The account management changeover process is unacceptable

[Beleth of Atlantic]

I have been playing UO since the launch of T2A. I have dealt with a lot of bugs, mistakes, untested content, reverts, etc...

This is the FIRST time, people who want to play the game cannot because of account management. Codes cannot be redeemed, people cannot re-up there accounts, I cannot link more then 9 accounts to my master account.

THIS IS one of the changes that should not have been rushed and should have been EXTENSIVELY TESTED before being put into action. I know you cannot foresee everything in a small scale test but wow... at least make sure codes can be applied BEFORE YOU PUSH THROUGH UNFINISHED CONTENT THAT PREVENTS GAMEPLAY.

I can take pirate ships disappearing, I can take monsters teleporting me to where I cannot loot my corpse, I can take a lot (and I have over the years), but it took me THREE DAYS to figure out why I could not link my accounts to my master account.

A tutorial by EA should have been created before any of this was pushed through. UO is an OLD game, major changes like this need to be explained in detail.

 

[Flutter]

Unfortunately the people who are in charge of this will never see any of these comments.
This isn't a UO dev team thing or even a UO thing. It's an EA thing.
They've screwed up. They do not care. Your (our) complaints are irrelevant to them.
Cal and Mesanna and crew are probably working on the next quest chain. They've got no say in any of this.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Unfortunately the people who are in charge of this will never see any of these comments.

agreed w/ all of that. and Nobody will tell you where/who to send comments either. but it kinda reminds me of people buying (or trying to) HS, another fiasco

People see my sig and say "you'll be back" ...whatever - just because me mum beat me and called me a ****** doesn't really mean I am.

 

[HD2300]

Unfortunately the people who are in charge of this will never see any of these comments.
This isn't a UO dev team thing or even a UO thing. It's an EA thing.
They've screwed up. They do not care. Your (our) complaints are irrelevant to them.
Cal and Mesanna and crew are probably working on the next quest chain. They've got no say in any of this.

The devs don't work on this.

Yeah lets put all blame the EA suits blah blah blah again.

I guess producers are not responsible at all for systems that work with logins, character slots, gamescodes/upgrades in the game they produce.

I dont know what they are responsible for really, but I guess its also not to type up a guide to help users during a changeover in the game they produce.

 

[Triberius]

Yeah lets put all blame the EA suits blah blah blah again.

I guess producers are not responsible at all for systems that work with logins, character slots, gamescodes/upgrades in the game they produce.

I dont know what they are responsible for really, but I guess its also not to type up a guide to help users during a changeover in the game they produce.

They have people they answer to just like anyone else in the company. Just because they are kept in the loop on things, doesn't mean necessarily they have any say in what happens.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

They have people they answer to just like anyone else in the company. Just because they are kept in the loop on things, doesn't mean necessarily they have any say in what happens.

And ... there are people that Don't answer to team UO ... GMs fer example, Marketing as a second ...

It being logically deduced that it was >other depts<(some higher in the food chain) that lashed this "project up"
it is reasonable to hypothosize that >other depts< made them button thier lips

From High Praise to absentia whipping persons ...
my how the mighty have fallen from our adoration.

Well ! all a matter of perspective, now ain't it?


And from my recently acquired new perspective, thats the last I have for the topic.
From my perspective, all pertinent aspects have been assembled, and evaluated.
Anything further re management/corporate structure analysis, gonna have to charge seminar rates.
Seriously, I checked with my family and peeps ...
and since this topic, and the arising one (Birth of Origin 2.0 the distribution entity)
are about : Business structure and practices and NOT about the Game of Ultima Online and ITS pixels and mechanics ...
I can leave y'all to that and focus solely on that of interest about: the game ITS pixels and mechanics ...
Seriously, I checked with my family and peeps ...

A "few asked" Is there not a different sub-forum, where Business structure and practices are encouraged to be discussed ...
thus leaving Uhall for:
the place for general discussion about Ultima Online gameplay, development issues, and related Ultima Online issues.?

