Massively's Community Detective, Issue #4: Warhammer Online [Updated]

"Don't roll a black orc, they'll just piss you off [since] newbies don't know how to back you up," said one of the helpful folks on Warhammer Online's Badlands server when I asked about class choice. While you may disagree with his assessment, he was one member of a very friendly community, and one of many that took the time to answer questions and make a new player feel welcome on multiple occasions.

Unfortunately that's more than I can say for Mythic's customer service department. When it bothered to respond, it wasn't inclined to help with the simplest of support tickets, nor provide any sort of explanation.

Waaagh WAAAGH! past the cut for more.

Welcome to another installment of Massively's Community Detective, your window into the world of MMORPG community and customer service. This week, we've spent some quality time with Warhammer. If you're just getting started with the column, here's how it works: We basically visit a new game each week, probing both the customer service apparatus and the community to bring you snapshots and insights as to what you can expect should you choose to play. In addition to the proper spelling of the word waaagh WAAAGH!, we learned some interesting things about Mythic's RvR title this week, namely, that it's got a great player community and a customer service department that could use an upgrade.

As with last week's Aion examination, we discovered that Warhammer segregates its players by faction, with the forces of Order and Destruction unable to communicate beyond battlefield taunts. As such, we decided to focus our community research on two American servers: Badlands and Volkmar. We created new characters on both paid and trial accounts, and took to the global chat channels in order to get a sense of our fellow players and their disposition towards newbs. We also ran around a large portion of Tier 1 (Warhammer's content is grouped by level ranges called tiers), and experienced nearly all of the PvE zones from levels 1 through 10, as well as a few PvP scenarios.

We began our community study with the following question:

As this question netted us a lot of responses in last week's Aion piece (and because Warhammer and Aion bear more than a few similarities), we decided to use it again. We sampled both server populations (as well as the respective faction channels) on multiple occasions during the week, including weekday afternoons, evenings, and weekends.

The Badlands server seemed to have the more receptive community, as responses were consistently forthcoming and, with one exception, all helpful. The Order faction answered politely and engaged in some brief, opinionated discussion during all three time slots. Badlands' Destruction contingent was much more interesting, featuring a lengthy discussion of all the classes during one of the weeknight periods, as well as friendly players that went out of their way to make us feel welcome both in global channels and via personal tells. Curiously, the weekend was quieter on the Destruction side, though responses still flowed.

Volkmar's community was similarly welcoming, if a bit more subdued. The question was answered in all the time slots, but there wasn't as much discussion or opinion in comparison to Badlands. Whether this is indicative of a smaller community or a less friendly one is hard to say, but overall the experience was still quite positive on both Order and Destruction sides.

For our second community question, we got a bit more specific:

This question was based off our memories of Warhammer's original starting areas, as well as the fact that the game now features tutorial zones designed to funnel new players together and bring balance in terms of area populations. Once again, we sampled both halves of the faction equation at our usual weekday afternoon, evening, and weekend time intervals.

Badlands' Order population was the friendliest here, and several folks provided immediate answers as well as some opinions about whether or not porting back to the original zones would dilute the gameplay experience. As an experiment, I purposely affected a bit of an attitude when asking the question, phrasing it with a bit of nerd-rage as someone might if he were unable to access a part of the game he previously enjoyed. Despite this, the Badlands Order folks were quite helpful and didn't respond judgmentally or harshly.

The Badlands Destruction faction responded similarly, though there were fewer individuals involved. Volkmar produced similar data, and aside from a lack of responses in the weekday afternoon session and a rude individual berating me for asking the same question in both the region and advice channels, the community lived up to the high standards evident in the previous encounters.

Frankly, Warhammer's community truly surprised us, as it seems to be chock full of friendly, mature individuals with a vested interest in making newbs feel welcome. Since the game itself is widely known for its PvP action, we were expecting a little more smack talk and a little less red carpet. At the very least, we thought there would be moderate to high levels of sarcasm and snarkiness, as well as the almost obligatory false information folks that we experienced when examining Aion and EVE Online.

