BTS: Message from Support

[Marco|SDS]

Hello crew!

Here is the next installment from Cornelia:

--

Dear Entropia Universe Community members,

The summer holidays are over and most people have returned to the MindArk offices. We are all looking forward to an exiting autumn with the Entropia Universe and we hope that you will join us for yet another thrilling season!

So, what’s new at the Support Department?

Well, we are expanding with further personnel starting from September 4th, to meet the increasing demand from a steadily growing Entropia Universe community. This expansion will enable us to also offer technical Support on weekends and is a first step toward our goal of providing 24-hour support.

Furthermore, we have initiated cooperation with a professional translation bureau in order to translate the Entropia Universe website into three more languages: French, Spanish and German. This project will begin at the end of September and we hope to have it finished by the end of this year. We will naturally continue offering French and German Support.

The support survey has not been forgotten. Unfortunately some priority constraints have forced us to put it on ice for a while, but as soon as we have solved these problems, we will forward the survey to you all!

To meet the request for more transparency, all support cases will soon include an ID, identifying the support member handling the specific case, which can later be used as a reference for further inquiry.

As some of you have noticed, receiving answers from the Support Department has taken unusually long the last couple of weeks. This was most regrettable. Partly this delay can be explained by the fact that we have had some substitute personnel during summer holidays, but there is also a further explanation for the long waiting times. We have noticed an increase of support tickets, which do not provide the information needed to efficiently solve the problems addressed. This slows down our work considerably. Therefore we would really appreciate it, if you could take some more time when you sit down to write your next support question. Please remember to include information such as when, what, who and how since this information is most useful for us.

We would also like to remind you of the Support Section on the website. Here you can read about current issues which might affect performance (Support News), receive instant help in resolving technical issues (Support FAQs) or check the Support Policies (which explains the work of the Entropia Universe Support Department).


Thanks for your patience and your participation in the Entropia Universe!


Cornelia Sundström
Customer Service Director

 

[Draggger]

Good Morning Marco and thanks for the update

 

[Pretender]

sounds good to me, thanks for the news! great to see the website get more languages, i'd like to know when it will be in Dutch and other languages too tho

 

[dr_udi]

Case 86648 History
27 Jul 2006

Not even opened, you could start there.

 

[Etopia]

This is my suggestion to improve the whole things :

1) Cornelia can create an account in here ,with her name , not to get support PM , but she could read what happen in som thread , and also , maybe ask som more info for som specific problem that occur to the whole comunauty.

Maybe , we can had a field with our computeur spec on forum , this sometime can hightlight som problem ...


2) The suport system could be improved by using more than 1 big field text.
Like :
- computeur spec
- time of the problem
- date
- coord
- map (eudoria , amethera cnd ...)
-Town (make a list)
- name of other avatar evolved if needed
- upload screen shoot
....

Creating field that user could complette will help a lot evryone , player to give all info needed , support get all info and dont need to ask fot it ...

edit :
3) Creating an updated Bug list .
I speak about usefull bug list (take a look at SL for exemple) .
List with a good explaination of the bug , how to recrate the bug , and if exist , a workaround or partial solution for the player.There often little trick that make us survive better to som bug ... if its write in those list , for sure player will use the list and so avoid to send an other tiket for a well know bug...

 

[elisa]

We have noticed an increase of support tickets, which do not provide the information needed to efficiently solve the problems addressed. This slows down our work considerably.

I would also presume that there was an increase of support tickets with general enquiries, e.g. regarding trapping issue, mobs getting stuck with new AI, scamming, etc. This surely would slow down any Support, but I think it's not us nasty players who have nothing to do during work hours other than organising chat sessions with Support , but rather lack of communication when Support remains the only official channel to express general concerns. In this scenario Support would take the hardest hit.

Fixing bugs would also help, because if the same problem happens over and over again, only maybe first 5 support cases would have a detailed description of the issue. Others would just state 'ok, this happened again'.

I'm sure there are people who would abuse Support (I did Support for some internet provider once, I know that ), but generally speaking it's just the way things are at the moment: there was no communication with the community for nearly the whole summer and bugs are plain annoying. Once this is fixed, I'm sure Support situation would stabilise.

P.S. And thanks for the update.
P.P.S. In fairness, I never had delays with Support.

 

[AkiranBlade]

This is my suggestion to improve the whole things :

1) Cornelia can create an account in here ,with her name , not to get support PM , but she could read what happen in som thread , and also , maybe ask som more info for som specific problem that occur to the whole comunauty.

