I have been in the middle lane with this game. I,ll openly admit at 1st i prob trolled this game, but doing my reserch got me interested in the game but not to the point of fanboyism. I myself enjoy hardcore pvp and games like darkfall are few.

Will the game be a success or not depends on how the company does its buisness.

We all know the game is far from perfect. but also the game is far from being crap. its hanging safe in the middle. Reviews by some of the beta testers, especially one that was even hosted by mmorpg.com proves the game is going in the right direction.

But thats not what i want to talk about in this thread. Its about how companies relate to their consumers.

For those with half a brain they know that good customer service and customer relations defines a company and its product. Bad customer relations will be a detering factor to a company or even capable of completely destroying said company.

You have phone service with company x. somthing happend and you were billed wrong or simply for some reason you have poor service. You call and are treated as if you were the problem or said company claims everything is perfectly fine and do nothing to fix the poor quality your reciving.

what will the normal joe do. switch services thats what. Good companies will do everything to make sure things are right. happy cunsumers = more money. a good company will send a techy to check why your service is poor or will have a representitive call another part of the company to see why the customer was billed wrong.  was that customer supposed to get special rates for international calls. was that code implemented.? All that can be checked and bills can be rectified ect. That is doing good buisness.

How about the mmo industry. Ill use 2 game here .

World of warcraft.:

This game did suffer a bad launch. to little servers, their server structure was not working as intended ect. But what did blizzard do to rectify this problem.  They admited to their mistakes they offered extra free time to all the affected players till they got their servers right. The openly admited their faults.  This is an example of good customer relations. they cared for their consumers. this did push them to where they are today dispite that wow has been watered down even more than what it is.

Horizons, now called Istaria

This game had a buggy launch and infact to this day it still has bugs that plagued it since launch.  The company that made this game were plagued by the fact that another company that made their game engine vaporized leaving them with a half assed engine making it difficult to properly fix.

It got to the point that they sold it to another company. This other company did tons of mishaps. messed up billing ect. They shunned off those who started complaining due to lack of security at billing, being billed various times. MMOPRG even covered this as it was alarming. It thru the game to the husk it is today. less than 10k players, those loyal to the game.

The lack of proper customer relations destroyed this game. there was NO communication what so ever with the company, little was known on what was being done. servers were shut down due to inactivity and there was NO merge of its players forcing the loyal players to reroll anew onto the last exsisting servers.

atlas the devs who 1st produced this game well a handful of em created a small dev team and repurchased Horizons. They fixed the billing and quickly worked on their customer relations. They have a huge task ahead of them but now they service correctly and they also found the ability to retrive old chars from dead servers (unity) and intergrate those chars into the current servers. This brought back old unity players. They renamed their game to Istaria. They also call last year , the year of the phoenix as they managed to save their game from being unplugged. Now they work slowly to make the game a better place.

However the damage was done. Many will remember they negative past the game had and many will not give it a second chance. even if they  make a new game engine and fix all the bugs. they may retrieve alot of their old player base but thats it. it will not bloom.

This is the importance of customer relations and customer service . it does have an impact. Even if the devs do take a while to get out what they promise or polish the game  customer service and relations are needed to retain what they have. Good relations can also boost their numbers even if the product isnt perfect.

Sadly AV is Not taking the correct route. If they were having problems they should have notified their customers early and Not in the froums. This should had been an official announcement on their main page.

They dont have to go into details on what is affecting them but mention first hand that they are having difficulties. not everything is going as planned.

They did the wrong thing on mentioning the next day at x time the game will be running. This is a BAD move. if they still encounter difficulties for reason unknown they will piss off their playerbase if they cannot achive their goal. The best solution was to announce that as SOON as they rectify their problem the servers will be up. Also they could keep people updated on their progress.

A simple generic email with an apology to those who preordered should have been sent ect. A company that takes the blame and admits their mistake and does their best to fix it is better than a company that makes mistakes and do their best to hide it.

This fall true regardless how big the company is. A successful company will make sure that have set things for a "plan b" if a problem arises. even resorces should be set aside for such problems.

When it comes to making money there is No slack or the like regardless how small or big a company is.  The only type of people who probably deserve some slack is called employees, if they do a mistake give them ground to make up for it. A buisness doesnt work in the same concept. you make a big mistake your scared big time and will lose revenue even if you managed to get things strait.

