Predatory Guild Practice

Today, I was contacted (whispered) by a new player (4 hours in) who had been lured to teleport to a Guild's POT. He was asking me for help because he had no idea how to get out and back to the starting scene. As I was talking to him, another person from the same guild came up to me (even though I have a guild tag on display) and asked me to teleport with her to the same POT.

You have to expect such predatory practices, but with SotA's steep learning curve, this will certainly turn off some new players.

My suggestion @Berek is to add a warning message to new players who try to telerport out of or leave starting scenes. Inform them that they may get stuck in a region they can't leave and such. Warn them about guild recruitment, make them confirm that they want to go and end the starter experience. Won't solve it all, but would help give new players a help against pressure from overly aggressive guilds.

 

Honestly if they did not lure him to a PvP POT then really nothing was done wrong. If they brought him there and he was pressured into joining them and they chose not to and you have logs that show this and then he was stranded, it is something that needs to be reported. If the guild persists and has a few reports then something can be done.

 

Totally agree with that. They are led to believe they need to accept EVERY friend invite they get and dont realize that when they try to teleport to someone they may end up where they dont want to be. Not all new players are aware that some POTS are pvp and there are zones that are also pvp. So yeah something needs to be in place for such things like that. There is the safe guard DO YOU WANT TO ENTER..but that doesnt work when teleporting. There is no warning. With my guild i dont openly recruit. I tell what my guild is all about if they ask and let them decide if they want to join or not. Its their choice...not mine.

 

Out of curiosity, what would be the point of luring people to their town? (I'm sure there is one, but I have no truck with guilds, so I'm not seeing it.)

 

Unless they are specifically trying to grief players?

 

Why in the hell would any guild want that sort of reputation ???

 

This is yet another case of bad behavior by one or two people that starts a discussion about changing all sorts of things programmatically. Unless this is a widespread practice I would suggest that Port first give the guild in question a warning before considering more drastic steps that might cause more harm than good.

 

I have to disagree with you, @Belladonna Rose
I just began a teleport to someone in Blood Bay, and the image below shows the warning:



I know Blood Bay is not a PoT, but my understanding is that WHENEVER your action will flag you PvP, you get a warning.
If PvP PoTs are exempt, that's news to me..........

 

@Vyrin
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here.......
How would you teleport with her to begin with ?
I'm confused...........

 

@Vyrin
How do you lure someone to a destination ?
What was said in the conversation between them ? (you have no way of knowing the circumstances).
There's a lot missing here......................

 

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@FrostII When teleporting to a PvP POT the exact same message shows, and you have to actively confirm that you want to go there.

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I guess the free party teleport is meant (and that is an assumption). They probably invite the newbie to join their party, then teleport to the POT, and the newbie gets the chance to follow their party leader.

As far as I know every newbie starts with a few teleport and recall scrolls in their inventory. But often they have not started friending people, so they may not have a teleport spot to return to where they want to be, or they may not even know yet how this system works.

 

@Kara Brae
Give the guild a warning about what ?
So far, what I've read in the OP is simply that he teleported to a PoT and didn't know what to do next.
Did the person who invited him to visit have to leave, get disconnected, etc... ?
None of this we know.
Seems like the OP is jumping to conclusions regarding the intent of whoever invited him to visit......

 

That would be an entirely different situation that what is described in the OP. Nowhere was it stated anything about a party invite or being in a party !
None the less, there would still be a screen notification when invited to a party where the party inviter was flagg'd.
And nowhere in the OP did the newbie mention being in the presence of PvP, at any point.
Or this would be an entirely different discussion......... for sure.

 

If you want to talk about traps, then let's talk about the PvP flagg'd players that also carry the "Hospitaller" flag.
That's a discussion worth having ........
Oh wait....... Chris loves PvP, so it's all good........ right ?

 

@FrostII Sorry I should have quoted your posts that I was replying to. I did not mean to assume that PvP was involved. I merely replied to the above. Editing my post to include quotes now.

 

Only a little off topic here, because "The player had no idea how to get out."

I see this all the time at the Factorium, so much so that I put a billboard with a flier right by the entrance that tells them "The Red Wagon is the EXIT"

Help a newbie out. Let them know about the red wagons. Zone chat doesn't work for them by default, so you'll have to whisper.

You can easily recognize the symptoms. They are heading off over the hill in a direction that there are no structures. A few minutes later they are back running over a different hill, frantically looking around.

 

How? Unless the location they want them to is open PvP, what were they planning on doing? Again, not saying the whole thing isn't hinky, I'm just not sure what the plan was.

 

You are right in my opinion.
The point that I was unsuccessfully trying to make was that jumping to a programmatic solution to a problem that is not widespread or might not even exist is not a good idea.

 

I agree completely !

 

You hand someone a teleport scroll, friend them, and tell them to follow you. To your other point, promise people stuff, and you can lure them anywhere.

I reviewed the chat logs and the situation was slightly different than I thought. One conversation that I thought was directed to me was actually for someone else. However, the situation and the result was equally difficult for the new player. Somehow, they got brought to a POT and were abandoned. Someone got lured to a POT with a promise of getting stuff, then was contacting me as to how to get back.

My point still stands. I don't consider a warning message (like the one for PvP) a programmatic solution in that it affects game mechanics. Certainly this is data for the New Player Experience, and initial messages about teleporting and leaving starter zones can be helpful. Is the explanation sufficient for how to get around (overworld/scenes/map function)? Where else does a new player learn that the world has control points? Where do they explain how to leave a scene to get to the overworld? Where does a new player learn what a POT is?

Ultimately, the concern is to keep players. Everyone can agree with that... so when there are no instructions, no tutorials, no messages, what is the solution? Or perhaps, there are some who would just say write it off?