What CS?

[Deref]

Saturday I tried Mass Enchant Adamantite. I lost 4 large bricks of adamantite. I petitioned and reported the bug. Predictably, there was no response to my petition. I petitioned again on Sunday, got told it would be escalated. Petitioned Monday, got told that I did not cast the spell and that I would not be reimbursed. :x

A number of phrases come to mind to describe CS, none of which are permissible in this forum. Granted it was less that 80pp lost, but it is the principle of the thing. Are they going to fix this?

Grrrrrrrrr

[Krazick]

This is a KNOWN Bug... discussions at the following thread.

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/phpBB2/...pic.php?t=9454

The Loss of the materials is regretable. And it would be good to have it replaced.

The lack of response to a petition for the loss is debatable, based upon when the petition was made, and how often it was repeated.

The best way to deal with this sort of thing is:

1) Make a Petition - and GIVE IT TIME. Do not expect a response in an hour, or a day... Especially on a weekend. You might play on the weekend, but so do the SOE crew. Plan for 3-4 days before re-petitioning.

2) The Logs might not keep track of every last little thing. And if it is only 80 plat of materials... stop complaining.

"The Principle of the thing"... how often when you get change at the store do you count and confirm you were not given too much? And if you discover you were given too much, do you return it?

"Are they going to fix this?" - They will fix the bug in the spell. As for the Customer Service... that is a very subjective, personal response from people. One day you might get a great response, from person A... the next day get a very rotten response from person B.

Why? - Person A is in a good Mood, because the sun is shining. Person B is in a bad mood, his basement is leaking, his G-friend just left him, and his car is in the shop due to being hit in an intersection the day before.

[Ilona]

1) Make a Petition - and GIVE IT TIME. Do not expect a response in an hour, or a day... Especially on a weekend. You might play on the weekend, but so do the SOE crew. Plan for 3-4 days before re-petitioning.

I was once told (by a GM) that petitions auto-delete after three hours.
GMs are also only on from 3pm PST or whatever it is - translates to 11pm GMT anyway.

Ie if something happens when I'm online, it is highly likely that the petition will have auto-deleted by the time the GM arrives, and I have usually logged off by then anyway.

Use the "email a GM" option on the EQ website. Only way to go.

[Deref]

"The Principle of the thing"... how often when you get change at the store do you count and confirm you were not given too much? And if you discover you were given too much, do you return it?

Yes, actually I do. The clerk will generally get in trouble for not having the cash drawer balance.

As for the Customer Service... that is a very subjective, personal response from people. One day you might get a great response, from person A... the next day get a very rotten response from person B.

Yeah, I know the deal with CS reps and I sympathize with them in general. But CS on the whole has taken a nose dive since they moved away from server based GMs.

[Krazick]

OK, I might be jaded... and rather insensitive with regards to this issue.

But of the 4+ years I have been playing this game, I have made, at a rough count, all of 2 petitions.

The first was when as a true newbie... less than 2 weeks playing time, my first character got on the boat (for the first time) at Butcherblock Docks... When it zoned to OOT, I crashed to the desktop. Reconnecting to the character failed, repeatedly. I created a new character sent in a petition and waited... and got no response. After a few days of no response, I built up the 2nd character. And then deleted the first. It wasn't worth pursuing.

The second was 2 years later. I was in Velious, and having my monk (Krazick) run across the Dragon Bridge in Iceclad. I jumped off the edge, fell and got the 10K death. I petitioned, and after having dragged my body to the gnomes... got a response. And the GM who responded very politely gave me a XX% (forget which %) rez and told me if it happened again, don't drag the corpse.

I generally don't find reasons to bitch to GMs/CS. Most of the problems I run into I resolve on my own... or with help of other players.

Yes, I hate to make Corpse Runs. I hate losing my Artisan Seal in the Kiln. I hate in-anities of some players. But most of these issues can be resolved without having to resort to appealing to the "higher powers".

OK, so-and-so Trains the party repeatedly. Do I
a) Train them back?
b) Whine to an upper-power (GM-petition)?
c) Take my party somewhere else and have fun?

[Daethaan]

Plan for 3-4 days before re-petitioning.

