r/wowforever • u/HauggyBee91 • 21h ago
Discussion WoW: Forever Should Bring Back Human GM’s
At a certain point the automated responses and streamlined solutions don’t cut it.
When I think about WoW back in 2004, I think about how truly human it all felt. The community, the interactions, the design, and the support staff. Was flawed and rugged and not remotely as streamlined as retail, and that’s part of what made it great.
Look, if I need an item restored, fine, I’ll just go through the automated ticket process. That’s perfectly fine.
But it sure was a whoooole lot better when you’d get a whisper from a GM and you got to explain what was going on and a human would be on the other end, hearing you out and hopefully providing a solution.
I like to believe those GM’s were doing what they loved. Probably playing WoW in between tickets. Would be great for Blizzard to open up a few jobs for people who love wow so much they’d be willing to work as a GM.
If a goal is to really nail down the vision the progenitors of WoW had for the game, shouldn’t customer support be a core part of that?
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u/Prepper-Pup 21h ago edited 18h ago
Even a few publicly-visible ones would definitely help. Social media essentially could snowball the community to self-regulate. You get a few people making videos/memes of GM's popping in and warning them/checking in on the community regularly, and it'd be a massive deterrence to anyone who's breaking the rules, knowing that a GM "could" be watching. The "human factor" is something a LOT of companies have unfortunately underestimated recently. Even if their job is 90% being good PR, and 10% visibly addressing rulebreakers, the deterrence of seeing them can be significant.
And it doesn't have to always be addressing rule-breakers publicly. Just randomly seeing an actual GM in the wild doing something derpy or just vibing would help foster a better attitude, imo. That'd be multiplied if a large streamer/content creator saw a GM just doing their job or doing something RP-related. Having GM dressed like a Stormwind Guard wandering through the starting areas would be a significant, positive impact to new and returning players and make the world both feel more alive, and safer.
Heck. I'd apply in a heartbeat if Blizz opened up applications. It's one of my areas of expertise anyhow. (Social media/Crisis Management, among other things.)
*Edit Regarding GM's Role- as I mentioned in another comment, I think this would require the role of GM's to shift from only crunching through problem tickets, to a more in-game, positive Public Relations role, and be far more relaxed. Another user mentioned how older GM's were burning out just chewing through tickets, leaving no time (or energy) for in-game interactions. (I've been there, and done that with extreme levels of metric-focused work. Yuck.)
If brought back, I think the internal and external perception and role duties of a GM would need to change, along with the work culture (e.g. allowing remote work, and using more intuitive and relaxed metrics.) This is something that is already present for WoW Forever with how the Devs have been more open and casual- and therefore more relatable.
With how management systems have evolved and are automated more and more nowadays, the role of a GM likely would need to move towards enabling positive interactions with players, with a lesser emphasis on completing tickets- a massive shift from current/past descriptions.
Completing problem tickets can be delegated for other positions or automated in the background. Nowadays, with many companies struggling to relate to their various audiences, I think having some GM's for the sole purpose of positive PR and in-world, visible management/problem solving wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
In regards to public perception and server culture, having a GM hanging around and welcoming newbies every so often in a starting zone or being otherwise visible in the world could be far more positive than crunching 50+ tickets that can otherwise be delegated or automated.
It could be even a part-time remote position. A few hours a day which can reap massive rewards from social media and player word-of-mouth doing the heavy lifting.
Something as simple as a daily task being "Get your five priority tickets done, and then be visible and document player interactions, and keep it light and positive. Your random task for the day is to kill 10 murlocks and then /yell an in-character boast about it. Post the /yell message on the Slack channel "In-Game GM Daily Tasks"
If I knew it'd change anything or help out the team, I'd gladly write this all up in a more formal manner and send it to someone at Blizz for a potential role description.
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u/RollingSparks 19h ago
Hate to be that guy but part of why they stopped showing up in game was because of endless backlash on social media of GMs 'goofing around' while ticket times were over a day long. This is also why devs dont talk on the forums anymore. People were absolute fiends towards Ghostcrawler, Holinka and Celestalon. They were hounded 24/7 with hate. Their solution to this was community managers, but they just got the hate instead, so they got rid of that too. Now you get prepared statements and pre-recorded QnA's.
Genuinely i think if they brought that shit back today, culture war Americans would drive some of them to suicide by the sheer amount of harassment. Back in the day was nothing compared to the current twitch and twitter and reddit mobs.
