Registration and Installation Problems.

[SimBurger 0]

Ive been pretty vocal about supporting this game, but admittedly had never tried to play it yet.  I ran into several issues during the installation, registration, and set up process.  Can someone tell me where I can email this to Monte Cristo?

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

1)  Trying to install the program, it sits there with absolutely nothing happening on the screen.  For nearly a minute and a half I saw a splash screen of the earth.  Nothing was happening.  So I clicked on the screen with my mouse, which then caused the "EXE" file to freeze, and Windows displayed the "This program is not responding, do you want to close it or wait?"   Wow.   So I clicked wait. 

2)  After about 2 minutes I finally saw a tiny "percentage" bar appear.  Meanwhile the splash image continued to change, but it was grayed out - basically stuck in the "frozen program" faded display.  It never recovered through the entire install process.  hmm.

3)  Upon first loading the game, you take the user to registration.  Upon completing registration, you're taken to the main CitiesXL page.  On this page appears that popup asking if you "only want to load the secure items" on the page.  Its an HTPS page, so simply copy your web files into the HTTPS directory. 

4)  The main Cities XL page itself says absolutely nothing about what to do next.  No instructions at all.  Nothing saying "Check your email to click the validation link and enter your product key". 

5)  As a result, I did what made sense.  I tried to log in and start the game.  I entered my username SimBurger and my password.  I received an error stating  "Invalid Characters in Login".  I rentered it, knowing that i was not putting any invalid "characters" in my login.  It still rejected me.  So again I sat there, completely stumped.  Fortunately, I figured out that the problem may be the capital letters.  I changed that, and it accepted the login.  Please fix this.  Capital letters are not considered "invalid characters" by any software standard.  If they are invalid for your purposes, you need to adjust the error message to clarify that logins should be all lowercase.  "Invalid Characters" is vague and will confuse a lot of people.

6)  It accepted my login and then said "Invalid Login or Password".  No other explanation.  Wow.  Unreal. Again I sat there, stumped.  Here is where you should probably notify the customer that they need to check their email address to validate their account first.  You may have seen others complaining that their game doesn't work.  It's because of this.  Providing zero information is not logical nor user friendly. 

7)  So I checked my email and clicked the link.  Not surprisingly, even the email itself says absolutely nothing about needing to click the link before being able to play the game.  Where are all the instructions people need?

  So I clicked the link, and true to form, after entering the product key, you again send me back to the Cities XL main page, which again asks me if I want to load "unsecure" content.  There is no confirmation message that my game has been unlocked, that I can now log in and play - nothing.

9)  Finally I was able to log in.  By the way - the word you want on the button is "Connect"  Not "Connection".  Not a big deal, but slightly incorrect grammar.

The lack of explanations and useability reflect poor design and planning.  Hopefully the game itself will flow better.

SimBurger

[gnomonite 0]

Hi

You can e-mail your queries to the support people. The e-mail ID should be in one of the order confirmation e-mails.

I am sorry but the issues you have stated don't seem to be an issue with the "game" itself.

1 & 2) I faced absolutely no issue with the installation. It went very smooth. I have un-installed this game and installed it twice without any problem whatsoever.

3) I have opened the main cities xl page in IE, Firefox and Chrome and was never asked about the loading of unsecure items. If you are using IE, check your IE settings.

4) It does say to check your e-mail after you have registered. Just underneath the menu, a solid blue box is displayed and its clearly written that you can proceed to check your e-mail. I agree it maybe a bit smaller in size but it is there.

5) While you were registering, you may have noticed that theres a difference between your nickname and username. Nickname is used on the cities xl website and in the chat in the Planet Mode and Username is what is used to login into the game. While you are entering your nickname, you can enter upper case letters, and if you noticed, when you try to enter uppercase letters in the username box, it automatically converts the whole username to lowercase text.