It seems to those, that asked that question (in words to that effect) that Uhall has drifted from ITS intent.

And from my recently acquired new perspective,

I agree

 

[Shiznit Bo'Bourbon]

Yeah lets put all blame the EA suits blah blah blah again.

In this case it's completely appropriate to do so. This was an EA-wide decision affecting all their games, with a deadline handed down by people who probably don't even know what UO is.

 

[FetchChessepeake]

I agree, this situation is far beyond acceptable. The lack of communication makes it worse. A simple, "Here is the problem, here is what it will take to fix it on our end, and this is how long it might take," would be useful. Provide daily, in depth updates. I've called in on queue every "48-72" hours as requested since all of this started... and the answer has never changed. "It's currently down. Please call back in 48-72 hours." It makes the customer feel like he's being brushed off. Which he is, in this case.

 

[Lady CaT]

agreed w/ all of that. and Nobody will tell you where/who to send comments either.

I pulled these links directly from the Ultima Online website

Contact Info | Mythic Entertainment | Ultima Online

Feedback | Mythic Entertainment | Ultima Online

Your feedback would probably get closer to the appropriate parties at the actual company rather than posting rants and complaints on a third party forum site they probably don't read on a daily basis.

 

[FetchChessepeake]

I pulled these links directly from the Ultima Online website

Contact Info | Mythic Entertainment | Ultima Online

Feedback | Mythic Entertainment | Ultima Online

Your feedback would probably get closer to the appropriate parties at the actual company rather than posting rants and complaints on a third party forum site they probably don't read on a daily basis.

Try it. What's really cute, is that when you send an email to one of those addresses, you get an autoreply from Dark Age of Camelot support.

 

[Woodsman]

Try it. What's really cute, is that when you send an email to one of those addresses, you get an autoreply from Dark Age of Camelot support.

Supposedly the Camelot/Warhammer support understands the account migration. But it sounds like most games are borked. You might as well try SWTOR support.

Tina Small found EA's Facebook support page:

EA Customer Support | Facebook

There was an EA person on there trying to help people, but it appears they've been run off.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Your feedback

FEEDBACK AND SUGGESTIONS
the place to go to send in suggestions, issues, and questions for the Five on Friday.
all that stuff goes to the Dev's or some other peon at that studio (probably doing multiple games, like WAR/DAOC)

None of them are Corporate - so I put Cal in charge of giving answers/explanations - If he doesn't/won't, then I want to go up the ladder, vs using a BULK email box

 

[BBWolf]

Hi, when the new uo management change was made...i looked at it. If you ask me, this looks like a battlenet. website "almost" similar to that of the computer game World of Warcraft (WoW). I managed to link my 3 accounts to my master account and when i clicked on the subscription part to renew my UO account it said,

ERROR! Please return to main page.

I clicked on the main page and it still says, ERROR!!

Well, now im screwed and i can't renew my UO account....

What was wrong with the old uo management website again? It was working just fine! I know! Let's just change it and screw everyone up!! (Who cares!) They really don't and they just want our money

 

[MalagAste]

Facebook is EVIL... The tool of Satan...... I refuse to use it.

As for the rest you are correct the DEV's don't have anything to do with this.... but they did say that they WOULD be monitoring things.... and I'm sure they have heard about everything from the phone customer support staff.

 

[Dakkon Blackblade]

Unacceptable? maybe so but I mean really what are you all going to do quit? I've never seen a larger group of masochists (not there is anything wrong with that) just saying.

 

[Gawin]

FEEDBACK AND SUGGESTIONS
the place to go to send in suggestions, issues, and questions for the Five on Friday.
all that stuff goes to the Dev's or some other peon at that studio (probably doing multiple games, like WAR/DAOC)

None of them are Corporate - so I put Cal in charge of giving answers/explanations - If he doesn't/won't, then I want to go up the ladder, vs using a BULK email box

call here

(650) 628-1500

this is corporate I suggest asking for public relations you might get some place

 

[HD2300]

F
As for the rest you are correct the DEV's don't have anything to do with this...