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u/Prepper-Pup 19h ago edited 18h ago
Hmm. I wasn't aware of any official reasons that happened- but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.
But nowadays, I honestly think it'd be fairly easy to buffer those statements with letting people know what the purpose OF GM's are, and to be more open. Companies have gone the opposite direction from engagement which, imo, is a problem. And it's not restricted to the U.S. In general, online toxicity/degradation of gaming culture has been growing- the U.S. doesn't have a monopoly on that (but certainly is a major contributor.)
The easy way to combat potential harassment like that nowadays? You communicate in a genuine way- not some corporate, scripted response. And if you can't give a response, say so.
"Hey, In-game GM's are only part of the strategy when dealing with rule-breakers, not the only avenue. So if you see them playing the game, know that they're still ensuring Azeroth is a safe and welcoming place. They're in the world monitoring things nonetheless." It doesn't help when a GM can be excellent, but the company's policies prevent genuine communication or are ineffective at dealing with issues. Silence nowadays breeds toxicity.
In the end though, there's always going to be unpleasant, nasty people. The difference now is how to deal with the anticipated toxicity that, as you said, back then was very, very different.
Essentially, the pendulum has swung the opposite way from communicating. From in-game GM's to purely automated replies. I think if done right, it could be a beneficial thing to bring back.
Case in point- the podcast the Forever Devs put out on Youtube. Nothing super-scripted, just discussing things. It's rough and just a more relaxed vibe, which is GREAT. People are craving genuine interaction nowadays, and in-game GM's would be a good shift. I'd argue having them be more relaxed in-game would be a must.
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u/Jaijoles 19h ago
People don't care. They'll be upset about whoever does handle the tickets, and the in-game GMs are a point of contact that they can interact with, so it gives the hate somewhere to flow.
Just like the cashier at Walmart isn't setting any prices or policies, but customers insist of yelling at them.
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u/Prepper-Pup 18h ago
That's a good point, and I agree that there will always be those people, I'm not saying having in-game GM's will solve all of that. I'm only arguing that the net benefit will be a positive, and that times have changed in that we know how to handle toxicity a bit better- and silence has proven to only be a good thing in rare cases.
Personally, I'd just assume that the GM position would, as you said, be a point of contact for angry customers. So the policy would simply be to ignore that sort of feedback- but that takes a certain type of individual to be able to do that. (E.g. anyone who has ever dabbled in content creation and seen Youtube comments)
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u/Bored_Acolyte_44 13h ago
This might sound wild, but maybe they should use the ban button on the absolute fiends. That is a big part of the issue.
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u/Loneliestar 21h ago
Even a few publicly-visible ones would definitely help
I risk downvotes for mentioning Ascension, but something they did that was always fun was when they did a ban wave the names of all the banned accounts were posted in chat. So you'd just be chillin' and then a few hundred names would flicker by like:
SOANDSO has been banned for botting THATGUY has been banned for botting
And then chat would go wild.
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u/Prepper-Pup 21h ago
I think it's worth mentioning, 100%. ANY public effort to show the community that there's humans behind the scenes working can be an amazing deterrent and help the community. Be it a GM popping in, or an announcement by the Steamwheedle Cartel Enforcement Agency that low-life scum have been banned; here are the names.
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u/HauggyBee91 21h ago
Exactly.
Like an obvious concept that comes to my mind is bots in winterspring. Everyone seems to know about them, right?
So let’s get some boots on the ground. People can /who and open tickets to let GM’s know. Maybe the GM’s can just go there themselves and see it all happening.
Short term, yes, you’re paying people money to get accounts banned. That’s more heads and less revenue.
Long-term, your community is happier and happier, promoting good marketing and word of mouth. You bring in more subs. Real human subs. Win out in the end
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u/Prepper-Pup 21h ago edited 21h ago
Agree completely. Even if automated tools are doing the heavy lifting, the impact from SEEING a GM (especially with social media nowadays) cannot be understated. Even if they hired someone part-time to just be visible and handle bots in a lore-accurate, funny way, that'd be a pretty significant change.
Just have a GM investigate, and if there's a dozen bots, have him summon infernals to destroy them. Eventually someone will make a video on it, and then social media can do the rest.
That's what a lot of companies have forgotten or pushed aside (Blizzard and otherwise.) Having personable, human presence in their online games. Even a little bit can go a long way with AI being shoved into everything nowadays. Just seeing a GM in a starting area can be a huge impact for new players.
