f13.net

I missed it with the patcher (stupid vista not creating icons).

All US servers are going out 9PM GMT for 5hours for launch preparations.

:(

Funcom owes me most of five bucks so far.

Ghey  :uhrr:

Hopefully they'll schedule downtime on the NJ servers appropriately for US customers post-launch.

Oh sweet. This whole time I thought today was launch. I have to completely wipe and partition my puter just to play this game... So I thought I was missing out.  :grin:

They just gave us Yurops a 3 hours timeout too. Honestly, I needed it. But that doesn't mean I am OK with it.

I just got a day off with pay approved from work. Getting some pizza and drinks ready for 8 PM here. (12AM Eastern).

I'm anticipating 3 hours of server crashes and queues, emergency downtime with no ETA, followed by my ending up facedown snoring in a pizza box, my face slathered with the sauce of pure fail.

I know Funcom has had a good launch so far but never underestimate my ability to fuck up a good thing just by showing up.

Playing on Zug with us?

No, I'm playing with the filthy arpeers of my guild on Wiccana. Might make an alt on Zug though to finally meet y'all.

Oh here goes Ebonlore again!

1     Damelon     Inner Council     80     Priest of Mitra     0.00     0.00     0.00     0     
2    Kioski    Inner Council    80    Ranger    0.00    0.00    0.00    0    
3    Axem    Guild Leader    80    Guardian    0.00    0.00    0.00    0    
4    Vipin    Inner Council    80    Demonologist    0.00    0.00    0.00    0    
5    Mance    Inner Council    80    Ranger    0.00    0.00    0.00    0    
6    Mistical    Inner Council    80    Demonologist    0.00    0.00    0.00    0    

The 80 is the level.  There are rumblings and rumours of an exploit to 80.  Funcom is deleting the threads pretty quickly and there were some pics (though today that's not proof) but I didn't get one before they deleted it.  I'm sure they have a money exploit by now, too.  It's what they do best.

Ebondorks (http://www.ebonlore.org/dkp/listmembers.php?o=6.0&filter=none)

Ebonlore is on my server.  I sighed a little bit when I saw them.  Oh well, I steered my guild from Deathwisper to Tyranny and it was too late to move.

I hope they all get banned, fuckers.

Downtime extended 2 hours per the patch message, now its Midnight EST before they come back.

Well then.

Sigh.

I'll probably be asleep!

I'm gonna blow off work tomorrow. The prerogative of a sales manager who is well over his budget YTD.  :grin:

Opening days for quality MMO's are few and far between and should be enjoyed!

Those guys aren't exploiting. They love all the attention they get, though.

They just level fast, knowing where to go and being brainless enough to actually buy the game.

Hey!  I bought the game, too.  You just called me brainless!   :vv:

Heh, I know all of those people, I played vangaurd with them, hell, Mance was in my static XP group, we played together 16+ hours a day from launch on.

They're all filthy exploiters, theres no way thats legit.

Edit: Didn't you quit sometime in the beta and have just been trolling AoC Nija?  I could've sworn I read a post where you said you had no intention of playing any MMO recently.

I deleted the client last week.

Correct, I'm not paying for another diku. I like watching the "new shiny" turn into "wait, this is the same terrible shit I've been playing for 8 years" effect of new game launches.


Carry on.

Darn.  I thought you had come back to this thread to tell me I had a brain.  (http://www.allthingszombie.com/forums/images/smilies/zombie_bullet.gif)

Also - is this the first time an MMO has had maxed out characters before it's been launched?  Just askin'....

You'll know what I'm talking about soon enough. Have fun in FotD.

It's rare that games last me more than a couple of months or so.  It's likely that I'll completely miss what you're talking about because by the time I should find out, I'll have moved on. 

Did that make sense?  Or did I just confirm the brain thing.   :ye_gods:

I might see you then.  I'm going to join my roomie and I think his DAoC guild is going to Wiccana.

I might make an alt or two and join you guys.  I don't like splitting my characters across servers, but it would be fun.  It might be nice to have a character I'm tempted to twink, too.  I'll post in the appropriate thread once I have a character there.

Heh, I'm pretty sure that I'll probably start sounding like Nija sooner or later. I'm a fan of the books though (even if there's been a lot of liberty taken with them). I might stick around longer than the usual mmo just because of that.

Stray, Nija just sounds butthurt and as far as I know, he hasn't played since the last few rounds of patches. In addition, he's a griefy pvping min/maxer. Much love Nija, but let's put that shit on the table if you're gonna bitch and moan about imba and shit.

Sure, in a month we'll be bitching that it's more of the same.

But it means we're having fun for a month.

I was just checking the official forums for downtime news and noticed this:

Welcome, Engels.
You last visited: January 1st, 1970

retro

You can patch.

Haha they just extended it another hour.

It is comedy!

