Will there be any compensation for downtime?

iantheincrediblerwb17_ESO

Are there any plans to compensate players for major server downtime? Perhaps in terms of extra playing time added to the end of the monthly subscription?

My long, sad story:
Today I organised to come home from work early and cancelled dinner plans so I could enjoy Day 1 of early access. Because I was excited about ESO. Instead I've spent 4 hours trying to login periodically, with no word about when the problem might be fixed.

I pre-ordered because I felt there was value in being able to get an early start. I don't see any way of getting that 'value' back now (short of the ridiculous, like delaying the actual launch day). However, once the paid subscriptions start, there is a definite money value attached to playing time- hence my question will there be any compensation for server downtime?

I think a gesture like that would show some corporate integrity, and take away some of the sting when players aren't able to play the game. I'm not talking about scheduled maintenance (though wouldn't it be nice if you could recognise that, too).

What do other players think?

Seroczynski

Most of these things are settled when you agree their terms. If the downtime is "just" for a few hours it is most likely in the acceptable timeframe where no compensation is required.

Laura

I think if they did something like that it would be unbelievably well received but I don't know what they would do.

Apolonius

See, Im torn on this. I know that its early launch, and all mmos have trouble. Normally that trouble is server related. ESO has done great on that end, however, Ive seen the same bugs that were seen and reported by me and many others in like the last 4 betas. That to me isn't something to over look. I wouldnt go out and buy a car and then want to be told that they have to still assemble the engine, and I didnt want to buy a game and have play halted to fix bugs theyve known about for months. Personally, I feel like somehow this was all rushed to make money and hit the market if the last 12hrs are any idea of whats to come. After all this is the second "unknown eta" down time whats the rest of the game going to be like.

RagnarSS

I think the problem also is communication. They would be better off saying "we estimate it will take 6 hours". If they finish early they are heroes and if they think it is going to take longer they communicate that. So far it has been down for 5 hours and there have been 3 posts saying "we are sorry it is still down but will be back soon". That ain't great customer service in my view. Oh and yes me and my friends think there should be. We get there are issues that only can be found when a game comes out and the fact the mail server came down 6 hours before suggests that it something to do with that....maybe stopping the gold sellers.

However, if they had a GM online or just someone so that when gold spammers spammed they just got banned straight away there would be no gold exploit or just limit the amount of gold that can be sent via the mail.

Either way, yeah I get that some issues won't be found until it comes out of beta but what is the point of paying for early access if you cannot actually play! They won't give compensation though, MMO's never do.

iantheincrediblerwb17_ESO

@Seroczynski it is certainly true that we agree to those terms (not that we have a choice if we want to play the game). I don't think there's a legal argument to be made here, but I do think there is a moral one?

Kind gestures like compensating us for downtime might actually help the publisher with profits, which is ultimately better for all of us because there are more funds available to create new content. Again, I don't mean financial compensation- I mean extra game time added to our subscription that matches the time lost.

Looking through these forums, there is clearly a bit of rage going round about todays downtime (myself included, you might have guessed ). I'm concerned that if we don't see some kind of gesture from the publishers, there are lots of people who won't stick with this game beyond the first month.

krees28b14_ESO

Laura wrote: »

I think if they did something like that it would be unbelievably well received but I don't know what they would do.

Pretty simple actually. They give out a courtesy day for all players. Just one free day to make up for losing out on a day. Not that we are missing out on an entire day right now but you add up the hour here and three hours there you would get a day or two I bet in the course of the first month. People like free stuff and that would solve the problem. But I think that they would have to keep track of the hours that were off line.

Jolnir

Its a fair question, i have taken half a week off work to play after pre purchasing.
Sad really isnt it...

Wreaken

Not to mention all the Oceanic demographic players just lost a day/night of their early access play time from this.

Wargaard

Exactly what Jolnir and Weaken stated.

Oceanic are getting the hard end of the stick as usual, and still no word of when or if the server is up for our prime time during an early access where we get can't access.