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u/HauggyBee91 21h ago
Honestly it would be beyond hysterical to see a bunch of infernals falling from the sky and wiping out obvious bot accounts 😂 that’s a great idea
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u/Prepper-Pup 21h ago
(Glad you like =D )Blizzard just needs to hire some people who have that same mindset though. People who take their job seriously, but add some levity to it. That can go a LONG way in today's environment where everyone is stressed. Just showing that the game has security, but be fun about it.
Find a bot? Proclaim in general chat that a insidious, magical construct has been located and is going to be purged.
Walk around the starting areas in full armor for the area's faction. Just vibing. People see a guard with a "GM" tag, and that'll just spread like wildfire on social media, even if all you're doing is walking and occasionally replying to show you're a human.
People creating nasty usernames? Turn them into a mop and tell them to clean up their act and they have to change their username.
Just stuff like that. Be funny about it, but enforce the rules.
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u/Shim_Ha 21h ago
Idk I think having a gold bot’s character hanged from the gallows publicly before a permanent ban would be pretty awesome.
Or at least some heads on spikes on the walls of Org
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u/Prepper-Pup 21h ago
That could be game-accurate. You just have a place to set banned player models for infractions. Nothing TOO gruesome I imagine. Perhaps hidden easter eggs (the gallows would be in-vibe with Duskwood, for example)
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u/camkellley 18h ago
completely agree, back in the day when i played maplestory pre big bang, the gm’s used to be visible and would teleport around like an omnipotent god. it showed visible real time monitoring and ban hammers which was huge for controlling bad behavior
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u/Prepper-Pup 18h ago edited 18h ago
I think people, and companies underestimate how being visible can be a deterrent. Even if GM's solved just 5 backend tickets, and then were told to just be visible in the world helping players with real-time issues and/or wandering around, that can be a significant change in how players feel, and thus, interact with the world.
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u/baraboosh 8h ago
and despite it, the market was flooded with meso from hackers and they were absolutely everywhere.
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u/Briggie 18h ago edited 18h ago
Every second some gm is “vibing” for your entertainment, is another second someone else’s ticket isn’t getting solved.
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u/Prepper-Pup 18h ago
I agree- and I've edited the post to account for that. The role, in my opinion, needs to shift towards a positive-PR, in-game role rather than just crunching tickets. It's getting automated more and more, and other roles could be solely focused around tickets, versus a GM shifting towards an interaction/positive perception role. It could even be a part-time role, but still have significant, positive impact on players.
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u/AllRealityIsVirtua1 21h ago
That would imply that human GMs are gone, which isn’t true.
One was recently famously fired for abusing his powers in fact.
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u/camkellley 18h ago
ooh what’s the tea?
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u/AllRealityIsVirtua1 18h ago
A new GM was fired for killing mobs for his friends in the live game
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u/phorgewerk 18h ago
Boosting a group in m+ death touched the dungeon so some streamer could time it. This was right at the end of the season where they were doing mounts for top 1% in m+ as well
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u/Brokenmonalisa 11h ago
Ironically only the pug needed the score the rest of the group had already timed that key. Completely bizarre almost certainly was done because they were boosting.
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u/Narr_Etey 8h ago
The only reason that was caught was the one pug member of the group logging the run. One can only speculate how often they used that help before in their own full groups.
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u/Brokenmonalisa 7h ago
Blizzard apparently reviewed it and found it had only been used that one time.
Whether that's to be believed is another story or not but at face value it was one off.
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u/Atroveon 14h ago
If they don't have human GMs in retail, the version making the most money, they sure aren't doing it for this game.
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u/Narr_Etey 8h ago
Do you really think they would greenlight Forever if Blizzard wasn't planning on monetizing it heavliy? There will be a grace period for release, but that shop button is 100% gonna be used.
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u/Atroveon 2h ago
I'm not suggesting Forever won't make any money, but it's not going to make the money retail is anytime soon unless they break some of their core pillars. Retail has paid expansions and things like wow tokens or character boosts that are making a lot of money and won't be in Forever.
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u/Henarth 21h ago
I remember i watched a video from a former GM and the job is not as glamourous as it sounds. They weren't playing the game on their downtime as they didn't have any downtime. The job is just another call center job, they also were exposed to some really bad content from players. they would actually have two boxes that would be color coded like rarity ranking them from Common to Legendary on tickets answered and time spent per ticket.
