New Account Creation Concerns...

[Threads]

I am trying to get my brother to play. He is a computer engineer and programmer. He likes MMOs but can be very picky. I bought the game for him and had it delivered to his house. When he went to register the game yesterday he had a host of complaints. Can we please look into these as they are first impressions concerns.

His words, "For the record, I am not a fan so far. I haven't actually played the game, but they frustrated me just in trying to set up the account. I installed the game and then it told me I had to go online to register the game... fine that is pretty typical. So I click on the screen to enter my game code and start typing in my code. When I am done I look up and it only filled in the first box [r2d2][ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]. They didn't auto tab to the next box which is a GUI mistake. Then I entered the whole code tabbing myself [r2d2][c3po][...][...][...][...] and it said invalid code. I double checked all the values and they were correct. So I hit caps lock and re-entered the code and it accepted it. It should be case insensitive... another GUI mistake. Then I clicked next and it explained some stuff and had two buttons Home and Add Activation. Add Activation was the button I clicked to enter my activation code in the first place and I didn't want to add another one so I clicked the Home button and logged out. Then I went to the game and entered my user name and password and it said it was invalid. So I typed it again slowly and it was invalid. So I typed it with one finger, one key at a time and it said invalid. So I re-entered my user name and realized that Caps lock was still on from entering the activation code so my password didn't match. They gave no indication that caps lock was on which was causing my invalid password. Another GUI mistake. So I turned it off and typed in my password again and it said that because I had failed so many times I would have to wait some time to log in. How long? Another GUI mistake. At least give me an order of magnitude... 5 min, 30 min, 2 hours, what! So I went to bed. This morning I went down to try to log in again and it told me I didn't have an account. Well it turns out that when I thought the second Add Activation button was to add another activation, it was actually the Complete Activation button. They had two buttons with the same label that have different functions. That is a GUI mistake. So this morning I got to do it all over again.

Aside from the GUI mistakes, I am not a fan of how they charge you for each character you have. Database space is not expensive at all and it doesn't take that much space for a character sheet. Just a money making tactic. I didn't get around to making a character. Let's hope they did better in game than with the "first impression" they leave with their customer.

Perhaps there is something that be done to simplify and streamline the process.

Regards

[Ceons]

Yes, this has been asked before several times and I think it would really do SE's and FFXIV's image a lot of good to simplify the process of signing up for a new account and the payment method.

They shouldn't want it to be too hard to hand them money. They should make it as easy and convenient as possible.

[Zuellni]

With how picky your brother sounds, I'm afraid he's probably going to quit playing very quickly, assuming he can get passed the character creation. It may have been wiser to wait until the game has been overhauled and primed for PS3 release to introduce him to the game.

[Threads]

A few more concerns...

The crashing was annoying, but I can learn not to alt+tab. I am curious if windows pops up another app while playing in full screen, if the game will be pulled out of full screen and crash because of that too?

During each step of character creation they have a list of options on the right side panel. If you use the arrow keys it will switch between each option... sometimes. Sometimes it seems that it gets stuck and refuses to switch. The solution is for me to not use the arrow keys, but since the arrow keys do work, they should work all the time.

During character creation, they did a good job of showing you which step in the creation process you are on at the top of the screen and how many more steps there are to completion. However, I decided I didn't like the color of character's hair and I wanted to change it. Rather than being able to click on the character settings step, I had to hit back five times to get there. Because of the level of graphic detail in each screen it takes a couple of seconds to cycle through each screen. That means it took me 10-20 seconds to go back and click yellow instead of blue a 2 second change. While this isn't necessarily a GUI principle, not having it makes the interface harder to use. Users don't like to waste time. It would not have been that hard to implement this and it would have added a lot to the initial experience.

In the past few emails I have listed mutiple problems that I have found in a matter of two days between account creation and character creation. Remeber that I haven't even played the game yet. I am hoping that in the year they have had that the in game experience has been improved beyond what I have seen so far.

[Krin]

As another computer programmer, I agree. The sign-up process, the process and terminology for adding/removing characters (and supposedly, at some point, additional retainers), and the entire account management pages feel unfinished and unpolished to the point of feeling like it was written by a single intern.

[Kona4me]

I recommended this game for my 2 friends ~ they couldn't add a credit card because of Click & Buy didn't accept their cards!!! they were from middle east ~ Dubai n Riyadh .

SE if u want more customers u better fix it and add more payment options for middle east countries .