A day since the Santa Crate announcement, or how a second look a day later exposes things as they are.

[warheart1992]

Been a day since the announcement regarding Santa crates, how people are eligible for refunds etc.

Link below:

Spoiler

 

At first I thought, hey, that's a pretty decent gesture, good on WG, and aside from some issues with rollbacks and refunds it seems to be working properly. That's all well and good. But after mulling over the subject for a while, I have come to the conclusion that all this is just a gesture and that's about it, with only vague talk of actual changes. This goes to show how WG's response is in fact lackluster and  dishonest.

Exhibit A: Product page on official website.

Surely after a great PR issue such as this concerning sold products the description of santa containers would be updated to be more transparent and reflect the various concerns that existed. Yet the page has remained completely identical. All this after reassurances that things would change. This means people are still buying the same product without any additional information after the issue has arisen. In my opinion the sale of containers should be suspended for a day or two until an updated description on the news section and purchase page could be added.

 

Same exact wording as on the before, with the same vague chances comment.

 

Exhibit B: No mention of the possibility of refunds/rollbacks outside of forums/ Reddit and time limit.

Pretty much self explanatory. Forums and Reddit represent but a small percentage of the active playerbase. This effectively means people that may have been dissatisfied and wanted a refund are simply left unawares. There is no link on the News section, nor in any other place. Add to that the time limit until 13 December for a refund and you realize the refund/rollback move was made just to placate the masses for a short while. If WG wanted to deal with this effectively, honestly and reaching as many people as possible, a pop up should appear on anyone that bought containers ingame, informing them of the possibility of refunds and opening a relevant link on the forums. I haven't seen anything of the sort which further points to WG just trying to bury the subject from the broader playerbase.

Exhibit C: All gestures but no changes aside from vagueness. 

Again, WG's offer of a refund isn't a change, it's a response in the form of a gesture. The exact same system remains and the only thing that was mentioned was that:

Quote

We will work on improving the next Santa event with the feedback and concerns you voiced.

No mention of changing the current Santa event, but the one next year, with pretty vague terms at that.  Most likely nothing will change.

To conclude, has anything changed financially? Not really; a few hundred refunds are nothing compared to the thousands of containers bought each day by unsuspecting people. Some bruising by CCs but nowadays it's easy to get replacements.

But the lack of critical information even after being caught red handed only shows how easy it is to carry on with anti-consumer practices because simply put, they 'll buy it anyway.

[Taichunger]

I'd love to gift some Big Gifts to in-game friends. But essentially I am giving them a Makarov and an Orkan.

Thanks, WG.

[warheart1992]

4 minutes ago, Taichunger said:

I'd love to gift some Big Gifts to in-game friends. But essentially I am giving them a Makarov and an Orkan.

Thanks, WG.

Am a big fan of secret santa, gift exchanges  and such, but all this lately has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Might as well just give people money.

[Ducky_shot]

As I pointed out to @Hapa_Fodder, it seems like it takes an act of God for WG to ever change the text in any of their articles. Why in the world is that the case? If I saw a huge amount of confusion with my customers, I would want to clear it up as easily as possible for them. How often do we see something that looks like just poor translation and an English speaker would be able to correct it quite easily to its intended or a clearer meaning? But it seems like the NA and EU offices have no sway or say about this stuff. It seems like WG couldn't care less about doing that. They seem to relish giving the player base junk information and never correcting it when it is pointed out. 

[Sovereigndawg]

I bought crates wasn't unhappy but I would have probably bought more if the ship draw was more than 3 for the 80 crates I bought. I suppose that I could have taken advantage of the refund and tried to re-roll but that would be shady and seems like lying and isn't representative of myself.

[warheart1992]

27 minutes ago, DuckyShot said:

As I pointed out to @Hapa_Fodder, it seems like it takes an act of God for WG to ever change the text in any of their articles. Why in the world is that the case? If I saw a huge amount of confusion with my customers, I would want to clear it up as easily as possible for them. How often do we see something that looks like just poor translation and an English speaker would be able to correct it quite easily to its intended or a clearer meaning? But it seems like the NA and EU offices have no sway or say about this stuff. It seems like WG couldn't care less about doing that. They seem to relish giving the player base junk information and never correcting it when it is pointed out. 

If not mistaken regional offices get their line straight from Lesta  in St. Petersburg without much say in the matter. I remember that being told in a Q&A a while ago but can't remember which one.

