Dear Anet, Let Us Acquire Free Storage From In-Game Store or In-Game

Dear Anet,

Executive Summary: Make the free storage easier to acquire, either through the Guild Wars In-Game Store or letting us get it through the Xunlai Agent, like you did for the Material Storage Tab.

In order to get the special free storage pane for our accounts, we need to "purchase" the slot through the PlayNC store. As you have probably noticed, whether in the forums here or from the huge stack of support tickets, a large number of people signed up and tied their account to a PlayNC account YEARS ago, never expecting to use it. And here we are today, scratching our heads on why we have to go through the process of 'buying' a pane, then applying a promo code to get the 'free' pane, because we never used our PlayNC account or started using the In-Game Store that YOU created.

I do not know if it is a marketing ploy to get people to go to the PlayNC store more, and maybe buy more Guild Wars items, or not. But we wonder why it takes such a round-a-bout process to get this when it could have just as easily been done the way you added the Material Tab on our Xunlai Storage: talk to the Xunlai Agent in-game. It was easy, no hassle, and you were showered with praise.

Instead, my in-game Alliance and Guild Chat is filled regularly with "I do not know my PlayNC account", "I forgot my password", "PlayNC sadi I already tied my GW account to another PlayNC account... wait... I registered for one actually years ago?"

Honestly, this is frustrating and annoying, that we have to jump through hoops for this. You said the storage upgrade was free, it does not feel like it at all. Now I am reminded every time I open my Xunlai Storage, with the grayed out Panes, that the free storage is not accessible to me, just because I forgot my PlayNC acccount name, and did not realize 3 years ago that I might actually need the CD keys again just to get my PlayNC account name back.

Like I said earlier, it would be wonderful if you gave us another method to get this free Storage Pane. Because honestly, there is a lot of resentful feelings floating around right now because of how you decided to give us this free Storage Pane. I know it is free, and we are really in no position to complain, but do you not think you could have implemented the acquisition a little better?

Signed,
One of Many Frustrated Players

My .02, it is a ploy to get people to use the In Game Store in hopes of spending $$$. Absolutely no reason they couldn't have used the same method as before to acquire the Material tab. A-Net has made this unnecessarily difficult.

/Absolutely signed for letting people get their 'free' anniversary storage tab by speaking with the Xunlai Agent.

I fully agree with you. I only have my Factions:CE key and I dont even know if that will get my NCSoft account back :I

/Signed

Edit: I did get my account info back, which surprised me, but I still sign this

A couple of months ago, I made an NC account to check out Tabula Rasa before it got shut down that month. Since the update went live, I've been trying to get the free storage pane but as everybody knows, there were problems with the site.

Today I finally got in, but I forgot my password and it looked like I made an other account too some years ago as it said my gw account is already linked to another NCaccount. Finally I had to contact support, but as it's weekend they can't do anything for me atm. It will be ok I know and I still have my original keys from each campaign, but this 4th year anniversary leaves a sore taste in my mouth.

It was pointlessly difficult to get the free pane.

/signed.

this was a promotion aimed to visit the new ncsoft page... not to simply give you a free storage tab... advertisement ya know

This.
ANET is a business. They have families to take care of too, and they need $$$.

I think a variety of ways to get the free pane would've been ideal, rather than overloading the NCSoft website, subsequently screwing everybody over who hasn't gotten their pane yet (ie me).

/signed

well it was bad advertisement. the ncsoft site and the way it has gone up and down has guaranteed I will never buy anything from it. and I know a lot of other people feel the same way. if you want to advertise it, then it better work perfect with zero issues. thats not what happened.

/signed
This has been a complete mess up and Anet need to sort it out NOW

/signed

Tracking down the name of my PlayNC account is such a bother when I've hardly ever used it before.

I agree, it should be able to get it through some other way, however, alot of complaints aren't exactly valid.

1. If you forgot your user name it's your own damn fault (pick one you can remember, instead of asu02ladsdf that you used on the spot for lulz). For password, there's a link to reset it, takes 5 minutes.

2. Promotion last til end of May iirc. The website slowdown was fixed early this morning, which is when I got my free panel. Have some patience.

/signed

i think they did it BECAUSE they wanted people to jump the hoops to get their old account info OR..........get PO'ed enough to screw it and just buy the things instead of jumping hoops

I manged to get on the website and get a free storage for each of my accounts the morning (GMT) after the update was released.

