[Clever Ninja]

Forwarding =/= talking with the Devs. You mentioned forwarding in an earlier post and went right back to saying talk with the devs, in the corporate world those two mean different things. If you don't want thing reitterated, Learn2Type. And drop the 'read first part only' whining, it got old awhile ago.

[Eohmer]

Unless we know someone personally that works at SE, we won't know how exactly the GM's and the dev team work there. They might talk directly, they might not.

[711rocks]

How much work do GMs have to do and what do they get paid?

[Eohmer]

Originally Posted by 711rocks

How much work do GMs have to do and what do they get paid?

I saw a picture of GM's "at work" and one of them looked like he was asleep in his chair. :D

[711rocks]

Originally Posted by Eohmer

I saw a picture of GM's "at work" and one of them looked like he was asleep in his chair. :D

Ya that's what I figured.

[eticket109]

Its probably like most other customer service jobs. Most likely its a 35-40 hour/week position that pays $9-10 an hour to start.

[Macht]

For the point of GMs communicating with Devs, I just have to say this. Each corporation works differently, some corporations have a request log. When an error is found it's logged on the requests, the developers review the log, and then create a solution.

In the case of EQ GMs not talking to the Devs, that is completly false. I use to be a Guide in EQ (a quazi-GMish still player type position), the guides are assigned to a GM and they assist in carrying out whatever issues come up. Anything they do they have to report to the GMs.

Now when working with the GMs and requests I've sent in, I've had contact with many of the developers. In particular a dev. who's character name is prathen (Might be misspelling it, always get it wrong). So the developers do communicate with the GMs in EQ, however if that is the case with FFXI is not really known. So it is possible. Seeing how SE has been setting things up, I think it's more likely that the developers have liasons to handle communications to them.

[Feba]

Just something i'd like to tack onto Macht's post: remember that NA GMs are handled by SoE (Or at least, they used to be), so it wouldn't be surprising if they used EQ's GM structure.

[Neomage]

I speak fluent English, a decent amount of Japaneese, a small amount of Germans and a few French words. I wonder if all that added together makes two fluent languages...

[Feba]

Japaneese

a small amount of Germans

fluent English

You sure about that?

[Macht]

Originally Posted by Feba

You sure about that?

Well he did say speak, not type.

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by Macht

I use to be a Guide in EQ (a quazi-GMish still player type position), the guides are assigned to a GM and they assist in carrying out whatever issues come up. Anything they do they have to report to the GMs.

Did you get to go to Sunset Home? I always wanted to see that area.

[AKosygin]

Well, since I DID go to the SquareEnix office and got a tour.... let me de-mystify some things for you in regards to this.

There are only TWO GM Teams for FFXI: Japanese and Other.
The Japanese GM Team is in Japan
The remainder of the GM Team members are all in Los Angeles. The German and French GMs are in Los Angeles (if you haven't figured that out from the job posting). They have a constant 24/7 video/audio feed into both the Tokyo and LA GM rooms and have a Network Operations Center Manager there 24/7 as a communication liason connecting the two GM Teams. So for the European players, your support members are in the U.S.

The head Community Manager of Japan talks to the Dev Team.

Based upon what was all said and how things seems to work......
Any INTERNAL requests for the Dev Team, like tools, work features, etc. probably runs by the GM Team head in the US, to the GM Team head in Japan, who then talks to the Community Manager head in Japan. Any EXTERNAL (us players) dev team communications goes through the Community Managers in the US, then through the Operations Manager/Game Producer in the US, then to the Japanese Community Manager.

But this is my guess. It is possible that the US GM Head has to talk to the Operations Manager/Game Producer.

[DieselBoy09]

I didn't know their populations were high enough to warrent GM's. I have yet to encounter any players fluent in French and all the German speakers I've met have communicated in English predominantly.