The main AURORA event I was involved in was the Khanid Carrier series of events. It was kind of amazing to me that we even had that going on given how relatively few people were involved. The battles would see pretty broad participation but the side events building up to them almost felt like they belonged to just a handful of small Corps that were vested in Khanid RP. The whole thing blew my mind.
However, you can still have a D&D like RP experience in at least one MMO. SWG, which is hard to otherwise recommend, does have a couple toolsets for player content creation. The Storyteller system focuses on live interaction between a player managing the props and NPCs and a player party. It's not instanced so the Storyteller can set up props in player cities, with permission, and many regions on many worlds for a real involved adventure. As an old tabletop hand myself, I can say it's by far the closest I've come to old school roleplaying adventure in MMOs so far and that includes CoH's Architect.
In many ways, I think putting the tools of creation as much into the hands of the "right" players as possible might well make for a much more lively, dynamic and egalitarian system of adventure and narrative creation than what we've seen before. And by the "right" players I mean those not so motivated by material reward. That was the bane of Architect. Why have a handful of RP GMs when you could have hundreds of player GMs and players organizing freely around them? If one clique isn't working find another.
I think games like Lotro would be better off implementing a program where GMs could take players out of the PvP areas and raid middle earth every once in awhile (like 1 or 2 times a week). Ever since it game out, I always thought it would be awesome if Monster Players gained and held control of all the sites, they should be able to assault middle earth. It'd be something to actually work towards. Players would try to stop Monster Players, because they dont' want them to raid middle earth. Monster Players would want to capture everything and raid middle earth. Never seemed right that Monster Players could take over just certain keeps. They get to the middle earth gate and get killed in 1 hit.
LOTRO is based on the books and so there is a limit to where such assaults might take place and in certain circumstances they were storybound.
Still, in such places like angmar it might be more feasible.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
What I miss are the gm events. When hate was going to open a GM game around and gathered some players in Qyenos and had us doing quests ( not telling us it was to support the evil Gods) being the nice tree hugging ranger that I was i refused to kill any of the wolves or bears in Qyenos Hills even though I knew I could not then complete the GMS quests. low and behold I was given a reward and have my players name shouted across the server solely because unlike all the other good aligns there I had actually stayed in character. Turns out the quests were there to support the opening of Hate and were purely evil in nature
Heh, grats. That's pretty cool actually and it takes me back. I remember when some rangers and druids who started in the Qeynos area refused to kill wolves and bears even though there were no repercussions for doing so (unless Holly Windstalker happened to catch you doing it).
For my part, I can't say that I ever got to participate in any good GM events. As I remember it about the only GM events I ever got to be a part of were the ones where the GMs would go into a zone as ridiculously overpowered monsters for the level range of the zone and then procede to massacre/gank all the players in the zone who were much lower level then the GM monsters. That did nothing but piss me off.
My view of GM's is not even close to being a good one,not now or ever,and i have been around a long time.
What i have seen is lots of GM"s trying to act cool,and lots of ass kissers willing to make them look cool.You will ALWAYS have these little teenage geeks that want a GM friend to stick up for their arguments or want something free or special treatment,it is a sad use of GM's.
What a GM SHOULD be and usually is are two different things.A GM should have the ability in game to go in fly by mode,invisible,god mode for the sheer purpose of making sure the players are not cheating.Sure there is GM events i have never seen a good one in my life,i don't care what anyone tries to tell me,i have seen people praise the most idiotic events ,so i am not listening.
I don't want ANY of those dumb GM events,just make sure there is no botting and no cheating,if you can't handle that,then don't be a GM just to look "COOL".
You can't even have GM's stand in the noob starting areas,because you will have 100 players and 1-2 GM to ask questions,so that doesn't work either,unless you want to wait in line to ask a question every 20 minutes.Everything sounds good on paper,let's have GM's they can answer questions,run FUN events,well it does not happen with substance,so don't waste my time sending out a GM for those reasons.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I can attest the the validity of this. About 10 years ago I was in the guide program for EQ. I was actively going through petitions to resolve minor issues for players (stuck in a wall, etc.) and GMs would come on to reimburse poofed gear and handle the more sensitive issues. If there were no petitions in the Queue, we were encouraged to grab items from the GM island and distribute them to players. I still remember how players thought celestial swords (GM swords which guides were able to buy as well) were something like 100/10 in stats when they were actually 7/21, but the mystery of it all was fun. I would buy celebration type food and hand it out as well as interact with the players. Even guides, if proposed, could run an event and Sony would send a GM to help spawn the needed creatures, etc. My point being that I agree with the article that GMs need to be able to be fun with the players. It adds a dynamic element to the game.
