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Created page with "Asheron's Call Advocate Handbook Version 1.00 Updated 9/23/99 1.0 Mission 2.0 Advocates 2.1 Roles and Responsibilities 2.2 Additional Advocate Policies 2.3 Day-to-Day Procedures 2.4 Scheduling 2.5 Training 2.6 Tools 2.7 Management of Advocate 3.0 Escalation 4.0 Asheron's Call Organizational Chart 5.0 Asheron's Call Code of Conduct 1.0 Mission General Mission Statement: Our goal is to provide the best customer support and achieve a high retention rate..."

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Asheron's Call

Advocate Handbook

Version 1.00

Updated 9/23/99

1.0 Mission

2.0 Advocates

2.1 Roles and Responsibilities

2.2 Additional Advocate Policies

2.3 Day-to-Day Procedures

2.4 Scheduling

2.5 Training

2.6 Tools

2.7 Management of Advocate

3.0 Escalation

4.0 Asheron's Call Organizational Chart

5.0 Asheron's Call Code of Conduct

1.0 Mission

General Mission Statement:

Our goal is to provide the best customer support and achieve a high retention rate of

users. This will be achieved through a combination of in-game and out-of-game support.

The Online Team should always treat the customers with respect and courtesy

regardless of skill level, attitude, or requests. The players should be given the benefit of

a doubt whenever possible and the Team should always use courtesy words such as

"please" and "thank you" in communications with the players.

General Online Team Member Goals

High-level support starts with how the Online Team treats other members of the team

and their organization.

- The Online Team should always remember that volunteers are players too.

- The Online Team should show each other the same level of respect as they show

the players they are helping.

- The Online Team should schedule themselves a week ahead of time whenever

possible to allow gaps in the schedule to be found and filled.

- The Online Team should help their team by always showing up on time and at the

location they scheduled themselves for.

- The Online Team should use the escalation path to resolve problems.

Our online team is broken up into three areas:

Advocates - Their primary tasks are to be meet-and-greeters for new players as well as

the information-dispensing force that helps when players are having difficulties

understanding the game. They respond to help requests in-game. When they see Code

of Conduct violations, they should escalate them to the Sentinels. They handle low-level

language Code of Conduct violations through informing players when they are violating

the Code of Conduct. When the game matures and there are fewer new players relative

to the long-time players, Advocates will devote time to more advanced duties, to be

clarified after more observation of the game community.

Sentinels - They are the in-game enforcement arm of Asheron's Call. Their primary task

is to ensure a safe and fun environment for all players through enforcement of the

Asheron's Call Code of Conduct. They are trained in conflict resolution and should

always try to resolve violations/conflicts without resorting to enforcement tools, but are

authorized to use the tools when necessary.

Chancellors - They are the out-of-game technical assistance arm. They monitor the

Zone lobbies and help enforce the Zone Code of Conduct there. They also maintain the

Asheron's Call Help Room to assist players having difficulties with the game. As well as

Zone lobby responsibilities, they are also serve as Sentinels in-game.

Long Term Goals:

- Consistently provide a higher level of support than our competition.

- Achieve a high level of retention of players through great customer support.

- Help players get into Asheron's Call and have an enjoyable first-time game

experience.

- Provide an enjoyable game environment in-game and out-of-game, by enforcement

of the Code of Conduct.

2.0 Advocates

2.1 Roles and Responsibilities

Advocate In Training - They will be given an aegis that does not have particle effects to

help differentiate them from a regular player. They must be accompanied by an

Advocate or World Overseer whenever their aegis is worn. They must perform a

minimum of 24 hours of service as an Advocate In Training before they are eligible for

promotion. During the times they have their aegis on, the Advocate with them should be

doing an evaluation and complete the evaluation form on the Team intranet. Need to be

18 years of age or older.

