Should claimed rewards in events even have time limits?

KefkaGestahl · November 2022

I was a week late to claiming my heroes of high isle bundle. To be honest, I don't care about the pet or the crafting stations. I'm not the type of player who would use them. But getting the DLC for free would have helped me out a lot. But because I usually only play the game when there is actually new content, I never found out I needed to claim my rewards before a specific date. I received no e-mail notifications or anything of that sort. On the 28th, one week after the last claim date, I went to the website to check the release date for Firesong on console and found out I missed it.

I contacted support with full honesty and they basically told me I needed to lie to them in order to grant exceptions, as they needed "a really good reason". I refused. I appealed and continued on the road of truth. I said I missed it because I didn't realize I needed to claim it. They rejected it a second time without any thought.

If they're going to commit to giving away the DLC as a sign of good faith to players, what reason do they have beyond mere greed to force players to jump through loops and claim the reward before some random, arbitrary date? It's frustrating. Also, I guess I learned my lesson. Next time, I'm going to lie. Lying is evidently what support wants.

dmnqwk · November 2022

What support wants is to help you.
Support, however, has to follow rules and you should be thankful they want to help instead of steadfastly adhering to whatever instructions they are given without attempting to help you.

It's easy to confuse 'support' with 'individuals who work for the support team and do their best to assist people'. It's the same fiasco people attribute with 'Starbucks' and 'Employees who work for Starbucks that have to tread the line between helping people and not getting fired'.

I understand why there is a time limit on such things - if there wasn't the store would just get so much bloat in it that it would look a complete shambles. But I also think an e-mail to remind you should've been sent out to assist in people obtaining the content.

Hopefully you do lie next time, so the kind people working for support who suggested it to help you out can be helpful

FlopsyPrince · November 2022

KefkaGestahl wrote: »

I was a week late to claiming my heroes of high isle bundle. To be honest, I don't care about the pet or the crafting stations. I'm not the type of player who would use them. But getting the DLC for free would have helped me out a lot. But because I usually only play the game when there is actually new content, I never found out I needed to claim my rewards before a specific date. I received no e-mail notifications or anything of that sort. On the 28th, one week after the last claim date, I went to the website to check the release date for Firesong on console and found out I missed it.

I contacted support with full honesty and they basically told me I needed to lie to them in order to grant exceptions, as they needed "a really good reason". I refused. I appealed and continued on the road of truth. I said I missed it because I didn't realize I needed to claim it. They rejected it a second time without any thought.

If they're going to commit to giving away the DLC as a sign of good faith to players, what reason do they have beyond mere greed to force players to jump through loops and claim the reward before some random, arbitrary date? It's frustrating. Also, I guess I learned my lesson. Next time, I'm going to lie. Lying is evidently what support wants.

Support seems to have a script and everyone I have ever worked with do not vary from that at all.

(I am not commenting on any specific issue!)

Some flexibility here may be rougher to handle, but it would help ZOS a lot with player perception.

FluffyBird · November 2022

KefkaGestahl wrote: »

giving away the DLC as a sign of good faith to players

No, it's not a sign of good faith, it's a promo and a bait to buy HI

opalcity · November 2022

You missed it, that's on you.

I really hope that customer service person doesn't get in trouble because you just tattled on them.

KefkaGestahl · November 2022

opalcity wrote: »

You missed it, that's on you.

I really hope that customer service person doesn't get in trouble because you just tattled on them.

I didn't tattle on them. Do you really think they were being kind or trying to do me a favor by saying they only grant exceptions if there is a strong reason for it? When they told me that, my ticket was rejected and it was closed. I had to appeal it in order to keep it going. And even if I had lied and said I was at a funeral or something, the logs already showed at that point I had already stated that I missed it because I didn't know it was even available to claim.

jaws343 · November 2022

There is an intentional reason to the time limit. The reward was really meant for players who participated, or at least were logging in to participate. The availability of the rewards were announced for claiming, and every other time this event has run the end rewards have been on a timer.

The timer is to prevent a player coming in a year later, or a month later, having not even participated in the event, and then getting rewards for it.

While the rewards are given out to everyone who qualifies, part of the qualification is sticking around to play the game to even know the rewards are possible. Not really ZOS' fault, or any game studio really, if players choose to come and go and not keep current with in game events they may be interested in the rewards for.

opalcity · November 2022

KefkaGestahl wrote: »

opalcity wrote: »

You missed it, that's on you.

I really hope that customer service person doesn't get in trouble because you just tattled on them.

I didn't tattle on them. Do you really think they were being kind or trying to do me a favor by saying they only grant exceptions if there is a strong reason for it? When they told me that, my ticket was rejected and it was closed. I had to appeal it in order to keep it going. And even if I had lied and said I was at a funeral or something, the logs already showed at that point I had already stated that I missed it because I didn't know it was even available to claim.

You just stated in a public forum that a customer service member prompted you to try a different tactic because they knew if you stayed your course you were going to be denied. So yeah, that's telling on them.

