Carefullthere Posted January 27, 2017 Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 I have 1/2 a dozen items missing from my character. This happened Wednesday evening. The missing items were replaced by duplicates of existing items some of which are unique and I shouldn't be able to have 2 of. I opened a ticket in game which was handled by GM Plateau. On Thursday the response was "there is nothing we can do" and besides you can go out and have the items remade with the exception of the Seal of the Dragon. That I can put you on the last step of the mission. When it came to the missing bullyeye device I was told that there is no record of me ever having one and I could always go get another. This is BS as I've had the items for months. Basically indicating I was lying about having the device. After telling Plateau if the problems couldn't be fixed I no longer needed to pay/play. His official response was thank you for playing the EnB emulator. Lousy service at best. I don't believe the problem can't be fixed. I do believe either he didn't have the skills to fix it or he was just lazy. Take your pick. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravina Posted January 27, 2017 Report Share Posted January 27, 2017 to add to this he is my guildi the toon that was affected ( HAWAT ) when i log this day around 10AM EST when he is work i would see him on my friends list but location was blank i sent him a message to see he was online but obviously he was at work so i never got response. when he got home and he log in he noticed all this things missing and the GM Plateau was looking at for him then next day is when get got this answer from him. i have to say the service provided by the volunter staff is lacking alot like i put a ticket a while back about toon name change it was almost 1 week before I got reply stating no! which is fine but 1 week??. as player and also planning to continue donating money for the game i am extremely disappointing with the GM support in the game. Only one that i have seen to fix issues is Arthur as far glitch missions etc. i really hope someone that was the power and willing to help my guildi fix this issue that happen to him with out him doing anything to contribute to problem. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackmercenary Posted January 28, 2017 Report Share Posted January 28, 2017 Dear Support Staff, We could really use your help here. Your time is valuable along with our time, the community is small and we all need to work together to keep it thriving. Hawat has always been the type of guy to help anyone out with no questions asked. When something like this happens, it sucks for everyone involved. Especially the guy who lost hours worth of work. There have been plenty of studies that have shown how the intrinsic value of an object is tied to the effort put in to get it. When people have watched that object destroyed right before their eyes, it is extremely demoralizing and disheartening. Some extra empathy is required here. Hawat has been playing the game for awhile and has accumulated a lot of things through hard work and to tell him that he just needs to spend more time re-accumulating them because of a database error is equally demoralizing. Without looking at the database, it seems like the table's keys that tie his character inventory table and item table together got mixed up. Why else would he have two NOS items? I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt and the items that he is missing should be restored as a gesture of good faith. It's not like he is asking for a skull shield here. Let's try to keep this community striving. Please help the man out. I would hate to see him leave the game because of this event. Blackmercenary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Arthurdent [CDEV] Posted January 28, 2017 Popular Post Report Share Posted January 28, 2017 Since my name was mentioned here (as good an excuse as any other to stand on a soapbox and preach to the masses) I'm going to supply a few comments from the flip side of this discussion (not representing the EMU team as such, but as a volunteer that steps up to do things for the project). Please save all your swearing for the end of the post. Tickets are looked at and responded to by GM staff ONLY, of which there are 3 (Blacklung, Plateau and Woodstock) who examine the consequences surrounding the event, evaluate the intervention level required, and make a decision based on what information is available to them. To understand this process, you have to consider what information can be accessed, such as : 1) your immediate character profile, live at the moment. 2) your recent character's transaction history of all types (trades, loot., etc) 3) recent server logs (by developer intervention only, after the fact) From what information I can gather (secondhand), the GM's decision to not replace the buildable items is pretty normal. There can be arguments made for some buildable items to be replaced when "lost" like this if the build is extremely difficult or might involve raid parts (like a bile launcher or cannon). The player was then set to a mission step to re-obtain one of the unique items, which is fine, and then did not replace a looted unique which is from a timed spawn and not raid related (where it might have been won on a roll). Both of these items did not have any recent trade or loot history on the player logs, unlike the case recently where a Steingard's was dropped and replaced because the log showed it being removed from the inventory. Note that a lack of evidence here does not imply that anyone is lying. It implies there is no evidence. Up to this point, if I had been "helping" .. I'dve probably made the same decisions the GM did. Depends how much coffee I may or may not have consumed. Now, after the player has been helped by a GM, in this case not to the player's satisfaction, can this be changed? Sure, that's part of the head GM's (Blacklung) role. The GM is already helping / has already helped you, just maybe not the way you want. Or expected (we'll come back to expectations in a moment). There are options available to everyone here to contact various people on staff, of which you all avail yourselves regularly, via e-mail, messaging on the forums, and including poking one of us on TeamSpeak, even if it's just to ask "is this fair?". Someone may decide to change it after the fact. Or not. At that point in the discussion to say in short terms "fix it or I'm gone" is provocative, and premature, considering the options. I won't address Plateau's response. That it might be not politically correct from a player's standpoint is valid. Whether he could have pointed out that if the player isn't happy, he could always talk to his "boss" is also valid. But because he didn't when faced with an ultimatum from an upset player will possibly be a learning experience for him. Other than that, if the