Full Servers; Are you fed up with it?

[lamestdude]

It's been more than 5 hours since I could login for last time. And, it seems like I can only play this game at nights, as for I keep getting error 1017 in the mornings and afternoons...

[Dichotomi]

I would agree that the apology was a nice gesture, however; it was just that a gesture. Yes, there are a lot of people who are rightly angry and upset that they do not have access to a product they paid for. For it to be said that this was unforeseeable, is incorrect. This was foreseeable and correctable. They knew they had a numbers issue during phase 4 of the beta. They could have delayed the launch (as many other companies have done with MMOs in the past) by a few days upgraded capacity and prevented a lot of the disquiet that is happening right now.
The product itself is AMAZING, however; a great product is nothing if the people that paid for the product can't access it. I keep seeing a lot of people defending this as "typical" for a launch/early access; it is not typical. Almost all launches have issues, but those issues are 99.9% game play issues. This is not a game play issue. The game itself is smooth and from all that I have seen thus far (when I can actually access it) bug free. This is an infrastructure issue.
Bottom Line: If you are going to release an MMO in today's atmosphere (one which players have been starved for good, playable games) you need to have the infrastructure to support it. These problems were preventable.
(Had they delayed the launch, yes, people would have been upset; they would have not been as upset as they are now though. People are upset that they can not access a product they have paid for.)

[Feyr]

How many people do you suppose it has to go through just to confirm that they can give players some extra free time?

For a company as large as SE, sure the decision will likely have to go through several channels. That sort of decision, especially considering the magnitude of its business impact, should not take a week to solidify.

Also, a follow-up on your original post:

So, we're getting new servers, and each server requires several computers to hold all of us in it, and they have been making these preparations for awhile now, they don't happen over night, but some of us apparently think they should be manifested instantly to solve all of our problems, that's fine if you think that way but I would suggest that being high right now isn't helping anyone. Next?

How long do you think it takes to obtain, build, and test a server? I can purchase as many of whatever parts I would like to for building a computer, server, or better mousetrap on the internet, and have it delivered anywhere in 24-48 hours. From there it takes a few hours to put together (being generous), then another few hours to install all of the related software, updates, etc. "We need time to obtain and setup servers" is hardly a valid excuse for more than 3-4 days; as fully functional hardware/software identical to the original server configuration should take no more than 2 days to test for stability (that's probably being generous as well).

[Xiraiya]

1. Not everyone checks each forum regularly, nor should we have to for system-wide issues & updated like this: The client has a facility to provide this information. Don't blame players for not reading or searching when SE isn't putting the information where players would expect it.

2. Even if we get this extension (and as others have pointed out, it's still a "maybe") it's 7 days they're talking about, which is less than the time we will have had these issues by Wednesday (if it's actually resolved then)

3. Giving us back the time lost isn't compensation for these issues, it's just giving us what we already paid for. If they want to compensate us, give us twice the time we lost, or some type of special in game item.

If you are posting around on the forum you have no excuse for not reading and/or checking for updates, at some point common sense has to kick in, though I do agree it should be on the client news if it isn't already.
Frankly at this point considering how most people have been acting, you don't deserve the free time, yeah you paid, we all did, that's no excuse for not acting like a decent human being.

Can you honestly say with the time you lost playing from failing to log in, that the hours add up to 7 days?, not including the time you couldn't play due to sleep/school/work/errands etc. etc. No, you can not.
Then 7 days extra time would be more than what you lost in hours, demanding twice that is just a joke, really, as nice as it would be.

[Baelrusk]

Actually I think pretty much all of the notices have shown in the launcher.

[Feyr]

Can you honestly say with the time you lost playing from failing to log in, that the hours add up to 7 days?, not including the time you couldn't play due to sleep/school/work/errands etc. etc. No, you can not.
Then 7 days extra time would be more than what you lost in hours, demanding twice that is just a joke, really, as nice as it would be.

Oh, so they're giving us 7 days of total playing time which is deducted based on our log-in/log-out durations, then? Oh, no they're not. Your logic is flawed.

We will have to continue our lives as usual just like for the first 7 days we don't get to use. 7 days were originally provided to legacy members for their use. Regardless of how much of that time they -could- have used in-game, 7 days of access time was provided that, in many cases, could not be used due to issues that were of no fault to the client.

Adding a couple of extra days to this would be a standard customer service practice, similar to how you get a "free small fry" coupon when McDonald's messes up your order. It's a show of good faith to the customer that instills confidence in the vendor of the product in question.

I for one would be rather disappointed to find that a 17 year old shift manager at Mickey D's has a better concept of customer service than the whole of SE's PR and management teams. I'm not alone.

[pjcnet]

All I want to know is, when are they going to stop rewarding the jerks that stayed logged into the game and never leave, and stop punishing the people who actually log off when they are not playing. How can they not have a feature to take the afk people online in this day and age. It's unheard of. Especially with these congestion problems.

