Customer Service At It's Finest

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Where my point of contention is lies around the replacement of individual compensation with blanket compensation.

Nobody is suggesting wholesale replacement of individual compensation with mass compensation. That's your own strawman.

As I said previously, in cases where individuals are identifiable, and can be recompensed on an individual basis, that is preferable.

First problem: from various reports, CS is not capable of doing that adequately. Yes, this is its own problem, and yes, it needs to be fixed.

Second problem: there are many cases--some of which I mentioned specifically--where mass compensation is *preferable* to individual compensation due to logistical realities, *not* because they are more inherently just. In these cases, individual compensation is simply not practical, so what you're really talking about is mass compensation vs. no compensation. No compensation gets you pissed off players; mass compensation gets you some amount of goodwill.

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. The quality of your argument is your only credential.

Unknown

Bacon Pants wrote:

They need to print this out and put it on every visible surface in their office.

No way. I bet their printer is broken; like everything else.

Unknown

Narkon wrote:

Bacon Pants wrote:

They need to print this out and put it on every visible surface in their office.

No way. I bet their printer is broken; like everything else.

It's even worse. They don't own a printer - it wasn't bringing any revenue.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

I play Simpsons: Tapped Out. They were having frame rate issues for a while; when they resolved them, they gave everybody 20 donuts (the premium currency) as an apology for the issues. They also have a nice "golden scratch-off" for $1 that gives 6-100 donuts (usually 9-20); I buy one every weekend as a combination tip/donut source.

D3 could stand to learn something from other companies. Customers aren't owed these bonuses, necessarily, but they do make us feel a lot better about the game we're supporting.

I was even more surprised at that, considering I hadn't played it for a while so hadn't actually experienced any of the framerate issues. So I got compensation for something that didn't directly affect me. I tip my hat to EA for that, and wish D3 would take notice.

Unknown

D3 has costomer service?

Unknown

DaveyPitch wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

I play Simpsons: Tapped Out. They were having frame rate issues for a while; when they resolved them, they gave everybody 20 donuts (the premium currency) as an apology for the issues. They also have a nice "golden scratch-off" for $1 that gives 6-100 donuts (usually 9-20); I buy one every weekend as a combination tip/donut source.

D3 could stand to learn something from other companies. Customers aren't owed these bonuses, necessarily, but they do make us feel a lot better about the game we're supporting.

I was even more surprised at that, considering I hadn't played it for a while so hadn't actually experienced any of the framerate issues. So I got compensation for something that didn't directly affect me. I tip my hat to EA for that, and wish D3 would take notice.

It's funny you should bring up EA. They had a very bad rep for a long time, to the point where their revenues were suffering. A lot of it came from crazy draconian DRM they tried to shove down customers throats. Then they finally realized that they actually had to listen to customers and shifted over to a steam-like platform that's a lot more customer friendly. They still need to start making full games again instead of just a shell designed to sell you lots of DLC (haven't bought any of their games in a while for that reason), but at least their customer service is very solid these days.

Unknown

We're talking about a totally virtual game.

Compensations (they could be large) do not cost a thing.

I made the calculation about what a complete roster is currently worth (posted on the forum, if you are interested, I'll link) : more than 10500 Euros ($14000).

Each new character is worth $300 (roughly).

It would not be difficult to compensate people for their loss of time/money/results.

Giving everyone the same compensation is the best way to avoid the feeling of "unfair/unbalanced" situation and also avoid endless discussions and arguments. Make the compensation big enough so that even the biggest competitors will be happy.

D3P/Demiurge are not newbies in terms of games like MPQ, it is very strange to see they can not even apply "common sense" in terms of customer service and public relations...

Unknown

Emeryt wrote:

It's even worse. They don't own a printer - it wasn't bringing any revenue.

Apparently, they made this game at their local Starbucks to save money on their WiFi bill.

Unknown

On a more serious note, DrUnpleasant i fail to make sense in your points. You seem to be against mass compensation for some reason. That people who receive it, will be happy for a period, then not so much? That only the individuals affected should be compensated? And that we are fools and weak minded for been happy about it?

Let me explain that the server crash affected EVERYBODY in the game. While they didnt have to give anything or say anything, they did, and THAT'S THE POINT OF THIS THREAD. They could have just "DONE A D3" and ignored it until the problem went away but they didn't, they reacted, they apologized and they compensated people on their time lost with their game. They could easily have just apologized and moved on and i suspect most people would be happy with the acknowledgement of the issue, but they went further than that.

Compensation to the masses is not a bad thing. It keeps people happy and in love with their brand, as many companies, game or otherwise do. All except D3. I have played games all my life and this is by far the worst CS i have ever witnessed, which makes me wonder if it's just someone's mother sitting at home in her slippers and a cigarette in her mouth, liking things on FB instead of answering complaints.

