Why do Japanese shards get special treatment?

[Kylie Kinslayer]

No, I play on Sakura (Japanese) and Formosa (Taiwan but same support team as US). Sakura has it's own support staff, when I page a gm on Sakura, they show up, in person, never a long wait and they have fixed a few problems on the spot. The Japanese team, even though they were hired to support Japanese players and speak Japanese, all speak perfect English. Now that's having your **** together.

When I page a gm on Formosa (same support team as the US shards) I have never had anything other then the canned response and more often then not, I log out before I move beyond "your number 11 in the que"

This was posted in another thread but it got me thinking and wondering why. We have all heard the stories of how there is a huge difference between the shards. I am not bashing the Japan shards and saying they should get the same crappy Customer NON-Support the rest of us get, actually I feel if they can get their crap right on one shard they should apply the same parameters to them all.

 

[Babble]

They have a different support team.
US team handles UO, Warhammer, DAOC, pogo and maybe others. The japanese team only UO

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

This was posted in another thread but it got me thinking and wondering why. We have all heard the stories of how there is a huge difference between the shards. I am not bashing the Japan shards and saying they should get the same crappy Customer NON-Support the rest of us get, actually I feel if they can get their crap right on one shard they should apply the same parameters to them all.

As babble stated, it is not so much getting their crap together, it is the fact that they actually have their own gm team, even if he is wrong about them handling only UO, it is still only what, 3/4 shards? I don't play the other ea mmo's but if they don't have similar japanese only servers, then the japan team only handles UO, if they do have similar servers, then still we are talking a smaller number of servers to handle. Also consider maybe they do not complain as much....would lead to less pages, and over all better "customer service".

Lot of variables is all I am saying, although I agree with the theme of your post.

 

[lucitus]

This was posted in another thread but it got me thinking and wondering why. We have all heard the stories of how there is a huge difference between the shards. I am not bashing the Japan shards and saying they should get the same crappy Customer NON-Support the rest of us get, actually I feel if they can get their crap right on one shard they should apply the same parameters to them all.

Hehe i rember times on Drachenfels there were german speaking GM's, one time i lost my house location and i got no clue were it is and a friendly GM showed up and helped me to get to it!

This was good support! Now the support is not friendly enough, but i also have to say, it is okay, half a year ago the harrower tentacles get stucked into the wall in wrong, only two minutes later after the post they got relocated. But the GM didnt show up and thats the problem, you have to show up and talk to the players that you get noticed and accepted!

Also we have the right of good support, iam paying for it every month! So when iam paging a GM regardless what, i can await that he shows up and talks to me.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

I thought, generally speaking, the gms were no longer allowed to show themselves. They might talk to you...but it is rare to actually see them these days.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

They have a different support team.
US team handles UO, Warhammer, DAOC, pogo and maybe others. The japanese team only UO

OK, now that explains how GM's have absolutely no clue of the games mechanics as well. I guess I am old school and still think you should not be customer service for something you do not know backwards, forwards and upside down. When any company takes all their products and lumps them all into one customer service bubble everything suffers as a result.

Also consider maybe they do not complain as much....would lead to less pages, and over all better "customer service".

Lot of variables is all I am saying, although I agree with the theme of your post.

Good point. Some folks on the American shards have the playstyle of legendary GM paging.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

OK, now that explains how GM's have absolutely no clue of the games mechanics as well. I guess I am old school and still think you should not be customer service for something you do not know backwards, forwards and upside down. When any company takes all their products and lumps them all into one customer service bubble everything suffers as a result.





Good point. Some folks on the American shards have the playstyle of legendary GM paging.

It would be nice if they actually knew the game, or the rules for that matter. The GM style of "push this button for this kind of page" has to go, I think they should remove all canned responses and make them type everything. Then maybe they will learn something >.<

 

[Viper09]

I thought, generally speaking, the gms were no longer allowed to show themselves. They might talk to you...but it is rare to actually see them these days.

No longer allowed to show themselves? Don't ever recall hearing that rule. Rare it may be. Don't think it's not allowed though.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

I know years ago the GM's on occasion would even come bank sit and chit chat with the folks. I remember one on Atlantic {think it was Sparkle} that used to bank sit in Haven {the old one} when she had nothing to do. I know they put a stop to that, and have only heard of folks seeing a GM if they get hauled to "jail" now days.

 

[Tinsil]

I know years ago the GM's on occasion would even come bank sit and chit chat with the folks. I remember one on Atlantic {think it was Sparkle} that used to bank sit in Haven {the old one} when she had nothing to do. I know they put a stop to that, and have only heard of folks seeing a GM if they get hauled to "jail" now days.

Was this before EA bought the game?

Also, Idk. I rarely page, but I did about a week ago and had a response and the issue was fixed in 30 minutes.

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

Was this before EA bought the game?

Honestly, I don't know. I am pretty sure it was tho, but before the Mythic deal. Only been playing 76 months and it was going on when I started playing. It stopped about a year and a half to two years after that.

 

[Stewpid]

Was this before EA bought the game?

EA bought Origin Systems Inc in 1992. Ultima Online was released in 1997, so it couldn't have been before EA bought the game...

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

No longer allowed to show themselves? Don't ever recall hearing that rule. Rare it may be. Don't think it's not allowed though.

There was some reason why they don't show themselves now, I wish I could remember. When they are talking with you they are next to you, but you can't see them. I remember a slight shock when one popped up for my wife, of course only visible to her but still.

 

[Babble]

Because chatting with the players costs time and GMs probably have the order to be as inobtrusive as possible.

I am actually surprised that gms move monsters and so again when a head gm told us that gms are forbidden to interfere in gameplay and that it was basically a development issue.

Good programmed monsters do not become stuck and if gms have to move monsters all the time they have less time for other problems was their argument

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Because chatting with the players costs time and GMs probably have the order to be as inobtrusive as possible.

I am actually surprised that gms move monsters and so again when a head gm told us that gms are forbidden to interfere in gameplay and that it was basically a development issue.

Good programmed monsters do not become stuck and if gms have to move monsters all the time they have less time for other problems was their argument

Well...that argument is not entirely true, since monsters can spawn on any "movable" tile, but not all tiles between them are movable. Also, they are horrible in general at handling any issues, so fail there.

Certain monsters I can see not being moved and being put under the status of development problem, but some monsters its not cool. Such as in the case of some of the mini-champs, where you can not do anything because of where they can spawn/move to.

 

[Babble]

It was their excuse not to move titans and cyclops which spawned/spawn in the walls and a little later when dragons in Destard flew and sometimes could not be reached.

At one point though their game got so buggy they had to help and since then there seems to be a grey area what they do or don't

 

[Uvtha]

Was this before EA bought the game?

EA owned UO from day one.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Having GM's that don't know how anything works has its advantages. The other day I found an old EM monster that had been forgotten about between some walls in some far off dungeon no one but me ever visits. I managed to convince the GM it was a normal spawn monster and that by it spawning there it was preventing me from hunting. He moved it, I killed it.