Other People in Private Mode?

How is Private/Party Mode supposed to work?

Sorry to keep posting in New Players, but it will be a while yet before I have access to a credit card to buy anything, which is required before I can post in the proper forum. And this is a newbie question, so...

I'm still trying to figure out a way to make the online game work for me, though I've been playing offline for a couple months. But I just can't figure out how to make it manageable with other avatars in the same scene.

This isn't about the forced-multiplayer in towns or the overworld, that's just the way it is, I've got to live with it. I can deal with that.

But I thought Private Mode was supposed to make at least adventure zones into a single-player version? But in Private Mode, even in adventure zones, I'm still seeing other players. I still have to turn down friend requests and party invites from strangers who didn't even say hello. I still see the broken crates everywhere where other people have gotten to all the stuff first. So what's private about it?

Other players become invisible when they use a crafting station, but I can still hear their sound effects. When I switch from private to party mode, the people become invisible but I can still hear their sound effects and can still see them fighting the monsters that I won't be able to because they got there first. My gut says that HAS to be a bug, but there's plenty of other things that are counterintuitive to me about the way this game is played, and it's such a major thing I can't believe it wouldn't have been reported and fixed already if it was a bug.

So what DOES become private in private mode? And how does anyone manage to achieve anything in private mode when you're still sharing monsters and loot with everybody else?

 

I use "party mode" and it is always just me and who ever might be in my party, if I.m not in a party then I am always alone. I have never actually tried private mode

 

Private mode is private in all adventure scenes except the three outskirts scenes and any adventure scene marked PvP.

 

Also when you go into a mine you should notice it says private. You shouldn't have to mess with it too much. I never think about it. When I go mining I am all alone and of course in town it is important to know others are there for the good of the game over-all. You learn who is not too chatty and who is. I try to respect other players if I know they don't care to chat. They know I'm here to help if they need me well since I do tell them that part. I am Majoria in game if I can help

Don't forget to use you teleport to zone scrolls to get locations marked on t. Drag it to your bar and click on it and it will tell you what is in the locations. Just hover your mouse over it and click the control key to see. Don't hesitate to ask many questions. We also Have in game Universe chat but since you have no orb yet jsut find those who are willing to help and send a friends request and right click their name in your friends list to whisper to them. To leave the whisper mode to local chat again /l for local. Send me a friends request anytime. I accept all friends requests.

 

Crafting stations are only in towns, so you can't really get away from them there. The only adventure scenes that you can't play privately are PVP.

It sounds like you are experiencing a bug, but there isn't a way to tell for sure without additional information. What scene(s) are you in? Does it show Private at the top near the compass? Does this happen in all scenes, or just certain ones?

 

Private mode was utterly destroyed by Port quite some time ago. It only applies to certain adventuring scenes, and never applies to the overland map or any type of town. It's a complete reversal of what they advertised it would be.

 

Thank you! That must be it -- I wasn't able to get past the Outskirts online, and it didn't occur to me that they would be treated any differently. I can't imagine why they would be -- if a newbie can't achieve anything even in the Outskirts because more experienced (or in my case, less laggy) players have already looted everything, than why would they be tempted to stick around? But if I know that it is ONLY the Outskirts areas, then I can grit my teeth and bear it until I've finished them.

Or maybe I should just set an alarm and plan to do the Outskirts at some insane time of the night when the Brits are still at the office and the rest of the Americans are asleep.

(And yes, there ARE crafting stations in all three Outskirts.)

Will go back to the one of the Tier 1 scenes now to test and see if it's working properly there.

 

I lobbied against making the outskirts scenes forced multiplayer because all new players start in Open mode and have to know, and decide, to switch to private mode.

 

Even as a high level adventurer, I skipped going and doing the initial scenes because they aren't in private mode, and it was an utter pain in the rear to try and get the quests done while competing with people. It's like they deliberately made it so the first scenes players would adventure in would be difficult due to competition with other players, which seems a rather bad route to go. I hope someday they'll restore the private mode they promised instead of the abomination it is today.

 

I don't mind having to go switch from Open to Private -- as a matter of course, I always explore the settings in any software before actually using it. But when you know you have switched to Private, and then aren't IN it, and there's nothing in the Player Instructions to explain why...

I am trying really hard to bite my tongue on the issue of forced-multiplayer in general; I know that argument's been done to death already and as a free player, I'm disinclined to complain too much. I'll miss visiting Highvale Outskirts because I just loved the landscape so very much, so it's a shame that it's effectively ruined for me, but as long as having other players around doesn't interfere with getting my welcome deed, I'm sure I'll find other pretty places to explore. (If it does interfere with the quest though, I'm back to offline mode only.)

 

Ah, I forgot that Outskirts are forced multiplayer. Yeah, I'm playing mostly offline now due to the lack of Private mode.

 

Yeah, I keep wobbling thinking I OUGHT to just go back to offline. I have spent WAY too much time with different characters doing the same starter scenes while I try to figure out the best configuration for me (online/offline, Windows/Linux, etc.). I had mostly settled down to offline only, but two things sparked me to give online one more try: the login reward (not that it was that great, just that it reminded me that there are lots of neat content options online that we don't get offline), and the fact that the longer I play, the more I develop long-term world-building and roleplaying goals that aren't doable offline. My short-term goals are easier offline, but the mid-term goals might be easier online (can't tell yet), and the long-term goals are simply impossible offline and only insanely-difficult-but-theoretically possible online. If I give up on online, I have to give up on those goals. :-(

 

I hear ya. I've got a shop in Central Brittany and a library in Elad's Lighthouse that I got to place during the initial land rush. I really want to continue building them up so they are useful to other players. But I'm totally not interested in playing online at the moment, so instead I log in a few times per month, click all my replenishing boxes, visit the Oracle and go try out whatever the popular hunting spot is. Once I get bored, or lag out enough to crash, I move on to other things.

I had lots of goals. Those were back before I could barely walk through town to get to my shop, much less decorate it or load up the vendor...