Changes to Player searches

[Yarginis]

According to LU19a update notes<blockquote><hr width="100%" size="2">* Anonymous characters will not show up for any specific searches made by players. * Roleplaying characters will not show up in class, level, or race searches, but will still show up in LFG and LFW searches. They will also appear in guild and name type /who searches.<hr width="100%" size="2"></blockquote>This worries me greatly in that it will make the player search functions almost useless. The problem being, it seems as if 75% or more of the higher lvl characters run around with 1 of these two tags on permanently out of habbit. Currently we can do a search, for example if we need a wizard for cazel, for all wizards 58-60 and then scroll through all of the names to find people we have grouped with before and then send them a /t asking if they would like to join us. With this change, the only way to do this will be adding every single person we group with to our friends list, very impractical. If this is added, it need to be put in as an option for the searcher to look only for players not currently anon/rp, so that we may still search the entire list if desired. If they don't show up when you do a zone search thats one thing, but we need the option to search for all players regardless. These tags are worn FAR to commonly to remove the people under them from search results.This isn't like EQ1 where you have to worry about higher lvl chars being constantly asked for buffs etc. It is simply a more practical way than our friends list for us to search for people we know to fill out a group spot. (And I have never seen random invites without the LFG tag on so that is not an issue)Please reconsider how this change will impact group forming, we are mature enough to refrain from spamming random invites on our own.Also, have you considered what this will do to people who use these searches to track population of certain classes, races, lvl's, etc?<div></div>

[Magu]

People who WANT to group will soon learn to disable the /anon or /role flags.The reason behind the change is that many people who are /anon do so because they do NOT want to group - they don't want people bugging them in /tell because they're a healer and the group needs one.<div></div>

[FrankBu]

Perhaps the /anon flag indicates that you do not want to group.But the /role flag do in no way indicate that a person do not want to group, and people really shouldnt have to disable the /role flag just because they want to group with others.Seems weird to me that SOE decided to put this feature on both /anon and /role if it was to make things more comfortable for people with /anon flag on.<div></div>

[tebion]

<span><blockquote><hr>FrankBuck wrote:<b>But the /role flag do in no way indicate that a person do not want to group, and people really shouldnt have to disable the /role flag just because they want to group with others.</b><hr></blockquote>well, that's why roleplaying chars will still be found if they are LFG or LFW -> mission accomplished.and yeah, if someone has anon on, i guess he will want to be .. well, anonymous, yes, and not disturbed.</span><div></div>

[Swiftshad]

<div></div>Great!! I cant wait to finally really be anonomous LOL ... as a healer I am sick of being asked to group or randomly invited to group and harassed with tells like but we really really need a healer to be able to xp etc etc etc OR we grouped before we really need you etc etc.  When Im anon <u><em>im anon for a reason</em></u>, if Im LFG then I will turn anon off - its not hard.  I like to be polite but I am sick of having to justify why I dont want to group with someone when I dont even have LFG up!

[Jaffa Tamarin]

If you search for characters that are LFG and in a specific level range, will RP characters show up?I still think that "I want to RP" does not mean "I want to hide my class/level", and people that want to do both should have to use both /role and /anon.  Also, they should make the functionality for RP characters apply to everyone on the RP(-preferred) servers.<div></div>

[Junaru]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Jaffa Tamarin wrote:If you search for characters that are LFG and in a specific level range, will RP characters show up?I still think that "I want to RP" does not mean "I want to hide my class/level", and people that want to do both should have to use both /role and /anon.  Also, they should make the functionality for RP characters apply to everyone on the RP(-preferred) servers.<div></div><hr></blockquote>From the discription of the patch notes I would say yes if you are /lfg and RP you will show up in the list.As for hiding your class/level with RP or Anon. It's not hard to target someone and figure out the class by the buffs they have on them. As for level, well if they have a pet the pet tells the level of the caster. Also inspecting someone will tell you all the info you need to know about them.</span></div>

[Mon]

This is a good change, and should have been fixed earlier.  I also think LFG and Anon should be mutually exclusive.  If you go anon it should switch off LFG, and vice versa.  Its absolutely stupid to be able to have both up at the same time.<div></div>

