@CJ54

[P4TR1C14N]

Originally Posted by CJ54


No, that was a big pile of steaming crap posted by one repeat forum trolls.

Guys, we understand the concern on things like this. If you see someone you think has questionable stats, contact Support with name and level, and the reason. As I've asked before (and as is in the forum guidelines) please don't post about it here, since 90% of the time it turns into a big "name and shame" fest where a bunch of people who aren't cheating get accused of cheating. Thank you for your understanding on this.

Dear CJ54... We understand your rules, but please dont be ignorant for your own rules. People have sent loads off tickets. They dont get any feedback on results and dont see any results on the battlefield.

So where is here the problem? It Seems you try to Say ppl just need to accept gree is not doing What they should do. Closing Posts is for me equal to saying we can go to xxxxx as long as nothing is moving on gree side to prove we shouldnt post and keep sharing info with other players.

Dont put the ball in the camp off your playing and paying customers. Invest your time in your company and management where the real root cause is situated.

People do wonder if gree is working with pen and paper instead off with a db where Every single action, unit is logged. A querry is probably not yet known in gree and Will be invented in 2020? Sorry... Sarcastic but true.

Regards.

[Winstrol]

" where a bunch of people who aren't cheating get accused of cheating" **** made me laugh so hard haha

[VileDoom]

" where a bunch of people who aren't cheating get accused of cheating" **** made me laugh so hard haha

It certainly is one of those double face palm moments. ;)

[phopjon]

Is it really cheating if not enforced? See "Major League Baseball" - Entire History - Special focus on 1980s - 2006ish

[P4TR1C14N]

" where a bunch of people who aren't cheating get accused of cheating" **** made me laugh so hard haha

He got a point there. Unfortunately that doesnt Justify the unprofessional behaviour from gree.

[VileDoom]

Is it really cheating if not enforced? See "Major League Baseball" - Entire History - Special focus on 1980s - 2006ish

Congress seems to think so. They spend more money investigating MLB than our own corrupt politicians. Lol

[CJ54]

Dear CJ54... We understand your rules, but please dont be ignorant for your own rules. People have sent loads off tickets. They dont get any feedback on results and dont see any results on the battlefield.

This is a fair question and I will be glad to type out a longer response to it now if people will give me a moment.

[KATiff]

This is a fair question and I will be glad to type out a longer response to it now if people will give me a moment.

CJ, I'm all ears.

[Winstrol]

This is a fair question and I will be glad to type out a longer response to it now if people will give me a moment.
Let's be HONEST CJ , support is useless as hell and they only do "COPY" and "PASTE" crap to our tickets . You can even hire a monkey to do that ;)

[Lizzard King]

This is a fair question and I will be glad to type out a longer response to it now if people will give me a moment.

I say we give the guy some time to respond.

[Jean marc]

i am still waiting for the gems that i bought or my money back. And could not buy gems during the past week end and still locked. And as usual no answer.

[a glory a]

I say we give the guy some time to respond.

That's your first ever post on the forums... can't come here and start telling people what to do. they are pretty angry hackers have higher stats than them right now..

[Lizzard King]

That's your first ever post on the forums... can't come here and start telling people what to do. they are pretty angry hackers have higher stats than them right now..

Yes it was my first post and I understand the anger. I come here often to look for answers to questions everybody else has about the same problems. But people are ridiculing the guy after he said he was going to respond.

But thank you, for the warm welcome to the forum. I go now.

[Gweo]

Yes it was my first post and I understand the anger. I come here often to look for answers to questions everybody else has about the same problems. But people are ridiculing the guy after he said he was going to respond.

But thank you, for the warm welcome to the forum. I go now.

I agree with you. Lets give him a few more minutes. Will be interesting to read.

[Mr T Perfect]

At least we have someone from gree that will chat to players via this forum - they dont have to you know and lets give CJ the chance to respond before the gree bashing begins.

[Rastlin]

At least we have someone from gree that will chat to players via this forum - they dont have to you know and lets give CJ the chance to respond before the gree bashing begins.
Very true!

[Jean marc]

The Green Guru, i agree and support you.

[Rastlin]

Well I guess I now I have to be in fear of being banned for saying this (but it needs to be said):
The fastest way to ruin an online community it to ban the players that really help... Also to ban the highest paying player in the game, is the worst business decision I have ever heard of (and what message does it send to you lower paying customers?). If the company really wants to make all players feel meaningless as a consumer, this was the very best way to do it! I am in complete shock right now....

[VileDoom]

Our concerns didn’t manifest overnight, GREE has had ample time to respond. My patience and that of most here has all but expired. Many forum members have stuck around and taken the time to address flaws in the game. How many non-forum members have simply gotten fed up and just quit? GREE has completely lost their business and soon will lose many of ours as well.

[travelingsalesman]

LOL this seems to be going well...

[bgood]

Hey CJ i got a ticket aged about 30 days still open...is that good support? Gree switched the bonus progam and claims it can't program to account for sales for full value....as a programmer im suppossed to believe that...really? I've had multiple queries into hackers and i know their hackers because the idiots have 5000 armor and weapons and they are all battle axes and baneret plate with low iph. I'v posted people with low iph who continually load gold, now there are people using the honor hack. If i can spot one it means you can to would it really be so difficult.

When some obtains gold at some point it syncronizes the data with the main servers (like when you go to ally kingdom, hit refresh, go to LTQ, protect gold) would it be sooooo hard to take setup a query that proactively monitors people who have drastic changes to their honor or gold between syncs? Its one thing to see our devalued by rapid inflation of units its another thing to allow guilds unmonitored access. I get there will be always be hackers but there is no transparency here that Gree acknowledges its a problem. YOu said it yourself 90% bs which means 10% is. How is that acceptable rate? You make good money off guild wars to not have it properly enforced in a transparent manner is insulting to everyone. How hard is it to automatically look at guilds with a lot of bonuses unlocked? even though it takes billions of gold to do there are guilds with 60 members and they are not named FUN, RK, BGK nothing has been done from dragons roost to now. Why don't you take some time not through out a million events that are full of bugs and work together with the people here to make the game better. Gree will get more cash in the long run.

.02

[David.]

If GREE would just employ more people with the extra money they earn last months all these problems would've been solved by now...

[Krissy]

From the forum or the game?

[travelingsalesman]

from the forum not the game

[Dhusagar]

How long is a "moment" in Gree land?

[Mr T Perfect]

Ladies and gents

a policy is a policy - it is there to be followed - there are actions that can be taken to sort out any issues - just have to wait for a response. Everything takes time.

Now a suggestion to our developer friends that play this game and communicate on this forum

If CJ was to release a copy of dead code of the game that codex and number values were changed so you could not use it to hack - would you spend the time to try to fix bugs?

policy is law and law is not to be broken
guidelines are there to guid and are there to be bent to interpritate. (wrong spelling i know)

[Acidist]

I give my friends on the forum right.U should something or u loose many guys they spend the most money in the game.
The support sucks in the last time.We must wait for long for a response or we become a average response to it.
When we spend hundreds of dollars or euros, we have the right to say what we need.And not everytime, that u close or deleted the threads.U say everytime, we should write to support, if we something need.But by support nobody cares what we want.Also we are angry and write on the forum now.
When u take so much money from us, than u can more for us.
Please do something with the glicthes, bugs, hackers, slow down with events and give us the old bonus program back.
And unban Greenguru and The1only,this is really childish
I hope u understand this
Regards

[JTurtle]

Hey CJ i got a ticket aged about 30 days still open...is that good support? Gree switched the bonus progam and claims it can't program to account for sales for full value....as a programmer im suppossed to believe that...really? I've had multiple queries into hackers and i know their hackers because the idiots have 5000 armor and weapons and they are all battle axes and baneret plate with low iph. I'v posted people with low iph who continually load gold, now there are people using the honor hack. If i can spot one it means you can to would it really be so difficult.

