The Berserker's Rant in D-Minor

[The Widowed]

Sometimes, I simply cannot respond to your Tells. Just accept it.

I'm (usually) a Scrapper. I take a lot of missions. That's why I pay $15 a month, right? If I was primarily interested in getting social, I'd find a chat room. So I do the grind. I fight, I snag some XP and Influence and maybe even an Inspie or an Ennie, and I move on to the next fight. I try to break up mobs with taunting, but it often doesn't work and the whole herd of villains charges. But that's okay. I'm a Scrapper. I can just rush in, open up with Focus Chi and Dragon's Tail and let nature take its course. The "Scrapper moment". The berserker fury. The frenzy. The blitzkrieg. Attack, attack, attack.

And little or no time for talking.

I thought I might make this clear, because there's always at least one person who has you on their Friends list, they see your name in green letters and they think "Oh, look! Widdy's on. Let me socialize with her." Which is cool. They mean well.

What isn't cool is when they keep doing it. And the scenario goes a little something like this:

*Widdy gets into a close-quarters tussle with two red bosses and two orange lieutenants. It happens. The odds are kind of iffy, but if I can concentrate I may just see Widdy through....*
*picks a lieutenant in the middle of the herd, charges, Practiced Brawler Focus Chi Dragon'sTailattackattackattack*
*BEE-DEEP!* [Tell] Well-Meaning Friend: "Hello!"
"Hrrmph. Crap, that Tank just regenerated...." *attackattackattack takes a few licks*
*BEE-DEEP!* [Tell] Well-Meaning Friend: "Why didn't I see you at the Arena Battlerama last night?"
*attackattackouchattack knocked down, get back up attackattack Respite attack*
*BEE-DEEP!* [Tell] Well-Meaning Friend: "You're awfully quiet. Wanna hang out with me and Hero X?"
"Grrrrr...gotta keep these guys dazed or knocked down...." *attackattackattack dazed oh crap fumble with Inspirations attackattack*
*BEE-DEEP!* [Tell] Well-Meaning Friend: "Are you there? You're in Crey's Folly, right?"
"This is getting ridiculous...." *attackattack Respite Catch a Breath attackattack*
*BEE-DEEP!* [Tell] Well-Meaning Friend: "Hello?"
"Persistent little...." *grunt* *Backspace, enters reply Tell*
*BEE-DEEP!* [Tell] --> Well-Meaning Friend: "BUSY"
*takes three solid hits in the brief duration spent standing there looking stupid and typing four letters in ALL-CAPS. Get's dropped into severe red*
"SWEET CRAP!" *Respite backpaddlebackpaddle*
*BEE-DEEP!* [Tell] Well-Meaning Friend: "Busy? With what?"
*briefly debates how to tell Well-Meaning Friend to stop bugging me without hurting anyone's feelings TOO much. While distracted, fails to notice the brief disorient that drops all of Widdy's defense toggles. Two more solid hits and Widdy dies. Fumes, blows WMF off with some excuse, /hides and tries to get out of debt by returning to the mission....*

It's not just friends, either. Random strangers have done it too. I'm on the street staring down a purple-conning Lesser Devoured, and here's some random guy standing behind me and asking me if I can team up with him, or if I can lead him to Agent Six, or if I can "lend" him some Inspirations. And for some reason, Random Needy Guy simply will not take the hint, wander off and bother somebody else.

And it's even more annoying when they do it with /Tells. And they apparently think I didn't hear them--I guess there's no way on Earth I could be deliberately ignoring them, huh?--because they repeat the initial querry or follow up with an explanation for their approach or whatever. As if I could ignore that "BEE-DEEP" which chimes with every Tell. Come on. Not every City of Heroes player turns down their volume so they can listen to The Cape on Winamp. I've never listened to the Cape in my life! From what I understand, the Cape people are a minority anyway; Winamp + City of Heroes + low-end system = slideshow. Not to mention that I pay attention to audible clues, so I know when some Villain behind me just powered up, or so I can hear that Hoverbot who's lurking somewhere just out of view. So why do these people assume I can't hear their Tells?