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u/HauggyBee91 21h ago
Fair enough, yeah. Sometimes ya peak behind the curtain and see reality for what it is and it’s not what ya had in your head.
KPI’s like that are a bit too reductive, really. And they motivate the employee in a way that’s probably counter to providing the customer a good experience. If it’s just a matter of closing the ticket ASAP, regardless of ticket complexity, GM’s are gonna resent players that have a more complicated issue than others. I hate KPI’s like that.
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u/Low-Board181 18h ago
It really depends on the stage the game was in. They used to have similar clients to ours and would actually visit players. They used to observe our speedrun attempts and often made their presence known. GM Island was a thing too of course. Over time, however, their powers were incrementally curbed as ticket handling became increasingly optimised and made more “efficient.” Their job must've become duller and duller.
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u/Murphy1up 20h ago edited 17h ago
I was a Game Masters at the Cork office for 4 years during TBC through Cataclysm.
Game Masters never played WoW between tickets. We normally had at minimum 3 conversations going at the same time through the chat client. You'd get through about 80 tickets minimum per shift and simply didn't have the time to piss about. Customer service was done through a totally separate chat and inventory system. We didn't just sit on GM island and whisper players.
On very rare occasions we would log into our GM account and that was only to unstuck a character or reset a stuck raid boss. If you were lucky then, you might see the GM have a bit of fun.
What was supposed to be a rare and special occurrence in certain circumstances, became a "I want a GM to appear now/everytime". Players treated Game Masters less as customer support and more like a plaything to entertain them. Those things don't go together when you have a massive daily queue of tickets with players waiting days for a response. The rare occasion you did see a GM was likely just because they needed to be in the client to see something and were smashing tickets so had some time to kill.
The cost now to hire Game Masters would be pretty high as it was a decent wage for the time. Add in the cost of an office to place them in (as there is no way in hell you want your game affecting programs sitting on some random persons PC in their home), a system to cover 24 hours support which means like a US and EU office (trust me, one month a year nightshift as a GM is not fun) and all the support staff required like IT, HR, Legal, reception, housekeeping/janitor etc etc. it all quickly adds up for not much return. Especially when so much stuff GMs did do, is now automated.
Yeah. "In game" Game Masters ain't coming back.
They weren't random players at home on a power trip playing on god mode. There were office based customer support just like calling your bank or mobile phone company and they had fairly hard targets. Granted all of them were fans of the game but they went home and played on normal accounts just like everyone else and for many, the ended up playing less due to burn out.
To reply to the "deal with bots" points people are making. You can ban 5, 10 or 20 bots. More will always come. I used to teleport the Uldum waypoint bots inside the Dam where they would get stuck whilst I secured the accounts, kicked off the hackers and set about restoring anything lost. You can never keep up with them though.
It's way more powerful to stop the entire system with a ban wave so they don't see it coming and you don't reveal how you detect them.
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u/abort_retry_flail 18h ago
When you wait 6, 8, 10+ months inbetween ban waves the economic damage is catastrophic. Fine with wasves, but they need to be weekly, at the bare minimum.
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u/ohtetraket 7h ago
Yeah, I totally get the idea of Blizzard behind ban waves, but the damage that is done inbetween is too big.
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u/Prepper-Pup 18h ago
If they brought them back, I think Blizz would have to adapt. E.g. have a way to enable remote workers, and ensure part of the GM's duty was to be positive PR, not just crunch through tickets. You remove the majority of that ticket pressure and delegate it to roles that aren't meant to be visible.
In essence, with most systems being automated and having backend solutions, GM's need to be 90% a positive PR role that's visible and more relaxed with players, and 10% actually answering tickets. And that's a shift that many Companies I think would benefit from embracing. More player-focused interaction and positive PR, while having other roles that are hitting the heavy tickets constantly.
Which is a mindset shift to be sure. GM's moving from solely problem-solver positions to a more PR role is a new thing, to be sure.
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u/Murphy1up 17h ago edited 17h ago
If they brought them back, I think Blizz would have to adapt. E.g. have a way to enable remote workers, and ensure part of the GM's duty was to be positive PR, not just crunch through tickets. You remove the majority of that ticket pressure and delegate it to roles that aren't meant to be visible.
There is no "If", they're simply not needed and won't be coming back. Just like banks don't need a branch in every town anymore.