When some obtains gold at some point it syncronizes the data with the main servers (like when you go to ally kingdom, hit refresh, go to LTQ, protect gold) would it be sooooo hard to take setup a query that proactively monitors people who have drastic changes to their honor or gold between syncs? Its one thing to see our devalued by rapid inflation of units its another thing to allow guilds unmonitored access. I get there will be always be hackers but there is no transparency here that Gree acknowledges its a problem. YOu said it yourself 90% bs which means 10% is. How is that acceptable rate? You make good money off guild wars to not have it properly enforced in a transparent manner is insulting to everyone. How hard is it to automatically look at guilds with a lot of bonuses unlocked? even though it takes billions of gold to do there are guilds with 60 members and they are not named FUN, RK, BGK nothing has been done from dragons roost to now. Why don't you take some time not through out a million events that are full of bugs and work together with the people here to make the game better. Gree will get more cash in the long run.

.02


As a programmer and dba I COMPLETELY agree with you. It's not hard or taxing on the servers to create a separate process that monitors the top guilds. Or to run queries on guilds with all bonuses unlocked and see who and how much gold was generated within a certain time period. You can even create ongoing logs of the top players/guilds. I understand not doing it for every single player....but people on this forum claim certain guilds/players are cheating... monitor that player. People (Ex: GreenGuru) on this forum are helping you guys. Put flags in your program too find drastic jumps in gold/gems. If there's a drastic jump in gems and the player didn't pay a dime....then obvious answer is he is cheating... hire me i'll get it done.

[CJ54]

Dear CJ54... We understand your rules, but please dont be ignorant for your own rules. People have sent loads off tickets. They dont get any feedback on results and dont see any results on the battlefield.

So where is here the problem? It Seems you try to Say ppl just need to accept gree is not doing What they should do. Closing Posts is for me equal to saying we can go to xxxxx as long as nothing is moving on gree side to prove we shouldnt post and keep sharing info with other players.

Dont put the ball in the camp off your playing and paying customers. Invest your time in your company and management where the real root cause is situated.

People do wonder if gree is working with pen and paper instead off with a db where Every single action, unit is logged. A querry is probably not yet known in gree and Will be invented in 2020? Sorry... Sarcastic but true.

We don't give feedback on cheat reports because 99% of what we get are reports on people who aren't cheating. You can believe that or not, but it is true. The #1 source of cheat reports is people spending gems legitimately. And we don't share financial info about other people even in a roundabout way, period.

The disconnect here is obviously about that other 1%, but I wanted to mention the environment we operate under as far the reporting structure. Since we have a policy not to discuss the particulars of another player's account (one way or another), that means when there IS something valid, it looks like we're not doing anything or don't care.

Which isn't true. A great deal of staff time over here is spent preventing or fixing bugs that allow exploits or tracking down the people exploiting them and then banning those people (personally, I spent about 20% of my work time on hings related to this).

That takes time. It is lame that it is not an instantaneous process, but the fact is that it takes time. That doesn't mean we are not on it or that we don't care.

A couple of facts:

-a banned account does not magically disappear from the game, banned does not equal deleted; people that have it in their newsfeed or their allies list can still see it for awhile. It generally won't show up in the rivals list, but sometimes does when we're shifting the algorithm about (at which point we usually get a bunch of reports about "why we haven't done anything about X"). The vast majority of valid reports are for someone who's already banned and was banned less than 24 hours after they were first reported.

-one or two dedicated griefers who find an exploit can make it look like cheaters are everywhere. Which is kind of the point; these people aren't generally as concerned about winning as they are trying to make people angry and frustrated. We ban them and fix the exploit, repeat.

-Sometimes, we would like to find out what someone is doing so that we can cut it off at the root. That can mean watching them do it. Which, again, looks like we're doing nothing from the outside.

-There's only so many end goals when it comes to cheating, honestly. Regardless of the means to do so, you're looking for better, faster items/units/buildings/guild upgrades. The problem is that there may be a whole lot of ways to go about getting those things but all anyone can really see is the end result. Hypothetical situation: We fix all the ways people could theoretically cheat more honor items (or the raw honor itself, or get too many attacks to get more honor, etc.). Three versions later, a bug in the code makes an entirely new potential exploit to get lots of honor. Over on our side, it is "A new way to do that popped up, let's squish it". Player side, and this is completely understandable, it ends up looking like "Why won't they ever fix this?!?". That's frustrating, but new bugs mimicking the effects of old ones can happen.

-The worst situation, which does happen occasionally when dealing with old code, is the situation where fixing something in the "easy" way would break some aspect of the game for everyone. In those cases, you have to stop and find a better solution. It might even require a redesign of a core part of the architecture. *We still do that when required*, but this increases the time required by a lot. It is exceedingly important to us not to break new things while fixing another issue.

All this said, what I said in the other thread about the forums is true: almost every single thread about hacking or cheating in the forums, devolves into finger pointing and harassment. Which is why we've asked people to stop making those threads. I don't like closing posts and leaving a lame "report it to support" stock response, but I also don't like it when six hours later my inbox is full of people reporting other people for calling them or their factions out or swearing or threats or whatever.

I also don't like it very much when people make new forum accounts with a new name to rile people up, but that's another story.


Well I guess I now I have to be in fear of being banned for saying this (but it needs to be said):
The fastest way to ruin an online community it to ban the players that really help... Also to ban the highest paying player in the game, is the worst business decision I have ever heard of (and what message does it send to you lower paying customers?). If the company really wants to make all players feel meaningless as a consumer, this was the very best way to do it! I am in complete shock right now....

People need to follow the rules on the forums. Even when they're really unhappy about something. The rules need to apply to everyone.



i am still waiting for the gems that i bought or my money back. And could not buy gems during the past week end and still locked. And as usual no answer.

We have been working as fast as we can with Apple to get that issue to stop happening.

[groovdog]

As a former IT guy who basically did GM's truck cost analysis ($50 BILLION in cost) off of an Access database (fed from hundreds of legacy systems) I laugh at everything Gree says. Either you have no records of anything past a minute ago that does not generate revenue directly for Gree (ie gold/cash/gem purchases) or you have the single most incompetent IT department in the world.

Regardless this is not CJ's fault as I have been that guy on the frontline trying to explain the incompetence of others.

What Gree needs to realize is that things are rapidly coming to a head and its starting in KA and moving to MW given the recent quests. It doesnt take an MBA to see your business model may be churning right now but is ready to fall off a cliff. Talk is cheap. Setup simple queries as suggested. Hell I could probably code them and I havent done any IT in a decade. You need to culprits over the head with the ban-for-life stick and restore credibility to the game. You need to publicly listed who was banned. If your lawyers are any good they have no recourse anyways given the relative paucity of digital ownership law. Words are cheap we want action and we want them gone. And while you are at it ban the bozo I sent you in CC with 1000 doomsday frags and 1700 wins.

[bgood]

while your in an explaining mood...can you explain the lengthy response times on ticketts?I have a basically a month old ticket, of which i pm'd you about with no response.... like i said i go can you explain how there were so many glitches in this past war? People getting gems taken away from them by glitch? People only getting 3 hits on full health instead of 4? How do these things get past beta? More importantly would it Kill you guys to post on the forum...Hey we know about the bug we are working on it...especially on such massive eff ups like this. These glitches/bugs/defects has a serious effect on what is effect a gambling tournament. Is that right fair to us? I think everyone wouldn't be going off on conspiracy theories if the company just had a bit more proactive interactions with its core members. Im just asking for something...some human interaction other then a autoticket

[Jean marc]

CJ54, thanks for the replied on the missing gems and locked from buying any. you say that you are working hard true, but will i be able to buy some or get my money back before the next war or i am part of the unlucky one that will be waiting for months.

