MMORPG and Salem Beta key giveaway.

[L33LEE]

It was so nice to see so many keys get given to MMORPG, yet it was so sad to see almost all of them were gone within hours of release to sellers and horders who are now selling them on the black market for $40-$60 each.

Can i make a suggestion, If you decide to make any more beta keys for people, how about directly giving them to people on these forums, or just activate everyone who is registered on your forums for the beta ?

Myself and many others who have waited forever to play this game and get into the beta are getting more and more frustrated by the day. I could be playing Salem within 1h right now, but im not paying $50 to some low life scrub who stole / horded 1000 of your beta keys, its just so unfair.

Please do something about this, 2 days after your giveaway, your online numbers are still VERY LOW compared to the amount of keys were given out, also the numbers of online players are almost the same as before your wave of keys. Some communication, some apology or something to acknowledge the beta giveaway was a huge flop and almost no legit player got a key, except for the lucky few who were online / awake when the announcement happened.

It just seems like the same old story with most other mmorpgs, the legit followers are screwed over and over, why asshole's reap profit from stealing(Botting etc) all the keys from people who wish to play.(Because this is were it all starts on most games, and its your job paradox to stop things like this now at the source before it is out of control, if you fail to give out more keys, or accept more players into the beta, people will turn to the black market sellers for access, from here it can only get worse)

Yes this thread is made in rage of still not having a beta key. I really do feel like i deserve one. I just hope you either give out more keys DIRECTLY to players, or just open the servers already.(which will also kick these sellers in the balls as there hording will become worthless and hopefully not to many people purchased keys from them)

Free to play game eh ? Well for me at this moment in time, the only way i can play, is to pay, and its not even the development company who would get my money. Im sure this is not how you saw your game during beta.

[Marco Dandolo]

That makes me a saaaaaad panda lion.

[Olivarosully]

I can completely empathise with you, L33LEE. I too was disappointed to see the beta-keys go so quickly from the MMORPG giveaway. I have briefly considered paying for one myself, but decided against once I actually gave it some real though. The chances of being scammed are just too high and I resent being made to pay for something which was intended to be offered as a gift (or sorts).

I quite like your suggestion of handing out beta-keys to registered forum members. In fact, I'm surprised that something along those lines isn't implemented more often. However, I think it is important to understand the intention of beta-key giveaways, like the one just passed: they exist to draw in new players who are pontetially unaware of Salem's existence and woud have no reason to play the game, if they weren't handed a free access code to it.

I'm going to be playing Salem when it comes out, whether or not I've had access to the beta. I think that the same could be said for a large portion of the people registered on this forum. If the point of beta-key giveaways is to drum up support, a wider-community and positive word-of-mouth press, then I'm a poor recipient, since I'm already sold.

Still, I imagine you know all of this already. The fact that people are potentially hoarding keys and selling them is in poor form though. Unfortunately, there is little anyone can do to stop them, aside from saturate the internet with beta-keys so that they have no real value *hint hint*

[MagicManICT]

This is the nature of some of these open giveaways. It was no different with the "refer-a-friend" method of alpha and early beta, though. A lot of people ended up with multiple keys while others never got the chance to get in early. The other option is we all put in applications like old days and we're selected based on past experience in gaming.

[SleekPlatypus]

I have been lurking around their site or weeks now and the one time they have a beta giveaway i am asleep. Thanks! I usually look at these forums or the other ones but there was nothing about the giveaway on them.

At this rate i will probably just get bored and forget about this game. The site is still outdated and there is no actual news on open beta. Getting very annoyed with them.

[TotalyMoo]

I can understand your frustrations, everyone in this thread, but that is the nature of having an open giveaway. The keys were given to the site and they got to chose how to give them away, there's nothing we can do to regulate that.

Whatever we do there will be people who scalp keys and sell them without our permission. If we make it even harder to get keys they will just rise in price. I am sorry you did not get any keys this time, but there will be more chances!

As for open beta, it will launch as soon as we have multi-server support.

[L33LEE]

I can understand your frustrations, everyone in this thread, but that is the nature of having an open giveaway. The keys were given to the site and they got to chose how to give them away, there's nothing we can do to regulate that.

Whatever we do there will be people who scalp keys and sell them without our permission. If we make it even harder to get keys they will just rise in price. I am sorry you did not get any keys this time, but there will be more chances!

As for open beta, it will launch as soon as we have multi-server support.

Im sure you really do not understand my frustration, furthermore you just added to it.

The way in which MMORPG distributes the keys is the bog standard way of doing so, in theory your just pushing the blame to them and their distribution method. You are directly responsible, paradox, as to what happened to the beta keys you give out.

