stupid questions

[micarst]

Hello,

 

I would like to ask some very stupid questions (including some about the Terms of Service since I cannot get these answers through the customer service channels I first pursued). Yes, there is a chip on my shoulder, but I would really like some answers here. Assume that I am a very slow learner that is infuriated at the way she was brushed off by customer service's email. Thank you in advance to anyone who reads on, doubly so to anyone who actually takes the time to help...

 

1.) Are all customer service emails answered with form replies, or just most?

 

2.) What is the policy regarding educating people about the Refer A Friend perks in-game? People on your friends list only, group mates only, guild mates only, or what? If I do not offer any link for them to pursue can I still tell them about the program so they can seek it out on their own and get those nifty free things?

 

3.) TOS clause that says, in part "...disruptive behavior includes but is not limited to conduct which interferes with the normal flow of gameplay or dialogue within an EA Service. Disruptive behavior shall also include, but not be limited to, commercial postings, solicitations and advertisements." Does this mean I should report people that are paying credits to be powerleveled (which is laughable, but I have seen it, so I guess it really does happen)? Are guilds looking for new members also considered advertisements if they have a sign-on bonus?

 

4.) TOS clause that says, in part "Interfere with the ability of others to enjoy playing an EA Service..." So should I report an individual for harassment that purchases account unlocks or other Cartel items that are only useful for free-to-play and preferred status accounts, then list them on the Galactic Trade Network for prices beyond what free-to-play or preferred status accounts are able to hold due to game mechanics? Should I report, rather than just ignore, those poor-attitude individuals that ragequit any warzone or GSF battle that seems as though it will be a losing one? What about random whispers from players I'm not familiar with, begging for items or help? Is that also to be construed as such interference?

 

5.) While I'm thinking about it, why, for the love of all that's pleasant, do we not have a Legacy Ignore option that would allow us to ignore an entire account? If someone is behaving in a way we find objectionable on one character, isn't it likely they won't be much improved on another character? I recently found the limit of characters I can put on Ignore. Most of them are credit spammer characters that were long since scrapped, so I had to purge the list and start over. I ended up seeing some horrible commentary in the Fleet chat on the Bastion due to this that reminded me why I had ignored so many actual people in the first place...

 

6.) Should I report anyone and everyone that uses General chat to talk about topics that do not directly pertain to SWTOR?

 

It is probably ludicrous, but these are pressing concerns for me. I have tried to find ways to make the SWTOR gaming experience more enjoyable for myself, including reporting a case of actual harassment when it occured (one nasty individual continued to whisper me on new characters to say incredibly derogatory things after I left the guild they own), reporting suspected hacking when individuals in warzones seem to possess unusually swift movement or are impervious to attacks despite lacking buffs that might allow such invincibility (or, for that matter, the ability to illegally phase through walls that are intended to be solid), and bots whose messages are absolutely not ambiguous and are only construable as spam.

 

It is a very wide umbrella to suggest, as the TOS does, that doing "anything else to another player that is unwanted" is actionable without giving any clear guidelines for this beyond the so-called explanation that is presently listed. It could theoretically open a deluge of complaints, I think, if people knew of it and were petty enough to pursue it. Subjectivity comes into play a LOT here, so maybe instead of calling it the Terms of Service, it should be a Theory of Service? I don't know... it's almost 4am here and it sounded funny when I thought it... ~___~

[XantosCledwin]

1.) Generally you only get those form responses if you are sending in a Bug Report under the Bug Report category. Most of the other categories will result in a slightly more personalized answer.

 

2.) The Refer-A-Friend thing should be for just what it sounds like, people you meet in real life or in other games or on other forums who you think might be interested in this game who you want to provide some introductory perks for, or for your friends who used to play the game and who are thinking of getting back into the game, so you thought 7 free subscription days might be nice to give them. However not everyone uses it that way, nor is the advertisement of the refer-a-friend codes in-game or in forum sigs actually against the rules that I am aware of.

 

3.) Only if real world money is being exchanged for said powerleveling services. If they are only exchanging in-game credits (as opposed to Cartel Coins), then they aren't really breaking any rules because credits have no real world value. Plus the only one they are hurting by getting powerleveled is themselves if you really stop to think about it long enough. And no, guild sign-on bonuses aren't against the rules either unless those bonuses include the exchange of real world money, goods, or services.

