Formal letter sent to GOA.

[CstasY]

Please tell me you are joking. This is another GOA lead debacle and I think its right that they shoould be held accountable to it's paying customers. Damn if I ran a business the way they do I wouldn't have any customers.

It's about time the management of GOA stepped up to the plate and be accountable for the cock ups, rather than just taking our cash and screwing us over.

Take a deep breath and have a think about the opening post in this thread.

The 3d world you gaze at for 8 hours a day isnt real, its made up of pixels. Its an online game for fucks sake. A game, something to occupie you when you're bored. Its not something for you to play solidly and only move out of the front door to collect your dole money and to pay the pizza guy. People who get worked up enough to write formal letters because of a 3 weeks unplayable game need to seriously have a think about their aims and interests in life, its nothing less than sad.

The only thing GOA will have done when they read that letter is laugh. No company in the world is 100% secure, problems happen, this is the fucking internet we're talking about.

 

[popa]

how u can see goa dont post here any answer that means just ignore u

 

[Zede]

Take a deep breath and have a think about the opening post in this thread.

The 3d world you gaze at for 8 hours a day isnt real, its made up of pixels. Its an online game for fucks sake. A game, something to occupie you when you're bored. Its not something for you to play solidly and only move out of the front door to collect your dole money and to pay the pizza guy. People who get worked up enough to write formal letters because of a 3 weeks unplayable game need to seriously have a think about their aims and interests in life, its nothing less than sad.

The only thing GOA will have done when they read that letter is laugh. No company in the world is 100% secure, problems happen, this is the fucking internet we're talking about.

I think its called addiction. Take away the drug for a few weeks, and the addicts start to get uppity, thid excal just about satisfied my craving

 

[semanon]

Take a deep breath and have a think about the opening post in this thread.

The 3d world you gaze at for 8 hours a day isnt real, its made up of pixels. Its an online game for fucks sake. A game, something to occupie you when you're bored. Its not something for you to play solidly and only move out of the front door to collect your dole money and to pay the pizza guy. People who get worked up enough to write formal letters because of a 3 weeks unplayable game need to seriously have a think about their aims and interests in life, its nothing less than sad.

We are paying for a service are we not? Whether that service is for pixels or for fairy dust. If your satellite television provider said " oh sorry no TV for a bit cause of a problem our end...oops" wouldnt you get a bit annoyed about spending money on something you couldnt use? After all TV is only pixels.

 

[elisera]

But if you are using the comparison of a sattalite TV provider then you really have to be more specific and say that it would mean ONE of the channels you could watch would be unavailable but the rest are still on air as normal... And if even after that they were giving you free days subscription then what is there to complain about in that scenario?

 

[Ixoth]

Actually Mythic some years ago told, that the characters are stored in a flat file format of their own making.

And to my knowledge (based on chats with requiel) the housing explorer system is based on files even these days. hence they are not eager to add more fields to refine the searches of items user wishes to lookup, as this causes even more lag (server has to grep or whatever data from this file system).

 

[Ixoth]

how u can see goa dont post here any answer that means just ignore u

Because they got something else to do like fix the chars than replying here - take a look at the thread where the one guy lost his chars, and requiel replied so many times to that topic.. I am saying they cba to reply because if they would do so, they would spent the time here replying in this forums and loosing valuable time which could be used to more important like saving still corrupted (=stripped) chars.

 

[- English -]

1 on the right last night... very drunk

 

[Belomar]

Still drunk, English? Because it appears you posted in the wrong thread.

 

[- English -]

lol ye i just noticed

 

[Thorwyn]

We are paying for a service are we not? Whether that service is for pixels or for fairy dust. If your satellite television provider said " oh sorry no TV for a bit cause of a problem our end...oops" wouldnt you get a bit annoyed about spending money on something you couldnt use? After all TV is only pixels.

Yes, absolutely correct. And then, you would send them a letter, asking them to guarantee you that this won´t happen again, am I right?

This particulare company business _IS_ games, and I guess severall of their customers have serious doubts about the services quality after this disaster.

Might be true. And if that´s the case, a reply to your letter with a nice "sorry" and an explanation and a "won´t happen again, I swear" won´t change anything. If your doubts about the integrity of GoA is shattered, stop playing.

