Communication Breakdown

nextnametaken

The following scene takes place after a Mega-Destroid invasion with Zee, some guy who said "LFT" in zone chat and then was murdered in front of me as he arrived to the event, and D the next person I saw after I was also murdered as soon as I teamed Zee. H is some guy that I think has a crush on my toon.

[23:24] Me: you wanna run fatal error?
[23:24] H says hello to Icykill.
[23:24] Me waves at H
[23:25] how long is fatal error?
[23:25] Me: fatal is about 5 minutes maybe
[23:25] I'll do it then

[23:25] Zee: sorry this is bull I need a cigarette. and nope Qustionite 0, Qeustionite Ore 14022 likes it's always been.
[23:26] Zee: If I'm back I'll join k brb

FATAL ERROR: Intranet Deployment shared and accepted.
[23:27] Me: come get some z
[23:27] Me: er Q
[23:27] Me: we need to be inside same time before talking to the monkey
[23:27] H: Am I sidekicking down to you guys?
[23:28] Me: sure
[23:28] Me: will go faster that way
[23:28] Me: level 21 mobs
[23:29] H: Wehre do I go?
[23:29] Me: Champions HQ
[23:29] [Local] Me: *facepalm
[23:29] Me: Zee you coming?

And this is where D triggers Dctor Silverback without Zee in the HQ.

[23:31] H: Doesn't sound like it.
[23:31] H: Unless he's playing a mute.
[23:31] Me: k lets roll
[23:33] Me: D
[23:34] Me: you trigger the terminals
[23:34] Me: since you haven't before
[23:34] Me: go ahead
[23:34] Me: oops
[23:34] Me: next one
[23:34] H: Sorry bout that
[23:34] Me: she's funnier anyway
[23:34] np

[23:34] [Tell] Zee: back i had a cigarette
[23:35] [Tell] To Zee: k we are in this thing, about 2 minutes from done
[23:35] [Tell] To Zee: and it locks people out

[23:36] Me: talky Dark
[23:36] Me: when you aren't busy
[23:36] Me: D back here

[23:36] [Tell] Zee: Ok I have no clue where you are thanks
[23:37] [Tell] To Zee: internet ..deployment? fatal error? you've done it?
[23:37] [Tell] Zee: No I been playing this game only 3 and a half weeks now. So everything is brand new to me
[23:37] [Tell] To Zee: wow ok stay tuned!

[23:39] Me: your door D
[23:40] [Tell] To Zee: you got other characters to level?


[23:40] [Tell] Zee: yes 3 other's I joined 2 days b4 double xp weekend
[23:40] [Tell] Zee: got all alert's and made it to 40 with this name

[23:41] [Tell] To Zee: fatal error part 1 is a once a day mission
[23:41] [Tell] To Zee: pays 500Q
[23:41] [Tell] To Zee: part 2 is repeatable but level 40 boss
[23:41] [Tell] To Zee: ill give you a shout in a minute for that

[23:41] [Tell] Zee: i never had a Q just Q Ore

[23:42] [Tell] To Zee: I key > Currencies > convert it to Q

[23:43] [Tell] Zee: :O


Three an half weeks in and players don't know about the latest greatest content.
How about all that other content that's old and stale that they don't know about?

Zee, D and H all learned about their Socrates button functions tonight.
Zee and H were both level 40, D was 21.

I had to send a guy to his hideout for the first time last night, he's been subscribed and on my buddy list for at least a month and I assumed he knew about the hideout, but when I asked he said he hadn't made enough Q to get enough Zen to buy one.
Its' the same pathetic song and dance with half the subscribers I meet.

Cryptic needs to improve their marketing/communication of game features, especially to the paying subs.

chaelk

you missed the best bit

he has Q ore but no Q, which means that he has missed the REFINE ORE button under the Q total

you have my sympathies, Ive had to show a level 40 how to get missions and collect mail

fudgemonsta

You can't fix stupid.

But oh how I wish we could...

flamingbunnyman

chaelk wrote: »

you missed the best bit

he has Q ore but no Q, which means that he has missed the REFINE ORE button under the Q total

It's possible that he saw the Ore popup, or in the rewards channel, without ever looking at his currencies tab.

fudgemonsta wrote: »

You can't fix stupid.

But oh how I wish we could...

Sure you can. But you have to get them fixed before they breed, or it doesn't really accomplish much.

chaelk

They, was going to write he but it may be a female.

They may have done what a lot of people do, just flicked through the opening message spams about everything and not read it. Thats about the only notice you get that you have to refine it. Mind you, not hitting the button to see what it does, there is no excuse for.

