I hate the new customer service window

[Tweedledea]

I don't plan to Sony-bash. I emplore anyone reading this post not to start a flame war or make inflammatory posts. I respect the right of the mods to lock this if they feel it is inappropriate. But I have a legitimate grievance with a new EQ feature, and I feel this WILL affect tradeskillers.

Case study 1: Zillia's froglok stone

Zillia was pleased and surprised to find that when she recharged her froggy illusion stone, it came back with over 220 charges, when 1 charge was the norm. 'Great' she thought. She used it in raids for fun and shrink-value, and also as an insta-clicky.
One day she clicked on her clicky and nothing happened. She looked at the froglok stone - it was down to 0 charges, although the previous day it had over 200. Zillia realised she'd probably been living on borrowed time since it was recharged, but petitioned using the new window to see the GM's explanation.

GM's explanation: It only APPEARED to have over 200 charges, it was just a graphical error.

Oh please. Anyone stupid enough to believe that is too stupid to own a computer, let alone play EQ. So the 30 or 40 times I put on froglok illusion, were just a figment of my imagination, right? Can I respond to this ticket? No, becasue the GM has closed it.

Case study 2: Zillia's bugged res timer

Zillia pootled off to a doomed RZ raid. When it finally failed and she died, it was gone midnight, so she logged, in order to get a res the next evening after work. The next evening a kindly cleric came to res her, and told her the res timer had expired. This was indeed the case - the timer appeared to indicate that it had been clocking down since death, despite a) me being logged off b) my computer being off and c) my being asleep or at work for the entire time.

Zillia petitions, explaining clearly when/where this happened, that she has been offline for the entire time since death, and that her corpse is unresable.

GM's response: A cut-and-paste answer informing me at great length that my res timer ticks down even when I am in server select screen or bazaar mode. Well, DUH. I already explained I wasn't. Can I respond to this ticket? No, because the GM has closed it.

I think this system COULD have been great. Unfortunately the reality is that GMs have taken this as an opportunity to feed implausible, patronising, and downright innacurate answers to players with a problem, leaving them NO OPPORTUNITY for rational discussion. No more talking to a GM to clarify, because they close your ticket. You get your stupid, irrelevant, wrong answer, and that's your lot. Got a problem with it? Petition again and get the same treatment.

It sucks. IMHO.

[Lothay]

This really doesn't belong here. It really belongs on Sony's boards. Your impassioned comments about errors are heart-felt but neither case has anything to do with tradeskills, nor anything other than a brush with customer service that was unpleasant.

You're allowed to unwind a bit in the PSR, and I understand your frustration. But you tread a very fine line here.

I'm leaving this thread open, for now, but the moment any thing that appears to be Sony-Bashing, flaming, or the like starts, I'll close it. Please be judicious in your comments or responses to this thread.

Thank you,

[Minta Rose]

I can only think of one multi-part question: How long was the turnaround time? and would the old petition system have answered you yet?

[Tweedledea]

Point taken Lothay. I took the view that this is something that will probably affect many of us at some point, as I'm sure it will affect me as a tradeskiller next time a vendor I need goes awol, Aid Grimel swallows my urn or the cultural forge eats my hamster. For day-to-day issues to be viewed with such indifference doesn't bode well for those of us with major tradeskill traumas.

And Minta... given the choice, I'd take a seven day wait followed by at least a polite attempt at a satisfactory resolution over a quick 'here's the standard answer which you knew already and isn't relevant in your case anyway. Have a nice day, your ticket is closed' any day. Particularly as one of my petitions was a legitimate bug, which was summarily (sp?) dismissed in a way that *suggested* they just read 'Corpse issue' and 'res timer issue' then cut and pasted the standard corpse timer T&C rather than read the detail that followed.

[Tudani]

I would suggest repetitioning or e-mailing CS about the issues you have. If you can also, get the e-mail of one of the GM's in san diego who deals a lot with your server to e-mail. If you do repetition you might want to reference your previous petition in your petition.

[Verdandi]

In my experience this is much like the problems with getting customer service by email. They skim your email to get the gist of the problem "died...rez wouldn't work". Then, they know that (I would imagine) most problems are due to misunderstanding by the user, so they fire off whatever relevant chunk of info explains how that situation should work. Done. That is exactly the sort of response I have ever gotten from any other attempts to get tech support (or other similar help) via email from a wide variety of companies. I go to great lengths to describe the problem in detail, and sometimes to describe how the people who responded to me already completely missed the point of what I was trying to say. Inevitably the response also completely misses the point. Likewise to attempts to offer constructive criticism or even sometimes praise.

I think the medium allows a sense of, oh, hastiness maybe. Which is such a shame, as I can see how it would be far more convenient for companies.

My personal beef with the new system is that you have to look in the knowledge base thing in order to make a petition. Even if you've been in that situation before and/or know very well that it's not something on your end. People who've been playing EQ for years will learn what requires petitioning and what doesn't. Yet every time someone is saying something vulgar in the open channels, I do my /report and then have to search the knowledge base for something random, open up a random article, close it again, and then can place my petition. It's not the end of the world, but the mindless hurdle is just really irritating, almost enough to make me say forget it and live with the jerks or the bugs that make the game less fun. And that completely defeats the purpose of having in game customer service.

