AoC: Goodwill or ugly precedent?
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=1253360
Greetings,Server issues on the day of an update are sometimes a sad truth in MMORPGS and though we managed to bypass those for most of the first month since release, today it hit us and it hit us hard. The result was either a very bumpy playtime or no playtime at all.
We tried our utmost best to bypass those troubles the whole day long without a real full-fledged downtime, but in the end nothing else could help the troubles that were introduced with today's update. For that we are truly sorry and have organized for all active and open play-accounts to receive a free day of game-time to compensate for the inconveniences caused by the extended downtimes.
We hope you understand that this is not supposed to be a cheap way of buying ourselves out of this situation, but an honest apology to our players for the delay. We hope that in the future we can avoid such troubled times and provide the smoothest gaming service we can deliver to you.
Thank you for understanding,
Blizzard has also compensated with free days when WoW's been unplayable. Seems like a reasonable thing to do. It is however something that you as a player rarely benefit from, since you pay for a minimum of a month at the time (usually at least) and unless you decide to quit during that last day before your subscription lapses it will just be wasted.
Computers don't make errors. What they do, they do on purpose. By now your name and particulars have been fed into every laptop, desktop, mainframe and supermarket scanner that collectively make up the global information conspiracy.
-- Dale Gribble
Good for them. It's a minor financial penalty for them and it gives us another reason to tell the forum whiners to STFU!
With any luck, the free game time will be bugged and give everyone a free subscription for life.
With AoC's luck, the free game time will be bugged and delete all characters in all accounts, charge all players $1,000,000. It will key your car, break keys off in your home's door locks and maim all players in cooking fires.
ThePolypusher
WAR - Dolz
It's not much, but it does feel like an honest "we f'ed up, sorry guys" response. I can appreciate it, they could just as easily have done nothing and effectively said "suck it!"
XBL: MikeMac75
Anytime an mmo company does this to make up for service outages, I consider it the right thing to do, and say give 'em props.
Agreed completely. Unfortunately, my subscription ended today. And since I was still debating whether to renew it or not, I didn't get the free day
Don't worry. The subscription is renewed now
Chumpy wrote:
Malor wrote:
Eh, there's been plenty of WoW patch days with Big Problems. I wouldn't worry about it overmuch. I think the credit should be for more than a day, though.
Yeah a another free month would have been appropriate while they continue to finish the game (or at least a discounted second month around $5).
The Gaming Chronicles
PSN ID: Harbinger01
Steam ID: [GWJ] CrashedHardrive
Elysium wrote:
Even better offer a froob account like they do for AO. People could froob till they feel like the game is polished enough to warrant a sub.
As nossid mentioned above, it is my contention that while 'free days' sound good as compensation for server downtime, it is something nearly all of the player base won't actually "feel". When I play an MMORPG, I (and by 'I' I mean the general player base) do so for months on end, usually with an auto-recurring sub. So in effect, that free day will manifest itself in say, 6 months' time, when I decide to *quit* the game, and has really lost all meaning.
A mechanism I find to be much better for all involved, is some variation of "free XP". Because after all, what the company is trying to compensate here for is lost /play time. So just give all current subscribers double XP gain for the next 24 /played hours or somesuch, and everyone's happy. The company won't lose money, the players feel an immediate and *noticeable* compensation, and PR get the props as well.
Disclaimer: Not playing AoC