It comes and it goes in waves. Everything you've described has happened before and will again. The trick is to keep on playing so long as it's fun. People you RP with may leave, and you might meet new people to fill in the gaps. Just roll with it.
"the reason there are so many sarcastic pvpers is we already had a better version of pvp taken away from us to appease bad players. Back then we chuckled at how bad players came here and whined. If we knew that was the actual voice devs would listen to instead of informed, educated players we probably would have been bigger dicks back then." -ConFlict
Listen to the Reiraku. For me, I'm on cycle 4 or 5 :7
This will be a long post. You have been warned. :-D
To be entirely honest, Straenge, Virtue hasn't hit Free-dumb level yet. I'd say we're at Freedom 1.5 if we were to put an upgrade tag on it.
I come from Freedom. I still play, very actively, on Freedom. I've got 15 50's on Freedom, and more coming in on a nearly daily basis, because of my group of friends who farm (including myself).
Here's how the story goes, at least from a Freedom to Virtue perspective:
Freedom has always been about getting the levels, the influence, the new toys (incarnate stuff) faster than 'you', while doing as little work as possible, and being richer than 'you' in the process. At first, it was the Peregrine Island/Grandville farming Demons, Battle Maiden's warriors, Freakshow, etc. And this is how life was lived (on top of TF's all that good stuff)
And then Mission Architect / Architect Entertainment came.
In less than a day, exploit farms were built, and very exploited. This influx of old and new accounts flooded the servers (not to mention free server x-fers that happened shortly there after) and people who had never seen a level 50 (despite their 12 mo. vet badges) suddenly had 10 level 50's in less than 24 hours.
Talk about some serious idiots that crashed my server (Freedom). People didn't know how to play their toons, the market SKYROCKETED, and the RMT services suddenly made a killing on selling billions of influence/infamy for like 2 bucks per billion.
Since the AE Debut, things have actually calmed down. Though if you want to play on Freedom, you definitely don't start in Atlas Park, because broadcast looks something like this : [Broadcast] Player Dude: Lvl 38 LF AE Farm Will Pay. Or, even better: [Broadcast] Farmer Dude: +4x8 Private Farm LFM. 40 Million per run. PST.
Yeah...people pay this ridiculous price to get a few levels.
Let's step over to Virtue, which is a culture shock for me.
Sure, your idiots are still present, but if I walk into Atlas Park on my Dp/MM Blaster (which yes, is built to farm, even on Virtue. Certain habits can't be kicked outta me just yet) I'm not bombarded with 'PL Meh Nao!' tells. I can go anywhere, and do my business, be it a little roleplaying in any zone, play the market, or, yes, farm without being bugged.
Again, coming from Freedom, to Virtue, let me outline a couple of things.
Freedom:
- Habitually overpowered toons wandering around, talkin' smack about how l33t their purple io'd and t4 alpha and incarnated toon is.
- Constant broadcasts to give and receive power leveling.
- Unless it's outlined VERY clearly, early on, the chances of some Freedom players taking direction is slim to none. (Not always the case, mind you. But, you'll understand here in a minute) But we will generally kill something pretty quickly, due to our overpowered numbers toons.
There's more I could say about Freedom, but let's talk about Virtue for a second.
Virtue:
- More concept toons running around, than toons slotted for numbers. (I'm still coming to terms with this, bear with me.)
- Broadcasts are, generally, seen with those goofy (( )) parenthesis to denote OOC relations. (As an old school roleplayer, I already understood this concept, but still something to come to terms with)
- Virtue players are VERY GOOD at taking instructions, be it on the fly, or detailed in the beginning. THIS IS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR!! After dealing with most of the crap I've dealt with on Freedom over the last 4 years. I have never seen a group of people do as they are told by a Raid/Trial/TF leader, on any server, the way I've seen Virtue take to direction. The event in question may not go as fast as it does on Freedom, due to lack of numbers oriented toons, but you guys don't give up the way Freedom does, either.
So, depending on which server you're on, and if you're brave enough to play on both, you see a lot of the same similarities, regardless of how different of a community it really is.
RP wise, Virtue is way more laid back. I mean, there's roleplay going on 24-7, in any zone, and you can spend an hour b.s'ing with each other over introductory 'hellos' before actually hitting the mission door, and have a crap ton of a fun doing it. Freedom...Everything is 'go go go', 'faster faster faster'. If you breath, or blink, you'll miss out. As far as RP on Freedom...Yeah...it's there...Just underground, and using those (( )) in our chats will get a you a prompt 'Virtue ---->' response.
So, you see Straenge, you talk about how Virtue is Freedom 2.0...trust me, it isn't. I LOVE coming to Virtue to kick my feet back, hang out, do some roleplaying, and be creative. Sure, I facepalm regularly when I see an Invuln/FA tank with Hover, Fly, Air Superiority, and NO Fighting Pool, or Hasten. But, you guys are much nicer than your run of the mill Freedom player who only sits in Atlas Park and gets power leveled from 1 to 50 in 6 hours.
