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Community Detective Issue #11: Global Agenda
It's time to bring the pain, Community Detective style. What style is that exactly? Well, I don't rightly know, as the column just recently passed the ten issue mark and said style is still developing. Rookie jitters notwithstanding, this week's issue is all about pain -- my pain to be exact. The kind of pain that happens when I subject myself to things that I'm not really a fan of. In this case, F2P and PvP (at the same time, oh noes!!). Anyhow, strap on your jetpacks and blast past the cut where I'll give you the low-down on the community and customer service in Hi-Rez Studios' massively multiplayer third-person shooter known as Global Agenda. Surprisingly, my fortnight of probing the game's community brought about the completely unexpected realization that I actually enjoy the game, so there might be a few bits of commentary related to that as well. You just never can tell.
Peek experiences permanent outage for older devices, vows to replace with free Peek 9
Thinking of upgrading your Peek or Peek Pronto to a shiny new Peek 9? You may no longer have a choice -- following an epic fail when migrating to a new network provider, loads of older devices were reportedly fried. Normally consumer outrage would run rampant at this news, but Peek CEO Amol Sarva has a plan -- he's offering brand-new Peek 9s to existing customers, free of charge. It's not clear what will happen to the older units at this point, but a Peek customer service rep says that while fried QWERTY candybars are no more, the unscathed Peeks might possibly be turned back on. "We are currently waiting on T-Mobile to decide our fate," the rep wrote, "There is still a CHANCE that the sky is not falling and older devices will continue to work." In the meantime, Sarva has an amusing instruction for affected customers looking to get in on the deal: "Just check your email." [Thanks, standingup]
Community Detective Issue 10: Final Fantasy XIV
Welcome to the Eorzea edition of Massively's Community Detective. I've been spending a fair bit of time in Square-Enix's Final Fantasy XIV of late and have finally managed to collate some data on the game's community and customer service apparatus. Those of you looking for a ranty review of Square's much-maligned epic probably won't find what you're looking for here, although I'll occasionally offer a bit of side commentary on my in-game experiences to go along with the usual community questions and support tickets. Without further ado then, let's jump into the Age of Adventure.
Best Buy charges $30 for PS3 firmware update, laughs all the way to the bank
In case you hadn't noticed by now, Best Buy's Geek Squad isn't always the most scrupulous sort, but their latest attempt to upsell consumers is truly off the charts. We've confirmed for ourselves that the Staten Island, NY store is offering 120GB PS3 Slims for $329.98, explaining away the surcharge as their fee for a firmware upgrade. In case you've never booted up a PS3 yourself, let us explain the sheer ridiculousness at work here: a system update requires about three button presses, and some discs prompt you automatically. Hell, if you want to play online or access the PlayStation Store, you don't even have a choice -- ever since Other OS got Sony's goat, firmware updates have been mandatory across the board. Still, it's hard to say no when Best Buy employees are this polite -- when we explained to a rep that we already had a PS3, he graciously offered us an update anyhow... for just $29.98.
Community Detective, Issue #9: Pirates of the Burning Sea
Yarr! Hmm, not really. YARRRRRRR! That's a little better. Ahoy, mateys. Talk Like a Pirate Day may be over, but that isn't stopping me from navigating the rough waters of Flying Lab Software's Pirates of the Burning Sea for this week's issue of Community Detective. The game's a fair bit of fun, and since it recently joined the F2P bandwagon that all the cool kids are jumping on these days, it's likely to become more popular in the near future. As such, much like I did with Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online, I wanted to get a look at the game's community and customer service apparatus both before and after the payment model switcheroo. So how are the social aspects of the SOE-published title shaping up? Well, the customer service is pretty spot on. The community? Well, I'll be kind (for now) and simply say that it leaves a little something to be desired. Sail past the cut to learn more.
World of WarCrafts: Custom World of Warcraft harpy figure
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more. It's Monday, which means you get some interesting WoW-related crafts to distract you from the Monday blues! Speaking of blues, today's creation is all about the color blue -- a custom-made action figure portraying one of the more annoying denizens of The Barrens. Cincicustoms from the Staghelm server managed to whip up this custom harpy figure in record time, all the while putting in an incredible amount of detail. %Gallery-103185% Check out more about the creation of this work of art after the break.
Blizzard announces automated account recovery form for hacked accounts
World of Warcraft accounts have been under siege for years, with hackers and gold-selling outlets stealing passwords, items and more to fill their coffers, selling that gold to unwitting buyers. Blizzard has fought back incessantly over the years to stem the tide of gold farming and account hacking, and as you can imagine, the scale at which this happens is very tasking on its customer support department. Blizzard has just announced a new, speedier way to get help and answered about your hacked account, stolen items, authenticator issues and more! Now, under the new system, you will not have to email or call Blizzard to get these matters into its queue -- simply use the Account Recovery Form.
