In case the whole single-day-badges-only announcement didn't rock your world, here's a shattering new announcement: pre-registration will be "randomized."
Just typing that word twists my gut with anxiety. Here's the deal; CCI recognizes that current process of everyone trying to get a badge at the same second has been "extremely problematic." You don't say. So they've come up with a solution - a randomized waiting room. We'll all be assigned a time frame in which we can log into the waiting room prior to the sale. Once the sale goes live, everyone inside the waiting room will be randomly assigned to a registration session and processed in that random order. This is NOT tied to the time you entered the waiting room.
In other words, it just got a lot harder to game the system. Having eight laptops blazing away won't do you any good; you can only use your member ID on one device to get into the waiting room, as far as I can tell, and then you'll just have to cross your fingers and hope for the best.
Since you can buy for yourself and 2 others, it's in your interest to team up with two other friends to triple your chances of getting a good session assignment. But that begs the question; if all three of you are hanging out in your individual sessions, can the first one up to bat still buy your badge for you under your Member ID? Even though that Member ID is currently logged into the system? What if two friends get called up at roughly the same time and they both try to buy badges for each other?
CCI states they feel this is the fairest option possible, and even hinted it would reduce the stampede and ensuing technical meltdowns. You'll have to forgive my skepticism on that front. However, I do appreciate that they are trying to fix a problem that clearly has no perfect solution.
So all of you "make it a lottery" advocates should feel victorious - this is your day. The rest of us will put aside our ninja registration tricks and suffer the randomization process. Will it go like this for real Registration Day? It's a safe bet.
As for when Pre-reg will be - all they've said is it won't be this weekend, Feb 1. And so the endless vigil continues.
When you enter during your time frame, can you be kicked out of the waiting room?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised, since that's happened before to many people. CCI says they've done all kinds of testing, and that this year will go smoothly, but a registration day without glitches would be a first. We'll just have to wait and see.
DeleteSo, why make us enter a waiting room within a two-hour window, then rush to complete the purchase process? If you're going to randomize the position in line, that's effectively a lottery. Give me a week (or more) to visit the site, make my selections, enter my credit card information, and leave. At the end of the week (or more), queue up all the purchases in random order, and complete them as you can.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, we're still at the mercy of your servers, and network issues, and our ability to type credit card numbers. You could remove all those variables if you did a pre-order instead.
It is definitely a lottery. I like your idea, though. It's a lot more peaceful.
DeleteIt seems you've capitulated to the lottery advocates. What you've implemented is a lottery. But why the short waiting room window, and the rushed purchase process? Why not have a week or more to enter all my purchase details (tickets I want, payment info, etc.). Then at the end, complete purchases in random order.
ReplyDeleteThat way, you remove all the variables of network, server, and browser issues, and everything is truly fair.
Sorry for the double comment. The first time, it didn't acknowledge that my comment was posted, and it seemed to be lost. I couldn't remember exactly what I wrote, but tried again.
ReplyDeleteNo worries. I actually have to approve comments, since I'm bombarded by spammers, and sometimes my phone won't let me approve them on the fly - so there's a delay.
Delete