Money Refund for Servers Being Down

[King_Louis_II]

That's not the way it works, you know.

You are absolutely right...but it should.

 

At the very least it should instill a sense of urgency in dealing with certain problems. People here have been requesting/complaining about certain quality of life issues that the game needs, yet they go unheeded. Perhaps these little server mishaps are unavoidable (I certainly don't mind them or blame them on BW...yet). But BW is... shall we say... less than worried about their customer's desires. At least that's the way it feels. So it is expected when people complain about problems they might not have normally...or had they felt appreciated or listened to.

 

There is certainly nothing wrong with voicing a concern, or voicing louder when it is ignored. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. So I say patch that thing up with your band-aid, so long as surgery is also being conducted to deal with the larger problem.

[Andryah]

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

 

Urban myth.

 

From a practical standpoint... squeaky wheels get replaced, or just ignored really.. because it's just a squeak not an explosion.

 

This has been true since the introduction of self-lubricating bearings.

Edited April 11, 2013 by Andryah

[Hyfy]

Its .50 cents a day to play. Even being down for a couple hours your talking what? A nickel? Relax already people. Yeah it sucks not being able to play, but we aren't talking the hourly rate of a lawyer or psychologist here.

[Malastare]

2 hours in? An ETA.

 

They gave you an ETA: "We have no ETA for when the server will be available again"

 

As a developer, let me translate that for you: The engineers aren't able to estimate how long it will take. It might be five minutes, it might be two hours.

 

Asking for an ETA when an engineer says "I don't know how long it will take" is basically asking them to lie to you. Do you want Bioware to lie to you? Or do you want the truth?

[ronniehenlau]

Also whoever mentioned that they aren't communicating with us. They are, just don't expect some technically detailed briefing about why its down. Its down, do the details really matter? They don't have an ETA yet. I do enough troubleshooting to know that when this stuff happens until you identify what the problem is you really can't give an ETA on when you'll have it back up. And if past actions of this forum community are any sign, if they missed the ETA, every self-entitled loon would be here screaming.

 

That was most likely me, and while I do agree that yes, some people would be grumpy and cry because BW gave a false ETA, as it is now for myself, I was contemplating prepaying another two months (after beeing a sub since launch, I'm now prepaying). However, as this stuff has happened quite often lately at least on my server (Red Eclipse) during primetime, it doesnt raise my confidence. If BW after 2 hours have no idea what the problem is, my faith in the infrastructure-team BW is starting to falter. If they do know what the issue is, they have got to have an ETA.

 

So as far as I can read it, BW is either

a) Incompetent (over 2 hours troubleshooting)

b) Frightened that their customers will be mean if they can't keep their ETA

 

Neither sounds appealing imo.

[Arlbo_Nabbins]

I have been playing swtor for a little more than a week and EVERY DAY there are major issues, either with logging in (security question- one time pw that doesn't work), or the game being down for maintenance during est prime time, or just an outright server fail like today.

 

I have been playing for a little more than a year and almost EVERY day there have been zero problems with the servers.

 

One week, especially around a large patch is not he basis for an estimate of the quality of a service.

 

Seriously, I have never seen such horrible service anywhere with any product I have ever bought.

 

Not bought much then have you? Reliability of the servers has been generally very good over the past year. But the occasional bad week is inevitable and has happened in every single MMO I have ever played.

[psikofunkster]

Money is not a good idea but they should give us at least cartel coins.

[Xeperi]

Wrong analogy. In your example, you were not given what you paid for.

 

Better analogy: You rent a cabana on the beach for a week. Two of those days it rains. Do you expect the hotel is going to refund your bill for those two days?

 

Downtime is part of the MMO subscription. It is assumed that it will happen.

 

The truly correct analogy would be I rent a cabana on the beach and it rains and the place is so poorly maintained that the roof leaks all over me. I would not expect a REFUND in that case but I would expect some coupons, some free cabana bucks or what not. Even a free corona.

 

Some cartel coins are in order and everyone on the affected servers should receive 1000 of them as a sincere "sorry about that".

