Game Managers (GM) in GW?

Would Game Managers have made any difference if Guild Wars had gone that route?

Not at all. At least, not and it still be a free to play model. To get enough GMs to monitor this game, they would either have to pay them, or go volunteer. Paying them would mean we would pay for the people. Volunteers never works, it is too open to abuse, in particular in a game that encourages you to form cliques (guilds).

In my experience: No.

All the games that I have played that employ in game GM's tend to have very poor actual support. They also tend to have biased actions. In an example they would consider using the tools at their disposal to assist friends where they would say "Sorry, can't help you." to another.

With the current "Contact" support style that guild wars utilizes, it may take a little longer to get assistance, but it is far and away more consistent and generally useful.

Contrary to many people, I have very rarely had to wait longer than 24 hours till a support request was added, answered, and actioned upon.

Of course I also know that Fri/Sat/Sun will not necessarily get a reply but that Monday I will.

I've utilized support many times. One of the best parts of GW's support is that they will TELL you actions taken during a report. I know that I am not wasting my time when I report scammers as they will TELL me that the other has been suspended/banned for violations.

My opinion is that I have never run into any situation in game where a GM would have made any difference. I think it is quite remarkable for a game that had the population of GW that there were so few things that would have required a GM.

I can think of a couple of instances where GMs would make a difference - in PvP where the leechers are, and where the bots are. Other than that, the report system works pretty good for dealing with the majority of little stuff that pops up - potty mouths, offensive names, scammers, etc.

The only time (that I can think of) when things got to the point of needing A-Net employees to step in was the Monk strike way back when. But even that didn't get too ugly.

This post may not be 100% Accurate.


Now based on this title it sounds like people assume there aren't any GM's within Guild Wars, while in fact there are numerous GM's within the game that do have the ability to Ban (at least the one's I've played with while GvGing have the ability to Ban). So while Guild Wars main support seems to comes from NCSofts Website and employee's ingame there are still people within Guild Wars that are employed by ArenaNet that do act as Game Masters and have the ability to do the following. (I'm assuming here but some of these are in fact true, True = Italic, Bold = Unconfirmed).

GM Commands

1. /.die (Kills them or target anywhere).
2. /.examine (Examines a players information, most MMO's have a command like this and in my experience in other unnamed games they tend to give information on a Characters Achievements, Experience, Skills, etc as well as provide information like IP, Country, Server connected to).
3. /.fireworks (This one should be obvious, it's been used countless times in Pre-Searing with various GM's visiting frequently).
4. /.teleport (Again should be obvious, if it's not this allows them to instantly ward to a specific part of the map, we know this works as it was demonstrated before).
5. /.mute (Obvious again, it mutes a person for X amount of minutes assuming that they can enter an amount of time).
6. /.GM (Turns the highly noticeable Green Sign above there head off)
7. /.resurrect (Resurrects Target)
8. /% Allows a GM to use the Purple Chat color.
9. /.mark (This is a command that's rumored to exist but I have never had any direct confirmation from the Game Masters I've talked to but from what I've been told this allows a GM to "Mark" an account, after 3 marks there banned for a set amount of time which increases with each ban, again this is only an assumption and may be incorrect).

So as you see Game Masters / Managers are alive and well within Guild Wars and do have commands that allow them to "Manage" the game. In addition if you're interested in just who these GM's are they are as follows.

Regina Buenaobra
Isaiah Cartwright
Linsey Murdock
Julien Crevits
Michael Gills
Gaile Gray
Martin Kerstein
Monastery Scribe
Andrew Patrick
Peter Verhelst

If you're interested in the commands or just want General Information on Game Masters / Developers below are a few Wiki links that should help you along your journey of knowledge.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gm

and

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:...loper_Commands


Additionally there have been times when reporting a player just isn't possible, currently if you report a player for leeching (assuming it hasn't been re-worked since I've been taking my break) the player reporting leechers is also punished unless a certain amount of people on the team report that user. And as you know (if you play any JQ on the Luxon Side) Leechers and Bots are are rarely reported due to the lack of additional reports. Now if there was a Game Master(s) that was alerted when a /report was filed against a player and then was able to monitor a player while invisible (trust me other games have this, I've personally used it on other titles to watch players break rules and then punish them) it would solve the whole broken report system.

