Yo, my name is Kontraband. So.. I joined your game.. I heard about this game like 8 years ago, but kind of passed it up.. I wasn't in to space games back then...

I discovered VO again recently after getting in to VR, and soon after, space sims, with Elite Dangerous.. Naturally, I found my way to Discovery Freelancer, and really fell in love with the feel of this game as well, having a fondness for Eastern European games known as "Eurojank" and old late 90's and early 2000's hits that feel similar in ways.. It's hard to explain the type of game I'm talking about, but if you're an old gamer, you know what I am on about...

I had a great time learning some of the ropes with Teni and Gor-something or other.. He said he was muted by Incarnate, the games dev.. One of the first hints toward what I am about to get in to...

A guy named Behoos was in the group I was invited to.. During the chat, something odd happened.. He thought my questions were "strange" in nature, and soon it was apparent he thought I was someone else on an alt.. Some kind of spy..

At that point, being the old gamer I was, a red flag appeared. Something I don't like seeing when I know a game has a small community..

It wasn't but a few hours later that I was killed, thought an NPC got me, and found out it was a player.. When I asked about it in chat, someone told me what happened, and when I said I was new and hoped he wasn't flying something expensive, knowing earlier from my lessons that it gets you killed... He then gets grump and accuses me of having an alt..

Red flag again... It was apparent at that point what I was dealing with.

This thread will probably get locked, and should get locked, but I'd let it stand testament here in this forum, because it's sad that the only Vendetta in this game, is amongst its remaining community.. You guys need to cut it out. I wanted to like this game but y'all made it suck for this new guy.

I can see you want more players.. You wont get them like this. Kontraband out. I'm gonna see if I can find a way to play this offline.

+1

no, you can't play VO offline, unless you can turn the offline training simulator toy into something it simply isnt.

I'm terribly sorry this happened to you; certain pilots who've been around are so used to dealing with young mobile pilots who aren't looking for an in-depth game like VO that pretty much any older or more mature gamer who actually gets serious tends to be extremely rare, and thus looked on suspiciously. i'd say that group is a lot smaller than the community as a whole, but it sounds like you were logged in when the majoriy of them were around. same happened to Bqnzai, a new pilot who actually leaned into the accusations (and, though there was a situation that had him earn my own ire, so i was among them...), so yeah, it happens.

you're right, in that the community should shift its behavior. it's not easy, since its such an old community where people have exploited such behavior; I do ask you try again a few more times, and find those whom you can engage with comfortably.

regarding your being pirated by YT, well... that happens. there is no *real* safe space in VO, only a gradient of safety thats never perfect white or black. take your time to learn about the game itself, and you'll find its even richer in detail than it first appears.

Thank you, you didn't have to, I appreciate taking the time to give it a chance.

The community is definitely far too paranoid about "alts", or people pretending to be new and showing up on other characters.

This stems largely from people infiltrating rival guilds and, in some way, practicing espionage or otherwise causing them some perceived harm. In some cases, people have cleaned out guild banks and the like.. which, for better or worse, is just part of how the game works: VO in many ways reflects reality, and there are no guarantees of trust in life. This is also a common issue in persistent-world MMORPGs, and one that's also impossible to actually prevent (people can always make new accounts, new credit cards, whatever).

Still, this paranoia doesn't excuse the way people sometimes behave towards newbies, and I'm sorry to hear you ran afoul of that.

But, I'm not entirely following some of the other issues you reference? For instance, if I muted someone (I have no idea if I did), then there was probably a player-submitted "/report" about that individual, which I agreed violated our behavioural standards. There's some recent controversy about the fact that we're actually enforcing behavioural standards now, but the mutes are not very long or harsh for the vast majority of cases. The goal is to "adjust" people's behaviour, and on-balance I think it's been more successful than not.

I also think it's really unfortunate if someone was helping you, who then became muted, that's a bummer of timing. But it's also not entirely surprising that it would happen occasionally. We've had lots of people who were both helpful to newbies, and also egregiously toxic trolls (usually at other times). The best we can do is try to point out that their "bad" behaviour isn't acceptable, and get them to curb it, in the hopes that the "good" behaviour remains.

Similarly, the act of being destroyed by YT, in and of itself, is just.. par-for-the-course in VO. As Luxen says, piracy and "non-consensual PvP" is an integral part of the game. It's a bummer if YT was snarky and suspicious and accusatory and made you feel uncomfortable in some other way. But, I thought he just said something like "yeah, you and your other account" or something relatively minor (?), but maybe I missed part of the exchange.

Anyway, no one wants you to feel uncomfortable. Some aspects of the game are absolutely a part of the intent (like, people being able to unexpectedly hunt you down), and that reality comes with challenges, and is not everyone's "cup of tea" from a gameplay standpoint.

Other aspects of the game, like some vets degree of suspicion of new players, is problematic right now. But, I expect it to be temporary. We aren't yet ready to "turn on the floodgates" of new players, but once we are, new players will so drastically outnumber veteran players, that this issue should inherently be diminished.

The problem will still occasionally come up from vets who return from being away for awhile, and perhaps accusing other people of being alts shouldn't really be permitted on 100. I don't have a problem with that. The "alt accusation" BS usually leads to a lot of community toxicity anyhow (if people want to discuss that prospect more, make a Suggestions Forum thread for it, let's NOT do it here).

