing, run tests, check the translations are ok. If there are any problems with the server/client code it needs to go back to Mythic for fixing. If it's a crash to desktop bug on logging in (with character X etc.) that kinda slows down testing
Argante
Loyal Freddie
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European players pay monthly to GOA for a working game not to Mythic, so we claim to GOA and GOA should claim to Mythic, thats the way it is.
Dont care if problem is with Mythic code or GOA's routers or whatever, thats to be solved between them.
Players pay for a service that it is not working very well. We can't stay still and quiet
Dont care if problem is with Mythic code or GOA's routers or whatever, thats to be solved between them.
Players pay for a service that it is not working very well. We can't stay still and quiet
Cadiva
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A lot of people seem to forget that if GoA hadn't offered to run the servers, there wouldn't BE a European Dark Age of Camelot.
Not only that, but at the time it was being beta-ed and launched in the US, they hadn't actually said whether or not they would let Europeans play on the US servers.
So yes, GoA could be better, but considering the amount of shit they get thrown at them for things they have no control over - like the patching delay - they do a good enough job as far as I'm concerned.
Not only that, but at the time it was being beta-ed and launched in the US, they hadn't actually said whether or not they would let Europeans play on the US servers.
So yes, GoA could be better, but considering the amount of shit they get thrown at them for things they have no control over - like the patching delay - they do a good enough job as far as I'm concerned.
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they arent great, could be worse though. i havent been playing for a few weeks now but it seems from posts on here that they are going back to the old days of shitty server performance. A little bit pissed off they have ignored my lost items on pryd, its not high level stuff so its not as bad as other people but its the principle, i would like at least an answer from them.
was really happy with the fast patch last time around, i really do hope they keep it up.
I think its stupid that they dont offer support into the evening or at weekends when most of thier customers are online. They could cut down thier daytime support and increase evening/weekend support.
was really happy with the fast patch last time around, i really do hope they keep it up.
I think its stupid that they dont offer support into the evening or at weekends when most of thier customers are online. They could cut down thier daytime support and increase evening/weekend support.
Flimgoblin
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Argante said:European players pay monthly to GOA for a working game not to Mythic, so we claim to GOA and GOA should claim to Mythic, thats the way it is.
Dont care if problem is with Mythic code or GOA's routers or whatever, thats to be solved between them.
Players pay for a service that it is not working very well. We can't stay still and quiet
true, and you don't have to be happy about it, but the general response people have for "omfgz I have to wait for patchzor!" is "go to the US servers" which is a bit daft thinking about it, really
- "lets go give more money to the company that was responsible for our original problem".Sending feedback to mythic directly rather than grumbling at GOA saying "go grumble at mythic" might well be more effective in this case, I dunno.
Overdriven
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Happy with it, but there's room for improvements. It's mainly the patching for me, but I can wait. =)
Cadiva
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Argante said:I dont agree, if GOA hadnt offered to take DAoC onto Europe, im sure some company would have done it meanwhile, even if not, we could still play in USA servers, theres still EU ppl who plays there
Not necessarily true at all. At the time Mythic announced GoA would run the EU servers they were, in fact, the first gaming company to provide a purely EU service, the other gaming companies like Sony have followed suit.
It isn't at all certain that someone else would have offered to run the service, I can't actually think of another company doing anything along the same lines that could have done it.
Also, you're also incorrect to say people would have been instantly able to play on the US servers. As I said previously, Mythic hadn't actually said whether or not the US servers were going to be open to none USA subscribers.
Of course, people would have been able to circumvent the restrictions the same as they did with the WoW US servers but it would have been a massive pain in the arse to do so.
If GoA hadn't said they would take the DAoC servers I think it's quite likely there would have been no EU game and the number of Europeans playing on the US servers would have been small, given the utter lack of publicity for the game in Europe by Mythic prior to launch.
GReaper
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Before 4 months ago I would've said it was fairly good.
However the problems with Prydwen, delayed clustering, lack of XML, recent crashes, bad lag, etc have really not helped. When everything is running fine, GOA can manage things fairly well, however my opinion is that GOA can't deal with problems that well.
