How come we dont get refunds

[Devia]

Devia, you are missing the point.

Multiply the soda and candy bar by several million $, then, Call that X, If X becomes greater then Y (Y being the cost of upgrading our lousy POS servers), the money man at blizzard will say, Lets upgrade the servers instead of giving back all these refunds.

Then we all win.

Um...no...I didn't miss the point. Your post was not contradicting mine in any way. I was being SARCASTIC meaning that Blizzard SHOULDN'T give the refunds. My response was to the people who whine about not getting free play time when getting free play time is not going to fix the problem. Bitching to Blizzard about giving you free play time is just distracting them from what really needs to be done. The fact that Blizzard DOES give in to the "free play time" just shows that the immature whiners are the ones who get their way instead of the people who complain about genuine things that should actually be fixed. Hence the title of this thread is: "How come we dont get refunds". Who the fuck cares about free play time. Just don't let it happen in the first place.

[Froppy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are the US servers going completely offline and not able to log in? I think they might be making a distinction between "unplayable" and "offline". And the EU servers are going Offline while the US servers maintain an unplayable (or maybe even.. playable for some, unplayable for others) therefore they give the EU customers that offline time back when it's a significant amount of time.. say 6+ hours.

If it's not that, then it's probably 100% based on Laws and they are conforming to whichever laws the EU has vs what the US has.

Remember, Blizzard is a *for profit* company, they can't just hand out money to everyone. They probably have an entire system in place for this sort of thing.

Finally, consider this: People say: "Upgrade your Servers!!!" - However, the size of the WoW universe is unlike anything else created when it comes right down to it. Sure it mimics other networks in it's complexity and they can pull ideas, etc... from them, but you gotta also realize they are treading in somewhat new territory (and since the membership base keeps increasing, continously more uncharted territory) it's entirely possible they just simply don't know what the best solution would be. What if they "upgraded" the servers and it failed or was lesser performance for some reason and they had to take down your realm for a few days to fix it, how pissed would you be. Of course there are methods and standards and stop-gaps in place to not allow this, but I don't think it's ever really as easy as buying a new server and putting it in. In part, their success hinges on making that aspect as flawless as possible, and when they break records that they don't necessarily mean to (1 million + concurrent users) it puts an undue stress on the system that they might not have been prepared for.

If they blow all their money trying to keep their servers up to date with the latest and greatest, I'm sure it'd impact the amount of other things they could do.. like armory, patches, content creation, etc.. (not to say any of those perform stellar anyway :-\ ). All I have to say... I'd hate to see Blizzard's payroll per month, it's gotta be astronomical.

Sure they can do things better, most companies can. But they can also do a lot worse.

[Devia]

When you think about it, you all are being "the glass is half-empty" people. Ok so, say maybe after a big patch day (which is what...every 3 months?) your server becomes unplayable for 6 hours. Let's say that you can't play for a total of 6 hours a month, maybe 3 nights the servers are down for 2 hours etc. Assuming everything goes as it should, then WoW is online for 688 hours a month after subtracting the 8 hrs a week for maintenance. So...6/688 hours you can't play WoW. Hell, we'll even say 12 hours a month the servers are down during unexpected times, which is pretty rare. 12/688 = .017. So instead of people saying "Wow! This game is probably the most stable online game - it's online 98.3% of the time!" people are saying "THIS GAME SUCKS! I can't play it 1.7% of the time! I want my money back!"

Since there is absolutely nothing that you can do as an individual when the servers go down, maybe take that as allowing you some time to do something else for a change...like maybe give Mom a call, go exercise, read a book, play with your dog/cat, or go play DotA if you just absolutely can't get away from your computer. Find something better to whine about...like druids if you must.

[oglaigh]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are the US servers going completely offline and not able to log in? I think they might be making a distinction between "unplayable" and "offline". And the EU servers are going Offline while the US servers maintain an unplayable (or maybe even.. playable for some, unplayable for others) therefore they give the EU customers that offline time back when it's a significant amount of time.. say 6+ hours.

If it's not that, then it's probably 100% based on Laws and they are conforming to whichever laws the EU has vs what the US has.

Remember, Blizzard is a *for profit* company, they can't just hand out money to everyone. They probably have an entire system in place for this sort of thing.

Finally, consider this: People say: "Upgrade your Servers!!!" - However, the size of the WoW universe is unlike anything else created when it comes right down to it. Sure it mimics other networks in it's complexity and they can pull ideas, etc... from them, but you gotta also realize they are treading in somewhat new territory (and since the membership base keeps increasing, continously more uncharted territory) it's entirely possible they just simply don't know what the best solution would be. What if they "upgraded" the servers and it failed or was lesser performance for some reason and they had to take down your realm for a few days to fix it, how pissed would you be. Of course there are methods and standards and stop-gaps in place to not allow this, but I don't think it's ever really as easy as buying a new server and putting it in. In part, their success hinges on making that aspect as flawless as possible, and when they break records that they don't necessarily mean to (1 million + concurrent users) it puts an undue stress on the system that they might not have been prepared for.

If they blow all their money trying to keep their servers up to date with the latest and greatest, I'm sure it'd impact the amount of other things they could do.. like armory, patches, content creation, etc.. (not to say any of those perform stellar anyway :-\ ). All I have to say... I'd hate to see Blizzard's payroll per month, it's gotta be astronomical.

