Support the IAH Granado Espada hack victims! Sign the online petition today! Please pass the petition around your faction forums, blogs, IM buddies, etc.

http://www.petitiononline.com/iahgames/petition.html

Christmas is coming, and so is end-of-year financial reports, so IAH is getting more "creative" (i.e., ethically questionable) in extracting cash from Granado Espada players. First there have been changes to IAH's online casino, Hellena's Circus of Fraud. Apparently, players weren't throwing their money away in sufficient amounts, so IAH lowered the price to pick a card and increased the value of the prizes. Now players can gamble for Elite Level 96 armors - items that should have been obtainable through normal game mechanics, but thanks to IMC's and IAH's manipulations of in-game scarcity, there is bound to be a stampede to the House of Fraud.

I gave it some spins myself, and I discovered the magic card does not even occur in every hand. But the four jokers are in every hand. Therefore, while IAH won't give players the drop percentages for the e96 armors and allow players to make an informed decision on how much to invest, players can be assured there is a 4/10 chance of getting ZERO for every gamble. All I could draw is tokens worth "1", which I saved up slowly to massively overpay for some costume items.

The other cash-grabbing "Event" is called Make Little Efreet King. In this Event players pay for hunt quests to win surprise boxes. The surprise boxes drop monster parts. If players can construct a whole monster, they may win a prize...IF the limited prizes haven't already been taken by other players. Therefore players have several incentives to keep paying for play after play: they don't want to waste what they've already spent, so they keep spending until they can assemble a monster. Also, players are racing with other players to get to the prizes before they are gone.

Of course, players have no idea what the drop rate is for the monster parts. So far I've paid for 100+ tries, and I've only gotten a monster "soul" twice - both for lesser prizes. The other parts drop unevenly, which makes it difficult even to turn in sets of one type of monster parts for the minor consolation prices. Out of 100+ tries I made only 3 sets of Monster Bodies (prize: vet xp cards) and no complete sets of Monster Blood. I got around 15 Cerebus Bodies and only 4 Bigfoot Bodies. The drop rate for Blood was much lower - 1 or 2 of each out of 100+ tries. Still the top prizes were gone withing 2 days of a one month event, so players must have been throwing money at IAH like there was no tomorrow. Expect to see this Event come around again...and again...and again.

Would I have participated in the Make Little Efreet King Event if I had known how low the Soul drop rate was? I'm not sure, because the top prize (Elite Le Noir) armor is pretty darned tempting, being impossible for someone like me to get through normal game play. However, it was depressing to see how much money I spent for nothing, and how I had to keep spending in the hope of getting even a minor prize. As usual, a lot of people cried "IAHed" and felt they over-spent. I don't think it's in IAH's interest to construct Events that make players feel bad in the end. Perhaps the chance for an Elite Le Noir will pull them in every time, but it's also likely players will quit Granado Espada all together just to avoid such temptation.

I regard the Make Little Efreet King Event as exploitative and sleazy, but I don't think it's in the same category of outright online gambling as Hellena's Circus of Fraud. I think IAH oozes out of it by offering a few xp cards as a reward for each play. Those xp cards are certainly not worth the price: they represent around an hour of manual leveling for a team of three. But I suppose any virtual prize, worthless as it may be, counts as getting "something" for your money.

Here is what I don't understand. We are talking about virtual items, and once there is a template of a virtual item it can just be copied to use for a prize. Why does there have to be "blanks" at all? Why is IAH deliberately increasing the risk of their activities being defined as online gambling, when all they have to do is make sure some prize is offered with every play? It would be much harder for players to argue relative worth of virtual items before a judge: but it's easy to complain that Little Jimmy lost his Christmas money when he gambled and got a "joker" (or a "blank"). That said, why is IAH so stingy even with consolation prizes, to the extent players still feel they wasted their money even if they got a virtual "something"? It should be in IAH's interest to make everyone feel like a winner and attract more players to Granado Espada.

I'm genuinely baffled. Please enlighten me in the comments.

Dear IAHgames CEO Roland Ong,

Once Granado Espada was IAH's flagship game, regarded as a "rice bowl". However, management failures led to massive attrition of the customer base, and now IAH staff are struggling to find ways to get fewer customers to pay more - largely through unscrupulous means. IAH staff has failed to understand three years of customer objections to being scammed, and has shown an unprofessional tendency to try to make customers feel sorry for them or, if that fails, to badmouth the customers and try to shut them up.

I believe this unprofessionalism can be remedied with a simple training exercise that will put IAH staff in the same position they have been placing customers.

First, announce to IAH staff that they will not be paid for their work this month. Place the money *they* have earned at stake.

If IAH staff complain, tell them they are stressing you out and imply Human Resources or some new Government measure is the reason.

If IAH staff continue to complain, declare them to be biased. Call them whiners, troublemakers, or anything else that makes them sound in the wrong.

If IAH staff continue to demand their paychecks, disrespecting your assessment of their bias, then sew their lips shut so they can't respond. Then bring in some suck-ups to confirm your opinion that they're biased and announce there is a consensus.

Kick IAH staff out of the building. Since you withheld their paychecks, they are too poor to afford lawyers. If someone happens to have a lawyer in their family, laugh the whole situation off as "just a game."

After this exercise, IAH staff should appreciate the value of their customer's money more. If you want to test them, make an account just to issue a scam complaint on the forum and see which IAH staff treat them with respect and acknowledge that the "stress" is being felt by the person who was cheated - not the IAH staff who are being paid to address such problems. Promote the IAH staff who now understand the concept of "customer".

Occasionally when IAH makes a really big public relations mistake, they fly a special spokesperson into the Granado Espada forum to calm everyone down and spread a thick, sticky layer of propaganda over the whole thing. The propaganda pinch-hitter used to be Hrin: now that Hrin has jumped ship, the pinch-hitter is MeekPokTah, also known as Uncle MPT.

So what did Uncle MPT have to say after sharp warnings of "watch your language" failed to stem the tide of outrage?

First, Uncle MPT lied. He tried to make it seem like a democratic process where IAH was gathering all opinions in order to improve their product. However, the previous actions of IAH to discourage critical speech and ban "negative" voices means the forum has already been deliberately shaped in a way that will only provide distorted feedback. If IAH is getting significant complaints from a forum that has been carefully packed with pro-IAH voices, imagine what the assessment of Hellena's Circus of Fraud would have been if IAH understood honest feeback involves dissenting voices?

Uncle MPT did let slip that he regarded some of the feedback as "biased". So even a forum engineered to sound to positive will be "biased" if they reject IAH's renewed attempt to change Granado Espada into a thinly veiled gambling operation or if they resent customer money being used to conduct IAH's beta test? It seems like every staff member of IAH been rigidly programmed to perceive whatever they don't want to hear as "bias"? Why is the emotional onus of being scammed being shifted onto the victims? Is it biased to see that the only beta test here is what combination of tricks will soak players for the most money,

IAH has ALREADY gotten feedback on this sort of business model from player reactions to Adelina's Booty Search and the various versions of mystery boxes. Why would IAH just do the same thing again and claim they care about feedback? Maybe another part of the test was whether IAH's blatant efforts at opinion-control has resulted in a "tame forum" yet. It gives me renewed faith in the power of the people to see IAH has failed. Keep speaking truth to bullsh*t, guys!

Pretending IAH was interested in democratic feedback wasn't the most outrageous thing Uncle MPT said. Check out this quote:
First of all, Granado Espada is advertised as Free-to-Play. Is Uncle MPT saying that Granado Espada is no good since it's free, or is he saying IAH is lying about it being free? I think it's the latter. IAH has been entirely cynical about using "free" to lure people in while trying to whip them up into a frenzy of spending once they have the suckers caught.

Other players may justly point out that IAH has to make money somehow. I understand this, and I have no objection to creative business models. What I do object to is business models that are about deceiving people, using psychological manipulations and elaborate misdirections to trick players into spending more than they would reasonably budget. If the product is really worth something, then there should be no problem with putting direct prices and allowing customers to make reasoned decisions to buy. If a company can only sell through dishonest tricks, then they are running a scam rather than a true business.

The thing IAH needs to understand is Granado Espada itself is the game. Players signed up to play Granado Espada, not Adelina's Booty Search or Hellena's Circus of Fraud. Any expansion of gaming content should be implemented within Granado Espada. If IAH needs a "long term system" to fund Granado Espada on top of selling game credits for the cash shop, then they should be looking at what the problem is with the cash shop: Are the items offered in the cash shop not desirable enough? Has IAH lost too many customers through game management issues? Is IMC not providing enough new items for the cash shop to keep the revenue stream moving? Has IAH's business reputation been a factor in losing customers and losing revenue? Does IAH really want to be in the casino business, or to run a game that attracts only rich people who will compete on how much they spend - perhaps part of the problem is that promoting a game as Free-to-Play attracts people who expect the game to be free.

