WAR Euro Beta Sign ups! and away we go...

[Bahumat]

i signed up ooh baby

 

[Raven]

thanks for sending me a load of rubbish in French

signed up though

 

[Flimgoblin]

the default language on signing up was french (on the dropdown) - that should really default to the language of the form but it's probably why you got an email in french

 

[Drahminn]

Would it really have killed them to:

A) check with members of the public to see if it worked ok?
B) left enough space for like 10 digits in postcode?
C) make the form so the god damn popups describing the section you fill in DIDNT go behind other parts of the web page that were set to be on top all the time?

i just left the 2nd number out of the 1st 2 out. It was my old post code before my city expanded.

I smell another fuckup in the pipeline.

 

[Flimgoblin]

probably would have been better keeping the first 6 chars..

AB12 3CD

AB=city/area
12=region
3=subregion
CD=bit of street

But I expect it'll get fixed at some point (sooner rather than later I'd hope ) when you can login and fix it

 

[Gray-CF]

ives signed up 3 times now

work
home
and me bros

 

[Ahtlehson]

Signed in. Waiting with excitment will I get in. 8)

 

[AngelHeal]

Eh, you think ? Maybe read the post, I am not happy with failure to get the basics wrong. Like a crucial thing like the post code.

Do you think the bigger sites like Amazon don't use Flash for a reason ? Its because you need to keep the thing simple. Simple can be beautiful.

oh my god!! the site has been up what? half a day? and you're allready flaming... how about.. chill!! It's not asif all this whining helps you know.
You really think they don't know about the failure's befor you started to: omg 10 year old them?

I like the site, and if you don't like it, why didn't you sign up for the job couple of months ago? I mean if you can do better...?

"omg wtf i didnt say i could do it better so stfu!"

...just stop the QQ. EU finally got something earlier then the U.S. and you're allready pounding it into the ground. I for once think it's a nice job GoA actually allready got this up and running and not waited another 6 months.

look i agree, GoA hasn't got the best reputation atm, but give them a chance at Warhammeronline.. it's not like you do everything perfect.


the site looks cool. and a 10 year old can see it's not finished.

 

[eble@work]

I don't know if it was because I was at work when the first people tried using the GOA site and had effectively beta tested it for me, My sign up sailed through.

I don't mind the site, tho perhaps for a spam fest that a beta sign up was/is always going to bring they should have opted for something like the US site, just a plain jane site that loads and does what it says on the tin real quick.

Anyway all signed up both EU/US.

I hope lady luck is riding with me.

Eble

Oh BTW anyone getting error 417 - just spam it and it will accept, well did on me after third attempt.

 

[SkarIronfist]

oh my god!! the site has been up what? half a day? and you're allready flaming... how about.. chill!! It's not asif all this whining helps you know.
You really think they don't know about the failure's befor you started to: omg 10 year old them?

I like the site, and if you don't like it, why didn't you sign up for the job couple of months ago? I mean if you can do better...?

"omg wtf i didnt say i could do it better so stfu!"

...just stop the QQ. EU finally got something earlier then the U.S. and you're allready pounding it into the ground. I for once think it's a nice job GoA actually allready got this up and running and not waited another 6 months.

look i agree, GoA hasn't got the best reputation atm, but give them a chance at Warhammeronline.. it's not like you do everything perfect.


the site looks cool. and a 10 year old can see it's not finished.

I give GOA alot of benefit of the doubt. That doubt was severly stretched by the Pyrdwen database crash, thats if it was a database... probably a load of flat files. Since most commericial databases would have protected the data from corruption, thats assuming that your db admins monitor the log files.

But maybe you don't get it. This is not a fan site we are talking about, this is a commercial company that produced the website. This signup website is the first experience alot of people will have with GOA. There is not room for poorly implemented design. Not only should something look good, more importantly it should function well. Since once you get past the flashy exterior of anything, then its how it functions is alot more important a criteria.

Your comment about about about the site being not finished, is not even close to being reasonable, when you are talking about what will obviously be a multi million pound project for GOA and Wannado (Or Orange), in initial costs alone. So knocking something up as you go along doesn't get a big tick in my book. Lets be honest, we all knew a beta signup was coming along time ago. So it shouldn't go up being untested.

Also there are a couple of simple reason for me not signing up for the job.

1. I don't construct websites, I construct databases for a living. This doesn't preclude me from knowing alot about design though.
2. The money is significantly better doing what I currently.
3. I have no wish to upsticks and move my family Dublin, Ireland, though I am sure it would be a nice place to live, if you can afford the property prices.

To be brutally honest considering how some of there credit card handling and help systems seem to be put together, I have considered putting myself in the minor diety category.

