Guild Wars 2

Honest, curious question.

I’ve dealt with the Anet Support team before. Great guys, really. They respond expediently for a AAA MMO, and almost act as GMs in their own right for most problems. I’m still intrigued by the lack of GMs in the game, though. Simply can’t put my finger on why.

I can’t claim it to be a financial issue. GW2 made $32 million in the 4th quarter of 2013 compared to its $112 million in the 2012 quarter the game released (and I can’t tell if that’s just game-access sales or counting in-game sales, too). For a game that hasn’t launched in China, that ain’t bad. Let also have a look at this statement on player retention by the producer of Final Fantasy 14:

“MMORPGs that launched after 2008 with a subscription based model retained a maximum of 35% of their users during the first month of subscriptions. However, FFXIV: ARR has surpassed this number by a wide margin.”

From what I can tell, the GW2 population is thriving from its initial 3.5 million player injection with every server purportedly on “high” player count. While the retention rate is unknown to me, GW2 follows a common trend with other MMO’s on Google Trends, leading me to believe that it should be performing close to competition in retention.

So, whats the deal? Are GM’s just not an NCSoft thing? Does the support team take care of everything well enough on their own? Does ArenaNet not see a need for GM’s?

Personally, I find the game has an exploitative nature that could be stymied by GMs. We’ve already seen the explosive power of duplication exploits in the form of Omega Golems, and anyone who has played WvW long enough has been the victim of a wall clipper or zoom hacker. The game also has a decent amount of bug issues on any release day due to the fast-pace of said releases. Never hurts to have a GM around to kick a player out of his combat-stuck hole in the ground or reset an invulnerable mob.

What do you think? Is the support team enough on its own? Would GMs be a good addition?

so then who are all the A-Net guys with the little red icon next to their name I have seen 4-5 times during LA events running around?

Dabrixmgp.4758:

so then who are all the A-Net guys with the little red icon next to their name I have seen 4-5 times during LA events running around?

As I understand it those are simply game developers in game, not necessarily GMs.

there are GM’s, but they just are not aproachhable in game.
The reason is that they want everything well documented and sructured. So you need to make a support ticket to get assistance.

And yes it is financially. A single customer support ticket (or interference off a GM) will cost bout 10 USD on average (this includes overhead, costs for equipment, computer systems, office space, etc etc). for a subscription fee based game this is not an issue. For a game that is depending on microtransactions and box sales it is. Keep in mind that we are not just talking bout a game you play for one year, but many people have been playing GW1 for 7 year and only spent 150 USD in those 7 years.

So compared to e.g. WoW. They also sell boxed games and expansions for simular prices. They also have a 10 USD monthly fee.
So per gamer GW1 gets 150 USD in 7 years and WoW gets 990 USD in 7 years. If the amount of support requests are the same (lets say one every year) then GW1 has leftover for develloping and running the servers: 80 USD and WoW 920 USD. I think it is very reasonable that support is more limited.

@Dabrixmgp: Those are devs playing the game. Devs are encouraged to play the game themself and anet finds it important that we know. They are NOT GM’s and should be treated and aproached as normal players.

mercury ranique.2170:

And yes it is financially. A single customer support ticket (or interference off a GM) will cost bout 10 USD on average (this includes overhead, costs for equipment, computer systems, office space, etc etc). for a subscription fee based game this is not an issue.

Thanks for that interesting bit of information, but would it be possible for you to go into more detail as to how you came to that value? I find it astonishing that a single support ticket could raise costs so much, especially since I’ve seen games with purely voluntary community management staff (granted, that’s not to the same extent as game support).

Gray Fox.9178:

Let also have a look at this statement on player retention by the producer of Final Fantasy 14:

“MMORPGs that launched after 2008 with a subscription based model retained a maximum of 35% of their users during the first month of subscriptions. However, FFXIV: ARR has surpassed this number by a wide margin.”

FFXIV was so bad it lost almost all of it’s initial subscriptions in a matter of days to weeks. By comparison, any measure of success would have been a wide margin for FFXIV: ARR.

As for active GMs, I find the idea unnecessary as long as the outcome is the same. Which, for the most part it seems to be. I don’t need to see them do their job as long as they do it.

You have Anet tags on your server? I think I’ve seen 2 tags on my server (both a once off) in 1.5 year.

I have seen numerous DEV’s playing the game since starting in the BETA for GW2 and I would think there are several of those with GM abilities.

Im Mudbone.1437:

I have seen numerous DEV’s playing the game since starting in the BETA for GW2 and I would think there are several of those with GM abilities.

Of course you have, you’re on stackgate. Devs really only reside there and stacked quarry.

I would suspend those ~15 goldseller accounts who whispering me /day…
But being GM now is a hard call. Last time I saw one in video, have been RAMmed down from the cliff of the Edge… LOL

I have seen some in the game.

In-game GMs are just not efficient anymore.

Why spend a yearly salary on a GM to look for violations of the TOS when players can do it for free?

