Retail Registration Deadline

[Skycapp]

So tonight Mythic made this announcement:

This announcement is to let everyone know that if you haven’t yet entered your CD key into the account center, you must do so by tomorrow (Friday) morning at 7:00 AM. If you do not enter your information into the Account Center by the deadline your characters will not be affected, you will just be unable to login until your product key is entered.

So basically as of tomorrow anyone who ordered online and didn't spend 20 dollars on overnight delivery is locked out of the game until (according to amazon.com) October 3rd to the 5th for me. Not even a week buffer like every other MMO release in existence. We get 1 day.

 

[Noun]

Bad move on their part, what happen to being able to enter codes up until the 22nd?

 

[Skycapp]

Posted by Mark Jacobs over at Vault:

Folks,

First of all this wasn't an easy decision and not one that we made in order to screw over our customers. So, here are some salient points:

1) As part of EA, we know the exact situation with the EA store and the fact that a small percentage of our customers from Canada (and other places) have to wait longer for their boxes than anybody would have liked. Because of this, we extended the grace period for them as we have an accurate record of the number of people who were put at a disadvantage because of geographic issues or EA store issues.

2) When it comes to other retailers, we have no way of knowing whether somebody who got a pre-order code actually bought the CE or SE. As everybody who has been following this story knows, store employees gave out codes to people who didn't deserve them. This is a fact and because of it, we have had to give out thousands and thousands of codes to make up for the codes that were "accidentally" given out. If we extended the codes for weeks, we have no doubt that many people would continue to take advantage of the codes that they had no right to possess.

3) The retailers, even though some of their employees caused some of the problem, are very concerned about the grace period being too long given the number of "bad" codes out there.

4) The number of people who are affected by this is very small. While the small numbers itself does not mean we should ignore the concerns of our customers, the fact is that the vast majority of people who pre-ordered the CE and the SE are going to get it on time. We know that many of the retailers made an extra effort to get the orders in the stores on day one. Even some of the retailers who normally get their product later had them today. I'm also watching the number of new accounts and Peak Concurrent Players climb rapidly so I know that people who already registered their pre-order codes are now playing the game.

5) We announced our launch date of September 18th, in plenty of time for the cast majority of people (especially SE people) to cancel their SE order and re-order it if they needed to change the shipping information/choice to ensure that they got the game on launch day or launch +1. Again, we know that the vast majority have already done so.

6) GOA is extending their grace period for a variety of reasons, including the issues they had with their Beta and Head Start but also some more pronounced issues with overseas retailers that we don't have here.

7) We are not doing this to be greedy. We don't make any more money no matter when a customer registers their game, that makes no sense. However, we also don't want to offer more free time to people who had no right to be playing the game but got their pre-order codes anyway and we know for a fact that a decent number of people pre-ordered the CE/SE and then canceled their orders after they got the pre-order codes just so they could play the game for free. And from what I've seen from the reports, the number of people who will not be able to play the game due to a retailer screw-up or even delay in shipping is smaller than the combined number of people who got codes they weren't entitled to + people who got the codes and then canceled their orders.

So, I'm sorry that for a very small number of users might have a short delay in their play. I'm looking into something we can do for the people who truly were disadvantaged by this decision and not by people who simply want to play the game for free for a while longer and who have no intention of buying it. The Grace Period is not a free trial of the game and was never intended to be that.

Mark
​

I'm going to be nice and give them until tomorrow to reconsider their stupidity, but since it looks like I will have two weeks to complain about Amazon and Mythic you all should hold on to your hats for a major pancake fest around here.

 

[Skycapp]

From Robert Mull also at Vault: (good thing they thought to update the damn Herald)

Everyone,

I can add some additional information.

1) If you are one of the people, like myself, who pre-ordered from Amazon.com and was getting a shipment date of late Sept. or worse, you need to know that Amazon.com is currently working through all the orders as fast as they can. They aren't updating the delivery date until it's actually shipped. In my case, the original ship date was Oct 6th, but it shipped today. If you are concerned, I suggest you contact their customer support, they will help you out.

2) The EA Store has not sent out it's email yet but it is forthcoming.

As I get more info, I will continue to provide it. I know this is frustrating for many of you.

Also, mod's, can I get official status please?

