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Perhaps answers should be whispered to people rather than broadcast to the whole server. New people could still get their assistance, veterans would still be free to answer and help, and that chat would be cleaned up (particularly of the rage that follows people misusing the help features). Answers to general inquiries that are of no interest to anyone other than the person asking the question clutter up the chat a lot, it would be nice to see this adjusted.

Yes. Just, yes.

But what happens to the person's question? Is it still visible in public chat? If I see a question but can't see that HelpBot or Server has responded, I'll answer the question. It kind of defeats the purpose of HelpBot, which is to relieve some of the burden of answering questions from players.

Or, should the person's message not show in chat if it triggers a server response? This wouldn't work either. HelpBot doesn't give the full answer to many questions (like "Where can I build?" HelpBot still doesn't tell people about the teleporter) and there are also incorrect triggers. People would experience frustration as their "questions" are being blocked from public chat and answered by HelpBot when it isn't even responding the correct question (For example, a statement like "I hate the weather" should not be blocked from public chat. It's just a statement [Unless of course it's being used to abuse the server responses].)

/chat problem solved.

jackavsfan wrote:But what happens to the person's question? Is it still visible in public chat? If I see a question but can't see that HelpBot or Server has responded, I'll answer the question. It kind of defeats the purpose of HelpBot, which is to relieve some of the burden of answering questions from players.

Or, should the person's message not show in chat if it triggers a server response? This wouldn't work either. HelpBot doesn't give the full answer to many questions (like "Where can I build?" HelpBot still doesn't tell people about the teleporter) and there are also incorrect triggers. People would experience frustration as their "questions" are being blocked from public chat and answered by HelpBot when it isn't even responding the correct question (For example, a statement like "I hate the weather" should not be blocked from public chat. It's just a statement [Unless of course it's being used to abuse the server responses].)

The question the person asked would still be visible to everyone. If the request triggers a response from helpbot it would be whispered to the person who asked, and the person could still be answered by other players. If the question did not trigger helpbot then other players could still offer guidance. If helpbot did answer a question but the person still received answers from other players, I don't see that as hurting anything. The idea is to get the automated responses off the global chat, but still allowing people to get the help they require.

Wormoxide wrote:/chat problem solved.

So because some people get a silly little giggle from spamming a bot, people that have a legitimate use for /chat should go hang?

Yeah, no.

/who is ********* is the solution.

sleevedude wrote:

jackavsfan wrote:Snip

The question the person asked would still be visible to everyone. If the request triggers a response from helpbot it would be whispered to the person who asked, and the person could still be answered by other players. If the question did not trigger helpbot then other players could still offer guidance. If helpbot did answer a question but the person still received answers from other players, I don't see that as hurting anything. The idea is to get the automated responses off the global chat, but still allowing people to get the help they require.

The reason HelpBot is there is to make it so we don't have to answer extremely basic questions like "Where can I build?" Making HelpBot responses invisible to all but the asker would create confusion as to whether the person's question was ever answered at all. So players would feel the need to answer the question themselves, thus defeating the purpose of HelpBot.

OrigamiElephant wrote:/who is ********* is the solution.

Also known as /profile...

Like every new feature, the spam should calm down in a couple of days once the novelty has worn off.

I think Helpbot should be given personality. The other day people were hating on Helpbot, and it would be interesting if Helpbit could respond to over simple questions like "what's your favorite color?"

At the risk of seeming flighty, I changed my mind. No.