If you're too disorganised to remember your own account details, or misplace your GW keys then that isn't ANet's or NCSoft's fault.

/notsigned

the majority have managed it and its NOT that hard once your logged in

sorry guys, but even one of my officers has lost his details too, but he knows he's got until May 31st to get his tab so he casually and patiently emailed support

You do realize probably the average age group is probably 11-17 year old males, probably this most disorganized group of players out there. Expecting them to remember where they put their keys from 2-3 years ago is asking for trouble.

If you forget your playNC account name, that you have not used for 2-3 years, because there was no use for it, it is to be expected. With so many user names to remember these days, forgetting one that is unused after 2-3 years may be your fault, but you can hardly blame someone for forgetting.

/signed ive forgotten my account details so i'm having quite a trouble to get into my account......+ whats with all the fuss ? ive already created the account and its linked to my gw account so why not let us accses it from the online store??
Edit: Espirit got me there :P

I have 2 accounts. For one account I was able to get the storage. But I forgot the master NCSoft login for the second account.

I requested username of this NCSoft master lgoin through NCSoft support. I hope I will receive an answer soon, so that i can still get the extra storage before the 31st of May.

A solution might be to postpone the deadline for requesting the free storage, so that we have enough time to deal with support to get the user names and passwords.

-----------------------

Another issue:

If you request an account at any other website, you receive an email with account information, including password and username. For the NCSoft master account I am unable to find an email with this information in my history.

It might be an idea for NCSoft to sent this email at account creation, so that people can find account passwords and usernames themselves in their email. So they don't need to bother support to request this information.

/notsigned

I think they have done great job with the update so far and have been working for it for months. If people forget their passwords, they can always press the "Forgot your password?" -buttom. If they can't remembre the account name, gogo post email to anet. If you cant work a bit for your "free" storage panel, then its completely your own fault.

let me ask you this. if this is something every player can get for free until the end of may or whatever then why not just make it available in game or through the store in guild wars? its their fault they made it so difficult.

And let's not forget those of us who never actually created an NC account.

Another thought to think about is that how many games out there that require you to have separate login names; one to login to the actual game and one to log in to manage your 'store account' which is also tied to your login username? Few, if any, would be my guess.

So while most online games deal with one login name. We now have to juggle two, or more, if you have more than one account. Remembering two login names would not be a big deal, if both were used actively, like if your playNC account was used to monitor your in-game stats or something more functional than 'the account I might buy playNC content with'.

Rather than use the playNC account as a move to get people to their site, it would be more convenient and less of a hassle to move the acquisition of the free content to the account that you actively use, as seen by the threads that have cropped up over the last few days.

Your #1 point about resetting your password. I was doing the same ol' trick of just typing in random names (From my account of course) until I finally got somewhere where it had me 'verify' the information by putting in my birthday and typing in a security code. Sure, great. Now we're getting somewhere. I put in the info and hit Submit. What happens next? Nothing. Not a "The information you entered was invalid" or a "Success! Your new temporary password has been sent to your email." It just goes right back to the screen where you 'verify' the information[1]. So...yeah, no. It's not my fault that Anets website is a piece of shit.

Edit: [1] I meant on the screen where you type in your account for the forgotten password, not the verification screen.

/signed ! And signed as well for my husband, who after seeing me beat my head on the keyboard for the last 36 hours, hasn't even tried to get his free pane yet.

Free storage indeed! I have now spent probably between two and three hours trying to get the NCSoft Store to link my Guild Wars account.

I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but when the horse has bit me and kicked me repeatedly, I have to say this is a very sick horse!

The only possible solution is for ANet to simply give the free storage pane away in-game through the Xunlai Agent.

The idea here was to get us to visit the NCSoft store. This idea has backfired in a royal and grand manner. I am now so disgusted with the NCSoft store that I cannot use the language this situation deserves on this forum without getting modded.

I would have been fine with a popup when I entered the game for the first time stating that my new storage pane was compliments of the NCSoft Online Store. Included could have been all of the new widgets and features the store affords me with a link to the store. The method they used would have also been fine had they had the server capacity in the first place to handle the traffic. However, it took an unreasonable amount of time to get to the promotion and to get it to work. The promotion should have been a display of how easy and well the store worked. Instead, it seemed clunky, error prone, and slow. Not the message they were trying to covey. Better luck next time NCSoft. (Make no mistake about it, I don't think this was Anet's fault)

/signed

I signed up like 2 years ago. I wrote down my username and password in this book which keeps all my personal information. I try it, and it says the information is wrong. I click on "I forgot my password" and I am prompted to enter my username and my birthdate. I try multiple birthdates (myself, parents) and none of them work. Even if it did work, it probably would have just sent an email asking me to change the password, and the email I signed up with was suspended awhile back.

