[COLOR=orange]Help channel[/COLOR]

[Drey]

i think it should be pretty much 1 on 1 like janner said, if you have say 5 people shouting instructions at you are you going to have a clue what to do.

if you feel someone hasnt answered a question right there is always the /tell option to use. either to the advisor or the one asking for help.

and if there are questions you dont know a good way to learn is to watch how others answer the problem.

and you cant see the whole session so you dont really no the outcome the advisor may have added yo their first statement so thats something to watch out for.

[TheMinority]

or, when the system is more developed, you could have a request for additional advice. either the advisor could ask for some (or have others ask to help) or the advisee could ask for a second opinion

[r.guppy]

It  has become the normal to clam the advice for almost all help now, so if you are a slow typer, or like me prefer to take time and get it right, you might as well forget it as speed rules.  I Strongly fell this was not meant to be the case but it is the case.  

  X(

[c-2501]

Originally posted by r.guppy
It  has become the normal to clam the advice for almost all help now, so if you are a slow typer, or like me prefer to take time and get it right, you might as well forget it as speed rules.  I Strongly fell this was not meant to be the case but it is the case.  

im not sure i understand what your problem with this system is.
 
when i ask for help in game all i care about is getting the right answer. i dont want the advisors squabbling over who-knows-best.

i do admit though that when i am advising and another advisor claims a session for themselves and then gives an inaccurate or indifferent answer to a question it becomes all the more annoying.

though to be honest ive never seen another advisor who doesnt claim a session for themselves from time to time, (except stronith, but only because he didnt know how), and that includes the GM\'s
 
the system in place at the moment is the fairest one available.  a better way to do it however would to be to introduce some sort of random spot check, a gm could pose as a newb and ask a question.  if they get an unhelpful or wrong answer the person who gave it to them could be deducted points or be banned from giving advice for a period of time, probably the latter since the points are essentialy worthless

[r.guppy]

I have seen a player grab three sessions in a row then answer the the first question, so that is ok? In all the time i have been advising I have only calmed three that i remember, but to be honest don\'t see the point in it, so you may be typing a long answer, just at the last second to be beaten to it good for them i don\'t mind at all as i need the practice in typing and more important i need to learn to spell and I have found that doing advice is a good way to learn, as well as help players in need, so I fell grabbing sessions is nothing but greed.

   X(

[c-2501]

Originally posted by r.guppy
I have seen a player grab three sessions in a row then answer the the first question, so that is ok?

were his/her answers wrong or innacurate an any way? no...then yes its ok.

Originally posted by r.guppy
In all the time i have been advising I have only calmed three that i remember,

ah but u admit you have done it though.

Originally posted by r.guppy
just at the last second to be beaten to it good for them i don\'t mind at all as i need the practice in typing and more important i need to learn to spell and I have found that doing advice is a good way to learn, as well as help players in need, so I fell grabbing sessions is nothing but greed.

   X(

basically your only complaint with this system is the fact that your not as quick at typing as some players... does that about sum this thread up?

[r.guppy]

I think your interest here is nothing to do with the reason for the thread, because if it was you would see that there is something wrong with calming 3 in a row then answering the first.

Yes i have done it for the reason partly stated here.

By stfrn
 Claiming is there so you do not have two people typing out a long response to a question, only to have someone else say a slightly shorter answer before you can hit enter.

 But my reason was so i could answer before the time out.


 

By c-2501
 basically your only complaint with this system is the fact that your not as quick at typing as some players... does that about sum this thread up?

 The answer to this is there if you bothered to read it.

Originally posted by r.guppy
just at the last second to be beaten to it good for them i don\'t mind at all

 Just to remind you it is about \"I was wondering why you can claim a session in help\"

 As yet no one how knows has said why.

 So you know i have over 1500 Adviser Points and 1460 in hours online since the wipe, so no it is not because others are faster type\'s than me good luck to them.

[c-2501]

Originally posted by r.guppy
I think your interest here is nothing to do with the reason for the thread.

id be interested in knowing what you think my reasons for posting are then?  no really i would.  

if you mean claiming 3 sessions in a row and then ONLY answering the first then yes i do see a problem with that.  if this happened why didnt you report the advisor to a GM?

if an advisor claims a session and then does not answer it in a predetemined ammount of time then i believe that the question should become public again and other advisors allowed to send a reply.

if YOU had read my posts then you would understan that i have replied to this thread for the same reasons i would respond to any other...because i wanted to give my opinions on the topic.

[r.guppy]

By c-2501
Quote:
Originally posted by r.guppy
I think your interest here is nothing to do with the reason for the thread.


id be interested in knowing what you think my reasons for posting are then? no really i would.

 

I think your interest here is nothing to do with the reason for the thread, because if it was you would see that there is something wrong with calming 3 in a row then answering the first.

  The answer was there right next to your quote from me i hi-lighted it in red so you see it better.

