Alliance Etiquette?

Unknown

I think the main points of etiquette are let everyone know what you're doing, don't run out at the last moment and don't screw your alliance out of a reward tier, especially a top 100 reward by ditching them (although don't see why you'd run out of an alliance that is going to get a top 100 reward anyway).

My alliance is a large part of what keeps me interested in the game, and not because of the rewards but the chat. So IMO look for an alliance you enjoy being in and, if you are above the activity level of the rest of the ppl, have an arrangement in place that you'll merc out for rewards on occasion but will give plenty of warning etc.

dswan3rd

Der_Lex wrote:

Alliance etiquette 101:

- Always extend the pinky finger on your left hand when shielding.

- If a senior alliance member attacks you in an event, the proper response is: "Thank you, sir/madam, may I have another?". If a junior alliance member attacks you in an event, your wrath may be as swift and terrible as desired.

- Don't post any disparaging remarks about the mothers of your alliance commanders in alliance chat. That is what public forums are for.

- If an alliance member requests a team-up, don't be 'that guy' and send Yelena. Sending Bag-Man, however, is a sign of excellent taste and is highly encouraged.

If you live by these simple rules, you too will be counted amongst the dapperest of MPQ gentlemen in no time.

This. Just. Made. My. Day.

All excellent points and quite possibly words to live by even outside of MPQ - if I can find a way to give my wife the equivalent of a Bag-Man Team-Up when she asks for help with the groceries, I'm all for it.

To let everyone know how the story ended, I PM'd the commander that invited me (based on a post I made here) and let him know that I would be leaving to try and get an extra IF cover, since we were NOWHERE NEAR top 100 and I was top 50 overall and in each sub-node. Never received a response, but then PM'd three members that posted alliance needs in the "Heroes for Hire" thread. One commander had already filled the slot, one commander needed help for this event only, and the third made a pitch that seemed like it might be sensible spot long-term. I joined that alliance, did my part with 80K+ and we still missed top 100 by 41 points - someone put up like 12K for the entire event.

TL;DR - PM'd the old alliance, joined a new one, still didn't get top 100.

MarvelMan

Der_Lex wrote:

- If a senior alliance member attacks you in an event, the proper response is: "Thank you, sir/madam, may I have another?".

This is MPQ, not Canada.

Der_Lex

MarvelMan wrote:

Der_Lex wrote:

- If a senior alliance member attacks you in an event, the proper response is: "Thank you, sir/madam, may I have another?".

This is MPQ, not Canada.

Careful now, I believe that calling Kevin Bacon Canadian is a capital offense in some states.

Unknown

Der_Lex wrote:

MarvelMan wrote:

Der_Lex wrote:

- If a senior alliance member attacks you in an event, the proper response is: "Thank you, sir/madam, may I have another?".

This is MPQ, not Canada.

Careful now, I believe that calling Kevin Bacon Canadian is a capital offense in some states.

Personally, I find Canadian Bacon to be a capital offense - just call it ham and stop raising expectations.

MarvelMan

Not saying I dont like the direction....but:

Unknown

One should always, always bare in mind that this is a match 3 game about superheroes that we play in cellphones. All nations of allegiance, honor and duty should be thought of with that in mind.

Lidolas

dswan3rd wrote:

TL;DR - PM'd the old alliance, joined a new one, still didn't get top 100.

Good for you. You'll get it next time.

GothicKratos

ark123 wrote:

One should always, always bare in mind that this is a match 3 game about superheroes that we play in cellphones. All nations of allegiance, honor and duty should be thought of with that in mind.

I really find this statement...crude? It just shouts of the distastefulness of the type of people that walk into McDonald's and treat the employees like garbage passing it off as "just a fast food restaurant". Just because something is 'just something simple' or 'something inconsequential' doesn't mean you should treat it, or more specifically the people involved in it like they're in turn unimportant. People are still people. (Nothing against you, specifically, but that statement/sentiment seems to be pretty common.)

That being said, of course you have to always watch out for number one. If you're scoring good enough to get into Alliances in a tier higher than your current, there's no reason not to make the jump. Give your current Alliance a little head's up so they can find a replacement and nobody should have anything negative to say about it. If you or your commander use LINE, it's usually pretty easy to final replacements towards the end of events, or to find temporary places for your top scorers, and nobody should really lose out.

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

ark123 wrote:

One should always, always bare in mind that this is a match 3 game about superheroes that we play in cellphones. All nations of allegiance, honor and duty should be thought of with that in mind.

