I am getting sick and tired of having to get pre-written garbage responses from so-called tech support. I really don't care if they take a while to get back to me. I understand there are allot of requests. But don't I at least deserve a real person to actually read what I have to say? I reported a bug, asked for help, and I get a response that pretends to be a real person, but then tries to help me with installation issues. I mean, come on! I included 3 screenshots of the bug. Do you people actually take me for a fool? There is no way anyone could have read my response (well, unless you don't employ English speakers) so why do I have to put up with an endless stream of this?

First time (posting) in the forum, so I thought I'd tell you guys what I think.

First of all, the game, is great. Not a lot of people realize the breakthroughs and paving of roadways this game has done, and for that alone, you guys deserve huge props for a job well done. I mean, the breakthroughs in procedural animation are just...mind boggling.

So, on to the suggestions. The first I thought of is a turntable for the online Sporepedia, but then I realized this would increase bandwidth, slow the site down, etc. So as an alternative, how about three images of each creature so we can get a better perspective of it? It seems like a fair compromise to me.

Secondly, improving of the Sporecast function. Not how they work in game, but how they are made through the Sporepedia. It is tedious and time consuming(although that doesn't seem to have effected people's wanting to actually make them; after all, what are we up to now, 40k Sporecasts?) to individually search for the creations you want.

Thank you for your time, and that's my 0.91 rupees.

Edit: Is it the actual spore players who are replacing curse words with the word spore on this forum? I'm going to test it out, so don't ban me. "SPORE"

Lol, that's awesome.

The one thing I would really, really like would be a way to have the Events on your ingame MySpore Page show up on the My Spore Page on the website at http://www.spore.com/view/profile.

Better searching capabilities and/or an API for accessing the information would be marvelous, but one thing at a time.

EDIT: By the way, I love that a link to all of my Sporecasts was added on the My Spore Page! Kudos!

The pages listing threads are so short that there's just room for a few threads per page. Threads plummet down page after page like rocks through water, and browsing through the list requires repeatedly clicking the page links. Even then, when things are hot the scroll pushes plenty of threads off one page and onto another before they can be read.

In this day of inexpensive, widely available high-resolution monitors, it seems to me it would be better to list twice as many threads per page or more. Users of older monitors would have to scroll vertically more, but that's easy and doesn't require a page reload; it just has the browser display different parts of the already loaded page.

If not a change for everyone, perhaps an option could be added whereby each user can choose how many threads per page to display? Or select from several choices?

Thanks,

Meffy

It is widely being considered that moderators are out of control, this is addressed to an actual employee - please address the situation for the sake of the community en large.

As they are doing it anonymously from this side of the window I can only list what is happening.

1) Valid and reasonable posts are being summarily deleted from feedback forums, where we are supposed to be critical (and I'm not referring to junk that contains content such as 'this game sucks blah blah', but real and relevant suggestions).

2) Subject matter is being summarily deleted without reason or feedback being given. How are users to know what is acceptable if no precedent exists and no rules of conduct are addressed? ie: posting ANYTHING about DRM now apparently results in a moderator threatening/ or eradicating your game account, yet no where has it been stated this is unacceptable.

3) The content of posts is being edited without notation and being altered to represent something completely unintended. I can only speculate the this is the work of rogue moderators or you have a security issue somewhere.

4) Multiple complaints about subjects being locked without ample reason given. Many of these complaints have been summarily erased from view (perhaps deleted completely). This IS an issue, again how are we to know what reason there was for locking if a thread has some two dozen responses in it - any one of them could have been the culprit and no one knows why.

Sincerely,
a very displeased and concerned customer

I would like to see the following function for the forums:

A "View All new Posts' function for each thread.

This way, I don't have to load every post/every page that I've already read in that thread, just the ones that have been posted since I last logged in or refreshed the page.

Anestis.

This might be only me, but i have noticed there is no option to remember the password in the login page. Is that a mistake ?

I sometimes visit these forums in my office which is behind a proxy server. I have to login everytime because the forums doesnt remember the last login.

Have I missed something somewhere ?

maxpower164 wrote:This might be only me, but i have noticed there is no option to remember the password in the login page. Is that a mistake ?

I sometimes visit these forums in my office which is behind a proxy server. I have to login everytime because the forums doesnt remember the last login.

