Please let GMs do things again ):

Support Customer Support
21

As stated, I don’t mind individual instances of asking for something and not receiving it. But when it seems absolutely nothing I ask for, no matter how minor and simple, can be given? That no longer feels like “ah, they’re just not able to do me a favor here.” It feels like “oh, they’re not able to do me any favor ever.”

And that doesn’t feel good! That’s all I’m saying. It doesn’t feel good, it leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and that’s something they should at least take into account. When players feel consistently, repeatedly unhappy with the way their tickets are handled, they should care about that.

That’s why I’m raising the issue at all. Because it’s something I’ve discussed with friends who have experienced similar dissatisfaction and are growing more and more jaded with CS, and it’s more useful for me to make these feelings known rather than just stew on them in silence and continue feeling unheard because I don’t bother to speak.

Just to be clear, their announcement was that there would be no compensation at all. Which is of course “fair and consistent,” as you said—but I just figured I’d point that out so we’re on the same page there. “Fair” compensation here, under the premise that all treatment must always be blindly equal regardless of circumstance, means zero compensation for all. Which I know is what you prefer, and I accept that. I don’t agree, but I accept it.

My issue is that always the answer is no, in my experience. Not sometimes, but like every single time. I don’t mind being told no! It happens. But my whole point is after a while of always getting this kind of response, even for things that really aren’t a big deal and would take no effort to rectify… it feels bad! It just feels bad.

People can tell me to suck it up all they want—and I will! I will suck it up, because that’s what I’ve been doing for years, and it’s what I’ll continue to do. But should I just do that and never ever say anything about the way it negatively impacts my relationship with this game? I don’t think that’s helpful. I think it’s okay to simply state the fact of my CS experiences over the years: it feels consistently bad time and time again, and I want Blizzard to know that, because I think it should matter to them. That is honestly it.

I’m not asking for one particular little thing. I don’t care about the specific issue with loot—I mean I do care, obviously, but this isn’t about one small problem. I’m simply saying: hello Blizzard. I’m unhappy with the way CS is handled as a whole, and I think it should be more lenient/flexible in general, so long as it’s not game-breaking. There’s a growing feeling among the playerbase of dissatisfaction with the robotic nature of CS, and I think that should be addressed. The end.

You don’t have to agree with me! This really does boil down to “agree to disagree.” I accept that we disagree, and that I’m not going to change your mind. But my opinions are as stated, and I stand by them. You are welcome to stand by yours, and I will respect that.

22

Truthfully, there is a reason why GM’s will not do a lot of things. Think about the game as a whole. It isn’t that Game Masters don’t want to grant things, it is multple factors at play:

  • They are limited to certain actions that they can do, all set in place by the development.
  • Some actions could lead to severe concequences, whether towards the player or towards the game as a whole.
  • Some actions could potentially break the game as well.

Blizzard has internal policies they all have to follow, whether they are game masters, support forum agents, etc. It isn’t that they don’t want to grant you every request of playing the game, they are just limited to what they can do for certain reasons.

1 Like
23

They really don’t do “favors”. There is no favoritism. Everyone is subject to the exact same limits. Either limits imposed by GM tool sets, or by Dev policies.

They can’t just give people things because they ask for them nicely. They really do have to treat every situation by the book. They can’t reset raid IDs. Nor can they give someone loot that is not on the loot logs showing it as assigned to that character from that boss on that day. No logs, no loot.

I really don’t think they are going to start having GMs make decisions based on their feelings or do favors for people. They are already doing all they can to help - they don’t WANT to say “no”. If they say no, there is a good reason.

10 Likes
24

I appreciate the additional responses, but I think they all fall back on the notion that there are certain rules in place that GMs have to follow. I do not deny the rules exist, nor do I deny that sometimes they must; I simply deny that all the rules must exist. Some of them must in order to not literally break the game, but I don’t think all the rules are in place for that reason, and I believe that reason is the only reason worthy of a 100% hard strict rule in the first place.

I think each situation is unique and should be handled uniquely, depending on the specific details and whether or not the solution would a) break the game, or b) give the player a gameplay advantage. If a potential solution neither breaks the game nor gives a player an unfair advantage (like current content gear, an extremely rare mount, etc etc), then I believe it is a unique situation worthy of unique treatment. If a person continually abuses that and is always trying to get freebies, there will be a record of that, and it can therefore be stopped.

