INTERNETZ: Confessions of a SWG CSR

This article about some of the odd memories of a Star Wars Galaxies Game Master pretty much speaks for itself, but here are some highlights:

Benny, Are You There? - Shortly after I started, the company started outsourcing to India. Initially the outsourced reps were not allowed to go in game, and were supposed to just escalate those issues to us. But as customer tickets rose, we eventually had to teach them how to handle in game issues. One of their first tasks was to send each other direct in-game messages. This seemed to be going well until the forums lit up like a Christmas tree. Players kept asking “who is benny?” and “Did I unlock my Jedi, my name is Benny!” Unfortunately one of the Indian reps had sent a message to the entire server while trying to send a direct PM. So basically thousands of players saw “Benny, are you there?” flash across their screen. Not a bad first day in-game!

The Key Master Incident - This particular event happened in the Everquest area, before my time. Dealing with irate customers is no picnic, and can send a lot of people over the edge. Long story short, a GM who will go unnamed was at his wits end, and one day he snapped. Going bat shit insane, he grabbed his car keys and started jabbing himself with them in a complete nerd rage. This guy was let go but his story will live on forever. Up until this day, you will see keys taped to a select few monitors in the building. Bad joke, but funny in a dark way.

And my favorite ...

Fight Clubs - Once the Jedi system went live, it caused more than a few issues. Jedi who killed Master Bounty Hunters would gain force rank. This lead to shit loads of Jedi exploiting the Force Rank system to make their Jedi almost untouchable. A group of them would sit on top of a large private building, and take turns killing their Bounty Hunter friends. A doctor would revive the bounty hunter, and the next Jedi would kill him. This pissed me off, but we were told NOT to interfere - it was developments problem, not ours. I didn’t like the idea that this shit was happening right under my nose, so I pretty much tried to slaughter the fight clubs whenever I saw them. First I would surround the building with Dark Jedi Masters, and one by one, I would teleport the exploiters out of the building. Players were smart though. They knew what hours I worked and my days off, and within a week, the servers started to see the highest ranking Jedi, ever.