Gms and CS

[Kolle]

My personal experience in WoW with GMs has been fair when they actually get to me. They macro they're lines and hopefully fix the problem then leave.

A few weeks ago one of my characters got stuck in a wall. Tried literally everything and nothing would get him out. So a ticket is made and 7 hours later a GM shows up and spends 10 seconds getting me out, asking me if I needed anything else, then left.

I think we've all had similar experiences or at least many of us. This wasn't the first time I had to wait so long. I had a bugged quest a few months ago and it wasn't until the next day after having played, slept, woke up, did rl stuff, then came back and reached a GM finally.

I think about shit like that and wonder why it's happening. But anyway, a few things on the main boards made me think about this.



http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...p=1#post163373

A recent hunter issue is with the pets and upcoming patch. The snakes in ZF have been something you could tame, but they are removing that option for some reason. Hell if I know why, they aren't overpowered or special other than looking neat.

Anyway, a guy tries to get an answer to whether or not his current snake pet will poof, die, stay, or whatever...this is what a GM says:


"Hello Cole,

Thank you for contacting us via the in-game petition system. We appreciate your feedback and apologize for being unable to address your issue while you were online.

Petition:
"Hi, I'm a hunter.
In the patch notes, they've stated that Sandfury Guardians from Zul'Farrak are no longer tameable.
If I tame one before patch, and use it as my pet, what will happen to it? Thanks."

Answer:
Your pet may or may not be removed.

Should you require further assistance, please submit another help request the next time you are online. We hope you continue to enjoy your experience in World of Warcraft!

For any game play questions, please refer to our site at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/

*** Please do not respond to this email as all conversations on this matter would be best handled online. ***

Regards,
**********
Game Master
Blizzard Entertainment"


At first I have to laugh. It's fucking hilarious that anyone would actually respond with that. Then I have to feel sad for all the hunters. But my hunter doesn't even use that pet, so I'm not incredibly worried over it.




Another thing which you might have noticed by now is that the European boards seem to be better off. They communicate better and give more information. This seems to result in a more behaved community.

We all know how hard it is to get our CMs and Devs to be straight with us, much less give any kind of a time table or updates.

http://wow-europe.com/en/

Meanwhile they post the shit right on the front page. If you want to see a clusterfuck of a thread about it, visit here:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...=1#post1835001




I'm just wondering if this is going to be the norm for the next 2 or 3 years of WoW.

[Duppin]

Originally posted by Kolle
Answer:
Your pet may or may not be removed.

...

"We may or may not bend you over. We haven't decided yet!"

[Metranon]

you expect a developer in charge of patch design actually take time out of his day just to answer whether you will get to keep a pet or not?

GM's don't write patch notes, and likely the change on whether the patch is retroactive or not simply hasn't been made yet

the GM's don't have a direct line to the dev team team to call them up and bother them with questions from every whiny customer about the patch

personally i think it was kind of stupid to bother a GM with this question in the first place. Go tame a snake in ZF, if it sticks around after the patch, great. if not, too bad.

people wonder why the GM staff is often stretched thin, it's because they waste tim harassment with issues like this that aren't legitimate bugs, exploits, etc.

[Duppin]

Originally posted by Metranon
you expect a developer in charge of patch design actually take time out of his day just to answer whether you will get to keep a pet or not?

Yes.

It disturbs me that so many people are willing to accept the utterly shitty communication between Blizzard and its playerbase.

All that this would've taken would've been a quick email to a dev from the GM, asking the question, and then not replying to the ticket until they got a response. Simple, easy, and customers have a right to expect answers to questions like these.

Just because you think it's minor and not worth of a dev's precious time doesn't mean it is.

And the total non-answer (may or may not? what the hell is that?) is further proof of the massive disconnect between Blizzard's CS and PR staff and their developers. They make noises about improving it but I honestly haven't seen much in the way of improvements yet.

[Awanka]

Originally posted by Duppin
Yes.

It disturbs me that so many people are willing to accept the utterly shitty communication between Blizzard and its playerbase.

All that this would've taken would've been a quick email to a dev from the GM, asking the question, and then not replying to the ticket until they got a response. Simple, easy, and customers have a right to expect answers to questions like these.

Just because you think it's minor and not worth of a dev's precious time doesn't mean it is.

And the total non-answer (may or may not? what the hell is that?) is further proof of the massive disconnect between Blizzard's CS and PR staff and their developers. They make noises about improving it but I honestly haven't seen much in the way of improvements yet.

No, the players don't have a right to bother GMs with retarded questions that they should look up themselves. The GMs are there to prevent game violations and enforce rules, not to act as personal tour guides to dipshits. If I was a gm and I got a question asking if pets are in after a patch, I would ban that person's account.

[Duppin]

Originally posted by Awanka
No, the players don't have a right to bother GMs with retarded questions that they should look up themselves. The GMs are there to prevent game violations and enforce rules, not to act as personal tour guides to dipshits. If I was a gm and I got a question asking if pets are in after a patch, I would ban that person's account.

