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Lost at Launch (Horrible Customer Service Experience)
Dear Trion:
Get this clue now: Rift is not the only MMO out there.
That said, tonight one customer finally hung up on Rift's customer service. Literally a one-minute fix about a code/account issue that prevented him from entering the game after buying it turned into two different Incident tickets, over 90 minutes total of cell phone calls with two Trion representatives that repeatedly placed him on hold, and five hours of frustration before even getting to patching Rift.
And Trion seriously wanted a credit card number from the customer that solved the problem himself while on hold?
That's not customer service. That's a customer nightmare. And at launch too.
For those already playing, hopefully "You are not authorized to play this game (...)" does not happen to one of your friends that you convince to buy the game. Let's not even mention future paid expansions for yourself.
It's sad when a customer already leaves for other MMOs on a launch day.
Comments
It is a shame that you experienced such a horrible start to the game. Personally I could understand one simply walking away at this point...
...on the other hand, there are how many hundreds if not thousands of people that have triumphed Trion's customer service as stellar.
Just saying...is all.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
get this: you are not the only player with problems...on LAUNCH DAY.
There's having problems on a launch day, and then there's having a game you buy tell you "You are not authorized to play this game (...)".
And Then there's having not one but Two customer service reps lead you Away from the solution for hours and then demand money.
That's about as a stellar as oceanic bottom feeders.
To be fair, a comeback would be possible from this particular situation still and that alone would be "stellar". One customer is not holding his breath about it, though.
If I were a Rift fan I would love the fact that the launch was so crowded. A crowded launch means there will be problems and there will be low quality customer service due to the initial demand. This means people are playing your game and the future has promise.
To me though the problem with Rift is much more fundamental: it is a tedious bore in my opinion. I think I'd rather take the dirty bubble challenge than put up with another tedious Rift button mash with zippy purpose. But congrats to those that like it, I am truly jealous. I myself continue to hope and pray a decent MMO is realesed soon as my old standbys are just played out...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
2 posts, both in this thread. I'm just sayin.
As others have said, one bad experience (for which we on the outside don't know all the details so there is no way we can just sit back and let Trion take all the blame...especially those of us who have worked in Customer Service and know WAY better than to do that) versus the countless number of great experiences.
Don't really think Trion has anything to worry about here. Even if they are at fault, they have countless man hours of where they did right by testers/customers that they can make a mistake here and there. Especially since their track record shows that they will make things right in the end.
Sorry for your personal bad encounter but to be fair this is not an example of a typical enounter with Trion. Just a pity that the plethora of great encounters are too busy playing the game to chime in on their experiences here on this one thread on this forum.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Someone is glossing over other Threads in this Discussion board obviously.
To be fair... one customer has tossed this situation back to Trion's customer service with a simple request about being "stellar"...
"Prove it."
And to those of us who have years of customer service and support and have an idea about "stellar", if they manage that then that one customer will not only apologize for sharing his customer nightmare experience but also advocate Rift to all of his gaming friends not in Rift yet. And for them to pass it on...
well let me go on record about something my brother who is a kmart employer warned me about. he works in the electronics dept which sells pc games. on new release day someone calls the store hoping to get a new or inexperienced employee.. they pose as an offical company rep stating that the game codes incluseded in the new releases were fault or misprints. The go on to ask to have the code read back to them for confirmation. they then sell the codes..or give them away.. just an idea next time someone runs into activation issues...on i forgot to mentioned the boxes were call of duty 4 and were resold with the same codes after being opened.
so say we all
It took Blizzard 11 days to resolve an account issue I had during Cataclysm launch in EU. Did you see myself raving on these forums about it? No, I realise that it's a madhouse during launch dates and everything will be slower than usual. It took them roughly 3 days to answer my emails btw, so the back and forth took a while.
I did rage on my guild's page though, poor folks, hehe.
http://www.riftgame.com/en/legal/terms-of-use.php
Still waiting on "stellar". To be fair not enough time has gone by yet. There was time to peruse the Terms of Use Agreement however...
Rift players should really take a hard look at what they've agreed to.
Don't even use the link above. "Rift Terms of Use" in a search engine will find it quickly. Not only do Rift players pay to Not own their accounts (section 6), the personal information you "must provide" (section 3.3) may be disclosed by them "FOR ANY REASON" (section 10.10).
Those above caps are from the agreement, by the way, as of this writing.
The newer twist is how players agree for the game to monitor their computers while running. Section 22.
Still, "stellar" customer service would get me to play Rift despite the very real privacy concerns above.
