Legendary SNAFU - Wednesday, February 27, 2002 - WintyreFraust | |
| In my last column I explained how Legends was an unfair method of artificially I don't know of anyone, personally, that plays Everquest that has contacted Who is going to be signing up for Legends because of the greater customer Who is going to be signing up for Legends because of the ongoing, exclusive The more you involve the human element from the game side, the more you Exactly how does SOE think these people, most of which are salivating at What were they smoking at SOE when they came up with this idea? Did no one... Is that going to be an accurate description of every player on Legends? Of Now, how is this the best thing that ever happened for the average player How is Legends great for the industry, as a whole? Because of simple competition.
Satisfy your emotional needs here. | |
Part II Policies and Procedures - Tuesday, February 26, 2002 - D 0ne | |
| The Online Tools of Customer Service Customer service personnel have access to a private chat. This channel rather than being the standard /gu command is designated /pr. This command allows customer service to communicate much the same way a guild does. When you /petition the petition is queued for only two hours or for the length of time you’re online, whichever comes first. Many players encounter difficulty because they can only petition once per zone. Other players do not provide adequate information with the /petition command. Game operators have the ability to adjust the petition order based on any criteria they wish. If your petition is obtuse or appears overtly minor or derogatory you may have a long wait for help. Also keep in mind, game operators can see your station name, if that name matches your Internet persona and the game operators know of you and dislike you, good luck on getting your petition answered. A game operator may simply take your petition out of the queue without ever assisting you. Game operators can and do adjust the petition queue based on urgency. Escalated petitions are for more senior customer service personnel to handle. Normally those escalations are situations a game operator or apprentice game operator can not or should not handle. All Game Operators have the ability: To soulmark a player. This is nothing more than adding information to the game operator data base. Every time you petition or every time a game operator calls up your station name they will see the all infractions regarding your account. A permanent file or record that is available to online customer support. Nothing has ever been done to make sure the information contained in this file is accurate. All that is included in this file is the name of the infraction (this is exactly the same information available to offline customer support, in total.). A description of what happened, when it happened or who was involved is not included. To find you using your station name, your PC name or corpse number. Game operators of sufficient rank can find you across all servers. To “port” to you or an NPC by using the same information as listed above. Game operators of sufficient rank can port to you across all servers. To hide from players. To summon you to them, port you or them to any location in the game. Game operators of sufficient rank can port you to “jail” and they can leave you there indefinitely and only a game operator of sufficient rant can get you out of jail. Capabilities of Senior and above game operators: Become any NPC they chose. This ability was solely intended for quests. This command was widely abused in the past and may still be abused. One way of knowing if you were “abused” with this command was “That time you were being attacked by what normally is an indifferent NPC”. Send messages across the entire server. This was blatantly abused in the past for announcing everything from jokes to weddings. The ability to shrink or grow any PC or NPC. Instantly remove you from the game for a duration of their choosing. This command is intended to be used for unsticking stuck players. Widely abused in the past. Change any NPC or PC name. Used heavily in the past. Increase or decrease the level of any NPC or PC. All skills are increased or decreased appropriately when this command is used. Abused in the past. Kill any NPC or PC. Give last names that normally aren’t allowed by the ingame filter. Repopulate zones or depopulate entire zones. Abused in the past. Create items. By entering the correct item code a senior game operator can create or summon any item in the game. Abused in the past. Ingame items available to all Game Operators and Game Operators in training to facilitate customer service. Note that these items are no rent, no drop, radioactive and are purchased from venders located in customer service home, after the PC turns in a note that sets their game operator flag. The note is obtained from a senior game operator. A radioactive item if picked up by a customer will cause instant PC death. Item which summons gate potions. Item that summons food. Item that summons drink. Ingame items that are available to trained Game operators. Faction increasing item. Cancel magic item. Run speed-enhancing item. Sigh enhancing item. Stat enhancing item. Also makes it impossible for the holder to drown. Invulnerability to damage item. Teleportation item ports holder to customer service home. Resurrection item. Levitation item. An item that erases an NPC aggressive list. Item for setting PC starting location. Discuss. | |
Policies and Procedures - Monday, February 25, 2002 - D 0ne | |