Massively's Community Detective, Issue #8: Fallen Earth
Welcome to another installment of Massively's Community Detective. This week, I pay a visit to a region decimated by economic and environmental collapse, widespread ignorance, and social anarchy run amok. No, it's not 21st century America but rather the fictional future-world of the Grand Canyon province as depicted in Icarus Studios' Fallen Earth. Travel forward in time with me to 2156 as we dodge plagues, mutated animals, and a big bit of nasty called the Shiva virus that lurks in the dark and dusty corners of the American southwest. What exactly does this grim future hold? Is there hope for mankind? Have Facebook and American Idol died horrible, well-deserved deaths? Are Cool Ranch Doritos still available? Who cares about all that, we just want to know whether MMORPGs have great communities and good customer service, right? Fortunately, Fallen Earth fits both bills, even though each institution has its quirks. Find out what's good, bad, and ugly about the game's social elements after the break.
Massively's Community Detective, Issue #7: Star Wars Galaxies
Community Detective is back after a week off and looking forward to bringing you news you can use when evaluating MMORPG communities and customer service. This week, I take a look at our third Sony Online Entertainment title, the venerable sci-fi sandbox known as Star Wars Galaxies. While SOE gets a lot of hate in the gamer community (much of it, ironically, for the same SWG that we're going to examine today), several of its titles provide some of the best customer service in the business, and SWG is no exception. Similarly, the game's community features an unusually high number of helpful people, particularly on the Starsider server. Follow along after the cut to see what we found.
Blizzard customer service now has its own Twitter account
Blizzard has just announced via its Warcraft Twitter account and the forums that the Customer Support team now has its own Twitter. The full text of the forum announcement is below: Auryk You can now follow all Blizzard Entertainment Customer Support news and updates on Twitter. Just head over to @BlizzardCS, (http://twitter.com/BlizzardCS) for the latest Support related news, events and more. We will be providing constant updates during Tuesday's maintenance and service outages. Additionally, you will be able to view updates to our Queue Times for Game Master interactions, account investigations and escalated tickets alike. source No word if the intermittent outages of the authentication system that were recently being experienced will be reported on this new Twitter account, but I think this is a step in the right direction for further increasing the communication from Blizzard to its customer base.
Massively's Community Detective, Issue #6: Lord of the Rings Online
If you've been playing MMORPGs for any length of time, or you keep up with the latest happenings around the industry, you're probably familiar with Lord of the Rings Online's Landroval server. In addition to being the "unofficial" roleplay server for Turbine's Tolkien-based MMORPG, Landroval is consistently mentioned as one of the finest communities in online gaming. Whether it be in forum discussions on various gaming websites, chats with gaming buddies, or even internal discussions here at Massively, Landroval is almost always referenced when someone asks about a friendly server that offers a dense and mature population. For this week's issue of Community Detective, we decided to put Landroval to the test. While the community lived up to its billing, we did encounter some curious inconsistencies with regard to Turbine's customer service. Head past the cut for our findings and impressions.
Massively's Community Detective, Issue #5: Vanguard - Saga of Heroes
Much has been written around the MMO blogosphere regarding SOE's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. From its troubled beginnings as a not-quite-ready-for-launch title, to fledgling Sigil Games Online's financial difficulties, to lead designer Brad McQuaid's well-publicized struggles with management and personal issues, the spiritual successor to EverQuest has always had a bit of a dark cloud hovering over its head. Happily, a fun game remains despite all the problems, and the title's snake-bit tendencies don't seem to have affected either its community or its customer service. Fly past the cut (on your rented pegasus) for more.
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.
Blizzard to patrol Moon Guard's Goldshire for harassment, erotic role playing
Blizzard announced via the customer support forum that it will take proactive steps to quell some of the unsavory behavior on Moon Guard (US), a server notable for its infamous Goldshire inn naughty shenanigans. After a father posted about canceling his son's account because of the general and trade chats on the Moon Guard server, Blizzard customer service responded in definitive terms -- Moon Guard's Goldshire will be actively "patrolled" by customer service team members. Check out the full Blizzard response after the break.
Massively's Community Detective, Issue #3: Aion
"There is currently a wait of about five days from the time you sent your request. We will continue to do all we can to reduce the wait time." So says a portion of the support email we received from NCsoft over the weekend while preparing the notes for this week's issue of Community Detective. Five days? Five days! Well, the good news is that the debacle had a happy ending. The bad news is that the wait, and a few vocal community members, colored our current perceptions of Aion. Welcome to another issue of Massively's Community Detective. This week we're changing up our format just a bit to focus on a single MMORPG. Aion goes under the microscope today, and the PvPvE title skews a bit more towards conventional MMOs than last week's EVE/Darkfall duo. Before we dive into the world of Atreia, let's reiterate the column's purpose, as well as outline our current methods. Fly past the cut for more.
Massively's Community Detective, Issue #2: Darkfall and EVE Online
"We hope you understand that there's nothing we can do at the moment," says the support email we just received from Aventurine, developers of Darkfall. Not exactly what you want to hear from customer service, is it? Welcome to another issue of Massively's Community Detective, where we're primed and ready to take you into the trenches of MMORPG community and customer service. This week we've got full-blown battlefields complete with land mines, dismemberment, e-peen waving, and all the other things you've come to know and love about PvP. Yes, we're delving into the world of Darkfall, and if that's not enough for you, we'll also be heading for the heavens in a very different (but equally cutthroat) PvP sandbox called EVE Online. Join us after the cut to see how these two titles fared in terms of community and customer service support.
