Some thoughts on KK & Customer Service

[BlackPrince]

I think a good number of us who have played Neo for any decent amount of time have at one point or another either experience a serious game stopping loss or known first hand someone who has. The losing of a precious rare item, or worse, the wiping of entire GoGo's, Apts, or Inventories. KK has a stated policy of reimbursing a total sum of 100k per reported loss as a reaction to those who would exploit it.

We ran into a similar situation not long ago with the hacked accounts and those who wished to abuse that as well.

Now, out of the top 3 reasons for leaving Neocron, I'd dare say two of the largest for many people have been the aforementioned policy and then cheaters/exploiters. The very same people who caused this poor policies implementation orginally.

Now we must see for ourselves, KK have an oppurtunity here that they wouldn't get otherwise. They have proof, damn near self incrimination, of people trying to exploit and abuse the system. At the same time, they have a chance to excel at customer service and make a statement that would be heard loud and clear throughout the gaming world: We HELP our Players and PUNISH cheaters, exploiters, and abusers.

Why haven't they removed this idiotic policy on the refunding of lost items and simply deal with those who would abuse it as they should have from Day 1 and ban their sorry asses from ever setting foot in this game again? Do not say its due to low population, that can very well be traced back in many cases to this very same policy that allows the abusers, cheaters, and general run of the mill scum to slip by. At the same time, they are driving away the hard working, intelligent, and fair minded by Punishing them through Proxy.

I ask the Community and I ask Reakktor these questions: Why do you not punish those who would abuse the system? Why do you instead punish those who have given you their time, hard work, and money? Why do you seek to drive away those who would devote many more hours, days, weeks, and months to building a better game and coddle those who would destroy it from the inside out?

I asked myself these very same questions, and I can honestly tell you, there is no good answer. If they had no definitive proof of people abusing the system, are we to believe then that this policy was instituted on the suspicion of abuse? If not, then on what grounds does KK reserve the right to punish those who would abuse the system? If you have enough information to know that they are attempting to cheat you, how is that not enough information to ban them?




Note: to this date, I myself have not lost anything serious, certainly no 'show stoppers' as others have. A quick glance of the boards shows they are rife with upset players who have lost everything. Most have quit, a few have soldiered on (some rallied by community members). I feel though that if they continue this policy into DoY, it will hurt this game more than anything else. With DoY more than likely being a dreaded MegaPatch it is almost guaranteed that we will see a large amount of database errors. The time is now to install the system to discourage the cheaters and help the hard workers. Better to clean house now, than later.

[Skinman]

Originally posted by BlackPrince

If they had no definitive proof of people abusing the system, are we to believe then that this policy was instituted on the suspicion of abuse? If not, then on what grounds does KK reserve the right to punish those who would abuse the system? If you have enough information to know that they are attempting to cheat you, how is that not enough information to ban them?


Because if you ban people that you have no definite proof against, then they can sue your ass from here till tomorrow and you get shut down.. the legal risk is not worth it UNLESS you HAVE the proof...

[BlackPrince]

Originally posted by Skinman
Because if you ban people that you have no definite proof against, then they can sue your ass from here till tomorrow and you get shut down.. the legal risk is not worth it UNLESS you HAVE the proof...

So you mean to tell me they are punishing the rest of the players without definitive proof? I hope I don't need to comment on how brilliant that policy is. How many people do you think have left this game because of cheaters, exploiters, and the crappy refund policy?

[Scikar]

Well 100k is 100k more than other MMORPGs give. In other games you get nothing, except in games that have item tracking.

And you can't sue KK for banning you, it's their right to choose who can play and who can't. Read the terms of service.

[Q`alooaith]

And how, pray tell do you tell if somone is truly trying to get the better of the system, or just bloody unlucky..


The system they have work's, they used to do rollback's for major losses, and big bug's but not anymore as somone thought ,how's about I use the rollback to dupe all my MC5's, and stuff like that..


now how does KK tell the diffrence between the person that need's a rollback because they lost all their stuff to a bug, and somone who's given all their stuff anway and then said they have a bug..


simply put, the time it would take to find out who need's a rollback, and who's sploiting it would be too much for the GM's which are volenter's..


the 100K system suck's but it's better than nothing..

[BlackPrince]

Ok Q, so then tell me, when they make these posts about "People abusing the system" as justification for no further rollbacks, how have they accumulated enough proof for that?

I'm sorry man, but thats bullshit.

[Skinman]

Originally posted by BlackPrince
So you mean to tell me they are punishing the rest of the players without definitive proof? I hope I don't need to comment on how brilliant that policy is. How many people do you think have left this game because of cheaters, exploiters, and the crappy refund policy?

Well since you ask and state that you know so many of them, I've been here since late beta, never had to contact support myself, or infact personally know anyone that has.. maybe I'm just lucky, but when I see people getting 100k for an item that may or may not have existed in the first place I'll generally say..'Live with it, cause everyone else seems to'.

If this causes you a real problem then why not talk to support about it directly and not bitch about it here?

[Q`alooaith]

Originally posted by BlackPrince
Ok Q, so then tell me, when they make these posts about "People abusing the system" as justification for no further rollbacks, how have they accumulated enough proof for that?