If there is a significant failure in IAH's business model, using fancy deceptions to soak them for a bit more cash will only make things worse. The untenable structure will eventually collapse anyway, and IAH's only legacy will be angry customers and angrier investors. If Granado Espada CAN work as an honest business, IAH should look for honest solutions to its business model problems.

The most frustrating thing is that IAH hasn't learned from experience (and previous, genuine customer feedback). Instead they only try to change the circumstances around to see if they can finally get away with the covert casino thing. When will they realize it's this shady business model that's the problem - not "biased" feedback or "troublemakers" or an Army of Anti-IAH Forces that Must Be Defeated. After three years of business boo-boos, IAH should realize the small customer base they have left are the most loyal ones, the ones who most want Granado Espada to succeed. Every time IAH tries to revive the same old scam plan, it dishonors their loyalty.

In the past IAH has justified gambling games like Adelina's Booty Search by saying the gambling chips were mere bonuses for buying something else (game credits). When IAH attempted to sell the gambling chips directly, this "service" was discontinued because of "legal issues". I think it's safe to assume the legal issue was running an underage gambling operation.

Now IAH is at it again with Hellena's Circus of Fate, a gambling game where players directly purchase the opportunity to Pick a Card. This game is more complicated than Adelina's Booty Search, adding more layers of misdirection to obscure how much a player is really spending for a "prize" that would cost a fraction of the money spent if purchased directly.

For Adelina's Booty Search, IAH was always forbidden to give the odds, and players had to wait for the inevitable outbreak of outrage on the forums (which IAH also attempted to suppress) to find out the average real cost of the prizes they wanted.

With Hellena's Circus of Fate, IAH is back to running a gambling operation. Are they trying to capitalize on the time lag it takes for lawyers or oversight committees to catch up to them? Perhaps they think they will get away with a hefty profit before the law catches up with them: then they expect to claim ignorance and apologize (without offering any refunds of course).

The holiday season is coming up, so IAH must be trying to get their greedy paws on the children's gifts: the pennies from the Christmas stocking, Grandma's Christmas check, the red envelopes of ang bao money. The season to make children happy has become the season of corporate pickpocketing. The season of children's happiness, has become the season of children crying over being scammed.

Is Hellena's Circus of Fate actually a scam. Granado Espada forumers are already saying though. When you pick from 10 cards, there are 4 chances to get a Joker - i.e. no prize at all. Most of the other cards will be for a normal token, and the player will have to play the game (and risk getting the joker) many times to build up enough tokens for a prize. If a player is very lucky they will get a "golden token" and be able to pick any prize. Other it's an elaborate scam where players end up spending more on gathering normal tokens than they would on buying an item directly. It's no coincidence each chance to pick a card costs the same amount of real money as the notoriously scammy Spam Boxes.

Hellena's Circus of Fate is without a doubt a scam. Yet IAH employees are already busy telling cheated players who use the word "scam" to "watch their language". Known "tame forumers" of IAH are advertising they got the best prize for a very small investment, encouraging others to gamble. I wouldn't be surprised if mysterious new (fake) forumers started showing up to "balance out" any attempts players make to warn each other. Those pointing out the scam will be isolated as an unlucky "minority" or "troublemakers" who "complain about everything."

Everything in IAH's past behavior shows that they have no compunction about resorting to this sort of thing. As for the "tame forumers" who are shielding IAH from criticism and abetting the scam (you know who you are) - shame on you. You may think you will get some benefit from sucking up to the big powerful corporation - but is that worth helping to cheat your friends and fellow gamers?

Ps. I was looking for the general analysis on developers and investors trying to slip gambling operations into MMORPGs,, and I found some law student posted a huge analysis of the problem back in 2005. I haven't finished reading it and I don't know if I agree with it yet, but I think it's worth posting the link just to show the online gambling issue has been a matter of concern for a while: if lawyers have been looking at it, judges will be too, eventually. Here's the link: Internet Gambling and the MMORPG.

I'm in the process of getting a new computer, so I won't be able to do any eye-witness reporting on IAH or Granado Espada for another week. However, I do have a customer service complaint that's been languishing in my inbox. As in the hacking cases, I will just reprint the exchange here and let the public be the judge.

Here is the background to the case: IAH implemented a Granado Espada patch that reduced the number of "enhancement boosters" needed to upgrade items. If a player does not purchase these boosters from the cash shop, their item can break (and disappear) in the upgrade machine. The customer below was confused about how many boosters were required after the patch, and he ended up losing a valuable item. As usual IAH disregarded their numerous communications issues, confusion arising from the patch, misleading info stated on the properties of the items themselves, and the money the customer already wasted on boosters and previous upgrades to their item - IAH just made a crass grab at the customer's wallet.

Customer Complaint to IAH:
IAH Ultra-Lame Answer:
IAH's customer service representative is LYING. IAH says in their own Game Policy (i.e., their Terms of Service) that item replacement is handled on a case-by-case basis, and cases with "merit" can be reimbursed. Yet IAH's frak-the-customer service representatives aren't even looking at the case and have apparently been trained to ignore IAH's own ToS: they say their "only" option is to keep charging the customers more money.

Today I realized another problem with IAH's draconian attempts at thought control on the Official Forum. It's now very hard to consolidate customer experiences when bad patch code from Granado Espada's developer IMC is wreaking havoc with regular game play and damaging their customer's computers.

Ever since IAH introduced Team Arena, a popular instanced battle/raid, there have been complaints about some groups being spontaneously disconnected from the server. This is happened to me a few times, and it's always frustrating because I have to get up really early just to participate and it's easier for me to join these instanced raids than bother with the free-for-all bosses that tend to be monopolized by epic botters. IAH is obviously having some problem with the amount of server connections, and they should have addressed this long ago just for the sake of correcting a major game disappointment and improving the game experience.

One of the problems with these regular disconnects is that it's hard to gather information on when disconnects have increased or whether anything else unusual is going on. It's normal to see people complaining about their group being disconnected. At this point, most players think it's useless to even mention it. There's no where to take a count.

Under customer-friendly conditions, the place to get a rough take on an emergent technical problem was the forum. This was the only way for players to vouch for a common experience and move IAH to consider a larger problem (their customer service representatives aren't technically knowledgeable and tend to respond to individual tickets with an automatic it-must-be-your-computer reply).

Even before IAH decided to turn the forum into a Brand Vehicle, they would attempt to dismiss technical problems as the customer's own problem unless the customer could PROVE it was IAH's fault (um, by hacking into their servers maybe...?). The most notorious instance of this was several months ago when some code error was causing many players to bluescreen and reboot. This was an extremely scary experience for players as each time their operating system re-organized itself to reboot, there was a risk of permanent corruption, requiring a total reformat.

While IAH tried to represent these crash-reboots as dozens of  "unrelated" personal problems on the forum, players continually broadcast their plight in-game. I finally asked for a headcount via the broadcast system (which would only represent those online at that particular time, and who had the "microphones" needed to broadcast). I got an avalanche of replies, pasted them together in a screenshot, and sent that to IAH. Still IAH refused to acknowledge that the problem was being caused by bad code.

Two weeks later the problem was mysteriously fixed. During the time many players were experiencing the same problem, I experienced over 10 crash-reboots. Then something changed, and I haven't had a crash-reboot since. The in-game broad complaints and the posts on the forum stopped at the same time. It's obvious that the code problem was fixed. Yet IAH has never acknowledged that there was a code problem or apologized for the shabby way they treated their customers during that period. Maybe IAH thinks magic gnomes caused the problem, and then some Fairy Godmother waved her wand so all the customer problems were fixed?

The crash-reboot incident came to mind today because my computer went black during Team Arena. I had to restart, and when I looked at my computer's Error Log, it was clear I had experienced a blue screen without the blue part being displayed. The other members of my Team Arena group were "disconnected" about the same time. The problem also shows up in the error logs for my video card. There are 4 exceptions related to my Client being "already registered." My computer spontaneously made a bug check.

As mentioned above, the scariest thing about a bluescreen is that it might require a reformat. I would like to minimize such bluescreens as much as possible. Since as far as I know I'm the only one who got a bluescreen during Team Arena, it might be a problem pertaining to my own computer, and I plan to do a number of health checks. However, since the rest of the group disconnected at the same time and my errors pertain to "client registration", there's also a possibility this is a coding error that needsto be fixed by IMC.

Now the problem is how to communicate the issue to IAH, much less IMC. Because the disconnection problem is normal for Team Arena, it will be hard to get an in-game headcount or any community realization of a new problem. Because of IAH's "never portray us in a negative light" attitude toward the forum, it will be hard to build a case there, either. I personally wouldn't be able to contribute to a forum headcount.

I really hope this Team Arena bluescreen isn't a prelude to another huge crash-reboot fiasco. If things get that bad, and IAH foists Official Non-Acknowledgement on the customers again, they will probably end up losing customers who would otherwise be happy to stay if their computer wasn't being placed at constant risk. Another thing IAH should think about is that they've cut themselves off from an early warning system: now the damage will be widespread and customers will have to dial up the noise to ear-drum shattering levels before they will even know there's a problem.

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When I mentioned Facebook casual gaming scams in my previous post, I somehow managed to miss that there's an epic debate going on regarding this very subject. I will blog on it more because many of the issues involve all F2P game models, and many points are relevant to IAH and Granado Espada. The situation also provides a sad insight on how Developers are starting to view games as nothing more than vehicles for revenue streams: under those circumstances, scamming becomes a synonym for success. On the bright side, the Facebook Scams Affair might generate enough player energy to form watch groups and  some form of community self-defense on gaming ethics issues.

There are many, many blogs covering the Facebook Casual Game Scams debate, but I think most of it is summed up in this TechCrunch article: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/31/scamville-the-social-gaming-ecosystem-of-hell/

While doing some research this week, I found a situation where a company apologized for deceptive, exploitative, and socially corrosive marketing. IAH should take note of this model for the next time they have to dig themselves out of a hole! This was a wonderful apology which imbued me with respect for a company I've never heard of. They not only apologized, they showed they understood exactly why their behavior was unethical and explained the consequences so others might understand and follow their example.

Here is Carsonfield's apology for incentivizing Twitter spam:
http://carsonified.com/blog/carsonified/misc/twitter-competition-why-we-were-wrong/

This sort of apology doesn't hurt business: it enables customers to trust them and continue doing business with them. I hesitated to even spell out what they did here because I think they've rectified the problem and don't deserve any further negative PR. However, so many other companies get into situations where they really need to apologize and yet insist on making things worse by going into silent mode or, worse, attempting a cover up: apparently they can't figure it out without an example.

Worse than no apology is the BAD apology. Bad apologies include:

1) Backhanded apologies where no wrong is admitted or patronizing apologies that put avoidance of  "legally-binding admissions" before customer care. Stuff like "We apologize for how you're feeling, but not for anything we've done wrong."

2) Apologies conducted in biting satire (Dreamhost is famous for this). Stuff like "We did wrong but if we make the sacrifice of laughing at ourselves then customers shouldn't make further demands that we actually fix anything."

3) Apologies that seek pity for the beseiged company/workers rather than placing sympathy with the customer. Stuff like "Customers are always complaining! We are under so much stress right now! Don't speculate on what we are doing or beg for compensation or express how much stress you the customer are going through - this just places more stress on us! :( :( : (

*Note the extra frowny faces for more pity that often accompanies Bad Apology #3.

Honesty really is the best policy. When Carsonfield explained what they did wrong, it gave customers confidence that they would avoid doing the same thing in the future. When a company fails to apologize or offers a Bad Apology just to mollify people, it leaves the lingering suspicion that they will just do the same thing over and over and over again. IAH has committed the same sort of follies over and over again, and each time they seem genuinely surprised at the reaction. IAH doesn't seem to have any institutional memory, while longstanding customers remember every incident and every skipped apology.

IAH will never be an ethical company until they learn what they have to apologize for and actually make the apology.

******************

Nothing much else seems to be going on with Granado Espada. My Home Premium Services finally ran out, and I don't intend to buy it ever again. I spent most of the time I was supposed to be getting extra xp in the xp-less state of being dead. Thanks to PKers and spinelle-users in the premium dungeon, HPS is a rip off. As far as I can see it's main purpose is to make players so upset about wasting their money that they "up-buy" the Sheltered dungeon passes. I'd suggest players take a good look at how the Facebook Casual Games Scam works before continuing to fall for this.

I continue to be grouchy about Granado Espada's in-game events as well. I really don't want to be grouchy about these events: IAH has trained its customers to regard events as rare treats that can easily be witheld for lack of gratitude and/or toadyism. I just feel that IAH has no one that thinks like a player. For instance, there was the Log-in Event where players were left feeling insecure about whether they had really logged in every day or not. The Event month is over, and I still don't know how many days the System "counted". Then there was a nice Event where players have to beat their own  best time hunting mobs on several maps: this seems like a terrific idea until you take into account different connection speeds and the International player base: just changing maps and returning to the city can tack 5 minutes onto your time. There is public recognition for the "fastest" players - who will probably all hail from IAHGames iCafe where the connection speeds are fastest. >.>

Then there are the changes to the upcoming Family event, which has been frustrating for those of us who don't bot and thus have to plan for which characters to level far in advance. First the contest had to do with all the Recruitable Non-Player Characters in the city of Reboldeux (*rush to level all my Reb characters*). Then the contest was for the characters with the New Team Buffs, or perhaps all Team Buffs (*rush to level a whole different set of characters*). Now I don't see the provisional announcement for that Event anymore, either. Perhaps it is just as well. There was also a hint that the Team Buff contestants would have to parade around before  IAH's otherwise non-existing GMs. I'm not going to buy 10+ vet scrolls for that, even if this is the first time IAH has recognized the players who recruited every character.

One of the most ominous aspects of IAH's latest Granado Espada update is the banner ads inserted at the bottom of the Quest Information window. While the banner ad currently only shows an ad for the current version of Granado Espada with a link to IAH's web site, the obvious next step for such in-game billboard space is commercial advertising. Hopefully IAH is not going to stoop so low as to pitch Hydroxycut and Viagra.

As usual, it didn't occur to the bigwigs at IAH that in-game advertising is something that they needed to lay some groundwork for. By springing in-game ads as a surprise, the community is now most likely to assume the worst - inappropriate ads with none of the profits being allocated toward the things the community wants, like active in-game GMs. Now the community has to ask whether advertising profits will even be plowed back into Granado Espada. Perhaps monies invested by Granado Espada players will be confiscated to fund other IAH projects.

IAH probably assumed that the community's reaction would automatically negative, and so they sought to avoid the annoyance of negative feedback. Or maybe they thought players wouldn't notice a big honking banner ad at the bottom of the Quest Information window they need to consult frequently just to get along in the game? Maybe IAH just wasn't thinking. This wouldn't be the first time they tried to transcend the basic business need of acknowledging their customers.

Personally, my own reaction would not have been instantly negative. I realize IAH needs money to maintain and upgrade Grandado Espada. Part of the mission of this blog is to point out IAH funding strategies that are doomed to fail - such as misleading or tricking customers to "pickpocket" their money or implementing pricing structures that are more likely to decimate the customer base instead of stabilizing revenues. (Appropriate) advertising is a legitimate way of funding a Free-to-Play game. One only needs to point to commercial television to prove that people are willing to view ads in exchange for worthy entertainment.

If IAH does subject Granado Espada players to ads, the community should get some benefit. As mentioned above, I think IAH could have got advance community buy-in if they had pledged all ad revenue toward supporting in-game GMs. For almost three years IAH has "closed one eye" toward botters because they see botters as "hardcore players". What IAH doesn't get is that the primary motive for botting is keeping up with other botters. If IAH had enforced their Terms of Service across the board instead of "closing one eye" to players who are "hardcore" or "don't like to grind", there would have been general acceptance of the ground rules of the games.

Instead, IAH allowed a major distortion of the in-game economy, pitting players who put theToS first against players who put in-game competition first. Botters obtained significant economic and item-power advantages over legit players. Even worse, Granado Espada's developer IMC seems to have designed the highest levels of Granado Espada to deliver end-game items to botters. The top raids, such Brain of Argus and Occulta Dungeon require farming rare items at a pace far beyond the means of legit players. This also has a corrosive effect on factions, because the players willing to bot for the "entry fee" items can argue only they deserve the spoils of those raids. After all, they took the "risk" of using third-party programs (entailing the risk of being hacked more than any risk of disciplinary action by IAH), while the legit players didn't. Furthermore, there are instanced maps where the bot-report system doesn't even work. For botters those maps are a license to print money, creating large purchasing-power gaps between botters and legit players and keeping the prices of top items high despite the cash sinks IMC implemented to deflate the economy.

