Posted this on EQ LiveFollow

If you rush you could IBTL *giggle*

Can I talk about CS, with "talking about an issue with CS" and getting locked?

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=SOE&message.id=3229

I am really wavering. I think I am about done. So many little cuts. Last night really has me questioning. I could take the upcoming expansion costs for all my accounts and buy a few copies of anything. But my topic: in general, is there any hope for the petition process?

In the day, it took a while.. but you talked to a human. In game, chatted. And they heard you out and said "yes, that is not right" (or, "no.. that's within the norm") and they gave you something. Might not be what you asked for, but *if* there was a clear problem, you walked away feeling an attempt at compensation was made.

Now, I get auto AIed (it seems) "I am sorry that happened, but I cannot X. Please /bug it". I could write these answers ahead of time. I know the rules. And so many people have the "just keep rewriting the same petition until you get a friendly GM" mentality. The karma from these are adding up.

I only wrote the one last night because the other people in my group, including the person that had never done this Mission before got nothing.. I knew the answer would be "I am sorry the task did not update.. but we cannot give you the reward", and yes I got the experience. But 3 hours to a "kill all the {x}" in a zone that is now empty.. all 6 of us checked, for another 20 minutes, gets me "sorry, bug it, closed".

I am not asking for a re-evaluation of my case, it's done. I am over it. Please do not lock this for that. I am asking to discuss this mentality, and can anything be done to change it. Because this single thing is driving me away more than character balance, bugs, rollbacks and server populations could.

No you may not have my stuff.

You may or may not have seen my other, more lighthearted attempt to demonstrate this phenomenon:

http://www.necrotalk.com/index.php?showtopic=5431

This was the reply on the Sony EQ forums (for those who did not click over):

I understand your concerns and you have presented them professionally, however there are rules on these forums that do not allow for discussion of Customer Service handling or Customer Service issues. Although paved with good intentions, these threads often lead to non-constructive criticism and flaming.

You should submit your feedback and concerns with CS via http://station.sony.com/email or you can alternately email eqcs@soe.sony.com.

Now, call me someone who flames about CS, but HH-Sidra gave the same useless canned response to Felicite.

I had to petition four times to get the Frozen orb for the cleric 1.0 epic because of a broken turn-in. Three times I was told to /bug report it and that I was SOL. I finally did get a GM and he appologized repeatedly for the other reps and gave me my orb. I've also had other problems with CS in the past.

Maybe if players were allowed to hold an open and frank discussion about how crappy CS reps are on the EQLive forums, management might get a clue and do something. But alas...they would rather have a pretty looking forum (you know, roseglass color).

We can talk about it here all day long, but SOE management brushes our comments aside(or does not even come here) and your average CS rep doesn't give a flying frack.

As for my actions...well, I have four accounts. Prophecy of Ro may not be bought if I can get away with it. 30 new missions, 7 new zones and 8 new bank slots is not enough. If they want my $$$, fix the issues first...starting with the crappy CS.

Felicite, I feel your frustration on this one all too well. Although I've never been on the FV server, your posts here have always been great. You'd be missed if you left. And no, I will not create a character there and ask for your stuff. ;-p

Edited, Wed Feb 1 13:49:48 2006 by dettin for clairty.

Edited, Wed Feb 1 13:51:47 2006 by dettin

I'd actually follow up on that email address.

When I was trying to get my guild approved back in like 2003 or something, I got so angry with the /petition that after about 3 weeks of regular petitioning and no GM showing up to approve the guild, I emailed SOE. After about 4 hours I got a reply from a GM telling me exactly when he'd be online to deal with my problem, sort of like an appointment. It was pretty decent of them, really.

I have no idea if that would work nowadays, but I think it's at least worth a try if it's really causing you a problem.

How do you get a surname? Level to twenty then anytime after you ding you can type /surname and get one. If your name gets by the filters that is.

You used /petition because a mission was bugged? The proper command is /bug report.

And another poster did not get a quest reward for a turn in and used /petition? The proper command is /bug report.

Someone else wanted to assign ranks to guild members and used /petition?

This is the reason SOE had to outsource CS because the player base does not know how to use commands properly. They think that anything that happenbs to them in-game deserves immeadiate, live help. Silly.