If GOA were doing such a good job, Mythic would've possibly chosen them for Imperator instead of planning on opening new offices for the launch (before Imperator was postponed, obviously). Although we don't know the full details of this, of course.
However the problems with Prydwen, delayed clustering, lack of XML, recent crashes, bad lag, etc have really not helped. When everything is running fine, GOA can manage things fairly well, however my opinion is that GOA can't deal with problems that well.
If GOA were doing such a good job, Mythic would've possibly chosen them for Imperator instead of planning on opening new offices for the launch (before Imperator was postponed, obviously). Although we don't know the full details of this, of course.
limpit
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I have never understood why we don't get the level of support that the players on the Mythic servers do.
I realise that there are more of them (the US players) then us (the EU players), and that cost would probably be a factor, but why don't we have a fancy xml driven website, regular news and updates on the GOA/DAoC homepage, and most of all, IN GAME SUPPORT...
Instead we're alway told to RightNow it, which a majority of the time means waiting a few days for an answer for a simple question... and in my experience, if you RightNow something on Friday night, then you've got to wait until at least Monday for a response
I realise that there are more of them (the US players) then us (the EU players), and that cost would probably be a factor, but why don't we have a fancy xml driven website, regular news and updates on the GOA/DAoC homepage, and most of all, IN GAME SUPPORT...
Instead we're alway told to RightNow it, which a majority of the time means waiting a few days for an answer for a simple question... and in my experience, if you RightNow something on Friday night, then you've got to wait until at least Monday for a response
UndyingAngel
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up untill 1.64 ish I think GoA did a great job.. never had a problem.. never had any lag on the servers.. at all.. the game was great the comunity was great..
ToA hits.. Game comunity starts to break down slowly due to greed .. etc..
Mid's get Huge TOA lag which makes them unable to play ToA for months.
Mid lag is sorted Now all of ToA for all 3 realms Laggs..
ToA is finaly sorted and general Lag accross teh whole server for just over a year b4 its sorted..
OT lag starts ... and continues ..
Catacombs arives yet again out of no where at the same time Lag hits the server..
GoA anounce cluster.. Prydwen database goes down. and 3+monther l8er ppl are still waiitn for there items back.
is it just unlucky for GoA that these things happen at the same time.. or are GoA just trying to cover for poor servers, and poor hardware
GoA's main probelm imho is comunication, they dont keep us informed about that which is going on, as some people have said before.. a little information is better than nothing.. what pisses me off more.. is some of the scarstic remarks from the GM's on teh forums about information posted on teh mian website as requested we SHOULDNT have to request this information GOA SHOULD give it freely.
This is just my opinion.. fell free to prove me wrong and call me a **** I know most of you do anyway but hey thats life 
ToA hits.. Game comunity starts to break down slowly due to greed .. etc..
Mid's get Huge TOA lag which makes them unable to play ToA for months.
Mid lag is sorted Now all of ToA for all 3 realms Laggs..
ToA is finaly sorted and general Lag accross teh whole server for just over a year b4 its sorted..
OT lag starts ... and continues ..
Catacombs arives yet again out of no where at the same time Lag hits the server..
GoA anounce cluster.. Prydwen database goes down. and 3+monther l8er ppl are still waiitn for there items back.
is it just unlucky for GoA that these things happen at the same time.. or are GoA just trying to cover for poor servers, and poor hardware
GoA's main probelm imho is comunication, they dont keep us informed about that which is going on, as some people have said before.. a little information is better than nothing.. what pisses me off more.. is some of the scarstic remarks from the GM's on teh forums about information posted on teh mian website as requested we SHOULDNT have to request this information GOA SHOULD give it freely.
This is just my opinion.. fell free to prove me wrong and call me a **** I know most of you do anyway
but hey thats life 
Azathrim
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You should not judge GOA on problems that occur like that database corruption, the lag, server crashes or even the poison spike incident. These things do unfortunately happen. Now, what you should judge them on is how they handle it.