I guess UO devs have nothing to do with getting UO logins, UO character slots, UO gamecode etc working with the new system. I guess UO producers are not responsible for making sure that the game they produce functions well without downtime.

Yes it was a big project across many games, but UO devs and producers are responsible for making their part of it, UO, work.

and it wasn't a rush job, this project has been in the works for almost 9 months.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

Facebook is EVIL... The tool of Satan...... I refuse to use it.

As for the rest you are correct the DEV's don't have anything to do with this.... but they did say that they WOULD be monitoring things.... and I'm sure they have heard about everything from the phone customer support staff.

Does the above first sentence scare anyone else?

 

[Woodsman]

As for the rest you are correct the DEV's don't have anything to do with this.... but they did say that they WOULD be monitoring things.... and I'm sure they have heard about everything from the phone customer support staff.

Based on the comments that I've seen on a bunch of other forums and on Stratics, I'm pretty sure that the people working the phones on the customer support staff have not talked to a single person that works on the actual games they are taking calls for, with few exceptions.

One major exception being the Dark Age of Camelot lost connection thread on IGN where they talked to techs who actually gave some specifics about the gateway servers possibly conflicting with the account migration, and the other on the Star Wars forums where somebody was getting their account sorted out and the support they were getting seemed familiar with the SWTOR.com -> Origin.com migration. Then again, their issue wasn't getting solved and they were still waiting for a solution and they were at one point given a response similar to what UO plaeyrs received. They still seemed to have talked to somebody in support who had specifics. There have also been some UO players here who got specifics, but those specifics seemed mighty crazy, talking about bans and the like.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

call here
(650) 628-1500
this is corporate I suggest asking for public relations you might get some place

thanks
I have a few contacts for PR already, mostly in the UK; name, phone, and email.
Senior UK PR Manager, several Publicists, UK Publicist, PR Coordinator, UK PR Coordinator.
these are all @ea.com, or @europe.ea.com

with all this ado, it'll be fixed soon in time for the next xpac - and everyone will forget all these troubles. after that Spring Cleaning

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Facebook is EVIL... The tool of Satan...... I refuse to use it.

Just deleted the Mafia Wars app from mine - Zynga is the Evil

 

[Woodsman]

and it wasn't a rush job, this project has been in the works for almost 9 months.

They gave players little warning, very little explanation, and they still migrated UO, Camelot, and Warhammer all at the same time. You can defend EA on this all you want in this thread and in the others where you defended them, but whether they spent 9 months or 19 months on this, it doesn't matter because they rushed the end of the project.

For further proof that they rushed the end of this project, it turns out that they began migrating/prompting Star Wars: The Old Republic pre-orders and SWTOR.com members sometime after the middle of July to link their accounts, and even then they were having problems with customers not understanding the linking process or not being able to link the SWTOR.com, pre-orders, etc.

Did they slow down the Origin.com migration for their other games after finding problems with the biggest game they are going to release this year or next? No, it's full steam ahead on the SS Electronic Arts, ignore the icebergs, they aren't that big.

Somebody was in a hurry to finish this migration, and they didn't care what kind of confusion and problems were created. A competently run company would have immediately stopped the other migrations after they started finding problems with the Star Wars -> Origin.com migration.

While EA deserves the majority of derision for this, I also have to question BioWare since they were aware of the Star Wars migration problems. Somebody should have put their foot down and stopped the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer migrations since the other three migrations compounded problems within BioWare. Now BioWare has problems with all four of its MMOs, and like somebody else said, a lot of Star Wars players may not even realize they have problems since they probably aren't going to pay much attention until the launch day nears.

 

[Woodsman]

You do have to love the wording of the Star Wars support emails on the account migration problems

Greetings Humanoid,

I am Protocol Droid **-**, Human-Cyborg relations.

I have received your transmission.
Please be advised that at present, Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ pre-order issues of this nature are dealt with by EA Customer Support.

For assistance with your Origin pre-order enquiry, we would ask that you please contact EA Customer Support directly via Origin

We hope that your issue is resolved as soon as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.

