Event Calendar is wrong? (Darkmoon Faire)

Hello everyone.

For those of you who were unaware, the Faire was last week, not this week.

I apologize greatly for the miscommunication between my team and the web team who maintains the event calendar. The March Darkmoon Faire was listed a week later than it actually occurred.

Unfortunately we cannot spawn the Darkmoon Faire for a second week. However, I'm in the process of sifting through the rest of the Faire dates to make absolutely certain they're correct. If I find any more inaccuracies, I will get them corrected for you.

***EDIT***

For the sake of anyone joining us just now:

After discussions and checks to ensure there are no conflicts, the Darkmoon Faire should return after Tuesday's maintenance.

Q u o t e:
I've had this deck for almost 4 weeks and now you're telling me because you screwed up, I have to hold onto it for almost another 4 weeks just to hand it in?

No... just no.

Please spawn the Faire!

I'm sorry, but it's not an option. I assure you the April Faire's date is correct, and I've gone through the calendar and informed the web team of further inaccuracies so it won't occur again.

GMs will not have the ability to exchange decks for trinkets, and no amount of my mandating it will make it so.

I play the game. I've gotten a deck myself. I understand it's an inconvenience for you, and that you've been looking forward to turning in the deck.

The Faire was there last week. It ran all week. It wasn't bugged, the barkers showed up as they were supposed to, and everything went smoothly.

I have apologized for the miscommunication between the web team and my team. However, as this was not a situation wherein the content in-game was not working properly, the Faire will not return until next month.

I apologize for being gone for a bit, folks -- I had a meeting to attend.

I understand you're upset. I do. I understand you'd like to see the Faire come back. I understand you want to turn in your decks. I'm very sorry for the miscommunication that resulted in the date you were expecting being incorrect.

I want to clarify what you won't see.

You will not see a single NPC spawned in to turn in your decks.

You will not see the GMs take your decks and give you trinkets in return.

Now, I will have a discussion with my team again about the situation. I would suggest, however, being patient.

Q u o t e:


Can you please bring this post with you.
And one thing us people will not be patient for another month...I can assure you of that.

I do believe that came across on the first page. :P

I understand you're upset. However, profanity, insults and the like are not going to get you results.

Let's have a civil chat about this rather than being insulting, hm?

Q u o t e:
Kisirani, your latest post is unacceptable. I hope by being patient you don't mean waiting until April. That too is unacceptable. You screwed up, we didn't. The tickets and posts will continue. If you choose to ban me or limit my thread access, a stop payment will be issued on my credit card until you come up with a better solution. I encourage anyone who is appalled at this level of customer service to do the same.

Being upset, my friend, does not mean you are exempt from forum rules.

I'm not taking action against anyone. I'm calmly informing the people angry in the thread that being civil will bring about the best results.

I meant being patient until I speak with my team and return with an answer for you. While this will most likely be today, it will not be immediately.

Thank you, folks, for stepping up and providing civil discourse lately. That's what I'm after, and I apologize if at any point I came off as patronizing.

Spawning the NPC is not a solution as it would have to be done manually by a person across all servers. If that server had issues, it would have to be spawned again. There are other concerns as well regarding that method -- it is not something we employ, as a result.

Like I said, I will discuss it with my team, but in the meantime, please be patient and civil in your discussion of the matter. Thank you. :)

Q u o t e:

I know you say that GM's will NOT be trading in decks for cards. But why not? Would it really be that difficult and time consuming? Would this not be the PROPER way for a company to handle the problem?

Someone made a good point about an advertised sale being for the wrong date. I've seen it happen before, and I know from experience that if you brought in the ad on the date of the advertised sale, that if the item still was in stock, you would get it for that sale price.

yes, the manager might have to spend time talking to the customers, and yes the customers would have to take the time to talk to a manager. But they would do it, because they care about customers and business.

So, that begs the question. Do you not care about your customers and business? Would it not be worth your time to have GM's trade these decks for the proper trinket? Just for this week? Would it not show that Blizzard cared for its players in doing this?

How much would that actually cost your company? Whatever the cost, it would be worth it for the good will it would bring Blizzard.

No one is asking you to break a rule. To give out any items unfairly. We are just asking for some customer service.

This is also not an option.

