I have to say that this could be the worst start to any mmo experience I have ever had. I have played virtually every mmo since Ultima Online and have downloaded many of them. Never have I had downloads with estimated times of days/weeks. If it isn't important for Cryptic to put out a stable way to get the game to their paying customers, maybe it shouldn't be inmportant for those customers to be paying.
I have to say that this could be the worst start to any mmo experience I have ever had. I have played virtually every mmo since Ultima Online and have downloaded many of them. Never have I had downloads with estimated times of days/weeks. If it isn't important for Cryptic to put out a stable way to get the game to their paying customers, maybe it shouldn't be inmportant for those customers to be paying.
LOL Didn't know anyone was paying the monthly fee just yet. This is The Open Beta. This is where they work on server stability and other bugs.
Nothing has started other than another phase of testing. open-beta is often used to stress the servers as much as possible. Which brings about problems such as download times, server instability etc.
For some reason people seem to believe that because they pre-order a game and it says 'we will also give you free access to open-beta' that they have actually paid for it. Bear in mind there are many pre-orders that do not offer the open-beta keys. Does that mean those people are being conned? No they are just not having the FREE offer that some others get...
And both people getting keys and those not getting keys pay exactly the same amount.
The only thing you have effectively paid for by pre-ordering is the 'head start' and any exclusives. Of course the actual game you have paid for too...
Other than that whining about being 'conned' and the like is futile and absolute uneducated.
Im also peeved that I couldn't get on to the game today because of majorly bad connection speeds but im not gonna start throwing accusations and most of all my dummy out of the pram. Ive actually decided to buy the game from Steam which will get me the open-beta in 2 hours estimated time. If you would like to do the same that is entirely up to you.
I am prone to disagree with the OP... this is a pretty regular BETA start... i am quite sure that the actual start in a few weeks will be as smooth as other Crypt games...
The thing is, Cryptic should have been able to see a lot of this ire coming down the pike; when you're putting up advertisements in places like Best Buy that say, "Preorder STO and get a code for the beta and a headstart before release day!" you're going to get a lot of people who aren't familiar with the beta process and are going in expecting the code the received as part of a preorder package to "just work." Cryptic made the decision to use this open beta as a way to gain preorders, boosting their initial sales numbers and getting confirmed sales earlier than they might have otherwise. That's part of the trade-off here; if you're going to take the route they have, you have to be prepared for the volume of people who are going to bite, and you need to make it very, very clear to customers just what an open beta is, what it's for and what they should (or shouldn't) expect from the process. The fact that Cryptic doesn't seem to have done much of any of that bothers me more than the fact that I'm probably looking at another two days of trying to get the beta client to download.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Cryptic on this one, because they had to know that there were going to be a lot of people swamping this site when the open beta started, and I just don't buy that they couldn't have figured out that many of those people were going to come in expecting at least a reasonably problem-free downloading and gaming experience. It's Cryptic's job to set the appropriate expectations here, and the fact that they failed to do that is really a problem of their own making. If they didn't want to deal with people complaining about stuff that's normal in an open beta, they shouldn't have promoted this thing as widely as they did.
be thankful the ***** happening now, in theory (i.e. probly not) all the bugs/issues and general problems will be fixed for release (preferably head start)
Agreed, but I'm about as confident as you are that this is going to be sorted out by the time the official release rolls around. 2/2 isn't all that far away, and some of these problems seem pretty major.
Give them a break, as I know they're working hard to keep the servers up and juggling bandwidth.
If anyone experiences slow downloads directly from Cryptic, please give the torrent a try. It should help, but of course you'll have to start over on your download.
I downloaded the entire client (10GB) the day before open beta (since I was in closed beta) and my speeds were excellent, even directly from Cryptic. It's just the sheer number of people downloading right now that are causing slow speeds. The torrent will really help you here.
I still had to do a 175MB patch today, but it went by in a couple minutes without any issues. There could be problems on your side of the Internet too, at any one of the hops between you and the Cryptic servers (or even seeds for torrents).
