Horizons In-game Advocates

[GM_DarkEnigmaa]

We are now looking for ingame advocates on all shards. These advocates will be an important asset of the management team for horizons, who's task will include ingame support, testing, and event assistance.

All advocates will receive rewards based on both the time and assistance they provide to players and GMs.

If you are interested in this opportunity please compose an email including the following information and send it to [email protected].
- Experienced player
- Good understanding of all races and skills.
- Expert knowledge of quests and creatures.
- Excellent written communication skills.
- Average daily playing times.
- Shard you currently play on.
- A little about yourself .


You will be notified via email if you have been promoted and will receive a free subscription.

[LaughingOtter]

What kind of powers will these advocates have?
What kind of supervision will they be under?
What mechanisms and safeguards will be put into place to ensure that favoritism and personal vendettas will not take place?
Will the applicants be screened to make sure that they do not have a history of rules infractions, or punishments for same, under Tulga?
What punishments will they face if they abuse their positions?

[Fratricide]

I would much rather see this made to closed invitation only. The Dev staff should be able to look in the Database and some of the history of this game and see who has more hours logged, more quests done.. etc.. etc.. etc... then you should contact the players of these characters in regards to this.

Of course that would entail a little bit of work that Im sure that the staff will need to do even after the applications are received.

I have another question as well as the ones LO posted too...

Are these players going to keep their annonymity or will they have a special title like the GM's currently have? ie... if I were to successfully able to become one of these advocates would I be now known as Advocate_Fratricide??

[Theros Ironfeld]

Isnt Blight the testing shard or is that set to change
The residents of Blight have spent many many hours/years nutting out the problems and testing the events/content which we reported back through our W.M is this set to change as well.

[alecadian]

i dont think Blight will change or suddenly go out, i think there just wanting to get some more help ingame from players,in all shards.

[D0ZeR]

Turbine, Microsoft, Sony and Origin/EQ could not do. (ie: Make the volunteer GM programs work.) BTW the lawsuits centered around the free account status. Were they truely volunteers if they were being given a free account? That was argued to be compensation and as such opened the door to the advocates being "employees" of the companies etc etc. I think you might want to do a little more research before even thinking of putting this into action.

Just a friendly warning.

[Chioxin]

Turbine, Microsoft, Sony and Origin/EQ could not do. (ie: Make the volunteer GM programs work.) BTW the lawsuits centered around the free account status. Were they truely volunteers if they were being given a free account? That was argued to be compensation and as such opened the door to the advocates being "employees" of the companies etc etc. I think you might want to do a little more research before even thinking of putting this into action.

Just a friendly warning.

Anarchy Online does some interesting things for those who help GM/Volunteer. It isn't a free account but you earn points for helping/being a part of bug hunts/reporting bugs on the test server... what have you... You used these points to enhance your characters. They aren't the ones on the the "live" servers doing things but... it's an idea? I personally think paid employees should be on the live servers.

[D0ZeR]

Yep all games pretty much use people on the test servers. But anyone that helps on the live servers could end up asking for money in the long run. UO had to pay out a lot why back when for this in lawsuits.

[Zarcharien]

I think its a bad idea.

**someone say why?** Ok, I'll tell ya why ...

Because, HZ has plenty of players that already does all these things (and more!) that an Advocate would do, and they don't ask for a special titles, any special status what so ever, they don't ask for in-game rewards, or free subscriptions .. nada.

They do it because they love this game and this community! Thats what makes this community so great!

We have blight testers who work very hard on the QA of this game.
We have New Player Assistance channel (which is really great to make a new player feel comfortable and EQUAL to that of the rest of the community.)
We have tons of people ready and willing to help with events.
The list goes on and on.

Giving people a "I'm special" status within game only hurts the community imo, especially one like we have with HZ's. Lots can go wrong with a community once you start showing "favoritism" or "special" status to others (see focus group for more detail).

just my 2 cents on it all.

[zayin]

I was afraid this was coming. Very Very Bad idea. I agree with the above posters we already have this no need to give people special titles ,rewards, and such.

[CallakDW]

All that is needed is a review of the tickets at hand and contact and working with the people that sent them. I used to send in tickets for every problem I see, but slowed down when I noticed they weren't being answered.

