I wrote this on Alla originally, but this is relevant for everyone.
Square Enix, if you wish the community here to even consider trying your new MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 it's imperative that you take a long hard look at your customer service. Now I'll be the first to admit that the MMORPG industry for you is still in its infancy, and it is true that you have learned an awful lot over these years, but with the upcoming release of your next generation MMORPG, you have a lot of growing still to do if you wish to have a strong presence of FFXI veterans in FFXIV. In the past, it hasn't been terribly necessary to maintain a strong customer service branch, mainly because defective products would probably be the only call you would generally receive.
Now, times have changed, and with the recent influx of false-positive auto-bans of legitimate players caught up in your latest it is clear that there is a growing discontent (to put it lightly) with your lack of decent customer support (at the very least amongst your English speaking customers). People are getting banned most likely by the automated programs for doing things which up until recently haven't seemed worthy of notice, that is until the Real Money Trader organizations started using them for their profit making schemes. And this isn't even a new type of development, as in recent years your valiant efforts against the RMT have seen a progressive destruction of less and less common ways for legitimate players to make gil in the game. And this isn't even the core of this complaint, but it is worth mentioning for it's relation.
My complaint, and I'm sure that many others share it, is that when the players not connected to any RMT organizations are automatically banned, they have little to no recourse in getting the mistake corrected. Their efforts in trying to get the ban removed are met with either ignorance, apathy, miscommunication, double-talk, or blatant lies most likely borne from ignorance. It is incredibly disappointing for people who have put many years of work into their characters to be told that their ban is permanent and cannot be negotiated at all, especially when the ban was enacted by an automated program without review by human beings.
All this is unfortunately just another example of the poor reputation your customer service has built up over the years through inadequately trained, informed, motivated and empowered staff and systems. And here at this time is finally where it can seriously hurt your financial gains. We as a fanbase have had almost infinite patience with your customer service over the years, and a relative few people ever quit and never returned due to your shoddy communication and service. Now is the crunch time where either you have to fix your faults in these areas or your next MMORPG is going to suffer, and not reach the full potential it can.
I was enthralled by the idea of a next generation MMORPG from a company that I have been loyal to for many years, a next gen game with similar systems to the ones I have become fluent in in FFXI over the years. I'm sure many other people felt the same way when you announced FFXIV, however that joy can be easily quashed when we have a reminder of how you (at least on the surface) think of your customers. In having a program ban people under false pretenses, and without being open, honest, and forthcoming with those people, you appear to us to be uncaring, so uncaring as to let an automaton destroy years worth of legitimate effort without any review or oversight by human beings capable of rational thought.
Now I ask you, as I'm sure people banned and not banned have been asking themselves, Why would I play another SE MMORPG when I could lose all my efforts to a false positive from an automated program without any hope of review? Why would any of us want to try another MMORPG from you when we see how easily our efforts can be made for naught simply due to machine error?
The customer service game is different for you from what it was before FFXI. In the game industry, there's a lot you can't really control about gamers and their preferences. If a gamer doesn't like one of your games, it could be due to any number of preference factors in style of game, artwork, etc... Never have I read or seen an instance where someone wouldn't buy an offline game because of the lack of upfront and honest customer service and community communication. In the world of online games, this is different, mostly due to the nature of the beast. In an online setting you need to be more honest and forthcoming to your players, they are willing to subscribe to your services and they deserve that much. If the players are treated badly, they will not continue to subscribe to your services, and they will be unwilling to give you more of their money in new games whether they be online or offline.
You have stated that you wish FFXIV to be familiar to FFXI veterans, and clearly intend for there to be some similarities between the two games. However, you won't have very many people willing to make the transition to a new game if you continue to treat us the same way you have for 7 years in terms of customer support and communication. One of the strongest pulls for people to continue playing FFXI after all this time is the connections that are formed with people they have met and adventured with on this game, a lot of us stay around for them, despite all your customer service and lack of communication has done to drive us away. When we start out a new MMORPG, we have no connections formed with people we have met on that game, and if the detrimental forces are still unchanged, there won't be much to keep us in a new place.
I know in the past years you have seen great success with your games, and they have resulted in revolutionizing a number of aspects of the gaming industry. I implore you though, Do Not Forget Final Fantasy I, so named because it was expected to be the final death whisper of your company. It was your fans that made your games such a smashing success, and it is your fanbase which continues to make your games such a smashing success. If you take the time to talk with us, be open and honest with us, and give us a little clarity when it comes to our punishments, we will stick with you. If you take us for granted, we will leave you, and your final fantasy will be just that.
-Stumps