How Do You Contact Community Relations?

[Lord_Spartacus]

How does one contact the Community Relations people these days? I recently activated my account again and my homes are in a "Fairly Worn" state. From past experience I know you sometimes have to wait until after server-up for them to refresh ... I did that. All of my homes (grandfathered account) are still falling.

Contacted a useless GM and was told to look through the knowledgebase for help?!?! WTH? This is why they will continue to lose their player base ... lousy support.

Here is what I asked the GM:
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"I re-activated my UO account yesterday. I waited until after the server-up as is sometimes required, but all of my grandfathered homes are still in a decay state. A GM's assistance would be greatly appreciated before i lose them all. Thankyou."
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Here is what I got sent:

"GM tells 'me': Thank you for your petition.

We have searched and confirmed based off your question that the information pertaining directly to your issue can be found in our Knowledge Base in the following article by following this link http:// support.ea.com/. Our Knowledge Base is consistently updated as to ensure that the most recent information is available to you. Should you have any difficulty finding the information you need, don't think the information relates to your issue, or need assistance with the information itself, please contact us via the "Contact Us" tab (within the Knowledge Base website). Please let us know what you searched for, the details of your issue and we will assist you as quickly as possible.

Thank you once agai for your patience and understandling.
GM XXXXXX "
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And finally, here is the article they sent me too:

"QUESTION
What are the current housing states?

ANSWER
Houses are classified as one of three states: "Primary," "Grandfathered," or "Condemned." These states will be updated upon any placement or acquirement of a new house, and/or changes to the owning account's active/inactive status. Below is a more comprehensive breakdown of the housing refresh states.

Primary house: This house is owned by an active game account, and has been established by the player to be that account's primary house. The house refresh state on the house menu-gump of a primary house will be listed on the house sign as "Automatic." Primary houses will no longer display any decay stage, as the house will be automatically refreshed, and will no longer decay.
Note: setting a house as a primary house will automatically set all other houses owned by that account, on any shard, to a condemned state.

Grandfathered house: This house is owned by an active game account, but has not been established by the player to be that account's primary house. The house refresh state on the house menu-gump will be listed as "Grandfathered." A grandfathered house will not decay, much the same as a primary house.

Demolition pending: If a house has vendors in it the house will not disappear but instead it will go to "Demolition Pending" phase and appear as "OSI Owned". This phase can last as long as it takes for all vendor rental contracts to expire plus 9 days for the vendor owners to retrieve the items from their expired vendors. Once all contracts are expired the house will begin a decay process. If your home is in the Demolition Pending stage it can not be retreived regardless of circumstance as you now no longer own it, thus the "OSI Owned" tag.

Condemned (inactive account): These houses are condemned due to the inactive status of the account. Once an account is inactive for more then 90 days the house will become condemned. If you have just reactivated your account, you will need to wait a few days while your house resyncs with the housing server. If your house is still labeled as "Condemned" after 24 hours of account activity, then please page a game master for more information.

Condemned house: A condemned house cannot be refreshed, and will decay within 5 days. Houses will become condemned if a player places or acquires a newer house on any shard.
Note: The only way a condemned house will be un-condemned is if it is traded to another account. Demolishing a more recently placed house will not uncondemn the previously placed house on the same account. Trading it right back to the same account will not work due to the housing timer. "
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So how does this help my issue? Do we still have a Community person around that helps with this stuff? Thanks.

 

[Lord_Spartacus]

So I message the GM back explaining my situation and frustration. He now tells me that my first home has been refreshed, and the others will drop because a GM can't refresh grandfathered homes. I would like to know since when? This happened a few years ago as well and the GM's fixed it without any problems!

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

You can only have one home per account now. You need to choose one of them and take down the rest. I think this is what you are going through.

Welcome back, you must not have logged in for a long time. How long has it been?

-Lorax

 

[Flutter]

You can only have one home per account now. You need to choose one of them and take down the rest. I think this is what you are going through.

Welcome back, you must not have logged in for a long time. How long has it been?

-Lorax

This information is incorrect.

Your grandfathered houses should be refreshed. There have been no announced changes to this.
Make sure the GM didn't somehow make your first house Primary (which is what it sounds like).

As far as contacting Customer Service I suppose you could call them?

 

[Sonoma]

Your main problem is assuming that EA cares about Customer Relations at all. UO is the poster child for Bad/Non-existent customer service. I can understand your frustration, but the bottom line is that they simply do not care, and have no interest at all in supporting their player base.

Most of the GMs seem to have been hired specifically for their lack of game knowledge, care, and general willingness to do anything. A few GMs that do care and are willing to help have slipped through the screening process and been hired... but in most cases they are hampered by EA policy as to what they can and cannot do. At least that's what they say.