A GM has to manually go in the game and run around looking for bots. Imagine doing Cursed Shore bot-finding runs for a full work day? Extremely boring.

Players can simply report these bots where these reports will probably get sent to a generic inbox for Anet’s Anti-bot team. From there, they can efficiently check the logs to verify botting activity.

Same thing with hacks.

My number is an estimate. I have it from my former job (a mobile operator).
The issue people often forget is that besides customer agents, you also need managers, legal department, support tools, desks, computers, office building, etc.

It is not for nothing that so many company’s outsource support to e.g. India, where loans are less, but also it is acceptable to let people work on bad chairs, on not optimum desks, with 25 year old equipment, etc. That lowers that cost significantly (but guess everyone knows what happens to quality).

Support is a heave post on a company balance, specially a gamecompany like anet/ncsoft. They have 4 major branches that cost money
- publishing
- servers
- support
- content development

Content development is off course the most expensive off the 4, but support is more then the publishing costs and the servers.

I think support is great, having worked on various manpower customer service jobs, I know pretty well what stuff you have to deal with daily. And it is not the crème of the crop of humanity that passes by every day, unfortunately.

Their response time is great, the amount of respect they are able to uphold is great as well, even for the most stupid mistakes that even I (in hind sight) might well have responded to with a ‘learn to read’, ‘think b4 you act’ were these issues raised on a forum like this. Yet there was non of that (from my experience) just a clear, do this-n-that we will do so-n-so, issue fixed… I also like that even the automated responses are formulated well, with clear and respectful language.

While I personally think that Anet threw out some GW1 babies with the bathwater, the support aspect is something that they clearly improved upon. Because it’s not just the supportdepartment that makes for good support, it’s also the tools that the game gives this department that determines how well they can give support to their customers.

The only time I saw an added value for GM’s was during User-organized big events, mainly to deal with grievers. Other than that, a good support department with the right tools and a great deal of respect is all I think is needed.

thaooo.5320:

Im Mudbone.1437:

I have seen numerous DEV’s playing the game since starting in the BETA for GW2 and I would think there are several of those with GM abilities.

Of course you have, you’re on stackgate. Devs really only reside there and stacked quarry.

As a member of Jade Quarry, I have to say I’ve never seen an in-game dev on the server. I hear constant tales of Blackgate presence, though.

Can anyone explain for those of us who don’t play other MMOs what a GM does that support and/or the in-game report & bug report functions don’t do?

Only game I’ve ever played with GMs was Ultima Online and they were basically other players who volunteered to spend some time teleporting to people who wanted to ask questions about the mechanics and had very limited powers like moving your character 1 foot to the side if you were stuck or promising that they’d made a note of a bug and would pass the message along to someone who may be able to fix it.

I can’t say it’s something I ever really missed or saw a reason to repeat, but then I’m not sure what other games GMs do.

According to this Dev post, there are GMs in-game:

Jeffrey Vaughn

Content Designer

‘On the live servers, special Dev abilities (like immortality or teleportation) are limited to GMs, and all dev commands are logged and reviewed to make sure no one is abusing the system. The integrity of our live servers is very important to us.’

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-Devs-Have-In-game-Powers/first#post3681994

I wonder… Has ANet ever considered recruiting GMs from the player base? These are essentially volunteers who can respond to in-game reports when they are online, and they are granted limited special powers such as being able to teleport stuck players, restart bugged events, and issue temp suspensions (no more than 24 hours) for bad conduct, leeching etc. Everything these GM’s do is logged, so if someone is abusing their powers, they’d be tracked down and dealt with quickly. (Players guilty of abusing their GM powers get an instant perma-ban, with no appeal. That should prevent anyone from ever getting tempted.)

What’s the point of GMs? Do they even do anything?

Do you really need a bunch of “hall monitors” or “day care workers” visible to provide assistance and keep players towing the line? I rather have a system where I can report a problem and go about my business without needing to wait for the “cops” to take my statement again.

I work in Customer Support in the gaming industry and compared to who I work for Anet support are like gods. I have filed 3 tickets about issues with my characters since I started playing all 3 were resolved in under 12 hours, 1 was even resolved before I logged off that night, this game has by far the best customer support I have ever dealt with.

I’ve seen plenty of guys with the Anet tag on their head in my server (Blackgate). Maybe 2~3 times a week. I don’t really see the need for some glorious shining GM with exclusive GM-only gear to descend from the skies to grace the mundane mortal lives of Tyrian citizens. That’s something I’ve seen a lot in Korean MMO grinders but thankfully not in GW2.

Everquest 2 uses a GM system. In game mods (24 hr service) that will respond to issues that range from griefing to bugged instances. Can’t tell you how many time we had problems and had a mod show up, fix the issue, chat a bit with them…then go on and finish whatever we’re doing. Not to mention keeping the trolls in line.

Wouldn’t mind seeing a similar system here.

A good GM is an invisible GM.