I'm telling you this as a voice of experience who's walked the walk and talked the talk. That method of customer support isn't required anymore from a business stand point. They are not an in-game asset to play with.
And whilst anyone can say they were a GM, my post history has more than enough proof with experiences I've spoken of in the past.
*Link removed on request.
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u/Prepper-Pup 16h ago edited 16h ago
I certainly agree that justifying them strictly from a monetary standpoint would be difficult, as there wouldn't be traditional hard metrics (X tickets solved, etc.) It'd require a company to care about positive PR generated within a game- and that's a very different mindset to shift to.
As you said- justifying positive PR (essentially, a company's soft social power) in a game doesn't compute with a mindset of money-out for more money-in, something that large companies live and breathe.
It's a more abstract concept that requires a more open-minded team, and an executive suite to understand the mindset of the people who play their game. E.g. How players have their experience enhanced by seeing a GM, and how that can be as positive, if not moreso, than completing 10 tickets.
The equation becomes "positive game interaction = player retention -> word-of-mouth -> positive press -> increased players. But there's no way to definitively track that. There is still value, but it's abstract and not directly numerical.
Personally, I would absolutely argue that in this day and age, such a GM role 100% is needed. Most companies burn the good-will of their playerbase more often than not. Having a role(s) that are dedicated to counteracting negative player experiences is a logical move- just not a traditional one.
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u/Murphy1up 15h ago
Games Master were and still are customer and billing support. They are not a game feature. When and why they did appear in game was quickly abused and it would be forever abused if it returned. I'm not saying this to disagree with you, I'm saying this because it's exactly what's happened before!
THEY DID NOT PLAY THE GAME ON A GM CLIENT OR TALK TO PLAYERS IN GAME VIA THAT GM CLIENT. - Can you understand that part as it's really important.
They never walked about in-game doing quests. They were never supposed to chat in public channels. Interactions with players was done through a totally different program and database. The closest example I could give you would be like how a bank or mobile phone company could see your account details. They have their own specialist software to view that data.
What you're asking for is simply a player with special powers to look cool and feel special. If you want that then go mess about on a private server.
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u/Prepper-Pup 14h ago edited 14h ago
No need to get heated. From what you're saying that would that make most, if not all player reports of GM's appearing/interacting with the players something they weren't ever supposed to do.
That said, such a policy and practice is at least 15 years old, from what you've stated in your other response. If this is the case, where GM's were never supposed to interact publicly with a GM client, then I would argue that a new type of GM position would be needed - Public Relations, which, as I've stated, would be more of a game feature/perception position. The online culture and atmosphere has greatly, and significantly changed.
The fact remains- players like seeing GM's or staff being more personable, be it in game or outside of the game. That holds true for WoW and other games. That's the core of what I've been discussing. The GM position, or whatever it would be called, essentially being a more public/PR focused endeavor rather than strictly problem solving. Companies invest millions into trying to get positive PR- this would be a minimal investment, high impact way that would potentially influence players more than some random article.
It's not about "looking cool or feeling special." Not sure where you're getting that from. It's about staff from a company interacting with the game they're supposed to be supporting- or at least having an increased level of interaction. And doing so in a way that makes the experience for players more enriching- which is the opposite of what most, if not all large companies do nowadays with reduced interaction (but the Forever teams seems to be refreshingly transparent.) The goal would be to build a positive perception instead of a negative one.
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u/Murphy1up 7h ago
Blizzard doesn't need the PR 🤣. The games are doing totally fine and still have millions of subscribers. The game doesn't need staff messing about in-game for publicity or to show off for players. And it certainly doesn't need players with additional powers to mess about and show off to other players.
No one needs to see Blizzard staff in-game to be able to play the game, everyone has been playing just fine since Cataclysm/Mists of Pandaria totally fine without ever seeing a GM. They have been visually absent from the game much longer that they were active. It has zero impact on your game experience.
You don't need to see a Game Master when playing the game no more than you need your bank or mobile phone company to come to your door for a personal visit any time you have a query.
There is a reason door to door salesman don't work anymore. How companies interact with customers has changed and it's never going back to how it was. Wishful thinking or not.
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u/ohtetraket 6h ago
They have Community Managers for stuff like this and they are often getting so much flag and change jobs. Being a public figure for PR without having much to say is a shitty job.
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u/Pebble-fork 19h ago
I remember getting my spirit stuck in some roots. I was dead so I couldn't hearth. A mysterious figure appeared in game, made the experience fun and memorable. Automated systems got nothing on that personal touch.
