Global Alpha Test Start Date

[Abriael]

Abriael, you need to realize that when people say 'entitlement' they mean 'self-entitlement'. You are, in fact, only entitled to something that is given to you, you cannot entitle, yourself, something that belongs to another. Saying something silly like "I bought the CE so I should have a subscription discount" is self-entitlement, because you are giving something to yourself that is not yours to give (a discount in this case).

If you want to talk about self entitlement, may want to use the correct term. Mind you, self entitlement isn't necessarily a negative concept as well. It keeps companies on their toes, and they normally do actively try to catch up to it.

Paying customers are entirely in their right to suggest what they feel they should be entitled to. Their pleas may or may not be listened and put in action (but normally companies will take them very seriously), but there's nothing wrong in expressing it. The company/customer relationship is already unbalanced towards the former as it is.

This is actually something I find absolutely peculiar of MMORPG forums. There are people that think other people asking more for their money is somehow a bad or immoral thing, and feel the need to defend a company (that will never give them the light of day and for which they're no more than a number on a quartely financial report) from the "ebil entitled customer!"

For instance I made a thread before the end event saying something on the like "hey, wouldn't it be cool if SE gave those that participate to the final battle a little account-bound memento to carry over to ARR?" then i proceeded to list a few very mild and inexpensive examples like a broken relic house decoration and stuff like that.

It surprised me (only partially) to see many responses on the note of "you bad entitled customer! How do you dare ask for more out of poor endangered panda Square Enix!"

It cracks me up every time i remember it.

In previous events such as the cons where ARR information was released, you need to remember that they DID also hand out alpha/beta invites, at least I remember such. And the page says "Active account" but we might have a different definition from "active" than they do for some reason, we need to clear up what they mean by it. They could consider an account that exists but haven't been played in an year to be 'active'.

We know what they mean by it, by the simple fact that for the majority of the alpha application process if you tried to apply with an inactive account it'd tell you (I paraphrase): "Your account ain't active. Piss off"

Also, finally, I still think that this is a case of Operations trumping over everything. It's a fact, operational needs will trump over absolutely everything and it's up to the other teams to catch up to them. Maybe they should have changed that page, maybe PR isn't moving as fast as they could. They are definitely not wrong in how they sent their invites, the invites fit the operational needs, but some other things could have been done better, yes.

Doesn't normally work like that. Any public action a developer takes normally goes through marketing first, because customer satisfaction actually trumps everything. Which is why I think the problem was of technical nature.

Also- I am fairly sure that they ARE sending invites based on what was applied through their system, they wouldn't want to invite a person who has no interest in participating, so showing interest through application is the best way to screen that. If the person was able to apply, but haven't played in a year and a half, for some reason, he was eligible.

Not really. The internet is full of people that apply to every single MMO beta they find just because they want a new game (no matter how polished) to play for a couple hours for free.

The more you unrestrict application, the more you risk to catch a large number of those.

Also, he actually said that what you have spent on your rig is not a condition of alpha test entitlement. He is fully correct in saying that. Might not be what he wanted to say but that is what he said.

It was an obvious catch-all derogatory definition to antagonize those that dare being disappointed about not being selected, especially since I don't see many people (if all) complaining because they made a 4k computer for FFXIV and didn't get into the beta.