Do you, SOE, actually listen to your testers?

[Morgania434]

<p>Cuz with this last update as the freshest in our minds, it sure seems like you IGNORE everything everyone told you. Including, item slotted for the wrong body part, guild hall crash, items moving to legendary status and the 1001 other problems all these great people TOLD you about! Warned you about!</p><p>And you ignored them</p><p>Time to start listening a little more to your paying customers and less to the board of directors.</p>

[Morghus]

<p>Sadly, this isn't anything new.</p><p>They might pay 50% more attention when it is beta.</p><p>/bug probably goes into a black hole</p><p>/feedback probably goes into a blackhole</p><p>Unless they acknowledge the issue on the forums, it isn't likely to get fixed right away.</p><p>They are not likely to fix an outstanding glitch or issue in mechanics unless a new boss uses that mechanic or it benefits us players against mobs.</p><p>Unless it's someone awesome like ttobey, they usually don't respond to a PM.</p><p>They have to adhere to "builds", and can't make last minute fixes.</p><p>Heroic and raid content on test servers are almost never tested properly, issues going live that you can see just by zoning in once are obvious proof.</p><p>Those are my observations.</p>

[darwich]

Not to mention, my AAs resetting randomly all weekend!!! They should have worked the weekend with such a screwed up update!@!!

[thewarriorpoet]

<p>Every time they change stuff people ask this. The reason is becasue they should, but they do not.</p>

[Morgania434]

<p>Ya know, i Love the game, the players, the world eq2 is set in.</p><p>What I cannot stand at all is poor customer service and communication.</p><p>I currently and have all my life worked in customer service jobs.  The one I have now I have been at for 15 years.</p><p>If we communicated with our customers the way SOE does with theirs, our company would be out of business in about 1 month.</p><p>Being as America is still a free country, with capitalism as the base of operations for business, I have decided to take my money elsewhere.</p><p>Yes, I subbed on eq2x, $15.98 per month with tax.</p><p>Yes I have bought 2 expansions through them.</p><p>Yes I have purchased station cash for house items and housing.</p><p>Will I continue to pour my hard earned money into such a poorly run company? NO.</p><p>So, I am now a free bronze account, I will not be buying any more station cash.  I will not be asking family and friends to join up to experience the same lack of BASIC COMMON COURTESY that I have experienced.</p><p>Thank you SOE for showing me how GREAT I do my job.  How NOT to do my job.</p><p>Also, Thank you for showing me that there are other games out there that I love just as much, but quit playing to come here.</p>

[Flamewi]

<p><cite>Morgania434 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Ya know, i Love the game, the players, the world eq2 is set in.</p><p>What I cannot stand at all is poor customer service and communication.</p></blockquote><p>Been saying the above for years. Couldn't agree more.</p><p>Love the Game...</p><p>Hate the people (SOE) running the Game into the ground <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Neskonlith]

<p>Has any progress been made on the broken Guild Halls trapping characters inside?</p><p>EDIT: k, SJ just posted this in General forums:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If there have been no replies, here's one for you:</p><ul><li>We know about the issue.</li><li>We are working hard to solve it.</li><li>This is one of the two top priorities we are working on at the moment.</li><li>We will get a fix out as quickly as possible (hopefully today or tomorrow).</li></ul><p style="padding-left: 30px;">We apologize for the inconvenience.</p></blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p>

[boostershots]

<p>It's a mixed bag with the CS. Everytime I have ever had an issue, the reps have been very nice and helpful. I called them up just a couple days ago, there was no waiting on hold, the lady was very helpful and friendly. A very good experience compared to any other company.</p><p>So I wouldn't say the customer service is bad, in fact, I thought it was very good. It is more like quality control is bad. That problem stems from the top where the resources are distributed. We see it in GU61. An ambitious undertaking that does not have enough manpower to do it properly. The solution is either to postpone and make the time between updates much longer or for them to put more of their resources into testing and developement. This has always been SOE's biggest problem, they are cheapskates when it comes to developement and testing. It is why Blizzard rules the world and SOE does not, even after having a head start in the biz.</p>

[Felshades]

