Any war was started by them through a complete and utter failure of managing this situation. I'm not talking about the server issues - I'm talking about community relations. I've been in the EQ community since 1999 (and for a while was a prominent member). I've seen it all The community relations surrounding this is a total abysmal failure. They should have been in constant communication, updates, discussions, explanations, apologies, everything. It's a bad thing when a product fails. But if a company handles it well and communicates and apologizes then fixes it they can make the customers happy again and actually think even better of them because they care so much. When a product fails and then the company doesn't respond, they go radio silent, they ignore the customer base, they give no communication, no explanation, half-hearted band-aid fixes that make it worse (all while avoiding the customers),......well then they deserve an all out (emotional) war with their customers. I am not even remotely mad about the servers being overwhelmed - I think that's a good thing for EQ. I am beyond outraged at their total and complete lack of customer relations and thefact that they took the "phone off the hook" so they wouldn't have to deal with upset customers. Put your big pants on and act like a grown up. This is real business - your not in Junior Achievement anymore.
Personally I would prefer they apply all their resources to fixing whatever the problems are then wasting time with constant PR updates that you guys will just respond to with endless childish rants and flames.
That's a "nirvana" sentiment but it doesn't work in the real world of business. If you have ZERO public relations, your customers will leave. You have to have some connection so they need to manage it properly, not make things worse with it.
The crap being spewed by some people is a bit ridiculous, no ones declaring war on the devs, dumb. However they absolutely could take a note from literally any other business and give up this needlessly antagonistic anti-cs they seem to engage in anymore. Mocking customers and speaking in vague "not gonna promise anything" terms isn't helping anyone feel any less frustrated. Personally all I want is the bags and pots I paid for and I'd be out of here and back to playing.
From a PR standpoint there should have been and should still be constant communication with their player base (after all, we do pay to play this game) with explanation as well as clear path towards what they are doing to rectify the situation. If I were in their PR department, I'd be working on an apology offering of some sort for my player base whether it be something as little as an exp pot, or a weight reduction bag to claim, or some stupid cosmetic or pet to ease the tension from the disruption. Or I guess you could just ignore everyone and pretend nothing is happening.
