No customer support, no forum permissions, no respect for the customer

[Deleted]

I've decided to post this here since the least(and apparently most) I can do is share the experience I've just had with this "great" game company. I'm looking at you EA, I still have faith this is not BioWare's doing.

I was one of the many people who had a lot of hype for swtor and bought it on the week it released. For a while I enjoyed it a lot but eventually decided to take a break from it. I was subscribed for about 6 months. I think I stopped shortly before they started to mention going f2p.

Now, fast forward into the present, I've been missing the game and wanted to give it a try again, potentially even re-subscribing. Yesterday I downloaded it and as I started it I noticed that all my characters were gone. Now, I was expecting them to have been moved since I knew the server I used to play on was one of the merged servers, but completely gone I didn't see coming. Not only that, I can't even create the same characters I had because apparently twi'lek sorcerers aren't allowed for f2p players(even though I bought the game).
Annoyed, I immediately uninstalled the game but later decided I'd look further into it to find if there's a way to restore my characters. What I've found is that my account should have preferred status, which it doesn't. I've also found that my characters should have been transferred, which they weren't.

I thought this had to be a mistake so I decided to contact customer support. Turns out I can't. You either do it in game or through telephone, no e-mail option. I checked EA's site, BioWare's site and Lucasarts' site, admittedly not in-depth, I couldn't find an e-mail option on those either. I'm not going to make a foreign call and pay a bucketload of money for something that shouldn't even happen and should be simple to fix to begin with and I'm surely not going to reinstall the game just to send a ticket, more-so seeing as back when I played it took them about a month to reply to the tickets I had.

I thought I'd use the customer support forum but turns out I have no forum access because "
Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation."

Now, I can't possibly have been banned from the forum because I've never posted there in the first place, so apparently even if you were a paying customer you're treated with absolutely no respect.

I am not going to bother trying anymore, I've decided to just stay away from this game completely from now on and I'd recommend you do the same if you're thinking of giving it a try. Today Blizzard has earned a tremendous amount of respect from me.

TL: DR
Paying customer takes a break
After the change to f2p, account doesn't get the benefits that a paying customer is supposed to
Characters get deleted, forum permissions are gone
Can't remake the same characters because the races used aren't part of the f2p package for accounts that have never paid
No e-mail contact

[jordanterp]

You can only post on the official forums if you're a subscriber; f2p and preferred account holders can only read the forums. It's a little annoying, but I see why they have this restriction.

There is a US phone number listed on the swtor website for help with account problems. Maybe it'll work. USA: (312) 725-5740

[Kelimbror]

http://www.swtor.com/support/helpcenter/5200

It sucks that they only have phone support as opposed to only having chat/ticket support outside of the game, but you can use skype to call them for free. Give it a shot before you write them off. And trust me, I don't say that lightly because I hate their entire company.

But if playing the game a little bit more is worth it to you, please try and get everything sorted out. There's a chance you will really enjoy your time back.

[sxar]

I guess I would double check that you are indeed using the same user account you originally created when you purchased the game. I also noted that you mentioned a call to a foreign country for support, so is it possible your characters on USA vs European vs APAC servers? Just a few things to check.

[Potato Bus]

Sounds like your original characters were either moved to a new server in a merge (in which case you'll want to go to Sever Selection after logging into the game and look for a server that has existing characters for your account), possibly deleted inadvertently (sucks if that's the case, but they can fix it), hacked and deleted (still fixable), or maybe you logged into the incorrect account?

Anyways: support@swtor.com

[Deleted]

I'm 100% sure I logged into the correct account as I only had the one and the password matched, I used to play on The Shadow Runner(EU) which is gone now so I expected to see my characters on another realm, friends told me they should be on tomb of freedon nadd iirc. Instead I have no character on any realm nor any mention of them on my account area on the site.

I guess hacking is a possibility but if that were the case shouldn't I have preferred status regardless? And even then, shouldn't I keep the legacy benefits of my old characters and in turn be able to create twi'lek?(I'm really not sure about this last question).