<p><cite>boostershots wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's a mixed bag with the CS. Everytime I have ever had an issue, the reps have been very nice and helpful. I called them up just a couple days ago, there was no waiting on hold, the lady was very helpful and friendly. A very good experience compared to any other company.</p><p>So I wouldn't say the customer service is bad, in fact, I thought it was very good. It is more like quality control is bad. That problem stems from the top where the resources are distributed. We see it in GU61. An ambitious undertaking that does not have enough manpower to do it properly. The solution is either to postpone and make the time between updates much longer or for them to put more of their resources into testing and developement. This has always been SOE's biggest problem, they are cheapskates when it comes to developement and testing. It is why Blizzard rules the world and SOE does not, even after having a head start in the biz.</p></blockquote><p>If blizzard rules the world, then why is their latest expansion going for 20 bucks, their trial accounts never expire and go up to level 20, new games are getting burning crusade for free, and the recruit a friend went up to level 80?</p><p>Because they're bleeding players left and right.</p>

[Morgania434]

<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #888888; font-size: small;">What I meant by common courtesy and customer service is this:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #888888; font-size: small;">Dear Loyal Customers:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #888888; font-size: small;">We are aware of the guild hall problem and will be working on it all weekend long, there is however nothing we can do at this moment about it.  Please submit a ticket via the soe link (insert link here). And you will be helped in the order your ticket was received, this could take 12-24 hours due to the sheer number of players experiencing this problem.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #888888; font-size: small;">Regards,</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #888888; font-size: small;">SOE Team.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #888888; font-size: small;">That is what I mean by common courtesy and customer service.  COMMUNICATION on the boards, and NOT just the live forums! We are lucky as heck to have someone "remembering" the eq2x forums. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; color: #888888; font-size: small;">Usually, we are blessed enough to have people who play both eq2 and eq2x to post on our forums for us. </span></p>

[Rainmare]

<p>They don't do that because a) they won't work on it all weekend since I doubt the bigwigs would pay them the overtime, and b) if they give a time like 12-24 hours, the first person that has to wait 24 hours and 10 minutes comes here and throws a hissy fit about them not keeping thier promises.</p><p>Heck they have people that complain when the do a hotfix or patch and say 'we estimate it'll be down 2 hours' people raise cain when it's down 2 hours and 5 minutes.</p>

[Faeward]

<p>You know what...</p><p>Dungeon finder is going to be awesome for Test. Why? Well, we get to test the dungeon finder and we might even get to do dungeons with other testers! Crazy stuff! We'll be able to test a lot more content when this goes live.</p>

[Griffildur]

<p>I've had very good experiences with CS. The development team on the other hand is run by amateurs.</p>

[Gladiolus]

<p><cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>They don't do that because a) they won't work on it all weekend since I doubt the bigwigs would pay them the overtime</p></blockquote><p>This goes back to what the OP said, ie, the patch was released while they knew it was faulty. That was where the change should have been made. I don't imagine I'm alone in my view that I'd rather have patches a week later and working properly. The second thing is that changes shouldn't be made just before a weekend or any time when there won't be full staff for the next few days to fix anything that might be wrong.</p>

[SisterTheresa]

<p><cite>Neskonlith wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Has any progress been made on the broken Guild Halls trapping characters inside?</p><p>EDIT: k, SJ just posted this in General forums:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If there have been no replies, here's one for you:</p><ul><li>We know about the issue.</li><li>We are working hard to solve it.</li><li>This is one of the two top priorities we are working on at the moment.</li><li>We will get a fix out as quickly as possible (hopefully today or tomorrow).</li></ul><p style="padding-left: 30px;">We apologize for the inconvenience.</p></blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p></blockquote><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=505973">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=505973</a>  Supposedly fixed in the Hotfix today</p>

[Morgania434]

<p>This is the kind of "support" we get on extended forums.</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2x/posts/list.m?topic_id=9093">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2x...m?topic_id=9093</a></p><p>Instead of answering the questions, they lock the thread, wow, just wow,</p><p>By this weekend my whole guild will have a new game to play.</p><p>Thanks for the fun and the headaches SOE</p>

[Laenai]

<p>The funny part is the blame that falls on the players because Test is a ghost town.</p><p>We used to flock to that server in droves. For a while, it was one of the most populated servers.</p><p>We stopped when we realized no one was listening, that every bug was going to live, that every glitch made it, and that none of the actual testing yielded any results whatsoever.</p><p>Honestly, what's the point?</p>

