WAR open beta struggles in Europe

By Oli Welsh Published 8 September, 2008

Yesterday was "a dark day" - GOA.

GOA, the European publisher and operator of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, has issued a public apology for the false start to its open beta test yesterday.

Although servers have opened, and closed beta testers have been able to enter the new phase without any problems, account registration and authentication for new players is not working.

"I rarely address players directly, but I wanted to write you as too few of you have been able to access the open beta today," said GOA's chief executive, Ghislaine Le Rhun, on the European WAR site.

"We have not yet solved the issue of saturated Open Beta key activations that we're currently experiencing," Le Rhun said. "I am sincerely sorry for this, and I understand all the frustration the situation has spawned.

"Today was a dark day," Le Rhun continued, clearly tired and emotional, since he was posting at 3am. "We expected a massive influx of players, but reality was even harsher. I personally commit that we will communicate to you as clearly as possible on the resolution of these current issues."

In a previous post, it was explained that "serious problems" with the authentication system, "combined with an exceptional amount of traffic and a fault which was not identified during the extensive tests," had limited access to only a handful of new open beta testers. However, the performances of the servers, patcher and downloader for WAR's open beta were all "satisfactory".

The authentication system is expected to be fixed "late Monday morning", so those of you with access codes should try again in a few hours. An update is promised mid-morning, so keep an eye on the official site.

In the meantime, you'll all be relieved to know that Eurogamer MMO managed to log on fine last night and power through a few levels of a Dwarf Engineer, in preparation for our imminent review.

Why don't you while away the wait exploring our fancy new WAR gamepage?

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (36) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Rirekon #1 3 years ago

    I do not understand why Mythic are still working with GOA, they screwed up the EU DAoC Beta and release and they're set up to do it again with WAR.
    Personally I'm seriously looking into how to get access to the US version, GOA don't deserve my money.

  • spimmy #2 3 years ago

    They didnt screw up the english community in daoc they killed it most players went to the us version

  • Dizzy #3 3 years ago

    Oh dear... this doesn't bode well for the real launch. Surely about 100 times more players will try to start playing on that day.

  • ZuluHero #4 3 years ago

    at least SHE was up working on the problem though right? that has to count for something?

    Edit: Apologies to Ghislaine Le Rhun
    Edited by 1 at 08/09/08 @ 10:33

  • ciril #5 3 years ago

    They screwed up badly, even now it's not working...
    Why would someone give a task so big as handling such a big game as WAR in Europe to a company that does crappy flash games is beyond me... :p

  • spimmy #6 3 years ago

    saw this on the WHA forum

    Shocking decision by Mythic to trust them. And then an absolute disgusting crapfest from Mark Jacobs et al when they just ignore Europe. No apologies or explanations. Despite the IP being English it's great to see that the focus is always on the US. CB, PW and world class service. Thanks Mythic.

    We all know GOA are incompetent, there have been weeks of posts just screaming that this was going to happen and no one was ready. Yet Mythic partnered them and then just stood back and watched them f*%k it. This is your mistake Mythic.

    Professional huggy production podcasts - check
    Promising EU that everything would be fine - check
    Nauseating fawning over smaller US pops with great service - check
    Actual delivery to EU players - .........................

  • abigsmurf #7 3 years ago

    disgruntled customer here. was trying to create an account on and off for most of yesterday. Currently trying to get my beta key validated. Anyone with a tiny amount of experience in MMO launches should know you let your customers register and add keys days beforehand. It takes the load off of the servers and gives a chance to fix these kinds of issues. Doing it a few hours before the server opens was always going to result in problems.

    Apparently there's only a single server up with 1000 places and 1500 in queue so even if you manage to validate, you're probably not going to be playing. The open beta is the closest people will get to a demo of the game, Sunday was the only day working types would get to spend a long time playing and getting to know it.

