Sales and support busted ass and were working all day on these types of issues. It sucks that there appears to be a problem but everyone is getting taken care of. That team rocks.
Just a suggestion, but when facing irate consumers who bust ass for their hard earned dollars and expect a purchased product to perform as expected, dont try to defend yourself. At all.
If I buy a dinner at a restaurant and I get a meal thats not cooked right, the manager had better not give me any crap about how the chefs bust their ass....All I care about is that I get what I ordered and it gets served right. If that cant happen, then there no sense in spending the money on the product/service when there is so much competition out there these days. Times are tough, and people are more discerning with their cash nowadays. Given that, any response other than 'we deeply apologize for the problem and are working hard to rectify it' is simply inappropriate.
And now that I have said that I will lift you guys up a bit. After two days and several emails and sending support scans/pics of my receipt, box and rulebook, I was given a new serial number and was able to patch the game. So, all of you that are indeed able to comply with those particular demands will eventually get taken care of, I am sure.
But I make a decent amount of money and I buy 2 to 3 games a quarter as ones come out that I like, as do my circle of friends. My experience, while wholly immaterial to the larger picture, has been one so that none of my friends are willing to touch this game until the various bugs and issues are remedied. This is the first time in memory I have had to produce a receipt and send actual photos of a box/rulebook, and I will say it has indeed left me with a negative impression of the companies involved in this particular release.
/rant off. Have a nice day.