 

To elaborate on this, if a Guild were to offer to buy someone an item from the Cartel Market in exchange for joining their Guild, THAT would be against the rules, because they are spending real money to coerce someone to join their guild. However that is still something that would be really difficult for Bioware to objectively prosecute because the Guild in question could opt to simply stock several Cartel Items of varying value in their Guild Bank, and allow their members free pick of any of these items.

 

4.) No you should not. Those who do that are catering to the market of people who subscribe for a month or two to build up money in order to buy some items on the Galactic Trade Network (usually said unlocks), then once they have the items they want, cancel their subscriptions and apply the unlocks to their account. This is a 100% legitimate practice and not against the rules in any way shape or form.

 

Additionally, although I am not clear if this is the case or not; I think the Credit Escrow item on the Cartel Market allows Free-to-Play and Preferred members to have temporary access to Credits in excess to what they normally could hold, and thus would enable them to buy some of those items they could not normally be able to afford.

 

As for the Rage-quitting in Warzones or Galactic Starfighter... I would say that you should only do that in Ranked Warzones where Rage-quitting is now an offense that could see someone have their account suspended or worse depending on their reasons for doing so. Unranked Warzones and Galactic Starfighter just don't have the same level of enforcement as Ranked Warzones so it isn't as necessary.

 

Random Whispers from random people begging for items or help.... yes report the ones asking for items, not so much the ones asking for help, as it is actually the courteous thing to do to whisper someone and ask for help with something rather than yelling about it in general chat over and over and over again.

 

5.) No idea, but I do know such a list would by necessity need to have an infinite number of people it can have put on it. The reason I say this is because new Credit-Retail Bots are created every couple of minutes, so any attempt to create an Ignore List that is tied to your legacy would by necessity require you to put all of the Credit-Retail Bots you could ever encounter onto the same ignore list. Say you ignore 2 Credit-Retail Bots a day, every day, for one year, that comes to approximately 730 instances of people being ignored by you in a single year. There are currently only about 200 or so slots on the currently existing Ignore-List.

 

The problem with having an infinite number of ignore slots, is that it would require an infinite amount of processing power in order for the game to continue to operate the way it currently is. This is because the game has to check your ignore list each and every time you receive a tell, queue for Duty Finder, or receive an invite for a group to make sure no one from your ignore list is violating your privacy. And even then it isn't a perfect system as sometimes people on your ignore list still get through the filters (this is especially noticeable in 8 or 16 man operations).

 

6.) Um... no... its called General Chat for a reason... and that is because it is meant to be where people discuss generic topics. The only instance where such a scenario would possibly be viable for you to report is if people are discussing blatantly Out of Character topics in the General Chat on a Role Playing Server, without first indicating that they are talking Out of Character. Usually this will look like the following:

 

XantosCledwin: [OOC]You know I just wanted to tell everyone that I am the best person on Earth![/OOC]

 

Or something like that. But even that is probably not actionable.

 

Basically when dealing with what might be considered subjective wording in a legal document such as a Games Terms of Service it is usually best to err on the side of common sense rather than a literalistic interpretation of what the document is saying. Otherwise you get people reporting people for rather silly reasons and in doing so, reducing Customer Service down to a snails pace when it comes to dealing with the legitimate rules violations, bug reports and etc...

 

P.S. please note, I do not really believe I am the best person on Earth...

Edited March 22, 2015 by XantosCledwin

[AlrikFassbauer]

6.) Should I report anyone and everyone that uses General chat to talk about topics that do not directly pertain to SWTOR?

 

Uh-oh.

 

1. It's called "general chat" for a reason. What else should one chat about if not "general topics" ?

 

2. Should I report you if you go into a museum and chat about other things than what the museum shows ? It might sound to you as a weird question, but it is meant to try to mirror how your question arrives at me.

 

3. If you do report people, you'd have LOTS to do. I mean, LOTS. General chat is FULL of , we , "general chatting".

 

4. You could easily use the other chat window tabs if you don't want to read the "general chatter".

 

5. You can open up your own chat channel within SWTOR and use it, if you want to be left alone.

 

6. If you report people constantly and write so in the "general chat" window, then an backslash might come back to you : People putting you on their ignore lists, and in general talking bad of you because at one point they'd look at you as if you wanted to disrupt general socialization or even troll them.

 

Actions are followed by Reactions. People will react to what other people do, so you need to keep in mind what kinds of reactions your behaviour might produce.

