ATTN DEVS: Lipcat Must Go!

[AgentMoore.9453]

ArenaNet recently released the Lost Era Mount Adoption License which, to the surprise of many, had skins in it that were almost all winners. Several in my guild (self included) threw down $$$ to buy them. High fives all around. Excellent.

Until the next day.

Among issues we discovered like the Shiba skin completely losing its textures on lower settings and several mounts having odd undyeable red lines on the edges of their models, the company then put out a patch note stating:

Fixed an issue in which the Tundra Grimalkin warclaw skin's lip color was being affected by other dye channels.With rising dread, I logged in to see what they were talking about.

This is not what was advertised to us when this skin was released. Maybe some people are loving the lipstick, but I am definitely not. Some of my guildies have already contacted support to see if they can get a refund and have been told 'sorry bro, it's already unlocked on your account we can't do anything' which, honestly, sounds like a Really Bad way to handle a situation in which you changed a product after you sold it.

If I bought a car off your lot and you painted flames up the side of it overnight, we'd be having this same conversation.

Possible solutions:

• Reverse this change
• Add a dye channel for the mouth and nose so people can have lipstick if they want or wipe it off if they don't
• Give people refunds if they contact support about this (1,200 gems if they bought a mount select license or 400 if they bought a single license (or 5-pack))

I've been holding off on writing to support myself just yet (it hasn't been fruitful for my friends) because I was hoping ArenaNet would roll the change back after seeing how goofy it looks, but I may have to at some point, hopefully with a better result than others have gotten.

EDIT(s)3/29: Adjusted the thread title. Am hoping for a dev response to try and work this out.3/30: Friends have, again, been denied refunds - Contacted support myself and requested a refund of 400 gems (the cost of a single license/skin).3/31: Support has offered me 200 gems (?) and I have accepted and asked what others in this situation should do.4/1: This was April Fools, so as a joke devs responded to every thread but this one.4/2: NCSoft rolled out new legal changes to its TOS & Policies, and that may be all we get in terms of answers.

[ugrakarma.9416]

LMAO the lipstick. lol lol lol;.

[VulShanna.5702]

This change is honestly awful and has put me off buying the new mount pack at all. Anet needs to change the way skin unlocks work for accounts if they can't even refund a product that was changed this drastically after it was purchased.

[Infusion.7149]

It's terrible. I don't know whose idea it is to make the lips so comically large post-patch. At least make them shaded the color you dye the mount.

[Svarty.8019]

NO! Lipcat MUST stay! It's the whole reason I play the game!

[Teratus.2859]

LMFAO!!! that's hilarious.

Now I want them to add a unique animation to this skin so that when you pounce finish someone in WvW a big heart pops up and a smooching sound effect replaces the kitty grrr's on skill 1 :DKitty smooch of death!!

[SexyMofo.8923]

This is why you don’t throw money at the game.

[firedragon.8953]

It is pretty bad.

I dunno, someone needs to do quality assurance checks on the big cat mouths coming off the art benches. This is comical, and when I got the sand lion toothless grandpa mouth warclaw mount a few months ago, it was also terrible. Having said that, I wouldn't count on them changing this.

It's worse this time around though, since you paid for something that you didn't actually get. You should just ask for a refund with a reason as "product not as advertised".

[The Greyhawk.9107]

Fair enough.

[Tru Reptile.6058]

Support refused to refund my gems. Told em about the Shiba texture problem and was told to post about it on the forums. Told em the Grimalkin changes isn't what I paid for, was told too bad so sad. I think this is the only time I bought gems to get mount skins. I won't be making that mistake again.

[Naxos.2503]

It's honestly sad when they actually managed to put out a universally acclaimed mount pack, only to fudge it all up the next day. I myself considered getting one or two of these, I am vindicated in my habit of being patient when it comes to sales.

[Tsakhi.8124]

Wow. So first they charge 4000 gems for dyes and now they're fudging up their mounts with unnecessary cosmetic changes? This is really starting to bother me. Are they trying? I know they're working on the expansion, but there is absolutely no reason for all of this bloat. It's bad enough that the fixes break more than they correct, now we have bloat and refusal for a refund. The way I see it if you're buying something specifically for their aesthetics, you should get what you pay for, not the "fixed" altered version that you had no say over.

[Joote.4081]

Why would I want to cover up a really nice vanilla skin with one of those on offer on the gem store? It's a downgrade.

[Dawdler.8521]

"Do you want to know how I got these scars?"

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I doubt the CS Team said "too bad, so sad". Likely, it was that they do not have to tools to remove an unlocked skin from an account, and therefore are not able to offer a refund. Otherwise, everyone would purchase skins, ask for a refund, and get their money back and keep the skins.

[AgentMoore.9453]

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:I doubt the CS Team said "too bad, so sad". Likely, it was that they do not have to tools to remove an unlocked skin from an account, and therefore are not able to offer a refund. Otherwise, everyone would purchase skins, ask for a refund, and get their money back and keep the skins.

