if you want to invite me to party, ASK ME first.

110% agree with the OP.
Yes, I probably am what is considered "Old School". So be it.

To me it's like shoving your money at the busdriver and then expecting .. what?
For him to be a mindreader and know where you wish to go to? For him to ask "Where to?".
Perhaps you could say "Goodmorning, this destination please." as you give him the money?
Common decency just isn't common anymore, I guess. Yes, I'm aware different people are accustomed to different ways. I am very aware : )

Having said that, I DO realise that most blind invites aren't intended badly, even though they may come across as rude to some of us. I, like many other posters here, just do not like them if I've no idea what you're inviting me for.
And these are the keywords, which many of those disagreeing with the OP are conveniently ignoring: "IF I've no idea what you're inviting me for." That is when a blind invite becomes annoying.

@Sweeper: Obviously if we're asking in /General for an FP and get sent an invite, that is not perceived as rude. We know what the invite is about, we were asking for it.
Keywords reminder: "IF I've no idea what you're inviting me for."

@Several others: Yes, if we're staring at the same mob spawn for the same Elite, we understand why both of us are here. We'll understand what the invite is for.
Keywords reminder: "IF I've no idea what you're inviting me for."

@Yet several others: If I happen to be in an area with you, we do not know which part of which quest the other is on. Maybe the other is just starting, or just done. Maybe I'm just standing there cos my little kid just woke up, or the phone rang. Maybe I'm waiting for a friend to arrive to do the quest with.
Keywords reminder: "IF I've no idea what you're inviting me for."

I'm not your next NPC.
I'm a human being behind a keyboard, just like you. Communicate. Talk to me. What is it you would like to group for? Maybe we can help eachother, maybe not.
If you plan to treat me as your next NPC, then I agree with those that said above they might as well pull out their companion and run with that instead.

---

I'll share my little gem from a few days ago:

I just arrived with my new alt at the Fleet and am standing at my trainer, checking the Advanced Skill Trees, trying to decide.
A blind group invite appears on my screen from.. let's call him SilentJoe. I continue to read my Talents, leaving it unanswered.
From the corner of my eye I see my General Chatwindow:
SilentJoe invites you to a group
SilentJoe invites you to a group
SilentJoe invites you to a group
Being in a fairly good mood, I do not roll up my sleeves to give SilentJoe a piece of my mind, but send him a /w asking him if he cares to explain or is just planning to keep spamming blind invites my way.
He replies "Oh, sorry." (indeed no bad intentions, just.. thoughtlessness?)
"Hey, would you mind group with me for guild?"
I'm still not entirely sure what he's after, but as said my mood is good so I accept and end up in group with 3 other pple. I check to make sure he is asking help to start up a guild.
Yes, this is the case.
Then the fact that I'm already in a guild, will probably be a problem.
"Oh sorry, ok. Thnx"
I sighed to myself and shook my head. I wished them luck, left the group and returned to my Skill Trees.

Probably this too. Seems like the popup is a huge annoyance - I get that.

Just got back from running errands and saw this thread seemed to have grown. It also seems like there is a commonality with the people who disagree with my opinion...and it's intense disdain. Not sure quite what I did to earn such derision but whatever lol. I really just wanted to express my opinion and get a feel for what others thought about it. It was never and has never been my goal to try and force anyone to 'change' how they do things.


I just don't like to have an invite window pop up in the middle of my screen while I am minding my own business. Like I have stated several times already, I believe this does not apply while out questing I come upon a champion quest mobs everyone in the vicinity is after. But in any other case, I have a standard of politeness that I exercise when dealing with others. I feel strongly that talking to and at least greeting my party mates is an integral part of MMOs. The guy who did this to me earlier today would not tell me what exactly he needed to group up for, even when I asked. All he would reply with was, "need help"

You've made a frivolous assumption about me. As such, I'm not sure what else I can say that wouldn't just engender scorn from you.


Yeah, I know, right? I do however believe that some of the time, people really don't mean any offense and just want to speed the questing process up. By the same token, it sure would be nice if a lot of these angry people who have replied on this thread would try to see the other perspective too.

No, it really isn't. You make the assumption that I know why you are inviting me. It is subjective of course, but for the most part, I cannot think of any instance where, IN MY OPINION, that ninja inviting is ok.

Nine times out of ten, if you simply decline, they keep inviting. I think it sometimes may be a case of people living in their own little bubble and they don't even consider that the person they are inviting may not wish to drop what they are doing and come do a quest with them. They are impatient. Also, a whisper is FAR less intrusive than a no-ask invite. Not sure why people don't get this, but oh well, like I said, it's my opinion. I'm not going to apologize for my opinion...indeed, people have been downright nasty on this thread without provocation. *shrug*



I had to read this twice, it just blew me away. xD Nope, I am NOT kidding you, Arnokar. What are the forums for, if not to try and get discussion going about a topic that interests or annoys a person? Isn't this what a general forum is for? And I'll have to emphatically disagree with you on my personality being RIGID. LMAO If you saw my posts you might see how I am trying to understand both points of view in this issue. I expect to be trolled, and indeed I have been. Getting insulted for expressing my opinion is sadly par for the course and I've learned to roll with it.