At the risk of encouraging more stupidity in this thread...

Where exactly do you think he was able to look this up? How do you know he didn't try?

Not to mention that you're apparently clueless about how doing support for a game like this actually works. Customer service personnel spend a large portion more of their day answering player questions than they do playing cops; this is as it should be, especially considering how hard Blizzard works to make it difficult to get an answer to questions through other means (I /dare/ you to suggest posting in the cesspool that is the WoW forums as a means to get answers to a question).

If you know anything about customer service other than working the fry station at McDonalds, you know that customer retention is a primary duty of customer service personnel, and guess what? Players that get their questions answered, in a complete and timely fashion, when they have them...tend to stay!

[Braen]

I am begining to think some WoW/Blizzard supporters are looking through shit colored glasses...

How about We may... or may not patch in the next 2 weeks.

How about we may or may not have a server stable enough to play on...

[Awanka]

Believe me, I wouldn't last long as a gm. I would look through my inbox full of petitions, full of crying bitches who lost their orc pawns, complaints about shit that noone cares about, and answer them all to grow a pair of balls and fuck off. I would than go around picking people up randomly and dropping them in lava.

Customer support, the term makes me laugh.

[frott]

Originally posted by Metranon
you expect a developer in charge of patch design actually take time out of his day just to answer whether you will get to keep a pet or not?

GM's don't write patch notes, and likely the change on whether the patch is retroactive or not simply hasn't been made yet

the GM's don't have a direct line to the dev team team to call them up and bother them with questions from every whiny customer about the patch

personally i think it was kind of stupid to bother a GM with this question in the first place. Go tame a snake in ZF, if it sticks around after the patch, great. if not, too bad.

people wonder why the GM staff is often stretched thin, it's because they waste tim harassment with issues like this that aren't legitimate bugs, exploits, etc.

Your post is horseshit. Yes I expect when they change some game that is already wearing on what little patience I have for my entertainment to cause fucking hang-ups and problems in my life, that they not only explain it: but they also rationalize the explanations.

Oh, boo hoo, it's just so much to ask for any semblance of thoroughness when changing the fucking game that I'm funding.

I'm sick and fucking tired of people jumping to the defense of any conglomerate claiming that the sands in their hourglass are so precious and delicate, where, y'know, I guess mine being the customer just don't mean shit? Fuck that. It's time to be "adult" and drop some nerdy shit on us regarding The State of The Game... not these inbred, confusing statements which only offer more questions. I don't want the doors that are opened to lead into a fucking hall of more doors.

This is not a social experiment, this is not a casual time or money investment and above all this is not a fucking beta test for unfinished software. I do not want to bother with a fucking game months into launch that goes down for 6 hours, has a fucking "maintenance period (huh, what?)" and then runs like shit after that until we are spammed with "We are aware there is some lag here and there and are working on it!" only for the lag to kick in 20 minutes later (wow, they were PSYCHIC about the FUTURELAG) and bring the server down again.

Yes, you are so fucking amazingly and ultimately aware that the concept of "prevention" just hasn't come into play yet with any real result? Pardon me if my stomach turns and I spontaneously shit out of my mouth and eyesockets when I think of the diarreahfest that will be attempting to choke the playerbase with the gigantic black cock known as the "monolithic shut the fuck up patch" that's slated for "later." For fuck sake, I guess the USA is a second-rate, third-world country because we're getting our goddamned intelligence from the motherfucking Allies overseas. Superb. I guess they are more cultured there. That's really a clever way of posting info that they don't have to adhere to: let the Euro's divulge it. That way, everyone in the fucking USA who's playing this crock of shit will have some inkling of when it's safe to bother again, without any guarantees. I mean, grow some balls: you're already fucking up, noone will really give a shit if you fuck up more out in the open.

First of all, they wrote a big turd of a patchnotes that is riddled with vaguity. IF they are going to write something that says some shit is changing, they ought to also address all the things that that change affects. Oops, know what's gonna happen? Some shit is gonna happen that is really fucking obvious that was overlooked, and because the playerbase shut up and didn't ask questions due to assumptions that people weren't snoozing, some more broken shit will live.

Secondly, yeah, it's so fucking sad that the GM even bothered to answer a petition. Wait, no it's not: that's what they're there for. So, the GM didn't have a macro to press: guess what, they answered in a completely asinine manner. "The answer to your question is yes or no!" That's the fucking waste of time.


I dunno, at first it was charming and a little bit comical, but these days the retardation levels are off the meter...

... I think it's fitting to declare: playing WoW makes you retarded.

This is becoming a nightmare where instead of decent, non-apologetic, non-stress-sharing answers and statements the response to our questions is someone rubbing applesauce on their genitals while smiling "Darrhrhhhh!"

[Sanchek]

It cracks me up that people expect 500k customers to be able to pose any inane question they want directly to a dev and get an answer.

