Memphis_Bill

The error I see, and which we apparently won't agree on, is that I see that as an outstandingly obvious error by the development team. One in need of being fixed.

So long as it isn't, it's not the person being kicked who is the victim of the error - it's everyone involved each and every time someone is.

(And I'll still argue it's not "both," but I have a feeling I'm reading the phrase "taking it out on" subjectively, adding a feeling of malice on the part of the person doing the kicking - which does not necessarily exist. It would be "taking it out on" the other player if it were - for instance - like the people who used to invite a lowbie to a team just to Recall Friend them off the edge of a building and let them drop.)

I don't think we're going to budge each other on this - I am notoriously stubborn, and haven't seen an argument to convince me this should be left as is, and you - well, you're dogged enough to run thousands of trials to test accuracy. All I'll say is "expect me to argue for this to be changed."

(And I also refuse to take "It's developer intent..." as anything close to a persuasive argument on this. It was also developer intent to have tank armors be exclusive to each other, and that was seen as an error and changed - as were many, many other things done by "developer intent." I expect them to be able to adapt and change to fit multiple playstyles for these scenarios, not shrug their shoulders and say "That's how we did it, deal.")

Yeah - and if that option being asked for were available (private/invite only,) nobody would have had to deal with that.

So did you grab the others (you did say two teams worth) and start a league of your own to run a trial? You could have done either one with that. The ability was in your hands - and the information.

I don't have proof, you're right. And despite your relationship with the devs (which, to be clear, I'm not putting down in any way, it's helped in many instances, just stating,) I'm not sure you do either. You mention having "an instance" of BAF and Lambda "ready to go and forked as needed," but I highly doubt it - it would, *to me,* seem rather wasteful.

Now, you could say the same about the zones - except that the zones, in many cases, have events going that need to be tracked. Lucsca, the Ghost Ship, Invasions and the like. So while there may not be a client reading that data, that data is being maintained and updated.

There's no reason for it to be for my missions, for (say) the infamous bridges map in ITF or for BAF/Lambda. (As for what it would change in my mind if they were? Well, it wouldn't *improve* my opinion of the current dev team - I'd think they were adding inefficiency for no good reason.)

Regardless, you may see this "side track" as pointless, but it goes right back to "Why give the players this level of control?" After all, it started with Snow Globe's argument - as odd as it was - that league locking shouldn't be allowed because you can't lock the RWZ and the mothership raid that takes place there. (paraphrased.) The game may not have an "obligation" to set up Incarnate raids that way - but they did, so I do not agree with you that the argument would be "vaporized," nor do I agree that the level of control (leagues lockable at a level below maximum/rejection of LFG puggers) should be disallowed for these.

Now, I'll give that there would likely be extra programming work involved - the league interface can be used for mothership raids as well, and locking a league there accomplishes nothing as anyone can start a new one and go to the exact same mothership - but I will *not* take that as a reason for the functionality to be denied to other uses like the BAF/Lambda.

Given the insane INF that some people have - no, no direct costs. The Inf-Prestige conversion is a way of destroying some of that INF.

The conversion, though... yeah, asked for that to be looked at for years. I'm sure it'll be done a few months after they fix PVP.

That is not "taking it out on" another player.

That's attempting to take some control of the gaming experience.

"Taking it out on" another player, to me, would be - for instance - following them around and destroying spawns they need... or training higher level spawns TO them. Intentionally doing something for the express purpose of ruining their gaming experience.

Kicking them is no different, IMHO, from kicking someone who accidentally joined your team because of a typo. "Sorry, was looking for rogue angel, not rouge. My Typo. GL,HF!" *kick* is perfectly legitimate - not "taking it out on" somone else.

The Hive exists (or is maintained by the server) whether anyone's in it or not. So is the RWZ. So is every other "real" (I'm going to use that versus the upcoming "instanced' reference) zone - if nobody's there, Adamastor still spawns in DA, the fires still break out in Steel Canyon and the like. And I do put SG bases in this, as the power/control state is monitored and held constant despite occupancy status.

By comparison, the "instanced" zones do NOT exist until there's reason for them to do so - your mission is *not* shared with the next person (barring hunt/talk to missions in the open zones.) The orenbangan cave you're running through to find Percy Winkley doesn't exist until needed. Nor does the BAF. If there were no difference, we couldn't reset a mission by picking another then heading back. The zone for missions - and the BAF and Lambda - are destroyed when not occupied.

