CRA armor, Guide Program II and my thanks

Alice

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I wrote this thread to explain more how the extended guides got the CRA armor, the guide program(s) themselves, also, i wrote that from my point of view and not on behalf of the other guides for that matter :D
My hope is to answer the "what is the guide program" and "what did they do anyway?", which i write in terms of the communicator role i generally had (more to that more later on).
One thing right away, although I may just mention just a few names, the others aren’t forgotten or something, it’s mere examples, nor have I been around for all the timezones to speak much about time spent for any guide, so, no “that one did more than the rest” or something info in any case.

But first, the main topic
thank you
thank you to the extended guides, who showed a great commitment and it was fun to work with you, was a great time
thank you to Simon and Emma (and Hanne later on), for giving us the opportunity to do what we used to do so often and so long a bit more officially and helping us with event prizes and advertising for them in the client loader
thank you Stave and ETA for the help with the TP runs, especially during the CP sale phase, to which i come later more in detail as well
thank you newbies, for participating in the events, or asking us stuff, or making us smile, hope you had fun and some value out of our help

so now, to how it started
for me it actually started with guide program I, when i got a PM from Simon the Guide who asked if I would be interested in some guide program to help newbies.
So mostly, standing around NAZ (newbie arrival zone) and offering help and info to the incoming newbies.
Did that since years already pretty much, so I thought, why not and agreed.
Why i was asked in particular I don't know, but I guess the time I used to spend at the NAZ helping newbies, along with most of the rest of the NAZ crew (ppl who where there pretty regularly), getting recognized by the official guides, since we were there before and after the official guides from MA/FPC came, so I figure we got noticed, which is why most of us got asked if they want into the guide program and accepted, maybe the guide I wrote had influence as well.

Generally guide program I had quite some people, don't even know the exact figures of that one, so along the NAZ crew we got to see more faces

Pretty soon at the start of that we got told what the reward would be ("similar to foxtrott ME" or so).
The first program went pretty smootly, especially the old NAZ crew spend from 1 to up to 14 hours at the NAZ (salute to Jot here for that amazing patience, i guess he has the highest hour count of all of us).
It went rather smoothly, nothing THAT spectacular happened, we got the "why the hell can't i sweat" wave right into the face though, which was rather tough at times.

Anyway, so far to the past, since the real topic is about the extended guide program II

when the first guide program finished, some of us got asked if we want to join the second one too, but it was meant to be way less than before. We started with 9 guides afterall, but had 2 drop outs after the program started. I can't blame them, guiding was rather time consuming and partially frustrating, but those two points i will explain more later on as well.
When we got asked to do that, there was no info about any reward whatsoever, nor how long the program was supposed to last. What we got told and want to mention especially, is that "2-3 times a week of guiding is enough" or so. And no, we didn’t get paid, although some people assumed that.
We also were allowed to ask Simon and Emma for some event prizes or giveaways for newbies (opalos, ammo for those, t1 faps, but also some fairly special 'improved' newbie clothes).

And now, to what we did, which is the commitment I spoke of before:
And remember, without knowing IF we get any reward, let alone what it will be (cause get real, a guide marber is a rather crappy gun, cause plain ped value doesn't matter for most of us guides, its about usabilty).
Of the "2-3 times a week", most of us where there 2 hours per day (that would be my standard time mostly, although I had some 'overtime' here and there but also days off) to up to 14 hours per day over several weeks (even Jot took a break here and there )
we where there, daily, several hours

on TOP of that, (so in my case, additionally to those 2 hours i called my "shift"), we planned events, organised (that was mostly Faye and I )and held them (where we partially worked all together)
to name a view:
"Kill 1000 newbies quest", from Faye (was held 2 times i think)
"Treasure hunt", Faye, lost track there, over 4 times?
"Bridge of Death", from me, (3 times i think)
"Picture event", Faye, held once
"Riddle event", Faye, once
"Easter pic event", me, once

that’s already over 11 newbie events, that’s more newbie events than normally in year I guess

ADDITIONALLY to those "shifts" and "events", we were on TP runs, mostly held by Stave and his ETA crew (to which Faye and I belong as well), which were partially to our event places, mostly to far off places

another good example of the commitment shown would be that one of us guides had an operation, but even guided per laptop from hospital and back at home during the curing time

One of the most interesting parts of the guiding program was certainly the CP sale following newbie wave
it had so many newbies all of a sudden that port atlantis and swamp camp server couldn’t handle it anymore and sent the people to TI castle, which isn’t a great newbie place as you may guess
during one day we made a newbie tp run and relocation program and Faye, Stave and ETA especially took loads of newbies to Nea’s to get the servers more empty (figure was 500 I think?, 4 runs per day at that weekend)

What we had to endure, was mostly newbies who thought we are NPCs and thus ignored us totally, or slow times without many newbies coming in, so it was a bit boring at times.

