Bug reporters incentive?

[Monkey Man]

Recently I found a bug that makes you lose Mind Essence when using a teleport chip without actually getting teleported anywhere. I submitted this bug report to support and got the usual "Thank you for sending us this detailed information. I have forwarded the issue to members of the responsible team for further investigation."

I sent a followup message asking if it'd be possible to get the Mind Essence I lost due to testing the steps to reproduce the issue (something their QA testers are paid to do!). Of course they said they cant offer compensation...

Does anyone see a problem with this?
I used a level 1 teleport chip so I'm asking for 0.18 to 0.27 ped of Mind Essence, so I could care less if I got back or not. But what's got me worried is the fact that support would not compensate for these kind of losses regardless how large or small they are.

If reporting bugs that make items or peds disappear doesnt get you a refund, what's the incentive for the player to report these issues?

Support case below (still waiting for response):

Details: Hello,

I've encountered a bug where your Mind Essence gets wasted when using a level 1 teleport chip. The following are steps to reproduce the issue:
- Equip level 1 teleport chip.
- Charge a teleport.
- When the map appears, click anywhere on the map and then click the teleport button.
- After the avatar animation of him/her running starts, press "T" to begin the 60s teleport timer.

The game will go to the usual white screen, and when everything starts rendering again, you're at the same spot you were trying to teleport from.

I've done this several times to be sure those are the steps, wasting some mind essense in the process, so I'd appretiate it if I could get it back.

Thank you.
Summary: Wasted Mind Essence While Teleporting
Position: Inside the Typhon Crater
Time of incident: ~08:20 ingame MA time.

Dec 7, 2010 8:56 AM GMT Routed
to Queue System Thank you for contacting us. We will look into your case as soon as possible. The targeted response time for support requests is within 48 hours. However, during times of high load it may take a little longer.

Dec 7, 2010 6:04 PM GMT Conclusion Suggested Gabriel|Support Hi,

Thank you for sending us this detailed information. I have forwarded the issue to members of the responsible team for further investigation. Any irregularities found will be adjusted. Please follow the News sections on the website for further information and developments.

Thank you for your patience.

Kind regards,

Gabriel| Planet Calypso Support

Dec 9, 2010 12:37 AM GMT Conclusion Rejected Monkey Man Of Science - Any chance I could get my 1800+ mind essense compensated? I know that's just pennies, but a loss is a loss no-the-less

Solution
Solved:
(Dec 9, 2010 1:28 AM GMT) Hi,

We really appreciate that you reported this issue to us, but unfortunately we can not offer a compensation to you. The next time you find a issue please immediately report it to us and we will investigate it.


Thank you for your contribution to improve Entropia Universe.


Kind regards,

Gabriel| Planet Calypso Support

Dec 9, 2010 7:21 AM GMT Conclusion Rejected Monkey Man Of Science - Could I please get the reason why compensation cannot be offered?
I've clearly stated the steps that took place, and reported it within reasonable time.

I'm not worried about losing 0.18 ped worth of Mind Essence as much as I am worried that support will never return losses for issues that are easily proven and clearly a bug in the game.

This sort of policy discourages players from reporting any bugs because:
a) It is time consuming to login and write a detailed support case.
b) They will not recieve what they lost to the issue anyway. So players might as well keep bugs to themselves as a leason learned.

 

[Karmic]

Presumably your incentive is to get the bug fixed. If you don't want the bug to be fixed then no, there is no real incentive to reporting it. Some people report bugs to try and make the game better, some need a cash incentive. If you find a bug that is costing you money I would think that it would satisfy both requirements and you would want for it to be fixed not angry if you fix it and don't get your money back. In extreme cases yes I think there should be money given back to the players for some bugs and there have been a few times where that has happened. But, on the other side, I don't believe MA took the ped away from people when bugs worked in their favor like the multiple mining towers minutes after server up bug.

 

[mastermesh]

problem is if they do it for you they'll do it for everyone... lots of people who went to Medusa did not get the tp listed on their list when they used the tp there to go elsewhere and support is telling them to just go back to get it... so they'd have one heck of a lot of oil and ME to refund... presumably all used since the day Medusa opened to be fair about it since they haveno idea how to manually change the tp lists.

 

[the-unknown]

I recall there were some "gifts" to players who notified them on bugs(exploits?) which cost them money.

I guess when it's a bug which costs you money, you should be happy they may even get around to fix it in the future.

 

[Shimmer]

Not a bug

It doesn't sound like a bug to me. If you press T, whatever you were doing stops. Try the same thing with a FAP on "auto". Press T it stops.

Since you pressed T at the begining of the animation, you haven't gone anywhere, so you are right where you should be, IMO.

Why would you want to do this anyway?

