The difference between a valid complaint and being a Karen

[BalianDibelin]

The biggest thing people are failing to comprehend is that there is a lack of evidence to support any of your statements.

They did begin with explaining their desire to expand server size and capacity and implement auto-logout functions.

We're experiencing hardware failures. For example, 2002 is a loss of communication between user and server. 3001 is a complete lack of a server system, such as server queue system.

It's quite possible that there is so much strain on the components. Yes server stability itself is solid. But active servers are not the same as the queue systems.

Yoshi-P and his team are the most sincere and empathetic development team of any MMORPG community. Do consider that they are working tirelessly to figure this out before things like lawsuits arise. Because that can be a thing, when you offer early access for a premium price and not follow through, that is actually false advertising and failure to follow through on what they intend to provide.

In my mind, the best fix is a server shutdown. We need emergency maintenance, so that they can fully handle things without stress being loaded on the system.

I'm not defending them, and I am not defending the player base. I'm just laying the cards that I see out on the table.

Not matter what, they're losing player base. They will lose player base if they shut the servers down, but they are already losing. Just take your losses Square, take your time and fix your issues.

[Aniise]

In my mind, the best fix is a server shutdown. We need emergency maintenance, so that they can fully handle things without stress being loaded on the system.

Yep, I think so too. At this time, it really would be for the best. I'm fine with not being able to access the servers for a maintenance. Even if it takes one or two whole days. Everything is better than the frustrating situation we are in right now.

[Kes13a]

In my mind, the best fix is a server shutdown. We need emergency maintenance, so that they can fully handle things without stress being loaded on the system.

so, your idea for a "best fix" is to shut everything down? so that when they bring it all back up its December 3rd all over?

what needs emergency maintenance is not the main game, its the login server. the main game is stable, plays well and has no lag in any area I have seen yet. but your idea means that it would affect every player, if it was a game server issue, you would have a point. however, thats not where the problem lies. I am not sure that would be considered the "best" in any situation.

[Saimeren]

global pandemic

Pandemics are inherently global. Epidemics are local. You don't need to add Global when talking about a Pandemic. It's implied.

[hynaku]

Takes me over 10 minutes and over 20 tries to just get past the start up menu to get inline to queue.

[Uriel_Kross]

Honestly not sure why this is a big deal..

It's like this with every xpac release. They all have had some sorta problem.

Early access is just the Beta for the actual xpac release. It's just wrapped up as a bonus

"Why didn't they test this before release" they are..right now..the xpac hasn't released...

Every release is the same, they do early access discover a huge issue or many issues that can generally only appear when millions of people are on at the same time or when millions of people are testing different parts of the game..they fix it..we move on.

Seriously Early Access is just an expansion Beta to resolve issues before the actual release of the expansion. There will ALWAYS be issues..that's the point.

The only people I feel bad for are the new players just getting into the game. Old and experienced players should be well aware of what Early Access actually means..

[IDontPetLalas]

Honestly not sure why this is a big deal..

It's like this with every xpac release. They all have had some sorta problem.

Early access is just the Beta for the actual xpac release. It's just wrapped up as a bonus

"Why didn't they test this before release" they are..right now..the xpac hasn't released...

Every release is the same, they do early access discover a huge issue or many issues that can generally only appear when millions of people are on at the same time or when millions of people are testing different parts of the game..they fix it..we move on.

Seriously Early Access is just an expansion Beta to resolve issues before the actual release of the expansion. There will ALWAYS be issues..that's the point.

The only people I feel bad for are the new players just getting into the game. Old and experienced players should be well aware of what Early Access actually means..

While beta access is early access in a sense, the access that we were granted is not usually what is considered a beta release.

some of the differences I can think of:

- beta testers are expected to look for defects and also expected to be able to report them
- the beta environment is not the same as the production (live) environment
- the beta customers are not anywhere as numerous as the live customers

I could go on, but by the time that early access for FFXIV is ready, I agree that issues can surface , Queues are normal, but issues on the scale of a beta? No, that would not be expected nor acceptable.

[Amnesty]

1. "They're trying to make it better."
Not for the people who purchased Endwalker and are trying to play early access. You mentioned 2002 problems in the lobby. I think they're being dishonest by putting the onus of packet loss on players; their servers are screaming and on fire right now, and there's no way they're not dropping packets on their end. That's probably why people are getting 2k'd out of queue in waves. Additionally, for getting back into the lobby in the first place, they could have included a measure such that free trial players could not launch the game at all; even though they can't pile onto the queue, they can still send requests to the server asking to be let in, and they're still trying to connect to the data center, contributing to people who were already in queue trying to reclaim their place getting kicked before they get to the lobby. My more extreme solution would be to limit early access weekend to preorder players and compensate the time that they're compensating anyway, but this take makes people froth at the mouth.

2. "Lack of servers during This Difficult Time (TM)"
They upgraded the EU servers with new hardware. They just couldn't bulk order it for new ones. If your average consumer can get their hands on electronics if they try hard enough, so can $6.52B corporation Square Enix; it's difficult, not literally impossible. They threw up their hands. Whether or not that's valid is up to you. It isn't to me.

3. "Crystal ball"
Again, they're not stupid. They expanded the free trial a ludicrous amount without having extra infrastructure ready to go when it was already strained in NA (and EU too, I believe). There is literally more content available for free now than there was in the whole game when I started playing. That's great for new players, but was very obviously going to lead to a large influx even before taking the expansion into account. There's also no way they didn't know that WoW was in decline. While they likely didn't anticipate the sheer magnitude of new players coming over from WoW after key content creators pushed the community to try it, they had no extra measures prepared at all. They also chose a time fairly close to a new expansion launch to expand it, rather than after, when the initial wave of congestion had passed.

4. "Seven days of sub time is generous"
Just because it's only day three and they're offering it now doesn't mean this is over. Come Tuesday, it's going to get worse. This is not only going to last a week, and their negligence made the situation as bad as it is.

The FFXIV dev team isn't an indie studio with no access to resources and funding. Players are justifiably upset that they are spending literal hours babysitting their queue because the floodgates were opened at just about the worst possible time. Either Square Enix's PR team is pretending to act shocked or Square Enix is shockingly bad at reading the market they're in. I'm inclined to believe it's the former.

[Velnora]

Average consumers do not try to buy massive servers.

[lezard21]

"Hello, welcome to my thread where I will explain you what I decided is a valid complaint and what isn't."