Malf on 18/11/2020 at 17:42
It's taken so long to resolve my case, that if I were to buy the game today, I would get a hefty discount.
As today was the last day for me to escalate my case with PayPal, I contacted the UbiSoft support team via chat one final time. They have now promised to refund the purchase themselves, but a requirement was that I close the PayPal dispute.
Given their utter uselessness so far, I wasn't keen, but was able to secure a promise in writing. So if the worst comes to the worst, at least I have some legal recourse.
This whole experience has guaranteed that for the foreseeable future, I will not be buying anything directly through Ubi. If I want to play any of their games going forward, I shall by buying keys through the grey market. I would highly recommend that others follow suit, lest they encounter similar problems.
Malf on 20/11/2020 at 17:35
Finally got my refund (although not the 100 points I used to get a 20% discount), and the wholo experience has somewhat tempered my enthusiasm to say the least.
I don't see myself buying this in the immediate future.
And if and when I do get it, it certainly won't be through Uplay, unless it's a freebie.
faetal on 1/12/2020 at 16:30
Did they say what the problem was Malf?
henke on 1/12/2020 at 16:41
A shame you had some much trouble, Malf. I would've loved to hear what you think of the portrayal of London and the britts. As an outsider, it seemed pretty accurate to me. You guys all say stuff like "cor blimey iz da rozzas guv, ya betta scarpa", right?
Malf on 1/12/2020 at 18:26
Quote Posted by faetal
Did they say what the problem was Malf?
Nope.
Given my experience, I am assuming gross ineptitude.
Seriously, quite possibly the worst support experience I've ever had, with the one redeeming exception being that I did eventually get everything refunded.
Their case handling is atrocious.
Having raised the case, you would expect some sort of communication from them, right? Even an automated mail saying that they have received your query?
Nope, nothing.
So after a day or so of hearing nothing, you start at the basic level and post another comment to your case asking for an update.
Nobody responds.
So you're left with the only other option, which is to initiate a web-chat with an agent.
Only, despite being an international company, chat is only available at certain times of the day, and it's not even an 8 hour window.
You finally get an agent, and it's patently obvious they're reading from a script and are mainly just there to fend you off.
Under no circumstances will they commit to a timeline in order to provide you with even an update for your case, and they will never put you in contact with a superior, stating that they don't have one.
You are told to wait for an update with no idea as to when to expect that update.
If pressed, they will tell you that support can't resolve your case, and that only the "store" team can.
If you ask to be put through to the store team, they will tell you that they have no channel of communication with them. Which in itself raises a red flag, as if that's true, how will the team who
can resolve your case ever actually hear about it?
And here's the critical thing, that they won't tell you immediately:
Every time you start a chat session, despite it being the only way to ever get a response from them at all, it reverts your case to square one, de-escalating it and effectively putting you back to the start. I was only told this after starting several chat sessions.
Oh, and the icing on the cake?
If you contact them too many times, they will threaten to ban you from support for spam.
To add insult to injury, you will
never get put through to the same agent twice, which means no one person is responsible for handling your case, which in turn means there's no personal accountability on their behalf, and therefore no reason to process cases in a timely manner.
Fuck Ubisoft.
Edit:
Oh, and to top off this Kafkaesque nightmare, don't even bother trying to get an answer through Twitter either.
It turns out that any tweets they receive... get logged as a new case on the same system your existing case is already on.
faetal on 2/12/2020 at 03:06
Was about to cite Kafka, then saw your edit.
I fucking hate modern sales support - everything is designed to make you weigh up if it's worth the bother.
Good that you got a refund.
henke on 18/12/2020 at 17:41
Well here's a surprise. Watch Dogs Legion is GMTK's pick for "most innovative" this year.
[video=youtube;oYUZp4I3ksE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYUZp4I3ksE[/video]
There's no spoilers in the video. He goes into how the character generation system works and how impressive it is, and also how un-impressive its actual effects on the gameplay are. And, yeah, I agree. I do like playing as a big cast of characters, and the stories I create with these characters make them more dear to me than many pre-written characters, especially when it comes to Ubisoft protagonists (like that dull psycho Aiden Pearce). But on the other hand there's not really huge difference gameplay-wise between any of em. They all hack and parkour and do stealth-takedowns more or less equally well. I wish Ubisoft had gone further in making each charcter's strengths and weaknesses more pronounced.
Thirith on 18/12/2020 at 18:21
That sounds fairly similar to the recent Errant Signal video on Legion - to such an extent that when I got the Patreon update regarding GMTK I thought, "Didn't he already do that video?" Have you seen the ES video, henke? If so, are the two reasonably different so that they both warrant watching?
[video=youtube;kdEL4pf9tlg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdEL4pf9tlg[/video]
henke on 18/12/2020 at 18:42
Yeah I've seen the ES video. The GMTK video is worth watching for the demonstration of how the characters are generated, at least if you're interested in the nuts and bolts of gamedev.
Thirith on 18/12/2020 at 19:23
Cheers, I'll put it on my "Watch later" list then.