5/12/2011 - Sony update - No soup for usFollow

Yup, I'm a Sony loyalist. Haven't played EQ since '07, haven't played EQII in about a year, and just resubscribed to both about a week before the servers went down because none of the other games on the market appeal to me. I guess that makes me a loyalist who bashes on anyone who speaks out against Sony, even though you weren't bashing Sony. Huh, go figure.

For the record, I'm not a Sony loyalist, far from it. My issue is with people who whine and complain about a situation they know nothing about and are to lazy to educate themselves about.

As far as the free month and extras. Call it a gift, a bribe, whatever, it isn't owed to you. The only thing you're owed is the time you have paid for, which you're going to get once the servers come back up. So what was your rant about again? Oh yea, not being able to cancel your billing, which you provided options to in your own rant. So again, what was your rant about?

If you've been wronged so badly, call a lawyer. Let me know how far that gets you.

Yup, I'm a Sony loyalist. Haven't played EQ since '07, haven't played EQII in about a year, and just resubscribed to both about a week before the servers went down because none of the other games on the market appeal to me. I guess that makes me a loyalist who bashes on anyone who speaks out against Sony, even though you weren't bashing Sony. Huh, go figure.

For the record, I'm not a Sony loyalist, far from it. My issue is with people who whine and complain about a situation they know nothing about and are to lazy to educate themselves about.

As far as the free month and extras. Call it a gift, a bribe, whatever, it isn't owed to you. The only thing you're owed is the time you have paid for, which you're going to get once the servers come back up. So what was your rant about again? Oh yea, not being able to cancel your billing, which you provided options to in your own rant. So again, what was your rant about?

If you've been wronged so badly, call a lawyer. Let me know how far that gets you.

http://www.facebook.com/SOE You don't need a Facebook account to check it and it's being updated daily, or near daily.

The main page most likely isn't being updated because it's been down/being worked on. The same reason they aren't emailing everyone, because the database is likely down/being worked on as well. Doing that requires the systems which were compromised to be brought online and put back on the network, which is extremely counter productive to the work that's being done.

As far as "A few days", it probably means that the initial systems are being brought back online and being tested. It's a vague date because they can't give an exact one.



No promises have been made, only estimations. And this is exactly the reason they aren't willing to go out on a limb and produce a date. If they miss it, people will have a fit.

Its nice that they give a short post on facebook every day.

It would be even nicer if they had taken the time to somehow let their player base know that they were even doing that much. The eqplayers page that many players will know about had a message on the 4th, then a new update on the 12th. And so far email that I or my guildies have received from SOE = zero.

The eqplayers page doesnt even mention the facebook page. Almost makes me wonder if the facebook update is something that an individual employee at SOE came up with.



SOE has a history of being extremely close with information on any of the previous occasions that problems have arisen in game. It has cost them customers in the past, this current problem has the potential to cost them a significant chunk of their customer base.


Good companies attempt to build contacts with their customers. A happy customer is a valuable asset. Loyal customers still do exist, many companies manage to build up solid bases of these customers.

And even minimal efforts can often yield solid returns...but some companies just dont seem to get it.


Sliggoth

Karma

The forum karma system is designed to allow user moderation to a certain degree of posts in the forums. There are two main elements to the system. the base karma rating, and the per-post rating. Your base karma rating is your lifetime average of all ratings received starting from your 16th forum post. Your per-post rating is what people thought of that one particular post you made. Posts can be rated Either Up, or down. An Awful rating (red arrow) starts at a value of 1.00. After two Red arrows in a row, the next consecutive awful rating shows up as a -2.00. A fourth awful in a row goes back to 1.00. Basically every third consecutive awful rate on a post turns into a -2.00. That is the only time a negitive rate value actually affects base karma. A green arrow, or Excellent rating has a value of 6.00. It used to be possible for other rating values, however that functionality no longer exists. some older accounts do have ratings in the 2.00-5.00 scale too, but not in the last 4 years.

To rate a post, you press the red or green arrows located at the top right of each post. Anyone with a base karma score of 3.01 or higher can participate in the rating process. Under 3.01, or if the user has been "no rated" by an administrator the rate arrows are not available.

