support request (#71572)? - concerned player

#1 - Nov. 21, 2013, 6:25 p.m.

Dear Gaile,

I recently raised an issue about me not recieving the mini krait nimross for an achievement; I posted here and 2 very helpful souls helped me work out what happened and the enquiry was rightfully closed.

Today after over a week of waiting for a response from customer support, I received the following response:

Hello (name redacted),

Thanks very much for letting us know about the issue that you noted in Guild Wars 2.

I understand you did not receive the achievement for the toxic Hybrid. The next time that you’re in the game and you find a bug, you can do us a favor by submitting an in-game bug report. This will send detailed information about your character and your position directly to our Quality Assurance Team and will help us kitten the issue as promptly as possible. To submit a bug report in the game, simply click on the “Game Menu” button in the upper left-hand corner of the game interface, then choose the “Support” option on the Game Menu. That option will allow you to review known issues, report a bug, or contact Customer Support.

You’re also welcome to report a game issue in the Game Bugs sub-forum of the Guild Wars 2 Forums ( http://support.guildwars2.com/forum/support/bugs ). You may include screenshots with your forum report, if you wish to do so. While we are unable to respond directly to each bug report that we receive on the forums or through the game interface, each report is reviewed and escalated, when appropriate.

Thank you again for taking the time to let us know about this issue.

Regards,
(name redacted)
Guild Wars 2 Support Team
http://support.guildwars2.com/

Now I am bringing this to your attention as at no point did the customer services representative try and explain the issue I had. Within minutes of posting here, I received 2 incredibly helpful posts from users of the game, after over a week of waiting, support responded with a generic “heres how to submit a bug” response.

I am well aware how to submit a bug, however I did not wish to submit a bug as at the time of submission, I wanted some direct help with what had happened, with either some advice (like I gained in my previous post on this forum) or a reinstatement of the pet if it had of been a genuine bug. (which it turned out not to be).

The above response however was dismissive, trite and not of the standard, I have come to expect from anet.

For note I have been part of the Test Krewe since it’s inception in GW1, I continued to test in GW2 and I’ve been fortunate enough to be in direct contact with many anet people and I have found your staff to be nothing but diligent, committed and passionate people, who care about the game and their player base. This post is in no way an attack on Anet, who as a company, I have nothing but the deepest respect for but as Support Liason, I thought you may be interested to learn that the direct support team do not always show the same diligence you continue to display on this forum and the kind of response I received above does not leave a player feeling appreciated and assisted, but rather dismissed.

As said I have nothing but respect for how much effort and work you put into the community, gaile.

Kind Regards,

Salome

Gaile Gray

#2 - Nov. 21, 2013, 7:09 p.m.

~prepare for potential Wall O’ Text as I write to think~

Thank you for sharing this, Salome, and that’s not a generic “Gee, thanks” but one offered with real gratitude. Your comments are an obvious attempt to help us improve and that’s always a good thing. Let me share a couple of thoughts:

It’s not possible for a support agent to know the answer to every potential question about the game. It’s simple not possible. The game world is huge and the content offers millions of elements. No agent, not even a team of agents, can know every detail about GW2. So, if an agent cannot answer a question, and if his/her teammates also are unsure of how best to answer, and if it seems bug-like, getting a potential bug into the bug system is a good idea.

But because this wasn’t a bug, and other non-bugs may get the same bug answer. So what if the agent had said something like “This could be a bug, so report it this way (with the info s/he gave” but included, “This also could be something that your fellow players have run into but which we don’t have documented yet.” What if the agent suggested that you post on the Player-Helping-Player Sub-Forum, decidedly not to avoid answering the question, but simply because our millions of players know more than we do? And what if the agent also suggested that there might be information on that Gold Mine of Amazingness™: The Guild Wars 2 Wiki?

As a player, I would welcome that. “Hey, cool, resources that might help me!” But someone else may say, “No, you’re passing the buck, you should answer me explicitly and in detail!” Face it, we don’t have enough people to create a character, play to a certain level, and try to reproduce every potential situation a player may encounter.

So — anyone is welcome to share an opinion — Where CS simply doesn’t have an explicit answer to a gameplay question, how would you feel about being given additional potential resources in your ticket response?

Gaile Gray

#5 - Nov. 21, 2013, 10:36 p.m.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:
As a suggestion, a perusal of the release page, and the corresponding patch note Highlights, might serve the Support team in good stead. This particular issue was addressed there, and wasn’t really that obscure. It only takes maybe 5 minutes every two weeks to become slightly familiar with the current patch, and could be helpful in addressing concerns players send in.

The team is sent the notes and is asked to review them. I’ll ask the leads to make sure their team members give things a good read.

Gaile Gray

#9 - Nov. 22, 2013, 3:17 p.m.

Salome — so that I can best understand this: Was what you experienced an actual game bug? Or did you have a gameplay question that players were able to answer through forum posts?

Gaile Gray

#12 - Nov. 22, 2013, 7:46 p.m.

Taking your comments on board, I will discuss with our team leads how we can improve our responses in situations like this.