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Ryban
Village Dweller
Joined: 23 Aug 2002
Posts: 19
Location: Belgium, Gent |
Microsoft lets customers everywhere buy in advance their new online game, then announces - a day before release - that only 9 countries can play it. The MS producer's line is that "they forgot about the people who buy games online".
Microsoft is launching today in the US and Canada, and on the 6th of December in Europe, a massive multiplayer online game called Asheron's Call 2 - Fallen Kings. There are several games of this type out already (Everquest, Ultima Online, etc.), each with thousands of subscribers from many countries, who pay a monthly fee by credit card to connect to the servers.
Microsoft waited until yesterday to announce that only people who have credit cards registered and with billing addresses of 9 selected countries will be able to subscribe to the game. This caused an uproar by all the customers who pre-ordered their copy from online stores that ship to their country, because now they do not have time to cancel their order anymore - and if they do, they'll still lose the money spent on shipping and tax duty.
The mindboggling "apology" of the MS producer of the game, Ken Karl, was that:
"We should have announced this sooner. Why didn't we you may ask? As lame as it sounds, we simply did not think of it. We knew about the situation, but we also knew that in the countries that we were officially shipping into, we fully supported them. What we did not think of at the time is the "grey" market, or people who would purchase the product from a website since they could not get it locally at the store."
You can read the full text of MS statement and the (moderated) customer reactions on this thread on the official MS message board for the game:
http://www.accmty.com/idealbb/view....9354&sessionID={F9C9DCA2-D2D7-47E6-B52E-28BF9D90DE7D}
just a small Q Is this True?
I checked out the AC2 forums and there they are very serious and angry about it (very understandable)
If this is true M$ has lost its last bit of respect in my eyes.
this is the link to the Ac2 forum: http://www.accmty.com/idealbb/view.asp?mode=viewtopic&topicID=19354&num=20&sessionID={98D9F33B-760E-47C1-88C5-FE254D23958A}&pageNo=1
Ryban( I tought this may be intresting for some of you)
_________________
I don't suffer from insanity,
I enjoy every second of it. |
Sat Nov 23, 2002 12:47 am |
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Zeiss
Village Dweller
Joined: 04 May 2002
Posts: 10
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The worst part is, the lead dev comes online, says a few words that make no sense to excuse himself and a lot of people start drooling like dogs again and are going to sign up anyway.
Now I ask you, if you got bleeb like this, would you tell the guy that did it 'if you only say sorry you can do it again?'
People are so stupid to fall for this kind of crap
Mod Edit: bad words removed/edited |
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Sat Nov 23, 2002 1:58 am |
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Xanaki
Ghost of Asheron
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 398
Location: Helsinki, Finland |
I don't like this either but please do not use the words not supported by Rpgdot 
I am from Finland. And have payed for AC1 for 2 years. I was in the private beta team for AC1, AC1:DM and AC2. And now I can not even subscribe to AC2 even if I wanted to.
This is the crappiest thing that could happen to the online gaming community outside the supported countries.
I'd like to write the f-word too but instead I say it out loud here behind the keyboard. This decision really sucks.
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=Moderator of General MMORPG talk forum=
Senior Editor @ www.mmorpgdot.com |
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Mon Nov 25, 2002 12:32 pm |
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada |
I'll admit that this really sucks for most people... As to the reason why a lot of people just shut up after the MS official blurb of an excuse it seems to be because most of the outrage was being flamed by people who could get the game anyway... People like to complain, you know... especially in MMORPGs it seems we have the flamiest of people flocking to them... Anyway... It's a very crappy situation, handled very poorly by a very powerful company.
Which brings me to my next question: Do you think Microsoft could have don this (gasp!) on purpose? I can see whay they would too: teach a lesson to this previously coined "grey market" buyers that pre-order their games online from US based online stores to get them shipped overseas. It seriously wouldn't surprise me at all from a company that invented the hardware tagging and registering of components for the o/s... Teach them a lesson. Apologize, of course, but don't give in! Don't you think that they could have just said: "oops! Wow we're really sorry, we didn't think of that. So if you pre-ordered your copy and can't log in because of your credit card pelase send us an email (or something) and we'll fix it for you all." Nope, not a word of the sort. Which leads me to believe that Microsoft was actually prepared to face the outrage and ignore it.
... or maybe I'm being paranoid again :p hehehe!
Looks like I'll be reviewing the game for RPGDot, by the way. Too bad I'm starting out this negatively... maybe the game will surprise me in the end, who knows? 
_________________
=Proud Father of a new gamer GIRL!=
=Member of The Nonflamers' Guild=
=Worshiper of the Written Word= |
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Mon Nov 25, 2002 9:11 pm |
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