When to draw the line on being "helpful"

Yeah the adding to friends bit can be annoying it should be a mutual thing where you get a message saying X wants to add you to his friends list do you want this to happen.
Untill then I abide by the convention of asking if they mind before adding anyone.

I won't give to beggars (and I discourage others doing so in main - yes, I'm that mean!) it's easy enough to go out and kill stuff for drops to make 30g or whatever. Had an argument with a L5 monk in Ascalon once - he reckoned he was useless and couldnt kill stuff - I suggested he picked the wrong profession then later saw him looking for a -55 Cesta!!

As a Guild, we help all our new members get to grips with salvaging and the basics of 'farming' for gold and help them through missions so they feel confident and happy to stay in the game - it's the way we feel it should be but obviously other folks feel different - we also help out with some purple or gold weapons.

Yeah - the 'Can this person add you to Friends?' option would be nice, have helped too many people now when I had an idle moment to then get "Can you take me to Droks?" or "Will you buy me armour?" or "can you do this mission with me - Last day dawns?" all for helping some random soul get through a quest!

Perhaps we need something as basic as a page of Basic Etiquette on Wiki - the problem then is getting the so and so's to read Wiki!!

You draw the line when you offer nearly perfect weapons for *new* people in alliance chat, and one of the officers in your own guild whispers you, saying "You got any Colossal Scimitars you're giving away?", .... and your guild leader tries to buy a black and a white dye from you for ~1.5k less than I can sell them for at the dye trader.

She knew how much they cost, because she posted the amount in alliance chat earlier that afternoon.
Then, when I tell her I'm not stupid, she gives in and pays what she should, and tells me that I'm lucky she really needs the dyes...

That's when you stop helping anyone.

yea it kinda learning a balance on this subj. you will have peeps that will stick u to the end. u will have have peeps that join your guild just to milk it then leave.
and if u r lucky, u will make a friend that will stay. but to the op i do indeed give my greens away mostly to guildies and allies.

It's the old "Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Give him a fishing rod and he'll eat for a lifetime".

I like to help players as well, but most of the time I find that they do not want advice on how to play, they just want to get to the next place which puts me off helping.

The biggest problem I have with helping people is that I seam to get spread a little thin.

How do I decide when a Guildie asks for help at the same time as somebody on my friends list that I've only met 1-2 times and I am in the middle of doing something that I really want to do?

Some might say its a simple choice, but keep in mind often my Guild members don't NEED help they just want company and the guy on my friends list is often a NEWB that just can't do things alone at this piont. Add into that my time online is limited by lots of real world obligations.....

yea you got it on the spot.

* Advice is free. I give out advice when asked for it, and I give it out even when not asked for it . IMHO, its my duty to explain people why is not good idea to have their monk heroes animating minions.

* Stuff is not: I am NOT giving max weapon to newbie on his first character. Its not that it spoils them, but it removes one of early-game goals: equipment upgrade. Anyone more experienced than newbie can get his own weapons unless they need something very specific for build. Except gifts, of course.

* Time is not free either, If someone wants help: They cant ask for preemptive help, they must have tried and failed before to even consider helping them. If its lowbie mission, they just get my heroes - that way they at least have to direct them and you know, play instead of watching someone beating mission for them, if its high-ish mission they get some sound advice to try again. Only truly challenging missions require my presence . Unless they want company and not just help.

I don't mind helping, never have. Lots of folks have helped me out throughout the years in GW. BUT when I do help out with advice or a starter quest/mission and then the requests keep coming from that person for materials, weapons, gold, constant help with quests/missions, etc., I end up putting them on the Ignore list. I mean, geesh! Several have ended up on that list.

(Even more upsetting is when they've joined a guild and they're still asking me for xxx. Usually the answer to my question "why don't you ask a guildie" is met with "they tell me they're busy" or "they won't help" or "nobody's ever on playing" - which I take to mean they've set their status to Offline so they can play their own game without the constant interruptions .)

I really wish our guild would implement that policy. As a whole, our alliance is very generous with freebies. A few guilds have guild banks that the officers can access that hold weapons or just stuff that people can use. Unfortunately we also have a lot of little kids that abuse the generous nature of the officers and constantly beg for freebies. There is one kid in particular that I can't stand. Each time he logs in he asks for free weapons. He needs money for armor and a run to droks or a run to Rata sum and a good farming build and a weapon for that build we just gave him and a run to NF to cap the elite skill needed for the build and 7 tomes for the other 7 skills on the bar please and of course he needs power leveling.