I really find this statement...crude? It just shouts of the distastefulness of the type of people that walk into McDonald's and treat the employees like garbage passing it off as "just a fast food restaurant". Just because something is 'just something simple' or 'something inconsequential' doesn't mean you should treat it, or more specifically the people involved in it like they're in turn unimportant. People are still people. (Nothing against you, specifically, but that statement/sentiment seems to be pretty common.)

That being said, of course you have to always watch out for number one. If you're scoring good enough to get into Alliances in a tier higher than your current, there's no reason not to make the jump. Give your current Alliance a little head's up so they can find a replacement and nobody should have anything negative to say about it. If you or your commander use LINE, it's usually pretty easy to final replacements towards the end of events, or to find temporary places for your top scorers, and nobody should really lose out.

Yeah? Have you seen the chatlogs of alliances that collapse? Because I've been in one, and at the end there were people acting shell-shocked, people directing expletives towards each other and whole heaping of betrayal and revenge talk.
I said what I said because I've seen people lose themselves in the drama. It's a game. The community is nice and people get to know each other, but there is no need for drama.
If you're invited to an alliance where you can get a higher tier reward, tell your Alliance mates your reasoning and switch.
It's gotten to a point where I completely ignore what I just said a sentence ago. I stay with skull because people are cool and there is zero drama. It's that widespread.

Unknown

If you're asking for advice on how to backstab your alliance you're already part of the drama. I'm not really sure what people expect out of these etiquettes because if I cared about this stuff as a leader I'd say something like "I hope the alliance you join immediately folds and you end up with nothing and don't come back crying". Now since I don't actually care about this stuff I don't say that though in this case I also don't care enough for people to leave in the first place. Of course people take these things way too seriously which is why I never understand why they even have this feature implemented without providing anything that you can remotely work together toward, as the alliance is purely a collection of individuals who happens to all have the same tag at a very specified amount of time, so there's no real loyalty involved.

If you look at the prototypical guild, it's not that people in the guild got along with each other, but that if everyone randomly split up and join 5 different guilds there's no assurance any of these guys will be successful since there's a considerable overhead to integrate into a new group of people, so you might want to stick with what currently works even if you hated each other's guts. There are only two scenarios I've seen where it's possible to leave a group gracefully. First, if nobody in the group even cared about being in the group in the first place. Second, if you suck so much that people can't wait for you to leave. In either case nobody would miss the fact that you didn't announce your departure, other than perhaps letting the commander wonder which of the other 19 guys he has no idea who they are has left.

GothicKratos

ark123 wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

ark123 wrote:

One should always, always bare in mind that this is a match 3 game about superheroes that we play in cellphones. All nations of allegiance, honor and duty should be thought of with that in mind.

I really find this statement...crude? It just shouts of the distastefulness of the type of people that walk into McDonald's and treat the employees like garbage passing it off as "just a fast food restaurant". Just because something is 'just something simple' or 'something inconsequential' doesn't mean you should treat it, or more specifically the people involved in it like they're in turn unimportant. People are still people. (Nothing against you, specifically, but that statement/sentiment seems to be pretty common.)

That being said, of course you have to always watch out for number one. If you're scoring good enough to get into Alliances in a tier higher than your current, there's no reason not to make the jump. Give your current Alliance a little head's up so they can find a replacement and nobody should have anything negative to say about it. If you or your commander use LINE, it's usually pretty easy to final replacements towards the end of events, or to find temporary places for your top scorers, and nobody should really lose out.

Yeah? Have you seen the chatlogs of alliances that collapse? Because I've been in one, and at the end there were people acting shell-shocked, people directing expletives towards each other and whole heaping of betrayal and revenge talk.
I said what I said because I've seen people lose themselves in the drama. It's a game. The community is nice and people get to know each other, but there is no need for drama.
If you're invited to an alliance where you can get a higher tier reward, tell your Alliance mates your reasoning and switch.
It's gotten to a point where I completely ignore what I just said a sentence ago. I stay with skull because people are cool and there is zero drama. It's that widespread.

I'll give ya that. I haven't experienced in this community, but in quite a few others, but I don't really think that changes what I said at all. The game is still a game, of course, but there are also other people playing this game, and I'd like to think that at least a little common decency should be expected from one another, even if over a game - just like you should be expected to show common decency to a janitor or a fast food worker or a teacher or any other normal human being. Otherwise everything deteriorates to Xbox Live. Just because some people are asshats doesn't mean the rest of the majority of the sane folk get to be asshats too - that's part of maturity and decency and responsibility.

Common decency requires that you treat everyone unequivocally decent, otherwise, you shouldn't expect such in return - and boy, oh boy, is that a slippery slope to slide down.

