Reason #112 I play Guild Wars

"A screw-up in EA's Warhammer Online billing system has resulted in many players being charged upwards of 22 times for a one-month subscription, filling bank accounts with overdraft fees and the Warhammer forums with very angry players."

http://kotaku.com/5512683/warhammer-...-bank-accounts

Apparently $300 is a conservative amount for some who are reporting $500 and even a few with $1000 charges.

http://forums.warhammeronline.com/wa...cending&page=1

Hurray for no subscription for Guild Wars.

man, that blows. us guild wars players just get angry when we don't get free zkeys and don't get a large content update every month. imagine the cataclysm that would occur if such a thing happened to such a jaded bunch of players? oh damn.

I would be raging, luckily I keep enuff in my bank to get passed overdraft fees from only 22, but even so, - 400 bucks

And there went the major part of their player base. As a large part of MMO players are teenagers paying through parental credit or debit cards, I would believe that many accounts have been closed. I don't think Warhammer Online will recover from this snafu.

While something like this happening doesnt surprise me, the source does. Warhammer Online? EA? that is a pretty big screw up from a major company, the kind of thing you wouldn't expect to see.

This is why I never, ever allow automated billing.

If they can't wait for a check, they don't want my money that bad.

Amen. I'm sure Anet is watching this thinking "OOOO, potential players for GW1/2..." Hell, they'd be stupid not to think that.

New ones or returning?

Man im jsut glad anet doesnt make us pay.... this deffinatley shows u why ^_^.

Oh eww, that is bad...and for EA too. Yish.
And yeah, I never to auto payments either.

And yet, I still prefer the P2P system...

Same gw is good and all but it gets almost no new content updates because they most likely dont have funds.

no, it is cause all of their resources are being put into making GW2

Oh the irony, but damn a 22x extra charge, how will they fix that?

They don't have as many resources to start with - paying per month would allow for a few more hirings in the GW department.

considering they pumped out 3 games in a (comparatively) short amount of time they must have a decent amount of resources at their disposal, just that most of them are being used on their new, better game

Kind of correct... I'd put it more in thsi way.. The income/expenditure is in its final stages. Its not that they are all working on GW2, its that the business model for GW1 is practically completed.

If there was no GW2, then the resources would be working on something else or not be there. No income + continued expense = unhappy CEOS/shareholders = firings.

Anyway.. Im not sure Warhammer will be able to recover from this either. There will be issues over several months for EA Billing to sort out and many of these overcharged customers will be sufficiently angry to take there business elsewhere (although to what Im not sure - I havent seen anything to interest me in a while ).

Hot dog! ya i be raging! Thanks the heavens GW is free!

For those of you who have forgotten, the NCSoft online store has had its share of mess ups, including some multiple billings (which were reversed), people getting their online store accounts blocked for no good reason, and the whole free storage pane fiasco.

So if reason #112 is a mistake-free online store, you'll have to apply that to another game.

I also wonder what legal responsibility (if any) they bear financially for sending customers into bank overdraft with incorrect billing? While I don't wish them ill and I'm sure it's an honest mistake, I really feel they should pay the overdraft fees because it's their fault, not the customer's, and a mistake of this size could result in serious penalties from the bank that a player shouldn't just have to absorb. I'm not quite sure the legal aspects of the liability, but they could potentially lose even more money.

I feel bad for all involved.