What's going right/wrong with launch...

[Amaron]

Well, I guess you can either take this as a learning experience to put in your CC info when you sign up for a game that has a subscription, or blame the company.

I can guess which most people will do.

Which?  Is there some world where both aren't the correct response?

[Crumbs]

I think the blame has to be split between us and BW.  For instance:

1. I got a key when I pre-ordered...which was not the game key.  It was a pre-order key.
2. I beta'd.
3. Kept the beta client installed because I made the cutoff day for that to work
4. Got my invite to play early access, but did not have a game key yet.  The first few times I tried to log in, i got the message "no active sub"
5. Went to my account, but couldn't activate sub because I didn't have a game key, just a pre-order key.  Then I checked the forums and found I was not the only one having this issue.  The GM response was "we are mailing out game keys tomorrow."  I thought to myself...why did I get an invite today then?
6.  Tried one last time to log in, and it worked.   Began playing.
7.  Got the "activate your game" email the next day.  Ignored because it seemed fairly activated.

I still entered the key before the deadline and all is well.  However I have to say that things weren't very clear.

[Paelos]

Well, I guess you can either take this as a learning experience to put in your CC info when you sign up for a game that has a subscription, or blame the company.

I can guess which most people will do.

Which?  Is there some world where both aren't the correct response?

I am poking at you because I think your hair is on fire over something that is/was/will be relatively simple to solve.

[Threash]

I don't even recall what it looked like when i put in my key but i put in my cc also, like you do for every other game.  I would remember if there was something out of the ordinary with the whole setup.

[Amaron]

I am poking at you because I think your hair is on fire over something that is/was/will be relatively simple to solve.

I've been back in for a while so I'm hardly in a big huff anymore.  I just see no reason to defend their method of handling this specifically.

[Montague]

Hate to break this to you guys, but when you got done with the key, there was this box right below that which said "Enter your CC info here!"

There wasn't, a week ago, when we entered our codes.

They didn't have the subscription option up until launch day.

I got my game code and input it and my CC info on the 16th, so it's been up since then at least.

[Lantyssa]

Well, I guess you can either take this as a learning experience to put in your CC info when you sign up for a game that has a subscription, or blame the company.

Which part of THERE WAS NO FUCKING OPTION TO ENTER CC INFO WHEN WE REDEEMED OUR BOX CODE do you not understand?

Are you guys really stuck in the website queue for hours? I waited under 15 minutes, input my code and CC#, and was good to go. I suppose I may have just been lucky, but given my karma, that just seems so unlikely.

Yes, I was in the queue at 6:00 when I thought I'd play a few minutes before going to work, then from 8:00 until I gave up and closed the window around 10:30.  They finally got their shit sorted enough to actually gate people properly so we can file through now.

[kildorn]

Part of the issue is confusing messaging. From their own post on the matter:

Note: With the end of the Grace Period any player who has not yet entered their Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ Product Key will be unable to access the game until this has been added. If you have not done so already, please add the code (found in either your game box or via email sent by you digital retailer) into the code redemption section of your account page to help ensure uninterrupted game play.

Now, if you read past the bolded cliff note at the top, they say "oh, and add your subscription information", but the lead in text for all their notifications has only said "remember to enter your live product key", not "and a credit card"

The reason their site is getting mauled right now is because there are a fuckload of people who entered a product key thinking they were golden.

For reference, this is the email from three days ago, all text involved in it:

We hope you've been enjoying your time as one of the first to start playing Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. Servers will go live soon. If you have your Product Registration Code, redeem it now to ensure uninterrupted access to your game. If you do not have your game yet, be sure to enter your Product Registration Code as soon as you receive it. The official game launches on December 20, 2011 at 12:01 AM EST.

At no point does it say "and add a subscription"

I'm taking responsibility for my part: I should have read the long form of their website posts, not just the bolded summary bit at the top. But for their part, their communication skills SUCK.

edit: now that I'm on the site, I see their other UI issue: it lists the items in order with HUGE GRAPHICS. So my entire display? Check boxes saying I'm good. Oh, you mean if I scroll down I'll see not red Xs, but just greyed out things saying I'm not good? A solid UI would either make this fit in a normal display, or display some form of "incomplete" tag at the TOP of the checkmarks.

[Fordel]

You're such an Alb Kild, such a bloody Alb. 


I didn't pre-order or anything, I just went to the store and bought my copy on the 20th and filled out all my info then using their giant NOW DO THIS buttons. Taris is all mine now bwhahaha!

[Paelos]

Well, I guess you can either take this as a learning experience to put in your CC info when you sign up for a game that has a subscription, or blame the company.

Which part of THERE WAS NO FUCKING OPTION TO ENTER CC INFO WHEN WE REDEEMED OUR BOX CODE do you not understand?

