The plans went out the window for the highly-anticipated launch of Halo 3's multiplayer beta test, leaving fans stirring.
It appeared as if Microsoft’s launch of the Halo 3 beta was prepared to go off without a hitch yesterday morning. The public relations machine was in high gear, forums were buzzing, and Crackdown buyers were standing by. Then the official opening time of 8 a.m. EST rolled around, and nothing happened.
Perplexed users dug around online, only to find that the launch had been delayed by technical issues. Hours continued to tick on by, and outrage built, until 7 p.m. when a fix finally came down the pike from Microsoft. Of course, by that time, anyone who had taken work or school off for the launch had squandered a day.
As an apology to users, Microsoft and Bungie extended the length of the beta four days, to end on June 6 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. “We apologize for the delay and hardships this issue has caused and hope that it quickly becomes a distant memory clouded by good times playing Halo 3 with your friends,” a Bungie employee wrote on the company’s news page.
The moral of the story: Don’t make fans jump through hoops (and whip out their credit cards) to access a beta, pump them up with an official start time, and then keep them waiting. Delays and technical problems are par for the course when it comes to beta tests, but users expect something else when they’ve gone through all of the above. It looks like Halo 3 developers may have caused a minor public image setback by relying on such a flaky mechanism to build hype for the game.
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RSSThis letter is being written to notify you of a very serious issue that is not receiving any exposure in the marketplace yet deserves some sort of recognition. Many of you have covered the problem with people downloading the Halo 3 Beta via their copy of Crackdown and how Bungie was working to resolve the problem. The matter that needs attention at this point that has been completely ignored by Bungie is the fact that thousands of Halo 3 fans who won an entry into the beta through the “Rule of 3” are still awaiting their turn to play the beta. One thread alone ( http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=108... ) is filled with thousands of requests from gamers who still have yet to receive their email with their code. It is now more than 24 hours after the official release of the beta and Bungie still has yet to even acknowledge the fact that many of the emails were not sent out / received. I hope that many of you will see the seriousness of this issue and address the problem on your sites to draw attention to a very serious matter. The laws around contest entries are very strict, and the fact that semi-paying customers (IE people who bought Crackdown to get beta entry) have been catered to while the rest who legitimately won their entry through the contest have been left in the dust is absolutely unacceptable. I appreciate your time in reviewing this information and hope that this information makes its way to the public so that something can be done.
Best regards,
Brad Wedell