Recent Server Issues and Compensation

Unknown

arktos1971 wrote:

I made some calculation once on all that I spent on a PvE (because of the server outage and my points lost). The result was several thousands HP and even more in ISO.

You spent HP and ISO to take part in a PvE? I must be doing it wrong then. I don't spend anything to take part in a PvE, but I do gain rewards for taking part in a PvE that I use to level up my characters, both for that event and all future events. Am I missing something here?

Unknown

DaveyPitch wrote:

theHappyDance wrote:

With all due respect, if you only got an OBW cover, I seriously doubt you grinded anywhere near as hard as I did this PvP. I could have taken it a LOT easier if I knew there'd be one less refresh, and just settled for top 100. I calculated how much I needed to grind and played accordingly. The server outage straight up screwed me. I don't think I'm asking too much here. I'm asking for basic customer service. If that's too much for them to handle, perhaps I should seek another way to spend my leisure time (and money).

Considering you didn't reach the 45k needed for the Daken reward but still finished inside the top 50, whereas I scored higher than you but still finished outside the top 100, I think you should be grateful you got the rewards you did. Yes, it's incredibly annoying when something out of your control screws you over and I sympathize with that, but the fact remains that D3 didn't intend for this outage to happen. They've acknowledged their mistakes, they're putting plans in place to stop it happening again, and they are giving a token reward to all players as way of compensation. That actually is beyond basic customer service. You don't think so because you feel you've missed out, but that's your problem, not theirs.

No, it very much is their problem, if they hope to retain paying customers. If you're a F2P player, then you're absolutely correct - you have no right to complain. If you've paid money, then there's reasonable expectation that you get customer service, especially given how much everything costs in this game. Somehow they've managed to condition a significant portion of their player base into feeling privileged to get whatever scraps they give out, and privileged to give them large amounts of money, but that's not how commerce works. Customers pay for a product and service. Right now, the customer service part of that is nonexistent, based on my experience.

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

No, it very much is their problem, if they hope to retain paying customers. If you're a F2P player, then you're absolutely correct - you have no right to complain. If you've paid money, then there's reasonable expectation that you get customer service, especially given how much everything costs in this game. Somehow they've managed to condition a significant portion of their player base into feeling privileged to get whatever scraps they give out, and privileged to give them large amounts of money, but that's not how commerce works. Customers pay for a product and service. Right now, the customer service part of that is nonexistent, based on my experience.

D3 are giving compensation to pretty much everyone, not just those who were negatively affected by the server outage. That's actually pretty good service. You think they should give you more, but you're not saying what. Do you think you deserve a free cover or two because the server problems caused you to miss a refresh? Then surely I deserve a free Sentry cover because I got sharded into a bracket where my 45k (more than you scored remember) wasn't worth as much as your point total was.

I'm no lover of D3 and as a UK player I have called them many times on the fact I feel screwed over because of where I live in the world. However, on this occasion I feel D3 have handled things right. Like I said, I have sympathy for you because you've missed out on something you feel you should've earned. However, you're missing the logic that the server outage affected everyone. You have no way of knowing whether you would've been able to claw those positions back, because the people above you might have suffered the exact same problems you did. You have no way to prove you would've made the top 20, therefore no way to prove you've missed out on the rewards you think you did. You might have a case regarding the Daken cover, but if you grinded as much as you claim you did, you should've been able to get it. I virtually missed out on a complete day, and several refreshes, and I still managed it.

I'm sorry you were negatively affected by the server issues but I think you're asking for way too much IMO.

Unknown

DaveyPitch wrote:

arktos1971 wrote:

I made some calculation once on all that I spent on a PvE (because of the server outage and my points lost). The result was several thousands HP and even more in ISO.

You spent HP and ISO to take part in a PvE? I must be doing it wrong then. I don't spend anything to take part in a PvE, but I do gain rewards for taking part in a PvE that I use to level up my characters, both for that event and all future events. Am I missing something here?

