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Guild Wars 2 public Beta is here for pre-purchases! [Stress Test June 27th]

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Lirlond

Member
Tera did the whole pre-purchase directly for beta access thing too, registered keys to accounts, and still offered refunds for digital purchase. And that game was much closer to release with an actual release date. I can guarantee ANet would too if pressured a bit.

They're asking for a huge PR mess if they don't.

Yeah, but kintaro has still given this guy a free game.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
You could try to say that, but it doesn't really work. As soon as someone has registered for the pre-purchase beta, they own the game. That product key gives them the full game. All they have to do is click the download button when it releases. The only legitimate way would be to contact NCSoft or Anet and tell them to disable the account of the person who "cancelled" their pre-purchase, which I doubt they would be willing to do anyway. Otherwise you're giving away copies of the game. Regardless of whether you gave people their money back, they still have the game registered to their account.

Except you don't own the game. The game is not out. Arenanet/NC Soft definitely has measures for those who want to cancel their order. Disabling that code for the account or simply closing the account.

They have measures in place.

If they did give out the fully product key for the game already, that would be very silly. Stores received an entirely different set of codes which unlocked just the beta and not the full game. Why would Anet not do this for their own orders? Giving people the full retail key right now would just open them up I would think.

If Steam/Origin/etc allows you cancel, Anet sure does.

So this guy registered his key, downloaded the beta. But still got a refund? Despite having registered the game. It's now attached to his account you know that right?

LOL No. Retailers got beta keys. Not full activation keys. At least GS did.

Let me make this very clear. Gamestop CAN NOT REFUSE TO CANCEL A PRE-ORDER AND REFUND MONEY/TRADE CREDIT. There is no system in place for us to "lock in" a "pre-purchase." Talk about lawsuit city...
 

Mastamind

Member
You could try to say that, but it doesn't really work. As soon as someone has registered for the pre-purchase beta, they own the game. That product key gives them the full game. All they have to do is click the download button when it releases. The only legitimate way would be to contact NCSoft or Anet and tell them to disable the account of the person who "cancelled" their pre-purchase, which I doubt they would be willing to do anyway. Otherwise you're giving away copies of the game. Regardless of whether you gave people their money back, they still have the game registered to their account.

That maybe true in Europe but not in North America. The people who bought the physical box here are only given a pre-purchase/preorder key and will have to enter a retail key at launch.

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/game-faq/#forty-seven
When Guild Wars 2 launches, customers will need to return to the retailer with proof of purchase in order to receive the full Standard Edition box and the retail serial code. They'll need to apply this retail serial code to their Guild Wars 2 account within five days of launch to continue playing without interruption.
 
Tera did the whole pre-purchase directly for beta access thing too, registered keys to accounts, and still offered refunds for digital purchase. And that game was much closer to release with an actual release date. I can guarantee ANet would too if pressured a bit.

They're asking for a huge PR mess if they don't.

That's on ANet's end. Which I agree with, they would do. But this is coming from a gamestop employee. Unless there is some communication between ANet/NCsoft and Gamestop how are they supposed to know to take the game off of his account? All that happened what the guy got his money back.
 
I think the beta codes are just that, beta codes. I'm in the beta and didn't prepurchase, I got a code at PAX East. I'm pretty sure I still need to buy the game when it comes out.
 

Ikuu

Had his dog run over by Blizzard's CEO
I think the beta codes are just that, beta codes. I'm in the beta and didn't prepurchase, I got a code at PAX East. I'm pretty sure I still need to buy the game when it comes out.

For EU the code you get in the pre-purchase pack is your retail code also.
 

GrizzNKev

Banned
Except you don't own the game. The game is not out. Arenanet/NC Soft definitely has measures for those who want to cancel their order. Disabling that code for the account or simply closing the account.

They have measures in place.

