Restoring lost items...

[pjw]

Perhaps this has been discussed before, but this thead http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=289909 makes me wonder that it has not yet been addressed.

Over time, I have lost a few items. Lost in the mail, just plain disappeared, and I am sure some were mistakenly sold.

Not once has an in-game GM been able to tell me what happened, where it went, or most importantly, restore it to me.

The severity of cases can perhaps be measured based on player pain. Based on the ones I have experienced or have heard of, I would say a rough ordering would be:

1. Losing whole bags of shroud ingredients.
2. Losing green steel weapons (like a mini-shroud bag)
3. Losing bound raid gear
4. Losing extremely rare weapns (WoP rapier)
5. Losing good, but not-quite vendor trash. Twink gear, that kind of stuff.

The questions are, what can be done about these? And what are the consequences?

Firstly, the consequences of inaction are deeply distressed players faced with the necessity of grinding for something they have already done the work for, combined with the possibility of rage-quitting, or at least taking a break from the game.

The possible consequences of replacing the items are that there may be some exploit (verification is required) and it may take a lot of time for the GMs.

So what can be done?

First I am going to make some simple assumptions based on my experience with software development. They may be invalid assumptions, but if they are, it should also be fairly easy to make them valid with some minor tweaks.

Assumptions

1. All non-stackable items in game have a unique ID. Even vendor trash from level 1 quests. ie. the +1 Dagger of Deception if get from Garrisons Missing pack has some large number as it's unique ID. The item IDs showing in myddo suggest this is the case.

2. Stackable items will have a type ID (eg. Large Scales) and a counter; each stack will have a unique ID as well as per #1.

3. There is a mechanism for automatically logging transactions on items (sale, destruction, trade, and in the case of stacks the operations would include 'combine', 'put in bag'). The dialogs with GMs in the thread above suggests this is likely to be true.

4. The complete history for items is archived, perhaps to a separate database. May not be the case; easy to implement.

Solution #1

(a) Add an 'Item History' panel to all vendors (or myddo) that will display all item transactions for items destroyed, traded (edit: also, received, mailed etc) or sold by your character for some reasonable period. Allow a player to retrieve up to 1 destroyed/sold item per day; more than that would require a support request and a GM. In the case on trades, they would at least know who they gave it to, and might help in the case of hacked accounts.

This will deal with player mistakes; seliing stuff, dropping it etc that may be missed via the buy-back option. Worst-case scenario for a sold non-bound item would be:

- sold to vendor at <time>
- purchased by another player at <time>

(b) Give GMs a 'Stocktake' ability; this will automatically reconcile the characters current inventory with the history of items they have owned. If an items history shows that it is currently owned by the player, but it can not be found instantiated in the game, or can be found, but does not match it's transaction history, then the GM should be able to restore it to that player.

This should solve all the problems listed above.


Solution #2 (Partial)

If #1 sounds like too much work, then only apply a minimal history keeping requirement to BtA and BtC items. These can never be traded, are going to be sold less often and are in much smaller quantity in the game.

This would solve the problem for raid and GS items, at least.

Conclusion

The key here is to reduce player pain while also avoiding exploits and not substantially increasing the load on GMs. I believe that Solution #1 would achieve this.

[Thumbed_Servant]

An in-game friend of mine recently lost a set of the Titan's Grip Gloves. He was trying to transfer them from the bank to his character, during the daily lag experienced in the early mornings. He was waiting several minutes for the item to transfer, and decided to just log out for some sleep and try again another time. (lesson learned; sit tight and wait until the transfer to happen when lag is making it slow; but oh-so-painful a lesson). He wrote a ticket, and got a GM's attention. In the end, the GM was unable to help him.

Your thoughts on this subject sound reasonable...I do hope that the Turbine staff will put such possible fixes onto their schedule of things to do. Lost items, especially lost through no fault of the player, are a hurt, as they take real world time to acquire, and special items are a special loss. I am only glad that my friend did not stop playing from this.

[Zennestia]

This sounds like a great idea.

