About Warhammer's failed EU open beta launch

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning had an open beta launch this past Sunday 7th of September, in the USA it was handled by the company that made the game, namely Mythic, while in EU the launch has been handled by the company GOA (sorry, that is the best link I can find for GOA).

Now before I start criticising I have to say that I have not personally been involved in this open beta launch because even though I am still a beta tester I have decided that the game is not for me and that I have better things to do with my time than to beta test a game that I do not personally enjoy. So why am I writing this then? Well I'm writing this because quite frankly I am shocked about the way both Mythic and GOA has treated their customers.

Some more background might be needed here. When you buy a collectors edition (CE) of the game you gain access to the open beta. So when the open beta failed to launch in EU on Sunday and many of the people that had paid for their product still had not been able to even register on Monday night they were essentially denied access to something they had paid for. This is something that usually only happens when it comes to software and some people even expect it to happen which to me is kind of odd but considering this is how it is all over the world it might even be considered to be expected behaviour.

If we make a comparison with a guest to a hotel that has paid in advance for a room and when they get to the hotel they are told that they will have access to the room in a moment and then 36 hours later are still waiting in the lobby most of us would not be surprised if that guest was upset and we would also expect that guest to not have to pay for the rest of their stay.

So while I do agree with Mark Jacobs (CEO of Mythic) and Ian Compton (English Community Manager for GOA) that a failed open beta launch does not warrant death threats. If we go back to my example with the hotel room, I would say that that does not warrant death threats either but I would expect the guest to make them. So while I do agree with them both on that point I do however not agree with how they have communicated with their customers. On Mark Jacobs' blog he questions his customers mental health and in a letter to the community today Ian Compton pretty much says right out that he believes the customer base to have a screw loose.

Mark Jacobs:

Are you really the kind of person who thinks it’s socially acceptable to threaten people just because you are having problems with a game? Are you and your life so perfect that you don’t have your own issues or make your own mistakes?

Ian Compton:

If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury that you felt compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.

Personally as a gamer I would not touch a product these people has had their hands on ever again for the simple fact that they are, in my oh so humble opinion, missing the whole point of what good communication is. As a gamer and a paying customer I would have had no problem with GOA telling me that they were sorry but the open beta would have to be pushed up but that they would figure out a way to repay me for not giving me the product I paid for. But I would have expect them to tell me so on Sunday and then close the whole thing down until they could open it up again maybe 48 hours later. Of course they would have caught some flack for that but giving people the hope that if they just hang around and wait and keep trying eventually tends to get people very upset. Even I know this and I only have about 10-20 previous beta tests of MMORPGs of experience to base this on. So people that run a computer game company should definitely know that.

I can make an other comparison here with an other beta that I took part in almost 2 years ago that was held by two totally different companies. That time it did not entail any paying customers but there were still a lot of people upset as it was a very anticipated title and a lot of people that wanted to try it. The problem was then was caused by a database error too that was caused much due to the massive amount of people trying to communicate with it and while I know GOA claims that the traffic was not have an essential factor in this case my guess is that either it was or they should fire the person responsible for checking the database functionality before the gates were opened. Any way, the difference between this other company and GOA was that even if it took that company almost 3 days to sort out the problem they communicated on a whole other level than GOA has done and so while people were dissapointed nobody was really angry.

So GOA and Mythic, the gamer community does not expect wonders and we do not expect these kind of products to be without errors but we do expect to be told what is happening and we do not enjoy being told to be patient and just wait. We, the gamer community, just want you to treat us with the same respect as you want us to treat you. It really is as simple as that.

Edit:
It would seem that GOA has understood that they made some mistakes too and to their favour one has to say that they admit to their wrong doings (even it takes a while) and compensate for them. In my opinion the later part of those two are the most important part. That part was also the basis of this article.

Bonus days
Due to the many problems and delays during the first few days of the Open Beta GOA's CEO decided to take action and give seven free days of game play to all Open Beta players.

• Open Beta participants: 7 bonus days