Inspect MessagesFollow

whether you like it or not, inspect is meant to be used.

/duel is not forced. it requires you to accept it.

ok, so maybe armani was a bad example. but like you pointed out, many shirts have their brand logo on them, visible to anyone walking by.

getting offended because you're inspected is like getting offended because someone knows you drive a mazda, or someone notices you're wearing a particular brand of polo.

you may not want people to know what brand of car you drive, but the car makers decided that everyone should know what car is what, and thus, it's silly to get offended over.

you may not want people to know what brand of breastplate you wear, but the game makers decided that everyone should know what car is what, and thus, it's silly to get offended over.

I know someone else already responded, but I'll add a bit more:



Except that nothing at all "bad" will happen to you if you ignore it or don't ever know about it. It's more like the old joke of someone coming to the doctor and complaining that it hurts when they twist their arm back behind their head and the doctor tells them to stop doing that.

The only "harm" you recieve by having someone inspect you is literally your own displeasure at *knowing* when it happens. It's completely inside your own head. Remove the message and you no longer have any reason to be bothered. All those people who run up and "inspect" you are just running up near you and stopping, then moving on. You've got to be pretty darn paranoid to be bothered by all the other people in the game moving around you...



It's not a matter of enjoyment on my part. It's the fact that the knowledge of being inspected bothers you. So *you* should take action to remove that which is bothering you. You can't prevent others from inspecting you, so why not just turn off the message?



As pointed out above, many players (myself included) use mouselook. What that means is that you right click on the screen and hold the mouse button and now you can change your view point simply by moving the mouse. The unfortunate drawback is that if that initial right click happens to fall on where another character is, you'll inspect them. Obviously, players who haven't figured out to turn off autoinspect will randomly inspect people just by "passing by" them.

There are a number of reasons for using mouselook btw. When using it, you can click the left mouse button (so both are depressed) and move forward. You can also use the arrow keys for direction at the same time. Also, the right and left arrowkeys become "strafe" keys when using mouselook. This allows you a good degree of control sinc you can sidestep while moving forward or backward. I use this alot as a tank to make small adjustments in position, and I've just gotten in the habit of using it pretty much all the time when moving.




This is the part I really don't understand. You're bothered by someone just looking and seeing what helm you are wearing, but you're just peachy with them stopping and asking you? I'd think that the latter course would cause a lot more disruption to your play. I'd much rather people just inspect on their own and not pester me with questions then constantly be asking me about my gear.

But that's just me I guess...

I rather enjoy being inspected, sometimes I try and trick the right person into do it. If they are nice, they get a /purr .. or more. My message says:

This whole "getting upset over being inspected" thing is like people getting upset when people add them to their friends list. I have been in a group many times where someone asks me if I mind them adding me to their friends list.

Who in their right mind is gonna get upset with you for adding them to your friends list? It is for this reason that I will NEVER ask if I can add someone to my friends list. If they don't like it, then they have a list they can use too. It is called ignore.

Besides that, if you are the type of person who gets upset about people adding you to their friends list, then I will most likely confuse you for an 8 year old anyway and not bother with adding you in the first place.



You seriously will run all the way to the zone? Just because someone is inspecting you? Man, I seriously need to turn inspecting off. I use the mouse button to look around as well. I would hate to make someone run all the way to the zone just because I was trying to look up at the sky or something. :)

EDIT: Oh, yeah, the whole reason for the OP. This isn't actually in my inspect message (didn't even know about the inspect message until I read this post) but I can see it going in there soon...

My bones were forged in the womb of the earth. The very life blood of the forest courses through my veins. I am the tree. I am the wolf. I am druid.

Edited, Tue Apr 5 05:58:44 2005 by mrtiedye

Lol. I know full well I'm not going to convince you of anything. Once someone has set their mind on an issue like this, it pretty much never changes. I'm just hoping that some players who have not yet fully formed their opinions on this will not end up with as irrational a viewpoint of inspect as you have and perhaps may be spared all the problems that viewpoint carries with it.