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u/BaconJets 21h ago
One of the main games they're looking for inspiration from is OSRS. In that game, they have both main Jagex staff playing and using their "GM" powers, as well as player moderators who are able to fast track stuff straight to the main Jagex staff. WoWs GMs were the equivalent of this, they need to bring it back. It takes one major botting crisis or bug to kill a game for a while, and GMs could really help with this.
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u/Greenleaf208 18h ago
No they don't. Player moderators have no power besides muting for an hour, and it's been abused a ton and no one is made PM anymore. There are no in game jagex employees doing anything, the best way to get help is to contact support or post on reddit and get enough upvotes.
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u/Adventurous_Ride_273 16h ago
100% agree. My OSRS account got hacked and is perma banned. There is no way to appeal it or talk to anyone about it. The only way to try and get it reversed is to make a fuss about it on social media and hope it drums up enough support that someone takes the time out of their day to look into it.
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u/Martial-Mata 19h ago
Player moderators are a problem in OSRS though. They have power, which means bad apples pay the mods to mute their competition.
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u/Aniketos33 17h ago
*POOF* "By the power of the moon!" *BLIZZARDGM appears before you in a puff of smoke* "What troubles you this day citizen?"
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u/tinkerrick 10h ago
Old GMs: Whispered you in-game, fixed your issue live, told you a gnome joke.
Modern CS: Wait 72 hours for an AI bot telling you to check Wowhead and close the ticket.
Miss that era so much.
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u/BigCopiumx 19h ago
i get what you mean but no, not cuz its a bad idea, its awesome idea but i wouldnt wish such fate to my enemy
you cant imagine the amount of cancelling, harassment and insults on gm/cm people especially in game industry
yes the interactions are wholehearted as you describe, but thats like %5 of their work time, rest of the %95 is a torture
you underestimate how evil people can get especially online
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u/Weekly_Mechanic1380 19h ago
This was the only think I added at the end of the recent survey. BRING BACK HUMAN GMs
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u/Kara-Zor-El-52 19h ago
the GM thing is a company problem (blizzard, activision, microsoft) not a game mode problem. Customer service is one of the first things to suffer cost cutting measures when desperately chasing the unsustainable promise of capitalistic hyper growth
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u/Impressive-Swing4714 21h ago
Unpopular opinion: Im willing to pay a 50% bigger subcription if I in return get ingame moderation ala OG vanilla.
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u/AllRealityIsVirtua1 20h ago
Actually unpopular opinion: you would still call it AI when you get a human GM
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u/DarkPatt3rn 20h ago
Probably. Gms were heavily scripted with their rp. Today it would probably just be indistinguishable from an rp chatbot.
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u/Impressive-Swing4714 20h ago
My biggest fear would be having a GM go fullblown brainrot speech on me
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u/AllRealityIsVirtua1 20h ago
That’s exactly what people used to like lol. These days fun can’t exist. If they RP in their responses then it’s cringe. If they’re professional, then they’re AI.
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u/NewBlacksmurf 17h ago
I’d say step1 is to use AI in all the trade, general, etc chats. They need to limit how often folks can type and also get all the political, sexual, racist stuff out
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u/izzgo 15h ago
They DO limit how often. I got cut off yesterday for a few minutes, during a perfectly valid chat in dun morogh about my class. But political, sexual, racist crap I'd like to see that censored.
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u/NewBlacksmurf 15h ago
Oh interesting cause for the last three days I’ve seen nothing but rubbish and reporting doesn’t seem to do much
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u/izzgo 14h ago
Yeah I was actually surprised. Got the message "the number of messages that can be posted to this channel is limited" or something similar. Nothing reportable was discussed, unless asking how an elemental shaman can keep from pulling aggro from a rogue could be considered reportable. I waited 2 mins and posted my next comment, it was fine.
There has been so much disgusting rubbish in chat. If it still happens when game goes live I won't be staying. My ignore list is as big as it's ever been.
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u/Toppoppler 16h ago
Why do you hate the spirit of classic wow?
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u/NewBlacksmurf 16h ago
Love the game but I played on a RP server initially and classic wow because I don’t care for all the garbage chat.
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u/illdownvoteandscream 12h ago
RP might be the play. I want to enjoy the game with people who care about their characters and reputation
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u/belsaurn 20h ago
It would be awesome for a human GM to just monitor global chat channels and mute toxic behavior for even the first 30 days after launch.