Having a poor customer service and relation is the worse thing you can have nowdays.

 

You have phone service with company x. somthing happend and you were billed wrong or simply for some reason you have poor service. You call and are treated as if you were the problem or said company claims everything is perfectly fine and do nothing to fix the poor quality your reciving.

what will the normal joe do. switch services thats what.

No, most people won't. And in any case, since all telecom companies act like that it won't make any difference if they did.

I was going to post about the customer services in greece or how things work but then i thought why bother,ppl will find out the hard way.

OP, excellent points.

Providing customer service has become a lost art.  Showing your customer that they are valued and extending common courtesies are skills that can easily be acquired through training.  But on the flipside, the mmo customer base are often very young and unsophisticated.  You often see posts on mmo forums to the effect of "stop complaining. be paitent. they are working hard for you" which I suppose mimicks what they were told as children.

Completely disagree about this with all products, customer service would be somewhere near the bottom of my list of things of things I value in companies. 

The only thing that I consider when I purchase something is how good the product is, in this case that would be how much fun the game is to play and does it have bugs or a lot of downtown. 

If the product is good I will never need customer service.  If I ever need to speak to them or require communication from them after the initial purchase then that is a giant black mark against them straight away and I probably will not deal with that company again no matter how good their cs is at dealing with the problem. 

Originally posted by Blodpls

Completely disagree about this with all products, customer service would be somewhere near the bottom of my list of things of things I value in companies. 

The only thing that I consider when I purchase something is how good the product is, in this case that would be how much fun the game is to play and does it have bugs or a lot of downtown. 

If the product is good I will never need customer service.  If I ever need to speak to them or require communication from them after the initial purchase then that is a giant black mark against them straight away and I probably will not deal with that company again no matter how good their cs is at dealing with the problem. 

What a strange attitude, but whatever, each to his own. Unforseen things happen, it's a fact of life and sometimes they are beyond anyones control or no-one is to blame. How a company deals with these things is very important in the world of business. Show your customers the finger and expect a bad word of mouth, bend over backwords to help them and they will remember that.

Originally posted by Blodpls

Completely disagree about this with all products, customer service would be somewhere near the bottom of my list of things of things I value in companies. 

The only thing that I consider when I purchase something is how good the product is, in this case that would be how much fun the game is to play and does it have bugs or a lot of downtown. 

If the product is good I will never need customer service.  If I ever need to speak to them or require communication from them after the initial purchase then that is a giant black mark against them straight away and I probably will not deal with that company again no matter how good their cs is at dealing with the problem. 

Yes this can be said to many products, but remember MMO's are also a service. You know this , this is not a single player game like OBlivion or the like. Your subscribed to it paying a monthly fee just like you pay cellphone service, cable ect. Since you are paying a fee you expect it to be always there and in working order. If its not working you expect answers thus customer service. With what you said i can simply make a promising mmo. release it and have NO customer relations what so ever. People got the product. Now since there is no relations i can simply shut the game off for a week just to save money and then put it back when i please.  you wouldnt like a game like that right?

Public relations is important just as their website is to relay info. Any problems should be mentioned in the front page of their website just like many other mmos have done when somthing like this occurs.If they cant even treat the people they are billing correctly how will they treat the people ingame when somthing does occur.

There is a reason why i used phone service and compared it to a mmo. its a live service you EXPECT it to work as advertized.

I just find it amusing he used a phone company for his example. I'm a network engineer with an international company that literally spends millions of dollars per month with phone companies. I have dedicated account managers with Verizon, Verizon Business (different company formerly called MCI and/or Worldcom), Sprint, AT&T, British Telecom, Global Crossing, SDN Global, Telefonica and a couple others and I'll tell you this ... they're just as incompetent with multi-million dollar accounts as they are with your personal cell phone, and they're all equally incompetent.

Incorrect billings, taking circuits down for no reason, failing to install circuits when promised, losing orders, double charging, installing at the wrong address, etc. Some things just can't be done "professionally" and launching an MMO is one of them.

Th thread is a fail. Attempting to state the obvious may have some relevance but sadly, DFO and Aventurine have something special about them something I haven't seen in many years.

Yes they have a Game, they aren't some uber conglomerate and with the resources they have I believe they have been genuinely honest. Had some bum cards thrown to them and are dealing with these the best they can.

