I am not really in the mood to make a "complaining" post but I do believe something needs to be said about the complete ineptitude of blizzards server management team in regards the recent patch which was to include the new raid, the new world boss, and the trinket changes. Instead of doing my standard post I've decided to do something a little different this time around in an effort to save myself some time and have some fun with it in the process.
You see, when I get home from work today I plan to submit a ticket asking for reimbursement for the time lost. No, I am not going to be asking for 1 free day of game time. As I have mentioned here before in a post last week, 1 free day of game time is a slap in the face to every person that plays the game. One day of game time means nothing, or damn near close to nothing. I want a real and actual reimbursement for the time lost and what that lost time equals to me.
I know I will not get anything, but voicing my opinion to blizzard makes me feel better, even if I know they completely ignore me and do not care about anything I say. I am nothing more than a cash cow they are milking for my subscription fee and as long as I am paying it they really do not give a shit what I have to say. Even if I ever quit, they still would not care what I have to say because there will always be some other sucker they can squeeze for cash and that is all that matters.
So here we go, the ticket I plan to copy and paste from here and send to blizzard as soon as I get home from work today.
Please be aware, this is me being a complete and total smart ass. I am not actually demanding these things, I am just sending this to them so they see what one days worth of play time is actually worth, and it sure as hell is not worth crediting me one day free play time. Not even close.
Dear Blizzard,
I was excited to be able to try to the new raid and world boss out when I got home from work yesterday and after multiple times extending the maintenance even when you announced that it was done I could still not log in.
I tried multiple times over the course of the night every 15 minutes or so to get on. Some 6 hours later, when it was time for me to go to bed because I have work the next day, the game was still not up even though you had stated many hours earlier that maintenance was over. You made absolutely no effort to convey what was happening or address why servers were still not down. You left us out of the loop and feeling as if we do not matter by never updating us on the progress. And no, do not say to see twitter, I do not play "twitter", I play warcraft. If I am looking for warcraft updates I look to warcrafts webstie, not to twitter. You did not clue us in on what efforts were being made or what the time excepted for this to be fixed was.
As such, you wasted my entire night trying to log in when I could have choose to do something else if only you had been open and honest and told me that the game would not be in a playable state at any point last night. Being you said nothing except maintenance was over, I was left believing, all night long for 6 hours, that it would be up any minute. Some honesty would have been a nice addition here even if you are not exactly familiar with that concept.
I would like some reimbursement for my time in game that was lost. My list of demands are as follows as these are all the things I lost do to down time when you said the servers were up, even if they weren't.
I would like the proceeds from 4 level 3 mines, and 5 level 2 mines.
I would like the proceeds from 4 level 3 herb gardens and 2 level 2 herb gardens.
I would like 40 big crates of salvage being I average 30 to 40 a day and being it is your error the least you can do is reimburse me on the high end but if you feel like being petty 30 will be fine too.
I would like 803,000 gold deposited into any one of my characters accounts, as that is what I was expecting to make today. There were 4 healing trinkets at 48K, 49K, 50K and 50K respectively, that on the auction house I had intended to buy and flip for 250K after the buff. As I know they would have sold at or near that price, that is gold lost because of your down time and I expect that gold to be credited to my account.
I will be kind and not request more gold for other trinkets I intended to flip but were unable to thanks to your error, but if you are feeling generous you can send an addition 2M gold which would be quite reasonable based on what I could have made but you denied me the chance to do so.
I would like the 800 apexis crystals I would have received from doing my daily.
I would like an additional 30-50 apexis crystals I could have expected from killing mobs for the daily.
I would like 10 or so primal spirits I could have expected from killing mobs for the daily.
I would like the roughly 3,000 council reputation I would have amassed while farming for reputation.
I would like the invasion I would have triggered from doing that waiting for me in my garrison.
I would like the last 2000 arakkoa reputation I needed to get to exalted I planned to finish today.
I would like the invasion I would have triggered from doing that waiting for me in my garrison.
I would like the estimated 150-200 gold I would have looted during that time.
I would like the estimated 2,000 gold in vendor trash I could have expected to loot during that time.
