by Dalmarus on Dec 31, 2007
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December
31st, 2007 - By Dalmarus
style="color: rgb(51, 153, 153); font-weight: bold;">"With
great power, comes great responsibilty" -
style="font-style: italic;">Uncle Ben, Spiderman
style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 153, 153);">"
style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 153, 153);">With
free play time, comes large amounts of asshats
style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 153, 153);">"
- Dalmarus
As I'm sure most people have noticed in the last couple of weeks, with
the reactivation of previously cancelled accounts (active until January
17th), there has been a nice influx of players coming back into the
game. Before going off on my "cranky old man" tangent, let me first
state that I think this is actually a great thing.
An unfortunate side effect though, is that I've spent an inordinate
amount of time in the game this week answering questions in tells to
players all over Telon. In and of itself, I have no problem with this
and I actually enjoy helping other players enjoy the game. If I didn't,
I probably wouldn't be here talking to you, now would I? The problem
I've had though is that virtually every tell I send out has started the
same way since a few days after the account reactivations - "Please
ignore them, they're just a bunch of," asshats, jerks, dillweeds, etc.
It grates on my nerves to no end that there are a number of
people that have come back (or are logging into the game for
the first time) and
are asking honest questions for a bit of assistance, just to be
answered by some jackass that thinks they're humorous or is just plain
rude. I know some people get annoyed with answering questions, but for
those folks, I have two things to say. Get the hell over it, and if you
don't want to answer, then don't. The last thing we need is for people
being a complete asshat when someone asks a question in the game.
This game is not completely intuitive. There are a number of systems
that are confusing to a lot of people. If those individuals have never
played another online game, or have only played other games with less
confusing (or better explained) game mechanics, then it becomes even
more confounding.
Take a second to ask yourselves this question and answer it honestly -
How many people reading this were never confused about various things
in the game such as,
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=766">Using
Weaknesses,
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=832">Brotherhoods,
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=722">The
Riftway System,
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=759">Item
Deconstruction,
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=728">Flying
Mounts?
Those are just naming a scant few of the multiple game mechanics that
can confuse a new player. If no one had been confused by them (myself
included), then I never would have posted those guides to help people
out. There would have been no need.
Rather than ridiculing new players asking questions, we should be
helping them.
Players continue to talk about how the game needs more content, more
fixes, more everything. The best way for us to get that? By having as
many subscribing players we can get. You may think you're being funny
by giving rude answers, but it's the same concept as someone hopping
into UO back in the day and getting ganked repeatedly before you have
time to figure anything out in the game. I agree that's a bit of an
extreme example, but you get my point. We should have enough respect
for each other to try and help one another out when confronted with a
game mechanic that is confusing to us. We were all newbs at one point,
and no one enjoys being harassed.
I'm hopeful that the majority of asshats that have logged back in with
the intention of simply complaining and trolling in the chat channels
will not have had the chance to do too much damage before they're
accounts are deactivated again at the end of this free play time. If we
can even keep 20% of the people that came back to give it another shot,
I think it will be great for the game.
Do your part to make this happen. If you really love the game and want
to see it continue to improve, take the time to answer a few questions
while you're playing or at the very least, resist the urge to be a
dillweed and give nothing but smartass (or completely rude) answers to
your fellow players in need.
Before I sign off this week, I do want to give a warm welcome to those
players that have come back into the fold and have seen the great
improvements the SOE development team has brought to us.
There have been a lot of great players returning and we're glad to have
you. I stayed up 2 hours past my intended time last night in Tricksters
playing with a number of players that had been gone for over 5
months. They were loving the changes and improvements and I
was
happy to witness that. The fact that we had found that perfect mesh of
styles didn't hurt anything either.
Loving the game after a 5 month hiatus? To me, that's a pretty good
sign for the future. What do you think?
Leave a comment href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=22485">HERE!
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