Curse

chaosincarnate87 · Jun 19, 2009, 02:00 PM // 14:00

while i can appreciate the "effort" and such that the low staffed arena net crew puts forth, i am left to wonder about a few things...
1. if implementing a new system as was done this month, why not fix the biggest problem with the XTH to begin with and just issue the points once the tournaments end on sunday. or even just the NEXT thursday, theres no reason to wait 2, or 3 weeks... or in this case not even get them at all unless you jump through even more hoops.
2. if you're not going to nerf permas (which isnt a big concern on my end to begin with) then why not just redistribute the points, people get alot more money with these botched skills in uwsc and fowsc than people would get from a reissue of RPs, esp. since 1/20 or so accounts actually got their points.
3. for us who have multiple accounts and you want us to go through the trouble of sending you support tickets, it'd be cool to be able to send ones for multiple accounts rather than sending out a dozen separate and wasting my day off of work with stupid repetitive bullshit that i could have just gone to work to do.
4. it troubles me to see regina act so patronizingly to ALL of the gw community, it gives me a feeling that if you're going to act condescending to all of your customers over a legitimate concern then you really dont SEEM to give much of a shit do you?

now i realize i may be flamed for this for whatever reason. keep in mind before you flame me over this i am not ranting on these people, i realize they have a large job for a small crew, but please dont act like you dont give a crap about the gw community by patronizing the players like that, its not good business.

Huiboo · Jun 19, 2009, 02:05 PM // 14:05

So just to make sure i got this right:
If i dont get any rewards for the next few days ill have to send a "Support ticket" to maybe get them?
Can anyone tell me what a "Support ticket" is and how i can send it?

HawkofStorms · Jun 19, 2009, 02:16 PM // 14:16

This is one of those damned if you do damned if you don't moments.

If XTH points were given yesterday and it worked perfectly - QQ "OMG why wasn't this done last week, a.net fails, I'm not buying GW2"
If XTH points were given yesterday and it only worked for some people - QQ "OMG they delay this a week and it still doesn't work, a.net fails, I'm not buying GW2"
If XTH points were delayed another week so they could fix the problem completely - QQ "OMG they have delayed it another week, another broken promise, a.net fails, I'm not buying GW2"

I'm happy they have the system at all.

Karate Jesus · Jun 19, 2009, 02:17 PM // 14:17

This is the third month in a row I've had to submit a support ticket.

Regina, tell the Live Team that this is getting old.

esthetic · Jun 19, 2009, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

This is one of those damned if you do damned if you don't moments.

If XTH points were given yesterday and it worked perfectly - QQ "OMG why wasn't this done last week, a.net fails, I'm not buying GW2"
If XTH points were given yesterday and it only worked for some people - QQ "OMG they delay this a week and it still doesn't work, a.net fails, I'm not buying GW2"
If XTH points were delayed another week so they could fix the problem completely - QQ "OMG they have delayed it another week, another broken promise, a.net fails, I'm not buying GW2"

I'm happy they have the system at all.

If XTH pts were distributed correctly last week you would not have gotten so many ppl pissed.

If XTH pts were delayed till next week and they got it done correctly this would cause some QQing but not at this level.

What makes people upset, is a system that does not work and treats people differently for no apparent reason but the inability of ANet to get the job done correctly. I just dont like the fact some people get theirs and some dont without any justification other than ANet screw up.

ANet has said they do not want to give "unfair" advantage to certain people over others well, doing somthing like this, giving some ppl pts and others not even if only a delay of a few days or weeks does give ppl an advantage over others. I would like to have seen ANet just delay the pts distribution another week for all just to get the damn thing right.

I mean I wouldnt mind if they didnt have the whole system, of XTH reward pts., But of course I would want them to refund my money for buying copies from Amazon and Target which I purchased after they announced this XTH reward pts thing.

Zeldalink · Jun 19, 2009, 02:45 PM // 14:45

Support... Poor guys, they will hate Regina... In my guild, i'm the only one to have half the points on my main account... i think support will just... explode...

Bug John · Jun 19, 2009, 02:49 PM // 14:49

4 accounts, 3 fails, 1 got only half, gg anet

who the hell asked for a "new system", xth was better the way it used to be

Aussie Boy · Jun 19, 2009, 02:51 PM // 14:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huiboo

So just to make sure i got this right:
If i dont get any rewards for the next few days ill have to send a "Support ticket" to maybe get them?
Can anyone tell me what a "Support ticket" is and how i can send it?

Shamelesly taken from wiki

How Do I Contact Support?
Just click support to start filing a Support Ticket. For the fastest possible service in issues that involve your game or NCsoft Master Account,
consider providing as much information from this list as you can:
Your name
Your game account name(s)
Your address
Your telephone number
Your birth date
Your access keys (a scan of the key would be super helpful)
The last four digits of the credit card(s) that you used for NCsoft Store or Guild Wars In-Game Store purchases
The air-speed velocity of an unburdened swallow. European please. (Ok, we really don't need that last bit.

