And here is the problem, not in the instance, not in the goal.
We were there since the second hour of the event loading people up. There was maybe 4-5 hours per day where there was not a group of at least 2 truckers loading players. Like I said, if you didn't get in the instance with us, it may have been a networking issue or something or you were not in open. We were in open so we could help the maximum number of players, and we probably dropped extra cargo for 50+ unique CMDRs in the 3-4 days of the event.
To be fair I can see both sides of this. Having done many CG's myself (coming in the top 5/10 CMDR position on several) I can see it both ways.
I didn't contribute on the recent ones (left for exploration after horizons dropped) but in general I fully support any community action since that's the purpose of a community goal.
If people do not engage in the community or know about such actions then they may loose out. This has always been the case with Elite for example ship discounts, giveaways etc.
Some of us have families, work and other things preventing playtime. As above this has always been the case with Elite, some people can progress faster simply because they can commit more time (e.g. powerplay).
In the end it's one of the rare occasions where people do something nice for others. If it was difficult/impossible to get in the upper % brackets without these activities I'd be a bit annoyed since I'm very pro single-player BUT it's currently very easy to get in and maintain a top 5% by yourself. These activities may even persuade more people to join CG's and increase the number of spots in each category making it easier to get in the top 5%/10% etc!
For the truckers and other benevolent folk the only thing I'd suggest doing such actions as early as possible to avoid people getting place-sniped, if the activity takes place 3 days before the CG ends then people have enough time to get back into the top 5%.
This is great input. We love helping out anyone who will take our help, and like I said, we were helping since the first day, just on the other end of the run. We didn't announce the event sooner, because we were still ironing out details with Paladin's Consortium up until the minute this was posted, and that's our fault. We also decided as a group that posting it more than an hour ahead of time would be a bad idea as Code, SDC, and any other pirate groups would likely bring multiple wings out to Buckey Hub and kill everyone they could. I'd hate to see newer players coming out for some charity drops getting killed repeatedly by wings of FDLs, Corvettes, etc. Since we did about 45 mins warning, there were only 2 wings of Pirates, and our combat escorts were able to keep them distracted while we formed our instances (yes we had 2 instances for dropping with condas in both).
Hello.
I did exactly 2 trips, so I provided a total of 32 fireworks. I used to be in the 60% after 1 trip, then noticed a few days after that I went down in the 90% so I did a second one yesterday (I don't know my final rank and I don't mind). It took me 1 hour per trip, to go to Celsius Estate, purchase my 16 fireworks, go to Buckey Hub and deliver them (OK, I did some explorations in the process, but you see my point). I faced many interceptions, I was almost destroyed by a f... NPC pirate.
And now I learn that some players were able to have the same thing for nothing. In my eye, the spirit of that specific CG has been broken: going far in the hostile space to bring back a rare commodity.
That's the point which bothers me there: you should have given the fireworks in front of Celsius Estate, and not in front of Buckey Hub.
But don't take it wrong, I'd like to thank you for being helpful with the community!
We were giving them in front of Celsius estate During the entire CG. Even when we made the conda run, there were still 2 truckers in open at Celsius loading up people doing last minute runs. Like I said above, there were only gaps of 4-5 hours per day when there was NOT a trucker at Celsius loading up any player that wanted more.
I learnt a few months ago that no matter whether I am in game or not there are some things I will miss out on. I missed the slaves to Achenar, I missed the first Hutton convoy and I missed out on getting into the top 5 of this CG too. I was doing it on my own in a private group (dumping my cargo outside the station and going in to get more) and managed to do only 3 or 4 runs. I met up with the rest of the Truckers on Saturday night in open and started to help them load up. My plan after my Sunday night "real life" job was to get home and do as many runs as possible, but it completed whilst I was driving home. Was I sad that my credit balance wasn't larger than I hoped? A little bit I suppose, but I did earn several million, I helped some others out and I made some new friends on the way.
The point is as the back ground simulation runs, players from all over the world will continue to have an affect on it. Sometimes it's only a tiny effect and sometimes it's way more. Frontier wanted community and group play to emerge - "PwP" I think it's called, and this event is most definately that. I'd rather play like this, it's far better than going solo.
It was fun playing with you! I hope we've inspired you to come out to more CGs, and I'm told there's some really interesting CGs coming in the near future!
Funny, I was under the impression that deliveries made by players counted towards the community goal regardless of what mode a player plays in. Didn't realise I wasn't part of the Elite player community unless I played in open.
To think, there was silly me spending my time doing the Christmas gifts one in solo despite the fact that I'm way past the threshold for receiving the ship that the CG was intended to award to new players, just because I thought it would be nice to do something to contribute to the community.
lol indeed.
Note, I'm not raging mad about this CG or anything but that comment really sparked me up, it's a cheap shot and smacks of elitism (no pun intended). To be honest I would have thought it was a bit beneath an experienced player, especially one so motivated by altruism.
I think you missed the point of what I was saying. I'm not trying to put down anyone who plays in solo/private, hell I do it sometimes when I just want to be alone (I'm typing this while docked in Mobius private group). What I'm saying is, community goals are about bringing the community together to achieve a goal. You can do that however you want, BUT you shouldn't be surprised when a group of players work together to be more effective in the goal, and bang it out quicker. We honestly thought this goal wouldn't get passed tier 3 when we started it, but that quickly changed.
This game has many risk vs reward situations, and CGs are definitely one of them. If you play with other players, sometimes you can increase your efficiency, but obviously playing in open has risks, so it's a risk vs reward situation. For me, since I can afford the occasional rebuy on my big ships (as obvious by me attacking the station just to give everyone a fireworks show when we finished dropping cargo), I play in open for CGs and often for trading, because I enjoy those interactions, but when a pirate kills me 3 times in a row on my trading route, and my combat escorts can't get into the same instance as me and the pirate (despite navlocking my beacon), I tuck my tail between my legs and run off to private/solo.
Do what's best for you, but don't be surprised/upset when a group of players work together towards a common goal and do better than you.
Ok, and also for the record, people complaining about us boosting people into the top 5%, MOST of the players scooping from us at Buckey Hub had to be taught how to navlock and get into the instance and had less than 100 tons hauled. Most players only scooped 30-ish canisters due to lag, bugs, or crashes. Our event brought out more than a few players who hadn't contributed, and there was a small increase in contributors thanks to our group. What spiked the minimum requirement for top 5% at the end were the players bringing in large ships full of rares and selling directly to squeeze into the top 5% at the last moment. Having more contributors with smaller amounts collected than you only HELPS you stay in top 5%. The event in the last hours leading up to our drop was going at around 4000-5000 tons per hour and we only delivered 2000 tons. We were a drop in the bucket. Maybe we made the situation a LITTLE bit worse for people in the top 5%, but I don't think so. I think if we ever were able to see the data on that, it would have been an insignificant impact.
Now if we were bringing in all of our buddy's condas, and loading them up and sending them to sell one by one, that would have rigged the event. We had many truckers request to have their conda or cutter filled but they had not contributed to the loading of other players at all yet, so they were asked to come out in a cobra to help load new/random players first. I'm open to suggestions on how we can better handle things in the future, but we tried to make it known what we were doing to the best of our abilities, and from my point of view, if you choose not to utilize our services, that's not our fault. That's like getting mad at the fuel rats because other people are utilizing their services, but you choose not to and your ship blew up because you ran out of fuel.
Fly safe CMDRs! o7
#ForTheMug
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OH, I forgot to mention, that we posted on the massive CG thread that we were filling people at Celsius all week in open. Maybe next time we should make a separate post to let people know our services are available? Honestly there's so many posts in this forum I doubt many would see it.
