46736-an-apology-from-the-devs

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== Content ==
			
Hello All,
 
Ok, so Name Reservations were a frustrating experience for everyone.  However, we are happy to announce that the Name Reservation page has steadied out and is working correctly.  The web site should show your registered names at this time.  We will continue to improve the user experience as it still needs work.
 
 
In an effort to make this right, here is the current plan of action:
 
1.  Craig Turner aka Cougar, our Director of Operations is working on a write-up to shed as much light as possible as to what the issues were.  Once his detailed breakdown is complete, we will be posting it here to be as transparent as possible.
 
2.  EVERYONE that has Pre-ordered will receive 5 Bonus Boom-Boxes.  If you are unfamiliar with how awesome Boom-Boxes are, please watch our video here.
 
3.  The web issues not only affected those registering names, but also those trying to purchase Pre-orders.  Because of that, EVERYONE that Pre-orders by Friday 5/16 at 4:59pm PDT [23:59 UTC] will also receive the 5 Bonus Boom-Boxes.  You can begin unlocking Boom-Boxes at Head Start on May 31st.  If you’d like to Pre-order, please visit our site here.
 
 
This is our way of acknowledging that the events of Tuesday sucked and that we are genuinely sorry this happened.  In the interim, please enjoy your Bonus Boom-Boxes and the 3 days left of Open Beta!
 
Stay Frosty
 
 
 	
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			Thank you.	
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			Interested in seeing that letter, thanks for acknowledging the issue. 	
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			Good on you guys. Looking forward to the technical writeup of what happened.	
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			We can begin unlocking them on MARCH 31st? I do believe that you mean MAY :-)	
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I'm interested in seeing this detailed letter.
I don't feel boom boxes are a sufficient apology as a lot of people got screwed over twice.
But, it's done and we can all move on from this I suppose.
Thanks for trying.	
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			It sucks but things like this happen and its how you bounce back.  I really appreciate the quick action and apology from you Carbine and I truly appreciate bonus BOOM BOX'S.	
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			Thank you.	
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We can begin unlocking them on MARCH 31st? I do believe that you mean MAY :-)
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			very nice, thanks for the free stuff.  	
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			Is this some kind of joke?	
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			Wait so all we get is extra boomboxes which is basically a chance to get something that most people will be able to get anyway? yeah how about no? You have to be kidding me if this is what you meant by "fair across the board"	
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I mean... I guess that works.
 
I was still hoping for the free namechanges after the lockout expired, but I guess this is better than sweeping it under the rug too.	
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I'm interested in seeing this detailed letter.
I don't feel boom boxes are a sufficient apology as a lot of people got screwed over twice.
But, it's done and we can all move on from this I suppose.
Thanks for trying.
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Thank you :)
 
I really appreciate it, and also your will to be as much transparent as possible. Looking forward to Cougar's post.	
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Tony, will there be any remedy for those attempting to register names with disallowed strings of characters like "ens", "ans", "ss", etc.?  Our guild is unfortunately stuck with not our guild name because the three letter combination "ans" is not allowed -- despite having the name in beta (and I mean that not in the sense that we deserve the name over someone else, but in the sense that we're very sure this is just an overactive censor).  
 
Thoughts/ETA/acknowledgment that this is an issue would be very helpful.  Is there be any possibility of changing a locked in name that wasn't desired due to this bug?	
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			Still wont help that the german support ignores reported trademark violations.	
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Things happen. Some people might feel like boom-boxes aren't enough, but to those people I say: they didn't have to give us anything, but they did, AND an apology. 
 
Good guy Carbine, we appreciate you, thank you.	
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Before we get too excited at the prospect of more boom boxes, has it been confirmed that these aren't going to be sold for real money in the future?
 
The liberal helpings of boom boxes are oddly reminiscent of the Black Lion chests :-/
 
 
The first one's free, and then they've got you hooked.	
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			Thank you <3	
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			This still sucks.  Now the person who stole my name gets extra boom boxes too ;)	
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Before we get too excited at the prospect of more boom boxes, has it been confirmed that these aren't going to be sold for real money in the future?
 
The liberal helpings of boom boxes are oddly reminiscent of the Black Lion chests :-/
 
 
The first one's free, and then they've got you hooked.
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			Interested in the technical details on this. Well thanks for the update! There never was going to be a solution that pleases everyone and this is coming from someone who had his plans thoroughly messed up.	
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			Where are our reserved names displayed? I was able to get through after you guys brought them up, said it saved my name and timed out but i dont see any kind of confirmation on my account page	
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			Thanks, but I'd still like a free name change or two. Not even because of the issues with the webservers, but because your global name reservation thing makes no sense and because of it I might have to either wait to roll characters if I want to try and get names on my server, or roll them and change the names after (aka with the free name changes I'm asking you for!)	
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			Looking forward to this letter, thank you for the extra boom boxes. I can understand everyone's frustration due to losing their names to someone else off a technical issue. 	
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Where are our reserved names displayed? I was able to get through after you guys brought them up, said it saved my name and timed out but i dont see any kind of confirmation on my account page
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This still sucks.  Now the person who stole my name gets extra boom boxes too ;)
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			Class, Dev's.  Youse guys is nothin' but class.  Bravo.	
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			Looking forward to the letter, and thank you for the apology. Like others, I'm a bit disappointed by what happened, but appreciate that you're trying to be on top of it and did fix the reservation page after the initial onslaught.	
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Im sorry but If the people that got screwed around on a deal promised by the team if we pre-ordered we should recieve that deal.
 
I don't give a flying f*** about boom boxes and I pre-ordered the game in good faith that I will be able to reserve a name WITH A FAIR F***ING CHANCE of doing so. I and many others (mainly EU) did not recieve a fair chance because you kept us updated on time intervals that were too few and far between and most of us had to go to sleep to get up for work and couldn't afford to wait for a twitter post to say it was going to be up.
 
Either a reset happens or I lose all respect for the developers on this for not puting their money where there mouth is when claiming their top rule is no Bullshit. I feel f***ing cheated.	
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I have to turn on 'the troll' for this comment but is it just America or the rest of the world who wants 'more or monetary' compensation instead of an apology.  An apology is all that is needed in this incident.  Why only an apology you ask and that is very simple, its because this was not intentional, it was a miscalculation or worst a few players running scripts to secure a name and crashing the system.
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Does anyone else think of The Lonely Island's magnificent song, Boombox, whenever CRB mentions boomboxes?
 
Or is that just me...	
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I appreciate the apology and the boom boxes are a great idea, so that's great. For people saying it's not enough, it's probably because they didn't get their desired name. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee a name will be available.  Even if the site had been up and running perfectly, there would be a chance that your name would be taken.  
 
Also, just as a learning tool, I was part of the Ouya kickstarter (as were thousands of other people) and one of the rewards was name reservation.  Long before any launch, they sent out a survey to all of the supporters, asking us for the name we'd like to reserve.  We were asked to provide our top 3 choices.   They made it clear that the sooner you responded to the survey, the more likely you were to get your name.  At launch, I got an email that told me my user name (which I got), and the details on how to log in, etc.  
 
Perhaps, maybe not for Wildstar, but in future game launches, since pre-order keys have to be associated with an active account (and presumably for which you have our email, since it's required) this would be a less hair pulling way to determine things like guild or character name reservation.  If you've pre-ordered by a specific date, you get the survey, fill it in and then NCSoft does the set up based on that (I'm sure there's an easy algorithm that would do it all automatically) and then after that date, the customer would have to log in manually to reserve a name, like we had to do on Tuesday.
 
I appreciated NCSoft's responsiveness to the problem, keeping us up to date on what the problem was, and the way that they worked to get it resolved.  Yes, it was kind of crazy that you didn't do the math and say "hey guys, this many people pre-ordered, what if they ALL click the button at once?" but lesson learned, one would hope. 	
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I feel like the wife who's husband is in the doghouse and attempts to use flowers every time to fix it. Sure boom boxes are nice, but I already am going to have a shit ton of them, and it doesn't solve the incredible clutser*cupcake* your company created. 
 
Further knowing "what happened" isn't going to help either. I know what happened: more people made requests of the server than you were prepared for and the website design was clunky at best. In the end I even expected that. I've experienced such things before (i.e. when facebook allowed users to create a custom extension name for their page). What was largely disappointing here was that you made the system global. There are something like 10 servers so the chance that the "first arrived, and first served person" who got the name people want is on the same server is about 10%. The chance that guild names will actually be used is even lower. This means the vast, vast majority of reserved names will free up 2 weeks after launch. 
 
To make this right, you really should be allowing free name changes at that point for people who spent 2 weeks building a character that could be named better. 
 
EDIT: I did in fact get to reserve the name, "Garth." So I'm not even lobbying for my own purposes. I lobby for my friends who didn't get the names they wanted, and all the other potential Garths out there who aren't on my server.
 
EDIT 2: The global system further encourages trolls to register their saved name on every server, just for the hell of it. Explain to me how that is a effective use of resources? While I appreciate that this lowers the chances that I will run into a player named, "Sephiroth," The cost to the community is too high.    	
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So....that's it 5 boom boxes? I admit I don't know wth that is even at this point, I'm thinking http://gifs.com/59x  (going to check after I type this). Good thing about the detailed post to come but it's standard transparency policy for Carbine (which is possibly the best one yet, even considering some communication issues about it).
 
But zero chances of reducing those 14 days, or free name tokens or region locking (wasn't really expecting this last one to happen though even it what been the most pleasing)? http://gifs.com/4JN
 
 
Gonna wait for that detailed damage report before any serious judgement.	
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Even if the site had been up and running perfectly, there would be a chance that your name would be taken.  
 
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Thank you for acknowledging and extra boom boxes!
Things don't always go right, many games simply issue an apology and its done with. 
Onwards to the future! Love the transparency, can't wait for launch.	
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Before we get too excited at the prospect of more boom boxes, has it been confirmed that these aren't going to be sold for real money in the future?
 
The liberal helpings of boom boxes are oddly reminiscent of the Black Lion chests :-/
 
 
The first one's free, and then they've got you hooked.
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Hello All,
 
...... However, we are happy to announce that the Name Reservation page has steadied out and is working correctly.    .......
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On launch, if you didn't get the name you wanted, and due the global lockout of the names for 14 days, you're most likely having to level a character whose name you don't like.
 
After the 14 days is up, everyone is probably trying a grab a name they really wanted from the server they have settled on.
 
So you most likely will have three choices, IF you think you can manage to grab the name you wanted after those 14 days.
 
Don't play at all, or reroll once the 14 days are up, or pay real money for a name change.
 
It's rather disappointing free name changes will not be offered as a compensation for this. The global name lockout on all the servers is definitely the worst offender in this scenario, and I assume nothing can be done about it, but yeah.. to put it plainly, it sucks.
 
With that said, I appreciate the apology but I feel like they could've handled this a lot better.	
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			Please add visible error messages in the event the rest call fails when you press the reserve or either save buttons so that the user is prompted something went wrong. That'll go a long way IMO.	
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So you're basing the fact that we didn'tget our names on a hunch? The clear fact is that people got their names because they were lucky. Not because they were dedicated.
 