Well said, I was about to comment about myself about this. It would have helped the issue immensely if they'd only implement a simple 15 minute auto logout when characters are idle, obviously with a warning message popping up towards the end of this period so if the person is there they can continue playing without being suddenly logged out. It is something that is usually standard and would be very quick for them to do. It is just stupid of SE allowing people to do this.

PS: It's almost midnight in the UK and I still can't get in, half the time I have to reload the entire game as it can't even get the server list for the EU and now can't even get to queue again, got to queue earlier and it still threw me out telling me to wait for an opening after watching the queue go down for about 5 minutes, it really is ridiculous, getting thrown out of the queue to this message shows that it's bugged too, also everyone should at least be able to queue no matter how busy it is. SE should have sorted the queuing out at least and yet don't seem to even be working on it, it's been online for about a week now since early access, it's just not good enough. There should have been extra backup servers available to launch that are built ready and waiting in case of congestion as I said in my previous comment too. I can understand some problems on launch day, but a week later is incompetence. On a good note, SE have done a good job of the game if you can actually get to play as I've not come across any serious in game bugs as yet which is unusual for a new MMO, so credit to them for that, but it's no consolation if you can't play at all and I've spent a lot longer trying to play than actually playing since launch.

PPS: I'm even sometimes getting problems with the lobby server now, it seems to be getting even worse not better.

[promethean]

If you are posting around on the forum you have no excuse for not reading and/or checking for updates, at some point common sense has to kick in, though I do agree it should be on the client news if it isn't already.
Frankly at this point considering how most people have been acting, you don't deserve the free time, yeah you paid, we all did, that's no excuse for not acting like a decent human being.

Can you honestly say with the time you lost playing from failing to log in, that the hours add up to 7 days?, not including the time you couldn't play due to sleep/school/work/errands etc. etc. No, you can not.
Then 7 days extra time would be more than what you lost in hours, demanding twice that is just a joke, really, as nice as it would be.

1. There is a perfect excuse for not going through all of the forums looking for updates. First, the forums have been having their own server & connectivity issues. It has taken 2-3 retries for me to get to pages here for most of the day. Second, it is not the consumer's responsibility to seek information in different places from where SE has previously posted it. Why would I say to myself, "Hey, SE has been posting updates on all this server stuff in the client, but while I'm in the player forums, let me see if they also posted a an update somewhere completely different!" Again you apologize for SE & blame the players when SE should simply have posted this update in the client as well.

2. I assume you're reference to "decent human being" is about others who have been more ferocious in their attacks on SE. Nonetheless, that doesn't negate that both they and the rest of us deserve, at a minimum, to be given extra time to makeup for the time we couldn't play. Again you blame the players in a very inconsistent way over the course of this thread, saying basically that if we're angry, we should calm down because SE is going to extend our time. However, because we're angry, you don't think SE should extend our time. I'm not sure how you reconcile these two things mentally.

3. Your reasoning is off on your argument about 7 days being more than lost play time. Yes, I didn't lose 7 days of total play time because I wouldn't have played 168 hours straight. But neither will I play 168 hours straight in my 7 days of extra time. Your argument is assuming 7 days of normal play schedule lost with 7 days of solid play time-- 168 hours-- given as extra. We both know it won't work like that.

4. I didn't demand anything. I simply noted that compensating customers for a problem in a product and the ensuing frustration shouldn't end with replacing only the exact thing lost. If you go into a restaurant and receive horrible service and burned food, at any decent restaurant... heck even at McDonalds, if there's a major problem with my order, the manager doesn't just say, "Hey, here's the replacement for the fries we spilled all over you." instead, they give you your order at no cost, along with a couple of apple pies to help make up for it. A model of good customer service isn't just to replace a problem product, but to "make it up" to the customer. I'm not demanding SE do the same, just noting that their current promise of "maybe" extra time doesn't live up to that model. Heck, even a free MMO-- Neverwinter-- did this when they had much more minor issues resulting in an 8 hour loss of time.

Honestly, I get it-- You love FF XIV, and you love SE for bringing you such a great game. So do I! However, in your case not only has that love blinded you from admitting that SE has made preventable mistakes, it is causing you to view those of use talking about those mistakes as somehow responsible for our poor experience thus far. It strikes me as an extremely mild form of the mindset that people have in abusive relationships, wherein they say "No, it's my fault I'm abused. I shouldn't make that person angry, and I don't deserve not to get abused. Friends telling me I should get out of this situation just don't understand." But really, it's okay Xiraiya! You're in a safe place! SE can't hurt you here-- their login server has no power over you!

[Stimz]

to be fair, I haven't been able to play on my server since I got the game really. and if it is true , that I'll be able to play Wednesday, then I'm not even sure that the 7 free days will cover all of it.

[promethean]

Actually I think pretty much all of the notices have shown in the launcher.

Yes, yes they have. Pretty much all of them. But not this one: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/76132 Which is the flaw in blaming players for not searching the forums. When every update is posted in the launcher, but then a major update is posted only in a a forum, it doesn't make much sense to blame players for failing to reason that SE might have posted a major service notice update to a non-standard location.