I was thinking the same thing, if a PVE was going to cost me thousands of HP and ISO to take part in there was no way I would be playing this game any more.

Unknown

Hands down the best part about this is the communication and the gesture. There's no way they'd be able to figure out the exact opportunity cost of the server issues for every player. This isn't about making everyone "whole." It's the way a company that exists to make money apologizes to its customers. We can stamp our feet and complain that it's not enough or we can recognize that this type of acknowledgement, which we as a community have been screaming at them to offer, that they've been woefully reluctant to provide in the past, is a positive step.

The Finn

First, I think the gesture is great. Just having the devs acknowledge this issue is a positive sign and is appreciated.

But overall I was pretty disappointed with how the server issues impacted Fatal attraction more than the pve as the pvp has consequences on season 2 standings. The issue that I had seems to be confined to a small number of users as I haven't seen much of an outcry--basically all the matches that I was winning did not result in pts. But retals against me took my pts total down. Very confusing to say the least. That's why I kept playing on the assumption that there was just a time lag. But in the end, all those matches were for naught as I got zero credit. Pvp results were shot, meaning Not only personal ranking, but that of my alliance was impacted. And season 2 rankings now become a lot harder to make up as there's no rubberbanding to speak of.

I have to be honest, the result left me pretty bad taste in my mouth and the fatigue that had been building from the non stop grind the last few months kind of boiled over. This gesture helps a bit but not enough to make me as dedicated a player as i was previously. Cest la vie

Unknown

The problem is lack of contingency. Server problems were not a one-timer. They happen over and over and I see no reason to think we saw the last of them. After the second instance of the same accident the due process is to have some emergency measures planned for the time the third and following instances hit to mitigate some of the impact. Throwing some money from the helicopter into the crowd can buy some temporary popularity but it will be gone the moment of the next down.

I didn't even hear about the basic info service that I thought part of every online game -- server status display and info when emergency procedures are under way or already finished.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

The problem is lack of contingency. Server problems were not a one-timer. They happen over and over and I see no reason to think we saw the last of them. After the second instance of the same accident the due process is to have some emergency measures planned for the time the third and following instances hit to mitigate some of the impact. Throwing some money from the helicopter into the crowd can buy some temporary popularity but it will be gone the moment of the next down.

I didn't even hear about the basic info service that I thought part of every online game -- server status display and info when emergency procedures are under way or already finished.

Oh yeah, that's true enough. If this happens again then we will be within our rights to complain again and this gesture of goodwill will be instantly forgotten. I sincerely hope they have solved whatever issues they had (hamsters or otherwise) or they are still running the very real risk of people quitting in large numbers. Also any future problems or issues need to be clearly communicated, i ope that is a lesson they have also learned from this.

None of that detracts from the compensatory gifts being handed out which is way more than anyone expected them to do. (Even if a couple of Sentry covers for everyone would be even nicer that was never gonna happen)

Unknown

clean_cut_hippie wrote:

Hands down the best part about this is the communication and the gesture. There's no way they'd be able to figure out the exact opportunity cost of the server issues for every player. This isn't about making everyone "whole." It's the way a company that exists to make money apologizes to its customers. We can stamp our feet and complain that it's not enough or we can recognize that this type of acknowledgement, which we as a community have been screaming at them to offer, that they've been woefully reluctant to provide in the past, is a positive step.

In other words, the people who weren't seriously affected by the outage are happy to get free stuff, while telling the people where it actually made a difference to shut up and stop complaining, since they weren't affected and are getting free kittens. If our shoes were reversed, I doubt you'd be tooting their horn quite so much.

There are two ways to handle this kind of situation. One is to say "oh, well we can never know exactly what would happen so let's just give out a generic token reward to everyone to get them to shut up".
The other is:
"Let's actually look at this and try to fix it.
Let's do a simple database search to see who was within reach of another reward tier if they'd had another refresh, give them the appropriate progression rewards, and see if they'd have been within range of a placement reward.
Let's keep our support open in case we missed any."

