Player Status - I've got to Say it - "I told you so"

[Nuttymut]

Hi BB,

I'm very disappointed with the new screen which purports to show the status of members of a guild.

• It shows a player as inactive when a player has not played for 24hrs - I can't imagine what use this is to a guild admin trying to discern who the real inactives are
• And let's assume we have an inactive player - the minute someone visits their map to check - bingo they aren't inactive anymore - or at least not for the next 24hrs

And the Guild Quest guide showing. who has and hasn't completed their guild quest is really a very divisive tool and I do not think for a moment you have employed it not knowing just what the underlying effects would be. I will not be enforcing guild quests in our guild. Our members come to have fun and enjoy the game in a way that suits them. Let's not get down to micro managing an online game to this level shall we. I would sooner stick pins in my eyes.

If you're going to do something please do it properly - otherwise you would be better spending your resources on more valuable issues.

I have come to realise that it is not your ability to deliver that is the problem - it is my expectations - I shall lower them accordingly.

I am also cross that we have waited this long for what amounts to nothing.

I am no more wiser as to whom is and isn't truly inactive within my guild. And that's standard issue in any online game.

Best
Nutters :-)

[Nogbad]

very buggy as well, already seen it flip the figures for Guild Quest completion. One night it showed correctly the 9 players who had completed, then the next night all 9 were showing as not completed, and 2 inactive players were showing as having completed it.
Chocolate teapot.

[PChamps]

I dont know how to take this post. So many people moaned they wanted this feature to see when members had completed guild quest now you are saying the exact opposite... really how do BB win?

[Hairy]

I agree the display of who has or hasn't done their own GQ could be divisive, ~ I think that info would be best restricted to guild officers only.
The definition of 'inactive' may be relevant to a current guild quest, but for the purpose of spotting who has stopped playing it's not helpful.
I feel the adventure co-operation request was a good idea messed up by a GUI department. A narrow column of ticks in the main list would have been so much better.

And a lot of people have asked for a method to opt-out of a guild's questing. They want to remain in their guild, but don't want to hinder the guild's ability to complete quests, so are faced with guild quests they don't want to do, or having to leave.

[Jim_B]

would it be too hard to change active/inactive to date of last log-in?

[Faststriker]

PChamps - I think the part about GQ is that everyone within the guild can see who has done it and not only the guild officers. This can split a people in any guild if there is a good leader that can control it. Personly I was against it from the first time I heard about going to be like this and I would really like it to be only officers that can see if i´m doing my part. Lucky me there really isn't any problems in the guild i´m in with people complaining about other people not doing there part, so my worries have been put to shame. But can imagine that its not the case in all guilds.

About the rest of it, then I don't take any notice into who is online and who isn´t. But if it is made like described then there could be made some improvements to it.

[PChamps]

Ok I think the visibility of it should be up to guild leader to turn off and on then to all members.

[Baggis]

You can get a reasonable idea as to who is inactive when they don't have a guild quest ie 'None'. This is nothing more than making the tool that already existed out there official. They just added a UI to what was already behind the scenes. I agree it would be useful to know a last active date but maybe that's against privacy agreements.

[Promethos]

I dont know how to take this post. So many people moaned they wanted this feature to see when members had completed guild quest now you are saying the exact opposite... really how do BB win?

By doing it properly. But every aspect of the update is bugged or otherwise useless.

The overview of who has completed the guildquest would be usefull. Provided they fix the guildquests. We dont have one, and the 2-weekle reset isn't happening enymore either. And if it would be correct, but its bugged and does not Always give a correct overview.

The 'active' indicator could be so much more usefull. I'de say 224 or 48 hours or whatever it is... that's just a weekend away and you're inactive. A green - orange - red indicator would already tell more, then it could turn red when someone really is inactive for a week or so. Or add a field where people can leave a comment, "going in holiday / away for work, back on 12th" or so. Or a 'last active on" (which the forum has btw).

The adventure cooperation: Yeah nice to know which adventure your friends are doins and if they want help. But the way it's implemented now.... it is so completely useless. Who is going to scroll through all profile pages to find out? Pff what really would be nice: an easy overview + room for a comment. When will you finish, do you need a 1 recruit-lootspot or a real army to help, do you want to swap or sell the lootspot (price?).
You could argue you dont need that, just hop into chat and ftalk to your friends. Cool, I can go with that. But if you do make "a tool" for adventure cooperation.... then make it usefull.

Easy enough. If BB wants to win, they just have to think a bit before they do something. Analize what people need, how it can be presented in a usefull way, and then test a bit to be sure not every aspect is bugged. It's called (game)design. There are books to read about it, schools and courses that educates people on these particular topics, other games to get a good example. And these complete faillures could have been prevented with just a bit of common sense.

[peck_ed]

• It shows a player as inactive when a player has not played for 24hrs - I can't imagine what use this is to a guild admin trying to discern who the real inactives are

This is a tricky one, hard to explain, but I've tried once before so will try again.

A Settler day for us is from 3AM BST to 2:59AM BST, should a player login or have someone check their island during that time, the next Settler day, their island will be active.

However from what I've seen, this doesn't appear to make your quest book or player login bonus active, that appears to be a 2 stage process, as you see with the way the pop ups occur and then it shows the Guild tab in your chat area.

So following to your

And let's assume we have an inactive player - the minute someone visits their map to check - bingo they aren't inactive anymore - or at least not for the next 24hrs

For the Guilds purpose, that player is inactive.

This also means if the player is inactive, they wont be able to recieve the next Guild Quest for the "waiting", which is why some guilds will notice the amount if players needed to complete the Guild Quest can change now and again. From what I recall, the number is 80% of your active guild members, so should you fall below the magic 10 active Guild Members, you might fail to get a new Guild Quest.

With Guilds now being able to see how many actives they have, this might explain why some Guilds fail to get new quests (but not all, there are still some other "issues").

As for implementing it correctly, it's tricky without rewriting the way it appears to work, which might in turn present more bugs, I believe a large amount of the ones we have are caused by player inactivity and a dynamic swing as to the amount required to gain/finish Guild Quests.

Please note the above is all from my own experience with the game, not something I've been informed by BB directly.