ANet/NcSoft Public Relations: How do you see it?

I have never needed to submit a support ticket that was vital to my account's well being (you know, with all the hacking and such) and probably only ONCE sent a ticket in for abuse when someone harassed me through 3 accounts over a PM for not Monking the right way he wanted me to in RA....

THEREFORE, I cannot properly evaluate the quality of ArenaNet and or NCsoft.

BTW, NC owns Anet, they are not two companies linked to be as one, one owns the other, and the boss one owns others.

I'm going to have to go with #1.

I've only had to contact support a couple of times, and each time it was taken care of very quickly. Only once were they unable to resolve the issue I had, and that particular issue was a case of my mom's computer being completely screwed up and not letting me play the game - I think I even had support baffled with that one. So I don't hold that situation against them, as they still tried every solution they could think of to help me get it to work.

My experience would lead me to pick #1. I've only contacted support once or twice, and that was a long time ago. Might be interesting to examine reasons why some people require more support than others, though.

Number 1.

However if you mean Community Relations... I'd like to reintroduce the Super F.

Probably number three. The only time I've had to wait a few days was when a fraud error came up when trying to purchase something from the in game store a few years ago.

For those who have posted lower numbers, are there any suggestions that would have made your experience a better one? Something they did that upset you, or didn't do that you wished they would?

Option 2. Support has always been polite, courteous, and prompt, responding and resolving in 24-36 hours. They were unable to resolve the technical issues I had, but a subsequent game update resolved it several months later.

sorry to say i have to go with #5 I've never had a quick response

i have only had to open 1 ticket after my cc company started being a bunch of noob's (light way of putting it) i got a account ban because of it

when i happened i sorted out the cc company that day i also open a ticket that day also with all the info needed for them to unban the account

nearly 6 weeks later i get a responce back stateing i need to put a little bit more info in befor they could open the account which should be done that dam provided i put it in, 2 weeks after that i phoned them up to have them tell me to open a ticket if i have a problem

not good, 8 and a half weeks

You ever stopped to think about how that would look like from their viewpoint?

I mean, do you continue to ask 48 more times about getting a piece of cake/whatever if the first 2 answers was a no?

On-poll-topic: must be a 6 for me.

I never had an issue of any kind.
Well, once with DirectSong, but I resolved it myself by 'tweaking' here and there and messing with the .dll.

Banning people for words is the result of our inability to cope with reality not matching our carefully hatched perception thereof. That does not make retreating to an ivory tower the best strategy.

Banning people for behavior goes down the same line.

Zero tolerance is the worst tool in education, I am willing to say beating up kids works better. In the end we have a support who hides behind contraptions of rules and regulations issuing penalties mechanically and soulless. Call it the sign of our times.

PR does its best to defend this stance by painting pictures of boogeymen such as dupers, China Farmers, account stealers and your ruined future should you ever encounter a guy named F@##t*/d B00+-ob.

We should simply look reality in the eye and that is a lot of 12-18 year olds are playing the game who have the idea of provocation being a tool for their amusement and getting to you. But that should be something an adult should be able to handle with ease. We should not throw ourselves at the mercy of an outraged mob of parents bashing on games for language, using their moral rhetoric to conceal the fact that they have no idea about the reality their child lives in. Nor should we yield to a bunch of rule fanatics trying to play some Law&Order metagame at our expense. If you get angry about someone buying gold something about your perception of achievement needs fixing. Hotfix: Time-delayed textures are NOT an achievement.

PR in terms of dealing with the public, in contrast to dealing with advertisement, tries to duck and cover as best it can. Because not banning people, trying to keep integrating them with the rest, that is real work. Real work too many people confronted with Teens have grown too tired of. Roll in the arbitrary rules, defend them with vigilance and do not mind mainstreaming the remaining customers down to a certain psychological profile that is ugly to behold. Translation: we need more Hippie gaming.

Go take a bath.
The rules aren't that hard to follow.

To be honest, when it comes to support it's:

2. My experiences have been mostly positive, very few letdowns.

Community relations is something else though.

Whenever i've had to contact support i've always found them pretty good and knowledgable. Admitedly i've never had to deal with them regarding bannings, but thats because I made sure I never did anything that was even remotely near the line.

I do miss the days of Gaile chats in La Int 1, complete with Frog and I do miss the more interactive 'town hall' style. Personally I think it was a mistake not to continue with this, but it was also important to move to a more formal style.

I think we are trying to compare different ages in the games lifetime. When Gaile was in LA int 1 many new things were being worked on in faster timescales so there was more news to give. When Regina took over, development times got longer so she had less to say, even if she may have wanted to.

I guess it is fine. I never really had any major issues.

My general experience with all computer based customer support tech or otherwise has lead to the following.

Assume you are communicating with a 10 year old it will save you a load of grief in the long run.

1 never give full information just a short explanation, they will ask you for what they want to know even if you explained it already.

2 If its a fault your reporting don't bother trying to speed it all up by telling them everything you have already tried, they only read the first sentence of your email and will ask you to try things you have done already.

3 If on the tellephone to them never ever interrupt them they have a list of things they have to say to you if you interrupt they start again from the beginning.

4 Never ring outside of normal business hours or the weekend customer services will have been outsourced to another country and language problems will ensue.

You will occasionally meet someone who actually turned up and listened during the training sessions or more likely has a natural tallen they will solve the problem in 10 minutes flat.