GM Spada says Hi again! and wants to hear from you.

[Spada]

Many of you may remember me, gods knows it’s been a long time since I had time to post and I apologize for that. You might be asking, “Are you back from the dead Spada?” Nope I’ve been here the whole time, only I’ve been busy working to make sure billing and tech support get better for you, and that Cal uses my aging knowledge of UO for the good of all mankind (sorry elves!) .

Why am I back now? This is probably the easiest to answer. I’m excited about our next expansion pack, I’m excited about all the great things Cal has managed to do for UO over the last few months, and I want to make sure that as UO continues to get better, that your experience with Tech and Account support gets better as well. I don’t expect you to be as excited about Customer Support as I normally am, but I can hope that when you do have to contact us, that you’re satisfied with support you got.

So what now? I’ll be looking through your posts and collecting feedback about your CS experiences. I’ll be looking for feedback that’s both constructive and valid. However, I have to put out the disclaimer, I will not be addressing any “In-game” GM customer support. GM Support is not my team and as such I can’t really comment on your in-game experience.

That being said I look forward to starting a few threads this week, and hearing from you. My PM box is open and I’m more than happy to hear from you. My one request is that if you are going to talk about Customer Support you include the Email “Reference #” of your contact so that I can easily see what you sent in, what CS said to you, and then follow up with the right people.

Thank you for your time, and your love of UO!

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

I'd love to get an actual non-canned response from one of your GMs one of these days. Especially after staying in queue for well over an hour in many cases...la

 

[Murdok]

Welcome back Spada! Its good to see ya back!

 

[AirmidCecht]

*puts thesaurus away and decides to be redundant*

Great to have this very, very, ginormously huge important issue get specific TLC! Thank you for taking the needed time on this. I will send this link to a few I know have had problems with this.
Cookies n kudos to come.....at a later improved date *winks*

 

[kelmo]

To re emphasize... Spada said

However, I have to put out the disclaimer, I will not be addressing any “In-game” GM customer support. GM Support is not my team and as such I can’t really comment on your in-game experience.

 

[Tina Small]

Nice to see you on the boards, Spada. Are you one of the few folks associated with UO that's still in California?

 

[kelmo]

I have read that some have had difficulty with purchased codes and tokens... Would these matters fall under your influence?

 

[Gheed]

I have sent in a dupe a couple of times now. I haven't tried to reproduce it in a few months at least. But I have yet to receive any confirmation that my report was even acknowledged. I guess that would be my beef with the reporting site. Is this something you handle?

 

[Nenime]

*begins to wonder about all the 'returners' and believes that this is a good sign*

Hi Spada,

welcome back to the bedlam. You're right, CS is in need of some fresh ideas. Compared with the leading product in online gaming, UO's customer support is ... err, you already know, that's why you're back, don't ya?

I really wish you fun and good luck with your task.

 

[Spada]

Nice to see you on the boards, Spada. Are you one of the few folks associated with UO that's still in California?

There is a small core group of CS located at our CA office and I'm still part of that. However, UO is only 1 of several EA Game titles I currently work with, but I have a soft spot for the game that got me into this industry. =)

 

[NB-Cats]

Spada is da man.

The one person at EA who's help made a big difference for me.

 

[Spada]

I have read that some have had difficulty with purchased codes and tokens... Would these matters fall under your influence?

We've heard lots of reports from customers over the last few months about this, and I know it's something Cal has in the works to fix in the very near future. However, if you are having problems purchasing codes via the code store and you are not pressed for time I would recommend going to support.uo.com and "contacting us" with your request.

Make sure your CC info is up to date on your account and that you send in the following.

UO Account name:
The email on the account:
your Date of birth:
Last 8 Digits of the CC on file:
the item you want to purchase:

It can take about 2-4 days depending on how much CS traffic we are seeing but you should get your code pretty quickly. If you have any issues of course pet me know in PM with the incident # of the email and I'll track down what happen, and make sure that steps get fixed.

Thanks!

 

[Spada]

I have sent in a dupe a couple of times now. I haven't tried to reproduce it in a few months at least. But I have yet to receive any confirmation that my report was even acknowledged. I guess that would be my beef with the reporting site. Is this something you handle?

Hello Gheed!
I'm sorry, but my team doesn't work with bug reports. However, I know the nice lady that does! I'm sure she is looking at everyone’s reports. Unfortunately, because the QA team spends most of their time bug squashing they normally don't respond directly to reports unless they need more info.