That's what customer service would be here. You aren't just buying a an MP3 here. You're investing your time to try to earn these covers. The least they can do is actually try to make right by the people who're affected by it. The token gesture to all players should be on top of that, not in lieu of actually making things right.

If I spend a week grinding a PvE and I'd have attained 2 covers if not for their server screw-up, then I most definitely am entitled to those covers. If they can't see it that way - and can't be bothered to make right by their customers in interest of generating more sales by having to manually buy those covers, then maybe I need to start thinking about moving on from this game. I've certainly given them enough money. The least they can do is treat their customers like customers instead of acting like it's a great privilege for us all to be playing their game at all. They create the game to make money. As customers, we provide that, and this is most definitely a premium game. Everything costs a lot of money here. It's entirely reasonable to expect premium customer service to go along with that. If the game, or even individual characters, only cost $10 to max instead of hundreds, or potentially thousands, it would be a totally different story. The fact that they think their product(s) are worth a high premium price is fine, but that means they have an obligation to provide premium customer support to go along with it. It's that simple.

Unknown

Yeah, the gesture is nice and I don't want to downplay it or be ungrateful, but points lost during an outage, and again while shielded, during HM cost me a purple Daken cover and I would be having a much easier time in this pvp If he had that cover. 100 HP doesn't make me feel much better, reassurances that the servers will be better would.

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

clean_cut_hippie wrote:

Hands down the best part about this is the communication and the gesture. There's no way they'd be able to figure out the exact opportunity cost of the server issues for every player. This isn't about making everyone "whole." It's the way a company that exists to make money apologizes to its customers. We can stamp our feet and complain that it's not enough or we can recognize that this type of acknowledgement, which we as a community have been screaming at them to offer, that they've been woefully reluctant to provide in the past, is a positive step.

In other words, the people who weren't seriously affected by the outage are happy to get free stuff, while telling the people where it actually made a difference to shut up and stop complaining, since they weren't affected and are getting free kittens. If our shoes were reversed, I doubt you'd be tooting their horn quite so much.

There are two ways to handle this kind of situation. One is to say "oh, well we can never know exactly what would happen so let's just give out a generic token reward to everyone to get them to shut up".
The other is:
"Let's actually look at this and try to fix it.
Let's do a simple database search to see who was within reach of another reward tier if they'd had another refresh, give them the appropriate progression rewards, and see if they'd have been within range of a placement reward.
Let's keep our support open in case we missed any."

That's what customer service would be here. You aren't just buying a an MP3 here. You're investing your time to try to earn these covers. The least they can do is actually try to make right by the people who're affected by it. The token gesture to all players should be on top of that, not in lieu of actually making things right.

If I spend a week grinding a PvE and I'd have attained 2 covers if not for their server screw-up, then I most definitely am entitled to those covers. If they can't see it that way - and can't be bothered to make right by their customers in interest of generating more sales by having to manually buy those covers, then maybe I need to start thinking about moving on from this game. I've certainly given them enough money. The least they can do is treat their customers like customers instead of acting like it's a great privilege for us all to be playing their game at all. They create the game to make money. As customers, we provide that, and this is most definitely a premium game. Everything costs a lot of money here. It's entirely reasonable to expect premium customer service to go along with that. If the game, or even individual characters, only cost $10 to max instead of hundreds, or potentially thousands, it would be a totally different story. The fact that they think their product(s) are worth a high premium price is fine, but that means they have an obligation to provide premium customer support to go along with it. It's that simple.

Wow, just WOW! And breathe, you need to relax, chill out and remember this...is...just...a...game

Do you really see yourself as being entitled to those covers?

If you had spent HP on roster slots or cover upgrades that didnt appear then you would be right to expect the company to give them to you,as you have already paid for them. You havent paid for the covers that you MIGHT have won, they havent taken anything away from you and you havent actually lost anything. Any money you have sunk into this game has enabled you to have fun playing it and to compete for new rewards. So this time it didnt go your way, we were all in the same situation, get over it. There will be another event, another chance to have fun and try to win something. Winning rewards in this type of thing is a gamble not something you can calculate and work out how many hours sleep you can afford and know how many points exactly you need to place where you want.

Im no big fan of this company and some of the changes they have made to this game as my other posts show, but in this instance they have done good. Could they have done better? Of course they could, but none of us should expect unrealistic compensation for something we never owned or lost in the first place.

Am i wrong?

Unknown

The PACman wrote:

Im no big fan of this company and some of the changes they have made to this game as my other posts show, but in this instance they have done good. Could they have done better? Of course they could, but none of us should expect unrealistic compensation for something we never owned or lost in the first place.

Am i wrong?

Dunno. The interesting thing is that the very measure used last time and pointed out in the announce: extension of prize brackets sounds exactly like the thing that would be relevant. Maybe not by the 50% but 5-10 places deeper but it is details, the main impact of the downs is certainly on the positions in the ongoing events.

Certainly it could be combined with the general offer -- the extension would probably change outcome for too many people for PR value -- especially after the fact (last instance happened early and left a week to react).

Anyone thinks the reasoning is sound for that part? I'm aware some people were hit more seriously from expiring shields or just unable to play when they had the time -- but I expect a fair population that attempted at compensation just fell somewhat short and by retabulating would rise to about the due place.

Unknown

I said in another thread that "throwing the people a bone" would just have people demanding for more "bones" and this thread last 2 pages kinda proves my point
I'm disappoint :<

Like plenty of other people here, I'm happy with the compensation.

Unknown

nobody1111 wrote:

I said in another thread that "throwing the people a bone" would just have people demanding for more "bones" and this thread last 2 pages kinda proves my point
I'm disappoint :<

Like plenty of other people here, I'm happy with the compensation.

Dogs like bones thrown, players would prefer a good playground, get what due, nothing less, nothing more either.

(for this case we can't deduce the "due" part so that's an open issue, but that is a different subthread).

Linkster79

While this is a step in the right direction I dont think that as a company you are well on your way down the right path.

I am not overly annoyed by server outages, these things happen and I can accept that. What really got my goat was lack of communication. There are numerous ways to let your playerbase know what is happening and what steps are being taken to reassure us that you are working on it. All it takes is 5 minutes to post information via your forums, Facebook or Twitter accounts and it can be done from anywhere in the world not just your offices or workstations. It is this lack of communication that has been the cause of most of the friction between us and yourselves.

That being said I am not one to be ungrateful, but I wont go so far as to say thankyou just yet, but keep the information flowing and you will find yourselves having to make gestures like this less often.

Unknown

Linkster79 wrote:

~snip~
What really got my goat was lack of communication. There are numerous ways to let your playerbase know what is happening and what steps are being taken to reassure us that you are working on it. All it takes is 5 minutes to post information via your forums, Facebook or Twitter accounts and it can be done from anywhere in the world not just your offices or workstations. It is this lack of communication that has been the cause of most of the friction between us and yourselves.
~snip

IceIX actually acknowledged and commented on this in the "Questions? Ask." thread. He said that they are going to try to better at pushing info like this out to us in a better fashion.

Unknown

AlexBatman wrote:

Wow I don't know what the tinykitty half of you are arguing about. Money, no money, the game is an absolute shambles at the moment. It's not just receiving compensation...it's receiving actual prizes you have wasted your time to win that's an issue! No answer to tickets, to server downtime, to constant gameplay changes. It's shocking! 100hp and 2000iso absolutely hilarious considering recent turmoil the devs have created. lmao! On fact that's actually less than what they owe me. Thx!

While some are complaining about what they should have got some of us achieved things they weren't even rewarded for! We all know the servers crashed after and during im40. However, while some lost places in the pve, others couldn't compete in pvp and what not, others placed in top ten positions. And weren't issued their rewards! While we may be in a small section of **** we weren't rewarded tinykitty all, regardless of our complaints or wasted time spent on this piece of tinykitty game.