Of course, if the devs were to actually submit to your desires and spend every waking minute answering questions, you'd be seeing this mini content patch coming out sometime in 2011. Then, you'd be pissed off about that.

If you call Dell and want to know if you can get the CD-ROM in gray instead of black, do you expect to talk to the guy who designed the computer? Do any of you live in reality? Just because it's a video game doesn't mean they don't have a business to run.

As far as the original question goes, just go tame one. After the patch, it'll either be gone and who cares really, or you'll still have it and it'll be your special proof that you were here from the start. It's not as if it's hard to get to those to tame one. Hell, you could probaby round up a whole raid full of hunters to go tame the stupid things.

[Metranon]

yeah, it's so fucking sad that the GM even bothered to answer a petition. Wait, no it's not: that's what they're there for. So, the GM didn't have a macro to press: guess what, they answered in a completely asinine manner. "The answer to your question is yes or no!" That's the fucking waste of time.

just because Blizzard already wrote the replacement code to make the snakes in ZF uncharmable, and wrote the patch notes before putting it in, doesnt mean that they have had the meeting where they will decide whether or not they will retroactively remove all the ZF snake pets that are already in. Should the GM phone up the lead dev and request that they hold an emergency meeting at 3am to decide whether this guy will get to keep his snake pet? would that be an acceptable level of CS?

isn't entirely possible that "your pet may or not be removed after the patch" is the best answer the GM could give?

[Vaclav]

Originally posted by Sanchek
It cracks me up that people expect 500k customers to be able to pose any inane question they want directly to a dev and get an answer.

There's a big fucking difference between what you're stating and what people expect.

1 - The question was getting answered by a GM, so for the GM staffing part of the equation we're already good to go...

2 - The GM's presumably have SOME MEANS to contact someone at Blizzard so they can ask an incredibly simple Yes or No question at least. Be it email, fax, smokesignals, telephone or fucking phonograph recordings.

No game is sanely run with the development staff in a fucking bubble of isolation from the rest of the company - it just doesn't work that way.

PS - When I bought my Dell, I did inquire about color options and they had all the answers available to them easily and distinctly, including some recommendations for 3rd party products to alter the coloration of the unit well. (From an Indian guy at that - don't ever fucking try to knock Dell's phone people, they kick some serious ass)

[frott]

Originally posted by Sanchek
It cracks me up that people expect 500k customers to be able to pose any inane question they want directly to a dev and get an answer.

Of course, if the devs were to actually submit to your desires and spend every waking minute answering questions, you'd be seeing this mini content patch coming out sometime in 2011. Then, you'd be pissed off about that.

You seem to think that there is customer service, then there are the devs, and that's it. How about people coordinating development efforts, who's job it is to understand what the fuck is going to happen in the game once any development changes are made?

No, a game company isn't just "the people who post on the boards" and "the devs." Bzzzt.

If you call Dell and want to know if you can get the CD-ROM in gray instead of black, do you expect to talk to the guy who designed the computer? Do any of you live in reality? Just because it's a video game doesn't mean they don't have a business to run.

I fucking hate bad analogies: your analogy is like a bad analogy.
I demand to speak to anyone who's claimed to teach Rhetoric to you, and I want answers to why you are not grasping the gist of the situation.

I call Dell and want to talk to someone who will not answer "yes or no" because they don't know the answer. And guess what? I still want an answer. I want to know if I can get the CD-ROM in gray rather than black, pass me to someone who is paid to know the answers and tell them to me.

Oh, sorry, you have a business to run and you can't be bothered to have anyone at the fucking company who will answer even the most inane of questions with a decent response.

I bet it'd be REAL FUCKING HARD to find people to volunteer to press the "I don't know the answer." response button when getting the "stupid" questions.

[Vaclav]

Originally posted by Metranon
just because Blizzard already wrote the replacement code to make the snakes in ZF uncharmable, and wrote the patch notes before putting it in, doesnt mean that they have had the meeting where they will decide whether or not they will retroactively remove all the ZF snake pets that are already in. Should the GM phone up the lead dev and request that they hold an emergency meeting at 3am to decide whether this guy will get to keep his snake pet? would that be an acceptable level of CS?

isn't entirely possible that "your pet may or not be removed after the patch" is the best answer the GM could give?

If a case like you're guessing is correct, then the GM chose a VERY poor wording.

"That decision has not been made yet from what I can find - you may lose it or keep it after the patch, I'm not sure" would've been a more clear response for a case like that.

Or if they wanted to take it up about fifty fucking notches from normal Blizzard CS they could add this gem to the end of it - "...I will make a note of your question and email address and attempt to contact you in a few days if I can find a clearer response"

[Salizar]

How freaken hard is it to open up your company's IM of choice and ask,
"Hey want to go play some FuzzBall? Btw are we going to allow them to keep the freaken snakes?"

Damned I do this shit all the time with our developers.