Tech Support Ping Pong

Aion has a very cool feature.

It's called Live Status. You can check the state of any server, their contested state, and pull up any character from any server and stare at their level, stats, equipment, and even a 3D model viewer if you have java.

Warhammer Online tried to have this, but failed at the customized avatar level. It was just a standard paper doll that didn't look anything like your character.

Aion's default is the standard paper doll, but if you log in with your game account and password, and access the model viewer, you can take a picture of your badass self to replace the standard face. This can get pulled up and used in forum signatures and things like that.

Apparently.

Because I can't log in to find out.

Goodness knows why. The ironic thing is that the only computer capable of logging in is my work computer, which does not have Java installed for the 3D avatar viewer, and besides, they'd prolly fry my ass for looking at sexy paper dolls with virtual e-peen armor at work.

My home desktop computer, which has Java installed, gets rejected at the log in screen.

Thinking to bridge the gap long enough to capture just one pic of my character's face, I brought my laptop to work, only to find out that the wireless work connection (or something to do with my laptop) can't allow me to log in either.

So recap: personal computers somehow cannot log in. Work computer can, no java installed or administrator access.

Crud.

So I was down to Tech Support ping-pong. Having submitted a ton of bug reports for City of Heroes, and one or two one-offs for funky store purchases, etc, I have a keen idea of what to expect.

One thing I'd say for NCsoft Tech Support, their systems are in place for bearable response times. You can log into your support account to update as necessary, it automatically threads it into one giant thread, and then someone looks at it and replies back, and then you reply with an update, and then another someone does it, and so on.

So over the course of several days, I have bounced from Account Support to Tech Support, where we are now attempting to pinpoint the source of the problem with some diagnosis tools I now have to download and run.

*sighs*

This is the longest chain I've ever been in, but I'm not giving up until I get to the root of the problem (or Tech Support gives up for me) as this is a really cool function.