Massively's Community Detective: The customer service case files, Issue #1
"Glad you made it to Age of Conan, and please, please feel free to look me up if you need any further help or want a group." When that bit of purple private tell text scrolled through the chat box of of our newly created guardian last week, it was clear that we weren't finding what we initially expected when we set out to research the community in Funcom's sword and sorcery MMORPG. Welcome to the inaugural issue of Massively's Community and Customer Service Investigations. Together we'll be examining all kinds of interesting factoids about both the community and customer service aspects of your favorite MMORPGs. If community is the heartbeat of this genre, we're here to take its pulse, and arm you with the information you need to make informed decisions when it comes time to look for greener pastures. Similarly, a game's customer service record can provide a gauge on everything from the professionalism of the overall operation to the health of the company behind it, and our investigations will put the system through its paces to bring you both hard data and analysis over time. This week's issue examines two PvE-focused games, one large and one small, in the form of EverQuest II and Age of Conan, respectively. Join us after the cut to see how the titles fared in terms of community and customer service.
Laptop's 2010 tech support showdown reveals ugly truth: you're (almost) on your own
Dealing with warranties is one thing -- it's almost always a crap-shoot, and you're continually pressing your luck when trying to get something covered without any out-of-pocket expense. But how's about the tech support that's so whimsically promised with so many laptops these days? Our pals over at Laptop put in an inordinate amount of work in order to find out, pinging a full dozen manufacturers via phone and chat in order to measure hold time, level of support offered and overall satisfaction. Just about every major laptop maker was included (Acer, Apple, Dell, Lenovo, HP, Toshiba and Fujitsu, just to name a few), and an in-depth report of their findings was posted for each one. In general, though, they found that most companies wouldn't hang around long enough to answer those nagging questions that typically end up in forums ("How do I remove bloatware?"), oftentimes pointing the caller to a paid alternative that would actually take the time to address their issues. If you're considering a new machine, and you aren't exactly one of those nerdy go-getters who can troubleshoot everything yourself, you should certainly give the source links below a look. Just try not to get too depressed, cool?
My magical AT&T experience
We give AT&T a lot of crap for having lousy coverage*, being unable to comprehend where geeks gather** or just plain dropping the ball on big pre-order days, but I have to say that today I was very impressed by the customer service I received when I called to update my service contract. In fact, AT&T was proactive about sending me warnings on my bill. You see, I've been overpaying AT&T these past few months... A year ago when I got the 3GS I thought I'd be clever and sign up for the absolute cheapest plan they had. "I'll just be judicious and save my rollover minutes!" said I, unaware that my gums tend to flap profusely when talking on the phone. "I'll use 3rd-party texting and Skype minutes and it'll be no sweat," I thought to myself as I played with the newfangled compass on my phone. Sadly, this plan was dashed when I started the travel season. Between Macworld, SXSW and WWDC I wound up with hundreds of minutes and texts in overages. My bills were over $200 each month. The dude did not abide by this plan. Today at the Apple Store the AT&T reps on duty claimed I couldn't change my rates, and hastily handed me a sheet that had something to do with my SIM card. So the Apple rep took me to activate my phone, and there I was able to upgrade my text and bring in my grandfathered unlimited data plan, but couldn't adjust the calling minutes. On the way to my brother's house I called the AT&T customer service number (that's 611 on your iPhone) and within 15 minutes they not only upgraded me to unlimited going forward, but they adjusted my previous overages into a less painful range. Kudos to AT&T! They even allowed us to upgrade ahead of the normal schedule, which I greatly appreciate. * Coverage is getting better. I noticed a marked improvement in San Francisco over just this past January. ** AT&T dropped the ball in 2009, but learned from that mistake and picked up the ball in 2010. As I said, things are improving.
Funcom's Morrison answers frank forum questions
Game developers are rarely forthcoming with their customers, and given the realities of competition and the amount of money funneled into marketing budgets these days, that's not really surprising. What is surprising is the accessibility and frankness of developers like Age of Conan game director Craig "Silirrion" Morrison, who recently took the time to post at length on the game's forums. The Funcom executive producer responded directly to a number of questions generated by an unhappy subscriber, and, even though the ensuing discussion occasionally veered into troll territory, managed to acquit himself (and the game) rather well. "Firstly I don't think we need a 'savior game plan' as we don't need 'saving'. The game is stable and has just had a succesful launch of an expansion pack. Is there stuff we still want to improve? Yes, there sure is, and is there lots of new stuff we want to add in over the coming years, yup, same again, definitely is. So no resting on laurels, MMO development is an ongoing affair and we are committed to keep on improving the game and what it offers," Morrison wrote. You can read the full exchange on the official Age of Conan forums.