An apology would be a f***ing reset.
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Wait so all we get is extra boomboxes which is basically a chance to get something that most people will be able to get anyway? yeah how about no? You have to be kidding me if this is what you meant by "fair across the board"
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			Well I suppose that's easier than actually doing something.	
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The web site should show your registered names at this time.  
 
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"For each day players log into the game during Open Beta, accounts will receive 3 Boom Boxes at launch."
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			lol, so much QQ about names.. funny. I bet some even won't play the game because they don't have the name they wanted /facepalm.	
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			Why should people that got their names get this offer too?	
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Im sorry but If the people that got screwed around on a deal promised by the team if we pre-ordered we should recieve that deal.
 
I don't give a flying f*** about boom boxes and I pre-ordered the game in good faith that I will be able to reserve a name WITH A FAIR F***ING CHANCE of doing so. I and many others (mainly EU) did not recieve a fair chance because you kept us updated on time intervals that were too few and far between and most of us had to go to sleep to get up for work and couldn't afford to wait for a twitter post to say it was going to be up.
 
Either a reset happens or I lose all respect for the developers on this for not puting their money where there mouth is when claiming their top rule is no Bullshit. I feel f***ing cheated.
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I like how they apologised for the errors.
Assured us that they'll give us a technical breakdown of what actually made everything break.
And gave us some Boom-Boxes to boot.
 
They could have just said sorry, and left it at that.
 
Lastly, not to be that other guy, but what's wrong with just having a different name?
Take your planned name, give it a space-age twist or something different, and just have fun.
A name's just a name at the end of the day.	
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			The more they throw around boom boxes, the less they mean.	
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			Appreciate the response and the free stuff, although I do think a free name change at some point soon after launch is a good idea ;).	
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			It's nice you guys are trying, but do you honestly think that boom boxes are the fix to this? People didn't get a fair chance at their names, due to the mess up on your end, I think it all should be scrapped and have people fight for names on their server. I got my name, but the fact is, it wasn't fair in the least bit.	
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			Definitely expected a solution, but I guess shiny pixels is all they could come up with :/ And from what I have read you can only open 1 every 22 hours... So we will be playing for a month every single day before we ever get to use these shiny pixels.	
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Saying you are sry and actually talking gts you a long way with the players Carbine  :wub:
 
This is something BioWare did not do with SWTOR as they were beyond arrogant, see how that went :rolleyes:	
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It's nice you guys are trying, but do you honestly think that boom boxes are the fix to this? People didn't get a fair chance at their names, due to the mess up on your end, I think it all should be scrapped and have people fight for names on their server. I got my name, but the fact is, it wasn't fair in the least bit.
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			I got screwed over and what i got is black lion chests. Err boxes. Boom boxes. Oh whatever.	
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			I honestly don't see anything bad at all with the issues on name reservations, everyone that went to do them should of known that would happen. Especially when that many people try to access on page all at once. So giving us anything at all is great and I'm glad that you acknowleged it =).	
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			You know, I don't really remember Blizzard every doing  these types of  things for their customers. I find this pretty awesome. Truly brings to mind the phrase "the devs are listening". Hiccups happen, and sometimes completely unpredicted. Typically the next hiccup is servers during release, so many games release with either too many servers or too few. What I would suggest is start with your set amount, but do as Rift did, and allow free server transfers. Its fine asking people to pay for character changes aside from that, but at least make these free.	
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Well I suppose that's easier than actually doing something.
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You know, I don't really remember Blizzard every doing  these types of  things for their customers. I find this pretty awesome. Truly brings to mind the phrase "the devs are listening". Hiccups happen, and sometimes completely unpredicted. Typically the next hiccup is servers during release, so many games release with either too many servers or too few. What I would suggest is start with your set amount, but do as Rift did, and allow free server transfers. Its fine asking people to pay for character changes aside from that, but at least make these free.
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I appreciate the acknowledgement. I appreciate the apology. This however doesn't help matters whatsoever.
 
Technical difficulties being fixed at this time do nothing for a time-sensitive problem like name reservation. The nature of name reservations in an MMO is the golden opportunity moment of "minute one" of the gates opening. Everyone who has experienced this sort of time in an MMO knows about how this is. I've experienced this time in many games. There's always disappointment when you just plain don't type fast enough to grab your name, but you always understand that's just the way the cookie crumbles. You and Anon were at the computer at the same time but he just has better dexterity than you. It happens. Everyone starts out on the same level and you all have the same exact chance, as long as you're both at the computer.
 
For so many people, as you guys are aware, that was denied to them at no fault of their own when name reservations opened up. Plenty preordered for that perk in particular. (I admit it was a perk I looked forward to!) Names are very important in MMOs to a lot of players. They're your identity. A lot of people were at their computers on Tuesday just like everyone else was, but it did not work as it should work when they went to reserve their names. They were on time. They were there. They were stuck. They lost the opportunity they should have had. I emphasize this because of the importance of the issue to these people.
 
Being less quick on the draw is one thing, having your hands tied is another. I sincerely feel that a stronger course of action is necessary here. To me, the fairest, "needs of the many", option here would be a re-do on this name reservation business. Or compensation and scrapping it altogether and having a per-server first come, first serve grab your name on head-start deal. I know that won't happen, so what else is there? Name change vouchers and/or server transfers would probably help people. People who: got their names and found out later it didn't save, the ones who did save but it was another name entirely, those who were never(and still aren't) able to get name reservation to work at all.
 
I, myself, got the name I wanted, so this isn't a personal issue for me in terms of reserving my own name. I do, however, care a lot about the players on various WildStar communities who feel extremely hurt and let down by something that was completely out of their hands. I really don't think free items help that at all, guys. It was a very frustrating and confusing experience on Tuesday for a lot of people. It was a huge letdown. This is very disappointing and honestly disheartening.
 
I appreciate you guys have your opinions on what is right to do, and I respect that. I am also part of this community, though, and I feel my thoughts are important for you guys to hear, just like everyone else's in this thread. We all have our thoughts and feelings on this matter. I just hope maybe you can take this into consideration when it comes to handling future issues. In MMO terms, this was one of the biggest parts of beginning the game for people and you should treat it as seriously if not moreso.
 
Thanks for listening.	
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I think giving people a free name change so they can try to claim a name they missed once the 14 days of name lockout are over would be a good compromise.
 
Like somebody said earlier - the more boomboxes people have, the less they are worth.	
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An apology, great, we appreciate that despite the fact that it shouldn't have been necessary had you anticipated that you'd have a flood of people logging onto your site all at the same time and come up with an alternate method. It really shouldn't have come as a surprise that you'd get so much web traffic.
So you apologize and give us boom-boxes which we'll already have a lot of. I as well as several others on this thread find this to be a poor form of compensation and I sincerely hope that you re-evaluate your solution.	
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			Thanks again for your honesty. Looking forward to Cougar's post.	
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 If someone took "their" name, it probably wasn't exclusively "their" name.
 
People need to get over themselves.
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			I look forward to reading Cougars report	
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			wtf people? calm down :D it's just a name.... this thread is insane and should be locked.	
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Ahh, gotta love the "entitlement generation"
 
Name Reservation was a service, provided on a "First Come, First Serve" basis. Sadly, the site was full of issues, and some people were delayed in reserving a name, or outright unable to due to various site related problems. People should be grateful to get ANY type of compensation for the issues, when none was required. In my opinion, Name Reservation should've been limited to Headstart. If you're not part of the first people going into the game during Headstart, it sucks to be you (if your name gets taken). I suppose one change Carbine could make, is reducing the "name reserved" time from 14 days post-launch, to a matter of 2-3 days (or less). Personally, I'd vote for the name reserved to be null and void by June 3rd. If you haven't created your character/guild during Headstart access, too bad.	
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Im sorry but If the people that got screwed around on a deal promised by the team if we pre-ordered we should recieve that deal.
 
I don't give a flying f*** about boom boxes and I pre-ordered the game in good faith that I will be able to reserve a name WITH A FAIR F***ING CHANCE of doing so. I and many others (mainly EU) did not recieve a fair chance because you kept us updated on time intervals that were too few and far between and most of us had to go to sleep to get up for work and couldn't afford to wait for a twitter post to say it was going to be up.
 
Either a reset happens or I lose all respect for the developers on this for not puting their money where there mouth is when claiming their top rule is no Bullshit. I feel f***ing cheated.
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Boom boxes!!!
 
I do love free stuff, thank you Devs <3 xxx	
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			Been stuck in a meeting, good on you folks at Carbine. /thumbup	
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The fact is that people like you are so simple minded and can't see that it wasn't fair.
 
So maybe look outside your small box, and get over yourself.
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			I appreciate everyone on carbine's staff and would allow you to impregnate me.	
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wtf people? calm down :D it's just a name.... this thread is insane and should be locked.
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Thanks for the post.
 
My guild wasn't TOO badly effected, other than just a day of general grumpiness.  We did have at least two folks denied their names due to website issues.  But we can get over it.
 
But honestly, I'm unable to make any connection in my head between what we "suffered" and this form of compensation.  IE, studios sometimes credit free time to our accounts to account for downtime.  That's logical.  But how does a boom box fix / change / assuage the situation in which I couldn't get my name?
 
A much more logical course, IMO, would have been to give us a boombox and a credit for a free post-launch name change.
 
You ARE going to have a name change service up and running during the first month of launch, right? :o
 
I mean, it's essentially required since you are forcing -some- players to use temporary names until the reservation expires or is used.	
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			The problem wasnt your website, it was the archaic naming system you choose. Many MMOs have moved past this kind of out-dated thinking and therefore completely avoid this kind of problem in the first place. All of that said, this is a nice gesture.	
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			If someone could spell my name correctly to snipe it away I wouldn't have even been upset, I'd be impressed.	
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Ahh, gotta love the "entitlement generation"
 
Name Reservation was a service, provided on a "First Come, First Serve" basis. Sadly, the site was full of issues, and some people were delayed in reserving a name, or outright unable to due to various site related problems. People should be grateful to get ANY type of compensation for the issues, when none was required. In my opinion, Name Reservation should've been limited to Headstart. If you're not part of the first people going into the game during Headstart, it sucks to be you (if your name gets taken). I suppose one change Carbine could make, is reducing the "name reserved" time from 14 days post-launch, to a matter of 2-3 days (or less). Personally, I'd vote for the name reserved to be null and void by June 3rd. If you haven't created your character/guild during Headstart access, too bad.
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Mad
 
About
 
A bideo game name.
 
Seems like something a well-adjusted adult would get mad about.
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			How do I earn them? Just for logging in? How long do I have to play???	
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The Carbine team is proving both the nature of their good character and a deep respect for their player community by:
a. apologizing
b. being transparent
c. going above and beyond by giving all pre-orders extra boom boxes
 
I don't see how they could have handled the clean-up on this issue any better.
 
Thank you, Carbine people.
G	
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As I stated before, I got my name, The fact that I received it while others couldn't get it due to the faulty end of carbine. Can you honestly sit there and actually tell me that's fair? Actually I know your answer. I'll stop it here.
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     I just want to point out that on the last weekend of closed beta for pre orders the server was causing us problems for like an hour or so. You gave out double boom boxes for a total of 18 if you logged into the game all 3 days.
 
