Can some of you guys please keep this in mind?

[Taffy Bumberfoot]

"If they, 40-60 laffers, aren't supposed to be there why make it so accessible to them?"

This is a bug (or at least poor design) on Disney's part, in my opinion.

[DutchAmerica]

I guess you have forgotten some of the tasks. Getting the key to Daisy Gardens from a Mingler has been around a lot longer than cog hqtrs. has.

I personally had to beat about 20 or so before I got the key personally. So as for as the ____ that the toon specifically take that task to go to hqtrs doesn't really float.

Be careful because making Assumptions makes an ___ and of you and me.

As far as those belly aching about low toons in hqtrs, you know, you could go to a quieter neighbor away from the low laffers. It seems as tho the most low laffer elevator dances are in the highest populated neighborhoods.

So, high laffers can drop the ____ too.

[Juggalo]

I guess YOU probably said it best in another thread.....I wish they had a phrase that said "Its all yours" as I teleport out the building.......all because I was annoyed by the 2 toons who were secret chatting.

Well maybe the 100+ laffer has his own annoyances.....Just a thought.

[Shylo]

OHHH Juggalo nice catch!!! I also have a catch on Dutch of my own. Saw a post after complaining about the secret chatting, that she/he didnt care about people chatting at all around him/her.

Dutch.. Im sure youre a great player and all... but I get this inkling that your only on these forums to disagree with whomever is talking at that moment.. Im sure I could dig up both of those comments that totally go against each other. Hmmmmmmm

;o)

[Hannibal]

Cog HQ is just the latest speedbump with Toontown.

I know I've been absent for months, but I'm shocked overall at the poor behavior and attitudes I'm seeing from high and low laffers alike. Consider this a mild chastisement by a veteran toon of his peers and a major chastisement of Disney for not working effectively with their audience on the social engineering aspects of promoting a wholesome and enjoyable game.

I can sympathize with both plights as I'm currently building a new toon to see how the game has evolved. Being anonymous in this guise, I am constantly dismissed as an asset by senior toons and latched onto (and ceaslessly teleported to) by junior toons. Regardless of laff level, interacting with a new toon is always a mixed bag and if you can't find ways to enjoy that, it's time to move on.

Part of the problem for low-laffers is that the server densities are so low you can never reliably find partners for big tasks or buildings (I can wait on a street 15 minutes and not see another toon pass by). You have to hunt to find toons, then to find buildings, and eventually you have to relent and go where the big toons are just to reliably complete tasks and get good groups.

I personally believe that Special Friends and ToonTownCentral community has done more to harm the game than help it by enforcing cliquishness and flaming (though I appreciate the advantages of an in-game community, which Disney has utterly ignored). Many of these issues boil down to communication and the clever uses of the toontalker (hehe - had to date myself, SpeedChat to newer toons) to overcome the 'language' barrier. People unable or unwilling to invest in mastering toon communication and trying to decipher the motives behind another toon's communiques will always get poorer results, regardless.

In defense of the senior toons' complaints, Disney needs address 'griefing'. I believe 90% of the low-laff griefing that occurs (elevator shuffles, freeloader toons, toontalker abuse) results from ignorance and inexperience and people don't do enough communicating in-game to educate new players; instead opting to immaturely express themselves in 'road-rage' incidents. On Disney's part, they should concentrate on mechanisms to reduce the ceaseless teleporting, elevator dances by extending the interface to create 'temporary parties' (e.g. allow toons to do a simple task to create a group denoted by a visual clue like a lollipop icon or a uniform or a number showing how many people they are grouped with) so people can readily identify a 'group' and know not to interfere, they should promote more 'help-a-toon' tasks by making them meaningful and useful (better rewards, higher laff limits - 25 is silly... they should be encouraged to help with Legal Eagle/Mingler tasks, how about scattering those help-a-toon tasks to every laff point level, or offering expendable level 7 gags for helping a toon [suggests scoring past 9999 might be plausible]).

Lastly, the 'diminishing returns' on being able to do Cog HQ is just silly. I brought on my senior toon and in all the excitement was able to get into a Cog HQ group with all my old peers (thanks guys!), but it represents such an investment of time and energy to get a group together, no wonder every one is frustrated! Then re-qualifying after you've done it a few times... crazy. The Factory, while a marvel, is the dullest leveling treadmill I've seen in a game, yet. After the first six times or so, I pretty much had my fill. I wonder sometimes if the designers actually play the game at all.

