Hey, SE, let's talkFollow

tl;dc version: SE fix your customer service.

To the reader: I'm calling SE on some of the stuff that I think they've done wrong over recent months. If you disagree and I can't change your mind, you can stop reading now. The following will probably just annoy you and I didn't write this to have a flame war. So, seriously, you're entitled to your opinions. But so am I. If they conflict to the point where you're just going to turn this into a flame war, stop reading now. Thanks.

I came back to FFXI after 4 years. Mostly, I was curious about the changes that were made to improve the game. In a lot of respects, I'm pretty happy with them. The game is now much more solo friendly and there is just MORE to do these days. In most respects, your game is just better than it was four years ago. As far as the game goes, you've done a very good job improving an already sound product.

However, I now recall why it was that I left the game in the first place. Your customer service sucks. I'd be more politically correct if I could, but frankly, that last sentence just says exactly what I want to say.

Let's look at a few things, shall we?

1.) The banning of gardeners. What exactly was going through your mind when you implemented auto-banning software? Was it tested? At all? I'm all for cracking down on RMT, but NOT at the expense of legitimate players. Auto-banning people is just a poor choice to begin with. Even if the system works, you KNOW there is going to be a false positive or two. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if people could call you up and get their account back within, say, a day. People have already waited over a week and haven't heard from you yet.

Blizzard, you know the makers of WoW, do ban innocent people by mistake on occasion. But, a simple phone call or two, and a legit player gets their account back with almost no fuss. And usually within 24 hours. Its one of the reasons WoW has 11 million accounts (and growing) while FFXI has less.

Now, if you think I'm just a WoW freak trolling on this forum, I'm not. I actually PREFER the game mechanics of FFXI to WoW. WoW is just too easy. There's no challenge in it. FFXI, when you get a level, when you HQ that uber sword of doom, when you down an NM, you feel an accomplishment. I really do prefer the mechanics of FFXI to WoW (which is the main reason I came back to FFXI in the first place).

2.) Yonin. A glitch in the code now allows Ninjas who have Yonin active to not use any ninja tools. Glitches happen and I'm willing to accept that. As much as any company tries, glitches just creep in.

However, having GMs tell players their might be repercussions if they use/abuse this glitch is bad. You're basically telling people, "Hey, play your class gimped or play a different class until we fix it."

How about beta testing your patches instead? WoW, again the guys you're in competition with, have a test server for just this kind of thing. They let the players test it and work out 95% of the bugs. And let me tell you, had you guys run something like that, it would have been caught in an hour. If that.

Once again, I'm not a WoW freak. I REALLY do prefer FFXI to WoW. But, I keep mentioning them because they don't have these issues. They keep their player base generally happy. Happy customers means they get to keep charging their credit cards every month. Its a good business model.

Speaking of credit cards...

3.) Double billing. This was a problem 4 years ago when I left FFXI. I'm literally stunned that this hasn't been worked out by now. You've been knowingly stealing from your customers. Again, glitches happen, but for 4 years? This should have been fixed a long long time ago. To knowingly steal from your customers... Words fail me.

I hit level 25 last night. 50 more to go. But, I'm having serious doubts if I want to give your company any more of my money. The game itself is excellent, but you know what? Your competition just does a better job keeping their customers happy. And in the end, isn't that what really matters? Happy customers mean repeat bussiness. Unhappy ones go to your competition.

Trust me, I know. I work in the customer service industry. If people leave my store unhappy, I want to know why and what I can do to fix it. We get a LOT of repeat business. And all the positive word of mouth generates a lot of new business. Is everyone happy? No, but we do what we can to reasonably fix whatever the issue was.

Now, I'm enjoying the game. I've got a good mind to call it quits here as I suspect nothing will change. It hasn't changed it 4 years, why should it now? You keep doing what you've been doing, and my account is as good as closed. And I'm not opening an FFXIV account either. On the other hand, if you fix this stuff, I'll be more than happy to keep paying monthly. Hell, I'll pay for both this and FFXIV if its as good as it looks. I suspect the game itself will be awesome. So, how will the customer service be?

