Lol support strikes again and even with full proof

[jsm15401]

I have had a ticket on this since the compensation me and my fiancé sit next to each other and play we both buy vip and spirit covenant same time every month, we both renewed covenant the day the patch went live she got the rewards I didn't I have been fighting with support over this. we charge the same amount, same vip time and spirit covenant time. she got the rewards I didn't how is that possible.

[jabbery]

I have had a ticket on this since the compensation me and my fiancé sit next to each other and play we both buy vip and spirit covenant same time every month, we both renewed covenant the day the patch went live she got the rewards I didn't I have been fighting with support over this. we charge the same amount, same vip time and spirit covenant time. she got the rewards I didn't how is that possible.

Yes, I have talked to many in the same boat, no matter how I explained and it really could not have been clearer as they asked if I had the new cov at the time of the comp and I answerd "YES", can't get any more clear.. It would seem that the way the gem bug was handled was idential to everything else in the game, even comp being issued, it is all random and even though they give you a criteria, doesn't matter if you meet that criteria or not, if they didn't give it to you then you must be in error because they are gods, so they didn't make a mistake! lol

the support staff handling your case might not be a native english speaker, might speak a different variation of english, or might simply be too busy to read every word you wrote.

Well I have heard that excuse before from companies, it is just that an excuse. They choose to sell to a English speaking market, we did not choose this for them. If they follow markets they are unable to properly support that again is their choice, it is not the consumers problem, it is their problem to meet the market needs. The do try to make it the consumers problem but in the end bad news travels fast. If they want to screw up their market that is up to them, I know many now and that number is growing fast that choose to not have to take it from them.

Marketing 101, if you sell dissatisfaction your market shrinks quickly. That is what R2 is actually selling. You sell that when you offer something that is not delivered or no support for problems R2 induces. This generates dissatisfaction, players question the value of the company. Players protect players, they talk a lot, if 1 player is not satisfied that player will convince as many other players that they can of how dissatisfied they were. Human nature!

If you ask around, it is a simple question, what reaction do you get when you ask a player about opening a ticket? R2 should be VERY concerned about that as it is directly effecting player experience in a very negative way and it gets exponentially worse each day. 99 out of 100 players refuse to open a ticket as they know they will get zero results and only waist their time. People will only put up with so much, then finally give up, that is a really poor marketing choice for R2 as each day they slowly shrink their market, 1 upset person tells 100 people, 1 happy person tells 5.

I know of many that have stopped spending due to recent events, I know many more upset over not getting the compensation for the spirit cov like others got. It really costs them nothing to satisfy customers but it cost them thousands to not satisfy them. Many are now watching closely and have seen that the Gem bug handling was identical to the spirit cov compensation handling. It really is a laurel and hardy show!

I also know of 10-20 sylphs that did not get merged due to how R2 is handling other players, again, what did it cost them to satisfy them? I can say it has cost them an extra $6000 - $12000 in income to not satisfy them that might have cost a few hundred bucks. Stand hard on your anti-satisfaction and anti-player experience rules R2! your doing an excellent job upsetting hundreds more per day!

[R238423534]

I have had a ticket on this since the compensation me and my fiancé sit next to each other and play we both buy vip and spirit covenant same time every month, we both renewed covenant the day the patch went live she got the rewards I didn't I have been fighting with support over this. we charge the same amount, same vip time and spirit covenant time. she got the rewards I didn't how is that possible.

i had my newly created alt activated a 24-hour SC trial (just to test out the new features) some 40 seconds before i activated another 1-month SC scroll to get the new features. guess what happened? SHE GOT THE COMP PACK WHILE I DIDN'T!!! geeeeeeeeez how "optimized" is this game? fortunately now SC is nothing but one useless piece of junk that i already paid for in the past & just need to run all the scrolls out so i could get rid of another occupied box & get ready for my (toon's) retirement.

[Whakapono]

If anyone would like some assistance and have us query any tickets for you, we will gladly try to help. We do however need a ticket number, or character name, platform and server number.

If you are all happy to keep this as a vent thread, one of us Moderators will gladly move it to the discussion forum. Please do let us know which so we are able to deal to this thread accordingly. Thank you.

