Planetside 2: Purple Wednesdays Welcomes you to Auraxis (from 8pm)

[reyn78]

I had fun yesterday. Even during waiting for the server restart - watching Everton-Arsenal action with whiskey discussion in the background - priceless

As for communications - I see potential two solutions - one having separate channel for two squads instead of platoon, with an assumption that these two squads work together as a single unit thus orders apply to everyone who hears them.

Second solution is to keep the channels on platoon level, but have squad leaders give orders in more organized manner - start with "You useless Delta s*** move your as* " or whatever the Full Metal Jacket sarge would say in such situation Just use that squad name and we will be fine.
Also please please please update squad markers especially after a command to get to transports - maybe its me/my setup or something - but with 4 sunderers all accepting me inside i just have no idea which one is for the squad and run aimlessly around with a really low chance to get into the right one. So squad-only sunderers and a marker on top would be great help

[Everblue]

Suggestions after yesterday:

- No outfit invitations on Wednesdays. If people want to get in then they need to be organised beforehand.

- Post what continent that we'll be operating in on the forums beforehand. Ignore people who ask us in Mumble.

- We have a lot of people! Should we start organising our logistics a bit better - ie having some people who dedicate points into improving their sunderers, galaxies, tanks etc and maybe keep track of them on the outfit thread, so that we can ensure that we have appropriate air support, air cover, armour support, etc? I think last night if we'd had a galaxy per platoon, a couple of tanks and a couple of liberators then we'd have been more mobile and harder hitting.

[Jesus_Phish]

The main issue with the channels on platoon level is that if there's 40 of us in the platoon and say 30 of us are on Mumble and in the one room, it can be difficult for one person to try organise something or be heard. Some people will want to play perhaps a bit more serious, while others just want to have a bit of fun and do some cool things in game and talk about them to everyone.

It can be difficult to organise delta to reinforce at point A when someone is talking about the dog fight they were just in over everyone else. While I certainly don't want to be a hard ass or attempt to tell people "you're playing it wrong!!", I would like to see just a little bit more control when we're issuing orders. I'd also like try get squads working together more, something like reyn said with having a marker for each squad sundy which then goes to the next point. And maybe squad channels would help.

I also think that for taking bases over, or defending them, the idea of Alpha to A, Bravo to B etc should be a rule of thumb.

[bonkers]

I think Nullkigan upped the slots to 256 recently because of the influx, but yeah you still have a point.

Maybe we should get in touch. Maybe a few of us would not mind putting a few bucks down to help compensate if they have increasing costs due to our player influx?

[Jesus_Phish]

I'd chip in for voice comms if needed. Again, if we could get one that allowed for select people to either mute others when talking, or be able to communicate to different channels at once, with one squad per channel, that would be ace.

[Cooper]

But on a related note. The public mumble server we use apparently only has 100 slots. If the outfit keeps growing, we might need to look for an own solution as the mumble gets used by so many games and it would be kinda unfriendly if we keep filling it up so much with only one game that others can not use it at that time.

I had exactly the same thought last night. To be honest, I had no fucking clue the outfit was gonna get this big / wednesdays be this popular. It never occured to me that we would reach anywhere near these numbers. If I had some idea, I'd have got something sorted sooner.

It's a bloody great thing, of course. But, yeah, I've contacted to ask about Mumble / capacity / donations etc.

[Cooper]

The main issue with the channels on platoon level is that if there's 40 of us in the platoon and say 30 of us are on Mumble and in the one room, it can be difficult for one person to try organise something or be heard. Some people will want to play perhaps a bit more serious, while others just want to have a bit of fun and do some cool things in game and talk about them to everyone.

It can be difficult to organise delta to reinforce at point A when someone is talking about the dog fight they were just in over everyone else. While I certainly don't want to be a hard ass or attempt to tell people "you're playing it wrong!!", I would like to see just a little bit more control when we're issuing orders. I'd also like try get squads working together more, something like reyn said with having a marker for each squad sundy which then goes to the next point. And maybe squad channels would help.

I'm entirely happy with the idea of Wednesdays being "everyone pile in and have a chat / laugh / maybe shoot some lasers".

Nothing puts me off gaming communities more then when hierarchies, orders, who can speak & when are enforced as par for the course. Wednesdays should be chatty, free and open for all, and a bit disheveled.

That being said, if people want something a bit more organised and developed, I'm happy to put something together where I jump in command chat and we hook up with other outfits, sort out fireteams and squads, combined arms and all that. If this is something enough people say they'd like, I'll make arrangements.

[Jesus_Phish]

I'm entirely happy with the idea of Wednesdays being "everyone pile in and have a chat / laugh / maybe shoot some lasers".

Nothing puts me off gaming communities more then when hierarchies, orders, who can speak & when are enforced as par for the course. Wednesdays should be chatty, free and open for all, and a bit disheveled.

That being said, if people want something a bit more organised and developed, I'm happy to put something together where I jump in command chat and we hook up with other outfits, sort out fireteams and squads, combined arms and all that. If this is something enough people say they'd like, I'll make arrangements.

Agreed. As I said, I don't want to tell people "you're playing it wrong! stop having fun that way, do it this way instead!". It is fun to just band about and pile in. But I would also love to see some more organized play and I've a feeling so would some others.

