Email from acctmanagement

[Samir_Bennal]

Got this email regarding my missing 3 render pets.

"Greetings,



We are contacting to provide you with a status update regarding the missing pet issue that has impacted your account. We apologize for the delay, however we are still pursuing a fix to the issue, which will include a replacement of all lost pets and pet accessories. In the meantime, we have applied 600 Turbine Points to your subscription for you to purchase a new pet, while you await the return of your missing pet, or anything else in the store.


Thank you for your patience while we work to resolve this long-standing problem. If you have any new questions or concerns, please visit support.turbine.com. Please note, this particular Email Address is not monitored. Please do not respond to this Email directly, as you will not receive a response if you do so.



The Customer Service Staff

Turbine, powered by our fans"

First off, thank you for finally (2 months later, ticket filed on July 19th) responding about this issue. While I am grateful for the 600 points, I spent more than that to get the 3 missing renders. Also, it would be logical to assume that I would want to put these points towards replacing my missing pets but I can't since these pets were limited release pets.

That's 2 strikes. What will be the 3rd?

I have the other pets. I am missing the renders. So if I am getting points, it should be for the amount I used to get the pets that are missing.


Edit: Notice how the signature from that message says Turbine is powered by their fans? Are they referring to fans that are used to cool down a warm office? I am sure they do not mean the player base fans. If if were powered by us then we would have our missing pets back.

[Galeria]

I think it is a nice gesture.

It clearly says they are still working on it, and I believe we will get the original pets back.

[Samir_Bennal]

I think it is a nice gesture.

It clearly says they are still working on it, and I believe we will get the original pets back.

I totally agree that it is a nice gesture, however, I still feel they are being way too secretive about this problem vs. say, the missing air ship amenities. They were completely up front with us about the missing airship stuff. Also had resolutions to the problem fairly quick. The missing pets has been since June now.

[Galeria]

My guess, having a software background, is that they could just restore the pets to those who sent in support tickets and move on.

My hope is that the reason they haven't is that they are narrowing down the reason why it happened and in order to test it, they need actual anomalies with the still-missing pets to test and verify against.

In other words, I believe they can restore the pets but choose not to at this time until they determine why it happened and how to fix it so it doesn't happen again.

They can't tell us because they don't yet know for sure what caused it, IMO. I doubt someone is working night and day on this issue for two months- it's probably more like they have to wait for one thing to be fixed in another area to see if that fixes the pet problem, etc. A lot of interlocking parts makes it difficult to track the culprit.

[Evennote]

I sort of remember a post by Tolero (I think, might have been Cordovan) that said the reason pets weren't being returned was because there was a good chance they'd go missing again.

I have toons on three servers missing the pets that came with the MotU expansion, so there's no way of replacing those with any amount of points. But today's E-mail has given me a glimmer of hope that I WILL get them back someday - please, Turbine, don't let me down on this. The 600 points is a nice gesture, no more, no less. At least it's SOMETHING, which is more than I've gotten for the last two months.

[donfilibuster]

I sort of remember a post by Tolero (I think, might have been Cordovan) that said the reason pets weren't being returned was because there was a good chance they'd go missing again.

This. So yeah, the points are extra.

The thing with the airships was it happened repeteadly in a short window of days, hence the response was more visible.
I suggest not counting the strikes or you'll be either doing it very briefly or forever.

Widespread issues like these tend to make us wait till patch or following update, never via hotfix.
That means having to wait a month or two, altough i agree u15 have already came and go.

[Samir_Bennal]

This. So yeah, the points are extra.

The thing with the airships was it happened repeteadly in a short window of days, hence the response was more visible.
I suggest not counting the strikes or you'll be either doing it very briefly or forever.

Widespread issues like these tend to make us wait till patch or following update, never via hotfix.
That means having to wait a month or two, altough i agree u15 have already came and go.

Exactly, we have had another update since expansion launch and this isn't even on the known issues list. It should at least be there if nothing else.

[fco-karatekid]

That was a good call. They should have done that at the two week point, IMHO - woulda bought them lots more patience on the behalf of those who had pets go missing.

And to the OP - no you cannot replace them - this is a goodwill gesture to get you something in the mean time. Like I said, though, shoulda happened sooner to have been more effective.

[Bloodyfury]

At least you got an answer! And some extra pts while you wait to get your pets back. I filled my ticket on July 20th and I've never received any email or whatsoever, and the way things are going, I'll most probably take a break from the game before I get any news...

[Rauven]

My only issue with the OP is that the email states the fix will include a replacement of all lost pets and accessories so no, there isn't a logical expectation that you would use those points to replace the lost pets. If I lost a pet and I got an email that said 'hey, we're working on replacing it, sorry it happened but here's some points' I wouldn't buy a replacement copy of the lost pet. That wouldn't make sense since they just told me they're going to replace it.

I understand your frustration and would likely feel the same way if this had happened to me. I agree that they took far too long to acknowledge and respond to the problem. Just my opinion but strike I yes, strike II no.

As far as this issue not appearing on the known issues list; not to be flippant but it's a known issue that the known issues list doesn't list known issues. There was a dev or mod post a short while back that stated the known issues list is not a list of known issues but a list of issues that they have enough information about that they don't need more bug reports. Or something to that effect. I agree, it's a BS answer. I wish Turbine would be more forthcoming about known issues, whether they need bug reports or not. I wish Turbine had a bug tracker. I wish there was a way that we could follow up on our bug reports. At least see that there was been some internal acknowledgement of the report instead of the current canned spam response.

:::Edit:::
Found the dev post:

The Known Issues list is for bugs which we are internally well-documented and understood. The goal of the Known Issues list is to forestall additional bug reports from players, as they are no longer needed once we know the cause of a bug.

This is certainly not such a case.
Without bug reports, this won't get fixed, since we'll need them to figure out what's breaking.

:::/Edit:::

At least you got an answer! And some extra pts while you wait to get your pets back. I filled my ticket on July 20th and I've never received any email or whatsoever, and the way things are going, I'll most probably take a break from the game before I get any news...

The OP filed their report the day before you did so maybe you'll get your email tomorrow. Hey, it could happen.

[SirValentine]

Got this email regarding my missing 3 render pets.
<snip>
In the meantime, we have applied 600 Turbine Points to your subscription for you to purchase a new pet, while you await the return of your missing pet, or anything else in the store.

Interesting. I got the same email...but with a different quantity of Turbine points.