WAR open beta download available!

toxick

Maximilian wrote: »

It's only the beta. Isn't this the point of running a it in the first place? Better they sort out the problems now than when they launch. It's no big deal.

Never dealt with GOA befor? this shall be the start, next will happen is when servers go live they will be to stressed and crash, no owrd from GOA for a few hours.
Your account comprimised, no big deal wait around a month or 2 till GOA replies to your e-mails.

This is the start of a very long road I still dont know why mythic gave it back to GOA

Tusky

I'm still getting errors at stage 3 when trying to register.

Maximilian

toxick wrote: »

Never dealt with GOA befor? this shall be the start, next will happen is when servers go live they will be to stressed and crash, no owrd from GOA for a few hours.
Your account comprimised, no big deal wait around a month or 2 till GOA replies to your e-mails.

This is the start of a very long road I still dont know why mythic gave it back to GOA

Well let's all hope they have learned their lesson and things are better this time around. Sounds like you haven't had a great experience with them thus far.

Dcully

Still trying to register also,cant get past stage 3
This sucks.

toxick

likewise.. i read a statment on WHA that GOA expect the registeration to be fixed around late monday morning.. so thats coming close, lets see if they can complete a deadline :P

To be honest, they should of expanded the Oben beta to allow more testing and such, and also give us registeration a hell of a lot early to avoid this problem.. to system can be 100% perfect statight away.. its common sense

Tusky

Whats late morning ? Around 11 probably.

Cuddlesworth

B-K-DzR wrote: »

Before i begin, i agree that this is a Beta and the level of moaning is way over the top (not necessarily on here but in general). That said however...

Agreed.

B-K-DzR wrote: »

At no point in the release of this game will demand of the authentication servers ever be as high as it was today. You had 100,000 ish Beta players(probably your hardcore players) hitting the servers within the space of a couple hours*. Why did they all hit it in such a small space of time? It's a sunday and everyone (well almost) is home and waiting for it, that's why.

If I was GOA I would much prefer to know at what point my auth server will keel over and die. That way at launch I can be happy in the knowledge that estimated usage will be at 60-70% of max.

B-K-DzR wrote: »

The actual launch will be on a Thursday so players will be joining throughout the day lessening the load on the server until it peaks about 6 cet when mainland europe gets home from work followed an hour later by the UK and Ireland. On top of this they have quite smartly allowed "headstarts" for pre-orderer's which will lessen the load even more on release day.

See above, its a stress test/error test. Sometimes breaking something is a good thing.

B-K-DzR wrote: »

I have no idea why GOA expected their servers to hold up with minor problems. 100,000 eager players hitting your authentication servers (in most cases "having" to create new accounts) in the space of a couple of hours will bring almost all sites to their knees (they had over 2 million non-unique hits in the first couple of hours). Have they not learned from their DAoC launch or the resonably well documented launches of other MMORPG games?

See above, maybe they wanted to make sure that this doesn't happen at launch.

B-K-DzR wrote: »

The thing that really gets me however is that Mythic and EA in the US managed to have a relatively trouble free Beta launch (The people who actually deveoped and own the game). How you may ask? Clearer communication played a major factor but mainly it was the ability to enter the beta codes before launch. They seemed to realise that these beta testers could very well be some of their most important players and that a good beta launch was needed to show that they were a professional outfit able to handle this game properly. To create a positive feeling around the game and their customers. They seem to have succeeded for the most part as well. Europe on the other hand seems to have the exact opposite reaction. With faith in GOA incredibly low and for the majority, unhappy customers which will no doubt create negative publicity.

So what you want is the same level of service for Beta testers as for the full game? You do understand why they are Beta testing right? Ignoring the US, they more then likely have very good staff and a good infrastructure. Look at it this way, if this happens on launch day I would cancel the account and never look back as they are hopeless at their job. But its not launch day and they are trying to get rid of the major bugs.

B-K-DzR wrote: »

Of course all this is irrelevant if the US has these problems on launch and GOA doesn't in which case GOA will be vindicated but i find that highly unlikely.

I would pity the people who have the problems, beyond that I would not care.

B-K-DzR wrote: »

O and marketing the fact that all pre-orders will get beta access makes it part of the package your paying for and therefore part of the service. The people who did pre-order therefore deserve decent communication at least and at the minimum the ability to get into the game after 12hrs.

Yeah, I pre-ordered AOC and Supposed to get early access. Turns out it was limited numbers. Funny thing the way they worded it, you would not have noticed it straight away. I would bet that in the T&C's that you agreed to when creating the Account it says that Beta testing has nothing to do with the game. Either way, you are ignoring the point.

