"Content Finder" - Please be careful

[Blarp]

Rose tinted nostalgia glasses my friend. I bounced from MMO to MMO after having played FFXI for half a decade, and I found that almost all of the problems other MMOs' communities supposedly had were actually much milder. And FFXI, by comparison, was extremely cut-throat and people were extremely elitist and mean spirited, but they never let it show on the surface.

Tossing players out of a group or berating them for wearing bad gear or, worse yet, not inviting them at all based on the "wrong" job is the exact same thing as tossing someone out of a group in WoW for doing terrible DPS, and it happened pretty regularly in XI. LS leaders and officers jacked LS banks and transferred. If a merit group was going bad, people would bitch and moan and point fingers or simply leave without saying a word. I think it's you who wears the rose tinted glasses.

Those type of people will exist with or without a Content Finder.

[Answa]

Tossing players out of a group or berating them for wearing bad gear or, worse yet, not inviting them at all based on the "wrong" job is the exact same thing as tossing someone out of a group in WoW for doing terrible DPS, and it happened pretty regularly in XI. LS leaders and officers jacked LS banks and transferred. If a merit group was going bad, people would bitch and moan and point fingers or simply leave without saying a word. I think it's you who wears the rose tinted glasses.

Those type of people will exist with or without a Content Finder.

I may be totally wrong here, but I think both of you are saying the same thing...

[Frein]

The obvious fallacy in this is that dicks exist with or without automated cross-server LFG. It's really only a convenient scapegoat for a bad community. In FFXI, supposedly the most mature and lovely community ever, people would get tossed out of groups for wearing gear that wasn't "optimal." People didn't get invites because of the job they chose to play. JP players would literally tell NA players, "JP only" despite there being a completely serviceable translator. People jacked items regularly. Most of the bad behavior in an MMO has nothing to do with a system like the Content Finder.

Yeah, I think you should get kicked out of a group if you decide it's ok that everyone else has to carry your poorly geared ass. Showing up to a group as a DD with no haubergeon was a no no, but I don't think that's unreasonable at all considering everyone else went through the trouble of getting one. Sure, it was expensive but not prohibitively so like many other items that people (surprise) didn't expect you to have.

I want to know beforehand if you're gimp or not (or just a known douchebag/terribad), which is why I oppose any kind of automated group building.

The FFXI player search was almost perfect as it let you easily and quickly see potential group candidates and allowed said candidates to post information about themselves in order to attract group invites.

[Wolfie]

Yeah, I think you should get kicked out of a group if you decide it's ok that everyone else has to carry your poorly geared ass. Showing up to a group as a DD with no haubergeon was a no no, but I don't think that's unreasonable at all considering everyone else went through the trouble of getting one. Sure, it was expensive but not prohibitively so like many other items that people (surprise) didn't expect you to have.

I want to know beforehand if you're gimp or not (or just a known douchebag/terribad), which is why I oppose any kind of automated group building.

The FFXI player search was almost perfect as it let you easily and quickly see potential group candidates and allowed said candidates to post information about themselves in order to attract group invites.

This is the kind of mentality I never want to see again, and I'm so, so glad WOW and some other western MMOs have found a way to deal with it.

Please, enlighten us what's your definition of "not prohibitively". Because two of my friends that started FFXI with me had quit the game when they learned that they had to farm for a solid month just to continue leveling past level ~40, and I ended up buying gil because I didn't want to put up with that s***.

[Frein]

This is the kind of mentality I never want to see again, and I'm so, so glad WOW and some other western MMOs have found a way to deal with it.

Please, enlighten us what's your definition of "not prohibitively". Because two of my friends that started FFXI with me had quit the game when they learned that they had to farm for a solid month just to continue leveling past level ~40, and I ended up buying gil because I didn't want to put up with that s***.

"Not prohibitively" as in less than 2 million gil (back in 2005). Scorpion Harness was 10 million, Charm was something absurd like 30 million and so on. There was a clear gap between "good" and "top tier" gear. I farmed a bunch for my Haubergeons, Ochiudo's Kotes, Leaping Boots, Emperor Hairpins and whatnot. Nothing was handed to me. If the rest of the group has some of these items, damn right I'm not going to join without also having them, as that'd force the the rest of the group to essentially carry me. Gimps can play with each other for all I care but in a team game you have to pull your weight or you will (and should) be eliminated as the weakest link.

[Cycloptichorn]

"Not prohibitively" as in less than 2 million gil (back in 2005). Scorpion Harness was 10 million, Charm was something absurd like 30 million and so on. There was a clear gap between "good" and "top tier" gear. I farmed a bunch for my Haubergeons, Ochiudo's Kotes, Leaping Boots, Emperor Hairpins and whatnot. Nothing was handed to me. If the rest of the group has some of these items, damn right I'm not going to join without also having them, as that'd force the the rest of the group to essentially carry me. Gimps can play with each other for all I care but in a team game you have to pull your weight or you will (and should) be eliminated as the weakest link.

Gear is always secondary to skill, especially gear that you can buy. I've definitely encountered the frustration of playing with a badly undergeared teammate - I've been that guy a few times too - but if they are good at playing, it usually doesn't matter all that much.

What's even worse, to me, is playing with a Fred; some dude in every top-level piece of gear out there, who for some reason won't get out of the fire...

[neizero]

Gimps can play with each other for all I care but in a team game you have to pull your weight or you will (and should) be eliminated as the weakest link.

lol - agree.

[Blarp]

Yeah, I think you should get kicked out of a group if you decide it's ok that everyone else has to carry your poorly geared ass. Showing up to a group as a DD with no haubergeon was a no no, but I don't think that's unreasonable at all considering everyone else went through the trouble of getting one. Sure, it was expensive but not prohibitively so like many other items that people (surprise) didn't expect you to have.

I want to know beforehand if you're gimp or not (or just a known douchebag/terribad), which is why I oppose any kind of automated group building.

The FFXI player search was almost perfect as it let you easily and quickly see potential group candidates and allowed said candidates to post information about themselves in order to attract group invites.

This more or less proves my point.

[Dragon]

Yeah, I think you should get kicked out of a group if you decide it's ok that everyone else has to carry your poorly geared ass. Showing up to a group as a DD with no haubergeon was a no no, but I don't think that's unreasonable at all considering everyone else went through the trouble of getting one. Sure, it was expensive but not prohibitively so like many other items that people (surprise) didn't expect you to have.

I want to know beforehand if you're gimp or not (or just a known douchebag/terribad), which is why I oppose any kind of automated group building.

The FFXI player search was almost perfect as it let you easily and quickly see potential group candidates and allowed said candidates to post information about themselves in order to attract group invites.

I'll go one step further and say that any future search implementation should include room for gear setups. It'd have saved me a shit ton of time, gil, and exp in FFXI to know everyone's gear setups or lack thereof in FFXI; as one of the few 75DRGs to solo 10k/hr exp with Greater Colibri from back in the day, I especially refused to party with any DRG that didn't have capped accuracy and as a DRK, yes I rather hated any DRK wearing Plastron when fighting.

[smokymcweed]

WoW is a piece of cartoon shit