Feeling discriminated :)

[Barry Brinkhuijsen]

He likes the green dollar, but he dont like to give greencards

[Toxcatl]

I got 30. I don't complain.

[Guido van den Berg]

I got 25 and I did complain. Explained that the bug has cost me 35.

[Cloverfield]

No trying to make a point of this but..

[Jeeves]

Disclaimer: Apologies for the wall of text.


We do have policies about such things. But you can't have a policy for all the "freak accidents". Some times some super weird tech. issues occur.

But because of these strange cases we have some general purpose (If I can call them that) policies that are intended to help out the support team in quickly deciding on the appropriate nature of the action they will undertake. And all is with the benefit of the User in mind - Yes, yes I know the kind of arguments about greed and what not that may arise from this statement. I will keep saying it till the bitter end!... wow, how poetic.
We don't run away from giving free stuff when the requirement to do so has been met. We prefer that our players are happy with the service we provide. It's the right way to do business and... well, liking your own job (If you have any semblance of a Moral-Code).


So, sometimes something unorthodox will happen that is not compliant with the already existing policies, but a problem is a problem and the people here have to be quick to react. So a quick committee will most likely be appointed in order to quickly assess the situation and decide on what will be the next step.
Mind that a lot of times tech. issues are discovered by the playerbase first.

So to illustrate what it looks like to stumble on an actual technical issue, I will write down in steppes the following scenario:
1. A ticket about a strange new case arrives. The agent at first has little idea as to what might be the cause - So the usual trouble-shoot questions will follow so he/she can get a better picture of what's going on. These questions can be aimed at the exclusion of possible causes and as such to eventually nail down the real culprit. (So always be as helpful as possible to the agents!)
2. A while later another agent gets something similar (Might be the same but keep in mind that ppl have different language proficiency levels) and also asks the usual question.
3. Agents in the support team constantly communicate (Verbally, through mail, in-house chat systems, etc. Even in their lunch breaks...) with each other - Agent 1 and Agent 2 find out that they both have stumbled on similar issues. Agent 3 "overhears" the conversation and shares that she received a very-hard-to-interpret report about something similar.
4. All the agents "ring the alarm" and the matter gets escalated to the supervisors.
5. Supervisors quickly check some of the old reports (Following clues perceived via the tickets our three agents have received) to find out if this is something completely new, is something similar to old cases, is something isolated, something already fixed?, etc. Once the suspicions have been solidified and a preliminary "theory" as to what is/might be going on has been established, the whole matter gets redirected to the head-of-staff and a meeting is called.
6. All the information is put on the line and judging by the gravity of the issue possible ways to act are being discussed. No matter what, the developers are notified about the issue for as to understand how long it may take to fix it (They them self have to investigate what might be the cause).
7. Now that work has began on the removal of the problem, assessment of the damage this problem caused to the playerbase is being conducted.
8. Depending on what the calculations show a compensation package and it's contents are discussed.
9. An agreement is struct - The agents are informed as to what they have to do with already existing cases of this type and future ones.


So, as you can see a lot is going on behind the scene. And let me tell you, from what I wrote you may get the impression that this process takes hours, but in reality I've seen these guys and gals operate under some of the most absurd tech. issues that Top Eleven has experienced and they are like a well oiled machine. It's like if you are in the bridge of a command center here (Or the bridge of Battlestar Galactica for those who've watched the series). There are many senior agents who are so well versed with Top Eleven that they are able to sniff a problem just by the way the player has worded their message. The efficiency with which these people work is astounding and some times it's just a matter of minutes to reach the final steps of assessment.

Now I hope I was able to paint the picture perfectly for everyone, but with all that said I think it's fairly obvious for everyone that mistakes happen. Due to the nature of the issue the compensation package did not have a flat value but rather one that was supposed to be calculated. That's why different people received different amounts of rests.

I concur that it may not have been the best way to handle this whole thing but that is why we constantly hold meetings here - To discuss not only the direction of the game but strategy planning as well. The guys have taken note of the whole situation and will make sure to decide on better ways to handle such matters in the future.


Strive for progress not perfection.

[gizzmo]

He likes the green dollar, but he dont like to give greencards

Not to mention ecologists...

[Cloverfield]

@Jeeves

So, for this specific case what exactly do you need from rest of customers to report in order to get a free pack of greens.

Isn't the problem already identified and fixed?
Haven't you already verified that the issue is real, timestamp of the issue found, and made draft calculation of how many greens each customer spent to work-around this bug?

Do you find effective to get 1 million tickets for the exact same thing?
Or is it more effective to give a damn free-green pack and apologize next day about the bug?

**** happens. Understood and they will keep coming.
As customer ( I do not play for free so I want to be handled like a customer) I would like Nordeus to step up and say "apologies, we ****ed up yesterday issue is fixed, get this free pack for the trouble causing"

This used to happen.
Now we see it rarely.
Why?
When behavior changes, it a policy twist so I can not believe that there is no policy on that and I will be disappointed if indeed there is not.

PS.
BTW I am a tester engineer, so don't believe that I am not aware of the process and how hard it can be to find out the root cause and end up with the potential fix. But now we are not talking about the bug/fix, we are talking about how customers are awarded when **** happens

[LeManiaque]

@Jeeves I personally appreciate the consideration that went into that response. Support response for me has always been respectable, sometimes stuff like this, the blog and videos, the social presence, is clear you all do care about presentation and satisfaction. Thumbs up from me

[LeManiaque]

I would like Nordeus to step up and say "apologies,

Personally, I wrote to support and that's exactly the reply I got, sans swears. Sorry, thanks, it's fixed, here's compensation. GL, HF.

Presumably not everyone was effected by this issue, and if that's case it's an efficient solution to offer the above response to players who inquire. Rather than tracking exactly who should be contacted or blanketing the entire market with +25-50 tokens with significant game-economic effects.