Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
General: The Quiz: SOE Edition
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
MMORPG.com Quiz Master Drew Wood is back with another editon of The Quiz. This time, Drew focuses on beleaguered Sony Online Entertainment. Head through the jump, take The Quiz and report back with your results.
Welcome, ladies and gents, back to another edition of the Quiz. Now that I feel the cold, bitter touch of being 28 years old, I feel like writing a Quiz that reflects my cold, bitter mood. As a Playstation 3 owner, and an SOE MMO Subscriber, I, like many of you, have felt the frustration that has come with the (temporary?) closure of the PSN due to what was indicated by Reuters to be “the biggest internet security break-in ever”. While my PS3 copy of Portal 2 collects dust and I'm denied the nerdy thrill of flying through the skies of Metropolis, I've decided that with this week's quiz, I'll be dedicating it to the temporarily closed games that SOE has brought us. Check it out.
Read more of Drew Wood's The Quiz: SOE Edition.
Comments
Q: When will SOE begin to offer the slightest hint of decent customer service, like posting anything updated about the status of their servers coming back up without digging all over the internet to find nuggets of info?
A; NEVAH!
Played: Asheron's Call(still the best fantasy MMO!), EQ1, EQ2, Vanguard, DAoC, Horizons, City of Heroes/Villians, WoW (crap), LOTORO, D&D Online, Eve, Anarchy Online, and still playing SWG daily.
QFT! You pretty much nailed it! That's SOE in a nutshell.
Would you rather they mentioned a deadline and were unable to meet it? I think the backlash for that would be far greater. I think the only thing that would stop the "sky is falling" and Sony bashing would be them going back online right at this moment.
Then when it's hacked again because it wasn't fully implemented or tested (because they rushed it to shut you up), you would flip out even more. After that, more and more would jump on your bandwagon and saddle up for the free Kool-Aid and Nike shoes. It's sort of like a hive mind.
They could give an timeline stating that it is only a timeline and can't be used for an actual return. Give us something, at least we expect it, doesn't have to be a deadline.
This is my only gripe I have with them atm. If they gave a timeline and say it's not official but we will work hard to get all services up by then, please don't take this as a an official service restoration time frame. If they did that I would be very happy.
What do you think people would prefer?
A) Sony communicating with their customers each day, even if it is only the same message.
-or-
It isn't like SOE has a strong history of communicating with the players when things are going well.
Well, I guess I edited my post for content a bit too late, as it has already been quoted. However, I will reply to the response to my original poorly worded post (I had deleted a bit from the original and didn't proofread the remainder before submitting, hence my later edit).
The problem with setting any deadline, even one that is only a tentative guideline of where they hope to be, is that people tend to run with that. It becomes a deadline, even if it originally wasn't intended to be one. News spreads quickly, even if it's incorrectly referenced or out of context. You can't mention anything that resembles a deadline for anything without a growing group of people getting angry if you fail to meet it. I've been on enough message boards and read enough posts to see that the world is changing. It's just better nowadays to not say anything.
I can't be the only one who has noticed that the average intelligence of people that post and play MMO's has dropped substantially. Not to say that everyone has been dumbed down, but it's obvious that our school systems are failing horribly in a lot of cases.
I agree and that is the problem, there is this idea about society nowadays that wants it NOW and has to get it NOW. I blame social media for ruining society, ever since the start of things like myspace, facebook etc. There are to many people who view things in such a poor manner that it is really beyond stupidity, it's downright ignorance. The sad thing is people embrace ignorance as truth.
the only "from SOE's directly" info Ive been seeing is on their twitter page and thats like every other day.
http://twitter.com/#!/SonyOnline
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
Gah! And here I was almost over my SOE trauma... years of therapy in vain! XD
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Q: How many MMO titles has SOE bought from brilliant fledgling design firms only to utterly detroy within the first year?
A: All of them.
Q: Can I trust you with my cc and other personal information?
A: ..........
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Guys, let's keep it civil. This isn't an opportunity to bash SOE. There are other open threads on the hack if that's what you want to discuss (remember to back up what you say though).
To give feedback on moderation, contact mikeb@mmorpg.com
They definitely should be communicating more, they don't have to be specific about times and dates but it would be helpful to have some kind of open-ness with their customers.
huh? I cant even think of one that remotely fits this
I just dont understand this logic from folks its ok to give no information to avoid giving bad information? I tell you what try this out for me, the next time your employer asks you the status of something that he asked you to do, tell them I am sorry but i was unable to complete the task you gave me today and i have no idea when i will be able to complete it. Then every single day you just keep telling your employer that same response day after day after day.
