TalonBot
10-24-2008, 11:32 AM
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/analysis-opinion/), Realm Status (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/realm-status/), Odds and ends (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/odds-and-ends/), Blizzard (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/blizzard/), Bosses (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/bosses/), Hardware (http://www.wowinsider.com/category/hardware/)
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.wowinsider.com/media/2008/10/freeplay.jpgIs it just me or has it been a long time since Blizzard passed out some free game time? Reader Jim T. emailed me about a conversation he recently had with Blizzard's customer service -- he was disappointed with the lag, the queues, and the downtime on his server lately, and checking in about how he might get a refund or credit. The customer rep told him that while they didn't give out individual credit, they occasionally do give out game-wide credit for downtime mistakes.
Which is true -- Blizzard will occasionally give out a free day (http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/04/10/some-eu-realms-get-a-free-day/) to folks affected by major unexpected downtime or server issues. But while they used to do it (http://www.wowinsider.com/2006/04/21/free-day-credit-for-select-eu-realms/) fairly often (http://www.wowinsider.com/2006/03/29/free-day/), by my recollection, they seem much less inclined to pull the trigger on a refund lately. On the one hand, sure, Blizzard does a better job than they used to -- last Tuesday's maintenance lasted quite a while, but it wasn't anything compared to the days the servers used to be offline a few years ago. On the other hand, though, there's no question players are being affected -- by queues, by problems logging in, and by lag on the instance servers (http://twitter.com/WoWInsider/status/967698535) and elsewhere.
Of course, we have no idea if Blizzard has an actual rule for when they give out free gametime and when they don't -- at this point, the criteria for giving players a refund happens to be "when they feel like it." Which is all right, we guess -- it's their company, of course. But it does seem like the criteria has changed -- we used to get refunds all the time, and even with all the problems lately, Blizzard hasn't decided to give customers any game time back.
Permalink (http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/24/the-price-of-a-game-time-refund/) | Email this (http://www.wowinsider.com/forward/1352016/) | Comments (http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/24/the-price-of-a-game-time-refund/#comments)
More... (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WowInsider/~3/430986913/)
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.wowinsider.com/media/2008/10/freeplay.jpgIs it just me or has it been a long time since Blizzard passed out some free game time? Reader Jim T. emailed me about a conversation he recently had with Blizzard's customer service -- he was disappointed with the lag, the queues, and the downtime on his server lately, and checking in about how he might get a refund or credit. The customer rep told him that while they didn't give out individual credit, they occasionally do give out game-wide credit for downtime mistakes.
Which is true -- Blizzard will occasionally give out a free day (http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/04/10/some-eu-realms-get-a-free-day/) to folks affected by major unexpected downtime or server issues. But while they used to do it (http://www.wowinsider.com/2006/04/21/free-day-credit-for-select-eu-realms/) fairly often (http://www.wowinsider.com/2006/03/29/free-day/), by my recollection, they seem much less inclined to pull the trigger on a refund lately. On the one hand, sure, Blizzard does a better job than they used to -- last Tuesday's maintenance lasted quite a while, but it wasn't anything compared to the days the servers used to be offline a few years ago. On the other hand, though, there's no question players are being affected -- by queues, by problems logging in, and by lag on the instance servers (http://twitter.com/WoWInsider/status/967698535) and elsewhere.
Of course, we have no idea if Blizzard has an actual rule for when they give out free gametime and when they don't -- at this point, the criteria for giving players a refund happens to be "when they feel like it." Which is all right, we guess -- it's their company, of course. But it does seem like the criteria has changed -- we used to get refunds all the time, and even with all the problems lately, Blizzard hasn't decided to give customers any game time back.
Permalink (http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/24/the-price-of-a-game-time-refund/) | Email this (http://www.wowinsider.com/forward/1352016/) | Comments (http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/10/24/the-price-of-a-game-time-refund/#comments)
More... (http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/WowInsider/~3/430986913/)