No Dothammer, it's not an issue on trust it's an issue on CS, sure there are people I trust to do this with, but it shouldn't be that for a simple command I actually need to ask another player to stop doing what they are doing for me to be able to assign officer status to a toon. I can assign "banker" status to anyone regardless if they are online or not, so why not with officer status? They could easily insert a flag for "do accept officer title" if they want to prevent people making officers those who dont want to.
Fair enough, I wanted it done there and then (more or less) and no one was around so I did some research and then petitioned.



No it's not. This player checked A-EQ manual B- knowledge database ingame C- Knowledge database on eq webbie D-ask in chatrooms and could not find anything on this so then did a /petition.
SOE outsources this because it is cheaper, and I know what I talk about as I reorganise companies myself IRL.
An outsourced company (or whatever you call it in English)though does not need to really keep up the standards you as a customer expect, they are paid to do a job, and in no contract it will say "to make sure all customers are happy" as this could cause them all sorts of legal trouble :-P

Just to quote the meaning of customer service from a dictionary Definition: assistance and other resources that a company provides to the people who buy or use its products or services

Assistance, any assistance, any question a player has however stupid it may be (not all walk around with an IQ of 140 and a 100% understanding of this game)they can ask to a "live" person in due time.
Otherwise why bother with CS at all?
Use /bug or /feedback and let the customers have no voice at all. Issue closed.

And this attitude does not only apply to SOE customer service nowadays, try your bank, phone company, electric provider, the CS of that nice dvd player you just bought and cannot get to work. In the end it's all down to how much profit they can make to keep the greedy shareholder happy.
We EQ players are nothing more then doing hard work to keep the pockets of shareholders filled (*blinks* doh never even thought about this before).

But all in all, I think what the real issue is here, in this specific post is that Felicite has left.

Maktub
"maybe a little blonde, but playing with gusto"

P.S Oh yes and Reyla if you think all of us really have no clue on how to use the proper commands then maybe you could constructively contribute to this post and share your knowledge of the proper procedure and commands to use instead of looking down on those who "might" not be as smart or knowledgable as you, inform us of that and then not enlighten us.

This is not a flame. This is a question.
I'm trying to understand the logic behind the OP's actions. From what I read I gather the following:

Felicite plays EQ
Felicite likes EQ so much that they have 5 seperate EQ accounts
Felicite has at least 3 level 70 toons
Felicite probably has played EQ for a long time (assumption based on the time to normally level 3 toons to 70)
Felicite joined a group and went on a MM or some such mission
Felicite and their group encountered a bug and didn't receive an expected reward
Felicite filed a petition
Felicite received an answer from a GM in approximately 3 hours
Felicite didn't like the answer they received so they petitioned again (not clear on this point)
Felicite receives another communication from a GM approximately 20 minutes later
Felicite is still not happy with the answer they receive
Felicite knowingly makes a post on the eqlive forums that violates their rules
Felicite decides that they will teach SOE a lesson by denying them $75.00 per month
Felicite assumes her guildies will follow suit - possibly denying SOE an additional $450.00 per month
Felicite decides to quit EQ and posts on Alla's forums
Hilarity ensues

Are my assumptions correct?

If so, I guess my question is, how do you think this will effect SOE's decisions in the future? Losing 31 people over 35 accounts (assuming that everyone leaves) will hardly put a dent in the EQ bottom line. EQ has shown amazing staying power over the years. It has faced down many MMORPG opponents such as Ultima Onine, Asheron's Call (1 and 2), Anarchy Online, Black and White, WoW, Diablo2, NWN and even its own evil twin, EQ 2 and still come out standing. Yes, the number of people that play EQ as gone down, but I see nothing to indicate that isn't the norm for a game with 7 years of maturity under its belt. There will always be surges and dropoffs of membership as players come and go, but the fact that EQ is alive enough to warrant continuing expansions and the fact that there is a trickle of new players and the fact that so many people are continually coming back (as evidenced by the ubiquitous "I'm coming back" posts here on Alla's) all seem to point to the fact that while a very small vocal minority leave kicking and screaming... A much larger, silent majority are happy with EQ as a whole and enjoy their gaming experience enough to continue paying their money every month. These stalwart players are not just the 'hard core raiders' either. There are many folks in and around the non-raid content zones on a regular basis. I can only speak for 2 of the servers but from the posts I read here, it seems that this is the case across most, if not all of the servers.