The fact that there were very few negative reactions to our questions (and a whole lot of positive ones) speaks well for Warhammer's community and, from this perspective at least, we'd heartily recommend taking the plunge if you're looking for a PvP-centric title. The only real negative were the gold spammers (legions of them, seemingly replicating before our eyes much like Agent Smith in the Matrix films). Each time we logged on, we'd spend a few minutes adding another five or six names to our ignore list. We're not sure whether Mythic's well-publicized anti-RMT stance went out the door with former CEO Mark Jacobs or they're just not staffed to deal with so many botters. Whatever the reason, gold spam is the sole black mark on Warhammer's community.

Unfortunately, this is where the love-fest stops, as Mythic's customer service completely drops the ball when compared to the game's community. As for our methodology, we filed several petitions, three each on two separate accounts. Crazily enough, we actually got a response on the trial account. *Our paid account was left twisting in the wind, with no responses as of press time (over three full days from the original submission).

For our first ticket, we did the standard "deleted item" trick on our trial account. After some deliberation, we decided to go with this tactic because stuck characters don't really tax CSRs and we didn't find any bugs or Tier 1 quests that we weren't able to complete. We submitted the ticket just before noon on a Thursday, using the nifty in-game petition system. WAR's help screen features a well-designed ticketing interface with a category for just about any problem you're likely to encounter. Submission is quick and very straight-forward. We received an account email at 1:00 a.m. on Friday acknowledging the ticket, and a denial of our item restoration request an hour later.

"Regrettably, restoration of the appealed item is not a possibility at this time. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience, and do not hesitate to re-appeal should you require any further assistance," the mail says. It's quite curt and devoid of any sort of explanation or further information.

Next we submitted a gold spammer petition using the in-game system, also around noon on Thursday. Upon receipt of the ticket, the system informs you that you may not receive a response to spammer reports, and sure enough we didn't. Our confidence as to Mythic's action on the report is not high, simply because we ran into the same spammer four days later as we were taking a few screenshots to finalize this article.

Our third trial-account ticket was a naming violation (selectable from the aforementioned in-game interface). While we didn't see any racially or morally offensive names, Blueberryjam was almost as bad in our book, so we took the opportunity to send him to the special hell of Mythic naming violation reports. As with the gold spammer petition, we received a confirmation message that told us not to expect a reply, and as of press time we haven't gotten one. We also haven't seen Mr. Blueberryjam since, but it's highly doubtful anything happened to him other than leveling out of Tier 1.

The three petitions submitted on our paid account were similar, albeit on a Destruction character. All three of the tickets were submitted around 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, and no acknowledgment emails or contact of any kind has been forthcoming.

*[Update: Mythic finally responded to our paid account deleted item ticket at noon today, almost five days after submission. Curiously they restored this deleted item, unlike our experience on the trial account with a similar newbie quest reward item. Regrettably we didn't have time to update the table at the article's conclusion to reflect the last-minute addition.]

We're hard-pressed to find anything good to say about Mythic's customer service. The fact that trial accounts seemingly get priority over paid accounts is bad enough, and honestly there's just no way to be kind about a total lack of acknowledgment after almost four days. Furthermore, the deleted item resolution (or lack thereof) would likely be frustrating to a newer player (or a veteran with an item of real worth), and the standard "your satisfaction is our priority, please contact us if you have any other requests you'd like us to deny" response produces the usual eye-rolling.

Follow-up and friendliness were similarly non-existent, and Warhammer easily claims the worst customer service award in the short history of this column. That said, as we've mentioned before, we'll be returning to give the game another fair shake. Maybe it was a bad day or an isolated incident; we really don't know. But the reality is the service left much to be desired.

This week's PUG report is a bit shorter than usual, simply due to Warhammer's inherent design. If you're even the least bit familiar with the game, you've probably heard of the Public Quest and open grouping systems, which basically eliminate the need to advertise for pickup groups by allowing anyone and everyone to group up virtually at will. We sampled both mechanics throughout Tier 1 and found the populations to be a little light during the weekdays but more than acceptable on evenings and weekends (Eastern time). Scenario queues also pop with regularity during most play sessions, though that may drop off a bit in the higher tiers where there aren't any trial players. Finally, we did note a fair number of LFG dungeon advertisements in the global channels, again concentrated at prime-time. There seemed to be no shortage of people looking to run Hunter's Vale, Warpblade, and the Skaven Tunnels.

