Simple way to stop people deleting characters and free up CS man hours.

[renegadeimp]

I've posted this idea throughout beta and on various boards post launch, but the devs seem to have missed it. So i thought i'd post it here.

 

 

Change the Character delete system to a 2 part system:

 

 

• Part 1: Ask the player to type the characters name in full, including legacy name if applicable.
  
• Part 2: After this has been entered correctly, throw up a new window asking the player to confirm by typing "delete" or "i agree".
  

 

AND

 

 

• Issue character restorations for hacked accounts only, once the above system has been implemented.
  

 

This will free up hundreds of CS man hours to focus on something worthwhile and make players take notice of what they are doing.

Edited February 15, 2012 by renegadeimp

[HelinCarnate]

I have a better way. Pay attention when you delete a toon and if you screw up, don't contact CS to fix it as it is not a game issue that is causing the problem.

 

If your account gets hacked, it is your own fault for using the same log in info everywhere you go and not having difficult to answer security questions and not having an authenticator.

[renegadeimp]

I have a better way. Pay attention when you delete a toon and if you screw up, don't contact CS to fix it as it is not a game issue that is causing the problem.

 

If your account gets hacked, it is your own fault for using the same log in info everywhere you go and not having difficult to answer security questions and not having an authenticator.

 

I agree. But if Bioware introduce a safety barrier or buffer, then the players only have themselves to blame.

[HelinCarnate]

I agree. But if Bioware introduce a safety barrier or buffer, then the players only have themselves to blame.

 

You currently only have yourself to blame. At best, having people type the character name instead of delete would be acceptable, but no additional steps are needed and customer service should reply to all requests to restore deleted characters with

 

"Sorry, we do not have an un-delete function for characters. Once they are deleted, they are totally removed from out database and can never be retrieved."

[renegadeimp]

You currently only have yourself to blame. At best, having people type the character name instead of delete would be acceptable, but no additional steps are needed and customer service should reply to all requests to restore deleted characters with

 

"Sorry, we do not have an un-delete function for characters. Once they are deleted, they are totally removed from out database and can never be retrieved."

 

I understand that. However, the best customer service aspect would be to make it foolproof so there is zero risk of accidental deletion.

[iain_b]

I agree. But if Bioware introduce a safety barrier or buffer, then the players only have themselves to blame.

 

There already is a safety barrier- you have to type "delete" to delete a character.

 

If that doesn't stop someone from deleting a character accidentally than their idiot tax is that they have to wait for a restoration.

[renegadeimp]

There already is a safety barrier- you have to type "delete" to delete a character.

 

If that doesn't stop someone from deleting a character accidentally than their idiot tax is that they have to wait for a restoration.

 

It's still easy to delete the character. You could be in a hurry and click the wrong character and not realise it. Having the player type in the FULL name of the character and then delete stops this from happening.

[themacr]

Y'all can say its peoples own fault (which it is) but obviously people are messing up and costing the CS time that could be spent on better issues.

 

Making the system to delete the character a little tougher AND then stop helping people with char issues should solve the problem for CS and most people.

[Ashayah]

It's still easy to delete the character. You could be in a hurry and click the wrong character and not realise it. Having the player type in the FULL name of the character and then delete stops this from happening.

 

Sadly some people are still idiots, and will still delete the wrong thing. Hell you could have...

 

Step 1....type delete.

 

Step 2....please confirm the charater you wish to delete is this name, this class this level.

 

Step 3....are you ABSOLUTLY sure you wish to Delete Character (Name).

 

Step 4....Are you REALLY REALLY sure?...

 

And people would still complain they deleted the wrong toon.

[HelinCarnate]

I understand that. However, the best customer service aspect would be to make it foolproof so there is zero risk of accidental deletion.

 

Nothing is foolproof.

 

Make something idiotproof and someone will come out with a better idiot. All that is needed is 1 extra conformation to prevent a misclick from causing you to lose hundreds of hours of work. Extra dev time and/or customer service time should not be used protecting people from their own stupidity.

 

To delete the wrong character you have to do both of the following.