Anyway, I think you were expecting some more overbearing administrative response.. but generally, we always want people to have a good time. The issues you describe are unfortunate, and long-standing, although also prevalent in most other persistent-world, combative games. Still, the issue being inherent to the genre isn't intended as an excuse, I'm sure we can find ways to do better.

Thanks for stopping by, hopefully you'll try the game again at some future point.

We aren't yet ready to "turn on the floodgates" of new players, but once we are, new players will so drastically outnumber veteran players, that this issue should inherently be diminished.

Um. You have been keeping the floodgates closed purposefully? What the hell?

They've been pretty transparent about what they feel they need to do before spending resources on pulling in new players.

My understanding is that you got killed by YT in Latos C-2 while you were mining. With less than 24 hours of gameplay, you probably should have stayed in nation space. When you get to a wormhole that goes to grey space, there is a big warning that flashes up. It ends with "do not expect to survive."

Greyspace is dangerous. Stick to your Nation's capital system until you learn more about the game.

To clarify, I was already muted long before I met the original poster. I don't require the ability to access 100 or 1 to mentor new pilots, provide them friend keys, and so on.

Curtailing speech any more than already has been done by making altcusations the next hate/toxic speech of the month sounds like a great way to increase player retention!(<- Sarcasm)

Everybody is using voice chat these days anyways.

To clarify, I was already muted long before I met the original poster.

I honestly thought he was referencing Teni getting a temporary mute, from what he wrote.

Curtailing speech any more than already has been done by making altcusations the next hate/toxic speech of the month sounds like a great way to increase player retention!(<- Sarcasm)

Yes, because you're such a great judge of how ugly content on 100 impacts retention (<- also sarcasm!). Your personal behaviour was emblematic of what inspired the 2017 player-created Suggestion thread on "limit 100 to game-only discussion", which directly led to the current situation. That was specifically driven by player concerns over how political ranting and vet saltiness was driving off new players.

But then, you never believe you're part of the problem. You always blame everyone else. Which is why you're muted.

Everybody is using voice chat these days anyways.

..Which is just peachy, because new players don't see (or hear) that on login, it's more restricted to private groups. That's the whole point of limiting content on 100/1. Again, you miss the point of the problem.. you have been.

As embittered as you may be about my "restriction of speech", I was arguably less-restrictive than the player Suggestion thread referenced above. People still talk about non-game stuff, I just dialed down the politics and such.

Restricting accusations of "alts" seems like another, relatively low-impact option for improving people's experience on 100.

Um. You have been keeping the floodgates closed purposefully? What the hell?

It's not like I'm actively sealing off some magical portal? But, yes, paid user acquisition (basically, advertising) is incredibly expensive. We've spent a lot of time on analytics to identify where our problem areas are in user retention. We've also been building server capacity since last fall, and adding ways to more rapidly handle player behavioral issues. All things that are important before a big influx.

As Whistler says, I've been pretty transparent about it. I've written about it several times in the Newsletters and elsewhere.

As embittered as you may be about my "restriction of speech", I was arguably less-restrictive than the player Suggestion thread referenced above.

Uh huh. Because muting someone for an hour about talking about a valid play style is less restrictive. If I mention trading in 100, it's likely I wouldn't be muted, right? But if I say someone is going to potentially scam other players, which they've done in the past, that's a violation of behavioral standards? Next we'll be muting people for calling someone a pirate. Mental Backflips.

But if I say someone is going to potentially scam other players, which they've done in the past, that's a violation of behavioral standards?

This is pretty far off-topic..

But yes, I have no interest in people making accusations against other people's character on 100. "Scammer" is not exactly a role in the same class as "trader" or "pirate"; and as far as I know, you're referencing something that happened years ago, which (in part) was dealt with administratively, and doesn't require your further input.

Because that's exactly the kind of drama-mongering bullshit we don't need on 100.

I gave you a gentle, 10 minute mute to make this clear. And what did you do? You escalated 10 minutes later and accused a whole guild.

[EDIT, this was apparently Anewold that escalated today, not Teni, I have trouble keeping track of everyone's character-to-forum-name mapping, on the fly in real-time; particularly when multiple mutes happen in batches, with people being muted for the same thing.

However, I stand by the one-hour mute of Teni for saying "Next month he'll be back in tgft to scam people don't worry", when he was previously muted on June 5th for saying "f you send Pandoram your email address you'll start getting indian scam centre emails". I'm not big on repeated mutes, by the same individual, for essentially the same violation].

Here's a simple reference: If you have a personal problem with some individual or group, keep it off of 100.

If a problematic individual cannot improve their behavior, to adhere to the new standards, they could lose access to public channels entirely. This has been enforced on people already. A mute is a "warning". Do not expect me to keep "warning" you forever.

Ghastt, I'd recommend finding a group or guild of pilots that stay away from those drama circles and just focus on doing the cool stuff this game has to offer. Being a bit biased on this, I'd still recommend finding a guild called TRI and joining us. We work hard to stay off of anyone's radars and we are general all-around peace seekers. We're a great guild to join when you're first starting out, to learn the ropes and what not. Happy flying bud!

Well I object to everything that was said by OP. I think Espionage is one of the best things about the game.

The problem obviously stems from the fact that OP joined the blue side of the game. If he joined the red side, he would have found that the playerbase is full of more sensible players that have a grasp on the importance of Espionage.

By the way, I am Kontraband... or am I?