I was talking to a friend about this just yesterday. GM run events did a lot to add fun to EQ and I think a lot of MMOs would benefit from them.
Ah yes I too remember those days in EQ. They were the fun times. They seemed to have been lost in the abyss of darkness to become more professional without the human touch.
I have been playing WoW many years now and I have spoke in private chat in game maybe twice and it was all pretty much standard replies. Most of the time the petitions go unanswered or I get that standard in game and email response. Getting nothing solved. Oh and then the lovely survey about my exp with GM in so and so. Which my comments are telling them that I didn't speak to a GM and therefore have nothing to say about the GM. Also letting them know my problem was not solved.
The good times have passed and to robotic times seem to have arrived.
would this be from Everquest? reminds me of when Afterlife/Clan blood claw where farming lady vox and Nag and had GMs help. in the end it resulted in a New GM for mith mar server and CBC being disbanded. reading this gave me a flash back from over ten years ago.
after many years of gaming I can agree with this. i still remeber my EQ Guides and GMs, sadly the industry just doesnt allow it anymore.
Hats off to Ex-GM Mith Marr Lily, . GM Chaolash, and Guide Partul
The main AURORA event I was involved in was the Khanid Carrier series of events. It was kind of amazing to me that we even had that going on given how relatively few people were involved. The battles would see pretty broad participation but the side events building up to them almost felt like they belonged to just a handful of small Corps that were vested in Khanid RP. The whole thing blew my mind. However, you can still have a D&D like RP experience in at least one MMO. SWG, which is hard to otherwise recommend, does have a couple toolsets for player content creation. The Storyteller system focuses on live interaction between a player managing the props and NPCs and a player party. It's not instanced so the Storyteller can set up props in player cities, with permission, and many regions on many worlds for a real involved adventure. As an old tabletop hand myself, I can say it's by far the closest I've come to old school roleplaying adventure in MMOs so far and that includes CoH's Architect. In many ways, I think putting the tools of creation as much into the hands of the "right" players as possible might well make for a much more lively, dynamic and egalitarian system of adventure and narrative creation than what we've seen before. And by the "right" players I mean those not so motivated by material reward. That was the bane of Architect. Why have a handful of RP GMs when you could have hundreds of player GMs and players organizing freely around them? If one clique isn't working find another.
That kind of thing was both the boon and the bane of AURORA. Events were never "supposed" to target one particular faction of players (i.e. events "shouldn't" have been made that targeted Khanid roleplayers particularly) - but the best return on the event would inevitably come from the roleplayers, who would generally appreciate the event for the experience rather than the shiny loot.
So at once you've got criticism that AURORA was targeting cliques with preferential treatment, while at the same time having criticism that events were worthless because there weren't good enough rewards attached for the work. It was always a catch-22 that had someone crying foul.
My personal philosophy when producing an event was to have the 'hook' be as public as humanly possible, giving as many players as possible the chance to be involved - but then to let the story evolve as it would after that. Usually it would be down to a small core of roleplayers that follow the storyline through a series of events, with some others drifting in and out by chance. At one point I ran an event targeted at a single player, because that was the way the story made sense (the next event in the series was then aimed at more, and frankly I doubt anyone ever came out of an event I ran ahead in either ISK or loot).
Rewards are the biggest problem with an official event system.
Sadly, the reason I started playing EVE was because of the clownshow that was SWG's early life. I believe you when you say the Storyteller system would be a good substitute, but SWG has too many other issues attached for me. I fooled around with the Ryzom ring for a bit too, but it just wasn't the same.
EVE has a huge, rich storyline to hang everything off of, and for whatever reason people in EVE would generally just start roleplaying along (casually mind you) if a bunch of green text showed up in local chat. One of the things I really liked with eventing was hot-dropping into a random system and starting to roleplay the story, just to see the reactions. With an in-game storyteller system you don't get that - the people you wind up with are looking for that experience. I appreciate that the outcome would probably be "better" from an experience perspective - but it's also a little bit predictable, which is unfortunate.
This article has really made me think about why, in my opinion, MMOs are so awful and un-enjoyable today as opposed to just a few years ago. And again, it seems it comes down to the people playing them.