I lost a large shrapnel this morning.
It was purchased off the auction house, and I detached it into my inventory. I clicked the gather button on my large ingredients bag, it went into the bag with a 0 next to it (have a screenshot).

[Xilraazz]

Yeah, why this game has no support for lost items boggles me. Especially in cases where they know something is wrong with the code and it can cause items to disappear.

[Batallia]

+1 on this thread... Seems there is little to no support for these type of issues.

[Backley]

Great idea. Sounds doable and is very much needed.

[Meetch1972]

Me likey! /signed

[Irinis]

The problem with this wonderful solution is that the items are not, in fact, lost. They were eaten by the Invisible Cube. GMs can't restore the items because they were dissolved in sticky green digestive acids. GMs have been trying to track down this mysterious creature for some time now, which is why they ask such pointed questions: was your inventory full? Were you in Asteroids? However, all their efforts are for naught, because the Invisible Cube is, well, invisible.

Not only that but it strikes randomly, like the dreaded Lag Monster. See, the Invisible Cube likes to eat adventurers. If you fail your save, you're gone. If you make your save, you may still lose something important from your inventory. The Invisible Cube is also very petty. If it can't eat you, it will make you suffer!

[pjw]

The problem with this wonderful solution is that the items are not, in fact, lost....

This is why the log of events is kept (an audit trail, if you like). The item may be missing from inventory, eaten by the cube. But the log of events will show it was last in inventory.

Using the history, a GM performs a 'Stocktake' (which reconciles current inventory with historical logs) will be able to recognize a lost item and restore it. This could even be automated, but I would not recommend it until the bugs were ironed out.

The only way a cube could eat an item permanently would be if the items and all of it's history was deleted. The latter should be disallowed by preventing deletes on the audit table except by the archive process.

[Hayday]

Allow players to take back the +3 vorpal throwing axe of shattermantle that I bought from the vendor? Not signed.

[Irinis]

This is why the log of events is kept (an audit trail, if you like). The item may be missing from inventory, eaten by the cube. But the log of events will show it was last in inventory.

Using the history, a GM performs a 'Stocktake' (which reconciles current inventory with historical logs) will be able to recognize a lost item and restore it. This could even be automated, but I would not recommend it until the bugs were ironed out.

The only way a cube could eat an item permanently would be if the items and all of it's history was deleted. The latter should be disallowed by preventing deletes on the audit table except by the archive process.

Fail humor check?

[pjw]

Allow players to take back the +3 vorpal throwing axe of shattermantle that I bought from the vendor? Not signed.

Nooo, to quote my original post:

Worst-case scenario for a sold non-bound item would be:

- sold to vendor at <time>
- purchased by another player at <time>

and perhaps I should have been clearer; in this case the player would see that they sold it and it was purchased by 'another' player. This is the worst case scenario and involves losing the weapon permanently, but at least they now know what happened.

[transtemporal]

3. There is a mechanism for automatically logging transactions on items (sale, destruction, trade, and in the case of stacks the operations would include 'combine', 'put in bag'). The dialogs with GMs in the thread above suggests this is likely to be true.

4. The complete history for items is archived, perhaps to a separate database. May not be the case; easy to implement.

This is where your idea falls down. I don't think you can assume this.

Turbine's (at times) dithering responses to problems suggests several things: 1) they don't have such a mechanism, or 2) they have such a mechanism but don't actively use it, or 3) they have a mechanism and use it but its too unwieldy for support staff to search, or 4) they have such a mechanism and use it but its company policy not to officially confirm those calls.

Sceanrio 1 is not unlikely. They probably just did an impact study, decided that an occurence of 1 in a million transactions was an acceptable risk and left it at that. Why build a solution if the impact of one in a million items going missing is one annoyed player? Is anyone going to lose their life if said thing happens? No. Is the company in danger of losing critical monies? No. Is the company in danger of loss of reputation? yes, impact: low.

[pjw]

This is where your idea falls down. I don't think you can assume this.