[festivus]

As a former IT guy who basically did GM's truck cost analysis ($50 BILLION in cost) off of an Access database (fed from hundreds of legacy systems) I laugh at everything Gree says. Either you have no records of anything past a minute ago that does not generate revenue directly for Gree (ie gold/cash/gem purchases) or you have the single most incompetent IT department in the world.

Regardless this is not CJ's fault as I have been that guy on the frontline trying to explain the incompetence of others.

What Gree needs to realize is that things are rapidly coming to a head and its starting in KA and moving to MW given the recent quests. It doesnt take an MBA to see your business model may be churning right now but is ready to fall off a cliff. Talk is cheap. Setup simple queries as suggested. Hell I could probably code them and I havent done any IT in a decade. You need to culprits over the head with the ban-for-life stick and restore credibility to the game. You need to publicly listed who was banned. If your lawyers are any good they have no recourse anyways given the relative paucity of digital ownership law. Words are cheap we want action and we want them gone. And while you are at it ban the bozo I sent you in CC with 1000 doomsday frags and 1700 wins. I think the answer is somewhere in between you and CJ.

One can surmise from CJs response about problems in the code and fixing of bug creating new bugs, that the game was probably poorly written. Funzio started it and sold out, probably because they hit a gold mine but realized the game was not coded to hold up to its popularity. So they bailed and Gree now is holding the leaking bag. So what should be their business model? Sink tons of money into a game that is already saturated and reaching the overload point? Or dress up the pig and hope the lipstick holds for a few more revenue cycles.

Personally the problem lies with people willing to spend so much money on their digital ego. It was pretty obvious the game wasn't built to last, but that didn't stop some from staking their egos to being the top dog.

[SoccerStud]

How about this CJ! I reported a guild more than a month ago because they were hacking gold. Their bank went from 400 million plus to 800 million plus in two hours. There is no way that they could have done this without hacking. It seems obvious that it was a hack guild yet they are still in play. Don't believe me? Explain that!

[bgood]

Hey Remember that time we all got banned from Gree forum....good times....thread locked in 3...2.....1

[Q-Ball]

CJ54,

Just a suggestion - most people are upset because they have no idea or feel like their tickets are being worked on or they get canned automated responses. Start a sticky thread that's locked and post the most common issues/tickets and the status of them. For example:

Missing Gem Purchase - Reported 4/20/13 - Status: in process working with Apple - Estimated Completion: 4/30/13
(Insert unit modifier) not working - Reported 4/25/13 - Status: in process - Estimated Completion 4/29/13

Just something that let's us know the big tickets (or all tickets) are being addressed. It might appease many of us.

[bgood]

Amen brotha just looking for a little transparency. That way every action doesn't look like crap gets swept under the rug in the name of increased gem spend. I think this would go a long way...

[Klassenr@hotmail.com]

CJ54,

Just a suggestion - most people are upset because they have no idea or feel like their tickets are being worked on or they get canned automated responses. Start a sticky thread that's locked and post the most common issues/tickets and the status of them. For example:

Missing Gem Purchase - Reported 4/20/13 - Status: in process working with Apple - Estimated Completion: 4/30/13
(Insert unit modifier) not working - Reported 4/25/13 - Status: in process - Estimated Completion 4/29/13

Just something that let's us know the big tickets (or all tickets) are being addressed. It might appease many of us.

Excellent idea! Kudos

[Didas]

Nothing is going to change until you speak with your wallet. You can complain on the forums all you want, but as long as you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on gems for LTQs and wars, GREE has no reason to change a thing. I still don't understand why people spend so much money on a game that is clearly broken. Why spend real money to raise your stats just to keep pace with hackers?

[Tiki]

Greetings CJ

Tiki here. its been a while since I have felt the need to post on the forum or contact you. However, there are a lot of very upset players. Individuals who love playing Kingdom Age like myself and who's concerns have not been addressed in a timely or adequate fashion. You must understand that while rules are necessary, sometimes emotions can get the better of even the best player in the game. I hope you take this into consideration.

Also, I was wondering if I could send you a PM to discuss the situation or at the very least alert you to what is transporting. I know you are likely flooded with PMs so I thought it best to obtain your agreement in advance of sending the PM.

Thank you. You can PM me if you like - name is Tiki

[Lestatciez]

I love GREE, I love spending my time and my money on KA. I would never think buy a smart phone android and hack the game with unlimited gems and gold, because I love GREE. Never create a new account, which could lead to my level in a month because I'd rather be a year playing 25 hours a day, because I love GREE. I prefer to give the money from my salary and my family to GREE. I don't want to play free and without economic and personal cost because, I love GREE.
Do you love to much as I GREE?

[MerlinBlack]

CJ54,

I'll accept as true that many of the legitimate hacker claims that you receive are repeats of already banned players.
If I might make a suggestion then? When banning an account, why not remove their items from their inventory and clear their base?
Doing this would prevent such outrage.
I appreciate your consideration of this.

Thanks

[The Big Weezy]

It's not just about Gree's actual policy anymore. Its about the perception of how Gree acts on that policy. Gree needs to take concrete steps to demonstrate that they keep their word to their players. If they don't show the work, the perception can only get worse - because good things won't be shown.

This isn't about individual hackers anymore. Surely you must see that. Even if Gree does everything they say they do to combat hackers - you have to recognize that things with guilds are different. Hackers can screw other people out of rewards now. If Gree doesn't do anything to rectify that - why should legit people pay for guild wars? And this is where your no-tell policy screws you. If you don't publicly change the reward order and reward people who should've won...well, then it will only encourage hackers IMO. And you alienate players by the boatload.

Your stock response to this CANNOT be: "Even our best customers get crap service." That is absolutely unacceptable.

[CJ54]

while your in an explaining mood...can you explain the lengthy response times on ticketts?I have a basically a month old ticket, of which i pm'd you about with no response.... like i said i go can you explain how there were so many glitches in this past war? People getting gems taken away from them by glitch? People only getting 3 hits on full health instead of 4? How do these things get past beta? More importantly would it Kill you guys to post on the forum...Hey we know about the bug we are working on it...especially on such massive eff ups like this. These glitches/bugs/defects has a serious effect on what is effect a gambling tournament. Is that right fair to us? I think everyone wouldn't be going off on conspiracy theories if the company just had a bit more proactive interactions with its core members. Im just asking for something...some human interaction other then a autoticket

We're getting back on top of response times, but as I've said elsewhere: implementing factions/syndicates/guilds bumped our incoming tickets by 6-10 times practically overnight. This wasn't even due to any bugs, this was just because people have a sort of framework to bring up complaints as a group. An entire faction (right or wrong) feels like a member was slighted and decides it is a good idea to send us tickets on their behalf? That's a hundred tickets in five minutes. Not to mention that the popularity of the game largely exploded. There is no real way to scale rapidly enough to meet that and not have response times suffer for awhile afterwards. Like I said, we're getting back on top of it. Frustrating as it is, it is a growing pain and it will pass.

The two bugs you just mentioned (the hit glitch and the purchase issue) are both known issues that are Public Enemy #1. We have people who are full-time dealing with just those. We know that they are serious, and to boot they make the situation up in the first paragraph worse. The first one, we have to work with Apple to solve which is slow since it is essentially a game of telephone. The second is a concurrency issue that is requiring a redesign of some basic systems, which is also slow.

Here's the thing: if something is stressing our players out, it is stressing us out to the same degree. That's been true for as long as I've been here.

[Winstrol]

We're getting back on top of response times, but as I've said elsewhere: implementing factions/syndicates/guilds bumped our incoming tickets by 6-10 times practically overnight. This wasn't even due to any bugs, this was just because people have a sort of framework to bring up complaints as a group. An entire faction (right or wrong) feels like a member was slighted and decides it is a good idea to send us tickets on their behalf? Bam! That's a hundred tickets right there in five minutes. Or we give someone back their building which was accidentally sold. Well, they tell their factionmates about it and one or two guys in the faction who aren't as scrupulous decide to sell all their buildings "accidentally" and ask us for a refund (which takes someone half an hour to process, which is another twenty tickets someone could have answered) There is no real way to scale rapidly enough to meet that and not have response times suffer for awhile afterwards. Like I said, we're getting back on top of it.