I would like the estimated 30 assorted greens I would have gathered while farming all those things.
I would like the estimated 3 assorted blues of 573-621 item level I normally get while farming all those things.
If you would be so kind you could also send me one random 665, which with all those things is not out of the realm of possibility that I could have seen.
I would like all the experience my followers lost from not being able to send them off on missions.
I would like all the garrison resources my followers lost from not being able to send them off on missions.
I would like all the gold and other assorted goodies my followers lost from not being able to send them off on missions.
I would like the rewards from the two inn quests I would have completed or at the very least the quests put in my quest log as I was unable to pick them up myself.
I would like the proceeds from all the profession cooldowns on all my characters.
I would like all my work order boxes emptied and placed in my bags and then refilled to be full of work orders again for all my characters.
I would like that day I lost back blizzard but being you can not rewind time, just send the the list above and we can call it even. I am sure I forgot stuff, so even giving me all the above mentioned, you are still getting off easy.
And no, do not add another free day on my account, that is a slap in the face. I did not lose a "day" in those terms. I lost a "day" in terms of what I could have done that you denied me the chance to do. I do not need game time, I need what I would have done yesterday done and only you can do that now.
Time can not be replaced, the time you stole from me is lost and can not be replaced with a free day of game time, but I would be willing to accept if you replace it with the proceeds of what I lost from having lost that day.
Thank you for your time, I expect to see all the items I requested in my mail without 24 hours.
Have a great day.
The Queue: “Hope” is the thing with feathers
1 hour ago
Wow that is a lot of gold, an awful lot of gold. Yup my brains still stuck on that sentence. You must really know what you are doing. I have never dared flip anything in case it doesn't sell once I've bought it. I know you have to speculate to accumulate but I'm a bit of a coward, likely why I don't have much gold. Though I have managed to just about break even since the launch of Warlords, which given the amount I've spent on my garrison and for a couple of followers/pets/toys etc. I'm pretty pleased with. You though are in a whole different league.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that you had so many issues. Touch wood it's been fine in the EU so far. Servers came up bang on 11 CET as advertised and nothing bad has happened yet. Maybe they learned from whatever went wrong yesterday which sucks, as neither EU nor US should be a test bed.
I'm sure that you won't get anything but they should at least apologise. This expansion launch has been rough, and 5 free days as you noted doesn't really hit the spot.
That's a very organised list, though from what I remember from blizz's support tickets you won't be able to post it in probably. The word limit is quite harsh on them, so it won't fit. I hope tonight goes better for you and that if your guild is raiding that you have fun.
Oh by the way bit random but I finally got round to attempting to solo MSV. It did not go all that well. I got Stone Guard to 50% once. Now it's possible that I might do better with a different combination, plus being a little more careful with my cds, flasks/buff food etc. but I usually don't pull out the big guns unless I'm only missing 20% or so, as then I know I can do it. I'm sure it's possible for some people already, I'm certain it'll be possible for me when I get some gear. 612 right now, so I'll probably be able to queue for MC this week, or next week for sure, joy upon joys /sarcasm. I have no idea how I will ever win Tarren Mill vs Southshore, beyond spamming till my eyes bleed. Queued the other day, got in instantly, it was a fresh fight and people were already leaving in droves as 'we were going to lose', it's that sort of thing that gives the Alliance bad rep at pvp. The horde were demolishing us. True I'm sure a lot of people in there have no pvp gear, myself included but it's a 'holiday' battleground, so it should be possible to do as it's going away potentially forever afterwards.
Yeah that was random. I'm sorry yesterday sucked for you. I hope blizz give you at least an apology. Maybe you should suggest your token idea, never know it might get passed up the line.
US always gets the shaft because we get it first. No offense, but I would love for once for your guys to get screwed and lose and entire day so I can play the a new patch is released.
DeleteMy guild used to raid on tuesdays. Way back in wrath we decided to ditch tuesday raiding and never went back to it because this was a normal occurrence. It had gotten better over the years but now it seems like they are moving backwards. I can't see how they do something they have been doing for 10 years and still not get any better at doing it.