[thewarriorpoet]

<p><cite>Karimonster wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The funny part is the blame that falls on the players because Test is a ghost town.</p><p>We used to flock to that server in droves. For a while, it was one of the most populated servers.</p><p>We stopped when we realized no one was listening, that every bug was going to live, that every glitch made it, and that none of the actual testing yielded any results whatsoever.</p><p>Honestly, what's the point?</p></blockquote><p>Exactly.</p>

[Stalack]

<p>I feel well thought out constructive feedback is always ignored. It takes the incoherent screaming of the masses to make any changes. Therefore test server really servers no purpose.</p>

[Gladiolus]

<p><cite>Karimonster wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The funny part is the blame that falls on the players because Test is a ghost town.</p></blockquote><p>Paying customers do not have the blame for products that don't work. In any event, there are plenty of players who spent their own subscription time on going to Test, then reporting on bugs they found, only to be ignored and see them released onto live anyway. So where's the motivation?</p>

[Morgania434]

<p>The ONLY things i ask for and expect from a company that I give my money to are</p><p>1. Communication in a timely manner</p><p>2. Customer Service</p><p>If you can't have either of those 2 things, you can't have my money.</p><p>I don't give a rats behind about the gear changes, etc. as I don't raid, they are just added fuel to the fire.</p><p>I care about the fact that for 5 days SOE left paying customers hanging and unable to log into the game THEY PAY FOR due to a KNOWN bug with the guild hall!</p><p>They knew about it, failed to say anything about it.</p><p>I DO care about the fact that for as long back as you care to research SOE has :</p><p>1. Terrible communications on problems</p><p>2. Terrible customer service</p><p>I failed to research those when my guild picked this game to play.</p><p>As I have now witnessed it first hand. I'll take my money, my time and any guild members who wish to join me to a different game.</p>

[Tigress]

<p>of course, there would be bugs/glitches that they would not fix.  i expected nothing differently.  that said, there was zero excuse for the guild hall bug to make it to the servers bc that was a serious game problem (i.e., ppl cannot play)!   i'll never understand how someone can defend SOE on something like the guild hall issue.</p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=505171" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=505171</a></p><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=505332" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=505332</a></p><p>you'll notice that those threads were started before the GU went live AND someone in the thread mentions how they reported it before those threads.</p><p><cite>Tigress wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong>LOL... they had the dang feedback before but ignored it!  </strong>seriously, go read the test forum and then ask ppl with "tester" under their name how much they did to test the content. it's really not nice of you to claim that ppl there did not do what was asked of them.  they did.  they were ignored.  i'm not even a regular tester & i find your statement offensive bc i am thinking of the real testers of the test server.</p><p>EDIT TO ADD:</p><p>that guild hall zone crashing should have *never* made it to the live servers.  it was (is) a serious game issue that prevents ppl from playing.  many ppl reported it.  if they were not aware of this bug, then they really had their heads in the clouds.  let us assume that they were aware. </p><p>they could have (and should have) asked ppl on the test servers to replicate whatever they thought was the problem to prevent it from hitting live.  then, they would have realized that their "fix" was not fixed (if they did not realize that already).  the "Testers" would have been happy to do that, i'm sure. furthermore, if they needed more ppl, they have a whole bunch of "community council" members to whom they should have asked to log into test copy, make guilds and test the halls.  (guilds on test copy can get a buffer all the way up to 90 and they could have had guilds at different levels.)  community council members are all under NDA so there should be no concern over the "ins & outs" of EQ2 slipping out.  sure, you have to be 20 to create a guild but its not that time consuming to get to 20 (especially on test copy with the 100% XP bonus all the time) & certainly the benefits of being a community council member would be worth a couple of hours to do that OR they could have spawned old man dave again.  i cannot say for certain that they did not do this; however, i'd bet my last plat that they did not.  that bug was a HUGE bug and should have been fixed before leaving test.  there's no "ifs, ands or buts" about it.  no excuse for their fail on that one.</p></blockquote>

[Arcturys]