Much like I can choose to solo a mission, invite only friends, or grab anyone from the zones who wants to to run that mission (or task force) whatever way I like, the trials should let me do so as well. It's the way teaming has gone here in - well, quite some time, and that flexibility is exceedingly welcome. Much like the statement you make in your next point - "Other games force it on you," to boil it down, well, there's a reason I'm not playing "other games." (I hated it in STO, while I tried that out.)

If the player is attempting to reach an objective a certain way - and the game allows it in almost every other scenario - I wouldn't judge that person for kicking someone uninvited at all. I *would* judge the tool AND the developers for breaking their own standards.

It obviously IS happening, or the question would not have been raised. I don't have numbers - but neither do you, so stop trying to set that little strawman up.
My being "Decent" or not has as much to do with if I have or have not kicked someone from a trial (or anything else) as the color of my socks. Again, strawman. Much like the willingness (or not) of people to accept people from LFG has anything to do with the desire of people, on occasion, to run with a specific team and not have to deal with others coming in from the queue uninvited.

Requesting a feature is not "making a mountain out of a molehill."

Semantics. WHich you're using poorly.

The hive and mothership raids are *population limited* - like every OTHER zone. They are not created specifically for the event. They exist whether it's going on or not, as far as the server's concerned - much like Founders Falls, Nerva, Dark Astoria and the like. They are not, in that definition, "Instanced."

The BAF and Lambda ARE. Just like every (non-hunt/talk-to) mission. They are created specifically for that one event/mission - thus, instanced.

More than 24 or 16 does not "lock" Lambda sector. I can't walk into Lambda sector on my own - it does not exist WITHOUT an ongoing raid.

Which can be done through normal means (socially - go to pocket D/RWZ, go through channels) without being forced on people who don't want that - and who, via kicking the people they didn't want joining in the first place, don't waste other players time.
No, that's your pet solution. That's not a "best possible fix," and forcing it is at times as unwelcome as extending it to force anyone not on a team to end up on an 8 person team would be.

Friends/global friends lists.
/Hide (from everyone, or from specific groups.)

You can already limit who you want to team with, and it hasn't hurt the game. Continuing this to trials would not hurt anything, and would in fact be MORE helpful and LESS damaging (socially and time-wise) as it won't have people getting kicked from groups they wouldn't have been in in the first place.

No, they don't.

The casual player can bring up the team window and see where all the 50s are and go there - since that's likely where the teams are forming. Given I've sat in LFG for a good half hour or more at a time (purely out of curiosity, really) while leagues get formed, vanish and *finish their trials,* the casual player should pretty much be ignoring the tool at this point.

It's still also not an argument against people being able to create private leagues. If anything, it's an argument FOR it, as it would prevent the kick in the first place.

The LFG tool needs work - such as letting both those in queue and those who want to start iTrial raids see how many are in queue (and who they are.)

And this argument, as much as ANYONE wants to pound it, is complete and utter BS.

People who want to team with other people will do so, no matter what's put in place. Hell, there was a point where missions were broken for a short time and you could bring multiple teams into *regular missions* - and people did so.

People who only want to team with SPECIFIC people, or who decide, for a single raid, to have a smaller amount (or only want to do, say, a blaster-only trial, or a defender-only trial) should have the ability to do so - without having the game coming in to say "By the way, here's some people you didn't want to team with to join your project! Have fun!"

There's no lack of willingness to team NOW. But statements like the quoted seem to imply there is - like this is nothing but City of Soloists, and the devs had to step in and force this tech through to show us how wrong we all are.

Control over teaming should be in the hands of the players. The hammer doesn't tell the carpenter what to build. The tool should be controlled by the one who uses it, not overriding their wishes.

They're accessible with one as well.

And yet they do anyway. Your point?
Which, if you're trying to challenge yourselves in some way, or have an RP-tied raid, or have people you know are going to go AFK for whatever reason, or just want to go with friends, is not an "advantage" or "upside."

Note that your name is not in red. While you're welcome to your OPINION, you're directly in opposition to those who WOULD like this feature. And I'm glad we CAN at least kick people out. Without being able to, there could be people who just refuse to get along with others or are there JUST to hose attempts at, say, badges (one of your favourite topics, after all,) who would not be able to be gotten rid of.

You put an awful lot on the queue system that is not there. Players will "come together" whenever they want - and should have the ability to LIMIT that interaction when they want. Just because I have a front door on my house does not mean I want my neighbors to "come together" with me whenever they want.

Do note the front door has a lock. So should the queue system.

