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GM Training

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Are the GM's bad?
what gm's all I get after 6 hours of waiting is a email (not even in game) saying sorry but we can't help you, the answer might be on the website which hasn't been updated since before AOS (it still talks about guildstones FFS). That's what he's referring too, they don't even bother to answer pages anymore, they just send you to uo.com
 

LordDrago

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Are the GM's bad?
I won't say that they are all bad. I have received excellent service from GM's on occasion. A lot depends on what GM you get answering your request, and how you phrase your request.

For example: Using the word "lost" in your request will almost certainly get you a a stock response, even if the issue can and should be resolved via a GM.

It really does depend on what you say and who answers, however it appers that the odds are not in the players corner
 

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Not had any issues recently, As LordDrago said above, all depends how you describe the situation.
Perhaps someone could write up a guide on how to page a GM? Though I doubt much that my wording is the issue, as the automated email resonse generally has little to do with what I paged for. For instance.

"I have a bit of an issue, I was doing an escort mission and my escort suddenly vanished, and now though I show as having no active quest to cancel if I attempt to take an escort I am met with the "You already have an escort" message. This has happened to me in the past as well and required a GM to clear the escort flag on my character, could you please fix this so I can carry on? Thank you."

---6 hours later---

*thunderbird* --ding!--*/thunderbird*
"oh...I have an email!"

You Ultima Online Ticket xxxxxxx

Thank you for your petition.

We are contacting you in regards to your GM petition number xxxxxxx.

This appeal was closed without contacting you directly, because it was determined to be a type of question or issue that is not handled by in-game GMs. For more information about the Role of a Game Master please see this article: https://help.ea.com/article/RN275 If you are receiving this email, you are asking a question that can be more completely answered in our knowledge base or the Ultima Online Herald, or an issue that our Customer Service department cannot address.

Issues we cannot address include:

1. "How Do I" types of issues. This includes requests for information on how best to play the game, the effects of stats and abilities on your character, the status of changes to a class, and similar issues. These issues are covered by the support knowledge base, the Ultima Online Herald, or fan sites.

2. Any inquiries requesting modification of your character. CS is unable to alter your specialization, change your trade-skill, gender, height or other aspects of the character.

3. Feedback, suggestions or complaints about game balance, design or other aspects of Ultima Online. Please submit feedback through the Feedback option on the Ultima Online Herald.

4. Bug reports about characters, keeps, or any other aspects of the game. Many of these issues have already been reported and are pending a fix from our bug team. These issues are forwarded to our Development and Bug Teams for resolution. Please watch our patch messages for updates on these issues. Please submit Bug Reports directly to the bug team for investigation by submitting a "Report a Bug " appeal in game, choose “Help”, “Other”, “Report a Bug”.. This will place a bug report on our list for investigation, so please be as detailed as possible. You will not be contacted in-game by our bug team.

5. Names. Changes to names will only be done if the name is in violation of our naming policy. Questions regarding names changed by CS should be directed to [email protected].

6. Server performance/lag issues: Our support website has information that can help remedy issues you may have individually. We will not respond to each individual appeal, but we do monitor the lag issues and will respond to do whatever we can from our end, based on appeal trends.

7. Encounter Issues: In situations where multiple appeals are received, we will attempt to contact the group leader directly and deal with them. At this point we will close follow-up tickets of the same nature to facilitate the GM process. When your group has a problem with an encounter in the game, have the group leader appeal. When multiple players appeal regarding the same issue, it does not help you get assistance faster. It actually has the opposite effect and slows down our response time. Please only have one person appeal if you are having an issue with an encounter, do not have the entire group appeal.

8. Encounter/quest Credit: We cannot give credit for encounters if the game did not, regardless of reason; including connection issues (LD).

9. Third Party Appeals: We cannot accept third party appeals. We can only address issues on the account being appealed from. Additional appeals by third parties will only make it take longer to get to the legitimate issue. As such, third party appeals will be closed so we can help the player that needs assistance quicker.

10. Account Information: No information will be given about other accounts. This would include the identity of who took items from any shared source in the game such as a house.

11. Encounters: We cannot spawn/create monsters or provide any information about what conditions or amount of time is required for those monsters to appear.

12. Trade/loot disputes: We are unable to mediate trade disputes or loot disputes arising based on player defined rules or agreements.

13. Finally, if appeals are abusive, vulgar, or contain little or no text, we will typically not contact you directly. Please remember, try to be as detailed in the appeal as possible and treat the appeal system with respect.

You might find an answer using our in-game /Advice system, searching our knowledgebase (http://support.ea.com), or searching on one of the many Ultima Online fan sites on the internet.

We are very sorry that we could not assist you further with this issue.

Thank you once again for your patience and understanding.

BioWare Mythic Customer Support
BioWare Mythic, A Division of EA
Funny note about this automated email they send me for EVERY ISSUE...the links are broken, they lead to an error page on EA's website !%@#!#% And of course this is just one example of many, but I choose it because it's an old bug from ML (one I reported during the beta BTW) where back then a GM would pop in front of you in his red robe no more than 10 minutes after paging and fix it for you. Another good one is an item falling through the floor that requires visibility to double click/redeed and house decor tool cant move it, 6 hours later...bam...same email.
 

LordDrago

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Raptor85: I believe this is the case where it also depends on which GM gets your page. I have had this same issue and have had a GM clear it very quickly when I paged (under 10 minutes) less than 6 months ago. You, obviously, had your page routed to a GM who called out sick on the day they issued clues.
 

Raptor85

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
My point is in the last pages i've done, i'm 10/10 in getting this email > 6 hours after paging, doesn't matter much anymore as i deactivated the account, but still it's ridiculous, that's 60 HOURS waiting ingame without being helped. A GM passing on a issue like this because they don't have a clue sounds like grounds for termination to me.

Now put on top of that the fact that the help link in their email is broken and the email bounces.....
 

Kas Althume

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Every single encounter i had with gms within the last couple years were promptly fixed. Be it on a sunday morning at 8am german time or any other off hour for americans. Seems like they understand my krout-slang pretty well. :)
 

Arrgh

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Are the GM's bad?
I actually had one help me on Atl server today, just like the "olden" times! That's more than I can say about L.A. or Pac. though...I get the Dogbert treatment on the other 2.
 
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