Maybe , we can had a field with our computeur spec on forum , this sometime can hightlight som problem ...


2) The suport system could be improved by using more than 1 big field text.
Like :
- computeur spec
- time of the problem
- date
- coord
- map (eudoria , amethera cnd ...)
-Town (make a list)
- name of other avatar evolved if needed
- upload screen shoot
....

Creating field that user could complette will help a lot evryone , player to give all info needed , support get all info and dont need to ask fot it ...

You cannot give rep to Etopia blah blah blah.

It would be nice to see an appearance from Cordelia on the forums also, I know there is a support system but sometimes a community approach to solving problems that are widespread can help reduce the time it takes to investigate some of these issues as many people can provide more adequate information in one place rather than many people providing partial information a thousand times in support tickets???

Unfortunately this place can become a bit of a Viper pit toward MA staff, which I find quite annoying.

Just a thought, as this would give MA more of a public face to it's customers.

 

[arieas]

Glad to see support getting up to speed.
Should bring smiles to many and much less bashing of support times.
Better communication better community.

And also glad, as i have had anotehr time out error i beleive with Ukash, really cant start to lose money this way.

 

[Kerham]

There is also a problem.

When you sell cars or telephones, you can make technical support only, is hard to believe that some buyer would be interested in manufacturer's ideas regarding life on Mars and such.

But in the case of Entropia Universe, is needed more than technical support. Nomatter how that is structured and called, the present support is technical, period.

What we need badly is a dialogue with developers and with people able to take decisions.

The hardest "support" issues regards the development of EU and MindArk's policy and, in these matters, MindArk can have 4500 employees in Support Dept., it won't help. Will be just 4500 answers like "we, at Support Department, can't discuss such issues, but we forwarded your message to development team".

I am sure that devs and board of directors or whoever decides what beer is bought in that day at MA HQ has alot of work to handle, but such communication would do good, since a pioneer business can not emerge without the help of customers.

I am not speaking about ridiculous issues like "why didn't I got a hof > 1k" or "when is better to hunt" (even if I must admit I wrote a case similar to 1st ), but we do want answers. I want badly, as example, a button "summon MA assistant" when I meet an exploiter or a bot hunter. I want to see that they aknowledge and care about various issues which are not of technical nature: ATH and its influence of loot, inflation, droprate of uber items, etc., but which badly influence the economy and the playerbase.

That means transparency.

 

[Etopia]

Unfortunately this place can become a bit of a Viper pit toward MA staff, which I find quite annoying.

Just a thought, as this would give MA more of a public face to it's customers.

From my experiance , there all time som stupid user that are harch with suport , here on tiket or what ever its the same ... there som people with no patience , harsh , insult and so on...

But many people can be very nice if som staff or support speak to them.som word here or there to say we are working on it , or som question from the suport on a specific issue , bring all time som light in the player heart.
Why do you think all game got reply from the dev team them self , and even CEO ?
Its not pure hazard or because they love blabla on forum.
But because when there a bug on graphic i like to have someone from grafic team explain me the problem , if the bug it on code , i whant a coder view , if problem is in management i whant manager info ...
It seems dumb , but so far , i saw forum with godzillon kids that are less "whining" that this one full of adult ...

the Q-A thread is perfect exemple that the communication level is not even low , but only total enexistent ...


Also , i am convinced that som aparation of cornelia on this forum and more info from marco , will reduce a lot the amount of dumb support tiket ...

 

[arieas]

I want badly, as example, a button "summon MA assistant" when I meet an exploiter or a bot hunter. I want to see that they aknowledge and care about various issues which are not of technical nature:

That would be good for direct support, game masters. Live help. If they had powers aswell to unstick players at the same time, and help someone instantly with a large support base covering issues.

 

[Photon]

MA support should not operate in the way it currently does. This is, to coin the well-versed phrase, a Virtual Universe. Just what does that mean exactly?

It means that there should be a presence within the Universe that can offer help and assistance to the "ever-growing" user-base. Not exactly like the universe police, but more like the community support officers.

As a virtual universe, support in it's current form does not work at all and is a total let down.

Cornelia, I'm terribly sorry to have such a rant here, but you are currently being negligent as a company in your service levels to your customers. Sort it out! I mean, when will we see you in EU? Or Marco, you make appearences every now and again ... why not your fellow colleagues?

Let's consider that you have a staffing problem ... why not call on the community? Nominate certain well known and trusted players to act as support officers for certain hours (with a little renumeration). This cannot be hard to set up.