---

we want Darwin award candidates: those who do the most for the gene pool, by taking themselves out of it, usually in a spectacularly stupid manner(before reproducing)

some people have actually acquired a Darwin award while atill alive but most are posthumous

Unknown

This content has been removed.

spinnytop

Kyuu: I think champions online is a great game! So much fun to play!
Nyaa: Yeah, I think so too, though sometimes I get bored with it.
Fert: Ya that happens, that's when I just don't play it for a while and go do other things, which is okay because there's no reason that I have to play it everyday!
Kyuu: Yeah, that's the best part about this game, even if you take a break and come back, you don't end up falling behind all your friends like in some other MMOs!
Nyaa: Indeed, I'm glad all three of us have our heads on straight and know how to properly enjoy playing video games!
Fert: Yeah! Hey I know, let's all think about how much we like Champions Online and take a picture of ourselves! I mean hey, we're all dressed up!
Kyuu: Yeah!
Nyaa: Yeah!



Dert: NO! This game sucks, but I'm going to play it anyway and constantly complain to anyone and everyone in any communication channel that I have access to!

Kyuu, Nyaa, & Fert: Oh Dert!

nextnametaken

You so bored with the game you have to troll?

jonsills

nextnametaken wrote: »

You so bored with the game you have to troll?

Well, one good turn deserves another, I guess...

cutter187

Hmm, I wonder if it ever crossed your mind that one or more of the people you are basically backbiting about would ever see this.

Couple of things. First, I've done that particular quest once in the last week and a half because I haven't played Champs in about 4 months, so I missed a few things and I had gone to the Until building insitead of Champs HQ. Helion is older than that. Secondly, there is content I'm not that gung ho about getting right to. And thirdly, no matter how much of this is true or not, why on earth would you go to such lengths to put down others because they didn't know something about this game that you did? You can level from 6-40 without EVER stepping one foot outside of Ren Cen and after leveling numerous characters, I don't begrudge anyone for not wanting to go thru what little content we have to level.

Full disclosure, I did Nemcon for the first time a few days ago. One of the guys I did it with, Slice N Dice, who is a somewhat well known character expressed surprise that I'd never done it before seeing as he knows I've been around. But that's all he did. He didn't call my personal character into question and he was very cool about letting me know how Nemcon works while we did it. This is what a good player does, they behave as if they are actually playing with another human being who just want's to have fun like they do. I appreciated Slice's attitude and had no problem whatsoever with him expressing surprise that I'd never done this particular content. I doubt it ever occurred to him to later gossip about it behind my back because frankly, that's pretty trivial in the grand scheme of playing.

Lastly, I don't have a crush on your toon. I was doing what I try to do with a lot of people in this game - be friendly.

zahinder

I've been here for years and never done Nem Con. Ever.

I kept losing interest in the game when I'd get a character high enough, and the game is so group-averse that I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm to get in on a group.

jonsills

I've never done NemCon either. I'm not even sure what levels it's appropriate for - I've got toons ranging from 12 to 39 at the moment, but none have ever been given the mission by anyone.

fudgemonsta

jonsills wrote: »

I've never done NemCon either. I'm not even sure what levels it's appropriate for - I've got toons ranging from 12 to 39 at the moment, but none have ever been given the mission by anyone.

That would be why, it's a level 40 lair.

It's a fun little mission. I don't do it often myself...Never can get a team for it.

jonsills

fudgemonsta wrote: »

That would be why, it's a level 40 lair.

Ah, yes, that would explain it...

nextnametaken

cutter187 wrote: »

Hmm, I wonder if it ever crossed your mind that one or more of the people you are basically backbiting about would ever see this.

Nobody's real identity is used here. It's not about them.
The dialog above is just sample of my daily experience, that's all too similar day in and day out over three years.

Today, I had to teach S, whose been "mostly soloing" for two months how to use the mission journal, share missions and set priority. Apparently people take one mission at a time, run back and forth to NPCs.

Yes people are slow, but slow people spend money to.

zahinder wrote: »

the game is so group-averse that I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm to get in on a group.

