Spam Interview / english
Aus Lineage 2 Wiki
1. Could you introduce yourself in a few words?
Hi my name is Charles Porter (AKA spam.) I have been with Lineage II since North American Internal Beta in 2003
2. Why did you choose the name „Spam“? In the IT world spam is something not that good, are you a bad guy or more like Mr. Nice Guy?
“spam” is a name I had long before I joined the Lineage II team. I actually earned the name from my Counter-Strike clan. I preferred to use the P-90 and Five-Seven and tended to “spray and pray” when I shot. Also all of the keyboard keys that were not used to actually control the game or spray my tag were bound to shout random saying as I killed my enemies.
3. Are you more a staff member of NCsoft or are you more a Lineage 2 player? Are you playing Lineage 2 in your spare time, too?
Well your question assumes that I must be one or the other. I am both. I have played a lot of Lineage II. As we all know L2 is a pretty hard core game and being in a clan is a very big part of the game. Since I can not be in a clan I don’t play as much anymore. I try to hop in the game here and there to keep up with what is going on.
4. When I go on the team bios page of lineage2.com there are a lot of staff members. Does it sometimes happen that one of you says: “Come on guys, let’s take our toons, make a party and have some fun!”
It happens sometimes. All of our staff have played L2 pretty hard core at one time or another.
5. To be a GM on the server sounds a bit like „Godmode“. Is it allowed for a GM to level like a normal player and how do you prevent the abuse of the GM position?
Playing Lineage II and working on Lineage II are two completely separate things. Everyone has a work account and a play account. The work account is for work only no one is allowed to “play,” on their work account. A Game Masters play account is no different than yours. There is no “god mode” or dev client.
Abuse is prevented in many ways. The first I already mentioned, having separate accounts. Some of the other things we do is stuff like, having strict rules about how the game is played by GMs. GMs are not allowed to be in any kind of competition. They are not allowed to join clans, be a hero, or participate in seven signs. No one in game is allowed to know you work for NCsoft. As the GM manager it is my job to audit all GM accounts. If I find a GM doing something wrong I fire them. It is that simple. This game is for the customers. If a GM purposely hurts a customer, they hurt NC.
6. Some players of our community told me, that sometimes it looks like the GM they’re talking to don’t know much about Lineage 2. What do you need to become a GM and is a L2 GM responsible for other games too or only for L2?
Lineage II Game Masters only work on Lineage II. While they may have worked on another game previously, when they are a GM for Lineage II, they do not work on any other game. When I hire a Game Master I look for someone who understands MMOs in general. I look for someone that does not have a preconceived notion of who plays MMOs. I want to hire people that are flexible, have patience, and are willing to see an issue from all of our customer’s eyes. Most of the issues that are reported to us are very complicated. While the problem may not seem so to the customer the GM will have to make some serious decisions to make sure that even a small issue turns out right.
7. Are there possibilities for legit players to help a GM? For example to travel to the places where you find the most bots and make a weekly report?!
Players should not have to do that. You should be able to play the game and have fun. Here is my advice for helping a GM. GMs are people too. Treat them with the same respect you want them to treat you with. If you feel that GM did not understand your issue just restate the issue a different way. They really do want to help you. The GMs already know that some people cheat. If you need to report someone that is hurting your enjoyment of the game, simply give their name and what they are doing wrong. Usually the long stories about clan politics or telling the GM why they suck does not help.
8. The Mass-Ban you did a few weeks ago was for the community of legit players a really big thing, but now the spots are full of bots again. Will there be more Mass-Ban like this one?
We close a lot of accounts every day. On top of that, what you call a “mass ban” actually happens every week. The thing is, that depending what “famous” people are removed you (the customers) may not notice. That is why we have been doing the same thing every week for the past 5 years.
9. OK, enough with bots and all that stuff. What was the best and the worst experience in your Lineage 2 carrier?
Wow. I have been here a long time which gives me a lot of stories. I have to say the best time was seeing the first player owned castle siege after the launch of Chronicle 1. While it may not be special now, back then having several hundred people locked in combat was awesome. Still today there are not many games (if any) that boast about having that many people fighting each other.
The worst time… I have a couple of those. There is a little known story about launch day for Lineage II. Before the servers went up for the first time all of the Game Masters were sitting at their desks waiting for the servers. Right as the e-mail went out telling us the servers were being turned on the power in our offices went out. We have 50 people sitting in the dark and we knew that all our players were logging into the game. Since we launched at night we could not get an electrician and we had to look in the dark for extension cords so we could run our power out of another office. Of course we found power to patch us through the night, but that was a very scary 30 minutes during the games launch.
10. If a little fairy would came to you and say: “You have three wishes!” What would you wish yourself?
Heh.
Break all Bots forever in L2.
Make the world understand that L2 is better than other games
An awesome house at the beach where my wife, baby, and I could live.
11. Is there something you want to tell the German community?
Ich wuerde den deutschen Spielern gerne persoenlich fuer die Unterstuetzung von Lineage II danken - Ihr macht das Spiel richtig spannend.
