It seems like there have been many angry posts from traders that seem to have a problem with being pirated. Some become frustrated enough to say that something should be done with the game to discourage piracy. Are their arguments valid? Or do they fail to see the big picture of what the game is all about? Well, as a pirate I'd like to provide my counter argument.

Ever since the last I reset I've chosen to drop trading completely and go straight into pirating. All the money I've earned has either been from bot kills, collected bounties, or stolen widgets. It's the way I chose to build my character's career up. I feel that your character can be as badass as he/she wants within certain bounds. Cheating and verbally abusing others is a big no-no. Other than that anything goes. You start out from a clean slate for each character you create.

What I find ironic is that it's the traders who tend to verbally abuse the pirates. Racial slurs and excessive cursing has been all too common for that one trader who just got popped by a valk. So here you have someone who claims that pirating should be taken out... yet they themselves are jeopardizing their own account by breaking a rule--verbally abusing others. Yes, it's frustrating to die, but dying alone for things that are your own fault are no reason to change the game.

Just today I blasted an Atlas in my Valkyrie tri-tachyon ship. After explaining what I had done he told me that I should've asked him to drop his cargo. Oh... sorry, did I miss something? There are rules for pirating now? Someone wrote a book on this stuff? Or did I lose my manual to Vendetta? Look, as frustrating as dying may be for you traders out there, know that it's the risk you take for choosing such a career. LEARN how to defend yourself by... a) choosing a ship you can handle, b) choosing weapons that work for you, c) taking the proper routes, and d) creating a convoy.

You may not have all these benefits at any given time, but at the very least you can increase your likelihood of survival. Repeating certain habits will only get you killed even more. For example don't go back to the sector you last saw the pirate in. Choose ANOTHER route. I can't tell you how much money I made by killing a trader who was dumb enough to go to the same place every single time. Don't! And if you're flying around all by yourself in nothing but a Centaur, that's just something that's begging to be pirated.

It's my belief that most traders aren't taking enough precautions, either because they're inexperienced or they're stubborn. So they decide to log on to the forums in hopes that they can change the game. Vendetta is partially a space combat simulator. As long as there'll be combat in the game there'll always be the possibility of some life-threatening encounter that you'll have with another player. That's just one of the things traders will have to learn to deal with. And remember that it's still a TEST engine for a bigger game. The game right now benefits fighter pilots more than merchants due to several balance issues. Nevertheless some traders continue to be highly successful by taking the precautions I've listed.

Vendetta is all about chasing others and being chased. Pirates and bounty hunters get a thrill from chasing someone down and killing them for profit. Traders get a thrill from avoiding combat altogether, while making a profit by selling goods. It's like trying to run through a gauntlet for them. That's basically what it boils down to between the two groups.

What happened to "b" in the forth paragraph? ;)

As for everything else you've said, I'm almost inclined to entirely agree with it. But let's not forget the pirates' source of income: traders. When I was still playing, there was an overabundance of pirates. It's just like an ecosystem in nature. If one group becomes too large, all the other groups are affected. If there are too many pirates, no one may want to trade anymore.

That and about half of the community has just become downright rude.

The rude part nothing much can be done about until there's a better moderation system and/or a higher number of guides at any given time. As far as the ecosystem theory goes, I'm not so sure...

I've had moments where I had no traders to kill. But then I turned towards bounty hunting. There's profit to be had by chasing down those rabid botters. There's nothing more exciting than poking your head into an enemy nation sector, killing an unsuspecting botter with a huge bounty, and popping back out safely. Other times I just feel like doing hit-and-run type maneuvers on people I've been meaning to get revenge on. And when the flag needs defending there's that. In other words there are still plenty of things to do for pirates when their "turf" has been overpopulated.

Unfortunately for traders this makes their lives harder by having to deal with even MORE pirates. But remember, pirates don't like sharing cargo. You'll often see pirates of different nations fighting each other because of this. Some of 'em get into a pissing match randomly and decide to go berserk on their own kind. In fact when I used to trade a while back, I managed to cross sector 9 safely in an unarmed Ragnarok while a group of pirates were busy tearing each others heads off. So in a way they cancel each other out through rivalry, leaving you with a small number of remaining pirates to deal with.

So in a way I don't think Vendetta's ecosystem (if you can call it that) is any more different than Mother Nature herself! Things just have a way of working out by themselves. This has been my personal philosophy as well.

ying and yang ......theres too much yang

I never pirate. I get pirated all the time. But I completely agree with Arolte. I tell the noobs that if they can't defend themselves, or they can't afford to lose a ship and cargo, then don't leave home sector. Wait and trade when it's safe. And please do not give me that "they are always around" because it just is not true.

You know it's like my dear old mum always said, if you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen!

Carmen Ibanez

yeah all the newbs should stay in home sector.... because thats almost fun right..... this game has no followers because the vets that play make the game not fun for the newbies. for some reason i was stupid enough to keep playing... this has been going on ever since i started playing this game like 2 months ago and i'm sure long before that

Very well said, Arolte!

i wholeheartedly agree with you, arolte.
except on one thing: to ask to drop the cargo is a nice thing to do. it's not compulsory, mind you, but for the humble trader (especially the non-golds), obtaining a marauder is annoying and expensive.

on a sidenote: it is my opinion that eventually there will be some sort of police force that will hunt pirates, which will be subject to lifecycles as every demographic in-game (botters, traders, pirates, police, military).