As far as I'm concerned, whether you're a roleplayer or not (I'm not), the fun of the game starts and ends with the community. A good community can turn a lackluster game into a fun experience, or tear down a good game and make it something that makes you want to scrub yourself with steel wool to get filth off (see: WoW). And really, communities are just like big families in many ways. The problem is that when you remove the older brother and sisters from the equation (i.e. your community-minded GMs), the little kiddies have no role models to look up to in order to learn how to get along with each other. I'm certainly simplifying it, but GM involvement certainly did seem to have a similar type of effect as an older sibling might. While not carrying the authority of an actual parent, they were up the ladder a few steps from the rest of us, but not so far that they couldn't be considered one of us. I kind of miss that.
Nowadays, GMs must be little more than faceless customer service automatons, and can no longer have that same stabilizing influence that (I feel) they used to have. As a result, game communities often more closely resemble a really nasty scene from Lord of the Flies than they do a family. This, more than anything else, is what limits my interest and participation in MMOs these days.
Human beings require leadership. It's not sociology, it'sbiology. It's how we evolved. Remove that element from any kind of group activity, like online gaming, and things fall apart.
I recall having mixed run ins with the GMs on DAOC. One would have mercy on me if my comp died half way to a boss mob and might teleport me there, even so far as teleporting our whole battlegroup if something outside of our control happened. I also had them give me gear that somehow went poof on its way into my inventory. I also had other GM's tell me that it was impossible for them to do such a thing when the guy next to me had a different GM take care of the problem.
My favorite forgotten fellow took my angry abuse with a laugh. He was refusing to port me to a monster we were fighting, when for no reason I teleported outside the dungeon. I tried to appeal as there was no way I could make it back before the beast died. When he refused I asked him/her if it was Mythic's policy to hire all their CS agents from half-way houses, called him an unsavory name and then he says, 'Ok, fine, I do have the ability to teleport, but not being an ass will likely get me better results the next time I appeal.' He then teleported me to the middle of Lyonesse. This was when Sidi was the thing to do so the only way back to Camelot was a run on foot and horse ride for over an hour. I didn't care to complain about what happened as I wouldn't have been so cool about it and actually laughed.
There was a lot of interaction with GMs when I played Linkrealms. If you liked Ultima Online..then you probably like linkrealms. Probably the closest thing to it out there and the animations are really well done. Nice little game.
What I miss are the gm events. When hate was going to open a GM game around and gathered some players in Qyenos and had us doing quests ( not telling us it was to support the evil Gods) being the nice tree hugging ranger that I was i refused to kill any of the wolves or bears in Qyenos Hills even though I knew I could not then complete the GMS quests. low and behold I was given a reward and have my players name shouted across the server solely because unlike all the other good aligns there I had actually stayed in character. Turns out the quests were there to support the opening of Hate and were purely evil in nature
Heh, grats. That's pretty cool actually and it takes me back. I remember when some rangers and druids who started in the Qeynos area refused to kill wolves and bears even though there were no repercussions for doing so (unless Holly Windstalker happened to catch you doing it).
For my part, I can't say that I ever got to participate in any good GM events. As I remember it about the only GM events I ever got to be a part of were the ones where the GMs would go into a zone as ridiculously overpowered monsters for the level range of the zone and then procede to massacre/gank all the players in the zone who were much lower level then the GM monsters. That did nothing but piss me off.
yup that was back in the day when Role Playing had nothing to do with kinky sex. I was lucky got into the one i mention and one with the GM playing FV after Kurak game out.
Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads! Swords for everyone!
EQ2 still has guides and they are great. We don't dread GM's showing up, unless you know you been doing something wrong.
Now in lotro, the only time you see one show up somebody is getting the ban hammer. Getting a gm to show up to help in lotro and having a favorable outcome, almost impossible.
This just shows some games have great gm's and others don't.
Another great writing! I think I'll just go down this writer's list and read them all, lol.
To that effect, as addressed, the position of GM often becomes a game "vulnerability," but perhaps a necessary evil? As someone else noted, Asheron's Call (my original MMORPG love) did and still does have plenty of fun, mysterious, clever and intriguing GM interaction. Perhaps not everyone who plays AC feels this way, but it has been largely true in my experience. One thing that the AC team DID do away with were those helpers with the special shields. They weren't GMs because individuals could apply to be one, but they WERE helpers of some sort and that program was shut down entirely for some reason (perhaps favoritism as well).
Anyhow, that article was another great read and made me long for a GM event or some such. I've not thought about, missed, or considered the topic until now . . . and it's like remembering you put $20 in the back pocket of the jeans you wore the other night; except not as easy to just go back and get.
