Picture this:

Thirty people burst through the door at once; five of them start to ask questions, the other fifteen surround you, and the final ten start screaming bloody murder. On another monitor, ten more people are asking questions, more and more bodies are piling into the room – firing off queries, yelling complaints, and even asking what your favorite type of pie is – no, seriously. You are tasked with a goal that sounded deceptively simple at first: Respond to them. All sixty or so of them. At the same time.

If you couldn’t tell already, I’m having a blast with our new Live GM Support for Phantasy Star Universe! Even as sarcastic as that may come across, it really isn’t that bad if you have a lot of patience and can at least attempt to multi-task. Try hosting these sessions without said character traits, however, and repeated exposure will probably land you in a pretty room with white padded walls and bars on the windows before you make it through the first week. Anyone who has worked customer service before is currently nodding and smiling.

Over the last few weeks Chillaura and I have both been pioneering live, in-game GM Support for Phantasy Star Universe – something that is both new to the title and likewise a good step towards continuing to improve our quality of support online. It has been interesting, entertaining, and (at times) mind numbing.

The following is a mostly accurate excerpt from an actual support session:

GM: “There aren’t any new racial abilities announced at this time.”

Player: “Oh, but my friend told me there were. So what about the Black Nanoblast?”
GM: “That would be a racial ability. There aren’t any new ones announced currently.”

Player: “What about the Human Adrenaline rush?”

GM: “Racial. Ability.”

Player: (After a few seconds) “… Newman Summoning?”

GM: “Racial… No!”

Player 2: “What’s your favorite kind of pie?”

GM: “Apple.”

And that’s pretty much how it works at least three times a day. This is equally as impressive as the day when a three foot tall beast child walked up to me with puppy dog eyes and ventured “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

On the major plus side, we have been able to help a massive number of players in a much faster method than ever before. Live Support came into play just as the Playsega billing server went amok, so it was a good opportunity for us to talk to players about it and keep them in the loop. A few days of PC/PS2 support were spent almost entirely relaying information about progress on that issue alone, but having a point of contact – especially a live person – can make a world of difference when it comes to customer support.

We also recently announced a permanent Live Support Schedule that will run weekly even after Max Attack G is over. It includes a new UK friendly session, and can be found over at the PSU Forums.

Stay tuned for the second addition to the “So you want to work at SEGA?” series later this week.

Until then, we’ll catch you PSU players online!