The baseline is that I think there should be exceptions to rules. I’m not saying “Everyone should always make exceptions for me!!! If I don’t get special treatment every single time, I’m gonna throw a temper tantrum!!!” But I am saying the exceptions should exist, and they should be dependent upon the whether there’s actually anything bad that could feasibly happen if the exception was made. If the answer is no… then the exception should be made, imo. And again, if this is abused, then that player who abuses it no longer gets exceptions.

It’s a simple matter of opinion. Again—an “agree to disagree” moment. I simply believe in flexibility that takes circumstances into account, while others prefer hard rules that are always enforced the same regardless of circumstance.

25

Simply put, there are exceptions to the rules. It’s just there not all them apply to what you want or when you want it. More so when it’s something they have clears rules on a given thing. Trying to say they shouldn’t have those rules to get what you want isn’t really thinking on what’s best for the game in general. It just comes off as trying to word one’s way to get what someone wants.

As others had said, sometimes the answer is no and nothing one does will change that factor.

4 Likes
26

imo its better to have straight forward black and white rules.

If I read on the forums or had a friend who got that special exception but I dont get it im gonna be super upset.

It should be either everyone gets it or no one. So if everyone gets it then there should just be a rule saying so. Or the opposite where no one gets it.

3 Likes
27

Thank you for the responses. I still disagree and believe there should be more leniency than there currently is, but I appreciate the perspectives regardless.

3 Likes
28

I agree. I’ve been playing WoW for 20 years and things are definitely a lot different now than they were back then. Garrosh was right. Times change and not often for the better.

A few years ago I had Ragnaros in the Firelands raid bug out on me and not drop any loot. I was farming the mount and decided to put in a ticket to see if they could recover my loot. They responded by telling me that the mount did in fact drop and mailed it to my character. This was the last time I actually felt like my time wasn’t wasted opening a ticket.

2 Likes
29

At this point, the OP is saying they want favoritism, but only for them. Which makes it blatantly unfair to everyone else.

3 Likes
30

Certainly not! I want plenty of exceptions for all players, when they’re not damaging to the game/putting a player at an advantage over other players.

31

No, I don’t think that is what they are saying at all. They do want the GMs to be able to grant more exceptions though based on individual circumstances. They want that for everyone, not just themselves.

The issue is that exceptions are already granted where they can be. I think the OP just does not realize that yet.

Like this? This was an exception to the not getting engaged in loot rule. The logs backed it, it was a very rare drop, and they did grant it. In general though they don’t have staffing to handle tons of tickets about anything and everything. That is part of the decison process over all.

The GMs support ALL Blizzard products, not just WoW. So mostly they do billing, account support (hacks, Bnet login issues, etc.), and social violation reports/appeals. The in-game stuff is limited to WoW, and the WoW stuff is mostly self help tools now that they released the GM tools to the public.

5 Likes
32

Thank you, I appreciate you recognizing that.

I do believe this tbh. It’s a lot to ask for GMs to perform case-by-case responses for every ticket. And that, among other reasons, is why I would like to see more investment in increasing CS funding. I could be wrong on this, but my understanding is that they have cut back on the amount of money they put into CS. Again though, this is just what I’ve heard on the rumor mill, so take it with a grain of salt.

33

Pretty much contradicts this:

Because if you give exceptions to everyone, it will at the same time damage the game and give players an advantage to those who were given an exception. It means, is this rule really a rule if you keep giving exceptions to this rule?

6 Likes
34

But…that’s what exceptions do. You get an exception for something, so does everyone else get it? If the answer is no, then you’ve been put in an advantageous situation over everyone, and if the answer is yes, then it’s not an “exception”, but just the policy.

5 Likes
35

I think this is true for things that “matter” in the grand scheme of the game. Current content gear, rare mounts, etc., as I mentioned earlier. I don’t think it’s true for very small things—like “aw man this bug cost me a random unimportant item from an expansion 8 years ago that nobody really cares about anymore.” That, to me, would be an example of a unique case. The item provides no advantage; it’s not highly sought after; etc etc.