An apology means nothing. Want to see how useless an apology is, then I will say it. "I am sorry that blizzard made the game unable to play yesterday for millions of people." Does my apology hold any weight? Nope, and neither will theirs. It would just be words. We need actions. Words mean nothing. It is all just "playing the game" and saying what people want to hear. It means nothing and an apology would be hollow and meaningless at best.
When I tried MV on beta I got completely destroyed. But I think I was also still scaled to 90 for it when I did it. So that might have had something to do with it. lol
I have not tried the PvP event yet, I intended to, but never have the time right now. So many things to do and alts to level. Really wish this event came later when the expansion was not new. IN 2 or 3 months we will be bored off our ass because warlords is so light on content and that is when this should have been released. Not now when there is so much new and shiny to play with.
Would love to token idea but it would never fly with blizzard. Remember the blizzard motto.
"If people like it and it is fun, remove it."
I swear, blizzard lives by that motto.
No offence taken. I suppose the trade-off is that if it goes well, that you get in before us. Except when it comes to expansion releases, due to time zones we get that first. EU servers were a complete nightmare, much like US probably but I know some problems were found on EU and fixed before US went live, so it can happen extremely rarely the other way.
DeleteTo be honest I don't think anyone should get shafted. The live game and the playerbase shouldn't be guinea pigs testing the builds. I know that bugs creep in no matter what but something like server infrastructure should have been sorted long ago. It's inexcusable especially for a company pulling in the kind of funds that blizz is. This is a sub game for crying out loud, paying a premium should come with an advantage. If Marvel Heroes messes up patches, which they do fairly frequently then it's a f2p game, it's different. It feels like less of a rip-off.
Yeah I know an apology means nothing but big companies rarely apologise, as it means admitting that they did something wrong and therefore opening themselves up to compensation claims. So an apology can kinda mean something in a way, it doesn't amount to anything but at least they are then holding their hands up and saying "yes we screwed up" which takes a small measure of the sting out of it. They still need to do a hell of a lot better but an apology would be a start if nothing else.
I was thinking about the expansion timing, it would have been much better a few months earlier, as obviously the anniversary has to be when it is. However, if there's only 2 raid tiers this expansion then the timing lines up for the next expansion to be released March 2016 at the same time as the Warcraft movie. Which makes promotional sense, assuming of course that they can bring anything out on time.
I agree, if it were free to play they might be in a better position to say "hey, we are not charging you for it, so we will try our best, just please deal with it while we do." but when you are paying a subscription you expect better service than "deal with it".
DeleteThey still will never apologize except for the "sorry for the inconvenience" that they cut and paste on to the end of everything they say. That is why them saying it is basically worthless.
The expansion would have been fantastic earlier. So then the 10 year anniversary stuff would be been placed in a more player friendly place. Just seems like fluff while trying to get all my characters leveled, geared and built up to try and squeeze that extra stuff in now. But that is what we call a first world problem. I guess too much to do is better than too little to do, depending on how you look at it.
Really? I'll trade my EU realm with server crashes and insane queue and unplayable garrisons for your US one day. We all know US is being listened to while EU is being ignored most often than not. When I logged yesterday I had a 1.3k queue and you know what? This queue will not get fixed, we had 1k queue even before the xpansion and they don't fix it because - wait, what was it - it's been like it for years and people still play. I'm tired of rushing home and logging my char the first thing so I can get get some queue down while I wash, change, eat. Yes, I'll trade my EU realm for your US one.
DeleteBy the way - Southshore vs Tarren Mill, such a bad joke. I queued, yeah. People said stick together but once in the middle they started spreading like idiots and attacking random mobs, Alliance came in and destoyed us. People started leaving, started moaning that we lose etc. This isn't an Alliance thing or a Horde thing, this is a player thing. Shit on both sides, it's not like one is better than the other. So we were losing really bad and they were getting so vauable that close to the end we killed a few of them (I think 3? 5?) and we won. It doesn't matter that they were better organized, it doesn't matter that they destroyed us to begin with, we won because a few of their melee tried to move from their block to actually do something (play) and our ranged killed them. It's probably one of the worst battleground designs I've seen, rewarding failure, camping and inactivity and punishing melee above all else.