(rant partConsidering all of that above, I got seriously pissed at some (mostly uberish) people, who spent like 5 minutes per decade at the NAZ or helping newbies, to show up at PA/NAZ to have the cheek and say that guides are never there.
I mean we are humans too, we got lives, we spent shitload of time on this and then get stupid comments by ppl who don’t even come close to a 1/1000 of what we did(rant off)
Alongside with that, I also had a special role as guide more or less, since I was mostly there for contacting Simon and Emma when we needed prizes for the events, or informed them about other guides need/wishes.
I was also asked to check newbie the newbie situation out during that time, which made me set up a thread here Looking for feedback about the newcomer situation by the community (just had mediocre feedback), which info was partially used in a total of 8 newbie situation reports I wrote, of which 5 had a pretty considerable size. Parts of the problems and matching suggestions of those got actually used and implemented. (I also wrote some other suggestions concerning newbies, but I won’t get into those).

Now, until pretty much 2 weeks ago, we still didn’t know when the guide program would be finished, we actually got several rough ending times during the guiding phase of which none really worked til the last one(which was also said that we get our reward then, first real confirmation we had I think), but I guess they got too busy (especially with vehicle stuff now) to really get guiding finished or give us a certain date.
Until yesterday we didn’t even know what we would get, so it was quite a surprise for all of us.
Guess that’s most of the story for that

But I will leave it to the other guides to add something of they want to :=)
 
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Good luck :) and bend down the hatches , boys :)
full power to shields
 
I couldn't put up with all that bs, so you guys certainly deserve it.
Great work Alice and Co.
:thumbup:
 
Thanks to you Alice, and the other guides. If it weren't for people like you there would be fewer players in this game.
 
Congratulations again with the well deserved award, which imho could have been way better for all the commitment. But at least you got some recognition :)

And ignore all the pathetic low-life whiners, who probably haven't done a single selfless act in their whole miserable existence.
 
Well done to all of you ;)

I considered doing it for about 3 seconds then realized I don't have the patience for it so in my eyes you deserve every bit of the reward :)
 
Lies! All lies! The Jotbot was online 24/7! Just Simon sometimes forgot to unplug the coffeemachine and since there are no cables on the grounds of Calypso, the Jotbot did not figure out how to escape the secret guide base after recharging (the Jotbot was kept dumb so the robots couldn't get a grip on his programming).
 
Thanks for sharing some of your experiences with us, and grats on the award. FPC is indicating that this kind of award will happen again, so it's nice to have a benchmark for the level of excellence that is required to earn one.

I'll echo prior comments about ignoring the petty haters. No doubt there are others who also deserve similar recognition, but the fact remains -
the guides earned their reward, period.
 
another good example of the commitment shown would be that one of us guides had an operation, but even guided per laptop from hospital and back at home during the curing time

:=)

Fyi that was me. Just to let you know :) and also i like to award this tiny little computer who got me through it http://www.pointofview-online.com/showroom.php?shop_mode=product_detail&product_id=136

and yes it works with low-med on a ATOM CPU and a geforce 9400M . I could even hunt a bit. So this is the "Guide" computer which saved me for boredom.
 
And ignore all the pathetic low-life whiners, who probably haven't done a single selfless act in their whole miserable existence.


You're probably right on spot there, I've never don'e one thing in game to help beginners..

Thanks for sharing some of your experiences with us, and grats on the award. FPC is indicating that this kind of award will happen again, so it's nice to have a benchmark for the level of excellence that is required to earn one.

I don't hate the guides, but the fact that if you weren't a part of the translator group (and this had french/spanish/german as first language), your chance of being able to join the program was very slim (main exception being living in another time zone, like Australia - and then you probably new one of the other ones).

When looking at the roster for the first group, what caught my eye was that about thalf the group was dutch/germans. Not a single one from Sweden, for instance.

