Media sites begin bashing ARR launchFollow

I guess it comes down to early access has become paying to have access to the last line of beta tests. You have access because you paid money in some sort or another and apparently the intention is that you paid it so you could be the last group of testers before everyone else is allowed access. Seems strange but this is SE so I guess it actually does sort of make sense.

And that was a poor purchasing decision on the part of those players. Even if EA had gone flawlessly, paying $30 for 3 extra days of access? Not a good call. Especially when those 3 days come at the starting end of the game's life cycle, when it's more likely to have issues.

Holy crap, I thought I was the only one around here who was saying this. Seriously people, $30 for 3 days, or $30 for two months worth of subscription fees? The decision should be obvious...

EDIT:



See, that's reasoning I can get behind in this case.


Edited, Aug 26th 2013 1:33pm by Arcari

This is a bit different than a hamburger. That's a quick consumable that is only really good the minute it comes off the grill. A game like this is more like a car. You are going to spend time with it. The value appears over time.

That said, if I weren't so excited for this game, then I would probably just ignore it for a week and try again then... Or I would watch the forums for signs the problems had been fixed before firing up my subscription.

This game is so polished, I'm sure it will be fine, even with these tech problems... But SE only has so much karma to burn. These issues need to be fixed quick.

Edited, Aug 26th 2013 10:41am by Thayos

There is always bias. Someone will come into a situation with real world experience making them bias by nature.

If you don't like the product, move on. No one makes you or I, sit up and push PLAY. The victim stance some of you take is silly and juvenile to be kind about it. I played FFXI from PS2 launch til 08. I recently reactivated and played until this beta/launch. I know the want to play. But I also understand the initial problems associated with a huge roll out like this. I just choose not to be a constant victim or a lack of a better term, a baby, about the situation. I choose to put up with the issues associated with this game right now.

In short, stop whining. I keep seeing people here talk about quitting. Well quit. Go away. You guys might have a point if the issues are still around a month from now. But during Beta and EA, you would think in this day and age, people would have more to do, than to sit behind a computer and cry like 2 year olds.

Maybe, but Guild Wars 2 sold better than ARR and it had a much smoother launch.

I am not going to argue or debate what you are saying, because it is correct.

The issue is that with any type of live-update capable game, you will have updates, and you will have fixes. As well, when a person has a problem that does not allow them to use something that they have invested in, they want their issue corrected in a timely and efficient manner.

The issue that you are discussing requires that level of understanding. Things go wrong. Not all possibilities are realized, and ultimately customers will suffer. This is not an if. It is an absolute. There are also customers that SE will lose. No matter how "Perfect" the release could have been, and no matter how well they managed their responses, it must happen. It is the nature of software development. You simply can not please everyone. And if you have more than 1 then you will have customers that will not be your #1 priority.

You have to (and I HATE this term in Software Development as it is mis-used regularly) Triage. This ultimately means, you have to choose which customers you have to alienate. This again is not an if. It is a must. Once you have identified what you can fix, what affects the most people, and what you can do the quickest, you begin to resolve your issues.

Sometime Developers begin working on fixes and actually fix things that were pushed into the life-support pile (or worse, the Left for dead pile), but usually, those issues stay that way until time and resources fitting their level of demand can be allocated.

With all of this said, yes the early access was off to a rocky start. But, could this have been foreseen before this? Obviously not, as the problem did not preset itself until the quest floodgates were opened. There are load tests that could be done, and different ways they could have handled the beta. But, ultimately, they wanted to use the beta to defuse the quest load between the three phases, and not allow people to advance too far before they were sure everything was good.

Is the Beta the time to fix issues like this? The simple answer is, "While, yes, it is". The accurate answer is, "Now is always the correct time to fix an issue like this". The issue was discovered in EA, and needs to be fixed in EA.

Will there be a new list of problems tomorrow? You bet there will be. And it will be a nice laundry list of things that either didn't work right for people, or did not meet people's expectations.

The trick to it all (from a sterile software development standpoint) is to try to please the most people you can, while fixing the most painful issues as fast as you can, while providing the most pleasurable experience for your customers.

1.0, while having all possible problems (except people had no issues getting into the game), failed at the most important parts. The first and the last point. There was little in the way of enjoyment, and there was a definite approach of "We know what you want, and you will like it".

ARR is not the same game. But, it is a game. And it involves a lot of resources working together seemlessly. That means things will break, and problems will be had. This doesn't mean you have to like it. It also doesn't mean you have to understand it. It simply is. And as a result, there will always be these kinds of back and forths in the forums discussing how it should be vs how it is.

Either way, as for your friends account. That one seems pretty open and shut, and if it is what it sounds like, and the data is available, and it is something within their power to fix, they will fix it. There would be no reason for them not to. My wife and I have over the years ran into quite a few account problems, and while some have been handled poorly, all have been resolved. If they hadn't we would no longer be customers. And I imagine, you are probably in the same boat.

These car analogies are always the worst...

If you want to switch up the analogy to a busy highway then make SE is the toll road that your stuck on because they only made it a one lane highway into NYC.

I just want to point out, all of these websites have pretty glowing articles about the game play. And kotaku's longer article is all hype and excitement.

http://kotaku.com/dont-worry-weve-got-final-fantasy-xiv-covered-well-1200681941

As well as, mentions of playing for days without any errors.