Level of compensation for outage followed with painful network maintenance/update

Well BB, it is not often that i will start a post but in this case i think it is needed:

The compensation will for most players post 50 and a fair few below this level not make up for the loss of production/collapsed mines etc. In the reward there is also no provision for the missed gems from 7 days logon bonus. For a lot of small investors this is one of the few sources and they lost one cycle.

I understand that regular maintenance and regular update do not warrant a reward or compensation but the outage nor the 2 follow up planned events went very smoothly. Considering the lack of expectation management regarding downtime, a lot of people feel annoyed by the experience. The compensation would have been an nice way to turn that feeling around. With this package this won't happen for many a player and so looks like a missed opportunity and in some cases a reinforcement of the negative feeling form the last 3 days

It would have been nice if the package was a bit bigger- which would make for less negative feelings and a lot more people thinking they at least broke even on island production/rebuilding with the package and a few very happy campers in the lower levels or less active people- Which would make for an all out more positive experience where we probably end up joking about the outage a bit more instead of griping about the reward package

Hopefully you can revisit the package or try something additional next week at the start of the event ) [Shameless Plug]

Have to agree because of the outage i had around 20 of my coinages running unbuffed as i couldnt log in plus my lvl 7 mines ran unbuffed i lost a fair bit

I am on premium so getting 2 days of premium for 2 days lost is not really something to write home about. Did not get my weekly login gems - no one did - so covers my lost premium - but does not make me happy,-does not stop my general bad mood over this whole mess, I think it is an rather stingy compensation.

If support give me my pathfinder bonus I might feel less cheated. Did use a far too big part of my Sunday trying to get in to get my pathfinder bonus.
People not on prem get the same compensation, for them it is a little extra I guess.

I too must agree with Qualan....the compensation this time feels like a slap in the face. BB is usually fair in their compensations but this time I think that it is very low.
I understand that the outage was not BB´s fault but it was not ours either. A lot of loyal players lost very much during this outage and I feel let down by the compensation.

It might be good if BB could look into the possibility of roll-backs...that way nobody would have lost anything but some game time.

nobody actually "lost" anything. Its a free to play game, and the island stops production after certain amount of time if no log in. At worst people have lost out on log-in gems and not completing some tasks for free in-game goodies plus some mines.

Prem has been credited in the package along with buffs etc.

Nobody likes a smart arris ;)

:p

so every one that wasn't on premium gets 2 days premium as compensation and
everyone that was on premium just gets there 2 days back that they lost in
the first place what a joke

lol. I am more than happy with the compensation. Its still just a game.

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Originally Posted by pardy577

so every one that wasn't on premium gets 2 days premium as compensation and
everyone that was on premium just gets there 2 days back that they lost in
the first place what a joke

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The message didn't even acknowledge the outage.

BB's handing of this has been text book how not to.

The compensation package was hardly worth the effort involved in opening it, and it certainly went no way towards repairing relationships with disgruntled customers.

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Originally Posted by Thejollyone

nobody actually "lost" anything. Its a free to play game, and the island stops production after certain amount of time if no log in. At worst people have lost out on log-in gems and not completing some tasks for free in-game goodies plus some mines.

Prem has been credited in the package along with buffs etc.

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if no one paid - I dont think the game would be here - some does pay something - and I am one of them.
I compare this to going to the Movies or watching a play in the Theatre. If they cant show any play or movie - they tent to inform the waiting audience - even if it is a free show - and they normally pay the money back also.
I cant see that it would be that big a deal for BB to give just the amount of gems we normally get from a weeks login bonus - maybe 50 extra to get peoples spirit up - and maybe a day extra prem.

The only entity that lost anything of physical real value was BB. This probably cost them a lot. Considering the same package would have to go to every player I think it was fine and much appreciated. I get frustrated too but I'm still loyal. It wasn't on purpose (quite the contrary as mentioned it hurt them more than us) so while it upsets my schedule I don't take it personally. And saying a reward/present etc. isn't 'good enough' is rather petty in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Urd123

if no one paid - I dont think the game would be here - some does pay something - and I am one of them.
I compare this to going to the Movies or watching a play in the Theatre. If they cant show any play or movie - they tent to inform the waiting audience - even if it is a free show - and they normally pay the money back also.
I cant see that it would be that big a deal for BB to give just the amount of gems we normally get from a weeks login bonus - maybe 50 extra to get peoples spirit up - and maybe a day extra prem.

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We were given 20 crystals, do some short letters. There's your gems.