The two bugs you just mentioned (the hit glitch and the purchase issue) are both known issues that are Public Enemy #1. We have people who are full-time dealing with just those. We know that they are serious, and to boot they make the situation up in the first paragraph worse. The first one, we have to work with Apple to solve which is slow since it is essentially a game of telephone. The second is a concurrency issue that is requiring a redesign of some basic systems, which is also slow.

Here's the thing: if something is stressing our players out, it is stressing us out to the same degree. That's been true for as long as I've been here.

Hire more copy&paste people , since you have millions of budget and problem solved

[bullseye]

When many people are reporting the same problems with responses and response time? What are we to believe:

FOR EXAMPLE -

In March, I wanted to make sure I got a bonus in the beginning of April. I figured contacting GREE, is contacting GREE, and sent in what I though was a ticket through the website.

When I sent in 2 more in April through the in-app contact Gree - I got a response 15 days later saying "you're enrolled for April, but we never heard from you in March." Really? Oh, and since the website doesn't send confirmations for onsite contact, I'm screwed? Thanks for the big f me Gree.

If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, it is a duck. Gree is doing what it can where it can to screw the players out of deserved bonus according to it's own program.

The thing about good customer service, is being vocal about what is happening. You don't do it. I've been playing a long time, and been browsing the forums for just as long, and there is almost never any blue posts in topics that are actually at the forefront of the player discussion.

And to get an email back that I never contacted Gree is wrong.

[moomrik]

We're getting back on top of response times, but as I've said elsewhere: implementing factions/syndicates/guilds bumped our incoming tickets by 6-10 times practically overnight. This wasn't even due to any bugs, this was just because people have a sort of framework to bring up complaints as a group. An entire faction (right or wrong) feels like a member was slighted and decides it is a good idea to send us tickets on their behalf? Bam! That's a hundred tickets right there in five minutes. Or we give someone back their building which was accidentally sold. Well, they tell their factionmates about it and one or two guys in the faction who aren't as scrupulous decide to sell all their buildings "accidentally" and ask us for a refund (which takes someone half an hour to process, which is another twenty tickets someone could have answered) There is no real way to scale rapidly enough to meet that and not have response times suffer for awhile afterwards. Like I said, we're getting back on top of it.

The two bugs you just mentioned (the hit glitch and the purchase issue) are both known issues that are Public Enemy #1. We have people who are full-time dealing with just those. We know that they are serious, and to boot they make the situation up in the first paragraph worse. The first one, we have to work with Apple to solve which is slow since it is essentially a game of telephone. The second is a concurrency issue that is requiring a redesign of some basic systems, which is also slow.

Here's the thing: if something is stressing our players out, it is stressing us out to the same degree. That's been true for as long as I've been here.

Just a couple of points I hope get clarified without me getting a "banned" instead of "junior". I like being a junior...
The fact that introducing the multiplayer feature would increase the number of issues/tickets was, of course, impossible to foresee before the guild/faction/syndicate feature was out?
Reading that you have "people who are full-time dealing with just those" "Public Enemy" bugs might seem a slight exaggeration, as so far the impression is that "people" is actually one person. Working at least four full-time jobs.
As much as my heart bleeds for those (and they are probably legion) who have been the victim of the two bugs you refer to (hit glitch and purchase issue) as "Public Enemy", I disagree with the choice of words. Words are not cheap. They are a powerful manipulation tool, any half decent politician or businessman knows that. Those are, despite their massive scale, individual issues. The PUBLIC enemy here is the problem with hackers/cheaters.
Why not make a sticky with the hacker accounts that have been discovered and banned listed? Why not make the feedback on solving the issues reported more transparent and accessible at least to those players who come to this forum for answers? Which a lot of them do even if they don't open an account here.
And as comforting it is to know that you stress as much as the players, which incidentally shows that yes, you do care about your customers, stress is known to bring down productivity. So maybe an in-house stress counselor might help?

Thank you.

[Thief]

CJ first i have reposted this in the MW forums because the same threads have been poping up over there....really Gree needs to send out a Public Service Anouncement.


We don't give feedback on cheat reports because 99% of what we get are reports on people who aren't cheating. You can believe that or not, but it is true. The #1 source of cheat reports is people spending gems legitimately. And we don't share financial info about other people even in a roundabout way, period.

Sorry but i don't know how many tickets you recieve but i can tell you i personally know how to tell the difference of a actual cheater vs. a suspected cheater in MW. Hundreds of loot items when they don't meet the lvl requirements, over 10 million IPH with low Stats (no one is spending 10k real dollars to boost their IPH when they ignore their stats), Multiple of the same reward from Events, Rewards giving to 1-10 players when you know those 10 players...the list goes on and on. You say you don't discuss financials which is fine but that sounds like an opt out. You could just as easily report the player legitmate based on their spending habits. We don't need to know how much they spend...just that they are not hacking. Telling us we don't get to know....well that seems like a slap in the face.

The disconnect here is obviously about that other 1%, but I wanted to mention the environment we operate under as far the reporting structure. Since we have a policy not to discuss the particulars of another player's account (one way or another), that means when there IS something valid, it looks like we're not doing anything or don't care.

Which isn't true. A great deal of staff time over here is spent preventing or fixing bugs that allow exploits or tracking down the people exploiting them and then banning those people (personally, I spent about 20% of my work time on hings related to this).

That takes time. It is lame that it is not an instantaneous process, but the fact is that it takes time. That doesn't mean we are not on it or that we don't care.

A couple of facts:

-a banned account does not magically disappear from the game, banned does not equal deleted; people that have it in their newsfeed or their allies list can still see it for awhile. It generally won't show up in the rivals list, but sometimes does when we're shifting the algorithm about (at which point we usually get a bunch of reports about "why we haven't done anything about X"). The vast majority of valid reports are for someone who's already banned and was banned less than 24 hours after they were first reported.

What about some sort of Designation that the Account is Banned? I don't care if i see it on my rivals list...but when i can tell they are still active based on their wall and they are collecting their lvl 10 Limited Edition buildings and income is going up....i know they are not banned.


Most important part CJ is Communication! I know that this is hard and you are short staffed...but it makes a world of difference.

[Proprioc3ption]

" where a bunch of people who aren't cheating get accused of cheating" **** made me laugh so hard haha

I could not believe my eyes when I read that... Are they really seriously that deluded? I think I'll go back to playing with plastic army men... no hackers there and If I need support my mum and dad are their to help me out.

[MerlinBlack]

CJ54,

I'll accept as true that many of the legitimate hacker claims that you receive are repeats of already banned players.
If I might make a suggestion then? When banning an account, why not remove their items from their inventory and clear their base?
Doing this would prevent such outrage.
I appreciate your consideration of this.

Thanks
I'm serious about this suggestion, by the way. I really do think that this has the potential to significantly cut down on the rage. I've read so many posts about "I emailed support about so-and-so who was clearly a hacker and they're still there a week later." And these are the 100% blatant hacks - 100x of event items, etc that are truly impossible to acquire without hacking. If you not only ban these accounts (as in make them unable to log in), but remove the offensive inventory from the account, that will at least make it apparent that things are being done.

[CJ54]

CJ54,

Just a suggestion - most people are upset because they have no idea or feel like their tickets are being worked on or they get canned automated responses. Start a sticky thread that's locked and post the most common issues/tickets and the status of them. For example:

Missing Gem Purchase - Reported 4/20/13 - Status: in process working with Apple - Estimated Completion: 4/30/13
(Insert unit modifier) not working - Reported 4/25/13 - Status: in process - Estimated Completion 4/29/13

Just something that let's us know the big tickets (or all tickets) are being addressed. It might appease many of us.