   So comparing that to what happened here you're basically saying a server mistake for an hour is worth more boom boxes than the name reservation fiasco?
 
       WOW	
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Ahh, gotta love the "entitlement generation"
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Huh. The compensation does nothing to alleviate the issue. I could see why some folks might get upset at this. 
 
My jaded side is telling me Carbine is negotiating their compensation by starting real low and if there's enough complaining they will toss a name change token. 
 
I still think server transfers should also be included. If you are going to compensate, you should do it well or not do it at all.	
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The apology is appreciated but the way your handling compensation is wrong.
 
Nobody had a fair shot at reserving the names they wanted. The ??? Time remaining message was deceiving, it looked as if it registered but didn't. On top with the expected web trafficking it was luck over fairness.
 
Remove the name reservations and leave everything open on launch day.	
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Hello All,
 
Ok, so Name Reservations were a frustrating experience for everyone.  However, we are happy to announce that the Name Reservation page has steadied out and is working correctly.  The web site should show your registered names at this time.  We will continue to improve the user experience as it still needs work.
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Congrats to the very small and extremely loud minority for making a huge stink over this.  Five additional loot boxes for me!
 
Thank you, please continue crying -- maybe was can get a pony as well.	
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			More Boom Boxes!  <cheers> It's like Christmas time in summer.  I can not wait!	
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			Awesome support and immediate actions!!! Loving the game and keep it like that Carbine!!!	
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			They have trivialized boom boxes... You log in twice and you get more rewards then the compensation for the name fiasco.	
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			You guys can really turn a negative into a positive. By positive I mean a positively fantastic marketing opportunity. If you haven't preordered yet, more free boom boxes even though people on the fence had nothing to do with this. I wonder if this report will include how the page was marked up with marketing propaganda instead of a simple form. I appreciate how your web team can drop preorder nagging on a screen used exclusively for people who already have preorders, but they can't be bothered to set up the actual form properly or even add a check button so people could check availability before submitting. But I should be thankful I'm getting a few more random chests of an item that's being more and more diluted in the game already. I feel like I'm on Oprah and everyone's gettin a boom box. Seriously, just give rename items. That's actually relevant and shows me you put a moment of thought instead of just handing out more of the goto rewards.	
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Bollox
 
I don't want an 'excuse' why it went so wrong, I don't care if Tron was surfing inside your servers throwing laser discs at all and sundry. My pre order purchase came with the chance to reserve my name, a lottery style before launch was always going to lead to this, but the absolute failure of what you tried to do needs more recognition than disrespecting me with boom boxes.
 
And the cherry on the cupcake: If you pre order now we will still give you 5 pissy boom boxes.
 
Get stuffed, viral media here we come.
 
For the record I got my name, but many in my EU guild did'nt.	
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			Call me a noob here, but what is the issue with names having "ss" in them? Its probably very obvious and I apologize for my stupidity...its Pre-Friday and my mind is trying to walk out the door for the weekend already. 	
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{| class="blockquote"
They have trivialized boom boxes... You log in twice and you get more rewards then the compensation for the name fiasco.
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The ire in this thread for a mistake, that happened 2 days ago . . . wow
 
The vitriol towards the apology . . . also wow
 
I was one that didn't get the first name I wanted, because someone beat me to it. I didn't get my second choice because of the filter issues causing some names to be rejected. Was I upset at the time, hell ya. I mean, come on, I spent 5 hours spamming that dang button to get told "That name is not acceptable" when there was no reason for it to have been rejected. Yeah, I vented a bit on twitter. Then, I went and sent in a support ticket. The response to which is very promising. No, I haven't gotten my name, yet. I say, yet, because a fix and further details were promised to be incoming within 24 hours and that 24 hours hasn't passed.
 
If, for some reason, I still can't have my name . . . I'll be sad, but I'll move on, figure out something new and deal with it.
 
When it's all said and done, this was a mistake. Guaranteed that Carbine/WildStar did NOT intend for this to happen. Will they learn from it, I betcha they will.Thanks Tony, Cougar, & the rest of the devs and all the staff that worked really hard to come back from this snafu. I accept your apology (and the 5 boom boxes, because well SHINY!).	
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Carbine, keep the faith and go left field with this one!!!  
 
Boom box's are abit lackluster as an apology.    Stick to your humour and create a funny title for the pre order folk.   "I survived the name res scandle".    We all make mistakes and time heals most things.  Give us something to smile about when we rem this episode.  	
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{| class="blockquote"
Say what?!
Where you live, are you not entitled to what you pay for?
 
Wow, this generation of sycophantic gamers needs to vanish. And I hope you're no sockpuppet, that'd be even sadder.
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Sort of a catch 22 for restart or scrapping it all together at this point. Those who didn't get their name would be happy for a 2nd chance, those who did would be upset it got taken away from them as they too dealt with the problems. Though I still think 1 free rename would be the way to go. This way at least those who didn't get their name get in essence a second shot whenever the global name period is over. Not that I personally would mind a reset, even with me getting my name I sincerely doubt I wouldn't again.
 
More boom-boxes are good though. May have a crap ton of them but these will eventually dry up and be pretty rare. More chances I can get a for a full Raidin' set the better.	
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If you were incapable of offering an equitable way of distributing one of the advertised pre-order bonuses, you shouldn't have offered them.
 
By not offering a name change, you've actually short changed many people out the other major pre-order bonus: head start.  Don't kid yourselves, a lot of people are going to just re-roll 14 days after the launch (if they're not completely disenfranchised by that point).  What a waste.
 
Poor planning and even worse implementation.	
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			Free stuff? Cool, cheers!	
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Thanks for the information. <3
 
Is there any chance you could clarify how the names that were reserved are used at launch? Do they unlock on other servers after they are used on one?
 
This is one of the things many people are worried about - having preordered, people want to play right away, but they feel like they need to wait for the 14 days of name lockout to be over before they can get another chance at the name they want. 
 
Alternatively, is there any chance that you might offer a free name change to preorders?	
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This is pretty lame.  I'd gladly trade 50 boom boxes for the name I want.
 
Cougar needs to address this when he writes up his apology/what else Carbine is going to do about this.
 
The names need to unlock for other servers as SOON as they are used by the person who reserved them.  Two weeks is WAY too long.  I don't want to roll an alt to start the game and be stuck on it for two weeks because I can't get the character name I want for my main.	
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Im sorry but this is not an apology nor a fix.  I don't want free stuff or boxes or whatever I want a decent chance to get an actual name reservation or the ability to change what was actually taken.  I got a confirmation that I recieved the name that i first registered but got the ??? for the timer.  This unbeknownst to most everyone including myself this indicated that it did not take the name reservation.  So I and many other went about our daily life only to find this out minutes or hours later after the site was then unreachable for hours on end meaning not only could I not get the name I wanted but when I did finally get to it I was unable to change it.  This is silly esecially having to wait 14 days for the name to unlock on all the other servers it wasn't used on ( they have not confirmed that it does yet, not that I'm aware of)!
 
You have to do better than this.  Boomboxes are not a solution especially since your giving these to everyone including the folks using the "hacks" for lack of the proper word to slam the site and get through (just look at the reddit threads from that day and you will see multiples of these).  Just trash this fiasco and either do it again with proper hardware and optimization preferably on a server by server basis and with reigons with out global region naming issues.  Even if this was all tossed and it was just given as get your names on headstart day it would be fine, just about anything but this. 
 
I don't expect to get the name I was looking for but at least give us a chance and not some sad boombox consolation prize.	
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If it's any consoltation, if someone reserves the name globaly, you don't necessairly have to wait the entire 14 days.  If someone uses that name prior to the 14 days, the name will lift on all other servers the name wasn't used on.  If no one honestly uses that name, then it is open season after the 14 days.  In addition, free name changes and server transfers aren't as easy as pressing a button.  That's something the Devs also have to work with their higher ups on, as that's not as cheap as giving away boom boxes.  Name changes are easier than server transfers, by all means. 
 
I was frustrated.  The system was clunky at best, entirely unresponsive at worst.  I DID manage to reserve my name and my guild name, and most of my friends who stuck with the system did manage to reserve their names.  At least one person was unable to, and another had "ens" in his name and I simply reassured him that no one took the name and he'll just have to quickly grab it during early access.  Frustrating, yes.  Something I would crucify Carbine over?  No.  Especially not with this level of transperency.  I could have sworn I seen someone saying the transperency was 'expected' of Carbine.  First off, transperency is garaunteed by no one.  Certainly no other dev team I know of on an MMO prior to Carbine (and SOE's new approach to EQN/Landmark) would amount to such.  If someone asked on BioWare's or Blizzard's forums for a full script of what went wrong with something, they'd be laughed off the forums. 
 
The boom boxes are minor, especially if we're getting so many already, but it's still a kind gesture.  I'm satisfied with Carbine's straightforwardness and apologies, and trying to work within their own limits to compensate us, I'm pretty damn satisfied with the rest of their game sof ar.  A name change token wouldn't hurt, for every preorder, if the higherups allowed that.  I think that would calm enough people down, but it is not a mandate by any means save from the vocal minority.
 
And to those acting like Carbine skinned your cat, shit happens.  Websites don't work sometimes.  Most times.  As someone that's worked with websites before, no one can anticipate that level of sever meltdown.  Could it have been better?  I would have suggested a new website pop up that looks for verification rather than an Ajax(?) popup.  Also:  error checking, guys, Carbine.  Error checking is the coat you wear in a fierce winter storm.  You ran out in a blizzard naked, guys.  The sheer persistance of the silent errors, if I'm not mistaken, just make your button look entirely broken. 	
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			Safemax, bet you hit F5 on this thread more than I did on name reservation, sad.	
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{| class="blockquote"
c. going above and beyond by giving all pre-orders extra boom boxes 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Safemax, bet you hit F5 on this thread more than I did on name reservation, sad.
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Thanks for the apology and the swag  B)
 
Best regards,
 
Well-adjusted adult	
----
			
A Name is a name.
Nothing more, nothing less.
 
Why get so worked up about a name?
Seems silly to me.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Carbine, keep the faith and go left field with this one!!!  
 
Boom box's are abit lackluster as an apology.    Stick to your humour and create a funny title for the pre order folk.   "I survived the name res scandle".    We all make mistakes and time heals most things.  Give us something to smile about when we rem this episode.  
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{| class="blockquote"
/sigh  You didn't pay for name reservation and you were never guaranteed to get your name.
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I accept apology.
 
I don't think boom boxes are good compensation.
 
I completely fail to understand WHY you couldn't avoid this problem. Apart from logging in problems (which might not be directly/entirely in Carbine's gesture), I don't think your website was prepared at all, for this amount of traffic. Cmon, even css files didn't want to download, it's not bug. Apart from name reservation bugs, your website was not prepared for DDOS attack - not intentional, but that's what happened. 
After so many fails by other companies, I expected you to handle this traffic at least.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Why get so worked up about a name?
Seems silly to me.
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No apology needed, though the transparency is appreciated. It worked as advertised, everybody had a chance at getting a name, some did, some didn't.
People simply need to learn to either:
1) not press refresh every second like mad;
or
2) refresh faster than the other guy.	
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			Guys, Safe is clearly trolling, I thought the internet as a collective had learned to ignore them at this point.	
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{| class="blockquote"
If someone could spell my name correctly to snipe it away I wouldn't have even been upset, I'd be impressed.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Safemax, bet you hit F5 on this thread more than I did on name reservation, sad.
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Cheers for the write up.
 
