 | Player Relations |
| A Few Words about GM Halona | Feb 11 2004 1:57PM |
| Who is GM Halona? I guess I should start at the beginning—yes, that is always a good place to start. In January of 1998, I heard about a game that would forever change my life. For the next six months, I shared an account with a friend of mine and in June decided that one account was not big enough for the two of us to share, so I purchased a copy of my own and opened my own account. Since then, I have met and married my husband of four years and purchased four additional accounts. As you can see, Ultima Online became a huge part of my life. In September of 2000, my husband and I decided to apply to become counselors. I submitted my application (My husband canceled his.) and was accepted a few days later. That is when I became Counselor Sparrow Hawk of Lake Superior. After all the buzz about the first ever Ultima Online World Faire, I just had to attend. I sent in a request to help host the fan event and, since I already lived in Austin, was accepted quickly. I met several of the Game Masters at the time, as well as several of the "higher-ups" of the company. That day, I went home and sent in my résumé for the position of Game Master. In December of 2000, I left the counselor program to become GM Lady Halona. And after being with EA/OSI for a year and a half, I was promoted to Senior Game Master. This was beyond all I could fathom from the time I signed up to play this wonderful game six years ago! I opened an account with the idea that I would play this game for a few weeks, like most other games, and that would be it. I never dreamed how much this game could alter my life in so many ways. As a Game Master, I will do my best to defend the game and the rights of the players. If there is something we can do, I will do it; but if there is nothing we can do, I ask that the players understand that too. Just because we have the ability to do something does not mean that we have the power to do it due to policy constraints. We are not really all that harsh and all that mean. I work with a wonderful group of honest and hardworking Ultima Online gamers. For me, my job as a GM is more than a job; it is a major part of my life. I can only hope that UO brings as much joy to others as it has brought to me. Lady Halona Player Relations Ultima Online | |
| Introducing GM Wraith | Dec 19 2003 1:49PM |
| Greetings Britannians, Please allow me to introduce myself. I am GM Wraith. I have been a Game Master with EA for nearly two years now, first at Westwood Studios in Las Vegas, and now at OSI in Austin. Many of you may ask: "GM Wraith...how did you become a GM?" Here is my story: I have been an avid gamer since the late 70’s (Yeah, I’m an old dog.), starting with D&D, then evolving into Twilight 2000, Car Wars, and many other pen & paper games. I was also quite fond of the tabletop games like Air Force & Panzer Blitz. I spent four years as a Tanker in the US Army, so these were natural affinities for me. As console games evolved and the PC eventually took a foothold, I began searching for the digital counterpart to D&D, which was always my favorite. Alas, I found EverQuest in the beta test phase. I had been a beta tester before for a few different games and immediately volunteered for the program. I was accepted and, after nearly 5 ½ years of gaming on EQ, became a Guide and then a member of the ever-elusive Quest Troupe. After playing nearly every class available in EQ, I decided it was time for a change. I had heard about this cool new game called Earth & Beyond. I immediately signed up for the beta test and was accepted in the first phase of beta. Then I got this wild idea that I would like to go work for Westwood. I was a great fan of the C&C series & Renegade, and thought "WOW...what a great company to work for." Since they were based in Las Vegas, and I was working as a Graphic Designer there, I figured what the heck. I had always dreamed of working for a game studio, so I went to the studio and dropped off a resume. Three months and 12 resumes later (I dropped off one a week), I got the call to come meet with Draconis Rex, our Director of Customer Relations. The rest is history. I was hired on as a Lead GM for Earth & Beyond and served in that capacity until the closing of the Westwood studio last March. After a brief hiatus, I moved to Austin and joined the OSI team. Since that time I have been fully immersed in Ultima Online. Gosh, how I kick myself for not playing UO from the start. What a game--UO has a depth and fullness that cannot easily be matched. The world is huge and exceptional, and I can hardly wait for what’s coming next. Let me also say that our team of GMs is working hard to resolve all of your issues as quickly and completely as possible. To allow us to focus on the game-stopping issues, we ask that you use all the tools that we have provided. We have a dedicated Knowledge Base master in GM Carbon, who works very hard to ensure that most of your questions can be answered there if you take a bit of time to look around through the articles. The UO.com Playguide and the UO Stratics fan site are also great sources of information. Of course, if you are having an issue that can’t be resolved with simple Q&A, please give us all the details you can muster when paging into the in-game GM Help Queue. Well, that’s my story. For me, diligence and tenacity paid off and I was able to begin a career with one of the greatest companies I have ever worked for. What lesson can we learn from this? As Winston Churchill said: "We will never surrender!" Reach for your dreams, you just might catch them. Respectfully, GM Wraith Player Relations Ultima Online | |
