Mentor channel abuse

We had people sending blind invites as well, but we got our green numbers up and quite a few of them needed the help. The biggest confusion we had was how the new leafs could bow out. It came up like every 5 minutes. Thinking of making a macro to tell them how >.>

There was some mentor drama because someone kicked a green leaf for making a lewd joke. All hell ensued.
I don't think any mentor should be able to kick someone out with just one click, I would rather have a vote like vote dismiss in dungeons. However, with up to 100 mentors in the channel, it might need to be restricted to mentors not in instances, cutscenes, or afk.

As far as bots in the network, there was talk of this and we thought the likely reason was because some of the bots/gil sellers don't have ridiculous names and genuinely look like greenies.

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Originally Posted by Galgarion

Mentor abuse? Oh no!

Johnny was a new lancer fresh off the carriage to Gridania. He didn't really know anything about the game. He was lost and confused. Just how Shark Mcguilicutty liked them.

"Hey, kid," he said. "You new around here?"

"Sure am, Mister!" Johnny said enthusiastically. "I wanna be a lancer! Gosh it sure is big around here."

"Yeah, yeah," Shark said affably. "You need a mentor, kid. Yeeeeeah. You got a good look. How good are you with sewing machines?"

Mothers, don't you children get bad mentors! It's an awful world!

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Little did Johnny know it's a cruel world out there. Johnny now spends his days in a Gridanian sweatshop making pants for lvl 1 characters.

Jokes aside, i've been eye balling the chat on my server and to my surprise it has been mostly civilized discussions and tips. Sure the mentor to sprout ratio is 10 to 1 but nonetheless it's working here.

There needs to be a system in place for kicking afk mentors from the channel. Half the channel was afk this morning.

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Originally Posted by Jeibird

i honestly thought u were about to bust a rhyme when i started reading your post

Johnny was a new lancer, fresh off the carriage, questin, leveling, hey this place is a bit garish
When a couple a guys, up to no good, started making trouble with their mentorhood
He makes one little gil purchase and Square got scared
They said "emergency maintenance until we can make this fair"

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I thought he was going to do it, then I thought you were.

Something about

Johnny you rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard
'Cause hell's broke loose in Gridania and the Devil deals the cards

Or something....

New Adventurer: Man! I want to learn to heal so bad! I love helping people!
Me: Helping people? hands over a hatchet Check this out!
New Adventurer: Wait...this isn't...
Me: Looks great! Now, cut this tree.
New Adventurer: How does this help me learn how to heal?
Me: Cause you're getting close to nature, now I need 100 elm logs before dark. Chop chop.

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Originally Posted by Unittj

New Adventurer: Man! I want to learn to heal so bad! I love helping people!
Me: Helping people? hands over a hatchet Check this out!
New Adventurer: Wait...this isn't...
Me: Looks great! Now, cut this tree.
New Adventurer: How does this help me learn how to heal?
Me: Cause you're getting close to nature, now I need 100 elm logs before dark. Chop chop.

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That is funny, because that is how I found my guild Espers in Ultima Online. I'd play at work and basically chopped wood and made bow stuff all day. Started trading logs and joined up with them lol.

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Originally Posted by Final-Fantasy

How does this work for joining the channel, because Ive been online 24-7 since the patch and only got into it once, then left it, but now can't get back in it. Does it require area change because it sure does not automatically invite you in a queue, or if it did, it does not work on Hyperion.

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When you log in or change areas you'll be automatically be put in the chat if there's room. No queue, just whoever's the first to be spotted by the system when there's room.

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Originally Posted by AskaRay

Everyone has still been really helpful, though there was a fight amongst the mentors (about speaking language of all things???) that got resolved quickly.

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haha this one was my bad even if I only said "sigh" the other idk 5+ times I got kicked cause ppl used it for crap talk was abusing of kick option

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Originally Posted by Copenhagen

So far on Gilgamesh it's been interesting. We've been sitting on 100 mentors to 5-17 sprouts all day. Most of the sprouts just don't want to talk. We've actually had more new players ask how to leave the channel rather than ask someone in it for help. So in terms of 'new players ask for help' it's been about four or five actual questions since it opened up.

On the mentors side, when a legit question is actually asked, the new players get solid answers. They get quest names, locations, what items you need, pretty much everything to answer their question and then some. So it's been a pretty good response to the few meager questions.

There have been some barrens chat moments where conversation would veer off and early in the morning where there were no new players on it was pretty much just used to spread information about new patch stuff.
TL;DR On Gilgamesh it seems the sprouts don't want help.

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I can confirm on Gilgamesh that the sprouts that seem to ask questions, albeit they are few and far between, seem to get legitimate helpful answers.

I'm finding it's the mentors who are over eager to help that are the biggest nuisance. For example we have a mentor, that in the spirit of helpfulness, spams a huge wall of text welcoming message almost every hour on the hour when they are in the channel. Sometimes it's done at the most inopportune times, like right smack dab in the middle of Novice/Mentor convos; it's exceptionally irritating. The spammy nature of it has been mentioned and the response is usually "how else do we let sprouts know we help?" I'm almost ready to b-list this person (which sucks) and while I want to help the sprouts it's almost a relief when I get the max capacity message so that I don't have to have that filling up my log constantly.

If you try to keep some of the Mentors on track with the channel when they veer off they turn right around with "this is just going to be a global chat anyway". It's not worth arguing with them over so they just continue on for the most part. Does make you wonder if their off-topicness deters the sprouts from attempting to chime in with questions.

All I have noticed so far is other than the legit "advice" some new people get is a lot of excess spam and nonsense banter between mentors in some sort of "measuring contest", esp while sprouts are around. During the chat, a couple of the sprouts had even asked to be kicked, so they didn't have to be a part of all the spam. Some do feel very intimidated with all this going on too , being new and not wanting to seem like they are interrupting the ramblings. Speaking of, there should be an option for the spouts to leave without being kicked.

Overall I'd have to say that the channel is helpful and has a lot of potential but some are just in it for the "look at me" aspect which no one really need to hear, taking away from its purpose. I spoke out on a couple occasions only to be passive-aggressively scolded by a couple of the ringleaders in the channel. People seem to forget that it is intended as a place to help, not to feel special/elite and above others involved.

How is it on Leviathan, well it has always been full so not sure... lol