Phaserlight, a slippery slope fallacy requires, quoted from the site you linked, the absence of "enough evidence for that assumption". But in this thread it was repeatedly expressed that the introduction of the standing exclusivity would be "a step" "for now", some players expressed a wish for more radical changes up to increasing the loss in standing to "dislike" etc.

I don't know yet about the efficiency of the national defenses but I guess they are obstructive enough to hamper the ability to accomplish other goals than fighting the defenses for one's own survival. (Should the defenses be weak enough to fail as a considerable obstruction I guess this would be another problem worth discussing.)

Concerning noob-griefing:

I did not mean to encourage a detailed discussion of why VO is better than EVE in this thread (we are all here because we don't like dice rolling combat I guess), I only gave some evidence that the assumption noob-griefing would be applauded there (even by the devs) is wrong.

Of course it should be clear to even the newest player that space is risky in VO, and I can understand a lack of compassion for a noob who acts as unmindful as entering grey space in a frighter without escort in his first week.

But we were talking about new players who take their first steps in their nation's space, still fiddling around with their controls, trying to understand the flight model etc., and - I think understandably - not expecting immediate encounters there with pilots lacking the basic sense of honor not to bravely tear apart someone as weak as this without any reason other than a retarded conception of "fun" - let alone this being applauded (seemingly) by the rest of the player base.

Game play still is very lacking - Pvp may hook players but other aspects of VO are going to be what sells the game long term.

The tutorials are still a mess and need to be a lot more user friendly. Most players really dont want to have to read all that before getting down to playing. Impatient I know but that is just how people are. An easy to find in game manual would be a serious help.

Brand new players with thier first character should be given extra protection especially from higher level players. That protection can vanish with the first kill as well and never for any other character/alt.

Brand new players with thier first character should be given extra protection especially from higher level players. That protection can vanish with the first kill as well and never for any other character/alt.

Yeah, maybe we could start new players in a sector that is impossible to get into while they take their first few missions. Maybe we could stick a couple of those insta-kill beams in it so any vets silly enough to even try enter the sector will be zapped dead in seconds! Maybe we could keep them there until they have passed a series of missions - which although boring - explain a few needed facts. Like once you leave this safe training zone you are no longer 100% safe anywhere.

Oh wait. Hows about a nice trip to hello kitty online for more inspiration!

----

Seriously though, I do think the new player experience leaves a lot to be desired, but getting shot by me or someone similar can actually be the most exciting thing that can happen to a newb. It's better than being eaten by a soulless guardian bot right? At least you get to cuss me and stuff, and I'm not that good a pilot, so with a little training revenge should be possible.

I really don't think "newb bashing" hurts as much as the initial grind for some, for others it's the lack of immediately satisfying PvE. Sure, you will get the odd one or two that rage quit after being shot by another player, but in this type of game it is going to happen sooner or later. It's my experience that these types of players will whine no matter what levels they are when you shoot them, or where in "space" they are. I once shot a newb who had wondered into Gray space in his 1/0/0/0/0 bus! He got mad as hell, came back over and over and tried for revenge, stuck around for some time he did. I shot some guy I cant remember in his 5/6/4/14/8 mining moth in Odia M-14, he whined and whined about me "griefing" him for the rest of the day, and I haven't seen him since.

Yoda has a point. The game does give you warnings now about grey space, and all the risk that traveling there involves. Sometimes we might just travel to "secure" space while KOS with a certain nation just to have fun. We get bored also.

One thing that always pissed me off was a newb going to grey space and getting all pissed about getting exploded. Several examples come to mind. Mining next to a corvus station, being in a Moth in grey at all, etc. I've always hailed most times, and I'm sure I've made a few ppl rage quit. Big deal. I actually had a few of um threaten to come kill / kick my ass in RL. (sad)

We all are here to have fun, meet ppl and kill um, or trade and mine. You have 6 char slots, create different alts and try all of the various aspects in the game. Oh, grow a pair.

Edit: One point of this game is that no one is safe anywhere. (minus training sectors) Deal with it.

"Maybe we could stick a couple of those insta-kill beams in it so any vets silly enough to even try enter the sector will be zapped dead in seconds!" etc.

From Arthur Schopenhauer, Art of Controversy:

"The Extension. - This consists in carrying your opponent's proposition beyond its natural limits; in giving it as general a signification and as wide a sense as possible, so as to exaggerate it (...) because the more general a statement becomes, the more numerous are the objections to which it is open. (...) By using dialectical tricks of this kind a writer betrays that he is secretly conscious of being in the wrong."

"I once shot a newb who had wondered into Gray space in his 1/0/0/0/0 bus!"

Oh that bravery, applause.