The grass is always greener as they say. I would gladly trade for yours because I rarely hear os problems there but we have down times every single week longer than they should be, and massive lag spikes, and queue times even on medium sized servers. So for it it sucks and your situation still sounds better even if you tried to make it sound bad.
DeleteIf you had a queue even before the expansion why did you not switch servers? I know I know, I wouldn't either if I were happy where I was other wise, but it is an option right? That really is not a problem blizzard can fix. All they can do it stop allowing people to make new characters on that server and offer free transfers off. The players ourselves created that problem. If a server gets a reputation of being a good server with a solid pug population that server gets over crowded. I have some characters on servers like that. I rarely log into them because of said reasons. I do not want to wait in queue.
Your experience sounds like what someone in guild was saying. They were there and destroying the horde, as in it seemed like the horde were not even trying. (which I believe is the right tactic here) They had such a huge lead he was saying there was no way he would lose. I pointed out to him that alliance do not win battlegrounds, that is just a fact. He said there is no way they would lose it. I bet him 1000 gold he would lose. As the battle was drawing to and end the horde made a small creep up, he said they were still ahead. I said put your head between your legs and brace for impact because you are about to crash.
Long story short, to late I know, with less than a minute remaining and a near 1000 point advantage, alliance lost as horde came back with a vengeance and killed all the high value alliance. Basically horde won by attacking once and only once. The rest of the fight they just stood there and let the alliance players become more valuable.
So, just as your experience, it proves horde are smarter and better PvP players. They knew it was who is on time at the end that matters and they let the alliance fall into a sense of security so that when they were so far ahead and all worth so many points, they just swarmed them and turned the table in less than 30 seconds.
As I said, alliance do not win battlegrounds.
Well, this doesn't surprise me, after how the launch went. I figure after that, anything is possible. I was looking forward to last night, because I was going to raid again with the new guild I'm in. I took a year and a half off, so I was pumped. But alas, no go. I kept checking until about 930 central time, but then I figured I'd just crash.
ReplyDeleteI honestly still think Blizz wasn't prepared at all and continues to rush things. You figure they would have learned after launch weekend. Maybe they're lacking in funds or something...lawl.
Lacking in funds, no, lacking in knowledgeable staff, maybe.
DeleteThey do not seem to ever learn. For so many years they continued to get better. Mists was fine, cataclysm was okay, and wrath had improved from beginning to end, but with warlords it seems like they wanted to go back to the feel of BC so much they even emulated the horrible tuesdays.
If you read the forums (EU ones at least), you will find out that Blizz is godlike and no one has better tech in this world so this is the best tech can do even if they wanted to do better. Also, that you should stop QQ and whine and whatever words they use. Also, if you don't like it, leave. Oh and that this is absolutely normal and it has always been like that and why should you expect things to be better after 10 years of evolving tech.
DeleteMy two cents: too many people being willing to accept the situation. And not only accept but defend, make up arguments and try to shoot down anyone who values their time. This is why things don't change. I sometimes feel I don't belong in WoW anymore, I'm too old and have too little time to keep my char in a game not to have queues or spend the whole day playing so a day of downtime doesn't feel like much.
I love the game, I will keep playing the game, I will defend the fact I play the game and why I like it. But as much of a fanboy as I might be about the game I would not, could not, and never will, cover for blizzards screw ups and mistakes. I will call them out on them every single chance I get.
DeleteSo it boggles the mind how so many people can defend blizzard and all their screw up as if they were gods. What the hell is wrong with these people? Mental illness is really the only thing it can be.
I am with you there. I am getting to old for this stuff. And those forum people, the ones you mentioned and the other ones that just hate everything, both ends of the spectrum, can just suck the life out of you if you ever take the time to read them. In turn making me feel older and even more disconnected from the game.
"Reading the forums can seriously ruin your gaming experience."
Blizzard should add that as a loading screeen tooltip.
We have it pretty bad in PVP as well.
