Dragon Age - Open Letter - Overview of the Launch

Dragon Age Online Producer Fernando Melo has posted a lengthy letter on the official forums explaining the launch and apologising for the issues. For the Social site issues, apparently they seriously underestimated the servers required. After discussion with EA, they used Spore as a baseline for server load and then later doubled that capacity - only to be seriously under resourced in the end. For DLC, there were issues with the installation of the Windows Service used to deliver the updates. Here's a small snip:

Much closer to launch, we revised our figures coming out of the data we saw from the stand alone character creator app launch – just about doubling capacity yet again from our initial figures. For good measure, we then set in place a contingency plan – our plan B – to allow for further rapid deployment of additional capacity to yet again nearly double that amount, should things really get going.

As it turns out, before the end of the first day (Nov. 3rd - US & Asia launch) we had not only exceeded our initial capacity, but our plan B as well! For a single player game with online features, this was unprecendented and the levels we were seeing was completely unexpected. Had this been an MMO, such as TOR, the initial setup and type of setup would have been very different indeed and we'd be laughing even with traffic in the orders of magnitude higher - but for a single player game no would predicted it would exceed this type of setup.

More information.

two years of bragging about whatnot, and now enter the apologies for a complete mess-up. ea - nuff said.
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Gm Family Ii Engine Specifications

Complete mess up? Oh come on, now you're just grasping at things to complain about. LMAO, you're complaining that they didn't realize it would be even more popular than they anticipated!

I hope this means DA2 is certain

I must have gotten in there early and lucked out. Creating the login was a bit of a pain, but I have the Grimoire of the Frozen Wastes from the CE content sitting in my inventory.

I think it's great that they inform about the problems, the causes and what they are doing to improve things.

Too often it takes a very long time before they tell us anything.

Agreed. Active communication is good.

That's one of the more intersting apologies I've ever read. It's always neat to hear a bit about how the back end of these things works. (Or doesn't work.) Unfortunately, whatever steps they took Friday were not enough to handle Saturday. I made a character at around 6pm local time and that character still hadn't appeared on the servers at 1am. In fact, I just checked and she's still not there 20 hours later!

Oh well, it's just the public view. The game is still great even without it.

When I saw this (thanks Dhruin!) I said to myself,

this is customer service like we used to get it - back in the good olden days.

And thatis' why, I think, Bioware is a good developer and a good company; they don't hide their problems, they're open about it, explain what has happening, is happening, and communicating to people that they're working on a fix(es) for these problem(s).

I've seen a post by Georg Zoeller (some tech guy at Bioware) explaining the problems some people might have had….with a very minor problem (something related to daggers, I think?) Even the games Lead Designer, Mike Laidlaw, answered - and went to look for the missing line - on weekend! (their wives must be missing them, I guess? --- now, that's dedication…)

As for locking into their servers:

Fernando Melo did a post in the forums where he mentions that the servers needed updating; they've done so today. I think, they're finished now.

Playing the game currently.. will post my review in a few days.

Originally Posted by skavenhorde
Complete mess up? Oh come on, now you're just grasping at things to complain about. LMAO, you're complaining that they didn't realize it would be even more popular than they anticipated!

Will you ever stop complaining about people who have something negative to say about Bioware/Dragon Age?

I'll ask you this again; has bioware saved you/your family from a gang rape somewhere in a dark alley? Otherwise I can't explain your overzealous behaviour when someone bitch-slaps your precious bioware on an internet forum.

Also, it's a valid complain. Their forums are a big messed up piece of shit; technically and content wise.

I think it is a valid complaint against Bioware and EA to not foresee this; they have promoted the game vehemently. This usually means a lot of sales.

The Social Site should never been launched up till launch; it should have been launched 2-3 months before. Warden's Keep should have been given both to thosw with the CE and the DDE version of the game - and should have been hold back until Christmas (for normal buyers). And people should have gotten the same pre-order stuff, no matter from where they've pre-ordered the game.

However, sometimes companies do underestimate the need for their products - and Bioware and EA clearly underestimated people's need for playing a good old time hardcore game (again).

What in my comment is this:

It is rare these days to actually see a company admit that the'yve made mistake(s), take responsibility for it, and communicate that they're trying to find way(s) to fix their mistake(s).

I don't think it's really possible to plan for everything, and extreme popularity - like what happened with WoW - is probably one of the hardest to foresee.