Thanks for the bug report though, keep them!

 

[Spada]

Spada is da man.

The one person at EA who's help made a big difference for me.

NB-Cats!
Thanks for the kind wordz man, you and I have been here a long time... I'm glad you're still here. Here's to another 11 years!

 

[Frarc]

Welcome Back!

 

[sablestorm]

I sent you a PM about this but I'll post publicly about this as well. My accounts were hacked in the middle of the night and the only way I could counter this was to call the customer service number. Alas, you don't have 24 hour service for the line so hackers will undoubtedly do their dastardly deeds in the middle of the night when they know nothing can be done.

Having said that, I was able to call in the morning and get control of my accounts thanks to the help of CS Rep Kelsey H. He was great and worked with me to go through my lengthy list of accounts to make sure everything was properly taken care of.

I have been critical if EA customer support, but I have give you guys credit. I was able to get my UO accounts taken care of much faster than I have been able able to get my gmail account back. In fact, I'm still waiting on them. Hopefully today is the day it is returned to me.

 

[Ghost71]

To re emphasize... Spada said

So in other words "I'm sorry but i cannot help you with that."

 

[Draconi]

Many of you may remember me, gods knows it’s been a long time since I had time to post and I apologize for that. You might be asking, “Are you back from the dead Spada?” Nope I’ve been here the whole time, only I’ve been busy working to make sure billing and tech support get better for you, and that Cal uses my aging knowledge of UO for the good of all mankind (sorry elves!) .

Why am I back now? This is probably the easiest to answer. I’m excited about our next expansion pack, I’m excited about all the great things Cal has managed to do for UO over the last few months, and I want to make sure that as UO continues to get better, that your experience with Tech and Account support gets better as well. I don’t expect you to be as excited about Customer Support as I normally am, but I can hope that when you do have to contact us, that you’re satisfied with support you got.

So what now? I’ll be looking through your posts and collecting feedback about your CS experiences. I’ll be looking for feedback that’s both constructive and valid. However, I have to put out the disclaimer, I will not be addressing any “In-game” GM customer support. GM Support is not my team and as such I can’t really comment on your in-game experience.

That being said I look forward to starting a few threads this week, and hearing from you. My PM box is open and I’m more than happy to hear from you. My one request is that if you are going to talk about Customer Support you include the Email “Reference #” of your contact so that I can easily see what you sent in, what CS said to you, and then follow up with the right people.

Thank you for your time, and your love of UO!

Hi Spada!

 

[Restroom Cowboy]

Hi Spada!

Hello Draconi! Hello Spada! (ur my fav from the past...u didnt jail me!!!)

BTW...where is the fire? I have a bowl that needs lit.

 

[Fogsbane]

Thanks for the update Spada.

(* think Ill dig up Bell, Pumpkin?, and HoilDeed wit yer name on it for house display *)

I'll hafta echo Nenime ~ in that I also like seeing what seems like lots of 'returners'.

 

[Cysphruo]

not to be an ahole, but if your still outsourcing the csr jobs then youve failed.

 

[Hildebrand]

I'm excited to see another new face (new to me at least).

 

[Gowron]

The in game help from the GM's have improved slightly, however, the phone line support seems to have gone down hill. I'm not very happy about UO being in the "other games" category instead of having its own mention. It just adds an exclaimation mark on EA not being supportive of UO, kind of like we've become the ******* stepchildren.

 

[omggrok]

Regardless of your position, I feel it necessary to recant my most recent in game experience with a GM (and yes, it was a positive one)!

I've just started playing again, and needed to grab a new house, for obvious reasons. While moving and decorating, I dropped "a corroded box" on the ground, and it became stuck. I paged, and within MINUTES a GM responded to me and remotely fixed it. I was floored, from reading all these negative comments in the past years of not really being able to play, and from past experiences.

So, whatever your team is doing, have them keep it up!!!

 

[Hildebrand]

I too had a good in-game experience. About a month or 2 ago, I couldn't do escorts and there was no quest in the quest log. I waited days to see if it would clear and it wouldn't. So, I set time aside and paged. I got a GM to fix me up in about 5 minutes. It was a pleasant experience.

 

[Maplestone]

*registers null feedback*: I have not yet ever had a problem that required CS - and although I don't use the codes/account management website very often, it has always worked for me.