The act of turning in a deck is a quest. GMs cannot complete a quest for you and give you the requisite reward item. This is not a service they can provide, and there are a variety of reasons behind it, including that of policy.

I am very much aware of our options at this stage in the game. While I appreciate the suggestions being made, trust me when I say that it is not a question of what can be done, and suggesting alternatives isn't really on the road to getting the solution you desire.

Q u o t e:
I totally think that spawning an NPC to turn in the decks to during the downtime tuesday morning would be the best option. So what if it would take an individual effort of a GM for every server. You guys messed up, now put some man power towards fixing it. Seems simple to me.

To reiterate what has already been said:

Spawning one NPC is not a clean option.

I understand what the options are, folks. I appreciate your desire to help, but suggestions on how to remedy the situation aren't really what I require at this stage. :)

Q u o t e:
A suggestion:

Use the server MOTD to inform players that they can mail their decks to a specific character name (perhaps a GM or something that won't get past the name creation filter) in exchange for the appropriate trinket within 24 hours. No need to hotfix, no flood of GM tickets, and 2 hours a day for one GM to fix the problem for a lot of customers.

For the last time, no, this is not an option.

Folks, I can't go into every last detail regarding spawning and the like, but I will tell you that the only option that we would pursue regarding this matter would be to spawn the faire again. And this is not up for debate. Your hearts are in the right place, but please, please trust me when I say that your suggestions actually carry more problems and more uncertainty than the one I've stated.

As I said, this is something that must be discussed with my team.

Q u o t e:


Just out curiosity, and I don't mean to be rude. If the only option is not planed on being executed, what is there to discuss with your team?

Whether or not it will be. There are considerations to be made. That's why I asked for your patience.

While we're waiting (it's out of my hands now at the moment, we're speaking with other folks) I do apologize for the ambiguity in my previous statement. I should have made it more clear that we were considering no other options other than spawning the faire in its entirety.

You folks have, for the most part, been patient since I requested it, and for that I thank you.

While we're waiting... (yes, we're still waiting)..

I've gone into reasons why GMs cannot give you what you're after.

I've gone into reasons why NPCs alone cannot be spawned.

I'd like now to explain why spawning the Faire again isn't a simple task. This is not something that can be done in the blink of an eye. On my end it's relatively quick, but there's more to bringing this about than simply plugging in a number or two.

It requires realm restarts, for one thing, and this is something we wouldn't do at this time or indeed at any time during the evening for something less than a critical fix. While I do completely understand that you want your decks, we wouldn't want to interrupt the play of thousands upon thousands of people who have no interest in this. That, too, would be poor service.

Now, it's Monday, so we have maintenance coming up, which is a good opportunity for a restart fix. It requires some work on the part of those who maintain the servers, so it's important to make certain such a fix isn't conflicting with anything.

We're in that process. Be patient with me a bit longer.

Q u o t e:


I noticed the calendar was wrong LAST month where you stated that "LOVE IS IN THE AIR" started on SUNDAY.....well it didn't start on SUNDAY, I believe it was MONDAY.

So if I was you and your staff, I would be DOUBLE CHECKING ALL THE SEASON EVENTS and make sure your dates are correct. Believe it or not, some people actually do plan ahead and likes to check on the dates BEFORE THEY HAPPEN.

You may have missed this, as you are quoting a rather early post of mine, but I did just that for the Faire dates, and I plan to go through again and make certain the rest of the dates are correct.

Q u o t e:


Would you mind terribly checking the DMF dates for November and December? The others seem to take place during the first full week of each month, just not these two. I could be wrong and, if I am, could you explain what dictates when the DMF runs?

Thanks for all the replies and feedback :)

Edit: June and September, also.

I did check them, and corrections, if necessary, have already been put forth to the web team. :)

Q u o t e:


but spawning one NPC manually on each server would certainly require a lot less manpower than what is currently being wasted answering all the tickets and forum posts, not to mention, its a solution that would go into effect much quicker and make customers happier.

Youre effectivelty arguing against the solution that would be less work for everyone than waiting for this all to blow over, less work than trying to work out some sorf of whole-fair respawn that ties into server resets, and much quicker than telling us all to bend over and take a one month wait.

You are arguing against effective customer service and decreased workloads on your staff. What exactly is the upside here?

