Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The Volunteer Train - CHOO CHOO!!!!

Somebody gets a lot more traffic than I do! One of the more popular ourWorld blogs must have posted about the volunteer program because over the weekend I have received hundreds of new requests from ourWorld players who want to be volunteers. As most of the requests have come from qualified players (over 13 years old and over level 30) it looks like there will be lots more volunteers in the next day or so.

This is very good news, as we'll want a lot of volunteers to make our new Helper program work.

Following the next update (scheduled for Wednesday, Feb 24th) all the volunteers will have the option to help other players. If they turn on the Helper tool, they will get alerts when somebody requests 'Live Help'. The system will transport them to the players room and they will (hopefully) be able to answer questions. It's a pretty simple system, but if our volunteers do half the job I think they can do, it'll be a great boon to new players trying to sort out our game, which has become quite complex as it has grown.

Adam!!!
www.gameguts.blogspot.com

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This concerns me a little, since most of the volunteer are clueless about most of the questions asked... Actually they're often the ones asking them.

But I guess we'll see.

AdamC said...

I'm worried too, but the Knowledge Base is there and it really does have a lot of information in it. Getting volunteers used to looking things up there will be a lot easier than getting noobies to look.

It's not a coincidence the "Live Help" button is fairly hidden. This might have a rough start.

AdamC said...

Clarification: I'm worried, but it's an optimistic worry. Once we know where the weak points are, we can tweak the system to make it really work right.

Agent 29 said...

There's a lot of things that would be easier if people used the knowledge base. But people doesn't. It's hard enough to get people to check the forum before they start a topic. And that's even more simple.

Of course you know what you're doing, so I trust your judgement.

PS: I'm the anonymous that wrote the last 2 comments.

x Ria x said...

This seriously concerns me a little although I can see both , Firstly, not even all the current volunteers are "devoted" shall I say to what they are supposed to do. These volunteers can be replaced by SOME of the newcomers but what this would actually be doing is adding on to the number of idle volunteers who just are there for the sake of name or get rewards, I fear that most new volunteers would start a conflict with someone who would just be asking questions. That's what most people are like, I have seen people bossing around newbies just because of their level and some of them were volunteers (at least they said so). And as volunteer requirement is 30+ which is quite a high level, I can see a lot of conflicts going on in the future.

Anyway like agent 29 said, I too trust your judgement. (although i just popped out of nowhere, i bet you are like " who the hell is he? 8-) "

AdamC said...

Most people requesting to be volunteers tell me they are doing so because they want to help new players. This new feature is specifically to turn that request into reality as quickly and directly as possible. One of the reasons there are no (well, very few) tangible rewards to being a volunteer is that we want people to volunteer for the right reasons. I have a very high regard for our volunteers who, because they are all level 30, have already seriously invested in the game. Will there be problems? I bet there will be. I believe in acting quickly and fixing problems when they arrive as opposed to holding back for fear of the unexpected.