Customer Support Survey (01/07/2009)

[Baelorn]

People will bitch about anything.

I said that the Harassment and Monster Holding policies are too vague. In the case of harassment very little gets done because the GM just tells you to Blacklist the person.

[Rhianu]

Stupid character restrictions on the sections that matter ><

I filled out and sent in the survey twice just so I could say more than 1000 characters worth of comments in the typed response section. :3

In the first one I sent, I said that they don't need to demand so much information to confirm account ownership (registration codes and credit card numbers shouldn't be necessary except in extreme cases), and in the second I gave them a link to the Blizzard Authenticators (http://www.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=1100000182) and said they should consider creating a similar device for use with FFXI.

Also, I use Firefox, and didn't approve the page with Noscript, but it didn't erase the data at all like what happened to you guys. Strange. >.>

[Starless]

I don't have shenlong's bugnucks fix plox.

[volcanicweather]

As someone who deals with surveys and research in general for a living... this is sloppy.

All of the questions ending in "please select the answer that best applies" allow you to actually select multiple responses... this is a big, big no-no because people can just go through and check multiple/all the boxes and then your data is mucked because you don't know what holds the top importance, especially with the polarity of the answers making no sense for allowing you to select multiple options (i.e. "no problems" vs. "this was the problem").

Also the segmentation of the response for GM calls and other questions should be segmented out further... I don't exactly think some people would consider ~20 minutes what they would call a "fast" GM response.

None of these questions have "don't know" / N/A options. This is really bad for research because it pigeonholes people into picking a response even though they may not agree with it because they have no other choice. You're not getting the true thoughts of the respondents in result, because there's no way for them to opt out if they don't agree with any of the statements.

And this is just at a quick glance. This survey is poorly constructed.

[baudelaire]

The updates are slow? Check.
There is too little information? Check.
Necessary information is not included? Check.

Yes, we know that web chat is free. Idiots.

[Not Kuno]

Being NA and calling a GM on JP doesn't actually do anything.

[ringthree]

I threw in that we can tell when GMs are being condescending and paying us lip service.

I mentioned this also. Some of the GMs can be very smug if you accuse another player of cheating. This was really bad during the RMT days, and I probably experience is less only because there are less RMT.

[ringthree]

I filled out and sent in the survey twice just so I could say more than 1000 characters worth of comments in the typed response section. :3

In the first one I sent, I said that they don't need to demand so much information to confirm account ownership (registration codes and credit card numbers shouldn't be necessary except in extreme cases), and in the second I gave them a link to the Blizzard Authenticators (Blizzard Store) and said they should consider creating a similar device for use with FFXI.

Also, I use Firefox, and didn't approve the page with Noscript, but it didn't erase the data at all like what happened to you guys. Strange. >.>

They have already announced at least a couple of times that they are using the Authenticators that Blizzard is using too. In fact, they announced it about the same time that Blizzard announced it (or at least commented on it in an interview around the same time).

They definitely are not a Blizzard originated product, likely just a third party company that is contracting with them both. Blizzard would obviously get the priority just because of market share.

[Toirrrrr]

I was among the many that hadn't allowed PlayOnline in NoScript and gotten their answers deleted. Needless to say, I didn't bother filling it out again, mainly because it was just a survey for their customer support, something that I've generally never had a problem with.

[Pyree]

I spent a while writing on the survey, then realized when I tried to click the Submit button that the survey was hosted on square-enix.com and not playonline.com. So I didn't have javascript enabled for that page and I couldn't submit it. I'm not doing that again. :/ I thought about just opening another window and copying all my answers over, but that was work so I just said fuck it.

[Arthars]

Raging Knight Crabs when new knight crabs, available for holding, repop in 5 min is a stupid method used by SE at KA camp

[Genosync]

Long as balls.

and this is why the only response they will get will be negative, and their results will therefore be skewed. people will go through longer processes to complain, but if it takes more than a couple seconds to leave a compliment, you can bet your ass it's not gonna happen.

[Rhianu]

They have already announced at least a couple of times that they are using the Authenticators that Blizzard is using too. In fact, they announced it about the same time that Blizzard announced it (or at least commented on it in an interview around the same time).

They definitely are not a Blizzard originated product, likely just a third party company that is contracting with them both. Blizzard would obviously get the priority just because of market share.

There are Authenticators for FFXI now? Link plz.

[Tomiko]

In the whole section asking about GM calls, there was no "The GM told me the game is functioning as intended" option and also no "The GM told me that while he realized I was screwed over, it was out of his power and I should e-mail SE about it so maybe someday he'll have the power to do something about it" option.

I mentioned GMs not having a knowledge of game mechanics in the last box where you fill in additional comments. I was looking for those kinds of boxes in the multiple choice section as well though. Alot of the multiple choice answers sucked since they didn't cover things like the above.

