Take responsibility for your errors.

#1 - April 16, 2013, 7:05 p.m.

Dear ArenaNet,

I have loved Gw2 ever since I purchased it in early January. I have gone on to level 3 characters to 80 and gear them in full exotics. I play daily and have put significant time into my account, and until today I couldn’t be happier with it.

Last night, I was in WvW leading my guild. I ended up having to go AFK and obviously I timed out and ended up in Lions Arch. I go to my inventory to look at all of the loot I obtained in WvW and to empty my Loot Bags. Before doing this, I go to switch to my Super Greatsword (which I had previously equipped). It was not there and obviously I was a bit upset seeing it not on my account.

I went to check my bank, it was not there. I checked the merchant, and it was not in my recently sold items. It was soulbound so I couldnt transfer it to anybody else. In my mind, a mistake was made, and I was going to contact the creators of this game to see if I could get a simple rollback to regain my greatsword which was mysteriously missing.

I sent a ticket this morning at work during one of my breaks, and they responded promptly. I was quite happy to see that ANet got back to me ASAP. However, that happiness faded once I opened it.

“Unfortunately, we are currently unable to restore any items that are destroyed in-game, vendored and are no longer in the buyback tab, or sold on the Trading Post. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience this causes you. Hopefully at some point in the future, this may be a courtesy we may be able to provide.”

This was a shocker to me, not because they said they couldnt restore items that were lost as per user error, but because they assumed it was user error. I was positive that it was more of a game error, or glitch (as this game is glitched and bugged beyond belief), so I responded asking them to check the logs.

I was then greeted with this:
“Based on our logs from the 48 hours prior to your contacting us, it doesn’t appear the item was salvaged, destroyed, or sold on the Trading Post. If this occurred before that, we would need a specific time and date to check those logs. Aside from that, we’re not able to see what may have happened.

I’m sorry that there’s not more that we can do in this case. Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns."

As I was in WvW and then kicked off when this incident occurred, I was obviously not shocked to see that they confirmed that this was NOT a user error. So if user errors were eliminated, then that should leave a server or programming error, right? I wrote back and essentially stated that they owned up to this being a non-user error (which I would have fessed up to and swallowed my own mistakes), and that they should at least roll my account back to last night or the previous snapshot of the account as I would be perfectly fine with losing whatever gold I made. I just did not want to waste more time in the Super Adventure Box getting back the skin.

Unfortunately, I received this as the final answer:
“As I said before, we are only able to provide a rollback if we can verify the account was compromised. As yours was not, our tools will not allow us to perform a rollback on your account. "

Now tell me, even though my account wasn’t compromised, and it was not a user side error (as admitted by reviewing the logs), why can you not satisfy a loyal customer?

Thanks!

Gaile Gray

#23 - April 17, 2013, 4:49 p.m.

I am very sorry that this happened. I’d be happy to review the ticket, but I don’t see the number here. Can you give me the 12-digit number?

In general, game logs are both reliable and comprehensive. When an agent says they have not been able to confirm the details that were provided by a customer, you can be sure that they have tried to do that. If someone says “I had XX item and it’s gone” the team looks at it from various angles: Were they hacked? Did they sell it? Did they destroy it? When they cannot see any of that happening, they answer candidly to that effect.

Our first objective is to keep every legitimate player happy and well-served. So while I have not yet been able to review your particular ticket, in general, the response comes after an extensive effort to help, and is not a means to brush things under the carpet.

Gaile Gray

#25 - April 17, 2013, 5:54 p.m.

Bjond.3581:
My character experienced a rollback while in WvW last night. It was actually to my (very slight) advantage, so I didn’t bother to report it. I’ll list the details below in case the rollback issue is more widespread and perhaps impacting your case here; if there was a rollback for your character, too, it might explain why AN seems to be a little confused about what’s going on. A rollback would imply their own DB is missing information.

At roughly 03:15 PST, my thief was punted from the green BL while mapping “login server connection lost, etc etc”. Attempted to log back to that same BL were met with the same error. However, I could log into all other WvW zones as well as LA. I tried full exit and relog. Same result. All zones but green BL were fine. Rougly 15m later, I tried the green BL again and was able to enter.

Checking the map showed two POI and one skillpoint that I had obtained were now shown on the map as unvisited. I checked my character’s skill point total and it was fine; ie. the character had not lost a skill point. The character had all it’s skill-points (and I assume XP) and and only lost data on where it got that skill point.

I ran back, suspecting that when I got close, the map would adjust itself, but I was able to obtain the same skill point and the XP for both POIs a second time. I don’t know about items. If the character lost any, it was only v.minor junk.

Hope this helps out on resolving the problem.

While I appreciate your effort to help, I believe that issue was unrelated to the OP, and I’d like to focus on that situation. Thanks.

Gaile Gray

#30 - May 14, 2013, 3:13 p.m.

With regret, I am not able to offer any additional help with this ticket. The team responded accurately: We are not able to offer item roll-backs or replacements and we do not offer account restorations — which involve the full account — to replace a lost item or items.

When there are server-side issues — such as you suggested — we are aware of it through server logs and we also gain confirmation through multiple reports. When such issues occur, they never involve a single player, but a number of players. We have no logs or other reports; your report was the only one we received, and obviously was connected to your individual account and activities on it, such as vendoring, destroying, or salvaging the items — any of which can happen accidentally.

Since your account shows no record of compromise, it is ineligible for restoration.

So while I understand you’d prefer a different than the one you received, what you were told, and the outcome of your request, were accurate.