That's your first terms of use MMO agreement you've read?
In MMOs you don't own the account, you rent it. Thus no compensation claims of ingame money lost can be made by RL money. Also they reserve the right to delete any equipment and nerf "your" character in any way they see fit, while you have no legal holding to do anything to prevent it.
As for the monitoring part, how do you think the anti-cheat, anti-hack and anti-bot programs work? I don't know of an MMO without one. They come in two tastes, inhouse made or outsourced to a anti-hack company.
I hope your issue gets resolved, although given that this is launch period, I wouldn't expect a fast resolution at this point in time.
i had an issue of not receiving my turtle mount and in game pet. my wife also had the same issue. we both opened up gm tickets and by the next morning we both received emails stating that our accounts were fixed. later that day my wifes guild chat quit working and she opened up another ticket. by the next day it was fixed as well. for these problems to be fixed in the timely fashion that they were considering its new is STELLER in my opinion. im sorry ur experience with ur "friend" wasnt but thats in no way a reason for you to post on the forums about your "friend". let them post. find another company that will solve your issues this fast. i'll actually save you the search. you wont find one.
I don't know where these people come from. Is there some sort of Troll incubation factory I don't know about? Some place where they are kept insulated from the rest of the world for their entire lives, then told that they are the most important creature in existence before being given access to the internet and the inevitable first bad experience?
OP: bad mouthing a company on the first day of launch with over a million customers to handle is not a reflection on them, but rather one on yourself and your inability to cope. Nobody wants to be in your situation, but many of us have. Few of us slandered an otherwise good company.
What was that?
5 hours of frustration?
Have you ever had better service than that anywhere else?
5 hours in what must have been their busiest period ever is peanuts.
Another Blizzard fanboy trying to alarm would be Rift players.
They announced that they have a million accounts created. That's not the same as a million subscribers. You can make an account without buying the game. Just go to their site and create one. All it shows is heavy interest for a game developed by an unknown developer, nothing more.
When a massive game launch like this with so many players it will take awhile before the customer service work as intended. Give it a week to settle down somewhat before complaining on the forums.
This have happened in all major launches. If the customer support still sucks after a while it is time to start complaining.
His only post are....here, hmmmm makes me think.
Pardon me for not believing someone with 4 posts to their credibility while others MANY TIMES in the past have shown that Trion has gone above and beyond in the Customer Service dept.
Right now though, I would say, they are just a WEE BIT SWAMPED. It IS launch after all. There's so much going on, expecting any sort of response in less than 24 hours seems laughable. Not saying they don't need to get back to you and fix things, just saying that there is A LOT going on and you are just one little person in the entire scheme of things.
And if you're PO'd about the TOC you must not own a PS3 or Xbox Live or any other game because those TOC's are EQUALLY bad if you read them. You basically give them the right to anything they have of yours, including your firstborn.
Well it's a new game takes awhile to work out the bugs.
I don't care for Rift thought it was boring, but they deserve a fair shake here. Give them a little time to get it all together.
It Stinks and it's not tight but it's the world we live in.
Wow, I wish my issues I had in other MMOs only took 5 hours to get fixed. Grats to you.
Also, a one minute fix and you did it yourself eventually? Did you try fixing it yourself first if it was so easy to fix? Maybe I don't understand.
I LoL'd when I read this as I've spent this amount of time on Blizz's phone line trying to get a hacked account resolved. 4.5 hrs waiting for a rep to help me, 15 minutes to finish my call, and 15 minutes to verify the changes made.
New to MMOs or PC software all together I take it?
It has been basic knowledge that with MMOs and 90% of PC software (specially those with serial keys) that the end user is basically a renter and thats it. It has been this way for many, many years now - MMO players pay to 'use' the game and in no way 'own' any aspect of it beyond the box. You 'must provide' personal information because again, you are entering into a legal agreement - your personal info is used when you have account/billing issues and to clarify who is authorized to use said account. Also the reason for the 'May be disclosed for any reason' mostly has to do with the fact that some federal laws and statutes require this.
Overall nice try at causing drama, but this all is common knowledge to almost every MMO player as well as anyone who has purchased software in the last, oh, 30 years...
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
World of Warcraft has had the exact same thing for 6+ years, so why is it oh so terrible that Trion is doing it?
I'm sorry you had an unfortunate experience, but what you've experienced is not any worse than what anyone else has experienced with any other MMO on the market thusfar.
Had you ended with your explaination of your experience and frustration, rather than gone on to grasp at random things to gripe about, you would have gained more sympathy.