Should you need further assistance with this matter, please do not hesitate to let me know. Galactic support is our specialty...

Sincerely,
Protocol Droid **-**
SWTOR Customer Service

and

Greetings Humanoid,

I am Protocol Droid **-**, Human-Cyborg relations.

I have received your transmission.

We have checked your account again and can confirm the link is not yet made between your SWTOR and EA account. The only way for you to do this is to pre-order a copy of Star Wars - The Old Republic and follow the confirmation code process.

There are only two ways in which a SWTOR and an EA account can be linked, the first is to create a new SWTOR account with an email that already exists on the EA site. The second way is to purchase a copy of Star Wars - The Old Republic and enter the Pre-order code. Either of these methods will link the two accounts, according to our records you have not performed either of these steps and your accounts are not yet linked.

Should you need further assistance with this matter, please do not hesitate to let me know. Galactic support is our specialty...

Sincerely,

Protocol Droid **-**
SWTOR Customer Service

And for something really screwy, unless Star Wars players link their accounts, they won't be able to post on the official SWTOR.com forums. If Battlefield 3 players don't link, they don't play, etc., etc.

This is worse than Ubisoft.

 

[HD2300]

and it wasn't a rush job, this project has been in the works for almost 9 months.

They gave players little warning, very little explanation, and they still migrated UO, Camelot, and Warhammer all at the same time. You can defend EA on this all you want in this thread and in the others where you defended them, but whether they spent 9 months or 19 months on this, it doesn't matter because they rushed the end of the project.

For further proof that they rushed the end of this project, it turns out that they began migrating/prompting Star Wars: The Old Republic pre-orders and SWTOR.com members sometime after the middle of July to link their accounts, and even then they were having problems with customers not understanding the linking process or not being able to link the SWTOR.com, pre-orders, etc.

Did they slow down the Origin.com migration for their other games after finding problems with the biggest game they are going to release this year or next? No, it's full steam ahead on the SS Electronic Arts, ignore the icebergs, they aren't that big.

Somebody was in a hurry to finish this migration, and they didn't care what kind of confusion and problems were created. A competently run company would have immediately stopped the other migrations after they started finding problems with the Star Wars -> Origin.com migration.

While EA deserves the majority of derision for this, I also have to question BioWare since they were aware of the Star Wars migration problems. Somebody should have put their foot down and stopped the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer migrations since the other three migrations compounded problems within BioWare. Now BioWare has problems with all four of its MMOs, and like somebody else said, a lot of Star Wars players may not even realize they have problems since they probably aren't going to pay much attention until the launch day nears.

Yeah your right. UO Producers are not responsible for any development related to UO and making sure UO works properly, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy in EA are.

 

[Woodsman]

Yeah your right. UO Producers are not responsible for any development related to UO and making sure UO works properly, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy in EA are.

Given that all three active MMOs are still having similar problems with this migration, including gametime codes, connection issues, and account linking, and that some of the SWTOR accounts are also having problems with this migration, most people would logically conclude that the problem is first and foremost with EA, especially given that they pushed through the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer migrations after finding problems with the Star Wars migration a few weeks before.

But go ahead and keep on defending EA and pretending that UO is unique in this migration.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Yeah your right. UO Producers are not responsible for any development related to UO and making sure UO works properly, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy in EA are.

I really wonder about you on occasion.

What is the producers job? Answer that question, because honestly It has little to do with any Development. Also, it was not any of the UO Developers jobs to "make sure it works". Did you know no one on the team ever managed the account process? They are Game designers, not marketing engineers (If you need a comparisons between the two different job titles just look it up.)

That is just a sample of what kind of answers I could give you on your idea's.

Remind me again what game company you work for? Or what software company? I seem to have forgotten.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Given that all three active MMOs are still having similar problems with this migration, including gametime codes, connection issues, and account linking, and that some of the SWTOR accounts are also having problems with this migration, most people would logically conclude that the problem is first and foremost with EA, especially given that they pushed through the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer migrations after finding problems with the Star Wars migration a few weeks before.