Have I missed something somewhere ?

No, you haven't missed anything. 99% of forums have the ability to remember your password. Even the Spore website has that ability (IIRC< or at least it doesn't log uou out after 10 minutes). But the Spore forum doesn't.

I agree, this should also be implemented.

Anestis.

riamus wrote:The forum's not set to allow automatic logins. It's on my list of features needed for the forum.

...

I also want the events to show a LOT more than they do. The online events don't list everything the in-game events do and you're limited to seeing very few events in either location. Definitely needs changed.

QFT. These are the biggest things needed for the website, IMO.

Aaarrrggg wrote:The up/down arrows for the left hand menu in sporepedia feel like they're round the wrong way. When you want to see further down the list you have to scroll up the page and press the down button.

And that's a close runner-up. Making it scroll faster would be good, too.

I don't know if it has been said yet, and I apologize if it has, but when I see that someone has made a comment on something in my recent events, I'd like to be able to click on a direct link to that thing's Sporepedia card. I like to read my buddies' comments, and I like to see what they think is worth commenting on. I'm surprised, actually, that this option isn't self-evident.

What the heck is going on on the website right now? The My Spore page is gone, My Creations is only showing creatures and not the other stuff I've uploaded, and the forum link leads to an empty forum over on EA. Thankfully I had this forum bookmarked. Major overhaul in the works?

Numerator, thank you for starting this much needed thread!

First off, I would like to say that I am very thoroughly enjoying playing the game and using the Sporepedia. I have been delighted with the max complexity glitch fix, the listing of my Sporecasts on my profile and also the auto log in when coming from the 'Pedia to the forums - Bravo!

There are, however, a few things which I feel could be improved upon - most of which has already been said.

-In game rating: it is much faster and easier to rate a creature while you are playing than to log out and find the creature from the 'Pedia. I am very grateful that we can already comment in game, but I think this would be a huge improvement.

-Events section: while it is nice to know what your friends have been up to, I would really like to know more about what is happening with my own creatures and universe. I think that most people here do not care about whether or not their friends have interacted with some unknown creature, but we would like to know if someone has interacted with our own. As I have also stated in previous posts, it would be really nice to be able to look back at past events - even if it was just from the last day.

-Sporepedia (not in game) does not list all creatures: even if you do a search for "most popular creatures," there is only a list of 800, however, these aren't even the most popular 800 creatures - some are missing. In fact, it isn't even the most popular creation of the most popular creators. This is of course being judged by the rank listed by SporeScope for Firefox, but, even so, before the game release and the site changes were implemented, this was accurate. And, the search still does not reveal all of the creations being searched for. This results, of course, in a huge loss of available content and possible ratings of our creations. What I mean is, say someone has just purchased the game and started uploading their creations - well, the search wouldn't even show their stuff, so how are we to know they even exist?

-Communicating directly to creators: it would be really nice to privately converse with other creators without having to comment a creation or come to the forums (not everyone uses them). Alternately, you could implement the next suggestion:

-Use of "Mailbox" creations: many users have implemented a mailbox system to leave general comments for each other. If we could tag our mailboxes to keep it up front on our creations page, it would make it much easier to find and communicate to each other.

-The up/down arrows for the menu on the left: they do in fact feel backwards, especially when you have to scroll up your screen to get to the scroll down button. This seems like a quick and easy fix. Also, faster scrolling would be nice.

-Sporecasts: the ratings seem to not exist since every 'cast has a yellow smiley. I'm sure it is already being looked into, but just thought it was worth mentioning. Also, it would be nice to see what 'casts other people are subscribed to, so that I could also subscribe. This is really something minor, but it would be a nice feature.

-Buddylists: it would be nice to see who is friends with who. I know this could get really complicated, but I think it would be a nice thing to see who my friends like. Especially with my friends who are ultra picky about content - I know whomever they are friends with would be worth adding to my own list.

-The Forums: I would love to be able to increase the number of topics I can view per page, just to make my viewing faster.

That is all!

I have a real problem with the lack of technical support on your website. (this is specifically website feedback.) I have never once got any real response in a week from so-called tech support section of the website. I have submitted a copy of the damaged game file, instructions on how to recreate the problem, screen shots, and full details.