ReplyDeleteAside from the balance being a big mess which has you roll your eyes constantly, we have:
1. Mandatory RBGs.
There's quite a story here... RBGs used to give a significantly higher cap than arenas at same ratings, so whoever wasn't much into them was at a serious disadvantage. People complained for a long, long time, they didn't want to be penalized for sticking to "just" arenas. Fine, Blizzard finally caved and promised to make the two caps the same. There was much joy, happiness, fanfare, kisses, etc. Now it turns out that, yes, Blizzard did make the two caps the same. But they added a random chance for the first three RBG wins to drop a strongbox with the FULL PIECE of conquest gear. Arenas don't have that. GG, RBGs are mandatory again.
2. Ashran is mandatory too.
It's even simpler. The conquest cap now has a bonus section, which you can only get in Ashran. Given that I haven't been able to even get in Ashran during the last few days - I log in, go to Ashran, that puts me into queue, and the two hours of my playtime ain't enough for the queue to actually invite me in - I can't even TRY to get that bonus. Note that I am not even talking about the actual gameplay in Ashran - which is just horrific - I am saying that there's bonus conquest and I am just denied this bonus from the get go.
3. Humans and EMFH are completely balanced again. (They are OP.)
This is one more eternal topic, which Blizzard just refuse to address. They CONSTANTLY brush off talks about EMFH being OP (it's a free trinket, pretty serious in many cases) and we constantly have one race with something like 150-200 free rating over others. It is no different in WoD (in fact, it is worse, long story). The season has started. If you take a look at the leaderboard for 3v3, you will see that 35 out of 50 top guys are humans. That number could have been larger if humans could be druids. GG again...
Etc, etc, etc.
I can tell you this much - the expansion has only started and I already pretty much had it. There are just too many problems. It's a total mess. There's little content, too. If they don't AT LEAST PARTIALLY address problems 1 and 2 above - preferably by removing bonus strongboxes and bonus conquest and burying that effing concept forever (and crucifying the stupid, stupid idiots who thought it was a good idea) - I am out and I am not coming back for real. I *really* had enough this time.
Needless to say, the problems above come ON TOP of not being able to log in / disconnecting / lagging / bugging in the first day. And who knows what else we are going to hit the first week...
DeleteHave to love that. We won't make RBGs mandatory, but we will now offer a chance at gear in them.
DeleteDoes blizzard understand the meaning of the word mandatory and how people apply it in game? If something offers a major advantage, it is mandatory. Which means RBGs are still mandatory unless you want to be at a disadvantage.
But look at the bright side. At least you could not log in to have to deal with all the in game problems they refuse to address (end sarcasm)
off topic but came across a good tool on reddit to see raid flasks, foods, and potions for a class/role.
ReplyDeletehttp://danielsamuels.co.uk/raid-prep/
It even allows you to bookmark based on criteria.
e.g.
http://danielsamuels.co.uk/raid-prep/##DPS,Agility,Multistrike
--
Regards,
regardsanon
Well, they have "improved" their customer service by now providing more or less regular updates, every one of which is along the lines of "Still down, no clue, some dev somewhere is working on it. We think." I don't know about you, but those always make me feel MUCH better about all the lost time.
ReplyDeleteReally what blows my mind is the complete lack of any learning whatsoever. I am convinced that no one at Blizz, at any level, has the intellectual capacity to plan past the next couple of hours. The debacle of WoD launch day is over, so tra-la-la no need to agonize over it any more or god forbid actually put equipment and procedures in place to ensure no future launch -- for example new content -- suffers the same problems. They are a huge international company with the planning and management mentality of a couple of guys in a garage.
I do like your list, it quantifies the sheer frustration we all have over lost game time, especially when Blizz has made the required play style one in which you MUST log in every day on every alt in order to stay competitive.
They did not improve anything at all, even as minimal and jokingly as you refer. In the 6 hours I tried to get on the message changed once. From there "extended to 3PM PST" to "we are aware of issues". None of that is actually informative. Even if they blew sunshine up our butts and put a new message up once in a while to say they were alive and still working on it then it would have been nice.
DeleteAnd no, a message on twitter does not count. I do not use twitter. 100% of the people I know either do not use twitter or do not use it for warcraft information. I have never once in my life met one person that said, warcraft is down, let me check twitter. They need to give the information in game on the battle.net application or on the main page, with regular updates and they need to stop using some third party website to supply information. And even at that, they were not even giving any twitter updates, making it even worse.