And in the first group, how many of those were active guides? 4-5 out of "20"? Sure, there were people in first group who deserved a reward - but for other reasons (like Jdegree for skill scanner).

In the second group most of the people were real guides I guess, and really deserves a reward, but I doubt I've seen more than the usual 4-5 ones around (Alice, Faye, Aandar, Jot and another one). Too bad there wasn't a list of names in the second group to fresh up the memory.

Note: I don't blame the guides. At the most what they did was probably to pick out the most active people from first group - but again if you wasn't picked out for first group (by MA/FPC) then you had no practical chance to join.
The ones that need to clarify this up is MA/FPC.
 
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uhuhuhuh.. gratz >)
 
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Everyone was doing it when mentorship was available.. ( i myself mentored quite a lot of disciples )... Now only for some reason MA selected few people so they became something like 'guides' , then ok , you hosted few events where MA gave you prizes.. oohh how hard..


Im not jealous or anything, i dont even know what that armor is and i dont really care... I just wanted to point out that you did nothing special and everyone was doing it before they cut of mentorship..

Ppl mentored for the mentor gifts. Dont deny it because i even did it at first. Point is that the guide group was a small friend group that hanged around the naz quiet a lot even before Emma and Simon showed.

In th first group there where also ambassdors that joined. Why they didnt want a second time i dunno but i guess they want to get back to the hardcore hunting /programming skillscanners etc.

You have to know that when you dedicated your self to such a program that it should come first. Which means you dont have a lot of time a day to hunt a lot. In the CP sale i could not even get to hunting.

Why FPC picked us I dunno maybe because of my great personality or the fact i eat freshly baked newbies down at the naz. We , and i tlak moslty for the second group, are friends that hang around the naz where others hang around twins for example. The Official Guides als hanged around that naz place so they became part of the friend group (ment we never get anything of a special treatment like some ppl believe).

Did we guided for rewards or special powers ? I say no .. even if we wherent picked I would even still help newbies down at the naz or with tp runs.

And mind you that because of the new update I/We lose our favorite hang place because of the Calypso Gateway !!!!! Iḿ sad about that and i rather want a old naz back then the newbie lvl. Tho the newbie lvl is a real good idea btw. I think mentoring comes back because Marco said he is nagging about it. I hope in a much better system then the old one because only the mentor (where some did like shit for there disiplces. I did millions of support cases to get rid of non-active mentors) could get something.And mind you the gift was a crappy alpha ME which was worth bs. Just share it with your disiplce why not? He did all the hard work not you (yes fishface you can pick up your alpha me if you want)

Fact remains either in a game which is based on real world or the actually real world. Some ppl get gifts from ppl well others dont. Even in my job some ppl get rewards while other ppl actually deserve them. Every year i also go like .. wtf not me ?. Itś part of life. Perhaps you get a nice HoF now and then or a ATH.Looked at my stats ? i depo my ass off to hunt molisk and i get a single global in 5k molisk. I hear ppl complain that they just get 3 globals a 1k molisk. Life in that matter is unfair.

Just to point out we got picked and got a nice reward for our efforts. Maybe next guide program/translator program/ rl meeting you get something .special and i start whining about :). Also we did a bit more then guiding also. We also made suggestions for a better newbie community. Like the sapwning at TI was removed to cape corinth for that matter. The new newbie lvl was also a suggestion we made(dunno if they really did something with it thobut we made a suggestion)
 
And mind you that because of the new update I/We lose our favorite hang place because of the Calypso Gateway !!!!!

I think there will be "guide access" there - there will probably still be new people who accidently got the "backwards view" and need help to switch to first person mode, people who run out of the limited ammo they have and need help to move on, and maybe even finding the teleporter to get to the "mainland".

Maybe not 24hrs/day, but someone who goes there and find the peopple who looks really lost.
 
I think there will be "guide access" there - there will probably still be new people who accidently got the "backwards view" and need help to switch to first person mode, people who run out of the limited ammo they have and need help to move on, and maybe even finding the teleporter to get to the "mainland".

Maybe not 24hrs/day, but someone who goes there and find the peopple who looks really lost.

For only we wish ..... but nope
 
You're probably right on spot there, I've never don'e one thing in game to help beginners..



I don't hate the guides, but the fact that if you weren't a part of the translator group (and this had french/spanish/german as first language), your chance of being able to join the program was very slim (main exception being living in another time zone, like Australia - and then you probably new one of the other ones).

