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Score : 457

Lost 4 years of subscription due to a bug and Ankama refuses to compensate

By Iathen#5113 - SUBSCRIBER - January 18, 2023, 22:00:16

AnkaTracker

Hello everyone,

I reported a bug 1 year ago about issues connecting the the game through the launcher. At the beginning it was random, but it progressively got worse and I could only login maybe once every 20 tries. Since I play with a team of 4 (in a server where this is allowed), it was impossible for me to play because it was impossible to log in all 4 at once.

I opened a ticket to report this issue. Ankama support suggested a work-around (not using the launcher) which was decommissioned soon after. They said that more people have reported the bug, but it will take a while to troubleshoot and fix it. But I should rest assured, once the bug is solved, I will be compensated.

Fast forward to 10 months later - I upgraded my operating system from Windows 10 to Windows 11, and thought to try again. It looks like I am no longer victim of this bug. I open a new ticket to get back the 40 months of subscription that I've lost (10 per account). No response for 2 months. Then, I get a response that the bug was my fault (not Ankama's, even though I was not the only person that reported the bug), and I am given back just 2x2 months of subscription. The person responding to my ticket does not listen to reason.

In my opinion, Ankama made 2 huge errors in this situation:
1) They knew there was this bug, affecting a small portion of their customers, but they decommissioned the only work-around
2) They promised compensation and didn't keep their word. To be honest, promising compensation is not the issue. Even if they didn't give the promise, it should go without saying that people affected by this bug deserve compensation. You pay for the subscription, so that you can play, and you are not given the actual service (being able to play). So, of course you should be paid back.

I share with you the full content of the 2 tickets I opened, to judge for yourself. I don't expect to gain anything from this post; I just want to raise awareness, so everyone knows how they can expect to be treated by Ankama. I've been a subscriber for years, and I tried to be helpful (providing logs etc), and extremely patient with this situation. All I got is someone blaming me for Ankama's bug and power-tripping on me.

Full Screenshots of the 2 tickets:

Ticket 1, 1: https://ibb.co/FhKYbb5
Ticket 1, 2: https://ibb.co/pZRs2ns
Ticket 1, 3: https://ibb.co/5nL0DFj
Ticket 1, 4: https://ibb.co/yqCmFBc
Ticket 1, 5: https://ibb.co/p4dWcqS
Ticket 1, 6: https://ibb.co/crSXTR4
Ticket 1, 7: https://ibb.co/dQqC4Hd
Ticket 1, 8: https://ibb.co/TWxcJfh
Ticket 1, 9: https://ibb.co/c8PTbmm
Ticket 1, 10: https://ibb.co/QJ3sC2X
Ticket 1, 11: https://ibb.co/0q0tx9w
Ticket 1, 12: https://ibb.co/6W80NbY
Ticket 1, 13: https://ibb.co/qBWGnhQ
Ticket 1, 14: https://ibb.co/qj7jXkn
Ticket 1, 15: https://ibb.co/QvSdZxs
Ticket 1, 16: https://ibb.co/vPZcPLb
Ticket 1, 17: https://ibb.co/7Nch2dQ
Ticket 2, 1: https://ibb.co/7rx5SD5
Ticket 2, 2: https://ibb.co/SQHYSDg
Ticket 2, 3: https://ibb.co/HThqLr2
Ticket 2, 4: https://ibb.co/QvQ1pw9
Ticket 2, 5: https://ibb.co/VqR4Rp7
Ticket 2, 6: https://ibb.co/q7T6xq1
Ticket 2, 7: https://ibb.co/5Yt9xqR

First Ankama intervention

[Ankama]DOFUS - ADMIN - January 27, 2023, 19:22:27

Hello,

I understand your frustration in this situation.

However, I cannot give you a different answer or assist you in a different way than what support has already provided. This is unfortunate but only support will be able to provide further assistance in this problem.

Thank you for your understanding.

See message in context

Reactions 4

Score : 2728

Roumo#4013 - SUBSCRIBER - January 23, 2023, 13:16:56

I'm sorry for the issues you faced and I don't want to discount that or the frustration it surely caused you. But I just wanted to ask how you came up with the figure of 4 years worth of compensation between your accounts?

If you only attempted to connect to the game for 1-2 months and then proceeded to have an 8-9 month hiatus without attempting to connect - how do you know that the login issues were still persistent during the entirety of those months you didn't try? Due to this factor, I can only see a potential of 1-2 months per account tops being compensated for the time you were active, and that's before deducting days that you were successful at logging into any account.

Score : 2728

Roumo#4013 - SUBSCRIBER - January 23, 2023, 13:25:27

Just as a side note: Article 6.13

Score : 457

Iathen#5113 - SUBSCRIBER - January 26, 2023, 18:31:02

I did try to connect a few times, with the last attempts in summer. The difference with the first months is that I only gave it 1-2 tries before giving up. There was no point, because even if I managed to login 1 account, I knew that I couldn't play with my team.

I believe that the word "hiatus" miss-characterises the situation. It's not like I paid for subscription for a working product, then got bored for a few months, and then tried to get free subscription. I couldn't login or play. Who would keep trying to connect several times a day on a game that has this kind of bug? It's not exactly fun or a good use of my time...

Also, I would expect to see in the changelog that the bug is fixed, if had been. At the very least, Ankama would be able to know when the bug was fixed, because they should track this issue since it has been reported by multiple people. I believe that the bug was never fixed. I changed my operating system to Windows 11 and bypassed the bug.

And just to cover any concerns about the bug being on my side (I appreciate that you didn't raise this point, but want to take the chance and mention this too

The bug appeared with a dofus update and not a change in my pc.
Other customers experienced the same issue.
My login credentials were correct, yet the error message said "Invalid Credentials".
The entity that develops software (like Dofus) is responsible of defining the requirements (hardware, operating system, driver requirements) and guarantees that their program works for all systems fullfilling the minimum requirements.

Also, let's not forget that even though the bug was reported and affected several people, Ankama decided to take away the only workaround available.

I wouldn't be surprised if the bug occurred only on the specific version of WIndows 10 that my PC was running, or if there was an incompatibility with one of my drivers. So, upgrading to Windows 11 solved the issue. However, it's Ankama's responsibility to provide information about the system requirements, to solve these bugs instead of ignoring them and decommissioning the only work-around. It's also their responsibility to have proper error handling and detailed logging so that they can debug these issues.

Regarding the 4 year figure:

4 accounts X 10 months (+2 months to respond to my request) = 4 years
I had a 5th account too, but since this had a smaller subscription, I didn't include it in the calculation.
No, the 2 months that they gave back is not considered in the calculation because I can't play with just 2 accounts. I want my full team. And I'm not going to pay for subscription again after how they treated me. I'm afraid something like this will happen again and I will lose again my subscription and never be compensated. I will not pay again for a service I didn't receive.

1 reply

[Ankama]DOFUS - ADMIN - January 27, 2023, 19:22:27

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