The Advocates

About
The Advocates is a one-way (player-to-Funcom) feedback program which exists to:

  • Inform the Age of Conan community team on the current player feedback and bugs within their represented class.
  • Represent and help encourage feedback and bugs affecting the different classes within the Age of Conan community.



Composition
The Advocate program will consist of 24 class representatives and the Age of Conan community team.

The 24 class representatives are appointed by Funcom based on applications, requirements for the position and evaluation by Funcom.

A potential Advocate must:

  • Have a character of at least level 60 in the specific class.
  • Be active on the community forums.
  • Communicate in a constructive way to both other community users and Funcom.
  • Be in fair standing with Funcom both in-game and on the community.


Activity
The Advocates maintain two separate lists for their class.

  1. Main concerns and wishes of the class or system.
  2. Bugs affecting the class or system.


How these lists are made, structured and how often they are updated is entirely up to the Advocates, but one should remember that these lists should be designed in a way that includes detail and readability. Other initiatives than making these lists to compile or convey information to Funcom or the community are still encouraged and also entirely up to the Advocate.

The Funcom quality assurance representatives will handle these two lists and any additional lists or threads in different ways:

  1. The top ten list on the main concerns and wishes will be included in a document about the class/system concerns and wishes that will be presented Age of Conan development team.
  2. All entries on the bug list will be confirmed reported in the internal Funcom system for bug reports and assigned to the appropriate developer(s).



Visibility
The Advocates need to be easily recognizable to the community users they represent. To ensure this, each Advocate will have “<class/system> Advocate” as their bulletin board title and a list of the Advocates will be maintained (rooted) in the announcement forum.

Recruitment
The process for appointing new Advocates takes approximately two weeks and Funcom makes the choice of the Advocate. The process follows:

  1. The open position is announced on the appropriate forum and people are given 7 days to apply for the position.
  2. Funcom evaluates the candidates and decides on the most suitable candidate and contacts the candidate. In the unlikely case that an agreement can't be made, the next on the list will be contacted.
  3. The new Advocate is appointed and announced to the Age of Conan community.



The current Advocates