6) umm..kinda irrelevant. I find the "If I wasn't so used to these types of things, I would have no idea what was wrong" line funny. Cmon dude, every account creation for anything nowdays requires the person to validate the account from the e-mail. It is a security measure to ensure the e-mail is valid.

7) The email clearly, and in a decent sized font says, You are 1 click away from activating your Cities XL account! n order to verify your email address, please click on Click here to validate your email address below.

9) I agree. It should have been Connect. But every company has its reasons. Frankly I do not care if its connection or connect or click here to login.  Maybe they will correct this with a patch or something.

[logan86 1]

it is funny though that they didnt even check about the whole 'connection' thing. the old city life was funny like that too with some quirky spelling and grammar.

[Androv 6]

I think they're based in France, so not all of their English translations are going to be perfect ...

[Kredit 0]

Actually, I'd say "Connection" is fine... it's the button that you press when you want a connection, so it says "connection".

Sure, if the text is supposed to literally describe the "action" the button will perfom, yes, it should be "connect". However, who says it has to? Nitpicking, at best.

Regarding the other problems... I agree to an extent that the installation process isn't perfect, but the examples mentioned here I'd hardly call real issues.

[niloluiz 21]

Originally posted by: SimBurger

The lack of explanations and useability reflect poor design and planning.  Big time.  Hopefully the game will be better.

SimBurgerquote>

You are absolutely right, and it's not the pre-game aspects that reflect lack of planning and amadorism. The CD -KEYs not being impressed in the game handbook like any normal game, and instead being sended by EMAIL!? this is one major example. The support is also typical mom-and-daddy company style: Only e-mail, when the ideal would be a on-line helpdesk where you open a ticket about any issue and get a answer. The beta had the ticket system and I believed that they would adapt that  to work as a support system for the final product.... but no. Not even an official forum to report problems and flaws so they can be quickly corrected....

About the game everybody purchased, it have a BETA CLIENT inside the commertial DVD (build 1.0.297). Only after 120Mb of patching the game becomes the true release version. And still, zero ambient sound. Just interface click sounds and music.

The game was plagued by complete absence of planning. Many many things was pointed during the beta, even by professionals from the gaming industry, but few things was corrected, the marketplace being one major example.

Oddly, MC is a veteran company, at least by the time criteria since it has almost 15 years of existence. Also it's not a minuscle company: It has more than 80 employees, which for a developing studio is a significant number.

Well I guess that's theyr "style" of operation so who is interested in the game will have to bear with this.

[SimBurger 0]

I dont mean to nitpick. Honestly. But to the first guy who responded saying he had no problems at all.  That's fine, but the issues I raised did occur. 

I swear that through the entire process I did not see a single bit of "helper" text anywhere, telling me what to do "next". Nowhere.

The program freezing during install was very weird too, because it wasn't really frozen, it was still going.

I checked the Cities XL home page three times and never saw any notifications in a blue bar like you mention. If it was there, it blended in so much with the rest of the page that it was unnoticeable.

As far as my IE settings and the "Insecure" popup - I have a base install of IE 8 without any modified settings, so I do represent the majority of users. Its an HTTPS page. Some images are not housed in an HTTPS directory on that page. This is a web design flaw as far as I know. Not a problem with my browser settings.

I do have to say that once I got into the game, everything seemed very well done. Honestly.  Based on knowledge of development teams, I am willing to bet someone was in charge of the registration process, and someone else was in charge of the game itself.  The team in charge of the registration process isn't very good. I know its nit picking so I apologize. I dont like ot be "that guy". But first impressions ....

I do think the avatar customization tools are poorly designed for useability. The whole "Random" option combined with the four checkboxes above was very confusing for me.   I've never used an avatar customizer before though.  Clicking "Last Avatar" doesn't work.   It shows you a completely different one than what you just saw. 

