Advocates Handbook
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