What would you ask a GM?

Questions submitted!!

No offense but this would probably been better hosted as an SP event . Or have him actually show him up or something. Live skype call? I don't know be creative about it

No offense but this would probably been better hosted as an SP event . Or have him actually show him up or something. Live skype call? I don't know be creative about it

He wasn't willing to do verbal and I doubt he wanted to do an actual live chat either.
Being willing to answer questions at his own leisure and being a spectacle are two completely unrelated things.

I wonder what's taking so long for the responses (it is a lot of questions though so understandable). Good thing you didn't have to go through a PR guy.

I wonder what's taking so long for the responses (it is a lot of questions though so understandable). Good thing you didn't have to go through a PR guy.

I submitted 28 questions. I too am wondering what is taking so long.

I submitted 28 questions. I too am wondering what is taking so long.

Probably trying to figure out what he can answer and how, without risking legal repercussions even this far after the fact.

Probably trying to figure out what he can answer and how, without risking legal repercussions even this far after the fact.

Sounds about right.

If he's anonymous and the questions from what I can see are pretty..well harmless, would nexon even care to take the time to hunt down the possibilities? :f6:

I'm keeping an eye on this thread to see what questions got submitted as well as what got answered. I presume you will pretty much copy paste the entire response from him?

Probably trying to figure out what he can answer and how, without risking legal repercussions even this far after the fact.

May I ask what you'd think those legal repercussions can potentially be and what kind of responses would provoke them? It can't be that this person is the only ex-GM. If he/she keeps their identity hidden well enough, I don't think Nexon can much as throw a twig at them without knowing who they are specifically.

May I ask what you'd think those legal repercussions can potentially be and what kind of responses would provoke them? It can't be that this person is the only ex-GM. If he/she keeps their identity hidden well enough, I don't think Nexon can much as throw a twig at them without knowing who they are specifically.

I can only imagine what violating a NDA feels like!

If he's anonymous and the questions from what I can see are pretty..well harmless, would nexon even care to take the time to hunt down the possibilities? :f6:

We're talking about a company that has historically threatened to sue fan sites. Don't presume their rationale and yours are correlated.

May I ask what you'd think those legal repercussions can potentially be and what kind of responses would provoke them? It can't be that this person is the only ex-GM. If he/she keeps their identity hidden well enough, I don't think Nexon can much as throw a twig at them without knowing who they are specifically.

That depends entirely on the NDA involved in the job and is outside my interest in speculating on. Whether we think it's likely or risky is irrelevant to whether the person being asked for this information thinks it's a risk and between the two sets of us the one who's actually worked with these people and knows what agreements he's had to make is likelier to have a better judge of that.

I can only imagine what violating a NDA feels like!

Hopefully as apathetic and inconsequential as violating the TOS does.

Hopefully as apathetic and inconsequential as violating the TOS does.

Far from it.

I guess we'll have to wait and I do hope the GM doesn't end up getting in trouble anyway as some of these questions are rather tricky. :f6:

Far from it.

I guess we'll have to wait and I do hope the GM doesn't end up getting in trouble anyway as some of these questions are rather tricky. :f6:

The tricky questions are always the best ones

Remember this thread? Good. I got the answers!

I'll put them up in a bit, I have to finish this paper I'm writing. (And the guy didnt format anything very well...)

Here you go, Southperry. I took most of your questions, cleaned them up, and submitted them. These are his responses.
Please note that I do not have 100% proof that this is an Ex-GM. I did some research, and what I turned up leads me to believe that they actually were employed at Nexon.
Take what you will from it. Not all information is 100% up to date due to them quitting or getting fired a few years back.

[HIDE-REPLY]

 Spoiler

As a GM, do you believe there was an easier way to catch hackers that you were not already using?

There were plenty of ways to catch hackers, the problem was having video evidence to prove it. That, and anyone who used Paypal to pay for NX was basically "off limits" for banning because of Paypal's dispute methods. If we banned them, most players could alert Paypal and request a refund, and then Nexon would lose that money. Money was more important than banning hackers.

Why did you decide to leave Nexon? How long ago was it that you left? What was it like working in an environment like Nexon's?

My job was outsourced. The coworkers were great, but higher up had ridiculous expectations about what needed to be done and the reality of what we were able to do. Customer service tickets were a nightmare and we weren't allowed to acknowledge errors or exploits in responding to them. Many player accounts were legitimately compromised but we couldn't admit to that, so we ignored hundreds of requests from lower-level players that didn't spend as much money on NX because our priority was players who spent hundreds of dollars per month.

What is the exact "workflow" when dealing with player reports. How large is the backlog?

Look at a ticket and see if we could help them. Most of the time, we couldn't because they didn't have their password, birthdate, or other relevant information. Most claims of "hacking" or compromised accounts were ignored because we had no way of proving anything they said had happened. The backlog hovered around 1000 tickets, but would skyrocket over weekends. I remember 2500 being routine on some Mondays.