    GOA really aren't doing themselves any favours. I feel a bit sorry for the community managers taking a huge amount of flak on various forums. This wasn't really their faults, it was a relatively high up

  • Drone #8 3 years ago

    This really is shocking. Especially when the community was telling them that this exact situation was going to happen. But arrogant GOA ignored the pleas of all the fans while Mythic buried its head in the sand and gave perk after perk to the US players. The EU community reps only started to post about the situation at 10.30 last night (IIRC).

    I've never seen such a massive PR blunder like the one that started yesterday at 8.30 and is still going on now!

    Edit: Spelling
    Edited by 1 at 08/09/08 @ 09:54

  • michaelius #9 3 years ago

    Hmm anyone knows if it will be possible to play US version from Europe ?

    Oh yeah and a nice movie about the start of beta:
    http://de.y outube.com/watch?v=j3aN7zVBv3w

  • SpicyJeffburger #10 3 years ago

    'tired and emotional' - isn't this 'Private Eye'-speak for drunk as a skunk? Seems appropriate.

  • MrChuckles #11 3 years ago

    Ermmm....

    This is a beta, that's why it has bugs, if you don't want them, wait for the release. Why are you grumbling about 'customer this' and 'bad service that' when you haven't even paid for anything yet.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #12 3 years ago

    Aye most of us closed beta lot got bored in game yesterday there was a handful of players on each server, out of all 19 core servers only a FR and a GER were considered full - Everything about the rest of the game is near perfect, lots of servers, NO LAG in high pop areas, combat now is ultra smooth and flows nicely, the new animations kick ass...

    Shame only a select few got to see that yesterday as NO ONE ELSE COULD GET PAST THE LOGIN, I feel for you guys, today you will get in *puts a shotgun to GoA's head*

  • Drone #13 3 years ago

    @ MrChuckles

    People have paid to play beta. Some of the CE versions (which guaranteed access) cost £10 (non refundable) for the beta codes. As for customer service, one of the commiunity reps went on record stating that as far as GOA were concerned 7th Sept was the launch date and full customer service was available from that date.

    Yes its a beta for the GAME. Its not a beta for GOA's account centre. I have no problem testing the non game stuff but don't make me pay for the pleasure!

  • shamblemonkee #14 3 years ago

    except GOA stated they were treating yesterday as official launch according to GOA.... as that was the first time paying customers were logging in (well trying to)

    stress testing the account management isn't usually part of beta....

  • spimmy #15 3 years ago

    lol at this from a community manager


    If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.

    IainC

    just seen this http://im g114.imageshack.us/img114/4045/...
    Edited by 2 at 08/09/08 @ 10:34

  • merseymal #16 3 years ago

    I wasn't too fussed to be honest, shit happens. WoW Europe didn't exactly get off to a smooth start either I seem to recall.

    As long as they take what they've learned from this setback and fix things in time for the headstarts and the launch date, I'll reserve judgement til then.

    In the 4 years I played DAOC I had nothing to complain about GOAs handling of it, save for the large delay between US servers getting patches and the UK and that was mostly down to Mythic designing DAOC as a single language game and each patch had to be recoded to support multiple languages for the Euro version.

    Mal

    ps afaik Ghislaine is a female name

  • Rizo #17 3 years ago

    Hey guys do you really want to wait for a patch 6 to 8 months after the US servers get it?

    If not go back to WOW.

    I've started leveling a druid :)

  • Rirekon #18 3 years ago

    @ MrChuckles;
    Funny, the US Open Beta ran without a hitch (except being delayed due to the EU fiasco), GOA have no excuses an need to face upto the reality of their utter failure. GW and Mythic need to take this in hand, it's hurting their IP.

  • anomagnus #19 3 years ago

    couldnt have been a worse launch, every fear we had about GOA was verified. Lazy, arrogant, useless and stupid

  • merseymal #20 3 years ago

    @Rizo

    Bollocks. That was DAOC and the delays were caused by Mythic and GOA having different codebase due to GOA supporting multiple languages unlike Mythic, as mentioned in my previous post. WAR has more or less the same code on both versions this time.