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Originally Posted by PELIAS

We were given 20 crystals, do some short letters. There's your gems.

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I want my login gems - I was not able to login- even though I tried. Cant be that big a mystery - many of us are a bit OCD like - if not I doubt we would be playing. it is the routine among other things - we want things back to normal - we want hour login bonus - one way or another.

Honestly, I am happy to have all my buildings at the same place and same lvl on the island.
Does the compensation cover my losses after all maintenance - no.
But that is completely individual and really don't expect from BB to cover it ... and after all why should he.
Like somebody said, this didn't happen on purpose

Last time something similar happened we got straight up gems. If I remember correctly it was 100 gems and the outage was shorter.

I bet +200% gem sale would help raise the mood. ;)

BB seems to have forgotten we lost our 7 day login bonus - 100 gems.

The real loss for all of us was being able to actually play the game.

maybe you get your a bit compensation in Crystels with very much luck as you get some Gem Letters? But the the collapese mines with grout/ special event building material are not compensated or special event Mine building but wil be away when empty.

So i do not understand why let you customers happy. Now i remember i stopped playing settlers online, al your return in investment of time is always a waste of time. It wil suddenly taken aways. They killed Anno online.
I was supprised Settlers online still was doing well.

Down time is not nice but no problem is no buildings disapear for example Forge of Empires. But here it is always the arogance of bluebyte/Like EA too -) Bluebyte Uplay, regualr games, using there stupid server as DRM protection. Were to go to play on the old school without problem games were you did pay for without messing up

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Originally Posted by RedSwingArcus

maybe you get your a bit compensation in Crystels with very much luck as you get some Gem Letters? But the the collapese mines with grout/ special event building material are not compensated or special event Mine building but wil be away when empty.

So i do not understand why let you customers happy. Now i remember i stopped playing settlers online, al your return in investment of time is always a waste of time. It wil suddenly taken aways. They killed Anno online.
I was supprised Settlers online still was doing well.

Down time is not nice but no problem is no buildings disapear for example Forge of Empires. But here it is always the arogance of bluebyte/Like EA too -) Bluebyte Uplay, regualr games, using there stupid server as DRM protection. Were to go to play on the old school without problem games were you did pay for without messing up

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Ok mate - cya. Don't let the door hit you in the ..... :p

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Originally Posted by Peajay

BB seems to have forgotten we lost our 7 day login bonus - 100 gems.

The real loss for all of us was being able to actually play the game.

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Have to say some small annoyance at the loss of gems, but after last year completing my gem pit purchases I've enough to be going on with, and if I really wanted more I could do the short letter quests! As Peajay notes, the real loss is not being able to play ;-)

Very disappointed.
Thanks to previous unannounced maintenances, 4 of my 5 worlds were on the same daily login schedule and lost gems because of this shambles. Yet not a single gem in compensation. :(
The crystals I couldn't care less about, got more than I know what to do with already so that's scant compensation for the other major loss, losing several rounds of explorer searches with a guaranteed return of goods such as Granite, Titanium and EW and probably some Saltpetre, and on average 6-12 adventure maps plus a pile of map frags, not even acknowledged in this "package", nor the loss of an adv just commenced as the servers went down.
Apart from the two premium days, this is pretty much junk.
Once again, the lack of information was abysmal, the BBs back at HQ could have posted the German news screen to all worlds quite easily, even untranslated it was clear enough to understand by non-german speakers, and I could have got some much needed sleep instead of continually trying to see if game was back up, it was already daylight before we got the news that these servers were going to be abandoned until after the predicted maintenance, even though both German and French versions had been back up and running for many hours by then, yet on here I was locked out of 1 world for nigh on 48 hours, enough time for game actions to freeze. :(
I should not be expected to hang around dodgy sites like Fakebook in the hope of information appearing there when the game screen is quite capable and more convenient.

Things go wrong I understand that. Welcome Back ! :)

So I 'lost' this and that. It will be a small glitch in a few weeks, I wont even remember in a few months.
I been around the game for a while, I know not to keep trying to connect. Just find something else to do and try again the next day.

for example
I went outside on one of the days! It is very big and scary outside, so i did not stay.