| This article series has been a long time in coming. I’ve muddled around with it for years, literally. It’s one of those, been there done that, you need a tin foil hat (aluminum will not work, btw.) type of article series. I’ll make every reasonable attempt to provide you with my sources for each point when I can. I discovered a document on the web entitled ”eq-guide.doc” which was a pretty interesting and informational read. The document covers the policies and procedures for online customer service. I hope to impart what I’ve learned from this document to you. The guide(s) I know and the GM(s) I know, are friends I’ve met through the game. Some of whom I’ve met and some I haven’t met personally. I of course will not be mentioning specific servers or the names of anyone involved. There are obvious reasons for not mentioning those things and I sincerely hope that you understand why. I will be sharing with you what I’ve learned from them in this series of articles. The first article or three will be rather boring, dealing with basic facts and details that are essential for understanding the later articles in the series. Those later articles will deal with motivations and intentions. Basic facts regarding the document under review. The document I have available to me, was created Wednesday, September 01, 1999 2:39:00 PM and was last modified Tuesday, January 18, 2000 1:36:36 PM and the last time this document was printed was Wednesday, December 16, 1998 6:02:00 PM. G COLLINS last saved this document, it is revision 2, and that revision took a total of 4 minutes. I find it strange that this document was printed nearly a year before it was created but facts are what they are. The document was titled Policies and Procedures and was created by Christopher C. Pinckard who apparently worked for Intel IT. This must be Intel's document that I'm reading… The document is old, I know. Most of the following information wasn’t confirmed or denied by a GM and a Guide. The document was deemed “Essentially correct”. New versions of the document were not offered to me. I was told, “Verant is overly protective of documentation and they’ll come after you if you post it word for word.” So I won’t post it word for word, I’ll report on what I’ve read and I’ll not quote my anonymous sources if they added any information. Part One: The Personnel The online customer service for EverQuest consists of six levels or ranks. The ranks are Candidate, Apprentice Guides, Guides, Senior Guides, Elder Guides, and Verant Game Masters. Candidates are individuals who have applied for the Guide program and are given consideration. An applicant will not be considered unless they have played two characters up to level 10. The document doesn’t mention having a clean record as part of the criteria I’m sure based on the recruiting advertisements there’s no doubt that it is a requirement. Once selected they become apprentice guides. Apprentice Guides are limited in their ability to explore (no areas over level 20), are not to be online unless a non-anon guide is also online and they posses no special abilities “game wise” other than those currently available to regular customers. Apprentice guides have avatars that are /buffed to level 20, have their factions set to neutral and made monster non-aggressive. They do have access to your login or account name. They can and do answer minor petitions as the upper level customer support personnel mentor them. After a month or less apprentice guides are promoted to guide status. Guides are expected to “work’ a minimum of 10 hours a week. For this they receive two free EQ accounts. One for “work” and their original account is no longer charged a fee. Guides have access to the guide message boards, your station login and can be given the abilities of senior guides by senior guides etc. on a temporary basis. They also can “soul mark” an account. Soul marks are text notes regarding your account and they are accessible to anyone guide level or higher. Guides have a full set of tools for customer support; these tools will be defined and described in the next article. The preceding two examples are only a couple of the tools made available to a volunteer with two level ten characters and a month of mentoring. A guide who spends an inordinate amount of time online or who presents himself well to the senior guides, elder guides and the GM stands a good chance of being promoted to senior guide. Senior Guides meet the following criteria: Trusted. Show good judgement. Have invested extra time in the program. Senior guides are a mix of paid and unpaid personnel. They are expected to work at least sixteen hours a week online. A senior guide is the guide who handles petitions where “the customer refuses to be satisfied.” The primary responsibility of a senior guide is the administration of the guide program and administration of the server. These individuals are responsible for the success of the guide program on their server. They run quests and events. Senior guides have duties outside their respective server duties, which may involve the assigning of a guide (yes, that guy with two level 10 avatars and a month of mentoring) to off server duties. These positions include: PR senior – handles board(s) and chat activities, represents EQ guides outside of the game and monitors the Internet for bugs, exploits and other “game-wrecking” posts and communications. Training Senior – FAQs and training material used across all servers for training guides. Scheduling Senior – handles cross server scheduling of guides (you didn’t think guides just worked on one server, did you?), and quests. Once you’ve dedicated yourself to SOE you may become an elder guide. Elder Guides are senior