Maintenance for the week of February 9:
· [COMPLETE] NA megaservers for maintenance – February 9, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] EU megaservers for maintenance – February 9, 9:00 UTC (4:00AM EST) - 17:00 UTC (12:00PM EST)
· [COMPLETE] NA megaservers for maintenance – February 9, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
· [COMPLETE] EU megaservers for maintenance – February 9, 9:00 UTC (4:00AM EST) - 17:00 UTC (12:00PM EST)
Deceiving game purchase information, criticism, and praise where it's due.
Da7id.mub17_ESO
Soul Shriven
When I, and many others made the choice to pre purchase ESO from your website, we were led to believe that we would receive either a Digital or Physical Edition of the game, the digital perks, 5 day early access, and 30 days of included game time. We were also led to believe that come launch day we would just need to enter our release day game code to activate our 30 days of game time and after that we would be paying a monthly subscription. This all seemed to be pretty straight forward and I was more than happy to agree to your asking price, as were thousands of people. I gladly ordered a collectors edition and a digital imperial edition for my girlfriend and I.
Now, the part where we feel rather burned by our agreement: The physical copy won't actually be delivered until April 9th-12th. I understand this is not entirely your fault, as Zenimax cannot control the postal system, nor the vendors you sponsored on your webpage to purchase physical editions from, but this "grace period" you offered for physical editions to be shipped, received, and the code entered is mildly insulting. Your game released on a Friday and the grace period doesn't even extend itself into the business days of this week!? Mail times are typically measured in business days. Monday-Friday, most everyone knows this. If I had to wait a few days between this "grace period" and getting my physical copy, and I was only one of a handful of people that had this happen, I would chalk it up to crappy shipping luck and would not be writing this post right now, but the reality of the situation is a large portion of the people who ordered the physical copies that were linked on this website for pre order, will not be receiving their game until days after your illogical "grace period" expires. Hundreds of these people made this very well known to you on forums that your staff has been incredibly active in, which by the way, on a plus note, has been a breath of fresh air when it comes to an MMO launch. I didn't even expect this grace period to be free game time either. Start my 30 included days of play on 4/4/2014, even though my physical game code can't be entered until I receive the game later this week. I expected my 30 days to start at launch. This is why we pre ordered. Shipping times are not your fault, but they are not your customers fault either. We paid $100+ dollars because we wanted 2 basic things:
A collectors edition box set, and the ability to play the game for 30 days starting on launch day. I understand we will still technically be receiving 30 days of game time, but why punish the people who love Elder Scrolls enough to spend the extra cash to purchase the collectors edition by suspending our game time until a box arrives?
The second obvious issue is the payment verification options. I understand why you would do an authorization check to ensure the payment method is valid, and no, $15 isn't a large amount of money and isn't "that big of a deal" to most of us, but this should have been conveyed to the community long before now. I understand it is not actually charging my card until after the 30 days are up, but if we don't happen to have these funds available to withdraw and refund we have to contact customer service to figure this out. I must say, your customer service is, so far, quite impressive compared to most, but I think I speak for the majority when I say, we don't want to have to deal with no damn customer support unless it's absolutely necessary. Even if they are creatively role playing our problems away. Am I wrong by assuming this? What about the people that don't have a credit card, bank account, or paypal set up yet to do this. I'm sure if this information was brought to our attention before now you wouldn't have thousands of irate posts all over the internet.
(And to those that say, "Get over it you stupid cry babies! This has been the norm for subscription based MMOs since forever!" Just because WoW and other MMOs have done it, doesn't mean we should assume it's just the way things are.)
It appears that the majority of your pre order customers thought they had 30 days to first, decide whether they want to continue their subscription further, and second, set up their preferred method of paying. Your FAQ states that, "They may also redeem a game time card as an alternative to a credit card." Please tell me where these game time cards are offered, because I see a bunch of people, my girlfriend and I included, that want to use this method, but have no way of obtaining, or finding these game time cards, in the US anyway. I'm just saying it would have been nice to know ahead of time that this payment authorization would have to be done before our included 30 days could begin. I don't care if it's a $15 payment validation or a 1 cent validation. Some people have to plan ahead for these things due to one reason or another.
