Call of Duty: Elite has completely tripped over its own popularity as servers continue to struggle with demand. But surely Activision knew it would be big, right?
"We knew MW3 was going to be big and we planned for a big demand, it's just the infrastructure is struggling to keep up with volume," he told Joystiq.
He went on to say that while the Elite beta test helped them prepare the service, even it could not provide a proper test for the sheer scale of the launch.
"We did a beta, the beta was intended to give us the data on how everything would behave with people hitting different parts of the service and different parts of the site. But when you add the complexities of it being not only an online service but one that has a console component, a PC component, and a soon-to-be-released mobile component, all being released at the same time, it's never been done before at this scale," he said.
He goes on, again, to blame the ongoing outages on the service's overwhelming popularity. "From the planning standpoint, we planned for it to be big. It's Call of Duty, we have all our metrics. We know what our metrics are from Black Ops and MW2 and all the previous Call of Dutys, so we were planning for it to be big. But we just literally had so much influx right now from all the different areas, from the console and the web. It just hit us a lot harder than we thought."
So when will it be fixed? Dunno. "We want to make sure the things we're doing right now remain stable," said Suarez. "Right now we don't have a definitive goal to have everything up by this date, we just don't have that data yet."
Comments
26 comments so far...
jm3811 on 13 Nov '11 said:
The current trend consists in throwing the customers into the cyberspace and let them build their own momentum thanks to multiplayer modes.
No company was properly prepared and the gamers will have to pay for such mistake for a while. Uncharted, BF and CoD have at least one thing in common.
khr0nik on 13 Nov '11 said:
I knew as soon as I read the headline that there excuse was going to be something along the lines of "We hadn't expected the sheer volume of people who would pay for this bulls**t to turn up, despite the fact that the franchise is bigger than Jesus, Father Christmas and Pokemon combined..."
b*****ks. If you're going to setup up a premium service, a service that as far as I'm concerned is a massive waste of money, at least have the common decency to remove your heads from your sphincters before launching it.
bamozzy on 13 Nov '11 said:
Actually, IF you had bothered to read it properly, they actually say why they were unprepared. The beta version only allowed access to the elite service via a PC only and also was quite limited in numbers. Also as it was global, they wanted to see how the service responded at various points in the day. I doubt that everyone who had access to the beta logged in at exactly the same time.
What they were unprepared for was the volume of people trying to log in/register at exactly the same time using a PC and additionally now, console and/or mobile device.
At least Activision have recognised their error and has given something back to their premium members - I don't recall EA doing the same (I was unaware Uncharted had an issue - I certainly haven't had any with them)
Also it is not a complete waste of money as I spent £40 on DLC for black ops (4 Map packs) - All my downloads for MW3 are already paid for now by becoming a premium member and I will get them first. To me this alone makes the price of Elite exceptionally good value for money!!!
Gears of War 3 Season pass costs 2400 ms points and will only save you a 33% off of their 800 ms points map packs. So compared to them Elite is an absolute bargain!!! Personally I think a Season Pass should make all downloads free especially as they generally cost around 2400 ms points.
bamozzy on 13 Nov '11 said:
4 x Gears of War 3 Map packs (4 x 800msp) = 3200msp
gears of war season pass 2400 msp + 4 x Reduced cost map packs (4 x 533.33 = 2133.33) = 4533.33 and you only get a liquid metal weapon skin extra)
So does that mean the liquid metal camo skins cost 1333.33 msp?
Its not like you get them earlier or do they come with anything extra because you have a season pass!
For all those 'haters' of Activision and CoD - maybe they aren't the rip off merchants you claim compared to others.
Mmmmgrolsch on 13 Nov '11 said:
For the millions of pounds Activision make they should have made sure they were prepared for the numbers. There just isn't any excuse.
kirankara on 13 Nov '11 said:
Someones got a hard on for activision lol
EA said exactly the same thing btw about their online issues, and as much as you try defend them , by saying this and that(me personally I understand that these things never go smoothly), the simple truth is, they made a total mess of it, and should have been prepared for huge number of people that would sign up. Anything they say , is insufficient defence to explain why they didn't have system stable.
I understand that no amount of testing can fully prepare them for huge numbers they faced, and some issues would occur , but their job , is to get it mostly right, if not perfect. its pretty clear, that they weren't that bothered in getting it right, just get it out and sign up people, and get their money in the bank.
It's not just Actvision that's guilty of this, almost every publisher out there operates on same policy.
as for gears 3. Im not sure what your point is, you get 8 dlc packs, including horde content etc at a total of about 4500 points. Im guessing you wont get that much dlc from Activision if you pay for Elite.
ricflair on 13 Nov '11 said:
You have got the Season Pass for Gears spectacularly wrong.
