Thanks for the apology

[OpenSorce]

Pretty much. Instantly blaming customers for their troubles without first rigorously researching the matter is one of the worst things a company can do - innocent until proven guilty.

 

Or as those of us working in the real world with face to face customers know, the customer is always right...

[ktkenshinx]

BW came out and apologized. Joveth was very humble in his apology and is taking fairly unorthodox steps to try and make things right (I have NEVER heard of CS reps personally calling to apologize to players in a game). There was a big error made on BWs part, and BW is taking the necessary steps to try and make amends to the players that were wronged. All companies make mistakes. BW admitted its mistake in a reassuringly humble fashion with very little rug-sweeping. This is commendable.

 

I for one am happy with how BW handled the issue and how BW is now apologizing for their very public failure.

[Theninjafuzz]

You guys should protest by all quitting the game forever. That will show em.

 

I'm sure this little stunt has added to the 700,000 that have left since launch. BioWare done goofed bad on this one. Bad. From the original GM that did this to Joveth, they have really displayed what their CS can do for you.

[kiroshei]

Pretty much. Instantly blaming customers for their troubles without first rigorously researching the matter is one of the worst things a company can do - innocent until proven guilty.

 

They did investigate twice. Thoroughly. For reasons that aren't mine to tell you the information didn't pop out for them. Upon 3rd investigation and deeper digging based off the extra screenshots on reddit they were able to track down the logs.

 

For those saying people unsubbed because of this go troll elsewhere. If anything Bioware admitting the mistake has kept subs. Not scared people off. Quit your conspiracy theories and go play the game.

[The_Brick]

They did investigate twice. Thoroughly. For reasons that aren't mine to tell you the information didn't pop out for them. Upon 3rd investigation and deeper digging based off the extra screenshots on reddit they were able to track down the logs.

 

For those saying people unsubbed because of this go troll elsewhere. If anything Bioware admitting the mistake has kept subs. Not scared people off. Quit your conspiracy theories and go play the game.

I know I'm late to this party. But Bioware has publicly stated that they won't bring any repercussions against players performing open world pvp of any kind on a pvp/rp-pvp server. I wish I could've been there to tell the CS where he can take his threats... It's been a few months, mainly due to guild mates going off to play other games, but we used to take over the Alderaan pub spaceport and yell things like "We're on a Diplomatic Mission" etc... Was good fun. And I know the pubs have done the same to the imp base on Hoth. It's nice to see open world pvp going on on pvp servers. Personally, I just with it were more active and more often.

[Obie_Wan]

This makes me wonder just how many of the "fraudulent" reports that the CMs "exposed" in the past were actually legitimate. They were all quick, "it's a fraud, we're locking this down" actions. It's a whole lot easier to shut down one legitimate person who never expected this sort of level of CM tomfoolery and falsely humiliating them by claiming he's a fraud in an environment with unscrupulous community members eager to curry favours with BIoWare Austin by acting like vicious pit bulls tearing at the wrongly accused.

 

I think Seal Team Sith was fortunate that they had a lot of players present when this fiasco happened, took plenty of screenshots, and most importantly, had the tenacity to challenge a large company to fight against their wronging.

 

This is really sad though, a whole lot of things happened with SWTOR over these few months. If my friends ever asked me about SWTOR and BioWare in the years to come, my answer will likely be: "I've never seen a video game developer make all the wrong choices and so thoroughly ruin their reputation with their conducts and policies that players need to view everything they say with intense scrutiny. It's frightening how much trust they've ended up losing in everything from being able to deliver game content, future features that community actually wants, game mechanic philosophies, all the way down to the legitimacy of their CM teams' rulings."

Edited May 27, 2012 by Obie_Wan

[GrumpySwe]

This makes me wonder just how many of the "fraudulent" reports that the CMs "exposed" in the past were actually legitimate. They were all quick, "it's a fraud, we're locking this down" actions. It's a whole lot easier to shut down one legitimate person who never expected this sort of level of CM tomfoolery and falsely humiliating them by claiming he's a fraud in an environment with unscrupulous community members eager to curry favours with BIoWare Austin by acting like vicious pit bulls tearing at the wrongly accused.

 

I think Seal Team Sith was fortunate that they had a lot of players present when this fiasco happened, took plenty of screenshots, and most importantly, had the tenacity to challenge a large company to fight against their wronging.

 

This is really sad though, a whole lot of things happened with SWTOR over these few months. If my friends ever asked me about SWTOR and BioWare in the years to come, my answer will likely be: "I've never seen a video game developer make all the wrong choices and so thoroughly ruin their reputation with their conducts and policies that players need to view everything they say with intense scrutiny. It's frightening how much trust they've ended up losing in everything from being able to deliver game content, future features that community actually wants, game mechanic philosophies, all the way down to the legitimacy of their CM teams' rulings."

Then start fraps:ing the whole time your playing if your so concerned, until proof of wrongdoing from BW is presented on a lot more cases il give em the benefit of the doubt.

[BitterDevil]

Then start fraps:ing the whole time your playing if your so concerned, until proof of wrongdoing from BW is presented on a lot more cases il give em the benefit of the doubt.