I don't currently have a working microphone for VoIP and I'm too disappointed to think it's worth buying one or pay for the international phone call so I'll try that e-mail as a last resort, though I'm honestly not expecting much at this point, I spent at least around 150€ on this game which isn't a fortune but should at least warrant being worth a couple of stored characters on a database.

Thanks everyone for the answers, though.

[Snorkle]

Honestly, call them. Their phone support solves those issues quickly and sometimes you even get cartel coins as a "sorry we screwed up" gift.

[Jlena]

Try calling them with skype, it's cheaper then using your phone. I had a authenticator problem and called them with skype. Was on hold for a hour and it only cost me 1,40 euro. And the problem was solved in 5 minutes. Only thing that was bugging me was the wait time for a hour.

[Orange Joe]

All I'm reading here is you aren't getting support because you are unwilling to receive the support they give.

You sound like a little kid crying because his sucker isn't the color he wanted.


<Mod Edit: Please post constructively>

[Edge-]

All I'm reading here is you aren't getting support because you are unwilling to receive the support they give.

You sound like a little kid crying because his sucker isn't the color he wanted.

Unless I'm mistaken, OP is EU and the support line is a US number. Considering they removed the toll free number, that means he's getting charged international rates unless he uses a program like Skype to call (not everyone has a microphone for their computer).

Couple that with the fact that waiting on hold for what may be hours is extremely inconvenient for many people and you have a big hassle.

SWTOR does not have good support for F2P players, it's like Vanguard in that regard. The fact that F2P players can't create in-game tickets is silly and I would be is cause for many F2P players outright quitting.

[Deleted]

Try calling them with skype, it's cheaper then using your phone. I had a authenticator problem and called them with skype. Was on hold for a hour and it only cost me 1,40 euro. And the problem was solved in 5 minutes. Only thing that was bugging me was the wait time for a hour.

You see, there is your problem - some of us value our own time, a hour on hold (remember that it doesnt matter if you are a subscriber or not, you are always put on hold) costs alot more. An hour of my time costs more than they used to sell their game for. They made you wait for an hour to solve the issue within 5 minutes...

[sxar]

I'm 100% sure I logged into the correct account as I only had the one and the password matched, I used to play on The Shadow Runner(EU) which is gone now so I expected to see my characters on another realm, friends told me they should be on tomb of freedon nadd iirc. Instead I have no character on any realm nor any mention of them on my account area on the site.

I guess hacking is a possibility but if that were the case shouldn't I have preferred status regardless? And even then, shouldn't I keep the legacy benefits of my old characters and in turn be able to create twi'lek?(I'm really not sure about this last question).

I don't currently have a working microphone for VoIP and I'm too disappointed to think it's worth buying one or pay for the international phone call so I'll try that e-mail as a last resort, though I'm honestly not expecting much at this point, I spent at least around 150€ on this game which isn't a fortune but should at least warrant being worth a couple of stored characters on a database.

Thanks everyone for the answers, though.

With the transfers, you may have lost your names on your characters, but they should still show up with a random letter/number as a name. I am not familiar how the character choice screen looks for F2P players, but even if your characters were listed as inactive, I would think you would still see them.

On your account showing as preferred, I know they have had issues with some people coming back and their accounts not showing as 'preferred'.

It is a shame they did not give returning customers at least an area on the website to get account issues like this looked at/fixed.

[anyaka21]

Based on what OP said, it sounds like he's made the basic attempt to get this worked on. It does seem unbelievable that there isn't email support out there somewhere. The Skype sounds like a good option.

2ndary thought, do you know people ingame, as in IRL. Thus people that could potentially place a ticket for you, or post something on the forums for you as an option.

It also sounds, at least seems like to me, that when they merged, either your characters did not get transferred, or that maybe they gave people time to come back, and if they didn't opt for the f2p option after a 3 months maybe , that they deleted those accounts. That's just an out there idea, which would be dumb, but I'm not sure how intelligent EA/BW is if they don't have email support.

[Sunstrider]

Is $15 that much to you? Sucks to be poor.