[LadyAnnaAnna]

Just reading your posts, I have to say that I agree with most of what you are saying. I realize y'all have had a few bad expiriences, but I want to point out that not all GMs or their responses are like that. Some people do listen

Other than that, this thread is on a very fine line, but I think you've tread that line well Tweedle, saying what needed to be said, yet still respecting the rights and happiness of all involved. A fine huzzah for you

/congradulates
/cheers

[Dyllwin]

I hate to say I've encountered the same level of service since the new system went live. I hope this doesn't affect too many others, but folks need to be aware of what to expect when sending in their petitions...

[Aryse Andenter]

I've received cut and paste answers to every one of my petitions in the new system - didn't bother me at first, when they left it open and I could follow through by pointing out that I had already done all of their suggestions ( and had said I had in the original petition) and maybe get some actual help (and even once an apology later in the ticket about a particularly bad cut and paste first response). However now that they do cut and paste answers and CLOSE the ticket allowing no follow up at all I am a whole lot more annoyed about them.

[Itek]

I'm sorry. Remind me...

1) You knew it was going to happen, and had no -realistic- hope of a different outcome.

2) The "rezz timer" counts down real time. Always was supposed to, any variance from that reality was a bonus and a BUG. (No, really. 3 hours from DEATH not 3 hours logged in. Before they made it 7 real time days it was 24 log in hours before a corpse ROTTED, pre-ShadowRest, and that counted sitting in Chat, on another Toon, on another Server, even at the Character Select Screen. I'd be happy to email you the P-n-P [policies and procedures] section from an old Guide manual if you don't believe me.)

You got the expected outcome, and that's that. I came across some of my old Guide logs the other day. I listened to people whine and complain for hours, litteraly hours, when things that had NO POSSIBLE GOOD OUTCOME for them didn't get the response they want.

One guy got a wizard to port him up to PoHate while a raid was in progress. WithOUT the permission of the raid. No surprise the Wizard died at the zone in and the Petitioner died while attempting to TRAIN THE RAID. (He didn't realize he was training the raid, he just tried to get to the raid and luckily died before he got there.) Again no surprise the Raid rezzed the wizard but not the Petitioner. And still no surprise the petitioner couldn't get anyone to port him up to Hate to get his corpse.

Three hours after death he petitions for help.

PoHate, to the best of my knowledge, is STILL a CS-Restricted Zone. So there was nothing ANYONE could do about it. We couldn't take his corpse out of Hate, against policy PLUS not physically possible. We couldn't take him TO Hate. (HUGE no no to summon players to a zone we aren't supposed to go to ourselves.) We couldn't even summon his corpse to a safe place in the zone so IF he managed to get another sucker to port him up he'd be able to loot and run. (Corpse summons in CS-Restricted zones for proven bugs only. No proven bugs in Hate at that time.)

Now let's add that there are few, if any, Guides left to handle the "simple" problems where saying "sorry, no" and listen to the steam-letting-off. The Guide (you didn't talk to a GM, you talked to a Guide, one of the off-line one's from outsourcing) probably doesn't have a firm grasp on the language to handle an in-depth discussion chat-style. It's not hir (his/her) job.

Then let's move on to the MASSIVE workload they must be under.

Then let's move on to the SEVERE reduction in Actual-GM staff. One GM per server? Not anymore, more like 3 GMs per SHIFT. And one of them is in Chat at all times. (Which is, again, why you most likely didn't even TALK to a GM.)

And this trend will continue. EQ-II will not even have a Guide system. The first level will be outsourced support. The second level will be a tiny number of GMs. (My fear is that they will make the GMs do double duty for both EQ/II)

This is NOT the fault of SOE. I know who -specificly- is at fault. I won't name names. Well, since he's named on the SOE corporate site I guess I WILL name names. George Scotto, Vice President of Customer Service and Quality Assurance. You can probably guess his email address. I wish you great good luck getting a reply. (if you're not sending an email from an internal address my personal belief is that it's auto-trash-can'ed) If it's a CS policy he wrote it. Period.

[Tweedledea]

Well...

2) The cut and paste answer didn't say anything about the res timer ticking down when you're offline. Whatever is *meant* to happen according to ancient EQ history, we all know that 99% of the time, we all get 3 hours' grace offline. And if you didn't get it, you'd be hacked off too.

1) Sure, I accept they couldn't have given me back a froglok stone with 220 charges on it. That's not what I asked for. I just asked why all the charges had been removed. I think it's a pity they couldn't think for maybe 20 seconds more than they did, and feed me a line that was *slightly* more believeable. Hell, if they'd written '250 charges was a bug, you should never have had them, we've nerfed it, we've nerfed it BAAAD and we enjoyed it' I'd have put my hands up and said 'It's a fair cop guv, fair play to you.'