[elvinkun]

Some people keep crying way too much. Some people keep advopcating EA and Bioware way too much.

 

Refund, in a form of adding sub time, cartel coins or what have you is not something they have to do, it's something they should do. This week, there has been rather long downtime 3 out of 4 days, yes? That is kinda extreme for A class MMO.

 

If you go in and start "Lemme quote you Eula, because I'm really cool and important, makes me look very wise!", you are an idiot. And well, we all know EA and Bio, so if you are asking for a refund and actually hope to accomplish anything, you are one just as well, because it's like arguing with a wall.

 

PS: Guys, don't make analogies if you obviously don't even understand what analogy is.

Edited April 11, 2013 by elvinkun

[Burchnall]

Wrong analogy. In your example, you were not given what you paid for.

 

Better analogy: You rent a cabana on the beach for a week. Two of those days it rains. Do you expect the hotel is going to refund your bill for those two days?

 

Downtime is part of the MMO subscription. It is assumed that it will happen.

 

When since your flinging around the words "Wrong analogy", I'm afraid its adimitedly too trollbaitlicious for me to ignore. I can't help but comment on your 'Better Analogy'.

 

Your 'Better Analogy' suggests that server downtime is an unexpected and unforseeable consequence akin to rain. Something thats not preventable or controllable akin to an 'Act of God'.

 

A better version of your analogy to help you understand the rediculous of that statement is that server downtime is more akin to a travel agency selling you a ticket to a Cabana on the beach in _____ (wherever) knowing its Monsoon season.

 

You travel there and it rains 5 out of 7 days and when you return to the travel agency, the travel agent points to the fine print and says "See, were not repsonsible for weather! Even though we knew it was monsoon season and might have been wrong to rent you the Cabana, during monsoon season." Thus leaving them partially at fault and in a morally grey-area akin to server downtown is 'partially at fault' of bioware/EA.

 

To make matters worse in this analogy...when you visitied the travel agency's local office in ____ whenever while on your vacation, some tourist in an annoying accent says to you 'It's Monsoon season! You can't control the weather though! HAHAHAHAHA! Did you read your contract? HAAAAAHAHAHAHA! You expect compensation? Idiot!"

 

Can you guess whom you would be in this analogy? =)?

[midichlorian]

Whenever someone posts a topic that vents frustration at the game hosts for whatever reason, why is it that the same smug, self satisfied, and predictable names feel the need to jump in and dismiss it.

Honestly, same names, same passive-aggresive mantra with included in the post.

Just curious why they do it. (tho i suspect it is a form of trolling that keeps them just out of infraction distance)

Edited April 11, 2013 by midichlorian

[King_Louis_II]

Urban myth.

 

From a practical standpoint... squeaky wheels get replaced, or just ignored really.. because it's just a squeak not an explosion.

 

This has been true since the introduction of self-lubricating bearings.

 

Perhaps, but if I'm gonna be taking it up the a$-$ I think it's only common courtesy that they give me a reach-around once in a while. At least a little lube, 'cuz that doesn't lubricate itself.

Edited April 11, 2013 by King_Louis_II

[Infernixx]

Perhaps, but if I'm gonna be taking it up the a$-$ I think it's only common courtesy that they give me a reach around once in a while. At least a little lube, 'cuz that doesn't lubricate itself.

 

Dude, if you're hurting that bad for the $15 bucks, I can paypal it to you.

[Xeperi]

I have been playing for a little more than a year and almost EVERY day there have been zero problems with the servers.

 

One week, especially around a large patch is not he basis for an estimate of the quality of a service.

 

 

 

Not bought much then have you? Reliability of the servers has been generally very good over the past year. But the occasional bad week is inevitable and has happened in every single MMO I have ever played.

 

This happens to be the week I started playing and paid for my sub. Not so good for me or for anyone else who started this week. And YES the first week is going to be representative of the entire experience in terms of making the decision to renew the sub or not. It would be STUPID of me to continue to purchase a service that is faulty in the only time frame I have to judge its overall quality.

