Channel for AE and AE Farming?

[Solarverse]

Particular times of the day, the LFG chat can get pretty crowded on my server, I would assume other servers as well. Add in on that people who advertise looking to door sit, or people advertising anything farm related might find such a channel more useful than LFG. What ends up happening, is that anywhere from 1 to 5 players at any given time who are looking to do something farm related, get in to LFG competitions to keep their message at the bottom, meanwhile causing an issue for players looking for teams, or TF's, or DFB struggling to also be noticed.

Does it not make some semblance of logical sense to have a default channel for that? Sure, we could start our own channels for it, but channels like that often get lost in the fog of word of mouth. Not sure how much of a coding issue this would be, but I personally think at this stage in the game, a channel for people using AE in general is a bit long overdue.

[Clave Dark 5]

Isn't there already a channel for AE?  I put it on a couple of characters and never saw anyone use it though.  It's like redside - there, but no one goes there because no one goes there.

[Greycat]

Eh. I mean, they *are* looking for a group. And I suspect all that a "farm" channel would do - besides cause griping - is cause messages to be duplicated in there *and* in LFG. Even as an "official" channel, it may not populate for people with older characters (such as the people *doing* the farming) where they're looking or trying to advertise.

 

And we already have people uptight and complaining if anyone says *anything* that's not directly "We are doing these missions and have room for X" in LFG. I'd rather not see them fill the channel with so much whine it's mistaken for France.

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

Eh. I mean, they *are* looking for a group. And I suspect all that a "farm" channel would do - besides cause griping - is cause messages to be duplicated in there *and* in LFG. Even as an "official" channel, it may not populate for people with older characters (such as the people *doing* the farming) where they're looking or trying to advertise.

 

And we already have people uptight and complaining if anyone says *anything* that's not directly "We are doing these missions and have room for X" in LFG. I'd rather not see them fill the channel with so much whine it's mistaken for France.

 

By that logic, why have LFG chat then? I mean, people have been known to use it for chit chat and not anything LFG related, so why bother having any type of specialized chat? Seems to me that it makes better sense to have an AE chat than not. Also, generally when somebody uses a chat for something that it is not for, people have zero issues reminding you about it. Sure, they might get mouthy at first, but they eventually move on to the right chat tab for whatever it is they are doing. Clearly what we see now is not working, in fact, I see it starting a lot of arguments if anything. Players trying to form teams for missions often get rude with players looking to door sit...I think it would help more than it would do harm.

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Isn't there already a channel for AE?  I put it on a couple of characters and never saw anyone use it though.  It's like redside - there, but no one goes there because no one goes there.

Player made maybe?

[Clave Dark 5]

Nope, pops right up for me from the official list.  Is that an official list?  I didn't get invited to it or have to type it in or anything, it was just there.

Edited September 10, 2023 by Clave Dark 5

[Rudra]

41 minutes ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Nope, pops right up for me from the official list.  Is that an official list?  I didn't get invited to it or have to type it in or anything, it was just there.

They show up for me too, and I've certainly never joined any Architect channels on any of my characters. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that yeah, those two are official channels.

[biostem]

The problem isn't the channel, it's getting people to use it.  What will get the most visibility - the AE-specific chat or the general LFG one?  Players will choose the path of least resistance...

[Rudra]

5 minutes ago, biostem said:

The problem isn't the channel, it's getting people to use it.  What will get the most visibility - the AE-specific chat or the general LFG one?  Players will choose the path of least resistance...

Thing is, I get why it may not be actively used. AE isn't the only place where players farm, particularly for power leveling. I remove LFG, Help, and General channels from my chat tabs, but I still find myself aware of when someone is say doing a Council Empire Earth farm at Portal Corporation anyway. (Typically because it gets repeated in the chat channels I do maintain, whereas AE farms do not.) Since Portal Corporation missions are also used for farming, it makes sense to me that players would use the LFG tab to look for farms instead of AE chat channels. (It also doesn't help that the AE channels are channels that must be player added to their chat tabs. If it isn't a chat channel I expect to use, I don't put it on my chat tabs. So they go unused and often unknown by me.)

[Solarverse]

4 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Nope, pops right up for me from the official list.  Is that an official list?  I didn't get invited to it or have to type it in or anything, it was just there.

 

Well I'll be damned. Nice catch, Clave. When in the hell did they sneak that in?

[kelika2]

it already sounds one sided as hell

[Arc-Mage]

This has been brought up a few times already. 
 

You can create your own channels. 
 

