Taken from a 2 part interview that resides here: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/40416

Sardu: In PvP environments, will there be any system of potential consequence or will 'policing' be left primarily in the hands of the players?

Peterscheck: It depends on what is meant by consequences. Every action has one type of consequence or another, but I suspect what is meant is whether certain PvP actions will be punished – such as, for example, continuously killing a player or something like that. In general I think the idea of designers allowing, or especially encouraging, behavior that they then punish players for seems a bit silly to me. In some cases, for example verbal abuse, obviously we have to interfere. It always amazes me when online games allow for an action that they then punish people for so badly that they can’t or do not wish to continue playing. “Policing” is an interesting term as well. If the game is broken or not fun or if the rules don’t make any sense and players are required to step in to solve those problems, that seems like a suboptimal situation. Players should be having fun, so if there are policing activities that improve game quality and provide entertainment and value for the community, that’s one thing… if developers are relying upon players to make their game work, that’s quite another.

Somehow I think you are implying the opposite, but I think this is essentially what incarnate has been saying all along.

I wasn't implying anything. I didn't even comment. Maybe you're implying the opposite and projecting?

You can hardly blame players for finding new ways to win.

Well, if there's no implication, then what is the point? You have to spell out these things. Honestly, far too many people these days just throw something out there and expect you to somehow glean the intent and reasoning behind it. ...or is that the point? A textual attempt at "modern art"? The throwing of a form, clean of all explanation and conjecture save that of the viewer, into view?

I think he (the guy being interviewed) is talking about out-of-context ramifications for in-context game actions. Like letting people shoot newbies at stations with no strike forces (or whatever) but then making some kind of "written rule" that people who do that will have some kind of administrative action taken. Which is a terrible policy.

One could find multiple posts of mine that rant about exactly the same thing. My unpopular backing of Arolte would be a big one.. he wasn't actually doing anything wrong, even if it wasn't what I liked (and wasn't what a lot of other people liked).

Of course, like he says, having in-context "consequence" is a necessity (like strike forces, faction standing impact, or whatever), as is administrative handling of extreme scenarios like verbal abuse, or outright bug exploitation.

Anyway, yeah, I've been saying the same thing on here for 6 years or so. Not sure what the point of this post is, but.. yes.. good.

uhh yep, as much as I too didn't like what arolte was doing, I didn't think the devs should have stopped him, kinda annoying though the wormhole timer and 25% power warp requirements that came about as a result. But definatly, when a player is being an ass using flawed game design to his advantage, the solution is to redesign that portion of the game, like adding turrets around capitol stations, not just ban the player working within the intended construct of the game.

[pedantic ramble]

So that would beg the question then: What about people who abuse currently broken aspects of a game that the developer team is aware of and is doing their best to fix (like the faction/sf issue)? It's not the same as redesigning the game because of a flawed system. Would people who continue to exploit these shortcomings of a game be considered asshats for utilizing these broken features (or lack thereof)? Or should they be considered doing the game a favour for continually pointing out that the issue at hand needs immediate attention?

[/pedantic ramble]

I guess that would depend on the example. If it were something very serious, there might be cause for a temporary, short-term "verbal rule" kind of thing. But for the most part, like with the Arolte situation (a clear game design issue), we didn't expect people to change their behaviour until we altered the game mechanics to actually require it.

In general, though, I don't think people abusing the problem would be considered to be "doing the game a favor" at all; especially if the ramifications were nasty and required additional developer time to fix for individual users (or created massive, time-consuming drama, as in the Arolte situation). Baited faction drops being an example there. It's simply my more.. jaded, real-world assessment that "asshats will be asshats", regardless.

I'll continue to play the game however the hell I feel like playing it, then?
The Trader Menace needs "Policing."