 

1 While not paying attention to what character has been selected you have to click on the delete button.

 

2. While typing in the word delete, you have to not pay attention to the gigantic picture of the character that you are getting rid of in the background.

 

If someone can get that far, most of them will still not pay any attention on the next step either. Telling those people to suck it up and learn from their mistake will save much more time than putting in a idiot detection system.

 

Edit to add.... Mind you, I have had my share of idiot moments. After staying up way too late I have done the following:

 

Clicked on the wrong item causing me to spend almost all my money. I earned it back.

 

Spent a bunch of commendations for a bunch of decent level 20 pvp gear for my assassin...... while on my sniper.

 

Deleted a lvl 23 character on the wrong server that had the same name as the character I meant to get rid of.

 

I did not bother customer service with those things because it was nothing wrong with the game that caused those things to happen. It was me being stupid and making choices when I was really tired when I should have just put it off for the morning when I was awake.

Edited February 15, 2012 by HelinCarnate

[renegadeimp]

Sadly some people are still idiots, and will still delete the wrong thing. Hell you could have...

 

Step 1....type delete.

 

Step 2....please confirm the charater you wish to delete is this name, this class this level.

 

Step 3....are you ABSOLUTLY sure you wish to Delete Character (Name).

 

Step 4....Are you REALLY REALLY sure?...

 

And people would still complain they deleted the wrong toon.

 

Well, with my idea, there would be no recourse. You already had 2 chances to opt out. You chose to continue. You chose to forfeit that character.

[iain_b]

It's still easy to delete the character. You could be in a hurry and click the wrong character and not realise it. Having the player type in the FULL name of the character and then delete stops this from happening.

 

If you're in too much of a hurry to see that a character that you don't want to delete is STARING AT YOU when you type in "delete" then you deserve to wait a week or so for a restoration.

[iain_b]

Nothing is foolproof.

 

Make something idiotproof and someone will come out with a better idiot. All that is needed is 1 extra conformation to prevent a misclick from causing you to lose hundreds of hours of work. Extra dev time and/or customer service time should not be used protecting people from their own stupidity.

 

To delete the wrong character you have to do both of the following.

 

1 While not paying attention to what character has been selected you have to click on the delete button.

 

2. While typing in the word delete, you have to not pay attention to the gigantic picture of the character that you are getting rid of in the background.

 

If someone can get that far, most of them will still not pay any attention on the next step either. Telling those people to suck it up and learn from their mistake will save much more time than putting in a idiot detection system.

 

Edit to add.... Mind you, I have had my share of idiot moments. After staying up way too late I have done the following:

 

Clicked on the wrong item causing me to spend almost all my money. I earned it back.

 

Spent a bunch of commendations for a bunch of decent level 20 pvp gear for my assassin...... while on my sniper.

 

Deleted a lvl 23 character on the wrong server that had the same name as the character I meant to get rid of.

 

I did not bother customer service with those things because it was nothing wrong with the game that caused those things to happen. It was me being stupid and making choices when I was really tired when I should have just put it off for the morning when I was awake.

 

This post should be added to the official FAQ.

[HelinCarnate]

If you're in too much of a hurry to see that a character that you don't want to delete is STARING AT YOU when you type in "delete" then you deserve to wait a week or so for a restoration.

 

IMHO you deserve to not get it back since it was not a defect or bug in the game that caused the character to be deleted in the first place.

[renegadeimp]

If you're in too much of a hurry to see that a character that you don't want to delete is STARING AT YOU when you type in "delete" then you deserve to wait a week or so for a restoration.

 

I completely agree. But nothing is ever black and white in the world. Good customer service would be to give the player a chance. Sure, they have the delete method as is, but they need to make the method Foolproof, or as foolproof as possible.

 

As the forum name says, this is a suggestion. We don;t need to delve into the intricacies of it all. Thats for the devs to debate.

Edited February 15, 2012 by renegadeimp

[Journeyer]

I'm with Imp on this one.

Full disclosure: I've never deleted an account by accident--I'm not an idiot.