I see where you're coming from, but I can't post the status of individual tickets. I also can't give estimated completion times for a lot of reported bugs, particularly client issues which require a binary submission. I may be able to swing something that has the current most-reported issues and where we are at on them in terms of resolution, but I will have to see.


How about this CJ! I reported a guild more than a month ago because they were hacking gold. Their bank went from 400 million plus to 800 million plus in two hours. There is no way that they could have done this without hacking. It seems obvious that it was a hack guild yet they are still in play. Don't believe me? Explain that!

I JUST told people not to do exactly this thing that you are doing.


So what should be their business model? Sink tons of money into a game that is already saturated and reaching the overload point? Or dress up the pig and hope the lipstick holds for a few more revenue cycles.

That's not the case. We do run into older code that causes problems. In those cases, we redesign that, but that process takes time and care.


Greetings CJ

Tiki here. its been a while since I have felt the need to post on the forum or contact you. However, there are a lot of very upset players. Individuals who love playing Kingdom Age like myself and who's concerns have not been addressed in a timely or adequate fashion. You must understand that while rules are necessary, sometimes emotions can get the better of even the best player in the game. I hope you take this into consideration.

Also, I was wondering if I could send you a PM to discuss the situation or at the very least alert you to what is transporting. I know you are likely flooded with PMs so I thought it best to obtain your agreement in advance of sending the PM.

Thank you. You can PM me if you like - name is Tiki

You can send me a PM. I cannot answer every PM; I know this is frustrating to people, but I receive dozens or hundreds a day depending on what is going on in the games.

[CJ54]

When many people are reporting the same problems with responses and response time? What are we to believe:

FOR EXAMPLE -

In March, I wanted to make sure I got a bonus in the beginning of April. I figured contacting GREE, is contacting GREE, and sent in what I though was a ticket through the website.

When I sent in 2 more in April through the in-app contact Gree - I got a response 15 days later saying "you're enrolled for April, but we never heard from you in March." Really? Oh, and since the website doesn't send confirmations for onsite contact, I'm screwed? Thanks for the big f me Gree.

If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, it is a duck. Gree is doing what it can where it can to screw the players out of deserved bonus according to it's own program.

The thing about good customer service, is being vocal about what is happening. You don't do it. I've been playing a long time, and been browsing the forums for just as long, and there is almost never any blue posts in topics that are actually at the forefront of the player discussion.

And to get an email back that I never contacted Gree is wrong.

If you know the email address you sent the original contact from, and it was through the website, we can track it down. You might want to reply to the newer ticket and mention which email you sent the original contact from.

[Krissy]

Why haven't the standings been posted from the last war. Is it because you are investigating some guilds and its not final?

[festivus]

That's not the case. We do run into older code that causes problems. In those cases, we redesign that, but that process takes time and care.


So you say, but the endless list of excuses sez otherwise.

[quantumace]

My biggest complaint is that GREE does not have a single set of rules and guidelines that apply to every player. If I see a player that has units that seem to be impossible (A huge number of honor units at a very low level), I assume they are cheating. If I report them to GREE and GREE does nothing, then I have to assume they achieved this through legitimate means. The problem is that they are legitimate by GREE standards, but I have no way of finding out how they did it, and possible repeating it myself.

I understand that it is possible to achieve "unusual" stats or acquire a suspiciously large number of certain units in a legitimate manner. So why can't GREE tell us how it happened? Is it because it was some sort of "special case" and they don't want to go through the trouble of allowing everyone certain options?

If GREE was more open, there would be vastly fewer complaints.

[bullseye]

If you know the email address you sent the original contact from, and it was through the website, we can track it down. You might want to reply to the newer ticket and mention which email you sent the original contact from.

I did...but this is the first I've heard in 2 weeks on how to fix it. Thanks, CJ!

[Fyntik]

CJ

1) what's the proper way to report hackers and how can we know if they have been dealt with if they are found guilty?

2) boosts bonuses for 10k gems spendure units and last battle units. Can you please confirm if this problem is been dealt with and when we can expect corrections?

Regards

Fyntik

[quantumace]

" where a bunch of people who aren't cheating get accused of cheating" **** made me laugh so hard haha

I could not believe my eyes when I read that... Are they really seriously that deluded? I think I'll go back to playing with plastic army men... no hackers there and If I need support my mum and dad are their to help me out.

I think everyone is missing the point. CJ has told us most of the players accused of hacking are not hackers. I believe this is the truth, I honestly do.

But it brings up a more important question, how did the accused players accomplish what they did? I do believe CJ is telling us the truth, but I wonder why he glosses over this point. I understand he is busy, but I would be interested in the answer.

[Rastlin]

CJ
1) what's the proper way to report hackers and how can we know if they have been dealt with if they are found guilty?

You send a screen shot in email from the game. Click on the contact us. They will not tell you their findings, as that is their policy.

[Didas]

I call BS. If you're really that overworked, why did you release guilds on CC and KA? You obviously saw a workload increase after the release on MW, so why triple the workload? Also, why do you schedule events so close together? You're so overworked you can't even bother to announce the war schedule more than a few days before it starts, yet you continue to schedule wars every 3 weeks in 3 different games.

Bottom line, all you care about is bringing in more cash, not the quality of the game or your customer service.

[DontBanMe]

I call BS. If you're really that overworked, why did you release guilds on CC and KA? You obviously saw a workload increase after the release on MW, so why triple the workload? Also, why do you schedule events so close together? You're so overworked you can't even bother to announce the war schedule more than a few days before it starts, yet you continue to schedule wars every 3 weeks in 3 different games.

Bottom line, all you care about is bringing in more cash, not the quality of the game or your customer service.

Agreed, if you were that overworked could you (insert word for not letting people log into the forums... aka what happened to the1) people so quick?

[Fyntik]

You send a screen shot in email from the game. Click on the contact us. They will not tell you their findings, as that is their policy.

But surely it has been proven to be an efficient way since a lot are still complaining and sending tickets about same high chance hackers

I do believe lots can be untrue but we all know that hackers exist and we all try to catch them. And some of them are still around even though been reported long time ago.

[VileDoom]

I call BS. If you're really that overworked, why did you release guilds on CC and KA? You obviously saw a workload increase after the release on MW, so why triple the workload? Also, why do you schedule events so close together? You're so overworked you can't even bother to announce the war schedule more than a few days before it starts, yet you continue to schedule wars every 3 weeks in 3 different games.

Bottom line, all you care about is bringing in more cash, not the quality of the game or your customer service.

You beat me to it so I'll leave it at that.

[Sakki]

Greetings CJ

Tiki here. its been a while since I have felt the need to post on the forum or contact you. However, there are a lot of very upset players. Individuals who love playing Kingdom Age like myself and who's concerns have not been addressed in a timely or adequate fashion. You must understand that while rules are necessary, sometimes emotions can get the better of even the best player in the game. I hope you take this into consideration.


Also, I was wondering if I could send you a PM to discuss the situation or at the very least alert you to what is transporting. I know you are likely flooded with PMs so I thought it best to obtain your agreement in advance of sending the PM.

Thank you. You can PM me if you like - name is Tiki

Dear CJ

There is a lot of truth in what Tiki wrote.

With the love for the game comes emotion, similar to almost every other thing in life.

When this emotions come to the fore, the best way to manage them is COMMUNICATION. There's nothing as frustrating as sending in a ticket and getting automated response for something that is urgent to that individual. Believe me, at that moment, they don't care if you have a million tickets already.

To this end, I have a few suggestion to make;

1. I believe the tickets you receive have a trend. for example, during the last WD event, there was an issue with 2 hits per refill. Instead of sending automated replies, it'll be a good idea to make an announcement of your noticing such glitch. Once members see this info, I'm sure the ticket would reduce a great deal.

