What exactly *can* GMs help with?

[Mychael]

Okay, let me get this out of the way first. I understand that the majority of the employees and budget for XIV are working on getting it ready for 2.0. I'm not expecting the very best in support. Especially for the unbilled period, I totally understood why support was only offered for...

• Harassment by another player
• Inappropriate Character Name
• Spam
• Solicitations to buy or sell in-game items or gil (R.M.T.)
• Stuck within the game geometry

However, here's the thing. I'm paying you now, and quite a bit a month. I even pay for that second character I've never used. So I think it's fair to ask that we get some form of support outside of the slow and confusing support site that almost seems like it was designed to be so much of a burden that no one wants to use it. I have discovered a phone number which does offer minimal support for FFXIV, but not anything relevant to most issues.

The other day, I was trying to log into these forums and it kept telling me I couldn't because it couldn't confirm that I'd been logged into FFXIV in the past 30 days. I'd been on every day for the preceding week, and was even online in another window. There's not even an option for forum support on the support site! So, I tried an in-game ticket with the logic that "GMs are people just like me. They might not be able to fix it, but they should at least know who I can ask..." I sent this message via GM call:

I know this isn't a GM issue. Please don't tell me that. It's also not an option on the Support Center. So don't refer me there. The forums won't let me log in because I haven't been logged in to FFXIV for over 30 days? I'm on now, and I'm pretty sure I was online for at least a few minutes within the past two weeks to check out recent changes,
103,737.356079,-12.000000,1121.787354

Here's the response, which wasn't even a live person, just one of those annoying in-game messages you can't respond to:

Hello and thank you for your GM call. Unfortunately, we are unable to assist you with your request since it falls outside the scope of our services. For a list of issues that GMs are able to assist with, please visit our support site at http://support.na.square-enix.com, choose FINAL FANTASY XIV and select the FAQ. Click on In Game/Game Contents followed by Game Master Interaction. You may also use the Search feature to find possible resolutions to your request, and we encourage you to use the Contact feature to submit any suggestions you may have for improving GM services. Thank you for your patience, and best wishes to you.
FINAL FANTASY XIV Game Master Team

I rolled my eyes, because the GM call feature does say that they can only help with certain issues. But the fact is, there isn't even a place to go for forum support when you can't login to the forums. At least not that I found in my quick searching. Most likely, I could have used telephone support to resolve this issue, but just finding that number was a chore (in all honesty, I used some info from FFXI) and I didn't find it until my forum account was working.

Then, just a couple of days ago, I was in the Mun-Tuy Cellars doing levequests and behests, and I got teamed up by some mobs and died. I chose to return, but when I spawned at the aetherial gate, I was moving at <50% movement speed. No gravity effect, nothing equipment-related, nothing at all. I waited around ten minutes, tried to /sit, toggled running/walking a few times, all kinds of things, and then decided that it close enough to "stuck" that I could call a GM. This was not something for which I wanted to minimize FFXIV, open a browser, dig out my security token, navigate through ten or so pages of meaningless buttons to navigate to the "Bug Report" pages and fill out the lengthy form, then wait days or weeks to possibly hear back about. GMs that tell people to use the bug report feature--are you aware that they specify that most bugs do not receive a direct response? Yeah, I had every intention of reporting the bug--but more importantly, I WANTED TO BE ABLE TO MOVE. I tried to finish my levequest, but couldn't make it to back to the NPC I was protecting before she died. So I called a GM again. My original ticket read:

I just died and chose to return while mid-levequest, and for some reason am unable to move at anything close to full speed. I just failed my objective (keeping an NPC alive) because I couldn't run. Nothing cast or inflicted me with Gravity, and I had no status effects other than weakness.
103,-787.689819,-15.352636,-2034.327271

It's obvious that the GMs weren't buried in thousands of calls because this response took only three minutes:

Hello and thank you for your GM call. We understand that you may have encountered an error in-game, and we apologize for any interruption of your game play this may have caused. To ensure that this matter is addressed in an accurate, timely manner, please submit a Bug Report directly to our development team by visiting http://support.na.square-enix.com and choosing FINAL FANTASY XIV. Then, select Contact to access the reporting form. We are constantly striving to improve your experience in Eorzea, and greatly appreciate your time and input. Thank you for your patience, and best wishes to you.
FINAL FANTASY XIV Game Master Team

This really annoyed me. Did they even read my ticket? Any "interruption...this may have caused?!" Really? It was still causing an interruption! So I wrote back with this, titled "Um, I still can't move full-speed?":

I know you'd like a bug report, but I'm counting this is as "stuck." With all due repect, I'm paying you to help me, not copy and paste a standardized response to every GM call. While I appreciate the prompt response, I would very much appreciate to be able to MOVE.
103,-686.099365,-15.260994,-2066.066406

This ticket was closed without further response.

All of that said, I'd really like to ask--when can we expect some decent support? Why do we even bother having GMs if all they're going to do is moderate "harrassment" and RMT, and occasionally teleport a player who'd rather wait for a GM than return/teleport? Seriously, this is ridiculous. Before launch, something needs to be done about this. Believe it or not, some issues are ongoing and prevent players from using the product we're paying for! The very least a GM could do is create a ticket for you with some sort of priority, or in some cases, investigate!

I was always pleased with XI support. On the rare occasion that I had a problem, they wouldn't give up until I was happy. I remember phone support for my account once had to play a guessing game with me because when my parents signed up for my account before I was old enough, they weren't comfortable putting our real address. ("I'm not nowhere, but I'm..." "Somewhere!"--the address on the account was on Somewhere Street.) From POL Viewer, you could always talk to a GM or TSR within the hour about anything. My friend once even called a GM, asked them to appear next to them, and when they did, proposed to the GM. There's a video somewhere. Heck, they would even recover (a single piece) of accidentally-tossed equipment.

Despite the obvious advantages a SE staff member would have when filling out a bug report (i.e. actually being able to view the cause of the problem, which might not appear in the log files days or weeks later when someone actually reads my ticket), there are just some scenarios that should receive near-immediate attention--among them are movement issues (not just being stuck in the geometry), issues that prevent someone from chatting or using abilities, etc. Again, I admit that this would have not been such a big deal when the game was free. But we're paying you, and when the service I pay for doesn't work for me, I either want my money back, or for your employees to at least act like they're fixing it.

Sincerely,
Michael