Just out of curiosity, what sorts of views do you all hold about etiquette for the various types of social actions in this game?
I’ve been thinking about this a bit recently based on my own experiences and I wanted to get some perspective on how well my thoughts align with everyone else’s.
For example, while I’m generally quite open to new contacts and social actions in general, every now and then I’ll receive a request from a complete stranger, e.g. menace reduction or an invitation to coffee or some other action I’ve specifically requested in my signature not to be sent to me, with no text in the attached note. Or other times it’s a calling card with no introduction of any kind. I’ve made a habit of rejecting these out of hand, perhaps with a bit of tut-tutting by way of explanation in the reply.
I have a hard time understanding the thought process of the people sending these, why are they getting touch with me in particular and why would I want anything to do with them if this is the level of interaction I can expect? Hell, they could be bots for all I know.
The game still suggests folk for an action, so that may well be why invitations arrive from strangers.
I’ve been mildly surprised at being dissed by people I don’t know from Adam (and not entirely pleased, frankly).
People are just doing what the game tells them to. It says that’s a way to reduce menace, and menace seems bad, so they click the button. Nobody’s in there contact list, but they click the button and a name appears, so they click Send. I’m sure I did the same thing.
Thing is that if you are not on these forums I don’t remember there being any method other than the suggest button to find out who the other players are that you can interact with. Heck, for a long time I didn’t even know it was possible to interact with other players at all! Limited to just in-game resources its a real hassle trying to deal with the social actions. I played for a long time before becoming aware of these forums and I still don’t really do the FL social stuff because the idea has sat in my brain for too long that there isn’t really any reason to or reward for building a "social circle".
Yeah, it’s a fair point that random contacts may result from the in-game suggestions. Still, it seems like a no-brainer to include at least a simple greeting in the message.
Only if you know that you are trying to contact another player and not a computer run NPC. ;) I didn’t the first time I tried sending some kind of message. I don’t remember it saying anywhere in the process that the messages are going to another person.