CE Upgrade Closed Early? WTF? Time Cards unavailable!?

[Oridus]

Originally Posted by Oz-

Well this is total bull. I had to wait until I got paid today to do my upgrade to CE and the date is the 22nd! Today is STILL the 22nd!! I understand there was a decent sized window after the release but considering the date given was the 22nd I planned on the 22nd since it landed on a payday (due to other bills and such I needed my tiny paychecks for).

So I get home from work a 6:30EST to find its not on the shop anymore? If the date is the 22nd it shouldn't have been taken off the shop until the 23rd. This really isn't fair considering the outrageous cost of wings via in game currency.

My only hope is Ayase catches this thread and provides some sort of alternative to the early removal of the CE Upgrade option. Tried calling two different Customer Support departments which just so happen to be on Central Time Zones not Western Time as I thought. So getting home at 6:30PM EST means my call and likely my CE Upgrade was just 30 minutes to late. Really, REALLY, not fair.

Suppose I'm doomed to land 45 seconds before everyone who didn't wait till the last day. =/

Pretty freakin disappointed here... honestly. Mid day closing on the announced date is seriously bad business.

--
[[PlayNC Game Time Cards - Non-Accessible]]
Speaking of bad business. I had to spend an extra $3.00 to get a stupid Walmart Visa MoneyCard and dropped $25.00 on the prepaid balance. Why? $15 for my next month of Aion and $10 for the CE Upgrade.

So why am I buying a Walmart MoneyCard to pay for Aion? I don't have Debit Card, Credit Card, or PayPal as payment options. So naturally I visit my local Best Buy to snag a PlayNC Time Card. Not only does my local Best Buy not have any but neither does the other 5 Best Buy's within 40 miles of me.

So I leave Best Buy disappointed and visit 2 Wal-Marts and 2 Targets. Non of them have the PlayNC cards. I found out at the 2nd Wal-Mart that they don't even carry these. Yet they carry IJJI, Runescape, Warhammer, and World of WarCraft cards.

The majority of the community may have Credit/Debit options available but I'm willing to bet there is a good chunk of Aion subscribers that go through hell or have to borrow cards or accounts or find other outside methods to attain a way to pay for their subscription.

Seriously, NCSoft is supposed to be the "Leader In Online Gaming" and yet your GameTime Cards are no where to be found? Not only can they not be found but not a single employee I spoke to at any of the locations I visited even had any information about such a Game Time Card. Not even GAMESTOP knew anything about them. NOTHING! Not a drop of information anywhere at these supposed vendors.

So, what's going on NCSoft? Ayase? Anyone? Dropping the CE Upgrade before the end of day on the announced date, Oct. 22nd AND Time Cards are unavailable at all local retail locations. Someone's dropping the ball here. I very much enjoy Aion but I'm not willing to hunt down Time Cards or pay an extra $3.00 a month for this crappy Walmart Visa MoneyCard just to play the game. As of current and without any further information I'm not going to have a choice but to cancel my Aion account because $15.00 is stretching it as it is but paying $18.00/mo simply because time cards are not readily available just isn't in my budget and isn't fair when majority of the rest of the community is paying the standard $15.

Bottomline.

I really hope Ayase or this other new community manager has some suggestions, solutions, or compensation of some form to deal with these issues.

It would be exceptional if NCSoft was to extend the CE Upgrade period an extra day or two so other 'last minuter's' can have their last minute option.

At the VERY least something needs to be done about making the PlayNC Time Cards a priority to distribute to the major local retailers. The last time I had to hunt one of these down was for Exteel and I drove ~35 miles to a Best Buy that set aside their last TWO. Note that they didn't only have TWO due to these being hot sellers, no this was all they received with their shipment. I asked the employee to check their RSS and see how often they get those cards and these were the ONLY TWO they had received inside of a month. I mean really? Only TWO cards in a month were sent to ONE Best Buy when there are at least 5 others within 30 miles of it?

Where's my violin

[Gax]

Target and Best Buy do carry the cards. However Best Buy has them on Back order and Target is only available online.

[Kunari]

Originally Posted by Oz-

Meh, as explained briefly in a previous post, some issues happened with my previous bank. I owe my bank a decent chunk of cash on my now closed account, which I had to fight to get closed. So, 'dude I'm 26 and dealing with the real world and its craptastic economy.'
Welcome to Obama's United States of Poordom.
In all seriousness I'm in a temporary bind where every dollar counts. I made a financial decision to pay my rent, cell phone, car insurance, and cable bills first. Are you suggesting it would've been wiser to delay those for a CE Upgrade? Or perhaps I should be sure to spend myself down to $0.00 rather than hold onto $50 for some food.

When you're not with a stable income in this economy it sucks bad. Quite frankly I expected these kinds of replies but out of everything I wrote out in this thread you really still feel the need to home in on my financial issues that've taken place over the past 2-3 weeks? I mean, seriously.

Back on Topic?