Users prior to 15 posts have no karma rating. This is to prevent "instant gurus" or "instant sub default" posters. On post 17 you start with a default base karma rating of 3.00. Each time you post, you automatically rate yourself two times at whatever your current base karma is at. To an admin, your rating when you post a thread looks like this:

By: NewUser
17 posts
Score: Decent [3.00]
NewUser: 3.00
NewUser: 3.00

Now lets say that a few users decided to rate your post.

By: NewUser
17 posts
Score: Decent [3.34]
NewUser: 3.00
NewUser: 3.00
rater1: 6.00
rater2: 1.00
rater3: 1.00
rater4: 6.00

That would make the per-thread rating 3.34. However your base karma would be the average of the 34 ratings you rated yourself as you posted (17 posts * 2 ratings at 3.00) and the four other ratings, which would leave you at a base karma of 3.05.

By achieving a base karma above 3.00, you will move up a rank, and are now a Scholar. There are three main forum levels:

Scholar - 3.01-3.65 - the majority of posters fall into this category
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Administrators - The forum administrators also have a custom colored title.

A post may still be rated when it is at either extreme of the scale. for example, on a post that has been rated to 5.00 that receives another excellent 6.00 rating, that 6.00 rating does count towards the posters base karma. Someone would then have to post additional 1.00 ratings to bring the entire post down too.

Rating guidelines: How and why you rate a post is your concern, however we ask that you keep a few things in mind. If you find yourself rating entire threads up or down, or following specific posters around and rating all of their posts one way, this is considered Karma camping, and is actively discouraged. Also, creating a secondary forum account for the sole purpose of buffering your own karma is considered cheating.

Karma reset button: Administrators have the ability to reset a user base karma to 3.00 if we feel the system has been systemically abused towards a given user. This is usually a one time event, and only if we feel the user has a particularily meritious case. We rarely even let the user know it has occured. This is to be used at the discretion of the administrator, and is not a "right" that a forum user can demand.

Admins also have no rate limiter, so we can append multiple up or down rates to a post as needed to adjust for system abuse if required. We rarely do so however. Administrator ratings to "nuke" a post show up as -50.00 and do not affect your base karma score in any manner.

I think that covers most of it.

Lol... alla's post was from 2003, so saying "slightly" is probably being generous on your part. Thanks for getting the more detailed (and modernized) version as described by Kaolian onto the thread.

Note that rating up Raolan (a scholar with almost 2k posts) moves from decent to good with a single rate up.

at this point, i have no interest in reading anymore of his rants, just as i don't expect him to read or understand my posts.

great the game will be returning... with the usual sony "a few days"(just as bad as their "soon"). with what they have done to date, i really doubt claming of restoring will be annouced beyond that, leaving it up to us yet again to be trying to start the game randomly in the hopes of trying to figure out "a few more days" means two? three, five days? and no i don't expect it to be up for today, or tomorrow, but once monday hits, if they do not post the game is actually up after tues day i will be irate yet again. why will i be irate? for the simple fact they still haven't gotten this giving a date/informing their customer pr/customer service thing down pat after more than 12 years.

it's simple really.. give a time frame beyond soon or a few days, don't leave people hanging.. it's not that hard to understand. i could have lived with being told may 31st is the soonest we could learn when the game might be restored, even though i miss the game, because i could ignore the game and all things about it till that date... i really doubt that is truely hard to understan.

i really doubt that is truely hard to understand.

So Sony communicates with its consumers over the past two weeks in a way you don't like and you complain that they aren't catering to your specific desires.

I then call you on it and you complain that I don't understand, when I understand perfectly that things simply aren't being handled how you want them and you're complaining.

Sony then announces that they are bringing everything back soon and you complain because they don't give you an exact time.



Apparently as hard as it is to understand that they aren't giving you a date because they don't have one and aren't willing to make one up because if they miss it everyone will throw a fit.

If we use your level of comprehension to measure difficulty, it's damn near impossible.


FYI, it's up. But I guess you're going to ***** now because they didn't send you a personal, hand delivered message notifying you beforehand of the exact time.

Edited, May 14th 2011 3:06pm by Raolan