The KGB Oracle Forums The KGB Great Hall of History (ARCHIVE) KGB ArcheAge Quieting Down Event Comms

I wouldn't even feel the need to bring this up normally, but it's been getting to the point where newer people who are showing up to events can't even get a word in edge-wise between random chatting and the general noise level is stressing out even the veterans who already know whats going on.

If the topic isn't reasonably related to the event at hand, try to keep the conversation brief during alliance events and reserve lengthier discussions which aren't time sensitive for a time when we're not actively engaged and needing comms.

THE BIG PROBLEM is when officers in the alliance comms cannot hear what is being said because of the amount of chatter occuring, especially when it gets to normal non-event levels of 3 conversations occurring on top of one another. This has been occurring more and more as we have more people show up.

Please keep this in mind.

If the topic isn't reasonably related to the event at hand, keep it brief as possible. Reserve lengthier discussions which aren't time sensitive for a time when we're not actively engaged and needing comms.

(and if you catch me doing it myself, politely nudge me all the same - I know I do this from time to time as well while trying to distribute information without needing to pull people in for 2 hour long meetings.)

Abyssal a couple days ago was abyssal. I couldn't believe the amount of chatter going on. It was hard to hear for any incoming, when to mine, to keep or hold, what ships to board.

To add to Jaguars thought, as I recently learned, we have several members that are language or hearing challenged.

I called out for event comms twice, and caps it in raid chat a couple times too, with absolutely no alleviation from the raid members or raid leader. I felt very discouraged to bring it up again.

However, I don't want to be negative nancy all the time and not bring up solutions so here goes.

Going to make a rough draft, the following is not policy but a presentation only

Sylvyr's guide to voicecomm organization and usage
---------------------------------------------------
Lobby areas - Open chat. Think of it like a living room at a get together. Expect multiple people to talk and talking-over to happen, and the more people in the room, the more likely it is to occur. We should not be offended by it but rather find calm ways to deal with it. If a conversation is turning into a lengthy one, or multiple conversations overlap, consider making a temp channel to move into or ask the conversants if they could move into another channel. Also, it would be cool to name it based on the topic so people interested in the topic can join in (for example: "2.0 talk").

Raid/Event Channels - By default should be closed/battle comms. This means communicating 1) As briefly as possible 2) relevant comms particular to tactical or informational subject matter. This should include Raid text chat as well, as there are people with mic/speaking challenges that need to use text chat to convey important information as well.

Also, by cluttering comms it inhibits new people or people new to the event from asking pertinent questions that would help them assimilate into the team and perform better. When I was new, I didn't feel comfortable to interrupt established members conversations about whatever even if it went on and on and had nothing to do with the raid because I was the new guy and didn't want to step on anyone's toes. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that feels this way. Remember, there is always a lot to learn for a TEAM. YOU may be the best <insert whatever class> on the server, but IMHO a team isn't best served by the best individuals on it, but by the sum of all working together, and by not fostering the newer or weaker members of the team we are doing a major disservice to the team. Raids should not only be the time to perform brilliantly but also teach and learn in the context of performance. If we've gotten so good we can yap the whole time a raid is going on, we should just stop taking in new people =/

When raids and events are happening, these channels should be used to 1) not hog up a place like the lobby where people would want to free talk and socialize but also 2) be a clear indication to people logging in that an event is occurring. When event is over channel should be cleared out.

"Break Break" - Should mean to everyone an equivalent of "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting but have time sensitive or highly important comms" following by the comms. This would probably occur mainly in non-battle comm situations (since there shouldn't be too much to interupt in them anyway). Example "Break Break, Invictus merch ship full of packs leaving Cinderstone. X up in guild and meet in channel blahbeddyblah"

(Non temporary User Channels - This is more of a commentary than a usage guide because... I'm not a big fan of them. IMHO we shouldn't have them. More often than not there is one person in them AFK, we have an AFK channel for that. They are generally not inviting, for me, I wouldn't want to go crash into anyone's quiet place. They are cliquey. They are also status symbols. Like oh such and such is important enough to have their own channels. They add more clutter to the teamspeak list of channels. Granted we do have in game families and what not but when families need to meet a temp channel can be created for that.

Anyways, those are my thoughts.

I do appreciate the social aspects of the guild so please don't label me as a jerk or hardass or that I don't like to socialize based on my ideas above, but bear in mind 1) there is/was a contingent in KGB that leans towards "hardcore" or "competitive" especially in combat or team/goal oriented raids who like to kill or complete goals efficiently and effectively. Socializing is equally important (to me at least). But IMHO there are different times and places for these different modes. In my experience, bringing toooo much social into a raid does more to hurt the team and make it sloppy than the benefits of socializing. And members that feel they are too good to need to pay attention or foster new people or even contribute to an environment for learning or performing better should ask themselves, what can I do to help the team outside of mashing these buttons and making an awesome toon? Well, that is, if we want to develop teamwork. And comms are one of several vital foundations for that development.

Sorry Jag, wall of text, again, I know, but how to just highlight the points without explanation?

Anyways, I hope we can get to some standards about comms.

Most of this is already in place.
User channels are something `anybody` can use for popping out of the main lobby for the sake of being around for people to pester when needed.
Break Break already happens as `clear comms` or `comms` or `clear channel`.
We only recently started with a raid channel, so that's being done already - the point of the channel is to keep things brief and on topic.

We don't really need to overhaul the standard, we just need to get people in the habit of yielding the raid voice channel when comms calls occur and to only share information which has any level of significance to others in the raid, about the raid event. Keeping it brief and on topic.

I love how you always do this...don't bash the guys effort for trying to support your post. Silver, keep on, it's a good effort to try and refine the continued process. True leadership is displayed in the action of positive change.

In place? Where?
I see no posts anywhere on TS usage, only server information.

Thank you for this post. Sometimes it is so difficult to hear what the group leader is saying during our events and I really do not like having to ask a leader to repeat what was just said. I also do not like to shout over all the chatter to alert people of enemies in the area.