Advocate - These are players who have shown expertise in the game and the ability to

help players through their hours as an Advocate In Training. They will be responsible for

helping players understand the game, answer player questions, and give advice to

wondering travelers. They should never give exact locations or exact details to any

information in the game. Need to be 18 years of age or older

Dispatcher - The Dispatch position is an additional Advocate on duty to manage the

queue of help requests and dispatch the appropriate people to the requests to ensure

nothing falls through the cracks during the peak hours. All Advocates are trained to

perform this function as part of their Advocate training. They serve as the team organizer

during coverage hours, but do not have any management powers. The have the

authority to move people around during their shift to help cover gaps in coverage and

towns that are getting above normal requests. Advocates must report to locations as

instructed by Dispatch. The Dispatcher also has the authority to assign any floaters to

whatever towns or areas need to coverage. Within their "sphere of influence" Dispatch

advocates have genuine authority, and their instructions should be followed. All sign-

ups for Dispatch will be checked and authorized by the Master Scheduler.

World Overseer - These are people that have proven themselves through ranks of

Advocates able to handle world-wide responsibilities. They are the overseer of their

world and report problems up the org chart to let management know of specific issues in

their world. They recommend disciplinary action that should be taken to their World

Team Manager but do not take the action themselves. They can bestow/remove

Advocate status. They also work with the Master Scheduler to ensure proper coverage in

their world and report no-shows. Each one is assigned to a specific world. There is only

one World Overseer per world. They must be 18 years of age or older and sign a

Microsoft Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Management Positions:

Advocate Team Manager - The Advocate Team Manager will serve as the direct

supervisor of the World Team Managers. The Advocate Team Manager makes sure that

all World Team Managers are dispensing the same policies to all worlds. They help in

evaluating the team effectiveness in worlds. They also directly manage new worlds that

are brought in until there are 3 news ones that can be assigned as a batch to a World

Team Manager.

World Team Manager - The Advocate World Team Manager will serve as the direct

supervisor of the Advocates in three worlds.. The World Team Manager is in charge is

dispensing new policy as it comes from above in the org chart. They take care of

disciplinary action on the team and help assess coverage needs. Advocate team

members with problems should escalate them to the World Team Manager. They also

help determining when an Advocate in Training is ready to be promoted to an Advocate.

They manager the World Overseers and together help assess the successes and short-

comings of the world and try make recommendation on how to better the program.

2.2 Advocate Policies

- Advocates are allowed, and even encouraged, to play Asheron's Call with their Advocate

character.

- 1 person on duty in each of the 9 starting town areas (switching between the outposts

and the town itself) Noon-Midnight - 7 days a week

- 1 person on duty as Dispatcher during our peak hours 8PM-Midnight - 7 days a week.

This must be scaled to Noon-Midnight as soon as possible, but the above peak coverage

will be considered acceptable as a minimum base.

- 1 World Overseer will be assigned to each World.

- Each Advocate is asked to contribute 8 hours a week broken up into (8) 1-hour blocks

- Help Request - Advocates should acknowledge via @tell or regular chat that they have

received a request or question within 1 minute of it being broadcasted on the Help

Channel, or spoken to them "face to face" in regular chat, or told to them directly.

- Advocates should provide assistance within 15 minutes of first hearing the help request

or question.

- Advocates may NOT fight monsters or be in a fellowship while wielding the aegis. This is

to make sure there is not a player perception of special powers given by the aegis or

Advocate state. On-duty Advocates are allowed to defend themselves on the rare

occasions when monsters may enter the town. If possible, the aegis should be removed

before self-defense.

- When on duty, the Advocate must wield the aegis. When off duty, the Advocate can

choose whether to wield the aegis or not. While wielding the aegis, all Advocates,

whether on official duty or not, are expected to act just as if they are on duty-- refraining

from fighting, polite and helpful to all players, and ready to drop everything in order to

help them. An Advocate character who is not ready to be unconditionally helpful to other

players should not wield the aegis.

- The Advocate character can not be a player-killer. The game is programmed to forbid

this.

- Advocates need to always use words like "Thank You" and "Please" when helping

players.

- Advocates are responsible for getting to the town they are to cover at the times they are

scheduled for. Advocates should not expect any special treatment in the form of

teleportation in order to reach their duty-spot.

- To help Advocates get to their assigned locations, Advocates may have more then one

of their characters be an advocate. They should have a primary Advocate Character,

and are encouraged to leave it near the town they are normally assigned to, but may use

their playing character to help listen in on the AV channels and if there is need for help,

put on their aegis for duty, remembering that when aegis is on, they must adhere to the

Advocate Handbook.