We're out of time and space for this week's look at Warhammer Online. We hope you've found our snapshots informative, and despite the awful experience we had with support, the game's friendly players made us want to keep waaghing. If Mythic ramps up the support even a little bit, it'll have a real winner on its hands in terms of community and customer service.

**Table does not reflect the Destruction deleted ticket item resolution that came in today just prior to publication. The item was restored, though it took the better part of five days to receive any kind of acknowledgment.

[Update: BioWare Mythic Community Coordinator Andy Belford contacted us after the airing of this column to clarify a few thing in an official statement:]

We'd like to take a moment to address a few concerns brought up in the recent Community Detective article:

"For our first ticket, we did the standard "deleted item" trick on our trial account. After some deliberation, we decided to go with this tactic because stuck characters don't really tax CSRs and we didn't find any bugs or Tier 1 quests that we weren't able to complete. We submitted the ticket just before noon on a Thursday, using the nifty in-game petition system. WAR's help screen features a well-designed ticketing interface with a category for just about any problem you're likely to encounter. Submission is quick and very straight-forward. We received an account email at 1:00 a.m. on Friday acknowledging the ticket, and a denial of our item restoration request an hour later."

Our customer service department spends a considerable amount of time investigating and researching each and every missing/deleted item report and responds appropriately according to their findings. We're certainly not invalidating the experiences of the author, however it's important to note that in order to provide the best possible service we address serious requests such as this on a case by case basis. This is done for the benefit of both the customer and the community at large.

"Our third trial-account ticket was a naming violation (selectable from the aforementioned in-game interface). While we didn't see any racially or morally offensive names, Blueberryjam was almost as bad in our book, so we took the opportunity to send him to the special hell of Mythic naming violation reports. As with the gold spammer petition, we received a confirmation message that told us not to expect a reply, and as of press time we haven't gotten one. We also haven't seen Mr. Blueberryjam since, but it's highly doubtful anything happened to him other than leveling out of Tier 1."

Here at BioWare Mythic we have a strict policy that we will never discuss any sort of action that we take against another player. To do so would be to violate the privacy and trust of our community, and we hold each person's right to privacy in a very high regard. This is the reason for the specific verbiage about not being contacted regarding naming violations. Additionally, I think you will agree with me here that the name "Blueberryjam" is not what one would call "objectionable" and said appeal might be considered frivolous and an attempt to grief another player.

"Next we submitted a gold spammer petition using the in-game system, also around noon on Thursday. Upon receipt of the ticket, the system informs you that you may not receive a response to spammer reports, and sure enough we didn't. Our confidence as to Mythic's action on the report is not high, simply because we ran into the same spammer four days later as we were taking a few screenshots to finalize this article."

This is another instance where we will not disclose information about any action taken against another account. That being said, BioWare Mythic has a longstanding record of having zero tolerance for Gold Sellers and those offering real money services, and to this day we are constantly introducing features to curtail such activity.

Also one last thing:

"In addition to the proper spelling of the word waagh, we learned some interesting things about Mythic's RvR title this week, namely, that it's got a great player community and a customer service department that could use an upgrade."

Per Games Workshop, when referring to the Greenskin Battlecry for Warhammer Fantasy, its spelled "WAAAGH!" (All caps, triple A, exclamation point).

We're very happy that the WAR community received a glowing review from the writer of this article. I've said it once and I'll say it for eternity; The WAR community is amazing and continues to inspire us every day. These players are passionate, dedicated and want nothing more than to make the game better for everyone. We, as a development team are extremely fortunate to support such a vibrant and devoted group of killers.

We'll always welcome constructive feedback about the services that we offer. We'll be reviewing the messaging we send in response to appeals, especially the ones mentioned in this article, and if need be we'll adjust them to be more clear and concise to our customers.

Thank you for the opportunity to address these concerns.

Andy Belford
Community Manager
BioWare Mythic

Join Jef Reahard every other week as he goes behind the scenes to file first-hand community and customer service reports from the front lines of your favorite genre titles. From Aion to Zentia, the Community Detective case files are an essential part of any game-hopper's research library. Suggestions welcome, care of jef@massively.com.