)
If you still have access to the email account that you used as your game user name, please submit the ticket or send the email using that account.
And while the team doesn't require all this info, the more you send from the above list, the more easily the team can address the issue you're writing about.
All information is kept confidential.
We offer telephone support for billing/account and technical support issues only. We do not offer telephone support for game support issues,
bug reports, in-game incident reports, gameplay issues, general inquiries, etc. Contact our Billing/Account or Technical Support Teams as follows:
1-512-225-6359
Mon through Friday
Noon until 5:00 PM, Central time (-5 GMT)
If you are unable to submit a support ticket, you may email Support at the following (exact) address: [email protected].

DO NOT send your passwords they don't need them nor will they ever request them.

Bug John · Jun 19, 2009, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aussie Boy

Your name
Your game account name(s)
Your address
Your telephone number
Your birth date
Your access keys (a scan of the key would be super helpful)
The last four digits of the credit card(s) that you used for NCsoft Store or Guild Wars In-Game Store purchases
The air-speed velocity of an unburdened swallow. European please. (Ok, we really don't need that last bit.

)

do they really need all that information just to unlock zaishen points ? the account email should be enough

Shrivelling Fire · Jun 19, 2009, 03:10 PM // 15:10

well im glad i will be getting points.
but the xth just deciided that i had never made preds for gvg at all despite checking the day the points went in.
so gg there -_-
happy im getitng half the points though

Leslie · Jun 19, 2009, 03:23 PM // 15:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by esthetic

Can Anet explain or any of you on guru who are more knowlegable on these matters explain why its so hard to code something as simple as this seems to be? To record predictions and distribute pts per a simple set of rules?

Is there a reason why this gets bugged so often? To the average Joe, like me.. intuitively its seems simple to do and thus when ANet seems to have so many problems with it... I get frustrated. Either they(ANet) don't care, they are making it difficult on purpose, they are incompotent, or this code to distribute points is for some reason that difficult. IDK can someone weigh in on why you think ANet seems to have problems with this?

By the way, I think messing up these Pts distributions cause more PR and damage customer satisfaction than skill balancing that is overdue.

I'm guessing you've never done any programming?

There are a lot of things to take into account when writing code. Variables, function calls etc and when writing code you can quite easily and quite often find things happening you didn't expect or want.

It's very easy to make mathematical or logical errors when writing code, and without many hours of debugging sometimes you can miss them. In fact, I've had a lot of scripts compile, only to find an error at a later date (human error, not scripting error, because the computer actually compiled and ran the script). It's all too likely Anet is encountering these issues with their skeleton staff for GW1 and probably need to spend a lot more time debugging and QA testing these things.

Tramp · Jun 19, 2009, 03:37 PM // 15:37

14 accounts with EXACTLY the same picks. I just logged into each of them to make sure at the xunlai house predictions page. Here are the results:
55, 55, 30, 80, 55, 30, 0, 55, 5, 5, 0, 80, 80, 30.

One of those zero accounts has had zero for the second month in a row. I did not complain last month because it did not seem worth the bother to the guys at support since they seemed to be doing a good job at xunlai. But this is now a failure rate of 11 out of 14 accounts (3 correct, 11 wrong)! Some people at support are going to be looking at the clock today praying for 5pm to head home for the weekend....

exploiter · Jun 19, 2009, 03:41 PM // 15:41

I think we are getting double points next month
Tramp, 11/14 is great rate...3/9 here (30, 55, 80, 6x0)

esthetic · Jun 19, 2009, 03:41 PM // 15:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leslie

I'm guessing you've never done any programming?

There are a lot of things to take into account when writing code. Variables, function calls etc and when writing code you can quite easily and quite often find things happening you didn't expect or want.

It's very easy to make mathematical or logical errors when writing code, and without many hours of debugging sometimes you can miss them. In fact, I've had a lot of scripts compile, only to find an error at a later date (human error, not scripting error, because the computer actually compiled and ran the script). It's all too likely Anet is encountering these issues with their skeleton staff for GW1 and probably need to spend a lot more time debugging and QA testing these things.

You have to excuse me, Im a fossil, and I do not have a computer programing degree or get paid as a professional programer. But I do remember doing a program in HS with similar complexity as this for a computer science class. Dealing with data bases and records and what not, I believe the calculation of the reward pts and distribution of them is a simple thing. But again I am not aware of any other variables that ANet has built into this part of the code. Any way, you explanation that code can be more complex and difficult than you expect is well taken but. I dont think this applies here. I mean, its still not rocket science and we are talking about paid professional programers.

Targren · Jun 19, 2009, 04:02 PM // 16:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by esthetic

You have to excuse me, Im a fossil, and I do not have a computer programing degree or get paid as a professional programer. But I do remember doing a program in HS with similar complexity as this for a computer science class. Dealing with data bases and records and what not, I believe the calculation of the reward pts and distribution of them is a simple thing. But again I am not aware of any other variables that ANet has built into this part of the code. Any way, you explanation that code can be more complex and difficult than you expect is well taken but. I dont think this applies here. I mean, its still not rocket science and we are talking about paid professional programers.