It a Beta
Its free
They don't owe you ****.
Until launch day you have little right to complain

B-K-DzR wrote: »

*In comparision WoW Europe launch had 250,000 sales on launch day. Now assuming that all 250,000 activated their accounts on the same day, thats 250,000 spread over the course of a day, not 100,000 over a couple of hours. Does anyone think Warhammer will see those numbers on launch day?

If its anything like AOC I would say more then 250,000 will sign up. Don't forget WOW wasn't big when it came out. But it has damm well laid the ground work for other MMO's and they are the ones getting hammered.

Cuddlesworth

Playboy wrote: »

lol clueless. Listen cuddle .. I have been a customer of GOA's for a long time so I know what to expect from them. I held out hope that things would be different this time around but they are exactly the same. If you believe the bull about stress testing authentication servers then good for you. Its funny that our american counterparts didnt feel the need to do similar tests. Also when the european playerbase raised their fears about this launch with GOA .. they were categorically told that these servers were tested already and would hold up no problem to todays load.

Aside from this we have a ridiculous contempt for the waiting players by providing sparse and inadequate feedback to let them know what is going on. What kind of company lets thousands of people waste a day hitting f5 so they can 'stress test' .. lol give me a fckin break.

I heard they were pants as well. I think the overriding view of DAOC was great game, **** support. But I maintain that until launch day I don't see why you are complaining. Its a Beta.

Personally after AOC I'm going to wait about 2 weeks after release. I plan to see if you guys are still going to be treated like Beta Testers and if you are I'm not getting it.

humanji

toxick wrote:

likewise.. i read a statment on WHA that GOA expect the registeration to be fixed around late monday morning.. so thats coming close, lets see if they can complete a deadline

They didn't say which Monday...

And it seems a pretty stupid thing to use the Beta launch to stress test the activation system. The Beta test is to test the game and to see how it can handle the thousands of people running around in it. The activation system should of been tested before the beta launch so that they have the time to reqork the activation system and still have the full time to test the game. What happens if they don't get the activation system back online for the next few days? It could even be possible that the entire beta is missed because they hadn't sorted out the activation system and then we have AoC style cock-ups when the game launches.

GOA f*cked up, plain and simple, in my opinion. All they had to do was follow what their counterparts in the US were doing and they could of had a near enough to smooth beta launch AND have the activation system tested.

toxick

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Agreed.



If I was GOA I would much prefer to know at what point my auth server will keel over and die. That way at launch I can be happy in the knowledge that estimated usage will be at 60-70% of max..

They should have already of tested this, yes your gonna use the whole, its a beta test ect ect, but these are simple things that should be fixed, they should have been aware of the mass amount of people hitting tha uth server straight away.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

See above, its a stress test/error test. Sometimes breaking something is a good thing.

Please find me a link saying they wanted to test this? from what i have read is even the CEO of GOA said it was a mistake on there part. noting about they wanted to "test" it

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

See above, maybe they wanted to make sure that this doesn't happen at launch.

See above

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

So what you want is the same level of service for Beta testers as for the full game? You do understand why they are Beta testing right? Ignoring the US, they more then likely have very good staff and a good infrastructure. Look at it this way, if this happens on launch day I would cancel the account and never look back as they are hopeless at their job. But its not launch day and they are trying to get rid of the major bugs.

Yes i agree that it is a beta, but they should have been aware of this type of problem befor it was here. I dont mind the servers going down, and registry closed ect.. the thing im annoyed at is there communcitation telling the plaer base in what is happening, from what i am aware they have only gave us 1/2 updates the whole weekend on what's happening. then taking down all the servers and only leaving up 1 french server.

This is a golden thing GOA always do, leave the player base in the dark. If they give us updates every hour/2 then it would be ok.. but we are compeltly in the dark in what is happening

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Yeah, I pre-ordered AOC and Supposed to get early access. Turns out it was limited numbers. Funny thing the way they worded it, you would not have noticed it straight away. I would bet that in the T&C's that you agreed to when creating the Account it says that Beta testing has nothing to do with the game. Either way, you are ignoring the point.

It a Beta
Its free
They don't owe you ****.
Until launch day you have little right to complain

Some people bought the 14.99 pack that gave them access to the beta. Yes you cant complain until launch day, but they do infact owe us ****, we are there costumers we diserve the right to know what is happening, and know what GOA are doing to try and satisfy our needs as gamers to their service, and from what i can tell they havent done it 5 years ago, their not doing it today, and they will not be doing it any time in the near future.

toxick

humanji wrote: »

They didn't say which Monday...

And it seems a pretty stupid thing to use the Beta launch to stress test the activation system. The Beta test is to test the game and to see how it can handle the thousands of people running around in it. The activation system should of been tested before the beta launch so that they have the time to reqork the activation system and still have the full time to test the game. What happens if they don't get the activation system back online for the next few days? It could even be possible that the entire beta is missed because they hadn't sorted out the activation system and then we have AoC style cock-ups when the game launches.

