zewtastic said:Fulton said:Kratuk said:Thanks for pointing that out Goofy. Not sure why I added it as in hindsight I've had that exact issue where I was missing an item due to a bug be answered by a guide and that guide told me themselves it had to be escalated to a GM. So we'll write that off as a minor brain spasm. ;p
Also, I'm pretty sure that in most cases it's also a big no, no to even tell anyone you're in the guide program. Doing so can get you jetisoned. At least as I recall that being one policy Funcom had when they did it with Age of Conan. I could list about a half dozen reasons why that's a good idea off the top of my head.
And IIRC, you could not guide on your own server, so chances of helping out "guildies" and "friends" was minimal at best.
I have seen this stated a lot, but it is actually impossible to stop.
Players having a second and third accounts was/is quite common. No way for any company to know if a guide or otherwise had alternate characters/guilds on the same servers they had sudo-GM powers on.
Imagine a player having guide access to a server, and runs a guild with a second account on the same server. Now that guide character can easily pop around and see who is where, what bosses are up, etc. and so forth.
And both accounts could be online simultaneously of course.
I beleive if you were a guide, you were assigned a server, and you could not have any other characters on that server. Very easy to control. Not to mention all the logging I am sure they did for guide actions. Besides not having much in the way of powers, they were more like mediators and assistants.
Guides were a fun idea, but a failed business model and possibly a disaster when a bad apple got in the mix.
You cannot run a business and propose a CS solution that is say 80% effective. Yeah boss our customer service works great, eight out of ten times.
Boss says "What? 8 out of 10?
"Yeah sorry boss, oh and those other two are kind of making bigger messes. There are rumors of them selling items and using in-game information to help friends and guilds. It's really pissing off other players a lot."
"Do we have any proof?" Boss says. "Well no, it's kind of hard to prove it's so easy to use alternate accounts Boss."
"Oh and Boss we kind of have spotty coverage on certain days and hours as well."
"We can't have all these issues!" Boss says. "I need a better solution."
Well we can put in a very robust in-game ticketing and response system that goes to a pool of paid support personnel that cover all servers at the same time. And we can just give players quest collection items for these know buggy quests rather than go through that extensive log searching and verification. We will have a record for any character we give items to so it will be easy to see if any player/character is abusing the system.
And we can create a 2nd-level support group for the more serious issues that might require banning and more penal actions.
"Sounds good!" Boss says. 'We need a system that works efficiently ALL the time. That keeps problems to a minimum, does not introduce NEW problems, and keeps the player base happy.
Fulton said:zewtastic said:Fulton said:Kratuk said:Thanks for pointing that out Goofy. Not sure why I added it as in hindsight I've had that exact issue where I was missing an item due to a bug be answered by a guide and that guide told me themselves it had to be escalated to a GM. So we'll write that off as a minor brain spasm. ;p
Also, I'm pretty sure that in most cases it's also a big no, no to even tell anyone you're in the guide program. Doing so can get you jetisoned. At least as I recall that being one policy Funcom had when they did it with Age of Conan. I could list about a half dozen reasons why that's a good idea off the top of my head.
And IIRC, you could not guide on your own server, so chances of helping out "guildies" and "friends" was minimal at best.
I have seen this stated a lot, but it is actually impossible to stop.
Players having a second and third accounts was/is quite common. No way for any company to know if a guide or otherwise had alternate characters/guilds on the same servers they had sudo-GM powers on.
Imagine a player having guide access to a server, and runs a guild with a second account on the same server. Now that guide character can easily pop around and see who is where, what bosses are up, etc. and so forth.
And both accounts could be online simultaneously of course.
I beleive if you were a guide, you were assigned a server, and you could not have any other characters on that server. Very easy to control. Not to mention all the logging I am sure they did for guide actions. Besides not having much in the way of powers, they were more like mediators and assistants.
It is not easy to control. It is impossible to control. What are you talking about?
A game company has zero ways of knowing people have multiple accounts.
zewtastic said:Guides were a fun idea, but a failed business model and possibly a disaster when a bad apple got in the mix.
You cannot run a business and propose a CS solution that is say 80% effective. Yeah boss our customer service works great, eight out of ten times.
Boss says "What? 8 out of 10?
"Yeah sorry boss, oh and those other two are kind of making bigger messes. There are rumors of them selling items and using in-game information to help friends and guilds. It's really pissing off other players a lot."
"Do we have any proof?" Boss says. "Well no, it's kind of hard to prove it's so easy to use alternate accounts Boss."
"Oh and Boss we kind of have spotty coverage on certain days and hours as well."
"We can't have all these issues!" Boss says. "I need a better solution."
Well we can put in a very robust in-game ticketing and response system that goes to a pool of paid support personnel that cover all servers at the same time. And we can just give players quest collection items for these know buggy quests rather than go through that extensive log searching and verification. We will have a record for any character we give items to so it will be easy to see if any player/character is abusing the system.
And we can create a 2nd-level support group for the more serious issues that might require banning and more penal actions.
"Sounds good!" Boss says. 'We need a system that works efficiently ALL the time. That keeps problems to a minimum, does not introduce NEW problems, and keeps the player base happy.
What? Know what is worse than having a CS solution that works 8/10 times? Not having one at all or one that takes many hours/days for any kind of response.
And again, why is the assumption constantly being asserted that there are no tools to monitor what a guide does with their time and how they use any "powers" they might have? If they have to fill out and submit a log explaining why they use any particular "power" before even being able to use it then it would be rather easy to see who is trying to exploit anything.
zewtastic said:
"Sounds good!" Boss says. 'We need a system that works efficiently ALL the time. That keeps problems to a minimum, does not introduce NEW problems, and keeps the player base happy.
Hahaha
edit:...that's literal. I couldn't help but chuckle out loud.
Hiring enough CS staff comes down to greed.
I played EQ from shortly after launch up to PoP and had no problem getting GM support when things went glitch and EQ had lots of bugs. As EQ rolled along and the business model changed to improve profits the support times got worse. We know EQ was VERY profitable for Sony so it simply came down to not wanting to employ enough CS staff. And that is what it always comes down to.
Build the game right, offer good tools to your player base and hire enough CS to manage gold sellers. Have a strong clear policy on how exploiters are treated and keep the dirt bag players banned or honest.
This is one area which has been well established over the past 2 decades as all MMO’s have had to deal with the same issues. Guides were a stop gap measure but should not be needed in this day and age. The only reason I see to have guides is to help facilitate GM style events to add more personality. If guides only play to help enrich those times under the oversight of a GM I don’t see the harm, but they should not manage CS issues.