2. WORKING WITH GUILD LEADERS;
The guilds could also help us in some problems. You could assign guild leaders to report specific general problems (excluding money transactions). For example if a player notices something strange, he reports to the guild leader who inturn forwards the request to you after weighing the possiblity of the accused being a hacker. Other minor problems could also be reported by guild leaders.

3. GEM BONUS PROGRAM:
Lots, and I mean LOTS of people both in my guild and others are complaining of missing gem bonuses for march still not received. My suggestion is this, instead of dishing it out randomly and haphazardly, why don't you do it similar way you dish out prizes after a world event.
For example. in the battle for blighted woods, the top 4 positions are FUN, RK, TBC AND BGK. you could start by giving every member entitled in FUN their appropriate GEM BONUS and move down the tiers..that seems a more logical and organised way of doing it..just like you give out prizes.

4. PLEASE UNBAN THOSE BANNED; we understand you're trying to prove a point, but the thing is, there's nothing to prove. The best you could have done was to warn them. All they did (and I have no idea what ;)) was out of frustration. Frustration brought about by emotions, emotions brought about by the love of your company and game. They are bloody helpful here considering your lack of communication. If you had been responding the way you are today, I believe their issues would have been handled and they wouldn't have done what they did!

5. COMMUNICATION; CJ, it all boils down to communication. The other day, i was having an issue with apple, i sent an email. the auto response said i would be contacted within 24 hours..but lo and behold, within 5 minutes, i received an email from a customer service person concerning my problem, he gave me suggestions which i followed and my problems were solved. He sent a message the next day to confirm if it had indeed been solved.. simply amazing. We're not asking for Apple-like customer service, but something DECENT.
In issues of excess workloads/tickets; send a general message acknowledging the problem and ACT on it. We are not asking for the details because we seriously DO NOT care..we just want to know that we are in your minds and hearts, not being ignored!!

They say Silence is Golding..but alas it doesn't work in customer service..

P.S: Seriously, nobody likes contacting support, and nobody will contact support if they don't have issues!!

Yours.

[Fyntik]

Still would like to see reply from CJ to my original postf

[Klassenr@hotmail.com]

benefit of the doubt.. original post deleted

[Fyntik]

Relax people.. We are all mushrooms in their eyes, therefore just keep us in the dark and feed us a bunch of BS.. Get used to it. The only thing slowing this flaming snowball running downhill is a server crash.. Until then close your eyes, drink the kool-aid and keep your money in your hand so the attendants can take it on their way past.. :p

Why spam chat with this unconstructive meaniless post?? CJ is replying and we prefer to see his comments

[Klassenr@hotmail.com]

Why spam chat with this unconstructive meaniless post?? CJ is replying and we prefer to see his comments

Complaints about being overworked while overlapping LTQ's and having WD events every two weeks is crap.
That is a statement that tears at the foundation of credulity.

[Fyntik]

Please stop moaning but better ask constructive specific question/claims or suggest specific improvements!

[Fyntik]

If we want an improvement we have to suggest them but not crying non stop. We have to be specific and to the point.

[VileDoom]

Please stop moaning but better ask constructive specific question/claims or suggest specific improvements!

Your account might be new but it's the same old trolling.

[Ssne]

For the record, I can and have hired a working customer support org in less than 4.5 months, which is when MW faction war started. So I have a tough time with that one. And if our tickets had 3 week turnaround times I and everyone in the org would have been let go.

At a minimum, prioritize the tickets. Gem issues get served before all others. You cannot have your highest paying customers missing their bonuses, etc. I am personally waiting on a gem bonus ticket since march 30.

Second, believe your customers. Credit whatever your customers want, and then some. Your worst case scenario is crediting someone back a few hundred gems they should not have gotten. Big deal. The most annoying facet I ever have to deal with is when I finally get someone to respond they question me as if I am some kind of criminal. Do you have screenshots? Can you prove it? Etc. the vast majority of us are not out to pull a fast one on gree.

[echus14]

@CJ54

Thanks for the responses, although I have to say, they have been a long time coming. A lot has already been said, so I am going to do this in simple point style:-

1. Ultimately, the company needs to manage its customers, and silence is not a recommended approach of keeping your clients happy. You have extremely angry customers because by and large, the Company has simply chosen to ignore them.

2. And yes, I'm sure you are busy, but that's (and this may sound harsh but its true) not something your clients should be concerned about. The Company needs to deliver on a minimum level of service. As for the sudden influx of tickets, well, KA is not the first GREE game to have guild-type events so this should not have been a surprise to you. Where was the pre-event preparation that should have been there after your prior experiences in MW and CC?

3. Introducing new and powerful honor units when you know full well that this will lead to hackers becoming super strong overnight is just crazy. Yeah, sure, many people wanted new honor units, but what you've done is opened up the floodgates to hackers whereas the legit players are left in the dust. And what are legit players to do if they get clobbered by a hacker who is now twice their strength? Really, a little forethought as to consequences would have been appreciated. Doing this before you had reasonable safeguards in place was like adding fuel to a smoldering fire.

4. The latest glitch where gems are being used up without permission is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. People pay RL money for those gems and what this glitch effectively does is open a hole in their pockets. ADDRESS THOSE TICKETS URGENTLY TO REFUND THE LOST GEMS and fix that glitch!

[Nacon10]

i sent a ticket in about missing gems and im waiting patiently so let me know when you get to it i have faith you will fix this

[VileDoom]

CJ54 while we're on the goodwill tour will you for the love of God please, please, please tell whoever is pulling the strings at GREE to spread these events out a little.

[Shinazueli]

CJ54 while we're on the goodwill tour will you for the love of God please, please, please tell whoever is pulling the strings at GREE to spread these events out a little.

This. For the love of god please at least wait until one ends before starting the next.

[sparckle]

4. PLEASE UNBAN THOSE BANNED; we understand you're trying to prove a point, but the thing is, there's nothing to prove. The best you could have done was to warn them. All they did (and I have no idea what ;)) was out of frustration. Frustration brought about by emotions, emotions brought about by the love of your company and game. They are bloody helpful here considering your lack of communication. If you had been responding the way you are today, I believe their issues would have been handled and they wouldn't have done what they did!

They broke an express rule. There was no contention whether they broke it or not. The ban was well-deserved.

[Shinazueli]

They broke an express rule. There was no contention whether they broke it or not. The ban was well-deserved.

Please DO NOT:

Flame, troll, insult others, make purposefully inflammatory posts or otherwise be a nuisance to other players or the moderators. In this and all other matters, the moderators have final say over what constitutes appropriate posts.

Please, moderators, enforce this rule on this troll. Please.

[Free Ronin]

My biggest complaint is that GREE does not have a single set of rules and guidelines that apply to every player. If I see a player that has units that seem to be impossible (A huge number of honor units at a very low level), I assume they are cheating. If I report them to GREE and GREE does nothing, then I have to assume they achieved this through legitimate means. The problem is that they are legitimate by GREE standards, but I have no way of finding out how they did it, and possible repeating it myself.

I understand that it is possible to achieve "unusual" stats or acquire a suspiciously large number of certain units in a legitimate manner. So why can't GREE tell us how it happened? Is it because it was some sort of "special case" and they don't want to go through the trouble of allowing everyone certain options?

If GREE was more open, there would be vastly fewer complaints.

All a low level player needs is to get lucky with a scratch card and boom 100k in honor points.

[P4TR1C14N]

@CJ54:

Some sound advise here as we can keep discussing a discussing:
1. If gree was working with legal entities as customers, you were now sitting whole days in court.

2. If you got staff problems, then that's your responsibilty. You make loads of money, but keep complaining About staff and too much tickets. Are you a company with a sound management? Should we come... I'll be happy to provide my consultancy for a reasonable price.