GOA f*cked up, plain and simple, in my opinion. All they had to do was follow what their counterparts in the US were doing and they could of had a near enough to smooth beta launch AND have the activation system tested.

compeltly agree, the auth system is'nt part of the game, it is GOA's own cock up that they made. What is the point of a beta when no one can get on to test anything.

It was just plain and stupid not opening up the auth system early in the week.

Maximilian

toxick wrote: »

They should have already of tested this, yes your gonna use the whole, its a beta test ect ect, but these are simple things that should be fixed, they should have been aware of the mass amount of people hitting tha uth server straight away.

[snip]

Listen to what you are saying. You think everything should run as smooth more or less as when it launches. The whole point of this is to test the game & the infrastructure. It's not supposed to have already been tested to the degree it is now. This "it should have been done already" argument is pointless and more, missing the point entirely.

Yes you paid money to take part, sure. So did I. You paid to to take part in this testing process and now you are complaining because the testing part is not what you wanted it to be.

A little less frustration and more patience is called for I think. It's not like you can take your beta characters with you when beta ends. Just be glad/hopeful that these issues are all sorted before the early-start/launch.

Tusky

toxick wrote: »

They should have already of tested this.

But...this is the beta TEST. This is what they are doing now, testing it. Im sure there have done plenty of tests on it, but not to the level it was tested yesterday, with thousands of people trying to sign up at the same time. How else do you test something like this ?

toxick

Maximilian wrote: »

Listen to what you are saying. You think everything should run as smooth more or less as when it launches. The whole point of this is to test the game & the infrastructure. It's not supposed to have already been tested to the degree it is now. This "it should have been done already" argument is pointless and more, missing the point entirely..

They should have opened up the registeration a long time ago, not yesterday at 12.30 am. Everyone knew there was going to be problems, and what is even more dissapointing its nerly 24 hours later and still the problem is not sorted. No one knows whats happening GOA arent communicating with the player base, that is what im annoyed at. I dont care tha we cant get in, cause i epxtected it being a past constumer of GOA, and knowing that with such a large player base, this thing would happening

What i am annoyed at is the lack of cummonication coming from GOA exsplaining to us what is happening. Not epxecting this to happen, and have some sort of backup plan to put into action and to relise that opening up the registration and servers at the same time is stupid. It just means that there will be less people on Beta and then people will be trinkling trough the registration at a slow pace, filling the servers at a slow base.

Yes it is a Beta, yes it is there to test. But Registration isnt part of the testing, Mhytic are doing it right, opening up the reigistration way befor opening up the servers, so now there player base gets to actual test the game, and what i can see from them is they found a good amount of bugs that they applied hotfixes to.

Maximilian wrote: »

Yes you paid money to take part, sure. So did I. You paid to to take part in this testing process and now you are complaining because the testing part is not what you wanted it to be.

No the testing is for the game, if i wanted to test if firefox f5 key is function i would of applied for the firefox beta testing. Like i said befor, its a simple the registration isnt part of the testing, they should of had it sorted a long time ago.

Maximilian wrote: »

A little less frustration and more patience is called for I think. It's not like you can take your beta characters with you when beta ends. Just be glad/hopeful that these issues are all sorted before the early-start/launch.

i would be more patienct if i knew what is happening, GOA has completly left us in the blank here, and i think that is not right, that is why im frustrated, that is why im annoyed.

And the thing is, these issues wont be sorted for the early-start/launch they will continue to expand and more problems will arise.

toxick

Tusky wrote: »

But...this is the beta TEST. This is what they are doing now, testing it. Im sure there have done plenty of tests on it, but not to the level it was tested yesterday, with thousands of people trying to sign up at the same time. How else do you test something like this ?

There should'nt be thousands of players tho, they should have opened registration prior to opening the servers. they should take a leaf out of Mhytic book.

Tusky

New Update -

Noon, CET
Sunday's soft launch ended up not being very soft. We experienced technical difficulties on primarily our account registration and key authentication platforms. A slim stream of players continued to wade their way through these problems, with the help of some rather unorthodox methods. This trend continued throughout the night.

As announced on our news, we took our registration and authentication platforms down for maintenance this morning. We hope to be able to bring them back online by early afternoon.

Game servers have been down for much of this morning, but after a successful and universal EU server reset, they seem to be stable. All in all, our servers performed well yesterday. This was, however, completely overshadowed by other problems. We are now back in full force and we hope to be able to resolve the most pressing issues during the day. Our number one priority is to allow our many Open Beta testers to try out the game, and by doing so provide us and Mythic with much valued data and feedback.

So late morning has turned into early afternoon

Dcully

It a Beta
Its free
They don't owe you ****.
Until launch day you have little right to complain

I paid for the pre order therefore paid for open beta therefore have every right to complain.

