SWOTR: This is why you should never preorder a computer game

[rowyn]

Playing SWOTR has been pretty fun.  Using Origin's website to buy and use the game?  Not so much.  Setting up my initial account and purchasing the game took about 8 rounds of "You missed a spot!  And oh, we randomly* blanked out some spots you didn't miss, see if you can guess which ones!  Guess wrong and there's another round!" Which was not as fun a game as it sounds.

 

* Really, it was random -- not even "we always erase the credit card".  More like "you left off your phone number so we blanked out your email confirmation" and then "Now we decided to blank your address" followed by "let's just give you a whole new form! Except your name,  what the heck, we'll keep that."

 

Last Friday, I got my early-access invitation, which came with a code I had to set up on their website.

 

On Monday, Lut said, "You need to be sure to register your product code. Noooo, not the early-access code that you already registered and couldn't get without ordering the product.  This is a different code."   So I dug out my original order confirmation, looked for the correct code (helpfullly not labelled the same way as on the site), and plugged it at the website along with all the information I'd provided when I bought the game.   I guess having your exclusive ordering page talk to your accounts page was too much trouble to code.  But Origin did now confirm that I had a registered product.

 

I still didn't have a subscription. "But that doesn't matter," Lut said. Because every MMO ever gives a month's subscription when you buy the game. Since you can't actually play the game without it.

 

This morning, I tried to login to SWOTR. The engine declined: "You do not have an active subscription. Click here to get one."

 

...

 

SIGH.

 

I clicked the link.

 

"The website is too full. You have been placed in a queue.  This page will auto-refresh when there's room."

 

...

 

You have a queue. For your website.  AWESOME.

 

10 minutes later, the page refreshed to display my account. I clicked on the button for subscribing.

 

2 minutes later: "Do you want to subscribe or use a game-time card?"  *subscribe*

 

3 minutes later: "Pick one of these subscription periods."  *click 90 days*

 

2 minutes later: *pick subscription period page finishes loading completely* *click 90 days again*  *click "continue"*

 

2 minutes later: "Sorry, your request has timed out. You can try refreshing?" *refresh*

 

2 minutes later: "There's been an error! Sorry." *click only button available, for "back to swotr.com"*

 

"The website is too full. You have been placed in a queue.  This page will auto-refresh when there's room."

 

10 minutes later: SWOTR.com main page. *click "my account"*

 

"The website is too full. You have been placed in a queue.  This page will auto-refresh when there's room."

 

2 minutes later: My account page comes up.  *click subscribe*

 

2 minutes later: Subscribe or game time? *subscribe*

 

3 minutes later: "Pick your subscription period.  Ha ha!  Just kidding. Not actually done loading yet. Wanna wait another few minutes for the next error code?"

 

2 minutes later: No, gotta get to work, sorry. It's been no fun at all, Origin!  See you later, if I don't decide it'd be easier to contest the charge for buying the game in the first place than to get through your website to subscribe.

Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Please be sure to tell Origin that since they sold you a defective product (can't get a subscription means it doesn't work after all -- no different than my selling a computer without a power supply) then you expect FULL REFUND on the product they sold you. If I sold you a calculator with half the keys gone, you'd want your money back. Why should you be out the cash for a full-priced game that only played for a month?

And it's reasons like this that I refuse to buy games which require net access, with the exception for certain MMORPGs like yours is. I buy a game, and I want to play it. In the car. In a plane. In places where they've never gotten a cell signal over it. Not everything in the universe needs or should have to require net access, a certain server to be up and running, and a paid account to play it. I forked over my 50$ -- let me play already.

And in 10 years, I'll bet those servers are gone, gone, gone.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

They said you got some free time, but yeah you have to have a subscription registered for some reason. I got it set up ahead of time because I was already there when I was entering the code...

Ugh. Billing websites are always the worst. They don't get as much work put into them as the main servers so when they get flooded... I mean the game itself was fine being run at capacity.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I think that's mainly that they didn't budget enough for website scaling. :/ I subscribed earlier with no issues.