"I shot some guy I cant remember in his 5/6/4/14/8 mining moth"

Oh that bravery, applause.

(You don't remember the guy but the exact numbers of his licences, sure.)

As I said before: Instead of coding newbie protection into the game it would be simpler not to code further obstructions to anti-griefing into the game.

"I shot some guy I cant remember in his 5/6/4/14/8 mining moth"

Oh that bravery, applause.

/me takes a bow, why thank you.

And you can quote silly people all day long, it does not change the fact that this is Vendetta-Online, A space combat game, featuring mining and trading. Let me quote something for you.

"Vendetta Online is a 3D space combat MMORPG" - Vendetta-Online: Front Page

And who are you to decide what is right and wrong? I've been playing this way for nearly 9000!!!!, and a lot of fun has been had over the years. Dying in VO means very little, especially in the early stages. The free ship can always be had, licences are not lost, 0 set back in "game" progress.

Please, do tell me why dying as a newb to a player - instead of a bot or asteroid - is so bad.

In order to hopefully lay some things to rest for the self appointed newb advocate.

1. " "I shot some guy I cant remember in his 5/6/4/14/8 mining moth" Oh that bravery, applause."

Clearly this guy had been around long enough to know whats dangerous, if he got blasted... his fault. 1. Not everyone who blasts a newb is a griefer or pirate. I happen to be funding a rebellion.

2. "I think it would be weird if someone who has a high standing with Itani for access to the Valkyrie which allows him to hunt griefers effectively gets shot by turrets in Serco space if he tries to help someone who is griefed there only because of his Itani standing."

So, you don't understand how a person helping a nations enemy, so he can get the enemy nations top military gear, so he can kill people in nation space... should have a negative effect?

3. Are you pants on head retarded?

4. If I see an Itani or any other enemy in Serco space... I'm blasting him. If I see Itani or any other enemy in Gray... I'm blasting him. If I see an Itani or any other enemy in UIT... guess what I'm doing? Blasting. Don't care about levels, don't care bout ship.

5. "I had the impression in Jumpgate after years of trying to tweak the "faction system" there was a consensus in the end that..."

This isn't Jumpgate.

6. STFU

7. "But we were talking about new players who take their first steps in their nation's space, still fiddling around with their controls, trying to understand the flight model etc"

Sounds like someone ignored as much as they could of the tutorials, got blasted and hasn't stopped whining.

That wasn't extension, moron. It was sarcasm. He was describing the training sectors that already exist. The newbies already start out in a location where they are literally unkillable, and where under normal circumstances it is impossible for a vet to survive in those sectors for more than a couple seconds. All that stuff about the missions already happens.

As far as EVE's mostly irrelevant stance toward newbie killing goes: they only care about rookie systems. The rookie systems there are equivalent to the training sectors here. Once you leave a rookie system you are fair game anywhere, even in high-sec.

Also, you can stop with all the "honor" talk. We're pirates, not the Knights of Justice. What do we care if you think we're brave and honorable? No, killing a newbie isn't hard. That doesn't mean that getting into nation space and chasing the newbies around while the strike force chases us is not fun. It is quite fun, and can be a relaxing change of pace. If this fun comes at somebody else's expense, then they can grow big and strong and try to kill us. Vendetta is the name of the game.

One last thing: despite your whining, newb-killing is not our primary activity. Yes, pirates hunt newbies sometimes. Some pirates do it more than others, but overall, not much of our time is spent doing it. Most of the time the newbs are safe. So you can stop trying to inflate it into some huge terrible issue. It certainly isn't even remotely large enough to stand in the way of enhanced faction mutual exclusiveness.

And as long as they read the available info and do the damned tutorials... chances are, they'll be ok.

Since Rin beat me to your complete miss on "extension," I'll just say that I fully support further obstructions to anti-griefing.

I suggest we start by removing the turrets from the capital-system side of WHs, as they are definitely anti-griefing and I would like to obstruct them.

genka writes:

Wow, a Captain86 post that could be appropriately ended in "happy blogging."

It's also worth about the same as any other blog post: about 0.3c per word on textbroker to the person running the blog and absolutely nothing, except for wasted time, to anyone else. Hence the verbal diarrhea.

Seriously, at what point did you wake up and go "Why yes, I want to be treated like a faceless number in the accounting books of guild software. My life's dream of being a wallet with pigtails is nearly achieved. I want to be 'social media capitol' and to be manipulated into shilling a game to my so-called friends. This is exactly why I friend everyone I see; so that I can spam their inboxes with unsolicited invites to a videogame. Maybe some of them will bite. About 0.3%. That makes for about a 0.00015% percent return for me on my time invested, if I was paying myself $4.00 an hour! If I add more friends, I could get like 0.00017%! My god, my life is nearly complete!"

