This situation is so funny I almost want to bring Ic back to show what real pirating and griefing is about... ;-)

Nice one Arolte!

PS: thx for the umm.. compliment(?) CrazySpence!

/me points at his previous post

And I'll be waiting for you in B8 with a flare valk again Icarus.

Back on topic, kinda:

I have spent a long time playing this game. I've tried to make it fun for most people I play with. Yeah, I'm a pirate, yeah, I kill everyone but at the same time I also try to give newer players tips, help them out, send the to ch 100, etc. I've held combat training classes during quiet times and I don't think i've pissed too many people off. Now I'm beginning to wonder what the point to my work is when some of the "vets" are doing such a good job of showing how to "play" the game.

I've seen Icarus' and Fehdman Kassad's style and I think I have a pretty good idea of Arolte's style. My question to you guys is, where do you want this game to go?

Hmm I was going to talk about "Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should" but I think you're all old enough to know that. If I get excited I'll finish this.

I guess where I'm heading is, exploitive behaviour often leads to escalation. If everyone "adapts" and starts running, spamming, newb killing, and generally being stupid n00bs, then this game is going to be really fun to play. Whoopee, space Counter Strike.

Everyone won't do that Martin.

There is far less of the behavior you described than has existed in the past so, well, I just don't see it taking over because of a single Arolte.

There are bad guys and good guys here. Some of us disagree on who's which, but there's never going to be just one or the other.

If you think you're a good guy, then shoot the bad guys. If you think you're a bad guy then shoot the good guys, but make it a cheap shot.

If you're unhappy, then play outside for a little while, maybe get some sun on your face.

Icarus: Come to b8 in tri-flare and I'll bring some Atlasie to play with!

everyone knows what style I am in favour off. So I'll shut up for the rest. I have ran my hands enough in all my previous posts concerning this topic.

LOL, Icarus. Good to see you back. Hey, why don't you play anymore? You've been missed...

=(

Martin, neither of us take issue with it because we don't see it as problematic behavior. We play the game with PKing in mind. We don't see a list of unwritten rules like everyone else, because quite frankly we think it's silly to limit your tactics based on those rules. The game is an open arena of possibilities.

I feel this needs repeating because I can't think of an easier way of explaining it. In any type of war or battle fairness is not a priority. You do whatever you can to gain the upperhand. Heck, if you read Vendetta's storyline you'll see several examples of inhumane actions inflicted by both warring nations. It's just a fact of life that has existed for as long as mankind has existed.

This type of behavior is purely objective based. There are no grudges towards anyone. And it is in no way personal. What we see is an enemy. Whether you're a pirate with indiscriminating tastes. Or a vigilante who has a specific list of enemies to weed out. The enemy is there. And they need to be killed somehow.

The next thing we see are all the possible weapons and tactics that we have at our disposal. It doesn't matter how dirty or tricky the method may be, whatever eliminates that enemy most effectively is what we have in mind. That includes backstabbing, ambushes, swarm spamming, rocket ramming, etc.

If the devs never intended for us to do any of those things, the game would've restricted it by now. But the truth of the matter is, the game does allow it. Because in some ways it's meant to simulate a war also. It's neither of our intentions to get people to leave or shout out profanities. But when they do, well we just shrug it off. Because quite frankly I think it's silly behavior. I wish they knew better. I really do.

Why change the way you want to play the game just because someone overreacts about it? Sorry, but we all have a right to play the game within the rules (both written and coded) as we please. If someone can't handle it they need to adjust or find something else to do.

I don't mean to sound harsh. But nobody is going to be around to hold their hand or enforce an unwritten set of rules. As I said before, it's a personal problem they need to deal with. The gameplay isn't going to yield to anyone's personal beliefs or needs. This is an MMORPG we're talking about.

Quite honestly, I don't think Vendetta would be boring if everyone else started running either. The thing is I've already encountered my fair share of runners. I never whined about it or shouted out any profanities. And I never took issue with finishing the job either. Sometimes I get lucky. Sometimes I don't. It's not something I get upset about. That's just the way it is sometimes. It's not the end of the world.