Rev Hellfire

Dcully wrote: »

I paid for the pre order therefore paid for open beta therefore have every right to complain.

You paid for the right to test the product

humanji

To be honest, he hasn't gotten a chance to test the product, though.

Tusky

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

You paid for the right to test the product

Yup..and preorders can always be canceled.

Dcully

You paid for the right to test the product

True but i dont see a product as of yet ,i only see a failing site im trying to register with.
Its GOA i have the beef with and not mythic but the bottom line remains i and others paid for beta access but cant even get past step one ie registering.
I dont see the registering as part of the game beta.
If i was experiencing issues ingame then yes i can say oh well its a beta but these registering issues are a different matter.
I cant comment on the open beta as i havent got anywhere near it yet.

If they had of sorted this registering earlier then id have no issue because affectively from there on its down to the game itself and servers the net result of which is "the open beta" and is acceptable to have teething problems.
This ongoing mess trying to register is just a joke,thats what i have issue with.

Rev Hellfire

But not been able to register is part of the beta experience
See you are getting value for money !

What I'm hearing is only making me happier that I canceled my pre-order, I'll hop down to the shops once the initial teething problems have died down.

super_furry

The biggest problem I have with all of this is that EVERYONE, bar GOA saw this coming a mile off. I've had my beta code for over a month just sitting gathering dust, and had to discover why this was the case from an unofficial fansite. The communication from GOA has been non-existent and despite Mythic's promise of 'equal if not better' treatment to that of US gamers, this hasn't occurred. Many people remember the huge time difference in US patches for Dark Age of Camelot and European patches and the shockingly poor service that GOA offered then, and I for one, see history repeating itself.

Da Bounca

You didn't pay to play a beta. You paid for a headstart and bonus in-game items. The beta was a nice addition to that deal.

If you your headstart doesn't work, by all means complain. Until then, be helpful, or be quiet.

GOA have a bad reputation. They know that, Mythic know that... so obviously there has been a vast improvement or they wouldnt be handling all the customer support for Europe.

Comparing the US beta launch and the EU one is pointless. The amount of coding, language and general texturing changes that have to be made is insane. They are translating the whole game ffs, localisation is extremely important.


How can people give out about a game that hasn't launched yet?
It's in beta and it's run into a few problems. THIS IS WHAT BETA IS FOR!

Dcully

Until then, be helpful, or be quiet

Very helpfull indeed!

humanji

Nobody is giving out about the game. They're giving out about GOA. The changes between the US and EU version have nothing to do with the current problems. It's GOA's account servers that have cocked up, not the game servers. The Beta is for game issues not account issues.

Dcully

Nobody is giving out about the game. They're giving out about GOA. The changes between the UE and EU version have nothing to do with the current problems. It's GOA's account servers that have cocked up, not the game servers. The Beta is for game issues not account issues.

Exactly!

Playboy

Da Bounca wrote: »

You didn't pay to play a beta. You paid for a headstart and bonus in-game items. The beta was a nice addition to that deal.

If you your headstart doesn't work, by all means complain. Until then, be helpful, or be quiet.

GOA have a bad reputation. They know that, Mythic know that... so obviously there has been a vast improvement or they wouldnt be handling all the customer support for Europe.

Comparing the US beta launch and the EU one is pointless. The amount of coding, language and general texturing changes that have to be made is insane. They are translating the whole game ffs, localisation is extremely important.


How can people give out about a game that hasn't launched yet?
It's in beta and it's run into a few problems. THIS IS WHAT BETA IS FOR!

I think as said before .. the beta test is for the game not the authentication and registeration process. GOA have admitted that they made a cock up regarding what happened yesterday so I think people have every right to complain when they wasted a day and for some also a night by hitting f5 with little or no feedback from the company.

For me this whole farce is reminding me of how inept GOA were at running DAoC. I dont understand how you would think that there has been a huge improvement between then and now .. Obviously things are still the same if not worse .. ffs the CEO of the company had to make a statement about the mess. Maybe you were not a DAoC player .. but believe me I hope you dont have to learn the hard way like I and many others on here have had to.

Spear

Mark Jacobs blog reports that the GOA CEO has had to apologise to EA for it's handling already.

Da Bounca

humanji wrote: »

The Beta is for game issues not account issues.

Beta is a test run of everything to come. Account creation included.
There are a tonne of changes to be made in order to link account creation to the game securely.


When hundreds of thousands of people all try to log in to the same site at the same time, guess what happens?? The site slows, and problems arise.
Everyone could have created accounts months in advance, but instead waited till the last second. Who's fault is that?


GOA are doing a great job, and until they actually owe anyone anything, I think some patience would be appreciated by them.