I think (and yes off-topic ill get to the topic soon) that if america stops trying to kiss the butts of every other country by sending them money, and worry about its ouwn self, that we can fix some of the damage and have more money for OUR people.

now , on topic..

well ok, off again. but i understand your not having a bank account, i was 20 when i first got mine.

OK.. now on.. I think you made a valid point. it says until the 22nd. that should mean to the end of the 22nd , not halfway inbetween days. and i have not seen any NC cards anywhere (i live in Florida)

[Freyar]

OK.. now on.. I think you made a valid point. it says until the 22nd.

You failed English, didn't you?

~nyerk

[Rappaport]

Originally Posted by Stromm

That's odd. The Walmart's and Gamestops (Well, EBGames in Canada) all carry the PlayNC Time Cards and have them in large quantities. Makes me wonder if the US divisions of these companies made a conscience decision to not carry large quantities of them.

I work at walmart and my store has never carried them. Talked to the guys at the local gamestop and the company filtered them out due to lack of people playing NCSoft games and buying cards.

[Whyme]

You older guys should REALLY get bank accounts. You keep all your money in a matress somewhere? Just having one helps you get other things in life and establish some sort of economic history even if you do not use it.


I think ncsoft also takes paypal. So if you got a bank account and paypal account, cant you just pay with that? Move some money into your paypal from your bank every month and pay there..

[Tamat]

Hey all,

Thanks for reporting this and for your patience. We've been working internally to get this back online and should have an update on Monday about when you’ll have another chance to upgrade to CE. At this point we’ll probably be opening it back up for 48 hours sometime next week. Stay tuned!
__________________
Soar Safely,
Tamat ~ Andrew Beegle
Community Manager

[Valkiri]

Originally Posted by Tamat

Hey all,

Thanks for reporting this and for your patience. We've been working internally to get this back online and should have an update on Monday about when you’ll have another chance to upgrade to CE. At this point we’ll probably be opening it back up for 48 hours sometime next week. Stay tuned!
__________________
Soar Safely,
Tamat ~ Andrew Beegle
Community Manager

Thanks Tamat!

I should have read up more on the CE last month. I really thought it was just a fancy box and a fun/useful free title. I didn't know about the lv30 wings, so I was bummed I missed my chance at them. Good to know we get another chance.

[Skeppers]

Hey OP, you can have mine free of charge, the game is gonna fall harder than AoC anyway. And I dont buy anything what Tamat says, he's full of shite, and is gonna be struggling for more subs.....later scrubs

[Adoniel]

Originally Posted by Skeppers

Hey OP, you can have mine free of charge, the game is gonna fall harder than AoC anyway. And I dont buy anything what Tamat says, he's full of shite, and is gonna be struggling for more subs.....later scrubs

aren't you the "drunken idiot" from a post earlier this morning? Anyhow...thanks Tamat.

[Aegrez]

Originally Posted by Tamat

Hey all,

Thanks for reporting this and for your patience. We've been working internally to get this back online and should have an update on Monday about when you’ll have another chance to upgrade to CE. At this point we’ll probably be opening it back up for 48 hours sometime next week. Stay tuned!
__________________
Soar Safely,
Tamat ~ Andrew Beegle
Community Manager

Thanks Tamat. Hope the EU people will have the chance too to upgrade to CE again.

[Oz-]

Originally Posted by Tamat

Hey all,

Thanks for reporting this and for your patience. We've been working internally to get this back online and should have an update on Monday about when you’ll have another chance to upgrade to CE. At this point we’ll probably be opening it back up for 48 hours sometime next week. Stay tuned!
__________________
Soar Safely,
Tamat ~ Andrew Beegle
Community Manager

Truly excellent news. Now if I can just figure out why the last $10 on my Walmart Money Card apparently disappeared at 5am this morning. ><

I really hate this thing. LOL

[Linx]

Originally Posted by Tamat

Hey all,

Thanks for reporting this and for your patience. We've been working internally to get this back online and should have an update on Monday about when you’ll have another chance to upgrade to CE. At this point we’ll probably be opening it back up for 48 hours sometime next week. Stay tuned!
__________________
Soar Safely,
Tamat ~ Andrew Beegle
Community Manager

Wow good news, Ty

[Joebroni]

Yep, tyvm! You can have my money come Monday!

[Elendiel]

For all you people making comments about what OP should or shouldn't do with his money and flaming him for not having a bank account, grow up. Not everyone in this country was born with everything handed to them, in fact it's full of people who are down on their luck and have money problems. Is that such a horrible thing? At least he's out working and doing what he can to budget his money. Should he lock himself up and not spend a dime or enjoy life at all cause things are rough? It makes me sick to hear you people comment so negatively on someone's misfortune. Now as far as how long he waited meh, he probably should have tried to do it earlier but he never claimed he was owed anything, he only put his situation out to see if Ayase or Tamat could do anything about it which is perfectly reasonable AND it seems they think so too since the issue is being addressed. In closing maybe all you arrogant silver spoon feed nyerkers will learn your lesson and know what it's like for money to be tight. But probably not so try and think before you respond to things that you have no knowledge or experience with.