GOA Sucks Ass - Do you agree?

[Whoodoo_RD]

Originally posted by hrun
And Whoodoo.. your questions are hard to answer because we (I) dont really know anything about the company.

Agreed few ppl do, and thats more the reason to not critisise their actions.

Originally posted by mehuge
1) Not our problem.

2) Err... Not our problem.

3) Err... Not our problem.

4) Humm... Not our problem.

I didnt say it was our problem, all I asked for was your suggestions on how to fix the problems, instead of just ranting on about them.

OK, so how do I know about GOA - simple, Im a sad git that reads about ISPs and hosting companies from time to time. I know France Telecomm is in the financial mire, as is Wanadoo, who both are in significant debt. GOA lease / borrow / rent space from them, this costs money. Mythic provide their own infrasructure. GOA also if you like "franchise" the hosting fro Mythic, this too takes a large slice of the pie.

CSRs, well to my knowlegde, there is 1 CSR per server. Unlike the US who have at least 2 per realm.

OK, to answer my own questions in my own words, here goes (this is NOT flame bait, get your own ideas);

1) CSR: use the current voluteers to try and weed out the crap Rightnow questions, or the easier ones leaving GOA to sort out technical issues? Raise the prices? Have the games hosted in their respective countries?

2)Have the games hosted in their respective countries? Then we take repsonsibility for our own problems.

3) Again, host our own servers? Italy does, Aussy does, in fact we are the only multilingual DAoC Servers. Problem here is we also will charge our own rates

4) CSRs in game would be great, use the volunteers or employ more staff is the only way. Perhaps seeing our CSRs in game playing or popping thru from time to time would put of macro cheats etc.

5) IMO passowrds and usernames should be changable by the user and not by the hosts. Either an in game command or some better form of registration pages is vastly overdue.

6) Agreed that GOA should give a little more feedback to the players, however as we have seen everything they say gets used as flame bait, so i can understand their reluctance to do so. As I see it its a need to know basis, play the game let them do their work and when its ready you will know. No news is better than bad news etc etc

Shoving your head in the sand and saying "i counldnt give a monkeys" is not the way to go. You are here whinign about these problems, well why not offer ideas to help solve them, you never know, one day they might just listen.

 

[calaen]

Originally posted by Whoodoo_RD

6) Agreed that GOA should give a little more feedback to the players, however as we have seen everything they say gets used as flame bait, so i can understand their reluctance to do so. As I see it its a need to know basis, play the game let them do their work and when its ready you will know. No news is better than bad news etc etc

I cant play the game as I have no PASSWORD, Id rather have bad news than nothing!!!

 

[hrun]

Originally posted by Whoodoo_RD
Agreed few ppl do, and thats more the reason to not critisise

My point was that I dont know enough about GOA and other companies in the online gaming market to answer your questions from 2-5.

to me GOA has dealt with this matter poorly, and therefor they get my critisism.

 

[mehuge]

Originally posted by Whoodoo_RD
I didnt say it was our problem, all I asked for was your suggestions on how to fix the problems, instead of just ranting on about them.

I'm not ranting on about them, you brought these unrelated issues into the conversation.

Originally posted by Whoodoo_RD
Shoving your head in the sand and saying "i counldnt give a monkeys" is not the way to go. You are here whinign about these problems, well why not offer ideas to help solve them, you never know, one day they might just listen.

Im not whining, I have my password, no reason to whine.

It would take them very very little effort to give a daily status update on the problems and it would massivly improve customer relations. This silence from GOA makes me wonder if there is more to it than just a hack. I smell cover up

 

[gutrot]

Originally posted by Coim-
I am in the same situation. They did the right thing. So what if it takes a week? Ye gods! A week without DAoC. Whatever shall we do? Get out, do something else. I just can't help quoting myself again...

...plz try harder and stop quoting 'cry more' : Apart from irritating me it just makes you sound like a 12yr old american 'tard.

I am one of the ppl who has working email and yet no pwd, not the end of the world as some have already pointed out, but it is very frustrating that its taking them so long to rectify the situation and the lack of any feedback is terrible. So on this occasion, i would agree that goa are indeed sucking ass.