I can't say it's a bad idea, and I would volunteer for such a thing not because of the bonuses, but because I feel that I'm a good tester and want to see the problems fixed.

[Finn of Spirit]

Hi ho,

I'll chime in with a thumbs down as well. We do all of this stuff already, and that's what makes the much touted Horizon's Community so wonderful. If it becomes someone's job, I believe it would leave a bad taste in the mouth of those that do it already but can't meet the time requirements. Then there's the whole reward thing that will cause nothing but trouble, I'm sure.

I used to do just what you describe as a councilor in UO, Callak (years ago before the lawsuits and abuses of the system) - for me at least, it made the game more of a chore than a pleasure after a while.

I can also see that EII is trying to get some help and input from the players, so at least they're trying to do the right thing. Why not bring back interns or some other manner of remote assistance staff? Perhaps have support ticket folks in game, but the character they use for interaction is on a different account than the characters / accounts they normally play? Generally, I think mixing support roles and in-game compensation within the fantasy world of Istaria is a bad idea.

Oh - if you really want to help us help each other, Dark, take that darn space out of the "New Player" chat channel name so we can alias it into our main chat window, would ya!?

-Finn's Player

[Peaches]

for that horrid lawsuit. I was a blue robed creature, aka, counselor. A disgruntled paid senior counselor, decided to file a lawsuit, and brought down the whole volunteer system in one fell swoop.

I got the court papers, advising me of my rights to collect, I chose not to, as that is what I was, a volunteer. In fact, I used those very court papers, in my cat litter box, where they were best served.

[MadDwarf]

the person that brought that lawsuit should have been tarr'ed and feathered. Always some opportunistic dirt bag that needs to wreck a good thing.

However in this regard well I think EII wants to do what it does with Savage Eden. The advocates I believe would be a big part of the events system. Thats probably the only real seperate special power they would have.

[Peaches]

I agree with you 1000 percent on both of your statements. Very well said.

[TheHaunt]

I would suggest you look at these forums and the issues that have arisen around volunteer moderators... then, RE-consider your idea of your in-game "volunteer" staff (are they really volunteers if they are compensated? hmmm).

There are people who will see those people as in-game "moderators" and well, I think you can already see what kinds of issues may arise, including feelings of favoritism, bias, and unfair compensation when some of the volunteers aren't perhaps performing as well as others.

This is in NO WAY a slam on forum moderation...
it's simply an attempt to point out how this could be a very bad idea. I do appreciate the thought behind the concept, I just think it's application will be fraught with troubles.

Part of what makes the HZ community so nice is the willingness to offer assistance to others, because they can, not because they are being "expected to" or "compensated to do so"...


Just my thoughts...

[LaughingOtter]

Like it or not, the case exists. So what happens if one of these 'advocates' abuses their powers? If they have scheduled shifts, if they have powers no other player does, if they are getting compensated - well, the case law is there for them to be considered employees.

So you would have someone who is acting as an employee doing things that deny another player the services they have paid that person's employer for...

As it happens, Lineage II is facing a suit for something like that right now...

I'm not a fan of EI's at all, but I still love the game and the community. This is a can of unhappyness that would be better left unopened.

[Bulgrim StoneCleaver]

I'm going to say this is a bad idea because it will just be "launched" without much fore thought - as the last adventure in HZ changes attempted.

This is gonna be a mistake on the level of the Darkstaff Scandal - there are too many ways it can be abused, but I don't think EI's gonna listen. We don't need to look for history in other games. There have been plenty of things that have happened in this game (and I'm NOT talking post-EI) on each shard and even the forums - huge mistake - I'm warning you.

[Theolaerynn]

This is a can of unhappyness that would be better left unopened.

Agreed. I have seen it implemented in a number of games, including EQ, and I have yet to see it be a positive thing.

In addition, I am all for a company making money, but pay your employees. Even Microsoft got into trouble over 'creative' employment.

In other words, hire folks to do this, and hold them accountable for their actions. A player that is treated unfairly by someone representing the company isn't likely to care if it was by a volunteer or an actual employee. They will most likely see only that a representative of the game behaved unprofessionally, and they will take their subscription somewhere else. This hurts all of us.

[Chioxin]

*after much reading*

mrrrrrr, i think it's a bad idea too... and no need to re-iterate the above concerns.