A few days ago, I contacted game support regarding an internal game issue (an apparent endless loop with a COSMOS agent).
This potential game bug has so far cost me 800 million ISK and about 5-7 hours of my free time.
I politely explained the problem and received a response that roughly translated:
“It’s old, undocumented code. We can’t help here.”
I haven’t received a response for several days to my subsequent reply that “old, undocumented code” is unlikely to be the paying customer’s problem and that I’m requesting a solution (standing, ISK refund, etc.).
Is the service and support at CCP really so abysmal that the players’ concerns are completely irrelevant?
Alternatively, I can invest my money elsewhere – the game costs me well over three figures per year – so I can expect at least satisfactory service. Any ideas or advice before I’m forced to give up the game?
The Cosmos agents have been screwed for years; CCP, with their usual brilliance, removed some of the essential items that should have been dropped (or it might have been the special pirates that dropped them, cannot remember) so the missions became impossible to complete. They were very very reluctant to admit this stupidity for some strange reason…
Of course, there were two obvious solutions:
remove the Cosmos agents so that people did not waste time attempting a broken series; or
reinstate the dropped items or substitute new droppers of said items - still in the database, so the “old code” nonsense is just bovine excrement. Write some new code if need be!
Of course, they did neither. Which is why the OP’s complaint is probably wholly justified, as the problem has been known for years and just ignored.
In this specific case, I need the help and support of CCP Support. I generally pay for this with my OMEGA membership, and their task is to fully resolve the problems of their paying customers – or, in the case of unsolvable problems, to offer appropriate compensation. My question here is how I can get this help from CCP if the responsible support employee is either unwilling or even incompetent. A suitable solution would be a letter or email to the head of support or directly to management. It is unacceptable that paying customers are so coldly rejected or ignored. Because these paying customers will turn away and look for alternatives. And such issues become public and do not constitute particularly good advertising.
You’re spot on. The agent gives standing for Caldari State. I had to give him a few items for this. However, this process is currently in an endless loop. Lost ISK, no standing, a lost COSMOS agent, and a forced mission abort. There are ways to a) prevent this from happening again with other players and b) compensate the customer. Either you refund the lost ISK (I’m less interested in that) or you award the standing they’re entitled to (I’m primarily interested in that). However, simply saying that there’s a bug in the code that you can’t (or don’t want to) fix and then simply leaving the customer hanging and ignoring their other legitimate objections is simply impossible. I invest a good €500-700 in this game every year. Right now, I’m imagining what would happen if I had a really serious problem, for example, with my account – would everything be lost in the worst case scenario because support simply doesn’t care? In that case, you’d think twice about investing even a single euro or dollar here in the future.
I generally like the support. They have helped me well with issues in the past. Quick to. The problem with your issue is most likely that if they are going to give you isk for it or other goodies other players will start to abuse that and try the same. I know this is not the reply your hoping for though.
Aside from your dissatisfaction - which i fully understand - you should be aware of the forum rules. It is explicitly forbidden to post what you posted here.
100%. The older code is deprecated, some of it is written in an obscure Icelandic machine language. This is completely normal in programming, as development teams and standards and goals change, the original core of the program becomes increasingly difficult to understand. Generally, as this happens, a game development company will abandon this version and produce the next from scratch, as you can see with most every game sequel. What CCP has done, in order to preserve the universe intact, is to gradually rewrite the code without abandoning it. This is actually very innovative, and explains why so much development time is producing so little tangible result - because what they are doing is rewriting the underlying engine. Unfortunately, as we can see with the COSMOS missions, or the bounty system, this means that some game systems will remain deprecated for an extended time.
Probably because all the GMs are swamped with tickets about the broken AIR daily rewards. Every month I have to submit a ticket for at least two characters that get ripped off and don’t receive the rewards. It typically takes 7 to 10 days to get it resolved. I’m about to submit another ticket yet again. All conditions met, no real reason for it and it’s always a random character each event.
As for the COSMOS information, I’ve bookmarked everything I could find. I’ve downloaded everything else I could and converted a lot of it to .PDF but things get corrupted. It’s getting harder and harder to find things as the way back machine links for the EVElopedia are disappearing. I haven’t been able to find any documentation on most of the Nullsec missions.
I’m very familiar with this problem – I worked for several years as a team leader in software development (SCRUM, KANBAN). Undocumented, hard-coded code is a nightmare, yes. However, you can still offer targeted and pragmatic support and find alternative ways to compensate for the damage caused to the customer. Because that’s also part of doing good work and being a good company. Of course, if you value long-standing customers looking for alternatives, this is a very good and effective approach. For me – since I still haven’t received any feedback – this means: no more real money investments, everything is based solely on ISK and PLEX.
My primary goal is for someone to address my problem and find a solution. That’s not happening. I’m being rejected without a solution! That’s outrageous. Only in the next step do I demand compensation, in whatever form. I’ve suffered real damage in the form of ISK (which is 148 PLEX at the current exchange rate), and I’ve wasted 5-7 hours of my free time—essentially, life time that can’t be recovered. There are many different ways to find a solution here—doing nothing isn’t one of them!
It’s the only way for me as a paying customer to be heard—apart from legal recourse or the legitimate reclaiming of my “membership fees” due to non-performance. You are welcome to refer to the forum terms and conditions, delete my history here, and block me. Then I’ll take legal action tomorrow.
