Compensation Package

[Jonathan Baron]

Clearly UO players must be compensated for this snafu. The heretofore unbroken rule of the past decade and a half that you never make changes to an online game on a weekend was broken with horrid results.

Even if a Netflix goes down for ten minutes it gives its customers something: usually subscription time in compensation for even minor inconvenience. It's only fair after all.

In this case hours of customer time spent planning events or just playing the game was erased. UO is character investment based game. The game went down without notice in the most prime of prime time. What's worse, it kept going down repeatedly.

One player I know thus far, who has complained to EA customer support directly, has received 180 days of gametime for each of his accounts. This seems reasonable.

What's the official position? Stratics has become the defacto company forum. Will all accounts receive free gametime automatically or will every customer have to contact EA on their own to secure this?

This can't simply be allowed to pass with an "oh well," and a verbal apology. It just can't. Promises made regarding the time frame for the account migration were not kept and every paying customer was inconvenienced to an extraordinary degree.

 

[Uvtha]

While I think it would be wise of them to placate people with some kind of compensation... you are really over exaggerating, especially since you seem to be just referring to the several hours of lost game time, and not the poorly undergone implementation of the new system in terms of explanation of what was changing, how, and how to use it.

 

[Aurelius]

That much free gametime per player would probably make UO go broke...

 

[Pinco]

Clearly UO players must be compensated for this snafu. The heretofore unbroken rule of the past decade and a half that you never make changes to an online game on a weekend was broken with horrid results.

Even if a Netflix goes down for ten minutes it gives its customers something: usually subscription time in compensation for even minor inconvenience. It's only fair after all.

In this case hours of customer time spent planning events or just playing the game was erased. UO is character investment based game. The game went down without notice in the most prime of prime time. What's worse, it kept going down repeatedly.

One player I know thus far, who has complained to EA customer support directly, has received 180 days of gametime for each of his accounts. This seems reasonable.

What's the official position? Stratics has become the defacto company forum. Will all accounts receive free gametime automatically or will every customer have to contact EA on their own to secure this?

This can't simply be allowed to pass with an "oh well," and a verbal apology. It just can't. Promises made regarding the time frame for the account migration were not kept and every paying customer was inconvenienced to an extraordinary degree.

Before speaking about compensations, we need a working service
Actually I'm still unable to check my account status and one of them is running off days, also we can't apply gtc

Unfortunately I (and many others) use only gtc and if they don't fix it they will start to massively lose players. Seriously, this is not just some unhappy players who wants to leave, it's like to force them to leave because they can't pay for the accounts.

 

[Theo_GL]

Free gametime not a good idea.

Free spring decor token or two is more like it.

 

[Aurelius]

Free spring decor token or two is more like it.

Crediting extra time to account age wouldn't hurt either.... but nothing that would detract from the UO income stream is a good idea at a time EA are flapping around in minor panic about revenues.

 

[Jonathan Baron]

I agree, Pinco, there would be little point in free game time for a game that's still not functioning properly.

Yes, I can see where it may seem an exaggeration of course. And I don't mean for this to seem like a case of bodily injury or anything. However some folks did spend many hours, and recruit many people who spent many hours, planning events that could not take place.

You just don't make changes of this sort on a weekend. And if you, and it goes wrong, you have to pay as your customers did. That's only fair.

Six months game time may seem extreme. The alternate suggestions I'm seeing make sense too.

The answer to the question is what seems reasonable to the greatest number of paying customers. But the question must be answered and it has to be answered with something tangible. I think we can all agree on that.

 

[Uvtha]

If anything it will probably be something like free points for the fall cleanup whenever it happens. 6 months free game time for less than 10 hours down time especially when you consider this wasn't a UO change, but a company billing system change, is not only out of the question in terms of the game surviving, but also just a grand over compensation.

