Warhammer Online. An unfortunate (european) start. - by Gryzemuis
Gryzemuis on 7/9/2008 at 16:36
Someone gave me a Warhammer online early access key. Also called Open Beta. They handed out 100k of those keys in Europe. Opening is today.
It turns out nobody is able to create an account. The account servers are overloaded. Without an account you can't play. You can't even download the last patch. No signs this will be fixed soon. People complaining on forums everywhere. Jokes being made. Youtube movies. Ytmnd parodies.
When you open a new MMO, you get once chance to do it right. If you mess it up, you will lose soo much goodwill, you will never be able to make it up. See Vanguard. See Age of Conan. GOA is already pretty busy messing up the reputation of Warhammer Online.
Bunch of amateurs ....
Koki on 7/9/2008 at 18:23
Doesn't that happen with literally every fucking online game ever?
I still remember the drama about unlocking Half Life 2.
june gloom on 7/9/2008 at 19:20
Ah, yeah, back when Steam was still in a relative infancy. I missed out on that 'cuz I didn't buy the game until a month after it was released, but the game did have problems every other update for a while. It mostly worked itself out by the end of 2005, though.
Hemebond on 8/9/2008 at 05:27
You do understand that companies don't share, right? So each company has to basically start from scratch and figure things out for themselves. Good grief.
june gloom on 8/9/2008 at 05:38
This is where we discover- yet again- that the quote button is your friend.
Tonamel on 8/9/2008 at 08:58
Quote Posted by Hemebond
You do understand that companies don't share, right? So each company has to basically start from scratch and figure things out for themselves. Good grief.
Except it's GOA that's running the servers, and this isn't their first MMO. They're known as the guys that screwed up Dark Age of Camelot, Mythic's other MMO.
It's looking like GOA haven't learned from past mistakes. For that matter, neither has Mythic, for using GOA's servers again.
Matthew on 8/9/2008 at 09:57
Mythic and GOA couldn't even agree on the EU price drop at the same time, let alone how they would manage the servers.
I just cancelled my preorder, by the way. The game seems fun, but I'll never get the time to play it properly.
EvaUnit02 on 8/9/2008 at 13:24
If Mythic is an EA owned development house, why isn't their parent company handling the European infrastructure and logistics?
Gryzemuis on 9/9/2008 at 16:06
It is now 60 hours after the Open Beta started.
Supposedly the North-American and Australian parts of the Open Beta are running fine. AFAIK Mythic themselves do the account administration and support in NA and Australia.
The European part is a mess.
Everybody I know has not been able to play the game.
Either unable to register new accounts. Or unable to use an older account. Or they won't get confirmation emails for their new accounts. (The account page is closed atm, btw). Even if you have an account, with confirmation email, you need to register your beta-key. The page to do that is now available and it seems to work. But after visiting that page, you should get a confirmation email. Hardly anyone got one of those. I've seen a few posts of individuals who say they are in now. But everyone I know, plus the majority of posters on several websites say they still can't get their beta-key to work. Mythic now claims that 70k out of the 80k free beta keys have registered and are playing on the servers. I just can't believe that.
GOA (the guys doing the european account administration) have already publically said "it's a beta, it's free. why are you complaining ? fuck off". They got corrected by Mythic for that. But still Mythic sticks with GOA. Newest plan is for Mythic to give GOA their registration websoftware and help them set it up.
It's a mess.
Yes, I know it is called "Open Beta Testing". But nowadays, terminology has been changed by sales and marketing dudes. Closed beta means beta testing. Open beta means "demo to get more potential customers". The game is supposed to launch in a week. If they can't get their account (and support) to work 1 week before launch, how much can I trust them to give us a smooth gaming experience once I pay my euros ?
I have no rights to complain. I didn't pay a euro. But to me, this is a demonstration of the cluelessness of GOA, and maybe even Mythic. A demonstration that tells me: "don't pay your money to these suckers".