 

[Chrissay_]

Many of you may remember me, gods knows it’s been a long time since I had time to post and I apologize for that. You might be asking, “Are you back from the dead Spada?” Nope I’ve been here the whole time, only I’ve been busy working to make sure billing and tech support get better for you, and that Cal uses my aging knowledge of UO for the good of all mankind (sorry elves!) .

Why am I back now? This is probably the easiest to answer. I’m excited about our next expansion pack, I’m excited about all the great things Cal has managed to do for UO over the last few months, and I want to make sure that as UO continues to get better, that your experience with Tech and Account support gets better as well. I don’t expect you to be as excited about Customer Support as I normally am, but I can hope that when you do have to contact us, that you’re satisfied with support you got.

So what now? I’ll be looking through your posts and collecting feedback about your CS experiences. I’ll be looking for feedback that’s both constructive and valid. However, I have to put out the disclaimer, I will not be addressing any “In-game” GM customer support. GM Support is not my team and as such I can’t really comment on your in-game experience.

That being said I look forward to starting a few threads this week, and hearing from you. My PM box is open and I’m more than happy to hear from you. My one request is that if you are going to talk about Customer Support you include the Email “Reference #” of your contact so that I can easily see what you sent in, what CS said to you, and then follow up with the right people.

Thank you for your time, and your love of UO!

/waves to Spada

 

[AesSedai]

- Spada is good people
I still recall the funny when I voiced my opinion about the state of KR one time in Austin (hey, at least I mentioned my appreciation for Ultima Online after nobody else had yet). It was quite a memorable moment, getting leers from the EA CS team that I had no idea was sitting in front of me, even though I knew most of their nicknames & had virtually encountered most all of them before; I thought I was about to be teleported to a jail cell in Guantanamo Bay (j/k). Of course just after that it was apparent that they were all a nice group of people.
Good to hear attention being paid to UO CS before the Stygian Abyss arrives.

 

[AesSedai]

- Maybe for you, maybe for Cal.

Another poster has been quite concerned about the ability for new players to purchase UO via uo.com.
Iirc, it mainly boiled down to the desire for a nice big 'buy now' button on the front page, rather than several links that take you to 'try now' for UO2D & UOKR.
As well, there are some inconsistencies in the wording / instructions for getting started in the UO2D client (as one set of links takes you to the uogamecodes website and then states that you must have an account in order to get the game... Mondain's Legacy I think it was. The problem is, that particular avenue for getting UO does not clearly spell it out to the new user that all they need to do is goto UO.com / Acct Mgmt / and create a new account first.

I was hoping these were things already being considered prior to the release of UO:SA, but figure I might as well mention it here.
(& Frankly, I felt more people would want to 'try now' rather than 'buy now' in the first place. But, maybe you or Cal can ponder that person's concerns.)
Here is one of the lengthy threads re: the subject.

 

[Tina Small]

Spada, have you given any consideration to making a slight increase in the number of codes that can be purchased by a player each month from the gamecodes site?

 

[GL_Seller]

Maybe you can help me with this. I have been trying to buy the 11th anniversary items since the end of december. Its now the end of January. Am i doing something incorrect?

Other then that the ingame help sucks, i wouldnt take credit for that crap either. The rampant cheating is a joke, i know YOUR WORKING ON IT.

Glad your excited about something though congrats.

 

[Oriana]

WOW!!! Another blast from the past!! Glad to see you're on it Spada!!

 

[Bullet]

I'd love to get an actual non-canned response from one of your GMs one of these days. Especially after staying in queue for well over an hour in many cases...la

This is the very first post iv'e read of yours that I agree with!

 

[Teeshy]

Spada, have you given any consideration to making a slight increase in the number of codes that can be purchased by a player each month from the gamecodes site?

This, and more codes per transaction (less bank fees is a good thing! )

Welcome back =)

 

[Olahorand]

Nice to see another well known face back here on the boards.
*Salute*
Olahorand

 

[Spada]

Teeshy and Tina Small said: <i>
Spada, have you given any consideration to making a slight increase in the number of codes that can be purchased by a player each month from the gamecodes site?</i>


I'm afraid that those limits are hard coded into the site, and though we would love not to have those limits there are shall we say "less then nice" people out there that would take advantage of it.

However, if your CC info is up to date on your account and you use the "Contact us" option on support.uo.com and follow what I mentioned above you can buy extra codes rather easily. We just like to have the human interaction when you buy more than the system allows.

Thanks for the feedback though!