I'm totally fed up with the negative feelings on this forum and in EU ... I mean, come on ... even ViagraFalls left!! Does this mean nothing to you?? It certainly doesn't to me.

Rant over ...

 

[Photon]

OK, reading that back to myself, it sounds a bit harsh ... I didn't mean to sound so harsh, but I don't like it when good people go due to a lack of meaningful correspondence between MA and the community.

I hope you understand where I'm coming from.

 

[OgiMini]

Poruguese language would be apreciated also

 

[AkiranBlade]

Good posts in here: "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Photon again."

Ah well.

Yes I came up with the idea do have community based liaisons to aid communication and help quell the voracity of the Viper pit that is some of the EF user base.

In a Virtual Universe which has 24/7/52 uptime, a months leave of most of the employees is not a good way to go, better provisions for this should have been implemented. If you intend to run internationally, then you must run as an international business.

What is MA's stance on setting up community based liaisons?

 

[Da Snake]

Thanks for your patience and your participation in the Entropia Universe!


Cornelia Sundström
Customer Service Director

Seriously Cornelia don't post here you are irrelevant. Ever since you have started with MA Customer Service as has gotten worse not better. I am not going to believe anything you say. Don’t come back to these boards until you have something to give this community besides empty promises.

 

[Mathayus]

Glad to see some more comunication between MA and us. Hope all this become better soon

 

[lanksia]

first of, u must spread some reputation before givin to Eto again blabla

From my experiance , there all time som stupid user that are harch with suport , here on tiket or what ever its the same ... there som people
with no patience , harsh , insult and so on...

That goes both ways though i had one case in particular where the support guy got rather unpleasant to not say inpolite, and sure after his reply i maybe was a bit harsh but just cause he's a dumb who doesnt wanna move his ass a tiny bit to help u solve a damn problem...thx support dude i now have the safest account since I cant change my email (no passport blabla) and the old one doesnt exist no more ...weird though how they dont mind sending u a GC, the Entropian, the ATM card, take your deposits but won't change your goddamn email

 

[AkiranBlade]

Why don't you just get your passport done?

Surely you're going to need one at some point in your life?!?!

 

[lanksia]

Why don't you just get your passport done?

Surely you're going to need one at some point in your life?!?!

cause it's around 100$, i dont need it atm and nowhere in the near future for now. Still point is as long as they r making cash they dont mind sending me stuff or taking my cash but when u try to change the email to an obviously secure and uncompromised account oh hell mighty no

k no more off topicness crawling back to my hole

 

[AkiranBlade]

But if you've got no viable identification then you are at the mercy of the rules set before you when you joined are you not?

Surely the passport is worth getting if not to pay a personal visit to MA HQ

 

[leftmostlane]

You cannot give rep to Etopia blah blah blah.

It would be nice to see an appearance from Cordelia on the forums also, I know there is a support system but sometimes a community approach to solving problems that are widespread can help reduce the time it takes to investigate some of these issues as many people can provide more adequate information in one place rather than many people providing partial information a thousand times in support tickets???

Unfortunately this place can become a bit of a Viper pit toward MA staff, which I find quite annoying.

Just a thought, as this would give MA more of a public face to it's customers.

Marco,
I would find an "open source" support system quite useful. Provide users with the opportunity to publish their support ticket as "public." Other users could then respond which would help close out problems faster and increase player happiness. Make it into a knowledge base so that users could search support tickets too. I guess I just described EF

 

[Photon]

I guess I just described EF

No offence, but EF is based on people in game ... not on official support and advice from MA. This is what's missing. EF can give answers to a lot of questions based on experience and in some cases, hearsay. At this stage, we're all crying out for facts ... and primarily, a presence.

 

[Digit]

Ok start throwing the dung at me!

First of all I don't think Cornelia should create an account here. Reason being she is a support lady-not a PR like Marco . And since this is not an Official Forum MB shouldn't have to accommodate this-but MA could open up there own forum, which they should and have certain community members moderate like other MMORPGs.

Second this update is good, long awaited, and very long needed-thanks.

Third good idea on making other translations for the site and support.

Last I get a bit upset at MA like everyone else-but when they offer improvements (no not features) go with it, don't start throwing a bunch of issues on it.

 

[AkiranBlade]

I would see only benefit to a dedicated support sub forum for the purpose of identifying common bugs and issues within EU. That way there would be more exposure to the problems and more possibilities for data to be brought forward that support needs to progress the issues to resolution.