Then let us know how that works out for you, my guess is after about the second time you will be unemployed. The level of customer service sony is providing is a joke plain and simple. Do i expect an exact date? No that would be unreasonable due to the circumstances. That being said sony knows from day to day if they are even close to being up and running and if they dont then they need to get some new employes working on things. No matter what happens now soe is going to loose some customers due to this mess why not be honest to your loyal customers who are going to stick it out one way or the other?
Yes, we need to be told either: This is a large problem that wont be fixed this week for sure and we have no furthur time table behind that.
Or: There is an outside chance this can be rectified on a day to day basis so please check back daily
And while they are giving daily updates via twitter, its a stupid way to do it, probably less than 1/10th of SoE customers use it, let alone follow them on it.
PSN customers arent getting anything better really, just a generic may 31st date. You would think Kaz Hirai would find someone to dedicate an hour each day to getting reports from both divisions and posting them somewhere more relevant than twitter or facebook, like the webpages for both services.
I wouldnt expact SoE up anytime before 5/31 as well. Wouldnt make sense for one to be up significantly before the other sense its the same security hole effecting both
If anyone truly wanted to do anything besides whine on message boards about the lack of information, they could so easily search "Sony Online" in google and find an article from today that reiterates information already passed around:
"Shigenori Yoshida, a Tokyo-based spokesman, informed Bloomberg over the phone that Sony is still busy enhancing security on its PS Network, Qriocity and other Sony Online Entertainment Services. It is still aiming to restore full services, including purchases of games, music and video, by the end of the month."
Have people really become that lazy? You don't even have to stand up, nor walk anywhere, to get this information. Why is it that, when anything requires deviating from a normal day to day routine, people freak out? It's not like Sony buried the information below 50 feet of dirt and handed you a spoon to dig it out. Why does every bit of information have to be everywhere at once?
Oh and the boss analogy doesn't really work in this case. If anything, Sony is more like the boss because they are the ones who control whether you play or not and they own the business you subscribe to. You can't claim your $15 entitles you, as a single person, to anything more than the next guy. Even if you have multiple accounts, you are a drop of water in a really big pool. The most vocal group within a community does not imply that a majority are in agreement. Usually companies tend to bow to the most vocal and in this case it would be a mistake.
I know that if I was working somewhere and armed people came in and stole from me and everyone else in the building, I would want my boss to improve security and wouldn't hesitate to allow more time to do it right. I also wouldn't blame my boss for the police arriving too late to stop the robbery, just like I wouldn't blame the security within the building if they were outnumbered and/or outgunned.
You shouldnt have to go to outside sources to get info though. Its not like the same people that are working on fixing the problem would be the ones posting the info.
Personally if my company had an outage that was upsetting millions of customers, ones that i might lose forever, I would make sure they didnt have to seek out information. It makes you look more responsible (and honest) and easier to trust that this wont happen again.
I'm going to act surprised and pretend that you guys didn't know there would be any sort of uncivil backlash in *any* article about SOE. (even pre-security issues)
edit: not saying I'm anti-Sony or anything. Just this wasn't any sort of surprise.
True, there are actually some SOE ruined completely on their own.
EQ - Ruined post Verant (Velious)
SWG - Thanks Sony for making it EQ in space space space!
Pirates of the Burning Seas - Bought and scuttled
Planetside - They botched this one on their own. Go BFRs!
The Matrix Online - Did it last a year? Sorry WBs.
Bottom line is people only hear what they want to hear. Nobody wants to hear SoE will be down until the end of the month so most just ignore that news. They tend to hope for some good news and then complain when they don't get it. SoE is even willing to humor this type of person with daily Facebook and twiter updates. Yeah they are still complaining but it is mostly people letting off steam and venting. It is the silent types and people quietly walking away from the game that is cause for concern.
They did give a date for all services to be back up, May 31st. The PSN should be back up before then, SOE's MMO department I could care less about but I got trophies to sync, DLC to buy, and FPS to play online and I'm going crazy not being able to do that
I expected something about the hack as well, but noo... MMORPG.com stays to the online games and not their customers that suffer of lack of information or countermeasures after the hack...
No some media people decided to run with that date then a few days later some other media reported that sony has stated that they have no date period. The problem is that sony has not given any information besides the daily dose of we are working on it. Again we are back to sony providing poor customer support they havent even updated the official sony site since may the 4th.
It seemed indeed all speculation about the may 31st.
What is a fact tho, is that they are under Federal investigation. That means FBI is calling the shots now and as long as their investigation is ongoing, I would not be suprised they are not allowed to bring their services back online! Eventho Sony / SOE think they are ready to do so.
FBI doesn't care about Sony / SOE and that they are losing money. They only care about the intrusion and the theft of enormous amounts of personal information and investigating it.
It would at least explain why they are vague and aren't able to give any estimate.