Originally posted by Aethaeryn

THey also sent out a warning email before the transition asking everyone to download their games just to be sure they had access before the changeover.  I downloaded all the games I thought I might want to play over the next few months.

Not sure you can pin this all on them.  I agree though that "a few months" is not what they said would happen. . but the did warn you.

The only thing I pin on them is that they completely missmanaged the transfer.  If they had used half a braincell they would have moved all the D2D they could over to the Gamefly servers before taking down the old websites and the only thing they had to do then was to update the Gamefly client. If they had done it this way the downtime would have been hours at the most and not months.

I am not worried that I won't get my games, they are in the purchase history and in time I will get acces to them again.  They warned us to download the old games, I didn't download any old installs because I did not expect them to mess things up this terribly. A few days downtime would have been annoying, but acceptable. A few months is not. Not that I can do anything about it...

From a business viewpoint it is bad as well since I think this will make a lot of former D2D customers distrust them and shop somewhere else.

Originally posted by grunty

Originally posted by Fyendiar

Originally posted by grunty

Customer Service reps can only do what they are told they can do by the management. Direct you anger towards the decision makers like Sean Spector and the stockholders (if any) and not the individuals who are your first contact with the company. You should be trying to get those people on your side so they can represent you to the rule makers.

I don't blame Joe behind desk number 27, I blame the company. I used the email adres given by the mail that got me so angry and forgive me if I am wrong, but the customer service reps are the wall around those in control. A wall made to catch and react to the complaints. If you can't go to customer service with your complaints then there is no customer service worth mentioning.

I'm not saying you're wrong. Fortunately the only thing I bought from them was basically a license key to an MMO. I can get that software anytime elsewhere.

This scenario of Direct 2 Drive being bought by someone else is exactly why I didn't do other business with them. I prefer having a disc sitting on my shelf for the next ten years instead of relying on the availability of some third party floating in the Cloud.

True, this debacle makes me wonder if I should give up on digital purchases all together and go back to the old DVD system.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Fyendiar

Originally posted by baritone3k

Honestly, 20% off new purchases for 2 months is pretty cool. Do you tend to uninstall your games then redownload them from D2D? I could see that being a pain, but you can save a good chunk on new titles to pass the time until you can DL the old ones you had uninstalled then wanted to reDL.

I got a new computer just after D2D was taken offline so I did not have any of the old games on my computer. I didn't own an external drive so downloading them all upfront was no option either. The 20% off is useless to me since I do not intend to spend a cent on a company that can't even handle this transfer right. They do not deserve anything after this. Also, but not sure about this, I think they only accept creditcard payments and I do not own one of those and do not intend to getting one. Here in the Netherlands credit cards are not as common as in the States.  So if this is correct I couldn't even buy something if I wanted to.

We all received several emails for two months before the transition telling us that they will make the best effort to avoid any issues but strongly urging everyone to download their games. That's plenty of time to download them and back them up onto USB, CD, DVD, etc.

 

From the 21 December 2011 email:

There are a couple things you can do now to ensure a smooth transition:

1. Download your favorite game purchases from Direct2Drive. We plan to have as many game files as possible available on GameFly. Just to be sure, please download your old game files before the transition.

2. Download all of your non-game files (like Prima Guides). These will not be available on GameFly after the transition.

 

Are you saying you have no backup system of any kind? If so, then not having some games you bought four years ago is the least of your issues right now.

 

I did not own a backup system, I do now, but for a transfer like this it should not be needed in the first place. They should not have taken down direct2drive.com before they transfered all games to the new system. I expected a few days downtime, not weeks and definately not months as they claim now!

Me not having a backup system does not make their failure any less terrible. Btw most of those games were bought the last year, not 4 years ago, but that is besides the point.

Originally posted by grunty

Customer Service reps can only do what they are told they can do by the management. Direct you anger towards the decision makers like Sean Spector and the stockholders (if any) and not the individuals who are your first contact with the company. You should be trying to get those people on your side so they can represent you to the rule makers.

I don't blame Joe behind desk number 27, I blame the company. I used the email adres given by the mail that got me so angry and forgive me if I am wrong, but the customer service reps are the wall around those in control. A wall made to catch and react to the complaints. If you can't go to customer service with your complaints then there is no customer service worth mentioning.