 

[Lord_Spartacus]

If anything it will probably be something like free points for the fall cleanup whenever it happens. 6 months free game time for less than 10 hours down time especially when you consider this wasn't a UO change, but a company billing system change, is not only out of the question in terms of the game surviving, but also just a grand over compensation.

It may have been less then 10 hours for you, but there are some of us that have been unable to log-in since this started.

 

[Slayvite]

I want my free T-shirt

 

[Capn Kranky]

As Pinco notes ... it might be nice if we could jus access the accounts we do have! See my "dunce" thread for an example. I simply wanna kill the CC data ... why can't I use the same account I have had for years for UO and Pogo?

 

[Hand]

True! Still, I hope someone *points to faceless corporate types* has learned that testing out such changes should be done. I even volunteer! Leaving it up to players to make a guide to lead people through this should not have happened. On the other hand, it seems to have worked out... now to figure out why I can't patch....

 

[yars]

this all part OF the spring clean-up

 

[Sevin0oo0]

I think:
compensation will be more like " Ha! those UO people want compensation, "what do we Have to do? Nothing!they'll get over it" " let's go nurf something, that'll make 'em STFU


Instructions? "Someone on one of the boards will do a nice write-up, and we'll just 'modify' that a little, and make it our 'own' - maybe a nice pdf or something.

 

[PapaKarlson]

the least they could do is continue return to britannia program for a bit longer so people can at least login and play while the account management problems are resolved. also people will not lose their houses.

just turn all accounts on until at least server down Friday morning, then bump up all paid time to start again on server up so everyone gets a few days free.

and, of course, make sure everything is running smoothly by Friday morning and keep extra customer support staff on hand if needed for the weekend to make sure everyone gets everything worked out.

 

[Woodsman]

While I think it would be wise of them to placate people with some kind of compensation... you are really over exaggerating, especially since you seem to be just referring to the several hours of lost game time

Yeah, this is nothing like the first five years of UO. I can't believe how many people have either forgotten those years or weren't around. A lot of people who play these days and freaked out would have been slitting their wrists in May or June of 2000 if they were on Lake Superior.

True! Still, I hope someone *points to faceless corporate types* has learned that testing out such changes should be done. I even volunteer!

Given that Camelot and Warhammer players had as much (little) notice as we did, you really have to wonder if some accounting executive sent out a note to the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer producers and community people on August 3rd saying "post a note tomorrow that we are migrating the accounting system". Whoever made that decision probably puts us on the same level of Facebook players or the Popcap players who play those little web games. Of course, neither Camelot or Warhammer players had to suffer the problems related to uogamecodes.com that we did.

One thing that could make some players happy is if they were to finally and truly IDOC the inactive houses and fix MyUO. This system is supposed to accurately track account ages, it's the first major overhaul in 14 years, they should be able to use it as the basis for doing a sweep of all of the inactive houses. When they reactived the back-to-Brit program, I though they were activating every account and then deactivating every account so that maybe they would finally do something with houses tied to inactive accounts.

 

[Tina Small]

Under the Terms of Service, EA has no obligation to compensate us for any inconveniences suffered because of this account migration process. Also, according to the ToS, our only remedy if we can't access the game or don't like something, such as their billing method, is to cancel our accounts.

In case you skimmed the ToS while setting up your EA Account, you can link to it from the bottom of the EA Account log-in page (https://accounts.eamythic.com/), as well as access the privacy policy and some other legal notices that seem to deal primarily with copyright infringement.

 

[Tina Small]

Given that Camelot and Warhammer players had as much (little) notice as we did, you really have to wonder if some accounting executive sent out a note to the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer producers and community people on August 3rd saying "post a note tomorrow that we are migrating the accounting system". Whoever made that decision probably puts us on the same level of Facebook players or the Popcap players who play those little web games. Of course, neither Camelot or Warhammer players had to suffer the problems related to uogamecodes.com that we did.