I personally think its a corporate experiment... EA wants to see just how hard they can kick their player-base in the proverbial junk and still have them keep paying for it.

 

[Lord_Spartacus]

This information is incorrect.

Your grandfathered houses should be refreshed. There have been no announced changes to this.
Make sure the GM didn't somehow make your first house Primary (which is what it sounds like).

As far as contacting Customer Service I suppose you could call them?

I have played for over 12 years, so i know how it works (better then the GM's is seems). Due to personal reasons, I had to take a few months off and this is how I get welcomed back. ALL of the grandfathered homes are SUPPOSED to auto refresh on server-up after reactivation. And you are right Flutter ... the GM made my first home my primary ... so because a GM doesn't know what the heck he's doing, I have to pay the price.

 

[gunneroforgin]

I have played for over 12 years, so i know how it works (better then the GM's is seems). Due to personal reasons, I had to take a few months off and this is how I get welcomed back. ALL of the grandfathered homes are SUPPOSED to auto refresh on server-up after reactivation. And you are right Flutter ... the GM made my first home my primary ... so because a GM doesn't know what the heck he's doing, I have to pay the price.

If I recall correctly the grandfathered houses need to be refreshed manually. Meaning, you had to go to each house and open the door every so often to refresh them. A primary house is THE only one that will automatically refresh.

After rereading the op's post I maybe in error on this. I hope you don't lose your houses.

 

[Lord_Spartacus]

If I recall correctly the grandfathered houses need to be refreshed manually. Meaning, you had to go to each house and open the door every so often to refresh them. A primary house is THE only one that will automatically refresh.

You remember incorrectly. I have had these homes for 12 years and never had to manually refresh nothing.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

I have played for over 12 years, so i know how it works (better then the GM's is seems). Due to personal reasons, I had to take a few months off and this is how I get welcomed back. ALL of the grandfathered homes are SUPPOSED to auto refresh on server-up after reactivation. And you are right Flutter ... the GM made my first home my primary ... so because a GM doesn't know what the heck he's doing, I have to pay the price.

Grandfathered only works as long as the account stays up at all times. The second you let your account deactivate, even for a single day, you fall under the same rules as everyone else. That's how it's always worked since they implemented the system. Customer support is not going to be able to do anything for you. I suggest you pick the biggest house and start moving your valuables to it.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

Sorry, that all sounds right too. After all the changes I get mixed up sometimes, but glad the facts have been corrected.

I don't remember why I took down my multiple houses. I thought I was forced to by the changes.

-Lorax

 

[Lord_Spartacus]

Grandfathered only works as long as the account stays up at all times. The second you let your account deactivate, even for a single day, you fall under the same rules as everyone else. That's how it's always worked since they implemented the system. Customer support is not going to be able to do anything for you. I suggest you pick the biggest house and start moving your valuables to it.

I beg to differ on the "that's how it always worked". A few years ago the same issue happened when I was in the hospital. Contacted a GM and he fixed all the homes, so I know it could be done.

 

[Mapper]

Sorry, that all sounds right too. After all the changes I get mixed up sometimes, but glad the facts have been corrected.

I don't remember why I took down my multiple houses. I thought I was forced to by the changes.

-Lorax

They said you would HAVE to remove any multiple houses because they would be removed. Then when they turned on the new system if you didn't remove any second home you got to keep them.. Something a lot of people were annoyed about because they removed second homes on their account.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

First paragraph in the knowledge base article regarding this states this:

You reactivate the account and can save one of your houses. How this works is that if you own more than one house on the inactive account, when you reactivate only the most recently gained home will be saved. All others remain condemned regardless. At no point can you go back to owning multiple homes on the account once you reach this decay stage.

Article can be found here: http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cf...3JhbmRmYXRoZXJlZCBob3VzZQ**&p_li=&p_topview=1

 

[Lord_Spartacus]

First paragraph in the knowledge base article regarding this states this:

You reactivate the account and can save one of your houses. How this works is that if you own more than one house on the inactive account, when you reactivate only the most recently gained home will be saved. All others remain condemned regardless. At no point can you go back to owning multiple homes on the account once you reach this decay stage.

Article can be found here: http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cf...3JhbmRmYXRoZXJlZCBob3VzZQ**&p_li=&p_topview=1

"when you reactivate only the most recently gained home will be saved." This is not the case as the GM refreshed my FIRST home ever placed.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

Housing is handled by a housing server. And as the article says you're never going to be able to have grandfathered housing again. GM's cannot and will not do anything for you in this case. It's clearly written in the rules.

