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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dcollins" data-source="post: 1289708" data-attributes="member: 876">I'll rap with you a bit on this. First, I don't like 3.5 and avoid it -- "not fully fleshed out" indeed, very reminiscent of 2nd Ed ( <a href="http://www.superdan.net/down3-5.html" target="_blank">www.superdan.net/down3-5.html</a> ). Okay, so that's out of the way.But, these problems with the customer service address have been the same for years, regardless of which edition you're talking about. If you're a serious D&D player just do not bother with customer service. If you know about the errata, FAQ, and the ENWorld rules forum, you'll get more informed responses there than anywhere else. Personally with an important and sticky issue I write directly to the Sage and I've been truly impressed by how likely he is to write me back personally (at least prior to last summer).Why does customer service suck? Well, I could hypothesize. First, it's probably a pretty low-paying position, with not enough people hired to handle the incoming email, which is below the company's real care because it doesn't result in any income to the bottom line. So why bother with anything better? Secondly, this same address serves everything WOTC makes, so the same people are fielding questions on Magic, Pokemon, Star Wars, D&D, and whatever else is rolling in -- D&D is probably a minority of what they deal with, and no one's going to expect the CS people to be truly proficient in all these different games. Probably there's a teed-off Magic player out there who is also thinking "the CS people should at least be DCI-qualified rules judges". Repeat that for every rules system. Thirdly, and most generally, doesn't end-user customer service for everything just totally suck eggs? From what I hear, it's always a low-paying, no-respect, not-enough-people hired, dead-end job. Companies put a CS contact out there to make you think there'll be support when you buy a product, but underfund the actual CS because it's a cost (and not a profit) center. The goal of an end-user CS center is to deflect public criticism as much as possible, not actually solve problems. I can't get any answers out of my cable company CS, whether it's about the line being down or my billing being screwed up. My roommate can't get the phone company CS to track down his lost check. My sister can't get any answers from CS for her new Dell. You can't get reliable answers out of D&D CS, either. There's endless horror stories online about the absurd working conditions and demands placed on CS people. It's a total scam!(phew)End of hypothesizing. That having been said, I would be truly curious to find out some facts about why WOTC bothers with a customer service contact at all -- it seems like, for a non-technical product, you could just do without it, in fact. Do they feel it makes extra sales? Do most people have such simple questions they come away with satisfactory answers? Is it just a historical standard that game companies keep customer service contacts?How many people are actually working at WOTC, any way? How much do they get paid? What are they responsible for, exactly? Are they fully devoted just to CS questions, or do they have other job responsibilities and just answer CS in a part-time capacity? Are they actually employed by WOTC directly or are they outsourced to some company that doesn't know anything about gaming? Why don't they bother to organize a database of actual FAQs to make their job simpler?It seems unimaginable that someone actually has full-time employment answering D&D rules questions and not ever appear cognizant of discussions on the ENWorld (#1 D&D website according to all signs) rules forum, but there it is, a whole department of them.Finally, I'll say this. If there's anyone left at Wizards who reads this, I'll publically and personally offer to take the component of D&D customer support funding, outsource the rules questions, and with probably a few ENWorlders provide much better and more organized customer rules support than currently exists. In addition I'll statistically document the incoming questions and forward that data to R&D to focus attention on what's troubling to players and has the greatest demand to get fixed in the next errata/ FAQ/ d20 System edition, which I'm sure does not currently happen.</blockquote>

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