Since the game is great, and I think it's REALLY great so far - I'm going to cut them some slack. But communication is important and I think they should keep the lines open.

I still haven't gotten my redeem codes yet, but that's an EA store issue and not a Bioware one. That doesn't mean I like the concept of DLC, as I despise it, but I can hardly fault businessmen for being greedy. That's kinda the motivation for becoming one, I think. When art survives the business process, as is the case here, I don't want to come down too hard on that side of it.

Basically, this is the game I didn't think could happen ever again. Unless the game changes significantly after ~30 hours, this is the first masterpiece with true AAA production levels that I've seen in years and years. To put it another way, I think this is the first piece of genuine art with that kind of investment behind it, that I've seen in the industry for a LONG time. I didn't expect that from Bioware after Jade Empire and Mass Effect, that's for sure. I expected quality mainstream entertainment, certainly, but not this.

That means I now have a reason to support the business side of things, even if I hate what it does in almost every other case.

Originally Posted by Tan
Will you ever stop complaining about people who have something negative to say about Bioware/Dragon Age?

I'll ask you this again; has bioware saved you/your family from a gang rape somewhere in a dark alley? Otherwise I can't explain your overzealous behaviour when someone bitch-slaps your precious bioware on an internet forum.

Also, it's a valid complain. Their forums are a big messed up piece of shit; technically and content wise.

Tan, I'm done playing this game with you. You have your opinion and I have mine. If you think I'm overzealous, well that's like the pot calling the kettle black, now isn't it? What I'm overzealous about is the constant moaning about ANY game that doesn't meet some ludicrous criteria made up by the netizens.

The one area of my life where I try to stay on the positive side is gaming. I look at one thing and one thing only, is this game fun? If it is then who gives a rat's ass about the tiny little details such as EA not foreseeing the overwhelming demand for this product? It had no effect on me. I got everything just fine. Plus, I'm used to punching in a dozen or more codes for EA products. They do this with The Sims 2 games as well. It's annoying as hell to punch them all in, but once it's done then that's it.

Do I think it's ridiculous that someone moans about how EA couldn't keep up with the demand? Yes, I do. I also think that it's ridiculous that people nitpick about the tiniest of details. People and companies make mistakes. Get used to it. I just think if people stopped and just asked themselves "Do I like this game?" Then all the other nonsense can be forgiven.

Originally Posted by Tan
Playing the game currently.. will post my review in a few days.





Will you ever stop complaining about people who have something negative to say about Bioware/Dragon Age?

I'll ask you this again; has bioware saved you/your family from a gang rape somewhere in a dark alley? Otherwise I can't explain your overzealous behaviour when someone bitch-slaps your precious bioware on an internet forum.

Also, it's a valid complain. Their forums are a big messed up piece of shit; technically and content wise.

Someone can ask you the exact opposite question, did someone from Bio gang raped you/your family? Otherwise I can't explain your overzealous bio hate on an internet forum.

Please don't take me seriously, I am just being silly as you are

Tan is just a troll seeking face time. If everyone is smart enough to ignore his posts, he'll disappear soon. I stopped paying attention to his posts several days ago. The only problem with that strategy is that you guys keep responding to him with quotes and so I end up reading his diatribe anyway

Leaving aside the technical issues, their response etc I have to say that I'm bloody chuffed to see a release of this quality quite clearly smash initial sales estimates by a significant margin. Well, initial sales and appetite for big pieces of DLC that are integrated into the game.

Bodes well for future investment in making stuff this good

Didn't know there were problems. Haven't encountered any myself.
Though I got my game on the 5th so might have been fixed then.

"Social site issues ? This is the new shit !"

I also think it's really good that the social site elements are proving such a success. In my opinion they have seriously pulled out all the stops to think of innovative carrots to improve sales rather than just the usual sticks, and judging by the extent to which they were unprepared for the demand they've been way more successful than expected.

Fingers crossed this will mean more developers making their profit margins by extra goodies for the faithful rather than fighting losing battles against natural thieves.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
bla bla bla

Yeah, yeah, I know you're angry because you got your ass handed to you, meaningless homophobe. Also, this kind of idiotic comment is something that reminds me so much of good ol' bioware boards: "you no likey bioware?? --> you troll!!!"


PS. Quote this. I want this little nut to assplode even more.


@lostforever, no, you don't have to be gangraped by someone to hate the dumbing down of their games; on the other hand, rabidly attacking anyone who complains about this is a little bit more weird.