See. This is where I still don't get it. Who gets into a car to figure out what kind it is? No one I know. If a car doesn't have a label/badge/whatever on the *outside* it sure as hell isn't likely to have one on the inside either. But you might look at the style of the various panels, or the tail lights, or the freaking hood ornament to get an idea of what brand the car is.

Why on earth assume it requires getting inside of or handling things in order to identify them? Most of us in the real world manage to just *look* at things and figure out what they are. I really believe that you've interpreted all things about inspection in the context of entering/handling in order to justify your own dislike of it. To me, an inspection in game is just looking at an object.





But see, that's the problem here. I *am* expecting others to treat me as I'd treat them. I don't think of inspection as an invasion of privacy, so I don't mind them looking at me, and think that there's nothing wrong with me looking at them.

But you are defacto insisting that I alter my behavior to suit you. You get angry at people who inspect you without asking first. You label them as rude. Sure. Maybe you understand how it can be accidental, but you're still making the base assumption that somoene is invading your privacy merely by clicking on some pixels on their own computer screen a thousand miles away from you. You are then demanding that others not do that, even though the game most certainly allows it (and you have still not yet provided a single reason why it would be an invasion of privacy).


So yeah. I think that people like you are being rude by getting all pissy at other players who are simply playing the game. I'm not talking about you in particular here. I'm talking about players in general. Those who'll get offended if they are inspected. Those who insist on people asking before inspecting. Heck. I have people ask me if they can inspect me. I would *much* rather they just inspect if they want to inspect and save me the trouble of having to tell them that. But because there are enough people who think like you to raise enough of an irrational ***** fest about inspecting, I have to deal with the timid masses, who've been browbeat into bugging me with tells to ask permission to do something when there is no sane reason they need it.

It works both ways.

Sorry Joev....if I ever run into you in game....I'm going to inspect you

And as for me, don't anyone ever waste my time asking me if they can inspect me, just do it.

Oddly enough, I do prefer people to ask before inspecting. Not to the point where I would run to avoid them or something like that.

It just puts them into the category of "slightly less polite" versus "slightly more polite", in my personal perception. Oddly enough when grouping and interacting with those who inspect without asking there does seem to be a correlation to things like willingness to share camps, help others out etc. Again, purely personal perception

I probably formed this behaviour partly from players that I respect when I first started EQ.

No intent to change.

Ash

Edited, Wed Apr 6 21:31:44 2005 by Etuy

What I find interesting about this thread, is that the pro-inspect people seem to feel that it is necessary to insult the anti-inspect people. There are two differing views here. Neither one has an exclusive lock on rationality. Differing customs, varying from server to server, and from guild to guild, cause people to learn that one or the other view is the accepted "custom". In some societies, belching after a meal is a compliment. In others, it is a grave insult. Is one view irrational. Not really.

I personally prefer to be asked. I don't get horribly upset when people inspect me, but quite frankly, unless I am about to group with them, I don't see why they need to. If they cannot tell what shield I have by the graphic, a huge round shield, with a 5 footed snail in the middle, then they won't know much more by seeing its name.

I can assure you that I am not embarrassed by my gear. I am pretty proud of it. The inspects that bug me are the driveby type in PoK and such, where some person I have never met, nor grouped with, inspects me for no reason. Usually this is followed up by either requests for gear or plat.

The bottom line is, I am not going to insult someone because they believe inspecting is ok, although I may back out of inspect range. I don't see why it is necessary to resort to insults, like calling someone irrational, just because you disagree with them.

Edited, Fri Apr 8 12:00:31 2005 by xaanru

I've long since turned off auto-inspect, as I keep getting caught peeking at my groupmates' "equipment".

Twiztid

Not one word of this, has anything to do with the paragraph of mine you quoted. I see your point, but why did you quote my comment, which has nothing to do with this point, prior to making it?