Not only did IAH prefer to coddle botters over encouraging the players who supported their own Terms of Sevice - the IAH staff that interfaced with the community seemed to regard legit players as unpleasant whiners and sources of stress. The need to cover up their deliberate non-enforcement of their own ToS drove IAH into the ironic position of banning legit players as "troublemakers" while rolling out the red carpet for those who regularly defy the ToS.

The IAH brain trust that came up with that wacky position is probably the same one that said, "maybe we can sneak the in-game banner ads on every single Quest Information window past the players. No matter how much they indirectly pay for cash shop items, we can always say Free-to-Play means the customers get no say!"

When IAH avoided discussing banner ads with the community, they missed the chance to get forewarning about a major technical problem.  If a player clicks on the banner ad, the ad always launches in IE instead of the player's default browswer. Many players prefer Firefox for security reasons. When IE launches on my computer, it lags/freezes Granado Espada, which can get me killed at crucial moments. I've already clicked on the banner ad by accident several times because the Quest Information window was hidden behind a map or some other game function.

During the recent hacking outbreak, one IAH staff member revealed they don't even know what Firefox looks like. Apparently IE is the only thing used at the IAH work site. In that constricted situation, IAH would greatly benefit from getting as much feedback as possible before implementing any features with the potential to reach beyond the game client.

It has been brought to my attention that IAH has learned nothing from Granado Espada, and they have been engaging in the same old shady cash-milking Faux Events with another game Dragonica.

Since I don't play Dragonica myself, I will just repost the comments verbatim where everyone can see them.


I find IAH's appropriation of copyright in #10 especially disturbing, and I urge anyone who lives in Singapore to locate your artist's rights organization or union to confirm whether a business really can assert ownership of a creator's work just because they want to get their marketing materials for free.

Recently I was surprised to discover scamming was covered in IAH's Game Policy (i.e. the notoriously unenforced Terms of Service) for Grandado Espada. Most players no longer bother to file a ticket when they've been scammed, because IAH customer service has been telling players that they don't do anything about scamming. The UNENFORCED Terms of Service say that the scammer will be banned, and IAH will attempt to reimburse the lost item!!!

Recently there has been an outbreak of scamming in Granado Espada. This seems to be the work of one person/ring who claims to be selling expensive cash shop items like Mercenary Cards and Promotion Scrolls, but instead slips a worthless Soldier Card in the window. I raise the possibility of scammer ring because IAH failed to ban the members of the GroundZero ring when they banned the serial scammer GroundZero a few months ago. Ironically, IAH banned GroundZero for using dirty language in his PM threats to the players who banded together to make warnings about him. Though players submitted followup tickets for IAH to shut down the whole ring, IAH did nothing and the same old scammers can be seen broading their "special offers" today. I'm not saying this ring is the one responsible for the Soldier Card scams - just  pointing to an example of IAH leaving the ring in place.

I realize it's difficult to investigate scam cases. IAH staff have pointed out how that players who change their mind about a trade can cry "scam" in an attempt to get their items back. Players will certainly exploit every loophole in-game, so it wouldn't surprise me if they got into a habit of trying to game the real world as well. Most other MMORPGs abound with scammers, and as far as I know, no one has found an airtight solution to the problem.

However, it seems to me that IAH has a strong interest in at least TRYING to keep the environment of Granado Espada safe for their customers. What could IAH have been thinking when they decided to Close One Eye to the Scam Policy part of their Terms of Service? Do they think customers will find a way to mount a defense themselves, and spend more cash on Microphones just to issue warnings? Has IAH been sued by someone falsely accused of scamming? Has IAH management issued a secret "shadow ToS" which directs employees to coerce scam victims into paying an item replacement fee, which would means IAH obtains indirect profits from scamming? Does IAH think it costs less to recruit new customers than conserve old ones through actively maintaining a safe gaming environment?

In a post below, I made a proposal for a change in game mechanics that could help reduce scamming, even if IAH continues to promulgate their phony ToS. I'll just bump up the same suggestion here.

My suggestion is to implement a Non-Player Character called The Notary. This Notary could offer a trade window with an associated text box that serves to document the contract between the two players. The text box could be used to describe the terms of the trade, and the trade description would have to be approved by both players to trigger the trade window. This would create a text-based log that IAH investigators could use to follow up on scam reports. Players could then insist on using the Notary for important trades.

Of course for this Notary to work, IAH would have to start enforicing their published Scam Policy or at least update their secret Company Eyes Only Terms of Service to commit to folloiwing up on scam tickets and using the Notary contract logs. Currently IAH is in SHAMELESS LIAR status since they try to hide speech about their failure to enforce their ToS and label this self-evident truth as "slander". Therefore, it would improve IAH's business ethics to start conforming to their published Scam Policy or update their Scam Policy to reflect what they actually do.

Ps. The Singaporeans who filed a ticket after being scammed, but who did not receive the action IAH promises in its Scam Policy and Reimbursement Policy, may have grounds to escalate their grievance to CASE.

I play Granado Espada on a non-PK (i.e., no Player Killing) server. This means I should only be vulnerable to other players killing me under the controlled circumstances of war declared between factions of players.

Lately, I've noticesupposedly "retired" players forming one-person factions and then declaring war for the sole purpose of Player Killing. The PKing mostly occurs in a paid dungeon called Ancient Territory. If the PK occurs while the victim is at work, school, or asleep for the night, then the victim is robbed of a real money investment: they lose the money they paid for dungeon as well as any timed items they bought to enhance their dungeon experience (re: items that will accelerate character level or skills).

At the minute I have a month-long dungeon pass called "Home Premium Service" - so the more I'm PKed this month, the more money I lose. I can't just opt to avoid the dungeon until the PKer goes away.  One of the reasons for choosing a non-PK server is to assure I will be able to use such timed items once I buy them, so I think IAH has some responsibility for maintaining some standards of a non-PK environment.

IAH gets a potential "upsell" from creating chaos in the regular paid dungeon. This is because IAH also sells even-more-premium dungeon passes for "Ancient Shelter" - a location that's "safe" from PK. Ancient Shelter passes only come in 1 day increments, and they cost 1/3 more than the normal paid dungeon Ancient Territory. It is in IAH's interest to motivate players to buy the more expensive Ancient Shelter passes.

I find it suspicious that the most recent PKer emanated from a "pet" faction of IAH that was basically sponsored by their IAHCafe. Could this PKer be an IAH employee or someone given in-game advantages for cooperating with IAH interests?

Before anyone cries "conspiracy theory" lets look at the business model of all Free-to-Play (F2P) MMORPGs. The game developer creates a virtual world and sets all the rules. Then the game developer creates virtual items that ameliorate the rules, decrease inconveniences and obstacles caused by the rules, and help players "beat" the rules. Players purchase these  virtual items for real cash money, and this is what supports the business of F2P games.

Game operators/publishers market the virtual items, and they also give game developers feedback about what sells well. At its very root the F2P business model is about spreading an illness and then selling the vaccine for it. Most F2P players understand this model. Even if they start off with the naive idea that their game is a gift from the Internet gods or somehow sponsored by super-rich people, part of the MMORPG experience is talking to other players and learning more about how their virtual world works - and even how it fits into Real world economies. Players are ultimately informed enough to tacitly agree to participate in the illness-vaccine cycle so they can avoid being locked in by a subscription.

I'm not complaining about the illness-vaccine business model: this seems to be the only way to fund an F2P MMORPG besides slapping banner ads all over the virtual landscape. However, I do think the illness-vaccine model tempts game operators/publishers to multiply or exacerbate the illnesses beyond those carefully planned by the game developer just for quickie boosts to vaccine sales. While the game developer may be taking balance and longevity of the game into the account, sometimes the operator/publisher thinks they can repeatedly provoke vaccine panics without considering how such frequent manipulations affect the loyalty of their customers (or the reputation of their company).

IAH marketed my server as non-PK, and I relied on that description when I chose that server. Over the course of several years I've made a significant investment in time, effort, and money which handcuff me to that server. I'm also generally against basing sales on psychological manipulation over and above the pseudo-needs established by the game mechanics. Therefore, *IF* these dungeon PKs are somehow being sponsored or encourage by IAH as a way of upselling players to Ancient Shelter passes, I hope some IAH honcho has a cool enough head to understand how easily this sort of plan can backfire: instead of selling more Ancient Shelter passes, players might feel alienated by manipulation and lose more respect for IAH as a business. Perhaps it might even be in IAH's interests for some manager to wander down to IAHGames iCafe and say "look buddy, at least lay off the PKing in the paid dungeons.  Costing players money ultimately costs us money."