Having 200+ PKs on my scoreboard through "fair fights" isn't really on my list of things to do. Having a successful career as a fighter pilot with a role playing goal in mind is. With the tactics I've used, I've only died twice to my enemy, while managing to obtain over 80 kills. I've also escorted and saved a fair share of traders. I don't see any good reason to change that at all. I enjoy what I do.

I guess I should note that fighter pilots typically don't rack up kills for sport. Even during WW2 a kill count above 5 was considered good in most cases even. So no, I wouldn't be disappointed if people ran halfway during the fight. I'd just try my best at finishing the job. Is it tough? Sometimes. But it's not impossible. And I don't think it ruins the fun of the game either. Sorry, I happen to disagree with you.

I don't think Vendetta should be about trying to stick around to the death, just for the sake of racking up kills in your stats. I think that's a silly way of burning all your money. Instead I think the game should be about having occasional encounters with enemies, quick combat engagement, and the final chase, as seen in many air/space (sci-fi) combat situations. I think once meaningful missions are in place, we'll see the PvP dueling mentality vanish and we'll see a wider range of tactics being employed (including missile spamming).

At the risk of being attacked, I agree with what Arolte is doing. It is no worse than what the pirates do to traders. In fact I see a direct resemblance except that the shoe is NOW on the other foot.

The practice of running is always acceptable if you are a trader so why not a defender of traders. I have never seen published rules of enagement in this game, but I have seen bad form on all sides!

Have you noticed that no noobies are complaining on this thread.

Arolte has every right to play his character just as the pirates have their rights. Trust me guys, not all traders enjoy being hunted for sport. Killing cattle just doesn't seem sporting to me and I don't care if you blow each other to kingdom come or not, just let me alone! I get enough crap just from the stupid bots.

Now we should all just go out and PROMOTE VO...not make it miserable.

@ arolte: then i think that day will be a sad day for vendetta.

dunno if anyone had suggested this, but why dont everyone gang up on arolte until he leaves? eh? fight fire with fire, like someone said.

There is a problem here, and after thinking about it, perhaps Arolte is trying to wipe the alpha mentality from people.

There is supposed to be:

1) A war going on
2) Politics

If everyone is congregating in B8 for purely consensual fights, this detracts from the storyline and the direction the game is shooting for.

If we actually had teams of people employing these tactics, it would be easier to balance weaponry/ships, introduce something called TEAMWORK innto the game, and make death more of a psychological hit. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Do we always want to be safe in grey space and be friends with everyone?

Hell, Arolte might be the pioneer rather than the griefer. All I've heard is from the reds, not the greens.

uncle, you say it yourselve... do we always want to be friends with each other. The only way to avoid getting that behaviour on you is by being friends with everybody (greens).

And im out of it again.

Uncle,

I'm green and I like what he is doing! I see what he is trying to get at and it's not happening under the present day situation.

Killing is only fun if you are the guy doing it. It might add SOME excitement but not if I have to keep buying ships and losing cargo and dropping missions. I didn't signup to be a target! I want to play.

dbr, look a bit further then your nose is long please. What are you going to do if you want to fight people and your opponent agrees by attacking you and then contineously runs right at the moment you are starting to win. Would you deem that to be entertaining?

However the devs stated themselves that if you do trade in grey areas you exactly signed up as being a target. I have contested that myself in the beginning, but gave up once the devs stated what they did. Aka grey is supposed to be a hostile environment and killing traders (pirating) is part of the game. And im not a pirate (just as information).

I can understand the reasoning, but it will turn out for the worse eventually. Best way to stop piracy is by keeping them busy in a way they have fun. Either let one person run traderoutes indicating where he is and that he wants to get pirated. So that the other traders can run through. Or get a person to entertain the pirates, works best if people fight 1 vs 1 contineously so they don't think on pirating anymore. But the tactic arolte uses will eventually just make sure innocents (traders) to get hurt more easilly or just ignore him. Or he will become the target of a lot of people like Ic used to be with a lot of hunts. Although we know that he enjoyed them :D.

UncleDave: b8 is not purely consentual

perhaps increasing the reward for ctc would get more peeps doing it. Make the reward the AGT maybe. Bring back the team thing.

