What do I like most about being the GM Lead for Champions Online? Making executive decisions!

Being the GM Lead for Champions Online is awesome. We’ve got our own way of managing the game that differs greatly from STO, and the other MMOs I worked on before joining Cryptic.

First of all, Champions is way more fun to support than other games. It’s exciting to review bugs related to crazy costumes. Every mission bug makes me laugh, because nearly all mission names have some aspect of humor to them. Reading bugs named “Psy-chonauts – cannot leave the mindscape” and “Mini-skirt + Push Up Animation is inappropriate” is significantly more entertaining than 99% of other bugs that exist in the world today. I guess I like bugs with character.

Secondly, we have a strong bond with the community. When I say “we”, I’m referring specifically to the GMs that focus on Champions support. They know you guys. What that means it that we don’t always need to spend a ton of time verifying things before we provide item restorations or mission completion. I’ll be honest – there are some of you out there, where if you send in a ticket saying you had something, and now don’t, I blindly approve the restoration, without any verification, just because I know you guys to be positive community members that we can trust. An MMO publisher trusting their player base – sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

Thirdly, I’ve made the rules for support interaction loose. Being silly, making jokes, visiting players in the game, are all “Manager Approved” functions for CO GMs. Normally, online game management keeps GM interaction to a minimum except during OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED GM events. However for CO we encourage our GMs to be social with the players and to go outside the scope of planned events and support tickets.

GM Participation and Events

Stormshade has been all up in my face about doing more GM events. Since I listen to him, we’re setting up a schedule for GMs to participate in online events with the players. We’re still deciding the specifics of what we want all the events to be, but PVP is definitely on that list, and we're also going to do some PvE events where we'll group up with you, and run through lairs, or even take on a raid boss with you. Outside of that, we’re still brainstorming for more creative ideas.

Bugs reported from the game client

The process of fixing player-submitted bugs will always remain close to my heart. Obviously, as the game has matured, the number of bugs we’ve been focusing on has decreased a bit over the last couple of months, however Terramak is still a fierce forum poster and is providing updates on issues left and right. He’s quite excited about the new expansion and is already knee deep in bug reports to make sure everything goes as smooth as possible one it hits the live server.

Closing Statement

Well, those are the things that come to mind right now. I more curious to hear how you guys think the support has evolved since launch.

-GM Destra