Any reparations?

[Falconwolf]

I thought we were still on the topic in question which is whether or not we will get something for the downtime and if so, how much. BB has already said there will be some sort of compensation for this. So in that respect the thread may as well be closed. Yes, there are reparations coming. How much is a different argument, and the question becomes "how much is enough for everybody?" I'd be happy with 100 gems. I'd be happy with 1,000. I'd be delighted with 10,000. But really, i'd just be happy with 100 free gems. When the server gets rolled back yes you lose all that "hard work" you put in between then and yesterday. But guess what? Everyone's stuff goes back to. Bought 100 parrots yesterday and now they're gone? All your gold is back, buy them again! And the person you bought them from got all his gems back so he can sell them again! The list goes on where it's not that big of a deal. Lost an upgrade in progress from granite you earned? guess what! those people you bought the granite from have it again! and the adventures you ran are back in your star menu! just run them again with the troops that magically re-appeared in your army.

Does it suck to go backwards? Sure it does. nobody's arguing that point. Does it demand some sort of reparation? No, it doesn't. This is a free game. You choose to play. You choose to put your time and effort into it, and when things go wrong, as they eventually and inevitably do, you suck it up, act like a man (or woman) and soldier on.

Let's say you're hard at work at your job, stocking shelves at Wal*Mart when the power goes out. They have no idea when the power's coming back on, so they temporarily close the store and send you home. Do you demand pay for that day beyond what you worked? I mean, clearly it's not YOUR fault the power went out. You should get paid for the full 8 hour shift you were going to work! Right? It doesn't work that way. I know you'd like to think it does, but it doesn't. In the real world, where the rest of us play, you deal with these sorts of problems the only way that is rational and reasonable. You accept things the way they are and wait for the power to come back on.

You example of working a job at walmart aside (I think this argument is a little flawed) you and I are in agreement Dreadmime.

They have said they will be trying their best to compensate everyone, though they haven't said how or how much. Do I think they HAVE to compensate? No, of course not, but as a provider of a service it's in their best interest to keep their players happy (within reason of course).

I quit playing WOW a couple years ago after investing A LOT of time and energy into the game, the reason I quit was the player base, there were just WAY TOO MANY horrible people in the game, way too many to not affect my play. The GM's, the officials working for WOW themselves were all great people and I have the utmost respect for how they handled every situation (sure they were not very good the first 8 months or so), their customer service really was top notch.

Then I went to playing DDO for a couple of years, but I had to leave DDO not because of the player base (the players in DDO are really very very nice and very helpful, pretty much most of them) but because the customer service was the worst I had ever seen in an MMO and I was personally treated extremely poorly.

Now both those games have been "officially" released for quite some time, so the state of their customer service is pretty much what you are going to get. If they haven't perfected their support by now they probably are not going to.

TSO is still beta, they are still working on fixing the game so it runs as it should. Anyone who expects this game to be perfect and without bugs should remember this game is still beta. This is not an "Official Release" and if you don't like playing games that will have bugs and problems then maybe waiting for the official release would be a good idea. The customer support in this game is actually quite good...no it's not perfect, but again this is still just "beta" and from what I see what they are lacking in support is not because of trying and not because of not wanting to help the players but it's simply a lack of resources. But hey they recently hired BB_Meesherbeans so they are working on the problem.

[Shondo]

Well it's storming here so i've closed down the job for the day. I don't do pogo crap, don't play cards can't log on, cant mow the wet lawn, can't grill anything and too lazy to do so anyway. So instead i will sit here with the rest of you try my best to get drunk before someone calls needing something and ***** until i'm tired of bitching or watching all you guys b1tch

[Scouser]

It's just a game argument is the same as it's just a job argument.

So you've put 15 years in with the company, so what? You were paid for every hour of work. And you CHOSE to spend your time there, you weren't forced to be there.

What you spend your time doing is valuable to you. What you invest effort in has a purpose. What you choose to busy yourself with to make everyday life more rewarding is important. If the above statements aren't true, why do you still exist?

The point being, you put effort or time into something with reasonable expectations of a certain outcome, based on promises from another party. If the other party fails to follow through on their promises, you should feel cheated. If you do not, you're time doing that activity was worthless anyway, and you shouldn't even have been there.

Don't discount the value of someone elses time invested into a game, or into anything, simply because your time and effort is worthless.

well said, zuma.

[Entharion]

Instead of gems, I'd like a free game of my choice. I'll even make it easy on Ubisoft and choose one of theirs: Anno 2070 (deluxe pack plus Deep Ocean and all dlc.)

This would allow me to feel compensated, and at the same time give me a somewhat similar game to play, and a chance to win me back as an Ubisoft fan. As the producer, surely Ubi is big enough to make this happen. It also would get some people interested in the upcoming Anno Online, instead of people remembering this game and thumbing their nose at the new one based on experiences here.

Just trying to be constructive and think 'outside the box'.

[Scouser]

You all are speaking as if the "rollback" is optional; quite often they are not. Data corruption, especially from the addition of new data, can corrupt a server so completely that the only way to fix the problem is to remove the corruption and reinstall a new, and I do mean completely different, set of data; usually this comes from a backup. Unfortunately, this means that the changes that have taken place from the time of that data save WILL NOT EXIST any longer. Fortunately for those that have spent money on this or other web based games, those funds are almost always kept on another style of server, not the expensive one that is rigged for intensive use of thousands of people at the same time. Coincidentally, this is why there is a time delay while making monetary purchases before the purchase shows up "in-game".

It is my distinct opinion that the overworked souls at UBI and BB are franticly trying to remove the corruption and restore that back-up data. Once that is done they will attempt to return the purchases to those that have made them. After which they will probably make reparations to everyone in the form of some in-game reward, such as gems, coins, a special building, or the like... Possibly all three, but don't hold your breath. These bonuses may be adjusted by level, or contain level restrictive (oh you can't use that until your level 35, 40, 50 etc) materials.

Hope to see most of you return when the game starts to function again.

BTW this is a war game; you fight bandits constantly after level 17. It is NOT a PVP game. It never has been, and if it becomes one there will have to be some serious game reform. In its current form, the game cannot withstand the pressures involved in that kind of format. If that is the type of game you like, try another as this one will never be your cup of tea.

Taine Morgan
Writer, Designer, Graphic Artist

Thank you for adding your credentials beneath your signature, Taine Morgan. If you hadn't, I would have just assumed you were speaking out of your @$$ like everyone else on here (myself included).
When the server is resurrected - this is assuming I haven't moved on to more serious addictions such as heroin or murder - I shall find a way to construct a likeness of you in my town centre. I will order my settlers to bow down and pray to your likeness 5 times a day. This will illustrate just how lucky we all feel to be in the presence of such an accomplished and worthy person such as yourself.

The Scouse,
Ragamuffin, Degenerate, Ne'er-Do-Well

[Bosola]

This is just a game.

Let's evaluate this.

Webster's defines a game as such:
a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators.

That sounds about right for TSO. After all, running adventures requires some skill, and a little chance... and you certainly need endurance to keep frickin' playing all day every day. And certainly more than two people play, and yes, we all play according to a set of rules and *GASP* Wait! What's that word? AMUSEMENT Man, that's a pesky word, isn't it? Well let's look that one up to, just to be safe.

amusement:
anything that amuses; pastime; entertainment.

Wait.. there's yet another word! entertainment! I could keep going but i hope you get the basic idea and i'll move on to more pressing issues.

The fact is that this is, yes, a game. You can't argue that. This is not real life. This is not your job. You are not being paid to work on your island. In face it's quite the opposite, you're paying for the privilege to play on their servers. And let's be clear on that one. go ahead and flip over to the TOS and the EULA. I know.. i know.. nobody likes reading these things. But your island isn't YOURS. It's BB's. All that hard work? Doesn't mean squat. You could be banned tomorrow and your entire island gone in a flash. You could be accidentally deleted. There's a whole list of things that could potentially happen and in no way, shape, or form is BB held liable to do jack diddly squat about it.

