I love when new things come out like the beta because it gets me laughing and gives me something to complain about all in one package. Hey, I did not get the nickname grumpy for no reason. I get a kick out of complaining.
I am reading all over the forums about people saying that they have not yet recieved their invite to the beta and they had signed up for the annual pass and they are pissed. Some of them are completely insane, some of them seem logical but most of them seem to miss the most important factors when they are complaining.
Don't get me wrong, I will gladly say "so much for getting access when the beta comes out like promised" because I am a smart ass, but that is just me being a smart ass. I am not about to go on a rant and rave about it. At least not yet, ask me in 4 months with the beta about to close if I still have not gotten it and that might change. Some people are just too much.
So, for the betterment of the community, at least the very few that read here, I will answer all their complaints for blizzard. Aren't I a nice guy?
"You promised access as soon as the beta started"
- Yes, indeed, they did. Anyone on the forums that wants to spew the crap that they promised access but not immediate access is full of crap. Blizzard did indeed say that all subscribers to the annual pass would get instant access to the beta. Just go watch the videos on youtube of the announcement at blizzcon and you will see they did promise it. HOWEVER, and please read this part if you are one of the people saying the previous line, they did also say they could change the offer or amend it at any time. Guess what, they changed it. Guess what else, you will get your access to the beta. Guess what even further, there is nothing you can do about it because you agreed to that contract.
"I paid for access and I want it now."
- This is another common line and the various versions of it out there. Let me be the bearer of bad news to the folks that are saying that. You did not pay for beta access to MoP. You agreed to pay for one year of WoW time uninterrupted. That is it. You did not pay for access to beta. You did not pay for diablo 3. You did not pay for the mount on all your characters. Those might have very well been the motivating factor for you agreeing to pay for one year of uninterrupted subscription time but they where bonuses given as a thank you for paying for the one year of uninterrupted subscription. Motivating factor yes, maybe even the whole reason, yes, but the money you agreed to pay is for WoW time, not MoP beta time. Remember that.
"I am going to sue them."
- I live in New York City and I have a joke that I always say where I call it Sue York City. It is basically because everybody and their mother sues everyone over everything. It is ridiculous and it needs to stop. A woman sued mcdonalds for making her kids fat. Hate to break it to you lady but if your kids are fat from eating mcdonalds then stop feeding it to them and bring them to the park to run around every once in a while. People sue over every stupid little thing. This, is a stupid little thing. Don't be like the lady that feeds her kids mcdonalds and then sues someone else for it when it is her own fault. Don't sue them because they did not do what you wanted them to do. You wanted access instantly and they didn't give it to you, that is not a reason to sue. Sue them if the beta finishes and you never got an invite at all. Then I will gladly stand with you and say they deserve it. Stop talking about suing them one day after invites started going out like it is the end of the world or something.
"Waves of invites are wrong, they should let everyone that bought the AP in at the same time."
- I am going to guess the people saying this don't know a great deal about computers. No problem, not everyone does but something like that is just not a good idea. While I agree with people that say it could have been done because it could have, absolutely, it is just not reasonable to do it. They would have needed to set up so many servers to handle that many people all at once. It is not like you can put all 1M people on one server or even 10. They would have had to make such a massive collection of servers just to handle the influx of people that first day and then when people played around and left because they saw what they wanted to see they would be left with 100s of near empty servers meaning the game would not get the testing it needs. Waves are how it should be handled to consistently add people to the mix to make sure that the servers they do have up stay near full so it could be best tested on a near full server for best results and reduced costs. You don't have to believe when when I say this but it is up to you to either call me an idiot or accept what I am saying as true but it is better for us, the players, if they slowly add people and correct errors as they go with the servers getting slowly filled.
"I want to see it now."
- I do too, I would love to see it now. I would have loved to start my download before I went to work so I could have come home and tested some stuff out but it didn't work out that way. Deal with it. Not to mention, while there is a great deal to see not much is in the beta yet. No professions really, no 85+ access, most people that transferred over their characters will not see them there for days, so forth and so on. You want to see it but it is not all there yet. Are you going to be the same person that when they see it comes back to the forums and complains that it seems so unfinished? Of course it is, it is the beta.
"People without the AP got invites before the people with the AP did."
- Yes. They did. I personally know one person that got an invite that has not played for nearly 2 years. What does that have to do with anything? Press and other "important" people as they might judge them will always get the first look and be the first invited. That is just the way of life. It is not blizzard giving the finger to people that bought the AP it is just them conducting their business like a business. God forbid.
"I paid for the AP and I should get it first."
- That is your opinion and why should your opinion have any more weight then another persons? I paid too, what if I got it a day before you did, does that make me the bad guy? What if you got it the day before I did, does that make you the bad guy? Not everyone can get everything at the same time. It is just not possible. Again, if you paid for the AP you will get it. Just wait for it.
"But I want to test everything out now because I have the week off."
- That, and various other comments that mention the timing issues always get me. Firstly, you can not test everything because everything is not there to be tested now. Secondly, while I can not be entirely certain, I will go out on a limb here and say that you are not the only person that plays the game and the time schedule is not set up around you. I am pretty secure in that second one there. Yes, I know you have the time now and it sucks that you did not get in when you have the extra time. I feel for you honestly, but things like that happen in life all the time, get used to it. Timing screws us all over once in a while and it was your turn. Don't worry too much, like I said, you would not have been able to test everything now anyway.
