I know we do group mining, it was just an example of a group activity that you might be able to jump into on a day you only have 2 hours to play but there is a group doing it. But I also said I could see how some people ( not myself) might find something like that boring. The same holds true for other activities, like trade runs or bounty hunting or PvP that could be going on at a given time, you might like one but have no interest in the others. or it could be none of the above are going on, even in an org this size.
I was more pointing out the fact that if in the above example you only have 2 hours play time for the week, and you do luck out and something catches your eye you still have a problem. Especially if you can't plan when during the week you'll get those two hours meaning you can't join events reliably.
Supposing that you find a group you still need to gear up, get the appropriate ship (or wait for someone to pick you up if you're going as crew), and travel possibly long distances to wherever the group is before you're actually ready to "play", eating up a lot of your limited play time. And that's for what would most likely be an ad hoc PUG, likely less organized than a prearranged group activity, and how long do those take from the planned start time to actually beginning the objective? Grouping up sounds like fun, but if things are moving more towards "having" to group and you only have a couple hours, finding a group doing something you like uses up a significant portion of your play time, but they seem to make it less viable to do much solo instead so you can use your limited time actually playing the game.
There is no requirement in TEST to join a group activity, or any activity. Right now SC is not a really good group game, certainly not a really good org game. We can only have 50 players on a server, and generally that space is shared with other players from other orgs too. You can't put a lot of people on your friends list either. It kinda sucks the way they do that, but CIG runs that part of the game there way. They will be working that out eventually, just not now.These are exactly the thoughts I was trying to articulate. Group play is amazing, yes, but we shouldn't be forced into it.
We have the forums here, and in Discord to communicate. And ... I forgot the name of it, the place that hosts the calendar in the menu. Click on that link to get there. But you can just do things with people you know in the org too. Discord is open to use 24/7/365, and there's almost but not quite always someone online. Often entire groups online. Those groups are usually just people online at the same time. Nothing organized, and they might not even be in the same server because of the server limitations.
I personally don't join these often right now but I have a good reason. lol. Seriously my reason is better than yours. Everyone says that. Only 1 TESTie really understands, and maybe 2 or 3 others would if I told them what happened. A few others know what happened, but I don't know how much they understand what it means. Not anyone's fault, like this is something that totally took me by surprise. I had an injury that affects the way I see, read, and sometimes how I talk. It makes it difficult, but if I know when someone wants to be online, I sometimes can arrange that.
EDIT: I edited that to include some people who have been incredibly supportive. They know who they are. TESTies are amazing from @Montoya on down.
Last edited: