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Mar 7, 2005, 8:32pm

So here I am, I own a p60/30 with tourist acess, and have 60 bot rights, so
on december when I renewed my world it was only a p60/15 and I only had 10
bot rights. Ray made me special deal to get my bot rights to 60 and buy 15
more users, it was still a lot of money. So yesterday I was with matt888
playing with my 60 bots in alphaworld before they are all in use for my RPG,
and Veritas. on the AWLD ppw freaks out because someone hacked the server
this weekend and they saw that matt had 60 bots logged in under my ppw, they
telegram me and eject matt for either a day or a week.(btw this was around
15000n 15000e). Then matt emails JP, and because of my bots were bought with
the renewal of my world and at a promotion they dont show up on the bill as
(50 more bots bought) and so they move my bot rights to 3, my step bro
called AWI and someone picked up "We are investigating" is all she
said...This is ridiculous, I thought AW was a big business in an office not
business in someones house with a DSL connection, or that's what they make
it seem like. I am steaming of how furious I am.

Mar 7, 2005, 8:48pm

Yep, my bot limit was downgraded for no reason also last month. After
e-mailing Ray, however, it was fixed.

Hope you get yours back up.

[View Quote]

Mar 7, 2005, 9:56pm

This is the e-mail reply I got from JP regarding the ejection and ppw
change. Guess what everyone! I am still ejected from alphaworld! I am
also very furious with the way we were treated!! I sent a reply to JP upon
recieving this e-mail to tell him that Im still ejected from AW which is a
big inconveniance to me, however it doesn't seem to matter much to AWI that
I am a citizen; a customer, yet they treat me and John like we are nothing.

-Matt


From : Activeworlds <jp at activeworlds.com>
Reply-To : "Activeworlds" <jp at activeworlds.com>
Sent : March 7, 2005 12:06:19 PM
To : "Matt Scriven" <matt_scriven195 at hotmail.com>
Subject : Re: Customer Service Issue

--------------------------------------------------

Hi Matt:

We had some attacks over the weekend that our technical staff was
investigating as to the perpetrator. Obviously when they saw 60 bots
running in Alphaworld they got concerned as to the intention of those bots
as they were causing lag on the world. The person that approached you
should have used is regular Aw name so as not to create confusion. I
apologize for that oversight on his part.

As for the bot limits, our billing records to do not show any payments from
a Mr. Tirado for 60 bots. As a result, the bot limits on that account have
been reset back to the normal 3 per citizen.

If there is anything more I can do to help, please do not hesitate to ask.

Regards,

JP McCormick
Activeworlds Inc.
95 Parker Street
Newburyport, MA 01950
978-499-0222
www.activeworlds.com

Please include original text in all replies
----- Original Message -----
From: Matt Scriven
To: jp at activeworlds.com
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 8:26 PM
Subject: Customer Service Issue


Dear JP,

Me and John Tirado were in alphaworld around 18000n 16000e and we were
playing with bots. John Tirado has a bot limit of 60 which he purchased.
Someone by the citizen name of Veritas. came and said this:

Veritas.: Hi

Veritas.: John will cut and paste to you

Matt888: (to Veritas.) hi

Matt888: (to Veritas.) who are you?

Matt888: (to Veritas.) how are you able to whisper to me

Immigration Officer: You have been ejected from aw

This is what John Tirado pasted to me:

Veritas.: Hi
John Tirado: (to Veritas.) Hi
John Tirado: (to Veritas.) How are you?
Veritas.: Your bots where launched from Matt's PC - he started 80 of them
(yours and other privs)
John Tirado: (to Veritas.) how did you find out tho O_O ?
John Tirado: (to Veritas.) You're not AWI are you ?
Veritas.: This caused a lag, if it happens again, and you do not change
your priv password, I have to take your bot rights down. I am sorry
Veritas.: Same is for Matt
Veritas.: did you understand?

Afterwards, John Tirado's privlage password was changed forcivly without
John's permission. I had permission from John to use his ppw.

I am very angry about this. We wern't doing anything wrong- if John
bought the bot rights, then he should be allowed to use them freely. Please
do something about this issue. I am not impressed with the way we were
treated, and if this continues then I will have no other choice then to take
my buisness elsewhere.