"I wanted to get the preview to see if it will be worth getting."
- You will get the preview, in a few months at best. Even if you got into the beta today it is not a preview, it is a beta. They are two different things. While the beta is a preview of sorts it is not a real preview. It is not a full preview. It is a constant work in progress with servers coming up and down, bugs here and there, and lots of other general annoyances. Heck, check my last post about hunter weapons asking how they can even allow that to make it to the test phase, things are not even remotely close to being itemized yet it seems. A preview is more what we get on the PTR, a near finished product where some things are being ironed out. This is a beta, not a preview. There is a lot of things that need fixing, it is not even close to a real preview at all.
"I just wanted to play now because I am bored with 4.3"
- Welcome to the club my friend. I wish I where playing mists now too and I am not talking about the beta I am talking about the real thing. The beta, while it can be played, is not intended as a game to give you something to do. It is intended to get the bugs worked out so it can be released as something you can do. If all you want to do is play some new content please I beg of you, do not log on to the beta. We need people on the beta that are going to report bugs, that are going to try things that blizzard did not think of so they can be fixed before they go live, that are going to do every quest to see if they all work and not just level up asap, to actually do what a beta is intended for, to get it ready for the game to be played. The beta is not intended for you to play as if it where a release product. Maybe that is the problem most people have. They do not realize that.
So in summation I will say this, just be clam and move along. Go join a pug on your server, go read the information that is being put out there or maybe even do something that is not WoW related. If you purchased the annual pass you will get your invite, in time.
Until then, just be a smart ass like me and say, "so much for getting access when the beta comes out like promised" if someone brings it up and leave it at that with a laugh. If you go any further then that, you have gone too far.
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well put.
ReplyDeleteI cannot wait to hear the cries when some of the first time beta Annual Passers who confuse this with "early access" hear their pandas and hard work will be deleted after the beta.
You've somehow conflated commonsense expectation with the customer's expectation that the company will make a good faith attempt to keep it's word.
ReplyDeleteMy interpretation of what you just wrote is get over their unethical lies and play your game. Is that really where you meant to go? If so you made the point well.
Hehe, well put, well put.
ReplyDeleteplayer self-entitlement is as baffling as it is bottomless sometimes.
one of my favorites in this context is also "but I have been a loyal customer since day 1 - you owe me!"
Well said!
ReplyDeleteHey, guess what? If a company offers you a bonus for subscribing to their service, then that bonus is owed to you. It's part of the deal. It's part of the reason why you agree to pay. And you know what else? The law agrees with this. For one thing, this practice is false advertisement.
ReplyDeleteSecond, a promise that you can change at any time is not really a promise, is it? Let's call it what it really is: an attempt at confusing the customer and making him believe the deal he's entering grants him more than it really does. You can blame customers for not noticing the "we reserve the right to change this promise at any time" part, but trying to fool people is still wrong, especially when these people are your customers.
You know what happens to companies who do this kind of stuff? They lose customers. They lose money. They lose profits.
It doesn't matter if you play by the rules when you don't respect customers - respect and quality service are the two most important things to customers. Playing by the rules is only important to lawyers.
Sure, right now the marketing goons at Blizzard might be patting themselves on the pack and going "look how many people we suckered in and all the money we got!" but how many of these customers will buy their next game now?
I'm not one of the people who didn't get their beta access. I didn't pay for whatever was supposed to get me such access and I don't play any Blizzard games actually. But the reason I stay clear from Blizzard is their horrible PR. I realized long ago that they act like scumbags towards their customers and so I decided never to give them another cent. Every time I hear about Blizzard or one of their new games, I feel like I made the right decision.
Blizzard seems to go from one customer disappointment to the next. They can get away with it now, but at some point they'll antagonize too many of their customers and they'll regret it.
As for you, Grumpy Elf, your angle of approach is pretty obvious and pathetic. You clearly don't care about who's right and wrong here. The way you excuse Blizzard shows it. You're not a Blizzard fanboy though. You just think that pointing out to people how stupid they were for trusting Blizzard makes you somehow special and superior.
You think that pointing out "oh but wait, I know what Blizzard promised, but they also said they could come back on their promise at any time!!" makes you more intelligent. But you are completely missing the core of the issue: in the end, it's not about who's right and wrong, it's about trust.
As I said above, customers want respect and quality from companies they do business with; following the rules and being technically in the right is something only lawyers care about.
I guess the great thing about the Internet is that anybody with a blog and an opinion can write articles.
I agree it was a dickhead move on blizzards part and I am as upset with that as anyone else is. I don't agree with making a bigger deal of it then it is however. They have a track record of stuff like this so why would they change it all now and do the right thing? Perhaps I am not all uptight about it like some people is because I never expect them to do the right thing.
DeleteI did not write it to show I am smarter because I knew it was coming. I wrote it because it is my opinion. Opinions are opinions and as such they can not be smart or stupid, they are just how you feel about something.
And yes, anyone can post their opinion, but someones opinion must be either "right enough" or "wrong enough" for someone else to comment on it which means, like it or not, my opinion got exactly what it was supposed to from you, a response. I'd say it was a job done.
Thank you for reading.