In all seriousness...
I mean, honestly, how is it NOT Elder EM Bennu right now? Not only can he craft great storylines, but his ITEMS are BROUGHT to life with his words.
Here is a friendly comparison
Mesanna has told me that the Elder title is reserved for the EMs that have stayed around since the beginning of the current iteration of the Interest program. I missed that by about 8 months, as such the elder title is something that I can never possess. Mesanna sees it as a reward for those that have stuck with her since "The Beginning". I should be getting a black robe upon my tenure of 3 years in August or September to signify 3 years with the current program.
It is so easy to see the difference in the effort put into it.
An EM who has managed to stay sane with the largest shard, who is consistently putting out events, who puts out amazing items with GREAT flavor and life, and an EM who can write a damn story and knows the mechanics of the game.
While I do put forth a lot of effort in my story lines, events and even the occasional item I give out... it is not really fair to compare EMs side to side. We all have much different strengths, weaknesses and talents. I'll admit freely that my talent is plots, story-lines and characters, and while that makes some people very happy to others it means very little. My weaknesses on the other hand, which again I will freely admit to are PvP events, which on the largest server makes the PvP population of our server to hate me and think I am a terrible EM. The few events Atlantic has run PvP wise were run by my myriad of partners, and none ended well...
It is also hard to compare EMs to one another and servers side by side because of the turnover rate and the fact that many in the EM program are at different stages of their tenure, growth and experience. I have more experience with the player interaction/interest side of mmorpg's than most people in the entire industry have. It's not something I can talk about really, but it something I really should have turned into an actual career at some point. However, having to work from home due to my unique situation has put a major damper on that and limited my options. I am also an author, avid reader, and have a degree in political theory... all things I bring to my plots and events as an Event Moderator.
To you and some I may be a great EM, but to a player who is absorbed in PvP, has no interest in Role Playing and thinks trying to 'spoon feed RP stuff' to a crowd of 200 players is silly as hell... I will never make them happy and in their mind I am crap because I do not foster events that 'interest' them. It is all a manner of perspective.
On the other side, it is painfully obvious to me that even members of our RP community can only tolerate me in small quantities, I can be overbearing, distracting and humility is not something I do well. I have also been called sarcastically insulting at times... all charges I cannot really dispute.
I will say that I do my best. I feel guilty when I only do 2 events a month, I feel good when I do 4 events a month, and I feel like I did my job when I do at least 3 events in a month. My real life schedule, the fact that I have a massive amount of things going on right now, and I have three children (thinking about a 4th) all weigh heavily on my time... and while I appreciate the compliment I definitely feel like I COULD be a much better EM for you guys.
Give the man a raise, get him training the newbie EM's.
In an environment where people in the industry are losing their full time careers due to the economy and cut backs I feel blessed just to have this 'little gig' to be honest. It keeps my resume and linkedin from being blank during a portion of my life where I am trying to build a writing career all the while being a stay at home father that constantly moves every 3 to 4 years due to my wife's career.
I would welcome more hours, doing what I enjoy... however in a landscape of cutbacks and my friends in the industry getting pinkslips or entire gaming companies going bust or downsized, I feel blessed to just be an EM.
As far as training, it is easy to teach someone to use EM commands, the tricks of the trade... teaching someone to create plots, to create a living breathing character driven story, and adapt a storyline to suit the audience on the fly is very difficult neigh impossible. We all have our strengths, we all have our weaknesses.
I'm just glad to be here.