Although frustrating for everyone involved, it was what it was and no animals were harmed in the process... except for the many hamsters who we killed with the overload. =/ poor hamsters.	
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Updated the op.  I'm sorry, but this had to be done.
 	
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There's nothing Carbine can do to make it up to some folks.
 
The good news is those folks won't be around much while the rest of us are busy enjoying our free stuff.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Cheers for the write up.
 
Although frustrating for everyone involved, it was what it was and no animals were harmed in the process... except for the many hamsters who we killed with the overload. =/ poor hamsters.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Updated the op.  I'm sorry, but this had to be done.
 
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			Nice to see a response. Thanks for the communication.  :)	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
You fool, what have you done?  Poking fun at this super serious issue?!  HOW DARE YOU SIR
----
			Thanks bros	
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{| class="blockquote"
Updated the op.  I'm sorry, but this had to be done.
 
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			What about those of us with incorrectly reserved names?  Where we put in a name, edited to a new name, got the countdown, but after the countdown it was the original name not the name we edited it to?  I would like my locked name reset so I can try and get the one I was really after.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Updated the op.  I'm sorry, but this had to be done.
 
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			Yay, now I have 85 to open instead of 80! But hey, this was at least easier than actually doing something... Thanks Carbine!	
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			Thank you for the apology and boom boxes!I must say this was the most hardcore thing I've ever experienced, sitting there 8 hours staring & refreshing. You really come true to the hardcore part!Hope everyone will learn from this, not only the devs but the community aswell.And really guys.. these things happen. All we can do is do our best to make the best out of it, together. Now who wants a hug? 	
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Request #130916
 
Ceodoc, GM
Filthy Gorgeous	
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			Life is not fair.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Life is not fair.
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1.  Craig Turner aka Cougar, our Director of Operations is working on a write-up to shed as much light as possible as to what the issues were.  Once his detailed breakdown is complete, we will be posting it here to be as transparent as possible.
 
Overly-Explainy-Cougar is having a breakdown over this?
Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! :(
 
...and you're going to post it once he's finished?
You fiends!	
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Well played... John Cusack and a box can fix anything.
 
Apology accepted.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make it be fair.
 
Seriously, it would not be a significant amount of effort for Carbine to just go "okay whatever you can use the namechanges for free for the first 3 weeks i don't really care". That's all they would need to do to fix this. The namechange system is, or at least seriously should be, an automated change in a database, and takes no effort and has minimal cost on their end. It isn't that hard to just set the cost to $0.00 instead of $10.00 or whatever.
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			Just logged in to check and make sure that my names were saved because I was told they were successfully saved the other day and they weren't, and they got taken by someone else. =(	
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The Name Reservation (my experience) - GIF STORY version.
This whole thing took place over 9 hours on site + the extra 10+ hours on forums since then (up to 25h now, but I found this a somewhat unique situation and chose to keep looking at it so most of that is on me).
  
Shortly before 11 am - http://gifs.com/2Jx  
During the increase of lag on the page refresh between 10:58 and 11 am - http://gifs.com/AjD
At 404 error after 11am -  http://gifs.com/2wB
When they started live stream and ignored the issue for 20 min - http://gifs.com/5eM
When I got the name 1st time with timer counting down -  http://gifs.com/4c5
When I thought it reset and I won’t get it back -  http://gifs.com/CHc
When I got it again -  http://gifs.com/Amn
When I found the link to check and checked a few times and I was sure it stuck this time - http://gifs.com/4p2   (we are now approximately at 8:30 or more, at least 9 h later)
IF they had went with a reset - http://gifs.com/20J
 
Extras:
Tech team looking at servers at 11AM PDT http://gifs.com/3ym
While reading still  reading posts of the "I can't figure out for the life of me why resetting it would be unfair", after 260+ pages full reasons http://gifs.com/UV
Thoughts when hearing about boom boxes for the 1st time - http://gifs.com/59x  
About getting free name changes if you reserved ANY name in the 1st 12h of page start time - http://gifs.com/98A
 
 
Don't look at this as me not understanding or trying "to rub it in", it's not meant that way (or in any way).
Also, I promise to stop reposting and re-editing my own, possibly not very funny, post (this is the only one, 3 times). *****disclaimer: everyone lies             hardcore*****	
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{| class="blockquote"
I actually did as everyone else who pre-ordered the game, for it is part of the pre order itself and as proof it is advertised to nausea. I was not guaranteed my nickname specifically, but I was guaranteed a chance to it and there was no chance given, page was borked, coutndown not starting. It was no first come first served at all. And let me point out I don't even give a shit about a nickname. It's that I wasted my time in uncertainty, trying to deal with a counter that just wouldn't start that pissed me off. 
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{| class="blockquote"
Ok, come on. The chances that you would have gotten your name had things been "fair" are still slim to none. Especially if it is a popular name. Now you can go al AWOL if you want to, that's your choice. You were competing with nearly 15000 people spamming F5. What were you expecting? Of course this was going to be a circus act, and if you expected anything less then you are just plain silly. Get over it. They apologized, and are giving out compensation for the trouble. Try pulling that shit out from Blizzard or any other company that ran into something like that. They'd tell you to *cupcake* up a tree. And you'd get nothing.
 
I didn't get the name I wanted either, but you don't see me crying over it. Grow up.
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{| class="blockquote"
Updated the op.  I'm sorry, but this had to be done.
 
----
			Thank you!!	
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do keep in mind that it is hiiiiighly possible that this was on NC's side. I do recall other, similar sets of circumstances (Aion CS during launch for example) where similar (actually worse) things had happened. So that's one :)
 
it is highly likely that again, someone way up higher decided that it would not be " cost effectiveTM " to have a repeat at this, so it just ended there. Money talks. Last.
 
do also, last but not least, recall certain catch phrases such as my personal effing favourite: Working as intended
and have a look again at Carbine's stance, way of communicating, transparency, etc ^^
 
and no, Max was obviously taken, so i didn't get to reserve my own name. Still good :)	
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			Considering I have been in several launches where many things went horribly wrong and was never compensated with anything, let alone an apology (and an awesome picture of John Cusack), this is definitely a step in the right direction PR-wise.  Thank you, Carbine!	
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{| class="blockquote"
 
do keep in mind that it is hiiiiighly possible that this was on NC's side.
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I want a free namechange cause I wont to spend the whole of time I play this game with a name I was forced to use, and giving something that essentially worthless for my reasons at playing this game, It feels like Carbine is giving me the middle finger..
Why did carbine even make names global, Which idiot came up with that idea...
 
Now I want a refund as I will still have to wait 2 weeks for my name, and no headstart either	
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While the apology is appreciated, the additional boom boxes are not. Please offer something that mitigates the damage, like a free name change. Having 1 name change token would enable me to play the game during headstart and after launch. Instead I cannot.
 
The devs have never explicitly confirmed that using a name releases on it on other servers. In addition to being harder to implement, it is an incredibly bad idea as you would have no idea when the name would open up, making you spam character creation for those 17 days.	
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			Many thanks!!!!	
----
			So, can someone from Carbine please confirm if the damn names unlock when someone uses it or if it is indeed locked for the full duration of 14 days?	
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			I feel like people would be complaining no matter what carbine gave us :/10 Plat? -- "This is dumb it'll ruin the economy!"Server transfer? -- "I dont want to go on a different server I want my name!!"Free name change? -- "What use is this?! Someone else already took my name!"A big neon sign for your house with your char name on it? -- "Wow, way to rub it in Carbine" / "what about people who dont care about housing? i get nothing out of this"Total reset on name reservations? -- You wind up losing it again and think of something about the circumstance to complain about ("the time it opened didnt suit me its unfair"/"I had my name before but now i lost it way to go carbine"/etc.)etc. etc. etc.Moar stuff:--"Someone took my name!"You....uh...you can't claim ownership of a name. It's the other guy's just as much as it is yours. I mean, if you got it then they'd be feeling bummed out instead, so...what makes you more(or less ^^) deserving than them?--"But it wasn't fair!!"Uhh...yes it is...everyone had the same issues. If they got it first they got it through the same issues that stopped you, so...--"But it's a dumb lottery"Nothing's fairer than random chance. Totally unbiased ^_^--"But I paid for this; I should get what I paid for"You paid for the game....you just...did it before it was out. The rest of the stuff is free bonuses.Ok, maybe you did that for the name reservation, and you did get your shot at it(and failed ;P), so you wound up getting what you think you paid for anyway; A shot at taking your name before people who didn't preorder.--"My name is my identity!"No it's not. It's just a moniker. Your name's what you attach your identity to. I mean, I'm sure you can come up with loooaads more names that you feel fits you. And I don't think it's healthy be getting this personally invested in a name for your digital person you stab stuff with >.>--"What if yours got taken?"It might. I don't even know if my reservation worked or not, but I'd just think of a new one or tweak the other one 'till i find a variation that's not taken. It's not hard :/. It's be kinda annoying but it's not as bad as a bunch of people are making it out to be. They're acting like the server ate their fingers or something >.<--"This still sucks!"Ok. I mean, it's fine to be bummed out, I get it. Like, sure, I guess you care about your name a lot more than I do and I can see why it sucks for ya, but it's not Carbine's fault you lost your name...Just...kinda their fault it took you hours to find out about it >.>You'd've lost it just as easily even if they'd magicked up a page that could somehow take 15k people spam-refreshing, 'cause breakage or no someone else got there before you did.Plus, they're being real nice about it, apologising, trying to tell us exactly what happened, and giving us free stuff. Noone else would do that, and I bet their web team's real exhausted from running around trying to fix it all day. Just cut them some slack, okay?	
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{| class="blockquote"
Updated the op.  I'm sorry, but this had to be done.
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So, can someone from Carbine please confirm if the damn names unlock when someone uses it or if it is indeed locked for the full duration of 14 days?
----
			Guild names = time and money (domain registration, hosting, and man hours). It's more than just a name.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So, can someone from Carbine please confirm if the damn names unlock when someone uses it or if it is indeed locked for the full duration of 14 days?
----
			well, that is a terrible way to compensate us. Thanks for nothing. 	
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I was completely screwed out of any guild name I wanted.
 
Sitting there refreshing the page when it went live, I managed to get my name but the guild bugged out, wouldn't start the timer.  I spent the next four hours trying to get back in, with very limited success, and never once got the guild registration to work.
 
Next day, my first choice is taken.  I try a variety of other choices.  Some taken, some had the "Guild name not allowed" bug.  Great, so I wait some more.  Today it seems it's finally working, and every single name I wanted is now taken.
 
First come first served?  NO, not even close.  I was definitely one of the first people in.  And TWO DAYS later I finally get the system to work for me, but there have been numerous bugs and "restarts" of the system since then, so whoever happened to be lucky enough to hit up the registration after the bugs were fixed manages to get a name that I should have had. 
 