3-4 days? I could get cable installed and have my washing machine repaired in 3-4 days.

And if it is only 80 plat of materials... stop complaining.

Whether it's 80pp or 80k, it was lost to a bug and all the GM said (a few days later) was that it didn't even happen. Very poor customer service.

I was in Velious, and having my monk (Krazick) run across the Dragon Bridge in Iceclad. I jumped off the edge, fell and got the 10K death. I petitioned...

You *jumped* off the dragon bridge? And then complained when you died?

[Heartsong_Steelsoul]

Actually I've heard that these days petitions don't go away until they are deleted... manually, or when the server comes down (gracefully or forcefully).

[Krazick]

When I say 3-4 days... I mean Starting on something like Friday Evening... to Monday Evening... 1 NORMAL Work Day.

As for getting cable installed, or a washing machine repaired... WHICH are REAL-LIFE issues (not in-game niggles) it is sometimes necessary to live life.

Sometimes the person you need is sick... on vacation... too busy to deal with every last niggle.

I didn't complain about dieing for falling off. I petitioned because of the 10K splat. If it was 3433 (or some other odd #) I would not have petitioned at all. At the time ANY 10K splat was supposed to be reported as a bug.

The whole point of my response is that as players you forget that the world of Norrath does NOT rotate around YOU. It would be great if Sony were to be able to respond to every and any minor flake in the game. Whether it happens to be being stuck in a pool you cannot get out of, losing 80 Plat or 80,000 Plat in a BUGGED combine/cast, or the replacement of an EPIC that you STUPIDLY destroyed because you didn't THINK when you had it on your cursor. But Sony & crew are only human. They make mistakes. They forget things. They don't always communicate between folks. They are NOT perfect. Stop demanding perfection, and you will be a lot happier.

[Llwyd]

I think that is true. Got one of my alts stuck in some geometry in gnome land (gneometry?), petitioned, waited, then eventually got a druid guildie to succor me out. Hours later, after a reboot, my trader alt got two overnight tells offering to help with the problem. In the morning I sent a "Thank you, all fixed" re-petition so they could close things out.

[Cigarskunk]

They've been rather hit and miss with me as far as returning stuff - sometimes they can determine that something did happen and other times they claim it never happened - consider yourself lucky that it was only 80p that Sony thinks you never lost as compared to something far more expensive and/or unreplacable.

[Tinile]

Also, remember it's not that they don't believe you didn't lose it, it's that they cannot find proof of you losing it. Without proof, they cannot verify that it happened.

[Mahlig]

A friend of mine accidentally destroyed his Deluxe Sewing Kit during a lag spike (his story) while hunting in Skyfire. The GM quickly responded and returned the kit and all the items contained therein. A few weeks later, he sold that same kit thinking it was a Coldain kit. Sure enough, when he realized what it was, he went to buy it back and it was gone. He petitioned again and was told "tough nuggies". They even reminded him that it was the same kit they had already replaced once! He was quite upset since he thought it should not matter since he was asking for a 1pp item, not a Fungi Tunic (his comparison). Therein comes that word principle. I get a good laugh waving my deluxe kits (plural) at him, but then he waves his 250 tailoring at me and that pretty much ends it.

CS has always been great from my perspective (even on Bristlebane). Yes, I have had to wait hours before and some were never answered, but I was able to figure them out on my own in most cases and the petition was no longer needed (such as when I got blasted by an evil eye in Beholder Maze behind a rock. I was stuck. I could not move in any way (this was my paladin). I petitioned and it took a while to get answered. I sent a druid friend a tell and he came in and ported me out. Later, the GM sent me a tell (while I was on a different character) asking if my paladin still needed help. I thanked him for responding, but I was able to get myself out. Yeah, I think the CS is pretty darn good. Kudos SoE!

[Taushar]

I have had nothing but bad experience with petitionings. The last one made me think I will never petition again. I was working on Shadowscream armor. The hammer and anvil used on this took me hours and hours of questing/hunting to get them. They are no drop items. I had them in a forge to make the shadowscream and I had a bad lag and the forge closed. Poof went those items.