 

What benefit of the doubt can you give them for publicly pointing out the plaintiff and showing that they are above their own rules?

[Obie_Wan]

Then start fraps:ing the whole time your playing if your so concerned, until proof of wrongdoing from BW is presented on a lot more cases il give em the benefit of the doubt.

 

Another example why it's sad that the situation is so bad that people like GrumpySwe believes that FRAPSing one's own game play every single moment, eating up hard drive space, from now until eternity is the a good way way to protect one's self from BioWare's CM monkeys. May god have mercy on the people who aren't technically savvy.

[Stilly]

People **** up. Blah blah blah.

 

Using a name in association with the word liar?! THAT is a whole different ball game. Where I come from things like that affect reputation, on both ends. No more money from me. Between this and the forum censorship no thanks.

 

Action was taken against the cs? What about the ***** who called a paying customer a liar on a public forum?! The cs is an idiot, the *** that called a customer a liar would lose his job if he worked for a real company. Do I wish that on him, of course not. Does he deserve it, absolutely.

[Kleve]

yes, they got the message and we all saw their shame. They already request no more topics on this matter and apologized for what happened. There's no need for further flaming them, we all know you're right and they'll probably just delete this threat. Leave it be man, you won

 

No, I don't think it's enough. it was a TEXT-FREAKING-BOOK case of the outright ARROGANCE and IGNORANCE of the mods. Let's see... a GM is accused of abusing his power. An investigation ensues. Nothing is found. And APPARENTLY it occured to ABSOLUTELY NO ONE that if a GM was capable of abusing his power in that regard, it might, just *MIGHT* be possible that he covered his tracks or attempted to.

 

yeah, call the guy out by name on the forums and THEN not publicly apologize to him when you realized, oh yeah, EVERYTHING he said was true?

 

Seriously, BioWare is currently putting an an EXCELLENT demonstration of Stapp's Law:

 

"The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle"

 

gg BW, gg

[Kleve]

Pretty much. Instantly blaming customers for their troubles without first rigorously researching the matter is one of the worst things a company can do - innocent until proven guilty.

 

It's nothing more than an extension of gameplay, at this point. They delivered this steaming POS and consistently break it with patches and blame *US* for playing it wrong.

 

Normally, I wouldn't wish unemployment on ANYONE, but I have to say, after what I've witnessed, I don't think the firings/layoffs went far enough.

[Sir-Coffee]

This makes me wonder just how many of the "fraudulent" reports that the CMs "exposed" in the past were actually legitimate. They were all quick, "it's a fraud, we're locking this down" actions. It's a whole lot easier to shut down one legitimate person who never expected this sort of level of CM tomfoolery and falsely humiliating them by claiming he's a fraud in an environment with unscrupulous community members eager to curry favours with BIoWare Austin by acting like vicious pit bulls tearing at the wrongly accused.

 

I think Seal Team Sith was fortunate that they had a lot of players present when this fiasco happened, took plenty of screenshots, and most importantly, had the tenacity to challenge a large company to fight against their wronging.

 

This is really sad though, a whole lot of things happened with SWTOR over these few months. If my friends ever asked me about SWTOR and BioWare in the years to come, my answer will likely be: "I've never seen a video game developer make all the wrong choices and so thoroughly ruin their reputation with their conducts and policies that players need to view everything they say with intense scrutiny. It's frightening how much trust they've ended up losing in everything from being able to deliver game content, future features that community actually wants, game mechanic philosophies, all the way down to the legitimacy of their CM teams' rulings."

 

This.

[Kleve]

This.

 

Ditto.

 

You know, Eve Online has had several instances of misconduct by 'persons of authority'. You know how they fixed things? They put together a group elected by the community and pay to fly them over to Iceland and then let this group AUDIT THEM. And, they sit down and discuss issues with the community representatives. It's called Council of Stellar Management or something like that. They elect new members yearly.

 

Might want to think about it, BW. Seriously. No, do it. Now.

[Stilly]

I honestly can not believe this thread is still open. Must have some forum mods out on vacation or enjoying a holiday weekend.

[GrumpySwe]

Another example why it's sad that the situation is so bad that people like GrumpySwe believes that FRAPSing one's own game play every single moment, eating up hard drive space, from now until eternity is the a good way way to protect one's self from BioWare's CM monkeys. May god have mercy on the people who aren't technically savvy.

Should perhaps have made certain that people understood that it was irony, my bad for writing badly

Also you can make it save the last 5 mins if anything bad happened without constantly saving anything by simply pressing a button if its setup correctly, (well not certain if it was fraps or some other such program but anyway it exists ).

 

That said I would never do it since I think its ridiculous, if you don't trust the company your buying a service from (game time) then stop buying the service.

[Arakkis]

This makes me wonder just how many of the "fraudulent" reports that the CMs "exposed" in the past were actually legitimate. They were all quick, "it's a fraud, we're locking this down" actions. It's a whole lot easier to shut down one legitimate person who never expected this sort of level of CM tomfoolery and falsely humiliating them by claiming he's a fraud in an environment with unscrupulous community members eager to curry favours with BIoWare Austin by acting like vicious pit bulls tearing at the wrongly accused.

