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Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning: Executive Producer's Letter Apologizes for Billing Errors
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Mythic Entertainment's Studio Executive Producer Jeff Hickman issued an apology for the recent billing errors WAR has experienced as part of a new Executive Producer's letter now available on the WAR Herald.
For those of you who don't know, WAR recently experienced some pretty severe errors in their billing system, resulting in subscribers being charged multiple times for their subscriptions, with some players even reporting being charged up to $500. The errors sent a shockwave throughout the WAR community, leaving many players absolutely furious (And understandably so). Since then, Mythic has been working hard to resolve the issue and credit customers for any erroneous charges, and according to Jeff's letter, they believe they have fully resolved the issue.
The letter offers an apology from Jeff and the Mythic team as well as compensation for thsoe who were affected:
As of today, we believe we have resolved the issue. However, we remain committed to assisting anyone who has been financially affected in ways we are not aware. For any players still in need of assistance, please contact our Billing Support department by calling 650-628-1001 from 10:00 AM EDT - 10:00 PM EDT, 7 days a week. For those outside of the U.S. who do not wish to make an international call, please create an in-game appeal; for instructions on how to file an appeal click here.
Over the past 15 years we have always strived to do what’s best for our players. We are truly sorry, and want to work to make things right and restore our relationship. We hope you will accept this small token of our appreciation for your continued commitment to our games:
For starters all players will earn 100% bonus experience and renown when killing enemies and monsters for two weeks. As well, during this time we’ll be hard at work designing and implementing a special vendor. This vendor will only accept special tokens that will be sent to the mailbox of players effected by the billing error, using these two tokens each of your characters will be able to receive two of the following items:
Bottomless Chaos Black Dye
Bottomless Skull White Dye
Imperial Griffon Mount (Order)
Enslaved Manticore Mount (Destruction)
WAR Tract – earn a free level
Choose from any of these pets – Order: Imperial Hunting Hound or Dwarf Keg Handler; Destruction: Warlord’s Fell Hound or the Goblin Bar-Back.
Change your appearance with any of these illusion items: Skaven Skin Cloak (skaven), Kossar’s Helm (bear), or the Signet of the Cursed Company (skeleton)Please accept this gesture as a step towards rebuilding our relationship. From all of us at Mythic, we thank you for your time, your commitment, and your trust that helps us to make great games year after year.
View the full letter here.
Were you affected by the billing errors? How would you rate Mythic's performance in resolving the issue for you? Let us know in the comments below!
[Thanks Christopher8 for the tip!]
Comments
Seems a pretty sensible response, so long as the damage is undone on the credit cards. I like that they accept full responsibility and try and treat their customers well in a difficult situation. That doesn't happen as much as it should anymore, especially in the video game industry.
this is an extreme error for a company to make... the apology letter was good but damn, im sure people lost alot of faith with that.
While I think they fell short in their proposed measures for making it up to those affected, I am intrigued by the proposed rewards. Infinite cool looking dyes and the awesome looking mounts? 2 tokens for EVERY character? SWEEEEEEEEEET! Now I can have my 20+ characters all running around on griffons and manticores with all black armor. Won't I feel like the ****!
On the other hand, I think they could go farther, and at least give players who were over billed a free month or two. In a perfect world, we'd be given a free month of subscription for every extra time we were billed. I was billed 16 times. One charge was legit, 15 were not. A year and three months of free war sub! I know I'm dreaming, but hey that would be about the best thing they could do for everyone that got screwed. I feel really bad for everybody who got billed so much their bank accounts went negative and they got nailed with overdraft fees, and I heard some banks were evil and refused to refund those overdrafts even in light of the extraordinary circumstances. Those people DEFINITELY deserve something extra, if they can get the bad taste out of their mouth and want anything to do with Mythic or WAR ever again. I'm sure some do not, and no amount of reasonable compensation could convince them to continue to do business with the offending parties.
On another note, about the proposed token rewards, since they are going to every character, should we start creating every character class we intend to play on multiple accounts so they can all get the rewards? Or will there be a cutoff point, only those characters already in existence during the billing screwup will get the 2 tokens in the mail? I'm going to make a bunch just in case
I'm not affected by the bill, will I still get those bonus items ??
If that so, I am going to make bunch of characters too !! wahhahaha =p
Doesn't look like you will, hahaha bet some people actually wish they were effected with those rewards.
Uh, WTF, I broke this first, yesterday morning, right after it was announced via Mythic.
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bottomless chaos black dye?! LOL well looks like the price of that is gonna eat shit on the market
I didn't bother to deal with the game company, I just sic'ed my bank on them. Worked pretty good.
This was a HUGE error on their part, but they jumped on it, cleaned up their mess and gave those affected some good apology gifts. Fair enough.
lol I wish I was affected, the rewards are way cool!
Good move from Mythic/EA!
Well we haven't gotten apology gifts yet... Just a promise so far. Next patch maybe. You'll know when you see the mass griffon/manticore cavalry charge across the tiers. It won't dawn on you at first, then you'll see tons of people with all black armor and dog pets and you'll be like "Oh yeah, that!"
I'm torn between those choices. I think I'll go mount and dye, but the pets are tempting too.
it'll work the same way as like the CE rewards. every character will get the tokens to include one that you make in the future.
http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=gd&thread.id=2486&view=by_date_ascending&page=2
For such a huge error they should have offered at least one months free play time for those affected . A few in game items and an appology while proberbly welcome does'nt really go far enough .
To be honest this has actually made me consider trying out WAR.
They reacted fast, reversed hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of transactions, they did not try to palm the blame off on anyone else (even though their billing is done by a seperate company) and they are taking ownership and responsability of the problem. In all I am impressed with how they have handled this, its good to see one game studio that appears to give a monkeys about its customer base beyond just milking them (Cryptic take note).
All this for a company owned by E.A. Who many feel are the devil.... something to think about and it makes me glad Mythic will be involved to a small degree in The old Republic too.