All of this being said, the Elder Scrolls Team and your game have, for the most part, done a fantastic job wooing those old and young (like the lusty Argonians you are) into an amazing MMO universe that will no doubt keep us entertained and craving more for quite some time. In my opinion, your team is doing FAR more right than it's doing wrong, and that says a lot with a massive project such as this. I look forward to spending a lot of time in Tamriel with this incredible community you have brought together, regardless of these complaints.Though, I must say, these next few days of waiting to play will be agonizing. If only we could pray at the Postal shrine and receive a 200% buff to delivery rates.
Now, the part where we feel rather burned by our agreement: The physical copy won't actually be delivered until April 9th-12th. I understand this is not entirely your fault, as Zenimax cannot control the postal system, nor the vendors you sponsored on your webpage to purchase physical editions from, but this "grace period" you offered for physical editions to be shipped, received, and the code entered is mildly insulting. Your game released on a Friday and the grace period doesn't even extend itself into the business days of this week!? Mail times are typically measured in business days. Monday-Friday, most everyone knows this. If I had to wait a few days between this "grace period" and getting my physical copy, and I was only one of a handful of people that had this happen, I would chalk it up to crappy shipping luck and would not be writing this post right now, but the reality of the situation is a large portion of the people who ordered the physical copies that were linked on this website for pre order, will not be receiving their game until days after your illogical "grace period" expires. Hundreds of these people made this very well known to you on forums that your staff has been incredibly active in, which by the way, on a plus note, has been a breath of fresh air when it comes to an MMO launch. I didn't even expect this grace period to be free game time either. Start my 30 included days of play on 4/4/2014, even though my physical game code can't be entered until I receive the game later this week. I expected my 30 days to start at launch. This is why we pre ordered. Shipping times are not your fault, but they are not your customers fault either. We paid $100+ dollars because we wanted 2 basic things:
A collectors edition box set, and the ability to play the game for 30 days starting on launch day. I understand we will still technically be receiving 30 days of game time, but why punish the people who love Elder Scrolls enough to spend the extra cash to purchase the collectors edition by suspending our game time until a box arrives?
The second obvious issue is the payment verification options. I understand why you would do an authorization check to ensure the payment method is valid, and no, $15 isn't a large amount of money and isn't "that big of a deal" to most of us, but this should have been conveyed to the community long before now. I understand it is not actually charging my card until after the 30 days are up, but if we don't happen to have these funds available to withdraw and refund we have to contact customer service to figure this out. I must say, your customer service is, so far, quite impressive compared to most, but I think I speak for the majority when I say, we don't want to have to deal with no damn customer support unless it's absolutely necessary. Even if they are creatively role playing our problems away. Am I wrong by assuming this? What about the people that don't have a credit card, bank account, or paypal set up yet to do this. I'm sure if this information was brought to our attention before now you wouldn't have thousands of irate posts all over the internet.
(And to those that say, "Get over it you stupid cry babies! This has been the norm for subscription based MMOs since forever!" Just because WoW and other MMOs have done it, doesn't mean we should assume it's just the way things are.)
It appears that the majority of your pre order customers thought they had 30 days to first, decide whether they want to continue their subscription further, and second, set up their preferred method of paying. Your FAQ states that, "They may also redeem a game time card as an alternative to a credit card." Please tell me where these game time cards are offered, because I see a bunch of people, my girlfriend and I included, that want to use this method, but have no way of obtaining, or finding these game time cards, in the US anyway. I'm just saying it would have been nice to know ahead of time that this payment authorization would have to be done before our included 30 days could begin. I don't care if it's a $15 payment validation or a 1 cent validation. Some people have to plan ahead for these things due to one reason or another.
All of this being said, the Elder Scrolls Team and your game have, for the most part, done a fantastic job wooing those old and young (like the lusty Argonians you are) into an amazing MMO universe that will no doubt keep us entertained and craving more for quite some time. In my opinion, your team is doing FAR more right than it's doing wrong, and that says a lot with a massive project such as this. I look forward to spending a lot of time in Tamriel with this incredible community you have brought together, regardless of these complaints.Though, I must say, these next few days of waiting to play will be agonizing. If only we could pray at the Postal shrine and receive a 200% buff to delivery rates.
2