This kid has been playing the game for over 2 years yet he has only 500g saved in his storage. He's helpless. One of our officers helped him with the cap son quest and every item that dropped he begged the officer to give it to him. At one point he admired the shield that my friend was using. He asked for the stats and my friend showed it to him. He then asked for the shield for free. When our officer refused and said that the shield was his, he threw a royal tantrum and yelled that OFFICERS ARE SUPPOSED TO HELP!!!!! GIVE ME YOUR SHIELD. I NEED IT!!!!! My friend just laughed and mapped out.

I'm not an officer or this kid would have been kicked long ago. I think our guild leader has spoken to him about his behaviour and it helped for a bit, but he's gradually returning to his begging again.

Talking doesn't normally cut it with people like that, he will stay in the guild as long as he's getting freebies/free help. When that stops he will move to another guild and do it all over again.

Mind you, players like the one you mentioned are just a dead weight in any guild, there is really no point in keeping them there. Easy solution is warn and kick if it happens again. You are probably better off without someone like that in your guild. That's why absolutely no begging for freebies is right there on our code of conduct, just to discourage any leechers from attempting to join us.

I am in a guild where we have a wide tradition for being helpful, both with items and helping in missions etc.
I regularly go to help with missions etc, but if its the same person that keeps asking for help I back out (had one of these lately)
For entirely new people I would give them a purple/blue ordinary skin thing it can help them out, maybe a little materials for armor, bit never money. I would be happy to give advice on how to use salvage kits etc to get materials, also to suggest some good basic skills they should use. Like that lvl12 necro with a horrid bar, about 5-7 attribute in everything and skills from 6 various attributes lol.
Another guy asked for materials to an entire maxed armor set, I quickly checked it out and told him I had this and that to spare, and gave him roughly what was needed for leggings although i had stuff to make several sets. My simple advice was: get 1 piece at a time and get back to armorer when you have stuff to make more.
Often a small help is enough to get them moving and feel they are advancing in the game.
Decent people who are just new to the game and dont know everything are the best you can get to help, they are grateful and remember you later Some day it will be you who have been struggling with a vanquish or HM mission and need help, then they will be there for you
For those kids who just demand and want and beg and whine...it isnt my kids, let their parents help them

where do I draw the line on being helpful:

When I feel like helping someone. If I don't, than fend for yourselves.

I do the same. I also give them a few tips on their builds, what to avoid, what to look for. I also use this method to screen out potential guildies (dont want any 13 years old begging Killroy)

Best tip you can give a new player: hit the F10 key and register on Guru

I tend to echo something like "why don't you go out and get it yourself?" when people spam for gold, gear, etc. Usually it shuts them up, and as long as you don't cop an attitude back at them if they do it, most people can't find anything to complain about.

I like to help others out - I've made some good friends in GW by answering calls for help. Though I do agree with what has been said in this thread already; there is a difference between asking for help and expecting things to be handed to you on a silver platter.

Asking for help once in a while is not a bad thing. Sometimes you need help to get through a tough mission, but when it comes to the point of taking advantage of the generosity of others it becomes a serious problem. That's when I stop being generous and start being the equivalent of a drill sergeant.

I dont mind helping people out, but you can tell when some people are simply rude and act as if you OWE them something and it is your duty to help them out. Then you start feeling used and I stop being helpful to that guy from then on.

There's a difference between being offered stuff and asking for free stuff outright. What gets me is when someone says "does anyone have a good cheap sword?" I offer up a basic gold sword, max, low req, inscribable, decent mods...they say "no ty that's ugly" or "do you have a (insert rare skin item here)?"

I had a guildie that started asking for help with this low level quest in NF. I hate nightfall now that I'm completely finished with it on my warrior, so I decided to tell the dude what he needed to do to get the quest done. All he responded with was "are you going to come help me or not?" then when I told him I couldn't, he started talking shit. Needless to say after about 10 minutes of him berating me and others because we're "noobs" because we can't come help him on noob island, I gave him the boot. I help new people all the time, I just hate when people demand help, think they're entitled to a free ride from more experienced players ( like we're here for your bidding...sure), and cop an attitude when they don't get anything.

I am very careful with which people I help.

