Custom Skill Enhancers

**Monolith** · Feb 14th, '03, 12:06 PM

Originally posted by archer
Regardless of who is right or wrong, Dan isn't representing Hero Games very well (and, like it or not, that's how he's seen). And, whether it's $4, $40, or $40,000, people have a right to feel good about the purchases they've made.

True, but there were really two issues here:

#1: I am not happy that the program does not allow for complete customization. Change that so that it is.

#2: I am not happy with Dan, so I will never buy another Hero Games product again.

In answer to #1, Joe was given several alternatives, and rejected them all because it was not what HE wanted. In answer to #2, Joe was acting like a child: If it's not my way, and because you are not complying with my every need, I will never buy another Hero Games product ever!

I will bet you $50.00 he buys at least 3 this year.

And besides that, didn't you just post in the Hero List that you were never coming or posting to these boards again?

**Chris Goodwin** · Feb 14th, '03, 03:24 PM

Originally posted by Monolith
True, but there were really two issues here:

#1: I am not happy that the program does not allow for complete customization. Change that so that it is.

#2: I am not happy with Dan, so I will never buy another Hero Games product again.

In answer to #1, Joe was given several alternatives, and rejected them all because it was not what HE wanted. In answer to #2, Joe was acting like a child: If it's not my way, and because you are not complying with my every need, I will never buy another Hero Games product ever!

In both cases, the key words were "I'm not happy." Smart companies speak to that. When people go around on public fora posting negative things about companies' customer service, the smart companies try to find out why and fix it.

And besides that, didn't you just post in the Hero List that you were never coming or posting to these boards again?

No such thing. Where did you get that idea? If it was my "last word" posting, that's a frequent shorthand for "I've taken up enough of everyone's time with this borderline off-topic posting; any further responses will be in private e-mail."

**Monolith** · Feb 14th, '03, 03:36 PM

Originally posted by archer
No such thing. Where did you get that idea? If it was my "last word" posting, that's a frequent shorthand for "I've taken up enough of everyone's time with this borderline off-topic posting; any further responses will be in private e-mail."

Is this you?

Chris Goodwin, Hero List:
"I've also decided that I'm not going to post to threads in the HD board any longer (unless it's workarounds for things Dan says are against the rules and hence unsupported), nor read any of them except for the update postings. I don't need the aggravation."

If that is not you, I'm sorry I insinuated that it was, but if it is you, am I misinterpreting that quote?

**Chris Goodwin** · Feb 14th, '03, 04:21 PM

Originally posted by Monolith
Is this you?

If that is not you, I'm sorry I insinuated that it was, but if it is you, am I misinterpreting that quote?

Ahhh. That was me. I thought you'd somehow inferred that I was never posting to a Hero Games discussion board again; HD = HeroDesigner. I thought I was stating more of a recent tendency than a blanket policy, and in any case, reserve the right to change my mind.

**Monolith** · Feb 14th, '03, 04:22 PM

Originally posted by archer
Ahhh. That was me. I thought you'd somehow inferred that I was never posting to a Hero Games discussion board again; HD = HeroDesigner. I thought I was stating more of a recent tendency than a blanket policy, and in any case, reserve the right to change my mind.

Fair enough. I'm glad you did.

We can always use another keen mind in these forums.

***archermoo*** · Feb 15th, '03, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by archer
In both cases, the key words were "I'm not happy." Smart companies speak to that. When people go around on public fora posting negative things about companies' customer service, the smart companies try to find out why and fix it.

They at least find out why. In this case the why seems to have been that HD doesn't have his custom rules in it, and when he ordered Dan to "fix" it, Dan politely told him that he had no current plans to do so. The guy seemed to find that an unacceptable answer, and proceded to flame Dan personally.

I agree that smart companies should fix things like this. The way to fix things when you have an obnoxious customer who is not satisfied unless he is able to be preemptory and rude to people is to invite them to no longer do buisness with you.

**Enforcer84** · Feb 15th, '03, 06:27 PM

I work in customer service and I have often felt the wrath of the angry person. Its inevitable. Dan has it worse than I becasue deep down I know they are not mad at me beyond me being the messanger, they are upset with the product I represent. Dan on the other hand is the guy who makes the product that they are complaining to him about. The attacks seem alot more personal. I have seen him respond in kind but only when being provoked.

The only time I have seen Dan really ticked was when Karinsdad was thrashing HD before he'd even gotten the beta out. Boy that was a flame war. Most of the "regulars" here seem to have really good people skills and deal with eachother in a congenial manner. Its the guys and girls whose names I don't recognize that often get the flame going. I find that odd.

And Chris is lucky he never provoked me when he was my customer so he never saw the ANGRY CHAD. It would have made him quiver with fear I tell you....

**tiger** · Feb 17th, '03, 12:34 PM

Dan has always been helpful to me. I added a new disadvantage to my campaigns and he explain how to do it.

While I have to change the templets with each update, I'm not gonna expect him to change his program to make it easier on me. I'll simply do the necessary work each time, big deal takes a whole 2-3 minutes.

**tiger** · Feb 17th, '03, 02:18 PM

Ok at the risk of being a b*tthead. I decide to go in and see if I could at a enhancer to a templete.

Dan is the number of enhancers listed the max that the program will allow. I modified a templete but it didn't show up when I tried it out. I wasn't able to locate anything in the manuel, It's there I'm sure but I'm blind today

***Simon*** · Feb 17th, '03, 02:20 PM

The enhancers that are listed are the only ones that the program recognizes. You can edit the template to change any of the existing ones (changing the name, what they affect, the cost savings, etc.), but you cannot add in new ones in that way.

**tiger** · Feb 17th, '03, 02:36 PM

OK..That explains it then, Tanks

**Chris Goodwin** · Feb 17th, '03, 06:10 PM

Originally posted by archermoo
They at least find out why. In this case the why seems to have been that HD doesn't have his custom rules in it, and when he ordered Dan to "fix" it, Dan politely told him that he had no current plans to do so. The guy seemed to find that an unacceptable answer, and proceded to flame Dan personally.

Edit: Dan didn't make any effort to keep the customer happy. It takes some effort, so I'm not going to blame Dan for going out of his way to piss Joe off, but from the word go Dan seemed not to care whether he wanted to keep Joe as a customer. Other customers (me, among others) see this and begin wondering whether we want to keep giving Dan's company money.

I agree that smart companies should fix things like this. The way to fix things when you have an obnoxious customer who is not satisfied unless he is able to be preemptory and rude to people is to invite them to no longer do buisness with you.

I've never worked for a company that would have been satisfied with inviting customers to no longer do business with it. Pretend I'm a business. People have money and want to give it to me. I want them to give me their money. I'm going to do what I can to keep them giving me money. If I have a customer going around posting negative stuff on public fora (edit: or, especially, makes the effort to send the CEO a letter) about my customer service department, I'm going to find out who in that department pissed them off, have a talk with that person, and make some kind of effort to get my customer happy enough to give me more money in the future. If I've made that effort and he's still going away mad, then at least I've made the effort, and he's not going away because the guys who work for me are jerks.

You can make a customer happy without giving him what he wants. I've done it, more than a few times. There's a fine art to it. I'm not saying Dan has to give everyone what they want, but he could sure say no in a nicer way, and leave people feeling happy in spite of it. I'm not going to try to speak for Joe, but this is my problem with Dan.

(Chad:

)