You are group adverse. You are not bold enough and patient enough to manage a team.
It's your problem. Unless you can be a docile and patient follower, you have to be a leader.
If you cant' do either you have to go into the wilderness alone and starve between points of interest that you have nobody to tell about.

chaelk

Jonsills, once you hit 40. You can either wait for a letter from unity(and one from captain Martin)

or just go to the guy outside the Until buildin g near CHampions HQ and get the mission from him.
Inside you just speak to Dr White, if you go through her area and left, you can get another simple mission from Mentiac(?) to do in the building. To the right is the teleporter to Nemcon AND to every other zone.

gfnotaku1

nextnametaken wrote: »

You are group adverse. You are not bold enough and patient enough to manage a team.
It's your problem. Unless you can be a docile and patient follower, you have to be a leader.
If you cant' do either you have to go into the wilderness alone and starve between points of interest that you have nobody to tell about.

crypticbuxom

Cryptic needs more of those popup windows unlocked at regular level intervals that explains more about all the functions of the game that are accessed through the minimap button. Those are helpful, but only if they appear in the right order of course.

spinnytop

nextnametaken wrote: »

You are group adverse. You are not bold enough and patient enough to manage a team.
It's your problem. Unless you can be a docile and patient follower, you have to be a leader.
If you cant' do either you have to go into the wilderness alone and starve between points of interest that you have nobody to tell about.

No actually this game does have a general policy of not forcing people to go through the whole "LF2M need tank and healer" nonsense. So he's not wrong saying the game is "group adverse"... he's just not looking at it from the right angle, since ultimately it's a good thing that more MMOs need to embrace. The way I look at it, the game is "solo friendly".

All that stuff about the wilderness and starving? Yeah... you've lost it guy. Be more melodramatic 'bout tights why dontcha?

nextnametaken

spinnytop wrote: »

All that stuff about the wilderness and starving? Yeah... you've lost it guy. Be more melodramatic 'bout tights why dontcha?

You should learn to shut your mouth when you don't know what your are talking about. I was talking specifically about Zahinder, and if you don't get it that's just really typical of you.

This game is very group friendly, very easy to team up, very easy to manage missions.
You can stand in one place all day and get teams by the minute through alerts.
Some are good some are bad, some people listen, some people don't.

You don't have to be stuck with a group of people you don't know and you may not like,
you can walk away and get another team, I do it a few times a day. That's what makes the game great.

I had at least eight teams yesterday and made four new friends on top of the three the day before.
If you can't team up and have a good time in this game its because you suck or the population has drained to the bottom of the barrel or both.

*Ha just logged in the tutorial for a head count, got a friend invite.

Its a bit off topic but lets discuss the total failure of 'forced team content'.
Queues for Gravitar take thirty minutes to find people to play it, if they ever get to play it.
People beg for help for Fatal Error until they give up.
People wonder why they have to wait a half hour for Monster Island crisis to happen.
People cry because PVP que's don't pop.
The last Nighthawk event was a huge fail.
Nemcon runs are thirty minutes of begging again.
Alerts during the overnight have very long que waits that often end in the alert vanishing before it gets to be played.

Forced team content is an option but not a solution.
Obviously Cryptic has wasted a ton of development time on options that people refuse to play.

zahinder

It's a shame so few people can manage civility in a superheroes forum.

jennymachx

Standard missions that make up for the majority of the game's content are what I would consider group-adverse, because there is simply no practical reason to get into a team for them. The challenge does not scale to the team size, nor do the missions yield meaningful rewards for being completed with a team. This has been a problem since the beginning.

gfnotaku1

nextnametaken wrote: »

You should learn to shut your mouth when you don't know what your are talking about. I was talking specifically about Zahinder, and if you don't get it that's just really typical of you.

This game is very group friendly, very easy to team up, very easy to manage missions.
You can stand in one place all day and get teams by the minute through alerts.
Some are good some are bad, some people listen, some people don't.

You don't have to be stuck with a group of people you don't know and you may not like,
you can walk away and get another team, I do it a few times a day. That's what makes the game great.

I had at least eight teams yesterday and made four new friends on top of the three the day before.
If you can't team up and have a good time in this game its because you suck or the population has drained to the bottom of the barrel or both.

*Ha just logged in the tutorial for a head count, got a friend invite.

Its a bit off topic but lets discuss the total failure of 'forced team content'.
Queues for Gravitar take thirty minutes to find people to play it, if they ever get to play it.
People beg for help for Fatal Error until they give up.
People wonder why they have to wait a half hour for Monster Island crisis to happen.
People cry because PVP que's don't pop.
The last Nighthawk event was a huge fail.
Nemcon runs are thirty minutes of begging again.
Alerts during the overnight have very long que waits that often end in the alert vanishing before it gets to be played.

Forced team content is an option but not a solution.
Obviously Cryptic has wasted a ton of development time on options that people refuse to play.