 

[Lord_Spartacus]

Housing is handled by a housing server. And as the article says you're never going to be able to have grandfathered housing again. GM's cannot and will not do anything for you in this case. It's clearly written in the rules.

And all I can say to that, is they did it before without any problems. Why is it they can not do it now? And it's clearly written in the rules you supplied that the last home I aquired would be the one that is refreshed, again not the case. All I was asking was for help on the issue ... not looking for an argument, but thanks.

 

[Flutter]

I would keep paging. And try CS and complain about the GM who changed your housing status from grandfathered to primary by name.
You might get lucky and get the one out of four GMs that actually care about this game. I got one the other day, they do exist.

 

[JC the Builder]

I beg to differ on the "that's how it always worked". A few years ago the same issue happened when I was in the hospital. Contacted a GM and he fixed all the homes, so I know it could be done.

You were lucky to have a nice GM do that for you.

But that is not how grandfathered housing works. If they start to decay there is no turning back. You can only save one house at that point.

 

[Lord_Spartacus]

Well, I guess 150 months is too long of a time to be playing a game anyway. Was looking for an excuse to finally say farewell .... I guess they gave me one. When my grandfathered homes fall I will just drop the last one and be done with it. Three more accounts gone, thanks EA.

 

[Yen Sid]

Well, I guess 150 months is too long of a time to be playing a game anyway. Was looking for an excuse to finally say farewell .... I guess they gave me one. When my grandfathered homes fall I will just drop the last one and be done with it. Three more accounts gone, thanks EA.

Shard? Housing locations? I can haz stuff?

 

[Dol'Gorath]

Well, I guess 150 months is too long of a time to be playing a game anyway. Was looking for an excuse to finally say farewell .... I guess they gave me one. When my grandfathered homes fall I will just drop the last one and be done with it. Three more accounts gone, thanks EA.

Playing that long is no excuse not to know the rules. You should have known that, it was clearly stated loud and clear when they added the new housing system what the rules were.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

I would keep paging. And try CS and complain about the GM who changed your housing status from grandfathered to primary by name.
You might get lucky and get the one out of four GMs that actually care about this game. I got one the other day, they do exist.

"caring about the game" in this case isn't about a GM breaking the rules and restoring the grandfather status. That's not how it works.
It's been clearly written since the new system was introduced what the rules are in this case.

 

[GarthGrey]

Well, I guess 150 months is too long of a time to be playing a game anyway. Was looking for an excuse to finally say farewell .... I guess they gave me one. When my grandfathered homes fall I will just drop the last one and be done with it. Three more accounts gone, thanks EA.

Can I have your Non Grandfathered stuff ?

 

[Lord_Spartacus]

Playing that long is no excuse not to know the rules. You should have known that, it was clearly stated loud and clear when they added the new housing system what the rules were.

And which part of "They did it before" did you not understand? Having played this long and having had the exact same experience before, you kinda expect the same result.

There's a huge difference between not being able to and not willing to do! They clearly ARE able to.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

And which part of "They did it before" did you not understand? Having played this long and having had the exact same experience before, you kinda expect the same result.

There's a huge difference between not being able to and not willing to do! They clearly ARE able to.

So you had a GM circumvent the rules once by luck and expected the same to happen again? You got lucky that one time is all.

 

[Gidge]

Grandfathered only works as long as the account stays up at all times. The second you let your account deactivate, even for a single day, you fall under the same rules as everyone else. That's how it's always worked since they implemented the system. Customer support is not going to be able to do anything for you. I suggest you pick the biggest house and start moving your valuables to it.

This is incorrect. An account i have has two homes on it. Both in Felucca, one in town limits. It has accidentally slipped by without being paid for due to credit card changes, not enough funds and one time just having to turn it off. At no time did the status of them being grandfathered change.

I think it is because they may have started decaying, and i know the housing server goes down from time to time. Not being able to place for whatever reason. Maybe this is one of those times it was down and just didn't auto refresh that morning because of it.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

This is incorrect. An account i have has two homes on it. Both in Felucca, one in town limits. It has accidentally slipped by without being paid for due to credit card changes, not enough funds and one time just having to turn it off. At no time did the status of them being grandfathered change.

I think it is because they may have started decaying, and i know the housing server goes down from time to time. Not being able to place for whatever reason. Maybe this is one of those times it was down and just didn't auto refresh that morning because of it.

That's because you reactivated before they hit decay. If the account has been active to the point the houses start decaying, even for one day, the grandfather status is lost. There is no getting it back at that point.

 

[Gidge]

But you said.....

