Thread: LOTRO Store: Fix It or Nix It

This is friendly advice to Turbine, WB or whomever happens to own this game right now.

If you're going to make such a big change as the introduction of a real-life money store to a game, better make sure it works beforehand. Better make damn sure it works.

Because right now it doesn't. Despite the many bug reports made in recent months, the big issues with the store persist.

Especially, if you're going to take real-life money from players and give them nothing in return, not even some virtual object or enhancement, this game will go to hell in a handbasket quickly. Very, very quickly.

And the fact that when that happens gamemasters and other support people say "sorry but there's nothing we can do", or worse even don't respond at all, will certainly not help things.

Just FIY.

Fix it. Or nix it.



Very dissatisfied customer who will not use the store again anytime soon,
Trurlius

Months of bug reports? Most, if not all, of the issues that are happening with the store were not happening in beta. They are bugs and issues that crop up when the game is under full server load, and just simply won't appear or be known until it is. That's normal with any major new release or update.

When it comes to computer programs of pretty much any type, you shouldn't expect everything to be working perfectly immediately at release. Because unfortunately, no matter how much you test, there are going to be things that crop up in the real world that can never show up in testing. That's not just MMO's, that's true for OS's, single player games (hence why they all have patches that come out later), and pretty much any other software you can come up. (E.G. when I was teaching we received a new release of our grading program- that wouldn't let us actually input and save any grade. It was 2 months before the fix for that came out).

Stuff happens- in every thing like this. It's always a good idea to wait just a bit til after the mad rush and confusion settle down and they have a chance to see the bags in action, find them, figure out what's causing them, and then get them fixed. That can take a little time sometimes.

Customer service could be nicer than they are. Yes there are always problems with any major update or even new game release. How a company treats its customers though can make or break reputations.

Originally Posted by sirwillow

Months of bug reports? Most, if not all, of the issues that are happening with the store were not happening in beta. They are bugs and issues that crop up when the game is under full server load, and just simply won't appear or be known until it is. That's normal with any major new release or update.

When it comes to computer programs of pretty much any type, you shouldn't expect everything to be working perfectly immediately at release. Because unfortunately, no matter how much you test, there are going to be things that crop up in the real world that can never show up in testing. That's not just MMO's, that's true for OS's, single player games (hence why they all have patches that come out later), and pretty much any other software you can come up. (E.G. when I was teaching we received a new release of our grading program- that wouldn't let us actually input and save any grade. It was 2 months before the fix for that came out).

Stuff happens- in every thing like this. It's always a good idea to wait just a bit til after the mad rush and confusion settle down and they have a chance to see the bags in action, find them, figure out what's causing them, and then get them fixed. That can take a little time sometimes.

The real question is whether or not there were changes made to the store that went Live without being first tested through the Beta.

I used the store up to the end of Beta without ANY issue (other than a delay of delivery about a month or so ago).

Now immediately after Live Launch, it goes belly up and fails miserably?!? Beta population wasn't tiny by any stretch of the imagination.

Originally Posted by DarthMord

Beta population wasn't tiny by any stretch of the imagination.

It was vanishingly small when compared to live server populations.

Originally Posted by sirwillow

Months of bug reports? Most, if not all, of the issues that are happening with the store were not happening in beta. They are bugs and issues that crop up when the game is under full server load, and just simply won't appear or be known until it is. That's normal with any major new release or update.

The "high volume of transactions - wait 24h" message followed by TP being deducted but no item received did happen a lot in the beta. And was reported a lot. It's not fixed as it still happens. 2 out of every 3 transactions I did with the store resulted in it. I would not call this a new bug that wasn't seen before.

I've used the stored a few times to buy a few things and not had anything go wrong. Many of My Kinmates have used the store with no issues. I'm not saying that there aren't any bugs or issues but these things can be difficult to track down if they seem to occuring randomly. It would be My guess that they are working on these issue and trying to sort them all out.

Nice stealthy change in the timelines for responses:

"Account Management responses typically take 2-3 weeks.
Premium Service responses typically take 2-3 weeks.
Technical Support responses typically take 2-3 business days.
In-Game Support respones (through Email) typically take 3-5 business days. "

Notice the change? account management used to take 3-5 days to respond. Now it's 2-3 weeks.

Might as well be never.

Thanks Turbine for your support.

Originally Posted by Trurlius

Nice stealthy change in the timelines for responses:

"Account Management responses typically take 2-3 weeks.
Premium Service responses typically take 2-3 weeks.
Technical Support responses typically take 2-3 business days.
In-Game Support respones (through Email) typically take 3-5 business days. "

Notice the change? account management used to take 3-5 days to respond. Now it's 2-3 weeks.

Might as well be never.

Thanks Turbine for your support.

Perhaps it's because of the huge backlog of workload they have arising from all the issues they've been dealing with since release, and that's a realistic picture of how long it's going to take them to get caught up? Goodness knows they've had enough on their plate to straighten up and deal with without having to add onto it by leaving up timelines that they couldn't meet.

I'm guessing it's the old Mr. Scott rule- tell them 12 hours when it'll take you 6. Then they'll think you're a miracle worker.

My vote is to nix it. I find it incredibly aggravating to be constantly reminded of the Turbine Store.