 

No I am not going to take your word for it. I want to know how many cartel coins people get for doing damage control for swtor. I'll be more than happy to do that also.

[jezet]

I would actually like to see another Double XP Weekend for the loss of possible gained XP during the downtime now.

[King_Louis_II]

Dude, if you're hurting that bad for the $15 bucks, I can paypal it to you.

 

Sweet...I think I'll start a kickstart account. Anyone else want to donate? I am a worthy cause.

Edited April 11, 2013 by King_Louis_II

[Kilora]

This happens to be the week I started playing and paid for my sub. Not so good for me or for anyone else who started this week. And YES the first week is going to be representative of the entire experience in terms of making the decision to renew the sub or not. It would be STUPID of me to continue to purchase a service that is faulty in the only time frame I have to judge its overall quality.

 

No I am not going to take your word for it. I want to know how many cartel coins people get for doing damage control for swtor. I'll be more than happy to do that also.

 

Seriously? I'm not attempting to do any damage control, and I doubt anyone else is. I'm just sick of self-entitled children whining all the time. EA is NOT perfect -- they're a despicable company. BW was excellent until they were eaten by EA. SWTOR is enjoyable to me, and that's all that matters to me. Be an adult -- if you don't like the game, just leave. Very simple -- and causes much less stress than allowing yourself to get so upset on a forum about a GAME.

[Malastare]

You are absolutely right...but [criticizing people] should.

 

No, it shouldn't.

 

The idea that negative reinforcement is universally effective is silly. It implies that

 

At the very least it should instill a sense of urgency in dealing with certain problems.

 

You're not a developer, are you? Or an engineer of any sort. Or anyone who actually creates anything that others use. Imagine you were: Would you happily create crappy things? If your answer is "Yes" then do the world a favor and never work in any sort of development/engineering/architecture job.

 

Again: I've been a professional developer for twelve years. You know what motivates me to fix problems? The existence of problems. It's what I do. I make stuff. Complicated stuff. Stuff so complicated that it can never be totally free of problems. As a developer, this annoys me and I am constantly seeking to fix those problems. Were I to be the last person on earth, I'd still be trying to fix those problems. Someone yelling at me to fix problems just teaches me that they don't know what they're yelling about.

 

People here have been requesting/complaining about certain quality of life issues that the game needs, yet they go unheeded.

 

Are you sure? How do you know that they are "unheeded" instead of "scheduled at a lower priority than other fixes"? Is it from your extensive experience as a game developer?

 

There is certainly nothing wrong with voicing a concern, or voicing louder when it is ignored. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

 

It shouldn't. The wheel with the highest friction-related problems should get the grease. The fact that the wheel is squeaky doesn't mean its the one in most dire need of grease. And if a wheel is repeatedly squeaky when the problem is only trivial, then an intelligent person should stop caring that the wheel squeaks. Is that what you want?

 

And that fact that many people here are manufacturing uproar (effectively: Creating a larger squeak than anything else in the area) just means that you are actively trying to disrupt development. Developers know what is wrong much better than any of us. Why should we determine what gets fixed? Why would you trust the development of the game to a bunch of people who don't even understand how the game servers work? Most people here barely understand how the internet works.

 

You're not an expert (neither am I, not on this software, at least). Stop squeaking. Let the game and servers squeak so that the developers fix what needs to be fixed, using the best methods to fix them.

[drunkenacid]

After reading all 10-11 pages of comments on this, I have come to the conclusion that no matter what happens, people will always complain about something stupid and out of their control.

 

#1. Sometimes servers go down either because there might have been a bug in the coding for the server that someone may have tripped up and cause the server to crash or with the release of the massive content patch (which is a large amount of coding) that during the patching they may have missed something that caused a glitch in the system, which in turn caused the server to crash.

 

#2. Don't expect to always be compensated for something that is out of your control or out of the company's control. These things happen and you can't always plan or know when these things happen.