So when you get down to it GM's are in fact better for Guild Wars and having more of them would only benefit the game, while /support is cheaper because it's mostly automated it has it's problems and is mostly useless for reporting leechers. (For everything else it's fine)

GM's could have scolded us and made us all play in PUGS

I'd like a GM to come and observe some JQ matches. Specifically Luxon. There are 8-10 bots that I know of running around.5 of them have been botting since Oct and it seems that every 1-2 weeks, a new bot is released. To people who JQ frequently, these bots are known not only by the names, but the tags. Reason this would be nice? Not enough people report, which means no actions are taken.It seems kind of silly targeting such a low end PvP arena, But in some cases you end up having 3 bots in your team. Along with a leecher? Makes that match unbearable.

As I eluded to in my post. In game GM's tend to be nigh on useless.

They don't do any work. Most of the time they are doing nothing but fraternizing with friends/random people who are impressed.

Why would they go play JQ and ban every bot/leech? That's work. That's why.

Guild Wars has GMs
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/GM

Yeah I know that's work. Apparently they don't make enough from costumes and storage panes.

Only real use i can see from having gm`s would be to hit bots in pvp ( as suggested already ) and to kill the damn gold/account selling bots that appear - spam and vanish before u even have a chance to type their names - some now even want WoW accounts and i thought i was playing gw not WoW .
Bar that we`ve never really needed GM within the game - we`ve coped so far without them.

The only thing I've ever used a GM for is in WoW. And that typically was only for when I screwed up and gave loot to the wrong person. I'd put in the ticket for the item to go to the appropriate person. But tickets in WoW were taking 1-2 days for a GM to even respond. But that was months ago, I've quit playing it yet again. Nothing like playing for a year to gear up your character and learn the fights, and voila patch comes out handing out welfare epics that are better than anything else in the game.

GW has GMs, they just usually hang out in international district and talk. When ever they actually want to play, they switch accounts. Do you realize how many people would spam invite them if they tried to do the mission on their GM account?
"JOIN US AND USE VERBS TO HELP PLZ!" every noob on the planet would jump down their throats

Gm's, frequently updates and good service is paid with monthly fees. GW has no monthly fees, so don't expect to much of those things

I've played for years and never saw one, never even saw GM text in any channel. If it wasn't for various screen shots and the wiki articles I'd be tempted to say they don't exist...that's how much of an impact they have on the game. Considering how much potential there is for abuse of power that's probably a good thing, they are human beings after all.

"In the beginning" (not sure if still required) all ANet employees were required to play the game as part of the monitoring process. ANet did not have the funds to spare for full time GMs, full-time forum admin/mods, or full-time anything that didn't have to do with working on the game. During event finales, there were usually a few employees around, as proved by the "I got banned" threads that appeared at those times. I don't think much has changed, as far as GMs are concerned. There still is a lack of funds for full-time monitoring.

a) define GM
b) what aspects of the game do you want a GM to address?

game MANAGER XD XD XD

I saw Gaile ingame long ago (I think was her with purple text...I forget it has been so long). I've also seen Regina ingame once (in pre on the chibi Gwen day). I think I saw some light blue text ingame once too but I forget what that was about. But they aren't exactly what you'd call GM's really so I donno. lol. Is so infrequent between sightings I tend to forget.

Except that they never do anything GM-like.

We have GM's, they just never do anything....ever.

I saw one of the old mesmer GM's years ago in GTOB. Our conversation went something like this:


Me: We have GM's in this game?
GM: Yep
Me: Cool. What are ya here for?
GM: Just standing around for now lol.
Me: oh.
GM: *continues to stand there*
-awkward pause-
Me: hurrr
Me: *Zones*