[Powers]

Roleplayers have long felt (going back to the earliest days of EQ1) that the /roleplay tag should not change what gets displayed in a /who search, except maybe to add an "RP" tag to the list.  I believe the consensus of the roleplaying community is that /roleplay should be a visual change only.The change for /anon makes sense.  It does not make sense for /roleplay.  If a /roleplayer wants to be /anon too, they can do so, but it shouldn't be enforced.For example, if I want to find a roleplaying armorer, why shouldn't I be able to do so, rather than having to go through and ask every LFW roleplayer if they happen to be an armorer?Powers  &8^]<div></div>

[cr0wangel]

<div></div>Just wondering if eventually we will have an option to prevent others from inspecting us, when we are anon or roleplayer. This is something that always bothered me in the game. I am a roleplayer, these are my ''numbers'', I don't like the fact that everyone can see my character info. So, it will be nice if we could have an option so no one could inspect you if you don't want to. Just a suggestion. Of course, people wanting to expose their numbers, could still do it!

[Rijacki]

<span><blockquote><hr>Yargnit wrote:According to LU19a update notes<blockquote><hr width="100%" size="2">* Anonymous characters will not show up for any specific searches made by players. * Roleplaying characters will not show up in class, level, or race searches, but will still show up in LFG and LFW searches. They will also appear in guild and name type /who searches.<hr width="100%" size="2"></blockquote>This worries me greatly in that it will make the player search functions almost useless. The problem being, it seems as if 75% or more of the higher lvl characters run around with 1 of these two tags on permanently out of habbit. [snip](And I have never seen random invites without the LFG tag on so that is not an issue)Please reconsider how this change will impact group forming, we are mature enough to refrain from spamming random invites on our own.Also, have you considered what this will do to people who use these searches to track population of certain classes, races, lvl's, etc?<div></div><hr></blockquote>Just because you have never seen random invites doesn't mean they don't happen.  Just because you have not been harrassed when you didn't want to group doesn't mean no one else has.  I have actually been berated because I declined on an anonymous, no tell before and no one I know, group invite (without the LFG tag on) jsut because I entered the zone to do some harvesting and soloing and I'm not a healer. Those who put the anon tag on don't want to be bothered.  Why do you think your desires takes precedence over theirs?  As others said, if they want to group or otherwise be bothered, they'll take the anon off and/or put LFG on.Other people in the game are not there jsut for -your- benefit.It will affect grouping.  It will allow people, even more than now, to indicate "I am not LFG" (you would think the lack of the /lfg tag might indicate that.. but.. even this post says that's not so).As for "tracking population"... EQ2Players will still have all the information you're looking for. </span><div></div>

[Calthine]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Yargnit wrote:Please reconsider how this change will impact group forming, we are mature enough to refrain from spamming random invites on our own.<hr></blockquote>You might be, but unfortunately a lot of folks aren't.  I've actually reported two people for harassement after multiple ninja invites per day several days in a row, when my politely asking them to stop didn't work (and in one case resulted in me being called some very interesting names).

[Snublefot]

<div>Pretty sure more then a few bot users will be happy with this...</div>

[graxnip]

<div></div>This is the best fix EVER!I am a healer who went anon after 5-6 random - pop-up grp invites a day, anon indeed slowed that down - to about 2-3 a week now. but those 2-3 really tick me off as I am supposed to be hidden. I play US times on a EU server when the population is lower so the /who all cleric 50 60 command only pops up a few people. but there I am : Grahsa <anonymous>..  I am thrilled that I will never see another random grp invite again.>Soanso has invited you to a groupNo, sorry I am doing a writ/tradeskilling/harvesting/sorting bank space/drinking in the dark elf strip bar/whatever, I dont want to group.>plz I need to kill a named in EFwhat did'nt you understand about NO?- I have a had a few times when people would invite - i hit decline, 3 mins later same thing from same person - immediately /ignore.But between this fix and the mention of fixing line of sight issue as well as mobs partially stuck in walls- I am very happy with this update so far.<div></div><p>Message Edited by graxnip on <span class="date_text">01-12-2006</span><span class="time_text">09:49 AM</span></p>

