Atlan_of_Arkon

I think you're mixing something up there. The Suckmarines are on Ultramar.

No. See the multiple wrong and conflicting answers people had from support. Which they don't do. I've tested that, made a couple accounts on NA, got the birthday gifts on all of them. No, I don't. Here's what you have to do: Grab everyone whose b-day is set to "today" from the DB, send the mail and gifts (which is just calling existing functionality) and then (maybe) set a mark in the DB that the person has received the gift. Very very easy stuff, I wasn't kidding when I said you could let the intern code this (would probably take him a while, but so what?). And either you only described it very abstract and with a lot of details missing or he's just wrong. Sure merge conflicts and corrupted databases are bread and butter in the industry. But if that were the case we were talking about an unbelievably exact type of conflict/corruption. Because only the birthday would have been affected. And nothing else. The probability that only this one, very specific part of the system broke and nothing else is astronomical. And by all accounts the birthday functionality didn't break. All our birthdays are still set, new accounts can set theirs, we can change them (if outside of the 365-days lock, which is also working). And even if that were the case, just having a workaround is trivial. As is fixing this. Because if only one very specific tiny part is broken fixes are easy. "Fixing stuff" only gets complicated when multiple interacting parts are involved.

I think you have a very rosy view of what "customer support" is. These are not the actual engineers answering question and support tickets. They are people (nearly always subcontractors) sitting in a call center somewhere working off a script. They have even less of an idea what's going on than everyone else. Because I'm a SWE. Sending birthday gifts is dead easy. Like "let the intern in his 3rd semester of a CS course take a crack at it"-easy. Sure there are harder elements (setting up the E-Mail templates, setting up the services that send specific gifts to specific people, implementing the cashback-coupon) but those are independent of the "send birthday gifts" function and also clearly still work (E-Mails are still sent out, bonus codes still work, twitch drops & mission, etc.). Now can simple stuff break? Sure. Can simple stuff break in weird and unforeseen ways? Of course. Can simple stuff break without touching anything else, in a single region and be unable to be fixed for 3 months? Absolutely no way. Any halfway decent SWE could code up a complete workaround and replacement in a week. And that's already heavily overestimating the time requirement.

In this thread alone the said two times "next week" and multiple times "more info on the issue this week" (which either never came or was: "next week"). They said "next week" multiple times on stream. Then they got called out here and elsewhere for their "next week" BS so they moved to "no fixed ETA". Which is anyway a pure distraction over the core issue: There is absolutely no way that this system could be broken for months and not being fixed. Either it was turned off on purpose or nobody bothered trying to fix it. Circumstances heavily point to option #1.

You know I would suggest maybe just reading this single thread and looking at the responses by the CM or those copied from the streams ...

If they make a big song and dance about an update provided on Friday it's "fixed". Maybe not exactly on Friday but they wouldn't put up a show for "well things are still broken, see you next week".

Will there be any compensation for people that could spend less on PR Dockyard or Black Friday event because they didn't receive their coupons?

Well I'm sure it's totally, totally coincidence that after 3 months of "next week fam, don't worry" it's suddenly fixed just after the 2 patch transfer window and Black Friday event ends. Surely also totally coincidence that just hours before the CM says there's no news on the fix.

Hey how can you not believe that the fix magically will arrive in two days right after the Black Friday event has ended?

So in other words: the theory about not wanting the CIS players to get double rewards turned out to be the right one. And in the course of doing that not only have you fucked over the existing EU playerbase (and won't even turn back on the rewards before Black Friday is running out) but have also lied to us for weeks. What an awesome company, right?

Wow, so out of all the comments on the last few pages that's the one you chose to respond to? I'd like to say I'm surprised but on the other hands this is WG so what do you expect?

No. First off this is a database. These systems are designed to handle new data, updating old data, merges on a large scale (the entire playerbase of WoWs wouldn't even be enough to make the worst db-system on 20 year old hardware sneeze). Second the same problem would appear every time a new player account is created or an existing player sets/updates their birthday. Third if there were merge conflicts it would impact much much more than just the birthday. To have such extremely limited and targeted conflicts is laughably improbable. Forth it should not in any way impact existing players. Fifth it would be extremely simple to either fix, or create a workaround where just the existing players get birthdays. Sixth this conflicts with their "new platform" rhetoric. Seventh this problem would have also appeared on any previous server transfers. I think you are vastly overestimating how complicated sending birthday gifts is. The hard part is the "send player X and only player X some container/premium time/coupon/etc.". But that not only already exists but also functions perfectly. On EU we still have invite codes, time-limited codes for gifts, twitch missions & drops, steam missions & drops etc. etc. Just "find out who has their birthday set on date X and send them gifts Y" is an extremely easy thing to do. I'd be shocked if it were more than 20-30 lines of code. Easy things are also easy to fix or work around. For your cited conflicts it would be extremely easy to just ignore those and continue sending gifts. There is no conceivable way for something like this to remain broken for months. Which leads to my two theories. Either it was disabled on purpose or WG didn't even bother trying to fix it.