Turbine's (at times) dithering responses to problems suggests several things: 1) they don't have such a mechanism, or 2) they have such a mechanism but don't actively use it, or 3) they have a mechanism and use it but its too unwieldy for support staff to search, or 4) they have such a mechanism and use it but its company policy not to officially confirm those calls.

None of the assumption I made in the original post would be hard to retrofit. There is one other hidden assumption in that statement that may be wrong: I do assume that they use some kind of modern database to store the data (not some in-house hack).

To address the possibilities:

1) If they don't have such tracking & tools, then it would be very easy to implement on any modern database. Assumes of course that they use a modern database, which seems likely.

2) Well, if they have it THEY SHOULD USE IT. This is pretty easy.

3) If it's unwieldy, then pay someone to spend one month (or less) making it more weildy.

4) If it's not part of the policy, then change the policy. This is the easiest to fix.

#3 is the only questionable item; it is always impossible to estimate how hard it would be do fix someone else's design. But, assuming a modern database, acceptable DB design, and a desire for production quality code (but not shrink-wrapped stability or quality), 1 month (and probably 1 week) should be plenty to produce an in-house tool for use in verification of customer claims.

[transtemporal]

1) If they don't have such tracking & tools, then it would be very easy to implement on any modern database. Assumes of course that they use a modern database, which seems likely.

I agree it seems likely, but as an analyst-consultant I've worked in all kinds of Fortune 500 companies and I've learnt even the most supposedly modern and agile companies can be utterly stone age if the technology leadership don't have their heads screwed on properly.

2) Well, if they have it THEY SHOULD USE IT. This is pretty easy.

Well... that means I have to get my call centre staff trained up in that app, and that really costs me a lot. Can't I just instruct my staff to give a vague answer and fake a disconnect?

3) If it's unwieldy, then pay someone to spend one month (or less) making it more weildy.

Agreed.

4) If it's not part of the policy, then change the policy. This is the easiest to fix.

No, this is potentially the hardest to fix. Changing policy in an organisation of any decent size is hugely political. And where there are politics be dragons...

Ironically, this is one of the things that WoW does really well. A mates account got hacked and the hacker sold or destroyed a lot of his gear. Several phonecalls and a week later, he had every piece of his gear returned exactly as it was when the account was hacked. Now I was impressed by that. Thats awesome customer service. I shudder to think what the response would be if your DDO account got hacked.

[pjw]

I agree it seems likely, but...agile companies can be utterly stone age if the technology leadership don't have their heads screwed on properly.

Indeed, but working on the assumption that DDO developers and designers are stone age and do not have their heads screwed on properly seems counter-productive at this stage.

I'd prefer to believe that they use a real database, have moderately acceptable DB design, and have a vague corporate understanding of how it all works.

No, this is potentially the hardest to fix. Changing policy in an organisation of any decent size is hugely political.

Not sure about this one; Turbine do not strike me as being *that* hide bound. Yes, policy can be hard to change, but players need to be behind driving that change (hence this thread).

Players only play DDO to have fun. When hard work is lost due to DDO bugs, the fun rapidly turns into misery and disgust. If it only takes a policy change to fix this, then its time the policy changed.

Ironically, this is one of the things that WoW does really well...

Ditto EVE-Online; I lost an entire ship + cargo to pirates (players) due to player constructed lag; the GMs were not 100% convinced of my argument, but they reinstated the ship + cargo. They gave me the benefit of the doubt, and I assume the pirates still had the loot as well.

It's just a game after all, and when comparing a few virtual assets to one players misery, the choice is clear. (edit: Or, at least, it should be clear).

[phalaeo]

This really needs to be addressed. In game "support" on this type of issue is atrocious.

[Antheal]

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.


Either way, it doesn't look good for Turbine.

[Goldeneye]

ddo has support?
There was this nifty little button... but after the 100th time of "go f- yourself" I stopped trying.

[Xynot2]

The reason they dont is typical corporate F U. They have your money and know you aren't going to quit playing so what incentive do they have to actually do something? None. Dont expect a solution... ever.