| John Torrey on the UO Magic Moments Program | Oct 1 2003 4:10PM |
| With the recent launch of UO Magic Moments, lots of players have questions about that program, questions about the "Power-Up" team, and questions about the thinking behind it all. Hopefully, I can address the bulk of your concerns and give you some insight into our thought processes. Hey Dev Team, why are you launching new programs instead of fixing bugs/creating content/developing something? The UO Magic Moments program was designed from the very beginning to be something that could be handled without any help or time taken away from the UO Development team. Step-by-step, the Magic Moments program uses a team of people dedicated to these types of programs across all of EA's Persistent State World games. The team that answers the phone to take your UO Magic Moments order was there before this program was launched. The one person that preps for and performs the UO Magic Moments ceremonies has been working on programs for multiple games since this program was just a twinkle in someone's eye. This isn't to say that we're completely detached from the UO Live Team, but their involvement is limited to question answering and program approval so they can stay focused on UO as a whole. So are the UO Magic Moments being performed by the Event Moderators hired to provide us with exciting 6th year anniversary events? The Event Moderators are not performing events for the UO Magic Moments program. Yes, we've talked extensively with Maleki about what he’s doing with his team, and yes, we're very aware of the lessons we're learning through these events, but we're totally separate teams. Again, we're providing this new and exciting service while they stay focused on the new 6th Anniversary fiction events. Why does something that used to be free now cost $40? We decided to develop the UO Magic Moments service because, at this time, we are unable to provide these types of personalized events to you for free. Our current crew of Game Masters is busy working to keep things running smoothly on a daily basis inside Britannia. Unfortunately, that team just doesn't have the time or resources to step away from their regular duties and perform extracurricular events like weddings. No matter how hard we tried, working these sorts of activities into their schedule wasn't something that we could reasonably do without sacrificing hold times on the GM queue. In reading the threads that have been posted about this program, I noticed a common theme: No one wants to wait in the GM queue because a GM is off marrying two people as a courtesy. We didn't want to negatively affect the help queue either, but we still had great interest in providing this kind of service. So, we took the original idea of in-game celebrations and expanded on them to create a real value-added service that justifies the time and manpower required to produce them. Imagine planning multiple parties on a daily basis and ensuring that each one is just as special as the one before. It's like New Year’s Eve every hour on the hour. The cost not only covers a half an hour of OSI Employee time, but also items that are customized specifically for your individual Magic Moment. Hopefully, this answers some of the burning questions that have been floating around regarding the UO Magic Moments program. We're a few weeks into the program, and we're still learning from every Magic Moment that we share. Thanks for all your interest in this service, and we hope we have the chance to party with you soon! John Torrey UO Magic Moments Team | |
| GM Zilo Steps into the Spotlight | Aug 27 2003 3:47PM |
| Comments from the team... comments from the team... How about the history of GM Zilo instead? Sorry, Senior Game Master Zilo. I discovered Ultima Online at the 1996 E3 show. Some friends (coincidentally enough, GM Dengar, UO Product Manager/Lead GM Maleki, and a few others) and I drove to Atlanta, Georgia to attend the event. Walking into E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo for the uninitiated) for the first time was quite a mind-numbing experience--I'm talking on the same level as Disneyland for a 6 year old. Squirreled away from much of the traffic, we stumbled onto a little booth displaying a wooden shack with countless dead bodies littering the road outside. Needless to say, I was intrigued. My friend (not either of the aforementioned OSI employees) pointed out that Richard Garriott was giving the presentation. We sidled on up to him and started grilling him with questions: "What's this game?" "Is that a player killing those folks?" "You can kill people and take their stuff!?" "Is that his house?" "You can own a house!" "What do you mean that guy is an Alchemist/Lumberjack/Archer!" "Why is everyone moving so slow?" "Is that her dragon!" "Oh... it's killing her... was that her dragon?" Stuff like that. I was pretty impressed. But then I forgot about it, until the same friend who pointed out Richard Garriott to me brought a copy of it over in February 1998. With the game refreshed in my mind, I was excited to play. And then PC-gaming changed for me, forever. The first night I played, I knew UO was something great. I ran around clueless for days--hmm, weeks would be more accurate. There was so much to do. I tamed rabbits, got mauled by trolls, and discovered the joys of server lines. I ate turf on a daily basis, until I too mastered the art of casting Energy Bolt. The first time I was killed by another player, this little window popped up asking me if I would like to resurrect or play as a ghost. Of course I chose resurrect--I just needed one