Pokémon TCG Online Situation - Cards Missing

[PokePop]

I think you're all being a bit too harsh on the support people.
Bear in mind that these are probably outsourced call center reps who are dealing with new issues out of a reference book that is being made up as they go along.

The important thing is that they are making progress and are willing to learn and improve.

 

[psychup2034]

Pokepop, I believe that most of our concerns with the support staff stem from the perceived tone of the initial response. The original message had a "I can't find the problem, so deal with it" type of attitude, which I believe is detrimental to the Pokemon brand. There was no apology, and no initiative to try and resolve the issue.

A couple years ago I ordered some pretty expensive turntables online, and there were some unique problems with them after they arrived. When I called the customer service line, the representative didn't know how to resolve my issue. However, she did apologize and had a very positive attitude, despite the fact that my broken turntables were completely not her fault. Where I work now, I have to deal with clients all the time. One of the most important parts of customer service is having the right attitude.

Everyone has a bad day here and there, so it's understandable. It's good to hear that the issue is getting fixed.

 

[gallade]

Kyle,
I'll reply to you about this issue personally. It may not be today, as I am not in the office. I'm getting more info on the situation from the CSR team as well. You'll hear from me no later than early next week.

Yoshi-,
It's not uncommon for bug reports to not receive a reply. The game is still in Beta, and the Mod team logs all of the bug reports for the development team. In the future, I recommend a polite request for a confirmation that your bug has been logged.

Thank you,
Professor Dav

Ehh, at least you can come out and post about it. But seriously.
'The game is still in Beta'
Isn't beta that same place where bugs get fixed? Or am I thinking about something else.

And brushing off the request is the opposite of 'polite'.

 

[Ness]

Kyle, I'm glad you stuck up for yourself. And I'm glad to hear PUI is working to fix it.

 

[Chairman Kaga]

And again there's one critical difference between what you're describing... and PTCGO.

What you're describing involves a finite, tangible object (MONEY).

It's not even that there's no money at stake - there's simply nothing finite involved.

The only thing they'd have to gain from 'TAKING' the cards from players is... removing cards from players' inventories. They could just CREATE NEW COPIES of the cards for themselves digitally at no loss to anyone involved.

So yes, it's laughably Farfetch'd.

You make a lot of assumptions here:

• That someone won't do something wrong unless there's money involved
• That the PTCGO system has an administrative function for creating new cards
• If the above is true, that an internal attacker would have gained access to it
• That humans aren't complete idiots

That last one, especially, is a real breaker for your argument. We caught a guy once that was literally stealing coupons. With actual cash money right next to them in the register. Don't assume that people doing things they know are wrong are thinking straight.

So no, it's not as far-fetched as you want to convince yourself it is.

 

[Akane]

Ehh, at least you can come out and post about it. But seriously.
'The game is still in Beta'
Isn't beta that same place where bugs get fixed? Or am I thinking about something else.

And brushing off the request is the opposite of 'polite'.

Yes, beta is generally speaking the development phase where the majority of a game's bugs are ironed out. It is not, however, the development phase where one can expect bugs and problems to be fixed in a matter of seconds, nor a finished game that can be expected to be mainly bug-free. The fact that a game is in a beta version does not mean that developers and programmers can work 24/7 to fix all user-reported problems.
As I understand it, this is the direction TPCi has chosen for bug-fixing: users can submit tickets, which are reviewed and placed in a "waiting list" of sorts. The placement of your issue in this list depends on how urgent it is compared to other listed tickets.
In short, don't expect all bugs to be dealt with in the blink of an eye just because the game's in beta, other things like time and urgency factor in on the time it takes for issues to be resolved.

Onto the issue at hand: while TPCi's first response to this specific issue could have been handled a lot smoother, I'm impressed at how they handled the follow-up. Always very glad to see Pokèmon officials here on the 'Gym to give another view of the situation!

~Akane

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk

 

[FMaholic]

This makes me sick. Anybody deserves common courtesy, but Kyle is one of the most well respected and most successful players in the game--he's spent thousands of dollars on this game--he indirectly pays these schmucks salaries to have them spit in his face.

I'm jumping off this sinking ship and playing Magic.
Posted with Mobile style...

 

[calisupra2nr]

This makes me sick. Anybody deserves common courtesy, but Kyle is one of the most well respected and most successful players in the game--he's spent thousands of dollars on this game--he indirectly pays these schmucks salaries to have them spit in his face.

I'm jumping off this sinking ship and playing Magic.
Posted with Mobile style...

What an atrocious post. I too have spent thousands of dollars of my own salary on Pokemon cards in my time...does that mean I deserve any more support than the next guy? No... I don't care how competitive one player is to the next or what they have "done" for the game...I care about how Pokemon interacts with all of their customers and not just one.

And to call these guys schmucks is just rude and uncalled for. Like Pokepop pointed out earlier, you have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and what kind of kinks they are trying to work out.

Maybe if this thread wasn't posted in by a bunch of people ignorant to how businesses work, we would all understand why Kyle received the type of email he did and why he is now getting further help...

 

[PokemonPwned]

The first time I had a question they replied something like:

We understand you have a question


I had to resend it to finally get an answer.

 

[Tagrineth]

You make a lot of assumptions here:

• That someone won't do something wrong unless there's money involved
• That the PTCGO system has an administrative function for creating new cards
• If the above is true, that an internal attacker would have gained access to it
• That humans aren't complete idiots

That last one, especially, is a real breaker for your argument. We caught a guy once that was literally stealing coupons. With actual cash money right next to them in the register. Don't assume that people doing things they know are wrong are thinking straight.

So no, it's not as far-fetched as you want to convince yourself it is.

#1: I never said there had to be money involved. I was pointing out that in the poker example, there was a tangible and finite resource involved. It could have been POTATO CHIPS the people were playing for, the example is still radically different from PTCGO.

#2: If the beta client for the game LACKS an administrative feature for adding/subtracting cards from a collection arbitrarily, it's a very poorly designed beta.

#3: There's no reason a hacker would be capable of getting access to the aforementioned backdoor functions, since it could very well raise big red administrative flags in the client since it would obviously be a feature that should not be in players' hands, only internal testers'.

The real #4 here though of course is the assumption that the PTCGO beta client is properly designed as a beta client and thus possesses simple and I daresay brutally obvious features that make the internal testing function properly.

 

[meganium45]

Kyle,

True Kudos on making this post, and bringing the problem to the forefront.

The issue that we are all facing when looking at this problem is that how many online players would take the initial response Kyle received as the "end".

If they felt the same "disappointment" that Kyle did, then they may leave the game, forever.

Kyle, given his position in the game, took the path of the 'gym, to show any players this may have happened to what can be done to fix the situation helping his OWN situation, and the situation for those similarly situated who read the gym.

Hopefully it will also give everyone a fresh perspective on how this should be handled, could be handled, and will be handled.

Kudos.

M45