Curse

EternalTempest · Sep 09, 2006, 03:28 PM // 15:28

I submitted an error report to Anet when everyone got kicked off early this morning (When everyone else was kicked off). 6/8-6/9 Late night / earily morning depending on your time zone.

I did the diagnostic shortbut gw.exe -diag, generated the report. It clearly showed issues on there end with the server.

I wanted to do the helpful thing to give them feed back. There response..

Quote:

Thank you for contacting Guild Wars Technical Support.

In order to better understand your issue, please send us a little information about your network setup. We need to know exactly how you connect to the Internet. Do you use any routers, hubs, or switches? If so, what is the make and model? Who is your Internet provider and where are you physically located? Are you on a home, campus, business or military network? Please also let us know if you are using any firewall or Internet security applications such as Norton™, McAfee®, or ZoneAlarm®.

Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team

This isn't the only time I've had problem with support and getting run around questions due to connectivity... during the pervious week or two when GW was running spottey off and on I sent a response with diag log, also showing time out on there server.. they recommended upgrading my video card drivers.

I so understand that support is run by NCSoft and I can see how they could with there original video card driver question (and not affecting everyone) on my pervious response .. but the server outage (or American server outage) that was experiences by many I get the lets look at you system.

I still think Anet does good tech support from past experience.. but they gone down a notch in my opinion. Of course this could also be related to the recent downsizing of NCSoft tech support after this last qtr profits.

It's going to get harder for me to want to keep submitting diag reports with net with the responses I'm getting, lead's me to doubt those reports actually get to anyone.

*Rant Over* Just wanted to share and see if other's noticed anything as well.

milias · Sep 09, 2006, 03:44 PM // 15:44

Guild Wars support is run by NCSoft, not by ANet. It is my understanding from emails I got that their technical support staff have indirect access to ANet developers. It is also my belief that their support is tiered, meaning that the first tier deals with the more mundane stuff, and if an issue can't be solved, it goes up the chain of command, so to speak. I'm not sure if a developer is sitting at the top of the chain, though.

To see who's in tech support, go here:

http://www.guildwars.com/support/con...onscredits.php

Scroll down to the "Tech Support" section to see who's in it.

Loviatar · Sep 09, 2006, 03:59 PM // 15:59

ET and others

the first response from support is always an automated response with the best guesses based on key words in your support ticket.

you get a generic response that helps most general problems which leaves more room for the live tech to handle more complicated problems.

if the answer doesnt help you respond with *this did not solve my problem* to get a live person to help.

hope this helps answer the generic answer

Knightsaber Sith · Sep 09, 2006, 04:47 PM // 16:47

I highly doubt they would take the time to deal with every individual person when everyone gets dc'd like that. Frankly, it seems like a waste of time to have even opened a ticket for that......

guildwarsnerd · Sep 09, 2006, 05:00 PM // 17:00

They are VERY helpful imo

When my account got stolen, I quickly gave all the info I knew about it to them right away, they got it back.

When my little brother used all the switches to Europe from America, I sent them an email about it, they put me back to America.

I think they are helpful

Btw, did I mention they replied within an hour?

Gaile Gray · Sep 09, 2006, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Yep, the process upon receipt of a support ticket is for our associates at NCsoft, and their contractor to send an immediate automated response, and then each ticket is reviewed for the need for a human response, and if follow-up is required, a support staff member writes, usually quite close on the heels of the automated response.

We had an overheating issue with the datacenter in LA last night. Before you submitted the ticket, may I ask if you consulted the Network News page of our website? It's there, on the Support Tab where you access the means to send a report. It took us a few minutes to post the update, but we did post it, even late on a Friday night.

As you can imagine, if every time a major internet backbone goes down (outside our control) or there's a brownout in New York (outside our control) or the datacenter develops a weird overheating issue (outside our control but still our responsibility) we would post whatever news we had here: http://www.guildwars.com/support/networknews/ We pull the news down as soon as the situation clears, so it was removed about, oh, 1 PDT this morning. (The situation cleared a couple of hours earlier, but we wanted to leave it in case people had questions or were still have left-over difficulties.)

As far as tickets, the purpose of the automated response is simply to let you know "Message received!" We will follow up if there is more that we can share. In this case, I'm surprised that you didn't get a message about the overheating, but if they were flooded with reports, and since the situation cleared so quickly, they may have elected to not write after the fact to tell people that the problem had been solved, and for that I really don't blame them.

Thanks for the information, and I hope your next experience is more understandable to you.

Thank you, guildwarsnerd, for your kind remarks!