The existing channels cover almost everything. Even with a new channel, one channel or another will still be busy at times. It happens when several hundred people play and talk at the same time 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Not happy with all the farming myself but hey at least people are still playing 

[A Cat]

7 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

Not happy with all the farming myself but hey at least people are still playing 

I don't mind the farming, but I silently judge the beggars, as I adjust my monocle and top hat. 

[Solarverse]

2 hours ago, A Cat said:

I don't mind the farming, but I silently judge the beggars, as I adjust my monocle and top hat. 

 

The only thing that bothers me about them is at times when you have persistent beggars, who beg every 15 seconds and you have several of them battling for the spotlight on LFG chat, completely covering up my post to form a Task Force in mere seconds...but still I grit my teeth so hard they bust in my mouth and say nothing...most of the time. But what will set me off faster than anything else is when my wife and I hit up AE to grind out some cash for our alts, some random sends me a damn /tell begging me to sit at my door....those guys I rip in to relentlessly. It's not bad enough I have to watch them beg and cover up my requests to form a Task Force, but I have to receive tells from them too? Nah.... I don't think so...Homey don't play that.

 

 

 

[macskull]

On 9/9/2023 at 10:25 PM, Solarverse said:

Well I'll be damned. Nice catch, Clave. When in the hell did they sneak that in?

2009 (which should tell you exactly how likely it is to get people to switch over to using it for AE farms).

Edited September 13, 2023 by macskull

[Solarverse]

37 minutes ago, macskull said:

2009 (which should tell you exactly how likely it is to get people to switch over to using it for AE farms).

 

[Without_Pause]

It would help to use word of mouth about the channel and maybe then people would start to use it. 

[Ghost]

2 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

It would help to use word of mouth about the channel and maybe then people would start to use it. 

Nah

People gonna do what the wanna do.  Just like those that still use Help channel for conversations, or to ask for farms.  They only care about themselves and the all important world they are the center of.

 

The only way a separate channel would ever work, is if farmers ONLY recruited from those channels - but I still think people would spam LFG “just in case”

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

It would help to use word of mouth about the channel and maybe then people would start to use it. 

 

1 hour ago, Ghost said:

Nah

People gonna do what the wanna do.  Just like those that still use Help channel for conversations, or to ask for farms.  They only care about themselves and the all important world they are the center of.

 

The only way a separate channel would ever work, is if farmers ONLY recruited from those channels - but I still think people would spam LFG “just in case”

Like I said, farming isn't just done in AE. And there being channels just for AE still won't make it likely to catch on for farming use because farming isn't just done in AE. Now if the channel was an official Farming/Power Leveling channel, there is a chance it might see use as the actually used channel for farming and power leveling. However, since LFG already works so well for that, has been used for so long for that already, and the official stance (last I checked) was that farming itself was not officially supported in the game; that's extremely not likely to ever happen with any amount of likely success.

[biostem]

4 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

It would help to use word of mouth about the channel and maybe then people would start to use it. 

I don't think the issue is people not knowing about the channel - it's people not wanting to bother with it.  Even if we spread the word, there's still no reason, as that channel has less reach...

[macskull]

2 hours ago, biostem said:

I don't think the issue is people not knowing about the channel - it's people not wanting to bother with it.  Even if we spread the word, there's still no reason, as that channel has less reach...

I dunno, based on this thread I'd say most people don't even know the channel exists. It's also not in your chat windows by default which means people just aren't going to see it unless they want to (which isn't the case for LFG, help, or general chat).

[biostem]

1 minute ago, macskull said:

I dunno, based on this thread I'd say most people don't even know the channel exists. It's also not in your chat windows by default which means people just aren't going to see it unless they want to (which isn't the case for LFG, help, or general chat).

Even accepting that, what's easier - go into your chat options and add the channel, or stick to using LFG?  I'm not talking about what's "right" or correct, either.  Frankly, a better approach might be to make the AE channel on/added by default, but even then, unless there is some consequence for not using it, people will still gravitate to the general LFG one.  Also, as @Rudrapointed out, AE is not the only place people farm/PL.

[Solarverse]

3 hours ago, biostem said:

I don't think the issue is people not knowing about the channel - it's people not wanting to bother with it.  Even if we spread the word, there's still no reason, as that channel has less reach...

 

It would reach like-minded people...instead of people that want nothing to do with it.

[biostem]

7 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

It would reach like-minded people...instead of people that want nothing to do with it.

But are we going for "like-minded people" or the widest reach and to reduce clutter in the general LFG chat?  If it's the former, then knock yourself out.  If it's the latter, then you're going to need some sort of formal implementation/declaration/enforcement.