A small request...

Not to start a flame war but they erupt daily anyway... I don't see this as rude if its done politely. As an example last night in Sharkshead we were putting together a Silver Mantis SF. A 34 level Widow happened by and asked one of the team if she could join. The leader was desperately searching for 2 more to fill out the team and she was quickly invited to join. Now if someone sends a tell demanding you invite them to your team cause they are the most Uber whatever on the planet yeah that's rude. A simple "Any room on your team?" hardly seems the same.

That covered let me ask this.. You build teams, so do I, do you have a select group of friends that you team with constantly and never have a need for ANYONE to fill your 8 slots? Or do you do searches and send tells to players that fit whatever need you have at the time? I've gotten those along with Blind Invites while my "looking for a Team" feature was set to NO. I'm in a mission soloing surrounded by a mob I am trying to defeat and get a tell of worse that blind invite in the middle of my screen. So my question is which is ruder? "Do you have any room on your team?" or "We are doing 24ish level missions care to join?"

Someone mentioned it if you feel that strongly about it add something to your Search comments warning people NOT to send tells asking to join. Myself I never use search to build a team I advertsie in the globals and rarely have a problem filling 8 slots for anything from AV or GM battles, to TF/SFs, to just plain radios (although I rarely bother forming those since I can always find a team somewhere looking for a warm body to fill things up). I don't send tells I get them from players that have seen me advertising and want to join up.

As for the tag along with you and your girlfriend remark LOL I like that! One small difference though I rarely go on dates where I wind up in the middle of a street talking to some shady looking character and have a weapon in my hand along with a huge CRAB like device permanently attached to my back. My dates generally call and set things up and then show up at my house to drive me to dinner, a movie, or whatever. Now if we walked out the door and some guy jumped from out of the bushes and wanted to tag along I'd probably knock him out myself and then call the Police to take the Stalker lurking outside my apartment away. Hehehe On the other hand if I was a super hero in RL an as my covert contact was giving me an assignment another hero happened by and asked 'Hey that sounds sort of dangerous. Would you like me to tag along and help out?" I'd more than likely say yes :-D

For what it's worth - asking if you have room on a team in a team based game is not rude.

It is no different from someone asking me if I want to join a team.

Communication takes many forms and the game allows you to see who is in a team and who is not if they aren't hidden. I think you take the game and yourself waaay to seriously. Have fun kill stuff and get eggspee.

"Manners are often dictated by good sense. If you would be offended by an action, that action is likely to offend others too. Check yourself often to see if your talk, conversations, and treatment of others is respectful or rude. Would you like to be spoken to or treated the same way? Then correct whatever needs correction."


Something I found on the web. I think it pretty much explains the entire situation. The people who wouldn't be offended by someone asking, are the ones who ask. Those who wouldn't ever ask, are the one who consider it rude. I find it rude, and I wouldn't ever ask to join a team, unless the people on the team had called out they were looking for others.

Consolidating replies here.

Weatherby Goode: A place with a dedicated channel, and a closed map that is inaccessible to people not on the team, is the very definition of a private space. It does not matter whether it is populated by real-life friends, a supergroup, or a gathering of random strangers, it is still a private space. Someone trying to join in from outside has no idea what is going on inside that private space.

Wicked Wendy: Your arguments are invalid on several points, which I shall enumerate here.

1. No, I cannot fly in the real world; that has no bearing on the social space, which is about the interactions of real people.

2. Just because you have the ability to send tells in and out of private spaces does not make them less private.

3. Your example of standing around Synapse misses the point entirely because you are standing in a public space, and someone walking up has a reasonable idea of the sort of activity that team will be engaging in, two pieces of information completely lacking in those randomly sending tells asking to join a team.

4. If I am doing a search, I am asking politely if people are interested in doing a certain activity, in this case a Synapse TF. I only ask people who are solo and in public zones if they are interested; I do not recruit from people on mission maps. I read the search comments to see what people are interested in. When I do a search, I initiate a conversation with some degree of information about the person I am speaking to, and I let them know what the activity is going to be. In the reverse case, inviting yourself along to a team, you do not know what the activity is, or who the person you are speaking to is interested in doing. There is a vast difference between "Hey, I'm looking for two more to run a Synapse TF, are you interested?" and an out of the blue "Can I join your team?" when you have no idea how many are on the team or what they are doing.

5. Talking to your friend is an entirely different matter than talking to a complete stranger who you found through the search window.

6. I did not attend any sort of team leader training. I am not always the team leader. But I am able to find a team or form a team when I try, 90% of the time. It doesn't always happen instantly, and sometimes I run a mission solo or switch characters when I cannot find a team right away. But I put in an effort to get teams, to say that I'm looking to join, to talk to some of my friends and see if they are interested in teaming, et cetera. What I do not do is to assume that I am wanted or needed on a team that is already in the middle of a mission. If they were looking for more, they could find me, either by the search window or by seeing my broadcast. Or I could send a tell in response to a broadcast that a team was looking for a few more.

7. Certainly, people want to earn xp and influence, but there are as many reasons to play the game as there are players. Some choose to play with people they already know, some choose to play with random strangers. If I want to play with a pickup team, I don't try to join a team that is already playing, because they might well be a group that is real-life friends interested in catching up on what was going on that week while they beat up some bad guys. I would be out of place on such a team, and I understand why a group would not be interested in picking up some complete stranger who sent them a tell.

To sum up: To assume that you are wanted by a team just because a team exists is rude, because there are other ways of joining a team.

kilroy64: I prefer to treat other people as other people, and I prefer that they treat me as a person.

Bright Shadow: You come very close with your comment that "If I'm NOT playing soccer, and I don't even have the slightest implication on me that I am playing soccer, and a random person asks to join me in playing soccer, then that's neither annoying, nor rude. It's just stupid." That is the essence of it. We have a game with infinite soccer fields, and all you can see is that there is a group of people on a soccer field. It could be a company picnic, it could be me teaching my daughter to play soccer, or it could be a pickup soccer game. It's just that you can't see onto the field to see what is going on through the search window. Fortunately, we have public areas where people can set up groups of people for some friendly pickup soccer, which obviates the need to call over to each field and ask if you're welcome to join in.

Silencer7: You find it very easy to dismiss metaphors and to proclaim that an MMO is a different social space, but I have yet to see you post any reasoning backing up those claims outside of a sense of entitlement. I didn't ask for what you thought, I asked for why you thought it, and I am interested in what you have to say.

And, in the real world, asking strangers for what is not explicitly or implicitly offered has a name: panhandling. Notice that I did include implicit offers in my post, which you have conveniently ignored.

Bah, still not an issue. Rude is walking up and saying.

"Wow, you really think that costume combo looks good?"

Or "I know your team is lame without me"

Or "When you want to stop messing around with those idiots add me to your team"

Or "yes those graphics do make your butt look big"

Not "Hey, you have any room on your team?"

But did I read the OP say that it is NOT rude to send out blind team invitations?

I don't know that I would consider someone asking to join a team "rude" per se; I don't generally do it myself (but then, I'm anti-social and there are usually lots of groups around looking for people ). After all, if you don't ask, you won't find much, and to my mind it's really a very minimal difference between "any teams out there looking for more?" and "hey, can I join your team?". Who knows, maybe the person is asking to join your team specifically because they've heard good things about you from others.

I take a different view of the "blind invite", and I have had a few (including one where I was asking in a tell if I wanted to join a team, which was immediately followed by an invite before I even had time to reply). As a personal rule of thumb, I always turn down blind invites - anyone willing to invite me without even talking to me first needs higher standards for their team membership I also find blind invites more rude than asking to join someone's team because a tell shows up in the chat window... an invite plunks itself smack in the middle of the screen, which is very distracting if you are in the middle of a throwdown with a group of angry Tsoo.

All this really boils down to one thing. Respect and courtesy.

Now I'll elaborate a little bit on that. First, just because you as an individual might not see something wrong with an action as little and insignificant as sending a tell to someone asking if you can join their team does in no way mean that someone else wont as well.

We are all very different people, with different values and different ideas on what is right and good etc etc ad nauseum. Now I am not saying you should live your life trying to cater to everyone's wishes. It just isn't gonna happen. The old saying that you cannot please everyone all the time holds a lot of truth.

However, I AM saying that common coutesy and respect demands that you at least make the attempt to respect the wishes of others. Result: Don't send unsolicited tells to people who may not wish to recieve them. Instead make your request known in a more public fashion. Broadcast something along the lines of "So and so really looking to join one of the active teams around." in a channel you know said person can see. If they want you they'll contact you. If not, respect that and move on.

I cannot believe this thread is going. Too funny. The O.P. makes a mountain out of a mole hill (get a life, dude) and then we turn that mountain into a mountain range! Excelsior!

I'm with the OP. I have received multiple tells from the same individuals even after politely declining them or informing them that I am not the leader. "Oh sorry, I didn't recoginize the name." If your memory span is that bad I fear for your other cognitive abilities. In cases that I have allowed them to join (because we were not full) it is generally a very low level character requesting to join a high level team.

There are a multitude of other ways to find a team. I find this to be the most annoying and least constructive.