And? From what I understand, it's been on there for 6 days.

Could communication on their end have been better? Sure. Could the players have used some common sense when they signed up for a game they knew required a credit card eventually? Sure. I mean as a company even if I'm giving you a free month, I'm still going to tie a CC to your account on day 1 so I can try to draw in the lookie-loos who are playing for a month to see how it goes.

[Rendakor]

When I put my game code in, I saw the enter subscription box but as it a) didn't take me to that page automatically and b) didn't seem required as it was down there next to the (optional) authenticator info, I was pleasantly surprised. For once, a company that doesn't ask me to put in my credit card then cancel immediately so I can try my free month before committing to a recurring subscription plan! Oh wait. 

[kildorn]

Well, I guess you can either take this as a learning experience to put in your CC info when you sign up for a game that has a subscription, or blame the company.

Which part of THERE WAS NO FUCKING OPTION TO ENTER CC INFO WHEN WE REDEEMED OUR BOX CODE do you not understand?

And? From what I understand, it's been on there for 6 days.

Could communication on their end have been better? Sure. Could the players have used some common sense when they signed up for a game they knew required a credit card eventually? Sure. I mean as a company even if I'm giving you a free month, I'm still going to tie a CC to your account on day 1 so I can try to draw in the lookie-loos who are playing for a month to see how it goes.

I had a new card in the mail, and didn't feel like signing up with something that was going to be invalidated in 3 days unless I had to :P

I'm pretty serious when I say I went to my account, hit Redeem Code, and was simply told I was all done. This new fancy thing with the five giant graphics? Wasn't there when I recieved my product code and entered it.

[Lantyssa]

I'd already redeemed my code, which gives 30 free days as part of the product.  Why would I go back to notice they now had a CC option?

It's not like I was trying to eek out a few extra by entering my code late... which had I done I'd have known I needed a CC and gotten two extra days.

[Draegan]

The current trend in this thread has taught me most people on F13 have never played an MMO before. 

 

Hey guys, none of this is new at all.  Also, now you have 1.5 million people trying to access a billing system.

[luckton]

The current trend in this thread has taught me most people on F13 have never played an MMO before. 

 

Hey guys, none of this is new at all.  Also, now you have 1.5 million people trying to access a billing system.

See, this guy...this guy gets it.

[Lakov_Sanite]

If 1.5 million players are having problems, it's not the players fault.

[Paelos]

The current trend in this thread has taught me most people on F13 have never played an MMO before. 

 

Hey guys, none of this is new at all.  Also, now you have 1.5 million people trying to access a billing system.

I'm floored, frankly. The first thing I did when I got my box was to put in the CC info. Same thing I did with WoW, DAOC, and WAR.

[Reg]

Yes, yes but who could have suspected that their billing system would collapse under stress. Such a thing is unprecedented!

[ajax34i]

Actually, it is.  Like with bank runs during a panic - it's not cost-effective to provide enough bandwidth for the peak traffic, even if you could predict it.

They should definitely have some sort of in-game contest, or website promotion / advertisement, where a number of people get a few free days added to their 30, to space out when people have to renew, because otherwise come January 22 it'll be a billing outage again.  Then February 22, March 22, and so on.

[luckton]

Yes, yes but who could have suspected that their billing system would collapse under stress. Such a thing is unprecedented!

Exactly.  The fact that they have a working queue system on their website for handling this stress is a nice feat, IMO.  Certainly better than "Shit's broke, come back later."

[Amaron]

The fact that they have a working queue system on their website for handling this stress is a nice feat, IMO. 

They didn't this morning.   The actual billing was on ea.com which had no queue system to handle shit and it predictably blew up with timeouts and people thinking hitting submit over and over etc etc.   What they ended up doing was severely throttling the amount of people through swtor.com in the end.

Nobody is blaming them for having their shit blow up.   All I'm saying is they should of auto forwarded me to the subscription page after I entered my code.   Anything else leads to assumptions that CC info isn't required for once.

[Lantyssa]

I don't care about it other than wondering how they couldn't have predicted this happening.  I lost half an hour of play this morning and got a little irked I wasn't able to get in at a god awful hour to rectify it.

What I'm harping on is that Paelos can't seem to understand THERE WAS NO BOX for credit cards.  It did not exist.  'Twas never there at that point in time.

The second he says, "Oh, that option wasn't available when you signed up.  'Kay, I get it." I'll be fine.

[Sobelius]

The fact that they have a working queue system on their website for handling this stress is a nice feat, IMO. 

They didn't this morning.   The actual billing was on ea.com which had no queue system to handle shit and it predictably blew up with timeouts and people thinking hitting submit over and over etc etc.   What they ended up doing was severely throttling the amount of people through swtor.com in the end.

Nobody is blaming them for having their shit blow up.   All I'm saying is they should of auto forwarded me to the subscription page after I entered my code.   Anything else leads to assumptions that CC info isn't required for once.

1. I think they added the subscription step to the web site this week. I got my box on Dec 20 and entered my game code that day. The steps were pretty clear. I looked once at the product code screen in the early access week and don't recall all the steps being shown the way they are now.

2. And even with the current stuff, I felt some web designer or artist fell in love with their own cleverness of echoing the Nar Shadaa environment and made a set of neon green and orange "process flow" check marks that could have been done with clearer and less "stylish" coloring and iconography.

[Sobelius]

And now I can't log in to the SWTOR web site any more without my authentication key. I was annoyed at first, but realized this is the right thing to do.

[fuser]

A friend said he had nothing but issues with chrome but it worked and displayed all the boxes fine with IE, totally bizarre.

[Draegan]

If 1.5 million players are having problems, it's not the players fault.

It's just a problem, it's not anyone's in particular.  Just like traffic.  It always happens, you just have to be patient and not get road rage.

[Paelos]

I don't care about it other than wondering how they couldn't have predicted this happening.  I lost half an hour of play this morning and got a little irked I wasn't able to get in at a god awful hour to rectify it.

What I'm harping on is that Paelos can't seem to understand THERE WAS NO BOX for credit cards.  It did not exist.  'Twas never there at that point in time.

The second he says, "Oh, that option wasn't available when you signed up.  'Kay, I get it." I'll be fine.

I understand your point completely. You're a smart lady though. You believed EA was just going to let people stroll around the game without CC info? At any point after the "launch"? I mean at some point, as it did with most people, you said to yourself, "meh I'll just do it later." Then, later came when they locked you out, and everyone crashed it.

My point is that I expected the MMO vets to actually have a bit more forethought given their vast experience with these types of games/launches.

[Thrawn]

I don't know if I even get what the issue is, i think I need to re-read the posts.

I was digital preorder and been playing since Friday.  They mentioned the "grace period" once or twice and also the fact that they were extending it to the 22nd.  I think at least one day the launcher had a message about making sure to take care of it.  So on the 20th I input my retail key, added a subscription plan, had no problem logging in this morning.

*shrug*

[Merusk]

Come to think of it there was even a little "! you have no subscription" on the launcher Tuesday that prompted me to enter the code.

[Paelos]

I don't know if I even get what the issue is, i think I need to re-read the posts.

I was digital preorder and been playing since Friday.  They mentioned the "grace period" once or twice and also the fact that they were extending it to the 22nd.  I think at least one day the launcher had a message about making sure to take care of it.  So on the 20th I input my retail key, added a subscription plan, had no problem logging in this morning.

*shrug*

I'll TLDR it for you. The answer is that you did the right thing, while other people went WTF EA WANTED A CREDIT CARD?!?!? today and crashed billing when they got locked out.

[Lightstalker]

Product codes went out Friday the 16th, prior to that you couldn't enter the product code which is a pre-requisite for entering CC info.

If you were pre-ordered and set up prior to the 16th you were as configured as you could be, with game time to spare, and no CC info in the system.  I don't always run around looking for places I might have to input my CC that didn't exit the last time I looked, so I ended up tieing up those loose ends this morning. 

Fortunately I didn't miss any of the game experience, the website had the same queue I'd have been sitting in on my server.   

[Amaron]

I'll TLDR it for you. The answer is that you did the right thing, while other people went WTF EA WANTED A CREDIT CARD?!?!? today and crashed billing when they got locked out.

No that is not it at all.   Nobody cares that they wanted our credit card info.   You seem to be getting hung up on that for some reason.  The only thing that's a flaw here is that they did not in fact ever even once ask for credit card info.   The box you are referring to was some ignorable graphic you have to scroll down to see on a page that says "CONGRATS YOU'RE GOOD NOW".

[Paelos]

I've tried to go the long route of not calling you dumb.

But that was dumb. You complained that the box wasn't shineh enough.

[Murgos]

No that is not it at all.   Nobody cares that they wanted our credit card info.   You seem to be getting hung up on that for some reason.  The only thing that's a flaw here is that they did not in fact ever even once ask for credit card info.   The box you are referring to was some ignorable graphic you have to scroll down to see on a page that says "CONGRATS YOU'RE GOOD NOW".

There was, in big bold letters on the launcher, a message saying that you need to enter subscription information.  There was also a pop-up box that you had to click through on entering the game that said you have to enter your subscription info which, after I saw, I went and entered my info, that was 2 days ago.

If you repeatedly ignore the messages telling you to enter your info it's not their fault.

[Paelos]

I should also point out that on the box at the bottom, the text says "Valid Credit Card, Internet Connection, and Paid subscription required to play. 30-day subscription included with purchase."