more hit to kill the guy! So, five instant resurrection clicks later, I chose play as ghost and then realized that insta-ressing took skill points away (and that using melee weapons back then was like hitting folks with Styrofoam). Ouch. Another time, I remember sitting on a log out in the forest. My friend Maelstrom had just tamed a grizzly bear. "Hey cool, he’s clapping. Did you teach him that trick?" I asked. Next thing I saw was a black screen with the words "You are dead." Maelstrom became "Dastardly," and we spent the better part of two weeks defending his life from blue players seeking titles. We were apparently on the wrong side of the law now. I had killed Maelstrom while we were both trying to destroy a great hart with our newbie swords a few days earlier. Eventually, we headed a gang that controlled the shipping and trading lanes of Rat Valley (i.e. thieves). I renounced my evil ways when I switched to the Lake Superior shard in late 1998. With a few other folks, we formed the [SBR]: Skara Brae Rangers. It was a guild established with the purpose of making the bad areas of the game a little safer. I'm sure there are some old timers who still remember the group. We were the "lootless army." With nothing but leather and non-magic weapons, we would swarm and overrun the enemies of the people. We would lie in wait, hidden in places like the Britain crossroads or the Yew Ort fort, and would spring out and destroy evildoers. It was a lot of fun to jump out of hiding and yell: "box box!" and then annihilate characters that had much more individual power than we had. I still think we helped change the course of player policing on Lake Superior for all time. Enough reminiscing. I got this job out of love for the game. I've played other MMOs, PSWs, whatever you want to call them, and Ultima Online is by far the best game around. No other MMORPG has the depth that this title does. After graduating from Full Sail in Orlando, with a Computer Animation degree, I hopped in my car and came out to Austin, Texas, hoping to somehow get in on the OSI team. I still play Ultima Online. I believe it makes me a more compassionate and effective Game Master. When you talk to me in-game or receive a message from me, you can be assured that you are getting an honest answer. I will not do anything to detract from the game I love, nor will I allow players or fellow GMs to do so either. I firmly believe that Ultima Online helped the gaming industry evolve to a whole new level and continues to be a catalyst for innovation. It’s my goal to make sure that players get the same enjoyment out of the game as I have. See you all in the game! Zilo Player Relations Ultima Online | |
| DraconisRex on GM Support | Jun 18 2003 4:37PM |
| Greetings everyone! I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and give all of you a heads up about some changes we will be making with UO GM support in the upcoming months. I am the Director of Customer Relations for Electronic Arts and am responsible for in-game (GM) support for EA’s PSWs. I have been in customer service for many years, with several companies, and have served EA in other customer service roles before recently taking on my UO responsibilities. Over the past couple months, I (and my Leads team) have been reviewing all sorts of GM issues, including customer comments, the quality and consistency of GM support, the Rules of Conduct (ROC), as well as the rules that the GMs follow to enforce the ROC. We recognize that there is frustration with our service and we want to make every effort possible to resolve those issues and ultimately improve your satisfaction with the services we provide. This is the top priority of the department. In coming months, we will be making several changes to how we do things in a strategic effort to improve the overall quality of our GM services. I have outlined just a few of those changes below, organized in three key areas where GMs provide customer assistance:
The EA CRMD (Customer Relationship Management Department) is committed to providing high value service to our customers. We pursued an ISO certification as part of our internal process for continuous quality improvement. ISO is used as a quality control mechanism whereby we are required to document our support processes, follow the processes accurately, gather customer feedback on how we do, and act on that feedback accordingly. Quality improvement is an ongoing process. Our processes and policies are ever evolving to meet the changing needs of our customers. We have documented internal processes where we review GM issues for accuracy, consistency, and other quality factors, and we hold our GMs accountable for meeting internal requirements in each of these areas. There are other processes in place to address the overall quality of the games and the tools the GMs use to do their jobs. Over the next few months, you can expect to see several improvements as we work to serve you better, and as always, we welcome your feedback on how we are doing. Don’t be surprised if you get a survey from us soon asking for more detailed comments than we are already getting through normal channels. Your opinions shape our policies and help set our priorities. I know I can speak for all the GMs when I say: we want you to have fun when you play UO and to keep playing for a long time. We don’t succeed if you are not satisfied. We won’t always be able to tell you exactly what you want to hear, but we are committed to doing all we can to make your game play experience more fun. I’ll see you in the game, incognito. :-) Boyd "DraconisRex" Beasley Director, Customer Relations Electronic Arts, Inc. | |