 

#3. You can't always expect an ETA on something, even when they might know what the issue is. Sometimes trying to find a problem in coding isn't always that simple. There are millions of lines of code in this game (which it might not even be the coding with the game), there can be a number of issues with the servers, or it could just be that they had a power outage/surge where the servers are held. Sometimes there is no way to give an ETA because it could take them several hours to figure out the actual problem. Its not always that cut and dry.

[Ishagu]

Some cartel coins would smooth things over... about 500 or so.

[Xeperi]

Really? So when Comcast has a small issue, they give you something free? I'd LOVE to see that! How about Comcast giving me a DOCSIS 2 modem while I'm paying for a 100mbps connection? They tried to charge me an extra $50 to have someone come out and "check" the modem and give me a new one. When my power was cut becasue the lovely worker didn't realize my NEIGHBOR was supposed to be cut -- I had no power for ~2 hours. They even tried to charge me to have it turned back on.

I have gotten free pay per view movie passes due to comcast cable tv service being out.

 

Surprisingly, when I get the wrong meal at a restaurant? I NEVER assume I will get something free. I don't even want it -- I'd just like you to fix the mistake, and give me what I ordered. The local Panera, that NEVER puts chicken on my salad, ALWAYS asks me if I want a cookie for free. Nope, I don't. Just put the chicken on the salad and I'll be off. Why? Because people make mistakes, and it BARELY inconvenienced me.

People make mistakes but corporations are not people, they are corporations.

 

YOU WERE NEVER LEAD TO BELIEVE YOU WERE PAYING FOR 24/7 SERVICE WITH ABSOLUTELY NO INTERRUPTIONS EVER. You're an example of what is wrong with the world --all of these crybabies who assume that they deserve something

I paid for something, I deserve it. What is wrong with the world is the people who think that massive impersonal entities should get a free pass while the rest of us have our feet held to the fire constantly. I have gone a week with AN INTERRUPTION EVERY SINGLE DAY.

 

the SECOND something goes wrong. GOD FORBID someone make a mistake? I've never seen this kind of whining over an MMO having unexpected downtime before, at least not until the downtime went into the DAYS.

who is the someone that made the mistake? Give me their name. EA/Bioware is not a SOMEONE, it is a SOMETHING. It is a system designed to maximize the return on an investment. PERIOD. What don't you understand about that??? The highest possible quality has to ALWAYS be demanded by the customer because when it is not, quality slips, because quality is expensive. The only time that quality is a good thing in that profit maximization system is when it is a value associated with your brand because either people do not complain when there are problems or because the inevitable few problems that creep up are expertly handled in terms of pr.

 

So what is your motive in wanting people to not complain? What do personally ave to gain from entering a vent-thread and doing damage control for ea/bioware? Because really you are just helping them maximize their profit. You are defending a no-one.

[Brimmer]

Some cartel coins would smooth things over... about 500 or so.

 

If you get 500, I want 501!

[Malastare]

The truly correct analogy would be I rent a cabana on the beach and it rains and the place is so poorly maintained that the roof leaks all over me. I would not expect a REFUND in that case but I would expect some coupons, some free cabana bucks or what not. Even a free corona.

 

Again: You weren't promised 24/7 service. You didn't pay for 24/7 service. If you do not have service for four hours, you aren't being denied the service you paid for, because you didn't buy 24/7 service.

 

Fixed analogy: You rent a cabana on the beach and it rains and you get wet when the roof leaks. You don't get a refund because when you paid for the cabana the owner told you that the roof leaked.

[Mogic]

So as far as I can read it, BW is either

a) Incompetent (over 2 hours troubleshooting)

b) Frightened that their customers will be mean if they can't keep their ETA

 

Neither sounds appealing imo.

 

I can't blame them for B, especially with how rude and mean this community can get sometimes.

 

As for A, being an engineer its not always in our control and we may have the root cause but need to go to a vendor, like Cisco to find out how to fix it. Unfortunately I still can't give an ETA until we work out a fix. You can think me, or them incompetent for it, but no one knows everything and sometimes we have to rely on the vendor as the subject matter expert.

[ayobreezie]

Didn't even read any posts and knew that this guy was overreacting and probably becoming irate because people are trying to tell him to calm down.. Lol.