 

[Sharkith]

AngelHeal,

SkarIronfist has a point many people looking to play this game will have bought and played GW products. Those products are very professional. So customers are going to expect something of quality. This is a very serious issue. Coming to an MMO for the first time and having a clunky system is not good no matter who you are. It is better to be constructive with criticism as SkarIronfist was being than to sit back and say nothing.

Otherwise how are GOA to have any perspective on what people think?

Sharkith

 

[SkarIronfist]

I agree my 10 year old comment was out of order. But thats what it feels like when I was using it.

 

[Whisperess]

It is better to be constructive with criticism as SkarIronfist was being than to sit back and say nothing.

Otherwise how are GOA to have any perspective on what people think?

Exactly.

If you sift through the usual complaints - there's a larger issue here.

It's great that they wanted to try and mold it to fit the European community and create a better experience for us. We're simply saying that we're not really looking for another mold than the US one (in fact, we disapprove of the new mold and try to state why) - and would love for their creativity to be put where it matters the most: the extra quests/events that atleast I was quite fond of in Daoc.

Great design through minimalism and Human/Computer interaction (like the US site displayed) and something that's quick to load and works without a fuss is a lot more popular where I'm from than abundant flash. It's not a bad thing to give feedback - is it? (atleast if you to make it constructive)

 

[SkarIronfist]

This title will be competing against the grand daddy of all.

Just to give you a low down.

World of Warcraft Europe -> Realm Status

Has about roughly 225 server CLUSTERS (Pydwen/Excalibur) in europe alone. Without even touching on Korean/China and the USA. If they snag just 10% of these players for a trial, you could be looking at 600 - 800,000 players. Excluding warhammer fans who have never played an MMORPG before. I would be expecting a lot of WoW players to be having a little bit of itchy feet around the time this comes out (Though the release of the next WoW addon will make a difference if it hits stores in the 1st quarter like this year, which would conincide with current 1st quarter release date of WHO). Word off mouth in the WoW world could be strong. Every 1% +/1 is a shit load of players/accounts.

So things like this Beta trial and pre - orders will give Mythic/GOA a guide to how many server clusters they will need. This is not a time for captain cockup to come to town, its got to be right from the start. All the way through. Polish polish polish. I like mythic I really want them to succeed, I think there interfacing with the fans is excellent.

I would hate for them to drop the ball on this one. A reasonable sized competitor to WoW will keep them Blizzard honest.

 

[Gahn]

oh my god!! the site has been up what? half a day? and you're allready flaming... how about.. chill!! It's not asif all this whining helps you know.
You really think they don't know about the failure's befor you started to: omg 10 year old them?

I like the site, and if you don't like it, why didn't you sign up for the job couple of months ago? I mean if you can do better...?

"omg wtf i didnt say i could do it better so stfu!"

...just stop the QQ. EU finally got something earlier then the U.S. and you're allready pounding it into the ground. I for once think it's a nice job GoA actually allready got this up and running and not waited another 6 months.

look i agree, GoA hasn't got the best reputation atm, but give them a chance at Warhammeronline.. it's not like you do everything perfect.


the site looks cool. and a 10 year old can see it's not finished.

Nah NA signup is already on and works like a charm, problem is the usual shit attitude of Goa, pack things, never test em and put em up for the sake of it.
Shit attitude and unprofessional behaviour if i can express my opinion.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Nah NA signup is already on and works like a charm, problem is the usual shit attitude of Goa, pack things, never test em and put em up for the sake of it.
Shit attitude and unprofessional behaviour if i can express my opinion.

NA signup had problems too (needed to put your email all in lowercase for example...)

Doesn't excuse the GOA site from having problems of course.

Good post by Mark Jacobs on this matter:

Europe: Second Class Citizenry? - Page 4 - Warhammer Forums

Folks,

Okay, I've been expecting this kind of thread for quite a while and I've got a rather simple response, no spin, no sugar-coating, etc.:

If you're trolling here, have a cookie and go away.

OTOH, if you are a European player and think that GOA is treating you now as a 2nd-class citizen, you couldn't be more wrong!

Yeap, I said it, and I'll say it again, you're wrong! Did GOA's signup page work as well as ours? Nope, apparently not. Did ours work perfectly, nope. Did GOA, which is spending a ton of money to run WAR for us in Europe, somehow decide to hurt the very customers that it is counting on to make the decision to partner with us on WAR? Of course not. They tried to do things a little differently, with a little more flair (and effort) than we did with our signup page. And, well, it didn't work out as well as they had hoped. It wasn't because of lack of effort on their part. It's not because they are incompetent, it's not because they didn't try, it's simply because things did not work as intended.

