How many of you miss having live GMs in game? A responsive, interactive live person to assist players. Im really not certain how Blizzard conducts its customer service in game with an automated system. It does appear however that this method doesnt seem effective. Take botting for instance, many zones are a botters paradise. Perhaps this may be a separate issue all together.
This is just a wish I have, Live service on every classic server! What say you? yay or nay for live GMs.
Hmm. I think from a player perspective, live GMs is definitely higher quality. I suppose it might not be very cost effective, though.
Perhaps they could come up with a special rank for some players in the community who would wish to police bots. They could be called Bot Patrol, and be given a special tabard. Reports by Bot Patrol members for botting result in immediate action (i.e. account suspension: 24 hours for first offense, followed by longer or more severe penalties, up to and including permanent account bans).
Email to support from those who have been reported by a member of the Bot Patrol can be routed through the system to the Bot Patrol account holder’s personal email, whereby they are required to respond within 24 hours to keep their Bot Patrol status. All email being routed through the BNet system to the Bot Patrol member is subject to being monitored by Blizzard staff.
They should just boot players that do minimum interaction with the world beyond killing mobs every 6-8 hours. With a few stipulations, like multiple hours with broken gear, no response to other players via whisper or in the immediate area, guildless etc. Make the time shorter and shorter the longer they are in the same zone.
They already have this with the AFK system. Using a reset/bank alt to reset my dungeon farming, after 15 minutes he gets kicked, then every log in after that its like 5-10 minutes. Even if I move around. Only way to mitigate it is to interact with NPCs and/or type in chat. Eventually it gets to 2 minutes to auto AFK and a boot after 5. No matter the time of day.
Of course an automated system would be cheaper. But blizz live gms were excellent in original wow and they were able to pay for them and still make a ton of money.
hell yeah brother
that would be an amazing “change” as that’s how it was before. Sadly, the 3 GM’s Blizzard have on payroll would not have a happy life, and we all know blizzard can’t possibly do anything to affect profit, so they cannot hire more.
I remember them GMs being amazing roll players.
and who’s gonna pay them? Not Bobby for sure
They do have live GMs.
Another reason it would be interesting to see something like the guide program they had in EQ. They could do things like this as well as help with resetting a mob/terrain issues (like getting stuck/falling through the world) as well as run special in game quests/events. If Blizzard is unable to hire people they could try to vet volunteers - EQ guides were all volunteers and unpaid. Though - I believe they had a guide account solely for their guide character that was covered by Sony back in the day.
Absolutely not. I don’t trust my fellow players to tie their shoes properly, let alone police the game.
yeah you really can’t trust players with moderation powers
that’d be even worse than right-click report’s squelching and disconnection features
if players can abuse power, they will do it; its not a question of whether or not the chosen player is an ethical person, but of a question of human nature
It was, apparently, cost-effective back in Vanilla. Strange that they deem it not worth it today.
How would Mr. Kotick afford yacht repairs?
That’s an awful idea and it would definitely get a lot of people banned that don’t deserve it…
In fact, I would be willing to bet they would end up banning/booting more legitimate players than they would botters/cheaters lmao.
those cost money…
I still remember to this day a random GM in Everquest started his own random event and quest that he lead us on as a group. It was literally the coolest thing I have ever seen in an MMO and I really wish these kinds of things still existed. He showed up in the dark elf capitol city and called for aid on a quest in chat and literally the whole server showed up to help him on his quest. He even chose an MVP from the group and gave him a special item for the event that was only obtainable that one time in game. Bring back this kind of stuff!!!
Voluntary in-game player mods.
People who don’t have large power but are able to communicate effectively with those who have the ability to thoroughly investigate what is actually worth looking into.
There are probably so many false reports of botting and toxic people reporting others for something that is in 100% compliance with ToS but they are “offended” and report anything and everything. I would be willing to bet if Blizzard wanted to, they could have voluntary, non-paid realm player mods and it would help filter through a lot of these issues and hopefully increase the work the GMs are doing. They’d spend more time focusing on the real issues rather than investigating the 5 reports of harassment via ganking in STV.
Just my 2 cents.
This could also go badly though. Voluntary mods with no pay, that are also very much invested into the game as players—seems very ripe for abuse.
You can’t keep them in check by threatening to not pay them if they start abusing their mod privileges.
May come off as a bit…tin-foil hat-ish…but I’d be willing to bet that problems would arise.
Certainly there would be recourse, consequences for abuse. However, GMs from back in the day were also just people. There could definitely be a system that works, that also isn’t financially straining on Blizzard.
Yeah. That seems like something that could work.
Possibly, but you could definitely work in some recourse for this.
No, but they could lose their privileges.
lol
How is that working for us now?
It depends on what system you’re referring to. If it is Trust Level 3, and/or MVP forum status, it seems to be working quite well.