I'm rather annoyed by the whole thing, and apologies don't cut it.  It was such a horrible disaster the whole thing should be scrapped and started over.  I say that even though I did get my character name, which is a popular choice, and realize that if the whole thing was redone I could easily wind up losing that name.  I don't care, I would deal with that and not be upset as long as the process was reasonably fair to everyone. 
 
As it stands now I'm not even trying to come up with any further guild names.  It should have been a cakewalk to get one of the dozen or so I had picked out.  But nope, not gonna happen.  So now I'm faced with either forgetting the whole thing, or parking a character in front of the guild dude and trying to get one of the names 14 days after launch when the global locks expire.  Along with a couple thousand other people.  Yeah, sounds like fun, I think I'll stab myself in the eye with a fork instead.
 
If I wasn't 110% in love with the game otherwise I would cancel my pre-order over this.   But just FYI Carbine, any more titanic screwups like this will cool my love for Wildstar considerably.  And I consider the primary screwup here being the idea itself.  Global reservations?  Ugh, just no.  Even if the system had worked reasonably well you still are going to wind up making 2% of the population happy and *cupcake* off the rest.  Not a great plan. 
 
 
 	
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{| class="blockquote"
This. We need more updates.
----
			Much appreciated especially since I think it's unnecessary. Keep up the great work.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Guild names = time and money (domain registration, hosting, and man hours). It's more than just a name.
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{| class="blockquote"
Ok this makes more sense (next time make sure you actually get the name first, though :P )
But it's not really what most people seem to be complaining about...
 
Ooh! And there's a chance you might get it anyway! What if the guy who took it goes to a different server than you? There's still hope! :)
----
			Even if they wait 14 days and have max level characters they may realize that the name is already on their server and they are forced to re roll or pick a new guild name.	
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The apology (and explanation) are definitely appreciated. I may have had a minor lapse in perspective when all this went down - it was a pretty horrendous occurrence, but we learn from mistakes and I really hope that you have learned a lot from this one.
 
People love your game. People are passionate about your game. People want to play your game. Because of that, you're going to get people who are really disappointed when they realise "these guys are human, too". At the same time, be better than this - because we know you can be. Don't deliver half-arsed or "tech-limited" features.
 
Good luck with the rest of beta, and here's to headstart.	
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{| class="blockquote"
 
ThaCheez, on 12 May 2014 - 3:50 PM, said:
 
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{| class="blockquote"
Ok this makes more sense (next time make sure you actually get the name first, though :P )
But it's not really what most people seem to be complaining about...
 
Ooh! And there's a chance you might get it anyway! What if the guy who took it goes to a different server than you? There's still hope! :)
----
			
You can call yourself anything. This is ridiculous. I had 5 names as backup to the one I wanted just in case, not to mention that, according to the names people have been reserving, they are EXTREMELY common names. Sorry you didn't get Ninja or Night or FireDragon but seriously. You can be someone else. If your name has been XrigliloX for 10 years and it got took, maybe its time to be fresh. Maybe its time to reinvent yourself and take on a personality while still keeping your identity among friends. And trust me, if you want your name: you can get it. Sorry if you don't like yyNinjayy, guess you aren't as elite or cool as the guy who F5'd harder to get Ninja (Who cares???). If you turn out to be a better player you will be recognized.
 
My god I seriously hope some of you pack your bags and leave. I don't want to see this kind of attitude the first time they overhaul the class balancing. Everyone who rolled a Spell Slinger: "OMG we are worthless now! This isn't what I rolled at all. Seriously Carbine? Getting a refund kthanxbye ggnorebbq". Get out please. Your ego and need to feel special is compromising the integrity of the game.	
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Let me put another "my experience " post, no GIFs this time from other games.
 
GW2, crashed repeatedly at the head start launch, only got 2 one word names I wanted (not that rare, infect one of them is in the "can be counted on one hand" figure on WoW servers, after 9 years). The whole thing took about 35 minutes and then I remade all the characters to make them look right. While freaking out that deleting them might let someone else go in and take the names while I do that (I did do it at night ). - GW2 had surnames
 
For WoW, there are 215 ppl with my name only on EU armory from all the server fragmentation I did get that same main name I got now (but it wasn't my main name back then), and some of the rest with 1 double letter on Ravencrest server. I started playing years after it was released so it's in a different category but worth mentioning.
 
For ESO they turned servers on 1h early (exactly) and I got lucky and anticipated that just from reading chat during beta (last few days only) that they did something like this once before. As a result I got all 8 one word names I have ever used or wanted to use in games in the past 11 years. Which is unfair, you don't have to tell me. And to make it worse I find ESO not worth it atm and going in a crap direction (for my taste, too much PvP focus of fixes and nerfings etc), So I won't be back there until it's FTP or ever.
 
WildStar (you already saw the GIF version). There has been a lot of panic and looking up info about all this (for me) before and after and I'm still sad about names being locked for 14 days and the fact that all my alts names will 100% sure be gone forever, or for 17 days which is too much for me to wait to make alts (most likely). This is also the one where I have spent most time in the process of getting what I could out of it and make sure I have it.
Sadly it is also the one where I was going to go with (and I did)  the easiest name of my preferred choices to get (it's used but not that much and not as first choice and not in pre-headstart usually). Overall, probably worse experience out of the bunch (/ever) but won't be complaining about it for years to come (only because I did get my name in the end).
 
 
This is also the only game I kinda felt forced into pre-ordering and early at that (I usually buy them at or closer to launch or after) because otherwise the names would have all been gone (or had to wait for 3 weeks to maybe get it on servers where my friends might not be), which is also why I'm still saddened about how this went down even if turned out as best as it could have, for me.
 
Also made the "pre-order for names" mistake for ESO when I wasn't sure it would be worth playing at that point in time and sort of got burned on that (since I'm not playing it anymore) but that was a choice, here it felt less like one (ofc it still was/is). Probably won't be doing these sort of mistakes again any time soon.
 
 
Diablo (doesn't fit here, I know). Had zero issues with the naming of characters and people, ZERO. The fact that is not an mmo and that they had battle tags rolled out before on previous infrastructure and no unique names means there is no comparison (other than showing a better system that should have been used in some partial form, even here).
 
Take from this post whatever you want (I have probably forgotten some and left out others less relevant examples since I started playing late or they had name reservations only for deluxe editions that I just never buy, which btw is a d*** move).	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
And if I've had the domain and website for over a decade... How would one wait?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I appreciate everyone on carbine's staff and would allow you to impregnate me.
----
			If you're mad over this... quickly uninstall and start playing offline games. There will be many more screw ups just like this. It is impressive in itself that we're even getting any compensation at all from an MMO company.	
----
			Thank you so much <3  :wub:	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
"Stole" your name? If you weren't able to get the name you wanted, perhaps you never were meant to have it. "First come, first serve", despite the massive site issues. People who stuck it out, and managed to get through the issues, and register their chose name(s). If you weren't able to get a specific name, then clearly it wasn't "unique". Be more creative :)
----
			One free name change after the two week lockout would be the only thing that would make up for this in my opinion. That way we won't have to start over after two weeks of playing in the event the name we wanted becomes available on our server.	
----
			
The site is still not working for me!!!!
 
Whenever I click Reserve it asks me to pre-order.  I have pre-ordered.  Double checked my account, logged out / in, cleared cache, etc.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
If you're mad over this... quickly uninstall and start playing offline games. There will be many more screw ups just like this. It is impressive in itself that we're even getting any compensation at all from an MMO company.
----
			
@Complainers: Leave this forum and Wildstar and play something else, please!
 
@Carbine: Great job guys! (if I couldn't get my name, I had 5 other choices for a name, so don't get it what the big deal is)	
----
			The only thing MOST of us wanted was a rename after 14 days.  A simple chance to get the name we wanted if it wasn't in use on our server.  That's not crying, that's not unreasonable, that would just be basic courtesy.  Instead we get boom boxes?  We don't care about boom boxes.  Take them back and let us try to rename our characters after 14 days.  Maybe the name will be available, maybe not, but at least we won't be wasting 14 days (17 including headstart) on an alt.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
@Complainers: Leave this forum and Wildstar and play something else, please!
 
@Carbine: Great job guys! (if I couldn't get my name, I had 5 other choices for a name, so don't get it what the big deal is)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
@Complainers: Leave this forum and Wildstar and play something else, please!
 
@Carbine: Great job guys! (if I couldn't get my name, I had 5 other choices for a name, so don't get it what the big deal is)
----
			
 
 
TYPICAL EXPECTED _________ RESPONSE. 
 
The boom box items are too few and only 2-3 are worth ANYTHING.
 
Most testers will get max boxes at launch so 5 more is pretty shitty when it comes to an apology.
 
Excuse me as i say.... Shuve.... i...
 
Im curious to see what you do when launch happens and u can't give more boom boxes.	
----
			Carbine, Why did you choose that the names would be global when names will be server wide?	
----
			Thanks for the update and incoming postmortem. The shinies are a nice touch, but more importantly I hope many lessons were learned and some future failures will now be averted.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
One free name change after the two week lockout would be the only thing that would make up for this in my opinion. That way we won't have to start over after two weeks of playing in the event the name we wanted becomes available on our server.
----
			
whenever I hear boom boxes.. this is all I can think of..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yvEYKRF5IA
 
a boom box is not a toy. 	
----
			
Hmmm...so...name snafu...much of your playerbase outraged over name problems...myself among them.
 
The solution: Keep quiet about it for a day or two, let tempers cool, then just apologize and give out a few free boxes o'loot.  
 
Majority of playerbase seems satisfied.
 
Well played Carbine, well played.
 
/endsarcasm
 
I appreciate the free stuff, I really do, and the apology is nice.  And as I've said repeatedly, I got one of the names I wanted, not THE name, but a decent name.  That said, this doesn't fix the problem.  And for those who are mollified by this, I'm amazed.  All the outrage, then get a few free boxes, and all's well again?  Talk about attention deficit disorder.
 
I wonder if the British Empire couldn't have hung on to America in 1776 after that whole taxation without representation thing by keeping mum about it for a day or two then saying "Pip, pip colonists.  That tea tax was out of line, what? We're sorry.  Here's some free tea."
 	
----
			This might not be the place for it, but can you tell me why I couldn't regester the name I wanted? The error message wasn't about it being taken.	
----
			Honestly I wish you'd let me lock down my reserved name to a server, as soon as I start at headstart. This way it becomes available to everyone else on every other server immediately. I spent a full night locking mine down, but I can still completely understand the people that missed out. I just about gave up and went to sleep myself.	
----
			
I don't know... I spent 1+4 hours :wacko: on this useless crap and lost my nice name without chances.
 
Free Rename token would be nice. But 5 more boxes? Really? Meh... :mellow:	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Why should people that got their names get this offer too?
----
			
What some have already said...
A few extra boom boxes, that we already got loads of, is not really impressive.
 
Give us something useful, like 1 free character rename (that doesn't cost you anything either).
That will not hurt any of those that were lucky enough to reserve their name, and the rest of us get a chance to get our "main" name after all. As I understand it, the name will unlock when used on another server or after 14 days.
That way we can start playing May 31st on a char with the "wrong" name, and then hope to get lucky to be able to rename the char within the first 14 days.
 
