I'm pretty curious... [And pretty serious!]

gentlegiantvexx

--And nervous asking this!

But what exactly does it take to become an in-game moderator for CO?
Simple, and direct!

beerbane

My understanding is that there are several components to being an in-game mod, including:

1. Sheltering new players emerging from the Powerhouse from the harsh sun with your towering shadow
2. Offering hugs and cuddles to those in need, followed with sage tanking advice while they are safe in your fuzzy arms
3. Not visualizing someone that calls you a 'puppy' (or similar name) as a steak and promptly devouring them
4. Conversely, devouring gold bots and spammers as they emerge from the Powerhouse

Seems like a good fit to me!

championshewolf

Do you mean forum moderator or Game Master? To become a Game Master I believe would require applying for the position.​​

gentlegiantvexx

beerbane said:

My understanding is that there are several components to being an in-game mod, including:

1. Sheltering new players emerging from the Powerhouse from the harsh sun with your towering shadow
2. Offering hugs and cuddles to those in need, followed with sage tanking advice while they are safe in your fuzzy arms
3. Not visualizing someone that calls you a 'puppy' (or similar name) as a steak and promptly devouring them
4. Conversely, devouring gold bots and spammers as they emerge from the Powerhouse

Seems like a good fit to me!

As awesome as that sounds, I'm pretty pretty sure that it's more than that!

championshewolf said:

Do you mean forum moderator or Game Master? To become a Game Master I believe would require applying for the position.​​

Game Master? Did not know that there were such a term for that, but yeah, a Game Master would be what I'd love to try for!
Though I'm unsure of the requirements and where to even sign up for such a thing.

championshewolf

You would have to see if there is a job opening at the http://crypticstudios.com/ website basically.​​

beezeeze

You'd probably need to get hired as customer service or what ever they call it on their website...would it be under Operations?(sadly it appears there are no openings)

aesica

As a GM, you'd probably just be answering player-submitted support tickets, not actually being a presence in the game that greets, helps people out, makes jokes, etc.

What I wonder is whether or not Cryptic even offers job openings for specific games. Such as, could a person apply to be a developer or GM for CO specifically? Or would a successful hire just get told, "welcome aboard, we need additional resources over at [random game] so that's where we're sending you!"

nepht

Vexx is quite possibly the most sane person on planet earth and I know for a fact he would most likely send me to the naughty step on an almost daily basis but Vexx as a GM needs to happen.

gentlegiantvexx

championshewolf said:

You would have to see if there is a job opening at the http://crypticstudios.com/ website basically.​​

Ah-hah~! Thank you! I'm over here searching left and right through Arc's careers and it didn't entirely help much, but this surely does!

beezeeze said:

You'd probably need to get hired as customer service or what ever they call it on their website...would it be under Operations?(sadly it appears there are no openings)

Dang it, I was hoping it wouldn't be under that. There's gotta be some way to apply.. or put out something that I'd wish to help as a GM.

gradii said:

Vexx would probably be an improvement.

Aww shucks, thank you, Gradii!

aesica said:

As a GM, you'd probably just be answering player-submitted support tickets, not actually being a presence in the game that greets, helps people out, makes jokes, etc.

What I wonder is whether or not Cryptic even offers job openings for specific games. Such as, could a person apply to be a developer or GM for CO specifically? Or would a successful hire just get told, "welcome aboard, we need additional resources over at [random game] so that's where we're sending you!"

I'd totally be okay with that... well to an extent! I'd still like my presence in the game to help folks out and joke around! I mean, It's rare as ever that you see a GM in the game.. and of course Zone and other places go NUTS when they feel no one's around. Plus new players aren't usually welcome and play aimlessly without guidance or folks to even offer guidance... I so wish to fix that as it was very late for me to recieve help from folks in my early days and I struggled.

Heck, I wish they would offer GM positions for Champs... I mean, I like neverwinter too, but it's not as free-feelin' as CO!

nepht said:

Vexx is quite possibly the most sane person on planet earth and I know for a fact he would most likely send me to the naughty step on an almost daily basis but Vexx as a GM needs to happen.