guides who for all intents and purposes have donated a huge number of hours to SOE; they now are guaranteed to receive a paycheck for their hard work and dedication. Employed via a service contract. These individuals create policy, review personnel, and supervise all communications and operations. Merry makers all, they are divided into: Quest Elders – Run the questing program. Personnel Elders – Guide recruitment, assignment and discipline. Process Elders – Bureaucrats, masters of the paper chase. Customer Service Elders – SOE liaison to the guide program. Directs the PR Seniors, enforces external policy and the top of the chain of command of the volunteer guide program. Game Masters are hourly and or salaried employees that the majority of work within the Verant facilities. Broken down in to programmers, graphic artists, QA, designers, server administrators, customer service representatives, GM supervisors and last but not least GM managers. Game masters are the “working here is just like Office Space please kill me now” people of SOE. An example of someone who has worked his or her way up through this system is Gordon Wrinn. Rather bland but it is Monday. | |
Broken... - Saturday, February 23, 2002 - D 0ne | |
| It's working. | |
SUBMITTED BY GAMWISE: UO's New PvP answer - Friday, February 22, 2002 - WintyreFraust | |
| I suck at PvP. Let me get that out up front. I don’t hate PvP though, in fact some of the most fun times I've ever had playing online were in the early days of UO being chased by a red back to town screaming my pansy ass off all the way. The tension and FEAR of entering a dungeon has no equal in any PvE encounter I've ever had either. That being said, I left UO back the day BECAUSE of PvP. The cheating and the griefing became overwhelming so I jumped ship for EQ. UO has begun to change again. I went back to Sosaria when Trammel went live and I do enjoy the old pastimes like chopping wood and saying OoOOoOooOOo a lot but its not the same. And it never will be again I'm afraid. Take the latest changes planned for PvP for example 1. When an innocent player is murdered, 70% of the innocent’s items (a random result per item) will remain on their ghost (unlootable). 2. When an innocent player is murdered, that player will be given the option to teleport to a town through a free "stuck player" window. 3.All dead players (ghosts) without the spirit speak skill will no longer be able to hear what live players are saying (they will hear something to the effect of "blah, blah, blah" instead of the actual words). 4. All characters will receive a "one-time" reprieve for all murders of every type (all murder counts will be reset). 1. All tracking of "short-term" and "ping-pong" murder counts will be eliminated (they will be obsolete upon the implementation of the changes below). 2. The "stat loss" system will be eliminated completely (red characters will no longer take stat loss upon ressurection). 3. All newly acquired murder counts will decay with 120-hour (5 days) real-time timers (online or offline). 4. Due to the imprecise nature of Justice in Felucca, murder counts will now be tracked on a shard level for each account. After 5 murders on that shard all characters on that shard for that account will become red (all other characters on that shard for that account are considered accessories to murder). 5. Reds (murderers) will no longer be able to ban other players from houses. 6. Houses will have a "no red entry" option that will prevent all reds from entering the house (essentially, they will be "auto-banned" from that house). 7. Due to the remaining force of Justice in Felucca, reds will no longer be able to cast the recall spell. 8. The "bounty system" will be eliminated. 9. The "murderer" paperdoll title will be eliminated (although players with 5 murders will still highlight red and be considered "murderers" in this document). Brilliant! These are the best changes they have ever made to the game! Er ... if they happen 3 years ago that is. It's too late now. In the old UO there was really no compelling reason not to kill someone, in fact it was far more lucrative to gank than to camp. In the old UO the problem was that Pking became the norm rather than the exception. Instead of the rare person who would choose to role-play and evil character EVERYONE was evil (unless you sucked at PvP then you got to role-play the victim like me). I mean look at the changes. Take number 3 for example where it says that all dead players who don't have spirit speak wont be able to hear what people are saying. I would have loved that because to be honest I never really enjoyed it when people emoted "@ssRaP3r" over my corpse while I stood there going OoOOoo. Now, they can still do it so that they and all their pimple popping friends can Yuk it up with them while I won't have to hear it. It’s the best of both worlds! And the thought of losing 30% of my stuff would still be enough to get me to watch every toon that comes on the screen without making death so painful I chuck the monitor out the window. But now truth be told there is really never going to be a reason for me to EVER go to Felucia unless for some reason I WANT to be ganked. These changes are going to do squat but piss off the PvPer crowd. You know what the kicker of all this is? This is still brilliant in a way. Take a close look at number 8. Closer... Closer... there! You see it? Where is says that after 5 murders on that shard all characters on that shard for that account will become red, you see that? That’s called forced redistribution folks. You see, pretty much no one is on Felucia and that means Felucia is wasted resources. But if they can move all the people to Felucia that have just one red on their account the burden on Trammel is lifted that much accordingly. All the other points are just fluff so they could stick that one in there hoping it wouldn't get noticed. Fear not PvPers, Pkers, and Griefers. Shadowbane cometh and all will be well once more. Gamwise PK Gamwise here, but don't let the guards hear about it. | |