Allow me to show you what the wall-o-text is:

tl;dc version: SE fix your customer service. To the reader: I'm calling SE on some of the stuff that I think they've done wrong over recent months. If you disagree and I can't change your mind, you can stop reading now. The following will probably just annoy you and I didn't write this to have a flame war. So, seriously, you're entitled to your opinions. But so am I. If they conflict to the point where you're just going to turn this into a flame war, stop reading now. Thanks. I came back to FFXI after 4 years. Mostly, I was curious about the changes that were made to improve the game. In a lot of respects, I'm pretty happy with them. The game is now much more solo friendly and there is just MORE to do these days. In most respects, your game is just better than it was four years ago. As far as the game goes, you've done a very good job improving an already sound product. However, I now recall why it was that I left the game in the first place. Your customer service sucks. I'd be more politically correct if I could, but frankly, that last sentence just says exactly what I want to say. Let's look at a few things, shall we? 1.) The banning of gardeners. What exactly was going through your mind when you implemented auto-banning software? Was it tested? At all? I'm all for cracking down on RMT, but NOT at the expense of legitimate players. Auto-banning people is just a poor choice to begin with. Even if the system works, you KNOW there is going to be a false positive or two. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if people could call you up and get their account back within, say, a day. People have already waited over a week and haven't heard from you yet. Blizzard, you know the makers of WoW, do ban innocent people by mistake on occasion. But, a simple phone call or two, and a legit player gets their account back with almost no fuss. And usually within 24 hours. Its one of the reasons WoW has 11 million accounts (and growing) while FFXI has less. Now, if you think I'm just a WoW freak trolling on this forum, I'm not. I actually PREFER the game mechanics of FFXI to WoW. WoW is just too easy. There's no challenge in it. FFXI, when you get a level, when you HQ that uber sword of doom, when you down an NM, you feel an accomplishment. I really do prefer the mechanics of FFXI to WoW (which is the main reason I came back to FFXI in the first place). 2.) Yonin. A glitch in the code now allows Ninjas who have Yonin active to not use any ninja tools. Glitches happen and I'm willing to accept that. As much as any company tries, glitches just creep in. However, having GMs tell players their might be repercussions if they use/abuse this glitch is bad. You're basically telling people, "Hey, play your class gimped or play a different class until we fix it." How about beta testing your patches instead? WoW, again the guys you're in competition with, have a test server for just this kind of thing. They let the players test it and work out 95% of the bugs. And let me tell you, had you guys run something like that, it would have been caught in an hour. If that. Once again, I'm not a WoW freak. I REALLY do prefer FFXI to WoW. But, I keep mentioning them because they don't have these issues. They keep their player base generally happy. Happy customers means they get to keep charging their credit cards every month. Its a good business model. Speaking of credit cards... 3.) Double billing. This was a problem 4 years ago when I left FFXI. I'm literally stunned that this hasn't been worked out by now. You've been knowingly stealing from your customers. Again, glitches happen, but for 4 years? This should have been fixed a long long time ago. To knowingly steal from your customers... Words fail me. I hit level 25 last night. 50 more to go. But, I'm having serious doubts if I want to give your company any more of my money. The game itself is excellent, but you know what? Your competition just does a better job keeping their customers happy. And in the end, isn't that what really matters? Happy customers mean repeat bussiness. Unhappy ones go to your competition. Trust me, I know. I work in the customer service industry. If people leave my store unhappy, I want to know why and what I can do to fix it. We get a LOT of repeat business. And all the positive word of mouth generates a lot of new business. Is everyone happy? No, but we do what we can to reasonably fix whatever the issue was. Now, I'm enjoying the game. I've got a good mind to call it quits here as I suspect nothing will change. It hasn't changed it 4 years, why should it now? You keep doing what you've been doing, and my account is as good as closed. And I'm not opening an FFXIV account either. On the other hand, if you fix this stuff, I'll be more than happy to keep paying monthly. Hell, I'll pay for both this and FFXIV if its as good as it looks. I suspect the game itself will be awesome. So, how will the customer service be?

The OP laid it out neatly. It's a lot, but that doesn't make it a wall-o-text by itself.

What was the point of writing all that? Once again you are preaching to the choir. This is the same thing we've known for 4 years.

I rated you up because this simple line allowed me to skip the entire post. Thank you.

We've been calling SE on this stuff for years.

Not even close these days, money is so easy to get in that game its really REALLY ridiculous. If you have a profession up, you can profit from it very simply, and making a profession, is very simple. To top it off they have daily quests designed to do nothing more than allow you to farm a steady income without being completely bored. RMT exist, but they do not interfere with normal game play as of the last couple years - they are pretty much a non-factor.