[R238423534]

Well I have heard that excuse before from companies, it is just that an excuse. They choose to sell to a English speaking market, we did not choose this for them. If they follow markets they are unable to properly support that again is their choice, it is not the consumers problem, it is their problem to meet the market needs. The do try to make it the consumers problem but in the end bad news travels fast. If they want to screw up their market that is up to them, I know many now and that number is growing fast that choose to not have to take it from them.

Marketing 101, if you sell dissatisfaction your market shrinks quickly. That is what R2 is actually selling. You sell that when you offer something that is not delivered or no support for problems R2 induces. This generates dissatisfaction, players question the value of the company. Players protect players, they talk a lot, if 1 player is not satisfied that player will convince as many other players that they can of how dissatisfied they were. Human nature!

If you ask around, it is a simple question, what reaction do you get when you ask a player about opening a ticket? R2 should be VERY concerned about that as it is directly effecting player experience in a very negative way and it gets exponentially worse each day. 99 out of 100 players refuse to open a ticket as they know they will get zero results and only waist their time. People will only put up with so much, then finally give up, that is a really poor marketing choice for R2 as each day they slowly shrink their market, 1 upset person tells 100 people, 1 happy person tells 5.

I know of many that have stopped spending due to recent events, I know many more upset over not getting the compensation for the spirit cov like others got. It really costs them nothing to satisfy customers but it cost them thousands to not satisfy them. Many are now watching closely and have seen that the Gem bug handling was identical to the spirit cov compensation handling. It really is a laurel and hardy show!

I also know of 10-20 sylphs that did not get merged due to how R2 is handling other players, again, what did it cost them to satisfy them? I can say it has cost them an extra $6000 - $12000 in income to not satisfy them that might have cost a few hundred bucks. Stand hard on your anti-satisfaction and anti-player experience rules R2! your doing an excellent job upsetting hundreds more per day!

reading from your other posts, i could more or less estimate your industry, position and payscale (and your asset potential as a natural by-product) if all of your words are truthful. while i respect you as a competitive and passionate player (and possibly a successful person in real life), and understand you are eager to win and you expect their service quality to be in par with the price you have paid (i know it won't be just spare changes), i'm afraid kabam/R2 might or might not be willing or able to provide what you are expecting. they are trying to sell a service to you, but how good their service is and how they choose to do support is really THEIR choice and not up to you to teach them (you can teach lessons but not decisions, sad but that's true). they are not your servants. you can't rule or manage them. you can stop spending and bad mouth them to make them lose profit, but how effective that could be and whether or not that changes them is still not under your control.

not going to dig far in this topic, but a few facts to remind you:

fact #1: how a company chooses to do business, including how they choose to treat their customers and how much they are willing to invest in customer service quality, is their choice. while profit should drive business strategy, there's nothing you can do if a company shall choose the opposite of thriving.

fact #2: how you choose to play the game, and how you choose to handle disputes and discrepancies, is your choice (provided that you play by the terms as set forth between you and the company, and the applicable procedure(s) has been properly followed). you can file support requests with the company, and if you believe they've failed to do what they should do or have breached any rules or regulations that apply, you can file complains and/or initiate appropriate legal actions against them.

fact #3: not everyone spoils or follows the "big guys". bragging about how much you spent and how much more spending potential you have would not get your voice heard/believed/followed by more people. if you want to initiate a campaign, i'd suggest you stick to the facts and share more horror stories of how bad their service is, and possibly do some solid things that benefit the gaming community. i'm not saying you need to do that, just saying doing so would probably help you more. besides, no one except for the staff has a way to verify what you are saying about your toon or to ensure you are the same person who plays the toon under this name any ways

as a last line, i always hope everyone who deserves this comp pack gets it without having to jump through hoops. i'm not going to "fight" for mine, as my last bit of interest to buy anything in this game or to "compete" is already gone months ago. i have no regret on what i've already spent in this game, and still appreciate all the good people i got to know for my 2.5 years in game. there had been happy days that i still miss. the game was simple and fun in its primitive form; just its evolution has gone south. there's no come back for all the friends who had rage quit, so i'm just here to hang out with the few remainders and counting down on its demise together.