When looking at the roster for the first group, what caught my eye was that about thalf the group was dutch/germans. Not a single one from Sweden, for instance.

And in the first group, how many of those were active guides? 4-5 out of "20"? Sure, there were people in first group who deserved a reward - but for other reasons (like Jdegree for skill scanner).

In the second group most of the people were real guides I guess, and really deserves a reward, but I doubt I've seen more than the usual 4-5 ones around (Alice, Faye, Aandar, Jot and another one). Too bad there wasn't a list of names in the second group to fresh up the memory.

Note: I don't blame the guides. At the most what they did was probably to pick out the most active people from first group - but again if you wasn't picked out for first group (by MA/FPC) then you had no practical chance to join.
The ones that need to clarify this up is MA/FPC.

I never saw being multilingual as any requirement..just a bonus(i'm only enlgish speaking). As for the activity of the first group of 20 (which btw was initially 6) was a little over half.. would have been more but some of us had issues with the new system requirements.
 
if you weren't a part of the translator group your chance of being able to join the program was very slim

Not to critique to much, but you know this how? I've been in two guide programs, guided before that, am still guiding, and I still have no idea whatsoever about whatever the requirements to join were, whom decided who met the requirements, what process was involved, how much time was involved for these things to occur and put together, and so on.

The fact is, like almost anything FPC (in this case, but also goes for MA) does, they won't make public, and prefer to keep in the shadows without revealing anything.
They might hint at things, and you can guess at them, sometimes with pretty good guesses, and sometimes they even outright explain something.
But, in this case, it's FPCs program, under their supervision, and others haven't been told.
 
Community recognition is the acknowledgement by a community or social group of a notable achievement. It is often followed by awards and celebrations. The core of it is to bring attention to the contributions made to the community.

Recognition by community members is also part of motivation theory.[3] The reward of an individual creates a positive feedback loop, incenting them, and others who are inspired by their deeds and by the positive reinforcement of the community, to continue contributing, or join in to build upon such efforts.

Wich brings me to my main point, FPC didn't learn anything last week.
If you reward one person but not another it would be a smart move to mention why you did so it takes away frustrations for some ppl who didn't get shit, it should motivate others. Just saying we (the same ppl that fucked up the vehicle hand out) gave a reward to some ppl for some reason we won't say, is exactly the same as giving a vehicle to ava A that found a guide but not to ava B, who found the same guide.

Just my :twocents:
For the ones who still doubt, no I don't want or need an extra armour set & I never said the unofficial guides don't deserve this.
 
Wich brings me to my main point, FPC didn't learn anything last week.
If you reward one person but not another it would be a smart move to mention why you did so it takes away frustrations for some ppl who didn't get shit, it should motivate others. Just saying we (the same ppl that fucked up the vehicle hand out) gave a reward to some ppl for some reason we won't say, is exactly the same as giving a vehicle to ava A that found a guide but not to ava B, who found the same guide.

It's the same with rewards in reallife job. Reward one and the other are ... call it jealous but it isnt really. Either way the giver of the reward will also get circitsm about how to do it it. Itś also human behavior to think why them and not me. Same goes for the cars. FPC tried it this way because they only got a few promo cars. The wording of plentiful was terrible wrong, marco admitted that. Why did i got a car then and not my neighbour .. maybe because i as totally blue that day. Or that i said i lost my rl car that day also who knows.

They car event was a nice promo for MindArk and FPC did it that way. Rocktropia did it by quizes for what i hear.
 
you're missing the point, it's not about the fact that I didn't get a car & someone else did, it's about the fact that you say find us & get one & then don't follow up on you're words. If you 'only' got 200 cars for atleast 10k active players then you know you gotta make the challenge harder or you'll run out of prizes.
Also if you read what fpc wrote, one could look at it this way : I found a guide but didn't get anything, WHILE THERE WAS STILL STOCK LEFT.
The guides did say, try to find me again. In other words, no recognition of the fact that you just found them... very good way to motivate ppl.
 
Itś also human behavior to think why them and not me. Same goes for the cars.

In the armor handout event, I think it's sad they make a list of who got it, simularily to how they usually make a list of who handed in looted parts for (for instance) PoE armor parts. Now it all just look so secrative... 7 anonymous people on a beach with new armors on, and texts like "look what i saw".