The 33% saving is that the pass costs 2,400MSP, whereas buying the 4 x 800 points costs 3,200MSP. It only takes 30 seconds of your time on Google to check your facts! Didn't the fact the pack costs more than the savings you thought you'd make set any alarm bells ringing?
damoxuk on 13 Nov '11 said:
I still can't log in on the ps3 elite app..
not only that my email just refuses to be validated with elite.. shocking crap tbh.
corkscru74 on 13 Nov '11 said:
Why have a beta at all if it's not going to prepare you for launch? One of the main things you do with an online beta test is push it to breaking point to find exactly how much your system can handle before giving up the ghost.
Fail to prepare and you prepare to fail - that's seemingly what's happened in this case.
Laughlyn on 13 Nov '11 said:
IUts just more complex stuff makes more thingscapable of going wrong. autolog on NFS games and Battlelog wa siffy because of the amount of intergration between them too, same with elite. too many things trying to talk with each other. I'm looking forward to DUST514 on PS3 next year and even tho its been in development for several years but the intergration between DUST/EVE/PS3/PC is gonna be wide open for bugs n glitches
kirankara on 13 Nov '11 said:
I'm not sure exactly.what he's getting at tbh, but my understanding of gears season pass, is that you get for first packs for 2400 points and next three discounted, sounds good deal really. Especially as.you get a lot of content for.your money
ricflair on 13 Nov '11 said:
I'm not sure they've mentioned anything about more than 4 DLC packs, although I'm not sure how they've worked out 33%, surely it's 25%? 2400/3200 = 0.75.
I can see what they've done with their maths, the full priced DLC costs 1.333333 more than discounted pass, but to say it's a 33% saving is a bit misleading! Perhaps if you do have the pass, any further 800MSP DLC will be 600MSP too.
Either way bamozzy has got the wrong end of the stick! I think there's a similar thing for UC3 isn't there?
bamozzy on 13 Nov '11 said:
Someones got a hard on for activision lol
EA said exactly the same thing btw about their online issues, and as much as you try defend them , by saying this and that(me personally I understand that these things never go smoothly), the simple truth is, they made a total mess of it, and should have been prepared for huge number of people that would sign up. Anything they say , is insufficient defence to explain why they didn't have system stable.
I understand that no amount of testing can fully prepare them for huge numbers they faced, and some issues would occur , but their job , is to get it mostly right, if not perfect. its pretty clear, that they weren't that bothered in getting it right, just get it out and sign up people, and get their money in the bank.
It's not just Actvision that's guilty of this, almost every publisher out there operates on same policy.
as for gears 3. Im not sure what your point is, you get 8 dlc packs, including horde content etc at a total of about 4500 points. Im guessing you wont get that much dlc from Activision if you pay for Elite.
Not at all - I just get p**sed off with people criticising something that they obviously know nothing about. I was merely pointing out that at least Activision has tried to give something back - unlike the majority of the others. Also so many people said that they would not buy CoD because of Activision and that they were only interested in money but it seems that they were wrong and Activision are not quite the money grabbers everyone makes out.
I may have got it slightly wrong about the first 4 downloads (the season pass obviously covers these) although it does not say anything about subsequent DLC content - whether or not you get a discount on these or need to purchase another season pass. This represents better value for money than I initially thought - I misread 'access' to mean allow you to purchase for 33% cheaper. (I am also big enough to admit I made a mistake)
But having found out this, I still think that Elite represents better value for money - ALL downloads free, received first, + many other benefits too - There also maybe additional downloads that have so far not been announced/planned that could arrive that will also be free.
It seems to me that elite represents better value for money than a gears of war season pass for example, and I don't know where you got your information from but at least I did the research to justify my comment.
ricflair on 13 Nov '11 said:
You didn't do any research, you got the pricing of the Gears season pass completely wrong! They haven't mentioned anything about further DLC, just that you pay 2400MSP and you get the four planned DLC pack, basically working out at 600MSP instead of 800.
Anyway, as to which is better value is completely unknown as we don't know how much content either game will actually see and how good it will be. It will also vary from person to person.
I'm not having a pop at Elite by the way. When it comes to pretty much any publisher and DLC, I wouldn't trust them with my money up front.
kirankara on 13 Nov '11 said:
@ricflair,
having checked up about gears 3 season pass, it seems that only thing concretely mentioned is first 4 dlc packs for 2400 pts. I saw one site mentioned discount of future dlc after, although no other site mentions this, so taking it with pinch of salt.
@bamozzy.
I wouldnt see this as Activision as giving something back to customers, just taking your money in advance, which is great business for them. You may not like map packs when they released, but they already got your money. The last map pack may be 9 months away, but guess what?, they got your money.
Epic and every other company doing same are all guilty of this. It's not about giving you something back, its simply about gettting your money, so that they can boost profits, and show their shareholders that theyve made x amount of money, and their share price goes up on the stockmarket etc etc.
the only reasonable priced dlc ive come across was on killzone.
