Today was day 1250, never missing a day, spending my share of money along the way, but I think I am near the end of my playing days here.  I thought I would do my wife, who also plays, and has a streak of consecutive days only 11 days shorter than my own, a favor and buy her the flash pvp package offered. As usual, we use Subway gift cards that work here, to buy the packages. There are 3 purchases available to each of us in this particular offer. Because early on Subway used to shut the cards down for suspicious activity, we started using cards with small amounts on them. In this particular instance the card was for $30 USD, which would purchase 2 for her city and 1 for mine.

Like always, I type the numbers in the Openbucks site and click purchase, this is done on each computer at the same time, and was a tactic we used to keep Subway from shutting down the cards for the reason I already mentioned. I purchased on her computer first and then mine. When I got back to hers to use the final $10 to exhaust the card. What I did not notice was that none of the items, including the drachma were added to her city. I typed the numbers again and clicked purchase, and to my dismay no drachma appeared in the box for her city. Nothing, no troops that go with package nothing, so what that meant was that although the Openbucks site took our money, Plarium did not give the items in the package to her city. My city received its drachma and troops, at least I am sure about the drachma. The troops not so much because I did not count them before I purchased the package.

Now, as we all know, these packages are only offered for a certain time, a couple of days on this one. I then contacted customer support at Openbucks and they replied almost immediately. They explained nicely that they only were responsible for the transaction, and did indeed confirm that the transactions went through at their end. When they asked my wife provided further comments on this occurrence. At last word the said they would follow up as much as they can regarding taking the money but us not receiving the items in the package. Their response was reasonable, prompt, courteous, considerate, and concerned that we paid but did not receive our items. Still, in the end it is Plarium's responsibility to provide the items. Plarium could learn a great deal regarding customer service from the Openbucks people.

As I mentioned, the packages expire within a certain timeframe, and knowing that on the weekends, when they are really the most needed, nobody is home at Plarium. So, now what? Well, I went to Plariums support page and it gives instructions on how to get what is coming to you, sort of. It is an onerous process, wanting screenshots, and exact numbers of the items in the packages, all designed in my opinion to make it as difficult as possible to get what you already paid for. In a previous thread, I mentioned that I am a player and that my work should end there. I pay money and I play the game. Not provide information or put out extraordinary effort to remedy a problem that is wholly Plariums not mine. To be sure they have my twenty bucks for now, but it is Plarium that failed to provide my wife what we paid for, and it is Plarium that should do the necessary efforts to remedy it. But since this is Friday, by the time support looks at it Monday the package offers will have expired. Of course they will not like the way I did not provide all the numbers of each item in the package and will likely tell me it was my fault because I did not do so,so they will be unable to resolve this issue. That is if they bother to reply at all.

I can tell you all this, as sure as you are sitting there reading this post, that if this situation does not have a positive outcome my days in this game are numbered. Plarium has disregarded my commitment, and efforts for the last time if they cannot function well enough to solve this problem without a bunch of time and work on our parts. Player, remember that? It is likely that every keystroke any of us make in this game is saved somewhere, each purchase we made, what type of packages we are likely to purchase and the exact amount of money we have spent in three and half years of gameplay. 

To be fair, this is a new one for us. While we may not have liked or do like all the changes to the game, this is the first time we have been outright robbed. After all, this is a matter of trust. If we cannot trust that Plarium will do something as straightforward as provide what players pay for, where are we at now? The ramifications for this type of behavior can lead to many things, a deeper mistrust than already exists, and a general overall feeling that one is simply not valued enough to have someone who can accomplish things around on the weekends when most of the activity occurs here and it logically follows that more problems for players are likely to arise.

Anyway there you go folks, my wife and I have spent literally thousands of dollars here, and twenty bucks is not going to break us up in business, but it suggests to us a climate that we suspected has existed here for quite sometime now. it suggested that we as players are simply not valued for anything more than what we spend and if we have a problem that it is somehow our fault that we have one. Also, I think that the processes for solving issues here are made deliberately onerous and require so much time and effort that many simply give up. I touched on this subject in another thread earlier, but it is to me one of the most fundamental mistakes Plarium is making. That is assuming that it is a players responsibility to do anything much more than play. I have seen others who point out the same thoughts as well.

If one of the moderators or community manager does reply to this post, you can also be absolutely sure that they will make every effort to push the standard party line regarding criticism of the way Plarium operates the game with regard to players and their concerns. I have seen too many excuses, asked to be patient long enough, witnessed to many deflections of real issues, to have a whole lot of faith that things will change much. And, really why should it? Players have put up with a shoddy UI, bugs, lags, and yet they still play. Why? Money and time. Who wants to admit openly as to how much they have spent financially, some of my in-game friends have told me that they will someday be ashamed of the amount of money they spent, or even to the amount of time spent playing in an environment that makes things more difficult for them everyday.

Things will not change here unless the players make it change. I am not talking some threat of this or that, but until some reasonable people put together a coherent well thought out argument that can convince Plarium of the need to change its ways. If the past three and a half years is any indicator of the future state of the game, I do not see any positive outcome happening. I must say, and have said it before, No other business I have ever encountered could operate in the way this one does and survive. People would not stand for it. Why do I still play one might ask? I guess it is the never ending hope that things will get better someday and we all can play a game that if it ever functioned as it should, would actually become fun again.