Let me make a few statements here.

a. NO company in the world will give you any kind of guarantee that things like this won´t happen (again). And asking for something like this just displays a lack of reality sense. Put yourself into GoAs position: assuming you´d be in charge, would YOU give guarantees like this when all you do is publish/run the (buggy) software you get from ANOTHER company?

b. YES! You´re right, we´re all paying for a service. And guess what: 99% of the time, you get what you pay for. If the Service level of GoA isn´t enough for you, then stop paying your account and switch to another game. Just don´t think that the 12 Euros you spend per month makes you some sort of shareholder and gives your any privilege to demand apologies, guarantees or generally a change of their customer/provider relation.

c. This IS a game. It´s not a hospital providing a wrong diagnosis, it´s not a bank that´s dumping money into the void and it´s not a nuclear power plant that´s going to explode. All the childish, unqualified moaning and tantrum about "oh my god, I`ve lost an item!!!11" is a slap in the face of all people in the world who´re facing problems like war, hunger, loss of a beloved person or illness. Things like this are problems worth complaining and moaning about. Losing a sword of eternal uberness isn´t. I know that this is a rather polemical argument, but if you think about it, it might set your priorities into the right light again.

d. GoA is trying to fix the problem, they´re trying to replace/restore all losses, they´re working on the problem, they ARE aware that many people are pissed off, they ARE aware that their reputation is in danger and that they might lose customers. They´re also aware that they´re running a business and that things like this are bad. They´re even aware that you´re paying money for that and I think it´s safe to say that they also know that something went utterly wrong.

 

[Ixoth]

Yes, absolutely correct. And then, you would send them a letter, asking them to guarantee you that this won´t happen again, am I right?



Might be true. And if that´s the case, a reply to your letter with a nice "sorry" and an explanation and a "won´t happen again, I swear" won´t change anything. If your doubts about the integrity of GoA is shattered, stop playing.

Let me make a few statements here.

a. NO company in the world will give you any kind of guarantee that things like this won´t happen (again). And asking for something like this just displays a lack of reality sense. Put yourself into GoAs position: assuming you´d be in charge, would YOU give guarantees like this when all you do is publish/run the (buggy) software you get from ANOTHER company?

b. YES! You´re right, we´re all paying for a service. And guess what: 99% of the time, you get what you pay for. If the Service level of GoA isn´t enough for you, then stop paying your account and switch to another game. Just don´t think that the 12 Euros you spend per month makes you some sort of shareholder and gives your any privilege to demand apologies, guarantees or generally a change of their customer/provider relation.

c. This IS a game. It´s not a hospital providing a wrong diagnosis, it´s not a bank that´s dumping money into the void and it´s not a nuclear power plant that´s going to explode. All the childish, unqualified moaning and tantrum about "oh my god, I`ve lost an item!!!11" is a slap in the face of all people in the world who´re facing problems like war, hunger, loss of a beloved person or illness. Things like this are problems worth complaining and moaning about. Losing a sword of eternal uberness isn´t. I know that this is a rather polemical argument, but if you think about it, it might set your priorities into the right light again.

d. GoA is trying to fix the problem, they´re trying to replace/restore all losses, they´re working on the problem, they ARE aware that many people are pissed off, they ARE aware that their reputation is in danger and that they might lose customers. They´re also aware that they´re running a business and that things like this are bad. They´re even aware that you´re paying money for that and I think it´s safe to say that they also know that something went utterly wrong.

Couldn't agree more with the poster here. Good solid points.

 

[kaedrick2]

Agreed

I agree with the above also. Good post with good points.

 

[elisera]

<claps at Thor>

Finally a post I agree totally with!! Nice one Thor

 

[Appendix]

Let me make a few statements here.

a. NO company in the world will give you any kind of guarantee that things like this won´t happen (again). And asking for something like this just displays a lack of reality sense. Put yourself into GoAs position: assuming you´d be in charge, would YOU give guarantees like this when all you do is publish/run the (buggy) software you get from ANOTHER company?

definitions of SLA. The letter isn't asking for guarantees.

b. YES! You´re right, we´re all paying for a service. And guess what: 99% of the time, you get what you pay for. If the Service level of GoA isn´t enough for you, then stop paying your account and switch to another game. Just don´t think that the 12 Euros you spend per month makes you some sort of shareholder and gives your any privilege to demand apologies, guarantees or generally a change of their customer/provider relation.

The author of the letter obviously wants to remain a customer of GOA or at least don't want to stop playing Daoc. It's simply an attempt at making GOA improve the service. Although I agree it's written in a rather high-flown language. There's nothing "essential" about Daoc for instance.