And the BEST time to push for a change is when it's new versus established.

Yeah. Those get to be expensive, for starters, and (second- and third-hand) seem to like reinstalling more than fixing. On the plus side, some *will* back up your data beforehand.

... you are doing backups, yes? (Even if it's just your documents and such - the stuff that cannot be replaced.) If not, look into mozy, dropbox, and/or an external hard drive. (Yes, I'm big on backups. Used to work for Veritas before their Backup Exec was picked up by - think it was Symantec.)

(Edit: IF at all curious, my general process with these:
1. Grab CProcess, Mike Lin's startup control panel, Malwarebytes and the EXEfix reg entry. Get a command prompt ready.
2. Rename cprocess.exe cprocess.com. Look for the oddball process. Sometimes named by the fake AV's name, more commonly using another program's name but with the wrong EXE (f'rinstance, Windows Live but called slaflkje.exe.) Get the directory it's in.
3. Get the command prompt. Go to that directory. Attrib -r -s -h the random name.
4. Get a rename command ready on that file. Don't hit enter.
5. Kill the process in cprocess.
6. Immediately swap to command prompt, fire off the rename.
7. Double click the Regfix. Let it restore the .exe files.
8. Run the "startup control panel." Look for any other odd entries in startup. (It's actually rather useful. Tend to kill unneeded items at this point anyway.)
9. Run Malwarebytes. Let update. Run.
10. If MWB doesn't see the renamed file, delete it anyway.

Probably a 97% success rate on that. But yeah - not something I'd start telling someone else to do blindly.)

Just as a side note, if you were wondering, yes Judgment works in forms. (<3 my Dwarf-Nuke.)

You see that word "Team" there?

Yeah. Note that it's different from "Zone?"
Guess what. We can disagree with that and make that known, whether you like it or not.

I wouldn't say it went quite that way. The allies didn't sit back and wait - they DID try to get Russia involved, but thanks to the "We won't stab you in the back right this moment" treaty they and Germany made (when they split Poland,) Russia wasn't interested.

It was more a case of Germany overreaching AND having REALLY bad timing (due, as I recall, to having the offensive delayed thanks to having to save Italy's bacon either in the balkans or N. Africa.) The fight with the USSR was coming - but had Germany waited and finished with England first, we'd have a much different world.

(Also, don't sweat those odds - Finland did amazingly against Russia in the Winter and Continuation wars at much longer odds.)

I could see a branching system if it branched *earlier* (somewhere between lvl 10-14.) 24 is just ridiculous - especially with the forced respec then. One of the things I can't *stand* about it (moreso when going huntsman.)

I don't think you're getting the question. The point - which goes right back to the OP - is "Why should it NOT work with smaller teams?" And I agree. It should work for smaller teams as well, as long as they meet the *minimum* for the trials. That's the only number that should matter.

*snort*

Right. Like that doesn't happen now because people make full teams while the LFG set sits and waits for an hour before giving up. LFG is already useless, better to give those that want the smaller teams the option to lock it, review how it's ACTUALLY used, give more information in the tool (such as "number waiting") that both people in queue and team leaders can see and invite from and actually make it somewhat useFUL.

Either that or dump it entirely.

There's no "Elitism" in that. People can *want* to just run with friends or a SG. They may want to run at minimum for a challenge. They may have RP reasons. They may know they're not going to get the "max" rewards because someone may have to go take care of a sick kid and go AFK for a bit. That's not saying they're better, or anyone else is worse. That's their preference - and it should be respected.

It's not preventing people who want to team from doing so, any more than the game not forcing people onto teams as soon as they log in is doing so now. It would be maintaining the flexibility of playing *how you choose.*

Sometimes works. Sometimes doesn't.

And I rarely see a virus - yes, including the fake AV ones - that actually require a reinstall. It's like tearing down every house in the neighborhood because of one cracked window - tends to be an overreaction. (There *are* a few that, yeah, that's the best way of doing things, but they are rather rare. Most consist of a single *file* that's causing all the trouble, and they don't actually infect anything else - at worst, they hijack the .exe file extension, thus the "fixexe" above.)

If it stops MBAM.EXE, even when renamed, you *can* try one other thing - assuming you have it showing file extensions - and that's renaming it from a .exe to a .com.

What does this virus identify itself as? (Something like "XP Antivirus 2011" would show on the alert window, especially when it asks you to buy it.)

(Edit: Should also be doing the renaming, etc. in safe mode.)