An SOE customer service gem!

With the release of guild halls in Everquest our guild had a lot to do. As a casual bunch we opted for the Tier 2 hall so we didn’t overstretch ourselves. South Qeynos was the location of choice and before long we were adding amenities and furniture to help make our hall a home. One amenity of choice was the option of adding uniform mannequins so we could kit out our npc’s with some nice outfits.

We purchased 2 mannequins at first and managed to setup the uniforms without any problems, well lack of fashion sense maybe, but that’s a whole other topic.

After a while our urge for weird and wonderful outfits got the better of us and we purchased 2 more mannequins. Upon trying to use the 2 additional uniforms we’d created we came upon our first problem, 2 of the mannequins had the name “uniform 1″ and 2 “uniform 2″. This meant that the game could only see the first 2 and thefore we had 2 mannequins that we couldn’t do anything with.

A guildmate contact a GM who told us to sell the mannequins and re-purchase. We did this as asked and then sent a petition to regain the status lot from selling them back to the hall, this is where the problems began.

SOE decided that we had bought 2 mannequins and received 4, when in actual fact we had purchased 2 and received 2, then purchased 2 more and received 2 more. My efforts to make them see this can be seen below.

Customer  11/06/2008 01:21 PM
An officer of our guild was told to remove all our mannequins and re purchase to clear the bug where we had 2 named uniform 1 and 2 uniform 2.
this means we have had to repurchase 4 mannequins at a total of 20p and 2 mil status. Can we please get our cash and status reimbursed to the guild escrow as the bug was caused by the game and not us ourselves.

Response (GM *****) 11/06/2008 08:54 PM
Greetings *****,

This is GM ***** of Sony Online Entertainment In-Game Support responding to your petition. It appears that when you removed the duplicated mannequins you also regained the money that was spend on the uniforms so we will be unable to reimburse you for the coin.

Thank you for your petition and should you have any issues in the future please feel free to petition them as well.

Regards,
GM ******
EverQuest II
Sony Online Entertainment

Customer  11/07/2008 11:06 AM
Yes the coin is not the issue, it’s the lost status. I believe you don’t get the full status back when you sell amenities back to the hall. It is the missing status we would like returned from the 4 mannequins as it was a bug that meant we had to sell and re-purchase.

Response (GM) 11/07/2008 11:48 AM
Greetings,

This is Senior Game Master ****. When **** purchased two mannequins, they duplicated. That is why you had two mannequins with the #1 ID and two with the #2 ID. When selling the mannequins you did gain some coin and status from each sale, including from the sale of the duplicated mannequins. As the guild, *****, originally only purchased two mannequins, acquiring four now is your choice. Our concern is with the two that were duplicated.

Response (GM ****) 11/07/2008 12:10 PM

Continuing.

When you sold the original and the duplicated mannequin you received both the coin and status for the sale. Each gives back 50 % of cost. So selling the original and duplicated mannequin equal 100 % cost returned. So the guild escrow is not missing any guild or status in this regard. The guild did not have a third or fourth legitimate mannequin so buying them now is a true purchase.

I hope this information helps and apologize again for multiple responses from my and my butterfingers.

If there is anything else we can try to assist you with, please let us know.

Safe journeys,

Customer  11/08/2008 01:21 AM
Hi,

Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that we actually paid for 4 mannequins, is that not right? I’m sure i remember buying them one by one not 2 by 2.

Response (GM ****) 11/08/2008 07:39 AM
Greetings ****,

This is Senior Game Master **** again. On October 15th **** purchased two mannequins. The ‘bug’ caused each one to present two so you ended up with four but only paid for the two. That was the coding error. Buying one got you two when it should not have. To correct the tagging on the mannequins, guilds have to sell all of the affected ones, in some cases all of their mannequins, and repurchase them. Selling all four earned the guild, ****, back the price of the two purchased. Repurchasing them afterwards, the first two were covered and the next two were actually new purchased made in the guild hall.

If you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to ask. If there is anything else we can try to assist you with, please let us know.

Safe journeys,

Senior Game Master ****

By this point I was getting a bit annoyed as despite my efforts they were still missing the point that we had purchased 2 and got 2, then 2 more and received 2 more. Despite the GM’s insisting that was not the case.

My efforts continued.

Customer 11/08/2008 10:08 AM
Hi again,

I am **** and I did indeed purchase 2 mannequins on the 15th. 2 Other mannequins were purchased around a week before this however, it was the 2nd two which were given the wrong labels by the game. With this in mind we did not purchase 2 and get 4, we purchased 2 on on occasion and 2 on another.

Then the following, good to know they read my comments.

Response (GM ****) 11/08/2008 10:11 AM
Greetings again ****!

Glad we could be of assistance and explaining to you what took place.

Please never hesitate to contact us again with any other matter you may encounter in your adventures for which we may be of assistance.

Thank you for playing Everquest 2.

Safe Travels in and out of Norrath,

So I tried again

Customer 11/09/2008 05:47 AM
I’m afraid you seem to have ignored my last comment on the matter which clearly states we did not by 2 and get 4 as GM **** suggested. Please re-read my last comment and check the guild logs which should verify this.

The reply was still missing my point

Greetings again ****!

My name is GM ****and I am responding to the ticket you have submitted about your mannequins.

Gm **** explained to you that you purchased 2 mannequins and received 4. This is not to say you purchased 2 and got 4 at the same time, you purchased 1 and received 2 on one occasion, and then purchased another and received 2.

In essence the mannequins were duplicated on purchase. Which means you paid for 2 and received 4. Which is why when you sold 4 you received money for 2, which is the money you had paid initially, which means you are not out any money.

Please never hesitate to contact us again with any other matter you may encounter in your adventures for which we may be of assistance.

Thank you for playing Everquest 2.

Safe Travels in and out of Norrath,

GM ****

After encouragement from guildmates I tried one more time.

I am not sure how much clearer I Can make this to be honest.

I was there as were others when the mannequins were purchased.

We purchased 1 and got 1.
We purchased another 1 and got another 1.

We placed these played around then decided we wanted some more.

So we purchased 1 and got 1
Purchased another and got another 1.

It was only when we couldn’t work out why the uniforms were not working that we checked and found 2 to have the same name and 2 to have another.

Have you checked the logs back since guild creation for instances of mannequin purchases?

Their final response was:

Greetings ****!

My name is GM **** and I am responding to the ticket you have submitted about your Guild Hall mannequins.

Let me try to explain it to you another way.

My logs, which are very accurate, indicate an equal amount spent when the mannequins were purchased and this same amount reimbursed to your escrow when the mannequins were sold back. This means that no amount of escrow coin or status is missing and this is why we will not be reimbursing you any coin or status as a result since you were made whole when you sold then back.

I hope this clears things up for you.

Please never hesitate to contact us again with any other matter you may encounter in your adventures for which we may be of assistance.

Thank you for playing Everquest 2.

Safe Travels in and out of Norrath,

GM ****
Everquest II

I had to admit defeat as their word is obviously final, and I had grown tired of trying to make my point. Their logs are “very accurate” which is as good as saying “we are always right”.

Everquest 2 is a great game, it’s a shame about SOE’s Customer service.

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