Please be patient. We have plenty of time to test out and enjoy open beta. What looks like a super slow connection now is obviously going to speed up later, so leave your PCs on overnight if needed.
this close to release the game will probably not do too well, but I guess we will see. A month away is not a lot of time for those who are not developers or programmers.
this is niothin , i remember when wow started that was a night mare
but the beta is to find problems and try to fix em early
so far this really isnt to bad , i think this game will do fine
just be patient
I highly doubt anything bug related will be fixed at this point. What you see is what you'll get at release. The only purpose of open beta is to stress the server's bandwidth capabilities and adjust it for the anticipated incoming crowd. Actually, most open beta testers only paid $1 to get the pre-order, so if this doesnt go well they've only lost a buck. Cryptic had better get their act together fast or a lot of pre-order folks wont be buying the actual game. The reason im not too upset is because this is the forst day of open beta and I know the servers are getting slammed, but this is exactly what will happen on release day.
Yeah, this is my main issue with Cryptic at the moment. They're acting as though they had no idea that this many people would end up responding to a massive advertising campaign that's been going on since back in November. This is an IP with a huge following, especially after the latest movie, and this game in general and the beta in particular has been hyped by Cryptic for months. I really don't understand why they're now acting surprised that anyone showed up. What did they expect, exactly?
It's this lack of planning, foresight and (IMHO) basic common sense that really worries me about the game's success more than the specific server issues (which are also a problem, but I think they're just a symptom of the real issues here).
Yeah, this is my main issue with Cryptic at the moment. They're acting as though they had no idea that this many people would end up responding to a massive advertising campaign that's been going on since back in November.
No, they aren't. The purpose of this open beta is NOT to test the actual gameplay (or at least, that's not the primary reason. It is, of course, secondary), but to stress test the servers.
Not only is this expected for them, they WANT it. Open Beta for an MMO is not a demo, it is designed to destroy their servers.
There are many reasons for this. The main one is to view the statistics as a result. What goes wrong with the server when too many people are on? Where are people getting disconnected/errors the most? Where do large groups of players clump up when they first start the game at the same time?
This allows them to allocate more servers to the right areas.
It also gathers other important information, such as problems that occur in areas with a ridiculous amount of people, what makes the server go wonky, how when and why, so It can be prevented in the future.
I know it sucks. I'm currently posting this while waiting for my character information to be retrieved for the fifth time in 30 minutes. But that's the purpose of this, it's not a shock to anyone except maybe consumers who don't understand the finer points of open beta.
I have to say that this could be the worst start to any mmo experience I have ever had. I have played virtually every mmo since Ultima Online and have downloaded many of them. Never have I had downloads with estimated times of days/weeks. If it isn't important for Cryptic to put out a stable way to get the game to their paying customers, maybe it shouldn't be inmportant for those customers to be paying.
You obviously never played Anarchy Online when it first opened AFTER the beta...
I see the Cryptic Fanboi's are out in force. These are also probably the only people who still play thier other products. Seriously someone convinced their team that not that many Star Trek fans play mmo's. Im kinda glad to see that they were soooooo wrong. I have even talked to some casual star trek fans who are in beta right now, simply because its Star Trek.
So far tho, Beta has been a epic fail for today. And I agree with the idea that not much more is being added, just debugged at this point. Everyone who keeps saying differently needs to go grab a calander. You cant add so much major content with the little amount of time thats left considering that this is all the content there is after YEARS of development. Your unrealistically expecting alot of major content is being blocked from us in both closed and open beta. Thats just not the case. I sincerely hope im wrong, but all evidence points to the contrary. They cant even make a complete Klingon side in the little amount of time they have left, and they had years to actually COMPLETE the klingons and choose not to.
But my opinions are usually scoffed because I am one of those Star Trek nerds. Carry on defending them. Someone needs to at this point.