Everyone benefits from the compensation, some more so than others. From what i have read on their forums, they seem to be amazing at their CS skills. Whether its for the masses or just a single person. They don't shy away from their problems and pretend they don't exist. Nobody was asking for free stuff, but when they get it, people become happy, they think that the company actually cares about their customers, that they want them to keep playing their game. All of which is true. You don't seem to understand that and it's hard to see why.

This is how the world works, or how it should. If someone/everyone is not happy or has been affected by your product, then admit there was something wrong, keep the paying customers and those invested in your product happy. It's only good business to do so. That is all.

Unknown

I'm pretty sure there's some poor guy at Demiurge studios that is expected to do janitorial work, valet parking, front office reception and answer customer service emails. 8.50/hr

Cut him some slack.

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

I'm pretty sure there's some poor guy at Demiurge studios that is expected to do janitorial work, valet parking, front office reception and answer customer service emails. 8.50/hr

Cut him some slack.

I'm guessing he's also in charge of PVP design and rotation.

Wolarsen

DrUnpleasant: I see your point and agree in some extend, but I think as Vailerome; best answer would be a direct refund of the loss, but with the exception on HP spent (wich you have pointed out) it would be impossible to fairly compensate the rest of the players by calculating "lost of opportunity" (heck, I cant translate properly the little economy vocabulary i have ).

Please take myself as example: due to today's cutoff, I was not able to push-and-shield in PvP for the Psylocke cover; I got a 3* reward in all S1 PvP events. On the PvE side, i am 41k/45K for the progression reward; hope to be able to finish tonight, but the cutoff has made it quite harder and may as well lose it. Would i deserve a compensation for these? If so, wich one?

I also would like to point an issue that adds complexity to the matter: the "rolling" rewards; if you miss a reward you want specially, you do not know when it will be available again; I just can not play more, or twice as hard tomorrow to get that Psylocke I would (probably!)have won today. In the peculiar case you want a cover you do not own a copy of, you may not be able to get it, even using real money!

Unknown

Wolarsen wrote:

DrUnpleasant: I see your point and agree in some extend, but I think as Vailerome; best answer would be a direct refund of the loss, but with the exception on HP spent (wich you have pointed out) it would be impossible to fairly compensate the rest of the players by calculating "lost of opportunity" (heck, I cant translate properly the little economy vocabulary i have ).

Please take myself as example: due to today's cutoff, I was not able to push-and-shield in PvP for the Psylocke cover; I got a 3* reward in all S1 PvP events. On the PvE side, i am 41k/45K for the progression reward; hope to be able to finish tonight, but the cutoff has made it quite harder and may as well lose it. Would i deserve a compensation for these? If so, wich one?

I also would like to point an issue that adds complexity to the matter: the "rolling" rewards; if you miss a reward you want specially, you do not know when it will be available again; I just can not play more, or twice as hard tomorrow to get that Psylocke I would (probably!)have won today. In the peculiar case you want a cover you do not own a copy of, you may not be able to get it, even using real money!

I agree with most of that - especially the inabilitity to calculate missed opportunity (my Lazy Thor debacle springs to mind) so while HP refund for that event isn't perfect it's a hell of a lot better than giving out a frickin Heroic Token to everyone. Ideally they'd do both - HP refund for wasted shields to the paying players and a heroic token as a gesture of goodwill to everyone.

I'm cynical because I work in the industry - my company designs incentives to make people more satisfied, loyal and spend more, and I head up the research function responsible for identifying and measuring the key drivers and psychological stimulus that influences these behaviours. We do things like planting tiny credit card logos on tills which make people subliminally use that brand of card provider more, introduce music in wine merchants to get people to buy a wine from a certain country, trigger emails to people that influence them to book their birthdays in certain restaurants etc etc. Because of this I know a genuine goodwill gesture when I see one and I know a money making inititive. Like EA's decision to put a bunch of top games in a Humble Bundle recently - those titles weren't making them money, so giving profits from their Humble Sale to charity meant positive rep for them but also absolutely meant a spike in profits from DLC attached to those titles (I'm looking at you Sims).

I'm clearly just a miserable old git most of the time though.

Unknown

Yes this is a competitive game, but it is also a collecting game.
Giving everyone even rewards does nothing to affect interplayer competition as you have stated but can rack up player enjoyment if they can 'collect' something they did not have before. Free HP and Iso seems mundane or pointless as you might say, but covers or even tokens to a lesser extent could make some people very happy indeed.