There are many many routes paradox could/should have taken when distribution these keys, directly by email, on a personal basis, giving them to forum account holders only, there are "many" ways to ensure legit players get the keys and minimuze how many are taken by sellers.

It just seems paradox could not be bothered to put the "extra effort" required in such delicate situations. You mearly generated tons of keys, passed them to a 3rd party, and go "Its out of our hands", thats some nice customer relations you have right there with the launch of this game.

You comment has just upset me more. Thanks for the reply though.

As i suggested, use other methods of distribution in future. Thanks

EDIT: To add, yes, it seems i will be forced to wait for the public beta, which has no clear ETA, which i assume is also at least 1Month+ away(minimum), due to the amount of keys you gave out, and hinted towards more being given. Just seriously if you give out another wave of keys, how about taking 2-3 hours extra to give out some personal keys to legit players who are active on your forums, your facebook and more, yet always fail to get keys because of what the horders do. Or just open the Server you currently have open to the public, and put a queue in place with a server limit to reduce stress.

Again, there are many many methods to which you can do with regards to keys and access, it just seems your going about it the most easiest and effortless way.

[Ketil]

If we make it even harder to get keys they will just rise in price.

So, why not be creative and give keys to all those want one, and ask.

You could also void any beta key that is not registered within a certain period.

[TotalyMoo]

Im sure you really do not understand my frustration, furthermore you just added to it.

The way in which MMORPG distributes the keys is the bog standard way of doing so, in theory your just pushing the blame to them and their distribution method. You are directly responsible, paradox, as to what happened to the beta keys you give out.

There are many many routes paradox could/should have taken when distribution these keys, directly by email, on a personal basis, giving them to forum account holders only, there are "many" ways to ensure legit players get the keys and minimuze how many are taken by sellers.

It just seems paradox could not be bothered to put the "extra effort" required in such delicate situations. You mearly generated tons of keys, passed them to a 3rd party, and go "Its out of our hands", thats some nice customer relations you have right there with the launch of this game.

You comment has just upset me more. Thanks for the reply though.

As i suggested, use other methods of distribution in future. Thanks

EDIT: To add, yes, it seems i will be forced to wait for the public beta, which has no clear ETA, which i assume is also at least 1Month+ away(minimum), due to the amount of keys you gave out, and hinted towards more being given. Just seriously if you give out another wave of keys, how about taking 2-3 hours extra to give out some personal keys to legit players who are active on your forums, your facebook and more, yet always fail to get keys because of what the horders do. Or just open the Server you currently have open to the public, and put a queue in place with a server limit to reduce stress.

Again, there are many many methods to which you can do with regards to keys and access, it just seems your going about it the most easiest and effortless way.

It was not the purpose of that post to further upset you, so I'll clarify some things.

The previous time we distributed keys we let people sign up for them, refer some friends to the game and then get their keys. This is a very standard way of "opening a closed beta", compared to the other option which would be what MagicManICT posted above.

The MMORPG giveaway had some ways of regulating how many keys you could take, like a simple IP block. We do want to let as many "legit players" get their hands on keys as possible, but there is no way to prevent people from getting a key and trying to sell it. Even "legit" players will at times fall for the temptation of some easy money and try to sell the key, even if the original intention was to play the game.

I honestly don't see where the blame is on anyone here. We distributed a set amount of keys, people got the keys, some try to sell them but most use it to play. I am not passing any blame on to MMORPG since I don't see anything wrong in that way of distributing keys.

As I mentioned, there will be many more chances to get your hands on a key before open beta, through giveaways like this and more complicated procedures. You'll most likely not have to wait until open beta before you get one yourself.

[L33LEE]

It was not the purpose of that post to further upset you, so I'll clarify some things.

The previous time we distributed keys we let people sign up for them, refer some friends to the game and then get their keys. This is a very standard way of "opening a closed beta", compared to the other option which would be what MagicManICT posted above.

The MMORPG giveaway had some ways of regulating how many keys you could take, like a simple IP block. We do want to let as many "legit players" get their hands on keys as possible, but there is no way to prevent people from getting a key and trying to sell it. Even "legit" players will at times fall for the temptation of some easy money and try to sell the key, even if the original intention was to play the game.

I honestly don't see where the blame is on anyone here. We distributed a set amount of keys, people got the keys, some try to sell them but most use it to play. I am not passing any blame on to MMORPG since I don't see anything wrong in that way of distributing keys.

As I mentioned, there will be many more chances to get your hands on a key before open beta, through giveaways like this and more complicated procedures. You'll most likely not have to wait until open beta before you get one yourself.

Thank you very much moo for taking time out to reply.

