Game Masters?

Posted by MueR as Lord of the Rings Online

Game Masters they’re called. The support staff for Lord of the Rings Online. They are your only contact for in-game problems. But how helpful are they? Well, not at all.

Game Masters (GM) are bound to a policy. This is good, because we don’t want Game Masters giving away epic items to their friends and family. However, the current policy is absolutely useless. Game Masters are limited to resetting NPCs, closing your ticket and apologizing for not being to help you with problems. So why is this bad?

A perfect example I experienced recently, was a bug in the Carn Dum instance. Barashal, a Nemesis NPC who drops the Ornate Gate Key, whacked me into the green river, far below the platform. Due to a bug in the area, he followed me into it, leaving me dead, him out of reach. I created a ticket, asking for GM support. Within 7 minutes, my ticket was closed, stating a GM would be with me shortly.

Thirty minutes later, no GM had contacted me yet. I therefor made another ticket, asking for some reply, not just closing of a ticket. Two of our fellowship members had left us, as they have a life and job, to go to bed. We were down to four members, which ment defeating him was now impossible. Still no GM had contacted me.

Fourty-five (45) minutes after my first ticket, GM Eissa finally contacted me. At this point, I was highly agitated. Her suggestion to reset the boss was no good, as I tried to explain. “No reset? In that case there is nothing I can do”. Nothing? Not acceptable, so I demanded to speak to a supervisor. After four attempts at getting a supervisor, Eissa finally understood me, SL Khandar would be with me soon. Ten minutes later, he was.

The result? Nothing. Khandar told me the exact same thing, “No, we can’t help you with anything other then resetting the NPC.”. He just plain shut me out after that, leaving the game. Another ticket. This is getting rediculous.

About 5 minutes after Khandar shut me out, SL Nabuna replied to my ticket. Good, this time no moronic GM interfering. Nabuna was reasonable, my hopes of getting the gate key returned…

To be crushed again. No GM, SL or anyone else is allowed to do anything other then resetting the NPC. I asked Nabuna to join us in the instance, so he could see what was going on. He was already here and made himself visible to us. Nabuna talked to us for nearly an hour, which turned my feel on GMs not being helpful. They are out there, it’s just not that many.

However, the final result is me still not having the key. I have sent an email to the complaints desk, explaining the situation. A poll has also been started on the Codemasters forum to change the GM policy. Sign it here.
Edit: In a true “fuck users” style, Alchemic Dream staff have locked my topic on the CodeMasters forum, telling me to redirect my complaints to lotro_gmreport@alchemicdream.com.