TheGodless1

always want compensation...you kids never cease to amaze me..it's maintenance...deal with it...if you took time from work then apparently you are old enough to understand that things break and need to be fixed. Yet you want compensation for something you admittedly haven't even played yet. Hate these childish compensation for downtime threads...you aren't entitled and you know this is typical of an MMO...so stop with the crying already

Valison

I think the main problem is that a lot of people (myself included) mainly pre-ordered the imperial edition for the 5 days of early access. This much down-time really makes me upset that i pretty much wasted my money.

I get it - you have to fix the bugs - but this isn't beta anymore, we are paying customers (in some ways your most supportive customers as we paid extra) and a little token gesture of something in-game (won't cut into their profits) would go a long way to securing long-term memberships in the game.

I don't think anyone would realistically expect monetary compensation, but a little something in this case could go a looong way to growing a rapport with your player base.

CarlosWu

I thought these "Next Gen" MMO's would have moved past screwing over the Aussie population with maintenance schedules in prime time. I think my wallet needs to do the talking when the 30 days are up.

Wreaken

TheGodless1 wrote: »

always want compensation...you kids never cease to amaze me..it's maintenance...deal with it...if you took time from work then apparently you are old enough to understand that things break and need to be fixed. Yet you want compensation for something you admittedly haven't even played yet. Hate these childish compensation for downtime threads...you aren't entitled and you know this is typical of an MMO...so stop with the crying already

If this was NA/EU prime time, you would be stoned to death with that attitude.

Valison

I believe this wasn't scheduled -- just fixing a major bug, that they're obviously having problems with finding where they missed the semi-colon.

I'm in Aus too so yeah we get the raw end of it, but the bright-side is we get to live in Australia.. so fair trade of right? :P

Shaun98ca2

The compensation is a slightly better working game?

Valison

Having a working product later on isn't compensation for not being able to access it beforehand - time that you were paying for. Eerrr unless you were being sarcastic.

metalgold

I primarily play at night. I have a third shift job that I have the good fortune of being able to do what I want so long as I'm available during my shift if it all goes wrong. I sleep for the most part during the day. I was not even aware of the downtime on the 1st, but this one I am...I'd like to think they would show a gesture with something as most here paid $80 to be able to access the game early (the horse and rings are nice too, but the jumpstart before the evil hoard comes on is my primary reason for ordering). I'm sure they are aware of that fact, but yes, an ETA would be nice for sure...

Abominog

Well look at it this way - you didn't get the Bank wipe bug I've seen posted on the forums today I for one would rather that be fixed than play 48hrs and find all my stuff gone

awkwarrd

Haha i knew a thread like this would pop up sooner or later.

I would love to see all the early access people get something, we did pre-order for what i have heard described as an open beta.

There is not much that could be given to the early access people really, that would be good, and that would not be considered over the top rewards if you look at it from the people who didn't buy into early access.
Although im pretty sure that everyone who wants to plays ESO is in early access, and that anyone after that who buys the game will be doing so in a time frame that's further away than 5 days, imo.

Now what rewards could be worth while then?

• A horse? unlikely.
• Vanity pets? maybe, kinda dumb imo.
• Stat and Skill refund for all? I think that's worth like 2k-3k gold, maybe.
• A few treasure maps? maybe.
• Inventory and Bank space? maybe.

There could be more "I survived Early Access" reward ideas, but meh.

I wouldn't mind more bank and inventory space, and a horse, and a stat/skill refund, although im not keen on those vanity pets, if they auto-looted for me, then sure, but im not a fan of useless stuff like that.

In the end, our reward will most likely be "I helped them find game breaking bugs that annoyed the crap out of us during early access because i pre-ordered and incidentally helped them look at getting a better forum and or better customer support"
The game makers and fixers and alot of players would look at it like this too.

Wreaken

Abominog wrote: »

Well look at it this way - you didn't get the Bank wipe bug I've seen posted on the forums today I for one would rather that be fixed than play 48hrs and find all my stuff gone

Regardless even if you did loose it all, a simple support ticket raised to a GM who can then restore all your lost goods is suffice.