I know it sucks. I'm currently posting this while waiting for my character information to be retrieved for the fifth time in 30 minutes. But that's the purpose of this, it's not a shock to anyone except maybe consumers who don't understand the finer points of open beta.
Which is exactly the point that I'm making. I know what an open beta is, thanks very much; what I'm driving at is that if you're putting up as much advertising at Best Buy or GameStop as Cryptic has for this, you're going to draw a lot of people that aren't familiar with the beta process, don't get what betas are about and are expecting things to "just work." Now Cryptic seems confused at all of the ire floating around these forums when really, they didn't set the expectations you're talking about when they were slapping posters up all over game stores urging people to preorder and sign up for the open beta. Star Trek is a huge property with a lot of fans, many of whom may be new to gaming in general and MMOs in particular. It would have made sense for them to spell out exactly what to expect from a beta and to do so sooner than the opening screen for downloading the beta client (at which point a lot of people had already spent money on the preorder). This doesn't even address the massive problems people are having just getting the beta client, either (or the fact that I've already seen one Cryptic employee act like a douche to someone who asked a perfectly reasonable question, which impressed me to no end).
And really, no one's making you rush around the forums clarifying what an open beta's all about. You don't need to act so put-upon or talk to us like we're all morons.
I think it's going to be a great game. When Im able I log in and have a blast. Being able to disable a ship and then board it is just plain B.A. Only wish I would have is to open up another server so the maps are not full all the time... but this is beta :rolleyes:.
And really, no one's making you rush around the forums clarifying what an open beta's all about. You don't need to act so put-upon or talk to us like we're all morons.
That wasn't my intention. I don't consider people who don't know the real purpose morons or anything.. It's pretty easy to miss. Especially these days where every website puts "beta" on it somewhere because it's trendy, and demos are nolonger called Demos but Betas, particularly on consoles such as with Halo 3 and Modern Warfare. It's a pretty easy mistake to make. In fact, I'd say the real mistake is at the hands of the actual companies, who continue to use the term which, while accurate, kind of says something else to the average person who is more interested in trying the game than being a ragdoll used to slam servers.
Regardless, I didn't intend to come off as a *****, but rather just explaining the process.
And while I agree in theory that the beta shouldn't be advertised like a demo as it is, it's also worth keeping in mind that if they said "pre-order now and get access to a client that will continually lead you on thinking you'll get to play, but never actually get too!", there might be significantly less people slamming the servers and thus having a worse launch on release day.. It's kind of a double edged sword I guess ><
I have to say that this could be the worst start to any mmo experience I have ever had. I have played virtually every mmo since Ultima Online and have downloaded many of them. Never have I had downloads with estimated times of days/weeks. If it isn't important for Cryptic to put out a stable way to get the game to their paying customers, maybe it shouldn't be inmportant for those customers to be paying.
pretty sure a Beta client is hardly a "start" secondarily, if you've been in so many mmo's you should know that day 1 of a beta is ALWAYS a stress test from hell to the load balancing servers.
I think the best thing to do would have been to post ads on places like Kotaku that draw a lot of gamers who are familiar with the beta process and would be interested in trying out the game. Heck, advertise on Trek sites, too, just make it clear about what to expect and why. Hand out beta keys to anyone who asks, and you've got people playing (or trying to play and getting kicked- whatever).
Tying it to the preorder the way they did was a terrible idea and (I think) the source of most of this ire. How many people who don't know about betas have tried to download the client or, having downloaded the client, got kicked a load of times and got fed up enough to walk and cancel their preorder? I'll bet at least some, based on some of the posts I've read here, and the thing is that this was mostly avoidable. It's not really fair to deliberately target people who don't know what an open beta is, lure them in to test the game for you, then get upset with them for not understanding why it "doesn't work" and expecting to get a game demo rather than a work in progress. I'm seeing a lot of that going on on this forum, not just from other players, but from the occasional Cryptic rep, too, and that's where I find myself thinking, "You know, your company advertised the hell out of this thing like it was a demo. You don't get to get upset when a bunch of neophytes show up and get miffed because things aren't working as advertised [pr as they understood them to be advertised]."
