Now hold on, Phaserlight and Whistler. This is to be of some help.

I would like to offer some advice to the newbs who have recently been complaining about the combat aspect of the game.

Firstly, you need to understand that nowhere is truly safe with the exception of the training sectors. The closer you get to capitol systems in nation space the safer it gets, but there is no assurance other than the bumbling strike force and the overzealous turrets at the border and throughout nation space. This means that combat can happen anywhere (save training sectors) and anytime. That also means you might get shot while mining or trading or doing missions or any other thing you're doing when undocked from a station. This is a foundational part of the game, so if you do not like it then this is probably not for you. I mean no offense, but just pointing out a reality of the game. I also will point out that complaining or whining about it here or on 100 will give you negative feedback and rightly so.

That being said, lets move onto something else but very related. Remember when you read that part where I said the closer you get to capitols the safer it is? Well just the same logic applied, the further away you get like say.... Grey space, is the most dangerous place you can be. It really isn't for new people that don't want to die. Essentially people go to grey space just to get shot at, we go there to die and to kill. You can certainly trade and mine there but you should do so with thick skin and acceptance that you are fish bait. Basically, when you enter grey, just assume you're already dead.

Now I get it, you want to travel and explore. I was the same way, I flew out to grey way too early and even worse I homed there too heh. So I died a few times and ran out of money because corvus ships are expensive. I tried putting around grey in a bus and realized that perhaps I should log off for a bit and wait for the air to clear. That worked, and I was eventually able to get back to nation space.
(At some point Shape out of pity let me pass).

Another thing you may want to consider: Some of us that criticize you for whining had to put up with a lot worse. A lot of us played during a time when there weren't tutorials and there weren't training sectors. There weren't border turrets discouraging people from hunting in nation space. There weren't courier missions to give you hundreds of thousands of credits for errand work either. And with the exception of the crackbotting era, we had to level up just like you did with all these surrounding circumstances. Itani use to fly into serco space and shoot sercos who were botting in the capitol system, why? All you had to do was fly in and pick an artemis or orun bot sector and sneak in.

The rules and environment was a lot more cruel and unforgiving for some of us than what it is for you and we all turned out just fine and thrived off of it. And as others have stated, we got even and learned to fight back and then participated regularly in the combat aspect of the game (like myself).

Just some food for thought.

Haha, it didnt occur to me that Shape was older than you in VO years Mecha!

Most newby complainants seem to be quite obviously missing the point; it's a sandbox MMO. If you want to have security escorts and big corporate luxuries and "rights" and "entitlements" to "free trade" or whatever then you have to build the organisation to support it yourselves.

Other games you will let you slip into a pre-made role. VO is different because it lets (makes) you build the role as a team, support it as a team and that makes it more meaningful than other role playing games.

So listen to uncle Mecha, don't talk to us about whats 'ruining the game' when it's actually what makes up the game. The reason players do the things they do now, and not some other way, is because people worked hard together to create the organisations that exist today.

If you want to build things the way you want, do it by playing, not by complaining on forums.

If the idea of creating in-game change by playing and teamwork sounds annoying to you then you can be sure this isn't the right place for you.

Itani use to fly into serco space and shoot sercos who were botting in the capitol system, why? All you had to do was fly in and pick an artemis or orun bot sector and sneak in.

What, are you kidding? I still do this to Itani. Even more fun is finding the few workable sectors where people can bot their standing back up and blow them to Hell after they worked so hard to get in to re-raise standing ;)

And Shape's older than pretty much anyone left hanging around this game/forum.

I wasn't implying that you can't do it anymore (my first paragraph I thought outlined that nowhere was safe) but rather that there are more measures in place to balance such gameplay as opposed to previous years.

Haha, I remember when Shape was the new newbie pirate in Azek J-1 in his little warthog.

Easy there, you aging Nikister, I said pretty much anyone.

"Now hold on, Phaserlight and Whistler. This is to be of some help."

It might surprise you to learn that I have absolutely nothing against you. I sometimes disagree with the way that you express yourself, but that's a case-by-case thing. Often, as now, I agree with you.

It was a joke. Mostly because if I were someone else looking at the title alone I would suspect flaming or at the very least something very not serious. So I made a small joke at the beginning to sort of ward off any bad first impression I guess.

Good stuff Mecha... and don't fret about the obvious joke, most people... most people get it without explanation.

I would add that I have had similar experiences... (I suspect all or most of us did when we were newbs)... best advice I have is don't sweat it, hell... even laugh about it. Turns out most of the pirate types are pretty decent folks.

Most people haven't been previously accused of having a grudge, hence my eagerness to take the opportunity to make sure he knew there was none.

Ya know cupcake, for a forum mod... you have incredibly thin skin. First ya feel a need to defend yerself gainst an obvious joke...then ya feels the need to defend yerself against someone pointing out that the joke was obvious... in all my years as a journo, know who I've learned feels the need to defend themselves so much?

I can see that you will attempt to spin this every which way, and that it is important to you to characterize me in a particular way in your mind. I'm not really invested in swaying your opinion.
I have been told that some users, including Mecha, believe that I dislike them and will always respond negatively to them. I was taking the opportunity to offer the olive branch.

" I'm not really invested in swaying your opinion."

And yet... you respond to obvious bait? You may be a waste, but... I'll give you this, you are fun.

It's fun to mess with people ^.^

This text medium can be taken a lot of different ways. There's nothing wrong with Whistler telling someone that he honestly agrees with them, given the decade+ of battering he's received on the subject of grudges and bias.

None of which has anything to do with the OP. Move on. "Messing with people" is pretty universally unhelpful.

Oh dear! This isn't supposed to be helpful to Whistler, it's supposed to be helpful to the newbies! Whatever will they think when they read all this bickering?!

Maybe they'll think we actually have a vibrant community full of interesting personalities and there's a lot of fun to be had here. I sure hope so because it's a game after all!

Whistler just takes it too seriously, I mean text interpretations aside it just seems like hes always taking it so seriously which is why Mecha has a go at him. The Mecha/Whistler thing is hilarious though and adds tons to the game that is the VO forums.

All the vets fight and it's just part of the fun.

Many newbs simply have the wrong attitude to survive in an environment like VO's. They need to think less like a victim and more like Yuna.

Modern society seems to do everything it can to discourage that though. It teaches people to not defend themselves but rather go complain to a teacher or the police or a lawyer. And what the the newbs do? They come on here and complain.

The liberal agenda is killing VO! Write to your senator to stop this before it is too late.

So, the earliest versions of VO, were more like a Top Gun program, than a game. That explains a lot.

Awww, Whistler! Your pathetic earnestness is almost endearing.



Rin, while I'm not a FF fan, xkcd has convinced me we need all noobs to attend the River Tam School of Life before they're allowed to leave the training sector.

Whistler I never assumed you had a grudge against me. Only that I've made it perhaps difficult for you.

A "rough customer" if you will.

But I was kind of hoping to steer some newbs in the right direction, not turn this into an anti mod thread (for once).