>The VPR spy is a way to get into the mind of the "Lawful good"
>characters that perpetuate the law, before the good.

<edit, oops, RP>
Shape, you talk a big game about how much you want to understand the other side. I like you, but I have to admit I have doubts that any truth can break through your condescending nature. Thanks for summing us up with one arrogant sentence though. Unfortunatly for you and your guild, we continue to set the standard for VPR not you.
</edit, oops, RP>

Why VIPERS don't like spies IMHO. We are a close guild. We talk about RL life on our board in our guild chat and in PM's like many of you also do in VO. This is a game and also a social connection.

When spies come in and lie about their real life to hide their alt it creates feelings of distrust and disingenuousness in our discussion. It builds a rift between council and members. It causes hard feelings when the lies are exposed. Unless you can separate the RL issues from the RP then I will continue to think of alt spying as a less than wholesome practice.

Have you considered the cost to those that are now under suspicion because of your spy? Is it fun for us to wonder if our friend in the guild is telling a lie about (insert life event here) because he might be the spy? What about our regular members who miss half the guild posts because we can't put secure information in the VIPER only section of our board?

Spying is bad for guilds. If you want to be a Viper then make an alt, LET US KNOW who you are and play them in a VPR approved way for a bit. We have no problem with multiple charactors. If you lie about your RL though don't expect to be trusted later.

What shall I say, Hoax, got a point here.

/maso

so, uhm, if Borb had said "I'd like to play a VPR for a while", you'd have said "okay, no problem" and given him access to stuff just like any other VPR?

guilds probably talk about RL stuff in most of their channels. the fact that one doesn't seperate that from RP is a problem. in that regard I'd love to see more RP and less "I have one char and it's me" from people, otherwise we could just all hang on IRC or something.

What shall I say, terjekv got a point there.

I use 3 alts, you probably all know them, they have never been used to spy on anyone, and if you ask me ingame i'll (usually) tell you my forum name, simply because I cant RP or hide alts for crap, heh

As for alts being used as spies, well, it happened to me for the first time in beta (CLM first incarnation) basically a few good pilots (you know who you are) were in CLM, and we were kicking ass, heh - i'm still not sure the member joined with the intentions of being a spy (at the time, guilds were new, well, the command was) - but they made one lousy pirate, heh, turned out they were relaying information back to another player about our locations, home stations, ect ect...

...The guild was disbanded 2 weeks later. Sooo, although I have no problem with alts, or RPing, or even obtaining information about alts, I also think if you are in a guild, in the postition of inviting someone to your guild, ask them there forum name first.

>so, uhm, if Borb had said "I'd like to play a VPR for a while",
>you'd have said "okay, no problem" and given him access to stuff
>just like any other VPR?

No we wouldn't just say no problem. We have standards, but I do suspect Borb was capable of meeting them as Lahmi was a model VIPER. It's a moot point anyway, as you don't have a right to be in our guild, it's a private club. If we don't want you to be in it you should consider respecting that.

If he created an alt for it, and was up front about it, and played the alt for a while in a way that fit with our methodology then yes. Mostly he would have needed to be honest with the commanders and council. He wouldn't have been the first nefarious alt in our ranks (some of you think you know everything about us).

I can't really do anything about it if you choose not to believe us. As you can see, the commander agrees with my post and I suspect much of our council does as well.

Many VPR had a favorable opinion of Borb prior to Lahmi, and many still do.

I'll say it again, we have no problem with multiple charactors, we all pay for that right and Viper as a guild understands that. We do have a problem with being deceptive about it for the reasons I stated above.

Side note: People bring up the D&D analogy, well if I'm playing a pen and paper RP game with you then I can SEE you eh? I know whose RPing the thief, the elf, and the rogue. It's a little different online.

>>>The VPR spy is a way to get into the mind of the "Lawful good"
>characters that perpetuate the law, before the good.

Shape, you talk a big game about how much you want to understand the other side. I like you, but I have to admit I have doubts that any truth can break through your condescending nature. Thanks for summing us up with one arrogant sentence though. Unfortunatly for you and your guild, we continue to set the standard for VPR not you.<<

umm... that was under "my roleplay?", that's how Shape percieves law enforcement. It's not so much what your guild is, as what its role is inside of the vendetta universe. Shape happens to feel that the UIT are perpetuating a war for profit motives, so that any person that defends these traders in the name of the name of the law is something of a mystery to him.

Sorry Shape, that part in my first paragraph was sposed to be from an RP perspective as well. I should have tagged it or split the post (edited). This thread done confused me.