[ringthree]

As someone who deals with surveys and research in general for a living... this is sloppy.

All of the questions ending in "please select the answer that best applies" allow you to actually select multiple responses... this is a big, big no-no because people can just go through and check multiple/all the boxes and then your data is mucked because you don't know what holds the top importance, especially with the polarity of the answers making no sense for allowing you to select multiple options (i.e. "no problems" vs. "this was the problem").

Also the segmentation of the response for GM calls and other questions should be segmented out further... I don't exactly think some people would consider ~20 minutes what they would call a "fast" GM response.

None of these questions have "don't know" / N/A options. This is really bad for research because it pigeonholes people into picking a response even though they may not agree with it because they have no other choice. You're not getting the true thoughts of the respondents in result, because there's no way for them to opt out if they don't agree with any of the statements.

And this is just at a quick glance. This survey is poorly constructed.

I agree with this.

I think the problem is two-fold. First, it was probably developed internally and without consultation with anyone with experience creating a proper survey with appropriate responses, or by someone that wasn't paying attention in Comm 300. Second, it is also probably translated from a similar JP survey and a lot can be lost in a quick translation, especially meaning and structure.

[ringthree]

There are Authenticators for FFXI now? Link plz.

I never said that they were available yet, but they have announced several times, in interviews, at fan fest and I believe on POL that they are coming.

Edit: I reread my post and I can see where the confusion arises. I meant that they are using the same Authenticators, the actual physical items, that Blizzard is using, I did not mean to imply they were already out. Perhaps I should have said they were "going" to use them, but they are already being developed from what I can glean from the information available, so it isn't one of those "we will look into it" kind of things.

[Darkhelmet]

I think a lot of the negative, condescending responses in this thread were brought on by SE themselves. For years, players have been suggesting very innovative, creative ideas that would be 10x better than what is currently implemented.

Treasure coffers are JUST NOW repopping quicker? Gee, thanks. This would have been helpful in 2003... and what about mythic weapons? I swear their development team has never even played the game themselves. I'm bitter about stuff like that, but I'll keep playing the game. There are dozens, if not hundreds of other examples where SE has failed to listen to its playerbase.

I love playing the game, but SE lost touch with its playerbase a very long time ago. The fact that they "seem" to be trying to reconnect after all these years is better late than never, but damn.. they could have made this game so much better than what it is now if they had any sense of what the player community is suggesting.

Think of how much better it would be if their development team skimmed through BG every now and then? Yeah, we have some idiots that post on here, but there are MANY helpful suggestions and VERY valuable information that SE could run with. Maybe they do read it, and they're just too arrogant to change it. Who knows..

My point is - until I see hard evidence that SE is seriously listening to its playerbase, I'm not going to be excited in the least about any kind of survey or suggestion box that they come up with. I'm sure others feel the same way. With that said, carry on with the survey :D

[MrW]

Filled it out. Was a bit vague and probably not worth it. But looking on the bright side, it was better than nothing. 1000 character limit in the suggestion box wasn't enough

[ringthree]

I think a lot of the negative, condescending responses in this thread were brought on by SE themselves. For years, players have been suggesting very innovative, creative ideas that would be 10x better than what is currently implemented.

Treasure coffers are JUST NOW repopping quicker? Gee, thanks. This would have been helpful in 2003... and what about mythic weapons? I swear their development team has never even played the game themselves. I'm bitter about stuff like that, but I'll keep playing the game. There are dozens, if not hundreds of other examples where SE has failed to listen to its playerbase.

I love playing the game, but SE lost touch with its playerbase a very long time ago. The fact that they "seem" to be trying to reconnect after all these years is better late than never, but damn.. they could have made this game so much better than what it is now if they had any sense of what the player community is suggesting.

Think of how much better it would be if their development team skimmed through BG every now and then? Yeah, we have some idiots that post on here, but there are MANY helpful suggestions and VERY valuable information that SE could run with. Maybe they do read it, and they're just too arrogant to change it. Who knows..

My point is - until I see hard evidence that SE is seriously listening to its playerbase, I'm not going to be excited in the least about any kind of survey or suggestion box that they come up with. I'm sure others feel the same way. With that said, carry on with the survey :D

RE: Reading BG or any other player forum. Sound to noise ratio is far too low for a decent return on time invested reading the forums.

[Darkhelmet]

I disagree. If even one member of their team spent half as much time on these forums as I do (and I don't spend much time here), they would have seen many of the ideas and possible improvements they can make on the game that I have.

Sure, there's lots of noise on here, but investing a small amount of one person's time on the Dev Team to possibly change the outcome of an update that would affect hundreds of thousands of people would have an exponential ROI.

The thread where you can ask your three questions is a perfect example. If their Dev Team read that through and through, many of the frustrations that we have would be possibly eliminated... or at least they would be made aware of them. But, like I said, maybe they ARE aware of it, they just do a shitty job of communication.