i was bored today and asked the people of Live Help what their generic response to people asking for "things to do" was. most of the replies i got back asked if i'd fully explored the world yet, or had done quests or participated in a project. since i have done all those things, i asked if they had any other suggestions.
the subsequent responses fell into two categories ..
one was Divine~ politely joking and asking if the vendors had run out of imagination. the implication being that i wasn't trying hard enough to be creative in game. i've done a lot of sitting down and thinking up creative things to do in the past tho, and exhausted a lot of the ideas that naturally spring to my mind when it comes to experimental gameplay.
the other category of suggestion was to basically self-appoint myself as a greeter and wander around near the starting streets and welcome new players into the game. at this point the live-help staff got into it and clarified where those areas were, since it was not easy to find them via a glitch wiki search or any other in game resource.
i went to Adanac, near a new player spawn zone, and happily found a new player almost instantaneously! in fact, the player actually found me by saying "hello" to everyone via local chat. gleeful at how easy this was going to be, i affected my best cutesy welcoming voice and said "hallo!" in return. the new player then asked if i was "new". i said that i was not, and asked if he was new, thinking maybe he was a more experienced player who came to this street for similar reasons as myself.
turns out the player was indeed new!
at this point i remembered Divine~'s slight fun poking and getting creative .. and an idea sprung to mind .. instead of just doing the normal meet and greet, how about getting a little experimental? that being the spirit of this game, i decided to try by giving him all 50k currants currently in my piggy bank. i asked him "need some money?" and he said "sure that'd be nice", or something along those lines. at this point i initiated a trade with him and confirmed sending 50k currants to the player.
he said "thx" and then i waited for further response. i thought about how he was probably a good candidate for this experiment since he was the one who had initiated the contact and seemed actively engaged in reaching out, but at this point he stopped talking with me and starting up a conversation with another player on the street. a bit disappointed with his lack of response to me, but i thought about it a bit and was heartened that he way reaching out to other players too. this boded well for an ongoing experiment!
i figured i'd leave him to his own devices for a bit and not interrupt his new conversation, so i logged out of the game. he had made me a contact, so i figured i'd take a break for a bit and check in on his progress later.
unfortunately, checking his profile page just now revealed that he'd logged out of the game shortly after i did, never getting a chance to spend the 50k on anything : [ i was sort of hoping that he might spend it on a house near mine in Alakol so that we could be best buddies forever.
i'm still holding out hope that he will return and my experimental adventure in welcoming might continue! it'd be awfully anticlimactic otherwise. here's hoping we see you again sometime, chamexboy!