The fact the dev finally feel it's time to apologise on their forum is tragic. They've tinykitty a hundred **** and now they're admitting their wrongdoing! Ffs. Pull the other one.

People pay money for this service and that is enough to expect proper customer service. Is this game run out of Asia by any chance?

Incredibly offensive language and even a racist comment at the end notwithstanding it would appear you do actually have something to be pissed off about Batman.

Do you mean you were actually in a top 10 place when the event ended and didnt receive the rewards for that placement? If so then that is bad and i have sympathy for you. If I were in that position i would be spitting blood and raising hell too.

Unknown

The PACman wrote:

Wow, just WOW! And breathe, you need to relax, chill out and remember this...is...just...a...game

Do you really see yourself as being entitled to those covers?

If you had spent HP on roster slots or cover upgrades that didnt appear then you would be right to expect the company to give them to you,as you have already paid for them. You havent paid for the covers that you MIGHT have won, they havent taken anything away from you and you havent actually lost anything. Any money you have sunk into this game has enabled you to have fun playing it and to compete for new rewards. So this time it didnt go your way, we were all in the same situation, get over it. There will be another event, another chance to have fun and try to win something. Winning rewards in this type of thing is a gamble not something you can calculate and work out how many hours sleep you can afford and know how many points exactly you need to place where you want.

Im no big fan of this company and some of the changes they have made to this game as my other posts show, but in this instance they have done good. Could they have done better? Of course they could, but none of us should expect unrealistic compensation for something we never owned or lost in the first place.

Am i wrong?

I am relaxed, and I agree with you on this is just a game. In fact, I wish it was a lot more like a game, and less like a sport. I have to disagree with you overall here. Time is in fact money. I'm by nature a casual hardcore. I like to play games intensively, sometimes casually as well, but not on a regular basis. I like match-3 games, and like the social aspect of my alliance, however this isn't a game that you can stop playing if you want to progress. You have to keep playing it regularly. If you don't keep earning the new covers, there's a snowball effect that you can no longer compete in future events. I normally wouldn't grind a game as much, if not for rewards that I wanted. So the time I spent over the week the event ran actually is equivalent to money, since I could've spent that time doing something else.

One of the very nice things about this PvE once they removed the rubberbanding was that there were consistent points per refresh, so you actually could see pretty clearly how you were doing, and have a reasonable expectation of what your final placement would be. If not for the server errors, it would've worked out quite well. I wish they had it like this more often, so we as gamers could know earlier whether or not it's worthwhile to SPEND our time playing towards a given reward or to take it easier if we see it's not achievable. I would've taken this one a lot easier and just settled for top 100 had I known there'd be one less refresh. So yes I'm a little bit kitten-hurt, but I did grind more than I'd have liked since there was a clear achievable goal, unlike so many of the past PvE's where it basically was just a rubberbanding "grind and gamble".

You say I haven't lost anything? I have. I've lost time that I've put into this event, and this game more generally. You say get over it, and I'm getting over it. I'm starting to get over this game. Anyone who's read my posts knows that I've suffered very bad luck, for a long time starting out, and stuck with it, and given the company benefit of the doubt hoping they'd eventually move the game in a more positive direction that works for all their players. I finally started to get on top of this game, and they instituted death brackets. There's a constantly sliding yardstick, and bone they keep dangling just out of reach - namely, being able to play semi-casually. Now I have to shield hop again, with my 3-stars, just to place in PvP (although this might be easing lately, verdict is still out). I've given these devs money. The base game is enjoyable. The alliance experience is nice, but to be honest this might be the straw that breaks the camels back if they don't finally start doing right by their customers. EVERY support request I've ever sent them relating gameplay, or purchases, etc.. has received the same canned "things are working as intended" type replies. Their CS basically is never willing to do anything that reduces their profit potential, no matter what. Perhaps this comes off as angry, but I'm not. This is my brain thinking about this rationally, after spending considerable money on this game, and giving them the benefit of the doubt for nearly 5 months.