You know this was an excellent article, and very true. I was a Volunteer in EQ until they shut it down, the game back then had a dimension you just don't see today, I have a couple really good friends who are GM's for different MMO developers and their jobs are simply un-fun stepping stones that they are looking to abandon as soon as humanly possible.
This sword here at my side dont act the way it should Keeps calling me its master, but I feel like its slave Hauling me faster and faster to an early, early grave And it howls! it howls like hell!
I think the root of the problem lies in companies thinking GM == IT Help Desk, and that isn't how it should be. They need to split the two roles so that you have one group of "professionals" who take care of the day to day problems like being stuck or banning hacks and these people need to have strict rules regulating them. But there needs to be another group of people who's job is to interact with the game comunity regularly doing things like in game events and role playing.
I used to work for Burda I.C ( The guys behind Ragnarok EU ) and Alaplaya as a GM and MOD and also as an English to Spanish translator for many of their games and i even assisted them in Barcelona´s animecon in Spain.
At first, we were given a lot of freedom and powers, and as long as we did not favor any player, we were given permission to roam freely and do pretty much what we wanted, but that was cut short soon after.
I used to work for Burda I.C ( The guys behind Ragnarok EU ) and Alaplaya as a GM and MOD and also as an English to Spanish translator for many of their games and i even assisted them in Barcelona´s animecon in Spain.
At first, we were given a lot of freedom and powers, and as long as we did not favor any player, we were given permission to roam freely and do pretty much what we wanted, but that was cut short soon after. I can identify fully with this article.
Customer service in current MMOs, at least the ones I have played, are crap. I don't care if it's the GM or the IT can't do anything desk you might contact outsdie of the game. It's like talking to a robot. They give you a cookie cutter answer, half the time that doesn't even match your issue and then disappear without another word.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
1) Fallen Earth is a great example of an MMO right now with this "old school" GM system; a GM always available to help out. That's one of the reasons I play and love Fallen Earth and one of the reasons I have no problems with paying them $14.95 a month - I don't have to deal with the endless obscenities and general antisocial behavior that goes on in the "global" channels of other games. I won't name names.
2) Hiring more employees is *clearly* the option. If you have to charge more, do it - I think another writer here touched on the market for niche games and increased price was one variable discussed. Your argument fell apart a bit with the line, "Hiring more employees seems a simple fix, but doesn't guarantee an increase in free time."
Well, first off, if you are interacting with and entertaining paying customers, it's not "free time." I've never personally roleplayed with any of the GMs of Fallen Earth nor do I expect to ever meet one, but I know their general personalities, reputations, and the fact that they are all very, very responsive and helpful. They're more than nameless faces, for the most part. That's nice.
If you have X number of employees doing Y amount of work and you include this kind of thing - let's call it "Cadillac GM service" - and you can't somehow make more time for this valuable service with increased manpower; the math doesn't add up - you're mismanaging your manpower. This equation starts to fall apart in mega-corporations, etc., due to the large numbers involved but a curious question is this - what is the approximate number of US players, only, of the most popular MMO out there. Now, about how many GM's per, say... 10,000 players(?) for this kind of service - would the MMO have to provide? What would be the cost?
That's one thing I like about BrightShadow... GMs always spend some time around to help players, but they can freely joke and chat, and show nice stuff including neat previews. Granted, there isn't always a GM, but it's already better than we see in most games.
I have enjoyed reading this thread, and especially enjoyed seeing the connection that has been made between the Fallen Earth GMs and the old UO staff. Tigger from the UO counselor group and me (Morgana) from the UO companion program have worked together for a few years now. Bringing in the old time philosophy of good old involvement with the players is what Mig Squared is all about. As Tiggs knows any game that I become part of the community staff for, I will be in the game a lot as staff, and also in the game a lot as an anonymous player. Knowing the game and knowing the community as a GM is what makes the game's sense of community. As an Arch Companion I got to look after the new players that joined UO, and teamed up veteran players with them, this was the first game that ever used this concept. I still believe that a huge part of a game and players staying in a game is the community, events and interaction between players, Fallen Earth has been a perfect platform for this.
I was a Super Game Master in an MMO for a year and change . . .( SGM coordinates the GM team has acess to the databases and the ability to validate, place/lift bans and answers tickets petitions, spawn mobs in game coordinate events etc...reporting back to the Game Admin and or to the The CoMa ). Over the periode of time that I worked as GM/SGM I watched many changes in the company's policy regarding player interaction and roleplaying leading to a decrease of human interaction and leaning more and more torwards a mechanical professional manner to deal with the players. But in fact this was caused by 2 main factors, 1st Suspicion of Power Abuse by some team members favouring some players/guilds, 2nd the community. If the 1st factor can easely be controlled by supervising every step of the Hierarchy up to the CoMa, the second one isn t that easy to keep under control.