With regards to "most" will use them to play, i have a hard time believing that, as considering i have monitored your "player online" via the weblinks which give real time statistics of players online, and the numbers increased are hardly noticeable on these weblinks even after the giveaway. Its your game, you "should" know what your doing though and i will leave it in your capable hands.

With about 60seconds of research, unsure how many i can confirm are "scams" but i can find at least 300-400~ keys being sold, and many of them claim to have sold some already. Again i cannot "confirm" their claimed amounts but for what reason would they have to lie, its just sad so many people take the keys to horde to sell for profit and paradox get nothing from it.

If need be, if im "forced" to pay for a key to play, i would rather pay paradox £40 for the access than give it to some scrub, because lets face it, people "ARE BUYING THEM", so Its sad paradox cannot do the same and earn some extra deserved revenue, but i know if you as a company started to charge for "beta access" you would go bust very fast as people will call you money grabbers and refuse to pay.

Again, i thank you for taking time to reply, i hope in the near future you release some more keys by more "desirable" methods, or as someone else mentioned, give them out via an "asked" basis.

The IP block MMORPG implement is pathetic. People i know can use scripts they created to grab 100's if not 1000's of keys within minuets of them being released. I even know someone personally who got his hands on 1500~ GW2 beta keys, and he sold about 400 of them for £20 each, i do not credit him for what he does, but it shows how such bland giveaways are open to exploits.

Just please, next time the wave of keys are released, i have seen about 20-30 active people for weeks / months who have been waiting like good children, please take some time and give these people including myself a key personally, it will be great with consumer relations and would put a big positive on the games customer relations worker a great deal, because it will show "you care alot".

Thanks for reading, i really hope you get something from this.

EDIT: Just remember, giveaways like the MMORPG.com one are great "in theory", but due to human nature and most internet trash being selfish as hell, it does not always work like this, and many people who are offline / sleeping at the time, almost instantly lose out on any chance of getting one.

I look forward to your future giveaways, and the more complicated procedures you mentioned, I do love a good little contest to win a prize, the feeling of achievement is always good.

Regards
Lee

EDIT: To stress them 20-30 people, these are the kind of people you need in your game, they will be the long term dedicated players like myself, who have waited around forever yet always fall on the last hurdle to get a key. These people should be "very" important to you, more important than the potential 2000 players from key giveaways, as they will be your revenue income via cash shop sales. Dedicated players who have been here forever, will play forever, most people who randomly come across your game will mostly likely not stick around. You should be focused on your dedicated players first and foremost when games like this normally do have a small but very dedicated player base which keeps the game afloat and running.

Thanks again, now i will put my finger over my mouth, and wait again like a good little boy ^.^

[Wikiultimate]

the one day i did not log into the forums (was moving in my new roommate all day) ...

[M_So]

So, why not be creative and give keys to all those want one, and ask.

You could also void any beta key that is not registered within a certain period.

I had a similar idea but no one seemed to bite. The first week of every month they would have people enter to get keys, during the next 2 weeks they would pick (say 100) random people from the list, at the end of the month clear the list of entry's and all not activated keys. that way all the people that really want in can keep trying and everyone that has already got in will have any extra unused keys cleared.

[staxjax]

FYI, the amount of players on the server at any given time has pretty much doubled since the MMORPG giveaway. It used to be ~100 since shortly after the mad rush of the new server. On the day of the giveaway, it was up over 400 players online at one point, and has since settled down to about 200 people online on average.

I'm pretty sure the MMORPG beta key give away has had the desired effect on the current playerbase.

[dannie]

If you missed this giveaway, we just started a couple more!

Check 'em out!

[oeverloos]

Sigh, I take a half day of today, come home and open my facebook using a shortcut linked to the Salem page, it's something I do since last friday when I missed that beta key giveaway (and since missing last one when I decided to start using facebook again).
I see the announcement, my heart starts beating and there it is, the betakey!

But, alas, too late again.

But luckily a good soul guides me to the tentonhammer giveaway, (damn, still need to register to that site as well) and...

Too late again.

Now my alarm clock is set so I will certainly be on time for the 12am (is that noon over there? where is my converter?), if I don't get one this time I don't know what more I can do... Certainly with people who have lives, work normal hours (in this part of the world), etc...

I understand the frustration of the people who didn't get a key, because I'm one of them.


EDIT

alarm clock set
greenwich clock open on eastern us time, timing for noon EST
at exactly noon EST I (and several other hundreds of people) press refresh on my browser that was opened on the right page
and there it is:

"we're out of keys"

well good luck for the 100 people who got the key and got in... I really hope you have 100 new players, otherwise consider another beta giveaway...