Amazon understands that satisfied customers encourages people to spend more because they feel valued as customers. Sometimes giving out free covers where it's due is a much better move for a company to ensure satisfied customers than to try and nickel and dime them. Maybe they should worry less about the ARPDAU, and more about fostering an environment where customers actually want to stick around. If you don't feel that people who're screwed out of progression rewards or ranking due to server downtime are owed anything, you have a right to your opinion. My opinion is that this company really doesn't care about their customers at all beyond figuring out new ways to get money out of us. So I will wait and see how they handle this, but right now I don't have a very good feeling about this company, or that they're providing anything near the premium service and support that I've paid for.

Unknown

theHappyDance wrote:

clean_cut_hippie wrote:

Hands down the best part about this is the communication and the gesture. There's no way they'd be able to figure out the exact opportunity cost of the server issues for every player. This isn't about making everyone "whole." It's the way a company that exists to make money apologizes to its customers. We can stamp our feet and complain that it's not enough or we can recognize that this type of acknowledgement, which we as a community have been screaming at them to offer, that they've been woefully reluctant to provide in the past, is a positive step.

In other words, the people who weren't seriously affected by the outage are happy to get free stuff, while telling the people where it actually made a difference to shut up and stop complaining, since they weren't affected and are getting free kittens. If our shoes were reversed, I doubt you'd be tooting their horn quite so much.

There are two ways to handle this kind of situation. One is to say "oh, well we can never know exactly what would happen so let's just give out a generic token reward to everyone to get them to shut up".
The other is:
"Let's actually look at this and try to fix it.
Let's do a simple database search to see who was within reach of another reward tier if they'd had another refresh, give them the appropriate progression rewards, and see if they'd have been within range of a placement reward.
Let's keep our support open in case we missed any."

Who says I wasn't affected? I finished in the 30's in the event. Well within the range of getting an extra cover if they instituted your fix. I've just been playing long enough to know that if I get bent out of shape about one cover I'm going to drive myself nuts, forever be raging at demiurge, and significantly reduce my enjoyment of the game. That's not to say I'm not competitive. I am. I've just made the active decision to keep some perspective. Incidentally, I was also "cheated" out of a Daken cover in the Heroic: Oscorp mess. Life goes on.

If they can't see it that way - and can't be bothered to make right by their customers in interest of generating more sales by having to manually buy those covers, then maybe I need to start thinking about moving on from this game. I've certainly given them enough money.

This is BY FAR the most effective thing you (or any of us) could do to effect change. That's business.

If I spend a week grinding a PvE and I'd have attained 2 covers if not for their server screw-up, then I most definitely am entitled to those covers.

You are certainly not entitled to those covers. None of us signed a contract that gave us the "right" to any type of compensation because we don't like the direction they're taking the game or for technical issues.

The least they can do is treat their customers like customers instead of acting like it's a great privilege for us all to be playing their game at all. They create the game to make money. As customers, we provide that, and this is most definitely a premium game. Everything costs a lot of money here. It's entirely reasonable to expect premium customer service to go along with that. If the game, or even individual characters, only cost $10 to max instead of hundreds, or potentially thousands, it would be a totally different story. The fact that they think their product(s) are worth a high premium price is fine, but that means they have an obligation to provide premium customer support to go along with it. It's that simple.

This is NOT a premium game. It is a free game with an option to spend money, which you (and I) have made the choice to avail ourselves of. It costs nothing to max a character, or I should say you can choose to spend nothing, or $10, or $50, or hundreds. Essentially your complaint is that you want to spend $0 instead of $10 for your Sentry cover, which is a strange complaint considering that they ended up doing that ANYWAY within the event.

Unknown

Okay, these posts are getting too long and this whole thing is rampaging out of control now.

Too many ridiculous points in that last 'happydance' post to comment on but after the whole time is money thing I cant be bothered. Surely you are just trolling me now

I suggest we agree to disagree and i wish you a happy life happydance.