/signed

i'm having the same problems a lot of folk seem to be having.... why they couldn't just make the thing available through the in game store or something....

I hate online retail, I have yet to encounter an online retail system that isn't obfuscated or round about or just designed to illicit frustration from the user.... if they wanted to "showcase" their new site, they failed.... I'll likely not be using it after this mess...

I got my free storage just fine. (I keep track of my emails and account info)

But /signed for the others so they can get theirs. I don't want anyone to miss this one time only storage.

Erm,i remember NCSoft changed their websites a while ago,are the account from that site saved to the new site?

Yes, my account was made ages ago and it worked fine on the new site.

I keep all of my online names and passwords and accounts in a spiral notebook.. it's called organization and then you don't have to worry about remembering what password went with what account and when you opened it and what special question you used. If you were organized like me this kind of thing would never happen. I also keep a backup file on a cd rom just in case the notebook disappears, but, since I am so organized that will probably never happen. Don't blame Anet/NCsoft for your disorganization learn to do something besides play games.

I didn't create the ncsoft account linked to my GW, which is an issue. But I shared an account which is EULA fodder I guess. Guild wars!

/signed

Geez i cant remember yesterday morning how can i remember something from 3 years ago. Well no storage for me and no $$$ for NCSoft for all the trouble.

/notsigned

what? did you think they'd give u free storage for sitting there? I like how we have to remember our plaync login I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE IDEA.

Aside from the fact that I COULD remember my login details (because I truly love Guild Wars), I got the storage pane just fine and then bought the other 4 that were available! (yes, i could have gotten more character slots but i don't feel like working with 20+ characters; its already so confusing as it is O_o) -- my only problem is linking my other 3 platinum edition keys with my plaync account...but i usually get a support reply soon

You can't buy the "free" pane.

You can buy 4 other panes but if you do not claim the "free" one by the end of the offer then it will remain greyed out forever.

If you could just buy it I think a lot of people would just spend the 9.99 as it is a lot easier to spend 10$ than deal with A-net Customer Service.

An advertisement for what - how poorly managed the store is? How unprepared NCSoft is for their own promotions? How badly thought-out this scheme was? How slow their support is? This advertisement's done them a disservice. If you wanted us to buy Aion, just put up an Aion splash screen when we log into the game or the in-game store.

On the contrary - most companies with more than one MMO have switched to one over-arching account linking separate game accounts, for security and convenience reasons. EA has been doing this for quite a long time with UO and some of its lesser-known games, and Mythic has been doing it with their games since they merged into EA. Sony has a similar process for the Station accounts that link your EQ/EQ2/SWG/etcetc logins together. Funcom copied the idea just before Conan launched. Blizzard is undergoing the same sort of process now as well. NCSoft's been doing it a long time. Honestly, it's the standard.

There's also a load of bs going on for people trying to access NCSoft from outside certain countries. They aren't able to even get to the screen that allows for purchasing the storage panes, so they can't even enter the code. Resopnses from tech support have basically said "sucks to be you, you can't have this".

What a crock. Especially when somebody at NCSoft could just push a damn button to give these people the free storage once they've complained they can't access it. What the hell, NCSoft / ANet?

This marketing ploy sucks.

They wanted more exposure to an ill-prepared store that has, on top of it all, idiotic regional restrictions.

A discount coupon for one of the new upgrades would've made more sense instead of luring people with a FREE ITEM.

I'm very pissed off from all of this. Now, besides not being able to access the NCsoft Store and having to go through a proxy to get a FREE ITEM, I'm even unable to purchase things from the In-Game Store. The same credit card that I've used to purchase about 700 Euros of Guild Wars throughout more than 3 years was not accepted by the moronic security measures from NCsoft. Everyone playing from China is a gold seller and good for nothing dishonest person now?

In the future, I rather stick with the entertainment derived from Steam and Impulse. I don't see them refuse my money. I used the very same credit card with them after being refused from the In-Game Store and it... just... worked... fine!!!

I cannot properly express how low I now consider Guild Wars' biased and discriminative publisher.

NCSOFT SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!