I am sorry, but you are mistaken. In essence, it is not effective customer service to spawn in the single NPC that would not be subject to normal spawning rules and thus would need to be minded quite often by GM staff across all servers to make certain it was still up.

Please read the rest of the thread. :)

Q u o t e:


im sorry if ive misunderstood then, but i dont see why it would require constant monitoring. The NPC normally used for the turnins is already coded as is, and insofar as i understand it, would merely require activation, and once spawned, only need GM attention if something breaks and an alarm triggers.

From my standpoint, I work with EKGs all day, and when a patient comes in, they get hooked up and the monitors set. I dont need to watch their every waveform deflection, as I have another 50 patients to watch. I just have to document them every couple hours, keep a passive eye, look at the charts, and keep an open ear for alarms.

maybe my experience is causing me to draw a connection that isnt in fact so pertinent, but as I can hook an EKG up at any time of day or night, because the technology already exists, I dont see why a pre-coded NPC that normally runs on total automation would require such intensive monitoring as you imply. Personally, Im not in that big of a twist over it, but if im asking these quesitons, I can garuntee a lot of other people are, and most of them are being far less nice about it,a nd would be a lot happier if they understood the distinction.

Manually spawning it would deactivate most of its automation, which would require a great deal of minding.

Q u o t e:



so what? you guys are paying the people that messed up. They should spawn them and fix it. Their getting paid we're paying you guys. They'd have a whole month to re activate its automation.

Would you accept poorer GM response time across the board in order to have this NPC active?

I don't consider that an acceptable solution, and I'll wager a good number of players would agree in that area.

It has already been discussed what the options are, and spawning in a single NPC is not one of them.

Q u o t e:


are you saying that GM response time across the board isnt already degraded due to the volume of complaints and tickets?

Not in comparison, no.

I will reiterate this plainly:

The only option to allow people to turn their decks in is to start up the entire faire again.

There is no other means that will be considered.

I appreciate the thought behind posing suggestions, but I have already explained many times why they are not feasible.

Q u o t e:




so why not jsut respawn at mainatnce u can despawn and fix teh programming arroes after the week it woudl save u form the time taken to write teh even shorter responces and calm everybody down. icould be assumign this but i belive it woudl help with the gm congestion at eh time being due to ur mess up at blizz.

I do hope you've read the several posts I've made that the discussion of spawning the faire during Tuesday maintenance is already being made.

The discussion is still in process. I can't speed it up. Please bear with me, here.

Q u o t e:


It needs alot of bumping. I wouldnt want Kisirani to lose it.

No bumping is necessary. I assure you, my forum navigation skills are up to the task, and I haven't forgotten. I'll update you when I have news to give.

After discussions and checks to ensure there are no conflicts, the Darkmoon Faire should return after Tuesday's maintenance.

Q u o t e:


How is it going to come to be? Is it just going to be there after the servers come up Tuesday, or is the normal weekly process of setting up on friday before its active going to be.

And where is the location? Alliance area again?

It should be fully up and running in Elwynn.

Q u o t e:
Grats Kirisani on deleting your post.

Out of curiosity, what post do you feel I deleted? I only edited the first post, and I didn't remove anything other than the status update; I only added the conclusion.

Q u o t e:


if the code is using Julian dates to determine the end of the month, this year, being a leap year, will throw off those months where the previous month ends on a Friday. As such, you are likely to have this issue again in November, since Oct 31 is a Friday.

I've made sure all the rest of the Faire dates are correct for this year. ;)

Q u o t e:


I appreciate that we did get a result, but if this is true, wouldn't it imply that the blizzard rep in this thread was . . . um . . . lying when she said they couldn't respawn the faire without a server restart?

Not to be ungrateful, but if you throw out spin sometimes it'll spin back and hit you in the face.

Sri... trust me when I say that while some things can appear without a realm restart, it is only in restarting the realm that we can assure it will function properly. And with maintenance, it will. :)

Q u o t e:


The calendar date was never wrong. Faire starts on Monday after the first Friday of the month. It was the programming that had the flaw because they didn't take the leap year into account. The 1st of March would have been the first Friday but leap year made the 7th the first Friday. Programmers should double check their code.

Let me clarify when I said I checked the dates.

I went through both the events calendar and the dates in the code to ensure they were correct. They now are for the rest of the year.