---
I've really enjoyed the game over the years (what is it, three now?) and think Toontown is really something special and every effort to resist it becoming EQ, AC, UO is to be commended. I truly hope the design team will continue to review these kinds of playbility issues and make this game something Walt would be proud of.
---

[Shylo]

Hannibal... you are right.. it is unfortunate. I think sometimes its easy to define the age of someone youre playing with just by the reactions they have to your comments.. Im talking of "speedchat phrases" of course. When I suspect that perhaps I am dealing with a child... my reactions are different. If they tell me over and over that "you stink", then I just simply up and TP out of there. However... its the ones that arnt children... that are becoming rather annoying to the higher laffers who are just trying to enjoy the game. FINALLY they have something that they thought they could call their own... and no.. its not happening... we now have to deal with lower laff toons in the factory.. in the VP building... and if we choose NOT to escort them all around... because we are already with a group of friends... then shame on us RIGHT!!! I dont know where the solution lies here. Lower laffers are angry because they think they have as much right to HQ as everyone else. Perhaps thats true. Do we not then, have just as much right to refuse to play with you as a team??? You bet we do. There is no reason for rudeness, I agree with Hannibal, but what else can we resort to? We are experiencing it now 10 fold. Its almost as if now... as soon as I walk up to an elevator with a lowbie standing there... they automatically say "dont be mean"!!! What is up with that... is it not possible for them to understand that I am already with a secured group and that I just dont want you to be part of it... doesnt make me an evil person. AAAGH the headaches this game has become. Disney shouldve addressed this problem before it started. Making the VP accessible ONLY to maxed toons would not be a bad idea. For a few reasons. It would give the lowbies something to work for, for petes sake!!! I had to do it!!! It would also let the higher laffers take a break from having to complete all these never ending tasks. Maybe then if we werent bombarded with the lower laffers every minute.. wed be more obliged to go and help out on the streets every now and then. But yes Hannibal... youre absolutely right.. the attitudes have changed... I notice even some of my s/f have changed from night and day.. who used to be ever so helpful... now have no desire at all to help!! And honestly... I dont blame them... they pay.. let em play the way they choose. I think the bottom line is that we are all just here to have fun. LIKE ME!!!

;o)

[WizardHawk]

This current problem is due to the poor manner in which Disney designed and dumped this new area on the masses. Once the area is properly debugged you can expect that high toons will take some (SOME, not a whole elevator full!) mid level toons with them and have no problem with it. I don't agree that lower toons have as much right to try it as the higher ones do just because they pay for their account. We all pay, AND we put in our dues to have the right to play anywhere. Lower toons should work on their goals and progress toward a time when they too will be high enough to go into a 5 story in DL or other high area battle zones. Lower toons have plenty of things they can do, higher toons ONLY have HQ at the moment as they have finished everything else. I think its a little selfish for those lower toons to expcet everyone else to risk their lives to show them the ropes until it is debugged.

[aurora borealis]

I got offered the phrase "I'm helping my friend" and snatched it up as quick as possible. IMO this should not be one that you have to buy, but one that everyone gets. It has helped in a lot of instances where we would normally do an elevator shuffle, and those smaller toons that aren't kids understand a little better.

[denisse]

cant wait til i get that phrase!

[Hannibal]

1) How about being able to set a 'Mentor' flag so that newbies could quickly identify people willing and able to help them out?

I specifically accept all friends so as to fulfill that 'You must make a friend' task for new toons, but cull them out (when they are offline, if possible) if they prove rude/annoying or if I get too many 'yellow duck' listings (so I know longer have any clue which one it might have been)

This flag could be used by Toon HQ when selecting tasks to offer up a greater variety of Help-A-Toon tasks, perhaps including better rewards. If a toon is not inclined to run this flag (and let's face it, some toons are useless in this capacity, anyway) then they needn't be bothered by these particular tasks. Further, these tasks could be extended to lower LP tasks all the way down... I'd much rather see these 'Just-For'Fun tasks' than the "Small Head' reward tasks.

2) How about an APB (all-point-bulletin) chat (or persistent speech bubble) that announces to toons entering a street (or running by) that you're looking for help with the building you're standing in front of?

[Hannibal]

I don't agree that lower toons have as much right to try it as the higher ones do just because they pay for their account. We all pay, AND we put in our dues to have the right to play anywhere.

This is just wrong.

1) To put my response in perspective, understand that I'm a 100 LP (non-maxxed toon) in my primary and I've put in as much time as just about anybody in-game through each of the Beta phases only to have my toons pwiped repeatedly. I believe I'm as entitled as anybody to new content and to me the *maxxed toon* argument is hogwash.