[Ngreth Thergn]

Zillia was pleased and surprised to find that when she recharged her froggy illusion stone, it came back with over 220 charges, when 1 charge was the norm. 'Great' she thought. She used it in raids for fun and shrink-value, and also as an insta-clicky.
One day she clicked on her clicky and nothing happened. She looked at the froglok stone - it was down to 0 charges, although the previous day it had over 200. Zillia realised she'd probably been living on borrowed time since it was recharged, but petitioned using the new window to see the GM's explanation.

GM's explanation: It only APPEARED to have over 200 charges, it was just a graphical error.

Oh please. Anyone stupid enough to believe that is too stupid to own a computer, let alone play EQ. So the 30 or 40 times I put on froglok illusion, were just a figment of my imagination, right? Can I respond to this ticket? No, becasue the GM has closed it.

No... this was obviously a graphical bug. Being such a huge amount, did you actually use a note pad and count the exact number of times you clicked? I really wager it was 20 times. Since you thought it had a huge amount of charges from the graphical bug you probably felt you clicked it more than 20 times, but unless you had it on a notepad somewhere where you actually counted it, you really only had 20 charges on it, you clicked on it 20 times and what do you know had 0 charges left. The way they have the items set up in their data, items cannot have more than 20 charges, even if they show as having more on the graphical display of the item. You were given the correct answer, even if it could have been more complete an answer. I truly do believe that "30 or 40" was a figment of your imagination because you believed you had more charges. Perception is an odd thing... you thought you had a huge amount of charges, you did not count, so you very possibly imagined more than the 20 charges you probably got.

And even *IF* for some reason the database for items broke so horribly that you had 225 charges (the largest number possible with he way SOE stores data) this was STILL A BUG. No item in EQ is to have more than 20 charges. Them fixing an obvious BUG is not a "Big Nerf" it is fixing a bug... and maybe just maybe the person answering the petition knew it was a bug like I do, and you seem for some strange reason do not think so, just not exactly which type of bug. Maybe they should have just said "it was a bug, it should only have had 20 charges" and left it at that, but that does not change the FACT that it was a bug, and you should have known it was a bug of some sort and likely to change.

And why just for you... when they have thousands of petitions in que... do they need to go spend extra time, up to HOURS tracking down a person to tell them the exact mechanics of a bug so they can pass it on to you. The simple fact was it was a bug. Even if you got the wrong bug description, it was still a bug. A bug is a bug.

[Tweedledea]

'And why just for you... when they have thousands of petitions in que...'

Because their job is customer service, and I'm a customer.


But your post made something go 'click' - the reason I was so incredulous about the graphical bug explanation was that the froglok stone only used to have one charge. So the fact that I had been blithely clicking away (many times - usually on LDoN missions for fun value, and I've done a lot of LDoN) made it seem unlikely that the apparent 200+ charges was an illusion. But what if it had shown 200+, the reality was 20ish, and I'd just used up my 20ish charges, and the true value (0) is now shown?

Well done Ngreth you've come up with something plausible, and I bet it didn't take you hours Would that really have been so hard?

Anyway, I'm still narked about the res thing. And I'm not a time-waster - in about 4 years spent playing EQ I've probably petitioned, what, 10 times at the most? I'm just a reasonable person who likes a proper explanation at the end of the day, and in-game 'justice'

[Ngreth Thergn]

Yeah, the res thing is weird... I have had nearly 20 offline hours, but only 23 online minutes pass before and gotten a res successfully... weirdness. It is also why I did not bring it up in the discussion, because you are right that that sucks

Also... *I* could get away with being blunt enough to say "you probably did imagine things" while customer service should never say something like that I would have had to spend a bunch more time trying to come up with a better way of phrasing it that is not so blunt

[Itek]

*sigh*

Ngreth is right. He said, more plainly, what I said.

"They are overworked, you got the expected answer. They don't have time to argue endlessly about a CLOSED ISSUE with each customer."

I added that they don't really have the skill-set to deal with the arguements either.

The rezz timer is -supposed- to count down real time. Sometimes it does not. (For me, yesterday, it did not. For me, a couple weeks ago, it did. C'est l'vie.) When it doesn't it's a BUG in your favor.

Now, preSUMing that it was NOT supposed to count down and did, what could the CSR have done?

Nothing.

Why in Innoruuk's name you ask?

Policy.

GMs can only give 100% no-rezz-effect rez's. For certain things. You dying and not getting a rezz isn't one of them. You died. So you don't get a 100% rezz. Period. End of story.

Does it suck that you can't then get a normal player rezz you MIGHT have gotten? Sure. But can the CSR do anything? Nope.

I think I pointed out the reason the policy is why and what it is. And who is DIRECTLY responsible. (Hint: It ain't the CSR you talked to.)

I'm not saying the CS in EQ is great or couldn't be better or isn't being tromp'ed on by a guy wearing hob-nailed jackboots. I'm saying that how you were treated is the NORM rather than the exception.