GoAs customer service

[Dakkath]

Gotta back Corran's interpretation here tbh...

I suspect that teh boys and girls in DAoC land in GoA are doing the best they can with what they've got.

Regardless of how much money coming in they have, a set amount will be pre-allocated to cover all day to day aspects of the service they provide, ie Staff, hardware, hosting, etc...

We have no way of knowing what % of that incoming money is allocated to keeping the systems running, etc. Getting *good* staff is expensive, keeping them is usually harder still.

Doing these things properly can be bloody expensive, I wouldn't be surprised if the profit made on DAoC isn't as big as some of you out there would like to believe.

It's fairly simple, providing substantially higher service levels with more staff, changing service providers, more monitoring will increase costs. Increase costs and one of two things will happen. Either he subscription price will go up or the 'head honchos' will look at the figures and decide theres not enough money to continue providing the service...

I'll admit, I don't always like some of the aspects of the service I see as an end user and moan about it etc. However, working in an IT industry which is getting squeezed more and more each day, I can understand the problems they're facing. IT is seen in a lot of non specialist IT companies as a big money drain which should be reigned in and spending restricted, often to breaking point.

The last damn thing you should be doing is taking shots at the folks from GoA we see in game or on right now. NEVER alienate those people who are your conduit to the company. They're here to help in the best way they can with what they've got and they sure as hell try...

 

[Darzil]

Don't forget the licencing fees GOA pay Mythic, which help Mythic keep their costs low, whilst increasing those for GOA.

Darzil

 

[Naffets]

Rightnow is fine when things get answered within a reasonable leadtime.

E&E is utterly useless i think(maybe thats a bit harsh?). American servers manage 10x better customer service without e&e, because GM's are available most of the time to answer queries and they have a much better online database for FAQs etc.

When the GOA GM's are contactable they are indeed very helpful and excellent when it comes to customer service. I appreciate goa are apparently very limited, but considering the bills i pay for the game go to france telecom I suspect they are far from understaffed I think a graveyard shift for GM's to be around would be helpful and that the network that goa uses needs LOADS of work or rebuilding.

 

[Wazkyr]

26.62%
29.50%
17.99%
17.99%
20.86%
5.04%

Just me that find these numbers... just abit wird? 118% votes? oO

37+42+25+25+29+7 votes.... so 165 out of 140 votes have been counted....
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 140. You have already voted on this poll

 

[Golena]

Good report:

Hello,

I'd like to report a possible speed hacker/abuser. At 7:32pm GMT on Sunday 20th November, my guild group was passing through Odin's Gate. An enchanter, named 'Willyoung-prydwen' sped away from us at a speed I believe to be unrealistic for his class. I would appreciate it if you could keep an eye on this player, as I believe he may be breaking the COC.

Regards,

Joe Bloggs

Hi I play Willyoung-PRYDWEN and would like to say that I was neither in Odin's Gate at 7:32 on the 20th of November or an enchanter.
I play a ranger and was duoing in the irish sea with my mate Garethgates-Prydwen at that time!

 

[Keld]

26.62%
29.50%
17.99%
17.99%
20.86%
5.04%

Just me that find these numbers... just abit wird? 118% votes? oO

37+42+25+25+29+7 votes.... so 165 out of 140 votes have been counted....
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 140. You have already voted on this poll

heh, you answered your own question in that post

 

[Wazkyr]

heh, you answered your own question in that post

well dosnt change that its wird, wonder how the poll system works working with 118% instead of 100%, wird stuff

 

[old.Whoodoo]

E&E is utterly useless i think(maybe thats a bit harsh?). American servers manage 10x better customer service without e&e, because GM's are available most of the time to answer queries and they have a much better online database for FAQs etc.

Thats more than harsh, a gentle reminder again that we do our best to help the community for free, in our time. This poll and thread wasnt about comparing GOA to Mythics customer support, but to put you right there, Mythic have more customer service advisors because they are also the developers who need to be in game to monitor things 24/7. GOA also have to pay a substantial amount to Mythic, like a franchise, and so also Mythic can afford more staff than GOA.

And reading VN, their customer services are not that much better, in fact sometimes worse, as CS reply to answer, or just tell you to piss off and stop being a n00b (put nicer than that ofc). Read Nerner's site and you will see that Mythic do little about griefing compared to GOA.

"Utterly useless", well tbh I think having us here is better than fuck all

 

[Naffets]

Thats more than harsh, a gentle reminder again that we do our best to help the community for free, in our time. This poll and thread wasnt about comparing GOA to Mythics customer support, but to put you right there, Mythic have more customer service advisors because they are also the developers who need to be in game to monitor things 24/7. GOA also have to pay a substantial amount to Mythic, like a franchise, and so also Mythic can afford more staff than GOA.