 

It is right to stand up against harassment (which imho *should* be reported),

but it is imho not an good idea to stand against general talk, general chat, common socialization in general.

 

Otherwise you get people reporting people for rather silly reasons and in doing so, reducing Customer Service down to a snails pace when it comes to dealing with the legitimate rules violations, bug reports and etc...

 

This is right as well : The Customer Service should imho rather go after what's rather intense violations of the TOS.

Reporting too much and about too many "minor" incidents takes away from the work-force of the Customer Service as well.

Edited March 22, 2015 by AlrikFassbauer

[JediQuaker]

1. A form reply is usually sent just to acknowledge receipt of your e-mail. It's not necessarily the only reply you'll get.

 

2. As far as I know, the refer-a-friend perks are only for new SWTOR players. You can freely tell all your guildmates about them, but it won't do them any good. (or, if it is useful to them, yes, you can freely tell everyone about them.)

 

3. That clause has more to do with advertising non-game related things, like websites, latest albums, clothes, etc.

 

4. You could report some of those people if you wish, but don't feel that it's your duty to do so.

 

5. It would be nice. But it seems kind of "anal" to ignore people just because you don't like what they say in chat. It would be better for you to just turn off general chat temporarily or just stop reading it.

 

6. No, unless you are on an RP (Role Play) server and the chat disrupts general role play.

Edited March 22, 2015 by JediQuaker

[Asdif_Laoeg]

5.) You can't put an legacy on ignore because it is not limited to one legacy name per server or account. In other words 2 or more different person/accounts can have the same legacy name on the same server. When you could ignore the legacy on your server then you would not ignore one account/person. You would ignore each person/account with the named legacy name.

 

Sorry for my bad english, it ist not my native language.

[MSchuyler]

Ah, so you're kind of a 'can't see the forest for the trees' guy who seems unusually perturbed about a lot of little things in the game to the point of reporting those players who don't act like you think they ought to. In fact, I would guess your complaints here are the tip of the iceberg. Others have answered your issues point by point rather well, imo, so allow me to generalize a bit.

 

1. It's not your job to be an in-game policeman, especially when you are not involved in an issue, but just see it happen. If you are directly harassed, then you have the right to report it, but be careful you are not crying wolf and get upset about nonsensical things. If the customer service forum posts are any indication, most of the "customer service" issues in game are more asking for hand-holding than involve real issues.

 

2. "Customer service" is somewhat laughable here. No one gets what they think they should get from customer service, so at some point you are going to have to get over it. Yes, customer service is lacking. It is going to continue to be lacking whether or not you complain about it, and it is especially lacking if you try to use customer service for picky little things that nobody else much cares about. The best way to view customer service in this game is to provide it yourself, i.e.: Be as self-sufficient as you can. That way you can have courteous and efficient self-service.

 

3. There is a lot of legalese in the TOS documents. That you have issues with them is irrelevant. You "agreed" to be bound by them just by playing the game. They can be summarized from those pages and pages by a fairly brief statement, which is:

 

"We, EA and BW, can do anything we want in this game. Neither bugs in the game, outages, poor service, or anything else is "actionable" by you, the player. You will never get reimbursed for anything. We alone are the interpreters of the TOS, not you. We alone will determine whether there are any breaches, and if we think there are, we can ban you from the game. If you screw up, it's on you. You have no recourse. If you sue us, it will be thrown out of court. Trust us on this: We've covered our butts on this one.

 

You have several rights in the game. You have the right to pay for your subscription. You have the right to play the game as we see fit, and you have the right to quit. That's it. And we don't much care what you think about the game, our terms, or how the game should be played. It's not your game; it's our game. You don't get a vote. This is not a democracy. Play it our way, or leave."

 

Now once you get it through your head that you really have no appreciable rights in the game, it will make game play easier. You don't really need to bother with tattle-tale "reporting" of other players' behavior because in most all cases, it really is none of your damn business. If you don't like chat topics, turn chat off. Don't be a (diminutive of Richard goes here.)

 

You can certainly NOT LIKE all this, and you can spend however much energy you want posting how you don't like it, but hopefully you will continue to do that for your own self-gratification because no one else really gives a rip.

Edited March 23, 2015 by MSchuyler

[Dunedunedune]

You took exactly what I was thinking and said it better then I ever could