If they did give out the fully product key for the game already, that would be very silly. Stores received an entirely different set of codes which unlocked just the beta and not the full game. Why would Anet not do this for their own orders? Giving people the full retail key right now would just open them up I would think.

If Steam/Origin/etc allows you cancel, Anet sure does.

LOL No. Retailers got beta keys. Not full activation keys. At least GS did.

That maybe true in Europe but not in North America. The people who bought the physical box here are only given a pre-purchase/preorder key and will have to enter a retail key at launch.

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/game-faq/#forty-seven

Okay then, I wasn't aware of that. I figured putting down all of the money was buying the game permanently, regardless of where you did it. Kinda dumb how they handled it. Sorry for the confusion.

I think the beta codes are just that, beta codes. I'm in the beta and didn't prepurchase, I got a code at PAX East. I'm pretty sure I still need to buy the game when it comes out.

Nope, there was no beta code if you bought it online. Just the full game, which gave you beta access.
 
Except you don't own the game. The game is not out. Arenanet/NC Soft definitely has measures for those who want to cancel their order. Disabling that code for the account or simply closing the account.

They have measures in place.

If they did give out the fully product key for the game already, that would be very silly. Stores received an entirely different set of codes which unlocked just the beta and not the full game. Why would Anet not do this for their own orders? Giving people the full retail key right now would just open them up I would think.

If Steam/Origin/etc allows you cancel, Anet sure does.



LOL No. Retailers got beta keys. Not full activation keys. At least GS did.

Let me make this very clear. Gamestop CAN NOT REFUSE TO CANCEL A PRE-ORDER AND REFUND MONEY/TRADE CREDIT. There is no system in place for us to "lock in" a "pre-purchase." Talk about lawsuit city...

If this is true, I forsee a lot of people coming into gamestops and prepurchasing the game and then asking for a refund. Free open beta from here on out it seems. :lol
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
If this is true, I forsee a lot of people coming into gamestops and prepurchasing the game and then asking for a refund. Free open beta from here on out it seems. :lol

I think this was the only time we offer them. The only code from here on out are 1 day head start codes. Not beta codes.

Making the beta codes and retail codes one and the same is completely stupid and I'm surprised they did that. Not a smart way of doing it since the game is unreleased and they leave themselves open to cancelss/code mix ups.
 
I think this was the only time we offer them. The only code from here on out are 1 day head start codes. Not beta codes.

Making the beta codes and retail codes one and the same is completely stupid and I'm surprised they did that. Not a smart way of doing it since the game is unreleased and they leave themselves open to cancelss/code mix ups.

I heard that, but figured it was just because the beta was full for this weekend. Figured they would get more codes eventually.

As for the codes it's essentially the same as Blizzard does but they're cutting out the physical key needed later. The game is tied to your account once it's tied(in the beta) you're good, if you don't get to that point it can be fixed. The only issue is if people get refunds without any kind of communication to ANet which they probably have at those retailers.
 

GrizzNKev

Banned
I think this was the only time we offer them. The only code from here on out are 1 day head start codes. Not beta codes.

Making the beta codes and retail codes one and the same is completely stupid and I'm surprised they did that. Not a smart way of doing it since the game is unreleased and they leave themselves open to cancelss/code mix ups.

And for some reason in Europe it only works the same way for the CE, and if you buy the standard edition at retail you get the full game too. So if anyone in Europe gave a refund at retail for the standard edition, they'd be giving away the game, but that's the only possible case. Which in reality, has probably already happened plenty of times.

WTF, ArenaNet?
 

salpa

Banned
I don't remember the equation, but the key I got was 25 characters long, and was obviously capable of holding any letter and any number, giving it a total of 36 possibilities per character.

That is either 25^36 or 36^25. Either way, there are so many keys available in that sequence. I highly doubt there is going to be any key confusion. ANet are not retarded. I can make a simple VB or Java application that can properly keep track of keys of that magnitude, and I am an amateur programmer. I am sure ANet can do it too.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
And for some reason in Europe it only works the same way for the CE, and if you buy the standard edition at retail you get the full game too. So if anyone in Europe gave a refund at retail for the standard edition, they'd be giving away the game, but that's the only possible case. Which in reality, has probably already happened plenty of times.