I petitioned. The guide said he will elevate it. Meanwhile I can't do smithing. Over a week later, I send an email from their site to my server GM. I get an email a few days later saying that they have no record of me having those items on me and they can not reimburse me. I told him that I had them for over a month now and they still can't find that I had it. I thought about sending him my magelo page, since I have automated sync with premium service, but since magelo is changeable so he probably wouldn't believe me anyways.

So, I went and did the quest all over again, took me a couple days of doing it. Very next time, I went LD while I had them in the forge. Bad luck. I petitioned directly to the server GM. He said he still didn't see the item so he can't reimburse me. I was not happy and complained loudly about it including why in the world would they make items needed for tradeskills no drop when this can happen at any time. I mean, it's not like you go buy another one if you lose it. You have to spend time doing the quest to get them.

he finally said that he will reimburse me this once as an exception and told me never to do it again. What basically he said was that I'd better not go LD next time I am doing Shadowscream stuff, like as if I had a choice in it.

Then weird things happened. When I logged in via EQIM, my guildies asked me if I was logged in earlier. Of course not, I was at work. They said my character was running around Nexus and didn't respond to their hails and tells. They even un-guilded me just in case. I think it was the GM returning my stuff but maybe he needed a rez, I don't know. They all thought it was rude of them not to respond to tells. Anyways, after that, my character showed some strange behaviors. First, he never ate or drank. My food and drinks would not be consume, even on a horse (which was great ). Also, none of his no-drop items would go away after logging. When I came back, they were still on my character. (which was also good). It was like that for a couple of weeks then he went back to normal mode.

So, if something happens in the future that needs petitioning, I will not do it. Just not worth the time and aggrevation involved with it. Just write it off and move on. I am almost, key word here is almost, willing to go through my epic again than trying to convince GMs of item I lost it and need it reimbursed.

Taushar

[Dunthor Warsmith]

I've had a variety of experiences with CS. When I've lost an item of significance, I've petitioned repeatedly and never gotten a response in game (well, once while AFK as trader), and have instead done the contact a GM link on the website. This has gotten me all the important stuff back, but a number of the trivial things have not been returned. When I've gotten stuck (in geometry), once I got help, once I didn't (managed to use the camp bug to get out eventually). The ingame GMs never responded about my zone crash bug, but the chat GMs gave me email addresses, and the main one was fixed in the next patch (the corollarily one is still ingame, /sigh)

I've lost a lot of items to bugs, heh. I've dealt with different GMs each time, and since they've been lost via different bugs, their responses have been different too.

I just wish they would use a bit more logic - one GM refused to reimburse my lost "Wailing Substance" claiming I'd dropped it on the ground, and dropped items are not reimbursed. However, "Wailing Substance" is a No Drop item ...

Overall, I'm happy with the system, everything that really mattered to me got returned. Just use the "Contact your GM" link on the web page, and give them as much information as you can (what happened, as good a time as you can estimate for when, etc).

On a side note, when a GM emailed me about when to petition to actually get the item she'd found back, she listed Sunday-Thursday as the days worked (I forget the hours, but they were afternoon to night PST).

[Reflan]

There is really not a hard and fast rule to how and why GM's and Guides do many of the things they do. Frankly, they can be ridiculously capricious and useless sometimes, and sometimes even feed you a line of bull, if they even show up. Sometimes there are no GM's making an appearance for literally days at a time, for anyone that I hear of. Then again, sometimes they can appear quickly, be very helpful and courteous, and seem to truly give a darn and want to make things better.

Unfortunately, it IS bad customer service that you are basically gambling every time you look for customer service whether it is going to be great or abysmal(if someone even shows up and responds to you at all). We shouldn't have to depend on someone's mood or decision to be less than professional "just this once."

However, many people have noted that going to EQLIVE.com and sending an e-mail has resulted in their getting good help, if not always extremely rapid.

I've done that a couple of times for items lost, and gotten a great response. While it took hours to get a response, and that can seem like forever when you're worried about EQ disasters, it's not bad at all in the regular non-EQ world for e-mail response time. The responses I got weren't the equivalent of form letters trying to bury you in paperwork instead of responding or in any way inappropriate; they were courteous and helpful and professional.

I strongly recommend people do it via e-mail. The result seems to be much, much better than doing it in-game. It can seem like a different thing altogether.