Bottom of the line, Straenge, don't compare Virtue to Freedom. It hasn't reached that point yet. And if the RP isn't what you want it to be, let me know, and I'll definitely do everything in my power to make it what you want it to be. I'm not going anywhere any time soon, and neither are the people I play with, on Virtue, who are pretty decent folks (including you ;-) )
[Admin] Anti-Matter: I was in ur dimenshun, killin ur d00ds.
[Admin] Emperor Marcus Cole: Good job, Anti-Matter. Troll them.
Freedom, Virtue, Exalted
I agree it comes and goes. But the key to getting through this hump is to actively look for new SGs and new people to interact and socialize with and join a bunch of channels. Because the more you skulk to the back or side, the worse it's gonna be ...
I used to love the RP in the D and now I don't even go there, unless for some IC reason for my character. People are in their own little cliques that they don't RP outside of. And, jumping in, even to just take part in a conversation, has led to mixed responses varying from allowed participation, to ignoring to outright rudeness *shrugs*
I've switched servers actually, for most of my RP time and hop back onto Virtue only when I know there are SG peeps around and I can get some good RP in.
I tried Freedom. Took me 15 minutes of reading the Help Channel to never, ever, EVER come back. Here's a few choice gems:
"why make a tanker, brutes better"
"blasters bring nothing to the team"
"lol whyd you roll a defender"
"dark armor is ****ty and worthless"
"if it doesn't have defense its useless"
"doms are way better than trollers in every way, trollers r useless"
"lol a pain mm? noob"
"nub plz"
"lol bow down n00b"
"rofl noob"
Yeah. I got sick of that **** in WoW. I'm not about to listen to it here.
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
It was inevitable that I would post here again heh
@Obsidian, I know and you are one of the few people I talk to on a regular basis so you know how I play. I just get a bit frustrated. Don't get me wrong, I still love and prefer Virtue over any other server and I hope it's at least momentary. Maybe when I started it was at a good moment but I just find myself wondering if I am just too uptight or if things have changed, which is why I posted this. And also, I haven't spent as much time on Freedom as many here have and just having flashbacks from years back on Runescape *shudders* and others like it. Compared to those, every server here is like a breath of fresh air.
Of course Virtue isn't like Freedom in that regard but, I suppose maybe its due to the time of year as well and I was on quite a bit more often during the fall/winter months. I am just missing hanging out under Atlas with my first few friends here and enjoying ourselves without being bothered by random idiots that seem to crop up more often now, but again, thats just my perspective. I suppose I am just not used to things still.
I probably shouldn't post this. I am not a veteran by any means, unless you count the year I have been here. I haven't been on the forums as long as many or played nearly as long. Perhaps my opinion doesn't count as much. I don't have many friends, just a handful if that and I mostly just people watch and apart of a couple different SG's.
Of course this is leaving a wide open berth to a flamewar, trollbaiting and the like but to keep that to a minimum, I am just going to say my piece and leave it at that. Agree or Disagree, I won't respond just to keep the drama at a minimum.
When I first started, I couldn't stand being on Freedom. It felt like being surrounded by hyperactive mentally unstable children on acid and I just couldn't enjoy the game so I didn't play as often my first few months here. I tried a few other servers but most of them seemed pretty dead overall until I came to Virtue. This was around August of last year and I was pleasantly surprised. It seemed the majority of the players were much like myself, just trying to have their momentary fun while they can with a good amount of adults like myself. Of course there are going to be the occasional idiot but it wasn't that bad.. you knew who the trollers and griefers were and they were minimal at the time.
Maybe it's just me and maybe I am just burned out and seeing things differently but I really feel that its changed for the worse. Between the random trollers and griefers and just plain idiots that act like monkeys on crack, there is a sudden influx of these types thats just ruining the game for me. Now I know they have always been there.. they have always existed in one form or another and I am sometimes quick with the ignore but I am asking, is it just me? Are there not more.. people just acting idiotic on Virtue?
I have asked the few friends I have made here and they pretty much repeat everything I said. It seems since around Christmas or maybe GR came out that it really started to shape. Friends and I were joking last night that Virtue is becoming Freedom 2.0 and I wonder what your opinion is on this, agree or disagree or its always been this way? Of course I haven't been around as many and no matter what MMO you play, "The old days" will always be better but it feels different here.
When I first started playing, I thought I had found a new type of place to unwind and met quite a few friends here. Now, half of them no longer log in and the other half hide in their SG bases or set up small RPing events in out of the way places and it just doesn't feel the same like it did when I started. Even some the type of RP seems to have been dumbed down to the point where its beyond silly. Am I the only one feeling this? Just curious
When being a hero isn't enough...