But go ahead and keep on defending EA and pretending that UO is unique in this migration.

I prefer to take the stance of wondering why he thinks the UO developers have free reign over everything. It is not their jobs to please us, despite what people think. It is their jobs to do as they are told.

 

[Woodsman]

What I'd like to know is who decided on this whole migration thing and who had the power to keep on pushing the migration onto other games after problems appeared with the SWTOR -> Origin.com migration. The SWTOR problems occurred well before the migration being announced for UO/Camelot/Warhammer, and BioWare was at least aware of them.

SWTOR has a budget of well over $200 million and rumored to be $300 million, but it was less than 4 years ago that EA picked up BioWare and Pandemic for over half a billion dollars, and so it's not just what they paid directly for development, there is some cost associated with the fact that they paid over half a billion to get BioWare.

Then you have Battlefield 3 with some really ******** Origin.com restrictions of one persona per Origin account and apparently only one Origin account allowed. The EA CEO said they would be spending $100 million just to market Battlefield 3. It would probably take close to four years for UO, Camelot, and Warhammer combined to bring in $100 million.

And yet somebody has the power to push the Origin.com thing through and affect both of those games, and they have the power to keep on pushing it even after cracks in the structure appear. That is a lot of power, my friend. A lot of power. These are two of EA's biggest titles and certainly among their most expensive.

Whoever sold the EA leadership on pushing everything through Origin.com did one helluva pitch.

Or else they have blackmail photos of the EA CEO.

 

[HD2300]

Yeah your right. UO Producers are not responsible for any development related to UO and making sure UO works properly, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy in EA are.

I really wonder about you on occasion.

What is the producers job? Answer that question, because honestly It has little to do with any Development. Also, it was not any of the UO Developers jobs to "make sure it works". Did you know no one on the team ever managed the account process? They are Game designers, not marketing engineers (If you need a comparisons between the two different job titles just look it up.)

That is just a sample of what kind of answers I could give you on your idea's.

Remind me again what game company you work for? Or what software company? I seem to have forgotten.

Yes you are right. The producer of a game, is not responsible for managing the development of his/her game. They are not responsible for making sure it works. And all our UO devs are just game designers that only just play with pretty little pictures. They dont do any real programming. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny in EA corp HQ have been responsible for doing all coding in UO and have been for years.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Well, I would say there is also the option that it really is better over all for EA and its subs.

With a more centralized asset for marketing (such as Origin.com) it takes less people to manage it, and in theory the technology should be up-to-date and thus easier to navigate/fix/add to.

I know they should have stopped when one game had a problem, and even then when 2. And they never should have pushed every game in their library under the same system in such a short amount of time. (Anyone who wants to argue that they had 9 months and thinks 9 months is a long time has no concept of R&D, not just in game developing but at all.)

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Yes you are right. The producer of a game, is not responsible for managing the development of his/her game. They are not responsible for making sure it works. And all our UO devs are just game designers that only just play with pretty little pictures. They dont do any real programming. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny in EA corp HQ have been responsible for doing all coding in UO and have been for years.

I love how you ignored what I said and regurgitated the same crap.

Like it or not, UO still works. The developers are doing their job keeping it working. When UO actually stops working come on back and make an argument.

And I said they are game designers, not marketeers. But you ignored everything else so why would I expect you to not ignore that. Or perhaps all this is just to confusing for you and google/any other search engine doesn't work on your computer.

 

[Nyses]

Facebook is EVIL... The tool of Satan...... I refuse to use it.

As for the rest you are correct the DEV's don't have anything to do with this.... but they did say that they WOULD be monitoring things.... and I'm sure they have heard about everything from the phone customer support staff.

Does the above first sentence scare anyone else?

NOPE! I agree completely, with that statement. Facebook = willfully giving all your personal and maybe private info to a corporation = they now own it all. Wait and see what they eventually do with it all.

 

[Viper09]

Yeah your right. UO Producers are not responsible for any development related to UO and making sure UO works properly, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy in EA are.