WTF, ArenaNet?

It certainly is odd.

I won't comment too much on it though. Arenanet just made it harder on themselves I guess. Nothing was wrong with the simple beta with pre-order model. They just tried to reach a bit further to get some money up front? I don't know.
 
Nope, there was no beta code if you bought it online. Just the full game, which gave you beta access.

Well I got some kind of code at PAX that let me play in the beta. I assume that was what gamespot was handing out for the pre-orders. So if that isn't a beta code do I actually have a full copy of the game now?
 

GrizzNKev

Banned
Well I got some kind of code at PAX that let me play in the beta. I assume that was what gamespot was handing out for the pre-orders. So if that isn't a beta code do I actually have a full copy of the game now?

It seems there are actual beta codes for the following : PAX handout, NA retail pre-purchase/pre-order for all editions, and Europe pre-purchase/pre-order for CE only.

All other ways of purchasing the game (online or Europe retail standard edition) give you the full product key, which would then require contacting Anet for a proper refund.
 

nataku

Member
Yeah, but kintaro has still given this guy a free game.

As far as I know, physical copies have to register a key once they get the game, don't they? If not, that's really ANets fault for not using such a system. If they do use it then they'd get a few days grace period before their account is disabled and they register a retail key. At least in the US. The EU situation is strange, so I can't comment on that.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
For a variety of reasons, I don't want to call shenanigans on anything Kintaro is saying outright, but I will say these few things:

-It is possible to obtain a refund for a digital copy purchased anywhere through NCSoft (not ArenaNet) customer support if you haven't applied/registered your serial key. I know this because someone did it successfully after accidentally pre-purchasing twice. This is exactly how it should work because if they didn't use the key they haven't done anything as a result of the purchase that makes any impact and are of course entitled to their money back. This should be the case to anyone who pre-purchases and did not register their beta code.
-An employee at my local GameStop clearly distinguished between pre-orders (in which a customer puts down an amount of money they choose, untaxed, and a physical copy of the game is reserved for them in the store) and prepurchases (in which the customer pays the full amount including tax, and is given a code for beta access). I asked if I could put down $10 and still get a key (hoping he was uninformed enough to let me do so) and he immediately said no and that he had to enter the transaction for a full pre-purchase separately.
-If GameStop refunds a customer in full for a pre-purchase, I have to imagine that that particular GameStop does not call up NCSoft or ArenaNet to tell them to invalidate the associated beta key. I'd love to be proven wrong about this, but it doesn't seem likely. This is very, very bad. It means not only that someone could intentionally pre-purchase, register the key for a beta weekend, play through the weekend and then go back to get a refund (as Kintaro's four customers did), but also that they could continue playing in any future beta weekends unrestricted, despite having put no money down and not even intending to get the full game, which could potentially even skew ArenaNet's numbers for allocation and server distribution if a significant number of people do it.
-You cannot get a refund on an activated code that was purchased digitally; this would be equivalent to buying and opening a retail game from Gamestop and trying to return it for a full refund. For all intents and purposes, pre-purchasers that got the game this way do own the product already, and our accounts, the installed client, and so forth will remain the same at launch, we simply don't have access to the servers unlocked. Retailers of physical copies are handling this differently and I don't blame either side for requiring the customer to come back into the store to get a second code at launch.

And now I guess I would like to address Kintaro regarding the "lol is prepurchase for the full game or not" nonsense.

Yes, you are pre-purchasing the full retail game for $60. None of the extra stuff you get (hero's band, headstart access, or beta weekend access) are part of the cost of that $60. Anyone looking at it that way needs to seriously adjust their expectations, quite likely in all areas of their lives, not just waiting for videogame releases.