-Matt888 (#352884)

Mar 7, 2005, 10:44pm

and now, I go back to my original theory.
AWI is run by people who obviously know barely anything about either running
a business, managing it, or organising all their information/records
properly, and have just been luckily making it through these years.

A few things they need to realise are, first, the most important part of a
business is it's customers(which you think would be obvious) followed by
it's product and how they sell it ( just seams to me that AW have not been
putting enough work into the only thing they sell). Second, their employees
need to think, and check up information before they act, as they should be
expected to act professionally. third, they need to organise their
information better, and have it easily accessible.
You'd think that would be pretty easy to handle in such a small company...
oh, and sorry if I sound like I'm bitching too much, just really pisses me
off when they do things like that, and right now, I'm easily irritated.


-SWE


[View Quote]

Mar 7, 2005, 10:54pm

Introversion does way better than AWI, yet Introversion has only just 3
staff in 3 diffrent houses
Come on AWI, Christ

[View Quote]

Mar 7, 2005, 11:22pm

Damn them! :O Terrible service omg that sucks Matt and John.

[View Quote]

Mar 8, 2005, 12:50am

This is absolutly rediculous - and a clear abuse of AWLD privileges whoever
Veritas is he or she clearly has not realised that the AW server can host
500 sessions without blinking an digital eyelid.

I used 60 bots in AWTeen before, Johns PPW and several others to do some
promotional material for AWTeen - Noone (ok, maybe Aoshima) complained then,
effect on the server: Zip.

The bot rights were paid for and agree'd to, removing them would most likely
be a legal violation and even if the local state had nothing to say about
it, you can bet your life the BBB would.

- Mark R

> Veritas.: Hi
> John Tirado: (to Veritas.) Hi
> John Tirado: (to Veritas.) How are you?
> Veritas.: Your bots where launched from Matt's PC - he started 80 of them
> (yours and other privs)
> John Tirado: (to Veritas.) how did you find out tho O_O ?
> John Tirado: (to Veritas.) You're not AWI are you ?
> Veritas.: This caused a lag, if it happens again, and you do not change
> your priv password, I have to take your bot rights down. I am sorry
> Veritas.: Same is for Matt
> Veritas.: did you understand?
>
> Afterwards, John Tirado's privlage password was changed forcivly without
> John's permission. I had permission from John to use his ppw.
>
> I am very angry about this. We wern't doing anything wrong- if John
> bought the bot rights, then he should be allowed to use them freely.
> Please do something about this issue. I am not impressed with the way we
> were treated, and if this continues then I will have no other choice then
> to take my buisness elsewhere.
>
> -Matt888 (#352884)
>
>

Mar 8, 2005, 1:00am

This isnt the first time AWI has done absolutly stupid things as well.. is
it.

- MR

[View Quote] > This is absolutly rediculous - and a clear abuse of AWLD privileges
> whoever Veritas is he or she clearly has not realised that the AW server
> can host 500 sessions without blinking an digital eyelid.
>
> I used 60 bots in AWTeen before, Johns PPW and several others to do some
> promotional material for AWTeen - Noone (ok, maybe Aoshima) complained
> then, effect on the server: Zip.
>
> The bot rights were paid for and agree'd to, removing them would most
> likely be a legal violation and even if the local state had nothing to say
> about it, you can bet your life the BBB would.
>
> - Mark R

Mar 8, 2005, 3:52am

Must you post every _single_ personal communique that you receive from AWI
in the newsgroups?

I hate to be frank and I'm usually not this teed off, but it's no small
wonder that AWI won't have anything to do with the users when it comes to
things like world improvement. This stunt was exactly the reason why the
last overture backfired. You're not helping your case. Or the greater
good. If we can't be adult about human errors like this (which have NO
business belonging in these NGs), then there's no point in expecting AWI to
include us in any future plans for Alphaworld.

Common sense guys. Think beyond the immediate ramifications.


[View Quote]

Mar 8, 2005, 3:58am

This isn't the first time you folks have completely blown things out of the
water either.

You think we're different? Lucasfilm just pulled a similar stunt.
http://www.galacticsenate.com/index.php?showtopic=13488

To me this implies not that AWI is incompetent, but that there is a problem
between how corporations and their userbases are trying to adapt to the
instant feedback mechanism of the Internet. And instant feedback is
something that businesses have never in the past had to deal with before.

