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Join Date: Apr 2010
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GM/Support Personnel - Rules & Guidelines
This has been touched on time and time again, but the parameters of a GM's "job" (I realize GM's understand sarcasm. They use it frequently with me when I'm upset and they're supposed to be giving professional support) are still extremely unclear to me.
I verified with the highest ranked member of their staff exactly what they are/have not been allowed to do for players... I have -- since I started playing a while ago now -- witnessed GM's do virtually every one of those things they can not/have not apparently do/done.
I don't care. In their defense, anything that made their customers happy is fine by me. Point being, they shouldn't be done until the customer/s in question are satisfied with the response given. I have started this thread for the community to spitball ideas to be considered for inclusion within the body of the "GM Rules", whatever they may actually be.
[It is also an experiment involving how fast this post will be removed for being "off topic" -- although it's in the "General Discussion" area.]
At any rate... My wife and I played for about six hours today. We were heading back from a long journey including the laborious gathering of foodstuffs, and the pulse pounding taming of several donkeys, and filling of one such superior beasts large bags... when all of a sudden -- "Server Maintenance In (0) Minutes..." Bamf!
So we waited patiently for the server to come back (new auto-spam log-in feature makes it easy). It comes back and the donkey is fine. My wife is glitching (invisible when she moves) so she re-logs. An invisible belbus starts attacking my donkey. I petition instantly...
The events that happened over the next three or so minutes brought me to a point of rage I don't believe I have felt since adolescence. It was that serious and pure. I wanted to destroy Mortal Online and all that it was. Not because the invisible belbus ate the [f-word] donkey, nor because it then ate my [f-word] wife as she finished loading, nor because it then turned the [f-word] on me... over and over as I attempted to get the loot before it evaporated... stopping my arrows in the air like it was invisible [f-word] Neo...
Not because I knew the stacks/almost full stacks were gone the second it happened, nor because GM Athanas (my dearest old friend...) responded the second I finally ended it all on my own, nor because he/she didn't respond to the oldest ticket first...
It was because when my wife responded to their response quickly and concisely, explaining what happened, GM Athanas took the 20 seconds apparently necessary to respond to my wife with a rhetorical and insulting question of his/her own -- basically stating my wife was wasting his/her time -- as the bag of loot with thousands of units of materials in it popped into nothingness.
I know what a GM can do. I know what the 20+ seconds of time spent being a smart-ass could have been used for. Once again, Athanas specifically (in my experience), I'm not impressed.
So... To kick it all off. How about:
Respond courteously, listening to the customer's complaint/s.
Then, react in a timely fashion working to preserve invested time and effort in the form of assets (those expiring in a loot bag, for example).
Do not heckle, be sarcastic, arrogant, or in any way escalate the customer's already high level of irritation.
Be empathetic, compassionate, and pay close attention to all of the information being presented.
Use dialogue such as "I understand you are upset, but if you take a moment to calm down I will do everything I can to make this right for you." instead of, I don't know, telling people to go [f-word] themselves and closing the petition.
In closing, I have researched this a good deal on these forums. To me, it seems like a vast majority of the bad experiences with the in-game support staff have been essentially cats playing with mice. Mice that pay monthly subscription fees.
[I personally like the GM that uses little smiley faces like a 12-year-old texting, and just gives you whatever you ask for... But, to each their own...]
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A helpfull player
Today, 05:23 #4 (permalink)
psychobilly
Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
Rep Power: 3
Well there are several issues here you might run into:
1. Some mobs seem to spawn underneath the ground texture, or invisible. This has been happening for some time, and needs to be fixed immediately. Pets can attack this invisible creature if you have a pet set to "protect me". You can also move a distance away, and then double tap jump to reset the AI (another bug). Those are the workarounds that I know.
2. There are spots in the game where arrows are simply not functioning. I was just farming some risars, and I encountered an area where my arrows were going right through them. I had to pull the mob pretty far away from its spawn point to be able to shoot it. Not sure if they changed the area of influence for trees or what. Fairly new bug.
3. They fixed a bug where players load into the game before the status bar finishes loading. However they did not apply this fix to NPC's - so players load in for NPC's before the red bar finishes. You can be attacked 30 seconds or longer before being in game.
4. The mob AI charges in to players so they are touching skin to skin. If you shoot an arrow point blank it will actually go out the back side of the mob without hitting it.
Welcome to Mortal, this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bugs.
The GM's should return things for deaths due to load in after server crash. It sucks crashing in a mob spawn then getting killed as your loading in.
and a link to the thread
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/67639-gm-support-personnel-rules-guidelines.html#post1218418
there are 2 types of mmo, imitators and innovaters.
Thanks I usually do I forgot/