1) Database corruption
This was handled fairly well. It was obvious to anyone that there were put alot of work into restoring peoples items by the GM's and I can only fear how huge that bulk of work might have been. The problem was their communication. Although they did post on FH after being hammered to do so quite abit, they didn't give very well information to a majority of their costumers through their official site. And now the information have more or less died away without the restoration problem being finished. But, all in all I think that incident was handled "Ok!".
2) The Lag
Past occurances of the lag problem have been handled very poorly. Especially the time were Prydwen TOA lag was out of bounds, their information was horrid and their willingness to accept there was a problem nonexistant. It took a whole lot of screaming to get things going, but in the end it did get fixed. It's a complex problem ofcourse, due to the way Internet work. But, it seems they are less than willing to show they are looking at things. We don't know if they do in the background, but can only guess they do. All in all, I think those problem are handled "Bad!".
3) Server Crashes
I think these problems have been handled pretty well recently. You can always expect a full report with an ETA or just a "working on it" on their official site soon after a server goes down. That's an area were they have improved tremendously. So, all in all I think this have been solved "Very well!".
4) Poison Spike
This was handled in a horrible way. It was mostly a long denial by GOA and even now were any confusion have been settled by Mythic it's still not fixed (perhaps due to Mythic, but in the end it's GOA's problem to be fixed). In the case we have had GM's contradicting each other, saying the other were wrong, etc, etc. All from the start they had the attitude that "Its not any of your business, sod off!". That instead of accepting there might be something wrong and actively trying to find out excactly what was going on. So, I would say this have been handled "Very badly!".
In general, I think they are trying well and have a focus to solve immidate ingame problems fast and effeciently. Their information is shaky at times and could use quite a bit of improvements here and there. But all in all, I think they are doing fairly ok.
1) Database corruption
This was handled fairly well. It was obvious to anyone that there were put alot of work into restoring peoples items by the GM's and I can only fear how huge that bulk of work might have been. The problem was their communication. Although they did post on FH after being hammered to do so quite abit, they didn't give very well information to a majority of their costumers through their official site. And now the information have more or less died away without the restoration problem being finished. But, all in all I think that incident was handled "Ok!".
2) The Lag
Past occurances of the lag problem have been handled very poorly. Especially the time were Prydwen TOA lag was out of bounds, their information was horrid and their willingness to accept there was a problem nonexistant. It took a whole lot of screaming to get things going, but in the end it did get fixed. It's a complex problem ofcourse, due to the way Internet work. But, it seems they are less than willing to show they are looking at things. We don't know if they do in the background, but can only guess they do. All in all, I think those problem are handled "Bad!".
3) Server Crashes
I think these problems have been handled pretty well recently. You can always expect a full report with an ETA or just a "working on it" on their official site soon after a server goes down. That's an area were they have improved tremendously. So, all in all I think this have been solved "Very well!".
4) Poison Spike
This was handled in a horrible way. It was mostly a long denial by GOA and even now were any confusion have been settled by Mythic it's still not fixed (perhaps due to Mythic, but in the end it's GOA's problem to be fixed). In the case we have had GM's contradicting each other, saying the other were wrong, etc, etc. All from the start they had the attitude that "Its not any of your business, sod off!". That instead of accepting there might be something wrong and actively trying to find out excactly what was going on. So, I would say this have been handled "Very badly!".
In general, I think they are trying well and have a focus to solve immidate ingame problems fast and effeciently. Their information is shaky at times and could use quite a bit of improvements here and there. But all in all, I think they are doing fairly ok.
Happy, with room for improvements.
The main problem, the lag, is related to their ISP. It's been like this for years now, and since GOA seldom tells us users anything we might be interested in knowing, I got no clue if they put any pressure on their ISP.
And that leads me into the next thing. The communication with the users. What's wrong with letting us customers actually know what happens?
The patch thing is both good and bad. Guess the bad things are quite obvious. On other hand it's kinda nice to be able to plan stuff ahead like we can do now. And when a new expansion hits EU, the US ppl already made us walkthroughs for the pve we have to do to be able to compete. Which probably saves us days of boredom.
The main problem, the lag, is related to their ISP. It's been like this for years now, and since GOA seldom tells us users anything we might be interested in knowing, I got no clue if they put any pressure on their ISP.