Like I said, I'm not trying to flame anyone, I guess I'm trying to figure out why people who get fed up or bored with EQ tend to come to a public forum and try to justify their actions to a bunch of strangers and somehow try to get others to leave with them or at least acknowledge the injustice of SOE before they go. (I'm not trying to implicate Felicite specifically here, just the general content of the "I Quit" posts) I've seen many folks come and many folks go and many of those that go return (sometimes rinsing and repeating the comeing and going several times). I'm just wondering why people will put up with something they "hate" so much for so long and then feel the need to roast it in public.

Again, if this sounded like aflame I really didn't intend it to. It was hard to ask what I'm asking without sounding like a jerk - hope I at least accomplished that... if not, I'm sure I'll hear about it.. lol

I too often wonder the same thing Kriegs. I've been able to pretty much single everything out except frustration.

I'm sure it wasn't the fact that the mission reward wasn't given that made Fel quit. It was just the frustration of the declining customer service, paramounted by this last inaction of said CS.

I can understand her reason for posting...I don't think she's trying to take us down with her, my guess is this is more of a vent than anything else.

Remember, she's not just leaving a game, she's leaving a world that she has known for many years, I'm sure this can't be an easy decision nor one she has made lightly.

LoL Dothammer, I know it was not a flame but thought I'd take the example to explain why I was annoyed (wasn't clear in the initial post). I actually find most of your comments I come across very informative and constructive.

I also think that most of us who moan here about CS do not do so for the exp missed/ item not obtained/ actions not taken but for the fact that the service is dungy.

Once I spok to a CS in chat who clearly said "sorry I'm new I don't know" and know what? I was actually quite happy with that answer. Because it's ok to not know, just don't send me off with a useless bug in my ear.
She/he then asked me to do a petition ingame and say I had spoken to CS X who did not know the answer, suprise that said person actually replied to my petition (*blinks*) and came with a good working answer. I had to wait 2 days but the fact they found out for me was excellent.

Overall I must say that I am quite happy with the service. Most of the time if a /petition is done I get an answer within a few hours (lost corpse pre guild lobby, surname modification)and thats ok with me even 24-48 hours would (unless corpse is lost)

At the other side of the coin with this whole discussion over CS is also the fact that (and this from what I have seen in the chatrooms) some of the players out there are plain rude to the CS's.
Example : XYZ arrives in stuck character room : "Toon1 stuck in ABS zone"
CS : ok toon put in pok.
XYZ : "poofles out of chat without even a reply"

Look at that and it happens enough from what I see. How would you feel (general no one specific meant here) if you had to deal with people like that the whole day? How much efford is it to say "goodmorning CS X" and "thanks for your help CS X"? In the end the honeycoated bait always works best not the sour grape.

Not saying with this that any of you in this post are rude LOL, but rudeness happens and I see it enough in chatrooms of eq and then I do wonder if some CS just think "sod it I cannot be bothered to do something for this person". All of us would probably feel like that.

Sorry Elinda, I didn't realize that tenure was required to ask a question - even when I made several attempts to explain it wasn't a flame or personal attack on Felicite. I will refrain from asking questions or participating in anyway without running my thoughts by you or another person who is qualified to post. Could you please provide me with a list of those fortunate people? I don't want to make anymore mistakes in the future.

oops.. did I just make a mistake by asking that question?

dang.. I did it again!

PS: Elinda, why the hate directed at me? This is the second thread that you've jumped on me over something that wasn't a flame or attack.

>.< another question!

Elinda,

You said, " I answered and asked you, basically "why" she shouldn't."
I never said she shouldn't! I simply brought up a discussion as to why people do make posts like that. I didn't PM Felicitie becuase I wanted to hear Felicite's and others' feelings on why people make those types of posts.

Again - for the record - I did not say that Felicite or others don't have the right to post. I just asked why.

Answering "Why would YOU question her motives for this post?" infers that you think that I don't have the right to ask my question. It also implies that I was questioning Felicite specifically. I stated quite clearly that I was asking about anyone that has made the "I quit" type posts.

I'm not goading anyone into anything. I'm just asking why you inferred that just becuase she has a higher post count or has "always been here" that I don't have the right to ask a question or bring up her post as an example of something. I never attacked Felicite, flamed her posts or impuned her character.

/shrug ... I dunno how else I could have worded any of my posts to seem less confrontational.