If IAH isn't behind these PKers, I'd like to suggest modifying the game mechanics so the Declare War functioncan only be used by factions with minimum number of players and/or a minimum number of Last Active dates. Only allow One Man Armies during Colony War, when the battle ground is clear and it's funny/inspiring/heroic to see the individuals go Rambo.

Yep, I know there's nothing new about pointing out the FACT that IAH does not enforce their own ToS for their award-winning MMORPG Granado Espada. It just still bugs the heck out of me that IAH treats statement of *facts* as slander.

Every player who has sent IAH tickets, screenshots, and videos regarding botters knows that IAH does not follow through on it's Terms of Service, where it states "Offending players will be permanently suspended." However, here is a simple recent proof for non-players who just passing through. A couple months ago a botter posted a screenshot of himself, with a bot (i.e. Thirdy Party Software) command shown in the picture. Here's a section of the picture with a red arrow pointing to the bot command:



Players who saw this picture on the forum submitted formal tickets to IAH and started a number of new threads to repost the picture. This made a big show out of IAH refusing to ban this botter. Now everyone knows IAH "closes one eye" to botters in-game and throws out the tickets players send, but to opt not to ban this botter who so blatantly displayed his use of Third Party Software on the forum is the same thing as  IAH announcing it no longer enforces their ostensible Terms of Service.

IAH staff may even have an alternate Terms of Service that they use for enforcement guidelines, but hiding the real ToS is not fair to players. The players need to be able to see what is enforced to make important game-determining decisions. Otherwise only some players will choose to ignore the given Terms of Service, and they  will have a serious advantage over the legit players who continue to follow what is publicly posted. Moreover, IAH wiill entrench its "close one eye" reputation, which leads everyone regard the game rules as ambiguous, arbitrary, and subject to corruption.

Now that we've established it's a FACT that IAH does not enforce it's Terms of Service, what are the ramifications of IAH staff calling such statements of fact "slander" and banning on that basis. The ramification is IAH is turning towards running an astroturfing FAUX FORUM to market at players instead of encouraging open discussion.

According to Dictionary.com, the definition of a forum is "an assembly, meeting place, television program, etc., for the discussion of questions of public interest." This discussion can only be of *public* interest if open, free discussion is used to produce a consensus. Shaping the discussion to promote the IAH point of view is an advertising interest, not the public interest.

There has been some recent turnover in IAH staff recently, in conjunction with the changes in forum policy. I wonder if IAH has been imitating the business tactics of the gold-selling front pseudo-game Evony which posted the following requirements for their Forum Moderators:


Does a business define a "harmful/destructive" topic in terms of  "public interest"? No, they see any comment that might detract from their business, true or not, as harmful. IAH clearly chose to replace their forum with an advertising mechanism when they started calling true statements slander. Continuing to call their venue for manufactured consent a "forum" is dishonest, and this move only adds fuel to the impression that IAH is an unethical company that thinks they can increase their business by misleading customers.

If the Powers That Be at IAH are still scratching their heads and getting distracted by the increasing moves against human rights in Singapore, perhaps they will get the picture from this ad for the V remake, which shows how Authoritarian governments try to control public opinion in order to build their brands.




Is this really the way IAH wanted to go, or did some low level managers make some bad decisions while CEO Roland Ong was looking the other way?

The mission of this blog is to get IAH to see honest presentation of product and building a trust relationship with their customers as the most successful approach to business. Honesty keeps customers loyal and promotes positive word-of-mouth. Dishonesty will be noted and refused, no matter how hard IAH tries to control the conversation.

**************

For the blog-readers waiting for an update on the hacking situation, I'm still gathering information on what happened to the customers who paid IAH's shakedown money. I would like to see if the victims were treated in a consistent matter, and if they got what they were promised when they tried to get a guarantee from IAH before handing over the shakedown money. If any of the victims want to post on their experience here, please feel free.

*************

Random thought of the day, in regard to players scamming other players. Most MMORPGs have scammers who exploit bugs or use social engineering  methods to cheat other players. Recently a faction-mate of mine was scammed of 350 million vis (i.e. a huge amount of in-game gold), and IAH customer service told him that they could do nothing (this is the usual customer service response though reimbursement for scamming is also in IAH's UNENFORCED Terms of Service).

I have a simple idea about how the game mechanics could be changed to reduce this sort of scamming in Granado Espada. What if there was Non-Player Character called The Notary? This Notary could offer a trade window with an associated text box. The text box could be used to describe the terms of the trade, and the trade description would have to be approved by both players to trigger the trade window. This would create a text-based log that IAH investigators could use to follow up on scam reports. Players could then insist on using the Notary for important trades.

Too bad I no longer have access to my post in the Suggestions for Changes in In-Game Mechanics thread. I don't think I've seen anyone else present the Notary idea. :(

During the last post I congratulated IAH for finally getting a Granado Espada loyalty Event right, though I personally messed it up. It seems I spoke too soon.

To recap the Event: all players have to do to show their loyalty  is log in every day to rack up points for a prize. However, Granado Espada is unique in a way that makes this Event trickier than it sounds. As long as the game client is on, you can set your characters to continue to level while you're AFK. Therefore, the loyal players who are always playing Granado Espada need to remember to *log out* and then log back in every day. Players are used to leaving their characters logged on for days at a time.

A number of players were caught by surprise that the "per day" range for login time was set from 5am to 5am. There was a natural expectation that the clock would turn at midnight. Therefore some players who have been logging out/in at irregular times are worried that sometimes more than 24 hours went by in relation to the 5am-5am clock.

The actual problem here isn't the unexpected definition of "day": the problem is players have no way of seeing how many times they've logged in to check whether they're login was counted every day. This was already confusing for International players who had to keep in mind Singapore's time zone and couldn't refer to an in-game clock. Now even players in the Asian time zone have been given reason to doubt their logins, and its natural some are anxious that there is no record to check.

If IAH ever tries this event again, I suggest putting some  non-player character (NPC) in game  for players to click every day in-game. The NPC can be programmed to reply something like "you have reported to me 7/31 days".  Some players might complain this is spoon-feeding, but if IAH leaves players fretting over if they've missed log-ins for a whole month, that anxiety will probably grow into larger speculations and stack onto ongoing criticism.

At least it's a good thing that IAH is continuing to try Events. Also, the login Event hasn't been bombed anywhere nearly as badly as the summer MMOSite Event:

a) the instructions were so incomprehensible that the players had to figure it out for themselves and write new guides for each other,
b) most of the prizes turned out to be for other IAH games instead of  Granado Espada,
c) and the instructions for claiming the prizes were wrong. 

That may have been the all-time low point in IAH Event management.

In other news, the Japanese version of Granado Espada is still giving the lie to everything IAH dismissed as too "imbalanced" (i.e. powerful)  in the Singaporean context. Why does IMC insist on producing different content for all the Granado Espada versions? Even if they are getting some extra pay-off from the Japanese publishers, is it worth the cost of maintaining so many separate databases or making players in the lower content versions dissatisfied with their lot? Is the idea to make the publishers pay extra for content bonuses to keep up with each other?  Both Hanbitsoft and The9 have been losing money on Grandado Espada while K2's version of the New World almost fell off the map for lack of updates - this could mean the differentiated content model is bringing all the versions down. One thing is for certain: the "imbalance" excuse is such an obvious lie that it's sapping the credibility of everything else said by *both* IMC and IAH.

On the gossip front, I hear that players who speak out about IAH's mistakes and shady dealings are now being called REBELS. The term "Rebels" might have some negative connotation in authoritarian dictatorships, but I think of Rebels as the good guys in Star Wars. On the other hand the ultimate corrupt corporation Enron called its energy racketeering strategy Death Star. So if the Rebels are the ones fighting corrupt corporate Death Star maneuvers, I'm proud to be on the right side of  that analogy.

The Rebels thing also reminded me that IAH was recruiting employees directly from the forum a few months ago. I thought this was a bad idea because such employees would be likely to bring in-game grudges into their decisions: strong emotions from player-vs-player fighting, disputes over bosses and leveling spots, differences of opinion about botting, the instinct to make exceptions for friends and faction, the urge to avenge bot reports and other disciplinary actions that affected friends and factions, and even acting out on ethnic tensions that had been exacerbated through game rivalries. No matter how mature such a potential new hire may seem, they will have too much baggage to truly see IAH's interest. A business is not running a game *against* their customers: they want to earn money from the customers, not beat them down until they choose some other entertainment vendor. The Rebels remark suggests IAH is being represented by gamer guyzzz who want to defeat customers rather than acquire them.

I hope IAH's very own serial entrepreneur has been giving some thought to all this.

