How active are you/your GM's?

[Orange]

Couldn't find a topic, anyways how active are most GM's on RO these days really?

Every "HIRE ME" post has stuff like "I am online for 12 hours a day"

I myself am actually on for almost every waking hour and have played a good amount of servers over the years, and can honestly say I have never been on a server where the entire GM staff's hours online meets mine(Even servers with like 10 GM's) this is excluding AFK time of course.

Almost all reviews have a 10 for GM activeness to, Which to me for a 10 would require that there is 1 GM online at any given time but this never seems to be the case. There are even servers with nothing more then 1 admin and a GM claiming that there is "always 1 GM online"

So how active are most you(any GM's/admins or even just your servers GM's)

[Pandora]

Well... I don't consider that you need to have GMs online 24/7 to be able to call your staff active and I would agree with you that those who claim they have a staff member On 24/7 are probably lying/cheating (afk).

What we do have on my server:
- At least 1 GM online daily (and usually more)
- A Support Ticket system to which we give an answer to a ticket within 24 hours

When I'm not GMing/playing, I always leave a character (usually novice) AFK in game with @main off to check for activity, I see broadcasts so I know if events happened or if support was offered. I can't recall that a day went by with no gm broadcast of some sort and usually I see multiple GMs have been there, they're active at different times in the day due to timezone/schedule.

I consider myself to be actively working for the server on average 30 hours a week, but I rarely spend more than a third of that actually in game on my GM char, hope that answers your question ^^

[Orange]

- A Support Ticket system to which we give an answer to a ticket within 24 hours

The problem I have with this, and the main reason I like having 1 GM on all the time is then instead of having to put in a ticket, wait(And then people simply say GM's never read the tickets) and then wait some more, you could simply @request X is KS'ing me - bam, problem solved.

No need to take screens or to post on forums if there is a GM to handle it there and then.

[Pandora]

It is easier and more convenient for players to have a GM "there and then" I agree, but really not easy for the GM team.

Having an online gm at all time requires to have either a very large team or highly active staff members, you also need to set up a schedule to make sure a GM is on duty at all time, and while players aren't asking anything or having problem, then what happens? the gm is bored i guess, but they can't go afk otherwise it defeats the purpose. We have to remember that GM are unpaid on most servers, so even if it's technically possible to have a gm online at all time to handle that kind of report, it's not very practical and most likely a bit boring and you end up having staff quitting.

The bigger the server the more doable and worth while this would seem to be, but small/medium servers really are unlikely to be able to provide that kind of 24/7 service.

[Lost~Dreams]

I'm not active as much as i want to be on my server and i have yet to find anyone decent enough to hire as a "GameMaster" So, I revised a plan within a few days and what i came up with is a support board in game. Although i am not ingame alot i am usually at my computer doing some kind of work.

What the support board is, is a basic support/report notification board. The player goes to the board and chooses to either report a bug or report a player or ask for general support. After that is done the Note is saved till the next time i get on and check the board and clear it. This way you don't have to go through the hassle of Going to the forums and reporting "said" player for this and that. What im working on now is a PM Report and when the player puts in his PM Box "report" and then types the message it will automatically screen shot his screen and save it. The format im working on would be something like this

"Report"  <- PM Name

Line Format " Report:<playerName>,Reported For: <Reason>

I'm not sure how well this one is going to work out but im still working on how its going to be done and its going to take a while for it to be released But, anything is possible with eAthena as long as you know what your doing.

[Flip]

You have to remember that if hiring GM's, the actual team built is more relevant than the individual GM, since to the players, a GM is a GM is a GM.

Ideal: Having a GM team that can cover almost if not all of the 24 hours (or at least the peak hours if non-international) that at least one GM is online.

Realistically: Having a GM team that has enough total time to read all the forum/ingame afk requests and answer them.

The ideal is obviously harder since you'll pretty much need people from each major timezone/continent.

[xKyriex]

I realize this is an old topic, but since it is not all that far down the first page I figured it wouldn't hurt. :x

I agree with some of the posters, but if it is a small server then 24/7 GM up time is not necessarily a must. If you have an active staff and a GM Assistant and forum aid at the ready, then there isn't too much to worry about, though active staff is a great thing to have. The activity of a GM though and how many to have really does depend on the size of the server, from one to a handful depending on how many plays it.