 

[Tina Small]

Teeshy and Tina Small said: <i>
Spada, have you given any consideration to making a slight increase in the number of codes that can be purchased by a player each month from the gamecodes site?</i>


I'm afraid that those limits are hard coded into the site, and though we would love not to have those limits there are shall we say "less then nice" people out there that would take advantage of it.

However, if your CC info is up to date on your account and you use the "Contact us" option on support.uo.com and follow what I mentioned above you can buy extra codes rather easily. We just like to have the human interaction when you buy more than the system allows.

Thanks for the feedback though!

Thanks for the quick answer. I have used the "Contact Us" option to buy extra codes and it worked well. As you mentioned above, it does take a little bit longer so it may not work so well for someone who expects near-instantaneous results!

 

[Spada]

not to be an ahole, but if your still outsourcing the csr jobs then youve failed.

Well, then I'm in luck! All phone support during normal business hours (7am PST to 7pm PST is now run domestically. However, we still have an outsource team for afterhours as we feel it is very important you have the ability to reach someone no matter the time of day.

 

[Bullet]

I have read that some have had difficulty with purchased codes and tokens... Would these matters fall under your influence?

We've heard lots of reports from customers over the last few months about this, and I know it's something Cal has in the works to fix in the very near future. However, if you are having problems purchasing codes via the code store and you are not pressed for time I would recommend going to support.uo.com and "contacting us" with your request.

Make sure your CC info is up to date on your account and that you send in the following.

UO Account name:
The email on the account:
your Date of birth:
Last 8 Digits of the CC on file:
the item you want to purchase:

It can take about 2-4 days depending on how much CS traffic we are seeing but you should get your code pretty quickly. If you have any issues of course pet me know in PM with the incident # of the email and I'll track down what happen, and make sure that steps get fixed.

Thanks!

I too have had this problem in the past and solved the problem. I turned off AOL and used just internet explorer. Hope that helps.

 

[Teeshy]

*Echoes Tina*

Thanks! Bummer, but still, thanks =)

 

[Magdalene]

Hi Spada
Now that's the name that rings many bells...

 

[Sevin0oo0]

Weren't you over the help desk, or something?
I remember when you left your name on my house to help
IDOC'rs, over-riding what GM Silvani specifically
said I could do.
A trouble call over something legal, and you had to go
fix-it? Oh Please. If it's legal, leave it alone until
officially announced as a bug or fixed. That's bad
customer experience unless you IDOC.
As far as I'm concerned, you can go crawl back under
whatever rock you came out from.

 

[sablestorm]

Well, then I'm in luck! All phone support during normal business hours (7am PST to 7pm PST is now run domestically. However, we still have an outsource team for afterhours as we feel it is very important you have the ability to reach someone no matter the time of day.

That's fine, but how do you get to that team afterhours? When I called for my hacked account, I just get the business hours message and that's it.

 

[canary]

Well, then I'm in luck! All phone support during normal business hours (7am PST to 7pm PST is now run domestically. However, we still have an outsource team for afterhours as we feel it is very important you have the ability to reach someone no matter the time of day.

It's about time.

 

[Lady Aalia]

hey there,


Do you have any influence on Bulk sales?

Like UO has where you can buy 3 month or 6 month Game time codes for a reduced price...
How about having the same option for multible accounts?

and DOAC and WAR players get a discount ... how about UO and WAR?

 

[LadyKeroOfAtl]

Personally,
I could do without waiting 4 hours to get a canned response.

 

[phantus]

I don't suppose you have any say in the patch message updates do ya? Those could be updated a lot more often and give details on when events are beginning and ending as well as information links that are pertinent to the game.

 

[Liena_of_LS]

Well, then I'm in luck! All phone support during normal business hours (7am PST to 7pm PST is now run domestically. However, we still have an outsource team for afterhours as we feel it is very important you have the ability to reach someone no matter the time of day.

OF course, it would be NICE if one could find the support phone numbers posted anywhere on the EA.com boards.

Good going to those who have managed to dig one out.

 

[Nok]

Hi Spada!

Good to see you online.

News item - GM Spada Says Hi Again!.

 

[Scamper]

On Lake Superior Shard, when trying to redeem a promotion code purchased from uogamecodes.com

Lake Superior shard is not talking to the promo code server.

It hasn't since last friday.
I would like to see something like a timeframe as to when this issue will be resolved.

Other shards are still talking to the promo code server. It's works on pacific.

Could you maybe talk to your network people and see if maybe they have inadvertantly firewalled it?

Thank you.