 

[Deepflame]

c. This IS a game. It´s not a hospital providing a wrong diagnosis, it´s not a bank that´s dumping money into the void and it´s not a nuclear power plant that´s going to explode. All the childish, unqualified moaning and tantrum about "oh my god, I`ve lost an item!!!11" is a slap in the face of all people in the world who´re facing problems like war, hunger, loss of a beloved person or illness. Things like this are problems worth complaining and moaning about. Losing a sword of eternal uberness isn´t. I know that this is a rather polemical argument, but if you think about it, it might set your priorities into the right light again.

Made me chuckle.

 

[atos]

Some people lack perspective. Theres no point in arguing about it. But that removes all their right to moan if your account was to be deleted by accident.

 

[Thorwyn]

Since the last database failure have caused much frustration to people playing on Prydwen we ask you to provide us with you assurances that this situation is never going to happen again.

I know what SLA means, but the customer is still in no position to demand things like this, regardless whether he wants to stay a customer or not. He can either accept the current client/provider agreements as described in EULA and CoC, or leave it. A provider offers a service and sets up the rules and the customer can decide to accept or refuse those rules.
GoA cannot give any assurance that this situation is never going to happen again and they´ll rather shoot themselves into the knee than sign any form of legal contract that makes them responsible for things which aren´t in their direct influence range.
What do you think, what would have happened back in the lag/OpenTransit months, if GoA had a SLA contract signed with all the customers, forcing them to announce a maximum downtime or a reaction time?

Some people lack perspective.

Indeed, mate, indeed!

Theres no point in arguing about it. But that removes all their right to moan if your account was to be deleted by accident.

You´re completly missing the point. I´m not saying the customers shouldn´t be upset or pissed off. Something went wrong and of course, it´s the customers right to be annoyed and expect GoA to do everything to minimize the losses.
My point is, that claiming something as unrealistical as the guy who wrote this letter doesn´t help you/him/us jack shit.

 

[Farbaute2]

you´re completly missing the point.

Sorry but you missed the point from the start since you didnt read the whole letter

We are 3-400 active accounts and probably more behind this letter. Bimbobane sent the letter but it is from us all who signed it. I dont expect any staff from goa to answer it here in a thread on this forum. They are doing a great job now but this letter wasnt send to them but to the CEO of Goa. this thread was to inform other players of the community if i understand right.

/Narve

 

[Appendix]

GoA cannot give any assurance that this situation is never going to happen again and they´ll rather shoot themselves into the knee than sign any form of legal contract that makes them responsible for things which aren´t in their direct influence range.
What do you think, what would have happened back in the lag/OpenTransit months, if GoA had a SLA contract signed with all the customers, forcing them to announce a maximum downtime or a reaction time?

I agree, GOA will never present or sign a SLA. The service will always be on a "take it or leave it" basis. Which is fine normally since it is in the best interest of GOA itself to implement adequate backup/restore/DR solutions just to stay in business. But this is exactly what they have failed to do and why this event is exceptional, it's not just lag or server crashes or security breaches. This time the damage is irreparable, some people will have to start over with their Daoc toons. Because of the circumstances I think it's justified to ask GOA not only to fix what they have broken but to also explain what measures they will take to prevent it from happening again, or at least minimising the risk of it happening again. And that's afaik what this letter is asking for.

 

[Melachi]

I hope your reply is as entertaining as mine

I made my report for my missing items last Monday(09/05/2005 06:43 PM), it is now 9/10 days later, and still I have recieved no information, no update on when I will be delt with except an automatic response which cleary states "looking into it as a matter of urgency.". I have read your non official updates on the freddyshouse forums which stated sending reports like this giving out would not achieve anything other than slow down the process, well sorry but I have no alternative.

There is speculation, that you are not doing the reports in order of which they came in, and speculation that there is people getting faster attention than others which frankly is taking the piss

I now demand some sort of compensation for the absoloute joke of a service that has been provided, I am not in the legal proffesion, however I am sure you have breached our contract, with both the server being down, and the loss of Customer data, and the subsequent failure to compensate for all the losses I have endured.

I also would like a telephone number for GOA's Customer Support or atleast a Reception number if no Customer Support number exists.

Ok, a little anger driven ill be the first to admit that, but wait till you see their reply

Hello,

Thank you for sharing your concerns with us.

The speculatation that we treat some people different then others is completely wrong and to be quite honest highly insulting.

We are working on compensating and restoring the lost items as fast as possible. In the order the reports came into our system.

