GossipMongers

So I gave you guys an update on what I've been up and now I want to share with you the things visitors had to say.

Return of the GM Menace

As promised I'll show the ban notice I received while I was attending a seminar for a few days.

GM Failure - The Time is Near

Hi,

I'd like to submit a ban appeal please. I received a notice of ban for harassment but I have no idea how I could have possibly harassed anyone by reporting another player.

Expect the Unexpected... At AGE

I'm looking at the players that I cast and realized we’re still short. For the purposes of this post, I’m removing mysticmaggie and adding JonGhost and SailorSpira to the cast. 

Service Interruption - Lack of Decorum & Condolences

My previous post was published before I realized I hadn't provided visitors with what I thought would be enough background information. I considered a retraction until I read a disturbing email last night about the passing of a Shaiya Game Sage.

Service Interruption: New Leads

tulaovilo (50820765) sent a message using the contact form at
http://www.aeriagames.com/contact/support.

Service Interruption: Foreshadows & Conspiracies

I'd like to report a player for harassment. He has done nothing but curse me out and call me a hacker because I killed him in PvE. I've blocked him as a GS suggested but now he KSes me non stop and continuously attempts to transact me.

Dear Player

We thank you for your report and apologize for any inconvenience due to unsavory characters. Unfortunately we cannot do anything because we are much too busy reading this blog and being manipulated by community volunteers who want us to ban accounts for their actions on Google's blog service.
- Team Aeria

What... the....
You can't do something about a player stalking me because you're harassing someone because of something they post using Google services!?!?!

AGE Stalked Me!

Introducing [GS]Stalker

From the time I started this blog until now, I’ve had assistance from AGE employees and community volunteers. Well the few still willing to talk to me anyways. Without their assistance I wouldn't be able to provide the most accurate information.

Notification of Service Reinstatement

 
I'm not 100% but I'm getting there. Anyhoo, it's time for a round of thank yous. Thank you to everyone who wished me well. Thank you to everyone who provided me with entertainment while I was getting better. And a special thanks to all who continue to read this and have waited patiently for this post. 

To kick off my first post in over a week, I want to show you things people said made them think of my site or things people thought would look good on my site for whatever reason. 

Misadventures of GMFailure

The Customer is Always Right

I actually don't believe the customer is always right. I just thought it would make for an awesome title. Especially given the things that have weighed heavily on my mind recently concerning this site.

Service Interruption: Human Error

In the middle of July I made a formal request for a change to the Terms of Service in a ticket. I posted the results in this thread so the community could see why the change would not occur.

Attention Readers

These past few days I've worked tirelessly to satisfy the needs of my readers; posting, answering emails, responding to instant messages, modding Chupa's comments (and those of others). 

But my life doesn't revolve around this blog. I have other blogs to maintain, a family, and other boring hobbies/activities that require my attention. I am sorry to inform you that I may not be able to post as often as once and sometimes twice daily because of health reasons. This does not mean I am terminating the blog. In fact I intend to continue posting as often as once every other day minimally.

Happy Anniversary

Saturday November 27, 2010 around 3:15 PM the account hybridchic was deactivated while reporting a game sage for harassment, stalking, and other offensives. The most punishment he received was the loss of his tags though he continued to harass me.

About a month ago, around the time I decided to launch this blog, I announced to friends that I was done with AGE. Even after launching the blog and to this day I still maintain some contact with any number of AGE affiliated persons in spite of all that has happened to me as a result of AGE's poor customer service. Within the past day I've received around 120 correspondences. Only 12 pertained to the two posts I published about mysticmaggie.

Where's Game Sage Devol

The family that plays together stays together

Before I left AGE, I received a private message from Shaiya GameSage MysticMaggie (aka GS Devol). She explained to me why it was ok to refer to me as a "GS Basher" on AGE public forums. Apparently, she didn't agree with my methods of handling a situation that involved posting a thread. Since she lives in Hartsville, South Carolina, with a husband (GameSage SirEric) and their children, I'll assume she practices far reaching mysticism that enabled her to see exactly what I was experiencing on my end of a computer screen. 

Technical Problem

On every page and after every post there is a tiny blank block for readers to leave a comment. Not many people comment but a lot of people send me emails which is fine; I wouldn't have supplied an email if I didn't want the feedback. 

There were two confused individuals that sent me rather ironic emails that I suppose is partly my fault. So to clear up some problems and eliminate certain kinds of emails, I'm going to explain a few things.

Section 12 - The Conspiracy

In The GM, the Ticket, & the System, I said there were three things that should’ve let me know I was being screwed. Now is as good a time as any to tell you the third thing. 

November 27th, my account was deactivated. I never received any notice. I did send a ticket relating to the matter, while using a different account to submit multiple tickets for harassment. I waited three days for this response:

After re-reading the ticket, analyzing it, and contemplating it's validity, I ended up with a ton of questions.

1. What private information? Screenshots? Unless it makes a difference that the person in my screenshots at the time was a GS......
2. Spamming? I made three threads. The first was about the incident. The second should've stayed as it provides links to AGE websites that said I was using the forums properly since Forum Game Sage georgerav hadn’t read ToS and was abusing his forum abilities.
3. Harassing a Game Sage on the public forum? Maybe this was for Merkz, who did harass me on public forums. Did they think I was harassing Forum Game Sage georgerav? The dude that didn't read ToS?
4. Threatening a Game Sage? Who did I threaten? When did I threaten them? 
5.  Harassing other players? Bullshit. Game Sages are players, not special players or employees. I didn't harass anyone but if I did, why mention harassing and threatening a Game Sage Since this accusation sums up the previous ones?

The logical conclusion I came up with was there was a mistake. So I went along and submitted a Ban Appeal to 'appeal a ban'. I won't say how I responded cause you'll probably figure it out after this:

Grab your ToS and read the first three paragraphs of part12. First paragraph says you have no rights. Second paragraph says "AGE representatives will do what the employee decides as it’s their job to act as 'judge' regardless of how informed they are."  Third paragraph says "if the customer believes AGE is wrong, there's a chance nothing will be done. See paragraph 1." 

You could argue, "those are the terms you agreed to when creating an account, so you should've kissed a lot of ass to prevent this from happening." That line of thinking suggests customer service doesn't have to be fair because they are quite capable of being bribed which invalidates paragraph three. I wonder….

• Assuming, I did the things the ticket says, why did the person I reported go unpunished?
• What is the point of community volunteers if they are capable of terrorizing any player, not being punished for it, and pretty much given free rein to do it again?
• What is the point of the Ban Appeal system if people responding to those tickets are the same people that put you in the position of needing to send one in the first place?

The answer to these questions is simple: it's a conspiracy. 

Things AGE Told Me

As I've moved on to other gaming services I still feel a certain type of anger, rage, dread and hostility whenever the phrase Aeria Games & Entertainment crosses my mind. I'll tell you why soon as I arm you with knowledge I had when I made an AGE account.

There is a Terms of Service found here. The very first paragraph loosely translates to "You as a customer are subject to these terms and conditions found on this page and all officially associated pages." Which is to say, in order to use the service you must acknowledge that the company has a ton of rules located on any number of pages besides the Terms of Service.

Let's skip around and cover what I find to be the important parts of their Terms of Service. Part 1 is the legal agreement that tells you you're responsible for knowing about the policies and are of sufficient age to understand the policies. Part 4 covers their privacy policy. Part 5 is a lot of legal jargon that describes their DRM policy. Part 6 goes over the kinds of things you are able to do with the services. Part 7 is a long list of offenses AGE claims to not tolerate. Part 12 tells you that at any time AGE can do anything they want with your account for any reason. Part 17 describes their procedures for dispute resolution.

Picture this: you go to a restaurant for a romantic evening, you are a customer and your waiter is an employee that serves you food. The waiter is the first line of customer service. Do you expect them to know how to prepare the food they are serving you? Not always. As a previous AGE customer did I expect customer support to know every inch of the "website" and all of its rules? Since they're the people that can enforce Part 12 of Terms of Service, yes. You can't enforce something if you don't know it. Which is my roundabout way of saying AGE's Game Masters never took a bar exam or never bothered to read the very first paragraph of Terms of Service.