In short, don't do that. Send me a "Hello" and only a "Hello". I hear the BEE-DEEP, so I know to scroll back up through the tells and reply to all the people who messaged me once the fight's over. I'll reply and enter conversation when I'm next able to do so...which I hope won't be while I'm sitting through the rez pod animation in the nearest hospital.

Thank you for your consideration. Rant ends. :grr:

[BvS]

I wouldn't have pestered you if you'd been on when you said you'd be (I waited for an hour) to transfer the SG name I'd snagged for you before my unrenewed subscription ran out.

Anyway, you've got it now. The name 'Blue Jackal' will be available for anyone who wants it momentarily.

[The Widowed]

This rant wasn't prompted by tonight; It was just sitting on my chest for a while. I'm not saying any names, as I'd like to keep all my buddies; The big offenders don't even visit this site anyway, AFAIK. I'd just like people to know that there may be a valid reason that I can't reply to them right away.... :(

[Malibu Sally]

I am soooo going to send you a "Hello only" tell next time I see you ingame! :neener:

[Esbat]

I didn't even know Tells made a noise!?!??!

My system was all screwy and game sounds tend to slow me up... but not High graphics for some reason O_o ...

But anywho, I don't send ya tells I just say crap in the SG chat ;)

[Jade_Dragon]

I would set up a keybind. "/autoreply Just a moment, I'm in the middle of something" I think that would work, I'm not sure.

Now me, when *I* send someone a tell, I usually give them enough time to reply. I don't have it happen to me that often, but I don't get many tells. I put it off to inexperience. They're either used to chat rooms, where you CAN reply immediately, or not used to the concept at all.

[Stalking Shadow]

You see, this is why there's the in-game email feature. Communication without directly bothering the receiver.

[Kinetix]

If you ever knew if you had an email.

[The Widowed]

I am soooo going to send you a "Hello only" tell next time I see you ingame! :neener:
Uh oh, Sally found a new smiley! :chuckle:

I didn't even know Tells made a noise!?!??!
They do. BEE-DEEP! BEE-DEEP! BEE-DEEP! :grr:

My system was all screwy and game sounds tend to slow me up... but not High graphics for some reason...
It means you have an inferior sound card. Your old Sound Blaster 16 just isn't cutting it anymore. :p

But anywho, I don't send ya tells I just say crap in the SG chat ;)
I was actually thinking of setting up Tab #4 to read the Supergroup channel only. That way, I can just click on that tab and see everything that the supergroup said while Widdy was fighting for survival.

Now if only there were an easy way to transfer the same Chat field set-up to all of the alts....

I would set up a keybind. "/autoreply Just a moment, I'm in the middle of something" I think that would work, I'm not sure.
Actually, that's not a bad idea. I have my semicolon key set up with a text macro which I've since added to my usual "character color" macros ("Victims...aren't we all?"), but I could just redo that key and mash it in the middle of a fight.

Of course, sometimes it works just to press Backspace, mash a few random letter keys and hit Enter. Sometimes the person sending the Tell interprets the gibberish reply as me being in "panic mode" and shuts up, other times they're either too smirky, too literal or too clueless to refrain from sending me another Tell asking "What does 'ghliwe' mean?".

Now me, when *I* send someone a tell, I usually give them enough time to reply. I don't have it happen to me that often, but I don't get many tells. I put it off to inexperience. They're either used to chat rooms, where you CAN reply immediately, or not used to the concept at all.
Chat rooms. You know, I think you're really on to something there....

"Dueling chatterboxes: How deeply are internet chat rooms ingrained into our social subconscious? Next on Oprah." :D

If you ever knew if you had an email.
Exactly. Ironically, Cryptic's vaunted "the word 'Email' turns red when you have email' feature only turns the word red after you click the word and check your email.

Kinda defeats the feature's purpose, doesn't it? :rolleyes:

And the forums have finally had their image limit increased, I see. :D

[Malibu Sally]

Cryptic's vaunted "the word 'Email' turns red when you have email' feature only turns the word red after you click the word and check your email.

Actually if you are in-game and recive an email, the word will turn red on it's own, letting you know you have one. If you are offline and receive one, the word stays grey when you log in.

It's been complained about, but it is REALLY low on the pecking order to fix. :cool: