why ANET and NSOFT tech support rocks!

Just a reminder of why A-net and Nsoft rocks.
The problem: I ordered faction online, didn’t know about the process for merging factions and GWrophecy.

So I get my new cd key from nsoft website and activate it thru their site
<big mistake> .
Then I am talking excitedly to my Guild member on yahoo and he’s telling me to merge my accounts. However when I try it says my key is activated already and to try a different one. I resign myself to the fact that I may have to get a second key. BUT I try tech support just in case.
I see to my horror that there is no phone number I can call; there is only a pm system via the nsoft site.
And here is the time line reproduced for your joy and giggles of how long it took them to fix the problem:


Date Created: 06/08/2006 04:34 PM
Last Updated: 06/09/2006 04:27 PM
Product Level 1: Guild Wars
Category Level 1: Account Support
Category Level 2: General
Status: Waiting
Department: Account Support
i cant activate factions.

Response (Thad) 06/08/2006 04:41 PM
Hello,

Thank you for contacting Guild Wars Support.
In order to research your issue further can you provide us with the following information <cut for brevity> We look forward to your response.

Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team
Customer to Support 06/08/2006 04:53 PM
Ok here is what I did and the info you requested <cut>
Response (Dave) 06/09/2006 12:03 AM
Hello,
Thank you for reporting your issue to us! We apologize for the confusion you may have experienced with this process. To remedy this situation, we'd like to have you reply with the following information: <cut>

Customer 06/09/2006 05:35 AM Thanks here is the additional info<cut>
Response (Colby) 06/09/2006 10:29 AM
Hello,
To resolve this issue we would like to make the following ONE-TIME offer of reissuing you a Guild Wars Factions access key for your other existing Guild Wars Prophecies account

If you accept this offer then the current account that utilizes that access key will have the key permanently disabled. This does not delete the account, but does remove any bonuses, such as the ability to log into the live servers, that the key previously provided to that specific account. If you wished to utilize that account again in the future, you would need to apply the appropriate keys to it to do so and of course, you will need to purchase a retail copy of the game for each account that you wish to remain active.
<cut>
If this is agreeable to you, please reply and let us know.
Customer 06/09/2006 11:19 AM
Ok I grant my approval.
Response (Matt) 06/09/2006 12:37 PM
Hello ,
Thank you for accepting our reissue offer. I am escalating this request to our reissues team. They will reply to you again once they have more information to provide.
Because of the high volume of reissue requests we are receiving at this time, please be aware that it may take 2 to 3 business days for your reissue request to be processed.
Thank you for your continued patience as we work to resolve this issue for you.
Kind Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team
Response (Colby) 06/09/2006 04:27 PM {note it didn’t take three days it took a couple of HOURS( and this was on Friday too)}
Hello
Thank you for replying and accepting our offer to reissue your access key(s). The access key you previously sent us will NO LONGER BE VALID. You are being issued this NEW replacement key...<cut>

And BOOM I was fixed up and running. Considering that I began on Thursday and was done late Friday and the whole process was via emails I would say this was pretty phenomenal service! THANKS ANET AND NSOFT!
Blakk

Finally someone showing the positive side There's so much whining about Anet going on...

/dance ~.~

Very good to know they're helping people out with this all too common issue. Now if only they could fix the...j/k :P I've got nothing to whine about. Anyone else have any happy stories of A.Net support powah?!?

It is not so much they rock, they just understand what a credit card chargeback is

No, sorry, the OP was right: The Support Team rocks.

Any chance they can do a little switcheroo for me so my CE account will have both CE keys and the regular account will have both regular keys?

ANet support rocks because it not only exists, but actually does stuff.

Ever try getting anything out of EA? Because you can't!

To be fair, Stardock is also great.

Oh god dont get me started on EA.... >.< The Sims/The Sims 2 have probably the worst installing systems of any game. Good luck to casual non-computer geeks to deal with their support answers.

Go anet. Nice to see people not winging about them.

Also Gaile my offer still stands about buying you FOW armor as I remember last time you turned me down lol

You can't flaw ANet for its tech support. I've always had quick responses from them when i've had problems.

Cheers.
Just wanted to share with everyone that I had a guild mate that experienced this same issue.

His "Factions only account" was "terminated" and he was issued a new factions CDKEY.

My dilemma was this: "I" do tech support myself; I know what it takes to man the phones. I also personally hate automated or email systems. I was disappointed for like 10 secs when I realized there was no phone based tech support. Then I started thinking" how can they support a game that might have nearly a million players form different countries, via the phone. They cant. The cost for a service center that could handle that volume would drive the game’s price up
So I started the email process. I truly expected to wait a week to get this resolved, especially since I generated the initial request on a Friday, as business days don’t include Saturday and Sunday.

I and my fellow Guild mate’s have been playing Gw since its release in the US. Over that time period, things happen.
When I told my guildie’s about the turnaround time, and how happy I was with the service, they agreed and told me about the times they had to contact support and they found it to be good as well.

They did listen to me when i reported the iron mines of molandune bug, in which the mursaat found it funny to stay alive, and degen my party to death

Hurray for the Support

Try getting stuff out of SOE (Sony Online Entertainment). They are the worst. I will not buy anything with a SOE logo.

So if I buy factions I have to merge the acounts first if I ever want them together?(and don't want to go through all that....)

Its really easy to merge accounts. if you buy your game online they will give you a cd key. as soon as you get the key do this:
1) Launch the Guild Wars game client.
2) Click the Create Account or Add Access Key option on the login screen.
3) Click the Add the Access Key to an existing Guild Wars account checkbox.
4) Enter your account e-mail address and password, and click the Next> button.
5) Enter your Access Key, and click the Next> button.
6) Click the Next> button to accept the addition of your access key.

i would make a new thread on this but in sure there is one already stickied somewhere

Anet rocks hah

Well, don't count on them to deal with scammers, they support it. By doing nothing, even with proof. Fortunately I haven't needed them for anything else so I wouldn't know how they are technically.

Support team rocks? LOL that's a good one.

Reported a bug about /resign over a month ago and they just ignored it after a few inquires. I resubmitted it recently since it's not fixed.

Most skill timers are off from 1-4 seconds. They ask for skills, they've been told skills. Keep finding more that are off. Seems like the whole timer system is off.

There was a GW issue where weapons had no skins at certain angles. Took them days to figure out what they were told from the beginning. That it was a problem on their end. I was pissed because for days they gave me the runaround. Install this, install that, do this, do that. I finally said forget it when they told me I had spyware on my system. Being a pc tech I know the ins and outs of my system and keep it clean. It was amusing that the next patch came out for GW and the issue was mysteriously fixed, and it wasn't a driver problem as they continuously tried to play it off as.

With the armor not being updated, support has said and I quote.
So far the only positive response I've gotten is about the /resign bug which has been said to have a fix coming in the near future.

Yup, I must say they are pretty fantastic. I forget what my problem was some monthes ago, but it was something that had been bugging me and I send them an e-mail and recieve a reply within an hour when I was expecting it to take a day, I was pretty flipping amazed.

i emailed the support the other day and in about 5 minutes i had a response i couldnt belive how fast they were. its great how fast get back to you

Don't you just love automated responses. They have a ton of those messages.

Last night I kept getting disconnected on err07's. As it wasn't my connection (My TS was up & I could surf with no problems), I finally got tired of it and sent an in-game bug report letting them know what was going on. I had another err07 about 5 minutes later, but after that I played for 2 hours without another problem. - GJ guys!

Most emails are not automated, they are canned, with a pre-written response, but some one still has to read the e-mail and decide which is best.

It is always good to hear of the response times of the support team since I'm still waiting for them after 15+ emails to try to rectify a problem.
Keep up the errr "good" work..

They fixed the same situation for me - an account 'merger' - and I was quite pleased with the service. I'm inclined to agree.

Gotto agree.. the Anet support team know there stuff, and are really helpful. Thanks for employing people who know what they are talking about!

Umm, last I checked, the /bug command was disabled upon release of Guild Wars: Prophecies, and I am unaware of any new in-game reporting method - meaning your supposed report was never recieved.



Now, on to my experiances with the tech support. I have used it a few times, and this is my conclusion:

The following links are to several Foamy flash cartoon episodes. These do contain some profanity, and where intended for entertainment purposes. Do not take what is said seriously (although I see a strong connection between the cartoons and ArenaNet/NCSoft support).

http://www.friendsoffoamy.com/index.php?id=144
http://www.friendsoffoamy.com/index.php?id=310
http://www.friendsoffoamy.com/index.php?id=269


Needless to say, unless there is some big change soon, I am not going to be using their tech support anymore.

I fail to see where it "rocks".
The key issue was most likely smoething aNet saw coming, because there was a lot of confusion before and after the release of factions about merging keys/accounts.
So they simply prepared for a mass of users who'd get it wrong on the 1st attempt.
And I can't say that a service that one prepares for, and that still takes 1.5 days actually "rocks".
Sorry, no master-reward for this one.

I always found it best to meassure the quality of support not only by the time they take, but also by the exotic-nes of the problem.

See, any fool can e.g. reset a password or send you tons of FAQs and the like, but analyzing a specific and rare problem and coming up with a fast and qualified solution, that's something else, and as far as I had to be in contact with any hotline, this is usually where they fail big-time, and aNet is no exception to that rule.

The only problem I have encountered from Anet tech whas when my acct gor stolen/hacked whatever happend, but my friend gave me the account but now I can't get in touch with him for the key tied to it, and sadly without a key I'm screwed out of alot of crap

well last I heared they don't read the ingame bug reports anymore, so the issue probably resolved itself.

I've heard that too, and have wondered about it (I tend to doubt things I hear from forums until is see proof from official channels or personal experience.) I remeber when you sent a bug report that you'd get a message saying thanks for the bug report. It seems odd to me that you don't get an "unknown command" message when you type in /bug if they did away with it.

Either way, I was happy that the problem went away - LOL.

yeah every now an then that might happen but usually just kinkles out, one time I could surf an talk on vent but GW kept getting err 05? so what I did was reset my router

i sent in a problem 3 days ago and still havent gotten a response awesome

hmmmm. what started out as a "Thanks for the help, ANET" has turned into a "Why ANET sucks"
amazing how these things go, isnt it?

Yeah, strange how the freedom of speech can work in miraculous ways.
And strange that, where there is a lot of light, there's a lot of shadow.

A ticket expires in 72 hours, so you should update the ticket when the time is nearly up and they haven't replied.

Also check your junk mail box, a lot of people forget to check it there since Plaync mail might be mistaken as junk.

it just bothers me, that someone comes on th say a simple "thank you"
and people just start tearing them down. how many hundreds of threads about sukky tech support have there been? compared to like 2 good ones...

And I find it strange how people can wander off-topic....

Junk? Where would it get that idea? :P