I think it's easier to understand it if we get a list of people we recognize, rather than 7 anonymous people.
 
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the fact that you say find us & get one & then don't follow up on you're words.

You're confusing the official FPC Guides Simon the Guide and Emma the Guide, with the players who participated in the extended guide program.

Personally, I am very glad the extended guides weren't asked to go throught what Simon and Emma had to go through. And, some of us did get cars, but we had to run around and try to find them and stand hoping that Emma and Simon would see us the same as anybody else.

I also agree that maybe things could have been done in another way. I am not sure what would have been better, but at least hopefully the vehicles will be crafted lots and be available for reasonable prices for everybody soon.
 
So this guide program took place after vu10? when the mentoring system was absent?
 
you're missing the point, it's not about the fact that I didn't get a car & someone else did, it's about the fact that you say find us & get one & then don't follow up on you're words. If you 'only' got 200 cars for atleast 10k active players then you know you gotta make the challenge harder or you'll run out of prizes.
Also if you read what fpc wrote, one could look at it this way : I found a guide but didn't get anything, WHILE THERE WAS STILL STOCK LEFT.
The guides did say, try to find me again. In other words, no recognition of the fact that you just found them... very good way to motivate ppl.

Going abit off topic. But with the car event things didnt go well. and first to come first to get ruleapplies moslty with such events. They went to otherplace (my guess) so that the ppl at the back also stood a change to get something. But i have to agree on one 200 on 10k players (doubt 10k but lets stick to it) is indeed not plenitful. Marco already agreed to that.

But about motivation let's say MindArk didnt do it and just did the bp thing. Then the only players that could own cars where the ones with big wallets. prizes are huge now. So ppl could say nah why bother with a car because i already have a tp chip. ANd the car system could mean a flop. Now ppl even ome back for it because they hear it s fun to drive and cheap . Itś not the usaully MA system where the decay is huge and everything is to a limited group.


Back to on topic. If you turn the tables and you got one and me not (the armor that is) Would you be surprised if ppl reacted with ..why you and not me ? That's human nature 101. Cant change it .. i see it every year with bonusses on my job. Even i go why them and not me. Does it motivate ppl to work harder or lesser ? Well there are a million studies about it. With some it works well other it doesnt work and motivation even hits a depthpoint

Now FPC already said that the armor will be a yearly event and other could also get it. If you look the description it doesnt say GUIDE armor but CRA armor.Which means in time ppl that also do newbie event or something could get one. Dont lose the motivation to do less newbie helping now.
 
In the armor handout event, I think it's sad they make a list of who got it, simularily to how they usually make a list of who handed in looted parts for (for instance) PoE armor parts. Now it all just look so secrative... 7 anonymous people on a beach with new armors on, and texts like "look what i saw".

I think it's easier to understand it if we get a list of people we recognize, rather than 7 anonymous people.

Not everybody wants that because the community whines about ...they even requested it this way. I wonder why ;)
 
You're confusing the official FPC Guides Simon the Guide and Emma the Guide, with the players who participated in the extended guide program.

Personally, I am very glad the extended guides weren't asked to go throught what Simon and Emma had to go through. And, some of us did get cars, but we had to run around and try to find them and stand hoping that Emma and Simon would see us the same as anybody else.

I also agree that maybe things could have been done in another way. I am not sure what would have been better, but at least hopefully the vehicles will be crafted lots and be available for reasonable prices for everybody soon.

eeeuh no, I'm not confusing emma & simon with the 'unofficial guides', been at naz more then enough. Also pretty easy to find those 2 if you
1. can check if they are online
2. can drag out a hp bar from FL & just keep waiting at a tp while other ppl have to wait like 1 minute b4 all greendots load & still need to manually look around if they are actually there.
Guess it proves again that having you're "friends" ingame really helps (note, I didn't say the official/non-official guides abused this)
 
dunno whats so tough about it and secretive

the guides from guide program II got the armor for the work i described in my first post

actually i wrote this to explain to people who didn't follow the guide program etc what the guide program was about (and also mention the armor give away thingie) :D
 
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Not everybody wants that because the community whines about ...they even requested it this way. I wonder why ;)

either you get recognition & the price that comes with it or just say to fpc 'keep you're gift i don't wonna be in the list.. '
guess it comes down to morals & principles...
anyway, made my point & not gonna discuss this further, time to move on ;)
 
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