First I got an answer telling me how to install. (seriously. They tried to tell me how to install the game! in response to a BUG REPORT!!!)

(EARepAna)
09/18/2008 03:48 AM

Greetings,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.

I do apologize for the inconvenience you're experiencing with the game right now. I understand you're having installation issue with the game.

etc.

Then I got some useless bit of advice on scratched discs. Now I am being told it's not a bug at all but is actually a problem with MY computer.

If I don't get some real help soon from real people I'm just going to return the game. No game is worth putting up with this treatment.

(Samuel S)
09/24/2008 02:14 PM

Hi ,

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts Customer Support.

The error messages you submitted are not bug problems. They are however indicative that one or more of your memory sticks may be corrupt, or your hard drive is having issues reading and writing to your swap file.

If you need additional assistance or have further questions please reply to this email or visit our self help knowledge base at http://support.ea.com

Thank you,
Samuel
Senior Representative
Electronic Arts Customer Support

(this, btw, is the same idiot who told me all future requests on how to remove secuROM would be ignored and then promptly deleted record of it on my history of past questions. I hope someone fires him.)


So why is my problem being brushed under the table? Can they even read or fully understand english? Am I just talking to bots? Hello?

When a user destroys an empire while that empire is still attacking one of my planets, after the empire is destroyed that are *STILL* attacking. That has nothing to do with my computer. When a game is saved after these conditions have been met, the save file becomes unreadable and the game crashes when trying to load.

My SD-RAM is brand new. It has been in my computer for less than a few months, and I often run a program to check for physical damage and so far nothing has shown up on my scans so there is nothing wrong with it.

My operating system was installed fresh on 2 SATA-150 Hard drives at 500 GB and 7200 RPM each. These are as new as the RAM, and I get nothing but lightning fast read and write times. I run a disk fragment and scan disk often, and it can go through 500 GB in less than an hour showing no problems at all.

Furthermore, I do *NOT* experience these problems with any other program on my computer.

...

I have proven clearly how this is a bug, shown them how to recreate it, explained everything as detailed as I can. I could wait several weeks if timing is just the issue, as long as it meant I would eventually get real help from a real person, but I am personally offended here. If anyone actually reads this feedback, understand that customer support is about as important as the product itself.

Why does Phone Contact information no longer exist for any of Electronic Arts products or anywhere on this website? I can't even find an existing record of it elsewhere on the internet. I found fax and mailing information, but even 5 years ago there used to be a way to call someone on the phone and get real help.

http://www.computerhope.com/comp/ea.htm

Don't get me wrong, usually e-mail support works, but when I am at wits end trying to get help to no avail, I just want to be able to talk to a real person. I know EA is seeing record profits, so EA can afford it. Unless EA just invested in some kind of BOT that acts like a real person, using a list of words to estimate a given response? If so, it would explain why a bug report would be answered by instructions on how to install, since a real person would know what I am saying.

Then again, I think it would be nice if you added a simple to use Knowledge base that you would reach before getting tech help, where your questions get matched up with suggestions for help based on previous answers given to other people. As long as if that fails, we can end up reaching a real person eventually.

In short:

There are MANY things that can be done to improve our ability to get help when we need it. A section of tech support devoted to reporting bugs directly to the people who handle it, comprehensive help for those of us who want more than to report a bug. Information. Etc.

I used to think Sony Online Entertainment had the worst technical help. (they actually cursed me out in a live chat help!) but they at least had some help on a phone number. I have to say now that EA has treated me by far the worst. And it's sad, because once upon a time, I considered Electronic Arts to have the absolute BEST support of any company!

The innovation from the programmers, the kindness from the people I would call when I had a problem, there were so many reasons why EA became one of the biggest - if not the biggest - game developer in the whole world. Please return to being like that, take these words seriously.

Can we have a Questionnaire/Polls subforum for General?

If you look at General Discussion right now, you'll see that majority of the threads there are 'Do you...', [Poll], 'Show us your...' threads. Those kind of threads have very little discussion values, since people simply post their view or thing without regard to whether it have any merit, interest. Worse still, it clusters out truly worthwhile threads.

If people want to play forum games, vote in a poll, or just spam a useless thread, let them, but let them in somewhere that won't block off true discussions, what General Discussion is designed for.