(can you tell that I used to be a support guy many years ago? )

 

[Etopia]

First of all I don't think Cornelia should create an account here. Reason being she is a support lady-not a PR like Marco . And since this is not an Official Forum MB shouldn't have to accommodate this-but MA could open up there own forum, which they should and have certain community members moderate like other MMORPGs.

Lets face it ,MA will never open a forum , they dont have the needed tools in the pant.
MA forum would mean thats where people would come to whine , rant , and god know how the whing level could be there.
Here people try to stay nice because they know its not MA forum , but when you see how they are used to threat people , their forum would be a slander flame war in half second polutted will 200k post ...

Also , i dont see any bad things to have someone of support here.I dont think she should henddel support in here , thats not the point i think about.
But often there thread in here with 20 or 30 post about a specific bug or problem , and probably with 2 or 3 question she could forward to deseign team a very accurate info.

Again , why do you think other game own a bug and issue part on their forum ... why do you think dev post there ...
its because its a good way to get acurate info on a specific problem. Most of time a support is used for compensation , scam ... and things that people may not whant go to public.

I dont think EF should handel a bug or support forum , but i do bielive that som word from the resposible of the support sometime about specific things could improve a lot ...

So far it seems in MA they need to be 3 to use a forum.
Marco know how to use a browser and a forum.
Cornelia know what happen in support and what reply.
Frank do the translation and corection...

I personaly dont mind if marco english is not exelent , or if corneila have som problem to spell like a dictionaire.But i do mind a lot to know things about problem i encounter wile i play , i do mind about when the cash card or gold card will be deliver , i do mind to know what MA think about trapind AC and so on...

So i think all 3 can have an acount and start to post a bit more.

 

[Darkaner]

Thanks for talking to us Cornelia, I wish more MA people would do that.

I know how much undeserved crap you take as a support person, and I can only imagine what it is like to work at Mindark support.

Even if we seem a bit harsh in here and in our support cases, don't take it personally. All we really want is EU to improve and become more fun.

 

[Hoffy]

Why do we even bother ranting on about MA in these forums anymore? - now before I am jumped on - let me explain.

MA seems to have a clear policy of just jumping on these forums every so often and state that "things will get better" "we are employing more people" etc etc etc but thats where it ends.

There seems to be no follow up conversations with regards to peoples views on their comments - its like they open their window shout something to the crowd below and thats that.

I really liike EU but my support for it is seriously dwindling when the company appears to not give two tosses about its customers.

 

[Digit]

Lets face it ,MA will never open a forum , they dont have the needed tools in the pant.
MA forum would mean thats where people would come to whine , rant , and god know how the whing level could be there.
Here people try to stay nice because they know its not MA forum , but when you see how they are used to threat people , their forum would be a slander flame war in half second polutted will 200k post ...

Also , i dont see any bad things to have someone of support here.I dont think she should henddel support in here , thats not the point i think about.
But often there thread in here with 20 or 30 post about a specific bug or problem , and probably with 2 or 3 question she could forward to deseign team a very accurate info.

Again , why do you think other game own a bug and issue part on their forum ... why do you think dev post there ...
its because its a good way to get acurate info on a specific problem. Most of time a support is used for compensation , scam ... and things that people may not whant go to public.

I dont think EF should handel a bug or support forum , but i do bielive that som word from the resposible of the support sometime about specific things could improve a lot ...

So far it seems in MA they need to be 3 to use a forum.
Marco know how to use a browser and a forum.
Cornelia know what happen in support and what reply.
Frank do the translation and corection...

I personaly dont mind if marco english is not exelent , or if corneila have som problem to spell like a dictionaire.But i do mind a lot to know things about problem i encounter wile i play , i do mind about when the cash card or gold card will be deliver , i do mind to know what MA think about trapind AC and so on...

So i think all 3 can have an acount and start to post a bit more.

Ok point taken. I thought you ment she she be here to answer every post or n00b the cries foul play. What you said make sense then if it is to address a few key issues at a time.

 

[Veranol]

Developer Discussion

There is one big problem with opening a discussion with the developers, specificly regarding wanted features... Copywright/Patent.

If someone were to detail the method for a lending system (like, lending armor to other avitars) in this forum, and MA took it and implemented it, the original poster has a case for infringement and can try to collect damages and/or royalties.

Weather this would succeed is doubtfull, but it IS a strain on MA.

Just my observation.