Those bonuses you are given for prepurchasing are given because you bought the game early. That's all there is to it. Essentially you could even consider them free- if you were going to purchase the game when it came out, you're being rewarded for putting the money down now instead. If you weren't going to purchase the game when it came out, or you weren't sure you wanted it, why would you purchase it in advance?

Anyway, again, I'm not saying Kintaro is lying about the 4 people that came in and got refunds. In summary I'm just saying it's a bad idea if retailers are doing this and opens things up to a lot of potential abuse.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Well, I've been thinking about since Kintaro first mentioned he had people "cancel their pre-purchases," and I'm assuming we're talking about it because there's really not that much else to talk about and we're all going through withdrawal
KuGsj.gif
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Too November far you say?
I say not November far enough!




...wow, I am going to lose it waiting for this game to come out
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
For a variety of reasons, I don't want to call shenanigans on anything Kintaro is saying outright, but I will say these few things:

-An employee at my local GameStop clearly distinguished between pre-orders (in which a customer puts down an amount of money they choose, untaxed, and a physical copy of the game is reserved for them in the store) and prepurchases (in which the customer pays the full amount including tax, and is given a code for beta access). I asked if I could put down $10 and still get a key (hoping he was uninformed enough to let me do so) and he immediately said no and that he had to enter the transaction for a full pre-purchase separately.
-If GameStop refunds a customer in full for a pre-purchase, I have to imagine that that particular GameStop does not call up NCSoft or ArenaNet to tell them to invalidate the associated beta key. I'd love to be proven wrong about this, but it doesn't seem likely. This is very, very bad. It means not only that someone could intentionally pre-purchase, register the key for a beta weekend, play through the weekend and then go back to get a refund (as Kintaro's four customers did), but also that they could continue playing in any future beta weekends unrestricted, despite having put no money down and not even intending to get the full game, which could potentially even skew ArenaNet's numbers for allocation and server distribution if a significant number of people do it.
-You cannot get a refund on an activated code that was purchased digitally; this would be equivalent to buying and opening a retail game from Gamestop and trying to return it for a full refund. For all intents and purposes, pre-purchasers that got the game this way do own the product already, and our accounts, the installed client, and so forth will remain the same at launch, we simply don't have access to the servers unlocked. Retailers of physical copies are handling this differently and I don't blame either side for requiring the customer to come back into the store to get a second code at launch.

Holy shit dude. It is a straight up beta code. That is it. What part of GAMESTOP CAN NOT REFUSE A CANCEL REQUEST don't you understand? A customer can prepurchase the game in full all they want, but they are still entitled to a full refund until the product is in their hands and opened. Period. End of discussion. We can, in no way, LOCK IN a preorder and refuse to give money back. Retailers DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.

If Arenanet fucked up, it is on their end.

The rest of your post isn't worth addressing.
 

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death
Holy shit dude. It is a straight up beta code. That is it. What part of GAMESTOP CAN NOT REFUSE A CANCEL REQUEST don't you understand? A customer can prepurchase the game in full all they want, but they are still entitled to a full refund until the product is in their hands and opened. Period. End of discussion. We can, in no way, LOCK IN a preorder and refuse to give money back. Retailers DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.

If Arenanet fucked up, it is on their end.

The rest of your post isn't worth addressing.

Calm down. Secondly, with an attitude like that you're hardly going to convince anyone whether what you're saying is true or even take you seriously.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I would be angry too if people told me the things that happened to me today didn't happen.
 

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death
I would be angry too if people told me the things that happened to me today didn't happen.