Gosh, thank you for the support, Nepht!! And well... maybe not daily!

gentlegiantvexx

Accidental double post! Sorry!

aesica

gentlegiantvexx said:

I'd totally be okay with that... well to an extent! I'd still like my presence in the game to help folks out and joke around! I mean, It's rare as ever that you see a GM in the game.. and of course Zone and other places go NUTS when they feel no one's around. Plus new players aren't usually welcome and play aimlessly without guidance or folks to even offer guidance... I so wish to fix that as it was very late for me to recieve help from folks in my early days and I struggled.

Hmm, perhaps what you're interested in is more along the lines of community manager then? They're the liaisons between Cryptic and the playerbase, and a really good one (such as LaughingTrendy over at STO) can make a world of difference. It's not really a "help new players" position any more than being a behind-the-scenes, ticket-answering GM is, but it's a role best suited for high-charisma individuals, and you seem pretty well-liked here. As far as actual in-game GMs go, I have yet to see one in STO, so I doubt there's any interest on Cryptic's end on installing one for CO.

I don't know if Alex (the person who typically makes the CO news posts) is a full-time community manager, or if he just fills in, but based on the fact that Kaizerin (who as far as I know isn't a CM...I don't exactly know -what- he/she is. Designer? Programmer?) makes the actual forum posts, I'm going to guess that we don't have a dedicated CM for this game.

Just thought I'd mention it.

gentlegiantvexx

aesica said:

gentlegiantvexx said:

I'd totally be okay with that... well to an extent! I'd still like my presence in the game to help folks out and joke around! I mean, It's rare as ever that you see a GM in the game.. and of course Zone and other places go NUTS when they feel no one's around. Plus new players aren't usually welcome and play aimlessly without guidance or folks to even offer guidance... I so wish to fix that as it was very late for me to recieve help from folks in my early days and I struggled.

Hmm, perhaps what you're interested in is more along the lines of community manager then? They're the liaisons between Cryptic and the playerbase, and a really good one (such as LaughingTrendy over at STO) can make a world of difference. It's not really a "help new players" position any more than being a behind-the-scenes, ticket-answering GM is, but it's a role best suited for high-charisma individuals, and you seem pretty well-liked here. As far as actual in-game GMs go, I have yet to see one in STO, so I doubt there's any interest on Cryptic's end on installing one for CO.

I don't know if Alex (the person who typically makes the CO news posts) is a full-time community manager, or if he just fills in, but based on the fact that Kaizerin (who as far as I know isn't a CM...I don't exactly know -what- he/she is. Designer? Programmer?) makes the actual forum posts, I'm going to guess that we don't have a dedicated CM for this game.

Just thought I'd mention it.

I can understand what you're saying, and that's just a more perfect way of putting it! As you mention Alex (I might not have seen or heard of them in-game like I do the forums), would there be a difference as community manager in-game to the forums, or are they of the same role possibly?

I wouldn't think I'm very cut out for Forum managing as I am in game, haha. Alas, This all just sounds right up my allley, any thoughts on how to possibly speaking to a higher-ish up individual that helps out with CO, if you could help?

aesica

gentlegiantvexx said:

I can understand what you're saying, and that's just a more perfect way of putting it! As you mention Alex (I might not have seen or heard of them in-game like I do the forums), would there be a difference as community manager in-game to the forums, or are they of the same role possibly?

I wouldn't think I'm very cut out for Forum managing as I am in game, haha. Alas, This all just sounds right up my allley, any thoughts on how to possibly speaking to a higher-ish up individual that helps out with CO, if you could help?

As far as I know, the community manager's presence is more out-of-game than ingame. Forums, news posts, possibly event organization, those kind of things. If the (lack of) Cryptic presence ingame over at the more largely-staffed STO is any indication, I feel pretty safe in saying that a backburner game like CO isn't going to have any paid ingame positions anytime soon. We can't even get a programmer over to fix bugs.

