Dear InnoGames

[Annelore]

Dear InnoGames,

You seemed to have forgotten that your Elvenar beta server players are actually your live server players too. They just happen to be found on one server instead of being spread across each and every single server that your game Elvenar uses.

I find your beta server rather odd, you have monetized it and treat it outside of when a bug occurs just like any another live server. With the added addition of being able to preview new chapters, events and features. Not so much the new chapter previewing since that’s only reserved for the long time beta player that actually reached the last chapter.

The ability to preview such things comes with small price bugs. At least it was a small price to pay until there was a bug involving diamonds. The bug that only a few of your beta player base knew about I only found out there was a bug dealing with diamonds when you went and fixed the bug and decided to dock part of your player base diamonds to fix any excess diamonds that may or may not have been given.

In doing so, you decided to take your generally approach when a bug that occurred and it’s been fixed and goods or some currency was affected. You remind the players that this is the beta server and bugs do occur and unless it involves real money we don’t fix it. Expect this time you did fix it and made the issue much much worse. You have attributed a real money value to each and every other method of acquiring diamonds besides outright purchasing diamonds. Those methods are story quests, spire, and completing a guest race research on the research tree.

Your response to docking all of the diamonds that part of your beta player base had was simple this there was bug NOW LIVE WITH IT.

I’ll end how I began reminding you that your beta player base is spread across all of your live servers too. And, you just left an awful bad taste in all of our mouths.

 

[Verde]

Have to wonder about the value of the diamonds that were clawed back vs the cost to the company/game of the negative publicity, which does tend to spread quite well when beta players return to their respective Live servers.
Advertising is reasonably expensive.

 

[Amy Steele]

Hi @Annelore as Deadeye Jerry has said elsewhere on this forum:

We are very sorry, that this issue occurred in the game and we needed to remove the Diamonds from your accounts balance. If you feel, that we removed too many Diamonds, we would kindly ask you to get in touch with our support so we can look at it on a case by case.

We apologise for the inconvenience that this issue has caused all of you. We know that Diamonds are a very sensitive issue and can understand, that this is very frustrating to all of you. So please, get in touch with our support and we will sort it out.

 

[Annelore]

Seeing how hardly anyone knows how the original diamond bug operated nor what part of the game it affected. Simply reiterating the same canned response that doesn't explain anything beyond you got diamonds in excess so you took them back. Isn't doing you nor inno any favors.

 

[Alcaro]

About this >>> If you feel, that we removed too many Diamonds, we would kindly ask you to get in touch with our support so we can look at it on a case by case.

This is so annoying and condescending. You know that almost no one kept a record of their diamonds (purchased, won on Spire or Genies, spent on items or Spire, and so on) so we are actually deprived of our rights just because we trusted Inno as a legit game and never crossed our minds that we have to take a screenshot of every single action we take because, it seems, Inno Games is definitely not trustworthy anymore.
Bottom line:
- NEVER BUY ANYTHING IN BETA, because now you have it, now you lost it, with shameless dismissal > you are on Beta, bugs* happen, get used with it.
- In live servers I already started to take screenshots at the start of the Spire, right before the end of it and right after we got the rewards. Thank you so much @InnoGames for making this game so "pleasant" and having a "general environment of trust".

 

[DeletedUser4235]

I can say with a 100% gurantee, I will never spend real money on this game again. I especially will not give my extra time or attention to Beta any longer.
This server has been falling apart for months.
The developers don't care about Beta, they don't care how it is run or how we or their staff are treated here.

This market has finally fallen to its lowest point with this debacle of accidentally giving diamonds for quests to random players.
1.They didn't even know that they were giving away diamonds in quests until it was brought up here (P.S. the diamonds I received for this bug report were also taken away).
*Consider that this Bug Report was created on February 24th.
2. The inhouse team or whoever then decided to make some funky formula code (almost a week after the first bug report) to take all of those accidental diamonds away from us.
3. They did not tell anyone diamonds would be removed from accounts or why they were being removed (and they still haven't said anything in-game to the players affected).
4. @Brummbaer had to make a Bug Report about it to bring it to light, to us and the moderators, that diamonds were taken.
5. But wait, there's more! They managed to also take way actual earned or bought diamonds from certain accounts that should not have been taken at all, but because of their coding formula to "fix" their error, they managed to take away even more than they should have.