 

[Rocket]

same bs response they always give. ur loss is their gain ofc they wont give it back

 

[mastermesh]

well, support does respond pretty quickly these days, and does try to help when possible. Just keep sending responses and maybe you'll get some help... If they offer a conclusion, don't accept it if you are not ready to accept it so you set the ticket to "reopened" to discuss the matter with them further. Been sending in a lot of support tickets the last few days. People come to the forums and complain, but don't always send in tickets... send in the tickets, and if discussion is already on their own forums, put the url in the ticket to the thread/discussion too. Can't hurt.

 

[Monkey Man]

It doesn't sound like a bug to me. If you press T, whatever you were doing stops. Try the same thing with a FAP on "auto". Press T it stops.

Since you pressed T at the begining of the animation, you haven't gone anywhere, so you are right where you should be, IMO.

Why would you want to do this anyway?

The bug is that it still uses up the Mind Essence even though you dont end up teleporting. If pressing T is supposed to cancel the teleport, it should also cancel any cost associated with the teleport that was initiated.

And as to why you'd want to do it? in previous VUs you could teleport with a tp chip and immediatly start the 60s timer. saving you 5-10 seconds of waiting while the screen goes white. This is in case you just use the TP chip to get over the boarder of a spawn and then T back to town.

 

[Monkey Man]

well, support does respond pretty quickly these days, and does try to help when possible. Just keep sending responses and maybe you'll get some help... If they offer a conclusion, don't accept it if you are not ready to accept it so you set the ticket to "reopened" to discuss the matter with them further. Been sending in a lot of support tickets the last few days. People come to the forums and complain, but don't always send in tickets... send in the tickets, and if discussion is already on their own forums, put the url in the ticket to the thread/discussion too. Can't hurt.

thanks for the tips mastermesh, specially the linking thread/discussion in the ticket.

As you can see from my first post, i have been reopening the ticket to ask further questions. And as I said, i dont really care about 0.18 ped of M.E, I just want to spark some discussion about what sometimes seems to be a flawed support policy for what is a real cash economy.

Too many times before have I and my friends been neglected and ripped off by support with the infamous "We're sorry, we dont have the records that show <insert item or ped loss here>".

 

[valentin]

Thats MA if you use bugs to get some money then its no ok but MA can use theres bugs to gain money i remeber 3 years ago when i was a cardcore hunter i lost about 20 - 80 peds every day on MA:s bugs and i remeber a bug i wrote to MA about a spot in the Blue Zone NW in 2 years time they did not care to fix it.

The bug was in a area you was not able to do any dmg ön the mobs hp but they sure was able to make dmg at your hp.

 

[Mega]

I recall there were some "gifts" to players who notified them on bugs(exploits?) which cost them money.

I guess when it's a bug which costs you money, you should be happy they may even get around to fix it in the future.

The one I read about (there could well be more) was the infamous "auction 101" bug in which no more than 101 bids could be placed on an item in auction which some players used to get items well below mark-up.

This was resolved shortly before one of Mindark's big sales - I think it was just before either the Malls or Banks sales and the reporter posted that he received an Angel harness (if I recall correctly obviously).

 

[Superhal]

I got refunded every time. It seems odd to me that they didn't refund this to you.

 

[misao]

I got refunded every time. It seems odd to me that they didn't refund this to you.

Can you post some more details please like maybe a support case number and maybe paste
the support case here if you don't mind ofcourse

 

[Monkey Man]

Got an update from support:

Dec 17, 2010 9:20 PM GMT Posted Comment Gabriel|Support Hi,

The Support department does not have the authority to directly issue compensations, therefore we have forwarded your case to the responsible department. We hope to have an answer for you shortly.

Thank you for your patience.

Kind regards,

Gabriel| Planet Calypso Support

We'll see if this other department will settle things.
Gotta say that if support doesnt have the authority to hand out compensation, they should forward me to the department that can automatically, instead of hoping I dont put up a fuss to get them to do it.
Lets see how much effort it takes to get 18 pec back out of MA/FPC haha...

 

[ChairmanEdgewise]

I got refunded every time. It seems odd to me that they didn't refund this to you.

i smell a troll...




anyway, support here rocks, as always



they really seem to not care about the players at many times... after all we are the ones paying their paycheck

 

[Raffaele Meiers]

If it is a Bug and MA/FPC looses money from it and you reported it, the chances are high that the bug is corrected as fast as possible, they will even consider to bring down the server if the bug costs them a lot and your chance for a compensation for reporting it are good.
If it is a Bug that costs the players money, the chances for a quick fix are slimmer, maybe next VU...
The chances for compensation are not so big as you reported something that will most probabely reduce the income to MA/FPC.
Oh and you'll have to watch if the same bug not reappears after a later VU...

 

[Monkey Man]

Well it's been almost a month since I first submitted the support case, but at last it's been settled.
It seems that MA/FPC's support has infact grown in the last 7 years and there is a glimmer of hope (even though I had fight for the compensation instead of being automatically forwarded to the correct department to begin with).

Hi,

Thank you for your patience. I have been informed that you have been compensated with 0.18 PED of Mind Essence.


I apologize for the inconvenience and wish you a good day in Planet Calypso.


Kind regards,

Gabriel| Planet Calypso Support