Legendary Elitism - Friday, February 22, 2002 - WintyreFraust | |
| Well they figured out, finally, how to create real elitism in Everquest. The real problem in the elite gaming community, as far as Everquest was concerned, was that there was no real way to be recognized as "elite" by the This is something that the programmers at SOE, apparently, have been trying Anonymity and insignificance doesn't sit well with the more fanatical of They also get special attention from the staff - in fact, an entire staff No, not everyone of course. However, if being the "first", and Essentially, that's what the elite gaming community boils down to; the need I know that's how I spend my time in Everquest. Don't you? Every poll that I've seen the numbers to indicate that by FAR most Everquest How about opening up the new "Drudge" server? No GM, no staff, Obviously, this is pandering to a very specific fringe group of subscribers, I guess the ideal of a FAIR system where everyone was on relatively equal Okay, it stinks, it's elitist, it rewards people based on real life money Believe it or not, in my next column I'm going to explain why this is the Be one of the few and discuss it here. | |
Egotism for all! - Thursday, February 21, 2002 - D 0ne | |
| Egotism. It’s probably the most constructive thing in online gaming today. From top to bottom egotism drives online gaming in to the future. More, better, faster; is the mantra of online gaming. For developers, "we have more content, better content and less lag." For the players, "I have more coin, better stuff and I advance faster." More, better, faster are words of evil to some players and developers. They chant from the ivory towers "this is a RPG and more, better, faster has no place here!" It’s a good thing no one listens to those "RPGs aren’t about being the best" kooks. They (these role-players) aren’t dealing with the reality of imagination. Imagination and fantasy should be about egotism to the extreme. Who among you isn’t taking a healthy scoop of ego-boost when you log on to your favorite RPG? If playing an MMRPG doesn’t make you feel better or at least feel good about yourself in some way, why play? It all comes down to, "in my imagination land; I’m the best." Now toss other people in to your imagination land, you know, like when we were children. You know what’s coming don’t you? If your newfound friends aren’t laughing at you they are probably playing imagination right along with you, by saying, "My sword is better than your sword times infinity! " Remember the rules? We all played imagination games as children, we all had the desire to be the best no matter what, we all "cheated" because our imaginary stuff never had static attributes, we all had the very best imagination stuff there was. In fantasyland we are all the best. Who among us didn’t have that infinity times four fast Hot Wheels car? Which is the whole point of fantasy and role-playing with other people, imagination played via stroking the ego, being the best, because it makes us all feel better about ourselves. Discuss! | |
Welcome - Wednesday, February 20, 2002 - WintyreFraust | |
| Some time ago there was a site called "The Rantings of Lum the Mad". On this site, "Lum" would rant about what he felt were injustices, or the unethical behavior of, or the bad business and customer relation practices of online gaming companies. The site had quite a bit of impact in the industry, and had developed quite a following as far as independent online sites go. Over time several people that posted on Lum's site were banned by various moderators; whether these bannings were just or unjust is up for personal interpretation and debate. D_One, one such banned poster, created a message board for those who were banned from LtM to gather and discuss different issues about the games, the industry, and the gaming community. Lum himself left his site, and in time it disappeared (with a rather loud crash). The readership dispersed; most went to sites that were created by those who shared Lum's editorial viewpoints and ideas about the MMOG industry and the online community; but a certain percentage came to the forum provided by D_One, not satisfied with the content - or direction - or community - provided elsewhere. At some point D_One decided to go ahead and create this website as the "front end" to his message board forum, and now here we are. What is our agenda here? Essentially, to provide a place to read and contribute opinions about the MMOG industry and the future of online gaming. Perhaps some of the opinions will inspire debate and discussion. Some of those opinions will be rants; others might be simply defined as editorials, but make no mistake about our editorial policy; it is to be a positive influence on this industry. Criticisms will be constructive; praise will be measured, opinion will be as objective as humanly possible - but stemming from a passion about the games we play. On our message boards, moderation will be functional; you will not be banned for posting any opinion whatsoever as long as you do not spam or use vulgarity. You will not be ridiculed or browbeaten by the staff for having an opinion unlike ours about the world of MMOGs. An open forum is necessary to promote broad discussion; broad discussion can bring fresh ideas and new perspectives. I personally play EverQuest, and I love the game. However, I take issue ... serious issue ... with many of the practices and designs of, and in, the game, and the business practices of Sony Online Entertainment. There are many things about the MMOG industry I don't care for and would like to see changed; there are many things I find wonderful about it as well. I will in time present opinions that demonstrate both, to hopefully bring about some meaningful changes for the better. If nothing else, at least we might provide some interesting reading and help others to see the opinions of others in a more inclusive atmosphere. WintyreFraust Editor | |
