Should the launch have been delayed? What else could be done?

[JTWrenn]

Launch was already delayed. The situation does suck but let's stop acting like the game is super unplayable because it is not. Once you are in game it is smooth and there are zero errors. The only issue right now is the error code kicking you from the Q and sometimes losing your place. Other than that this launch is completely fine and it will stabilize in a week or so. I'm not sure why people are threatening to cancel their sub over this but this was to be expected. I'm annoyed too but i'm not gonna act like the game doesnt work once I get in.

Uhm...I have not been able to log in for the past 12 hours. Period. No queue, nothing. That counts as "super unplayable" to me

[lezard21]

The launch WAS delayed. There's way more players than ever before because WoW hit the fan.

LOL,right, it's obvious what happened here, WoW Bad has somehow managed to displace it's playerbase into causing FF Good to not have good servers for expansion launch

[JTWrenn]

I think bottom line they should have delayed it a month or two, not two weeks. If they did they would have received more servers, not just a few and would have had a better launch. The quality of the game is far more important than the speed of release and I think far fewer people would be mad about a delay caused by covid than a delay that is un equitable...by that I mean some in and some out. Hold it for everyone, because you know the quality is not there is always the better play.

[Feron]

They didn't care about my ability to give them $75 USD, right? I couldn't piss and moan about how even though I promised to pay them, I can't just now. COVID you know? Microchips or semiconductors or whatever. Maybe on Monday, right? You'll still keep my account in good standing, right? You'll still let me use the product?

Yeah. Right. Somehow when the shoe is on the other foot, it's immediately absurd. I am held to a higher standard than they are. Their business is using our money as an interest-free short-term loan. They oversold and are currently STILL advertising (its on the launcher for god's sake) something they can't deliver. And this is not a surprise, an emergency, an act of god, a disaster, whatever. They knew ahead of time that this would be the case. They knew exactly how many preorders they had sold, and they just kept selling them with the advertising lure of Early Access, knowing full well they would not be able to meet their obligations.

That's...pretty dang close to the definition of fraud. The only reasonable reaction to fraud is to call it for exactly what it is.

[JTWrenn]

It's interesting how people don't view this decision as a business decision. Square enix is a company who absolutely could have decided to create a server and infrastructure base that could handle more than the number of licenses sold for their new expansion. Instead they decided...and this is really key...they decided to launch at a lower than optimal server and infrastructure base. It's not like they didn't know. I guarantee they had technical people having meetings telling them everything about this launch going bad.

In short the idea that every mmo having this issue means it always must happen is a lie. It is instead a business decision. It is a company deciding that you will deal with this and them saving money by not having enough servers for peak, and just hanging in there. It's crap. It's been crap for every expansion that every mmo has ever had, and...this one is worse than most. They should get called out for it, and pushed to change their ways. All the excuses are just that...excuses. The truth is this doesn't need to happen, it just does to make these corporations more profit.

[Krotoan]

It's interesting how people don't view this decision as a business decision. Square enix is a company who absolutely could have decided to create a server and infrastructure base that could handle more than the number of licenses sold for their new expansion. Instead they decided...and this is really key...they decided to launch at a lower than optimal server and infrastructure base. It's not like they didn't know. I guarantee they had technical people having meetings telling them everything about this launch going bad.

It seems you aren't the one thinking of this as a business decision. It's a bad idea to invest heavily in resources that will go mainly unused yet cost a lot to maintain and run. Launch surge doesn't last. Adding enough capacity to handle it entirely is a very bad decision. If you open a new restaurant in a small town that restaurant is going to be VERY popular for maybe a month while everyone tries out the new thing, but if they keep ordering enough food to cover that level of business for YEARS, that will be a huge waste of money.

In short the idea that every mmo having this issue means it always must happen is a lie. It is instead a business decision. It is a company deciding that you will deal with this and them saving money by not having enough servers for peak, and just hanging in there. It's crap. It's been crap for every expansion that every mmo has ever had, and...this one is worse than most. They should get called out for it, and pushed to change their ways. All the excuses are just that...excuses. The truth is this doesn't need to happen, it just does to make these corporations more profit.

I bet you would run the BESTSESTSTEST MMO ever right? You would just .. magically have servers on standby, configured and running for the possibility that your player base could double or triple at ANY TIME even in a supply shortage and travel restriction period.. and no Board of Execs would ever fire you for burning hundreds of thousands of dollars on idle resources.


The bestest.


Yeh, it's for cost reasons. But it's not unreasonable to ask customers to deal with it for a short period so that a game can remain profitable for the company and as such will remain supported and available for the players.

[elizeugba]

Since they can't delay indefinitely, for sure they are trying to get the components they need since at least the influx of new players. Anyone thinking SE is trying to be cheap and not "buying new servers" to save money is stupid since the last thing they want is ppl not being able to play the biggest release of the biggest installment of their biggest IP.

Not only is hard to get the components but is also hard to install and configure properly the servers in a reasonable amount of time since they can't actually go to the physical location of some of these servers due to covid. I think it is good that they didn't delay it even further since that would build up even more expectations. Ppl will be frustrated for a few days and they will soon forget, unless something horribly wrong happens like Rauban (EX) and Pippin (Savage). Long queues happen in most MMOs and as long as the servers themselves are stable, it's "ok" for now to deal with the long queues.

[Mythos12]

When a large portion of "PAYING" customers can not access the game because of so many people then yes if you AFK after 10 minutes then you should be booted and allow someone else that has been waiting all day to enter but keeps getting the stupid 2002 error message

[Mythos12]

Launch was already delayed. The situation does suck but let's stop acting like the game is super unplayable because it is not. Once you are in game it is smooth and there are zero errors. The only issue right now is the error code kicking you from the Q and sometimes losing your place. Other than that this launch is completely fine and it will stabilize in a week or so. I'm not sure why people are threatening to cancel their sub over this but this was to be expected. I'm annoyed too but i'm not gonna act like the game doesnt work once I get in.

The game is unplayable Luna. I have tried every hour the last two days to get in and the closest i had was que 37 and then i got an 4004 error message and it made me start all over again. After that it has been all 2002 error. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of PAYING customers who can not access a product that the company is gladly charging monthly. I just cancelled my subscription for now because i refuse to pay for a game that i can not access. I will join again when SE gets its crap together and i see this log in issue addressed.

[JTWrenn]

It seems you aren't the one thinking of this as a business decision. It's a bad idea to invest heavily in resources that will go mainly unused yet cost a lot to maintain and run. Launch surge doesn't last. Adding enough capacity to handle it entirely is a very bad decision. If you open a new restaurant in a small town that restaurant is going to be VERY popular for maybe a month while everyone tries out the new thing, but if they keep ordering enough food to cover that level of business for YEARS, that will be a huge waste of money.




I bet you would run the BESTSESTSTEST MMO ever right? You would just .. magically have servers on standby, configured and running for the possibility that your player base could double or triple at ANY TIME even in a supply shortage and travel restriction period.. and no Board of Execs would ever fire you for burning hundreds of thousands of dollars on idle resources.


The bestest.


Yeh, it's for cost reasons. But it's not unreasonable to ask customers to deal with it for a short period so that a game can remain profitable for the company and as such will remain supported and available for the players.

This response is defensive in a really weird way.