And that leads me into the next thing. The communication with the users. What's wrong with letting us customers actually know what happens?
The patch thing is both good and bad. Guess the bad things are quite obvious. On other hand it's kinda nice to be able to plan stuff ahead like we can do now. And when a new expansion hits EU, the US ppl already made us walkthroughs for the pve we have to do to be able to compete. Which probably saves us days of boredom.
Since im one of the Error 201 custumors i was somwhere between "Unhappy, there's a lot of room for improvement." and "Really unhappy - they suxxor."
GOAs only problem is they handel everything in a VERY french way... which pisses most of europeen ppl off when they meet it...
Now GOA... plz get to work on this nice sunday morning, do your work, and make sure things work befor u go home to the wife. thats how things are done in the rest of the world.
GOAs only problem is they handel everything in a VERY french way... which pisses most of europeen ppl off when they meet it...
Now GOA... plz get to work on this nice sunday morning, do your work, and make sure things work befor u go home to the wife. thats how things are done in the rest of the world.
Awarkle
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tbh even if mythic did suddenly tommorow take over the european servers they would still host the servers in Europe (wow does). The problems have probbly been compounded because goa cant edit the code they have to rely on mythic to do this and that causes delays.
the whole prydwen fiasco remember this goa asked mythic for advice and got told to delete the whole of the prydwen data base. (hope thats not against e&e thingy thought it was general knowledge).
Yups some things do need improving quicker and it probbly would be easier if we were all on the same server type but i think its down to the extra characters which mean the patches take time so all those weird hyroglifics you foriegn folk insist on using take heed
I would say that GOA do need to seriously slap their isp around a bit more or at least fragment the company so that specific servers are hosted in specfic countries so english servers in blighty german servers in germany etc. With maybe a central office dealing with Advertisment (non existant) and stuffs. Although how that would work i dont know.
things could be better but if goa ran a perfect service im sure we would all still complain
the whole prydwen fiasco remember this goa asked mythic for advice and got told to delete the whole of the prydwen data base. (hope thats not against e&e thingy thought it was general knowledge).
Yups some things do need improving quicker and it probbly would be easier if we were all on the same server type but i think its down to the extra characters which mean the patches take time so all those weird hyroglifics you foriegn folk insist on using take heed
I would say that GOA do need to seriously slap their isp around a bit more or at least fragment the company so that specific servers are hosted in specfic countries so english servers in blighty german servers in germany etc. With maybe a central office dealing with Advertisment (non existant) and stuffs. Although how that would work i dont know.
things could be better but if goa ran a perfect service im sure we would all still complain
Manisch Depressiv
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Flimgoblin said:...once Mythic are happy with the patch (and say "right that's 1.80 done") they make the international version of the code (with support for all our crazy umlauts etc. - Herfølge Boldklub take note) and lob it over to GOA.
At some point they also send over language files which are translated.
GOA get the international version working for testing, run tests, check the translations are ok. If there are any problems with the server/client code it needs to go back to Mythic for fixing. If it's a crash to desktop bug on logging in (with character X etc.) that kinda slows down testing
I don't know how told you that, but it is
a) crap,
b) medieval way to program software.
You choose. Modern software allows to change the user language on the fly and it doesn't really matter if it's a client/server-software or not.
well my opinion is :
if they where plumbers or builders i would expect to see them on Watchdog...
beware
ps. gone to EVE Online, ok game nice looking but goes down every day from 11-12 like clockwork for maintainence.....always back up on time ....1 server 14000+ peeps from around the world....GOA take note.
if they where plumbers or builders i would expect to see them on Watchdog...
beware
ps. gone to EVE Online, ok game nice looking but goes down every day from 11-12 like clockwork for maintainence.....always back up on time ....1 server 14000+ peeps from around the world....GOA take note.