Over the course of our long-term relationship with GOA, they have always asked us if they could do things a little differently than we do them here, whether it is the art style of the boxes, promotional material, website, etc. They believe that they have a better feeling for European taste/flair/etc. than we do here and you know what, I agree with them which is why we have always extended them that freedom. Sometimes it works out really, really well and sometimes, well, it doesn't work out so well. This is apparently one of those times. We've been in contact with them and we want to see what went wrong and why and then we will talk to them about it. However, to somehow put this into the camp of "2nd class citizenry" is total and complete nonsense. They tried something a little different and it didn't go as well as expected. FYI, as of this morning, they had a lot more signups than we had so it wasn't like it was a total disaster was it (which if you read this thread you might think it is)?

I'm truly sorry that GOA had any problems with their signup page just as I'm sorry that we had a few with our own and I apologize for any problems that people had with GOA or with our signup system. Overall though it actually went quite well considering that this game isn't even the second stage of beta yet and this is the first time we've both opened our signup systems at the same time.

If you want to bring up old issues with GOA, feel free to bash them or Mythic's decision somewhere else but please don't do it here and now. GOA has committed to us, in the strongest contractual language possible, that they will meet or exceed the kind of service we provide in North America. Based on what I've seen so far, I have no reason to doubt that they will do their best to meet that commitment. It's not 2002 guys, it's 2007 and things are a bit different this time around. Let me tell you something that has already come out of our closed beta testing, the GOA guys have been all over WAR, beating the heck out of it and by far, being our most productive group of beta testers. They spend lots of time playing the game and letting us know what they think about it. If all our beta testers are as helpful as they have been already, we'll be in unbelievable shape by the time we launch.

Again, I'm truly sorry for the problems that some of you experienced with the day one signups. Mistakes happen, some things get overlooked, nobody is perfect. However, it wasn't because we at Mythic, especially yours truly, wants or will tolerate any of our worldwide fans to be treated as 2nd class citizens. You can take this to the bank, if I have any inkling that any of our partners are not doing that they need to do to ensure that nobody is a 2nd class-citizen, the least of their worries will be what is said about them in places such as this. I have no intention of letting anyone or any group cause me to break my promise both to GW and to myself about the quality of the game we are creating. And that quality is inextricably bound to the care and effort that goes into the game and the community after WAR launches. Wherever we have a partner, no matter what country or language, that partner will have to keep up with us or even, in my perfect world, exceed us. Now that would make me very happy.


Mark

 

[Gahn]

NA signup had problems too (needed to put your email all in lowercase for example...)

Doesn't excuse the GOA site from having problems of course.

Good post by Mark Jacobs on this matter:

Europe: Second Class Citizenry? - Page 4 - Warhammer Forums

Well due to Contracts Signs i wouldn't expect anything different from Mark.
I could be over critic with Goa but they assured that all would have been different in War management and at 1st test they fail miserably.
This is uncontrovertable (sp?).
Also NA signup had a well thought error management and warning system which completely lacked and or was badly implemented in the Eu one?

 

[eble@work]

a nice no bullshit reply.

Eble

 

[Bahumat]

They believe that they have a better feeling for European taste/flair/etc.

Sorry, since when have we wanted sites that take 5 minutes to load an on 8mb line? oh yeah, that drunk homeless guy they asked in the pub was speaking on all our behalf. Thanks Piss Pants Peter!

 

[SkarIronfist]

Good reply.

But I think what he & GOA will be thinking or should be thinking is ...

Mistakes cannot be made at the level the game is being played at now. There is far to much money at stake.

How many times does the KISS statement (Keep It Simple Stupid) have to be uttered before companies learn. They are aware of things like this already, this is why is it that when we have DAOC upgrades they down grade the content on the main page for a couple of days to lower over bandwidth utilisation.

It disappoints me to see silly mistakes made. Mistakes where the companies involved should know alot better.

Req, maybe next time you do a rollout you ask some of your punters for advice.

 

[Whisperess]

The thing that irks me the most is the part about "know what europeans want" - because the result is not true to what we really want.

I made that original post in which he responded - and yes, it could've been put through in a much better way (something I tried to do as a reply to his post). It however stated what me, and many other people, actually want - and it gets shot down as being wrong? An opinion or feeling can't be wrong - the thread title was wrong, but as I replied in that thread - it wasn't my idea to put it there, and in retrospect that's probably what I regret the most as people get stuck on it and doesn't read "behind the lines" about what's really wrong.

It's great that they're trying hard to make our experience better - but I would hope that it's in their interest to receive feedback (atleast the constructive ones) from their upcoming customers? All we're doing here (really) is trying to help them provide the experience we want.

I'm not here to bash GOA - that'd be pointless and seriously unconstructive. I'm here to give feedback that their view on what we want and what we really want doesn't really coincide.