-----------------------------------------------
WOW
You really have no idea what your talking about this is very very clear
I don't know what your going on about

Again Walmart makes less then 3% of their entire business after COGS (cost of goods sold)
Oil companies very very similar model in fact mostly any business model is always evaluating the COGS so they can determine their selling price which will almost always be based on a business model of a percentage of markup

Which is why some companies will make record profits when COGS go up because the percentage remains the same based on the model

For example: 3% of 100.00 is less then 3% of 150.00 So if what use to cost you like 100 for your product or service and your markup is 3% you now have a 150 cost but your markup remains the same which is 3% you actually make more money even though you didn't do anything but add the new COGS and markup 3% as usual

So yes 3% could be a lot and you don't actually do anything like your suggesting like talking to friends and family none of that who would want to anyhow etc. Walmart doesn't rely on such crude tactics to advertise and neither does Starbucks, OfficeMax, Lowes, Staples, TigersDirect, Remax, Health Insurance, Geico etc.

However, if not all of those most of them have an affiliate program offering a percent for sales, sales links, and volume sales discounts with commissions incentives for rewards programs for returning electronics and ink cartridges etc.

Basically what your saying is that because you don't understand how other successful companies follow the successful pattern of consistent sales and repeat customers that you assume that you personally making 3% amounts to nothing
You sound like somehow this would be forcing you to refer someone which is ridiculous

Again Paypal did it, and Ebay did it when they first got started too.

Incentive based advertising works very well and Google even does it by offering incentive for a part of their paid advertising to be sub contracted out to those who get people to click on links too aka Google Ad Words
Heck Safeway and Giant foods does it and also the manufacturers of the products they sell do it. Every heard of 2 for 1 deals ?

So you expose your ignorance about such things here.

If the game is good, or bad the product actually can still be sold.

Not that I condone selling a product or service that does NOT have any value to the customer as I pointed out in my 2) subject post prior, but even if the product is the greatest the company can and will fail without a good foundation for advertising which VO does not have.

If they were doing a great job at advertising there would be an influx of new players even if they decided they don't like the game there would still be 100's of new trials daily.

Again new trials = good job at advertising
NO new trials = crappy job

Sorry just the facts

Now if they don't like the game thats a totally different subject and also those things can be addressed on the exit side, but on the incoming side there is not much to evaluate on this since there is very little incoming activity

YES there is some but very very little
There is more new alt creations then new trials and that is simply sad.

Now explain how I'm wrong again so everyone can see what your talking about because your post didn't do much but belittle and/or sort of name calling rant; and did not adequately respond to my post other then to say " I don't want to hound my friends and thats not enough money boo hoo"

Happy blogging

I'm not seeing this in fact even in the Ubunutu community there is few trials even with it showing up in the repository.

I'm not saying the incentive would be for the people who want to play the game at all I'm just saying the advertising model needs to follow the successful model that people are already doing as with other games, other products or services. Don't reivent the wheel.

I can't believe that someone would have objections to this. Unless you have some positive solutions and advise to provide you should keep your mouth shut.

genka wrote:

"...gamer's, guru's..."

In ca'se there are any non-naitive engli'sh 'speaker's 'still following thi's trainwreck of a thread, thi's i's not an appropriate use of apo'strophe's.

------------------------

What about starting with a prepositional phrase such as: "With VO", without the comma;and what about the comma ?

"...gamer's, guru's..."

har har har

Anyhow this thread is not about advertising as I mentioned but would be nice to see an influx of consistent new trials

Until you get mass scale with an influx of new players it's hard to diagnose exactly why people might not stick around or what percentage of them actually get the game and enjoy it.
The problem is it's a paradox without higher player numbers many may leave I suspect because of lack of other players.

I see it posted on 100 all the time for the few new trials that I do see. Often posted questions, "how many people playing the game" ?
Evasive answer like some graph shows activity but not player numbers etc.

"Where is everyone" ?
"I'm bored what should I do"

Could be their experience with other players or just lack of reading the tutorials, but hard to ignore for evaluation.

Anyhow later bloggers

A: tl;dr

B: When making long quotes, please enclose the quote in [ i ] tags so that it's easier to distinguish from the rest of the post.

C: This is not a blog.

D: When newbies ask "Where is everybody?", I like to get them to tell me where they are so I can meet them. Bungarus would prefer that I did not :(

Ok

Whoa the tag. What about the standard wyswyg forum editor ?

I'd encourage people to read section 1.1 and section 1.2 of the ROC before posting.