- Advocates are the only response to all calls that come to the help channel. They should

respond in accordance to established behavior. It is important to acknowledge

immediately the person that lodged the help request.

- Treat newbies with patience and helpfulness, serving as their guide as they learn how to

play Asheron's Call.

- Advocates are encouraged in their reports to tell us of anything that players are

concerned about in game. Their first hand experience provides Turbine and MS with

valuable information about how well AC is working.

- Advocates will be invited to participate in the Shadow World.

- All Advocates (not Advocates in training) will receive their game-play free. The initial

group will also receive a CD version of the game only, for free.

2.3 Day-to-Day Procedures

- When an Advocate logs into their assigned world, they should always make sure they

log into their town channel so players can see who is on duty there.

- They should try to be as visible as possible and answer player questions publicly so to

inform other players who may have the same questions.

- They should always give out information that is helpful but not specific. Never give out

exact locations, solutions to quests, etc. Pointing people in the right direction is more

along the lines of the help they should be dispensing.

- When a help request comes in, someone on the AV1 channel should acknowledge they

are handling that call. If there is a Dispatch on, the Dispatch will acknowledge it and

assign that help request to the Advocate.

- All help requests, whether in the Help channel, regular chat, or a direct tell, should be

immediately acknowledged, even if it's "Hi, I will be right with you as soon as I am

finished with another player."

- Send clearly written messages using @tell or open chat in the world.

- Advocates, while on duty, must always be subscribed to the town channel they are

assigned to during that shift. The Town Channels are just to allow players to find what

Advocates are on duty in their town and not for Advocate-to-Advocate communication.

- Not all help requests need to be handled in person. Advocates can use @tell to resolve

help request where needed.

- There will be one Advocate in each of the starting towns and will be responsible for their

outposts as well during set coverage hours. They should go where their duties require--

in a world with many brand-new players, that will most likely be in the two outposts

associated with the main town. As the system is scaled up, we will work towards placing

an Advocate in each of the outposts. During peak coverage hours, there will be an

added role of Dispatch Advocate to help moderate the help requests and ensure that

nothing falls through the cracks.

- Advocates should always check their personal email and the Team Intranet site before

going on duty for the latest announcements.

- When an Advocate sees a language Code of Conduct violation, they can try to talk down

the person through chat and remind them that the Code of Conduct forbids certain types

of speech and behavior. If that does not work, they should escalate it to a Sentinel. All

other Code of Conduct violations should be immediately escalated to a Sentinel.

- If another Advocate is dealing with a player, let the Advocate dealing with them do what

s/he feels is necessary to help that player. If they feel they might have important

information to add, they should offer that advice ONLY to the Advocate via @tell.

- Disciplinary Action: (Every situation will be assessed for it's merits. These are the typical

guidelines that will be followed):

o Not covering assigned shifts: 2 warnings, then a 30 day probation period, then

removal from the team.

o Code of Conduct and Policy Violations: This is a case by base situation. At the

least it will be a 30 day probation period and at most removal from the team.

- Advocates should remember to rotate among the Advocate Spires in their town

areaevery 15-30 minutes where possible. While travelling from one Spire or another,

they can still help players via @tell.

- Advocates should stay by the Advocate Spires near the starting towns and outposts.

They should avoid giving help in towns, since town crowding needs to be avoided.

2.4 Scheduling

- Advocates will be responsible for scheduling themselves on the dynamic scheduling tool

on the intranet site.

- Advocates will be assigned to one world. One that world schedule they are required to

sign up for (8) 1 hour block. They can be in different towns on different shifts.

- Advocates should schedule themselves one week in advance. The scheduling tool will

propagate the spot they sign up for all future weeks.

- If they need a sub, they should use the sub-request form on the page. Sub requests

must be made 24 hours prior to the shift.

- When you see a "+NEED SUB+" slot on the schedule, you can fill it by simply click on it.

It does not propagate you into that slot for future weeks, just for the shift you are

covering.

- Long-term (a week or greater) Leave of Absences should be sent to the Master

Scheduler to accommodate within the schedule. A Leave of Absence should be made

one week in advance.

- If you are not able to request a sub because it is less then 24 hours, you should remove

yourself from the schedule manually, making sure to go to the next week and add

yourself back into the spot. You should also contact the Master Scheduler and let them

know your will not be able to cover you shift.