Have a great day :)

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Originally Posted by Nogbad

Very disappointed.
Thanks to previous unannounced maintenances, 4 of my 5 worlds were on the same daily login schedule and lost gems because of this shambles. Yet not a single gem in compensation. :(
The crystals I couldn't care less about, got more than I know what to do with already so that's scant compensation for the other major loss, losing several rounds of explorer searches with a guaranteed return of goods such as Granite, Titanium and EW and probably some Saltpetre, and on average 6-12 adventure maps plus a pile of map frags, not even acknowledged in this "package", nor the loss of an adv just commenced as the servers went down.
Apart from the two premium days, this is pretty much junk.
Once again, the lack of information was abysmal, the BBs back at HQ could have posted the German news screen to all worlds quite easily, even untranslated it was clear enough to understand by non-german speakers, and I could have got some much needed sleep instead of continually trying to see if game was back up, it was already daylight before we got the news that these servers were going to be abandoned until after the predicted maintenance, even though both German and French versions had been back up and running for many hours by then, yet on here I was locked out of 1 world for nigh on 48 hours, enough time for game actions to freeze. :(
I should not be expected to hang around dodgy sites like Fakebook in the hope of information appearing there when the game screen is quite capable and more convenient.

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Maybe you and all the rest of the unhappy people can write to support and list exactly everything that you lost during the downtime, in the hopes that they give it back to you. Yes, the game was down much longer than we would of liked. Yes, we didn't get everything we lost given back to us. They did however give us something, which they didn't have to do. I would just like to say well done to the team for getting the game up and running again.

I seriously cannot believe people are stamping their feet and crying over a game, man up. Things happen in real life that we don't like, deal with it. By the way I missed out on 15 guild coins, I'm devastated. LOL.

New merchant item: a life. Costs 100 gems. Get it, use it, be happy :D

Some of the comments on Facebook and the forums for the outage over the last few days have been embarrassing quite frankly. Grown men in their mid fifties for example, complaining about losing a few mines or gems and then complaining further because their compensation isn’t good enough. Keep things in perspective please. Besides, TSO are giving gamers stuff all the time, gems every week, crystals, loot, event currency to buy loads of nice things during events... It’s been a bit of a set back, but it’s not that big a deal.

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Originally Posted by PELIAS

Maybe you and all the rest of the unhappy people can write to support and list exactly everything that you lost during the downtime, in the hopes that they give it back to you. Yes, the game was down much longer than we would of liked. Yes, we didn't get everything we lost given back to us. They did however give us something, which they didn't have to do. I would just like to say well done to the team for getting the game up and running again.

I seriously cannot believe people are stamping their feet and crying over a game, man up. Things happen in real life that we don't like, deal with it. By the way I missed out on 15 guild coins, I'm devastated. LOL.

New merchant item: a life. Costs 100 gems. Get it, use it, be happy :D

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this really made me giggle but i agree with what you said

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Originally Posted by Brotherjon

Some of the comments on Facebook and the forums for the outage over the last few days have been embarrassing quite frankly. Grown men in their mid fifties for example, complaining about losing a few mines or gems and then complaining further because their compensation isn’t good enough. Keep things in perspective please. Besides, TSO are giving gamers stuff all the time, gems every week, crystals, loot, event currency to buy loads of nice things during events... It’s been a bit of a set back, but it’s not that big a deal.

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also agree with this

OK my part

I am happy with the compo we got as a player said in a previous post use the crystals to get gems back on short letters. not only do we get 50 gems per short letter and other things like buffs etc
I think people are forgetting it wasnt just tso that went down but was other games as well so there had to be a big prob going on at bb/ubi head office somewhere. so there would be possibly millions of players on all different games angry/annoyed etc they couldnt play at the weekend BUT at least the smurfs gave us some stuff as compo which they didnt have to do

I lost mines i lost the weekly login 100 gems etc i even lost 2 days on upgrades that should been finished but they were still left with 2 days to go but to me it is not that much of a big deal the smurfs got the game back up the maintenece on monday was announced weeks before in the changelog anyways so we knew that was coming just the sunday part when game had died for whatever reason was the pain

I found it amusing people saying they had to talk to family or did housework etc instead. and some of the comments on facebook were bad but i was keeping a eye on facebook for updates so i could post in my guilds facebook page if anything had changed. and yes not everyone uses facebook or twitter etc so they didnt know but the game was broke they fixed it they gave us freebies so im happy with that

Grown men in their mid fifties for example, complaining about losing a few mines or gems and then complaining further because their compensation isn’t good enough.

I am over that age and did not complain ;)

im happy with the compensation i got except for one thing what i didn´t get and that is 5k star coins what i lost from not getting to the game, that is the final reward of completing pathfinder quests.
But other than that im very happy.