I have had no issues with the beta, issues with pre-order but the issues I have raised have been addressed directly. So again no problems.

The only person with a problem is the OP afraid some people may get great enjoyment out of this game.

Have fun trolling here , the rest of us will be playing the game.

Originally posted by maxnrosy 

Yes this can be said to many products, but remember MMO's are also a service. You know this , this is not a single player game like OBlivion or the like. Your subscribed to it paying a monthly fee just like you pay cellphone service, cable ect. Since you are paying a fee you expect it to be always there and in working order. If its not working you expect answers thus customer service. With what you said i can simply make a promising mmo. release it and have NO customer relations what so ever. People got the product. Now since there is no relations i can simply shut the game off for a week just to save money and then put it back when i please.  you wouldnt like a game like that right?

Public relations is important just as their website is to relay info. Any problems should be mentioned in the front page of their website just like many other mmos have done when somthing like this occurs.If they cant even treat the people they are billing correctly how will they treat the people ingame when somthing does occur.

There is a reason why i used phone service and compared it to a mmo. its a live service you EXPECT it to work as advertized.

Services are just are like any other product though.  When I take a flight if the company the causes me a long delay I will not use that company again regardless of whether they put me in a nice hotel or make me wait in the airport, if my interent connection does not work to my satisfaction I will change supplier, if I am not happy with amount I am being charged for gas I will find a new supplier.  It's too late once customer services need to be involved as there has already been a problem, and if it happens more often than I feel is acceptable (once normally)  I am not interested in how well they have dealt with it I will just not use them again.   When I am spending money on things I want them to work, I do not want to hear ass kissing from cs.

Either what I have spent money works or it doesn't, I don't want words or soft treatment from cs people I want it to work as I expected.

If there are mitigating circumstance like there are is this case, it's brand new and it's the only new mmorpg I would consider playing, then I take them into consideration.

Originally posted by Sarg01

I just find it amusing he used a phone company for his example. I'm a network engineer with an international company that literally spends millions of dollars per month with phone companies. I have dedicated account managers with Verizon, Verizon Business (different company formerly called MCI and/or Worldcom), Sprint, AT&T, British Telecom, Global Crossing, SDN Global, Telefonica and a couple others and I'll tell you this ... they're just as incompetent with multi-million dollar accounts as they are with your personal cell phone, and they're all equally incompetent.

 

Incorrect billings, taking circuits down for no reason, failing to install circuits when promised, losing orders, double charging, installing at the wrong address, etc. Some things just can't be done "professionally" and launching an MMO is one of them.

Wile you worked the technical side I worked the Customer service side. there is a huge difference in where you stand and where i stand. You were behind the sences you know how dirty these companies can be. I have serviced the 3 major companies. AT&T Sprint and MCI. By far Sprint had the worse customer service.  With mci and AT&T people who go thru bad experiences with the company can easly be bought back with good customer service and offer some special service or incentive like a free month, ect. Sprint didnt offer anyhting and would lose many customers.  I even worked in the faud and toll departments. I was the one who would call and cut your services but still had to do it in a way to retain the customer once they pay their past due. Mci and at&t have higher standards and expectations of their employees and expect them to do what they were hired for. Sprint depends on 3rd party companies to do their customer service. Regardless  of how these companies are people will switch  depending on how they are treated. It the same way in mmo's Treat the playerbase like shit and they will go off.

Originally posted by Isane

Th thread is a fail. Attempting to state the obvious may have some relevance but sadly, DFO and Aventurine have something special about them something I haven't seen in many years.

Yes they have a Game, they aren't some uber conglomerate and with the resources they have I believe they have been genuinely honest. Had some bum cards thrown to them and are dealing with these the best they can.

I have had no issues with the beta, issues with pre-order but the issues I have raised have been addressed directly. So again no problems.

The only person with a problem is the OP afraid some people may get great enjoyment out of this game.

Have fun trolling here , the rest of us will be playing the game.

This is not about trolling the game. if you have seen many of my posts youll see me even defend this game.

am i saying they have a bad product. NO  am i saying their product is going to fail NO.

Im talking about how bad they are relating the news to their playerbase. They have devs but devs cannot do everything in a buisness. They can create but they need others to do the other things they probably lack. Not relating to your consumers is a bad buisness practice especially when selling a service. Darkfall is NOT a game you can play offline it is a serviceable product.