[izal]

We should use this for platoon/squadleaders: http://mumble.sourceforge.net/1.2.3#Priority_speaker

[laldy]

Good fun last night, when we eventually got online, my thanks for the outfit invite. Looking forward to the next outing.

[reyn78]

Nothing puts me off gaming communities more then when hierarchies, orders, who can speak & when are enforced as par for the course. Wednesdays should be chatty, free and open for all, and a bit disheveled.

I agree in principal... but I think watching your squad sundie leave you in a cloud of dust in a middle of nowhere is not fun either. I don't want to have WoW raid experience, but some level of hierarchy is necessary due to logistics.
Yesterday chat noise level was fine with me (at least until I left at midnight CET) - but a bit of confusion was there when we were moving from place to place.

Person that ran a delta squad yesterday on platoon 2 tried to give clear orders, many thanks btw!!!, but others didn't do it always and it was slightly confusing (are you talking to me? situation). So I would suggest we agree beforehand which channel people go to on mumble, make squad leaders aware to make sure they say which squad/platoon they mean when they give orders, remind about markers - put these general rules in like 3-5 points in writing before Wednesday and we will get to shooting lasers much quicker then . . . and we will be slaughtered in a much more orderly fashion

There is one more point about markers - a lot of time people would say "go to respawn" "go to turret" go to ... for me at least that is "HUH?" I would assume most of us are for a first/second time in these locations - "go to squad marker" at least gives me a bearing so i know which way should i be facing when i die :P

[MitchK]

There has to be a bit of a balance I think. Everyone is in it for the laughs and to have a good time, but at the same time there needs to be clear instructions to each squad/platoon as to what to do and where to go so as people don't get left behind on the way to a new objective, or just feel as though they're coming along for the ride but not really being part of the action.

Anyway, I'm sure that all of the small issues we have at the moment will be ironed out the more we play together. It was great being a part of it, so thanks to everyone involved in getting it organised. Looking forward to next time!

[One Pigeon]

A little bit of organisation is good but I for one enjoyed the slightly dishevelled but still effective form of JGman's Brave squad yesterday.

It's a tough nut to crack but when the occasional 'clear the comms' shout came over mumble, people generally listened. This was particularly effective just as everyone logged in because otherwise organisation would have been far more of a clusterfuck.
After that we all blathered on as usual and it seemed to work rather well.

[Sceptrum]

I'll happily join in on some more organized fun.

Also, I'll glady chip in some quids for mumble, either on the one currently used or a separate one if needed. Good thing is that voice-chat servers seem to be cost very little.

[The JG Man]

I agree with you Cooper, generally all round.

- No outfit invitations on Wednesdays.
- Post what continent that we'll be operating in on the forums beforehand.

I disagree with these. Wednesday was organised as a day a lot of people aim for. People will be joining more and more as the RPS group grows. What we do need though is a dedicated person for adding people to the Outfit so no-one else is trying to do the same thing and essentially wasting time. The latter is an issue to do with the server population and interest. Sometimes there'll be a good idea to change and we can't know in advance where what is going on when. These are nice ideas in theory, but I don't think they'd hold up in practice, as useful as they may well be. If you can get on at another time and join up, that's obviously ideal, but we shouldn't rule out others.

A little bit of organisation is good but I for one enjoyed the slightly dishevelled but still effective form of JGman's Brave squad yesterday.

I'm not sure if I should be complimented or insulted with that! Ha!

The problem was you're trying to work out in advance what is needed, while also having the map open trying to work out where to go and where everybody is, whilst at the same time getting two-way communication from the other people in your squad whilst not annoying the three other squads full of people. Even when I changed from driving my sunderer to simply sitting in it, there was still tons going on. And for every person that happens to get left behind the group becomes more disorganised and exacerbates the issue. Text chat is fine, so long as you have the time, but not everyone sees it meaning you either need to re-type or speak in comms.

We also have the problem of this being for fun and therefore not chastising anyone for what could be seen as wasting time. Individual squad channels make more sense, but then we lose the platoon feeling and it starts to eliminate the fun, especially if there are people in your squad you don't necessarily know or perhaps don't agree with/like as much as others.

It's a difficult balance and it doesn't always work. Stay too quiet and no-one knows exactly what's wanted of them. Say too much and you have other people telling you you're saying too much. There is a line there to sit on, it's just extremely hard to know where exactly it is. Consider also that previous times it's been a platoon, there's just been the one squad leader, essentially, directing 47 other people. Yesterday was very specifically squad-tied, but we were still talking to the same amount of people.

[fafafou]

Hello guys, can I join in the outfit ? My in game name is Xapharian.

Thanks !

[RIDEBIRD]

Had massive amounts of fun today. Sorry for the slightly confused platoon leadership at times, it was my first time playing the game seriously.

[blissed]

Hello guys also hoping for an invite, haven't a mic to do it in game. My name = ohstopit

[One Pigeon]

I'm not sure if I should be complimented or insulted with that! Ha!

It was definitely meant purely as a compliment!

It was great fun and I think everyone appreciates (or should if they don't) those trying to effectively herd a bunch of cats.
Purple, giraffe skinned, laser toting cats.

[Tom OBedlam]

Really looking forward to getting my squad beacon. I'm much better at bossing people about than shooting people.