I'm sorry man, but thats bullshit.

the proof is the number of rollbacks they had to do, didn't you read the post?




"the number of rollback's we have determined are too many to becaused by XYZ, so we will no longer be rolling back players as people are exploiting it"....


simple reasioning, people asked and got rolled back, but the number's where just too high..



So while they can not see who is cheating the system, they know it's getting cheated, so they change the system, and so no one can cheat it..


it's not a good idea to cheat, cause big un's somtimes end up randomly getting checked backwards..

[Shadow Dancer]

Originally posted by Skinman


If this causes you a real problem then why not talk to support about it directly and not bitch about it here?


Errr, because he wants a discussion about it and to know the thoughts of other people?


Much like every person who starts a thread to "bitch" about anything.

[Skinman]

Originally posted by Shadow Dancer
Errr, because he wants a discussion about it and to know the thoughts of other people?


Much like every person who starts a thread to "bitch" about anything.

In this thread, I don't see someone that want's a discussion, I see someone that wants to have a go, and is looking for support..

Appologies if I've misinterperted the overall feeling of the thread, but, to me, it looks like an attack on KK CS on an issue thats been debated since retail opened, despite the fact that KK still have a better compensation system than the majority of MMORPGS..

Those ARE my thoughts...

[BlackPrince]

Originally posted by Skinman
Well since you ask and state that you know so many of them, I've been here since late beta, never had to contact support myself, or infact personally know anyone that has.. maybe I'm just lucky, but when I see people getting 100k for an item that may or may not have existed in the first place I'll generally say..'Live with it, cause everyone else seems to'.

If this causes you a real problem then why not talk to support about it directly and not bitch about it here?

And I've been playing since US release and I've seen more posts about people leaving because of the shitty refund policy and cheating in general than I'm comfortable with. KK has the chance to kill two birds with one stone here.

And when you say 'live with it', guess what, the vast majority of people don't. They take thier money and go elsewhere. With your attitude, its no wonder we have such high population numbers. Maybe I have to remind you that Reakktor needs this magical thing called 'money' that comes in from 'subscriptions'. 'Subscriptions' are continued by happy customers :) (those are the other little avatars running around in game in case you didn't know), while unhappy customers :mad: (we'll use the frowny face for them) don't continue subscriptions. Lack of subscriptions = lack of money. Lack of money is a bad thing.

This isn't a bitch thread, so don't try to make it look like it is. I'm asking for a reasonable discussion on a policy I feel has done more harm to this game than good, and the pro's and con's of change or continueing along this course.

As a side note, when I have had to deal with customer service, either with account issues or what not, they have been prompt and for the most part polite.

[Shadow Dancer]

Black how would they know whether or not someone is cheating them?

[BlackPrince]

Basic item tracking is always a good start. I find it hard to believe the server doesn't register player transactions and who has what where, if it doesn't, then maybe thats a good explanation for why there are so many database errors.

This is a discussion, so if you think theres a better policy out there than what they have in place, say so. And no, the "well its better than everyone else" argument doesn't really work. KK needs to stand out from the crowd, and in a good way for once.

[Skinman]

Actually I will retract the comment about bitching, because I'll admit I was probaly reading between the lines and seen something that maybe didn't exist...

But please don't say the reason that people leave this game is because of the refund policy. If you personally know someone that has left because they actually did loose valuable equipment and only got 100k back, then I'd happily say that the reason the left was NOT the refund policy, but the bugs that lost them their kit in the first place.

As far as I have seen the Customer Support at KK (with the occasional glitch) has been top notch... is your problem really with them? or maybe more to do with the bugs and general misgivings in game itself?

[BlackPrince]

In general, I'd say the bugs. Since kk has been...tardy in fixing these, they should minimize the damage this causes, and improving the refund policy would be a large step.

I more see this as a means of catching exploiters and cheaters while making other customers happy. Lets face it, if these guys are going to try to slip this stuff out right from under KKs nose than we can postulate that they'll get the items they want some other way, and certainly not by working for it.

To me, KK needs some serious damage control, because unless they have God on their side, DoY is going to be a bloody mess for the first few days. I'd like to see them minimize the collateral damage by not appearing to be the sadists so many seem to think they are.

[Skinman]

Actually I'd like to say that I have faith that it will work out fine... and infact I do...

The same (sort of) arguments about balance, customer support, lack of communication keep re-appearing every month, and I think I'm on a short fuse with it all...

Improving the refund policy (I'm assuming you mean actually replace lost items or cash sums that are more intune with the server economy), will not really work, as all it would do is increase the free-loaders looking for free gear (as has been seen with the hacked accounts incident)..

If you really want my opinion.. then here it is.. "Get back in game and get on with it".. the dev team (hopefully) already know about the major problems, probably before the Customer Support, and 'I don't like [insert whatever]' threads don't endear newbies to the community as a whole...

This particular issue to me is one that I think you will find in ANY online game, and one that no single person in the community can actually state a case that could not be thrown into doubt. The Support team can only do what they can inside their mandate.. we can only hope the dev team fixes things before the support team need to deal with them...

I'm drunk and need sleep.. I'm leaveing this here before Nidd casts his beady eye in my direction... ;p