One thing that could make some players happy is if they were to finally and truly IDOC the inactive houses and fix MyUO. This system is supposed to accurately track account ages, it's the first major overhaul in 14 years, they should be able to use it as the basis for doing a sweep of all of the inactive houses. When they reactived the back-to-Brit program, I though they were activating every account and then deactivating every account so that maybe they would finally do something with houses tied to inactive accounts.

I heard unofficially that EA started on this project eight months ago (does that timing ring any bells with you, Woodsman??) and had close to two dozen engineers working on it. Given the massive size of the project and how many issues are cropping up that make it look like those engineers were unfamiliar with UO's players and their accounts, I have my doubts that anything was deliberately put into place to force the demolition of houses tied to long-inactive accounts. If it ends up happening, I tend to think it will just be an unintended (but mostly fortuitous) byproduct of the whole account migration process.

Edited to add: I also noticed when I was linking some accounts that one of my accounts that may have run out of time during this transition has a different name for the subscription (i.e., "CS UO Subscription"). I think that there were some accounts that were kept open throughout some of the transition process by some special tagging because EA expected they might run into some snags with renewing them. (I think that special treatment ended late last week.) I theorize that the quiet activation of the "Return to Britannia" program was done to further address some of those snags or to avert some problems. I really don't think they did it to bring people back or to address housing issues. But when someone noticed that we the players had picked up on it, some sharp PR-type person decided to get some positive feedback out of the situation by posting a SMALL and vaguely worded notice about it.

Again, I'm just speculating, so don't assume I know anything specific or definite. And if Cal's reading this, damn it, man, I'm not trying to be critical. If I wanted to be critical of you guys, I could have been a whole lot worse than this!!

 

[Slayvite]

Notice its now Monday afternoon and still nothing by ways of an appology or even a 'yeah that didnt go quite as planned'.
Thats EA customer relations for you at its finest.

 

[pgib]

I think the compensation might be a legitimate request as it is a common pr practice. Ask the customer service anyway, a forum's post is probably not the best way to achieve your goal.

For the rest, c'mon guys: if you played this game for some time you know that they are that bad, you can't seriously expect things to get any better.

I knew they were going to screw up things the very moment i read of the migration. And i wasn't alone.

The only thing that still surprises me is how good the idea of this game is because it actually survived all these years of bad programming, bad design, bad management, bad pr... and yet i really like to play it. It's wondrous.

 

[Woodsman]

I heard unofficially that EA started on this project eight months ago (does that timing ring any bells with you, Woodsman??) and had close to two dozen engineers working on it. Given the massive size of the project and how many issues are cropping up that make it look like those engineers were unfamiliar with UO's players and their accounts

Or Warhammer or Camelot players - a friend hit the 9 account limit between Warhammer, Camelot, and UO. Whatever EA web or database person was in charge of testing probably thought that at most, one person might have a couple of Warhammer, Camelot, and UO accounts.

The timing does ring a bell, that was around when they decided they were going to upgrade parts of UO and that was when I first heard a rumor about EA setting up their own digital distribution system. EA just absorbed a huge webgame company as well that everybody knew was going to happen, so they probably wanted to get every single EA player and property on the same system.

I had some theories, but like a friend said, they were probably getting all of their games and properties on the same billing system and getting it finished before the Star Wars players overwhelm everything, because it would be a complete PR fiasco if they still had this going on and then opened up Star Wars. This is the kind of thing they would delay Star Wars over, because if they were having these problems right when a million+ people opened up Star Wars accounts, the media and stockholders would crucify them.

And if Cal's reading this, damn it, man, I'm not trying to be critical. If I wanted to be critical of you guys, I could have been a whole lot worse than this!!

My take is that the decision was made by people in corporate EA whose thought process was to get this done, and because it's a once a decade thing, not to worry too much, just push it through. I think I know why they migrated UO, Camelot, and Warhammer at the exact same time, but I still think they should have tried to split them up a week apart, and just suspended billing for that time for all three games.

