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STOP the free repairs, fuel and teleports, cut the apron string and pass it to the players


Moosegun

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1 hour ago, jsam333 said:

I see the main problem with people asking for in game rescue right now is just how the communication system works. It is really hard to talk to people in game right now, especially players who you don’t know in real life. The only starting global channel is support which is always too crowded with new players asking how to place their speeders for anyone more experienced to try to learn about other chat channels like 911. This leaves almost all serious global chat to be done on discord, either the official one or various org discords.

I would agree with this apart from the fact that any solution would be better than the clusterfudge of trying to get support currently, where people with ACTUAL issues have to stand there with their hands up trying to be seen behind a wall of players wanting to be teleported to their friends on Lacobus (have literally seen this requested).  How could it make it any harder?  You have to go on Discord at the moment anyway.  You just make another channels called community support and have orgs registered to be allowed access to some sort of support channel.  It is not difficult.

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9 hours ago, DarkHorizon said:
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Totally not recruitment but feel free to DM me if you're interested in joining an organization that revolves around this. :ph34r:

 

That aside, a-hecking-men.

 

With the advent of Beta, I was expecting to get a massive windfall of requests for help so much so we'd be having to do bulk runs where we load up on a dozen or so people going to one planet, then fly around and hit them bing-bing-bong-bong-bing-bing-bong. Our number of requests was fairly nominal as we became more well known through advertising on the forums, in the DU-scord, and from advertising at marketplaces. We're not yet advertising at the markets because DU Classifieds isn't yet fully operational, and I don't want to plop just a lonely screen there anymore.

 

.....


And no, I'm not here to pick on NQ. I'm pointing out a problem, in fact, I knew this would be an issue a long time ago which was why I started E&ESAR to begin with. I'd like to solve it on my own as a member of the community, but I'm not being allowed to, so we're here with support because this was allowed to happen. Like a lot of people, I would have blazed a different path than NQ did, probably starting in Alpha 2. I'm not a developer though so the best I can do is offer my support, well wishes, and hopefully this can be taken as somewhat constructive feedback.

You are 100% one of the services this thread is here to support, this story is not surprising, if i am honest i would have sat in support channel protesting for the last 6 weeks if I was you.  Rescue is massively popular in other games and a OBVIOUS career paths in this game.  It is time to give it back to the players.

Can I also add that DU's support team are possibly the best I have ever seen in a game, they are hard working, dedicated, and still manage to keep good spirits despite the sometimes apocalyptic levels of reports they have to field.  This will also give them a well earned breather...... come on NQ you know it makes sense.  Find me another forum post where EVERYONE agrees.

#stopthefreebies 

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The other thing is, people are robbing themselves of gameplay here too.

 

When things go wrong in a game it can be frustrating.  But in my experience when you calm down and decided to find a solution to the problem, it usually ends up being a fun adventure.

 

On one of my first few trips off Alioth i crashed landing on Talemai, before i had a rez node on my ship, and ended up back on Alioth.  Had to mine enough resources to outfit my speeder with space engines, and flew it all the way back to my ship.  It was definitely an adventure, plus i learned a lot about ship building in the process.

 

Another time i ran out of fuel 200su from Alioth after getting disconnected three or four times on the trip back from Lacobus.  So i jumped off my ship and jetpacked all the way back to Alioth.  For anyone who hasn't tried it, decelerating from 29999kph and landing on Alioth without a ship is pretty exciting.

 

Game devs do their best to manufacture this feeling in most games, but the truth is there's just no comparison to the actual feeling of satisfaction when you overcome a tough situation.  It bonds you with a game.  It's like when people survive a life and death situation in real life and become best friends, sort of ?

 

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Just going to add my 2 cents here...

Currently, on discord I can see a few things happening in the #help channels, and I would love to elaborate on this.