[IfYouSeeKhaos]

4 hours ago, DuckyShot said:

As I pointed out to @Hapa_Fodder, it seems like it takes an act of God for WG to ever change the text in any of their articles. Why in the world is that the case? If I saw a huge amount of confusion with my customers, I would want to clear it up as easily as possible for them. How often do we see something that looks like just poor translation and an English speaker would be able to correct it quite easily to its intended or a clearer meaning? But it seems like the NA and EU offices have no sway or say about this stuff. It seems like WG couldn't care less about doing that. They seem to relish giving the player base junk information and never correcting it when it is pointed out. 

 

4 hours ago, warheart1992 said:

If not mistaken regional offices get their line straight from Lesta  in St. Petersburg without much say in the matter. I remember that being told in a Q&A a while ago but can't remember which one.

There are plenty of Russians that speak perfect English...w/$90M just last year they could have afforded to hire at least 1 of them a long time ago. I know...Ivan the interpreter is a really swell guy (despite not being very good at his job) & they'd just feel really bad about letting him go.

There is NO language barrier. These are intentional "misinterpretations"...they are NOT language barrier misinterpretations.

Been way too many years in a row to keep letting them get away w/that excuse that (hopefully) nobody really believed in the 1st place.

The lie that was given by Hapa (& later repeated...w/exact word for word copy paste by Obiphan...because that is the lie WG told them they may say...& nothing else) that the removal of clarification of short list ships the last few years because of "articles would be too long" is contradicted by the direct lie that was obviously included (in the most recent article anyway...didn't...& have no interest to...look up last year's lies as this year lie is sufficient to stress the point)...the lie about being able to receive rare ships directly from Santa crates.

All the concerns (about "articles being too long") would have been easily addressed by not adding in the lie (it took a bit of space adding in the names of all those rare ships that you can't actually get directly from a Santa crate)...thus giving them the extra space to include the truth (aka...the list of short list ships).

Think it's quite telling that despite all of the Black ship complaints in the "WG Staff Posts" section over the weekend that there wasn't even 1 comment about the Santa containers until Monday morning***...not even a "We'll send the complaint upline" or any kind of toe the party lie excuse...but instead there was just a comment in the Verizon tournament chat from a moderator (EU I'm assuming as I couldn't tag him in NA forum when I tried) saying they were not allowed to make any comment at all & that they would inquire 1st thing Monday morning... I'm betting there was probably a similar comment in the EU chat from an also unreachable NA moderator.

Guess the outcry was less the 1st year because at least the Indy (at that time) was a pretty good ship to have on the top of the short list...which is where I got mine...Thanx for that WG.

That being said I loved my Nurnburg & wouldn't have minded the Makarov if I had $ for crates this year.

***Edit: Guess the obvious reason for that is because they wanted to make people wait as long as possible before giving them the "rollback" option so they really needed to screw themselves over to take the option (all those advent calendar logins & daily containers & dailies all done for naught if you decide to rollback...not to mention any progress on your accounts).

[paradat]

Did we really need another thread? The mods are just going to start munching them together.

[DEADLY_WEAPON]

I asked for my money back but did not get a reply.

[ramp4ge]

It's interesting that they're putting even more artificial scarcity on ships like the Nikoli and Kamikaze. "SPEND MONEY NOW!!!" when you have virtually no chance of getting them anyway.

 

One guy posted saying he got the Kamikaze. Kamikaze's at the top of my want list (I'm not a weeb I promise) but I know with the rates the way they are and with her disappearing forever (or, that's what is implied) after this year's event I know I'll never get her.

 

 

[LittleJimmyJingles]

WOT will be getting the money I saved throughout the year for holiday events across all three titles. WOWP haven't even taken to the field yet, WOWS-well, shennanigans above a tolerable level, so WOT gets the cash. 

 

[Captain_Slattery]

4 hours ago, Taichunger said:

I'd love to gift some Big Gifts to in-game friends. But essentially I am giving them a Makarov and an Orkan.

Thanks, WG.

Best Schrodinger's Cat joke EVER!!!!

lmbo!!!  

Christmas' past was always my "Big Spend" time of year for WoWS.  Not this year though.  I have no interest in a mediocre version of a tech tree ship I already "own".  I'm also no fan of duplicitous marketing.