Like you, I don't know what the solution to that is, but I think that offering free keys for the asking on gaming websites, rather than taking this, "Come play STO early! Preorder!" approach would have been way less painful for everyone involved. I know I didn't come in here expecting a perfect playing experience precisely because it's a beta, but I did think I'd actually be able to download the beta client before I was eligible for social security. That was clearly a pipe dream.
Comments
LOL Didn't know anyone was paying the monthly fee just yet. This is The Open Beta. This is where they work on server stability and other bugs.
Nothing has started other than another phase of testing. open-beta is often used to stress the servers as much as possible. Which brings about problems such as download times, server instability etc.
For some reason people seem to believe that because they pre-order a game and it says 'we will also give you free access to open-beta' that they have actually paid for it. Bear in mind there are many pre-orders that do not offer the open-beta keys. Does that mean those people are being conned? No they are just not having the FREE offer that some others get...
And both people getting keys and those not getting keys pay exactly the same amount.
The only thing you have effectively paid for by pre-ordering is the 'head start' and any exclusives. Of course the actual game you have paid for too...
Other than that whining about being 'conned' and the like is futile and absolute uneducated.
Im also peeved that I couldn't get on to the game today because of majorly bad connection speeds but im not gonna start throwing accusations and most of all my dummy out of the pram. Ive actually decided to buy the game from Steam which will get me the open-beta in 2 hours estimated time. If you would like to do the same that is entirely up to you.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Cryptic on this one, because they had to know that there were going to be a lot of people swamping this site when the open beta started, and I just don't buy that they couldn't have figured out that many of those people were going to come in expecting at least a reasonably problem-free downloading and gaming experience. It's Cryptic's job to set the appropriate expectations here, and the fact that they failed to do that is really a problem of their own making. If they didn't want to deal with people complaining about stuff that's normal in an open beta, they shouldn't have promoted this thing as widely as they did.
If anyone experiences slow downloads directly from Cryptic, please give the torrent a try. It should help, but of course you'll have to start over on your download.
I downloaded the entire client (10GB) the day before open beta (since I was in closed beta) and my speeds were excellent, even directly from Cryptic. It's just the sheer number of people downloading right now that are causing slow speeds. The torrent will really help you here.
I still had to do a 175MB patch today, but it went by in a couple minutes without any issues. There could be problems on your side of the Internet too, at any one of the hops between you and the Cryptic servers (or even seeds for torrents).
Please be patient. We have plenty of time to test out and enjoy open beta. What looks like a super slow connection now is obviously going to speed up later, so leave your PCs on overnight if needed.
but the beta is to find problems and try to fix em early
so far this really isnt to bad , i think this game will do fine
just be patient
No, you haven't.
When they all come to play same game what did you think was going to happen?
It's this lack of planning, foresight and (IMHO) basic common sense that really worries me about the game's success more than the specific server issues (which are also a problem, but I think they're just a symptom of the real issues here).
No, they aren't. The purpose of this open beta is NOT to test the actual gameplay (or at least, that's not the primary reason. It is, of course, secondary), but to stress test the servers.
Not only is this expected for them, they WANT it. Open Beta for an MMO is not a demo, it is designed to destroy their servers.
There are many reasons for this. The main one is to view the statistics as a result. What goes wrong with the server when too many people are on? Where are people getting disconnected/errors the most? Where do large groups of players clump up when they first start the game at the same time?
This allows them to allocate more servers to the right areas.
It also gathers other important information, such as problems that occur in areas with a ridiculous amount of people, what makes the server go wonky, how when and why, so It can be prevented in the future.
I know it sucks. I'm currently posting this while waiting for my character information to be retrieved for the fifth time in 30 minutes. But that's the purpose of this, it's not a shock to anyone except maybe consumers who don't understand the finer points of open beta.
You obviously never played Anarchy Online when it first opened AFTER the beta...