I think cases like that should be treated with more flexibility than, for instance, someone saying “I want this piece of current expansion gear that would increase my item level” or “I want this .1% drop rate item.” Currently, all three cases are held to the same standard. I just personally don’t think they should be, that’s all. I think it should be dependent upon the situation. But like Mirasol said, this would require more funding for increased CS staffing—which I would absolutely like to see, even though I know it’s unlikely we will.

36

Thing is, if GM’s were to just grant stuff caused by the bug, it would turn that bug into a bigger bug and could cause more problems down the line.

7 Likes
37

I loved this paragraph. My favorite of the thread.

Erlihn, I too wish GMs were empowered to be more helpful. And I also believe that they used to have more flexibility, but as you’ve said, things change.

Years ago, I was having trouble logging in. So I called Blizz CS (you could call back then) and spoke to a rep who was going to help me troubleshoot. She removed my (key fob) authenticator so I could try logging in. Still no luck. But when she put the authenticator back on, it de-synced and became unusable and she could not fix it. So she passed me to a more senior rep. He reviewed the issue and also could not fix the authenticator. He said I had to buy a new one. I politely explained that a Blizzard rep caused this and I shouldn’t have to pay for another one. He got very rude and snarky. “So you’re not going to send me a new one?” I asked. “Not unless you pay for it,” he snapped back. “With all due respect sir, I’m getting a free authenticator.” “Not if I can help it.” Ugh. What a jerk. I ended the call and immediately called back. I explained the entire situation to the next rep who apologized and sent me a free authenticator right then. So, yes… there used to be more discretion amongst the GMs.

On the other hand, if acceding to a player request would actually create significant problems with the game or the account or the character, it makes sense that some requests would need to be denied. We just don’t want that to be an excuse to deny every request.

The argument about abuse is also reasonable, but we’re talking about a single piece of loot here. And even if it were to end up that you got two pieces out of it, I don’t think that’s compromising the “integrity” of the game.

True story here – I got my account hacked around 2008. The thieves stole all my stuff and our guild bank. But the great GMs managed to get all my stuff restored AND our guild bank restocked within 48 hours. Funny thing, though, they put all the items back into the guild bank AND sent me all those items as well!! I just deposited them into the GB, but can anyone honestly say that compromised the integrity of the game? I think not.

Anyway, Erlihn, you can submit a suggestion via the in-game suggestion feature. That way you don’t need to suffer the foul cesspool of GD vitriol.

#dfmb

2 Likes
38

Game masters are as helpful as they can be. There is certain things though that they can not do, for a whole bunch of reasons.

3 Likes
39

That first person you were talking to likely was making an error. The one who would not send you the Auth.

The Auth manufacturer battery lifetime was 7 years. If it failed well before that, Blizz used to replace them for you if you called in to get the desynched/dead one removed. I don’t know how many years from purchase that rule applied. I got my first Auth in 2008 when they came out. In 2010 it desynched and I could not log in. Called and once I got through the hold wait period, they were easily able to help. Removed it and sent me a free new one. I did not even ASK for the new one, but they said that I was within the time period where my keyfob should not have failed.

I still have both. I still use the second one even though it is 15 years later and well past the battery lifetime. The first still makes numbers but I would never trust it to synch properly again.

1 Like
40

As stated above, if it’s a case of an action causing an actual game problem, I’m okay with adhering to strict rules. It’s only in a situation where it doesn’t break the game or provide an unfair advantage that I think exceptions should be allowed.

If it doesn’t cause a mechanical bug to simply drop an old virtually-useless item in a person’s bag—then bring it on, imo. If I end up getting a duplicate of that old virtually-useless item because they end up compensating me for it in some official rollback later, does that really matter? Like big whoop… I got two crusty booger-ridden decade-old tissues instead of the singular one I wanted. :joy:

LMAO cheers. I feel like such a boomer. Cuz generally I’m in the “I still love Blizzard and I’m excited about the places this game is going” crowd, and I tend to roll my eyes at people who are always complaining about going back to “the good old days” before the company became more corporate.

Thank you LOL I really wasn’t looking forward to GD. They’re ruthless in there. I will try the in-game suggestions feature out! I appreciate you sharing your experiences, too.

I think some clarity on those reasons would be good. “Game stability” reasons = good. “This would provide the player with a real advantage and they could be lying” reasons = good. “Every situation must be treated exactly the same even if they are very very different circumstances” reasons = not good, imo.

1 Like