Do they lose you as a customer? Sure they do. Do they care? Probably not. with over 1.5 Million players worldwide, a few thousand leaving Zeus isn't going to impress them much. It's all about perspective. You *think* you are far more important to blue byte's well being than you really are. You are but one user of millions. And with MT games (microtransaction)... the odds are in their favor that more people buy gems than dont, so them missing out on your $20/month isn't going to cripple them.

Lastly is the more pressing issue that underlies everything else in the "It's just a game" argument:

And there's no lol's or smiley faces here, i'm serious. Internet addiction is a serious thing. And if you're getting this worked up over the loss of however much data gets rolled back and however much time you were unable to play the game...you may need some form of therapy because you may have a serious disorder. See... normal people, and i'm not counting myself as entirely normal, but merely stating another point of view... they tend to view games as games. they don't get mad when they lose at UNO. They don't get upset because the playstation network went down again. They don't get mad when TSO goes down. They don't get mad when they get chat-banned for an hour. And in a lot of cases, they probably wouldn't get mad if they get straight out banned. they'd just shrug their shoulders and move on to a different game of the month.

Do I buy gems? Yes i do. Would i be upset if i lost them? Probably not. I tend to buy what i need, and use them all up. so if anything a rollback might actually GIVE me more gems than i had.

Do i enjoy playing TSO? As anyone who goes into Help can attest to, i play 5-6 hours a day, and try to play every day, but i have a real life outside of TSO that kicks in sometimes. In short, i play TSO as much as some people work for a living. And yet, i'm not razzed that the servers are down like some of you butthurt folks are.

Am I okay with a rollback? Not really okay with it. I hate to think of how far back they have to go and how much work i've got to do to get back to where i was before the servers crashed. But you know what the kicker is? That actually makes it okay, because it gives me something to strive for. It really gets boring running the same dozen adventures over and over, training more troops to run the same dozen adventures over and over, rebuildings fields wells and copper mines, rebuilding fields, wells and copper mines.

But knowing that I had [x] gold or had just gotten [items]... i've got something to look forward to.

If anyone has blinders and believes t heir point of view is the only right one, i'd like to hand you a mirror Falconwolf, and let you re-read all your posts in this thread and see them for the ramblings of someone who is wearing the largest blinders of them all. Anyone who agrees with your point of view you're quick to praise and laugh it up, but anyone who disagrees with you is somehow narrowminded and "just spouting the meme"...

When you think everyone else is the problem, and everyone else thinks it's you, odds are it's you.

Well said

[Ugiebear]

Yes to pay you back you will get a lifetime supply of MR. happy taken 5 times a day will cure you of all your game addictions along with a heavy regiment of therapy.

[Wujcio]

"That (rollback) actually makes it okay, because it gives me something to strive for."

lol wut? why dont you just rollback to the beginning, i.e. open up a new account and start anew... that should make you ecstatic....and all FOR FREE

[Ugiebear]

Thank you for adding your credentials beneath your signature, Taine Morgan. If you hadn't, I would have just assumed you were speaking out of your @$$ like everyone else on here (myself included).
When the server is resurrected - this is assuming I haven't moved on to more serious addictions such as heroin or murder - I shall find a way to construct a likeness of you in my town centre. I will order my settlers to bow down and pray to your likeness 5 times a day. This will illustrate just how lucky we all feel to be in the presence of such an accomplished and worthy person such as yourself.

The Scouse,
Ragamuffin, Degenerate, Ne'er-Do-Well

This guy deserves a medal and a round of applause.

[bricks527]

Wow..these messages just keep getting longer...should I cut and paste what the last 4 people said before my post to make it longer???? It is a simple problem here: the guild quests were so bad that they fermented inside the server and contaminated the rest of the game OR the mindless chatter inside Global-1 was so unintelligent that the actual server got dumber!!! Look in those 2 spots first IT people at Ubi!!

All jokes aside, a downtime of 2 days for a MMO is pretty bad. It does not instill confidence in the developers and adminastrators of the game. The lack of updates would only lead one to believe that you have no clue and are swinging blindly hoping to hit something.