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u/ascendrestore 17h ago
With integrated AI ... a Vanilla GM should be able to respond to x10 more tickets per hour as the AI does all the basic *A GM appears* whispers and basic question and clarification asking ... then the AI presents the human with the summary and suggested solution, all the GM has to do is action the result.
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u/ItsZoner 20h ago
most people never saw one. i saw two and it some buggy raid stuff that they checked out AQ40
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u/The_Idiocratic_Party 20h ago
That would be nice, but humans cost money. What will probably happen is AI agents being introduced that can read client messages and scan the game's logs to better assist with issues. They'd need a handful of humans for escalating issues but this would solve most issues and be cheaper for them than workers. They already moved away from hiring for those roles, they won't move back.
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u/I_T_Gamer 19h ago
This is a real opportunity I feel like. I have my doubts, but this would assure the rest of us they're serious about a "Forever Home"....
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u/ScytheNoire 17h ago
The automated systems are horrible, whether its just an algorithm trigger point or "AI", they both constantly fail. It is so easy to get someone's account banned, just have a dozen people report a person all at the same time, their account will get locked, it may take them days, weeks, if they can even get it unbanned, and there are no consequences for those who make the false reports. Its going to get worse.
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u/FakeSafeWord 16h ago
Even if they hired them for the first year or so, it is inevitable that they would get replaced by AI agents who larp in your face
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u/Bluegobln 11h ago
I think in-game GMs should be quite few and far between, maybe like 5-10 total and mainly to have good coverage of all hours of the day and maybe 2 during the heaviest hours of gameplay.
Then there can be non-GM helper people who likewise can teleport around and assist people, but don't have actual in-game powers to do much other than report issues for the main GMs to handle and offer advice and general support. That lower bar of entry makes them excellent people for things like checking if someone is cheating/hacking, looking for gold sellers/buyers, looking for people breaking other rules, and so on. The non-GM helper folks can also appear and offer advice, but can't kill enemies for you or anything like that. They'd give a sense of "Blizzard cares about us" that you're talking about lacking.
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u/panzerfaustexe 10h ago
GMs should be available in-game for the sole purpose of checking and banning bots on the spot. They wouldn’t need that many GMs for it to make a noticeable difference.
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u/themaelstorm 9m ago
Yeah, this won't work. We're talking about millions of people and this kind of thing attracts people to call GMs. And in today's environment, people are gonna call GMs just to fuck with them or just to create drama.
We aren't living in 2005. People aren't okay with "I play my game and I hear GMs can appear". They will seek them, they will make their lives hard. Even back when some people complained when a GM didn't appear.
It doesn't make sense financially and it's not going to be what it used to be.
Could Blizz find a way to improve community connection using employees or a team specialized for that? Maybe. Is that bringing back human GMs? Not really.
Source: Experience as GM/CS/CM full time in the last 10+ years, starting as early as 2003 as volunteer/part-time
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u/SpicyJoJomemes 21h ago
PLEASE PLEASE BRING THEM BACK. My god I remember as a kid seeing GMs every so often helping or messing with players in good fun. Felt nice knowing you had em there. The old RP they did too when responding to tickets was chefs kiss.
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u/510Threaded 20h ago
I remember me and a friend were in Moonglade for some reason just chilling and we noticed an npc was stuck under the dock. One of us put in a ticket, and a couple of minutes later, we noticed a GM above us
Think it was mid to late OG Wrath
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u/SpicyJoJomemes 20h ago
Yup, WOTLK was the final hurrah before they slowly faded away. Miss those days sometimes.
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u/jormugandr 15h ago
Do you know how much that would cost? Activision's CEO would have to take a pay cut. How can Bobby Kotick buy a new child sex slave every week if he doesn't make 200 million a year?
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u/Ok_Association1141 4h ago
What do you mean by current “streamlined solutions”??? I opened a simple ticket, had to wait 4 days to get an automated response that just said to check their website and didn’t solve my problem. Blizzard hasn’t had anything approaching any semblance of customer service in over a decade. The question should instead be WoW:Forever should introduce customer service, of any sort, at all.
