GM breaches FC rules Jan 07 ~ Anarchy Online
Recently on Atlantean a GM spawned several of the highly coveted (and somewhat ironically named) ‘Burden of Competence’ items at a high level raid. Apparently the GM was unaware players would be able to pick them up, spawning several on the ground where fastest fingers lucked out.
The item typically takes around 6 months of raiding in a community implemented points-system to acquire, arguably a bigger time investment than any other item, and the incident prompted petitions of complaint from other customers who felt the move was unfair. In an effort to remedy the situation, GMs have since been tracking down and relieving players of their Burdens.
One customer has no complaints over the incident and was satisfied with the personal apology received from a GM, and feels the GM was simply trying to ‘add some fun’, intending that the players should keep them:
the GM was not teasing us.. he intended us to keep them and was doing it to bring some fun and enjoyment to the game... unfortunately many people became upset about not getting 1 and petitioned/emailed or whatever they did... this caused the GM to get into trouble for doing what he done. He undo his doing he Called me (dunno if i was the first) to a small room over looking Jobe and rooted me. requested i deleted it my self. and he appologised deeply. i do not blame the GM one bit. it could cause him his job for not undoing it. I just wish we could have kept them. oh well :(
Another, however, appears to have an entirely different experience, not only have they not been favoured with a personal apology, but have been actively ignored in any attempts to discover what is going on. They have stated that they feel compelled to leave the game:
I am not leaving because I am upset it got deleted, I do understand the point that some people are upset that they had to farm the points for it. I am leaving because how some of my friends / random people reacted to me getting one and the way the GM has treated me.
It is not nice to play AO while getting random hate tells from people because I was lucky enough to pick one up.
When the GM deleted my Burden (no pun intended), the GM did not speak to me in advance or after; I just got kicked off my account and came back to see it had disappeared. I petitioned because I wanted to at least talk to a GM about compensation ( I had to use the last of my IP to get enough Comp Lit which I would have used elsewhere ) and I think I was owed a face to face apology for the hassle. After the third /petition (the first two got deleted without any reason) a GM finally spawned. When he spawned I got neither an apology nor compensation ( In fact, all he said was “Make you peace”, “/cloak” ), now if I stay I will have to use my own IPR to compensate for GM's error. My toon still gets random hate tells / chat because of a GM's error.
Because it seems GM's are not interested in helping correct the problems they have caused me, all I can do now is hurt FC in the pocket and stop paying for both my accounts.
To their credit, Funcom issued an apology, and confirmed that the GM had acted beyond their remit and in ignorance:
It is unfortunate when customer service representatives make errors of judgement as happened in this instance.
This was a breach of our rules and GMs should not be spawning items in that manner. The GM genuinely did not believe the players would be able to pick up the items and did not intend to 'give them away'. While not an excuse it was an honest error and one we apologise for.
The items will be tracked down and deleted and we apologise for any offence this caused.
GMs arguably shouldn’t be learning the limits of their autonomy ‘on the job’, and in this case pure common sense should perhaps have prevented the GM in question from spawning an item amongst gamers who had invested up to 6 months or more trying to obtain, whether or not they believed the items could be picked up. Nor giving one player the impression he intended they should be kept while apparently he did not intend for them to even be picked up.
Of equal concern is the disparity between the reported handling of removing the items; from a personal apology to being abruptly kicked off the server while a GM deleted the item without a word.
Again this incident highlights the need for consistent guidelines and training of customer facing staff in MMOs, and a lack of professionalism that could be considered comedic in many industries.
Another customer comments on the incident:
Either way, while having free loot petitioned and deleted sucks, I can definitely understand why people getting essentially a year's savings dumped in their laps would piss people off.
A) The GMS are clueless and never actually play the endgame in AO or B) someone keeps thinking they can get away with it.
Perhaps it is a little of both.
References:
From the Anarchy Online Official forums:
"An apology to all those that got a burden"
"Holy crap on Rk-1 a GM spawned tons of burdens!"