Zoe Nolinah · Sep 09, 2006, 06:21 PM // 18:21

I think they ARE nice, but the support site is kinda confusing to use, or I'm just overlooking things.
I wanted to sent a violation report as bit ago and it took me some time until I found out where and how to send it. And then 2 days later I got an email back that the report got closed cause I missed to do something.. cant really remember. But ya I still dont get how exactly I can report something over their site.

Knightsaber Sith · Sep 09, 2006, 06:33 PM // 18:33

You click the ask a question, select the section like ingame violations or some such thing.... anyway, like she said there's the initial generic response, then it's fowarded to be reviewed if it needs a person to some how intervene. Eventually they send you an email asking for more information, or giving a possible answer or solution. If you don't update the ticket after like a day or two of them emailing you, they assume the issue is resolved and they close the ticket. You must have missed the email and didn't update the ticket.

I'm currently going at it with support for an issue with the GOTY Edition, but it's all going smoothly so far; though no actual progress.

Nexus Icon · Sep 09, 2006, 07:29 PM // 19:29

The problem I have with the support is that it often gives the user the idea that if they don't respond, the problem will be swept under the carpet.
I don't take kindly to an automated e-mail response asking me to provide further information, otherwise my issue will be ignored, ESPECIALLY when I have provided a very thorough summary of my problem in my inital e-mail.

Also, even if you respond to the "Please respond or be ignored" e-mail, you just receive the same crap e-mail response again.
I had this when trying to report the theft of a friend's account where I had provided screenshots, dates and times that the thief had contacted my friend to boast about it. Eventually we persuaded the thief to give my friend's account back through threats, and yet nothing was done by support; and even if they HAD done something, they wouldn't have bloody told us.

In conclusion, ANet needs to provide better, more personal responses whilst providing support. What they are claiming is support at the moment is an utter shambles, and their current insistence that all of the lag and disconnections that people across the world are having is actually the user's fault and nothing to do with them whatsoever is proof of this.

Reserved Egotist · Sep 09, 2006, 07:35 PM // 19:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexus Icon

The problem I have with the support is that it often gives the user the idea that if they don't respond, the problem will be swept under the carpet.
I don't take kindly to an automated e-mail response asking me to provide further information, otherwise my issue will be ignored, ESPECIALLY when I have provided a very thorough summary of my problem in my inital e-mail.

Also, even if you respond to the "Please respond or be ignored" e-mail, you just receive the same crap e-mail response again.
I had this when trying to report the theft of a friend's account where I had provided screenshots, dates and times that the thief had contacted my friend to boast about it. Eventually we persuaded the thief to give my friend's account back through threats, and yet nothing was done by support; and even if they HAD done something, they wouldn't have bloody told us.

In conclusion, ANet needs to provide better, more personal responses whilst providing support. What they are claiming is support at the moment is an utter shambles, and their current insistence that all of the lag and disconnections that people across the world are having is actually the user's fault and nothing to do with them whatsoever is proof of this.

I agree, however I don't think it's as big a problem as people usually make it out to be. I feel that support is simply just inconsistent. I had this one person report me for allegedly not paying for a run (which I clearly did), so I launched a counter to assert my innocence. Within the next day I was assured I wouldn't get in trouble, whether it be warnings or banning.

What happens usually is that you will get an automated response the first time, then after further correspondence you get a more personalized email. Happens with most tech supports. Then again i only contacted Anet support once...and that time went smoothly.

Rainith · Sep 09, 2006, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

We had an overheating issue with the datacenter in LA last night.

There's a datacenter in Lion's Arch? Where? You should keep it under the fountain, the water should help keep it cool.

TiNkLeR · Sep 09, 2006, 08:16 PM // 20:16

Hahaha, that was funny!

elLOCOmutha · Sep 09, 2006, 11:39 PM // 23:39

I have had very very good customer service for the most part. I hardly ever have lag or disconnects, and they are to be expected somewhat when playing online. Other unnamed online games that have MAJOR problems will go unmentioned.

Last night when the servers went down I was afraid at first my account had been hacked lol ... my precious ... *grasps my Collectors Edition box tightly, close to my chest*

*runs to change my password and secret question*

Malice Black · Sep 10, 2006, 01:50 AM // 01:50

never had any need to contact support which is a good thing i guess...

Mrscoombes · Sep 10, 2006, 02:22 PM // 14:22

Who cares? Aslong as they provide you with your precious game, and aslong as they send automated messages that dont really help but they still bothered to make, theres no reason to hate them! Arenanet are good guys, everytime they slip up we should help them, not kick them while they're down =(