I'll say it again and again and again... Roguelazer, the game ISN'T complete. It may eventually have a system to discourage newb killing, but because it's a test it doesn't. You can't punish someone for bypassing something that isn't even there. You can argue about newb killing until the cows come home, but that's not going to change anything. The policy posted for guides has been explicitly stated numerous times. I'm tired of all these excuses to baby our newbies. We might as well just dump cargo in their laps and give 'em all our money.

When most of us started playing Vendetta (including me) we also got griefed and pirated up the wazoo. But we stuck around and learned the ropes rather than whine about and threaten to quit the game. If you have the patience and persistence to be a beta tester for a game that isn't complete, then you'll make it. If not, you won't. It's as simple as that. This isn't a complete game free for download for everyone's pleasure, it's a game for those who have what it takes to be a beta tester to help make it into a final product. Can we have fun along the way? Hell yes. You'll just have to tolerate a few design flaws until things get better.

well okay. here is my point of view as a "sometimes" trader.
at first i like to say that i never pirated before. i tried once, but i remembered as i was in this position. i had no money and when i got killdi had to start with killing bots to get money for cargo.
now, i can say that i have a lot of money, and its kinda cool when someone hunts you, and youre trying to escape. sometimes i play v. when almost (i had to ask my dictionary, i hope thats right) nobody is online...then i start to trade but thats boring. nobody who's after you....

so i think without pirates this game would get boring after i while...
of course you feel some rage when you see your ship becoming a big cloud of dust, but this rage encourages you to carry on...

so thats it, a bit pilosophic, but what ever...

Wow, I agree with arolte. Traders should a. Fly in a convoy, or b. Hire escorts. or c. both, fly in a convoy with escorts. And another suggestion, if you are a n00b, don't try and trade in the hidden sectors, for petes sake thats where most of the pirates pirate.

-Hunter Alpha as arolte said, pirates will fight each other over territory, if some n00b pirate starts pirating in the sector that i'm pirating in, you think I'm gonna let him live? doubtful.

Also, just recently I've started pirating in a maud, i find it's very good for taking out centaurs and atlas's, but 1/2 of the mauds get away. But then again you don't have to make 50 trips back to the station once u get a kill. So, I find that a maud and a valk are about equal when it comes to pirating.

Hunter Alpha, let me just state that pirating is not always for the rich. In fact I'm barely getting through in Vendetta this way. But I'm not playing for the money. I'm playing to have fun. I only have 220k credits right now. Compared to the millions of credits that traders have right now, this is pocket change. After a few deaths in special ships I'd surely be broke. While the payoff is good sometimes, you seldom encounter a centaur packed with the richest widgets.

So you're saying that, even though there's no defenses for n00bs, and even though they often have no teammates, that they should just "live with it". THIS IS NOT FSCKING QUAKE IN SPACE. It's a MMORPG. Albiet a very, very simple one, but a MMORPG. Fire begets fire, and pirating n00bs yields a [very small] crop of obnoxious n00bs.

I agree with most of what Arolte said. However, pirating doesn't make you rich--you either get rich from flag capping or trading and then turn to pirating. The Centuars usually carry widgets from sector 4, and are worthless. To score big, you have to learn how to hit the Marauders out of 14 and 17/18.

On dropping cargo - A trader should be smart enough to know that he doesn't have to be asked to drop his cargo. It's his choice. If he wants to live, he should gamble dropping his cargo and being let off alive. He should know that a pirate will kill him for cargo, so he should drop it and hope the pirate stops for the cargo.

Pirates should also try to pirate the respectable buisnessman's way...just say, drop cargo, and then take some of it, say they can keep most of it. Profits will be less, but they will not become as frustrated, be less likely to try and have others hunt you down, and will probably keep trading that route, since you've become just a minor annoyance, rather than a doombringer...

It seems we always return to "but the noobs won't have fun". The cult of entitlement has obviously spread to Vendetta. It isn't the responsibility of the nations or players to make sure that the noobs can get whatever they want without hardship. Obviously not every noob that gets pirated quits playing or else I wouldn't be here. I've played this game for almost 2 years. I'm not good at player killing and I don't duel much. I trade, I bot kill and I defend the flag. That is the extent of my activity, because that is the extent of my skill. I can't blame anyone for that but myself. If I don't want to be pirated, I could practice my skills so that I could better defend myself. I don't put in the time because I don't care that much. The reality is that you can make money botting and salvaging. You just can't make it quickly or easily. So the argument isn't that noobs can't get ahead, the argument is that they can't get ahead quickly or easily. Oh well.

The game is the game. Play it if you like it. Quit if you don't.

Carmen Ibanez

ehum? I am a carerr pirate since the reset, mostly because nobody ever hires me to do any jobs. although pirating isn't as profitable as I seems it would be, I usually have only 50k or so on me at any one time. Second, I doubt any pirates are going to only take a little bit of the cargo they pirate. unless of course there is a deal where the pirate would get more profit.

Piracy will happen when there is no organized goverment to stop them. It's not the devs job to do something about the pirates, they're just making the game. We have to make and oganize the goverments, basically yeah.