Comunity's are heterogen and difer from server to server from game to game, and there isn t a sure way to hit the bullseye with every event. On the other hand once a rumor of power abuse starts spreading through the comunity, the GM's are easely cruxified as they represent the in game fun but also and above all, the law and order in the server, they are the ones who aply and enforce the rules . . . so it is just as easy to love them as it is to hate them. The only way for the publisher company to keep the hate torwards the GM's under controll is to devoid them of any human trait hence the mechanical answers and the scripted e-mails that atest to an eficiency that is in 90% of the cases non existing.
On the other hand the old GM's were expected to be always fun, they weren't supposed to have bad days in RL, they were supposed to be capable of enduring long long whinning sessions about how this item failed or the luck system in-game sux big time or how the Real life best friend hacked the account after the rightfull owner gave him the user and password . . . and that in itself will inevetably lead to the GM burnout if no fun factor is provided.Every GM was encouraged to interact with the players on the world chat and even fool arround with them, but even that can lead to players complaining.
One of the former Game Administrators I worked with once gave me an advice that I used alot during my SGM time ... "nod and smile..." and indeed most of the time players only need someone to hear them out, someone that they can vent they're frustrations or brag about they're acomplishments to.
Today's GM's lack the ability to interact with players, but on the other hand they have become much less biased when it comes to making decisions or aplying the game/server rules. I don't know wich type of GM's actually do they're role beter, in fact I do belive that both types working in conjuction would be the best. But right now we will have to stick with the drones ...
Comments
The main AURORA event I was involved in was the Khanid Carrier series of events. It was kind of amazing to me that we even had that going on given how relatively few people were involved. The battles would see pretty broad participation but the side events building up to them almost felt like they belonged to just a handful of small Corps that were vested in Khanid RP. The whole thing blew my mind.
However, you can still have a D&D like RP experience in at least one MMO. SWG, which is hard to otherwise recommend, does have a couple toolsets for player content creation. The Storyteller system focuses on live interaction between a player managing the props and NPCs and a player party. It's not instanced so the Storyteller can set up props in player cities, with permission, and many regions on many worlds for a real involved adventure. As an old tabletop hand myself, I can say it's by far the closest I've come to old school roleplaying adventure in MMOs so far and that includes CoH's Architect.
In many ways, I think putting the tools of creation as much into the hands of the "right" players as possible might well make for a much more lively, dynamic and egalitarian system of adventure and narrative creation than what we've seen before. And by the "right" players I mean those not so motivated by material reward. That was the bane of Architect. Why have a handful of RP GMs when you could have hundreds of player GMs and players organizing freely around them? If one clique isn't working find another.
Always notice what you notice.
LOTRO is based on the books and so there is a limit to where such assaults might take place and in certain circumstances they were storybound.
Still, in such places like angmar it might be more feasible.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Heh, grats. That's pretty cool actually and it takes me back. I remember when some rangers and druids who started in the Qeynos area refused to kill wolves and bears even though there were no repercussions for doing so (unless Holly Windstalker happened to catch you doing it).
For my part, I can't say that I ever got to participate in any good GM events. As I remember it about the only GM events I ever got to be a part of were the ones where the GMs would go into a zone as ridiculously overpowered monsters for the level range of the zone and then procede to massacre/gank all the players in the zone who were much lower level then the GM monsters. That did nothing but piss me off.
My view of GM's is not even close to being a good one,not now or ever,and i have been around a long time.
What i have seen is lots of GM"s trying to act cool,and lots of ass kissers willing to make them look cool.You will ALWAYS have these little teenage geeks that want a GM friend to stick up for their arguments or want something free or special treatment,it is a sad use of GM's.
What a GM SHOULD be and usually is are two different things.A GM should have the ability in game to go in fly by mode,invisible,god mode for the sheer purpose of making sure the players are not cheating.Sure there is GM events i have never seen a good one in my life,i don't care what anyone tries to tell me,i have seen people praise the most idiotic events ,so i am not listening.
I don't want ANY of those dumb GM events,just make sure there is no botting and no cheating,if you can't handle that,then don't be a GM just to look "COOL".
You can't even have GM's stand in the noob starting areas,because you will have 100 players and 1-2 GM to ask questions,so that doesn't work either,unless you want to wait in line to ask a question every 20 minutes.Everything sounds good on paper,let's have GM's they can answer questions,run FUN events,well it does not happen with substance,so don't waste my time sending out a GM for those reasons.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I was talking to a friend about this just yesterday. GM run events did a lot to add fun to EQ and I think a lot of MMOs would benefit from them.
Ah yes I too remember those days in EQ. They were the fun times. They seemed to have been lost in the abyss of darkness to become more professional without the human touch.
I have been playing WoW many years now and I have spoke in private chat in game maybe twice and it was all pretty much standard replies. Most of the time the petitions go unanswered or I get that standard in game and email response. Getting nothing solved. Oh and then the lovely survey about my exp with GM in so and so. Which my comments are telling them that I didn't speak to a GM and therefore have nothing to say about the GM. Also letting them know my problem was not solved.
The good times have passed and to robotic times seem to have arrived.
Gikku
would this be from Everquest? reminds me of when Afterlife/Clan blood claw where farming lady vox and Nag and had GMs help. in the end it resulted in a New GM for mith mar server and CBC being disbanded. reading this gave me a flash back from over ten years ago.
after many years of gaming I can agree with this. i still remeber my EQ Guides and GMs, sadly the industry just doesnt allow it anymore.
Hats off to Ex-GM Mith Marr Lily, . GM Chaolash, and Guide Partul
That kind of thing was both the boon and the bane of AURORA. Events were never "supposed" to target one particular faction of players (i.e. events "shouldn't" have been made that targeted Khanid roleplayers particularly) - but the best return on the event would inevitably come from the roleplayers, who would generally appreciate the event for the experience rather than the shiny loot.
So at once you've got criticism that AURORA was targeting cliques with preferential treatment, while at the same time having criticism that events were worthless because there weren't good enough rewards attached for the work. It was always a catch-22 that had someone crying foul.
My personal philosophy when producing an event was to have the 'hook' be as public as humanly possible, giving as many players as possible the chance to be involved - but then to let the story evolve as it would after that. Usually it would be down to a small core of roleplayers that follow the storyline through a series of events, with some others drifting in and out by chance. At one point I ran an event targeted at a single player, because that was the way the story made sense (the next event in the series was then aimed at more, and frankly I doubt anyone ever came out of an event I ran ahead in either ISK or loot).
Rewards are the biggest problem with an official event system.
Sadly, the reason I started playing EVE was because of the clownshow that was SWG's early life. I believe you when you say the Storyteller system would be a good substitute, but SWG has too many other issues attached for me. I fooled around with the Ryzom ring for a bit too, but it just wasn't the same.
EVE has a huge, rich storyline to hang everything off of, and for whatever reason people in EVE would generally just start roleplaying along (casually mind you) if a bunch of green text showed up in local chat. One of the things I really liked with eventing was hot-dropping into a random system and starting to roleplay the story, just to see the reactions. With an in-game storyteller system you don't get that - the people you wind up with are looking for that experience. I appreciate that the outcome would probably be "better" from an experience perspective - but it's also a little bit predictable, which is unfortunate.
This article has really made me think about why, in my opinion, MMOs are so awful and un-enjoyable today as opposed to just a few years ago. And again, it seems it comes down to the people playing them.
As far as I'm concerned, whether you're a roleplayer or not (I'm not), the fun of the game starts and ends with the community. A good community can turn a lackluster game into a fun experience, or tear down a good game and make it something that makes you want to scrub yourself with steel wool to get filth off (see: WoW). And really, communities are just like big families in many ways. The problem is that when you remove the older brother and sisters from the equation (i.e. your community-minded GMs), the little kiddies have no role models to look up to in order to learn how to get along with each other. I'm certainly simplifying it, but GM involvement certainly did seem to have a similar type of effect as an older sibling might. While not carrying the authority of an actual parent, they were up the ladder a few steps from the rest of us, but not so far that they couldn't be considered one of us. I kind of miss that.
Nowadays, GMs must be little more than faceless customer service automatons, and can no longer have that same stabilizing influence that (I feel) they used to have. As a result, game communities often more closely resemble a really nasty scene from Lord of the Flies than they do a family. This, more than anything else, is what limits my interest and participation in MMOs these days.
Human beings require leadership. It's not sociology, it's biology. It's how we evolved. Remove that element from any kind of group activity, like online gaming, and things fall apart.
I recall having mixed run ins with the GMs on DAOC. One would have mercy on me if my comp died half way to a boss mob and might teleport me there, even so far as teleporting our whole battlegroup if something outside of our control happened. I also had them give me gear that somehow went poof on its way into my inventory. I also had other GM's tell me that it was impossible for them to do such a thing when the guy next to me had a different GM take care of the problem.
