this is out of control

[zhana]

I'm sure I'll be banned from the boards for this, but after 5 hours, I don't care any more.

This is complete and total disrespect for the customer. Intentional bottle-necking and turning a blind eye to customer complaints is inexcusable. This could have been resolved hours ago, but it hasn't been. And there's no word from Square Enix as to when this will be addressed.

It makes me wonder if the content following this quest is so weak and boring that they've bottle-necked us to keep us from reaching it. Maybe StormBlood isn't worth the price.

It's definitely the last time I'll purchase early enough to gain early access. This bottle-neck has rendered early access pointless. At this point, anyone will be luck to complete this battle before normal access begins on Tuesday. It's complete and total disrespect for those of us who vote with our money.

[zXr]

This is great data for SqEx, we can all hope the its fixed buy the 20th, all else failas it will be fixed Soon.

Soon (adj.) - Describes a length of time between now and never.

[MiniTofu]

Um pre-release early access. This is not official release until June 20. So we are tester and a few that get to start a bit and play around.

Why so upset?

[math101]

Um pre-release early access. This is not official release until June 20. So we are tester and a few that get to start a bit and play around.

Why so upset?

Early access by definition means, you get to access the full product earlier than other people. It definitely does not involve being a tester.

[MiniTofu]

Early access by definition means, you get to access the full product earlier than other people. It definitely does not involve being a tester.

Early Access is meant to stop PR review the game because it is not actually launched till June 20.

MMORPG website, PCGamer, Kotaku, VG247, Polygon, Destrunoid, Massively Overpowered websites are awaiting for official launch review. By then the game should be smooth as much as possible.

[Aramina]

Early Access is meant to stop PR review the game because it is not actually launched till June 20.

MMORPG website, PCGamer, Kotaku, VG247, Polygon, Destrunoid, Massively Overpowered websites are awaiting for official launch review. By then the game should be smooth as much as possible.

No early access is meant to... well.... access something early. What reviewers are doing has nothing to do with it.

[Discordia]

Early Access is meant to stop PR review the game because it is not actually launched till June 20.

MMORPG website, PCGamer, Kotaku, VG247, Polygon, Destrunoid, Massively Overpowered websites are awaiting for official launch review. By then the game should be smooth as much as possible.

Early Access was a bonus for pre-ordering the game. It's like any other pre-order bonus in any other game. Some are physical in nature (e.g., you get a bookmarker, a pin, a plushie, etc.), while most are digital in nature.

In this case, this is a DLC for pre-ordering. This isn't WoW, where there were beta testing available for players to stress test the servers before launch. And since you don't seem to understand how MMO works, this isn't a brand new game. This is just merely an expansion, and as such, SE should've seen this coming from a mile away. If you want to know about their track record, in the past week alone, their reputation has tanked due to major problems with a mobile game (some of you may have heard) called SINoALICE (シノアリスー), which is directed by Yoko Taro (Nier:Automata), and they've probably had a total of maybe 30 hours of uptime over a whole week period in which the servers were crashing, congested and eventually taken down in at least 5 emergency maintenance.

Whoever is in charge of server operations and their network at Squeenix should be fired.

[vio_p]

Early access by definition means, you get to access the full product earlier than other people. It definitely does not involve being a tester.

have you ever played a mmo that had early access and did not receive any fixes during the first week or two?

Personally i've never played a mmo that has been perfect from day one, they've all needed some fixes. Also while there are some people not happy with combining the term tester and paying customer, they need to realize that even though we have paid for the game, pay a monthly rental for the game we are also public testers for the game even if we dont want the be and the only way not to test the game is to stop playing.

[Aramina]

have you ever played a mmo that had early access and did not receive any fixes during the first week or two?

Personally i've never played a mmo that has been perfect from day one, they've all needed some fixes. Also while there are some people not happy with combining the term tester and paying customer, they need to realize that even though we have paid for the game, pay a monthly rental for the game we are also public testers for the game even if we dont want the be and the only way not to test the game is to stop playing.

I never played one that completely prevented you from progressing the story for over 24 hours and counting.

[Chiami]

There are two possible expalantions for this huge mess, given SE is sitting on years of experience running these games AND they also knew (or should have known) how many copies of pre-ordered Stormblood were out there, so knowing how many people would be on the servers going for MSQ wasn't even remotely rocket science.

a) This is a level of incompetence that would get people fired in other areas of business. I can tell you for sure (and I have worked in IT just as people close to me) with something as we are seeing here there would have been blood in the meeting room.

b) This is actually planned. Take their money, let them in early… but don't ensure they can actually continue. If people get angry, do a bit appeasement tactic. Renting extra servers for the intial onslaught seen as an investment not worth the customers possibly lost over this. After all, there are the RPers, the avid fanboys/-girls that excuse everything done by SE (as seen in this thread), and many people who will be annoyed but won't cancel their subscription over this. So as long as the net loss of subscriptions over things like these does not hurt the bottom line, compared to cutting corners (insufficient infrastructure, bad planning, cheap production methods/value etc.), increase of new subscriptions through aggressive market ing etc. … why bother.

The second is an attitude I have seen quite often in large cooperations (yes, from the inside). I don't know if it is the case with SE, but increasingly everything I am seeing in this game points in that direction.

It remains to be seen how SE handles this additional cluster**** within the expansion. But my hopes are extremely low.

Right now "Early Access" simply has turned into "Waiting for Access" and I simply regret having pre-ordered. I doubt I will ever pre-order again, if I actually renew my subscription, given how bad SE has become in balancing classes (WHM...), handling the community beyond appeasement tactics and marketing schemes, and many other in-game issues.

If I want to be treated badly or stand somewhere in line I can have that for free elsewhere.