As for getting in touch with higher-ups in charge of CO, if you find out, tell me. All I can really suggest is to check the job openings regularly and hope for a miracle. Or be in the right place at the right time.

championshewolf

aesica wrote: »

We can't even get a programmer over to fix bugs.

Well before this spreads any further, we are getting bug fixes, but some bug fixes require a bit more work than just simply typing in an extra zero or moving a decimal point as some people like to believe. Furthermore, some things people might view as bugs are actually working as intended. For instance, if you feel a power is not doing enough damage, that isn't really a bug but a balance issue.

Other bugs might have more underlying concerns that would actually require gutting and changing entire systems, and aren't small changes that can be made on the fly so have to wait until they can get to the entire backbone of the system due to how it works.​​

aesica

championshewolf said:

Well before this spreads any further, we are getting bug fixes, but some bug fixes require a bit more work than just simply typing in an extra zero or moving a decimal point as some people like to believe. Furthermore, some things people might view as bugs are actually working as intended. For instance, if you feel a power is not doing enough damage, that isn't really a bug but a balance issue.



Other bugs might have more underlying concerns that would actually require gutting and changing entire systems, and aren't small changes that can be made on the fly so have to wait until they can get to the entire backbone of the system due to how it works.​​

Hence why I specifically phrased it as, "We can't even get a programmer over to fix bugs."

championshewolf

aesica wrote: »

Hence why I specifically phrased it as, "We can't even get a programmer over to fix bugs."

It's not the lack of a programmer, it's the lack of time and resources to get it done since there are other things to do and get done on the schedule, and some bugs are so interwoven would probably break more than it helped without being to tackle multiple things at once ​​

chaelk

The ingame GM , is one of the CS people who lost the toss. Most of their time is spent answering people's complaints and whines on tickets from all three games​​

kosdemojen

Chaelk has the idea. GM don't get to pick their timeslots or products for companies hosting multiple projects.

Most of the time as a GM you'd likely spend invisible and handling customer tickets. Handling tickets means also forwarding relevant tickets to the proper team members and testing where possible bug reports.

Invis GM can not interact with players unless there is a complaint or a clear violation of ToS. Chances are you've met several GM playing on their own personal characters already. They aren't allowed to announce it and it's not typically public knowledge.

chaelk

I'm going on my tickets for NW being answered by someone with an STO handle and sto by someone with a NW handle.​​

gentlegiantvexx

Well maybe Community Manager is what I'm going for mostly. I can't really be one to NOT use a character that doesn't define me.

If that's posisble rather.

chaelk

Community manager is currently crypticarkayne.
Community mnager does the releases and news blogs for the company.
It used to be Trailturtle, till he got a promotion.

There isn't actually a help the players position, as you are thinking of.​​

championshewolf

chaelk wrote: »

Community manager is currently crypticarkayne.
Community mnager does the releases and news blogs for the company.
It used to be Trailturtle, till he got a promotion.

There isn't actually a help the players position, as you are thinking of.

CO doesn't have a Community Manager. Arkayne is the Lead Developer for Champions, I believe. So they basically do their own updates.​​

aesica

kosdemojen said:

Chaelk has the idea. GM don't get to pick their timeslots or products for companies hosting multiple projects.

After browsing their openings a bit, it seems like every position is stated generically rather than pointing to a specific product. This leads me to my next question: How does one get hired on to work on a specific game?

decorumfriends

I don't think you do. You go to work for Cryptic, and they put you where they need you.

aesica

decorumfriends said:

I don't think you do. You go to work for Cryptic, and they put you where they need you.

In that case, I'd say that Kaiserin fellow got insanely lucky.

decorumfriends

With her skill set and knowledge, that's where they needed her.

championshewolf

Hrmm, Kaiserin's a woman, btw.​​

gentlegiantvexx

Ah well, it was worth a shot at least?

decorumfriends

championshewolf said:

Hrmm, Kaiserin's a woman, btw.​​

Y'know, I thought so, too. I always seem to be screwing that up following the wrong person's previous use (not just with Kais). **blushes**