If you would be in a legal profession you would be able to read from our CoC/EulA that the only contract we offer is that we offer you a service to connect to. That service has never been unavailable. You would also know you will not be able to take steps against us "failing to compensate" you for your losses as it's clearly stated in our CoC that you don't own the characters on your account nor do you own the items on them.

Again we are working very hard to compensate you and when your message is due to be dealt with it will be dealt with as correct and fast as possible.

We don't offer customer support via phone and calling our reception would be completely pointless and could in fact be seen as harassment. Rightnow is our Customer Support Tool and if you want customer support you'll have to use that.

We realise that you might be frustrated by all of this but trust me when I say that making threats will not speed up the process, if anything it will slow it down as I've now spend 5 minutes to write a human response to your report.

Surely you don't expect to get the preferential treatment you accused us of doing in your message in the first place?

Yours sincerely,
---------------------------------------------
European Dark Age of Camelot Community Manager

Threats? Harrasment?

Seriously, this crowd is a bunch of idiots with no training.

I cant wait to see a reply to the formal letter.

 

[Thorwyn]

Sorry but you missed the point from the start since you didnt read the whole letter

mmmkay, lets see:

We are 3-400 active accounts and probably more behind this letter.

and?

Bimbobane sent the letter but it is from us all who signed it.

and?

I dont expect any staff from goa to answer it here in a thread on this forum. They are doing a great job now but this letter wasnt send to them but to the CEO of Goa.

and?

It´s totally irrelevant how many people are behind this letter or who this letter went to. As I tried to explain, a company like GoA simply can not give what you´re asking for. Even if the entire community of DAoC would sign this letter, it wouldn´t have a chance of a positive reply by GoA, not because they´re all evil, greedy bastards who don´t give a fuck, but because this would be the equivalent to business-suicide. Take it from me please, it doesn´t matter what *you* want and a SLA like you guys are trying to get from GoA does neither solve any existing or future problems, nor give you any form of security, nor does it help Goa. Because IF they do sign stuff like this and some bug in the software (re)-appears, they´ll have to face tons of legal suits and might as well just shut down DAoC for good.

But this is exactly what they have failed to do and why this event is exceptional, it's not just lag or server crashes or security breaches. This time the damage is irreparable, some people will have to start over with their Daoc toons. Because of the circumstances I think it's justified to ask GOA not only to fix what they have broken but to also explain what measures they will take to prevent it from happening again, or at least minimising the risk of it happening again. And that's afaik what this letter is asking for.

This I actually agree with. Asking for information is never wrong, especially in this case, where the customers trust into the company is fading. But that´s not what I`m criticizing about this letter. What I DO criticize is the tone and the attempt to drag all this to a legal basis and try to squeeze some form of legal claim out of it. There´s a difference between asking for something respectively expressing a concern and expecting someone to sign a SLA. That´s just ridiculous, simply because it´s bound to fail right from the start as we both seem to agree.

 

[Belomar]

Again Thorwyn brings light to those that fumble in the dark, but it seems that these poor souls do not know better.

 

[Stinko]

Thorwyn[B&Q], you'r making good points but I can't see where you are going. This is the worst incident that ever happened to the customer base on Prydwen and you say we just should sit on our hands, nodding, repeating "This was smooth", "Couldn't been handeled better"? Instead an entire Alliance on Prydwen makes an act to show their annoyence with this. Not by whining in some stupid FH-wh11n33 thread, but instead mailing (by smail-mail) and letter to Goa where they want some answers. And the writers of the letter are by profession DB-tech specialists making their questions a whole lot more vaild. They know how DB's are handled well and can tell from this incident that Goa just aint doing there homework.

This is also an act where holders of 400 accounts want to know if they even should bother leveling Malice or GoV. If they should do über template to stay competetive in the long run. Or if they even should level that one cool new Vampiir character. I for one just can't see any reason to put any effort in a character on Prydwen if I don't know what levels of service Goa is willing to give us. It's fricking like we should be happy we are giving Goa 12€ a month and hopefully they give us something in return.

"If you would be in a legal profession you would be able to read from our CoC/EulA that the only contract we offer is that we offer you a service to connect to. That service has never been unavailable. You would also know you will not be able to take steps against us "failing to compensate" you for your losses as it's clearly stated in our CoC that you don't own the characters on your account nor do you own the items on them."
This makes me really mad. It's like the only service they give us is the possability to log in and see the character selection screen. And tell me, IS IT THAT WE ALL ARE PAYING FOR?

 

[Awarkle]

This is how it works

if i went around to your house to watch your tv then decided that i was bored of the tv i couldnt then sell it on ebay because i didnt own it.

The same goes with dark age you are paying goa to provide the following services.

1. connection to the game (not necesarily a specific server)
2. login and password for an account on their servers that you log into.
3. a friendly and safe environement where your not going to get griefed at sworn, racial abuse and so forth.

You do not own your account at all, that account is the property of goa you are renting it. if goa wanted to next week they could purge all the data base and say "sorry guys we had enough we arnt running european servers any more anyone who has paid in advance here is your money back bye bye".

and there wouldnt be a thing you could do about it they can not provide you with the PHYSICAL data they couldnt print out your character and inventory because its stored digitally.

Ok im not saying you cant write a letter to goa head offices and complain in fact please do write a letter and show goa you mean business. IN the end the chances are they will read it and reply to you with a standard business letter probbly identical to what you get in rightnow responces.

Goa was in the situation roll back several weeks (possibly) and risk the same thing happening as it was corupted data. OR roll back a few hours purge the data base of anything that might be corrupted and have a few weeks of problems.

Which would you prefer 2 or 3 weeks of problems with a small roll back(where you could play on excalibur) and then normality

or a few days of problems with a 2 week rollback (loss of exp,items,mls etc) only to have a purge of the data base anyways in a couple of weeks when the same problem surfaces.

and tbh anything that is like the complaint letters ive read they are all the same.

"whahhhhhhhh i lost my dummy whahhhhh" its just the "lets hope we get free stuff".

Frannkly when people realise this is a GAME that we play for ENJOYMENT and isnt a full time job we HAVE to do then maybe the whining will disapear.

 

[semanon]

Frannkly when people realise this is a GAME that we play for ENJOYMENT and isnt a full time job we HAVE to do then maybe the whining will disapear.

I agree it is only a game, but one we pay for. If this was GW where there are no monthly server fees I wouldnt have an arguement. Seeing as I do pay, I think its resonable to expect that the service I pay for meets a resonable standard.

 

[Esselinithia]

awarkle: GOA says, the account isn't yours, but what do the law says about it, and EU level regulations are also have a say in this. In EU you can't sell a product to end users without mentioning all of the important limitations about its use, that is uncommon for the given product type. If you limit normal customer rights atfer you sold the game (it is a contract) and it hurts the interests of customer, any court will make the corresponding elements of EULA invalid and also attemtping such behavior can be "rewarded" by nice fines. Both the status of accounts, and handling of the downtime and compensation can be problematic.

But yes, if you win in a such legal battle, or it gets problematic for GOA and its partner company, chances are high to see them close the game. If court just changes agreements, GOA would have to restore a bit more stuff, or replace with more valuable alternatives. But if court says, you own the account, and the characters, that would lead to public trading of accounts and items for real money. Even when it is risky, and problematic we have enough ebayers, plat sales, PL sales. If a change would make you own the account and have control over it, that would also lead to a chnage, that openly allows char, plat, item, and PL sales. And in games where they are officially allowed, you face a LOT more problems because of high level newbies than you see in daoc.

 

[Deepflame]

I am quite sure GOA got everything hammered tight for situations like these. I doubt you have a foot to stand on. GOA always clearly listed the account is theirs. All you do is pay GOA to make them let you use it. Laws and EU regulations wont matter, GOA clearly states all the limitations of it's use and each time you log in you agree to them. So, dragging them to court would just end up in a financial loss on your side. (Lawyers and stuff)

 

[Aoln]

lol ye i just noticed

lol

 

[Awarkle]

Read the EULA from start to finish then read the COC from start to finish you will find a nice line which states somthing along this

"we choose to change this without notification to the user".

Which means they can do practically what ever they want and ok you would be able to take it to court but you cant get personal litigation on legal aid you would have to pay for it. and tbh is it really worth the court fees and solicitor charges + a barister and maybe even some EU court fees to take goa to court over what is esentially a minior problem.

If your going to start worrying over things like this then your better off not playing a mmorpg because they are ALL like this and in some cases worse.

Goa are in a no win situation if they were on a star ship it would be called the kobiashi maru.

If they roll back the servers people whine if they do what they did people whine, if they brought the servers down regulary for maintenance people would whine. All that people want to do is whine and complain and when things dont go there way complain. and yes i did have characters stripped in the prydwen loss so im not saying it didnt disrupt my play time. All im saying is move on let right now deal with it and if its not to your satisfaction then keep asking them. And then if your still whining then leave the game its obviously making you too stressful to enjoy.