So far tho, Beta has been a epic fail for today. And I agree with the idea that not much more is being added, just debugged at this point. Everyone who keeps saying differently needs to go grab a calander. You cant add so much major content with the little amount of time thats left considering that this is all the content there is after YEARS of development. Your unrealistically expecting alot of major content is being blocked from us in both closed and open beta. Thats just not the case. I sincerely hope im wrong, but all evidence points to the contrary. They cant even make a complete Klingon side in the little amount of time they have left, and they had years to actually COMPLETE the klingons and choose not to.
But my opinions are usually scoffed because I am one of those Star Trek nerds. Carry on defending them. Someone needs to at this point.
Which is exactly the point that I'm making. I know what an open beta is, thanks very much; what I'm driving at is that if you're putting up as much advertising at Best Buy or GameStop as Cryptic has for this, you're going to draw a lot of people that aren't familiar with the beta process, don't get what betas are about and are expecting things to "just work." Now Cryptic seems confused at all of the ire floating around these forums when really, they didn't set the expectations you're talking about when they were slapping posters up all over game stores urging people to preorder and sign up for the open beta. Star Trek is a huge property with a lot of fans, many of whom may be new to gaming in general and MMOs in particular. It would have made sense for them to spell out exactly what to expect from a beta and to do so sooner than the opening screen for downloading the beta client (at which point a lot of people had already spent money on the preorder). This doesn't even address the massive problems people are having just getting the beta client, either (or the fact that I've already seen one Cryptic employee act like a douche to someone who asked a perfectly reasonable question, which impressed me to no end).
And really, no one's making you rush around the forums clarifying what an open beta's all about. You don't need to act so put-upon or talk to us like we're all morons.
That wasn't my intention. I don't consider people who don't know the real purpose morons or anything.. It's pretty easy to miss. Especially these days where every website puts "beta" on it somewhere because it's trendy, and demos are nolonger called Demos but Betas, particularly on consoles such as with Halo 3 and Modern Warfare. It's a pretty easy mistake to make. In fact, I'd say the real mistake is at the hands of the actual companies, who continue to use the term which, while accurate, kind of says something else to the average person who is more interested in trying the game than being a ragdoll used to slam servers.
Regardless, I didn't intend to come off as a *****, but rather just explaining the process.
And while I agree in theory that the beta shouldn't be advertised like a demo as it is, it's also worth keeping in mind that if they said "pre-order now and get access to a client that will continually lead you on thinking you'll get to play, but never actually get too!", there might be significantly less people slamming the servers and thus having a worse launch on release day.. It's kind of a double edged sword I guess ><
pretty sure a Beta client is hardly a "start" secondarily, if you've been in so many mmo's you should know that day 1 of a beta is ALWAYS a stress test from hell to the load balancing servers.
Tying it to the preorder the way they did was a terrible idea and (I think) the source of most of this ire. How many people who don't know about betas have tried to download the client or, having downloaded the client, got kicked a load of times and got fed up enough to walk and cancel their preorder? I'll bet at least some, based on some of the posts I've read here, and the thing is that this was mostly avoidable. It's not really fair to deliberately target people who don't know what an open beta is, lure them in to test the game for you, then get upset with them for not understanding why it "doesn't work" and expecting to get a game demo rather than a work in progress. I'm seeing a lot of that going on on this forum, not just from other players, but from the occasional Cryptic rep, too, and that's where I find myself thinking, "You know, your company advertised the hell out of this thing like it was a demo. You don't get to get upset when a bunch of neophytes show up and get miffed because things aren't working as advertised [pr as they understood them to be advertised]."
Like you, I don't know what the solution to that is, but I think that offering free keys for the asking on gaming websites, rather than taking this, "Come play STO early! Preorder!" approach would have been way less painful for everyone involved. I know I didn't come in here expecting a perfect playing experience precisely because it's a beta, but I did think I'd actually be able to download the beta client before I was eligible for social security. That was clearly a pipe dream.