My favorite forgotten fellow took my angry abuse with a laugh. He was refusing to port me to a monster we were fighting, when for no reason I teleported outside the dungeon. I tried to appeal as there was no way I could make it back before the beast died. When he refused I asked him/her if it was Mythic's policy to hire all their CS agents from half-way houses, called him an unsavory name and then he says, 'Ok, fine, I do have the ability to teleport, but not being an ass will likely get me better results the next time I appeal.' He then teleported me to the middle of Lyonesse. This was when Sidi was the thing to do so the only way back to Camelot was a run on foot and horse ride for over an hour. I didn't care to complain about what happened as I wouldn't have been so cool about it and actually laughed.
There was a lot of interaction with GMs when I played Linkrealms. If you liked Ultima Online..then you probably like linkrealms. Probably the closest thing to it out there and the animations are really well done. Nice little game.
Heh, grats. That's pretty cool actually and it takes me back. I remember when some rangers and druids who started in the Qeynos area refused to kill wolves and bears even though there were no repercussions for doing so (unless Holly Windstalker happened to catch you doing it).
For my part, I can't say that I ever got to participate in any good GM events. As I remember it about the only GM events I ever got to be a part of were the ones where the GMs would go into a zone as ridiculously overpowered monsters for the level range of the zone and then procede to massacre/gank all the players in the zone who were much lower level then the GM monsters. That did nothing but piss me off.
yup that was back in the day when Role Playing had nothing to do with kinky sex. I was lucky got into the one i mention and one with the GM playing FV after Kurak game out.
Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads! Swords for everyone!
EQ2 still has guides and they are great. We don't dread GM's showing up, unless you know you been doing something wrong.
Now in lotro, the only time you see one show up somebody is getting the ban hammer. Getting a gm to show up to help in lotro and having a favorable outcome, almost impossible.
This just shows some games have great gm's and others don't.
Another great writing! I think I'll just go down this writer's list and read them all, lol.
To that effect, as addressed, the position of GM often becomes a game "vulnerability," but perhaps a necessary evil? As someone else noted, Asheron's Call (my original MMORPG love) did and still does have plenty of fun, mysterious, clever and intriguing GM interaction. Perhaps not everyone who plays AC feels this way, but it has been largely true in my experience. One thing that the AC team DID do away with were those helpers with the special shields. They weren't GMs because individuals could apply to be one, but they WERE helpers of some sort and that program was shut down entirely for some reason (perhaps favoritism as well).
Anyhow, that article was another great read and made me long for a GM event or some such. I've not thought about, missed, or considered the topic until now . . . and it's like remembering you put $20 in the back pocket of the jeans you wore the other night; except not as easy to just go back and get.
Keep the articles coming, Jaime!
Nice article. Is a pitty that it's kind of hard to go back to the way things used to be.
Incidently did you know your article title was the name of a song? by my favorite composer....
Into the breach meatbags
You know this was an excellent article, and very true. I was a Volunteer in EQ until they shut it down, the game back then had a dimension you just don't see today, I have a couple really good friends who are GM's for different MMO developers and their jobs are simply un-fun stepping stones that they are looking to abandon as soon as humanly possible.
This sword here at my side dont act the way it should
Keeps calling me its master, but I feel like its slave
Hauling me faster and faster to an early, early grave
And it howls! it howls like hell!
I think the root of the problem lies in companies thinking GM == IT Help Desk, and that isn't how it should be. They need to split the two roles so that you have one group of "professionals" who take care of the day to day problems like being stuck or banning hacks and these people need to have strict rules regulating them. But there needs to be another group of people who's job is to interact with the game comunity regularly doing things like in game events and role playing.
I used to work for Burda I.C ( The guys behind Ragnarok EU ) and Alaplaya as a GM and MOD and also as an English to Spanish translator for many of their games and i even assisted them in Barcelona´s animecon in Spain.
At first, we were given a lot of freedom and powers, and as long as we did not favor any player, we were given permission to roam freely and do pretty much what we wanted, but that was cut short soon after.
I can identify fully with this article.
Rawr.
Customer service in current MMOs, at least the ones I have played, are crap. I don't care if it's the GM or the IT can't do anything desk you might contact outsdie of the game. It's like talking to a robot. They give you a cookie cutter answer, half the time that doesn't even match your issue and then disappear without another word.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Two points.