I would be too. However, that doesn't mean he has to blow up in everyone's face. Granted, I'm not saying I'm not guilty of doing this sometime either. I'm just advising. Secondly, I think the problem comes from the fact that the argument is a misunderstanding of definition of "prepurchase"
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
No, it comes from Kintaro saying "ArenaNet dun goofed" and Hawkian saying "No they didn't you're lying/it's Gamestop's fault".
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Holy shit dude. It is a straight up beta code. That is it. What part of GAMESTOP CAN NOT REFUSE A CANCEL REQUEST don't you understand? A customer can prepurchase the game in full all they want, but they are still entitled to a full refund until the product is in their hands and opened. Period. End of discussion. We can, in no way, LOCK IN a preorder and refuse to give money back. Retailers DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.

If Arenanet fucked up, it is on their end.

The rest of your post isn't worth addressing.
Holy shit dude. Please take it easy. I'd say it sounded like you didn't actually read what I said but based on "The rest of your post isn't worth addressing" I suppose you're essentially admitting to this?

Again, I'm not saying you/your store did not issue refunds to the four customers you described. I'm saying that this scenario is rife with problems if it occurs. I was also noting that there is a disconnect between a typical preorder scenario (which customers can partake in for any game including GW2) and the prepurchase scenario for GW2, which I confirmed at a GameStop.

I would be angry too if people told me the things that happened to me today didn't happen.
Yep, didn't say that.

No, it comes from Kintaro saying "ArenaNet dun goofed" and Hawkian saying "No they didn't you're lying/it's Gamestop's fault".
I didn't say that, I specifically didn't say that, and for that matter, Kintaro didn't say what you said he did either.

Lacking any evidence either way, Kintaro described what happened, and I described the potential problems with it happening. No one lied. Not sure where your attitude is coming from here. :-/
 

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death
Woah, man. Chill. This entire misunderstanding is because we didn't know retailers got a different set of beta specific keys to register for prepurchasers.

You work at a retailer. We don't. You've been questioned, so provide an answer. Don't shit yourself over it.

Shake hands?

He's angry because he's explained it multiple times. Not just once.
 

Trey

Member
This is how I always understood the circumstance:

You can pre-order and get nothing but the retailer's obligation to hold your copy for however long the policy is and a one day head start. You can pre-purchase and get the beta code to enjoy the BWE and the three day head start. You could get a refund for your pre-purchase at any time because you never got a product key, and you would still maintain access to the beta but obviously not receive the game or the three day head start.

Who cares if somebody can keep playing BWE with no pre-purchase? At this point it's pretty much open to anyone, so if somebody has to jump through a pay-gated hoop for guaranteed access then Arenanet stands to make more money than if they just released the client for download.
 

Shanlei91

Sonic handles my blue balls
Gamestop employees have a history of doing whatever possible to keep preorders from being canceled.

Though Gamestop is supposed to allow you to cancel preorders. Yes, people get promotional pre-order codes and then cancel all the time. This is why many pre-order items are given when you pick up the game.

Now, Gamestop previously allowed you to preorder the game for a minimum of $5, granting you the early play code. Putting the whole amount down generated the Beta code on the receipt. People were still able to cancel.

Conspiracy theory: ArenaNet realized this would happen and invalidated Beta codes generated from Gamestop this past weekend. I, along with a sea of others, on the official forums were told that we "did not prepurchase" the game when the Beta client wasn't granting us access. Even though my receipt had two separate codes, one clearly saying "Beta Weekend Event". Upon many people threatening to do charge backs and returns they decided to "allow access to any users who accidentally received a beta invite e-mail". Since then, the Gamestop website's preorder description changed to only mention the beta on the digital preorder (which requires much more effort to cancel).
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
This is how I always understood the circumstance:

You can pre-order and get nothing but the retailer's obligation to hold your copy for however long the policy is and a one day head start. You can pre-purchase and get the beta code to enjoy the BWE and the three day head start. You could get a refund for your pre-purchase at any time because you never got a product key, and you would still maintain access to the beta but obviously not receive the game or the three day head start.