It's becoming Funcomtastic!

So, for the EA stuff, how many hours was it actually up for?

 :awesome_for_real: for the timely forum crash.

Do they REALLY think they're fooling anyone?

I really like that eloquent wording...

WHAT THE FUCK!#@!??!?!

I PAID FOR THIS GAEM!@!#$

"We're fucked, the authentication server can't handle the load!"
"Um, ok. Keep delaying every hour until all the US East Coast fuckers are asleep. We'll figure something out in the morning."

Curious how the "minor issues" crop up minutes before the next hour delay.

So we went from 9 pm EST to 11 pm EST. Blech. No Conan for me.

Every time I wanted to play, up until the scheduled time today, I was able to.

Just got in.

Servers are up and I'm getting an authentication error. I sense clusterfuckery afoot.

Good thing I'm already in. Btw, only 40 people got onto the server doing a search from 1-80.

Looks like it's still EA only, and not all of them can get in  :awesome_for_real:

Funcom has some communication issues.  :awesome_for_real:

It's good to see they are still flying by the seats of their pants after all these years.

I was starting to doubt we'd see another failed/flawed launch, but Funcom rose to the challenge!

So did Funcom ever officially give a launch time? Morons on the main board are saying 12 pm EST TOMORROW.

schild says to keep bitching, he can't respond to the thread because he is too busy playing.

why do i do what he tells me to? :(

Since early access was set to start at 12pm EST, it makes sense that the official launch would be the same time, I didn't read anywhere that this downtime was the official launch, just that they were prepping for it.

Makes sense. If only Funcom would have put something somewhere on the official site it would be nice.

I have no clue where I'm supposed to go next for quests in the 30 range. So, yea....

Black Castle is giving me hella experience though. I thought level 31s would be harder at 28-29. Negatory.

Got to 29.5, server just went down.

I would shed tears for you but I'm too busy rolling my face around my pizza.

I'm drinking heavily and reading the official boards. It's entertainment!

yall should get on teamspeak.

Now people are crashing and getting BSOD's. IT'S PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!!!

(http://www.keebler.net/blog/wp-content/images/2005/11/peanutbutterjelly-familyguy.jpg)

aaaaaaaaaaand working again.

Brace yourself Schild, they're coming in dry.

Official Launch in 10 minutes per the forums. Actual Funcom announcement, not the morons.

Now people are reporting accounts randomly showing as cancelled. This oughta get good.

And now servers are being brought down for 3 hours. WOOHOO!!

Going to bed.

They post the servers will open in 1.5 hours for general access on the forum, then make an announcement on the servers they're going down for 3 hours.

Clownshoes!

All they need to do is leave my char stuck in a wall for 3 days and it'll be just like AO.
http://www.bash.org/?7036 (http://www.bash.org/?7036)

:popcorn:

This sure is crazy good entertainment! :grin:

The patcher is saying that the ACTUAL start time is 3 hours after what was announced in game. So 10am GMT (6am EST).

Patcher is up

...and the servers are up

Yeah my account was just randomly cancelled and I was banned from the forums :(

I never even posted there... et tu Funcom?

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=12097 (http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=12097)

You need to be logged in to view that :awesome_for_real:

I can't login in to the forums nor can I register to their forums, can someone cut and paste that?

doh....here it is:

Oh my god that is the fucking stupidest thing I have ever seen.

This is the first game I have ever played that did not give a grace period to those that preordered but did not have their Box key yet :(

Wow this is just... wow.

So basically why even let people preorder?

So you can make announcements to your shareholders about how well your game is expected to do.  Preorders aren't for the gamers they're for the accounting dept.

I am so pissed right now... nerd rage!

How can they not allow a grace period?  Just cancel accounts and freeze people out?  When were they going to announce this?

Didn't you see? They announced it on the forums :awesome_for_real:

Heh yeah I blame myself for not checking the official forums myself... oh wait.

"Information
Something failed
Our brightest nerds are on the case
Please try again in a while"

So, I can't reactivate my never working pre-order account?!? SWEET

I  :heart: Funcom.


 :popcorn:

So, actually, only the people who picked up one of those boxes the retailer shouldn't have been selling until the 20th, or who were lucky enough to have them shipped before they were supposed to go out are the only people who can play except for the preorder EA people who paid $5?  Nice.  Most people haven't got their boxes yet and most won't be shipped until today.  In other words, mistakes and people who give them money....  Maybe they should just offer Funcom a fiver.

This is correct as I see it.

If you had preordered, payed EA and not get into the game, I'd understand the rage, but from the sounds of it, you got a preorder key early, but didn't pay the $5 EA, so you got in by a mistake on Funcom's part, yes?

I'm confused. I went and bought it yesterday -- and the guy gave me a box. Was he not supposed to give me one that early?

Either way, it seems that I've activated my account. Haven't installed yet, but I guess I'm in.