Disclaimer: This is all speculation on my part, from what I *IMAGINE* the setup might be. On the other hand, I would never have thought they were using BLOBS instead of real data structures so, yeah, grain of salt...

A system like this isn't as simple as it seems at first blush.
First, you're working with new code. The only thing buggier than old code is new code. Especially when, say, you're trying to get it released for a 4th anniversary disappointment^Wupdate and testing gets rushed.

Add onto that the fact that you're working with multiple databases(unless they were completely batshit loco, they are. Game data on a web-facing database server? *shudder*) with different schema. While it might seem easy to just make sure that the appropriate keys match up and compute from there, considering the mammoth-effing-OMFG-huge volume both servers are under, the data getting out of sync is not just a possibility, but a guarantee. Naturally, there is code in place to resync, but to do it constantly would make the servers asplode. If the point-distribution was run in an inconsistent state like that, ker-blooey.

Then there's the assumption that it's a simple pull->process->update sequence (get predictions, compare to results, update points data). If there's any other decision making in the process (such as the suggestion that they are stealth-nerfing multi-account users), a bug there could throw the whole thing out of whack.

And finally, there's the very real possibility of a facepalm-bug, like someone forgets to sanitize a database query, then some mouth-breather puts an invalid character into his email address.

Plus, the new site seems to be pretty heavily using PHP, which has a LOT of unintuitive..er.. "features."

There's a lot of places even a simple-seeming system like this can go wrong, and it's probably huge on the backend.

Cacheelma · Jun 19, 2009, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Am I supposed to "care" about how incompetent they are at coding? Am I, a customer, supposed to feel sorry for them that they have to write some complicated codes for a feature of the game that I PAID for?

I don't care how hard/complicated it is to get it right. It's their job. Either get it right or just don't bother with it.

And please don't even bring up the no monthly-fee aspect of GW. They chose the business model, not me. Paying them more by buying more GW boxes/character slots/insert a milking tactic here won't improve ANYTHING. And if "this game has no monthly-fee" is an excuse for such thing, I really have to go "LOL" at Jeff Strain's talk on how GW's business model is the future of MMORPG; it's not gonna happen.

Sookie · Jun 19, 2009, 04:22 PM // 16:22

It is strange how things are unfolding like I unknowingly predicted last week. No Xunlai Tournaments in the third week and a "little something extra" given to soothe ruffled feathers.

We now have the coins increased on our Z-Quest/Bounty...even the ones we have in our logs have miraculously increased in coinage. If that can be done, we could all have had a certain number of Xunlai Tournament points programmed into our accounts.

The logical approach, and less headache for A-Net, would have been to give a blanket number of points to all who played the Xunlai Game in May, and then work on fixing the problem so that it doesn't happen again next month.

esthetic · Jun 19, 2009, 04:22 PM // 16:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Targren

Disclaimer: This is all speculation on my part, from what I *IMAGINE* the setup might be. On the other hand, I would never have thought they were using BLOBS instead of real data structures so, yeah, grain of salt...

A system like this isn't as simple as it seems at first blush.
First, you're working with new code. The only thing buggier than old code is new code. Especially when, say, you're trying to get it released for a 4th anniversary disappointment^Wupdate and testing gets rushed.

Add onto that the fact that you're working with multiple databases(unless they were completely batshit loco, they are. Game data on a web-facing database server? *shudder*) with different schema. While it might seem easy to just make sure that the appropriate keys match up and compute from there, considering the mammoth-effing-OMFG-huge volume both servers are under, the data getting out of sync is not just a possibility, but a guarantee. Naturally, there is code in place to resync, but to do it constantly would make the servers asplode. If the point-distribution was run in an inconsistent state like that, ker-blooey.

Then there's the assumption that it's a simple pull->process->update sequence (get predictions, compare to results, update points data). If there's any other decision making in the process (such as the suggestion that they are stealth-nerfing multi-account users), a bug there could throw the whole thing out of whack.

And finally, there's the very real possibility of a facepalm-bug, like someone forgets to sanitize a database query, then some mouth-breather puts an invalid character into his email address.

Plus, the new site seems to be pretty heavily using PHP, which has a LOT of unintuitive..er.. "features."

There's a lot of places even a simple-seeming system like this can go wrong, and it's probably huge on the backend.

Thank You ^^. Your response made me feel better. At least there is a definate possibility that ANet is indeed trying but the task is an "elite mission".

Well done thank you again.

Targren · Jun 19, 2009, 04:28 PM // 16:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cacheelma

I don't care how hard/complicated it is to get it right. It's their job. Either get it right or just don't bother with it.

I wasn't making excuses for them. Despite programming for a living, I am not a good "business programmer." The idea of "time's up, ship it!" ready-or-not pisses me off when others do it just as much as when I'm forced to.

Couple that with my suspicions of the not-entirely-accidental omission of most of my accounts from the coin process, and I'll be the last one writing apologetics for Anet.

I was just giving him a bit of insight on how he might be underestimating the complexity of it.

don richardos · Jun 19, 2009, 04:32 PM // 16:32

And now the big qeustion....does it helps if u send a ticket..? and wth...Acces keys etc...for reward pts? lmao