 

But, given the raaage and entitlement on these forums and BW's interest in keeping customers happy in spite of it, the company does seem to feel obligated to restore accounts that are accidentally deleted, and to humour people who troll along for 20 pages insisting they aren't being served. To that end, implementing a system by which accident absolutely cannot occur, a good bit of grief could be avoided.

[Gleneagle]

1. Those who want to learn will learn.

2. Those who do not want to learn will never learn, and never be satisfied.

 

Attempting to solve for #2 is wasteful.

 

It is rather like caring for a newborn. They will cry when at all uncomfortable and expect the discomfort to go away. This is natural and to be expected. The parent who checks the diaper and feeds the baby the right amount according to an optimal schedule will nurture the child and teach it that needs will be met. The parent who responds to crying, checks the diaper, and gives the child a bottle whenever it cries is raising a troll.

[Aurich]

It's customer service, you can't just snub customers you don't want to talk to. Even if they adopted a "No Recovery" policy for deleted characters, people would still contact customer service and give them hell. You cannot just hang up on a customer, you cannot just refuse to talk to them until they hang up. Just recovering the damn character is probably quicker.

 

If there is a way to address this problem, then the OP is on the right track. I have a hard time imagining people contacting CS to complain about how long it takes to delete a character. Like they got somewhere to be and all these characters to delete.

[renegadeimp]

I'm with Imp on this one.

Full disclosure: I've never deleted an account by accident--I'm not an idiot.

 

But, given the raaage and entitlement on these forums and BW's interest in keeping customers happy in spite of it, the company does seem to feel obligated to restore accounts that are accidentally deleted, and to humour people who troll along for 20 pages insisting they aren't being served. To that end, implementing a system by which accident absolutely cannot occur, a good bit of grief could be avoided.

 

Blizzard did the same thing. They pandered to everything the customer wanted at first. Then they started telling them "tough luck". Those players still stayed and played though.

[Gleneagle]

It's customer service, you can't just snub customers you don't want to talk to. ...

 

Being honest with the customer isn't snubbing them. It is being honest. If the customer is an honest customer (and not just a mooch trying to use CS as his tool to get something for nothing) he/she'll appreciate a straight answer.

 

Such as:

"No."

 

We will all be better off if each player must accept responsibility for their own actions, no matter how freaking stupid they happen to be, no matter how big a fit they threaten to pitch. If they get their wway once they will figure they will get it again, and then first thing you know we will all notice that if we pitch a tantrum we get our way.

 

Soon after there would be no game design left, only a bunch of patches that respond to tantrums.

[ChaosCalling]

Going to have to agree with Imp. In fact, I mentioned this on the CS sub-forum a few days ago. CoH started out with making the player type the character's name rather than delete, and to my knowledge they rarely if ever had someone showing up on the forums because they'd accidentally deleted the wrong character.

[Aurich]

Being honest with the customer isn't snubbing them. It is being honest.

 

The snubbing comes later, when being honest produces nothing except perhaps more rage. You cannot just say "Unfortunately, Bioware has a policy against recovering characters deleted due to user error. Bye." In customer service, the customer ends the conversation, and they won't until they get what they want. Making character deletion more complicated addresses the problem before it's a problem.

[renegadeimp]

Making character deletion more complicated addresses the problem before it's a problem.

 

Bingo!

[NoTomorrow]

You currently only have yourself to blame. At best, having people type the character name instead of delete would be acceptable, but no additional steps are needed and customer service should reply to all requests to restore deleted characters with

 

"Sorry, we do not have an un-delete function for characters. Once they are deleted, they are totally removed from out database and can never be retrieved."

 

This game has some of the most aggressive defending fanboys out there. Calm down pls.

[renegadeimp]

This game has some of the most aggressive defending fanboys out there. Calm down pls.

 

He's not really a fanboi. More that he;s getting frustrated over customer service time being essentially wasted on people "accidentally deleting" their characters, when it's obvious which character is being deleted at the time. Which leads to HUGE increases in wait times for EVERY player of this game.

 

Thats why a simple change to the deletion process will remove this concern.

Edited February 16, 2012 by renegadeimp