Ticket Purchase - Wierd Process

[boleyd]

I purchased a 1st class 1yr ticket. Payment via PayPal went ok. At the Download Station page I was told to activate the ticket. No idea why but had to. This took me to a page full of voucher stuff in which I had no interest. Eventually I saw a link to Tickets on the left side of the page and took a chance to click there. An activate link came up and I dutifully clicked it. I now saw that I was ok according to the notations except TS10 and TS12 did not have an icon beside the acknowledgment that I could use the ticket for these programs. I ignored that. I now returned to the Download Station and reloaded the page expecting to see that I now had a shiny new 1 year ticket. No, I was told it had expired. That is where I am at right now. I expect that eventually the very slow computers of Auran will catch up to the store program and I can then use the ticket. I give this a 50% chance of success.

This is one of the poorest processes I have seen to make a purchase. Apparently Auran is neither embarrassed or concerned so it will continue. It does reflect on the company a general suspicion that they do not have very good talent or very few funds to make a fluid process. But this is the gaming world and not commercial software.

 

[Hovisman]

Exactly the same thing has happened to me, except that the ticket is shown as valid until May 2012 but only for TRS2009, TRS 2006 and for the TC games, not for TS2010. The reason given is that TS2010 serial number has not been registered. It HAS and the fact shows in my profile. I have submitted a ticket to Auran, who have acknowledged and say will reply in 5 days. I bought the ticket 30th April

Dan

 

[Euphod]

Yeah, I agree that the procedure is oddly convoluted. I can only believe they have their reasons for doing it this way, but I'll be darned if I can imagine what those reasons may be!

 

[RRSignal]

I believe the activation process is intended to allow one to purchase a ticket and use it later e.g. to buy one on sale and activate it when your current ticket runs out. But, yeah, apparently a lot of folks have trouble figuring out this process and, yes, Auran most definitely should go to a more straightforward way of providing access. It may be less flexible, but it's less headache.

Try the usual procedure of resetting your account password - you can use the same one - to refresh your profile. Not sure if that will help but it might.

 

[HiBaller]

I have often thought that buying a FCT should be like buying a magazine subscription: You pay once and get 12 months. Renew at the 9 month point and get another 15 months from that point.

If you buy a FCT, why not just ADD it to your current FCT (if you have one). Making the process convoluted only muddies the water. It also allows you to forget to activate it BEFORE you current one ends (I do mine at the 24-hour mark before expiration). This causes much gnashing of teeth and swearing at the screen.

Bill

 

[iain2006]

Just discovered this problem just now when I purchased and activated a ticket. No clear notification that there would be a delay and the activation link took a bit of hunting to find.

If the site were based in the E.U. I could point out one or two breaches of the E-commerce Directive. Maybe Australian regulations aren't as strict I don't know.

 

[Jacobchgo19]

Intresting..

 

[JCitron]

Convoluted interface issues are not just an N3V issue, and happens all over the place, including internal intranet websites. The problem, I think, is too many people have added stuff and made changes to the website instead of cleaning it up and starting from scratch!

I agree simple is better, and also thinking out, planning, and of course beta testing the site before going live. This will allow the designer(s) to work on the website and make it easier to navigate.

In some ways their website reminds me of some of the sales flyers from bargain bin stores with everything all over the place and crammed into every bit of white space there is on the page.

John

 

[backyard]

Horse feathers...

I have a list of active as well as spent FCTs.

When you pay using PayPal, you will be sent a verification from both PP & N3V.

If there is money in your PP account, the payment is done...when you receive the notice from N3V, go to your Profile Page and select First Class Tickets.

From there, it is easy to activate the ticket, however you must remember that these tickets are not cumulative. That means they don't add time to the last purchased ticket...they overwrite the previous ticket.

So save activation until just before or the day the previous ticket runs out. You won't get a notice, however you can view your status in Content Manager/File/Settings(Alt+F7)/Internet.