GM Lloyd - NCSoft or Paragon Employee?

It may seem weird to single this guy out, but unlike the Paragon devs we'll be able to stalk via their Twitter feeds and blogs and see what they're up to later, I know it's always going to bother me not knowing how it all turned out for GM Lloyd.

GM Lloyd was the GM who answered my very first page for help. Maybe it was different back then, maybe different policies; but after just a few moments of waiting, I still remember watching that seemingly renegade PPD drone careen wildly over a hill in the distance, zooming straight toward me, and then running into me, and then pushing me all over the place for a few moments before finally stopping to ask how it could be of service. I couldn't stop laughing. It wasn't a dev member who first introduced me to the great culture surrounding this game--it was GM Lloyd.

That guy probably answered 2/3 of my support requests over the years. He didn't always have the time to be personable, but when push came to shove and I said enough with the form replies, he'd always step in and have a good old-fashioned correspondence with me if that's what it took to investigate my problem. I was always polite enough to apologize when I turned out to be in the wrong (which was several times ), and I always thanked him for his time no matter what.

GM Lloyd, if you ever read this, you were the best damn GM I ever dealt with in 15 years of MMO gaming. Any publisher or studio would be lucky to have you on their payroll. Good luck out there and may your future be bright.

Hi,

/signed

This made me go back and look at all the e-mail responses I had following petitions submitted in game.

I also seem to have dealt with GM_Lloyd on the majority of them.

I never had a bad or disappointing experience during those times and in fact always found him to be friendly and helpful and knowledgable.

Usually had a very quick resolution to my problem, many times with a fair bit of gentle guidance by the Man!

Getting Caleb to spawn and then found was a recurring problem and I remember once he even waited till our then disbanded team got back together in Nerva before he spawned it for us. The stupid ghost (as usual!) immediately took off at a thousand miles an hour and hid from us so he despawned and then respawned it in a much better position. We all got the badge and had a lot of chat about the cracking GM support we get in our game.

As a comparison to that, just last week I was playing a mission in The Secret World and had a "Follow the Bad Guy" mish. It was bugged and the indicator arrow was not showing direction. (This was a known bug and has since been fixed).

I petitioned and the GM response was "Well you just need to wander about the Zone and hope to get the Tier complete message if you get to the required location!. I am not allowed to give you a hint, you need to go Google it if you want.

Was not a happy bunny and as a new player was very tempted to pull my sub there and then. Still not sure if I am staying with it yet.

Any way, thanks Lloyd you were great

Considering all the in game responses I ever got seemed to be from a menu of canned responses from a support script, I'm wondering of GM_<name> is simply from a pool of GM names that get randomly assigned to whoever is doing CoH support that day.

All the GMs work for NCSoft.

I've had several interactions with GMs in game and by e-mail over the last few years and GM_Lloyd responded to several of them.

In fact, he responded to last petition I submitted, about a week ago, when I couldn't find the last NPC on a kill all. As always, he was helpful, polite, and funny. We even commiserated a bit on the announced sunset of the game. With some of the other GMs, I got the impression that they didn't know or love COH as much as I did. But GM_Lloyd always seemed very knowledgeable and a fan of the game.

Thanks for having our backs for so many years, GM_Lloyd!

I love Lloyd! He is a senior GM btw so you only get him if you have been escalated. He helped me with one of my stalkers it was nice to know that I could reach out to Ocho and Lloyd when I was having this trouble. It had gotten bad enough for me to leave the game for a few months, so Lloyd will always be my favorite GM.

GM Lloyd is fantastic. He's part of The NCsoft Customer Service team, but we always felt like he was also a part of the Paragon dev team. Part of what makes him so great at his job is the fact that he is a long-time player as well.

Fortunately, GM Lloyd will still be with you guys until the lights go off and then some.

If he follows me home I'm not feeding him.

I'll weigh in on the kudos as well. I can't remember any specific issue GM Lloyd helped me with, but his is the only GM name I actually recall. Clearly, he impressed on me even without an epic or humorous support event to assist with.

I suppose I should take the chance to mention that, other than the occasional long wait for support response (something that used to happen a lot probably 2-4 years into this game's tenure), I've always gotten decent response from any GM who actually appeared in-game to assist me. They've always been polite, almost always known how to help me, and quickly escalated if they didn't.

Other players I know have had complaints about various support they did or didn't get from GMs, but I've always been satisfied at worst.

But GM_Lloyd is the only one I remembered by name.

What a shame you never got to deal with GM_pulpyorange then. Lloyd helped me on many occasions too.

Yep they did, I always seem to be the one that gets quips from my GM calls.

I, too, have come into contact with the awesomeness that is GM_Lloyd.

He rocks!

Just wanted to chime in for support of GM_Lloyd - great experiences. Can remember what specifically we joked about, but in all my gaming experience with all GM's... he was the most...*sniff*...human...

I had help from GM_Lloyd for some particularly vexing issues and he was very patient and helpful. Nothing but praise for that GM.

I had a mission bug out once so I petitioned it, but by the time I had to go to work I still hadn't gotten a response, so I set up an /afk message explaining that I had to go but please fix my issue anyway. I didn't really expect this would work but sure enough GM Lloyd eventually showed up nd fixed it for me. Always thought that was pretty cool.

Praise the Loyd!!


As UberGuy said, that is the only name I recall from thew few CS interactions I've had (I think just the ol' getting my and my wife's vet rewards up to date thing... really, never had much need for customer service, but they were always helpful and pretty quick about it the few times I did... and, again, Loyd is the name that sticks out).

I had a few issues that GM Lloyd was able to solve and yeah, nothing but praise for that guy. He did a few columns/articles for the player base a few years back, too, which were quite insightful.

If he has a blog or a twitter that players can follow I'd love to know it.

Once, when I first found the glory that was Lord Omi - my pride and joy, my light in the darkness, my darkness in the light - I got stuck in the ceiling.

Seriously. It happens all the time, right? This geometry has more holes than solid floors. Luckily, 'Shades never have to deal with that. We can teleport, right? No restricting geometry for us!

It was in Pocket D.

No teleports.

I sent a petition. I waited for what feels like half an hour. The entire time I was talking in [Help] about how, of all the places to get stuck, the once place I had to get stuck in was the no-TP area.

GM_Lloyd agreed with me, warped me out, and we shared a lol.

Good times.

If you're reading this, buddy, good for you. You're awesome. Thanks for helping us out.

I can't remember if it was GM_Lloyd specifically, but I remember having some problem or another in-game, and a GM popped in to help. After solving the problem, I thanked him (or her), and he (or she) asked if there was anything else I needed. I said no, and then the GM replied, "By the way, we love your book."

I paused. "What?"

"COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE", the GM replied.

"You READ that?!"

"I think all the GMs have. Keep writing." And then he logged off.

And I just sat there at my desk laughing.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite