When Game Masters Use To Appear In Game.

07/25/2013 06:00 PMPosted by Cortanan

Don't you guys miss when GMS would visit a player in game or in a raid?

Our goal has always been to impact normal game play as little as possible while still providing what assistance we can. So while our In-Game Support staff have on occasion experimented with a higher level of player engagement, the fun factor didn't usually balance out the increased amount of time that was spent in that engagement (i.e. not answering other tickets).

Over the years the number of tickets submit to in-game support has only increased as our staff try to provide what assistance they can with a great number of issues. Some of those have been "automated" to a degree to help players help themselves and not have to wait (i.e. the Item Restoration system), or streamlined to make using them quick and easy (i.e. Right Click report options).

I can say that our in-game support staff has always enjoyed engaging on a more personal level and having a bit of fun, and that idea isn't dead, but we want to make sure that if you need our assistance that you are not waiting more than absolutely necessary. We don't want to keep someone from being able to play because we're busy passing out fireworks and change people into Leper Gnomes.

"Game master" is an automated scripted-response program, aka "form letter".

Upon receiving a ticket, some random CS person reads it (theoretically) and then clicks a button, which generates a random "GM Name" and sends out the chosen stock response.

There are a few "real GMs" left -- they only show up in extremely dire situations, such as the hacked toon running around 1-shotting everyone in Stormwind recently on a big server.

Otherwise, 99% of player inquiries can be handled by the automated system.

O.o That is an interesting story, Nassins, almost entirely false, but certainly interesting. Our In-Game Support staff is in no way automated and they are still very much around and working to answer tickets.

We have over the years made improvements to the system to allow us to better categorize a ticket that is submit. To make sure that it is directed to the staff member that can best look into the request and that it contains enough information to do so without the need to request more information. The ability to gather pertinent information at first contact has helped a great deal as tickets that consisted primarily of "help" or "I need to talk to someone" were extremely common.

When you have millions of subscribers, the thought that there is an actual live person handling all "routine" player inquiries is beyond ludicrous.

If everyone were to submit a ticket on a regular basis, yes, it would be ludicrous to think that we'd be able to personally address each contact. At least in a respectable timeframe. However, most people never or rarely need our assistance. Of those that do, there are a small percentage overall. One of things to keep in mind is that most issues are not unique, we see the same requests every day and have developed standard responses to help both answer the questions we can and to reduce the amount of time it takes to provide an answer. Hand typing a unique response would take a great deal of time and while a personalized touch is nice a 3 month queue time is probably not a good exchange for it.

We go through thousands of tickets a day. While queue times fluctuate, depending on what is happening, our Game Masters, Billing and Tech reps work to address those issues as quickly and efficiently as possible. No system is perfect but we are always working to improve how we are doing something and provide as many self help options as we can.

I will leave this thread unlocked for the time being but please let's keep things civil and constructive. :)

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07/25/2013 10:03 PMPosted by Bologna

For example, if you have what may be considered an "offensive character name" and you submit a ticket under that character, can a Blizzard employee flag you for a name change?

Generally speaking, when you contact us for assistance we're there to help you and not there as enforcers. We in no way want you to feel that you cannot contact us if you need to.

Only on very rare occasions are we likely to action a name if it hasn't otherwise been reported. Though truly, if you have a name that you feel may be questionable or even definitely against our policies it is a good idea to report yourself. We will usually take that into account and be much more lenient than if the name had been reported by others.

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