I still hold to my theory, and I know others do, that the UOGamesCode.com stuff really screwed things up, because that's what affected me on the slots and a lot of people on the gametime or account upgrade code. That should be a wakeup call to ditch it.

I'm also sticking to the theory that we are, for all intents and purposes, on the Origin.com system.

 

[Tina Small]

Notice its now Monday afternoon and still nothing by ways of an appology or even a 'yeah that didnt go quite as planned'.
Thats EA customer relations for you at its finest.

The Japanese site has a guide for how to log into the new Account Management site as well as two News posts listing known problems and things to not do.

After plowing through poor translations of all of them, I kind of came to the conclusion this is what they said:

(1) You must take the step of updating your credit card information for linked accounts if that is your preferred payment method and even if it looks like your account is set up to pay by credit card. If you don't confirm the credit card info, your credit card will not be automatically billed at the next renewal time.

(2) For some people who have input valid credit card information, for some reason the accounting system is treating the information as invalid and blocking access to the account.

(3) You can't put in gametime codes and please don't even try at this point.

(4) If you can't get your UO account linked to an EA account and it had credit card info on it under the old system, that credit card information has been saved and your credit/debit card will automatically be billed at the next renewal time.

Just guessing though, that this is what the translations meant. Would be really nice if someone in Virginia or that speaks English could post something like this for their English-speaking customers!!

 

[Mervyn]

 

[Zosimus]

Really? Should every fubar then they should add extra gametime? I can understand freezing /extending time on accounts so houses wont fall till they work out the bugs for the communities. They did it for Japan when it was needed so Im pretty sure it would also be done with this issue.

For years players have complained to update the game which would include everything like the billing sites. Cant keep an outdated system for ever. I'm pretty sure the devs and engineers are on top of this situation and trying the best they can.

This quote below....

In this case hours of customer time spent planning events or just playing the game was erased. UO is character investment based game. The game went down without notice in the most prime of prime time. What's worse, it kept going down repeatedly.

Life isnt perfect and we all know UO is not. So if a catastraphic event happened and caused UO to go down without notice then its EA fault? If a storm knocks out the internet then its EA fault? The answer is no to both of them.

God forbid though if they are updating stuff and glitches happen then its an issue.All down with EA but EA haters.

So the blame game and asking for free stuff has begun but it sickens me that this is what UO has become. Ask for free stuff more.

Btw I had no issues with this situation like others. I do understand the frustration but since I had no issues then should I be equally compensated if others are? Fair is fair

 

[Gorbs]

I had some theories, but like a friend said, they were probably getting all of their games and properties on the same billing system and getting it finished before the Star Wars players overwhelm everything, because it would be a complete PR fiasco if they still had this going on and then opened up Star Wars.

Given the lack of enthusiasm we're showing, I wonder if this account management / billing system may end up killing Star Wars. The system has to work and be user friendly. If it's not, it will cost subscription.

 

[Uvtha]

Given the lack of enthusiasm we're showing, I wonder if this account management / billing system may end up killing Star Wars. The system has to work and be user friendly. If it's not, it will cost subscription.

I imagine that it will not be as complicated for a new account. But then again, I didn't really have any trouble with the new system.

That's not to say that it wasn't very very poorly changed over, in that they didn't inform anyone what it was about OR how it works. This sort of stuff should not just be up for people to figure out or to have come to second party fan sites for guides on how to set it up.

 

[Uvtha]

Yeah, this is nothing like the first five years of UO. I can't believe how many people have either forgotten those years or weren't around. A lot of people who play these days and freaked out would have been slitting their wrists in May or June of 2000 if they were on Lake Superior.

I was on LS in 2000 (and before) and I remember the issues quite well. Not to mention absolutely crippling lag. I remember back then if I could run 10 tiles at a time before a 10 second freeze it was a good day heh.

 

[Aurelius]

Given the lack of enthusiasm we're showing, I wonder if this account management / billing system may end up killing Star Wars. The system has to work and be user friendly. If it's not, it will cost subscription.