[Azamien-Dermorate]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Calthine wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>Yargnit wrote:Please reconsider how this change will impact group forming, we are mature enough to refrain from spamming random invites on our own.<hr></blockquote>You might be, but unfortunately a lot of folks aren't.  I've actually reported two people for harassement after multiple ninja invites per day several days in a row, when my politely asking them to stop didn't work (and in one case resulted in me being called some very interesting names).<hr></blockquote><p>in this kinda scenerio /ignore works wonderfully ... chances are you dont want to have anything to do with anyone that would harass you to the point you would report them anways.</p><p> </p><blockquote><hr>Yargnit wrote:According to LU19a update notes<blockquote><hr size="2" width="100%">* Anonymous characters will not show up for any specific searches made by players. * Roleplaying characters will not show up in class, level, or race searches, but will still show up in LFG and LFW searches. They will also appear in guild and name type /who searches.<hr size="2" width="100%"></blockquote>This worries me greatly in that it will make the player search functions almost useless. The problem being, it seems as if 75% or more of the higher lvl characters run around with 1 of these two tags on permanently out of habbit. Currently we can do a search, for example if we need a wizard for cazel, for all wizards 58-60 and then scroll through all of the names to find people we have grouped with before and then send them a /t asking if they would like to join us. With this change, the only way to do this will be adding every single person we group with to our friends list, very impractical. If this is added, it need to be put in as an option for the searcher to look only for players not currently anon/rp, so that we may still search the entire list if desired. If they don't show up when you do a zone search thats one thing, but we need the option to search for all players regardless. These tags are worn FAR to commonly to remove the people under them from search results.This isn't like EQ1 where you have to worry about higher lvl chars being constantly asked for buffs etc. It is simply a more practical way than our friends list for us to search for people we know to fill out a group spot. (And I have never seen random invites without the LFG tag on so that is not an issue)Please reconsider how this change will impact group forming, we are mature enough to refrain from spamming random invites on our own.Also, have you considered what this will do to people who use these searches to track population of certain classes, races, lvl's, etc?<div></div><hr></blockquote><p>Maybe you havent had random invites but I continually got random invites for the 4th Carpet quest guy even though I was /anon.  I was quite bothered by the fact that I had to keep telling these people I didnt know to leave me alone and kept wondering where they were getting my name.  I hadnt realized that /anon didnt actually hide me from searches which is why I had it up in the first place.     </p><p>As mentioned already /role lfg or lfw will still turn up on searches so if they want work or groups they still can be found.  (although you might not know thier exact level if your searching by a range of levels)</p><p>People who use /who to track Population's should be useing eq2players and ultimately you can still be found out what level and class anyone on eq2players anyways.</p><p>This is a good change:smileywink: </p>

[Magu]

Just a note for those complaining about ninja invites: you can auto-decline invites, there's a checkbox on the Persona window. Until these /anon changes hit, enable that.<div></div>

[Powers]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Azamien-Dermorate wrote:<div></div><p>As mentioned already /role lfg or lfw will still turn up on searches so if they want work or groups they still can be found.  (although you might not know thier exact level if your searching by a range of levels)</p><hr></blockquote>I'm not certain that's true.  What I got from the update note is that <b>/who all roleplay LFW</b> will work as expected (although one would not be able to see classes or levels, making it virtually useless), but that <b>/who all armorer LFW</b> will NOT return roleplaying armorers whether they're LFW or not.  THAT's a problem.Perhaps someone should test this out on the test server and see what the actual behavior is.I'll say it again -- the /anon changes are fine.  The /role changes are NOT, and not what most roleplayers want.  The changes will force roleplayers to leave off the /roleplay tag if they want to be found, and that defeats what we see as the whole point of the tag.Powers  &8^]</span></div>

[Yarginis]