Aw, darn it. I can't believe I screwed this up. :(

For the first time three years, IAH (or rather Granado Espada's developer IMC) hosted an event that almost no one can complain about: the only requirement is to prove your loyalty and ongoing attention by logging in once a day. Previously, IAH seemed determined to reward players for:

a) how much cold, hard cash they spent on the event.
b) how willing they were to ignore the Terms of Service and bot their way to a winning advantage,
c) how shameless they were about outright copying other player's entries posted on the forum.

IAH staff preferred to shift the blame for criticism on impossible-to-satisfy players, so for the last year they have left events to in-game automatic prize dispensers programmed by IMC. The only exception was a blatant move to crowd-source Granado Espada viral videos.



The current log-in-every-day-for-a-month event, though, was the perfect combination of democratic participation and fair reward. Perhaps it wasn't the most exciting or challenging of events, but it worked as advertised and it genuinely rewards customer loyalty (unlike the Botter Rewards Program, which spits in the face of all customers that expressed their loyalty by bothering to follow IAH's Terms of Service over the last three years)..

Yet, I managed to screw up this indisputably easy and fair event in less than a week. How did I do it? I live in a time zone 8 hours away from where IAH hosts Granado Espada. My plan was simple: to log in at the same time every day. I timed my re-login to the first thing I did every day: participate in the Team Arena activity that occurs daily at 8am my time. Note that because of the 8 hour time difference, this event occurs on the CUSP of the turn to the next day. Thus when I decided to skip Team Arena and sleep late this weekend, the day turned over before I logged in again. Even though it was the "next day" for me, more than 24 hours had passed since my last re-log. Arrrrg! Event fail. :(

I don't blame IAH or IMC for my own failure to figure out that Team Arena time was a really poor choice for my daily login, though an in-game clock would have made it easier for me to catch the problem. Rather, this blog post is about how MMORPG developers, operators, and publishers haven't yet come to grips with online environments as a global village.

I grew up in a rural area of the US, and I've only been able to travel outside the country once. Before the era of the Internet my outlook would have been narrow and provincial. However, the Internet allows me to meet people from all over the world, and one of the ways I've taken advantage of this opportunity is to play MMORPGs hosted in Asia. Casual chat and interaction in virtual environments allows me to learn more about culture and customs than I could find out from any book. I've picked up a smattering of several languages that aren't even taught in US schools, and I enjoy gathering opinions on the US that come from outside my own cultural echo chamber. I hope my seemingly trivial MMORPG interactions will make me more open-minded, democratic, and cosmpolitan in the future.

MMORPGs as a business endeavor have sought to attract global customers as well as global investors. While IAH licensed to serve South East Asia, they aggressively courted US dollars. When IAH started selling game cash shop credits online, prices were given in US dollars. Regardless of IAH's motives for using "SOTNW" and "Sword of the New World" as keywords for its web site, the effect of capturing those Google terms is that US players searching for the US version of Granado Espada to find IAH's Singapore version instead.



Though IAH made the effort to divert US players from Sword of the New World, they seemed to have mixed feelings about retaining them. For instance, events that involved IAH staff management or interacting with some thingamajiggy that would only appear at 4am California time were bound to exclude me. When IAH was building Granado Espada on the subscription model, I felt I could speak up for global time zone equity since I was a paying customer like anyone else. IAH staff seemed receptive to suggestions for improving the global positioning of Granado Espada, too. Even then, however, a significant portion of the Singaporean player base regarded Granado Espada as a Singaporean game and did not recognize any right to global equity.

After IAH converted Granado Espada to Free-to-Play, their outlook on globalization seemed less clear. There were more "special offers" to benefit Singaporeans. IAH opened IAHCafe, a local cybercafe where players payed for special game advantages - US players were clearly shafted by that. I didn't feel as confident about demanding equal treatment if I wasn't directly paying for the service, even if I ended up paying IAH a lot more through purchasing cash shop items than I ever would have through a subscription. I felt more and more like a guest grudgingly tolerated by IAH, like my US-tainted money was being resented even as it was taken.

Recently IAH benefited from an influx of Sword of the New World refugees who were fleeing the US publisher's glacial update paste. This was a terrific boon for IAH that probably more than made up for the customers they lost through the over-priced Bernelli Box Affair. Yet in a few weeks those bonus US customers melted away, alienated by IAH's shabby customer service as well as the difficulties inherent in adjusting to the Asian time zone. As far as I know, IAH didn't make any attempt to retain them. SOTNW might have even made some complaint. After all, the Japanese version of Granado Espada turns away all such refugees and there is clearly some sort of argument going on about regional monopolies versus the benefits/drawbacks of an International customer base.

Despite these mixed signals, I continued to assume I was a fully enfranchised global citizen of Granado Espada, and I enthusiastically participated in IAH's recent efforts to crowd-source cash shop and game improvement ideas. If IAH uses my ideas or if those ideas improve IAH's business, I won't receive any pay or recognition - my sole reward would be a better gaming experience for myself and fellow Granado Espada denizens, regardless of national origin, culture, or ethnicity.

There are built-in problems to the MMORPG global village experience. Activities and groupings will inevitably take place within the time zones most favored by the location of the server. Many MMORPG activities can only be achieved in groups, and many groups will only accept you if you can contribute to those activities. If you live on the other side of the world where your game is hosted, you have to make a lot of odd adjustments to your schedule just to be a halfway participant. However, thanks to the global spirit that develops when people from so many countries engage with each other, there's usually more than enough generosity and flexibility to compensate for the problems.

In some cases players from a time-zone-disadvantaged country join forces to help each other and advance through the game. These experiments are extremely fragile, though. I participated in one group that tried this, and it ended up adopting players from the favored area just because they couldn't obtain the resources they needed on their own. However, once the most powerful members of the group were in the SEA time zone, the most important group activities shifted to their schedule, and it defeated the whole purpose of the group. Moreover, if you go to an Asian MMORPG to meet Asians, you aren't going to get much out of hanging out with the US enclave.

On top of all these in-built problems, International players also have to put up with the various business maneuvers between game developers, operators, and publishers. I've been wanting to try out a new MMORPG, Jade Dynasty. I also want to stay with the friends I've met in previous MMORPGs, including Granado Espada. MMORPG investors and profiteers have been relying on the development of these in-game friendships as an aid to customer retention. These friendships also help launch new games as groups of friends tend to move together to try new games. As mentioned above, many MMORPGs emphasize group activities, and it's a significant advantage in the virtual environment to come with a ready-made group.

Jade Dynasty, aka Zhu Xian aka ZX Online aka Celestial Destroyer aka Perfect World Part Deux, uses a regionally restricted licensing scheme. The boundaries of these regional licenses are guarded like high cement walls between petty dictatorships. As a US player, I can't register for Zhu Xian in the Philippines, so I can't join my friends there. If I register for the "International" version Jade Dynasty, my friends from the Philippines are locked out. Since we can't stick together as a group of friends, none of us are trying that game at all. Does the threat of having to compete for customers (on service and quality!) outweigh the benefit of customers moving to your game in groups? I'm curious whether Jade Dynasty (aka...) is going to show the profits to justify that narrow, regionalized approach.

The existence of multiple regional licenses also raises the possibility of doing right by the customers when one regional publisher goes under (Example: Last Chaos). Instead of just repossessing the accounts customers take years of effort and money to build, why not move the accounts to a different regional publisher. Perhaps game developers would be willing to make the databases of regional compatible or program some special sort of account wrapper. I appreciate the problems involved would be huge, especially when regional publishers are engaging in separate deals and adopting patches at different rates. However, building in the ability to shift customers to surviving regions instead of kicking them to the curb with no compensation might serve to keep an MMORPG popular and growing - that benefits the developer as well as the game operator/publisher that inherits more business.

If IAH can't repair its customer service, then the customer base will drop below server maintenance costs, and long-term Granado Espada players may be facing a shutdown situation sooner rather than later. It's a shame because Granado Espada is an awesome MMORPG that deserves better handling.

I have way too many thoughts on this subject, and this is just the initial brain dump. I should stop here before my wall of text falls on someone, though. >.<

Ps. Anyone know who I should credit this picture to?