The Avatar appearance was the most unappealing thing about the process though.  They were a mixture of Fat Albert, Jabba the Hut, Napoleon Dynamite, Jar Jar Binks, and Roseanne Arnold. None were even slightly appealing.  So I sat there for 15 minutes clicking through them trying to find the least disgusting looking one. I finally figured out you can adjust their face, etc.   Is that just how most Europeans look without adjustments?  (ha ha)

I do this stuff for a living (useability testing), but I am new to "Games", so some of my comments might seem clueless. 

Hope to see you guys on the planet!   By the way, why did the USA planet get such an ugly name? Haha ... Pollux? Like Bullocks?

SimBurger.

[JanYpe 17]

read

[SimBurger 0]

Great -

So I wake up this morning and want to start the game.

But there is no icon.

Anywhere.

Nothing in the programs list. 

Nothing on my desktop.

I did a search in the programs list for "citiesxl" and an icon appears.

I click it.

And this happens.  Can someone tell me how im supposed to start the program?

[SimBurger 0]

Ok so basically the program icon is not placed where its accessible.  There are two files in the CitiesXL directory .... CitiesXL_game.exe and CitiesXL.exe

The latter I believe is the correct one, but half the time I click it , I still get the above error looking screen.

Is this another bug I should report?

I also found this bug in the hover tag (when hovering over the "4" grayed out elites icon)

[Voideka 0]

I can't even get a verification email. I mailed their support about it, but I haven't even gotten an email confirming they got my request. I thought Monte Cristo was a fairly established name? This is feeling very frustrating and unpolished.

[rolltide09 0]

At least you guys can get into the game and play it. My registration is still messed up. I've had ZERO support from Monte Cristo on this after 72 hours of waiting...not even a peep other than some random responses on their facebook site. The registration process, contrary to what anyone who's had good luck with it says, is a total disaster. They've basically told me to register a second time with a different user/nickname/email, etc. I tried that, but the product key from my purchase is already attached to my old user...so I can't attach it to my new user. Crazy, eh?

[MontrealEst 0]

I cant even Install the game, I freeze at the earth installation thing, how did you ever get past it? I have waited for 1/2 an hour. I am currently talking to costumer service, but so far they haven't been any help. I havent got the game to work ever since it arrived in the mail a week ago. My computer meets all the system requirements too and I REALLY WANNA play the GAME!

[voodoo02 0]

Originally posted by: MontrealEst

I cant even Install the game, I freeze at the earth installation thing, how did you ever get past it? I have waited for 1/2 an hour. I am currently talking to costumer service, but so far they haven't been any help. I havent got the game to work ever since it arrived in the mail a week ago. My computer meets all the system requirements too and I REALLY WANNA play the GAME!quote>

I am still waiting for a valid CD Key, I had registration issues in the beginning and had to disable a spambot on my ISP email settings to get CXL's emails. But now that I got the validation email I run into another issue an invalid CD key. So I am waiting for my new one.... TWP Direct said I should get one tomorrow.... Better or I will be asking for a refund! Because I had this game for 9 days and haven't played it at all........

I submitted my CD key problem last Saturday with phone support.

[gagewhylds 0]

Having sooo many problems right now. Install wasn't doing anything for 30min now my disk drive sounds like it's going to explode. At least it's something new though. Can't wait for the next stage of annoyance you describe.

[MontrealEst 0]

Oh, I have the CD key, but it won't install, whagt is the costomer service number? I have been communicating through email....

[voodoo02 0]

Originally posted by: MontrealEst

Oh, I have the CD key, but it won't install, whagt is the costomer service number? I have been communicating through email....

quote>

North America support number is 800-647-3656. For TMPWDirect

Its now been 1 week since I requested a new "valid" CD key and TMPWDirect has failed to deliver....... This is the first time I have EVER did I own a game that I was not able to play because of a invalid CD key.....

Another weekend I have a useless $40 dollar game unplayed.........

[MontrealEst 0]

I think you should try contacting Monte Cristo directly for the CD key problem. www.citiesxl.com/feedback If you haven't already that is.