  • Enzeru #21 3 years ago

    "Of course you were disappointed and criticism is certainly warranted but frankly many of the posts made about the situation were borderline sociopathic. If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury that you felt compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you."


    From GoA PR guy...wow.

    just...wow.

    edit: wops, someone beat me to it :D
    Edited by 1 at 08/09/08 @ 11:11

  • Gunzberg #22 3 years ago

    glad I didn't preorder this even though I was tempted...will wait for reviews and stability.

    The only 2 MMOs I ever pre-ordered, WoW and LOTRO had great 1 day performance ( for me at least)

    Oh well

  • shamblemonkee #23 3 years ago

    He is right, however it's not exactly the PR message i would expect a company that has just starstarstarstarstarred up completely to be making.

  • urban #24 3 years ago

    OH SO YOU LOGGED IN FINE EVERYTHINGS OKAY.

    you're evil.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #25 3 years ago

    What I find completly funny is that a simple false start = the whole game is doomed forever to some people, it's not like the game is missing nearly all advertised content (AoC/Vanguard) or like there isn't enought servers so that players are stuck in ques most of the time (WoW/POTBS) and like patching US to EU is only a few days (yes unlike DAoC)..

    WAR itself is completly fine it's just account management fell over during the first day of beta, yes 100% agree GoA should have put the account signups eariler and this could have benn avoided however once this blip is over it's almost clear sailing, communities are like rabid pop fans these days - unless they get what they want instantly they roit and take things way over the top
    Edited by 1 at 08/09/08 @ 11:42

  • Hypercube #26 3 years ago

    I just hope GOA change their website design. Why does the EU website look like shit, while the US website is actually useable? Seriously, I could write a more user-friendly front-end than the one they've got.

    Still, at least they've had a heads up about how big the launch is going to be. Hope they've had it sorted by this time next week... I'll be there in the SE headstart, with my fingers crossed!

  • Emth #27 3 years ago

    "I wasn't too fussed to be honest, shit happens. WoW Europe didn't exactly get off to a smooth start either I seem to recall."

    Well considering this is a fraction of the number of people trying to login, and that WoW release was almost 4 years ago, this is hardly encouraging.

    Yes this is technically a BETA, but let's be honest, release is in 1 week - nothing is going to have changed in that time except that the numbers of players involved will have expanded 10 fold.

  • Vordred #28 3 years ago

    that explains why it was empty, i logged in yesterday (being a Closed beta tester) and thought wow there are less people about than in the closed beta, i just thought i had picked unpopular servers or something.

    i must admit GOA were terrible with DAoC i remember when it launched almost none of Albions dungeons were itemised because we were still running a beta version thanks to GOA's slow arse translations.

    but i will admit they have not been all that bad with the Closed Beta. so im willing to give them a chance

  • Gaol #29 3 years ago

    Logged in last night and it was more or less deserted. Hope they sort it out soon, need folk to group with :p

  • merseymal #30 3 years ago

    Well as there were at least 100,000 open beta keys for the european beta, there was no way to predict how the server would cope under such pressure until it happened.

    I'd much rather it happened in the beta than when it goes live.

  • merseymal #31 3 years ago

    "i must admit GOA were terrible with DAoC i remember when it launched almost none of Albions dungeons were itemised because we were still running a beta version thanks to GOA's slow arse translations."

    There was more to it than merely translating the language files, for each patch that Mythic produced the code itself had to translated as well. Besides quite a few times, being behind by a patch usually meant that by the time it was introduced to euro version some bugs had been found and ironed out :)

    One of my main gripes with GOA was that they were very poor at advertising the game outside of France and Germany which didn't help the English server populations.

