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Info How to effectively ask for help.

Discussion in 'Community Talk' started by wyndman, Jun 3, 2018.

  1. wyndman

    wyndman Well-Known Member

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    Sooner or later we all need help, something goes wrong or items go missing and we have to reach out to the staff for help. There are some tried and true methods that work, and then there are some that will just leave you and the staff gnashing their teeth and slamming their face into their desk.

    Discord: Discord gives you somewhat immediate access to random staff members who happen to be paying attention. It is truly a roll of the dice who is going to answer you, and when they will answer you, and if they have the abilities to answer your question in a timely manner.

    Effectively asking for help:

    Player: Hi, randomplayer86 here. I'm having an issue on the Continuum server, when I try to craft the dagger of awesome power it makes me crash, here's the last crash-report I have from the issue.

    Staff: Thanks player, I've looked at your report and removed the item from your inventory it should be safe to log in again. I'll make sure this gets reported to the modpack developers so they can fix the dagger of awesome power.

    The player stated their in game name (IGN), provided us with the server that they were playing on, and since they were crashing also gave us a crash-report. This ensures that even if no staff is available when they ask for help we know who, what and where the issue is and can work to resolve it.

    What normally happens:

    1:21 a.m PlayerW!thR@ND0mD!$C0RdN@mE: I need help

    1:21 a.m PlayerW!thR@ND0mD!$C0RdN@mE: Hello?

    1:21 a.m PlayerW!thR@ND0mD!$C0RdN@mE: Yo Staff can you help plox?

    7:00 a.m wyndman: How can I help you?

    There's a few issues here, the player has no identifiable discord name, so this immediately puts them onus on the player to get lucky with a dice roll to find someone awake at that hour. Second, they never stated what the issue was so thefore it is impossible to begin to troubleshoot the issue. Remember we're located all over the world, while it might be eight in the morning for you, it is the middle of the night for me so don't expect a response from me!

    Solution: When you contact a staff memeber in discord, do not assume you are going to get an immediate response, we do our best, but help yourself by ensuring to give us as much information as possible, we can always scroll back, and we do if we weren't online.

    Other Discord related things: No, I don't personally accept random direct messages, some of the staff does, some, like myself prefer to enable direct messages when needed to contact a player privately. Please don't tag a random staff member, again time zones, and we do have lives. If you were working with someone you can feel free to tag them and they most likely will be notified.

    In Game Help: Congratulations you found a staff member on line, this means you are going to get immediate help right? Maybe, maybe not. While staff are players too, and we do play next to you and with you sometimes a staff member is actually working on a case and can't immediately respond to your issue. We don't want to be rude, so if a staff member doesn't answer you right away they might be working on another issue. Try not to be upset if a staff member directs you to make a support ticket, we're not being lazy,we're tying to ensure your problem is looked at.

    Support Tickets: One of the best ways to get your issue resolved. A ticket provides us with some general information, your name, the server and node and your location where the ticket was made. This information is invaluable when it comes to resolving things like griefing, claim transfers even crashing issues if it is an area that is giving you a hard time. When it comes to tickets be as specific as you can, the more you put in there the more we have to work with. Crashes should have a crash-report with them, and ensure it is a crash-report and not a console report these are two different things. If someone is giving you a hard time screenshot it. Again the more you give us the faster we can try and resolve your issues.

    Forum Posts: Second only to the support ticket, everyone checks the forums, players and staff alike can lend a hand when it comes to issues, and this also provides you with a good place to see if someone else already had your issue. Just remember be specific as you can.

    Things to Avoid:

    Screaming "I need an Admin! SirWill! Slind!" Most issues don't need an Admin to resolve, and wouldn't you rather resolve your issue?

    Demand a refund for a lost item. We have a no refund policy, while you can ask for a replacement, you probably will not recieve one. We're not trying to be a bunch of jerks with #norefunds, but there simply are not enough of us to replace every lost item.

    Please don't shove your ME Storage Cells into an Alchemical Bag, I have to delete your bag. No really. There is no way to recover them and it will make us both sad.

    Please don't ask me about your claim that was deleted last month by claim deleter. It's gone, it isn't coming back and having to tell you that makes me sad. You don't want me to be sad do you? If you plan on being off the network for more than say ten days, transfer your claim to a trustworthy friend, or run the /absence command that will give you twenty-eight days to get yourself back in the game. Or if you really love us consider becoming a Patron to extend your claim life.

    In Conclusion:

    We're all here to help, the more information you give us the easier it is for us to do our jobs and get you back to playing.
     
  2. The_Icy_One

    The_Icy_One Procrastinates by doing work

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    tl;dr: Please don't make Wynd sad :(
     
    lryanle, Skyscape_, Cantiel and 2 others like this.
  3. BanananaBread

    BanananaBread The W̴̬̔̂i̴̝͇̇̚l̷͈̾̍l̷̨̋͠ǒ̴̫͝w̴̫̬̍͛

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    Finally, we have needed something like this done.
     
    p5k likes this.
  4. deepcage

    deepcage Captain Obvious has entered the building!

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    Who honestly read all that? I didnt, i skipped all of it after 3 lines. Wyndman, make it shorter so its easier to read please.
     
  5. JieSheng03

    JieSheng03 Active Member

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    Basically, instead of randomly typing for help, introduce yourself, say what you said, provide crash-report if there's any. So even if mods are not available at the point of time, they will be able to help when they are free.
    Also don't do common bugs like putting ME Drives in a bag (Alchemical Bag, etc. Such crashes will cause items to be deleted.) or demanding a refund when it's under no refund policy.
    Also do /absence to extend from 14 to 28 inactive days before claims get deleted. (Note this cannot be recovered if they are gone)
    (Hope I did not miss out any other important points)
     
    GreyWolf11, wyndman and Ronodil like this.
  6. Cynnimon

    Cynnimon Well-Known Member

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    How rude can one person get? The admin write out an informed post on how to basically use the chain of command, and use the information at your fingertips to make their job of fixing your problem easier, as well as reminding people to fully and actually read the rules that we all agree to, and to use common sense.

    They work very hard, as volunteers, to fix everyone's problems so we can enjoy Mym. I can't imagine how much more difficult basic things are, or how much everything adds on to their workload when people don't use their own manpower before seeking the highest ranking staff possible.

    At least do him & the staff the courtesy of reading the thread. It took all of two minutes.

    Just my 2 cents.
     

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