Sony Online Entertainment Becomes Daybreak Game Company

I understand Griffon Lady is trying to get a stickied Guide thread going...as to the business side, I remember an IBM television ad from several years ago that featured a "magical, cost-cutting sword" that looked something like Excalibur stuck in a stone, on the conference room table. "Wow..." said the various impressed execs gathered around it. Then the following came on, plastered over the screen cut:

THERE IS NO MAGIC COST-CUTTING SWORD.
STOP CUTTING COSTS. GET PRODUCTIVE.

...basically advertising some thing that IBM had in mind. But the advice is sound. That nonsense stopped working long ago; companies cut so much costs that they ceased to function and died, after having been around for decades, if not longer. :-/

Uwk

Indeed; heaven forfend the GMs help us with the perils of being human and making mistakes. God knows now we'll all be perfect and never screw up again. Why, back in the old days, if such had been the attitude of customer service, folks could just rage-quit over such things...with the situation as it is now, I really don't think Daybreak can afford to keep "pushing the envelope" of their customers' patience.

/shrug Well, awesome. If that's all they're going to be doing (and if they "plan" to sunset the PC games soon), then I'll just get a lot of time and money back in my life and leave. ;->

Ah, good point. I should think by this time, when the third-party SOE hired to oversee a lot of the game development (always a bad sign, imho) went belly-up, they should stop wasting resources on it for at least a bit and focus on shoring up what they do have right now. ;->

Uwk

Did you see the recent posts that detailed how many people lost their job from just the California studio? And that was just the one studio, no real confirmation yet (that I know of) as to how bad Austin had it.

I am sure that Daybreak Games Co. would love it if they could afford to have about 40,000 Customer Service reps working exclusively on EQ2 at any given time, so that everyone gets fast and effective customer service covering every imaginable scenario. But that is clearly unrealistic. There has to be a line drawn somewhere. That line is drawn based on available resources, which includes team size, and funding.

As it stands, the size of the CS team has been reduced, by no choice of their own. The guys running CS had to make a decision on how to move forward. I agree with what they have modified in their policies, to adapt to the new size of the CS team. I would prefer to see CS more readily available to assist with issues that was not the fault of the player, and/or can not be resolved by the player, than be bogged down for days/weeks on end with issues caused due to gross negligence on the part of apathetic players.

I have played EQ2 since 2004, and only petitioned for 1 item restoration (back in EoF). I was told when I had it restored, it was a one time deal, no more items would be restored, so I have been very careful since. I am just as human as the next person, but I apply some common sense and recognize that some things are worth taking the time to ensure they are done right. The people who are all rush-rush-rush-spam-spam-spam-accept/yes/allow without giving it even a moments of thought, deserve what they get, and I hope they learn a valuable lesson from it - personal accountability.

Sounds like it's time for a hardcore EQ2 permadeath PVP progression server.

There will be no ears to burden with the cries of the unfortunate.

2004, that's just slightly later than I started, not by much. In my time in game I've seen Sony's actions cover the spectrium of good and bad decisions.
While trimming, consolidating and reorganization can undoubltedly help an older game/organization, it can also be done in excess. If you cuts effect performance and customer service, you have cut too far. We had been seeing some apparent shortages of dev personell after the massive layoffs by Sony, and before even those made by Daybreak, I don't think that was all caused by incompetence either.
I worked in retail in my younger days, and some lessons learned have carried with me for the benefit of my non retail job I have today. One is that you treat your customers RIGHT. That old adage, "the customer is allways right' is there for a reason. Even if he/she is a total idiot, (then you go get the manager),you smile, and listen, and then see if you can come to an equitable agreement. Even if it does mean a bit of sacrificing something. While a line might have to be drawn as to how much can be done, it is still better to have the customer leaving happy and coming back again later, adding to future revenue, It also is good business for attracting other customers. Word of mouth can be as good as televised advertisements.

I stand by what I said the previous page. I do NOT agree with a company's policy when it says the game will not change, and it is still paying attention to us as customers, and then it reduces and changes its game and/ or customer service. The directors must be carefull that if instead of cutting the fat they are removing the bones, the structure that holds the game up. If you don't know what im talking about I suggest googling 'corporate raiders'. Some of which as been touched upon by others in their previous posts.
There can be a fine line between efficiency and sucking the life blood out of a business.
The above mentioned IBM quote by Ewkete I so right.

Just a thought to add, found a comment on a different forum, it mentioned WOW had a viable alternative, and it makes sense, cuts the needs for CS and keeps everyone happy. Perhaps Daybreak could adapt such a mechanic. Would have been better to do so before cutting back on CS to us though.

There is a tool on your account page that lists all items you have ever vendored, destroyed, or disenchanted. You can restore one of those items per day, without any additional costs and no questions asked. It's fully automated. When a guild leader is offline for a certain amount of time, another, active guild member gets a ingame popup window to take charge of the guild.

Brilliant! Could be one reason why, after a few CS snafus, WoW still has the following it does. Is it run by Blizzard or a third party (that Daybreak could hopefully talk to...)? And does it help stuck characters--oh, wait, my bad; I forgot...when I had a stuck character in WoW due to game art or whatever, all I EVER had to do was type the command: /unstuck and voila! Iirc, it did "boot" me to a safe location within the zone, which might've been far away from where I was intending, but it was still better than having to go through Tech Support or a GM (which are apparently non-existent nowadays here?) just to unstick a character. :-/

Uwk
(with a U, though thanks for your kind thoughts on my comment above! Few things are cooler than being agreed with... )