Be interesting to see if people with 9 or more accounts in any of the EA/Mythic/Bioware games get told 'you can't register for Star Wars unless you also create a new identity to do it'.....

 

[Charin]

HERE HERE but add to that its for the stupid migration itself. We are paid up and current on all of our accounts.. the 3 that came due 10 days ago adn we payed for 3 months on are now closed claiming we need to make payment though we can show credit card charges and paypal charges for the time. This is a bigger fiasco than AOS was and they OWE US. Also it shows all our accounts due the 14th... even though all of them have at least a month left on each.

 

[aarons6]

i agree with this, my friend hasnt been able to play since they turned off the "free game time"

she was on a trial account but has purchased both SA and High Seas booster.. she had to wait till the trial was over to put in the keys.
the website isnt working, and the "support" goes to warhammer online??

this is half assed and total BS..

 

[icm420]

I just want to say thanks for the 6 hours of gameplay that meant nothing. I played on saturday morning, made a suit, did spawns, did peerless, etc etc. I log on the next day (not knowing shards had gone down sat. night.), and I was in my house naked with non of the goodies I had spent all sat. morning getting. Oh and the best part is my 2 vet rewards I claimed (being my account finally showed correct age), were gone. I know things happen and it can't be flawless but why do that on a friday/saturday and why open the servers back up if it's not done! There are tons of other activities to do, so if UO is down, fine keep it down, don't tell me its ok to play and then delete my gameplay! Who is giving me my 6 hours back? No one that is gone forever and that is the part that irritates me the most.

 

[flappy6]

maybe theyll hand out free vine cord shoes,or neon robes

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Who cares? I hear a roof collapsed on a bunch of people.

Lets keep it in perspective people... move along.

 

[Lady Tia]

Who cares? I hear a roof collapsed on a bunch of people.

Lets keep it in perspective people... move along.

Exactly

 

[BahamaMama]

I would be happy if they...

1. Revamped Customer Service. They need serious reorganization. There are employees getting paid who don't have answers... they don't even understand the questions. Escalating to the next level is, currently, meaningless.
   
2. Hire an Instructional Designer to create Help FAQs and How To Do It guides... especially after a major change such as this. Instructional Design is not new. It was cutting edge a decade ago.

If they would just do those 2 things they would make us happy and probably save themselves some serious money.

 

[Orgional Farimir]

I just want to say thanks for the 6 hours of gameplay that meant nothing. I played on saturday morning, made a suit, did spawns, did peerless, etc etc. I log on the next day (not knowing shards had gone down sat. night.), and I was in my house naked with non of the goodies I had spent all sat. morning getting. Oh and the best part is my 2 vet rewards I claimed (being my account finally showed correct age), were gone. I know things happen and it can't be flawless but why do that on a friday/saturday and why open the servers back up if it's not done! There are tons of other activities to do, so if UO is down, fine keep it down, don't tell me its ok to play and then delete my gameplay! Who is giving me my 6 hours back? No one that is gone forever and that is the part that irritates me the most.

your 6 hours would be gone wether there was a server revert or not. It is a game you play it to waste time. At the end of the day when you stop playing UO or EA pulls the plug on UO all that time you spent playing the game is GONE, gone forever.

Yea it sucks, but that is 6 more hours you can escape reality by playing a viritual world.

 

[aarons6]

how about not being able to play at all and the key you PURCHASED is coming up invalid?

oh and when you go to the new "fancy" website that was supposed to fix all our problems my account says this

Error

There was an error processing your request

Return to the homepage.

 

[Muu Bin]

I would be happy if they...

1. Revamped Customer Service. They need serious reorganization. There are employees getting paid who don't have answers... they don't even understand the questions. Escalating to the next level is, currently, meaningless.
   
2. Hire an Instructional Designer to create Help FAQs and How To Do It guides... especially after a major change such as this. Instructional Design is not new. It was cutting edge a decade ago.

If they would just do those 2 things they would make us happy and probably save themselves some serious money.

I think most of us would be happy if this occurred...

 

[HD2300]

Yet another failed UO project, and we all knew that this project was happening months ago. Whoever mis-managed this migration, should be sent to shuffle paperwork in Siberia.

 

[Pinco]

Yet another failed UO project, and we all knew that this project was happening months ago. Whoever mis-managed this migration, should be sent to shuffle paperwork in Siberia.

that's just what happen when you try to renew a software designed in the 1700 a.d.

I think they can mange it fast enough since we are speaking of the main source of money from UO

 

[QueenZen]

Yet another failed UO project, and we all knew that this project was happening months ago. Whoever mis-managed this migration, should be sent to shuffle paperwork in Siberia.

Ha ha your comment reminded me of a silly TV commercial where folks trying to get customer service kept getting some one with an accent, a guy named {Peggy} that seemed like they were in Siberia and kept forwarding their call to everyone then back to the orig. answerer of customer service, going round and round but [NO customer service was serviced], yet the guy says thank you for calling customer service.

For myself I have NOT even tried the migration situation. I keep thinking, wait it out maybe it will all be resolved and become some no issues working something easy for us all to figure out, till then I AM NOT GOING THERE TO EVEN TRY whatever all this is that is changing everything for us all for our active UO accts.

I liked the way it was on [the old acct. management] set up... they didn't bother me, I didn't have to bother them...basically easy, we ignored each other, they auto billed my cc. for 14 yrs. almost and I kept playing !
SIMPLE EASY PEASY IT WORKED !

Now I don't have a clue where to begin, read all the zillion posts and looks like we HAVE TO, set up a new set up or...our accts. in due time will, per accts. per customer of us, will no longer be functioning. ??!!

I don't see how any compensation package is gonna cut it. I just want to play and not have to have massive issues just tryin to keep on keepin on playin or changing stuff that may or may not work on some website that is new acct. management migration clumping of accts of whomevers of us all that may or may not WORK right for us !

So what do we DO if we can't even get the thing to work for the accts. and our accts. get shut down or messed up with *error* this or that, accts. we HAVE been payin for for all these yrs. we BEEN playin and payin faithfully for so many years ??

Call someone that doesn't fathom our English ? Write emails ? Get some run around ? Get it all resolved in some timely manner before our homes and everything in em hit the IDOC stages ? Cuz I mean sooner or later...how long they gonna keep/let our accts. keep actively going till we DO figure out how to *migrate* and have it work properly. I would hope they give us a good month or two of not shutting any of us OUT of our accts. till we get this figured out them and us BOTH alike.

Otherwise yeh..customers will be lost, unable to get their accts. *migrated properly* and after payin for xx amt of years faithfully, wanting to STILL play, what compensation is there ? NONE really just want to play keep on going and paying them...without ISSUES. If those can't be fixed..nothing gonna compensate if we can't *successfully migrate* to continue to get IN game, to just be able to continue to PLAY !

Isn't any compensation, if we get shut out of our active accts. from or thru this acct. management migration situation, we are SHUT OUT ! End of story sadly.

 

[Lady Storm]

When I called CS to help out getting my accounts fixed* both tier 1 and 2 guys both said you will get compensation for your troubles ma'm. I didnt want compensation I wanted them to work right and let me get one of the accounts back up as it went down and was not on my e mail. It's a mess. Tier 3 now has my troubles and I do hope for some final resolve to my delema. I can see where the designer might think 9 accounts is alot even if they counted in the other games.... But HE DIDNT COUNT ON MY LIST! For those of us who were excessive in our love for uo and got more then our share of uo accounts, I can see them not thiking there are nuts out there with more then 9.

Compensation could be a free month or two on a single account perhaps or a coffee cup* trinket sent to you in the mail* Personaly I dont care. All I want is the system to work and let me get back to play.