Customer service is one thing I value alot.    Its not just customer service that Aventurine lacks in.   Basic common sense seems to evade them at times too.   They are trying to do too many things that they just don't have the money or skill to pull off with their small team.

Low budget, high demand or whatever the excuse is, its not working very well and could be done better.   I don't even think the biggest fanboy could disagree with that.

Originally posted by maxnrosy 

Wile you worked the technical side I worked the Customer service side. there is a huge difference in where you stand and where i stand. You were behind the sences you know how dirty these companies can be.

Well, that's because your role was focused on customer retention. Those of us coming from the customer side know full well that "sure I can hurt Verizon by switching to AT&T" ... but AT&T's not going to be appreciably different in terms of the frequency and severity of problems. They may kiss our butts more readily after it happens, but ultimately, I don't care how they make me feel, I care about what they deliver and at what price point they deliver it. To be perfectly honest, I wish some of our account teams communicated with us less. They waste a lot of my time.

Since all MMOs cost basically the same, price isn't an issue here. It comes down to the product they deliver. I'd like to play today, of course, but will my enjoyment of the product be reduced by having to wait to tomorrow or even the weekend? Not in any significant sense.

Originally posted by Sarg01

Originally posted by maxnrosy 

Wile you worked the technical side I worked the Customer service side. there is a huge difference in where you stand and where i stand. You were behind the sences you know how dirty these companies can be.

 

Well, that's because your role was focused on customer retention. Those of us coming from the customer side know full well that "sure I can hurt Verizon by switching to AT&T" ... but AT&T's not going to be appreciably different in terms of the frequency and severity of problems. They may kiss our butts more readily after it happens, but ultimately, I don't care how they make me feel, I care about what they deliver and at what price point they deliver it. To be perfectly honest, I wish some of our account teams communicated with us less. They waste a lot of my time.

 

Since all MMOs cost basically the same, price isn't an issue here. It comes down to the product they deliver. I'd like to play today, of course, but will my enjoyment of the product be reduced by having to wait to tomorrow or even the weekend? Not in any significant sense.

Customer retention is key.

Look at horizons. it flopped to hell due to bad customer relations.

Look ill put it simple.

Fans will buy this game regardless.

Then there is the group of people where I fall Into. Those who are very intrested and PLAN to play the game. However things like this turn off alot of people. Now i prefer to wait till things are stable. thus the company lost money they could have made. I bet many others are in the same boat im in. I love pvp especially those involving risks. I played eve I had one time more than 85%of all my assests blown up. I was also carrying my friends assets he lost it all. yet still we managed to recover over time what we lost.

This is their launch and they handled it badly. they did little to relate to those who are waiting. this alone is making me old my money and wait.

You all are far too pampered for your own good. Service! SERVICE! TREAT ME LIKE A KING FOR MY $50!!!!

Been playing MMOs since UO/EQ and never once needed customer service. So, why the obsession for it? I never look at a game and think, "now will I get good customer service from this company?" I guess it's the tech in me and I tend to figure out problems on my own. Ah well.

Customer service is for the lazy and clueless unless it is a genuine billing problem. If your computer can't run a game straight out of the box in this day and age you either A. have a lame computer or B. are quite computer illiterate yourself. Probably both.

Originally posted by maxnrosy

Originally posted by Sarg01

Originally posted by maxnrosy 

Wile you worked the technical side I worked the Customer service side. there is a huge difference in where you stand and where i stand. You were behind the sences you know how dirty these companies can be.

 

Well, that's because your role was focused on customer retention. Those of us coming from the customer side know full well that "sure I can hurt Verizon by switching to AT&T" ... but AT&T's not going to be appreciably different in terms of the frequency and severity of problems. They may kiss our butts more readily after it happens, but ultimately, I don't care how they make me feel, I care about what they deliver and at what price point they deliver it. To be perfectly honest, I wish some of our account teams communicated with us less. They waste a lot of my time.

 

Since all MMOs cost basically the same, price isn't an issue here. It comes down to the product they deliver. I'd like to play today, of course, but will my enjoyment of the product be reduced by having to wait to tomorrow or even the weekend? Not in any significant sense.

Customer retention is key.

Look at horizons. it flopped to hell due to bad customer relations.

Look ill put it simple.