Because you followed a line of logic that whether it was "ok" to inspect or not was some sort of custom, much like belching after a meal. You also equated the two positions as though they were equal and opposite (and also commented about the "pro-inspect" folks being insulting to the "anti-inspect" people).

First off, the world isn't really divided into pro and anti positions that cleanly. I'm not "pro-inspection". I don't use inspect at all myself. What I am is *not* anti-inspection. Your argument is like saying that everyone who is not pro-life must be anti-life (desiring to kill unborn children and all of that). While that sort of argument *is* made in that particular instance, it's just as inaccurate.

I'm simply not trying to impose my personal feelings on an issue on other people. That's the difference. Someone who is "anti-inspect" is not just making a personal choice for himself. He's deciding that since he doesn't like something no one else should do it. My position, on the other hand, does not require that *anyone* take any specific action at all. I'm not attempting to get them to change the way they play the game.


And that's why his comment is valid. Clearly, if the items and information gained from inspection was intended to be "private", then SOE would have included a toggle for you to turn it off and prevent people from "rummaging through your gear". Since they don't (and have consistently *not* for 6+ years), it's very clear that SOE considers that information to be public. It's what you are wearing. The poker chips analogy is very valid. Heck. In many games hiding your chips or cards is against the rules. Assuming that since something is "yours" in a game environment means that those things are also "private" is flawed thinking. The game rules set up what is private and public, and in this case the rules say that inspect information is public.


If that's "insulting" to some people, then they'll just have to get over it.

The point I was making, which was, and still is, valid, despite your denials is as follows. There are MANY game CUSTOMS, which are not part of the game mechanics, yet are respected by players. Camps is a good example (depending on server). Sony says no camps. However, players find that it makes life easier to respect camps. Therefore, this becomes a custom. Similarly, there is a wide variation in the customs of different servers regarding raid mob/zone rotations. My server is a FFA server, with the exception of a plane of time rotation. Even with the PoTime rotation, it is possible, within the game mechanics, for a guild to break the rotation. They don't even though its POSSIBLE to do so, and Sony would not stop it, because custom on our server says they should not. The Rathe, on the other hand, has rotations for just about every mob that drops decent loot. That is their custom.

Now, as far as saying that something is not rude, or uncalled for, because it is allowed by the game mechanics, is a weak argument at best. There are a lot of game features that can cause players to become upset, if they are used indiscriminantly. Just because I CAN clicky rez a corpse I run across, does not mean that the owner of said corpse will not be annoyed, if they are in the middle of fighting a named raid mob when I do. Similarly, it is POSSIBLE for me to sit in PoK, and click an item from VT that summons stacks of water. Not for me, but AOE stacks of water, onto the cursors of everyone nearby. So, using your logic, since it is possible, it would not be rude for me to spam the entire zone repeatedly with stacks of water on their cursor. After all, if it was wrong, Sony would create a toggle, so I do not receive AOE summoned items.

Even better, I'll share my wonderful water in the bazaar. I know nobody will mind that. After all, if it were rude, Sony would make it impossible to cast AOEs in the bazaar. Oops, 20+ traders went LD. Well, they cannot possibly mind, after all, they got a stack of no rent water.

Training people's camps, buffing charmed mobs, then setting them free, casting dispell magic on someone's quad kite, AOE damage shielding a raid that is root parking summoning mobs, are other examples of things that are possible within the game mechanics, and therefore by your argument should not be considered rude.

Basically, your argument is that the practice of inspecting does not bother YOU, so therefore nobody else should be allowed to be bothered by it either.

With regard to the resorting to insults comment I made, it was not based on the general expression of one side of this argument. It was based on the previous comments in which anyone who suggested that asking to inspect was polite, was called Bizarre, paranoid and other derogatory terms, just for expressing their opinions.

BTW, it doesn't really bother me to be inspected, but I don't do it, because I know it bothers others. This was something I learned, early on in playing the game.



Edited, Sat Apr 9 09:32:59 2005 by xaanru