If the person with "my" name plays on my server, well that's just tough luck, but at least I would feel that I got a fair chance for getting the name after all.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Thank you for the apology and boom boxes!
 
I must say this was the most hardcore thing I've ever experienced, sitting there 8 hours staring & refreshing. You really come true to the hardcore part!
Hope everyone will learn from this, not only the devs but the community aswell.
 
And really guys.. these things happen. All we can do is do our best to make the best out of it, together. Now who wants a hug?
 
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Carbine, Why did you choose that the names would be global when names will be server wide?
----
			
Honestly, if this any indicator of what is to come. It doesn't bode well for this game.
 
Servers crash and some of your equipment items were deleted? Have some boom boxes.
 
A server transfer system error caused you to be transferred to the wrong server? Have some boom boxes.
 
A glitch in the game causes people to have edit rights to any one's house which results in unwanted mayhem? Have some boom boxes.
 
 
No. We don't want boom boxes.
 
We wanted the problems fixed or at least a token of Carbine understanding the problem.
 
 
 
{| class="blockquote"
The only thing MOST of us wanted was a rename after 14 days.  A simple chance to get the name we wanted if it wasn't in use on our server.  That's not crying, that's not unreasonable, that would just be basic courtesy.  Instead we get boom boxes?  We don't care about boom boxes.  Take them back and let us try to rename our characters after 14 days.  Maybe the name will be available, maybe not, but at least we won't be wasting 14 days (17 including headstart) on an alt.
----
			
Finally, finally days after continuously being told I have to pre-order I can finally reserve my name and I get my first choice.  At least I'm hoping that it's saved because honestly the way the system has worked I'm not sure that I can trust any thing that the database spits out.
 
I hope your post mortem goes into detail because frankly the last "explanation" given on reddit was far to close to blaming the player base for what appeared at least on the surface to be a silly approach to limiting the queries to the database.
 
As for a boom box compensation, really?  People with false positives and people who lost names in the data corruption issue may or would have had their names if not for those issues.  Free name and server changes was on par with what these players will now have to go through if they attempt to play any characters prior to when the names get released.  Boom boxes honestly they aren't worth the frustration players have gone through.  Why not offer the choice of a name change and server transfer OR the boom boxes.  Those who got their names get loot, those who lost it due to shoddy programming and design choices can safely play a character at headstart knowing they can move it to another server with the name they want when the 17 days are up.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Honestly I wish you'd let me lock down my reserved name to a server, as soon as I start at headstart. This way it becomes available to everyone else on every other server immediately. I spent a full night locking mine down, but I can still completely understand the people that missed out. I just about gave up and went to sleep myself.
----
			
Question - do they even HAVE a character rename consumable?
 
That is, something you can put in your backpack and when used will allow you to rename your character?
 
I don't think they do.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
I suppose one change Carbine could make, is reducing the "name reserved" time from 14 days post-launch, to a matter of 2-3 days (or less).
----
			
To be honest, I wasn't expecting compensation... so...
 
that'll do pig, that'll do..	
----
			
Good. Hope we'll get something cool from those boom boxes not just random, useless things we will vendor tho :P 
 
But anyway, thanks for the apology and no worries, its cool. We are still here with you guys :) Keep on rocking and thanks for 10 additional boxes! :D 	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I have to turn on 'the troll' for this comment but is it just America or the rest of the world who wants 'more or monetary' compensation instead of an apology.  An apology is all that is needed in this incident.  Why only an apology you ask and that is very simple, its because this was not intentional, it was a miscalculation or worst a few players running scripts to secure a name and crashing the system.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Well I suppose that's easier than actually doing something.
----
			An apology was more than I was expecting, we didnt even need one. Things happen and its just a name, people jumped the gun on this one too quick for sure. Its just a name. Entitlement to compensation for every little thing I guess.	
----
			
I care more about the stupid decision that reservations are global than anything, and we still haven't heard anything about that.
 
I use a couple names that are moderately popular, as in they're usually taken on a server or two, but I can always find several where it's still available right at launch.  Problem is with this mess I got beat to both of them.
 
So what I'm hearing so far is people like me have to sit and wait to play for 2 weeks until the global names free up, hoping that the person who reserved it didn't decide to be a troll by rolling placeholder lvl 1s on every server during that time frame.  It's one thing to get beat to it on every server right at launch, but its entirely asinine having to wait to play for a couple weeks to find out.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Question - do they even HAVE a character rename consumable?
 
That is, something you can put in your backpack and when used will allow you to rename your character?
 
I don't think they do.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
An apology was more than I was expecting, we didnt even need one. Things happen and its just a name, people jumped the gun on this one too quick for sure. Its just a name. Entitlement to compensation for every little thing I guess.
----
			
The issue here is that people do not like the global reservation system. Unfortunately, that is not what Carbine is apologizing for. Personally, I want the naming system to be global forever. That way, everyone will have easy to remember unique names without having to tag on the server name, and it also prevents issues with server changing later on and having to rename your character.
 
Also, I did manage to get my name. I originally got everything reserved and thought the ??? thing was no problem. It wasn't until the next day that I found out that it wasn't properly reserved, and I went back to redo it. The problem that people really have isn't that Carbine dropped the ball on the technical aspect of the reserve (which they did). The heart of the matter is that people are just angry they didn't get what they wanted (or what they feel like they deserved.
 
Edit: Everyone had the exact same issues. It was random chance that determined whether or not you got the name you wanted (outside of actually having a creative name). Therefore, it was fair. Also:
 	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
You do see the irony of thinking you are entitled to tell people the value of a name?
 
You must see it, its way too funny.
----
			
Thank you for the apology.
 
Could you please include an explanation on how name reservation is handled, once the game started? Are the names really locked for 14 days or do they unlock, as soon as an account that reserved a name creates a character with that name?	
----
			Thanks for this!! A lot of other companies would have named this thread "an explanation from the devs", you guys called it "an apology from the devs." Thanks Carbine!	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Its a game. I can spell it out for ya if you'd like.
----
			Very cool, thank you!	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
With names like yours. I'm not surprised you don't understand.
----
			
Cheers. Really looking forward to the postmortem report (not because I feel entitled to it, but because I'm that kind of nerd, and really love technical details).
 
/In your eyes...	
----
			
Hmmm. 
 
I sense a disturbance in the Nexus. Oh well, moar boomboxes for ya.
 
It's beginning to feel like every snafu that happens with the game is entirely fixable by throwing more of those overrated boomboxes.
 
At least I hope the explanation is a bit better than "Sowwy, here, have some loots"	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The issue here is that people do not like the global reservation system. Unfortunately, that is not what Carbine is apologizing for. Personally, I want the naming system to be global forever. That way, everyone will have easy to remember unique names without having to tag on the server name, and it also prevents issues with server changing later on and having to rename your character.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
Could you please include an explanation on how name reservation is handled, once the game started? Are the names really locked or 14 days or do they unlock, as soon as account that reserved a name created a character with that name?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Hello All,
 
Ok, so Name Reservations were a frustrating experience for everyone.  However, we are happy to announce that the Name Reservation page has steadied out and is working correctly.  The web site should show your registered names at this time.  We will continue to improve the user experience as it still needs work.
 
 
In an effort to make this right, here is the current plan of action:
 
1.  Craig Turner aka Cougar, our Director of Operations is working on a write-up to shed as much light as possible as to what the issues were.  Once his detailed breakdown is complete, we will be posting it here to be as transparent as possible.
 
2.  EVERYONE that has Pre-ordered will receive 5 Bonus Boom-Boxes.  If you are unfamiliar with how awesome Boom-Boxes are, please watch our video here.
 
3.  The web issues not only affected those registering names, but also those trying to purchase Pre-orders.  Because of that, EVERYONE that Pre-orders by Friday 5/16 at 4:59pm PDT [23:59 UTC] will also receive the 5 Bonus Boom-Boxes.  You can begin unlocking Boom-Boxes at Head Start on May 31st.  If you’d like to Pre-order, please visit our site here.
 
 
This is our way of acknowledging that the events of Tuesday sucked and that we are genuinely sorry this happened.  In the interim, please enjoy your Bonus Boom-Boxes and the 3 days left of Open Beta!
 
Stay Frosty
 
----
			This actually helps me out because I forgot to login for quite while for the free boom boxes, thanks guys!	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Hello All,
 
Ok, so Name Reservations were a frustrating experience for everyone.  However, we are happy to announce that the Name Reservation page has steadied out and is working correctly.  The web site should show your registered names at this time.  We will continue to improve the user experience as it still needs work.
 
 
In an effort to make this right, here is the current plan of action:
 
1.  Craig Turner aka Cougar, our Director of Operations is working on a write-up to shed as much light as possible as to what the issues were.  Once his detailed breakdown is complete, we will be posting it here to be as transparent as possible.
 
2.  EVERYONE that has Pre-ordered will receive 5 Bonus Boom-Boxes.  If you are unfamiliar with how awesome Boom-Boxes are, please watch our video here.
 
3.  The web issues not only affected those registering names, but also those trying to purchase Pre-orders.  Because of that, EVERYONE that Pre-orders by Friday 5/16 at 4:59pm PDT [23:59 UTC] will also receive the 5 Bonus Boom-Boxes.  You can begin unlocking Boom-Boxes at Head Start on May 31st.  If you’d like to Pre-order, please visit our site here.
 
 
This is our way of acknowledging that the events of Tuesday sucked and that we are genuinely sorry this happened.  In the interim, please enjoy your Bonus Boom-Boxes and the 3 days left of Open Beta!
 
Stay Frosty
 
 
 
----
			
I'd like to point out that adding XX's or other characters in front of or behind the name you want isn't exactly being creative.
Unlike some other games I've played, Wildstar allows capitals later in your name, and also the letter limit is very generous (I've had what I thought were great names for characters only to find out that I was limited to 12 letters in my character names).
So with a little bit of creativity, I suspect that you'll get a name you like.  It might not be the first one you picked, but you might like it.
But by all means, don't play with a name you dislike because you didn't get the one you wanted in the first place.  
You'll have to come up with names for your 2nd, 3rd and 4th alts, too, use one of those for your main.  
 
I just don't see how it's this big of a deal, really. 	
----
			
What I would like to know is... Whose idea was it to handle name reservation that way? and, Why not just leave it for Headstart?
 
Either way, thank you for the apology.  While I don't agree with the compensation (a reset would've been better, imo), it's still nice to see that you guys do care and are trying.	
----
			
I suppose I will never in my lifetime understand the pain that these folks are feeling by not getting their special name for their video game character, or the pain they feel due to a website crashing from overload or whatever happened. I personally have no sympathy for these people because there are far, and I mean far more important things in life than whats being complained about here. I understand its not just them not getting their names but they feel like they were promised a chance and didn't get it because the site was down blah blah blah. I hope that you can come to terms with it and get over it, seeing as how its beyond childish how you are acting and beyond immature to get so pissy about such things. As for the apology, I thank you. Not that I felt the need to be apologized to personally, but thank you for addressing the situation and compensating those possibly affected.  In a way I hope that the ragers on this topic do not purchase the game / play very long because you didn't give them uber amounts of gold / name resets / unicorns / whatever else these fun suckers want from you, so that the in game environment will not be tainted by their presence. #mytwocents
 
 
correction: as Kadaj1 so politely pointed out to me I mentioned that I hope they don't buy the game. This doesn't make sense since as he also stated, they would have had to preorder to even do the name reservation garbage(in my own words). So I stand corrected sir, or maam. But still... get over it people. Whether its a character name or guild name... Its a name in a video game...
			
