Please try to understand Blizzard's side of this.
From a logistical perspective, it would be impossible to accomodate all of people's expectations as I have seen in numerous complaint posts.
The Queue
Those of you who have been present for other MMORPG start dates know that there is no right answer. If they let everyone in all at once, newbie zones are overcrowded, lag is out of hand, and no one is having fun.
Another alternative would be limiting the quantity of the initial shipment, which would mean that a good number of us would not be playing at all. Yet another alternative was the FFXI-style of not allowing you to choose your own server - thus evenly distributing the population. I can tell you from experience reading these forums that people do not like either of these alternatives.
The queue ensures that those who are on-line can have a relatively pleasant game experience. It leaves no one angry that they don't have a copy, and it lets us choose to play on the same server as our friends.
"But they should obviously have more servers!"
No. They shouldn't. Try to understand something about MMORPG servers. They consist of a number of interconnected smaller servers, which typically represent what we call a "zone." On opening day, 100% of the server population is concentrated on a few of the smaller servers, namely the "newbie zones."
Adding additional servers would not solve this problem. What it would do is perhaps partially alleviate the rush, and in the long run we would end up with under-populated servers.
Speculating that "Blizzard should have made more servers" is assuming that you can out-speculate Blizzard's marketing team. Trust me - I'm a marketing student right now - Blizzard's marketing team did not pick the number out of thin air, and they understand the overall situation much better than you or I or anyone else who hasn't spent tens of thousands of dollars researching the market for such a critical decision.
The game still has bugs
Yes it does. It's not perfect, but from my experience, it's damn good for a first day MMORPG.
Personally, I was stuck dead for 20 mins last night. I was standing by my corpse and no button came up. Oh well ... I spent the time joking around with my buddies, making myself a snack, posting on the web, etc.
But FFXI North American release was very smooth
Yes - but that was a game that had already undergone TWO major releases and had 18 months to mature. It had previously been released for PS2 in Japan (the first release) and for PC in Japan. They also implemented the World Pass system (you could not choose your server) to ensure even distribution of new players.
It was hell reachingn tech support
While I do feel for you (if you had a bad disk or something and couldn't install) you have to understand the logistical nightmare that their call centre faced on opening day.
I work at a call centre. The company I work for is much larger than Blizzard, and on certain dates, usually corresponding with large promotions, we get 6-20x our normal call volume. On those days, our very substantial call switch is all but overloaded. We have 140 agents in three call centres and the system can hold up to 500-600 calls in queue, but despite every effort people still get busy signals and sometimes wait 5-10 mins to get through. There are also problems with dropped calls and crossed lines.
Now - you could say "well you should have more lines." The truth is that we should NOT. We are very well equipped for our daily call volumes. Should the company spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars just to be able to keep up with that one day? No.
It comes down to this - Would you rather pay more?
The possibility of waiting?
No one wants to wait a couple more weeks to play. I sure as hell know that I don't want to wait.
We don't want to wait. We want to play. However - it is a decision we are making. We bought the game on opening day. You have the power to choose - either put up with the rush, or come back in a week and things will be a great deal smoother.
In conclusion - while it is easy to ***** and complain, it's not going to accomplish anything. Blizzard should be given points for letting us know what is going on (which they did) and for what is in comparison a relatively smooth start. Generic whining about opening day as well as asserting your own opinion of how things SHOULD be accomplishes nothing...
But for that generic whining ... please use the Blizzard Forums ... Leave Alla out of it
, but someone suggested i logout and log back in, and after i did it worked ^^ 