And reading VN, their customer services are not that much better, in fact sometimes worse, as CS reply to answer, or just tell you to piss off and stop being a n00b (put nicer than that ofc). Read Nerner's site and you will see that Mythic do little about griefing compared to GOA.

"Utterly useless", well tbh I think having us here is better than fuck all

I appreciate E&E put in work and effort in their own time for free, and my problem isn't with the people its the concept that I find useless so don't take it personally. E&E is basically glorified /advisors that know enough about the game to advise about most problems yet do not actually have the power to action something aside from nagging a GM on msn (Which from firsthand experience can't be done during peaktime play, quite understandably, who would want to do 14 hour shifts?)

Fair point about the devs being ingame etc. However you'll still find more GM's available most of the time on the american servers who are non technical and have nothing to do with dev, they are purely customer service. I've used the service over there and /appealed someone for griefing and was happy with the response within a reasonable timeframe, if a simular thing occured on eu servers I'd have to rightnow and wait for days? No?

When it comes to VN whine about mythic customer service, how often do people post about good service? Consumers will complain about anything regarding the service they receive before they post positive feedback publicly unless prompted for it.

As said I appreciate you and your E&E buddies work in your own time and put in lots of work without any reward (i've managed freeshards and put in 5+ hours a day of work with very little reward and even money) so I understand your point there but it wasn't an attack on the people, but more the concept.

More GM's or a graveyard shift would work better

 

[Tesla Monkor]

Look at it like this. Mythic can pay their GMs, because they have cash for it. GOA pays that part of the operation costs as licensingcosts to Mythic.

You want extra GMs? They you gotta cough up that part of the cost, but GOA won't do it for free. Asking for extra GMs without willingness to pay for it is unrealistic.

To be honest, polls like these are useless, and sometimes worse than useless, because they damage the game image. If someone potentially new to the game reads this stuff and decides not to play DAOC because people here think that GOA is doing a bad job with hosting the game (which I do not agree with), then we all lose - ever considered that?

E&E tries to help as best as they can. There are a number of things E&E can do for people; Help them contact a GM if one is not readily available, answer questions about the game in general and in particular things. Helping people with anything relating to your account (payment, bans, activations, etc) is not one of the things. Often they will try to see if they can help you anyway. Kicking E&Es for not being as helpful as you'd like them to be is rather ungrateful.

 

[Cylian]

... and decides not to play DAOC because people here think that GOA is doing a bad job...

safed soul +1

 

[Naffets]

Look at it like this. Mythic can pay their GMs, because they have cash for it. GOA pays that part of the operation costs as licensingcosts to Mythic.

You want extra GMs? They you gotta cough up that part of the cost, but GOA won't do it for free. Asking for extra GMs without willingness to pay for it is unrealistic.

I'd _Happily_ pay extra for better service, without a 2nd thought.

 

[Raven]

the public face of goa (mostly requiel) always try to be helpfull and most of the time are informative. Its the back room staff and the management at GOA i have a problem with. half the time with right now you just get fobbed off with a generic answer then they just close your ticket. i havent even had a response from goa about my missing prydwen items, i have RN'd it twice, been fobbed off twice and now given up trying to get my stuff back. Patches are usually to long in coming.
overall we have seen a massive improvement on customer service 1-2 years ago we were totally ignored.

 

[Takitothemacs]

another discussion on pryd.net that people may or may not want to read/partake in.

http://www.pryd.net/showthread.php?t=5912

 

[Ctuchik]

I feel like they only want my money, not my problems...

lol, offcourse they do! do YOU want other ppl's problems insted of their money?

they fix the problems eventually but i can bet that they dont want them.

want them as in the problem to happend i mean.

 

[Speedr]

To be Honest, i voted that i love the game, but i am looking elsewhere after barely a month back ingame. The service from Rightnow is top notch for me, have only had 2-3 probs and been sorted v v fast.

The GOA staff i understand are maybe understaffed, but are doing a nice job tbh, the GM's and E&E's i've spoken to are quite helpful and responsive.

But the problem lies in connecting to the game, whereby i've had about 24h to play in the last 2 weeks [ namely due to crappy connection probs and stupid wireless BB acting up ] but i am looking toward the US servers even though i just paid a 3 month subs yesterday to EU servers as it suits my playtime [ 10pm - 8am ] and lag would be minimal at best.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Gonna repost this as an exclusive poll (i.e. can only vote for one ) and with another option in the middle