 

[tonita]

i bet(not bt) the webmaster and the guy who knows how to send mails are on vacations

 

[choonz]

Originally posted by Whoodoo_RD
Sorry, another E&E putting in his 2p here.

GOA are reacting to a possible threat, they had to take some action. Yet another post like this is fairly meaningless unless you have suggestions that will help. Flaming them acheives nothing except endless drivel. Try and think of constructive things to say rather than ranting all the time.

OK, so I pose these questions to you, no flaming required, just positive answers:

1) How do GOA improve their CS, taking into account their lack of emplyees and funding?
GOA pay both Mythic, France Telecomm and Wanadoo out of their subs, unlike the US

2) If not GOA, who or how should the servers and subs systems be run?
UK for the English servers, Germany etc etc? Remember the more ppl on the servers = more subs = better employment of CS

3) Patching issues - Translations slow down the process, how would you improve this?
Sharing the translations with German and French servers slows it down, is it fair to say English servers should just get straight patches?

4) In game CSR? How would you fund it? What alternatives are there? (eg using the E&E or other volunteers?)
At present GOA have limited resources with regards to employees, so do they put up the subs? ppl whined about paying VAT let alone an increase on GOAs part

5) Passwords - is there a better system that will adhere to the CoC and EULA, and be less prone to hacker attempts?
Perhaps user changable passwords and account details, or even in game changes?

6) Feedback from GOA - just how much should we or do we need to know?
Admitting a flaw in the system security is never good, it opens up the thoughts to other hackers, but should we have better info flowing from GOA?

Perhaps you should also look at Tilda's poll on the general forum before making new ones.

Just because we are E&E does not mean we dont understand ppls problems, we do symapthise with ppl who have not received their passwords, or have got incorrect ones. However all too many ppl here are in the categiroies that have not changed their email addy on their account, have lost their details for rightnow and the subs pages or have bought an account from ebay and do not have access to the emails, for whom get no sympathy at all.

If you dont update your details, its your fault not GOA's.

1) Goa's financial position is not our problem nor our concern. We pay money for a service, and that service should be good. Problems will happen, and most level headed people will accept that, but the amount of time this has taken is a joke. It has been over 2 weeks, what exactly happened? Bomb threat at goas head office and the Bomb disposal team have the same work Ethics as goa themselves?

2)If not GOA, who? Personally i think they do a decent job of running the physical and software side of things, to an extent. We have minimum downtime, and the lag isnt bad. But, their customer service, is well, its shit. This is where they need to improve (see answer 1, not our problem theirs)

3)Patching is fine, but no, we shouldnt have to wait for other languages. If the servers were run by different hosts for each country we wouldnt be waiting, and thats how it should be treated by GOA. Each server should be treated as though it is hosted by a seperate company. We have to wait long enough as it is, and holding back our patch just because the others cant have it isnt right. Yes im selfish.We should have what we pay for as soon as it is available.

4)In Game CSR : Just a reliable out of game contact would be nice sometimes. The lack of updates on the current situation demonstrates this in my oppinion.
Yes they could try volunteers, but they would probably end up quitting due to the immense ammount of grief they would get from some of the idiots on the servers.
Once again, If they cant afford to employ people, thats not our problem. They agree to provide DAOC servers and support for the European community, and if they cant, its about time Mythic found someone who can.

5)Not that i know of. being able to change your own passwords is ok to an extent, but if this information has been comprimised, then it is already too late. Keeping this information encrypted, and letting the user pick his own password would be a start.

6)Simple question, simple answer. We need to know EVERYTHING that doesnt further comprimise the security of whatever systems were affected.
We dont want technical details, we want progress reports. Tell us what the estimated time of resolution is. I dont know about you, but 2 weeks to solve any security related problem strikes me as a but of a joke, so at least an update to keep people from frothing at the mouth here would be nice.


Lastly, GOA in financial troubles? Well if they do go out of business lets hope Mythic find a more reliable system for future ventures, and at least a provider that can match their server stability with customer support. For the record, yes i do think the server stability has been good