To put the "Give stuff " comments into perspective:

Blue Byte is a company- it provides a service and sets it up to be paid for it- in this game by people buying gems. The people buying the gems in the end finance the game and so indirectly "give" all the FTP people the stuff.

For all that pay into the game this package is a joke- for a lot of others is it ok and/or nice and a lot stay silent (but i do see them in guildchat or other forums as they are part of the silent majority on these boards)

Of course there are other/bigger issues in the world- it is all a matter of perception- But to throw that out as a reason to dismiss a complaint or a worry is not evenhanded either. We all play to enjoy ourselves. If the company does things that makes that perception less - it means some will be pushed over an edge (which would come anyway eventually). My main reason is that i want as many people as possible to keep playing and especially keep paying so the game keeps running.

Once the paying part goes too low, the playing part will be heavily impacted

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Originally Posted by Qualan

To put the "Give stuff " comments into perspective:

Blue Byte is a company- it provides a service and sets it up to be paid for it- in this game by people buying gems. The people buying the gems in the end finance the game and so indirectly "give" all the FTP people the stuff.

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The game does try and direct people to pay but it is a free game. If we had to pay a subscription to play this game than I think the compensation would reflect that. Its a free game, the game broke, they fixed it and we got free stuff.

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For all that pay into the game this package is a joke- for a lot of others is it ok and/or nice and a lot stay silent (but i do see them in guildchat or other forums as they are part of the silent majority on these boards)

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Paying for this game is optional. The compensation can always be better but if we were to of received gems then the FTP people would of also received gems. Is that fair in your eyes? Or would you think its a joke that FTP players get gems? We received a gift for the inconvenience of the game unexpectedly breaking. I think in future they should just pay everyone gems and crystals and some other stuff then everyone will be happy. But then again they get people complaining about ind mines etc. It doesn't matter what they do, someone will have an issue.

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Of course there are other/bigger issues in the world- it is all a matter of perception- But to throw that out as a reason to dismiss a complaint or a worry is not evenhanded either. We all play to enjoy ourselves. If the company does things that makes that perception less - it means some will be pushed over an edge (which would come anyway eventually). My main reason is that i want as many people as possible to keep playing and especially keep paying so the game keeps running.

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I agree with what you say there but they will never be able to please everyone. I think the best way to deal with it would be to increase the compensation to include gems, crystals, star coins, prem and other treats. And hopefully the majority of the population will be happy.

im happy with the compo. Didnt lose too much. all but 1 buff was still running. yes had to rebuild a lot of deposits but they would of had to rebuilt even if the game didnt go down. Didnt lose to many res from colonies as they kept going and building up for most of the down time so i collected about 4 lots in 1 go when i got back on.

Kept trying to login to the game but most of the time including the forum i was getting derver unavaliable so couldnt even get into the homepage to check for updates. So simple solution go to the TSO facebook page and there was Saqui giving updates. Not very helpfull as he/she didnt know what was wrong either. All he/she could say was sorry for the outage were investigating and will get the game up again ASAP. it was also stated it wasnt just TSO but lots of other games as well.

Ive had other games go down like that and got no compo no sorry no word at all from the company. some of those outages lasted weeks.

No way to plan for something breaking or going wrong. How about if ur driving along in ur car and it suddenly breaks down with no warning. Is that ur fault cause u should of seen it was going to happen and fixed it before it broke. nope unless u can see into the future u cant plan for some things. Its called real life just get on with it.
Somethings r just beyond the control of the staff. They kept us informed through facebook and twitter the best they could as they were unable to get into the homepage or forums to put updates on there. They couldnt say how long the game will be down for till they found out what the problem was. With so many games down they would of had to check every server and every cable and contact their ISP to see if the problem was that end.

Ive had other games go down cause it was the ISP they were using that had the prob not the game servers. Ive had my ISP go down a few times cause the company they rent the line from had a problem. There has been times when the internet for the entire world went down cause the cisco servers went down. That was due to the US govt testing its EMP beam weapons. Its also why the USA get so many brown outs lol.