Given that all three active MMOs are still having similar problems with this migration, including gametime codes, connection issues, and account linking, and that some of the SWTOR accounts are also having problems with this migration, most people would logically conclude that the problem is first and foremost with EA, especially given that they pushed through the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer migrations after finding problems with the Star Wars migration a few weeks before.

But go ahead and keep on defending EA and pretending that UO is unique in this migration.

Ignore him, nothing more than a troll.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

What is the producers job? Answer that question

This is all I know..

Cal's job, as the Development Manager, in 2008: "This means that server crashes, staffing the team, schedule decisions, prioritizing bug fixes, squelching rumors, and emanating a general sense of well-being are well within my responsibilities for delegation. Restated: when it’s “broke” I try to figure out who is going to fix it. If it’s not broken I do my best to make sure it remains that way."

Chris Rabideau 'was' Producer for 3 games (daoc/war/uo). dunno what he actually does - drinks beer with that 1 UO dev kid?

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

This is all I know..

Cal's job, as the Development Manager, in 2008: "This means that server crashes, staffing the team, schedule decisions, prioritizing bug fixes, squelching rumors, and emanating a general sense of well-being are well within my responsibilities for delegation. Restated: when it’s “broke” I try to figure out who is going to fix it. If it’s not broken I do my best to make sure it remains that way."

Chris Rabideau 'was' Producer for 3 games (daoc/war/uo). dunno what he actually does - drinks beer with that 1 UO dev kid?

Well, I was not questioning everyone's understanding of the job title just one poster lol. But yes more or less that is his job, none of that has to do with marketing the game, which is what the account management page is all about. Although he might have to forward complaints to the marketing team....I am not entirely sure. Honestly a producers job varies by company so I can not honestly say what his job is, but my point was neither can anyone else.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

Well, I was not questioning everyone's understanding of the job title just one poster lol. But yes more or less that is his job, none of that has to do with marketing the game, which is what the account management page is all about. Although he might have to forward complaints to the marketing team....I am not entirely sure. Honestly a producers job varies by company so I can not honestly say what his job is, but my point was neither can anyone else.

*ahem* The current debacle ain't about "marketing" ...
its about Accounting ...

The "marketing" side >markets< the product that was "produced" by the Devs
and accounting is tasked with receiving and managing(bookkeeping) the money to "pay" for those others(and all others in Co.) efforts.

That legal ain't in there beating accounting with sticks ...
is probably because Human Resources won't allow it
and shipping and receiving don't care ... they are somewhat on a "break"(probably)
and investor relations is likely confused ...
How the hell can we put a "positive outlook" On THIS ???

good luck with that, have you seen the new UI on Monster jobs (Find Jobs. Build a Better Career. Find Your Calling. | Monster.com) ??

 

[Woodsman]

I don't think the people who made the decisions about the Origin.com stuff care too much about how it's received or problems that have happened or worried about having to look for a new job.

Somebody whose job was tied to performance, they would have stopped the migration after the Star Wars -> Origin.com problems in July (and I believe there are other games that migrated before Star Wars). They would have fixed the problems that came up with the Star Wars migration, and they would have put tutorials out.

Instead, they stayed mostly silent and let customer service do the talking, and they went right on ahead and migrated UO, Camelot, and Warhammer all at the same time, and some of the same Star Wars SWTOR.com -> Origin.com problems occurred, with the same amount of confusion, compounded by those three games actually being in production.

Whoever gave the go ahead on this is not worried about job security. Either EA thought they were losing money or worried about audits on the current account management systems for all of the games, there was some security problem, or more likely, somebody crunched a bunch of numbers together and sold EA management on the idea that in the long run this new system was going to make them a lot of money, or a combination of those. I would lean towards both existing financial and security reasons, but the fact that they are moving existing games off of Steam makes me wonder.

 

[Tina Small]

I don't think the people who made the decisions about the Origin.com stuff care too much about how it's received or problems that have happened or worried about having to look for a new job.