This is all very unethical and brings up some serious legal questions and concerns.
They have reached their lowest point.

 

[GerdyaanB]

I can say with a 100% gurantee, I will never spend real money on this game again. I especially will not give my extra time or attention to Beta any longer.
This server has been falling apart for months.
The developers don't care about Beta, they don't care how it is run or how we or their staff are treated here.

This market has finally fallen to its lowest point with this debacle of accidentally giving diamonds for quests to random players.
1.They didn't even know that they were giving away diamonds in quests until it was brought up here (P.S. the diamonds I received for this bug report were also taken away).
*Consider that this Bug Report was created on February 24th.
2. The inhouse team or whoever then decided to make some funky formula code (almost a week after the first bug report) to take all of those accidental diamonds away from us.
3. They did not tell anyone diamonds would be removed from accounts or why they were being removed (and they still haven't said anything in-game to the players affected).
4. @Brummbaer had to make a Bug Report about it to bring it to light, to us and the moderators, that diamonds were taken.
5. But wait, there's more! They managed to also take way actual earned or bought diamonds from certain accounts that should not have been taken at all, but because of their coding formula to "fix" their error, they managed to take away even more than they should have.

This is all very unethical and brings up some serious legal questions and concerns.
They have reached their lowest point.

Akseli, thank you for this clear contribution and time line of events.

 

[Bor de Wolf 1965]

I know this is a BETA server so bugs will happen.
I know the devs will fix any bug as soon as possible.
I also know when a player suffers from a bug (end of chapter 18 when chapter 19 still dit not exist) they have to rebuild everything again and live with it.

So now there is a bug were some players actually have some benefits from.
I wonder what would happen if I bought some magical house/workshop upgrades with them or an expansion?
I would say revert back the revert and live with the knowledge that some players had some extra diamonds but leave it like that.
the game won't suffer at all from that little bit of extra diamonds in game were players could do something good for them self with it.

 

[Amy Steele]

You know that almost no one kept a record of their diamonds (purchased, won on Spire or Genies, spent on items or Spire, and so on)

Indeed, nor do we expect anyone to have kept such records. Please, if you even suspect that Diamonds were removed from your account that were rightfully gained, get in touch with our support team. We can check your account and make sure any rightfully gained Diamonds were not removed.

 

[DeletedUser4235]

Please, if you even suspect that Diamonds were removed from your account that were rightfully gained, get in touch with our support team.

The problem with this is that many players are not going to contact Support. They may not even know diamonds were received or taken. There was no announcement in-game during any of this.
I'm not going to be contacting Support with my accounts for several reasons. The handling of this situation is terrible (please read below).

It should be the developers who fix this. Not the support team, having to spend their entire weekend adding up and subtracting what they see in the diamonds logs. That's not right or fair to you guys. It can also cause errors in counting and accuracy.

We very much appreciate Support here. I really don't understand why you all stay with how you have been treated these last few months. Your dedication to the player base is remarkable.

However, when we're talking about real life money being taken away, that becomes a serious issue that has not been handled correctly by inhouse or the development team and that's the biggest issue here. You all can't help us in an ethical and prompt manner when your management is ignoring the situation and barely doing anything about it....and when they do get around to working on fix, it's also incorrect but they don't do anything about that either. Maybe they'll get around to it next week but I doubt it. Maybe if they see enough complaints they'll send out some apology, but who cares?