Originally posted by baritone3k

Honestly, 20% off new purchases for 2 months is pretty cool. Do you tend to uninstall your games then redownload them from D2D? I could see that being a pain, but you can save a good chunk on new titles to pass the time until you can DL the old ones you had uninstalled then wanted to reDL.

I got a new computer just after D2D was taken offline so I did not have any of the old games on my computer. I didn't own an external drive so downloading them all upfront was no option either. The 20% off is useless to me since I do not intend to spend a cent on a company that can't even handle this transfer right. They do not deserve anything after this. Also, but not sure about this, I think they only accept creditcard payments and I do not own one of those and do not intend to getting one. Here in the Netherlands credit cards are not as common as in the States.  So if this is correct I couldn't even buy something if I wanted to.

Originally posted by rojo6934

that really sux, they could easily add the D2D game library to Gamefly in less time.

 

Now pleas answer me something because im very confused... I tried to register an account to Gamefly and it asks for a payment method so im assuming you have to pay for your account (and services) of gamefly.... my question is this, do i have to really pay for a gamefly account even if i just want to download the games i already bough at D2D before?

Im confused about that and i have no intention of paying for Gamefly services when i only want to re-download the games i already had from D2D

 

edit: i didnt see any option to create a free user account at gamefly, tahts why i ask

If you were a Direct2Drive customer your account has been transfered to Gamefly and you should only need to reset your password, if they ask for payment option something has gone wrong and you should contact their customer service and pray to all the Gods you can think of that they help you.

As many will most likely know Gamefly recently bought Direct2Drive and "included" it into their own service. The problem however is that even though we now finally can see all prior pruchases on their website, almost none of the games have been included in the client which is required to download those games!

I have about 30+ games that I bought from Direct2Drive over the years, 2 of those now show up in the client. At first they said it may take weeks, but today we got this email:

---

Dear Direct2Drive Customer,

Thank you for being a loyal Direct2Drive customer. We understand your concerns and appreciate your continued patience as we complete the transition to GameFly. Please be assured that we do have an accurate record of your prior Direct2Drive purchases. To verify this, please visit your Purchase History on the GameFly website.

We are moving as quickly as possible to add all Direct2Drive titles to the GameFly Client, and plan to have the majority of the D2D game library transferred to the client within the next few months. We're sorry if the set of emails sent prior to the transition regarding downloading your games were unclear or you missed them. We know your games are very important to you, and we are focused on making all of your past game purchases available to you as soon as possible.

As a token of our appreciation for your business, we've attached a 20% off purchase coupon to your GameFly account. This coupon will discount all digital purchases made on your account through April 30, 2012 - you'll just need to select it in the GameFly Coupons dropdown at checkout. We look forward to serving your gaming needs and providing you with an excellent gaming experience. We continue to work hard to build your trust in GameFly.

If you still have any questions, please contact our Digital Support Team, and we'll gladly review your account with you individually.

Sincerely,



Sean Spector
GameFly Co-Founder

E-mail: digitalsupport@gamefly.com
Online Help: www.gamefly.co.uk/support

----

Yes it says it is going to take months. Months! So I send them this email:

----

The whole casual/hardcore/elite nonsense is just that; nonsense. The diversity of meanings given to those words show the uselessness of them. Just this topic alone shows an incredible amount of different meanings for the word casual. Ask about the words hardcore and elite and you get as many meanings thrown around. In the end it all means nothing.

I am not casual, I am not hardcore, I am not elite, I am driven, but in the end just another gamer. I play for fun and what I find fun may differ from yours. I will not call you names, not degrade you or look down upon you for playing differently. All I ask is for you to do the same. Differentiating ourselves by using meaningless words like casual, hardcore or elite is as useless as the words themselves.

Anyway, just my 2 cents worth.

edit: typo

I know it's not really usefull information, but I feel like sharing it anyway:

Pro: All classes are fun!

Con: All classes are fun!

I doubt I will ever be able to have a main in this game. At this moment I have already 12 different alts and many more will follow for sure!

Oh wait, one con for all the non-light armor classes: All gear that you can buy that has a social requirement is light armour. *sniff*

What surprises me mostly about topics like this is that some people seem to think that they can only like one thing and then are surprised they are able to like something else as well. You are not a sandboxer, you are not a themeparker, you are not a wower, you are not a firstpersonshooter, you just like some kinds of games. Can you honestly say that you only like 1 type of singleplayer game?