  • Orange #32 3 years ago

    I had an interest in WAR due to Barnett, however GOA have killed that off completely. No way am I going near a game with such poor customer service. There's just no need to accept it given the competition. In the same way that I didn't need to accept AOC's broken and unfinished endgame.

  • Drone #33 3 years ago

    @retrend

    Sadly that's not the case for all CE people. I have a couple of friends who pre-ordered the CE from HMV. basically they paid £10 for the box with the codes in which they took away the same day. They then had the option of picking up the CE box on launch day for the remaining balance. Therefore they have paid for the beta but not the CE (yet).

    Im sure all people with an open beta code will get in at some point this week. But i think its fair to say this whole situation was avoidable (Mythic managed to avoid it after all) and quite frustrating. I'm willing to bet though that if the launch goes well, and if the game is actually worth the wait, all this will be forgotten.

  • Sildur #34 3 years ago

    Some people are wondering why everyone here is getting so upset about this... Well I think it has a lot to do with the fact that these concerns about GOA are not new, in fact everyone said this would happen weeks ago and it has. There track record is terrible and they clearly continue to be bad.

    It doesn't matter if WAR was the greatest game ever made - if GOA aren't on point and are screwing up as much as they are, that is not going to make for a good playing experience.

    There is no way I'm buying this game on release now - I'll let the rest of the noobs buy it and work out the kinks for a year or so while I enjoy some other games which work.

  • iPete #35 3 years ago

    I'm more annoyed at the fact I payed for Collectors Edition to gain Open Beta Access.. made the following post on Mystic and GOA forums and it was quickly deleted after many people started to /sign

    GOA: Collectors Edition: Compensation Request

    OK, my patience with the situation has now ran out. Why?

    I’m an avid fan of the Warhammer series, I’ve been following the development of WAR since the launch and wasn’t lucky enough to get a CLOSED Beta account.

    Hence I was delighted to discover that you could gurante a spot in OPEN Beta by purchasing the Collectors Edition (CE); 60 GBP/ 80 euros; hence I did.

    What has the collectors edition got me so far!? Absolutely nothing! I’ve basically flushed 60 GBP / 80 Euros down the drain.

    I appreciate employees of GOA and CO are working their hardest but I generally feel robbed by these people.

    Firstly:
    Today was a dark day. We expected a massive influx of players, but reality was even harsher.
    IMO: I don’t see how the above is true, I work for a BLUE chip company and fail to see how these numbers could not be expected. In simplicity CLOSED BETA + OB CE + OB GIVE AWAY = VOLUME! Surely they had a mechanism in place to quantify this or should have.

    Secondly:
    Why wasn’t some process structure put in place, for example the OB CE people have had their codes for some time now, why couldn’t we pre-register them before go live. Hence reducing the numbers on the actual OB Day. Also Sure paying customers should have had priority over give away!?

    Thirdly:
    I sincerely do hope the customer who purchased the Collectors Edition will be compensated; at this moment I see it as false advertisement. As per: [link url=http://www.war-europe.com/#/event/?collectorsedition=1
    ]http://ww w.war-europe.com/#/event/?colle...[/link]
    Spe cial WAR Collector's Edition Pre-Order Bonuses Include:

    GUARANTEED OPEN BETA ACCESS
    Be one of the first players to experience the glory of battle and the thrill of WAR when the Open Beta phase begins!
    This clearly isn’t the CASE.

    One completely frustrated and disappointed customer, who is thinking of giving up and just thinking about waiting for WOTLK and sticking with WoW and BLIZZARD.

  • danteire #36 3 years ago

    @iPete - good luck with Blizzard and WoW, I pre-ordered it 4 months before launch and got a "guaranteed final beta key". Unfortunately, when closed beta came round, the downloader bugged, Blizzard said "Working as intended" and left me in the lurch. When I got it fixed, open beta had arrived and my key was useless, since all the accounts had been yaken by people who just wandered onto their site that morning.

    At least GOA are trying to fix it!!