Visible Imms

Posted by Charity on 10/13

I'm picking the topic of visible imms out of your discussion of the non-imming. I'd like to point out to you how, over the past month at least, we have run a campaign of trying to get players to TELL to us when they need help. It's been in the LT, it's been said on chat repeatedly, it's a permanent part of some imms' titles, and there have even been announces reminding you to use tell rather than pray. As we've stated repeatedly, the reasons are this:

- Just like you, we use AFK to store messages. We can't store prays.

- We can have our client beep us audibly when we receive a personal tell.

- It's more personal and more accurate to tell the appropriate imm.

- Strings, restrings, descriptions, etc. are not pray-worthy emergencies.

After saying this so many times, and still getting so many trivial prays, I and several other imms have made it a policy to flat-out IGNORE prays that ask for routine stuff. We'd never ignore a first-time-player who needs help, and we'd never ignore a current player who's had something about the game go drastically wrong. But if you're praying for your strings or descriptions, you likely have a false sense of "not enough imms out there" because we are, frankly, ignoring you. I've sat back and watched 3 prays go by from the same person, and then as soon as I get a tell from them, I give them an immediate response.

If we're visible, you're not 'bugging us' to ask. If we have an afk on, yeah it's possible that we're really afk and in that case just wait a minute and then ask another imm. I've seen tells 5 mins later cause of doing work, asked if the player still needed help, and have about a 50/50 track record of being able to help, vs another imm already go it. Either of which is fine, the player got what they needed done and it only takes a second to verify that once I've read my afk.

Hope that explains this particular side issue.

-Charity

From: Medlir Wednesday, October 13, 05:47AM

In 3 years I've used the pray command once. When I was stuck in a exitless room transing to indust. I'm sure you all know the one. After asking on chat for 10 minutes for help, I used pray and within 60 seconds was rescued.

If there had of been a visible immortal I would have told to them in the above situation. If there are visible immortals, and someone prays as you say they do, then warn them. That simple. Effective. It sends a message. It is also justified. The help file says pray should only be used in emergencies. Take the gloves off.

Having said that, how does this explain the complete lack of visible imms? Morts cannot tell to an invisible imm, ergo prayer or clan channels are all that are left to them when they recieve no reply from general channels. Natalia and LA are the only PR imms I see on a regular basis. There are no regular admin imms, assistant or other. Coders I would rather not bother as I have a pretty good idea how much work they have allocated to them. I see builders most, and while there may be the most of them, should this really be the case? ok, so maybe I play at some wierd hours to you guys, but I can assure you there are a lot of other players that play those hours as well.

Charity, thank you for the response and explaining your position. Frankly, those are damn good reasons for doing what you are doing, not that my opinion means much on the issue. But it still doesn't address the point that ..... damn, can't remember, made. If there are enough imms, why are there such long patches where none are visible?