Bob

Robert Mull
Community Relations Director
Mythic Entertainment
​

 

[Skycapp]

I would say I am getting sick of updating this but since there are no updates on the Herald and since they seem to like to make obscure posts on page 20+ of threads about this stuff... I update it as I get to it.

From Mark again on the Vault Boards:

Folks,

Just so we are clear on a few things:

1) EA did not make this policy, period. I'll repeat this again, quite clearly, nobody at EA came up with this policy.

2) I said quite clearly that when I was referring to the September 18th launch that I was commenting on a poster who said that we changed *the launch date* at the last minute. I know full well what was up on our web site regarding the Grace Period. I am not ducking that issue. Again, we announced the launch date on Aug 6th and we just made a change to the Grace Period. So, if you insist on saying things like "busted Mythic, we have proof" the only thing you are proving again and again is that you didn't read this message or the previous message.

3) I've always been honest with the community. I didn't have to come here and say anything. I could have easily ignored this thread and just let it go on and on and on but I chose to come here, deliver and try to explain the decision. This doesn't make me a saint but at least I had the integrity to stand up here and tell you what was going on. Yet, so many of you have seized this opportunity to once again resort to personal insults and attacks.

4) In my explanation I stated quite clearly that we were trying to do something about the situation. Yet, nobody has picked up on that but rather used this opportunity to play "pile on the developer" without giving me/us at least a reasonable chance to see what we could do before resorting to the usual mix of personal attacks, insults, etc. As a few people have noticed, we just changed things very recently. That should be a clue. Just yesterday, I went the extra mile with our server cloning policy to try to come up with a solution for the server queuing issue (which is a lot less severe than was faced by WoW for example) and within 48 hours instituted and executed on a plan to make things better. Yet, all of that is forgotten in a heartbeat.

It is a very, very complicated situation and one that has occupied me for the last 6 hours. Stuff is going on but I'm not going to lie to the community, beg for its forgiveness or insult your intelligence by doing anything other than telling the truth and trying, as always, to take a very difficult situation and turn it around.

Some of you have said "OMG, this is history repeating itself" and I do find that deeply ironic. Be angry, absolutely. Let me know that you are upset, check. Let your retailers know that you want the grace period extended and they should tell EA that, perfect. However, if every time I have to deliver bad news it automatically becomes "OMG, Mythic Sucks, EA is Evil and Mark Jacobs is a liar" you know how that will turn out, just as it did the last time. We've gone the extra mile every single time we had the opportunity to do so with the Open Beta, Head Start, the CE itself, cloning, etc. and yet, once again that is all forgotten in a heartbeat when I have to deliver bad news.

You want to help the situation? Read what I said in my posts every carefully and don't immediately say "Flame on" and point your hands towards us.

Mark
​

 

[Skycapp]

Folks, if you haven't figured it out yet after digging through the posts I copied here...

You need to call your retailer (Amazon, EAStore, EB, Gamestop) if you haven't gotten your box yet.

It didn't get me much but instead of getting my box on the 5th of October I am at least getting it on the 23rd now.

I will have to suck it up without WAR for a week, but at least i will be in before the end of the month.

See you all in game middle of next week.

 

[Skycapp]

New update from Mark:

Folks,

Just so you know, we are continuing to deal with this situation and I expect we'll have a resolution/update by early afternoon if not before. I will give you some preliminary data, from what we have seen, the number of people who were fraudulently using codes was a lot higher than we thought. It doesn't change what we are doing but anyone who says that it was a small number of users who had these codes is wrong. Between the extra codes we sent out initially to retailers and the numbers of people who ordered and then canceled the CE/SE the number is quite high. Again, I'm not using this as an excuse because it is not going to affect what we do but simply pointing out that anybody who makes the argument that it is only a few people (or even hundreds of people) who took advantage of retail system to play the game when they should not have is simply incorrect.

More coming soon.

Mark
​

 

[Skycapp]

So, I am officially locked out.

Checked my account on the account center and my status has been changed to inactive.

How many of you are affected by this... just curious?

 

[Skycapp]

The End:

Folks,

Good, bad or ugly, Mythic has always had the integrity to stand up for what we think is the right thing to do in any situation. I don’t expect everyone to agree but I’ve never intentionally made a decision to hurt the community and/or our players and I don’t intend to start now. For the last couple of days we’ve been dealing with a very difficult and complicated situation. Sadly, there are lots of moving parts and sometimes it takes both a bit of elbow grease to get things working properly. Here’s where we stand right now. As of this morning, we deactivated a large number of accounts and ended the Head Start for our game. At the same time, we’ve been in touch with the retailers, both online and brick-and-mortar, and while we are getting great data on the number of people who will get their game today; there is still a relatively small number of people who won’t be able to get them due to shipping issues (no matter what the issues are, whose fault, etc.). So, after a lot of conversations I’m happy to announce that over the next few hours we are going to extend the grace period for all customers of Amazon, GoGamer and the EA Store till the 22nd of September. Based on the data we have gathered, these companies account for just about all the customers that were concerned about their chance to get into the game today. Thus, if you currently have an account with us, you’ll be able to get back into the game while you wait for your game to be delivered. Of course, all characters are still intact and no billing of any credit card has taken place (it couldn’t, the account still has free time on it) since the accounts were simply deactivated not wiped. We have been assured by all the brick-and-mortar retailers that they got their shipments in the stores already so if you needed to go to a store to pick up your game, the units are in stock everywhere. We will be monitoring the situation closely over the next twenty-four hours of course.

As I’ve said countless times, we will do the best we can in any situation to make it right and I hope you agree with have done so again. I thank the community for its support, especially for this rather thorny problem.

Mark
​

 

[wwisdom64]

your explanation is appreciated, but I blame Bestbuy.com for my issue. I ordered my CE edition back in June, My kids got me the preorder for Fathers day, now with that much time a backorder is unacceptable, but what can I do but wait I guess

 

[Noun]

I'm glad they decided to keep part of their word about the 22nd. I'm not a fan of what they did, I know a lot of people who were effected and I totally understand their views. However, I'm happy that they are responding to the disappointment--shows responsibility.

 

[Skycapp]

wwisdom64 if Bestbuy is telling you your CE is back ordered you need to call them and raise hell. According to Mark Jacob's in several posts last night there are no CE to be had if retailers don't already have them. They are not going to make anymore and couldnt even if they wanted to. Their definition of back order and Mythic's might be different but that's what we have been told.

 

[Skycapp]

I'm glad they decided to keep part of their word about the 22nd. I'm not a fan of what they did, I know a lot of people who were effected and I totally understand their views. However, I'm happy that they are responding to the disappointment--shows responsibility.

Mark and Mythic both have usually been pretty good about dealing with customers and their concerns. That doesn't mean that I always agree with their decisions, but one thing you can guarantee is that your voice will be heard.

Mark specially takes a lot of flack because he puts himself out there. I have nothing but respect for him, but sometimes things like this grace period stuff sort of pushes my buttons a little.

The only thing i wish they had done differently is instead of slinking around on the vault boards creating a 100 page thread, that they had just posted updates on the Herald. Luckily Google is a pretty good search engine and I found the posts pretty quick.

 

[Beele]

I would say I am getting sick of updating this but since there are no updates on the Herald and since they seem to like to make obscure posts on page 20+ of threads about this stuff... I update it as I get to it.

From Mark again on the Vault Boards:

Folks,

Just so we are clear on a few things:
...
Some of you have said "OMG, this is history repeating itself" and I do find that deeply ironic. Be angry, absolutely. Let me know that you are upset, check. Let your retailers know that you want the grace period extended and they should tell EA that, perfect. However, if every time I have to deliver bad news it automatically becomes "OMG, Mythic Sucks, EA is Evil and Mark Jacobs is a liar" you know how that will turn out, just as it did the last time.
..l.
​

To be fair, and as a person who followed the goings on fairly closely during closed beta (which I didn't get to participate in... sniff) and who has been around EA since their founding (wanna know what I think of Trip Hawkins??? I double dog dare you to ask me... actually, don't, it doesn't belong here), I would just like to point out that even when Mark Jacobs has delivered GOOD news, my feelings usually consisted of "OMG, Mythic sucks, EA is Evil, and Mark Jacobs is a ... corporate tool (that is more polite then liar, right?)!" BTW, it is his JOB to be a corporate tool, so I am not actually holding that against him.

As a matter of fact, even when Mark Jacobs doesn't say anything, I am still willing to go along with the "EA is Evil" meme. Can you say DRM in Spore? I knew you could.