Ehhh... pull the AGT out of UIT hands and you've got a useless Warthog TD. Plus Serco and UIT are pretty much the only two nations with special ships that are most effective with the AGT. The Itani really has no use for it, unless they have good standing with either two nations to buy the ships which work effectively with the AGT. But most likely not.

dbr, it doesn't save any traders at all. since that's his goal by annoying people, he kept four of us busy while two others left to kill people explicitly to undermine his goal of protecting people. if he'd stayed around and fought fights that kept people interested, like Rene suggested, we woulnd't have done that. look at VPRs, they do just that and also have a lot better success at keeping UITs safe, rather than putting them in harms way. and dbr, how about I start tracking you no matter where you go and what you do since you're not an ally of mine? pirates attack you how often? and keep harassing you after you over and over and over again, no matter *what* you do? whenever they see you?

as for this having an effect on the war, well, he's UIT targeting "enemies of the UIT". and even if he was Serco, doing this to Itanis, it's his explicit harassment and antagonizing that is the problem for me. I have no problem at all if a Serco flies up and attacks me on sight for being Itani. I'd be annoyed if he kept running while doing that, but even that is something I've faced more than enough times and it's not that big a deal. it's boring, but, eh, whatever. the player isn't deliberatly trying to harass me into a state where I no longer enjoy playing the game.

so, since this is generally accepted, I have adapted. I no longer play VO when Arolte is on.

I'm sorry that you don't play when I'm online anymore, terjekv, but I don't see how that proves your point. For starters the four guys which I kept distracted also meant having four fewer pirates out there to attack traders with. And since you'll be offline when I'm online, that basically means that you've given me the ability to remove one pirate from the universe the very instant I log on.

So in the end the place is safer for traders, which was my original goal to begin with. Of course I didn't want anyone to leave in the process. That was never my intention. And I think anyone who responds in such a way is just overreacting and being highly irrational about the whole thing. But if it's your decision and if it makes you happy, then so be it. Sorry it had to work out that way.

I understand the risk of Grey Space and I stay out of it as much as possible. Unfortunately, when things get boring in Grey it moves to MY sandbox. The defense bots are no help and you're not afraid of poor standings, so where does that leave us?

And I too watch the active players list before I come in but for the other side of the coin. I look for known pirates.

You guys are slaughtering cattle and bragging about it. How many players have left for that reason. They should have an exit survey of why you leave VO.

I recognize you're skills as far better than mine. I just don't need the reminder lessons!

you could always try to have a dialogue with them.

Most of the 'pirates' will leave you alone if you ask so nicely. With the exception of some, but those are not generally pirates. just people bored and having fun on the expense of others.

However if you really wanna be protected in a certain space, i suggest moving to the serco space. Very little people actually wanna go there :D. And the defensebots work better and there is more space to hide in. And you can stay close to the patrolling frigate :D.

"I'm sorry that you don't play when I'm online anymore, terjekv, but I don't see how that proves your point. For starters the four guys which I kept distracted also meant having four fewer pirates out there to attack traders with. And since you'll be offline when I'm online, that basically means that you've given me the ability to remove one pirate from the universe the very instant I log on."

At the beginning of the sentence you say your sorry. At the end of your paragraph you show not remorse, but approval that you have accomplished your goals in removing pirates from the game.

"I don't think it's anyone's intention to make anyone leave the game permenantly (which is the only way to really neutralize the threat completely)."

That sentence is a contradiction in itself. Why would you write "which is the only way to really neutralize the threat completely" if it didn't coincide with your goals?

"Part of what makes the game fun is to have this ongoing conflict between two forces. Obviously there'll always be a threat. That's what makes the game fun. And that's what makes us stick around longer."

What conflict? You attack then you run. Doesn't sound like conflict to me. That's just annoying. As for the second part, people are leaving and logging off because of you. So I'd have to disagree with that.

Arolte, I have two suggestions.

1) Fight till death.
This will make your enemies respect you no matter what. (even if it takes time) Also all in all they may even start to *takes deep breath* "like" you. O_O They may see your quest as valid and even join it. Only if they see you protecting the UIT as selfless and not motivated to get Pk's.

2) Stop antagonizing. The harassment that I have heard about, and observed is the driving factor in this 100+ post thread.

/givemoney Arolte 2c