I never had more than like 24-48 hrs back in the day, and much prefer the wait.
you wait about the same time now, for a copy paste response most of the time
It would really depend on what you were trying to get help on. Most of the categories are selected because they are things that staff can help with.
If you are having difficulty putting in a ticket, it most likely is not something a GM can help with.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/spotlight-on-game-master-help/11354/6
The above thread might detail why.
2 Likes
I see this with the whole customer service system not just trying to contact a game master. my issue isnât covered in that thread, as i looked at it before i opened a ticket.
Thatâs great, but I can remember many times when the wait was well over a week. You say youâd prefer the wait, but I imagine if you were waiting 10 to 14 days for an easy fix because the GMs were swamped and the players still wanted the GM to tell them a joke, your patience would wear thin pretty quickly.
The current system isnât perfect, but itâs a damn sight better than making players wait a week and a half for a solution that takes 20 minutes.
2 Likes
Then you were lucky. Average was a week for a lot of things. Lord knows that was my experience for most of the the early days
4 Likes
If the system isnât leading you to create a ticket fairly easily, itâs not likely a ticket will help your issue. Itâs designed to try and curb tickets being made for issues outside the GMs purview.
Donât write lengthy requests. The GMs donât need a whole bunch of background info; it just muddies things. Keep it clear and as concise as possible. The more extraneous details you add the more likely you are to not get a good resolution.
7 Likes
Honestly, I have to say OP has a point. I remember back at least during WOD you could still chat in game with a GM when your ticket was addressed. Perhaps you still can, but that was the last time I ever had a GM make direct contact with me. I had posted a few tickets during Legion and BFA due to certain issues/glitches/etc. that I encountered. I ended up having to make around 5 or so follow-up tickets because the responses I received were generic and honestly seemed to me like they didnât even bother to read what I had written in the ticket. I try to be very specific with the issues I have and give as much detail as possible to aid the GMs, but as much as I hate to say so, it literally seemed as if they just read the category of the problem and cut & pasted a generic response. I donât know how things are on the other side of support; how overwhelmed the GMs might be, or if they use bots, or whatever the case may be, but I cannot deny that support is not like it was back when I started playing. Thinking about it saddens me a little bit and makes me worry about the future of WoW⌠but I hope it is just me and my paranoia⌠
1 Like
Its reasons like this that give people misconceptions about GM the tinfoil hat conspiracies that there bots or non existant or there a skeleton staff becaues of lay offs. The truth is players like u and me abused the system far too many times to talk to a GM for stuff that they couldnt or shouldnt have to deal with im just as guilty ive done it I wont lie I shouldnt have but ive opened tickets because of stupid reasons looking back. The only ones we have to blame for template responses are our selves.
4 Likes
Iâve had both interactions⌠ones long ago, where I talked to a GM in game (âHey, are you in a good spot to stop so we can chat?â 
), and ones where it was via tickets only. While it was âfunâ to have a GM roleplay their way through the ticket, there was the other side⌠it took up time that I wanted to spend questing, roleplaying with my guild, or doing other stuff. Contacting a GM wasnât to socialize; it was to get a problem fixed so I could get on with enjoying the game.
More recently, I had a ticket that was a complicated (and for me, an emotional) issue. I was clear, concise, and the GM knowledgeable and even offered alternatives I didnât know existed. It was not a one-ticket situation; I had multiple back and forths, with several GMs (I believe there was at least two, maybe three), and not once was I misunderstood. The issue was resolved as quickly as it could be, and I didnât need to stop in game and wait.
I deal with auditing and sorting through errors in my job, and when someone writes paragraphs of irrelevant data, it becomes increasingly more difficult to sort through the mess and get to the root. I also do not desire to socialize with the source, because that strays quickly to time-wasting conversation. I can only imagine GMs have more of a time-constraint.
I want to differ on this one, Darthwraith (in a good way). Template responses are efficient. The game grew way beyond what customized replies could manage. While yes, we might have been opening frivolous tickets (or calling about frivolous things), it was inevitable that templates would need to be adopted and CSR streamlined to keep up with the demand.
2 Likes
Abused the system? I recall some of the tickets I posted and they were issues that could not be solved without the aid of a GM as they were mechanics of the game not properly functioning as intended. So, that makes me wonder what was the abuse I caused to result in template ticket responses? By asking a GM to look into a game function or mechanic that did not properly run in the game as it was intended? Or should I have just ignored the problem because it would have been abusing the system? Because I have absolutely no idea where you are going with thisâŚ
Darth is referring to players opening tickets for things that the GM staff is not there to handle (game hints, game suggestions, bug reports, when is the next expansion, tell me a joke, ranting/venting, etc. etc.), which would clog up the ticket queue for players who had actual issues a GM could help with, thus bloating ticket wait times. Not saying âyouâ specifically did that, just listing a few examples.
8 Likes
The op has only posted twice, and very non descriptive of any particular need to want to have a discussion with a gm.
I really think that op had a conception issue with how to reach a gm, as they reported this issue in multiple threads on the forums.
Unfortunately a few players believe posts on the forums, or even bug reports, are the same as tickets that will be answered.
3 Likes
Gm staff do not make game design changes or bug fixes, that would be a development issue. Multiple people doing the same thing can cause issues with wait times for things GM staff can help with. That is why the spotlight post exists, to help explain what the GM staff can and canât help with.
4 Likes
I understand times are tough right now and iv for the most part always had good interaction with GMâs responding decently quick on tickets. Until this point where I currently have a time sensitive ticket open and it has been open for three days with no response and my fear at this point is when they do answer me to much time has lapsed and Iâm basically out of luck. 
I had a GM interact with me in-game last year. It does happen. Except in certain circumstances, it is the least efficient method for resolving issues. GMs used to have less tools for troubleshooting. At the time, if you werenât online when they got to your ticket they might not have been able to work on it. You would have to reticket to get something resolved. Now they have more robust tools. They donât need you online. It makes for better, faster ticket handling.
Form-letter responses mean that players all get the same information. There are fewer players getting wrong or misleading information since they started using them.
Rather than hijacking someone elseâs thread that has already been hijacked all to heck? Why not open your own thread and post your issue to see if your community can help with advice and such?
I will say though, time-sensitive matters? They usually donât hold it against you as it being on you. So long as the ticket is in the system ASAP with the error, theyâre mindful of the fact that itâs been in queue due to no fault of your own. They gauge it by the timestamp of the filing. Not their processing time.
1 Like
I get your point. From my perspective it seems like it is not effective due to having to resubmit tickets after getting a generic answer that had absolutely no relevance to my initial issue in the ticket. It makes more sense that if multiple people have the same problem, a generic response might fix half of them. For me, personally, it hasnât been better or faster for me mainly due to the need to keep elaborating on the issue until the GMâs pin-point the problem, because a generic fix didnât do it. I am not saying their method is bad, because I canât see how many issues it fixes vs. how many it leaves unsettled, but from my end it gives the appearance of support being worse not better.
In what way am I hijacking this post? I merely stated to the said question above my experiences with Gm was an over all good thing. The time sensitive issue is yet again another example of how right now is the only time itâs been unsatisfactory so Iâm unclear your intentions for you post on calling me a hijacker
Jumping into a thread to basically act like GMs should get a given ticket about something is unrelated for many reasons. One of which is the CS forum isnât to expect someone ticket should be more impotent for the sole reason of it being time-sensitive. Your issue isnât the only time-sensitive thing in the que, there are other folks ahead of yours and need to be handle with care.
Again I agree with what you are saying my post is merely chiming in over over all satisfactory to GMâs in general so take everything said into Consideration not just the time sensitive issue that youâre focusing on