2) Apart from HQ, there's not been any new substantive content since Beta so the only entertainment to be garnered (apart from maxxing my toon - woohoo) is to try different combinations of gags and make new friends. In that vein, I have toons of various accomplishment and again, feel that I am as valid and valuable as many toons twice my size Again, if I wanted to try Cog HQ with a lesser toon, I think I'm entitled BUT I'll also suggest that I'm polite enough not to mindlessly ruin the fun of other toons to assert my 'privilege'.

3) The notion of 'toon size' (in LPs or gag strength) is a poor substitute for saying that you really want to make sure you're playing with other toons that can and will cooperatively participate in successfully completing the task of beating Cog HQ. 'Toon size' is the only measure you have of evaluating your chances with a toon you don't know, but even a maxxed toon, poorly managed, can be disastrous, so you're never quite sure. Any 'toon size' requirement would subjective and a pretty poor measure regardless.

---

Had I been responsible for the design of Cog HQ, I would have offered multiple ways to play it or at least make it flexible enough to encourage cooperation instead of playground bullying. To wit:

- I really like the idea of 2 different 4-toon parties, one big (arbitrarily the 4 biggest toons, but maybe allow for a substitution mechanism) and one small (the remaining toons) to accomplish different tasks.
- Size the challenges appropriately and promote interactions that make both teams valuable.
- If all the toons are big, then the challenges are just... bigger.

---

This is an excellent illustration of what I'm trying to say with regards to Disney needing to consider social engineering. Start with the premise of, 'We want children of all ages (4-400) to be be able to freely interact and to do so in a mutually rewarding and safe manner'. From that standpoint, the implementation of Cog HQ is clearly catering to the advanced toon and therefore promotes exclusion.

[Shylo]

Originally posted by Hannibal
1) How about being able to set a 'Mentor' flag so that newbies could quickly identify people willing and able to help them out?

High Five!!!! Thats a great idea!!! I like it!!!

;o)

[Big Tom Supernugget]

Hannibal, you have SO MANY brilliant ideas and comments in this thread that I don't even know where to begin! So I'll just say this: "You are a genius!"

[Shylo]

As a small response to your well written posts Hannibal... I agree that toon "size" (laff points) and "strength" (gag levels) are not the only things we should be considering when venturing into a VP battle. I have said this before and now, yet again. Although I do consider a maxed toon a bonus, youre right, they can mess things up just as badly as the next guy!! (some of my dear friends know that I once went into a VP battle with no gags!!! ooops), luckily I had the (dont leave home without it), "restock all card" to get me out of that pickle. But back to my point. I consider not the laff and strength of a lowbie toon, but really, at 50 or 44 or whatever laff it may be, until you are maxed, how many gags are you carrying in that bag??? 40, 50? and of those 50, maybe you have 3 cream pies and 3 fire hoses LOL. Which is fine... but not in VP when you are staring at four 12 lvl coggies. Not the time to be using your squirt gun cause you ran out of hoses during the first battle. I think... to each their own. The problem for me has never been whether lowbies should or shouldnt be in the HQ area, but the problem is if they are!!! Most, not all, but most are not showing enough respect toward the higher laff toons who are there and wish not to go in with them. I may or may not be one of those toons, depends how Im feeling that day!!

;o)

[Lady Slippy Wondercrump]

The OP is a 51 laffer, why was she in Cog HQ? Perhaps she had sellbot tasks? Did all the sellbots disappear everywhere else? At 51 laff you are past DG and the whole key thing. So at 51 laff what ya gonna do with your cog suit? Leach off of someone else to carry you thru the VP Battle? It can be done, yes, but with friends only. In fact, there are some great toons here who are more than willing to take anybody in with them for various reasons.

Sorry your feelings were hurt, I truly am, that I suppose is the point of this thread. But it has been beaten to death in this forum how higher laffers feel in general about lower laffers being in Cog HQ. Also, consider this. That 102 laffer might have been a child as well. Perhaps playing a toon them and their parent share, or just a dedicated kid who worked hard for that place.

I think that if you need a key from a Mingler, HQ is a great place to go to. Just find a friend who is willing to take you. Say it outloud in the pit in HQ, not by the elevator, and ask
"Can you help me?" If someone says "Yes" your totally good to go.

Low laffers are mad at high laffers, high laffers are annoyed with low laffers. Dutch America says "got to a less populated district" sure no prob, but that doesn't mean the HQ is less populated. I have tested this out for the past week. THERE IS NO ESCAPE for anyone who is annoyed by anyone anymore just more annoying ppl. Perhaps im annoying them cause I don't want to be their friend.

I have hung around DG for the past week looking to help toons (ok so perhaps gabardine convinced me to work my toonup) I haven't found anyone to help. The streets are empty!!!! Toons are standing around fishing or just talking, jumping over walls and fighting. Heck, I don't know if wanna help them...hard to find ppl on task anymore.