I understand the OP for example looks for sandbox mmo's usually, but did he really think he only had one single like? Everyone likes a lot of things and hates a lot of things. I usually don't like shooters, they are just not for me, but every now and then I encounter a shooter I like. The same goes for so many things.

So this is not the view of a sandboxer, but the view of a player that loves this game and happens to like sandbox games as well.

Remember, the true sandboxer is a sad person. With this I mean a person that only likes sandboxes and hates every other type of game out there. For his life would be empty. I can say this without insulting anyone because I do not believe such a person exists. Some just sometimes forget they like more things than just one single thing.

It reminds of me all those "For the Horde!" guys that secretly have just as many Alliance alts. :)

Sorry just had to get that off my chest. I hope no offense was taken as it was not intended as insulting.

Originally posted by bambook

when will it be up , mountain time?

Around 2 hours from  now.

Originally posted by SideTraKd

In this case, the forums should also need to come down, because the access to those forums will no longer be granted to anyone who hasn't yet entered a retail game key. 

A very good point I didn't think about and since I am not a programmer I have no idea how much work is involved in that. :)

Originally posted by Tamanous

Originally posted by Zuvielify

Oh and I'm not nerd raging or anything. I'm really just curious. I do this kind of thing all the time, and I just don't understand why they have to keep pulling all their servers down for hours or days on end.

 

And yes, doing forum maintenance at the same time is a bit questionable. Are they using the same machines?

The forums do not always go down. The last downtime they did not. They do however show down when their queue system cannot handle the load as their forums get over loaded during downtimes.

The forums did go down the last planned big maintenance as well, just not for the entire duration. Probably going to be the same today.

Originally posted by Beazt

Originally posted by Fyendiar

Originally posted by Zeal77

Dude it's 3am WTF..

Europe has maintence as well, it's 9:15 here atm so gametime on this free day.

The servers will be back up at 12pm GMT or 1pm where you're at.

So just relax, it's not like they are robbing you of a full day.

 

Server maintenance is to be expected in the first week, a lot of players also means a lot of problems, some more important than others, but they still have to be solved, or the players will be unhappy and leave, so go make some coffee, read the newspaper, do whatever, and the servers will be up before you know it.

No worries I am not raging, was just pointing out to the guy that the maintenance is now for all timezones so it may be 3am for him, but not for me.

Now I know how long it will probably take I will just find myself something else to do. I don't mind maintenance, I'd take a bugfree game over a maintenance free game anyday! :)

Would have been nice if they made certain the current launcher had the basic info though, but then again...we got mmorpg.com for emergencies! :)

Thanks Tristanryan, just the info I was looking for.

Originally posted by teakbois

This was in the launcher a couple days of go.  This is the maintenance because of the grace period on pre-orders.  They said normal maintenance will be the standard tuesday am cycle everyone else uses, this is offcycle.

I missed that, was this one planned for the same hours as the last big maintenance? So another 3-4 hours to go?

Originally posted by Zeal77

Dude it's 3am WTF..

Europe has maintence as well, it's 9:15 here atm so gametime on this free day.

I didn't see this one announced, any mention of when the servers will be back up? Would check swtor.com normally, but they do their website and game maintenance at the same time so both are down and nothing is showing up in my launcher about it.

Thanks.

Originally posted by lkc673

it doesnt charge you until the end of the month usually, my question is do we get the 30 days free? i know they make u go on a plan first before you can play

 I just created my sub and there was no charge and a notice that the first charge will be a month from now.

edit:  forgot to add that I bought it from direct2drive.co.uk so should work the same for you.

VOIP does make things a lot easier for groups to work together so it is used by most guilds. However there are still a lot of people out there that for whatever reason decide to never use it. Some because they are shy, some because they want to keep immersed into the game (there's nothing like a brute warrior that sounds like a little kid or a cute elf that sounds like a man in his forties with a hangover to break the immersion), etc, etc. There are guilds that do all the endgame content just as the hardcore guilds do, just a bit slower because they prefer to take their time and use their keyboards to communicate rather than their voices.

If you want to find a game in which you can do all the content without using VOIP the trick is not to find the game, but to find the players since every game has guilds like that. You could ask around on the server forums or if you are brave/masochistic you could ask in any of the global channels within whatever game you play. Sure 9 out of 10 replies you get will be from people not understanding how anyone would not use vent, but you only need 1 to push you in the right direction to get the guild you are looking for.

Goodluck.