Customer Relations (Blizzard and Hacking)

[ipop@you]

So my battle.net account was hacked today and I was highly annoyed partly because my main character had been realm changed and my password had been changed too but also because MY ACCOUNT HAD BEEN HACKED! So I contacted blizzard and they sent me the necessary e-mails and I reset my password but being the silly bugger that I am I didn't do a virus check in the mean time so it went wonky again. I did the virus check and deleted any problems it found then re-did everything Blizzard sent me as well as submitting a ticket about the realm change. Within 15 minutes of submitting the new information I had a reply from Blizzard and could get back into my account easily. I logged back onto WoW and was delighted to find my character back in his original realm with all of his items that could have been affected waiting in the mail along with a new, free corehound pup due to my downloading the authenticator app for my ipod.

So this thread is mostly a thank you to blizzard for helping me so easily and readily when my account was threatened. I know they get some bad press for other aspects (i.e. people spending too much money (celestial steed) or too much time on their games) but they do get some key thing right.

And now to you. Have you got any interesting customer relations stories with companies gaming or otherwise be they funny or serious. What's the worst you've found? and the best?

P.S. I don't know if I've put this in the right place, gaming seemed appropriate because that's what made me create this post but I have no idea, sorry if it's wrong.

 

[CaptainKoala]

Valve sent me a Portal mouse pad with Gabe's signature on it.

 

[New Frontiersman]

It's nice to hear some good news about things. I'm glad Blizzard fixed your account so easily.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Blizzard generally do hop on these things quite quickly. My Guildmaster's account was hacked not long ago and they emptied the guild bank, got away with a fair bit of gold from all of it. Took about two days to get everything back in order with the guild bank, but his account was back with all his items within 24 hours.

 

[LordLundar]

Word of note, get an authenticator. It helps a lot.

Personally, best one I had was from Blizzard for WoW as well. Not an "I've been hacked" issue or anything like that, just a bug I noticed. When the server updates prior the cata client was released, the frostbrood dragons in the dead front area in Icecrown wound up shrunk for some reason and were flapping their wings very rapidly. Being a good gamer, I reported it and went on with my game.

The response I got back was hilarious. The GM sent a message replied:

Something is amiss with the Frostbrood and they think they are hummingbirds.

I love a GM with a sense of humour.

 

[Roamin11]

Blizzard is pretty good about hacked accounts, I've lost mine twice, and went through both their e-mail recovery and phone recovery, both times the problem was fixed quickly and very politely.

But then again with the largest MMO you gotta have good customer service for when people get hacked and/or forget their passwords.

 

[CaptainKoala]

Valve sent me a Portal mouse pad with Gabe's signature on it.

You lucky SOB. What happened to earn you that?

I sent him an e-mail asking for his autograph. Literally thats all I did.

 

[hotsauceman]

When i played wow the only bad thing about the customer service was the wait times. But that is to be expected. Those people will bend head over heels for you to help you. And they will help with with other problems and makes jokes too. and i heard rumors of them helping with math. when you have 12million subscribers paying 15$ a month you do your best not to piss them off.

 

[Hamish Durie]

welp all i can think of is getting crysis 2 for 68 bucks(on sale down from 109.95 Aus) and then getting the free limited edition(usually 30$ extra)

 

[Bostur]

Word of note, get an authenticator. It helps a lot.

Personally, best one I had was from Blizzard for WoW as well. Not an "I've been hacked" issue or anything like that, just a bug I noticed. When the server updates prior the cata client was released, the frostbrood dragons in the dead front area in Icecrown wound up shrunk for some reason and were flapping their wings very rapidly. Being a good gamer, I reported it and went on with my game.

The response I got back was hilarious. The GM sent a message replied:

Something is amiss with the Frostbrood and they think they are hummingbirds.

I love a GM with a sense of humour.

WoW GMs does make some funnies at times and try to keep it lighthearted. But its a bit random how well the tickets are handled, sometimes they seem incredibly rushed.

I've always been impressed with GMs from EvE Online, simply because they are able to solve a lot of situations fast and efficiently. And when they can't help its still clear that they do understand the issue and they explain why they can't act.

Some of the worst customer support I have experienced is actually from Blizzard, the quality is very uneven. It often seems like they don't even bother to read the tickets, but simply send a copy/paste answer based on the general subject.


I like small games where GMs actively keep in touch with their community. Show up in public chat or even PM new players to ask if they need help. Or when they host special events of various sort. That kind of close connection to the players makes a big difference to the community spirit.

 

[Dogstile]

Steam usually has horrible customer support. I remember it took me a good five hours to get my account back when I hadn't remembered the password (it had been like a year).

Turns out my password was right and my account was just deactivated. They reactivated it, but RAWR

 

[yuval152]

Steam usually has horrible customer support. I remember it took me a good five hours to get my account back when I hadn't remembered the password (it had been like a year).

Turns out my password was right and my account was just deactivated. They reactivated it, but RAWR

5 hours from steam is very good customer Service

OT:I was when MW2 ban glitch happended and i didnt get L4D2

 

[Ranorak]

Word of note, get an authenticator. It helps a lot.

Personally, best one I had was from Blizzard for WoW as well. Not an "I've been hacked" issue or anything like that, just a bug I noticed. When the server updates prior the cata client was released, the frostbrood dragons in the dead front area in Icecrown wound up shrunk for some reason and were flapping their wings very rapidly. Being a good gamer, I reported it and went on with my game.

The response I got back was hilarious. The GM sent a message replied:

Something is amiss with the Frostbrood and they think they are hummingbirds.

I love a GM with a sense of humour.

WoW GMs does make some funnies at times and try to keep it lighthearted. But its a bit random how well the tickets are handled, sometimes they seem incredibly rushed.

I've always been impressed with GMs from EvE Online, simply because they are able to solve a lot of situations fast and efficiently. And when they can't help its still clear that they do understand the issue and they explain why they can't act.

Some of the worst customer support I have experienced is actually from Blizzard, the quality is very uneven. It often seems like they don't even bother to read the tickets, but simply send a copy/paste answer based on the general subject.


I like small games where GMs actively keep in touch with their community. Show up in public chat or even PM new players to ask if they need help. Or when they host special events of various sort. That kind of close connection to the players makes a big difference to the community spirit.

Usually the copy paste response is filed when reporting a known issue.
This might, obviously, not been the case with your example, but when reporting a bear stuck in a terrain glitch or something similar or common, I usually got a standard reply, but during the more unique or personal issues, I got full support.

One GM once asked me to rate his goodbye Macro, and wanted to chat for a few minutes before his shift was done.

 

[RedLister]

never was hacked myself bk when i played but always heard they take it very seriously and are usually very good at putting it right. Like a previous member said already though the wait times can be a bit of a pain.

 

[Cheesus333]

My WoW account also got hacked, but it was not so easily rectified -_-

Basically, they banned it cause the arsehole who hacked me was being a dick in-game, then when I regained control I sent an appeal to have it unbanned. No response, whatsoever. So I deleted my credit card information, just in case they felt like being particularly cheeky, and gave up on Warcraft.

My phone's not sufficiently smart for the free authenticator app, so if I get back into it I guess I'll have to get one of the keychain ones. Frankly I don't see why I should pay for account security, but whatever.

 

[Super Duck]

I've been hacked once. All of my items were restored within an hour of sending the GM a ticket about what happened. Personally, I love Blizzard.