There are some guys in friend list that are always kind, every time they ask for help they do it in a polite way and they always want to give me something in return (money, gols or green items they don't use and so on).
I always refuse any payment, because for them my help is free.
A "thank you" is enough.

They are the kind of people that if I help them with a mission, they don't just sit around and watch me tear apart everything that looks funny at me. They do their best to partecipate.

With this kind of people I've become friend in RL even if we live quite far from each other.

The guys that I DON'T HELP at all are those that want the things and the help and take it for granted.

I give a lot of freebies to new players or low level players.
Things like non max golds, some minor rune I don't use, and so on.

Here's a list of guys that killed the will to help strangers in me.

1) In Old Ascalon I write on all chat that I'm giving away nonmax gold weapons. One guy W/El lv6 approaches me and asks to see what items they were. (One was a gold sword with a +14^50% and a +28hp or +29, don't remember it well) He started writing in all chat "who do you want to give this crap to? It is useless" and stuff like that, than he opens trade and shows me a sword of the forgottens and says "this is a real sword", and began calling me a "noob".
WTF... Why on earth do you come to the "nonmax weapons giver" if you already have a green?
That item ended up in the hands of another guy, which run to the merchant as soon as I gave the item. I suspect that he merched it (can't be sure, but I've lost faith in GW players).
I'll never waste my time again this way.

A lot like this:

2) I had in friend list a guy with which I had some pleasant conversation. One day he handed his account to his son, and he stopped playing. This kid began asking for help for every little inch of the game... basically he didn't even try to do stuff, he simply waited for me to login and then ask whatever he thought he needed. The most was when he asked a run for his new char from Old Ascalon to Lion's Arch, and then he told me "I'm going afk cuz I must go out with my gf. Be fast in bringing my char there."
This guy ended up in my /ignore list and I left him in old ascalon.

3) A kid joined a guild in which I was an officer and asked for help. I helped him on a couple of quests, then I told him I had to go to work. He bitched a bit that then nobody was going to help him then (trying alone is so hard?). Before going away I explained him what the 9 ring was, and told him that I was leaving my char on that place farming for lucky points.
He got mad because I wasn't helping him that way.
He threw a tantrum against my char (while I was afk) and bitched for about 30 minutes in the guild chat before leaving the guild saying "that bastard officer should help people, instead he did nothing to help me". (After guiding him trough all the canthan new year quests.)

Same feeling :

4) In one of the guild I joined, on the first day I was ther, one of the officer asked for help with a mission. Since I like to play with people, even if I had already done that mission, I decided to help him.
That opened the gates.
After that he asked me for half of my obsidian shards (for FREE), because he was in "real need" (yeah, whatever). I told him NO. The day after he asked for a free run to all the 3 missions in the desert. I told him NO. The day after he asked my Kephket's Refuge (for free), because I already had another good gold staff (Divine Favor). NO again.
On every guild activity where he joins, he keeps PMing me for every single gold drop, asking if it is good and if the answer is "yes" then his question is "will you give it to me? I need it". This guy is amazing. He doesn't even says "hello" when you login. He plays with guild roster and friend list open, and asks directly for stuff. Last time as soon as I logged in, he greeted me with "can you buy me a black dye, plz?".

I have many other stories about people that killed completely in me the will to help others.
My help is going to the selected few that know how to behave.

I will help players help themselves. And as long as it does not involve leaving an outpost or removing anything from storage, then they can have whatever information they require. But I don't go questing/etc with them unless it's Hard Mode or one of those troublesome bottlenecks in Normal Mode. If it's hard mode then at least they have dragged a char through the whole campaign and shown a little willing.

I am guilty of dumping my unwanted weapons on guildless, low-levels in Ascalon though as I remember I was pretty chuffed when a level 20 did that for me when I was a newb doing a quest out of Piken. It was a purple fiery Spatha, 15-21, 15^50 and vastly superior to anything I had at the time. The way the game is now, there are so many perfect weapons flying around which never degrade that you don't really hurt newbies by giving them away.

I'm not a fan of the guild beggars and have also experienced it recently. An officer was spamming ally chat, requesting a 5k run and complaining they had no gold and could only pay with one lockpick. And a guild leader(!) from the within an alliance whispering anyone whose name appeared in Ally chat and trying to get hold of rare mats and/or coin for elite armour. Pitiful. PLAY THE GAME!