Have you ever played as a non-GM character, and attempted to blend in with normal players? Was this a strategy some used to see what normal players see ingame?

As a GM, we can wander around and see everything, you just can't see us. There was never a need to be a nonGM character. I hated playing because a lot of players are plantains to complete noob players. When I made my first character, I stopped playing because it wasn't fun being bullied by higher level characters.

What was your basic time distribution between banning hackers, community events, feedback, etc? How much evidence is taken before anything is done to a hacker/glitcher/abuser?

Different GMs had different priorities. I would be on ban for the most part with several others solely on tickets. Unless there was a significant backlog, we each stuck to out assigned task. Community events involved pretty much every GM just having fun- everything else was backburned for a day or so. We had different punishments for different rule breaks, so evidence was however much you needed to prove they did something wrong. Sometimes evidence would be gathered and multiple violations would be longer bans. It just depended on what we saw you do.

In your opinion, is Nexon doing enough to stop hackers from unfairly benefiting from them?

Yes, they try to keep up the best they can. The problem is the policies that we have to follow are horrendous. Having to give back legitimately stolen items is a HUGE DEAL and has to be approved by Korea first, and when you have hundreds of them come up out of nowhere, it creates a waitlist that we have to go through and verify everything for. They didn't have a streamlined process for this, or an established protocol, so there was a significant amount of "what are we supposed to do?" being asked from the GMs going up through the corporate tower.

Are you NXJoeW? Did you know NXJoeW? Is Hime a nice person to work with?

No idea who that is.

Cake or Pie?

The cake is a lie.

While you were a GM, were you aware of the current state of the game?

I was aware of most problems and did not care about the game/story/community itself. I was focused on banning and that was it.

Did you only work on Maplestory? If not, what other games did you have to moderate?

I banned across all games.

Did you play Maplestory before becoming a GM? After?

I never played until working at Nexon, and while I found the concept fun, the community was WAY TOO LARGE for what Maplestory was originally designed for. That became obvious early on. Most players were arrogant and I didn't enjoy playing it so I never kept my character. We were given a 30k NX allowance every month and I was so sick of working that playing any Nexon game was no longer fun so I wouldn't even use the free NX.

Is there any language barrier with upper management?

Not at Nexon America. They're all fluent in English and most born in America. The problem was always expressing the issues from Nexon America back to Korea- different country, different problems.

What were you duties outside of the game?

None.

What were your wages like? Any benefits?

Low. $9 or $10 /hour was common. Benefits weren't great- the best was the $1 bending machine with Monsters and Red Bulls. The holiday parties were also amazing, and free lunch Fridays, but that was about it.

Do you know if any Nexon employees actually read fan forums?

Yes, some did. I didn't.

How many GM's were employed when you worked there?

Approximately 30, at least around my department. Most were never in-game or had zero player contact.

When do they typically work? Are they hard at work usually?

Typical shift was 9-6 or 10-7, with a few people on graveyard shift.

Was there any more difficult part of Maplestory to manage than others?

Tickets were always the worst part of the game, since most were incomprehensible, the majority of those that were we couldn't do anything for, and those with legitimate issues were pomegranate out of luck for the most part. If we could roll back your account, we would have, but none of us had that power.

To your knowledge, if the GMS community was against a certain update from KMS, did NexonAM even care?

We were only concerned with money. If it was going to make the company more money, none of our concerns mattered.

Do accounts to spend large amounts of NX have any special benefits when it comes to the ticketing system or otherwise?

Yes, we handle these tickets with priority compared to other players who spend less NX.

Have you ever talked to or met someone from another branch of Nexon? (Korea, Japan, China, Etc?)

Yes, and I was basically ignored.

Do you believe Nexon to be a money hungry company, or a company that actually cares about its players?

Money is priority, easily. The GMs care about players but corporate cares about money.

Is the working environment as nice? (building, small perks, etc) What was your favorite part about working there?

There were two buildings I worked at, Koreatown and El Segundo. The commute to Koreatown was easy but El Segundo was a nightmare. The stress of work wasn't offset by perks I listed earlier. Lunch was probably the best part of my days there.

Did you meet any good contacts there?

A lot of great people.

Would you suggest a Nexon game to a friend?

No.

Don't shoot the messenger. These answers are quite harsh, but I will not reveal who I was speaking with. Thank you.[/HIDE-REPLY]

I would like to thank Zelkova and whoever answered these questions. It put things into perspective for me and helps me understand the company a bit better. I understand it was awhile ago they worked there.

Reading this was enlightening but rather sad seeing that he pretty much confirmed some of the ideas we had been having about Nexon.

Thanks for doing this.

Those are some interesting answers. I'm not too surprised at many of the answers, But that Paypal thing is really interesting.