- Working extra is welcomed. Advocates should schedule themselves into the scheduling

tool for the extra hours they wish to work so they get credit for them. The schedule must

be completely full before extra floater positions will appear A floater is an extra

scheduled shift without a specific assigned post (usually a person performing extra time).

They are welcome to help with the queue of help request and may float from city to city.

They however, will not be teleported from city to city. All advocate "floaters" must report

to the Dispatch Advocate on-duty at the beginning of their shift, and follow his

instructions regarding their duty-post for that shift

- Advocates should report their daily stats and issues to the reporting tool on the Advocate

scheduling page.

2.5 Training

As Advocates are simply players, there will be not formal Zone Services University

training for Advocates in Training or Advocates. Their training will come on the job.

Advocate applicants that pass prescreening will be assigned to a Advocate in Training

status. They will be given access to the intranet site to read documentation pertaining to

helping players and game information. For every shift they work, they must be

accompanied by an Advocate. The Advocate who is evaluating them should go to the

intranet site and fill out the evaluation report form. Based on hours served and

evaluations from the team, they will be promoted to Advocate status by the World

Overseer assigned to that world.

Advocates in Training should never be on duty without an Advocate to accompany them.

2.6 Tools

All Advocates must monitor the Advocate help channels (av1, av2 and av3) and the town

channel of the town they are working in. Beyond this, Advocates in Training and

Advocates will be given no additional powers to prevent players' perception that they

have a favored status or abusable powers.

World Overseers, as they are in charge of the world, will need powers to perform their

tasks. As such, they will be bestowed a Junior Sentinel client. World Overseers also

bestow and remove Advocate and Advocate in Training status.

<Back>

3.0 Escalation

Player Complaints

If a player has a complaint about the game, other player or online staff, and it is not

urgent in nature, they should be directed to write to complaints@asheronscall.com.

This address should be freely given out by advocate to players that would like to

complain about any facet of the game.

4.0 Asheron's Call Organizational Chart

5.0 Asheron's Call Code of Conduct

We request that before you start exploring Dereth's towns, dungeons, and

wilderness, you take a moment to read the Asheron's Call Code of Conduct below.

What is considered inappropriate behavior?

1. Any behavior prohibited by the MSN Gaming Zone Code of Conduct. Read it now!

2. Foul language as determined by Asheron's Call Personnel

3. Cheating.

4. Harassment of other players or help staff through the Asheron's Call game room chat

areas, or in the game itself.

5. Creating offensive names for characters as determined by AC Personnel. We reserve

the right to delete or rename characters or entire accounts as we see fit, without

warning.

6. Arguing with or neglecting to follow instructions of Asheron's Call Staff Members, who

include Sysops, Chancellors, Advocates, Sentinels, Admins, and Zone Operations

personnel. The IDs of Sysops and Zone Operations Personnel contain special

characters, such as + [the PLUS symbol]; Advocates are indicated on the in-game

compass by pink dots and their characters hold brightly colored shields with particle

effects. Sentinels have a special avatar and appear as a pink dot on the radar. For full

information on how to identify Zone Personnel, see Zone Terms within Zone Home Help.

7. Misuse of Help and Abuse channels in the game.

8. Hacking or deliberately using game bugs or loopholes to disrupt the game.

9. Hate Speech including, but not limited to ethnic slurs and religious epithets.

Note: The Asheron's Call Staff have final say over what constitutes a violation of this

Code. The Zone reserves the right to change its policies at any time.

Remedies to inappropriate behavior:

1. A player who violates the Code of Conduct will be warned by an Asheron's Call Staff

Member, such as a Sentinel, Admin, or member of Zone Operations.

2. If a player continues inappropriate behavior, he or she will be contacted by a Sentinel,

and may be locked out of Asheron's Call for a specified period of time. Actions outside of

normal role-playing will be treated as real-life harassment.

3. If a particular player consistently engages in inappropriate behavior, the case will be

referred to Zone Operations Personnel, who may permanently ban the player from

Asheron's Call. Banned users will be sent e-mail explaining why they were banned.

4. Some particularly serious violations can result in a lockout or permanent ban, without

warning

09/17/99 10:34 AM

AC Community 1.10

Advocates Handbook - Revision history