Friday, May 11, 2012

On the use of in game mail as a post-it-note

Wednesday night I logged into Star Wars the Old Republic after an absence of a nearly a week.  Looking at my quest log, it looked like I needed to head to Nar Shadda and start in there.  I noticed I had a couple of mails, and I vaguely remembered mailing a note to myself the week before.  I decided to check it before I headed out, this is how my message from me to me read:

Title: Memento 


First, head to fleet and spend all ur balmorra commendations. You have an OJ weapon that should make what u have look stupid if u max it out.  Then head to nar shadda for more leveling quests.

You will need to level ur biochem into the 100s b4 level 25 (but I suspect u'll remember that).


 It actually turned out to be a big help, I had completely forgotten I was sitting on a huge ass pile of Balmorra commendations.  Thirty minutes later, I headed to Nar Shadda with vastly upgraded gear.

Now, I find myself wondering...why the hell didn't I think to do this sooner?  The two biggest hurdles I always face when returning to a MMO I haven't played for a while are (1) I have no idea what I was working on, and (2) I can't remember my basic attack combos on whatever characters I used to play.  Yet in nearly all of these games, you can send yourself mail and it will sit there waiting for you until you open it.   

For example, I now really wish the last time I quit WoW I had sent myself something like this note on my Warlock:

Memento:


(1) Normal weak foe: 1,3,4
(2) Strong foe: 1, 2, shadow nookie (bar 2), 4
(3) panic buttons: wall of shadow (right bar, lower part), shadow selfhealgasm (just above wall of shadow)
(4) Crowd control: shadow giggles (bar two, far right)

Whenever Mist of Pandaria launches (I expect play it for a month or two and quit when I hit the new level cap, like every WoW expansion) I will undoubtedly fire up my Warlock and get smacked in the face by a wall of hotbars linked to abilities that I barely remember.  If only it had occurred to me to mail myself cliff notes before I quit playing last year, the transition back could be so much smoother.

Further, I tend to dabble in a lot of FtP MMOs.  When I go back after a long absence, I generally haven't got the foggiest clue where to start.  In some cases it's so bad that it's easier for me to just abandon my old mid-level characters and start over fresh.  The last time I played Allod's Online that's exactly what happened.  I had a level 22 Summoner, and found her so confusing that I ditched her and started over on a Paladin.  If only I had sent myself a few notes before I quite the first time, I might have actually been able to see some of the higher level areas the month or so I was playing.

I now actually feel a bit dumb that it never occurred to me to use in game mail as a post-it-note.  Am I the only one that hasn't been doing this?

8 comments:

  1. I do it all the time in EVE. Whenever I need to remember to do something important in a region I send a ingame email to self or alt detaing what to do or reminder to do.

    Very helpful it is even days and weeks later when I've all but forgotten I look in mail I realize I had forgotten to do that thing and am reminded I still need to do it.

    So you are not alone on this!

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    1. Glad I'm not the only one with a memory bad enough to need to do this ;-)

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  2. Wow! I've never even considered doing that, but that's a great idea. Of course I never know beforehand when I'll end up taking a break (as evidenced by my posting schedule), so I'd have to send myself mail at the end of every session.

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    1. Glad you found this post helpful :-) It varies with me. Some games I slowly fade out on, others I know pretty much exactly when I'm done.

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  3. Its an excellent idea.

    Oh, and Yeebo ... SWGEmu is launching pre-Alpha in about 12 hours. Housing. Factories. Lots of pre-CU goodness

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    1. Thanks for the heads up on the EMU server. I doubt I'll be able to fit it into my play schedule in the next few months, but I'm glad that the really passionate SWG fans have somewhere to go now.

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  4. Seems a good idea - do the notes tend to last forever in most mmorpgs, if unopened?

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    1. It varies a bit from one MMO to the next. However, I'd say in general notes without attachments hang around until you open them. In many cases even after you stop subbing.

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