That is why this game is falling apart.
(I'm sure your support team is well aware of all of this and just as frustrated as we are. No need to reply as we do appreciate you all for your help. This is directed toward the INNO Elvenar in house team/developers/etc.)
They better fix their lazy and dismissive attitudes before they start getting in some serious legal trouble.

 

[Dorfl the Clay]

That is why this game is falling apart.

 

[DeletedUser4235]

Well, here we are, on at least the 10th day from when this bug was originally reported...
We have mentioned several times now that there has been no in-game announcement of diamonds being removed...and there is still no in-game announcement, notifying customers that they may have been affected by the theft "bug" of too many diamonds removed from our accounts.
Poor INNO can't be bothered during the weekend, even when hundreds of their loyal customers have been ripped off.
It's up to the small support team here (who are volunteer/unpaid/only required to work 1 hour a day staff) to pick up whatever pieces they can/are allowed to.
It's beyond ridiculous.

(Disclaimer that I meant to post this over here in the actual bug report. Ah well. I don't think it matters at this point.)

 

[Uffauffa]

… notifying customers that they may have been affected by the … “bug" of too many diamonds removed from our accounts…

Can we call all this stuff as a “grabbugging” activity?

 

[Willie B. Gone]

They have reached their lowest point.

Are you sure about that - the way things have been going with this game - I would be willing to bet that they are not done yet

 

[DeletedUser4235]

That's it for me. After almost 8 years playing this game, I am officially done. Deleting everything, everywhere as soon as I hit "post reply" here.

Look at all of the new bugs happening today during yet another Fellowship Adventure...with still no official fix or in-game announcement to the diamonds issue.

It's too much frustration. I want to enjoy the games I play and feel valued and safe as a customer. That does not exist here anymore.

Taking diamonds away was fraud and illegal. Only compensating those who know about the issue through support is fraud and illegal.

Your development staff are out of line and are ruining this game. Bugs are on all servers and little is being done about them anymore.

Your inhouse staff are out of line with the lack of help towards your own support teams. The lack of care or response to player’s feedback proves that the employee’s currently working on/for Elvenar simply do not care about this game at all.

 

[Lelanya]

That's it for me. After almost 8 years playing this game, I am officially done. Deleting everything, everywhere as soon as I hit "post reply" here.

Look at all of the new bugs happening today during yet another Fellowship Adventure...with still no official fix or in-game announcement to the diamonds issue.

It's too much frustration. I want to enjoy the games I play and feel valued and safe as a customer. That does not exist here anymore.

Taking diamonds away was fraud and illegal. Only compensating those who know about the issue through support is fraud and illegal.

Your development staff are out of line and are ruining this game. Bugs are on all servers and little is being done about them anymore.

Your inhouse staff are out of line with helping your own support teams. The lack of care or response to player’s feedback proves that the employee’s currently working on/for Elvenar simply do not care about this game at all.

I am sorry to read that you are leaving and do totally understand. Please stay in touch, I know that there will be a class action lawsuit when this travesty hits the live realms.
For instance I will say this. On live, and  only on live, I did notice the very occasional +50 when I had not just completed the frog boss. I have over 8k, and 95 percent of them were won in the Spire or Magic Academy. If Inno tries to 'rebalance' more than a couple of hundred, I will snap!

 

[yakmeister]

They already stole diamonds from me on beta, if they do the same in live, i will be pretty darn livid.

 

[GerdyaanB]

Dont the players deserve an answer on this ? Why should we still report bugs ?

 

[DeletedUser4239]

I thought this was well put on the German Forum. Hopefully someone, somewhere from the Elvenar in house team will see it.

Also, for the love of god, give your Beta players their diamonds back already! All of the players who have been affected.
Should we start a petition? A lawsuit? Should we all flood INNO Games Management (Hendrik Klindworth, Michael Zillmer) with emails about the fraud that happened over here?
https://www.innogames.com/company/contact/
info@innogames.com.
What is going on with this company?

 

[TimeMachine]

I thought this was well put on the German Forum

@cirakelley Thank you for your translating this.