 

[SkarIronfist]

Just tried the Mythic site, and its much more linear in its design, which I prefer.

But what is interesting is the difference in what extra information the 2 sites were trying to obtain.

The european site, was interested in technical specification of a users machine, where as the north american site was interested in job, prior testing experience, whether you worked in the industry (Obviously not a great idea to have a competitor look at your work 4 / 5 months ahead of release).

Now this may be something it may be nothing. But from this I would deduce that one side is interested in testing from a system point of view and is looking for good experience there. Where as the other (European) is focusing on Hardware testing. Basically throwing alot of different spec machines at there product to see what breaks it.

Anyway, I really shouldn't have applied with my normal details for the European beta, given my hard nosed beating of GOA these last few days. Oh well best register with a Canadian address

Though this has been alot more invigorating than reading the Dyvet RVR forums

 

[Sharkith]

The thing that irks me the most is the part about "know what europeans want" - because the result is not true to what we really want.

I made that original post in which he responded - and yes, it could've been put through in a much better way (something I tried to do as a reply to his post). It however stated what me, and many other people, actually want - and it gets shot down as being wrong? An opinion or feeling can't be wrong - the thread title was wrong, but as I replied in that thread - it wasn't my idea to put it there, and in retrospect that's probably what I regret the most as people get stuck on it and doesn't read "behind the lines" about what's really wrong.

It's great that they're trying hard to make our experience better - but I would hope that it's in their interest to receive feedback (atleast the constructive ones) from their upcoming customers? All we're doing here (really) is trying to help them provide the experience we want.

I'm not here to bash GOA - that'd be pointless and seriously unconstructive. I'm here to give feedback that their view on what we want and what we really want doesn't really coincide.

To be honest your opening post was fine and credit where its due both Mythic and GOA have discussed it. So mission accomplished. It is important to feedback clearly they will be following what people say and they are very serious about this game. All good signs.

So don't stop doing what your doing I would have thought this kind of thing is actually very valuable.

 

[Flimgoblin]

"second class citizens" was maybe a bit overstating the case but constructive feedback is good.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Well due to Contracts Signs i wouldn't expect anything different from Mark.
I could be over critic with Goa but they assured that all would have been different in War management and at 1st test they fail miserably.
This is uncontrovertable (sp?).
Also NA signup had a well thought error management and warning system which completely lacked and or was badly implemented in the Eu one?

There are problems with the form... Perfect? far from it, I'd hope to see better QA in future - but "failed miserably"? hardly...

More EU beta signups than US ones according to Mbj, that's hardly "failed miserably". If they'd had noone sign up because they couldn't use flash or couldn't get past the broken postcode (or got confused by the bad translation of "nom de famille" to "name" instead of "surname") then that'd be "failed miserably" but people managed to get around the niggles for the most part.

I understand you don't like GOA, that's nice, but this constant bitching is really annoying

 

[Whisperess]

"second class citizens" was maybe a bit overstating the case but constructive feedback is good.

Well, yes - it was. The title was actually suggested by an American though, simply wish I hadn't put it in there. Alas, that can't be changed now.

This: Europe: Second Class Citizenry? - Page 7 - Warhammer Forums summarizes what I wanted to get out of the entire ordeal. I could be wrong ofcourse, but it's the general feeling I get from talking to others in the guild, as well as in other guilds.

 

[Gahn]

There are problems with the form... Perfect? far from it, I'd hope to see better QA in future - but "failed miserably"? hardly...

More EU beta signups than US ones according to Mbj, that's hardly "failed miserably". If they'd had noone sign up because they couldn't use flash or couldn't get past the broken postcode (or got confused by the bad translation of "nom de famille" to "name" instead of "surname") then that'd be "failed miserably" but people managed to get around the niggles for the most part.

I understand you don't like GOA, that's nice, but this constant bitching is really annoying

So let me sum it up:
No Israel available in Eu region Countries avail
No special chars available for Nordish ppl
No management of an Eu compatible Postal Code Field
Bad translations
Bad management of error handling
Problems with cookies
Problems with Opera and Firefox

This is the sum of the new effort Goa puts in War? And this is the level of service Eu "citizens" are looking into?
But ofc it's me who hate Goa ^^

 

[Sharkith]

More EU beta signups than US ones according to Mbj, that's hardly "failed miserably".

Oh come on Flim there is a time zone difference to think about and GOA had a slight advantage in being able to get in first from what I can see.

A bit of healthy competition is a good thing for everyone though.

 

[Jarakin]

Pondering, the emails you receive after signing up to the beta, do you get a confirmation of beta application email or just a general website registration confirmation, then welcome email after confirmation?

 

[xxManiacxx]

only had 1 problem with signup. It couldnt recognize my HD soundcard so I had to put in my X-FI card instead