[R238423534]

...If you are all happy to keep this as a vent thread, one of us Moderators will gladly move it to the discussion forum. Please do let us know which so we are able to deal to this thread accordingly. Thank you.

i agree it should be moved to discussions board.

[jabbery]

For the moderators: This thread is still progressing on the ticket issue, had to digress a little to make a point so we could get back to it.

fact #1: how a company chooses to do business, including how they choose to treat their customers and how much they are willing to invest in customer service quality, is their choice. while profit should drive business strategy, there's nothing you can do if a company shall choose the opposite of thriving.

fact #2: how you choose to play the game, and how you choose to handle disputes and discrepancies, is your choice (provided that you play by the terms as set forth between you and the company, and the applicable procedure(s) has been properly followed). you can file support requests with the company, and if you believe they've failed to do what they should do or have breached any rules or regulations that apply, you can file complains and/or initiate appropriate legal actions against them.

fact #3: not everyone spoils or follows the "big guys". bragging about how much you spent and how much more spending potential you have would not get your voice heard/believed/followed by more people. if you want to initiate a campaign, i'd suggest you stick to the facts and share more horror stories of how bad their service is, and possibly do some solid things that benefit the gaming community. i'm not saying you need to do that, just saying doing so would probably help you more. besides, no one except for the staff has a way to verify what you are saying about your toon or to ensure you are the same person who plays the toon under this name any ways

as a last line, i always hope everyone who deserves this comp pack gets it without having to jump through hoops. i'm not going to "fight" for mine, as my last bit of interest to buy anything in this game or to "compete" is already gone months ago. i have no regret on what i've already spent in this game, and still appreciate all the good people i got to know for my 2.5 years in game. there had been happy days that i still miss. the game was simple and fun in its primitive form; just its evolution has gone south. there's no come back for all the friends who had rage quit, so i'm just here to hang out with the few remainders and counting down on its demise together.

Correct, all true. I sorta said that, lol but also incorrect, oh man.. lol

Now we are getting somewhere Back to the ticket handling issue.

What starts a change? Ooh correct and that is running, players supporting players. There is a lot to that and it has nothing to do with how much was spent.

The lack of satisfaction in the ticket system exists and is growing. Players just like you believe there is no point to open a ticket as they always fail to satisfy so why try. The handling of compensation is becoming more clear (i.e. the player beside you got it and you did not knowing you meet the criteria for whatever reason), being fair.

So back to what starts a change? Change does not mean get a bigger gun than the other guy, change starts with consumers working together to create a loud enough voice to be heard when saying there is a problem. Often at first there is a bit of weight tossed around to get the other side listening. Did you know that was operating and building?

Things like consumer protection acts in many countries who started them? Merchants? No consumers grouped together to tell merchants there are boundaries to consumer value and that consumers have rights. The TOS in not so many words says consumers here have no rights. A consumer here is not defined only as one who spends money or how much they spend although there are costs to the handling of problems.

R2's choice to stand behind the TOS. Its consumers choice to accept it or have it changed. R2 won't change it if it suits their needs and doesn't care or know who likes it if nobody stands up to say there is a problem. The odd player here and there is not loud enough.

Having moderators forced to be in the middle on piles of tickets is not the answer! Thats a make work project that should have never needed to start. The tickets have to be handled and consumers satisfied. If it takes a middle man is a strong indicator there is a problem.

[Whakapono]

For the moderators: This thread is still progressing on the ticket issue, had to digress a little to make a point so we could get back to it.

Am happy the ticket is in a sense progressing. If you or anyone else here do need any help, feel free to PM one of us moderators requesting a ticket number is bumped and such.

I will forward this last statement to support, in hopes the feedback will help them get better. Us moderators moderate the forum. We do not handle tickets, but if something needs to be urgently handled, we can shine a light on the ticket in question. Where possible, we try to handle problems here on the forum, to try to avoid the need of a ticket, which in turn will hopefully lighten their work load and speed the progress up. All good in theory, but if things need to be handled on the character side of things (missing items etc), a ticket is needed as we do not have access to the game itself.