Sure they can do things better, most companies can. But they can also do a lot worse.

last month, on US dragonmaw, during peak times on weekdays, there was a 50/50 chance the server would even be up, let alone not lagged out so hard u could play on it.

on the weekends forget it. almost all day long "world server is down"


@Devia - its funny to even listen to u talk about "immature whiners" after we read "OH NOEZ EU GOTS 5 DAYZ OF FREE TIME IN 6 MONTHS OMGOMGOMG!!!!" whether u were trying to be funny or sarcastic u missed the mark.

and the reason free time should be given, since people want to look at it from the standpoint that blizzard is a business, is that if u pay for a service, and are not given that service, a refund is entitled. pretty simple logic. no reason it shouldn't hold in wow as well. imo, idc about the 2-3 bucks, but the principle behind it is somewhat annoying.

[oglaigh]

When you think about it, you all are being "the glass is half-empty" people. Ok so, say maybe after a big patch day (which is what...every 3 months?) your server becomes unplayable for 6 hours. Let's say that you can't play for a total of 6 hours a month, maybe 3 nights the servers are down for 2 hours etc. Assuming everything goes as it should, then WoW is online for 688 hours a month after subtracting the 8 hrs a week for maintenance. So...6/688 hours you can't play WoW. Hell, we'll even say 12 hours a month the servers are down during unexpected times, which is pretty rare. 12/688 = .017. So instead of people saying "Wow! This game is probably the most stable online game - it's online 98.3% of the time!" people are saying "THIS GAME SUCKS! I can't play it 1.7% of the time! I want my money back!"

Since there is absolutely nothing that you can do as an individual when the servers go down, maybe take that as allowing you some time to do something else for a change...like maybe give Mom a call, go exercise, read a book, play with your dog/cat, or go play DotA if you just absolutely can't get away from your computer. Find something better to whine about...like druids if you must.

its worse on some server than others. 6 hours a month might be your server. its pretty ignorant to claim that everyone is bitching about 1.7% of their time being cut out.

also, think of it like this. I sell u a car. Right after i receive the payment, i take a bat and knock out the rear tail light. ur car is still 98.3% intact. What are u bitching about?

[Devia]

also, think of it like this. I sell u a car. Right after i receive the payment, i take a bat and knock out the rear tail light. ur car is still 98.3% intact. What are u bitching about?

Yes, because Blizzard intentionally makes the servers crash. That argument is horribly inaccurate in so many ways.

[Banderillero]

Most of you all make excellent points. I too played on an old server that had major issues. About a year or so ago Tich was as unstable as could be, crashing every 30 minutes or so, weekends were out completely. Finally they first tried character transfers off, which helped a bit during the week but not on the weeknds. Eventually though, they did give us some free time back, and then finally they did upgrade the server that maintains tich, and the other realms in that grouping. Since then our game play has been much more stable. Like all realms we still experience our issues on major patch days.

Bottom line is that EU and US have different laws. As was mentioned earlier, they have different consumer protection laws where we have both consumer and coroprate protectino. You could try to bring up the argument that you are paying for a service that you are not receiving. However, paying for a service is much much much different then paying for a product. If you try to prove lack of service, be ready to jump through hoops and be screwed over every which way. I have been fighting my cable company for over a year and a half because I have no way to "prove" my cable and internet were not working.

Another issue you would run into is that you are paying for a service...WOW as a whole. You have wow available, just not the server you want to play on. If you look at the terms of your agreement, you have what you payed for available to you. Obviously this sucks, but that is what we over at Tich were told, which eventually led to free character migration. Be patient (yes I know that sucks) and eventually they will get the servers replaced and clean up the issues.

[Devia]

If you look at the terms of your agreement, you have what you payed for available to you.

^

[oglaigh]

Yes, because Blizzard intentionally makes the servers crash. That argument is horribly inaccurate in so many ways.

this isn't about making them crash, its about when the inevitable happens, owning up to it.


lol @ horribly innaccurate. it was a simple joke. get over urself

[oglaigh]

Most of you all make excellent points. I too played on an old server that had major issues. About a year or so ago Tich was as unstable as could be, crashing every 30 minutes or so, weekends were out completely. Finally they first tried character transfers off, which helped a bit during the week but not on the weeknds. Eventually though, they did give us some free time back, and then finally they did upgrade the server that maintains tich, and the other realms in that grouping. Since then our game play has been much more stable. Like all realms we still experience our issues on major patch days.

Bottom line is that EU and US have different laws. As was mentioned earlier, they have different consumer protection laws where we have both consumer and coroprate protectino. You could try to bring up the argument that you are paying for a service that you are not receiving. However, paying for a service is much much much different then paying for a product. If you try to prove lack of service, be ready to jump through hoops and be screwed over every which way. I have been fighting my cable company for over a year and a half because I have no way to "prove" my cable and internet were not working.

Another issue you would run into is that you are paying for a service...WOW as a whole. You have wow available, just not the server you want to play on. If you look at the terms of your agreement, you have what you payed for available to you. Obviously this sucks, but that is what we over at Tich were told, which eventually led to free character migration. Be patient (yes I know that sucks) and eventually they will get the servers replaced and clean up the issues.

appreciate the intelligence. its refreshing.

only thing i could say is when the log-in servers are down, or every server is offline, then we aren't getting what we paid for. that has happened several times. really still isn't a big huge deal, just saying from a principle standpoint.

[Uzm]

Yep, i completely agree with previous posts about bad situation when it comes to high/low-populated realms, and Blizzard seems not to care about it.
Don't forget about weekly maintance, and it's almost every week (sometimes not, ofc) - do you get refund for that? You just pay for everything, and when it comes to maintance and lags - Blizzard doesn't care about refunds and what players think.