<p><cite>Neskonlith wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>EDIT: k, SJ just posted this in General forums:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul><li><strong>We will get a fix out as quickly as possible (hopefully today or tomorrow).</strong></li></ul></blockquote><p style="padding-left: 30px;"> </p></blockquote><p>Too little too late, SmokeJumper. You guys knew about this problem last Thursday and Friday (technically before that because the Testers were telling you about this). It should've been fixed Friday, or Saturday at the latest (if not fixed before the update went in, which would've been ideal). I pay for this game, but I still can't get in, and we're going on a week now.</p><p><cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>They don't do that because a) they won't work on it all weekend since I doubt the bigwigs would pay them the overtime,</p></blockquote><p>They are salaried. Whether they work 40 hours a week or 50, they get paid the same. That's part of being a salaried employee, and you are expected to have to work unusual hours from time to time. I'm sure a large number of players out there can attest to this. As a manager of many years, I can tell you salaried pay stinks some times. When a big project comes up, or you lose someone, you are expected to put in extra hours to cover it. I've put in up to 90 hours in a week once, and I didn't get a single dollar of extra pay. That's the nature of the beast, but usually the pay and bennies are good enough to make up for the occasional long week.</p>

[Autheas]

<p><cite>Arcturys wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong><em></em></strong></p><p><cite>Rainmare@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>They don't do that because a) they won't work on it all weekend since I doubt the bigwigs would pay them the overtime,</p></blockquote><p>They are salaried. Whether they work 40 hours a week or 50, they get paid the same. That's part of being a salaried employee, and you are expected to have to work unusual hours from time to time. I'm sure a large number of players out there can attest to this. As a manager of many years, I can tell you salaried pay stinks some times. When a big project comes up, or you lose someone, you are expected to put in extra hours to cover it. I've put in up to 90 hours in a week once, and I didn't get a single dollar of extra pay. That's the nature of the beast, but usually the pay and bennies are good enough to make up for the occasional long week.</p></blockquote><p>well.... actually.... they probably do get overtime (at least some of them that don't have senior in thier job title) (you can thank EA for that one)</p>

[Cratoh]

<p>Op:</p><p>No.</p>

[camynyraen]

<p>Two issues.</p><p>Quality Assurance are not salaried. They are hourly with an at will contract so they may be fired before they have to be hired on at a fulltime position with benefits.</p><p>You can not make last minute changes in software production. You MUST adhere to a build schedule to allow for time to test. If you think we have problems now, throw in an untested last minute fix and push it to live.</p><p>That said...</p><p>These issues were documented. Known, and flat out broadcast to the community. Its shameful that this particular problem made it to live. Initially I did not have the guildhall problem. After yesterdays fix, I now get dumped to character select when zoning and randomly at other times in the guildhall and then can not get back onto my character without fully restarting EQ2. I would think this is a fine example of a last minute fix with no time to be tested.</p>

[Alenna]

<p><cite>camynyraen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Two issues.</p><p>Quality Assurance are not salaried. They are hourly with an at will contract so they may be fired before they have to be hired on at a fulltime position with benefits.</p><p>You can not make last minute changes in software production. You MUST adhere to a build schedule to allow for time to test. If you think we have problems now, throw in an untested last minute fix and push it to live.</p><p>That said...</p><p>These issues were documented. Known, and flat out broadcast to the community. Its shameful that this particular problem made it to live. Initially I did not have the guildhall problem. After yesterdays fix, I now get dumped to character select when zoning and randomly at other times in the guildhall and then can not get back onto my character without fully restarting EQ2. I would think this is a fine example of a last minute fix with no time to be tested.</p></blockquote><p>thanks for the warning I might be staying out of my guild halls for a while.</p>

[Geothe]

<p>OP:Yes an No.</p><p>Yes for the "fluff" content designers.  They seem to converse back and forth a lot with the player base with the changes they introduce.</p><p>No for the itemization/mechanics.  You know, the game affect stuff.  May as well not even have a test server for this stuff because its not like they care anyways.</p>

[Lalen]

<p><cite>Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've had very good experiences with CS. The development team on the other hand is run by amateurs.</p></blockquote><p>The devs are pretty awesome imo and do great jobs for what is tasked to them... The project managers and producers are the ones whom should be taken out back and flogged because the way the trends are going, if it doesn't funnel money into $med Ca$h, it doesn't get looked at.</p>

[Griffildur]