FFXI's RMT actually hurt however, they hurt like a knife in the eye.

At least some of them are original.

I'd like to see the RMT in WoW spell out ige(dot)com with level 1 corpses. They may be annoying, but at least they're clever.

And disregard the brainfart that I forgot how to screenshot. Or that I took one step too many off the FP tower with low HP.

The number one reason I've detested thier customer service is mainly how rediculous it is to actually get a hold of a customer service rep on the phone. Very limited calling hours, I remember having to either make calls from work or having to rush home from work just to be able to call thier CS line before it closes. NOT OPEN ON WEEKENDS? Seriously wtf? I've had account issues on a friday, and had to sit with a thunmb up my *** all weekend until monday. This is simple simple stuff not to mention out of the 4 times I've actually had to phone in, 3 out of 4 CS reps have just been completely horrible to talk to over the phone.

Sad part is we do have a test server... It's called Atoms... Wonder how long it's been sense they booted it up... Plus if ya'll think about it, the problems this time around are NO where near as bad as the last update... The big thing I want to know is where SE's "Quality Assurance" Team ran off to...

Yeah, my post went a bit longer than I thought it was going to. When I looked it over I did a doubel take and added the tl;dc bit.

And, yeah, I know this isn't likely to sway SE to actually DO anything. Though, I have to admit I did feel better after I posted it. If nothing else, that alone was worth it.

Yes, WoW does have some issues with RMT. However, they are barely on any one's radar for two reasons. 1.) Blizzard welcomed modding int their game. And with the ability to make addons, people were able to make addons to ignore the tells from RMT. If you happen to play WoW and don't know about it, get NoSpam. It stops 99% of all RMT spam. And 2.) Money, for better or worse, is obscenely easy to get in WoW. WoW is a more casual game, and ergo "easier". This means both leveing and making money are just simpler and quicker to do.

Though, to give SE some credit... They ARE getting rid of Pol for FF14. That alone shows they'll listen to thier customers. They did eventually take on RMT (though, by that time it was too late to save the economy from hyper-inflation). They even added a windowed version to their game after years of complaints.

I really am looking forward to FF14. I'm a Final Fantasy junkie. SE hasn't made a bad console game yet. And, let's be honest, we all play FFXI becuase its a solid game. My complaint isn't about the game itself, just SE's customer service. I hope HOPE *HOPE* SE learned something from all these PR blunders over the years and actually attempts to fix things for FF14.

We shall see.

Anyways, thanks for the constructive posts. I appreciate the feedback.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Give me SE's game with Blizzard's support.

Although maybe not so much... There are two things a developer can do to ruin the game; the first is to ignore your players and the second is to do whatever they tell you. SE would be the former and Blizzard would be the latter. It takes the fury of the internet and people reportedly "getting sick" before SE will change anything, and if you even GLANCE at a Nerf slingshot the next time you're in Wal-mart, Blizzard will hear about it and some class is going to have their damage output halved and one of their talent trees taken out back and beaten with a bat before the next patch.

Hopefully 14 manages to find a nice happy balance. :)

You cleared Ulduar25, Hard Mode, right? Link me your wow-heroes and/or wowarmory and show me those achievements.

Oh wait, you PvP instead? Ok, link me your Arena 2200+ team.

Don't have em? It's okay. Most people don't. Why? Because it is very f---ing hard to get these.

There's plenty of challenge in WoW, and damn is it -hard-.

The diff between WoW and FFXI?

The challenge is in the game mechanics in PvE (bosses are actually... *gasp* hard), or in PvP, it is being skilled enough to beat fellow human players.

In FFXI, the challenge is merely having the patience it takes to do the same thing 5,000+ times to get to your goal. Oh, let's not forget the prayer skill it takes, to say prayers in just the right way, hoping whatever God you worship nudges the RNG in the right direction for you.

Edited, Jul 23rd 2009 11:20pm by Zariamnk

Last weekend a friend had her WOW account hacked. To make matters worse she was a guildmaster and the guild bank was raided. A call to Blizzard and her password was reset and the guild items were returned. No hassle.

I must say I don't understand SE. Are all Japaneese businesses ran like SE? I hope not.