 

[Radun]

I feel sorry for anyone who's account payments lapsed the day before the account system migration/upgrade... It seems like they may be out of the game for up to 2 weeks or more by the time this is all said and done.

 

[Marquis de Sade 209]

I think something like a legacy token will be good...not free game time. I got frustrated msinly because My house and all bank accounts are full of items now, I bought a 7th character slot and high Seas upgrade with 20% storage increase and can't use them. UO is no longer the premiere MMO and really should be doing things bigger and better than other MMO's (to keep customers). I still love UO for all of its shortcomings don't get me wrong, I just believe they can think of the "what if's" before stuff like this happens

 

[soze]

Although this whole migration has not been any where near perfect, i'm not going to hold our Dev's feet to fire. I have a Rustic upgrade code i can't use yet, but i'm sure ill be able to in the near future.

I for one dont think we deserve compensation for this, however. I know it sucks worse for some people than others, but 'Free Stuff' just isn't necessary.

Things will work out....and i do get the major concerns over billing/cc info or missing char slots...but other than that, i dont understand the freaking out over some downtime...perhaps some of us need a break from the game.

 

[Woodsman]

Things will work out....and i do get the major concerns over billing/cc info or missing char slots...

I don't think my characters are lost for good so I'm not freaking out, just irritated.

I still question whoever made the call to migrate all three games - UO, Camelot, and Warhammer, all on the same day at the same time. At first I understood or thought I did, why the Origin.com people decided to migrate all three games together, but now its clear that they should have frozen a few areas and staged them out once per week or so, as well as put out actual tutorials along the way for each group of players.

But I could just see some Origin.com developers or managers deciding to knock all three out at once just to get them over with, rather than drag it out. Obviously none of them thought that bringing all three games together under one system for Origin.com might lead to people who have multiple accounts across all games, leading to the 9 account problem.

Somebody at Origin.com needs to catch some flak over this, because it's probably screwed up development of all three games for a few weeks. Plus, how much money would have been saved with a tutorial posted on the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer websites?

but other than that, i dont understand the freaking out over some downtime...perhaps some of us need a break from the game.

There are obviously not a lot of people who are left over from UO's early days, because the problems this weekend pale in comparison to some of the problems from the first several years.

People who are angry over this are also a lot more polite than in the early days of UO, because we were brutal to everybody that we could conceivably tie to the problems back then. People were trying to harass the EA CEO over the Lake Superior problems. People were trying to figure out how to get mentions of LS or the housing fiasco on EA's financial calls. God I wish I had saved copies of a lot of websites as well as the official UO forums from those days. At some point, somebody started spamming the official UO forums with the personal contact information of EA's CEO

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

heh! I wish to address your "scalability" aspect:

the problems this weekend pale in comparison to some of the problems from the first several years.

I compare this debacle TO AOS because of "scale"
AOS being <less serious than Migration
AOS ... one game and "current subs"(then) quite a bit larger
Migration ... at least three games ALL with considerably smaller current subs

current subs being a critical "value" in the equation
subs are down ... >possibly< floating near the danger level
>possibly< the auto pay accounts are /just barely/ keeping enough fresh money coming in
agreed: subs number unknown ...

plan for the worst and plan accordingly and good chance any "surprises" are happily greeted

the "forgotten/haven't played in months" auto accounts that >are likely< to be out there
are likely to not be renewed.
(hopefully) that is an extremely small number in percentage terms.

Then add in whatever smaller percentage point that my two accounts represent
IF they don't "auto heal" MY access to MY accounts ... well
I've already got my CC's inhand with new inaccessible(to EA) numbers ...
>This/My< auto account will self terminate, both will.
and some 90 days later, two IDOCs will fall ... well ...>they should fall< ... *wink* then again
Maybe my final mark will be yet another set of Abandoned houses on an abandoned shard
in a forgotten and unplayed game ...
running on forgotten auto subscriptions ...


humph! wasn't that a Twilight Zone?
OOPS! no! *winks and grins*

*Goes to rename houses held to Ozymandias*

 

[Capn Kranky]

While I agree on the scale of the effects, with AOS I could at least log into account management with the account name and password without getting told that the current account I have - for UO and Pogo is NOT valid even as an EA master account.