Yes, I do believe they were trying to help. They know their system and how to work around it. Anyone in customer service knows workarounds to rigid systems and sometimes they will try and help you. You didn't take the hint.

(for future reference, even if customer service helps you, you don't ever state explicitly what they did to help, just say that you got great customer service. Trust me, I know someone who got sacked thanks to a well-intentioned 5-star yelp review!)

FluffyBird · November 2022

I fail to see how saying that they can make an exception if there's a reason for it is anything other than being helpful. It's only natural for them to ask if there's something beside audacity that makes you entitled for a reward from a missed promo.

KefkaGestahl · November 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

There is an intentional reason to the time limit. The reward was really meant for players who participated, or at least were logging in to participate.

I did participate. I already had the achievement and logged into the game but it didn't specify in advance when the rewards would be distributed and I was never e-mailed about it. Yet they surely e-mailed me about the start of the event.

opalcity wrote: »

You just stated in a public forum that a customer service member prompted you to try a different tactic because they knew if you stayed your course you were going to be denied. So yeah, that's telling on them.

Objection. Assuming facts not in evidence. You're assuming their motive.

FluffyBird wrote: »

I fail to see how saying that they can make an exception if there's a reason for it is anything other than being helpful. It's only natural for them to ask if there's something beside audacity that makes you entitled for a reward from a missed promo.

Because many games grant such exceptions. If I was eligible to receive a reward but missed it by a mere seven days, playing hardball with me and trying to put me through the ringers doesn't accomplish anything.

SammyKhajit · November 2022

OP, this is on you.

KefkaGestahl · November 2022

SammyKhajit wrote: »

OP, this is on you.

Yes. I owned up to it when I contacted support. My entire point is that I didn't lie or try to blame somebody else. I owned up to it and said "my bad" and hoped that I could depend on their mercy given I was one week late. But the truth will not set you free. It'll just cost you $15 when you're forced to subscribe to play the new zone.

Look, I just think that if you have an event to let people claim a DLC for free, you should probably give them up until the DLC comes out. Why randomly end the ability to claim on the 21st, a full 25 days before the DLC even releases on console? Why not send out an e-mail to people when the event was completed to let them know they need to log in and claim their rewards? Why not just automatically credit the DLC to the accounts of people who participated in the event and met all of the requirements?

jaws343 · November 2022

KefkaGestahl wrote: »

SammyKhajit wrote: »

OP, this is on you.

Yes. I owned up to it when I contacted support. My entire point is that I didn't lie or try to blame somebody else. I owned up to it and said "my bad" and hoped that I could depend on their mercy given I was one week late. But the truth will not set you free. It'll just cost you $15 when you're forced to subscribe to play the new zone.

Look, I just think that if you have an event to let people claim a DLC for free, you should probably give them up until the DLC comes out. Why randomly end the ability to claim on the 21st, a full 25 days before the DLC even releases on console? Why not send out an e-mail to people when the event was completed to let them know they need to log in and claim their rewards? Why not just automatically credit the DLC to the accounts of people who participated in the event and met all of the requirements?

They announced it here and on their website. And also in-game if I am not mistaken.

Not to mention, they announced at the start of the event that the rewards would be available as soon as the 100% goal was reached. A goal that was tracked daily on their web page dedicated to the event.

Plenty of opportunities to be informed about it.

FluffyBird · November 2022

Listen, if you ask, be ready to hear a "no" and don't complain when you do. Otherwise, it's a demand. Then don't try to paint it as "hoping for mercy" and be sure to have a good reason. "It's only a week" is not a good reason.

Just like that other guy, you didn't care enough to keep an eye on event, but somehow care enough to complain about missing out on freebies. And have an audacity to blame support too.

KefkaGestahl · November 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

They announced it here and on their website. And also in-game if I am not mistaken.

Not to mention, they announced at the start of the event that the rewards would be available as soon as the 100% goal was reached. A goal that was tracked daily on their web page dedicated to the event.

Plenty of opportunities to be informed about it.

And an e-mail was too much? What's the point in me being on the mailing list? The event was, like, two weeks. I logged in, saw I already had the achievement, and logged out. There was nothing else for me to do during the event. So I beg your pardon but I don't believe it's unreasonable for people to have participated in the event and then simply lost track of its goings on.

ZOS_Kevin · November 2022

Hi All, we are going to close this thread down as misinforms the customer service interaction and intent. We will follow up with @KefkaGestahl via DM to close the loop on this.

We do want to note, the High Isle promotion (along with several of our Q3 community initiatives) have done this before, in offering the community reward for a limited time. We presented this information via our website article, the countdown bar that was available at the time, all of our social media, the forum linked to the website article, in-game timer on the bundle, and we had a live stream mentioning this (I was the one on that livestream sharing that information and the VOD is on YouTube). So there were quite a few places we noted the limited time nature of the bundle.

Lastly, customer service tries to be flexible on a case by case basis for events like this and are upfront about that. For example, we've had times where natural disasters have impacted players from being able to claim items. But if something has a time limit and a player missed it, please do not get upset at customer service for following protocol and doing their job. Nobody is asking for players to lie to customer service.