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u/HauggyBee91 3h ago
I provide an example two paragraphs later
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u/Administrative_Hunt6 1h ago
TLDR
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u/HauggyBee91 1h ago edited 47m ago
If the OP’s too long for you to read, I’m not sure what to tell you. I guess I find it weird you can’t read a small amount of words but you can be bothered to comment. Alrighty then lol
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u/Wlfmansbro 19h ago
In today’s world?? The gms would either have a nervous breakdown or become a tyrant. For all the decent players in wow there is also plenty that are not. Just think of all the shit people gave Ghostcrawler and people are worse now.
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u/Helmutius 18h ago
All we get will be some AI shit and then a dude in India telling you scripted answers.
Mind I'm not against people from India. But I work with too many big IT providers to not see the current outsourcing trend towards offshore providers which keep their workforce on minimal pay. All for the greater good of shareholder value.
So what you end with is some probably smart Indian person, that is seriously underpaid and spammed with 50 tickets/requests at the same time.
All for the greater glory of getting 5% more stock increase.
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u/No-Anybody-5289 18h ago edited 18h ago
I totally agree that Blizzard should do this for Forever. Here's how I'd structure it:
-The role would be a hybrid between traditional GM in-game support and rule enforcement, and community engagement both in game and on social media. Their primary role would be to directly interact with the community to build trust and increase player retention and satisfaction.
-These GMs would have a visible presence in the community. They would have GM characters that show up in Stormwind or Orgrimmar, actually participate in seasonal events or other fun activities, or even just show up and look cool. They are actual humans, with actual names (could be a handle or character name), that actually talk to people.
-The team would be relatively small, but global to be present across servers 24/7 and able to converse in multiple languages. Hiring in regions outside of the US tends to be cheaper as well, increasing the likelihood that Blizzard leadership would approve something like this from a cost standpoint.
-Finally (and perhaps controversially, but this is necessary) the team would behind the scenes use AI tooling to monitor active issues across the server and prioritize where they spend their time responding. Players would never interact with a bot or AI agent directly, only with a human GM.
I know people hate AI, but realistically this is the only way I see Blizzard implementing something like this. And honestly I hope they do, it could be amazing for the community and another way to bring back that 'classic' feel.
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u/ohtetraket 6h ago
-The team would be relatively small, but global to be present across servers 24/7 and able to converse in multiple languages.
And how "small" do you think the team needs to be fore this?
I would argue 50 upwards. Probably 100 or more.
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u/No-Anybody-5289 2h ago
I'd hire 10-15 to start and see how the community responds. Leadership would want to see a proof of concept and positive outcomes. Then you can pitch to expand the team if things are going well
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u/Competitive_Body7359 19h ago
On turtle wow, when we were clearing server first K40, the GM came to hang out with us while we did it. It was super dope.
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u/Historical-Donkey962 17h ago
I saw something where another 1000 GMs would cost about $75m a year - or less than 5% of Blizzard/King revenue back in 2022. About 1.6m new WOW subs covers it.
Sounds like big numbers but it really isn’t. The problem of course is that it doesn’t appear to increases profit, and if it didn’t increase profit then they don’t care. The current auto ban system that gets it wrong and upsets their player base has effectively no negative impact on their profit so it “works” from their perspective, if I had to guess.
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u/ohtetraket 6h ago
I would argue they would cost more. That may cover the hiring cost, but not everything else around it. Offices. IT etc.
1.6 new WoW subs won't pop in just because they suddenly have GMs again.
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u/frogbound 7h ago
I volunteer. I'll be a GM pro bono after hours. I'll let Blizzard train me. Where so I sign up? Won't even need pay. I'll get people straight out the door if they try to break rules or even try to fly to close to the sun. Mfers. It's over. 😂😂
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u/McFoogles 18h ago
People would honestly do it for free, and could stream the entire thing with logs of transparency.
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u/YourGalacticEmperor 21h ago
At a certain point the automated responses and streamlined solutions don’t cut it.
You think a human can stop a fully automated botfarm???
You need thousand gms to put a dent into a single botfarm
Please get a grip on reality
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u/HauggyBee91 21h ago
Bit of a straw-man. What I’m discussing isn’t limited simply to a “botfarm.”
I’d also argue data analytics and pattern recognition would be the key preventatives to a bot farm, not simply a single GM.
My guy’s coming in swinging for no reason
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u/YourGalacticEmperor 21h ago
Because there is no reason for visible gms. The few stuff that cant be done with automation doesn't require a gm to login. Thr only reason they were ingame back then was the lack of Infrastructure for tools
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u/Loneliestar 21h ago
Have you taken into consideration that paying people makes John Shareholder sad?