Complaint Review: AVENTURINE - Internet

I saw this game about a year and a half ago, and I heard all the rumors about how cool this game was supposed to be.&nbspThe game is a great concept, its just the problem is their business aspect of it completely sucks. Their customer service ends up pissing off customers so bad that they just simply dont even want to play anymore.  Here are two individual things that happened to me

I created a dark fall account, they give you a 14 day free trial. Im thinkin, sweet, right? Well, after I got my trial going, I got to log in and create my character and everything while I was in character creation my computer shut off. Now, I know I have a little bit of an issue with my computer, it has a tendency to overheat, which is fine, but it just means that I turn the graphics down a smidgen to make it so it doesnt over heat.&nbspBut, youre not able to do that with dark fall, you cant adjust the graphics on the game until you are able to get into the game. So After spending days attempting to play the game, I finally get in, but I get in on another computer that doesnt shut down, but the graphics on it are so weak, and its so slow that I cant do anything besides sit there (but you gain skill in that too), so thats all I did, was sit there. Well, Im talking to a buddy who plays, and I inform him of my problem, I cant get into the game to make any changes to turn the graphics down because the second I try, the game shuts down. So he tells me to just take his config file okay, good idea, so I do that. I copy out his config file and I stick it on my computer, and viola, Im up and running (this was about 11 days into my 14 day trial). So now I can finally get in and start playing, right? Kind of So now, I start trying to play but now Im running into a new issue my ping in the game is SHOOTING up to 16000ms, everything else Im doing is perfectly fine. The second it shoots up above like 15500ms, it disconnects you, and while I understand Darkfall is a game where when you die you lose EVERYTHING you had on you. So my character is sitting there getting attacked while Im pinging out (I have a 50mbit line, I shouldnt be experiencing a problem like that). So, I spent the remaining 3 days of my trial trying to figure that out.  So I attempt to log in on the 14^th day to see if the PING has been fixed (one of the hops near the darkfall server was experiencing a problem, and it seems to have been resolved), and it says my trial is over. Well s**t, I didnt even get to play.  Now, darkfall has a system setup in place, you only get one trial account PER PC so I decided I would go ahead and e-mail them, let them know what my issue was and ask them to extend my trial, here is my conversation.  Heres what I said to them

Hello, ... I sent you an e-mail a few days ago ... the 14-day trial, I didn't get to take advantage of it because it the game would not run on my system, ... now I want to give this game a try, but in all actual reality, with all the issues I've been having, I haven't really gotten to do anything in the game to give it more than about a 2 day trial. Can you please extend my 14-day trial out another 14 days so I can play this game? My login is <username> ... I don't want to just create another trial account to give it a try .. while I can, I'm trying not to abuse your system.

Here is their response

Greetings,

Unfortunately we do not reimburse trial subscriptions at this point in time, or remove the account restriction on player machines. We understand your frustration but we do advise on our official forums that players download and install the client before starting the trial period, as well as checking the minimum and recommended requirements which we have on display via our relevant support pages.

Kind Regards,
Darkfall Support

Ticket Details

Do you notice how its like they didnt even read my e-mail to them. They told me that I should have gotten these issues figured out BEFORE starting the trial period but you cant login to the game to configure it until you have a trial account. Its like these people have no idea what the hell they are talking about so I respond, I was a little upset by their response

I downloaded and installed the client and everything was fine ... but I was unable to run the client once a login was provided ... so you'd rather me just create another trial account? Is that what I am hearing?

btw, I am not asking to be reimbursed for anything .. I am asking that you give me another two week trial so I can actually try the game instead of just creating a ton of accounts and switching out IP addresses to get trial accounts .. I mean, I can do that too if you'd like, I don't mind .. but I'd rather try to keep things legit instead of just creating a ton of accounts and never paying that subscription fee.

Response ..

Hello,

Sorry but we only allow 1 trial account per computer.
If you are experiencing the "too many trial account" error then it means that your computer has been registered to trial account before.

Regards,
Darkfall Support

Ticket Details

Do you notice how they arent really responding to my e-mail. Its like there is no customer service for Darkfall its just a bunch of buffoons. So there were a ton of back and forth e-mails after that where I was getting angry and just bashing them all of which were replied with s**t that doesnt make any sense. Basically, they told me that it was against policy to extend the trial period or remove the account restriction on players computers, as quoted by the unknown person responding to my e-mail requests.  So at this point, Im like screw it I swap out my mac address, and I create a brand new account (now, dark fall is the type of game that doesnt remember anything, its like a bad computer program that just doesnt save anything). So after fiddling around with it, I had to re-load my buddies config file since the program didnt recognize mine anymore and I got back into the game I create my character and I start playing again. 5 hours later.  Your account is not active (#3) thats my login message. Okay, so I gotta get this one nipped in the butt, Im going to lose out on my trial if I dont get this taken care of immediately. So I send a new e-mail to the company, this time under a different e-mail address to see if the customer service still blows goats Here is my e-mail to the customer service department

I'm trying to login, it says my accounts is not active ... what gives?