Chris

[View Quote]

Mar 8, 2005, 6:54am

What do you mean never had to deal with? Millions of calls to phoneline
support at made to companies every single day containing 50,000 support
staff, even if they are using a support screen.

AWI on the other hand has one, trying to deal with real-time issues not to
mention most the hardware going down at a seemingly frequent interval.

It is especially worrying how random people who noone has ever heard of pop
up, what effectivly acounts to revokes service (any changes to the 'terms'
of what you have paid for should be reported to the registered users email).

Why is it, you can go to Ray, Stacee, Chrispeg and even Rick and JP and
usually get help on the spot, people who we **know** are AWI, but random
people pop along and look to ruin it? heh... If they don't have that much
experience in dealing with the AW users.. why the heck are they doing things
that would provoke users... and not only just talky users, but the people
running TeenGate, one of the most popular worlds in AW that has contributed
a whole lot to AW still having a user count.

- MR



[View Quote]

Mar 8, 2005, 10:58am

[View Quote] Bum deal. What was the story?

Mar 8, 2005, 4:16pm

You oversimplify your case. That's all I have to say.


[View Quote]

Mar 8, 2005, 4:30pm

Here I go with another one of my multilayered messages. This should address
the immediate problem as well as some larger community concerns.

Lucasfilm doesn't know how to handle Star Wars websites run by fans. This
website scooped them on a photo of George Lucas's cameo character in Episode
3. It was a leaked photograph and so LFL sent a cease and desist order and
made the website take down every single episode 3 image on the website.
They're completely within their rights to do so, but tons of other SW
websites do exactly the same thing, but they did not receive C&D orders.
However, that's not the core issue.

The root cause of this, which I was pointing out, was that Star Wars fan
websites want Lucasfilm to use them in promoting their product. But
unfortunately an antogonistic relationship has developed. Rebels vs. the
Lucasfilm empire. Happened the same way with Star Trek fans and Paramount.
Same with theonering.net and New Line Cinema (except Peter Jackson, a man on
the _inside_, paved the way for cooperation between the two and they
eventually did develop a decent relationship). I don't know about you, but
this sound very familiar to me.

Some AW users want AWI to use them to help promote their product and improve
their worlds. But an antagonistic relationship has developed. And it will
continue to be that way until people stop posting personal correspondance
from AWI staff and screaming "Conspiracy!!!" every chance they get.

In other words, by posting crap like this, you shoot yourself in the foot.
By demanding change via popular uprising, you shoot yourself in the foot.
Both 'tactics' as some people would call them are completely ridiculous and
have never worked before. Even the use of such a word, 'tactics' screams
antagonism.

Chris

[View Quote]

Mar 9, 2005, 1:06am

and what kind of service were we "promised"?

Mar 9, 2005, 1:52am

Hey can you clarify that statement please? I'm not sure I understand what
you're asking? Or if I am, I'm not quite sure it's relevant?

Chris

[View Quote]

Mar 9, 2005, 4:12am

I take that question to mean *what has AWI promised us*? Nothing that I'm
aware of. We purchase the use of software, same as any other program ...
none of which do I think come with any specific promises like *we'll do this
for you, and we'll do that for you*. You pay to use the software, you pay
for support (not sure if this is actually in their terms of use LOL), etc
.... but no promises and no guarantees that I'm aware of.

LNH



--

[View Quote]

Mar 10, 2005, 4:09pm

The bot rights were never purchased, nor billed to the customer. This is
why there is no record of the transaction.


E

[View Quote]

Mar 10, 2005, 6:21pm

.... so how did he get a bot limit of 60?

- Mark R

[View Quote]

Mar 10, 2005, 8:48pm

I guess God has been giving miracles to customers of AW by raising their bot
limits.



[View Quote]

Mar 12, 2005, 2:32am

[View Quote] *raises hand*


i cant wait!


its because he licked a magical toad, and turned it into a customer
support representative, and then they fell madly in love, they got
married, and had a fairytale life, out of this they needed guest to
attend, so they raised their bot limit to 60, after this they found out
that an evil whitch that had originally cast the spell turning the
customer support person into a toad, was actually an evil CEO, who fired
that person originally, and then the tech person turned back into a
toad, and there went the legit proof!


that doesnt make sense to me either...so just skip it entirely...


-Chris

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