1) Fallen Earth is a great example of an MMO right now with this "old school" GM system; a GM always available to help out. That's one of the reasons I play and love Fallen Earth and one of the reasons I have no problems with paying them $14.95 a month - I don't have to deal with the endless obscenities and general antisocial behavior that goes on in the "global" channels of other games. I won't name names.
2) Hiring more employees is *clearly* the option. If you have to charge more, do it - I think another writer here touched on the market for niche games and increased price was one variable discussed. Your argument fell apart a bit with the line, "Hiring more employees seems a simple fix, but doesn't guarantee an increase in free time."
Well, first off, if you are interacting with and entertaining paying customers, it's not "free time." I've never personally roleplayed with any of the GMs of Fallen Earth nor do I expect to ever meet one, but I know their general personalities, reputations, and the fact that they are all very, very responsive and helpful. They're more than nameless faces, for the most part. That's nice.
If you have X number of employees doing Y amount of work and you include this kind of thing - let's call it "Cadillac GM service" - and you can't somehow make more time for this valuable service with increased manpower; the math doesn't add up - you're mismanaging your manpower. This equation starts to fall apart in mega-corporations, etc., due to the large numbers involved but a curious question is this - what is the approximate number of US players, only, of the most popular MMO out there. Now, about how many GM's per, say... 10,000 players(?) for this kind of service - would the MMO have to provide? What would be the cost?
Thought provoking; good article.
That's one thing I like about BrightShadow... GMs always spend some time around to help players, but they can freely joke and chat, and show nice stuff including neat previews. Granted, there isn't always a GM, but it's already better than we see in most games.
I have enjoyed reading this thread, and especially enjoyed seeing the connection that has been made between the Fallen Earth GMs and the old UO staff. Tigger from the UO counselor group and me (Morgana) from the UO companion program have worked together for a few years now. Bringing in the old time philosophy of good old involvement with the players is what Mig Squared is all about. As Tiggs knows any game that I become part of the community staff for, I will be in the game a lot as staff, and also in the game a lot as an anonymous player. Knowing the game and knowing the community as a GM is what makes the game's sense of community. As an Arch Companion I got to look after the new players that joined UO, and teamed up veteran players with them, this was the first game that ever used this concept. I still believe that a huge part of a game and players staying in a game is the community, events and interaction between players, Fallen Earth has been a perfect platform for this.
I was a Super Game Master in an MMO for a year and change . . .( SGM coordinates the GM team has acess to the databases and the ability to validate, place/lift bans and answers tickets petitions, spawn mobs in game coordinate events etc...reporting back to the Game Admin and or to the The CoMa ). Over the periode of time that I worked as GM/SGM I watched many changes in the company's policy regarding player interaction and roleplaying leading to a decrease of human interaction and leaning more and more torwards a mechanical professional manner to deal with the players. But in fact this was caused by 2 main factors, 1st Suspicion of Power Abuse by some team members favouring some players/guilds, 2nd the community. If the 1st factor can easely be controlled by supervising every step of the Hierarchy up to the CoMa, the second one isn t that easy to keep under control.
Comunity's are heterogen and difer from server to server from game to game, and there isn t a sure way to hit the bullseye with every event. On the other hand once a rumor of power abuse starts spreading through the comunity, the GM's are easely cruxified as they represent the in game fun but also and above all, the law and order in the server, they are the ones who aply and enforce the rules . . . so it is just as easy to love them as it is to hate them. The only way for the publisher company to keep the hate torwards the GM's under controll is to devoid them of any human trait hence the mechanical answers and the scripted e-mails that atest to an eficiency that is in 90% of the cases non existing.
On the other hand the old GM's were expected to be always fun, they weren't supposed to have bad days in RL, they were supposed to be capable of enduring long long whinning sessions about how this item failed or the luck system in-game sux big time or how the Real life best friend hacked the account after the rightfull owner gave him the user and password . . . and that in itself will inevetably lead to the GM burnout if no fun factor is provided.Every GM was encouraged to interact with the players on the world chat and even fool arround with them, but even that can lead to players complaining.
One of the former Game Administrators I worked with once gave me an advice that I used alot during my SGM time ... "nod and smile..." and indeed most of the time players only need someone to hear them out, someone that they can vent they're frustrations or brag about they're acomplishments to.
Today's GM's lack the ability to interact with players, but on the other hand they have become much less biased when it comes to making decisions or aplying the game/server rules. I don't know wich type of GM's actually do they're role beter, in fact I do belive that both types working in conjuction would be the best. But right now we will have to stick with the drones ...