player is determined to leave, none of us can stop him. The response mentioned is basically the equivalent of wishing an unhappy person "Have a nice day". So I'm here this evening and I'm reading the forums. And taking time to compose this. And I regularly keep a chat log from the server running. And a bunch of other things, all related to the emulator. My personal dedication level to the project is maybe a little higher than others. Or maybe not. Should you expect me to do this every day? (ah see expectations time). Should you expect this from all staff? .. The answer is no. Catch me on a day when I'm not awake yet, have had no coffee, and the effing phone doesn't stop ringing when I'm -trying- to work on the emulator, and I can be a real asshole. Some of you know that from the last several years. Some of you may find out tomorrow sometime before 8am. Such is life. Lots of people see me regularly jump in and fix things. Thanks for noticing that, I appreciate it. Others do also, sometimes just not as publicly. Sometimes something I "fix" is a group effort, but because I actually jumped on it, I'm the visible solutionist. Back to expectations, now .. the other comment here about ticket response speed. Let's compare : A player puts in a ticket on Wednesday and receives a response Thursday. Issue : missing items (important!) A player puts in a ticket and receives a response a week later. Issue : nick change (not important and as a rule not done!) Obviously two different priorities. And while it may seem trivial to just fire off a response, the priority tickets get time first. All of this taking into account the time that the GM staff is actually online during that period. And if this is the same ticket for a name change that the DEVs were approached about recently, then the GM took the time to verify whether it should actually be done or not to be certain before replying. Could a "will verify" response be sent and then a later reply, certainly. Is this also a learning experience? Definitely. Again here, the question is asked "should I continue to donate money to the emulator" because of something that does not happen the way you expected it to. The answer is entirely up to you. However, here is the part that I warned you about saving your swearing for. You are not buying anything. There is no "customer service". This is not EA where there are paid operator drones named Steve standing by at some switchboard in a third-world country imitating a Texas accent tinged with Hindu to make you feel like a piece of crap, after taking your money and then thanking you at the end of the call for playing Earth & Beyond. (yesssss .. this is familiar ..) Steve would then assign your ticket to a paid GM on staff during the next available shift. The paid GM would then make a decision you also might not like and then send you a standard form-letter ticket reply (that also reminded you that you were a numbered account) stating that there was no recent logs supporting your issue, and the ticket was closed. Oh, and again, Thank you for playing. So what's the difference? You are DONATING monies to a group that has pledged to run an emulator. Which we do, in programming and content development. Alongside of that we OFFER our time to the players to help them resolve issues, and some contribute only by doing this (the GM staff). We could do all of this invisibly, and you would never know us. Several games do that. We feel that doesn't suit E&B. We do this when we can; there is no schedule, there is no punch clock. There is also frequently no reward, except for the people we meet and the shared love of the game. You donate because you wish to support our efforts, and keep the game running, paying the server expenses and other development costs. You donate because you love the game, not the people who run it. We donate our time to better the game along the way for you, the players. Not always successfully. But we try. Somewhere in the middle, we all meet, and share. That's the payoff. Now I've spent all my playtime tonight donating my time to this post. Good Night. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackmercenary Posted January 28, 2017 Report Share Posted January 28, 2017 Good morning Arthurdent, Thank you for taking the time to respond to this thread and I definitely understand the necessity of coffee before taking on the day. I am sorry that you didn't get to play the game last night. In real life, I am Tier 3 support in IT, so I share your unique perspective when it comes to a ticket's priority, the timeliness of the response, and the type of response given by the support. I don't want to debate Plateau's response and handling of the ticket because it is a volunteer situation and he is dedicating his valuable time to help everyone out. He isn't paid to provide professional support and there is obviously a disparity between the size of the support staff and the volume of support tickets requiring response. I am on this thread because I believe that a higher tier of support needs to step into this situation and help. I am appealing to you because I don't want to see a friend go. I think most people would feel defeated in this situation and want to take a extended break or not play all together. I don't think the feeling is unusual to just Hawat and I think his response is from a source of helplessness. He needs help from a higher level support at this point and any help in this situation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time, Brandon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthurdent [CDEV] Posted January 28, 2017 Report Share Posted January 28, 2017 As I mentioned in my response, there are options available to him. Whether he chooses to avail himself of them is his decision. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plateau [GM] Posted January 29, 2017 Report Share Posted January 29, 2017 The Issue has been resolved. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carefullthere Posted January 29, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2017 Thank you for the resolution.. My sincere apologies and thanks to Plateau. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackmercenary Posted January 29, 2017 Report Share Posted January 29, 2017 Thank you Plateau for all of your help in this situation and restoring Hawat's items. Have a great weekend. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravina Posted January 31, 2017 Report Share Posted January 31, 2017 On 1/29/2017 at 0:35 PM, Plateau said: The Issue has been resolved. Thank you Plateau, and i would like to apologize to you and all the volunteer staff on my previous comment after reading Arthur's letter i feel my comments where not appropriate or fair to all you donating your time and effort to keep game running and helping us player. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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