You need to understand why people have such hatred for activision, and map packs are only part of the equation im afraid. It's their general business ethics which has angered people. They were the first(possibly not, but definitely one of first) to really push dlc packs as aggressively, and expensively as they have done. They have set a precedent for other publishers, which has now become the norm, whereas previously, gamers where used to dlc being part of the game they bought. Other practices, such as their treatment of companies theyve driven into the ground, their slightly dubious ports onto ps3 etc etc, have all led to a hatred of activision.
kirankara on 13 Nov '11 said:
it's a bargain, if like many you going to buy them regardless, and thus make saving in long run, but its f'in cheeky no doubt asking people to pay in advance for months and months for something they havent received yet.
TheLastDodo on 13 Nov '11 said:
Battlelog is free forever (for the moment) so no-one wasted any money on a service that doesn't work as intended.
CoD ELiT3 (premium sub) is £34.99 (per year) so some people have spent £34.99 on a service that doesn't work as intended.
BOTH services should've expected this 'unprecedented demand' and being prepared for it, but for me CoD ELiT3 is worse because they've charged you £34.99 for a service that doesn't work properly, Battlelog is free so you've lost nothing anyway.
theheavy on 13 Nov '11 said:
Really ? I cant believe some people are trying to justify it not working and being value for money.
Battlelog is pretty much the same, the content promised on Elite hasnt come through either.
Activision should have been better prepped for this, its no excuse claiming (and knowing) you have the biggest IP out there to then turn round and say you just wasnt ready for the sheer volume of people hitting the servers.
Battlelog isnt entirely innocent either with that too suffering from problems.
But with Battlelog being a free service and playing on dedicated servers it pretty much a brilliant deal.
It seems its a bang for buck sceanario - they wait for the traffic to arrive then sort out how many servers realistically theyre going to be using in the long term and not just for christmas just to cut down costs.
Mmmmgrolsch on 13 Nov '11 said:
They need to forget about Elite. Its the least of its problems. MW3 is a broken mess because the connection is the worst I've ever experienced in a CoD game.
ricflair on 13 Nov '11 said:
Isn't the basic Elite package free too - I'm guessing most people have gone for the Premium version due to the all inclusive DLC shenanigans? f**k knows why I'm in this thread, I really don't care for either games! But DLC, and more specifically publishers attitudes towards it, gets on my tits.
TheLastDodo on 13 Nov '11 said:
Yes the basic ELiT3 package is free ric, I just didn't mention it as I would be repeating the things I said about Battlelog.
@Grolsch: I don't know how but I think the latest MW3 patch has made it worse for getting and staying connected, I've seen the screen freeze for 2-3 seconds at times, something I've never experienced in CoD before, not even Blops.
Mmmmgrolsch on 13 Nov '11 said:
That's a relief for me. Because out of all my friends I'm the only one who is suffering from this. It really destroys the online mode because it always does it as soon as a enemy is close to me
The game was the smoothest one I played before the patch. What good is it fixing the issue with getting into games if they're going to make it a unplayable experience instead?
Seriously I've given the online a knock on the head becase we won't see the issue fixed for weeks now.
The Bossman on 13 Nov '11 said:
It's terrible how they can't get their service to work, the one they've been shoving down our throats ever since it was announced. Hardly anyone can log into the bastard thing, I keep getting logged out every 45 seconds. Can't get my custom Elite title or emblem, can't get much more info save for it crashing and requiring a re-login. Meanwhile, I'm sure Battlelog is running along just fine, it's bollox.
bamozzy on 13 Nov '11 said:
Woo hoo
I have my Founder status at last and also all the emblems, titles and the gun camo too.
It seems the way to access and get these (on xbox at least) is to load up the game and access Elite from the console (under multiplayer) If you see a red premium and green founder logo then on the left hand side near the bottom of the sidebar is an option to return to MW3. When you return to the game and enter the live part you will see new emblems, titles etc.
The multiplayer was almost unplayable due to serious lagging and jerky gameplay but that seemed to be just after the new patch came in. I tried again this evening and I am glad to report that the gameplay has returned to its frantic best.
Barca Azul on 13 Nov '11 said:
What are you chewing?
Gum
Did you bring enough for everyone?
I didn't know there were gona be so many!
Never heard of load testing then?
jm3811 on 14 Nov '11 said:
"for the moment"... that says it all.
Ea regularly stop providing access to previous installments, which means that one day we lose the possibility to play their games online.
In the end it will all come up to subscriptions: you will purchase a game and you will have to pay for a yearly fee or something.
on top of that you won't be playing any game forever. The length of support will be determined by the editor and I doubt very much that they will listen to the gamers on what they prefer to play.