3. Suddenly you got time to do crisis management? Months nothing... Now it starts to explode and here you pop up again. No... Dont tell us you have lots off other work... I do to.

4. Sorry... Your community is tired of getting the 'blabla'. We got an expression: less blabla, more boom boom.

To conclude, we dont want to hear excuses anymore. Do What you have to do.

Gree is so lucky that it doesnt deal with business customers, that's the bottom story off this whole problem.

I dont feel the need to post more on this topic. Confidence in gree = 0%.

[Shinazueli]

Maintain your professionalism CJ. Being led by your emotions is not the rational way to make decisions.

Now I won't even request an unban regardless of how unreasonable it was. This is private territory and you're in a position to do whatever you please. The dictator will always win and there is no point arguing. But let me just say administering a ban without specifying the reason for ban is just more evidence of the lack of rights players have.

Looks like any hope of this game making a turn for the better has been extinguished.

Please DO NOT:


Post from multiple forum accounts in order to discuss moderator action and harass CJ54. In this, and all other forum actions, Shinazueli should have the final say when it comes to names that rhyme with Farkle.

[Shinazueli]

^ I'm aware you're great at holding grudges. But is it worth detracting from the topic to hold your grudge against me?

What's at stake here is not me, It's the precious blood, sweat, time and/or money many players have invested in this game.

No, what's at stake here is you are still typing on this forum that I've poured hours and days of my time into making a great, informational place and you've trolled for a month. Your opinion wish washes around to whatever would be more irritating to the forum at large at the exact moment you press submit. I hope they get your IP address this time so I never have to even see your name next to the "this message is hidden because ObviousTroll is on your ignore list."

[Shinazueli]

Shinazueli's definition of an "idiot": any person that disagrees with Shinazueli.

Fixed that for you.

[Dum]

Sorry didnt see CJs post

[Shinazueli]

Yeah, but I'm ok with insulting others. I'm just not okay with trolling for the sake of ruining the forum. If someone wants to prove me wrong, I've been willing to eat my crow in the past. The key word was "prove". I'm a big fan of data, like xxx.xx.xx.xxx, which when filled in with numbers, will be the IP address that hopefully will not be able to register another forum account soon. Night night everyone.

[RandomUser]

Let's stay focused on the problem at hand... the continually diminishing customer support we receive from GREE, despite the fact they should be bringing in a great deal more revenue with all these buggy guild events. It does not instill confidence in the corporation that instead of working hard to fix the problem, their number one concern at this point is silencing criticism.

There is a severe lack of transparency as to how things function at GREE. How they run their business is their... well... business, but it's certainly not how I would, nor is it how I want a company [I hand over my hard-earned money to] to run.

The frustration vented by so many long-time players (and some big spenders, too) goes to the crux of the problem that many things aren't being taken care of, regardless of how much behind the scenes work or secret surveillance you're doing. Your customer base feels it's being ignored and they're angry. With the cost of new customer acquisition in this field, I can't believe you would allow so many concerns and complaints go unheeded for so long that it boils over into this.

I know that CJ is at the mercy of the rest of his corporation, but if he's expressing how upper management feels about our issues with the game, then I think that's all the information I need to decide if I invest another penny into this game.

[CJ54]

Fixed that for you.

Don't feed the trolls, please.

[Fyntik]

CJ

There were a number of well presented questions / comments in this thread but for some reason you don't reply to them and instead you show your attention to the trolling ones. Is there a reason why you ignore such posts and pick out off the subject ones?

I can try to summaries some:

transparency. Like on the airplane we all want to hear from pilot that the flight is going well. We want to see proof of actions taken ( make a strictly no chat announcement threads ). These actions include following matters:

1) hackers
2) gems problems on purchase and spendure during battles
3) less than 4 hits on refills
4) boosts for recents units

Regards

Fyntik

[Dhusagar]

For the record, I can and have hired a working customer support org in less than 4.5 months, which is when MW faction war started. So I have a tough time with that one. And if our tickets had 3 week turnaround times I and everyone in the org would have been let go.

At a minimum, prioritize the tickets. Gem issues get served before all others. You cannot have your highest paying customers missing their bonuses, etc. I am personally waiting on a gem bonus ticket since march 30.

Second, believe your customers. Credit whatever your customers want, and then some. Your worst case scenario is crediting someone back a few hundred gems they should not have gotten. Big deal. The most annoying facet I ever have to deal with is when I finally get someone to respond they question me as if I am some kind of criminal. Do you have screenshots? Can you prove it? Etc. the vast majority of us are not out to pull a fast one on gree.

+1
I bought 50 vaults in March - 4 auto closed tickets and 2 "accelerated" tickets later, I am still waiting! Oh, and I submitted my first ticket BEFORE the new bonus system was announced.

Does anyone know the iTunes policy on refunds?

[MerlinBlack]

+1
I bought 50 vaults in March - 4 auto closed tickets and 2 "accelerated" tickets later, I am still waiting! Oh, and I submitted my first ticket BEFORE the new bonus system was announced.

Does anyone know the iTunes policy on refunds?
From what I've heard/read, it's not terribly difficult to get a refund from Apple when it comes to Gree products.

[Sir Marcus]

All a low level player needs is to get lucky with a scratch card and boom 100k in honor points.

Yeah. The guy I found yesterday had theoretically spent 17,500,000 honor points. And their level/wins/raids just didn't support that math. I also doubt they had a winning scratch ticket over 170 times.

[barkeep]

Can Gree just fix the issues in KA so I can get a new LTQ in MQ? Is that too much to ask :)

[England Jon]

Does this forum represent the many or the vociferous few. I applaud CJ for taking the time to post. I enjoy the game and Gree can do want they wish with their game and business. I do not have any problems with it. When I stop enjoying it, I will move on, but I will not complain about what I have spent or the time I have given to the game because no one forced me. There are problems with every game. Does it matter whether you win or lose. If things are happening that you do not like, leave. Many more will join and enjoy the game for what it is. I am concerned what with all the complaining that Gree will do something that adversely affects us all.

[Free Ronin]

Yeah. The guy I found yesterday had theoretically spent 17,500,000 honor points. And their level/wins/raids just didn't support that math. I also doubt they had a winning scratch ticket over 170 times.

Ok, I agree. I don't know that anyone has stats to support 17.5 million honor points.

[Sir Marcus]

Honestly, enforcement or perception of enforcement of GREE's existing policies are only part of the problem - and less than half of that problem.

The real problem is with GREE's policies themselves. That problem is this:

When guilds were implemented, GREE's policies were not updated to reflect this new paradigm. GREE's anti cheating policy applies to individuals only, and everyone knows it - completely regardless of its enforcement.

Previously, a cheater couldn't really do anything to other players. Sure, they could confer illegitimate advantages on themselves, but the best they could do to others was to raid buildings and steal a few boxes. They could not prevent you from getting your own benefits. They could not effect LTEs and LTQs, they could not effect boss events or PVP events. They could not take units you earned or paid for away from you and they couldn't prevent you from getting them. When people would find cheaters, its entirely foreseeable that they would grumble about the unfairness - and so its entirely foreseeable that GREE would want to squelch cheaters because 1) they alienate customers and 2) they obtain advantages reserved to paying customers, which they are not.

Guilds and guild wars changed this game dynamic entirely. Now, a cheater's actions do not only benefit themselves - they materially benefit other players in their guild and confer benefits on those players that they could not access on their own. Since the worst the cheater could get is an individual ban, there is no reason at all for guilds not to allow or even invite cheaters in. Even if the cheater gets caught - the guild retains all the benefits that cheater enabled.
(Even worse, since many guilds work together in their own forums, they might even share their knowledge of how to cheat with guildmates.)