<p><cite>Lalen@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've had very good experiences with CS. The development team on the other hand <strong>is run by amateurs</strong>.</p></blockquote><p>The devs are pretty awesome imo and do great jobs for what is tasked to them... The project managers and producers are the ones whom should be taken out back and flogged because the way the trends are going, if it doesn't funnel money into $med Ca$h, it doesn't get looked at.</p></blockquote><p>You're just confirming what I've said. However, I have doubts about the quality of the developers themselves as well. I am a developer myself and if I wrote something this buggy or release software so full of bugs, I would be fired instantly.</p><p>They obviously don't test anything, there's a lot of copy paste and every single release is a disaster breaking even stuff that was actually working before their mighty "fixes". Further more, even when they are aware of huge bugs, they still go ahead and release broken stuff and then we have to endure months of pain while they decide whether to fix something or not.</p><p>Hey, it's all good in SOE land, but have no worry, there's always time for more marketplace items and well ... screw the rest.</p><p>I wonder if anyone at SOE has any idea what TDT means, but I really doubt it.</p>

[Gaealiege]

<p>Among the game design community it is well known that you stay away from SOE if you can.  It's basically become the Konami of online gaming.  </p><p>As for customer support, on average it's a horrible scripted response that means we'll do nothing about it.  SOE has had a history of terrible support since 1999.  It's not a new trend.</p>

[Lalen]

<p><cite>Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Lalen@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I've had very good experiences with CS. The development team on the other hand <strong>is run by amateurs</strong>.</p></blockquote><p>The devs are pretty awesome imo and do great jobs for what is tasked to them... The project managers and producers are the ones whom should be taken out back and flogged because the way the trends are going, if it doesn't funnel money into $med Ca$h, it doesn't get looked at.</p></blockquote><p>You're just confirming what I've said. However, I have doubts about the quality of the developers themselves as well. I am a developer myself and if I wrote something this buggy or release software so full of bugs, I would be fired instantly.</p><p>They obviously don't test anything, there's a lot of copy paste and every single release is a disaster breaking even stuff that was actually working before their mighty "fixes". Further more, even when they are aware of huge bugs, they still go ahead and release broken stuff and then we have to endure months of pain while they decide whether to fix something or not.</p><p>Hey, it's all good in SOE land, but have no worry, there's always time for more marketplace items and well ... screw the rest.</p><p>I wonder if anyone at SOE has any idea what TDT means, but I really doubt it.</p></blockquote><p>I agree completely that if most companies released this quality of work the staff wouldn't remain there very long.  But what I'm trying to drive across there, the devs here do a great job for the time alloted to them.  I know from the EQ1 dev team that if they have any of those values then they're a great group because it consists of very limited project hours, a lot to do in that little bit of time, and the rest of the time is spent trying to pump out more marketplace ideals and items (as they are instructed to keep their jobs). </p><p>Sadly, right now, it seems the majority of the population in this game is more concerned with the marketplace and mercenaries that they really just don't care about the rest of the game, and as long as the majority of the player base feels this way SOE will keep funneling repair/improvement/feature funding to Station Cash where the "real" money seems to be made (not that I agree in the least).</p><p><cite>Gaealiege@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Among the game design community it is well known that you stay away from SOE if you can.  It's basically become the Konami of online gaming.  </p><p>As for customer support, on average it's a horrible scripted response that means we'll do nothing about it.  SOE has had a history of terrible support since 1999.  It's not a new trend.</p></blockquote><p>I hate to say it, but gladly, the CS responses here aren't quite as scripted as they were in EQ1 lol.... in EQ1 when you sent off a petition, if you had sent a petition before you COULD PRECISELY PREDICT the response except the signature.</p>

[arthemis1er]

<p>Haha... Sorry, the title made me laugh...</p>

[Flamewi]

<p><cite>Karimonster wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The funny part is the blame that falls on the players because Test is a ghost town.</p><p>We used to flock to that server in droves. For a while, it was one of the most populated servers.</p><p><strong>We stopped when we realized no one was listening, that every bug was going to live, that every glitch made it, and that none of the actual testing yielded any results whatsoever.</strong></p><p>Honestly, what's the point?</p></blockquote><p>500% accurate and the main reason no one cares about the Test Server anymore.</p>