To help lighten ticket load, there is always the request for 'players helping players'. I hear you laughing but hear me out. We help each other in game via our guild (or if small enough, our smaller people on server). Voluntary positions are always open for players who would also like to help the wider community. It may take a while to hear back, but there are places to apply for such positions such as Moderator or Mentor.

Saying all that, I will move this thread to the discussion forum. Again I will state if you do need help with a ticket being bumped, you're welcome to flick one of us moderators a PM so it is seen. Feel free to continue discussion, just be mindful to keep to the 'Forum rules' when doing so.

*Readies bunker*

[jabbery]

To help lighten ticket load, there is always the request for 'players helping players'. I hear you laughing but hear me out. We help each other in game via our guild (or if small enough, our smaller people on server). Voluntary positions are always open for players who would also like to help the wider community. It may take a while to hear back, but there are places to apply for such positions such as Moderator or Mentor.

I would love to believe that, I want to believe that.

I don't' honestly know the statistics, they would be nice to see. I can assume from spending more than 2 years listening to players that less than 1% of all tickets are resolved to the players satisfaction. I also know that of that 1% the moderators try to help if they have enough information. The issue is the other 99%. All players helping players in this sense is doing I think is making it more work, more upsetting to players and finally a resolution. By the time mediators are brought in it is way too late, feelings are through the roof. It should never get there of if it does it should be very rare.

I also know that in this setting a good chunk of the tickets are actually not R2's problem, hence tier 1 supports job to determine who's problem it is. That said the problem is effecting the players experience playing R2's game so that partially places the problem onto support to resolve. Part of this group of problems in a way is the game design itself that causes the problem (the game being designed to run on premium Internet services and very high end computers). That said the problems link back to a R2 problem and support needs to have a better way to explain these things to players to resolve tickets. Players are not computer and support technicians, they don't understand they just want to play. The medium the game operates on becomes supports problem. i.e. if your factory alternator manufactured by who knows who's company fails in your G M vehicle, G M fixes it, they don't blame it on something else and refuse to do anything about it. G M choose to use it in their build (the medium) and they don't blame the fault on the clients and ignore it.

I also know from past tickets that if support does not understand they often do not ask questions and send back a blanket response that is completely unrelated to the problem.

I can't remember the details but I opened a ticket once and laughed my head off for a week on the result. I know many wanted to reach through the internet and choke someone but I thought it was funny. To make it generic, I opened a ticket and said my apple tasted bad and was not working, they replied here is how to fix your steak, cook it like this. Unfortunately many users would have spend an hour following their instructions and then still had the problem! So that satisfies who how?

Support has evolved over the years and learned that they play a key role in marketing. Marketing efforts are hugely hampered if support doesn't satisfy clients or spends all their time pointing fingers. Companies spend a massive amount of money on marketing and they want their marketing dollars maximized not hindered, this was learned in this evolution. R2 I think missed that. i.e. the concept of giving away $5 of product to allow marketing to make $10,000 as failure to satisfy will effect hundreds of clients.

Marketing has also evolved, they learned you can't say "people come first" as a marketing campaign and then within a few weeks of getting new clients with that campaign them hearing over and over again they don't so therefore the statement is a lie to make money. So marketing evolved to change the companies client face to meet their campaign needs to drive the company forward. If they don't they spend a pile of money to get where they already are.

I just seen a ticket opened on a bug that was clearly proved to be a bug and support told the player the problem is the natural function of the game and to buy the spirit cov, that was not handled well at all. Anyone getting that hears "ya whatever, don't care but if you spend more money you can fix it for us". Support should have acknowledged the bug and noted as a possible work around the spirit cov might solve the players problem as it could take a long time to get it solved but they are working on it. The difference here is not the solution as the solution in both statements was the same but the player feels like they were acknowledged. Maybe heaven forbid reward the player for taking the time to notify support of a problem like maybe a 15 day spirit cov... whooa client satisfaction or what! (that can be abused of course so caution there, maybe to the first few that report it)

Support also evolved to have a self monitor in place to monitor the satisfaction level they provide. Then they use this information to better themselves.