  1. Players don't have a clear understanding of what is and is not a bug yet. (This is to be expected of newbies but suddenly exploding when enter atmo is not a bug, you're going to fast)
  2. Insufficient alternative solutions offered to those players who get stuck. 
    - Responding to a stuck player with "Lol you blew up in atmo, your ships stuck at 4.5km well tough" isn't a solution.
    If more people from the community were willing to go around and assist and teach new players exactly what to do in these situations. (Ask a friend for help, contact eyes and ears, show them how to build an xs recovery ship, etc.) Then the support channel would hopefully get less requests on this. Because for these new players their only visible approach is the naturally expected approach when something you have created in an mmo gets "out of your reach" or "Can't be found" is ask the GM's to bring it back to you so your can keep playing towards your current objectives.
    If the GM's don't respond to it they are just hammered with recurring spam of the same player asking over and over and over until eventually they spam the chat so much because no one else got back to them that they will probably deal with the issue themselves. (Even though they shouldn't) And this I feel is where more vigilant players offering solutions would really help.
  3. Having a channel in Discord where you can directly speak to and ask for help from a GM in this format is a luxury for the player base, don't ruin it by abusing it. Unless you like filing support tickets in the future. --- Being able to speak to/request help from a GM without going through a ticket system is a luxury. Don't abuse it! Or we might lose it! ---
  4. I myself and a few others that I'm sure a good portion of players can attest to, have gone around and helped recover peoples ships with them, showing them how to recover the ships correctly.
    (Similar to the way Fuel Rats in Elite are not just expected to refuel people, they are also tasked with instructing the poor hapless creatures in how to avoid this happening in future)
    I wish more people would do this as it breeds a healthier atmosphere surrounding new players.
  5. If you want to help people, join #help-tech-support and #help-game-questions on discord and help people. Before long, like me, you'll become a person to "ask for help" and as long as you're okay with helping people and enjoy that kind of thing then that's really rewarding and great fun. And I always hope more people will join and do this.
    I would like to point out that not being constructive is not being helpful.
    Saying "LOL High speed re-entry is a bitch. Good luck!" is not constructive and try keep that to yourself even though you're thinking it..
    Phrase it in a way that provides some useful information to the player like "Lol, High speed re-entry is a bitch.. I suggest you do not approach the planet at any speed faster than 1000km/h for most ships. Good luck".
  6. Remember we are still in beta, crashes do still happen frequently, and as such there are a significant amount of situations where people will crash-to-desktop unexpectedly with dire results.
    These situations should (imho) be covered by some level of support, but at the same time, if a certain activity has caused you to crash, report that, and then avoid doing it over and over and over if you can. If you lose stuff because you made a mistake or a bug occurred, that's really unfortunately. Submit and ticket and provide your logs and then be patient. (Yes I'm aware this can take a long time.) Also, if something is lost during beta. That really sucks, but in most cases I would suggest you learn from it, don't make huge transactions in one go where if something goes wrong you lose a fortune but instead mitigate it by making small exchanges. Bare careful with your RDMS settings, as it's probably one of the most powerful features in DU but if configured carelessly is basically leaving your front door open and going on holiday expecting everything to be fine when you come home. And bare in mind, its a beta. Things will go wrong, crash, disappear, etc. If that happens. Shrug it off and move on, unless something prevents you from using your mining tool, nanocrafter or ability to reach an unclaimed tile; then there is nothing preventing you from getting back on your feet.

Lastly, if you want to see a change in DU. Be the change, help promote the outcome you want.

 

- Deaders

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3 hours ago, Deaders said:

If more people from the community were willing to go around and assist and teach new players exactly what to do in these situations.

I usually hang out in Support chat in game. I have never seen a request for aid in recovering a ship go unanswered by the playerbase for Alioth or Sanc.

 

Yes when people slam their ship into Ion and respawn on Sactuary the community is a bit hesitant to warp over to Ion to save their wreck for free - but that's not unreasonable. 

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Having just crashed my ship for the 2nd time I would love a repair service. 

I had to repair the ship on Thades took quite a few hours.

I assumed the reason my high altitude lift was poor was due to the advertised thinner atmosphere.  Apparently not because I just crashed on Alioth   LOL (seems 500t was too much)

Anyway as a player who has been playing a few weeks I have no idea how I would contact a repair service.  Soooooo, no wonder they have no business.

Actually just reading Mordgier's post (above mine).  I never thought about asking on support channel.  I'll try that now.

EDIT:

So I asked support and a player is comming over to repair my ship.  whilst I was discussing it, 2 other players said "wait, there is a repair service I need repairs"  So, the same player now has 3 jobs on.  I guess there just needs to be a way new players can know about and access services?

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There should be no free fuel/repairs/teleport ever, period.

If a server shutdown halted your space ship with no fuel, it's entirely on you.

If you don't carry enough scrap to repair your ship two times over, too bad.

If your ship is stuck 20km below surface, give up on it or start digging, the 4km fetch radius is already lenient enough.

What is the point of playing the game if some schmuck gets to have his cake and eat it too by virtue of sitting in Discord all day instead of playing the game? And if you absolutely need to have a semblance of tech support to stop people from leaving the game, make these three an in-game command with a week long cooldown. Now mods can actually address bugs for a change so we don't get Market 15 2: RDMS Boogaloo.

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Again a nice example of NQs unprofessional management instead of swiftly fixing all the persisting crashing, lag and performance issues in a reasonable time they fix the symptoms. Their badly programed game (which doesn't even deserve the beta title) causes unnecessary effort to the players and create unnerving situations. Many people in the chat have a legitimate request. 

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