Somebody whose job was tied to performance, they would have stopped the migration after the Star Wars -> Origin.com problems in July (and I believe there are other games that migrated before Star Wars). They would have fixed the problems that came up with the Star Wars migration, and they would have put tutorials out.

Instead, they stayed mostly silent and let customer service do the talking, and they went right on ahead and migrated UO, Camelot, and Warhammer all at the same time, and some of the same Star Wars SWTOR.com -> Origin.com problems occurred, with the same amount of confusion, compounded by those three games actually being in production.

Whoever gave the go ahead on this is not worried about job security. Either EA thought they were losing money or worried about audits on the current account management systems for all of the games, there was some security problem, or more likely, somebody crunched a bunch of numbers together and sold EA management on the idea that in the long run this new system was going to make them a lot of money, or a combination of those. I would lean towards both existing financial and security reasons, but the fact that they are moving existing games off of Steam makes me wonder.

Maybe EA is going to be acquired by someone else.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

Maybe EA is going to be acquired by someone else.

possible ... think this is gonna drive the Price UP?

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

*ahem* The current debacle ain't about "marketing" ...
its about Accounting ...

The "marketing" side >markets< the product that was "produced" by the Devs
and accounting is tasked with receiving and managing(bookkeeping) the money to "pay" for those others(and all others in Co.) efforts.

That legal ain't in there beating accounting with sticks ...
is probably because Human Resources won't allow it
and shipping and receiving don't care ... they are somewhat on a "break"(probably)
and investor relations is likely confused ...
How the hell can we put a "positive outlook" On THIS ???

good luck with that, have you seen the new UI on Monster jobs (Find Jobs. Build a Better Career. Find Your Calling. | Monster.com) ??

When talking about Development it is generally considered a marketeer who does the development of the "sales" portion of a website/game. Accounting has nothing to actually do with this, despite the fact that it has a similar sounding name to "account management".

In either case the point is that the Game Designers would have little if anything to do with this at all.

 

[HD2300]

In a nutshell the problem with UO is that we have pom pom wavers cheering on mediocrity. When the community never demands or expects more than mediocre garbage, we have have we have now.

This billing system does not work in isolation but integrates with other UO systems, which means that these UO systems require development and testing to make sure they work with the new billing system. The billing project has been going on for 9 months and many things that should have been done to ensure UO continue working smoothly and profitably were not done. Most of us with any common sense know what a producer does and what game designers and game developers do. EA management is not responsible for producing a game and making sure it operates smoothly.

 

[twoburntfouryou]

I am still having a problem trying to figure out how a new billing system has my 1 account all messed up to the point I get a message that I can not do this or that cause I am on a free trail account? They did not have a problem with taking my 14.99 this month. I have called them and was told they are aware of the problems and are working on them.Again how a new billing system has messed up my gameplay I am at a lost for words on this issue

 

[Beleth of Atlantic]

To the above poster, you are not alone with oddities.

For some reason 02 of my accounts which I cancelled JUST after AoS was launched are coming up as "Terminated" with the inability to reactivate them. I have no idea whats going on there... just glad my main acc is working.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

In a nutshell the problem with UO is that we have pom pom wavers cheering on mediocrity. When the community never demands or expects more than mediocre garbage, we have have we have now.

This billing system does not work in isolation but integrates with other UO systems, which means that these UO systems require development and testing to make sure they work with the new billing system. The billing project has been going on for 9 months and many things that should have been done to ensure UO continue working smoothly and profitably were not done. Most of us with any common sense know what a producer does and what game designers and game developers do. EA management is not responsible for producing a game and making sure it operates smoothly.

None of this is true even on its own merits. I really don't care what you think, and personally attacking people who correct you simply because you speak out of faith and with no actual knowledge or experience in such matter is fine as it only shows your character.

If you need me to explain anything here don't bother to ask, or even reply preferably.

 

[Woodsman]

In a nutshell the problem with UO is that we have pom pom wavers cheering on mediocrity. When the community never demands or expects more than mediocre garbage, we have have we have now.

Since this billing system is causing problems for Camelot, Warhammer, and Star Wars pre-orders and SWTOR.com users (And Star Wars isn't even launched yet!), does that mean that Camelot, Warhammer, and Star Wars players are cheering on mediocrity as well? Since SWTOR.com accounts were migrated to Origin.com and since you have an Origin.com account, you could probably post on SWTOR.com somehow. You should tell those people who are having problems with their accounts that the problem with Star Wars: The Old Republic is that they have pom pom wavers cheering on mediocrity. And those Warhammer players who are having gametime code problems, post on the BioWare forums and tell them the same. And the Camelot players who are having dropped connections because the new account management system is screwing with their gateway servers, register on IGN and tell them the same.

This billing system does not work in isolation but integrates with other UO systems, which means that these UO systems require development and testing to make sure they work with the new billing system. The billing project has been going on for 9 months and many things that should have been done to ensure UO continue working smoothly and profitably were not done.

This new system was proven to cause problems and confusion with would-be Star Wars players when SWTOR.com and pre-order accounts were migrated to Origin.com accounts.

Back in July.

Almost two weeks before the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer migrations started.

EA management is not responsible for producing a game and making sure it operates smoothly.

EA management is responsible for putting the brakes on the migration to a new system when problems start showing up with one of the first mass migrations they did.

Back in July.

Almost two weeks before the UO, Camelot, and Warhammer migrations started.

I find it hilarious that you accused people like me of astroturfing because they didn't support your desire for a classic shard and defended the devs decision not to implement a classic shard much to your anger, and yet it seems like you are doing everything you can to defend EA management.

While a lot of the upper EA management came out of non-game related industries initially, they are intelligent enough to know that if a massive database migration has problems or created confusion, you don't push on through with three more massive migrations of production MMO games two weeks later unless the problems are fixed and the confusion cleared up.

 

[THP]

totally agree...this is utter crap...most peeps have several or more accounts with different emails etc etc ..why did we have to fix something that was not broken.......and 9 accounts max??? get f*****g real???

 

[HD2300]

^^ Most UO p(l)ayers dont care what is happening in WAR, DoAC or Narnia.

That fact is that the project started 9 months ago, not 2 weeks ago. That is 9 months lead time for whomever is "producing" UO, not EA management, to test and sort out any UO related problems, and ensure a smooth and easy transition for UO p(l)ayers. Not even a basic user manual was created for UO p(l)ayers. Whomever is "producing" UO was AWOL for 9 months.

...Harsh but true. But if you must, please keep on excusing and cheering on mediocrity. Expect garbage -> get garbage

 

[Woodsman]

^^ Most UO p(l)ayers dont care what is happening in WAR, DoAC or Narnia.

They do care when those accounts count against the 9-account cap.

That fact is that the project started 9 months ago, not 2 weeks ago. That is 9 months lead time for whomever is "producing" UO, not EA management, to test and sort out any UO related problems, and ensure a smooth and easy transition for UO p(l)ayers. Not even a basic user manual was created for UO p(l)ayers. Whomever is "producing" UO was AWOL for 9 months.

Does that mean that the Camelot, Warhammer, and Star Wars producers were AWOL for 9 months since all three of those games had problems with the migration?

And I've got to ask, do you think it was wise for EA to continue the migration after it became clear there were problems and confusion created by the Star Wars/SWTOR.com -> Origin.com migration back in July?

Or do you think that maybe EA should have stopped the migration when those problems and confusion appeared after the Star Wars migration?

 

[HD2300]

^^ Classic Shard. Factions PvP. Anti-cheating. Arenas.

But please keep on excusing and cheering on mediocrity. Expect garbage -> get garbage. TY

 

[Woodsman]

They are simple questions HD2300, were the Camelot, Warhammer, and Star Wars producers "AWOL" as well since their games and accounts had problems with the migrations?

And do you think EA should have stopped the Origin.com migration back in July when problems and confusion were discovered in the wake of the SWTOR.com -> Origin.com migration?