Manisch Depressiv
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Sollac said:
Aye, but that wasn't always the case, I remeber them taking full 6 months to fix show stopping bugs and that was before ship insurance and stuff.
xanir
Fledgling Freddie
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Marc said:
ya rly, I suppose if your car broke down I could laugh at you because you can just walk instead! You grow more retarded with every post I see you make :/
We're paying for a service, which many (over 60%) feel is substandard, and that gives us a right to complain. Personally, I feel their handling of the corrupted prydwen database was (still is) apalling, but otherwise it's alright - some support at weekends would be nice however.
Flimgoblin
It's my birthday today!
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Manisch Depressiv said:
Might be crap but it's the truth
DAOC code is based on their text muds so there's bits of it that are proably about 7 years old. Plus, it wasn't written to be multilanguage at first.
How many times have you connected to a german server and got english server messages?
But sure, feel free to put your hands in your ears and scream "OMFGZ GOA!" instead.
scorge
Fledgling Freddie
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limpit said:
there are more EU players than US players and they have been for quiet some time
http://daoc.darkzone.net/
GOA suxx major. too use a word from flim
Its support is lacking badly, attidude against player are ignorent
+ bad knowledge in the GOA staffs knowledge in servers + network.
+ you get replys "still" in france from RN soo called support !!?
I never seen soo bad service :|
how ever Gamemasters from GOA when you actualy get 1v1 with them and its a problem the generaly can fix the problem and
too get in contact with a gm ingame or soo its a realy rare thing (the tips do Who 100 hehe give the response No Match found 99.99% of the time
becouse RN is totaly shit major 110%
I been here from BETA and I was a E&E player long ago soo I think I know what Im talking about.
Its support is lacking badly, attidude against player are ignorent
+ bad knowledge in the GOA staffs knowledge in servers + network.
+ you get replys "still" in france from RN soo called support !!?
I never seen soo bad service :|
how ever Gamemasters from GOA when you actualy get 1v1 with them and its a problem the generaly can fix the problem and
too get in contact with a gm ingame or soo its a realy rare thing (the tips do Who 100 hehe give the response No Match found 99.99% of the time
becouse RN is totaly shit major 110%
I been here from BETA and I was a E&E player long ago soo I think I know what Im talking about.
Does anybody actually sit back and actually look at what GOA does? It scares me how inept they are at coping with the basic responsiblility they have.
Some people say they are happy with them, but how hard a job is it to maintain the servers, sort basic problems & get mythic to sort major problems? Its not rocket science.
Or is it just a translation house............
Some people say they are happy with them, but how hard a job is it to maintain the servers, sort basic problems & get mythic to sort major problems? Its not rocket science.
Or is it just a translation house............
Omega
Fledgling Freddie
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What a farce this thread is! At a time when lots of people cannot log into the game you’re asking us if we are happy with your service? I’m shocked and angered as I am one of those affected, saddened by your lack of support and thoroughly glad I voted that you suck! 
Chronictank
FH is my second home
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90+% server uptime so they are good in that sence
but how much of that is playable up-time. I mean you could have a server up but noone can connect for more than 5 secs
My main gripes with goa are that they refuse to believe something is wrong until they get a large number of complaints and people start yelling. Rightnow was supposed to allow every case to be investigated, not make it easier to ignore the users as you dont have to talk to them.
Communication is near enough non-existant at the best of times, but this is getting better slowly.
Then theres the "blame the players not the game" mentality thats held by GOA and Mythic rather than solve the problems in the game.
1.5 months down the line and my alb chars are still naked (slight lie i have farmed items to give my main ones a resonable interim template)
i couldnt in good conscience vote anything above "not bothered"
but how much of that is playable up-time. I mean you could have a server up but noone can connect for more than 5 secs
My main gripes with goa are that they refuse to believe something is wrong until they get a large number of complaints and people start yelling. Rightnow was supposed to allow every case to be investigated, not make it easier to ignore the users as you dont have to talk to them.
Communication is near enough non-existant at the best of times, but this is getting better slowly.
Then theres the "blame the players not the game" mentality thats held by GOA and Mythic rather than solve the problems in the game.
1.5 months down the line and my alb chars are still naked (slight lie i have farmed items to give my main ones a resonable interim template)
i couldnt in good conscience vote anything above "not bothered"
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