"this is Vendetta-Online, A space combat game"

I don't consider griefing a bus as "combat".

'0 set back in "game" progress'

I thought missions count as failed if one gets killed before they are finished. Not so? But even in that case cowardly noob-griefing means repulsion as an early impression of the player base.

"Please, do tell me why dying as a newb to a player - instead of a bot or asteroid - is so bad."

The difference is if commited by a vet player who is a sentient being it is a dishonorable and cowardly act. Plus even if the weak bots that are encountered early in the game were sentient beings they would be less coward because even a newbie is more of a threat to them than vice versa.

"Clearly this guy had been around long enough to know whats dangerous"

I already said I can understand a lack of compassion for noobs in grey. What I don't understand is the pride out of griefing someone who is defenseless, even in grey.

"So, you don't understand how a person helping a nations enemy, so he can get the enemy nations top military gear, so he can kill people in nation space... should have a negative effect?"

Correct. Because 1. in my scenario he did not "kill people" but tried to help someone who gets griefed and 2. as I said I would find it ridiculous to see the predefined meaningless nation war having a strong negative impact on players who clearly stay completely out of it, hampering proper player-driven roleplay.

"This isn't Jumpgate."

Wow, you found that out all by yourself? You may even succeed in finding out this is also a space sim MMOG with predefined factions / nations then.

"Sounds like someone ignored as much as they could of the tutorials, got blasted and hasn't stopped whining."

The tutorials don't tell you how to set up the controlls (keyboard, joystick etc.) effectively or that the flight model is a little bit strange. I think it's ok, but it is not Newtonian and the sound effects are cunfusing; I might approach this elswhere (I know it wouldn't be the first time). I have not yet managed to die in the game.

"He was describing the training sectors that already exist."

He wrote:

"Yeah, maybe we could start new players in a sector that is impossible to get into while they take their first few missions."

"Maybe we could stick a couple of those insta-kill beams in it so any vets silly enough to even try enter the sector will be zapped dead in seconds!"

To me this looks like two alternative concepts. Either it is impossible to get into that sector - no need for insta-kill beams then. Or there are insta-kill beams against vets - which only makes sense if those actually can get into that sector. Also I thought there are no beams/lasers in the game. In any case the reference to Hello Kitty Online was an extension.

'Also, you can stop with all the "honor" talk.'

If it troubles you perhaps you're not yet lost to the dark side.

"We're pirates, not the Knights of Justice."

Noob griefing is primarily an OOC topic. We are discussing it here in the context of the question if VO is attractive enough to new players; it is the player behind his character who may be offended to the extent of not subscribing to the game. (But even IC a pirate usually has the goal to make money, and there is not even money in noob griefing.)

We have a new Paladin Of Lancelot.

If you have gained Admired status with one side that is participating in a war, then you did not stay completely out of it, even if you didn't directly participate in wartime activities.

Being able to buddy up to one side of a war without making the other side angry hurts the game more than not being able to take your valk into toaster-space would. One of the biggest issues Vendetta has is lack of conflict, not an excess.

"If it troubles you perhaps you're not yet lost to the dark side."

Bores, not troubles. I am a pirate. I kill people and steal their stuff. I'm a bit beyond caring about "honor". The only area it matters is with regards to honoring deals I have made. The honor of maintaining an agreement is important. But chivalric honor can go swim with the fishes. Hound vs. Moth is no more a fair fight than Hog MkII vs. Bus.

"(But even IC a pirate usually has the goal to make money, and there is not even money in noob griefing.)"

Sure there is. It's an investment. I do it for the same reason tobacco companies, drug dealers, and government propaganda machines all try to target young audiences whenever they can get away with it. If you successfully pirate them as newbs, asking for a very small amount that they can certainly afford, then they will be more likely to pay you later when they're in a cargo ship and you're charging a lot more. If you try pirating somebody who has never been pirated before, they're going to be a lot more proud and unwilling, so it's best to break them of that early, when it's less painful for them (no reputation to worry about, less "Never pay!" indoctrination, etc.). Even if they don't pay, they'll at least learn that yes, there are pirates, and yes, at least some of us can be paid off, and yes, they will kill you, even in nation space.

Besides which, as I said previously, it is fun to chase them around in nation space. If all I cared about was maximizing profit, I'd be a trader.

From an OOC perspective, pirating newbies helps them learn how piracy works in a low-risk environment, before they have millions of credits of cargo at stake. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Maybe some people get discouraged, but how many others are glad that they learned how to deal with pirates early, when all they have to lose is a free ship and a little pride?

Woodlander...

"I've even gone as far as putting his name up on my white board in red letters with the amount of times he's blown me up. Shit, I need to get out more."

Any chance it was me?