Hello Brad
Challenges and such were issued, and the results
could have been lived with, if the turn was run on time, now all the
planning and preperation for the following turn is for naught, as
this is a ONE WEEK GAME, the new results were given to us OHH let's
see yesterday and turns are due WED. 5AM Central Standard time.
Therefore giving me and several other players very little time to
work with the situation.
*** In 1wk games we can consider delaying the turn. Do you want that? We
try to run the edits as fast as possible - Rob was ill last week so the
normal Friday Edit was delayed to Monday with possible further clarification
later on. Note we have found this to be the best way to run missed turns.
They are very rare - one every few months - and considering the amount of
emails we deal with I can't see how to improve that. (We have around 10 SS
per day).
Sometimes other considerations need to be
looked at Clint, not just the immediate problem and solution. Two
wrongs do not make right. By changing the original player's orders
you have now screwed the game for several other players and have
given a severe advantage to our opponents, and a hinderance to us.
*** We did not change the players original orders here - we corrected the
original turn. Unfortunately the player concerned would have got some extra
information but that's hard to avoid. It's minimal in comparison with the
missed turn he would have to deal with through no fault of his own.
By not reruning all affected turns, you have miscalculated our recons
and markets and etc.
*** Minimal impact on the market. Unfortunately GSI won't give us a program
to edit the market. It's not perfect but it's close. We cannot re-run all
the turns. I have been through this many times before for the reasons why
this is a bad thing. We find it annoys players more if we do this due to
changes in results in their turn. THis minimises the impact of the editted
turn, is fair to the player who missed his turn, and minimally penalises the
opposition. I cannot think of a better way to do it.
You have also given as I stated before the
opponent a great advantage tactically, information it power as Ed
said, I am just not using the term in the same way he did. So far I
am satisfied with the customer service given by Harlequin to date,
but am questioning now, if you all do not some times go overboard
with your corrective actions. We are no longer talking a messup of a
couple of orders, we are now talking over 24 rerun new orders.
*** Yes see above. It wasn't his fault. With 2000+ emails a week we
occasionally miss one.
My teammate sums it up best in his letter to you all, which I shall
repeat here. All I can say is compromises should be made in some
circumstances.
"Hi Clint,
I can't express how unhappy I am with a "rerun" of a turn in
1650/119. I know that Harlequin is a different company (i.e. you're
not GSI), but having received the "new" turn results I am beyond
furious. I understand that the Corsair sent in his orders, that they
were misplaced, and he deserved to have them run. I understand that
he deserves compensation.
GSI would NEVER have handled things this way (not all of *my* orders
were "fixed"), but Pers (the Corsair) got *everything*. Example: I
had the commander at Vamag refuse challenge and do a move/join army
order. My army is destroyed but my commander did *not* do the
move/join.
*** Not sure what the error was here. If this caused an edit for that
players turn then we can correct that. All he needs to do is get in touch.
I had GSI lose *two* of my turns over the years and
*NEVER* once did they rerun a turn or do ANYTHING like this. I don't
know if Stuart can "look up" my old records, but GSI compensated in
other ways.
*** Yes and players hated it. There was a 25% drop out in 4 years due to
this and other aspects of GSI's service. They would not fix anything and we
(and the players) don't like that. This is the fairest way to deal with the
situation. Note I guess Stu would have replied to the query above. (We
have had a lot of players re-join the game when they hear how we do it.
Note I am very aware that this does not suit everyone but it does appear to
suite more players and seems to be a fairer method).
For example, when I had an army overrun because it
didn't move (because they misplaced my orders), they gave me a new
character with the same stats and the same army at my capitol and
gave me 2 free turns. They didn't "rerun" my turn. In another
case, they gave me 25,000 gold at my capitol because I didn't get to
participate in my team's market manipulation. I don't even know if
GSI ever reran turns. They certainly never did for me, even when
they were at fault. They compensated me in other ways.
I think this is an abysmal method of dealing with the situation. It's just
attempting to get around it and sticking plaster type edit. Check out the
end of this long email for our methodology.