I'm on hold for CS right now to remove my billing data which is the one reason I wanted to access my account - using said master account/password.

Also, I will not use the EA Origin service ... period. I want no added download managers on my system.

 

[Arrgh]

Ohhhhhhh noooeeesssss....it's the most negative forum in da world!!!!!!!! I'm a dummkopf...You mean you actually thought it was a good idea to attempt anything worthwhile considering the almost certain reality that such a large scale endeavor as moving an entire database over to another system wasn't a risky enough proposition? That's like juggling cats, blind-folded in a cage of hungry Rotties with bacon stapled to your throat and under-carriage and not expecting any adverse consequences.

Where is the logic?? I can't see where anyone can really blame anyone other than themselves if they lost time because they could not understand the consequences since they had weeks of advance warning about what to expect Saturday.

Rule of thumb is never play patch day or any other time something massive is going on with servers.

If you want to know what pathetic really is, try playing Aion sometime. This game is a gem X's infinity compared to that nightmare. Customer service?? What customer service?

 

[Woodsman]

current subs being a critical "value" in the equation
subs are down ... >possibly< floating near the danger level
>possibly< the auto pay accounts are /just barely/ keeping enough fresh money coming in
agreed: subs number unknown ...

If UO/Camelot/Warhammer were at the danger level, I would question whether they would bother upgrading the accounting system for any or all of them, because upgrading the accounting system is expensive and would eat into their expenses.

This was EA integrating UO/Camelot/Warhammer into a new central system (whether it's Origin.com yet or not, who knows, but I think so). The accounting/billing system is not the domain of the UO/Camelot/Warhammer teams, it's the domain of EA which means it was EA personnel working on most of it, with the UO/Camelot/Warhammer teams assisting where needed, which means, in EA's eyes, they (EA corporate) had to spend money on us.

the "forgotten/haven't played in months" auto accounts that >are likely< to be out there
are likely to not be renewed.
(hopefully) that is an extremely small number in percentage terms.

It's in their financial interests to get all of these fixed and fixed soon, however they did say they were unable to migrate certain information, including I believe credit card information, due to certain regulation. I would guess credit card companies do not want credit card information transferred between different systems for security reasons.

The problems are:
- UO, Camelot, and Warhammer accounts all migrated at the same time, which may have overwhelmed the system and caused it to take a lot longer and certainly appears to be overwhelming customer service.
- No warning really given to UO, Camelot, and Warhammer players about the possible problems, getting email straightened out, or how to migrate. UO, Camelot, and Warhammer players all got the exact same notice worded the same way right before everything went down.
- Game codes, account updates, etc. that were purchased through the GC store seem to be causing us major problems. That's probably due to GC being a third party and the EA database or web people not taking that them into account, or not wanting to.

I don't know how long this was officially in planning, but it sure seemed like somebody at EA told all three game teams to post a notice and get it going. I went back and read the migration note and security seemed to be a factor, although expanded payment options for Europeans was also mentioned, but I bet it was either security or something tied to finance in general.

Security and finance people almost always have the kind of corporate authority to push something like this through on short notice and without regards to the customers or individual groups within corporations. The finance people may have been putting things on a serious timer since this came out of EA corporate and not out of BioWare or the individual teams - it's half-way through August, this probably won't all be separated for another week or two, and the end of September is the end of a financial quarter. In theory, they would September to have everything completely fixed if they want to do something with the expenses/accounting in time for the end of the quarter.

I still think they should have tried to space things out and should have given us several weeks to get our email stuff straightened out, those were big mistakes and they should have been able to accommodate those. But I keep coming back to security or finance deciding to rush this through for some reason.