After getting fed up with IAH's constant run-around, one of the Granado Espada hack victims showed me the customer service email exchange. Before I post the emails (personal info of both the hack victim and IAH omitted), here's my summary of how IAH customer service fails:

1) IAH is astoundingly rigid about the login names not being obtained from IAH, not considering such issues as forum or email security and the fact the login names could have been obtained any time over the last three years. The side of IAH's intransigence is it must somehow be the player's fault. Everyone is asking IAH where else are the victims putting their *login* names? If a victim says they use that login name nowhere else, what makes IAH's word outweigh the victim's, especially when the victim has already lost so much and deserves the utmost consideration? If IAH didn't want customers to question their "position" against "allegations" (for legal purposes?), perhaps their strategy should have been to overwhelm customers with care and respect so they'd have no reason to reason ask questions. =.=

2) IAH keeps demanding their uber-lame $10 fee without considering how much the victim will have to spend to rebuild their account. In some cases the victims has already spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on their account - now all lost. Isn't that enough money-milking? Why does IAH need to keep trying to milk that $10? This totally-piss-off-the-customer strategy makes no business sense. IAH should have just did their best to fix the problem and quietly enjoyed their profits while the hack victims paid to upgrade their items all over again.

3) IAH is asking for a long-time player who had a full 500/500 vault and mostly full inventory to remember what items were lost. If I were hacked, I wouldn't be able to remember most of my specific items, much less their upgrade status and stats. Note IAH totally blows off the value of non-armor/weapon items that are used for crafting. The "NPC Value" that IAH eventually offers is only a teeny tiny fraction of the market value of clean items (compare 150k "NPC value" to 300 MILLION or even a BILLION for an upgraded item - maybe the hack victims should get  CASH value refund of all the money they spent on chip packages, boosters, enhance tranqs, socket tranqs, imperviums, etc). Same goes for the lost crafting materials.  Some lost from the account in question were very expensive and rare, thanks to IAH's lackadaisical attitude about botters hogging primary resources. =.=

4) Every email ends with a warning the ticket  will be closed (obliging the customer go though the onerous ticketing process all over again) if the customer doesn't dance to the pace set by IAH. When did IAH become a whip-cracking slave-driver instead of a business that is grateful for its customers? By the way, I myself had to deal with IAH's insane ticket system recently. Because customer service closed my ticket after every single non-problem-solving reply, I ended up having to file FOUR tickets for a very small prize code that didn't work. =.=

Also, note the final threat in the last email to close the hacking case if the victim does not fork over the $10 and otherwise accede to IAH's inadequate restoration process. This was in response to the customer repeatedly saying no $10 would be sent until IAH specified what was being restored: the customer certainly wasn't going to send in any $10 if they were going to end up quitting Granado Espada, and the correspondence made clear that this decision rested on whether the account would be restored. Frankly, though, I don't think any of the victims should be forced to pay that fee even if IAH was restoring their whole account. The impatient, bullying tone in the last email is totally unacceptable and outright unprofessional under the circumstances.

Without further ado, I present IAH's customer service attitude:

Date: Friday, September 18, 2009, 11:35 AM

Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 6:22 AM
Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2009, 9:51 PM

I would love to know what the Better Business Bureau would have to say to this. But for now, International players can only call for IAH to take a clear look how they have handled the hacking cases and reconsider doing the morally right thing. If anyone hasn't signed the petition to support the hack victims, please take a look at it: Every signature counts!

Ps. Does anyone have any experience with Ripoff Report?

IAH seems incapable of listening to players (unless they listen to those two or three suck ups who tell IAH exactly what they want to hear in the hope of getting a job or various game perks). Players have been telling IAH for month that they implemented Granado Espada's Nobles Court Event so it chiefly rewards botters. In fact, for the last two months, I'd bet the rewards only went to botters. These were signficant rewards that increased at higher levels, so legit non-botting players were placed at a disadvantage, as well as feeling once again that they were being punished for bothering to follow IAH's Terms of Service.

Nobles Court is blatantly a Botter Rewards Program. Yet with so many customers pointing this out, IAH didn't cancel it or even slow the pace so it would be realistic for legit players (even hardcore legit players aren't going to get 1 family level a month at the highest levels, much less the required 5!). To make things worse, the Botter Rewards Program replaced what was supposed to be a loyalty program - a program that had been promised and deferred for over a year after Granado Espada turned Free to Play. Instead of finally compensating the truly loyal Terms-of-Service following players, IAH spit in their faces and chose to reward cheaters. I can't even imagine what IAH line of  thinking on this is.

Perhaps some botters who are also big spenders are on the spot claiming that they should be treated as VIPs, and they deserve more rewards from IAH. Before anyone shrugs off this possibility, IAH has done it before in the ZmojaZz incident:

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/7131/fefefelj7.jpg


Thank you to the Anonymous person who recovered these screenshots for me, since the thread on the Official Forum was deleted. (Big surprise there).

And lets not forget IAH blowing off the tickets concerning a DISTRIBUTOR of the most insidious bot program GEC This reeks of pay off!

Expect more such  corruption to occur in the future. If IAH regards honest feedback as "troublemaking", then the voices representing the "community" will be players like ZmojaZz. IAH won't even *see* other points of view. Fiascos like the Botter Rewards Program will be represented to IAH CEO Roland Ong as a success because there's nothing but sunshine and happiness on the Official Forum. Sorry IAH business planners, phony feedback is all you will get when you try to control the discussion instead of listening to it. Welcome to the main drawback of the Culture of Fear.

For instance, players might want to discuss that there may have been only ONE legit player that qualified for the previous Nobles Court cycle. She spent almost all her time in Granado Espada levelling her characters and paying for all the cash shop extras that could accelerate her family level: private dungeons, experience booster manuals, upgrading all her armors so she could easily survive AFK. Her main goal was increasing her family level even when I first met her a couple years ago. Even she would not have reached the Botters-Only Grandmaster Level. Perhaps she should be satisfied that IAH deigns to reward her max-spending approach with the second-best place in Nobles Court. However, she didn't even enjoy that because she was one of the hack victims! Her reward for loyalty, legit play, and big spending is to pay IAH all over again to rebuild her account?

On the forum players were commanded to stop "speculating" and stop "vouching" for the hack victims. IAH doesn't want other players to find out when bad things happen, and they don't seem to want honest opinions themselves. However, somewhere  it must be said  that Nobles Court rewarded botters, and the legit player that probably came closest to qualifying (for the SECOND-to-last round) was one of the hack victims. If IAH even cares about player retention any more, they need to review their values and priorities.

A few weeks ago I considered how IAH was engaging in a "bricks over clicks" strategy, disregarding Granado Espada's International customer base. I've often pointed out that selling or prize-giving on a regional basis has the effect of giving some players advantages over others, and may have the effect of exacerbating ethnic tensions.  "Bricks" marketing clashes with the very spirit of a fair game.

Now IAH is auctioning off  three Elite Le Noirs to the highest bidder at Singapore's Games Convention Asia. Elite Le Noirs (ELN) are the top armor in Granado Espada. They are very rare and hard to obtain (usually taking a group effort, and even then the ELN would only go to the best players). Most MMORPG business analysts have drawn the conclusion that it's not wise to directly sell players the top items, as winning them is one of the main reasons for playing the game. In this case, IAH went beyond letting super-powered ELNs go to the highest bidder: IAH upgraded the ELNs to +7. This is a difficult and very expensive thing to do within the game. A +7 ELN will provide the ultimate game armor advantage to whomever pays the most at the auction.

Apart from the business myopia of IAH pushing unfair regional advantages, why didn't the game developer IMC step in to stop this auction? If IMC was willing to take the risk alienating players to reduce the game value of the Emilia the Sage character that came in the GE Limited Edition Box; if IMC absolutely forbids 32 Attack Rating weapons in cash-shop related venues like Adelina's Booty Search; then why on earth would IMC condone selling the top armor in Granado Espada for straight cash? How can an ELN +7 not be contrued as "imba"?

(Note too casual visitors: "Imba" means Imbalanced. It's the justification IMC usually gives if they want to dial down the stats of some items or veto some IAH marketing proposal).

Just how did IAH even get these +7 ELNs? GM Lorenza made it abundantly clear that  IAH does not have a tool to upgrade armors, and that's why previous hack victims just had to put up with losing their items and paying IAH all over again to create new items. Did IAH get the +7 ELNs from IMC, even though they are "imba"? Or were they lying about the having the tool? Or did they use the tool intended to help the hack victims to make imba items to auction. >.>

Some players are also asking whether IAH  is engaging in Real Money Trade (RMT) by selling game items straight up for cash. Even if it doesn't count as RMT when IAH does it,  think of what an example is set by auctioning off imba status. Players will surely ask why is it okay for IAH to sell these items, but not me? The price IAH gets for the auction will be used as a standard for the item's real cash value. The higher the price, the more scamming and poor sportsmanship will occur over such items in game. There have actually been cases where people have been attacked or even killed over  their claims to virtual items that were worth real money.