Kokushibyou

TheGodless1 wrote: »

always want compensation...you kids never cease to amaze me..it's maintenance...deal with it...if you took time from work then apparently you are old enough to understand that things break and need to be fixed. Yet you want compensation for something you admittedly haven't even played yet. Hate these childish compensation for downtime threads...you aren't entitled and you know this is typical of an MMO...so stop with the crying already

Your are right that we are not entitled; however, that doesn't mean it would not be better PR on the part of ZOS to add 1 day of game time to peoples accounts to offset the downtime. Other games have done it when they have server issues that take longer than expected. Great companies understand : "It's not my fault, but it is my responsibility" and go above and beyond to serve their customers. This is an opportunity for ZOS to take responsibility and build their relationship with their customers.

Valwardon

Hi! Not to mention any names but someone on this team worked for another game and the same thing happened with bugs. Bugs where reported they did not get fixed. New code was added on top of the bugs. There was bugs in new code so there was bugs for the bugs in case you like bugs.

Other then that the game was enjoyable you just had to learn to live with the permanent bugs as the only way to truly get rid of the bugs was to scratch everything and start a new. The bugs where so engrained into the code from them piling buggy code on top of the buggy code it was just a lost cause to try and fix it.

Hopefully said person has learned there lesson and HOPEFULLY this downtime is spent fixing some of the bugs in the code. If so hey take as long as you need to get it right. I would much rather play a nice bug free game as to spend my time learning to "deal" with the bugs.



So devs PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL PLEASE!!! Fix the bugs and if you have to go down for maintenance everyday for two months to fix them all it will be fine as the end result is all that really matters.

Community please be patient I want them to fix this game and not feel like they are being rushed and end up with bugs on top of bugs because I do not like bugs yo.

Ischmalud

iantheincrediblerwb17_ESO wrote: »

I pre-ordered because I felt there was value in being able to get an early start. I don't see any way of getting that 'value' back now (short of the ridiculous, like delaying the actual launch day).

yea im with u main reason i preorder was the headstart and this is the 2nd downtimesince that headstart kicked off - Combine that with me also having to work - geeewizz im wiered i know - I´ll end up getting maybe a few HOURS of headstart at best - IF this rate of downtime keeps up. Id say least they could do is give us bit of extra time at the end. Now I wont go into the whole whats it say in the Terms and Agreement we all signed since like most People i dont read it - not even going to pretend I do.
More from a emotional rather than legal/ Logical Point of view that it would be a smart move imho

well see you online.......unless the Server is down for maintenance :P (sorry couldnt help myslef)

yezuu

all those that lived through the downtime will get a free pet to show their endurance.

ohoni

Are there any plans to compensate players for major server downtime? Perhaps in terms of extra playing time added to the end of the monthly subscription?

Well that's the bare minimum. There will at least be a free day added to the end of the month, that's a given. Some might say that it's "just a few hours," but if those are the few hours you havd to play for the day, then that is your entire day in the game gone, and they need to compensate for that accordingly.

The real question is what else they're going to be offering on top of that to not just compensate the loss, but to make up for it. I would love a horse if offered, but I really doubt they will.

Valison

Yeah as awkwarrd said, no freaken vanity pets. Unless you give me a baby dragon, or a dremora on a leash, they are useless and a waste of space :P

gdawg311b14_ESO

I didnt read this entire thread just the OP and.... you are kidding right? compensation? how about bug fixes... that should be enough lol... you arent even paying for a subscription yet... people these days wow.

Yevon

LOL, age of entitlement.

Valison

gdawg311b14_ESO wrote: »

I didnt read this entire thread just the OP and.... you are kidding right? compensation? how about bug fixes... that should be enough lol... you arent even paying for a subscription yet... people these days wow.

Not paying for sub.. paying a separate amount for early access. You think people pre-ordered for a mudcrab to follow you around? ;P

awkwarrd

gdawg311b14_ESO wrote: »

I didnt read this entire thread just the OP and.... you are kidding right? compensation? how about bug fixes... that should be enough lol... you arent even paying for a subscription yet... people these days wow.

Yevon wrote: »

LOL, age of entitlement.

obnxsh wrote: »

hahahaah holy wow, an entire generation of entitled silver spoon fed turd brains in this thread.

Grow up.

Called it.

awkwarrd wrote: »

In the end, our reward will most likely be "I helped them find game breaking bugs that annoyed the crap out of us during early access because i pre-ordered and incidentally helped them look at getting a better forum and or better customer support"
The game makers and fixers and alot of players would look at it like this too.