1. Gravitar USED to pop all the time (to the point that many a RP was interrupted by everyone going to it! ) when it first came out since people were doing nothing but farming Q from it and costume pieces to sell. Guess what? There eventually became an influx of pieces in the market so the worth went down. Also, the bug that granted boatloads of Q from it was fixed.. sooo.. no reason if you're really only going to get the diminishing reward of Q which is easily gotten other places for less effort.

2. ..beg for FATAL ERR0R... what? No really.. What? I've seen the same 4 beg in Zone and that's it. DAT'S IT! The rest of us either A: have everything we need from it or B: know we can solo it like a BAWS... and most everything else.

3. Again. This used to pop all the time until people discovered other ways of getting Q.

4. No one cries for PvP besides, again, the same few people. Most of us have set times we'll go into the queues at once for some PvP Madness. I will admit that I've asked a few people to sign for AT Hero Games.. but dat's about it.

5. ....Not even going to grace this with an explanation.

6. In Zone.. yes. But about 90% of people have premade teams of friends for Nemcon.

7. Overnight Alerts rarely run because the game's population is mainly asleep or just waking up and going to/at work.. We're all (mostly) either American or European.

As for the game being group friendly. No. No it is not. There's few things that require a group like lairs and alerts. That's it. Anyone who's played for even a week would have noticed this.

jonsills

Hell, this so-called "group averse" attitude is one of this game's selling points for me. I don't have to wait until I can gather a group of four or five other heroes before I can even continue playing the game - only in certain high-level lairs. (I tried soloing Rhinoplasty once. Once.)

OTOH, one thing that drove me away from That Other Popular MMO was that after I reached a certain level, it was impossible to proceed without a team. The storyline literally bars progress if you're not grouping, which isn't always possible given my particular lifestyle. (You try telling an autistic 12-year-old that she'll have to wait about ten minutes for her juice because your team is in the middle of a long dungeon!)

nextnametaken

1. You assume to know everyone's motivation. You assume that everyone has played this content.

2. ..you assume again that everyone's played this content and even know's there are drops in the content. I took four people in yesterday that didn't know any of it.

3. Again. you assume people know where to get Q or what its even for.

4.You are wrong. Dead wrong. New players come to the game and beg for people to join the PVP Que. Then they are gone.


6.Again you assume you know what 90% of people do. I

7. Yes the overnight sucks, so any and all forced team content for 12 hours going to suck.

You sure make a lot of assumptions about tens of thousands of people you obviously dont' know and have never spoken to. There are thousands of new players every week, they should be playing all this content for the first time and want to get their hands on on the loot. But they aren't.

gfnotaku1 wrote: »

As for the game being group friendly. No. No it is not. There's few things that require a group like lairs and alerts. That's it. Anyone who's played for even a week would have noticed this.

How do you people translate group friendly into "things that require a group".
If its easy to team up and play in a group, the game is group friendly.
If the game requires groups to run content, then the game is group dependent.
These are not the same thing.

jonsills

nextnametaken wrote: »

There are thousands of new players every week, they should be playing all this content for the first time and want to get their hands on on the loot. But they aren't.

All I can say is,

nextnametaken wrote:

You sure make a lot of assumptions about tens of thousands of people you obviously dont' know and have never spoken to.

spinnytop

Checkmate :O

zahinder

I don't think there's anything wrong with a group-averse game, though it does mean that stuff that would be fun to do as a group tend to not happen.

That said, I think it's possible to make content that feels worth doing in groups without mandating/forcing them. I also think you can set up more 'fluid' grouping content, like GW2's dynamic events, where people sort of group automagically and do stuff if they feel like it.

I personally _loathe_ bog-standard 'LFG' style content, myself (which is why, though I like a lot of GW2, I have literally never run any dungeon, despite dungeons being a big part of the game. Thankfully, big part != required)

nextnametaken

jonsills wrote: »

All I can say is,

That you don't know what you are talking about so sit in the corner
repeating what someone else said like a village idiot.

Every single person that plays this game can check every single instance being used.
But you are ignorant of the facts and can't pull up any data to prove thousands of players are grinding away at the content in discussion.
Pick an instance, I can show you how many players are there.
Pick a level, I can tell you how many players are that level.

I can show you super groups full of players that have left the game and never leveled up enough to play that content. How much do you want me to embarass Cryptic posting more of that stuff?

At the very beginning of this thread I showed very basic copy pasted evidence of three people who never played the content. You never played Nemcon, none of the people I teamed in the last three days played Nemcon, Sky Command, Fatal Error, or Gravitar.
Do you? You already admitted you haven't.

biffsmackwell

That's enough fighting and name-calling.