				
	Edited May 15, 2014 by Wild Sirius	
----
			Hi All  my thoughts on NAME RESERVATION the minute it went bad they should have pulled the plug and rescheduled for another day. but no they decide to continue on an tweet and knowing that the website was crashing all over the place. most people just want a fair chance at reserving their name. Instead this turned out to be the biggest screw up.  you can keep your boom boxes I just want what I was promised. lets just do it over an get it right. or the old school way at the launch of the three-day head start.	
----
			
So, are they going to reset all the names, or…?
 
I went to the reservation page and entered a character name, and I THOUGHT the request was processed correctly, but that confirmation link posted on page 2 indicates my name wasn't reserved after all.	
----
			
This is ridiculous. OH the system works now? We've already missed all the names we all wanted. and 5 extra boom boxes? Hooray I already have over 90. I don't want more goddam boom boxes I want this system to be REMOVED. Just let the 3 day head start be name reservation. This 'apology' is not an apology, it's an insult. You're lucky your game is so goddam good, this kinda stuff is what makes people not sub. I got my name. I would gladly give it up and risk losing it on early access AND surrender 50 boom boxes if you were to remove this system. Also, for those saying removing will annoy more people - you're wrong. Removing the system opens up more names - as 1 on each server on EACH EU and US. This opens up like 20 versions of each name - how can that possibly make MORE people angry?
 
Also, please remove the 14 day lockout for Guild names. Or offer free renames after the 14 day period.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So, are they going to reset all the names, or…?
 
I went to the reservation page and entered a character name, and I THOUGHT the request was processed correctly, but that confirmation link posted on page 2 indicates my name wasn't reserved after all.
----
			
Thank you, Carbine!
 
Ignore the cry-babies!  :wub:	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I suppose I will never in my lifetime understand the pain that these folks are feeling by not getting their special name for their video game character, or the pain they feel due to a website crashing from overload or whatever happened. I personally have no sympathy for these people because there are far, and I mean far more important things in life than whats being complained about here. I understand its not just them not getting their names but they feel like they were promised a chance and didn't get it because the site was down blah blah blah. I hope that you can come to terms with it and get over it, seeing as how its beyond childish how you are acting and beyond immature to get so pissy about such things. As for the apology, I thank you. Not that I felt the need to be apologized to personally, but thank you for addressing the situation and compensating those possibly affected.  In a way I hope that the ragers on this topic do not purchase the game / play very long because you didn't give them uber amounts of gold / name resets / unicorns / whatever else these fun suckers want from you, so that the in game environment will not be tainted by their presence. #mytwocents
----
			I would recommend offering a free name change though 	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Hello All,
 
Ok, so Name Reservations were a frustrating experience for everyone.  However, we are happy to announce that the Name Reservation page has steadied out and is working correctly.  The web site should show your registered names at this time.  We will continue to improve the user experience as it still needs work.
 
 
In an effort to make this right, here is the current plan of action:
 
1.  Craig Turner aka Cougar, our Director of Operations is working on a write-up to shed as much light as possible as to what the issues were.  Once his detailed breakdown is complete, we will be posting it here to be as transparent as possible.
 
2.  EVERYONE that has Pre-ordered will receive 5 Bonus Boom-Boxes.  If you are unfamiliar with how awesome Boom-Boxes are, please watch our video here.
 
3.  The web issues not only affected those registering names, but also those trying to purchase Pre-orders.  Because of that, EVERYONE that Pre-orders by Friday 5/16 at 4:59pm PDT [23:59 UTC] will also receive the 5 Bonus Boom-Boxes.  You can begin unlocking Boom-Boxes at Head Start on May 31st.  If you’d like to Pre-order, please visit our site here.
 
 
This is our way of acknowledging that the events of Tuesday sucked and that we are genuinely sorry this happened.  In the interim, please enjoy your Bonus Boom-Boxes and the 3 days left of Open Beta!
 
Stay Frosty
 
 
 
----
			Really? You make the system work now, when all the names are taken?  I apparently got my name the night the reserves started, but it was then removed the next day, saying someone else took it. This is a stupid system.. It's not about who got the name first, it was whoever was the lucky first to F5 at the right time and get their name. You say you've fixed it now, but all the names are taken. I'm disappointed ><	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
This is ridiculous. OH the system works now? We've already missed all the names we all wanted. and 5 extra boom boxes? Hooray I already have over 90. I don't want more goddam boom boxes I want this system to be REMOVED. Just let the 3 day head start be name reservation. This 'apology' is not an apology, it's an insult. You're lucky your game is so goddam good, this kinda stuff is what makes people not sub. 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
 
Edit: Everyone had the exact same issues. It was random chance that determined whether or not you got the name you wanted (outside of actually having a creative name). Therefore, it was fair. A
 
 
----
			Again I urge people NOT to demand resets. That will cause more damage 	
----
			
I just wanted to post an update here:
 
As I stated earlier I had sent in a support ticket because my second name choice of StormieGail was getting the banhammer from the name reservation filter. I just got a reply to my support ticket that this has been fixed and I now have my name StormieGail reserved!
 
So, THANK YOU, to all the WildStar/Carbine staff that worked their butts off to get this fixed. I would have moved on and picked something different on head start. But you have made me one happy camper today! <3	
----
			I knew that this would happen.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Again I urge people NOT to demand resets. That will cause more damage 
----
			Hi, I would like to return the boom boxes in exchange for John Cusack on my housing plot.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I suppose I will never in my lifetime understand the pain that these folks are feeling by not getting their special name for their video game character, or the pain they feel due to a website crashing from overload or whatever happened. I personally have no sympathy for these people because there are far, and I mean far more important things in life than whats being complained about here. I understand its not just them not getting their names but they feel like they were promised a chance and didn't get it because the site was down blah blah blah. I hope that you can come to terms with it and get over it, seeing as how its beyond childish how you are acting and beyond immature to get so pissy about such things. As for the apology, I thank you. Not that I felt the need to be apologized to personally, but thank you for addressing the situation and compensating those possibly affected.  In a way I hope that the ragers on this topic do not purchase the game / play very long because you didn't give them uber amounts of gold / name resets / unicorns / whatever else these fun suckers want from you, so that the in game environment will not be tainted by their presence. #mytwocents
----
			
Thank you for the  update. I applaud transparency  in these matters no matter what else is going on.
 
However, if those three steps posted are the totality of Carbine's plan to address these issues, then  I am frustrated and appalled.   Let me break it down a bit...
 
1.  Cougar will compile a letter explaining the issues.  As I said before this is nice for the sake of transparency, but explaining the issue should be basic protocol - it is not a step to make things better, unless accompanied by other actions.
2.  Everyone that pre-ordered will get 5 Boom Boxes.  This is the big compensation for many of us permanently losing the names we wanted?!    Please remember that on a NORMAL day in Open Beta, we unlock 3 Boom Boxes just do deal with the normal efforts of testing.  The catastrophic effect of the name reservation blunder will blight the play experience of players at launch and beyond. 
3.  Those who pre-order through the next few days will also  be granted Boom Boxes.     Honestly, I'm not sure that you should be encouraging people who haven't yet taken the leap to  trust Carbine and pre-order, when compensation to those of us who already have is at present, woefully under addressed.
 
While I'll reserve final judgement until the end of this process, as it is currently written it really seems like a tremendous dismissal of the issue "- Yeah, we're sorry. Take these 5 Boom Boxes and be happy with whatever name might be locked in".   If this is the case, it is an insufficient resolution.      Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the system is working as it is supposed to be now, but what about all of us who are locked into "timed out" names that we didn't want?  What about those who were not able to secure a name at all? What about those of us who were under the impression that our name was locked in properly, but it turned out not to be?   2 more Boom Boxes than a "normal day in Open Beta" really doesn't seem like restitution for those who may never get the name they wanted and thus start their WildStar live game experience with negative feelings about  NCSoft, Carbine, and the game itself.
 
From the very beginning this system was poorly designed, and many users spoke out prior to the beginning of name reservations.  For instance,  even if all the other problems had happened exactly as they did, we'd be dealing with orders of magnitude less strife if only Name and Guild reservations were locked to SPECIFIC SERVERS.  Its completely irrational to force players to compete with every other player, on every other server, in every realm (NA, EU etc..) for names.    This was just plain bad design and we the player base knew about it before hand, pleading for a change.   Whomever is responsible for cutting corners and implementing the system as currently designed is responsible for a significant part of the blame.    
 
Let me also bring to  attention a quote written by CRB_Gaffer on the WildStar Sub-Reddit -    " Some of the scripts well-meaning folks have posted for repeatedly submitting names closely resembled DDOS attacks (we thought we were getting hit by malicious DDOS at one point though it was likely just overzealous fans, with over 75% of our load coming from folks using those scripts). " .   Now, I thank Gaffer for his transparency and honesty in providing this information, but it  certainly brings to light a major issue.     This indicates that Carbine was aware of players writing scripts in order to repeatedly hammer at the name reservation server and secure the names they wished, at a far faster rate than players who clicked manually ever could have done so.     This is essentially "Botting" the name reservation process.   Now it is not difficult for those with some scripting  and web programming knowledge to write such a script.  Why did I, and likely a significant amount of people who were able to have done so, NOT create such a script?   Given prior experience with MMOs, I expected that "botting" would be against TOS, that Carbine would have protection on their server to disconnect those who attempt, and possibly (and rightfully) lose their chance to secure a name.    Much like running an in-game bot, it is simply not fair to be able to script something that gives you a considerable advantage over other players.        Sadly, it appears Carbine did NOT prepare for this eventuality, even though by Gaffer's own admission that at one point 75% of their server traffic was taken up  by those using such scripts, culminating in a DDOS-like effect.  In using these scripts, they caused damage to  everyone else by overwhelming Carbine's servers, as well as being able to illicitly register names that others may have gotten even with the broken system if it was not for these scripts.    
 
So why are they going to be rewarded for their bad actions that  harm the community?  With the current "Plan of action", it means that Carbine is tacitly giving their approval to those who  acquired their names through "botting" a technical exploit and harming the community in the process, if they allow these people to keep their names.  Is that the first major statement Carbine wants to make on the topic? If that's the case, every player who bots, exploits, hacks, or otherwise acquires an edge using technical methods that the game did not intended, will have a valid defense.  If it is okay to exploit their way to a name reservation, why is it not okay to do the same for raid boss loot or during PVP?    Both Carbine's server infrastructure and  tons of other users were negatively affected by  the actions of those involved in these scripts, "well meaning" or not,  and there is a long precedent in MMO TOS that gains that come from glitches, bugs, exploits etc..  even those accidentally, are null and void,  for the sake of fairness and game balance.    Thus, any  recompense or solution that does not result in voiding names registered  by these  individuals, means that those who harmed the community with their scripts will be able to go about their merry way with their ill-gotten gains, while others have to go without.  That doesn't seem to be a good precedent to set.  If nothing else changes, then I at very least ask  that you revisit the registration server logs and eliminate the name reservations of those who were detected as utilizing one of these harmful scripts.  
 
Ultimately, so many things went wrong during the design and implementation of the name reservation system that recompense composed near entirely of a handful of  Boom Boxes seems to ring a hollow "We're Sorry" (not unlike the famous BP ad parodied in South Park) a.    Wouldn't the better solution be to make some changes to the system (including server-based reservations, enact DDOS/script traffic rejections, fixing technical problems  etc..), void everything done under the previous broken system and start anew?   I know it is a lot of work,  but after all that  has happened, I can't see another viable way to move forward.  Doing so will mean a clean slate and everyone will get the chance to secure their names through the just and equitable experience they were originally expecting, which I think reflects much better on Carbine than any of the previous alternatives.   Even if this solution is not possible for whatever reason, there are still many other compromises that could be made, such as giving every pre-order account present several "rename tokens" and altering the global  name reservation lock.  Likewise, an immediate step could be giving the option for those who had a name reserved during the problematic time and thus now see that name as locked in (ie the hour long counter counted down yesterday etc..), to unlock it for editing again.
 
Now perhaps there is some information yet to be brought forth,  but given the content of this thread's opening post I urge Carbine to think carefully about what sort of image they're conveying if those 3 steps are the totality of restitution planned. Thank you.	
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so some people get their name (even if they weren't first to request it) and 5 boxes, the rest of us just get 5 boxes?
 
probably the best we could expect. how about those who got names get nothing else, those of us who didn't (or that chose to abandon said names) get something unique?	
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			Apology accepted. Please accept this screenshot of cubigs as a token of appreciation: http://cdn.anook.com/uploads/pictures/13/3/5356c2966dace.png	
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Because I'm sure there are many still unsatisfied, I just wanted to post my two cents.
 
Because there is honestly NO solution (barring inventing a time machine and going back in time) that will appease everyone, I appreciate that Carbine acknowledged the screw-up, apologized for it, and are trying to be as transparent as possible about what happened.  Would I have preferred that this had not happened at all?  Sure, as does Carbine, I'm certain.  It may not seem like much to some, but I have watched another dev studio sweep screw-ups under the carpet and rely on the passage of time and their forum setup (broken search function, locking forum categories when an event is over, etc.) as their method of dealing with an issue.  That same dev studio also squelched one of their dev posters because he was too honest and was actually apologetic.  I'm not sure which method is truly better in the business/MMO world, but I definitely appreciate the apology and transparency over a company-wide wall of silence.  This is not a post praising Carbine, as there was still a major screw-up causing ramifications that are still yet to be felt, but a post encouraging Carbine to continue in their philosophy of acknowledging, apologizing and trying to compensate for any issues caused.  I appreciate it.	
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Thank you ThaCheez. The apology is all I really wanted. Didn't get the guild name I wanted even though I had it at one point. I'm sure the letter will spell out how that glitch happened and that's good too.
 
Five more boom boxes is just the cherry on top.	
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			Regarding the 14 day lock out... I saw a post by the French community manager Youmukon  that stated that the name stays reserved for 14 days regardless of if it gets claimed. I just tried to dig it up again but I couldn't find it. The post said that technically, you can claim your reserved name on every available server if you want.	
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A good part of communities around the net are filled with malcontent over the epic fail that this name reservation has been, not just the people who bothered to post here. If all those angry about it leave, I don't know what might happen to server population, which didn't look good already as it was. EU servers are all @ low at the moment and it's about prime time here. Tho maybe it's just servers not showing an accurate population count.
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Not resets, free name change, no damage done.
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Updated the op.  I'm sorry, but this had to be done.
 
 
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so some people get their name (even if they weren't first to request it) and 5 boxes, the rest of us just get 5 boxes?
 
probably the best we could expect. how about those who got names get nothing else, those of us who didn't (or that chose to abandon said names) get something unique?
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so some people get their name (even if they weren't first to request it) and 5 boxes, the rest of us just get 5 boxes?
 
probably the best we could expect. how about those who got names get nothing else, those of us who didn't (or that chose to abandon said names) get something unique?
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			Honestly I was just hoping for a free name change because I assume mine will probably be available. Quitting/asking for a refund over this is ridiculous, but it's still annoying to think how I wasted hours of my afternoon to get a name only to find out it didn't end up saving at all. I wish they had given us the link to check if it worked when we were reserving because I would have kept trying if I had known mine didn't actually go through.	
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So eh thanks for the apology but this isn't such a great solution..
 
Cause you know you can only open one box every 22hours, so yeah extra 5 boxes? On top of having 30+ means you have to pay for another month, even MORE SO if you wanna save them for that name you did not get and had to wait until the 17th to possibly claim cause of this stupid global lock. So you just wasted 2 weeks of play time. -or you have to PAY for a name change to a name you should have been able to claim at head start had it been server by server basis-Seriously?
 
...so every time they *cupcake* up it'll be "look boxes" > everyone happy?
 
Not happy, sadpanda it wasn't even first come first serve, but sheer, stupid, luck :(	
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			Thanks for adding 5 to some variable! It definitely makes up for it. It's like you gave me 1 2/3rds more of a login! </sarcasm>	
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Good job guys. You owned the mistake and apologized. Glitches happen. Everyone needs to get the F over it and move on.
 
 
Woo 5 more boxes!	
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1. How do you know that people who reserved names didn't actually get the name they really wanted? They could've reserved their 5th name choice
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That is why they'd have the option to abandon the name.
 
However, I'm not sure I really trust them to code a website that can handle a task like this.
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I'm glad you guys are having fun with it at the expense of everybody else.
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Thank you for the post!
 
It was of course somewhat frustrating to sit here, refresh the website and search for workarounds in the early morning (EU customer) but ultimately it was my decision. Eventually managed to reserve a name but apparently it resetted later on when I already went to bed with the knowledge that the name is safe. Oh well. Would have been convenient to have the same monicker as I have in WoW as guildies are used to it but we'll manage. Still managed to snag something unique without resorting to SephirothDeathKnightQT. :)	
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Not everybody else.
 
Just the cry-babies who won't let it go.
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Not everybody else.
 
Just the cry-babies who won't let it go.
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I am always suprised at how many people are actually clueless about this issue. 
 
First for a large portion of folks who did not get the name reservation to work or could not connect this isnt about getting a specific name only.  Almost all these folks are upsest they didn't get a chance or they were shown a screen that made it seem like reservation went through.  It seems that like myself, many of those folks only want a fair CHANCE to get a name.  They are not complaining that they just couldnt get one specific name.  This seems to elude some of you folks with eerie skill.  
 
Second this was so badly designed it was bound to be a fiasco: Global name reservations; regional locks on names being global (ss and such); 14 days to unlock the names after launch (some have said it will unlock after its used on one server but i see no comfirmation of this). 
 
I'm glad they apologized and have promised to be transparent and the boomboxes would be fine if it was just for the problems that happened and not the attempted SOLUTION.  The boomboxes are being used not as "We're Sorry!" but as a "We don't want to fix this."  This had a vibe of laziness about it from the start (see the second point).
 
Just Scrap this entire thing and either redo it with server lists or do it on the headstart day.  This harms NO ONE.  If you got your name reservation you will more than likely have a BETTER chance to get it when its server specific rather than global.  Just drop the server list out so people can plan and it won't be much of an issue.
 
Just make an attempt to ADDRESS the issue instead of blowing it off with gifts instead. 	
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So much anger.
 
I can appreciate how some people feel cheated of a chance to reserve their name.  I can understand the perspective of people feeling that this wasn't a fair chance to get their name after investing hours in this.  It ended up being random anyway, which it was always going to be, but it doesn't feel fair. If this is enough to drive someone away from a game that they otherwise enjoy there are probably other issues at play.
 
In the grand scheme, life throws these curve balls all the time and it is a good chance to use this as a learning experience for what is coming down the road for some of you.  If this is the worst thing you have to complain about this week then you are probably doing pretty good.
 
Despite some people not feeling this is adequate Carbine's response has been above and beyond what a lot of companies would do.  I do hope free name changes will follow as I think it would be reasonable to restore a sense of fairness to those offended.  I just hope people realize, they really didn't have to give us anything to begin with as many got to reserve their names regardless.	
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That's just going to fan the flames, don't be that guy
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			So many people just saying to let it go and acting like 5 boom boxes is more than enough. Keep your companies accountable don't let them give you meaningless compensation; this is NOT an acceptable way to resolve this.	
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So much anger.
 
I can appreciate how some people feel cheated of a chance to reserve their name.  I can understand the perspective of people feeling that this wasn't a fair chance to get their name after investing hours in this.  It ended up being random anyway, which it was always going to be, but it doesn't feel fair. If this is enough to drive someone away from a game that they otherwise enjoy there are probably other issues at play.
 
In the grand scheme, life throws these curve balls all the time and it is a good chance to use this as a learning experience for what is coming down the road for some of you.  If this is the worst thing you have to complain about this week then you are probably doing pretty good.
 
Despite some people not feeling this is adequate Carbine's response has been above and beyond what a lot of companies would do.  I do hope free name changes will follow as I think it would be reasonable to restore a sense of fairness to those offended.  I just hope people realize, they really didn't have to give us anything to begin with as many got to reserve their names regardless.
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And why exactly? Everybody suffered, I personally wasted 5 hours in total to reserve my name...twice! Honestly rather than ranting about who deserves what, just hope for a free rename   
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			Good on the dev team. Apology accepted.	
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So many people just saying to let it go and acting like 5 boom boxes is more than enough. Keep your companies accountable don't let them give you meaningless compensation; this is NOT an acceptable way to resolve this.
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Thanks guys, you rock!
Now about that camera-sensitivity option..
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(ADD IT PLEASE T_T)	
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I am glad you are satisfied. I am not. To be honest, If I had managed to reserve my name I probably wouldn't be so pissed off
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Ouch. Your response of "BOOMBOXESSSSS!!!!!1!!one" is not doing you any favors, man. The team sounds out of touch at best, and completely oblivious to how upset/irritated people are at worst.
 
This reminds me of when Ilum was getting rek'd in SWTOR while Bioware was blithely releasing a "founder" title for everyone that kept subbing. At least you guys can acknowledge how badly you screwed up, though, so there's that.
 
No free renames? Very poor form.	
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The biggest problems I see here is that the name reservations were global and the 14 day lock out period.
 
I think while an apology (thats a given) and free boom boxes are nice, they do not solve the core issue of the problem.
 
Giving everyone one free name change and reduce the name lock out period to June 3rd (release) would be the best for everyone involved. I think 3 days to claim your name and create a toon is enough time.	
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{| class="blockquote"
So many people just saying to let it go and acting like 5 boom boxes is more than enough. Keep your companies accountable don't let them give you meaningless compensation; this is NOT an acceptable way to resolve this.
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