Their customer service is about as bad as me pitching for the new york yankees would be. It is horrible beyond horrible.
Maybe if someone at blizzard saw my list they would realize that one days lost time can not be compensated by giving us a free day. One days lost time is a hell of a lot more valuable than one day of game time.
They are getting worse as the years go by, not better, and it boggles the mind how that is even possible.
Normally when I see you’re posts about abusing the CS tickets I just roll my eyes and move on but I’m going to call you out on this. This is utter bullshit! You know as well as I do that the ticket system is not for this sort of feedback. You even admit that in your post.
ReplyDeleteFine I get that you want to waste blizzards time I get that but right now you are wasting your fellows players time with your bullshit ticket. The ticket time is 4 days plus and it’s because of bullshit like this. If you have feedback from blizzard by all means post it to your blog, post it on the forums, or write them a E-mail. The CS ticket is NOT the right place for this.
Let me explain why this is firing me up right now. I have a guildie who is getting verbally harassed by an ex over multiple characters and accounts she’s got a ticket in and just wants a response from blizzard that they are looking into. But the ticket que is 4 days.
You are a voice for the community and respected, like it or not you are encouraging people to use the CS ticket for what it is not intended to address. You are helping to create the wait in lag time for people with important issues that are supposed to be directed to the CS ticket service. Please stop encouraging people to abuse the CS ticket system.
Of course I am not going to file that. What I write here is for venting, for information, for entertainment, for conversation. No need to take me saying I will send this literally. As you said already, you knew I was not going to send it to begin with.
DeleteI see your point where it could be seen as trying to convince people to send frivolous tickets and that is not what I wish to do. I should change it to what I would "want" to send in a ticket to be more accurate.
I honestly do believe that blizzard needs to see that giving one "day" is not any compensation for one "day" lost. They are looking at it from a business standpoint, numbers and computers. You and I and everyone else that plays are not numbers or computers, we are people and deserve to get treated better.
I am sorry to hear that is happening to your friend. I had a friend in my guild that only ended up there because she server transferred from another server to get away from an abusive ex because blizzard would do nothing about it. So I have a little understanding of the problem your friend is having now.
For the record, they told her to put him on ignore. When she said she did that and he kept making new characters, they told her to ignore them too. They said if all he is doing is harassing her by sending a lot of messages and annoying her but not actively threatening her that they can see in records there is no action they can take against him and to keep ignoring him. This was 4 years ago so I really do hope blizzard has gotten better with their rules than to keep allowing this to happen like it happened to her.
Thank you for your response! I appreciate how serious you took that! If she tells me what happens I'll let you know as a follow up. I didn't ask how he was harassing her I do know she has or had a restraining order against him.
Deletere what is and isn't appropriate compensation I see your point and can get behind that but I personally just don’t care that much anymore. After 10 years I’ve been taking server ques and down time as a sign I need to get off my ass and exercise. Last night had a good long walk.
I guess after all these years I have become used to it as well. About 6 or so years ago my guild just stopped raiding on tuesdays. It was bad so often we figured it was not worth the stress of if or if not we would be able to log in.
DeleteJust FYI she got a very supportive E-mail from the CS team. They told her exactly what to do if he does it again and actions to take so that they could deal with it for her. from the sound of it it sounded like his account got a red flag and he hasn't been heard from for a while now not sure if a temp ban or what. she was very happy with her CS experience with them tho From her description they took it very seriously so I was super happy to hear that as a guild leader.
DeleteRe Tuesday raids my thoughts exactly we raid wed Thursday on Tuesday I had some people bugging me why don't we raid Tuesdays. This Tuesday was a good way for me to show my point.
That is excellent news. I was thinking about it, if she had put in the ticket that she has a restraining order against him that will assure blizzard takes action. I think by law they would have to actually, but do not quote me on that.
DeleteSame for me. People were bugging me to move it to tuesday and after tuesday I think I proved my point as to why we don't. lol
Wow. You sure are a whiny little f4ggot. I hope you kill yourself.
ReplyDelete