Yeah, short and sweet, right? Customer service response

Greetings,

Please be sure you are attempting to log in to the correct region Darkfall client. The following links will provide you with the relevant installer:

European client:  http://www.eu1.darkfallonline.com/dl/Darkfall.exe
North American client:  http://www.us1.darkfallonline.com/dl/DarkfallUS.exe

 Should you have the incorrect version installed please follow the below instructions:
- Download the correct lobby version from the above links and install
- Without logging into the lobby please relocate the "Data" folder from the incorrect client directory to the correct one
- Log into the correct lobby using your account/password
- Allow the client to verify and patch the needed files
- You may be required to restart the client once fully patched

Note also that you will need to activate either a full game subscription, or the free trial on the specified account before you will be able to log in. Do so using the online shop tab on your accounts page.  If you continue to have issues, please contact us again.

Regards,
Darkfall Support

Ticket Details

Okay, I understand, I didnt mention I was already playing. Let me get them some more information I am using the correct installer ... it's Darkfall US ... it's telling me "Account is not active (#3)" and I just activated it last night.  I was playing last night ... came on to play today and it gave me that error ... don't know why that's happening.  And this error is cutting into my trial time ... so, it's like perfect timing to go ahead and spring up an error, when I'm TRYING to evaluate the game.  Here is their response

Greetings,

Thank you for the updated information. Your ticket has been escalated to the proper department and is pending investigation. In the meantime, we ask that you remain patient as your ticket is processed. We apologize for any inconvenience.  If you have any further questions, please open a new ticket referencing this one instead of replying to this message; your ticket must remain escalated to be dealt with in a timely manner.

Regards,
Darkfall Support

Ticket Details

Okay, great, they are going to escalate my ticket and get this taken care of for me real quick. I expected this to be a short process They send me an e-mail asking me for my account name, my character name, and the e-mail address associated with the account, all of which I provided to them so I hang around and wait and wait, and wait 3 hours go by, .. and Im still waiting, wondering how it could take so long to figure something like that out I keep waiting and waiting. So I send them a follow up e-mail Are you going to replace this missing time for me ... it's been like 5 hours now that I haven't been able to play ... it's cutting into my advertised time because of some error ... Super happy I didn't buy the game yet ... I mean, less than 24 hours into it and you're systems are already having an issue.

Response ..

Greetings,

Any such inquiries will be handled once your initial ticket is resolved. Please feel free to approach the matter again once ticket XCT-986588 has been resolved by our higher tier of support.

Me

Has it been resolved yet? It's been now like 6 hours, do you guys get a lot of these type of support tickets?

Them

Greetings,

You will receive a reply in the original ticket once the situation has been investigated fully. Please note that the Accounts and Billing department works during normal business hours, Monday to Friday and will resolve your issue at their earliest convenience.

Hmm my response.

Oh, so the players aren't a concern? I mean ... me not being able to play .. I'm potentially a new customer, .. and I'm having an issue with your system .. and they will get back to me whenever they feel like it, err, sorry, at their earliest convenience ... this is off to a terrible start for this game, ... someone was bitching about it .. I checked it out, looked cool, but now I kinda get why he was bitching ... this has been a bad experience right from the start, .. I sent you that support ticket at like 9:30am MY TIME .. its now 4:04pm ..and no resolution.

My thought process on this is that they should be able to handle player concerns at any point in time .. if I can play 24 hours a day, they need to have some kind of staff 24/hours a day that can handle player issues. I would normally except that to be in the format of a GM but I would assume based off how they have treated me thus far that their GMs cant do s**t either, their customer service cant do s**t, why are they even working there then? This is supposed to be the US server for people in the USA meaning that you should probably staff someone on the server like you would if someone were in the USA not staff it the same way so every request takes a minimum of 24 hours to resolve, bad business practice if you ask me.  It seems that the business aspects of this game are terrible. 8 years in the making for this game, and they hire some of the stupidest mother f***ers to run the s**t Ive ever seen. They should be interested in trying to get people to want to come PLAY their game not piss them off so bad that they have to cheat just to play the trial. I understand that people think that most companies are going to respond in 24-48 hours and thats fine, if youre not paying for a service but if its a paid service, I expect a response right now, and how you handle it during the trial account leads me to believe that if I run into any further problems with this game, Im going to end up just having to deal with it.  So Darkfall is a good concept of a game, its just there too much bullshit trying to play it. The forums for Darkfall are of no help, the players are merely assholes and tell you that youre an idiot because youre having a problem, and they dont seem to have any real staff working the forums to help people out So, I post this on rip off report because I wouldnt recommend wasting your money on this game I would wait a couple of years until they fire the customer service bitches and restructure the way business is handled. If you look on their forums, youll notice that a good number of the players have quit for one reason or another, but it all gets added in and youll find that while Darkfall can be an awesome game right now, its not.