I guess the Anon part I can kind of see, but adding it to RP also is too much.As a 60 healer with full ad3+ and leg+ and having never once had Anon or RP on, I don't recall getting a random group invite pop up in the last 3 months. (Since i was mid 30's) Sure I'll occasionally get a /t from someone asking if I'd like to group, but nothing impolite. Just like a "Hey, we're looking for another healer for poets, would you like to come?" Noone has ever badgered me if I say no, and I think those that do are better delt with by the /ignore function than a sweeping change to the search. Something more apropriate would be to allow people to add a short msg (or checkbox options) to their search, such as if they r harvesting solo and would like to continue to, if they are crafting, raiding, etc. Maybe even what they would be most interested in doing.Beyond that inviters can solve this problem by using common sence. Don't ask people that are raiding, don't ask people who are currently in instances, try to look for people you have previously grouped with, and the most important one<b> be polite to those you are asking</b>. Following these I have never had a problem with people getting angry at me. When I needed a crafterfor example, I'd of course do a LFW first. If there are none avalible then I'd search for all, and go down the list for people who are in their city zones, homes, or crafting instances, then send them a /t something like this "Hiya, I noticed that you are a (X lvl) (Y profession). I was wondering if you might be avalible to craft (Z item) for me? Thank you" Again I have never gotten an angry responce, and if they say they can't then NBD. I'll ask if they have any friends whom they'd like to recommend for the job, and then leave them be.Point being again, these changes will just make it that much more difficult to find people, and can be fixed by simply courtesy.<div></div>

[Azamien-Dermorate]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>LtPowers wrote:<div><span><blockquote><hr>Azamien-Dermorate wrote:<div></div><p>As mentioned already /role lfg or lfw will still turn up on searches so if they want work or groups they still can be found.  (although you might not know thier exact level if your searching by a range of levels)</p><hr></blockquote>I'm not certain that's true.  What I got from the update note is that <b>/who all roleplay LFW</b> will work as expected (although one would not be able to see classes or levels, making it virtually useless), but that <b>/who all armorer LFW</b> will NOT return roleplaying armorers whether they're LFW or not.  THAT's a problem.Perhaps someone should test this out on the test server and see what the actual behavior is.I'll say it again -- the /anon changes are fine.  The /role changes are NOT, and not what most roleplayers want.  The changes will force roleplayers to leave off the /roleplay tag if they want to be found, and that defeats what we see as the whole point of the tag.Powers  &8^]</span></div><hr></blockquote><p></p><hr><p>* Anonymous characters will not show up for any specific searches made by players. * Roleplaying characters will not show up in class, level, or race searches, but <strong>will still show up in LFG and LFW</strong> searches. They will also appear in guild and name type /who searches.</p><hr><p>Is /who all roleplay even a legitmate search?  that would be reduclous as it wouldnt tell you what type of work they were looking for.  Who in their  right minds wants to search thru a list of dozens of LFW'rs to see if they happend to be the right tradeskill class that you need?  that would be useless.</p><p>The way I read this is that if I do a<strong> /who all sage 51-60</strong>  I would get a list of all non anonymous and non roleplaying sages that were online. Roleplayers and Anon sages would be left out.</p><p><strong>/who all sage 51-60 LFW</strong> would return all sages 51-60 that were looking for work even if they were roleplaying tagged.  Anonymous wouldnt show up no mater what.  Role players wouldnt return a level but you would know they were within the range that you searched.</p><p>the differnt between the two seraches is the inclusion of the LFW or LFG in the search.  If someone is a taged as a roleplayer that doesnt mean they want to be left alone like with the /anon tag.  It means they do wish to be sought out but they would rather roleplay the interaction instead of the normal MMO banter.  The reasons for and funtionality of the two differnt tags should be differnt as they have differnt design purposes.  </p><p>Maybe I am being overly optimistic to assume that SoE would introduce this change and make it  as usefull as possible, instead of being useless as you suggested it might be.  If I am wrong I will be the first one to come and complain about it :smileytongue: </p><p>Message Edited by Azamien-Dermorate on <span class="date_text">01-13-2006</span><span class="time_text">10:27 AM</span></p>

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Well, they have of course done it the way that is most stupid and annoying.  /who all lfg 50 60 does not find roleplayers that are LFG in that level ranges.  The only LFG search that finds roleplayers is /who lfg or /who all lfg.  Which is largely useless.<div></div>