By c-2501
if you mean claiming 3 sessions in a row and then ONLY answering the first then yes i do see a problem with that. if this happened why didn\'t you report the advisor to a GM?

 At the time there was no GM on line. Yes all three were answered but you miss the point 2 and 3 could have been answered by someone else

 

By c-2501
if an advisor claims a session and then does not answer it in a predetemined ammount of time then i believe that the question should become public again and other advisors allowed to send a reply.

 True it does but time is wasted, and a player is left hanging.

 

By c-2501
if YOU had read my posts then you would understan that i have replied to this thread for the same reasons i would respond to any other...because i wanted to give my opinions on the topic.

 I must have read it or who am i replying to?

[c-2501]

ok im tired of arguing with you janner so lets just leave it for now, your prefectly entitled to think what you like. but frankly i dont want to hear it.

now that the unpleasentness is over; on with the rest of the post

first let me be clear i am not doing a 180 on this issue but something i saw last night has made me reconsider.

noob asks: how do i get out of the DR?

the session was then claimed by another, which normally wouldent bother me, but this was the reply;

advisor: you have to find the portal out

I MEAN COME ON, i know were not supposed to give out exact locations and stuff but surely he/she could have done better than that.  it was just this sort of attitude from advisors to my questions when i was new that almost put me off the game entirly.
in my opinion logs of all the advice sessions should be kept and people who give these sorts of answers should be punished (might i recomend to the Devs to put a set of Stoks in the plaza, or bring back the oracle!!)

[Nikodemus]

Originally posted by c-2501
noob asks: how do i get out of the DR?

the session was then claimed by another, which normally wouldent bother me, but this was the reply;

advisor: you have to find the portal out

I MEAN COME ON, i know were not supposed to give out exact locations and stuff but surely he/she could have done better than that.

And that is the most proper answer for this sort of questions!
Advisors are supposed to answer questions about game mechanics like interface or progression system. Not secrets of the world where your char is supposed to live. Just imagine, you are in real lost in some kind of dungeon and have completly no idea where is the way out. Can the player controlling you ask a question to an advisor? Hell no! There is no player and therefore no advisor!
Bah, think about it.

[c-2501]

Originally posted by Nikodemus
And that is the most proper answer for this sort of questions!

it may be propper but its hardly helpful or exhaustive of the subject, they could at least have added, \" its shaped like a giant head you have to enter the mouth\", they should have been given at least some clue as to what they were looking for.  the new DR is far more complicated than the one that was there when i started playing.

[Cha0s]

I would have also suggested that they ask someone in-game...
Basically, to get back to the main topic, I agree with r.guppy. You should only claim a question you plan to answer immediately with a long response. You should not claim three questions and then answer them one-by-one. You are short-changing the second two people who could have gotten help right away until you claimed their questions (this is even worse if answering the first question takes a long time).
I would love to see advisor points only be awarded if the advisee is happy with the advice. This means that advisors will actually need to spend time making sure that their responses are up to par.

[Jinkeen]

I spend at least half my time in game helping newcomers in one form or another.  I have never really used the dvisor feature.  I just find clueless looking characters and ask them if they need something.  I then get tells from each asking for more help.  I am glad to do it and dont mind guiding players, though I enjoyed finding most things out on my own when I started.

If you\'re helping cause you want to help then do it hands on and be there for the other character.  When people write back a tell a week or too later asking something, I\'ll ask them if they used the help channel.  Most of them say they tried that but got short rude answers that didn\'t help at all.  

In fact I used help channel to say that /target_next_nearest_npc was not working anymore.  I asked if the command had changed or was it a bug?  

The reply:

See the ? in your menu.  

Whoever wrote that is a lowlife and should not be able to advise any longer.  The underscores, I found out, had been removed form the command and were now just sapces.  This was not reflected in the Help Menu and it wasn\'t a bug.  So some ignorant advisor took a call without even knowing the answer.  I would suggest reading the question and make sure it is something you at least know the answer to.

[stfrn]

Originally posted by Jinkeen
In fact I used help channel to say that /target_next_nearest_npc was not working anymore.  I asked if the command had changed or was it a bug?  

The reply:

See the ? in your menu.  

Whoever wrote that is a lowlife and should not be able to advise any longer.  The underscores, I found out, had been removed form the command and were now just sapces.  This was not reflected in the Help Menu and it wasn\'t a bug.  So some ignorant advisor took a call without even knowing the answer.  I would suggest reading the question and make sure it is something you at least know the answer to.

Yes, that is one of the reasons why advisors are always needed- the help menu, and the guide are not always updated when they should. In this case, there was some warning before, but there is no longer any mention that /target_* commands no longer uses spaces. The default commands are correct, but the correct help guide was not uploaded.

Advisors do not need to be perfect. However, when people ask questions, it is good to give them some answer.