Fans will buy this game regardless.

Then there is the group of people where I fall Into. Those who are very intrested and PLAN to play the game. However things like this turn off alot of people. Now i prefer to wait till things are stable. thus the company lost money they could have made. I bet many others are in the same boat im in. I love pvp especially those involving risks. I played eve I had one time more than 85%of all my assests blown up. I was also carrying my friends assets he lost it all. yet still we managed to recover over time what we lost.

This is their launch and they handled it badly. they did little to relate to those who are waiting. this alone is making me old my money and wait.

See, here's the funny thing ... I don't particularly care for PvP. My plan includes, as a major component, training fleeing skills as quick as possible. I'm not entirely certain I'll enjoy Darkfall, but there's a possibility. And that's enough because they're doing something that while it isn't actually new, isn't really done in other major games ... skill based character advancement. So if I want to make a "flee build", I can. +Stamina, +speed, +stun avoidance, etc. I also think it's likely I'll be able to carve out a nice swath of the crafting market, since the sorts of people Darkfall most strongly attracts won't be inclined to craft, putting them at my mercy -- now that's the kind of power you can't get from a gank squad.

But maybe it won't work out. Who knows? Regardless, the concept is worth investing in.

Originally posted by Sarg01

Originally posted by maxnrosy

Originally posted by Sarg01

Originally posted by maxnrosy 

Wile you worked the technical side I worked the Customer service side. there is a huge difference in where you stand and where i stand. You were behind the sences you know how dirty these companies can be.

 

Well, that's because your role was focused on customer retention. Those of us coming from the customer side know full well that "sure I can hurt Verizon by switching to AT&T" ... but AT&T's not going to be appreciably different in terms of the frequency and severity of problems. They may kiss our butts more readily after it happens, but ultimately, I don't care how they make me feel, I care about what they deliver and at what price point they deliver it. To be perfectly honest, I wish some of our account teams communicated with us less. They waste a lot of my time.

 

Since all MMOs cost basically the same, price isn't an issue here. It comes down to the product they deliver. I'd like to play today, of course, but will my enjoyment of the product be reduced by having to wait to tomorrow or even the weekend? Not in any significant sense.

Customer retention is key.

Look at horizons. it flopped to hell due to bad customer relations.

Look ill put it simple.

Fans will buy this game regardless.

Then there is the group of people where I fall Into. Those who are very intrested and PLAN to play the game. However things like this turn off alot of people. Now i prefer to wait till things are stable. thus the company lost money they could have made. I bet many others are in the same boat im in. I love pvp especially those involving risks. I played eve I had one time more than 85%of all my assests blown up. I was also carrying my friends assets he lost it all. yet still we managed to recover over time what we lost.

This is their launch and they handled it badly. they did little to relate to those who are waiting. this alone is making me old my money and wait.

 

See, here's the funny thing ... I don't particularly care for PvP. My plan includes, as a major component, training fleeing skills as quick as possible. I'm not entirely certain I'll enjoy Darkfall, but there's a possibility. And that's enough because they're doing something that while it isn't actually new, isn't really done in other major games ... skill based character advancement. So if I want to make a "flee build", I can. +Stamina, +speed, +stun avoidance, etc. I also think it's likely I'll be able to carve out a nice swath of the crafting market, since the sorts of people Darkfall most strongly attracts won't be inclined to craft, putting them at my mercy -- now that's the kind of power you can't get from a gank squad.

 

But maybe it won't work out. Who knows? Regardless, the concept is worth investing in.

hehe sounds like a fun way to approach this sandbox game. Well when i do get in im planning more on hit and run ambush tactics.  be able to take down a target and flee. This was prob one of my favorite tactics in eve. Go into an enemy infested area with some allience members in stealth ships. Manage to destroy even battle ships before help can come and escape then cloak up again waiting as you see players flying around trying to decloak you. Pull a few successful kills and you terrorize the solarsystem causing players to group up more,  fighting squads  sticking around the players who harvest their income ect. I would love to do somthing similar in darkfall. Prob from afar manage to spot a group wandering around and keep my self concealed from them as much as possible. then when they think its safe, swiftly kill one yet managing to escape from the others. Most likely ill be grouped with a few who have the same interest and we focus more on haunting bigger groups than single targets. My fun will be able to get a kill vs the odds and run to tell the tale.