Which might hold water if this skin was not drastically altered after people had unlocked it. If you buy the wrong item in the gem shop or a friend buys you something you already have, support generally asks you to delete it and then they issue a refund for the purchase. In this case, we initially got what we paid for - and then they changed what we paid for and are currently telling people it's out of their hands to make this right.

This is not a case of people gaming the system to get free skins - on the contrary I'd prefer if they just reverted the change and kept my money because I really loved the Grimalkin before they gave it an oral infection - this is selling one thing and giving players something else. They absolutely should issue refunds (or simply repair the cosmetic gaff) even if it's outside of their usual practices, because changing skins after selling them is also outside their usual practices.

To the point of contacting support, those in my friend group who have done so and been denied a refund have asked for their tickets to be elevated, so I'll bring updates if anything comes of that.

[kamykaze.5904]

Is it April 1. already? =) =) =)

Seriously, how can someone sit in their chair and be like: "Yyep, FIXED!"?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Not arguing that some would prefer the previous skin.
Just that the CS Team does not issue responses like "too bad, so sad". It's not the CS Team that can fix the issue, but the actual Devs.
Whether they believe that change is what should happen, I do not know.

[AgentMoore.9453]

Afternoon, everyone. I'm back again to complain about cats with creepy lips deliver the support updates I promised.

Two things happened yesterday:

• Support shrugged at my guildies and again told them a refund would not be possible
• Guildies were told 'maybe you should try the forum!'
• I contacted support myself

As of today:

• I've spoken to and closed out my ticket with support
• I had asked for 400 gems (the cost of a single skin), and they offered me 200, explaining the usual 'it's already unlocked in your wardrobe and we can't take it out' thing before offering the 200 as a compromise
• I asked what others in my situation should do and the question was not answered (my guess is: contact support, but that doesn't seem to be going very well for some)

There is no amount of carefulness that would have allowed people to predict what you were going to do to this mount, and in some cases (as with the 1,200 license) people spent upwards of $15 to get this cat. Right now, it seems the best course of action is not to buy anything put in the shop for at least a week on the off chance it receives a 'fix' after release, but several people have already told me that this whole thing has put them off buying gems completely (for some of them, this was their first - and last - gem shop experience).

Because of the difference in responses to this problem (as well as the lukewarm feeling I get from 'it's in your wardrobe oops'), I would like to formally ask @Fire Attunement.9835 (or any dev, really) to please weigh in. Even if all that can be said is 'I'll ask the cat guys about this', I'd like some guidance for those who are still being denied any kind of resolution for having their product changed after purchase.

[AgentMoore.9453]

It's April now, and I only kind-of-sort-of have updates to share.

Support remains unmoving for most of the people who have contacted them about this mount skin being changed after purchase (I say most, because they did send me 200 gems which was nice, but inconsistent). There have been no official dev responses to this issue or any guidance about how customers should proceed or if we should expect this to happen again in the future. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate some clarity here, but I won't hold my breath.

If you are in this situation (bought the Grimalkin Warclaw when it was released and logged in the next day to find... lipcat), please post and share your experience, particularly if you have any advice for others. If you contacted support, let us know how it went (without direct logs; posting those is against regulation). Even if it doesn't solve this particular case, maybe 5 years from now when it happens again, the players of the future can use the forum search feature and find your nuggets of wisdom.

Yesterday, ArenaNet's parent company NCSoft updated its TOS and company Policies, thereby extending those to all of its intellectual properties including GuildWars2. These new changes technically go into effect May 5th, but we might as well assume they're already a thing. Devs may not be taking my calls here on the forum, but here's what I was able to glean from the new deets in the TOS:

Except as otherwise provided in Section 7 below, we may restrict, discontinue, modify, devalue, or remove Virtual Goods from any Account or from the Services; remove or disassociate Virtual Goods from any Account; and establish any other reasonable additional restrictions related to Virtual Goods.(Unless you live in Germany, which has its own set of rules in section 7)

&

1.4.5 No Refunds.EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT PROVIDED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, WE HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO REFUND ANY PAYMENTS.(It's written in caps on the page, I'm not being dramatic here)

My takeaway:

ArenaNet can change any item in the game at any time with or without notifying players and no one is entitled to a refund or explanation (unless they live in Germany, I guess), and in order to get the most bang for your buck, it will be better to skip new gem store offerings for at least a week after release just to ensure no undesirable changes are made to the cosmetics sold there. If you make a purchase that later gets changed, contact support (politely), but be prepared to lower your expectations.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

If one peruses the current UA, and the upcoming UA, one will find that the above noted provisions are no different, sans nomenclature (Gems to Virtual Goods) (and capitalization).

Thus, one would not expect a change to CS Team's responses. They try to accommodate when they can, and usually do. They won't when they don't have the tools to do so (such as being unable to remove account unlocks).

[Infusion.7149]

There is a difference between a protective blanket statement in a EULA compared to the generosity of customer service.