Hello. - Tuesday, February 19, 2002 - D 0ne | |
| Hi. Welcome to yet another web site dedicated to online gaming. No, check that, another site dedicated to online gaming and online gaming web sites. I've spent months watching others debate the worth or value of this that and the other thing concerning this site. I've decided my opinion is the right opinion. I'm going to rant about the motives behind the happenings in gaming and the motives behind the stories presented by gaming sites. Some of those sites have obvious motives, game marketing, promotion, money and prestige. Other sites portray themselves as community sites; their motives tend to be more obtuse or disguised but often those sites' motives appear to be about self-promotion, prestige, power, control, and personal gain. Other sites are just personal pages created as a personal outlet and for the enjoyment a site can bring. Other sites pretend to be or actually are news sites. I'll make it a hobby to point out the less than charitable actions of gaming sites and other "community" events in gaming. I also understand that others have helped make this site flourish by adding other kinder gentler content, that content will remain, notably Winter Frausts' gaming commentary, he is the Editor in Chief of the site. He will retain control over pure gaming commentary. If you desire to join the gaming commentary staff, or have a gaming story posted you'll have to write to him. The lead editor of this site is going to focus on games and gaming issues and I, trouble maker that I am (humor), will focus on other sites (company or not) and their coverage of online gaming or the lack there of. I'll be pointing out the hypocrisy, favoritism, nepotism, and inbreeding cliquish world of online gaming sites, all the while dishing up a healthy dose of my own imperfections. I hope that most of you will enjoy this portion of the sites coverage. It has been a long, long time in coming, a rant site about gaming sites. Sure there are other sites dedicated to yanking news from other sites but this site isn’t about just linking to the news of other sites, we are about the taking apart. People love the taking apart. Some of you will prefer or enjoy Winter Fraust commentary and ranting, and some of you will enjoy mine. When I say enjoy, I hope you'll be happy with the content, literally. Of course some of you won't enjoy this site at all. Some of you are going to hate this site; you'll find the content and subject matter boring, you'll never come back. Other people will enjoy the site a little differently, some of the content may make you angry and you'll come back every day, day after day secretly hoping the site will give you another reason to be angry. You people of the last category frighten me. If you enjoy being angry that much perhaps therapy is in order? Speaking of therapy. Some people need enemies and identifiable evil in their lives. How else can they judge themselves without a common standard to be judged against. There must be good in the world and there must be evil. Gray area's suck. That of course explains the popularity of so many things, Internet, good and evil digested, defined prepackaged and microwaveable, no thought required. If you can't have somebody to hate in this arena then how can you love someone else? Most of the gaming sites have a few followers who function on an emotional level at least that simple. This is a pretty shallow subject (good and evil Internet) and we've all learned it so very well over the last two years how can anyone doubt the honesty of it. How else can rabid followers prove their worth to their omnipotent peers unless they take apart the enemy? Wait a minute, who is the enemy? Before now selecting the enemy was a ritualistic ceremony, involving, dogma, pecking order and the ability to belittle others. But no more! No longer will the rabid followers be forced to feed on their own kind! I give you the Rick Flair, of internet gaming sites, http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org or just to keep the rabid among you rabid http://www.lumthemad.org ! Hyperlink your huddled masses, your tired, your sick, your poor and we'll club 'em to death. No, I won't. I want the outcasts of your communities to post to our forums, and too submit stories and rants. I want to hear what they have to say and so do you. PS. Look at the links to your left. See all of those? I hope to increase the size of that list, substantially. I know there are other gaming sites, gaming people and gaming commentary sites out there, I'd like to link to them all. I never want the links on the front page to be commentary on the merits of a site. You deserve information and entertainment and that is what that long list of links to the left hopefully provides you. If you'd like a site listed or if you think I've missed some (un) important sites, email me the URLs and I'll most likely add them to the list. | |