I am not following Engels.

Myself, I only have the preorder key registered.  I setup a subscription and account with that key, and waited till today to try and play then I login and can't get in so check the forums and I see this:

(http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k59/tokiwong/aoc--forum-ban.gif)

So I start freaking out thinking that maybe my account has been compromised or maybe I did something wrong and I see this:

(http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k59/tokiwong/aoc-account-frozen.gif)

So now I am wondering what gives then I read what they posted on the forums that I can't even see and I become incensed.  I have no clue how an MMO company could possibly see that as a solution to any problem, and frankly throwing our words like Canceled and Banned at an honest paying customer when it is no fault of their own is just poor form.

Banning us from the forums is doubly bad, how am I supposed to get information on what is going on?

Edit: I didn't cancel the account, but yet it says that I did... wtf?

You have to have the key from the retail box, which if you preordered and waiting for the box to arrive at your home means you can't play and Funcom treats you like a pariah :(

Edit: nm

I have heard of this happening if you used a pre-order code and then cancelled your order, did you ever do that?

Well. that's nice to know that they've informed... people who can actually view the boards that the people who can't view the boards are supposed to not be able to view the boards. And such.

Um.

What?

I wonder how many tickets along the lines of 'wtf is my account baned for not even logging in you cock-bastards!?' are clogging up the customer support queue?

 So the best buy mess is apparently going to effect a lot of people. Stopped by this am with a co-worker and a sales reps there said  "the release date was pushed back to the 22nd". If you poke around the forums; the shipping is taking place today and they are back ordered meaning a lot of preorders may not make it till the 27th.  :ye_gods:

 I'll poke around my local Futureshop today as they should have some stock.

I didn't do that till today when I canceled my preorder and just bought the game at Best Buy.

Yeah wee.

I'm still trying to understand why retailers cannot ship a game early when the only way to friggin' play it is by accessing a server that won't be turned on until the game company is ready.

Given I got screwed over on not receiving a pre-order box, luckily bought the last one on the shelves at a brick and mortor, got that too late for early access, and now my "open" account is cancelled until my box arrives in five days, I'm getting a little miffed.  Give me a fuckin' grace period, or the $5 option to get a few days, or something.

The grace period is the simplest and most elegant solution to this whole debacle.

And apparently my order went backordered last night and is now said to be shipping in 1-2 days.  (http://iria.chem.uh.edu/smiley/motz.gif)

Usually, a game company allows a grace period for pre-orders to play when servers go live to take into account shipping delays.  Funcom, apparently, did not.

If you Pre-Ordered, and payed the $5 Early Access Fee, you should technically be allowed to play for the 10 days that came with the Early Access fee.  If you cannot, there's a problem.  Please note:  Some stores require a $5 deposit for pre-orders.  This is not the same as the $5 Early Access fee required by Funcom.

If you Pre-Ordered, and did not purchase the Early Access, your account should have been frozen (as mine was) last night when servers went live.  You will have to wait until your retail key arrives and upgrade your account with that key.  (Suspicion: this is not verified in any way, but I suspect there may be issues if your pre-order key and the retail key do not match sources.)

If you have your retail key, here's how to upgrade your account.

Go to https://register.ageofconan.com/account/ and log into your account.

You will see an option (5th one down) that says "Use a Key to add a Prepaid Card, Upgrade a Subscription or Create a Subscription"
Click that.
You will be given a text field to enter your cd-key.  Do so.
Click "Validate Key"
You will be given two options. 1) Create new subscriptions 2) Upgrade [your account name]
Choose to upgrade (many have just created a new subscription and now have their in game items on a banned account, and their playable account without items... don't do that)
Verify once again your payment options.
Your account will then be successfully upgraded.

This is the process I (and several others) used, and are now playing the game.  If you still have problems, you'll probably have to wade through Funcom Bureaucracy Tech Support. 

[Edit] after typing this up, I double checked the account registration page.  Right up top now they placed a text field to upgrade your account.  I do not know the steps involved with this new text field, but I would imagine it is similar.   

You should order one of these to cheer yourself up:

(http://www.stuffedark.com/images/pandared.jpg)

Those are adorable!  I would wear slippers that looked like that!   :heart:

And thanks for the info, Bzalthek!   :-)

I guess it is a "known issue". (http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=11992)

If they really didn't want pre-orders in the game without the Early Access fee being paid, they shouldn't have even let you setup an account yet. They should have made everyone wait until their retail key came in and then applied the preorder key to get your special items.

Yeah I agree with this.

Don't even call it a preorder key, call it the Bonus Key, or something inane like that.

Haha.  Funny.  Still subscribers only.

I was given one for my last birthday.  I carted her around a few days like I was five.  :awesome_for_real:

Oh, you can only see the thread if you're logged in?

I will quote the OP and official responses.