Many players do not yet understand why RMT is bad for them - they often see rules against RMT as simply a method for the game publisher to hog profits. Thus, I doubt many other players will raise concerns over the auction as an RMT precedent - they will probably be more focused on IAH auctions setting  prices far beyond their means of poorer members of the community (this is in itself unfair if game space is considered a desirable alternative to real space because of its egalitarian aspects). However, on polling other players, I did find some sensititvity to whole factions gaining advantages because of their regional make up. One concerned faction leader suggested to petition IAH to hold similar auctions in the Philippines, since that region provides a substantial part of Granado Espada's customer base.This might alleviate the problem of faction-sized favoritism, but it doesn't respect the principle of fair competition between individual players. Singapore's Granado Espada is truly an International server - the players literally come from dozens of countries. Even if they don't give a fig about the International players, IAH's Granado Espada license covers the whole SEA area - what about +7 ELNs for Malaysia, Australia, etc.?

Official Forum gem of the day: IAH now stands for "I Am Hacked."

I've never worked for a game developer or publisher before, so it's hard to wrap my mind around the elaborate web of relationships that enables Granado Espada to exist.  I've been told IAH is at the bottom of the Granado Espada food chain, and a Chinese company called The9 is near the top and calls a lot of the shots.

The9 has been in a financial tail spin over it's loss of the World of Warcraft license for China. I found this an interesting 2008 industry forecast from Citibank that was cautiously bullish on The9 because they believed the WoW contract would be renewed. Granado Espada is also included in the forecast as a sample of game licensing contract. For those who want to dig deeper into this subject, the GE Sisters blog also dug up a copy of The9's actual Granado Espada contract with Hanbitsoft (yet another layer of intermediaries before gettiing back to Granado Espada's developer IMC).

While I was looking for the Citibank industry forecast I found something more relevant, and more ominous, for Granado Espada players. While everyone was focused on what the loss of WoW did to The9 shares, the Financial Results for the first half of 2009 seem to dwell on losses from Granado Espada. Apparently player attrition has been rife in China, too. What a sad mismanagement of a brilliant asset! :(

UPDATE: The9 is switching their Granado Espada model back to subscription based. IAH has yet to follow up on their promise of extended compensation for the subscribers that were screwed over when Granado Espada turned Free-to-Play (no, the Botter Rewards Program doesn't count, even though it supposedly morphed from the orignal never-implemented compensation idea "The Veteran's Club"). I guess Granado Espada creator Hakkyu Kim's call for all Granado Espada versions to be in Free-to-Play business model alignment is no longer in effect?

I can't say much on this subject yet, but I think it's important for players (including myself) to educate themselves on game licensing contracts. Uninformed customers are gullible customers, and don't doubt for a second that the gaming industry deliberately exploits the youth and inexperience of its target demographic.

Here's an example or how the players might be played in Granado Espada: anyone else remember the "fellow player" on the IAH Official Forum who tried to help "us" brainstorm on ways to get access to a special promotion offered earlier this year by SingTel, a Singapore telecommunications company? The solution for "us" (aimed specifically at players from the Philippines, if I remember correctly) was to buy a SingTel communications package that "we" would have no use for (except for the Granado Espada bonus). After I questioned this new "player" who wanted to improve all our lives through buying unnecessary SingTel products, and also questioned the use of the in-game System Notice to advertise this promotion (only seen once before when Offgamers abused their GM Account), I found out that this guy was a plant from EpicSoft (yet another spider in the Granado Espada web, inserting itself somewhere between IAH and one of their chief investors SingTel).

Another way players can educate themselves and protect themselves from weasel marketing is to learn the way mmorpgs, especially Free-to-Play ones are presented to investors. The FreeToPlay.biz blog, written by an F2P evangelist, offers a lot of information about how "free" mmorpgs make money. While mmorpg developers, investors, and publishers do need to make a profit somehow, it's refreshing to see that some of them realize there is no longterm potential in schemes and ploys. The future of mmorpgs like Granado Espada will come from an ongoing dialogue between vendors and consumers. The players themselves need to step up to the challenge of defining their rights and advocating for their interests.

Last night there was some further good news regarding the IAH Granada Espada hacking outbreak from the GM Lorenza Q&A. She is now seeking permission to activate a tool that will enable her to restore lost items to the hack victims. She emphasized that this tool/capability would be TEMPORARY and that it would only be applied to accounts that were lost during the recent outbreak. I wish Lorenza luck in getting that permission, and I think it's likely she will get it when IAH finally realizes the type of customer they were on the verge of blowing off -- those who uphold the Terms of Service in game, who set an example for others, and some of which spent enough to be counted as shareholders in IAH.

One of IAH's biggest mistakes during the hacking outbreak was to not take the information they were getting from the community seriously. It seemed like even longterm GMs didn't actually know the people in the community and didn't understand that people were speaking up because they *did* know each other. When players tried to show that there was something distinctive about the victims, particularly their honest reputations, IAH told players not to "vouch" for each other as if the community's attempt to provide important pattern information would somehow interfere with their investigation. Everyone knows the only point of quashing "vouching" is to isolate the victims and avoid criticism of any actions IAH takes (or fails to take). What's more important here: the suffering of the victims or IAH's fear of noise?

Now it seems that IAH is starting to respond to community sentiment in taking measures to help these particular victims. However, as long as IAH doesn't change their *policy* on Mandatory Fees, they are only acting out of expediency. I can't help but think there have been innocent victims in the past who were forced to pay Mandatory Fees, but no one spoke up on their behalf because they were isolated cases. In the future there may be more such cases. Some legit, honest player could be victimized by the same hackers in the same way, but they will be forced to pay Mandatory Fees to get their account/items back. If the general community is feeling more secure about their own accounts at that point, I doubt any fuss will be made. IAH will engage in money-milking business as usual.

If restoring the victim's items is the right thing to do in this case, it should be the right thing to do in *all* similar cases. In my (humble, as always) opinion, IAH should change the Mandatory Fee policy to a Case-by-Case policy. If the victims were not at fault, IAH should restore their accounts and thank them for coming forward and giving IAH the opportunity to protect other players. On the flip side of this, IAH should take every precaution in determining whether the victim placed themselves at risk by using third party programs. Those who placed themselves at risk should not be eligible for reimbursement, and IAH should take the further step of banning that account as per the Terms of Service.

Any decision IAH makes in regard to the hacking cases should be based on moral integrity, not expediency.

Has IAH finally dealt with the three month old farmbot train? After my friend noted there were no farmbots on the low level maps he was traveling through, I checked the city of  Reboldoeux and saw no sign of the farmbot train. The farmbots didn't appear again until around Level 70 maps, and there they seemed to be dwindling. Did IAH finally block the source of the farmbots, so the only ones that remain are the ones that haven't been banned in-game yet? Or was this just some freak lull in the storm?

If  IAH finally did something, I'm wondering why they waited so long. Players have been complaining for months. It also seems more than a coincidence that the farmbots are being dealt with at the same time IAH is dealing with the hacking cases. The Maplestory hacking was done by a Chinese group, and these farmbots would have had a motive to mess with IAH if they lost Offgamers as a sales venue. Could these hacking cases have been prevented if the farming operation had been nipped in the bud instead of left alone long enough for a deal to be made with Offgamers?

In speaking of Offgamers, last night GM Lorenza said something disturbing in her discussion of the recent out break of hacking cases:

How does Offgamers fit into the web sites that are beyond IAH's control? IAH includes Offgamers among their official partners. IAH promotions are offered through Offgamers, and at one point Offgamers even had access to a GM Account. It's plausible 12 players, legit as well as non-legit,  would go to this web site at around the same time. Is IAH saying that players should purchase gpoints from Offgamers "at their own risk" even though IAH treats them as a partner?

My last post on the Official Forum, pointed out that some of the hack victims  may have bought the vis (game gold) that was sold at Offgamers, despite IAH's ostensible stand against Real Money Trading (RMT). If this turns out to be a common thread (though I have trouble imagining some of the victims engaging in RMT), IAH should accept responsibility for player confusion on the matter, since such an offer on a "partner" site would seem to be done with the consent of IAH. After making that point I was banned. =.=

However, Lorenza's denial of responsibility shows the point needs to be made again, now  in a place where IAH can't cover it up. If it does turn out that player accounts were compromised because of dealing with Offgamers, IAH *must* take responsibility for promoting Offgamers as an official distributor.

Other Random Thoughts on the Lorenza Conversation


It might help IAH spokespeople if they understand that the non-botting players want to know  how hackers obtained their login names - this would not be shared on other web sites. It seems like the only alternative to an IAH vulnerability is keyloggers on these player's home computers (some only played from home)...but if there are no keyloggers, then it comes back to a technical vulnerability or a human leak at  IAH.