Spoit

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Wolarsen wrote:

DrUnpleasant: I see your point and agree in some extend, but I think as Vailerome; best answer would be a direct refund of the loss, but with the exception on HP spent (wich you have pointed out) it would be impossible to fairly compensate the rest of the players by calculating "lost of opportunity" (heck, I cant translate properly the little economy vocabulary i have ).

Please take myself as example: due to today's cutoff, I was not able to push-and-shield in PvP for the Psylocke cover; I got a 3* reward in all S1 PvP events. On the PvE side, i am 41k/45K for the progression reward; hope to be able to finish tonight, but the cutoff has made it quite harder and may as well lose it. Would i deserve a compensation for these? If so, wich one?

I also would like to point an issue that adds complexity to the matter: the "rolling" rewards; if you miss a reward you want specially, you do not know when it will be available again; I just can not play more, or twice as hard tomorrow to get that Psylocke I would (probably!)have won today. In the peculiar case you want a cover you do not own a copy of, you may not be able to get it, even using real money!

I agree with most of that - especially the inabilitity to calculate missed opportunity (my Lazy Thor debacle springs to mind) so while HP refund for that event isn't perfect it's a hell of a lot better than giving out a frickin Heroic Token to everyone. Ideally they'd do both - HP refund for wasted shields to the paying players and a heroic token as a gesture of goodwill to everyone.

I'm cynical because I work in the industry - my company designs incentives to make people more satisfied, loyal and spend more, and I head up the research function responsible for identifying and measuring the key drivers and psychological stimulus that influences these behaviours. We do things like planting tiny credit card logos on tills which make people subliminally use that brand of card provider more, introduce music in wine merchants to get people to buy a wine from a certain country, trigger emails to people that influence them to book their birthdays in certain restaurants etc etc. Because of this I know a genuine goodwill gesture when I see one and I know a money making inititive. Like EA's decision to put a bunch of top games in a Humble Bundle recently - those titles weren't making them money, so giving profits from their Humble Sale to charity meant positive rep for them but also absolutely meant a spike in profits from DLC attached to those titles (I'm looking at you Sims).

I'm clearly just a miserable old git most of the time though.

What's wrong with it being both a goodwill measure and making them money?

(other than the fact that the metrics show they only care about the later)

Unknown

@Unwiseone

I have been playing Brave Frontier for quite a while, and I can tell you that they are not as generous as they appear.

This month they have been more generous. But for the month of April, they gave out exactly 3 Gems.

Meanwhile, Brave Frontier of Japan gave out 34 Gems in April at least, and 21 Gems in May.

True story.

Unknown

I only have good things to say about them so far. But as for the free gems, it depends why they were giving out in the first place. Was there game issues in Japan and thats why they got all the free gems or where they just giving away. If it was the former, well its a japanese game and its more popular over there so i would expect that, if its the latter and they were just a goodwill gesture then,well same again, it's japanese. It's what you expect. I'm not demanding free gems for no reason

Unknown

BF JP gives out free gems for any reasons you can think of. A celebration? Free gems. New year or festival? 21 Free gems for login rewards. Server error? Free Gems. Major Update? Free Gems. Won the famitsu app award? Free Gem.

Let's face it. Cheapskate developers beget unhappy players.

Dreylin

mechgouki wrote:

BF JP gives out free gems for any reasons you can think of. A celebration? Free gems. New year or festival? 21 Free gems for login rewards. Server error? Free Gems. Major Update? Free Gems. Won the famitsu app award? Free Gem.

Let's face it. Cheapskate developers beget unhappy players.

It's very interesting because this mirrors what I was hearing on the Puzzle & Dragons forum about the differences between giveaways on the JP server verses the US server. This was a while ago before I dialed back my play on that game (and moved to MPQ), and what I have gathered is that things have equalised a lot recently, with more extended giveaways over here. I think it's a cultural difference as well as a monetary decision.

Spoit

Dreylin wrote:

mechgouki wrote:

BF JP gives out free gems for any reasons you can think of. A celebration? Free gems. New year or festival? 21 Free gems for login rewards. Server error? Free Gems. Major Update? Free Gems. Won the famitsu app award? Free Gem.

Let's face it. Cheapskate developers beget unhappy players.

It's very interesting because this mirrors what I was hearing on the Puzzle & Dragons forum about the differences between giveaways on the JP server verses the US server. This was a while ago before I dialed back my play on that game (and moved to MPQ), and what I have gathered is that things have equalised a lot recently, with more extended giveaways over here. I think it's a cultural difference as well as a monetary decision.

Yeah, we're still a little bit behind, but PAD seems to be 'on' events as often as it's not, usually with the free stone (about $1's worth) a day, for like a bit more than a dozen a month