Just shows how bad I am at mixing up RP and the rest of myself anyway. I don't have a problem with anybody here in RL whatsoever. Hoax's RP perspective however is most certainly that you are condescending and always trying to dictate the Vipers agenda =P

Haha, whew, the waters be murky me lads!

Hoax speaketh:

>>Just shows how bad I am at mixing up RP and the rest of myself anyway.

It helps when you create a backstory for your alt/alts, and then play to it. It's like D+D, even if you don't quite agree. Creating a character, and then diving in without a backstory is the surest way of screwing your brains out...

My pirate char Holden Caulfield is probably closest to being "me", but HC is probably my least favourite character in VO. For the simple reason is that HC is too associated with RL-me and I can't RP because people keep going 'out of game' chat with me.

Very interesting...

Shape's informant in-Viper has been watched for a while... he has limited access to true in-guild information... and that reaffirms my faith in the guild structure. The problem is that there is information that *should* be easily shared to the rest of the members that simply cannot be shared because of the "infiltration"... how is that "fair"??? We have new members that should be able to express themselves openly... and we should be able to respond in kind... yet there is a vail of security... I personally feel that *all* of the members should have free access to the council members/LTs/Commander for information... and support to grow in thier individual endeavors... yet... only limited access to certain information is allowed... and that is done because of the "infiltration"...

I have to laugh a bit... because I am the "Information Officer"... I was taken back by Borb/Lahmi, because I was so watching other infiltration that I *totally* missed Lahmi...

Seta, bleeding from the last battle... sits at the Council table... and logs in...

{edited to remove the oog stuff...}

If he's been watched for a while.... why not just kick him? I wouldn't create another one.

Shapes trying to trick us, just don't make eye-contact with him and he'll eventually leave the thread.

Hey, I know! Let's leak him false intel!

"Secret Message: If Shape is here on such and such a date, all our secret plans will be ruined!"

/Calvin reference

This isn't well known outside 'Viper Intelligence' circles; But Shape (rascle that he is), will often fall for old earth loony-toons tricks. Remember when he got stuck in our giant pie?

/me hoists space-anvil over Sedina wormhole.

Phaserlight, poor some of that pirate chow in a pile under the wormhole.

/me hides and snickers

/me somehow finds himself under the wormhole...

What happened now?

Regarding uses of alts and joining guilds, for me, alts are just that. Alts. And anything that goes on for one alt, I will act as if the other alts don't know about that. Although, I have created alts that join the same guild for different reasons (Training Bot, for instance, for training new SAF members when even /duel didn't let people from the same nation fight), but if I create an alt for that specific reason, then I generally only use it for that reason.

Course then again, I've never made an alt and tried to get him into IA or IDF... I guess I've been Serco for so long, I can't bear to completely switch... UIT is as far as I'll go :)

LOL You Vipers are soooo funny!

Before I left I had basically decided to never never speak to anyone besides 3 or 4 people in my guild regarding anything "secret" or important. To be honest, I don't know if could even trust THEM. It's just too easy to create an alt and infiltrate a guild, especially with the new BP missions and guideleveling.

Since it is impossible to stop, why try? I came to the realization that since some people (I won't mention names) even go to the trouble to pay for two or even THREE accounts in order to increase the illusion of a different players, this behavior cannot be easily stopped. (Hey! Clark Kent SURE does look a LOT like Superman without his glasses! Hrmmmmm...)

I say "easily", because yes there are ways of correlating IP addresses with certain players, or at least with certain geographic regions in real life which correspond to players (BTW there SURE are a LOT of folks from TX and WI), assuming they aren't using a IP masking method. It just takes time and a good amount of effort like Seta said. And that effort is NOT fun, it's very boring.

I'm too lazy to go thru all that effort to find out who might be an alt in a guild. So I suppose we are all forced to just rely on good RP'ing skills and should shaddup and play the GAME. ( 'cept for me. :( )

Hehe... the space-anvil ploy will prevail!

So who was it that said, "keep your friends close, and enemies closer?"

/me waves at LeberMac! (and doesn't want to tell him that BLAK stole all of his Te-kill-ya)

/me waves at Shape, "appropriately"... and smiles...

/me walks under the anvil.... Sedina collapses on the waiting hoax.

What a maroon!

What Texas is a big place and I'm sure it has many VO players!

/me holds up "Ouch!" sign
/me browses ACME catalog...

Ooooh, rocket scates!