Grandfathered only works as long as the account stays up at all times. The second you let your account deactivate, even for a single day, you fall under the same rules as everyone else. That's how it's always worked since they implemented the system. Customer support is not going to be able to do anything for you. I suggest you pick the biggest house and start moving your valuables to it.

You did not say, after 90 days and the houses start to decay.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

But you said.....




You did not say, after 90 days and the houses start to decay.

Meh. when in doubt check the knowledge base article. Final word comes from there. Which is linked above.

 

[Wenchkin]

Try opening the front doors of each of the houses. Server up isn't always when houses refresh - give it 24 hours after you re-activate the account. Check all the houses and open the doors. Then if some houses aren't refreshed, call a GM and say you waited 24 hours and the houses aren't refreshed. I don't know what to expect paging on a grandfathered account, but I'd certainly try opening the front doors.

Wenchy

 

[Aurelius]

And which part of "They did it before" did you not understand? Having played this long and having had the exact same experience before, you kinda expect the same result.

Except, of course, if you have played UO for a long time, you must have seen occurences where the GMs are NOT consistent in what they will, or will not, do.

It really sounds like the GM you got first time round did more than they were supposed to, whilst this latest one is just going 'by the book'.

 

[Viper09]

And which part of "They did it before" did you not understand? Having played this long and having had the exact same experience before, you kinda expect the same result.

Except, of course, if you have played UO for a long time, you must have seen occurences where the GMs are NOT consistent in what they will, or will not, do.

It really sounds like the GM you got first time round did more than they were supposed to, whilst this latest one is just going 'by the book'.

Hehe, so much truth in that. One GM may be the nicest and knowledgeable one and willing to bend rules and the other may be a "by-the-book no exceptions" type.

The rules are what they are. You could always try and keep paging hoping to get a different one willing to make a bend in the rules or not.

 

[Konge]

And which part of "They did it before" did you not understand? Having played this long and having had the exact same experience before, you kinda expect the same result.

There's a huge difference between not being able to and not willing to do! They clearly ARE able to.

What you don't understand, is when they did it before, they weren't supposed to. You've already been shown the statement that says if you deactivate your account only one housing is saved, the GM changed that primary housing because he was confused or something.

Either way, because the first GM didn't know WTF he was supposed to do, doesn't mean all GM's are supposed to do it.

And of course, you lost something, so you're threatening to quit. Way to beat the stereotype. Cya.

 

[Lady Storm]

ok lets clear this up...
Dol'Gorath, yes you can shut down your grandfathered accounts under the same rule of the 90 days BILLING. I have had to many times due to not geting paid on time etc.. so in theory your wrong, Thou if you ask any dev they will say you have 30 days do to something. Sunsword wanted a few years ago to keep players from shuffling accounts to save money by making it 30 days, but he said it was not activated yet and left it hanging. Its been hanging out there for EA to do without notice to us as it was told to us by Sunsword once already.

Now back to our fustrated player:

1. If your account was off for more then the 90 days, your houses will fall unless you set 1 to primary the rest will fall. Remember to count the last day as one of the 90 days as it is by UO billing.

2. If an error by say a glich on your account the GM should have read on the file he gets when he pulls your id # up He should have seen your houses are grandfathered. He made a mistake if your activation was under the 90 days. No he could care less if you have 1 or 100 houses on that account he gets paid the same no matter. (most of whats left of the GM's I feel dont play uo and are shared with other mythic games)

3. You can call the 866 # and talk to billing, if its your error then my only suguestion is to open a few accounts and place the houses you have falling on them. But if its UO's then get one of them to contact and freeze the falls till the glich is fixed and yes they can contact game masters.

Just be sure your not at fault for being gone too long. The GM might have had no choice but to set one house to primary, they are limited on what they can do these days.(due to past troubles GM's are on a tight leash)

Im sorry I cant fix it but I understand your fustration. Keep a calm head and think. If you need any help just give a yell.

 

[Dol'Gorath]

If the houses began to decay, that means the account was off more than 90 days. Since grandfathering fits into that special clause, one of the houses, the most recent, would have become primary automatically. What I am guessing is that the GM came and switched the primary house on his account, but at that point it had already been automatically done by the housing server.

There was no error or glitch. There are many bugs and such in UO, but surprisingly, the housing server is not one of them.

 

[Lady Storm]

Its what I thought also, that he/she didnt watch the days and unfortuneatly. Only 2 options are left, ether best strip the houses down and drop them before the timer to recover the gold for future home or transfer it to another account. He/She has lost the grandfathered account.

Sorry kiddo (Lord_Spartacus) you must stop runing around like a chicken without a head and get to work. Save what you can by transfering to other accounts or consolidate to the one main house and drop the rest before you loose totaly. Wish we could have done more for you.