Okay, I didn't find any information that they stopped that. Still my other points remain. For any kind of problem resulting from the transfer to only impact the birthday gifts and everything else working normal is nearly impossible.

No. You can transfer to any server, but you will have to provide proof of identity and residence. The CIS -> EU transfer was just without those requirements and on a much larger scale. Even then, there is no way for any problems relating to that to only impacting the birthday gifts. Any kind of (database) problem relating to that would have a much wider reach. But we don't see any of that and we don't see any impact on other regions.

Sure, because EU is the only region with (incoming) server transfers, right? Right? Something like crawling the DB for people's birthdays and sending these gifts out is absurdly easy. Like "stuff you give your new coder to wet his fingers" easy. If this was impacted by the new server transfers we would see a lot more problems relating to that. But we don't. We see everything else working normally. And we only have this birthday issue in EU. And remember that we didn't just have "technical difficulties" as an explanation from WG. We also has "we moved to a new platform that is causing the issues". Like, what does that even mean in this context? And again: only in EU? And you can't fix it in months, for weeks keep saying "it'll be fixed next week", can't provide any explanation and can't provide any workaround? Even if there are multiple ways they could at least provide the 100%-coupons, as they are the most time-critical part of the birthday gifts? Sorry but none of this makes sense if it actually were "technical difficulties".

Sure, something as laughably easy as sending a birthday gift just randomly breaks for one specific region and can't be fixed in months. Or, you know, maybe not just believe blindly something a company known for it's myriad of lies says and engage your brain. As of right now there are only two plausible theories: they shut it down on purpose (maybe because of the CIS influx or to test their revenue without the codes) or they don't give a crap and haven't even tried to fix it. I find the former to be much more plausible, especially considering their behaviour around the issue.

This is great advice. It's also lead by a garbage company so you'd fell right at home. And you'll only need to switch the letters around if you want to complain about either.

This is great advice. It's also lead by a garbage company so you'd fell right at home. And you'll only need to switch the letters around if you want to complain about either.

Oh sure. Pure coincidence that this rework was done only on EU. Also pure coincidence that this was never tested and just rolled out to production. Another coincidence that they can't just roll it back. And even more of a coincidence that they can't do a workaround or partial/manual fix. And of course another coincidence that they take months to fix it. God, they don't even try to put any efforts in their lies.

You know what's the first thing I do if I realize the resolution for a problem will take too long? Look for a workaround or a bandaid-fix. And you know, there's a really easy one for the 100% "cashback" coupon, which is the most time-sensitive component of the birthday gifts: just promise to double the first doubloon purchase (up to 50k) made 7 days after the birthday (define a period of 7 days for all whose birthday lies between the start of the problems and now). Easily doable by hand and you could just send out an email to inform all players. I'm certain this is something already in the works, right? Right?

Considering the number of players involved you could just let two people from Fiverr do this by hand. But considering how these "technical problems" line up so very nicely with the CIS transfer and Black Friday/Christmas I think the real answer is pretty obvious. WG thinks they will earn more money without the 100% coupons.

Just as a test I created a new Account on NA yesterday and set my birthday to today. Guess what was in my inbox this morning?

Well they finally came up with an "explanation". It's of course utterly laughable, they couldn't even invent some stuff about "corupted db entries" or "problems with applying the cashback coupons" or something. Instead we get served with something that can charitably described as "fractal [edited]".

Oh wow, this is comical now. The "system" is a simple script that pulls everyone from the DB whose DoB is set to "today" and then creates the coupons/gifts and sends them a mail. I'd be shocked if this is more than 20 lines of code. Even if we take this explanation at face value I'd take practically no time to come up with a workaround which at least sends the 100% "cashback" coupons. Hell, given the number of (active) players involved you could just let two interns do it by hand. I'm also certain that it's pure coincidence that only EU moves to this "new platform" and it's also totally coincidence that this move happens right at the CIS server transfer. And also totally coincidence that it happens during the BF and Christmas period. Nothing to see here, move along.

Sure, I bet it will be magically fixed after December. Sorry, but something this simple doesn't take months to fix. Either they just don't care to fix it or they turned it off on purpose. The second one being more likely.