But the a bigger problem is that now, cheaters actions inflict a material detriment on legitimate players by way of the guild war events. Invincible guild guardians make it harder to score points against a hacker guild. Illegitimately inflated stats make it harder to score points against a hacker guild and also make it easier for them to score points against legitimate guilds. Hacked gems mean they can out score legitimate guilds. Gold hacks that boost guild abilities mean more members to fight, less casualties and faster health regen than legitimate guilds etc.

These cheats amount to them getting higher places at the end of the war. That means, for example, that if there is 1 hacker guild in the top 10, places 11, 26, 51 etc have all been cheated out of the guild prizes their strategy, time investment and gem spending have earned them. If there are 2 hackers in the top 10, places 11&12, 26&27, 51&52 etc are cheated. If there are 2 in the top 10 and 3 more in the top 25, then ALL of the players in places 11&12, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30 are all cheated, as are those in 51, 52, 53, 54, 55.

These legitimate players are directly prevented from obtaining prizes they worked and paid to win. The original policy was never designed to address that.

And if the cheaters are caught after the fact? They know that all they'll get an individual ban. Their guild retains all of the benefits from their illegitimate war standing as well as the guild benefits they obtained the same way. And all of the other guilds are still cheated out of what they paid to win. That's a material detriment that remains unaddressed by GREE.

That is why legitimate players are angry about hackers, and by extension hacker guilds. Because nothing is being done to replace what these players are losing because someone else cheats.

And that is because there is no policy relating to guilds that derive benefits from hackers. And everyone knows that too.

[sparcckkle]

Does this forum represent the many or the vociferous few. I applaud CJ for taking the time to post. I enjoy the game and Gree can do want they wish with their game and business. I do not have any problems with it. When I stop enjoying it, I will move on, but I will not complain about what I have spent or the time I have given to the game because no one forced me. There are problems with every game. Does it matter whether you win or lose. If things are happening that you do not like, leave. Many more will join and enjoy the game for what it is. I am concerned what with all the complaining that Gree will do something that adversely affects us all.

Your view of things is narrow-sighted. This game isn't like Counter-Strike where you're thrown in and out of the action on a whim.

The nature of this game is RPG-like. You build up an empire from scratch and it takes many months, if not years. People invest time and money in it and they grow an attachment with their account as a result. Players generally have a preference to preserve relations with the game developers and strive to improve the game rather than leave. They would only leave as a last resort.

A polite way to describe the situation is that the players have an "affinity" with this game. The impolite way is to say they have an "addiction". Either way Gree is fully aware of this which is the biggest motivation to their unconscionable conduct.

[The Big Weezy]

Honestly, enforcement or perception of enforcement of GREE's existing policies are only part of the problem - and less than half of that problem.

The real problem is with GREE's policies themselves. That problem is this:

When guilds were implemented, GREE's policies were not updated to reflect this new paradigm. GREE's anti cheating policy applies to individuals only, and everyone knows it - completely regardless of its enforcement.

Previously, a cheater couldn't really do anything to other players. Sure, they could confer illegitimate advantages on themselves, but the best they could do to others was to raid buildings and steal a few boxes. They could not prevent you from getting your own benefits. They could not effect LTEs and LTQs, they could not effect boss events or PVP events. They could not take units you earned or paid for away from you and they couldn't prevent you from getting them. When people would find cheaters, its entirely foreseeable that they would grumble about the unfairness - and so its entirely foreseeable that GREE would want to squelch cheaters because 1) they alienate customers and 2) they obtain advantages reserved to paying customers, which they are not.

Guilds and guild wars changed this game dynamic entirely. Now, a cheater's actions do not only benefit themselves - they materially benefit other players in their guild and confer benefits on those players that they could not access on their own. Since the worst the cheater could get is an individual ban, there is no reason at all for guilds not to allow or even invite cheaters in. Even if the cheater gets caught - the guild retains all the benefits that cheater enabled.
(Even worse, since many guilds work together in their own forums, they might even share their knowledge of how to cheat with guildmates.)

But the a bigger problem is that now, cheaters actions inflict a material detriment on legitimate players by way of the guild war events. Invincible guild guardians make it harder to score points against a hacker guild. Illegitimately inflated stats make it harder to score points against a hacker guild and also make it easier for them to score points against legitimate guilds. Hacked gems mean they can out score legitimate guilds. Gold hacks that boost guild abilities mean more members to fight, less casualties and faster health regen than legitimate guilds etc.

These cheats amount to them getting higher places at the end of the war. That means, for example, that if there is 1 hacker guild in the top 10, places 11, 26, 51 etc have all been cheated out of the guild prizes their strategy, time investment and gem spending have earned them. If there are 2 hackers in the top 10, places 11&12, 26&27, 51&52 etc are cheated. If there are 2 in the top 10 and 3 more in the top 25, then ALL of the players in places 11&12, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30 are all cheated, as are those in 51, 52, 53, 54, 55.

These legitimate players are directly prevented from obtaining prizes they worked and paid to win. The original policy was never designed to address that.

And if the cheaters are caught after the fact? They know that all they'll get an individual ban. Their guild retains all of the benefits from their illegitimate war standing as well as the guild benefits they obtained the same way. And all of the other guilds are still cheated out of what they paid to win. That's a material detriment that remains unaddressed by GREE.

That is why legitimate players are angry about hackers, and by extension hacker guilds. Because nothing is being done to replace what these players are losing because someone else cheats.

And that is because there is no policy relating to guilds that derive benefits from hackers. And everyone knows that too.

Spot on as usual, Marcus. :)

[MaximumFun]

Your view of things is narrow-sighted. This game isn't like Counter-Strike where you're thrown in and out of the action on a whim.

The nature of this game is RPG-like. You build up an empire from scratch and it takes many months, if not years. People invest time and money in it and they grow an attachment with their account as a result. Players generally have a preference to preserve relations with the game developers and strive to improve the game rather than leave. They would only leave as a last resort.

A polite way to describe the situation is that the players have an "affinity" with this game. The impolite way is to say they have an "addiction". Either way Gree is fully aware of this which is the biggest motivation to their unconscionable conduct.

I feel the need to quote your post, so those who have blocked you may read your lucid rebuttal which is much appreciated. Nicely done.

[sparcckkle]

^ Thank you kind sir. Your good deed will not be forgotten.

[Klassenr@hotmail.com]

Spittle, Spackle, Glitzy, Tinkle.. My ignore list grows daily.

[CJ54]

Honestly, enforcement or perception of enforcement of GREE's existing policies are only part of the problem - and less than half of that problem.

The real problem is with GREE's policies themselves. That problem is this:

When guilds were implemented, GREE's policies were not updated to reflect this new paradigm. GREE's anti cheating policy applies to individuals only, and everyone knows it - completely regardless of its enforcement.

I'm speaking with our devs about this actually, since it is important. If our enforcement policies do not serve the current state of the game, then they will be adjusted.

[Shinazueli]

I feel the need to quote your post, so those who have blocked you may read your lucid rebuttal which is much appreciated. Nicely done.

It's too bad it took him four bans to wise up. One day I'll forgive his transgressions. Maybe.

[Sir Marcus]

I'm speaking with our devs about this actually, since it is important. If our enforcement policies do not serve the current state of the game, then they will be adjusted.

I'm glad to hear this. Both because it is happening, and also because you've told us it is happening. Thank you.

[spckle]

Look at this thread CJ. It's a mess. So many people banned. That Big Wheezy Guy guy got served with a ban too. People are genuinely concerned with this game and you are just banning them without the blink of an eye. If anything, your activity on this thread has revealed your true colours.

[CJ54]

Look at this thread CJ. It's a mess. So many people banned. That Big Wheezy Guy guy got served with a ban too. People are genuinely concerned with this game and you are just banning them without the blink of an eye. If anything, your activity on this thread has revealed your true colours.


Well, in this case, it's due to the dozen or so banned forum accounts you've used to troll with previously. At this rate you'll be down to "spe" by the end of the day.