IamTheBiggs

I had a similar issue to this which I posted in another thread. (viewtopic.php?f=16&t=24200)

My dilemma was that it was my buddy that brought me on and I wasn't satisfied with the amount of team support/pushing. I asked to become a commander so that I could recruit more and organize efforts to improve our standing in the various events. This may/may not work for you depending upon how well you're doing and how well attached you are to the commander(s).

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

ark123 wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

ark123 wrote:

One should always, always bare in mind that this is a match 3 game about superheroes that we play in cellphones. All nations of allegiance, honor and duty should be thought of with that in mind.

I really find this statement...crude? It just shouts of the distastefulness of the type of people that walk into McDonald's and treat the employees like garbage passing it off as "just a fast food restaurant". Just because something is 'just something simple' or 'something inconsequential' doesn't mean you should treat it, or more specifically the people involved in it like they're in turn unimportant. People are still people. (Nothing against you, specifically, but that statement/sentiment seems to be pretty common.)

That being said, of course you have to always watch out for number one. If you're scoring good enough to get into Alliances in a tier higher than your current, there's no reason not to make the jump. Give your current Alliance a little head's up so they can find a replacement and nobody should have anything negative to say about it. If you or your commander use LINE, it's usually pretty easy to final replacements towards the end of events, or to find temporary places for your top scorers, and nobody should really lose out.

Yeah? Have you seen the chatlogs of alliances that collapse? Because I've been in one, and at the end there were people acting shell-shocked, people directing expletives towards each other and whole heaping of betrayal and revenge talk.
I said what I said because I've seen people lose themselves in the drama. It's a game. The community is nice and people get to know each other, but there is no need for drama.
If you're invited to an alliance where you can get a higher tier reward, tell your Alliance mates your reasoning and switch.
It's gotten to a point where I completely ignore what I just said a sentence ago. I stay with skull because people are cool and there is zero drama. It's that widespread.

I'll give ya that. I haven't experienced in this community, but in quite a few others, but I don't really think that changes what I said at all. The game is still a game, of course, but there are also other people playing this game, and I'd like to think that at least a little common decency should be expected from one another, even if over a game - just like you should be expected to show common decency to a janitor or a fast food worker or a teacher or any other normal human being. Otherwise everything deteriorates to Xbox Live. Just because some people are asshats doesn't mean the rest of the majority of the sane folk get to be asshats too - that's part of maturity and decency and responsibility.

Common decency requires that you treat everyone unequivocally decent, otherwise, you shouldn't expect such in return - and boy, oh boy, is that a slippery slope to slide down.

I've been around way less than other people, but my 220 days playing have taught me this. Expect people to act crazy. Expect people to poach players and leave and form new alliances and have enemies. When you find people who are nice, grab onto them and form a nice sane core for an alliance. Keep your goalposts still and keep the leadership transparent.

But until then, look out for number one.

simonsez

GothicKratos wrote:

Common decency requires that you treat everyone unequivocally decent, otherwise, you shouldn't expect such in return - and boy, oh boy, is that a slippery slope to slide down.

I'm pretty sure in Skrulls we do, since we've had the same core for many, many seasons now, and like Ark said, zero drama, to the point where being Commander has gotten a little boring. But part of that "zero drama" is because like Ark said, it's just a game. We're all adults with real life issues that will always come first. So when there's peripheral drama that other alliances might let themselves get sucked into, we don't let it affect us. We understand that there will always be people driven by ego and pettiness. It's a cycle we don't perpetuate. "It's just a game" might seem harsh upon first listen, but that attitude actually prevents a lot of dickish behavior, rather than encouraging it.

spatenfloot

El Satanno wrote:

Great, now you guys have me thinking about leaving the alliance I helped found...

You could just kick everyone out and then fill it with mercs!

GothicKratos

ark123 wrote:

I've been around way less than other people, but my 220 days playing have taught me this. Expect people to act crazy. Expect people to poach players and leave and form new alliances and have enemies. When you find people who are nice, grab onto them and form a nice sane core for an alliance. Keep your goalposts still and keep the leadership transparent.

But until then, look out for number one.

At this point, I feel like we pretty much agree, but just choose to emphasis a different viewpoint. You definitely have to look out for number one - beyond the game, it's just a life goal thing - you can't let others drag you down. I said earlier that there's no reason if you're scoring high enough for a higher tiered Alliance not to go to one, but the OP was asking for etiquette, so I offered what I believed is the most fair to both parties. People definitely will be, uh, phallic, shall we say? And it not being the "nice" thing to do won't stop most of them, but my statement was from a point of that just because some would do it doesn't mean you should (or you should encourage others) do those things. This is easily tripled in a competitive environment, where stress is bound to be high on both the personal and gaming side of the fence.