Rants tag

Rants, ruminations, and rambling remarks from my mad, muddled, meandering mind.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Early Access and Launch Queues, or Stop Whining, You Little Brat.

The following is pretty much an  unedited copy of a comment I made on GeeCee's blog post about the SWTOR launch, also of merit is Scarybooster's comparison of the SWTOR launch vs. WoW's launch seven years ago.


I got in "before lunch" on the second day, having preordered in September, the day they announced the 20 December release. Being at work, and unable to take the day off, it didn't matter to me what time of day I got the email.

People seem to forget that their preorder purchase--a whole 5 bucks for basic and DD editions--"guaranteed" only that they would have a copy of the game on the day of release. Any early access, whether one day or seven, is free gravy. The EARLIER access was a reward for preordering EARLIER. Those who ordered later, like me, got what they deserved and have "no standing," to borrow legal jargon.

As for queues, I encountered minor ones early yesterday morning before work, but was pleasantly surprised to waltz onto Sanctum of the Exalted during primetime. I have a friend on Mask of Nihilus (sp?) with 25-30 minute queues, nothing a few minutes doing dishes or reading a story to your kids can't cover.

Here's a nickel's worth of free advice: When your chosen server is full and the queue is intolerable, role a minor alt on an open server. Sure, you want to play with friends and guildmates. But having a back-up plan and having fun at it is way better than getting your blood pressure up and nerdraging on the SWTOR forums. Besides, you never know when your server might crash in the future and you'll be ready with a little side character.

4 comments:

  1. "The EARLIER access was a reward for preordering EARLIER. Those who ordered later, like me, got what they deserved and have "no standing," to borrow legal jargon."

    See, you understood. And you'd think more people would have too, especially since it was plastered all over the preorder page, the emails we got, as well as the forums and on twitter and pretty much every mmo/game news site. And yet, the sad part about that gigantic QQ thread on the swtor forums on Dec 13th was that some of the loudest of complainers KNEW this, KNEW they preordered late, and STILL threw a fit about not getting in on the first day.

    I was more sympathetic to those who were less complaining and more frustrated about not knowing which day they could get in. Having no clue along with the added anticipation must have been pretty nerve-wracking. That said, I don't think this one aspect makes SWTOR's launch a failure by any means, but even a rough timeframe of when you preordered and when you might get in would have been nice.

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  2. Yes, a rough time-frame would have been nice. But here's another but of advice (not for you, personally, GeeCee): don't plan your life around a game. BioWare themselves probably weren't sure how the rollout would go or when people would get in. And they have reputation for being tight-lipped about things they are not sure of. By Tuesday or Wednesday evening, most people should have had a good idea of when they'd get in if they weren't in already.

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  3. I have to agree rowan. These unjustified complaints seriously show off that whole entitled perspective some people have.

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  4. Damn, dude. Are you trying to tell people on the internet not to freak out? Good luck, Sisyphus. :)

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