Should Joymax install in-game petition system?
Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:44 am
We've had for months topics about bots, scams and hacked accounts and other complaints but only answers from Joymax have been on Daily Questions and Answers. No real action to correct things for those hacked players and hundreds of botters roam free on every server. I'm not sure what other duties GMs have than monitor players (ban bots), report founded bugs to developers and restart servers when something goes wrong. All I see that there's way too few GMs to help us.
I'm concerned of getting hacked eventually since all those 1.7M+ login names were leaked when they updated their forum. I keep long and good password but there's still chance of getting it by brute force methods (seen pics of those programs even on this forum). What would I do if I get hacked? I'd quit and never come back. I haven't bought silk yet since I don't think that the security in this game is up to standards so leaving wouldn't be big loss for me.
I haven't been yet on situation where I would have needed GM's help but I've seen many that have tried to contact them and failed. This brings me to the topic's question, shouldn't we have better system in-game to get help when needed? Be it getting stuff back for hacked account or reporting abusive language users or gold sellers etc. Shouldn't there be always GMs available to help on every server?
I've seen such systems on other mmorpgs and there it takes from few minutes to couple hours to get contacted by GM and sort things out (contact time depends on how serious issue you have). GM would check your character's log file in case of lost items or ban chat spammer/gold seller from game. In hacking case GM would have to check only IP addresses from where account has been accessed and if IPs are like in different countries, it's more than likely that the one that is much different than other logged IPs is the hacker's address. Once confirmed, GM could return stuff back to hacked char. It shouldn't take more than couple minutes to do this. This way they would also get hackers IP addresses and they could monitor their actions and ban their main accounts.
We do have Silk Assistants who can send our messages to GMs on SA forum but that's not immediate help. If not make more work load for GMs, perhaps they could make Silk Assistants (or new similar group) to have "power" (not GM powers) to resolve some simple petitions. Silk Assistant could contact the player in-game and talk about his petition, if it's serious issue SA could send it to GM for further investigation and if it's some easy issue that SA can handle (like some newbie questions how things work in-game) then GM's help wouldn't be needed as SA could give the answers. Getting help fast in-game would make player ie. the customer happier. And after petition is solved player could get automatic question to rate how his petition was handled, this way Joymax could gather info how good job SAs/GMs do on solving petitions and replace those who don't do their job well.
To Joymax:
Your current operation policy says: "The Silkroad Online operations team will not offer services to resolve instances of account theft/hacking.". This is BAD way to treat (paying) customers. Example: your credit card gets stolen and thief uses it. You go to bank and try to get that card closed and bank clerk would say: "Sorry, we can't do nothing and we can't return your money. Thief is free to use that card, it's your fault that you let him get it.". Who would use such bank's services? I wouldn't.
Basic customer relationships are important, if you ignore customers requests you'll soon notice that they leave. If you help them (fast) it's more than likely that they stay even if it was something bad that happened to them (like getting hacked).
So, should Joymax install in-game petition system?
I'm concerned of getting hacked eventually since all those 1.7M+ login names were leaked when they updated their forum. I keep long and good password but there's still chance of getting it by brute force methods (seen pics of those programs even on this forum). What would I do if I get hacked? I'd quit and never come back. I haven't bought silk yet since I don't think that the security in this game is up to standards so leaving wouldn't be big loss for me.
I haven't been yet on situation where I would have needed GM's help but I've seen many that have tried to contact them and failed. This brings me to the topic's question, shouldn't we have better system in-game to get help when needed? Be it getting stuff back for hacked account or reporting abusive language users or gold sellers etc. Shouldn't there be always GMs available to help on every server?
I've seen such systems on other mmorpgs and there it takes from few minutes to couple hours to get contacted by GM and sort things out (contact time depends on how serious issue you have). GM would check your character's log file in case of lost items or ban chat spammer/gold seller from game. In hacking case GM would have to check only IP addresses from where account has been accessed and if IPs are like in different countries, it's more than likely that the one that is much different than other logged IPs is the hacker's address. Once confirmed, GM could return stuff back to hacked char. It shouldn't take more than couple minutes to do this. This way they would also get hackers IP addresses and they could monitor their actions and ban their main accounts.
We do have Silk Assistants who can send our messages to GMs on SA forum but that's not immediate help. If not make more work load for GMs, perhaps they could make Silk Assistants (or new similar group) to have "power" (not GM powers) to resolve some simple petitions. Silk Assistant could contact the player in-game and talk about his petition, if it's serious issue SA could send it to GM for further investigation and if it's some easy issue that SA can handle (like some newbie questions how things work in-game) then GM's help wouldn't be needed as SA could give the answers. Getting help fast in-game would make player ie. the customer happier. And after petition is solved player could get automatic question to rate how his petition was handled, this way Joymax could gather info how good job SAs/GMs do on solving petitions and replace those who don't do their job well.
To Joymax:
Your current operation policy says: "The Silkroad Online operations team will not offer services to resolve instances of account theft/hacking.". This is BAD way to treat (paying) customers. Example: your credit card gets stolen and thief uses it. You go to bank and try to get that card closed and bank clerk would say: "Sorry, we can't do nothing and we can't return your money. Thief is free to use that card, it's your fault that you let him get it.". Who would use such bank's services? I wouldn't.
Basic customer relationships are important, if you ignore customers requests you'll soon notice that they leave. If you help them (fast) it's more than likely that they stay even if it was something bad that happened to them (like getting hacked).
So, should Joymax install in-game petition system?