mat7861 Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 So i have been playing CM games since the earliest versions of CMBO. I have bought all thier games and enjoyed them all immensly. So my computer i used to have did not run CMSF very well. I just recently bought a new computer and decided i wanted to play CMSF on it. I bought the game pretty much when it first came out. I still have the download link with my activation key and everything. I click the download link and nothing happens, it just times out. After a few times of trying it i decide to e-mail them and see what is going on. Apperently, the download link expires after 365 days.(or so the rep says). Even though i downloaded it probably 6 months a, which would mean it worked well after the first 365 days. He said i would have to buy a new copy because download link expiring is just like me losing the cd to the game. Except i didnt lose the e-mail with the key and download link, which would be like losing the cd. despiste my efforts they still want me to purchase a new copy, or "key" to the game i guess. I am pretty upset over it. Has this happened to anyone else? and is there any other way to download the game? My key is still valid so i dont see buying another a valid option, especially after his excuse as to why i have to buy another. Anyways any comments suggestions? sorry if this is wrong forum.. move to the right one if it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pvt. Ryan Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Can you transfer the game file from your old computer to your new computer and then reinstall? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat7861 Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 no i have already reformated the hard drive, if i new they were gunna pull this i would have saved the game files. Would it be possible to download it through a torrent? im not stealing the game as i would still use my key which is perfectly valid, it has only ever been installed on one computer, this would be the second. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeatEtr Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 So your saying those that bought only the DL version can't DL the game anymore at all? That doesn't sound right. I don't know much about it since I bought the physical+DL combo. The game is still being offered as DL, so don't see why you or the many others can't redownload it. Something smells fishy....... and knowing BFs track record, the odor is coming from your direction mat7861. :eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmar Bijlsma Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Now now, let's not rush to conclusions. Whom did you talk to? As this isn't the BFC I know. I was recently made aware of the 1 year DL limit but it's generally BFC habit to be accommodating. Certainly, I expect them to be so in this case if they have you in their system as having bought the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisND Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Dude, you might want to edit out that request ASAP. I don't think any gaming company is going to look too kindly on a discussion on where to torrent the game being held on their own forums. Just sayin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 ISTR that there is a suggestion that you backup your game files onto CD after you have downloaded it, but that's probably not that helpful now. Who is the Rep? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat7861 Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 How does something smell fishy from me? i bought the game, and now i cant download the game because it expires after a year, and they said thats like me losing the disc lol it rediculous. And its not battlefront, its elicense. and im not editing my post, i bought the game, i deserve to be able to play it. I did not lose the download link, if i did then that would be like losing a game disc. I have supported battlefront in all of thier releases except the current marines module. Only because i had a crappy computer. Now that i have a computer to run it i would like to play shock force but cant because i "lost" the game. I even gave them my order number but they said they could not help me. I used to read the forums way back when also. You people seemed alot more friendly back than. I ask a few question and suddenly i smell "fishy" lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat7861 Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 ISTR that there is a suggestion that you backup your game files onto CD after you have downloaded it, but that's probably not that helpful now. Who is the Rep? yeah i read the policies now and it suggests that. But i bought the game in July of 07 and do not remember reading anything like that. Im not saying i didnt it was just a long time ago. Idont know the name of the rep, i emailed elicense@battlefront.com And according to the e-mail i got they didnt care all all about me thier customer. They bsically said im screwed and the e-mail was no way in a professional manner. Im not trying to pblame battlefront. Im not going to flame them. I just want to be able to play a game i paid for. Simple as that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmar Bijlsma Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Elicence is probably just following the generic SOP. You really should contact Battlefront. I'd be very surprised if they won't hook you up with a new download after confirming your details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat7861 Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 Elicence is probably just following the generic SOP. You really should contact Battlefront. I'd be very surprised if they won't hook you up with a new download after confirming your details. Ok well if this is true that they are seperate(bfc and elicense) then i guess i will contact battlefront themselves with a copy of my receipt. Hopefully they are more professional than the elicense rep. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 I feel for ya. Cant promise the powers that be will give you a new download but knowing them they will. And yes this isnt Battlefront's rule but elicense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat7861 Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 can i not edit my thread title? I didnt intend it to sound the way it does lol. I know battlefront is a great company and has great customer service. I just now realized the way my title sounds. EDIT: also, which e-mail is the best to use to get directly to them. sales@battlefront.com or steve@battlefront.com? or is there another? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmar Bijlsma Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 sales@battlefront.com or helpdesk@battlefront.com would be your best bet. Dunno about the thread title, but hold on that more positive vibe for your email to BFC though, it's deffo the right approach. You really do catch more flies with honey then with vinegar. Because at this point in time they technically aren't required to help you with this. But I'm sure they like to, provided you don't piss them off. Just calmly give them an explanation of what happened, plus probably your details and they'll respond positively, I'm sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 mat7861, Well, there's a few things here. First, your eLicense number *never* expires. You are allowed to have two licenses in use at any given time. When you wish to remove it from a computer you are instructed to unlicense which then frees up the license for another computer. This is a pretty standard feature for digitally downloaded materials (including things like iTunes). However, it is possible to reset your licenses upon request. There's no reason to repurchase if that is your only issue. Unfortunately, it looks like it isn't. Now that you have vented and explained your position, in public, I feel that I should explain our position. I did not lose the download link, if i did then that would be like losing a game disc. Not at all equal. We're not selling a backup service, we're selling a game. You had the game and you lost it through no fault of ours. You had up to a year to install and back it up onto a harddrive (which theoretically costs you nothing) or to a disk (which costs about $1, which is far less than you saved by buying digitally). Common sense should tell you to do this even if we did not explicitly do so. I mean, companies go out of business, lose records of sales, stop supporting old product, etc. every day. So if you want to protect your investment in digital software, I suggest to you that you need to rethink your approach since your current method is obviously sub-optimal. And according to the e-mail i got they didnt care all all about me thier customer. It's not that we don't care, it's that a relationship between customer and service provider comes with expectations and limitations both ways. In this case we are obligated to provide to you the product. We did that. In return you, the customer, are responsible for your own backing up and/or keeping safe whatever you buy from us. You failed to do that. Again, you did not purchase a lifetime's backup service from us. That was never part of the arrangement so it is unreasonable to expect such a service from us since you didn't pay for it any more than someone who bought a physical product (at a higher price point, I might add) paid for a lifetime supply of CDs mailed whenever requested. Since you asked if anybody else has had this problem... to the best of my knowledge of many, many, many thousands of people who have downloaded digital product from us over the past few years we have not had a problem like this. So you are, in a sense, unique. You said the response your received from us was not professional. I beg to differ. You asked for something you are not entitled to and were told "no". I see nothing unprofessional about that. Do you see the position your actions, not ours, have put us in? Now, as I said we are interested in helping you get back up and running. We have never encountered a problem like this before so we're willing to try a different approach. Email martin@battlefront.com and he will work something out with you. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeatEtr Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 How does something smell fishy from me? I ask a few question and suddenly i smell "fishy" lol. When a question like this is asked.... Would it be possible to download it through a torrent? ... hell yes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinef Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Well i think Steve's reply is as professional and gracious as you are going to get matt. So be nice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrocles Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Well i think Steve's reply is as professional and gracious as you are going to get matt. So be nice Mat is being nice! Mat adjusted his stance to be more friendly as the thread progressed and if you look at threads above he tried to change the thread title to sound less "whiny/confrontational." WTG BFC!! They have the best customer service! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat7861 Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 meatEtr, i will say again, there is nothing fishy about me at all. And jinef i am being nice, i have not once bashed BFC, i just said I thought the elicense rep was unprofessional, doesnt mean he was, just in my eyes it seemed that way. Anyways im not trolling in any way i was just asking some questions, i woudl love to play a game i paid for thats all. i e-mailed martin so i will go with it from there. Thank you for you reply battlefront. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clavicula_Nox Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 THe same happened to me; Battlefront offered to sell me the Marines bundle at a greatly reduced price and I was more than happy. Thanks Battlefront! Also wanted to add that the rep I spoke to (From Battlefront) was completely professional and helpful throughout the entire process. In fact, I meant to shoot Steve a PM asking him to personally thank whoever it was I dealt with, but forgot, so want to make up for it by publicly thanking the individual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 As a side note, one reason why we have a 1 year period for downloading (which is more than reasonable, IMHO) is because once the time expires the person's authorization is automatically purged from the system. There's nothing inactive which exists that we can reactivate. That's just the way the software works, probably because cumulatively over years the database would become impractically large if it never purged anything. Unfortunately, there is no way to manually enter in a new authorization. The only way authorizations happen is through a purchase. And when that happens we, meaning Battlefront, get charged for that. So there is a cost to us in terms of our time and actual money out of pocket to work around the sort of problem Mat7861 experienced. Which is why we allow people 1 year to download instead of 1 month. Otherwise we'd likely have this sort of problem very frequently! Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat7861 Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 As a side note, one reason why we have a 1 year period for downloading (which is more than reasonable, IMHO) is because once the time expires the person's authorization is automatically purged from the system. There's nothing inactive which exists that we can reactivate. That's just the way the software works, probably because cumulatively over years the database would become impractically large if it never purged anything. Unfortunately, there is no way to manually enter in a new authorization. The only way authorizations happen is through a purchase. And when that happens we, meaning Battlefront, get charged for that. So there is a cost to us in terms of our time and actual money out of pocket to work around the sort of problem Mat7861 experienced. Which is why we allow people 1 year to download instead of 1 month. Otherwise we'd likely have this sort of problem very frequently! Steve well after you explained everything it made sense. I was under the impression that there was one download link where everyone who purchases online goes to download. i didnt knwo they were specific to the person who purchases. So thats my bad as far as that goes. Im not lookin for a hand our or a freebie. I just want to play CMSF. I love the gaem but comp at the time could barely handle it. Again thanks for the quick reply! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 deleted per user request Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Mat, well after you explained everything it made sense. I was under the impression that there was one download link where everyone who purchases online goes to download. i didnt knwo they were specific to the person who purchases. So thats my bad as far as that goes. No problem. As with almost everything computer related, things look simple to the end user because it's designed to be that way. But on the backend... rarely is it so simple Im not lookin for a hand our or a freebie. I just want to play CMSF. I love the gaem but comp at the time could barely handle it. Again thanks for the quick reply! No problem! Honestly, we should have a set policy for what happens when the links expire so that's what we just put into place this morning. Adam, I would have thought that if someone emailed support and said their download link wasn't working, they'd get a new one without any trouble. As I explained, this isn't easily done because the links are generated when a sale is made. The software we use doesn't allow for manual generations. Since we're not in the download link generation software writing business, it is what it is No lectures required. Well, when a customer thinks he knows how something works and then bases an opinion on that, with attached emotions, I think an EXPLANATION is in order. A better educated customer is not a bad thing, is it? You're not a backup service - you don't have the game file on an ftp for customers looking for replacements? Seems like a great idea! It's your product! As I said, it costs us money to have you guys download stuff. That cost has to be absorbed by someone. Why should it be the guy who bought a physical product or the downoader who never needs to redownload because he made a backup? To me it seems rather poor policy to jack up the prices for everybody because a few people don't take backing up as seriously as they should. It also stops people from downloading our stuff who have no business doing so. The robustness of eLicense greatly reduces the risk of this, but it's still there. And even a download by someone only to find out there is no crack available still costs us something. Having unique and time limited links is the best way to keep costs down for everybody. There should be zero, and I mean zero, reason why someone needs to redownload the product from us after successfully downloading it the first time. As I explained (or in your mind lectured) on the previous page, we are not a backup service. We do not advertise ourselves as such and we certainly don't charge for it. Therefore, there should be no expectation that it exists any more than people shouldn't expect us to send out 10 free CD replacements just because they ask for it. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pvt. Ryan Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 My download link to the CMSF Brits module stopped working. Can you please send me a replacement? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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