 

I think Seal Team Sith was fortunate that they had a lot of players present when this fiasco happened, took plenty of screenshots, and most importantly, had the tenacity to challenge a large company to fight against their wronging.

 

This is really sad though, a whole lot of things happened with SWTOR over these few months. If my friends ever asked me about SWTOR and BioWare in the years to come, my answer will likely be: "I've never seen a video game developer make all the wrong choices and so thoroughly ruin their reputation with their conducts and policies that players need to view everything they say with intense scrutiny. It's frightening how much trust they've ended up losing in everything from being able to deliver game content, future features that community actually wants, game mechanic philosophies, all the way down to the legitimacy of their CM teams' rulings."

 

Great post, and this is a very important point for BW to ponder. When a customer can no longer trust a company to act in accordance with their own rules, customers stop doing business with that company. If anyone at BW has not heard of the t20 scandal from EVE, please read the link below. This is the kind of press generated when your internal auditing process is poorly done.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/op-ed/847-Jumpgate-EVEs-Devs-and-the-Friends-They-Keep

[stephenalandavie]

From what iv seen their is what one screenshot? wheres the rest?

[getdownsb]

Ditto.

 

You know, Eve Online has had several instances of misconduct by 'persons of authority'. You know how they fixed things? They put together a group elected by the community and pay to fly them over to Iceland and then let this group AUDIT THEM. And, they sit down and discuss issues with the community representatives. It's called Council of Stellar Management or something like that. They elect new members yearly.

 

Might want to think about it, BW. Seriously. No, do it. Now.

 

Even when EvE completely screwed up they still managed to rectify the situation to the point that the community continued to support them. Remember when the cash store announcement hit?

 

I wasn't a "BioWare fan" parse prior to this game. I don't really do single player gaming. However in the years leading up to the release of SW:TOR I was continuously told that BioWare was an amazing game dev studio, that they would do it right, that they were the type of studio to really deliver. Quite frankly, thus far, I have seen nothing to support those statements. All I have seen is that BioWare is basically in over it's head, is mostly running a dog and pony armature hour show, and for the most part is run by a bunch of head in the clouds *******es.

[johnhughthom]

However in the years leading up to the release of SW:TOR I was continuously told that BioWare was an amazing game dev studio

 

They were, then EA bought them.

[stephenalandavie]

How can we be sure this is real?

[Ossos]

What I find hliarious is that everyone is focusing on the GM that was telling people to stop PvPing and leave the area.

 

These people don't just start telling customers what to do on a whim. What that GM did was likely posted somewhere in BW as policy regarding SWTOR.

 

I'm sorry, it just PROVES BEYOND ANY DOUBT that the LAST THING they want is people playing together, or against each other, in large numbers. THE LAST THING THEY WANT YOU PLAYING IS AN MMO!

 

Sorry, but this whole disaster is one of the many reasons this game is utterly and completely screwed. They had broken content during release, and they told everyone to S T F |_| and that it was the customer computers not them.

 

There were also issues with animations and delays. Once again customers were told to S T F |_| it was the player comps, not the game itself.

 

Hackers who were caught hacking, and reported were not punished. I know some who did it, got bored, and left. It wasn't because they were caught, it was because it was boring. Either way, players who reported hacking, were told to S T F |_| by the GMs.

 

I'm sorry, but this "MMO" has made an avalanche of mistakes and they are still spinning that the problem is you, not them.

 

Who cares about the apology. The intent of their GM was there. Bioware does not want you PvPing in their MMO. Bioware does not want you playing in mass, in their MMO.

 

This game was sold to players as an MMO and it's obvious that they have a policy against many players playing together.

 

No wonder it's such a pile of Shi#

Edited May 28, 2012 by Ossos

[netslayer]

they dont have open world pvp because they cant handle it, so I wouldnt be surprised if this was something they dont want to allow, I think the only reason it got attention is due to the fact it was on the most populated server. and there was screenshots and proof.

[RayceUlrand]

A lot of drama queens ...the situation was handled, they apologized despite how bad they'd look for messing up, move on.

[Shimazzu]

I was one of the people along for the ride and yes we were apologized to. They called all people that were banned on the forums (including myself) and additionally called the members of the ops group as well. We wanted them to own up to their mistake and they did. In all fairness, our original post did not include the raw screenshots and it wasn't until we posted again on the swtor forums and reddit that the information was made available. This is also including a near exact area as where to check their logs in addition to about a half hour window timeline to look through. If it is unclear to you as to why an area/time would be needed, you clearly have no clue as to how many logs there are to look through.

 

As for those of you who are content to bash the game, clearly you never played early MMO's including WoW during their family/friends alpha/beta testing or thought about how much work these games take.

 

On a side note, there were plenty of haters and trolls that called us out as well. Some of these guys are still calling us out. My response to you is simple: F*** OFF! Its easy to troll, try and do something harder like being constructive. Bioware gave us our apology; what about you scrubs that enjoyed pissing on us too? Oh thats right, you aren't big enough to do that.

 

Thank you for the apology Bioware.

Edited May 28, 2012 by Shimazzu