Now to address the 'learn to play well with others' part of your opinion of me. That could easily be said to the guy who ninja invites someone repeatedly and then won't TELL me what he wants, just "Need HELP" In my mind, that guy is the anti-social person.

Sending a REQUEST is whispering and ASKING if the person would like to group...not making a pest of yourself. This is not hard, but really I think it goes much deeper. I really think you and those who have been so hateful in your uninformed posts about my 'personality' just don't WANT to talk to people in-game unless it's on YOUR terms. Well, that's fine. I don't have to play with you and can find those who understand that RESPECT entails realizing your way is not the only way.



You are clueless because you are getting from this what you want to get from it. You haven't read the thread. Your post is almost unintelligible but here goes:

If I wish to go do a heroic and someone is advertising LFM in general, then I will whisper that person and accept the invite when it comes.

If I do NOT wish to do a heroic and someone is advertising LFM in general then I will NOT then whisper that same person. This means I DO NOT WISH TO DO THE HEROIC.

NOW. Here's where it gets tricky. If I am standing anywhere in a zone, perhaps next to a medical droid to sell off items or repair or to craft OR....MAYBE I'm staring into space picking my belly button and drooling. WHO KNOWS. I could be contemplating switching toons or waiting for my husband to get there so we can quest together. The point is, there are MYRIAD reasons I could be there, logged on to that toon. That being said, I don't like getting a group invite completely out of nowhere. I always get annoyed because the first thing that comes to mind is, "This person can't be bothered to even find out if I'm even AVAILABLE to group with them, but I better find out what they want, being the nice GIVING person I am." So I whisper them asking what they need.

The result is invariably something monosyllabic and tells me NOTHING relevant.

If this doesn't compute, I don't know what else to say.

LOL.

No...just not even close. xD

This, my friend, it a great idea. BW needs to make it happen xD

Didn't read the thread, but why would you not want to be invited to a party? Everyone likes to party! Get drunk, meet a drunk girl, have drunken sex... wake up next morning have sober sex, do walk of shame... repeat it all again the next night imo!

If the OP says "yes, me please" to "Anyone for X", then OP KNOWS what the invite is for.

Last week I was semi-afking on Ilum and got an invite out of the blue. I noticed the spam in general talking about world pvp. Since I didn't have anything else to do in game at the moment, I joined the group and went to pvp. Ended up having some fun that I probably wouldn't have pursued otherwise.

A few days ago I was doing dailies and had just activated the quest item to trigger a pack of mobs. A guy ran up and sent me a group invite. I accepted. We finished off the mobs, said ty, and quit group. It's not like I was inconvenienced at all by letting him get in on the credit for an objective he was obviously pursuing as well.

Yesterday I was questing on my sorc alt and a couple of people ran past me. They sent a group invite without saying anything. I declined because it seemed that they were headed in the opposite direction - down a long ramp, away from the instanced objective I was heading toward. But I appreciated the gesture.

I dunno. It seems to me that assembling groups in an aggressively sharded world with no dungeon finder is a real chore. I'd certainly describe finding groups in similar terms and I rarely start them myself. What I tend to appreciate in these scenarios is the effort that a group leader is putting into gathering up people, even if I'm not interested in a group at the time.

TL;DR
Inclusiveness is good behavior in MMOs regardless of whether or not it's prefaced with a particular ritual. I don't see a distinction in this regard between "u wanna grp?" and "/invite".

Where in this does it say you were being "harassed" ?

It doesn't. If someone harasses you it's way beyond a "ninja" invite...

However your last paragraph clearly states that you won't party with that person no matter what,,,even if they were trying to help YOU..

I read it twice too...just to make sure.

Sorry if I read that wrong but I don't think I did....

Different strokes for different folks....

I used to have the same attitude as the OP. These days, if an invite suits my needs I'll take it. We can kill the heroic mobs or whatever, say thankyou and goodbye and then go about our business. If it doesn't suit my needs I'll decline. If the inviter can invite without asking first he can accept a decline without taking offense. Lifes too short to get humpy about about it all.

I wonder if my attitude relaxed from playing warhammer. In war public quests where there was a common goal in an area meant people automatically did stuff together and being in a group didn't involve any of the usual hassle of getting invites, feeling obliged or somehow commited to the group, people just come in and go out and on it goes. It's a more relaxed and refreshing outlook on group questing which negates all the usual negative aspects.

Recently I even *shock horror* sent a group invite without asking when I saw the person was obviously doing the same heroic as me which he accepted and we both completed our quest.

It took a while, reading the various posts after yours, for me to understand what the real issue was here. As I've tried to say, I don't think most people do the "ninja invite" to be rude. I say, but I cannot prove either way, that most people do it because they think it's more polite - especially noobs. Yes, re-asking 10x and interrupting a fight and all that is bad and douchy, no disagreement. But if everyone is standing around re-spawning for a heroic, it seems like it should be okay, no?

But in any event, I think my main issue with your post is that it assumes people are being rude or lacking in manners, when many are just noobs who are still learning the proper etiquette. Heck, for me I deliberately did NOT whisper because I assumed that would be more intrusive and/or creepy - pure noobishness, not rudeness. I think the point about the popup window with invites captures a lot of the problem too.