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Originally Posted by lulu10093

this really made me giggle but i agree with what you said



also agree with this

OK my part

I am happy with the compo we got as a player said in a previous post use the crystals to get gems back on short letters. not only do we get 50 gems per short letter and other things like buffs etc
I think people are forgetting it wasnt just tso that went down but was other games as well so there had to be a big prob going on at bb/ubi head office somewhere. so there would be possibly millions of players on all different games angry/annoyed etc they couldnt play at the weekend BUT at least the smurfs gave us some stuff as compo which they didnt have to do

I lost mines i lost the weekly login 100 gems etc i even lost 2 days on upgrades that should been finished but they were still left with 2 days to go but to me it is not that much of a big deal the smurfs got the game back up the maintenece on monday was announced weeks before in the changelog anyways so we knew that was coming just the sunday part when game had died for whatever reason was the pain

I found it amusing people saying they had to talk to family or did housework etc instead. and some of the comments on facebook were bad but i was keeping a eye on facebook for updates so i could post in my guilds facebook page if anything had changed. and yes not everyone uses facebook or twitter etc so they didnt know but the game was broke they fixed it they gave us freebies so im happy with that

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You cant just say that people can earn the gems or what ever themselves by doing this or that. When you go into a shop and pay for something you expect your change back - not because you need them or cant live without them or cant earn some new some other way.
You want them back because you think you are part of a deal. Same goes for the game. Some of us think we have a deal with the game and with BB - they offer us something in exhange for being faithfull to the game - and log in every day with no exception. Might say we suffer for some or a higher degree of OCD - so be it - but fact is that we tried to do our part of the deal - but was not able to - door was locked - our "circles" was disturbed. BB did not do it on purpose - but deal was broken. Everyone would be happy just to get what they missed - not because they really need it - just to feel things are back in balance.

Besides that - people does not need this high and mighty attitude that they should just stop complaining. Everyone thoughts can be just as right. Sometimes all is needed that people feel their thoughts was accepted and heard instead of being ridiculed.

Well said Urd123, if people didn't complain when things don't go as intended, it would lead to more suffering in the long run. Accepting things as if its the best we'll get when things keep getting worse is not helping anyone.

The same can be applied to modern gaming (all fast paced action, too much violence, unwanted cash shops etc.), stagnant wages for employees while cost of living increases all the time and other things too.

Wow. I'm as OCD as anyone - clinically diagnosed in fact - but I can get over it. Keep everything in scope, while it is important in a habit/hobby/etc. sense it's not all THAT important. Since it wasn't done on purpose (I think I can safely assume) then what exactly do the complainers want??? The time back? Unless they've figured out the space/time fabric I don't think anyone can do that for you.

It's back up now. Move forward please.

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Originally Posted by Xibor

Wow. I'm as OCD as anyone - clinically diagnosed in fact - but I can get over it. Keep everything in scope, while it is important in a habit/hobby/etc. sense it's not all THAT important. Since it wasn't done on purpose (I think I can safely assume) then what exactly do the complainers want??? The time back? Unless they've figured out the space/time fabric I don't think anyone can do that for you.

It's back up now. Move forward please.

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well said

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Originally Posted by Bobblyt

well said

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No not really. I am left with a feeling of "why bother" - maybe it happens again next weekend - so why start doing anything that might be interrupted - an Easter is threatening - (we have not had one yet with no bugs and down time, because of that).

I guess I shouldn't really mention that I got my 100 login gems even though I couldn't get into the game for 48 hrs, not sure how :)

Lost a salt mine, unbuffed lev 6 elite buildings and delayed upgrades but I couldn't care less about the compo, I'm happy the game is going again. Judging by the complaints here some are probably more hooked than they realise :)

Wow. What a lot of complaints.
There is no way they could go through and award everyone everything they have lost down to the last unfished fish. They had a terrible few days - I am sure they had far more exciting plans their weekends. They fixed it as fast as they could, and for that I for one am very grateful. The gift / compensation was not something they had to do, but something they do to recognise our patience during the outage. Rather than looking at what else they should be giving you to make it "fair," why not be thankful that you can get onto the game to receive it, and accept it with good grace. Glass half full people, glass half full.

The compensation for lost production is fine, imo.

Who will not survive production chains running unbuffed?

The ones who have lost mines as unable to refill/stop due to the outage will have to contact Support and leave it there.

This is of course just my oppinion, looking forward instead of behind.

I can see where Urd123 is coming from, talking loyalty and it should go both ways. We log in everyday for the log-in bonus but if the game is down we miss out on gems. Its no-ones fault but just regarding the loyalty bonus I think people are feeling a little short changed. I think if they were to give everyone 100 gems I think we could put this thread to bed. Just to settle the argument as it were, then we can move on.

Since BB never extended premium time and just give everyone 2 days premium whether you was on it or not I just can’t see how that’s supposed to be compensation.
players who wasn’t on it get two day for free and players that was just get the two day back they lost in the first place. Was going to buy more gems soon for more premium but after this I won’t be spending anymore money on this game