I’ve been thinking how you plan on handling in-game actions from things like botters, chat spammers and such. I’ve always liked games that had in-game GMs but not like copy paste robot type ones. What I mean by that is, some games had generic responses but once in a while found a GM who would throw in little hints or funny comments that make you feel like you’re actually talking to a person and not someone that hate’s doing GM stuff that copy and paste a message to you. I was thinking if you guys had a system like this, make a little form for people to make applications if you wanted later on because I for one like to try and help when able. Personally I focus a lot on gameplay but a lot of times I notice games get out of control and I always say to myself, if only I wielded the power of Zeus I would strike them down! Otherwise I just put them on ignore or report them and get that generic response of “Hello so and so, we will look into your report. For now you can put that person on ignore by doing blah blah blah…” I know for any of you who have played many free to play games over the years or any game with a system like that in general know what I mean.
Sorry for the hilariously terrible response time.
As someone who has been answering e-mails sent to our support account, one point I’d make is that I’m not sure there’s a black and white dichotomy of companies like that. When a recent update has caused problems for a significant percentage of players, the priority will be on keeping the average waiting time down and that means less time available for each of your responses. When things are quiet, it’s easier to justify having a bit of fun and offering more interesting responses. Queue size can vary significantly.
[quote quote=6396][…]a lot of times I notice games get out of control and I always say to myself, if only I wielded the power of Zeus I would strike them down!
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Yeah, and that’s why most companies don’t have in-game GMs or only have them pop-in for a limited event: they can abuse their power and, especially in the current climate of political-infiltration by non-gamers into roles of power, like to take obviously non-insulting banter out of context for false justification for their “punishment”. (I got a 99 hour “Mute” because I said “Dang” after a GM mistook me for having been another person who had said “Damn” and told to not swear [which, in all honesty, it isn’t to begin with…]. Needless to say, that GM and ~2-3 others lost their jobs for abuse of power a few months later after people roasted them to the 3rd degree on the forums…because whoTF mutes/bans someone over minor words when they currently weren’t banning people teleporting outside of the map boundry?)
Botters and RMT can best be dealt with via statistics and flagging, not a GM poofing in and potentially banning someone who went afk and got their players stuck running into a corner (in a solo-instanced game?) for 6 hours because something fell on their mouse. I do like a simple Ping-Pong “Hello? Are you there?” human-check, but they can be circumvented via bots too, so…best to just watch them digitally.
And as for GM -in-game shootin’ the breeze: don’t care for it. Cults of Suckups tend to gather at the feet of GMs, trying to make them into close ‘buddies’ they can call upon when someone not to their liking pisses them off for some random reason. Also tends to go to some GMs heads along with the power they can wield, making matters that much worse. A silent GM peeking in every so often and poofing off somewhere is a far better option…always wanted to be the GM to poof in as a no-body character with a no-body title over my head so no one would know I was there and start asking for item spawns and forced-dance parties…
I remember when I used to play ROSE Online and having in-game GMs administrate special events and interact with the crowd. I think in the early days of POE they do this too. Those were good times 
[quote quote=9250]
[…]a lot of times I notice games get out of control and I always say to myself, if only I wielded the power of Zeus I would strike them down!Yeah, and that’s why most companies don’t have in-game GMs or only have them pop-in for a limited event: they can abuse their power and, especially in the current climate of political-infiltration by non-gamers into roles of power, like to take obviously non-insulting banter out of context for false justification for their “punishment“. (I got a 99 hour “Mute” because I said “Dang” after a GM mistook me for having been another person who had said “Damn” and told to not swear [which, in all honesty, it isn’t to begin with…]. Needless to say, that GM and ~2-3 others lost their jobs for abuse of power a few months later after people roasted them to the 3rd degree on the forums…because whoTF mutes/bans someone over minor words when they currently weren’t banning people teleporting outside of the map boundry?) Botters and RMT can best be dealt with via statistics and flagging, not a GM poofing in and potentially banning someone who went afk and got their players stuck running into a corner (in a solo-instanced game?) for 6 hours because something fell on their mouse. I do like a simple Ping-Pong “Hello? Are you there?” human-check, but they can be circumvented via bots too, so…best to just watch them digitally. And as for GM -in-game shootin’ the breeze: don’t care for it. Cults of Suckups tend to gather at the feet of GMs, trying to make them into close ‘buddies’ they can call upon when someone not to their liking pisses them off for some random reason. Also tends to go to some GMs heads along with the power they can wield, making matters that much worse. A silent GM peeking in every so often and poofing off somewhere is a far better option…always wanted to be the GM to poof in as a no-body character with a no-body title over my head so no one would know I was there and start asking for item spawns and forced-dance parties…[/quote]
My text tone was more of a joking manor of being Zeus. When I think of GM I think of instant response to things like racial slurs and the likes while being the invisible GM as you mentioned. When I say I would love to be GM, it’s not like WoW where you talk to one, more like I just play the game like normal and if I see something as stated would take instant action and the player would get a generic response about being suspended / banned and then I would make a report or the system would acknowledge that I issued the suspension / ban and would do a followup in private forum or something. Personally I don’t know how a lot of games ran those systems and this was more of an idea because I feel justice isn’t served even remotely harsh enough for a lot of players especially in free to play games who break rules and just come back after a day ban. This is just speaking extreme measures without going to the nitty grit details. My main example is major harassment / racial slurs and sitting their for hours after reporting someone. Sure you can just put someone on ignore but the main point is I don’t want those players. They always ruin communities but I also agree the power of a GM is easily taken granted for and punishments are not always correct. Nothing is perfect nor do I expect them to implement this system as it’s a very old system.
Either way whatever takes place we will just make the best of it and fully plan on enjoying this game and the new content as I have been absent after getting my initial fix from the early build. Awesome community and will be popping back in discord more!
GM’s can be a really good or really bad thing, it all comes back to the person behind.
I’ve been a GM back in the days before MORPG’s where graphical (yes I’m older than the internet ) But then the job was to help players, not haress them. We were helping with bugs, lost items by accident. Quest for when a player reached avatar levels. Special holiday quest themes.
But yes it was another time, a people where not so quick to offence behind the screen, so we rarely had to punish.
But my thought is that to be a good GM you need to know the game well, and be willing to listen, and help others.
/SP