Why not just contact us first then bring this to the public eye? Much
easier to deal with any problems then rather than have to deal with the
deluge this sometimes bring. Your call on this of course. (We often then
get, 2 years ago they did this and I didn't like it type comments then)! 
What I guess it comes down to is this: I regard my turn results as
sacred. For there to be dramatic changes in a one week game is
completely unacceptable. A teammate and I spent about 6 hours
analyzing the South and laying plans, only to be informed that our
efforts are for naught, because the turn was "rerun".
Sorry for the wasted effort. I am not sure of the impact of the edit so
cannot comment (Stu ran it I think) on that but can appreciate some wasted
effort here.
COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!
I don't know what I'm going to do. Please consider the following
changes to
my turn:
1) character killed in challenge therefore:
a) no army hired
b) no boats picked up
c) no navy at ---- pop center
For what reasons? We I am not clear what you are asking here. Stu dealt
with the edit so you would need to contact him if your orders were input
incorrectly. Look all you need to do is ask if you think we have made an
error and we can fix it. I take it this was sent in to Stu to check?
2) Corsair army at Vamag
a) I don't know who commands this new army (perfect stealth!)
b) Vamag will now fall
*** Just ask if you are missing information that you should have access to.
We'll give it. Easy.
3) 1 of my move/join orders not performed.
** Was this an edit that we missed? We can sort it out. Once again just get
in touch.
At the very least, I think it would be fair, to rerun MY entire
turn. Let's refight that challenge and let me see who the enemy
commander at Vamag is and let my character do his move/join.
We cannot re-run your orders if you did not like the outcome of the orders I
am afraid until you like them. This is majorly why we avoid the re-running
of turns. Inevitably no-one will be satisfied.
Completely stunned, trying hard not to be angy, trying to be
reasonable, I am"
Our method is this.
1) If a player sends in a turn on time he has a right to have that turn run.
2) If we miss inputting that turn (for whatever reason) and it was received
within the appropriate deadline then we correct the turn. (It being only
fair on that player - even though it takes us a LOT of time and effort).
3) We do this by creating a back-up of the turn and re-running that turn (on
the back-up) with the corrected orders. This then allows us to run the turn
as if it had been input and then edit the original turn with the correct
results. We then contact the players with the changes. We don't reprocess
until we like the results - just to forestall those queries. We go with
it - regardless of the outcome - it's only way to be fair and impartial.
4) We don't send out the re-run turn as this has extra information that is
not available to players but we will forward any information that they have
the right to - ie would be on their turnsheet (or now missing from their
turnsheet). Any help players can give us then is appreciated as we can miss
things. A reminder of a 930 (we do check all 930s for example but might
miss one, and other similar information gathering orders).
4)a Note I am aware that having a turn come back and everything is rosy,
and then having an edit say sorry you have been nuked is not a fun
experience. I can advise you that it does happen VERY rarely though. We
triple check but sometimes they do get missed I am afraid.
5) We (and the players) prefer it this way. Re-runnning the entire turn
with one set of orders (or one order) is prone to error, complaints and bad
feeling on all sides. A challenge that worked on turn 1 might not work on
turn 1a, an encounter went the wrong way (if random) or a pick up artefact
might fail when it succeeded before, failed assassination (or successful
one) when it was successful before (or unsuccessful).
So we minimise the changes by only running the missing orders (whether or
not it is one turn or 1 order).. I guarantee that it causes more heartache
for players re-running the entire game (Been there/done that we tried it
before to see if that was better but unfortunately it caused a lot more
trouble). Check out the houserules for the method in more detail. I know
most players have NOT read them - please do so it will help explain what is
going on so if you have a complaint then this will help us to help you.
I hope that helps - note in your statement above there are lots of things
that might have gone wrong - if so just contact us and we'll help sort them
out. We can consider a delay - but you need to get in touch with us.
Thanks for being polite. Much appreciated. Don't feel like kicking the cat
now (who has been staring at me all the time I wrote this!)
Clint