Who cares if somebody can keep playing BWE with no pre-purchase? At this point it's pretty much open to anyone, so if somebody has to jump through a pay-gated hoop for guaranteed access then Arenanet stands to make more money than if they just released the client for download.
True enough, I hope ArenaNet has factored in the potentially of people doing this is all, because I'm thinking they're trying to gauge the number of people who prepurchased and regsitered as a baseline for how many people will be playing at launch.

What's really nuts is the possibility Grizz brought up regarding the same scenario but for the full retail keys in the EU version... how can that work? Can't anyone who prepurchases technically access the full game for free? Seems like a massive risk.
Hawkian's post was really long. That's why he didn't see it. Not hard to deduce.
That's true, I saw the first bevy of replies but not the one where I learned that retailers got a full separate batch of keys to use at retail. But from the sound of things even if they were giving out full retail keys Gamestop would have to issue a refund at any point before launch, right?
Conspiracy theory: ArenaNet realized this would happen and invalidated Beta codes generated from Gamestop this past weekend. I, along with a sea of others, on the official forums were told that we "did not prepurchase" the game when the Beta client wasn't granting us access. Even though my receipt had two separate codes, one clearly saying "Beta Weekend Event". Upon many people threatening to do charge backs and returns they decided to "allow access to any users who accidentally received a beta invite e-mail". Since then, the Gamestop website's preorder description changed to only mention the beta on the digital preorder (which requires much more effort to cancel).
Man that is weird, what was the other of the two codes even for?
 

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death
So hey guys, did you know there's going to be a sell all junk button in the next build? Cool isn't it.

you mean soulbound junk right? Cuz I hate manual selling. It's freaking annoying and tedious. One would think that after streamlining so much crap in games nowawdays, they would streamline the stuff that matters like this. *sigh*.
 

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death
The lesson here Kintaro is don't say anything bad about Anet, or the fanboys will eat you alive.

It's not fanboyism and it's not just Kintaro either. People just try to be so antagonistic in the thread that it's freaking unavoidable. *sigh*.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Man, obviously I should apologize to Kintaro and the thread- I have truly not been trying to say that he or GameStop has done anything wrong. In fact, it is a crazy, inexplcable fuckup on ArenaNet's part if this is all possible on the scale I'm imagining it.
 

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death
It's not all on ArenaNet though. A pre-purchase is as in its name should be a pre-purchase. If you've bought the product then you've bought it. The thing is that there is no policy saying that you can't get a refund if you've received the bonuses that come with the game. It's a miscommunication on both ANet and GS's part.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
It's not all on ArenaNet though. A pre-purchase is as in its name should be a pre-purchase. If you've bought the product then you've bought it. The thing is that there is no policy saying that you can't get a refund if you've received the bonuses that come with the game. It's a miscommunication on both ANet and GS's part.
True- I suppose I assumed as with any digital purchase that I wouldn't be entitled to a refund if I used the code I paid for, but it hasn't been explicitly stated. I guess it was the sort of thing that would have mattered more to make clear in a retail environment where people expect to be able to receive a refund at any point. The ultimate screw-up on ArenaNet's part comes from the fact that the keys are good for the entire beta experience, and for the Standard edition in Europe, apparently the full version too. I don't know how that's at all reconcilable and I feel like I'm really missing something
 

GrizzNKev

Banned
"Because that's exactly what happened."


It kind of is.

No, it isn't. As soon as I was informed of the specifics which I was previously unaware of, I too admitted it was a confusing system that was handled in a strange way. He didn't even say anything about ArenaNet at first, just that he had given refunds. Most of us bought the game online and figured the method for getting the beta was the same everywhere. He'd have been fucking over Gamestop too were it a full game code and not a beta code, which has very little to do with liking the game and a whole lot more to do with proper business practice. I would have reacted the same way were it any other game, and I'm not particularly fond of accusatory statements like those.
 

speedpop

Has problems recognising girls
I'm taking a wild stab in the dark and guessing that this thread, and any continuous GW2 thread, is going to be filled with this rubbish until release?
 
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