Why couldn't Ecka have just done a sector chat saying "Nation War is in sector ?-?" after GB died, and be done with it? Death not being permament, I'd suspect that secrecy is a far more powerful tool for enforcing laws.

Yep, we can all do what we want ingame, including being an asshat.

I hereby bestow the Ass-Hat medal of honor to Blackhole Goldclaw.

What did blackhole Goldclaw do? (first post)

RTFT

Cunjo, is that short for Ruining The F****** Thing?

Read the <expletive deleted> thread.

@Clay: for me it's very fine as it is. I don't want "care bear land".

I just don't want to be lectured about so called "rules", because there are none. What the software allows you to do, can be done. Bug exploiting included, as this very thread demonstrates. Or better, there are rules, but there are no enforcers... So what one has to fear, by breaking the rules?

I think we all agree and understand that there are very few real rules in the game. And that 99% of the time we understand that and enjoy our freedom. I don't think thats the point that should be debated here. I think we've strayed from the acvtual topic a little.

Its the 1% of the time that I, and others have a problem with. I think that with player run events the organizer should have the authority to run the event anyway he/she pleases. The rules are out there days in advance and anyone who come to the designated sector should follow the rules. BG could have gone to thousands of other sectors to cause havoc, he didn't have to come to the only sector that did have rules if he didn't want to play by the rules.

I support Ecka's desion to ban BG. And if i was running the event I would probably have done the same thing. We need to find a way to discourage these things from happening in the future. Player sponsored events are a core of the game.

Syylk: You have a good point one that i been trying to make throughout this thread. But its really not on topic. I think a discussion of what the rules are and when we should go to a guide for help should be in another thread in the general forums. If one isn't created by the time i get back home i will do it.

My reply that Genka posted was in reference to Smittens thread about the concept of "honor". I said, in no uncertain terms, that if a problem in the game becomes sufficiently large, we should change the game. We have done this when problems arose in the past, and people on here can more than vouch for my credibility in this respect. I was not about to do this for the case illustrated in that thread: we've already made "running" more difficult (full energy jump, NOTABLY created in response to user requests), but running shouldn't be made impossible because of a few newbies.

For situations OTHER than that, the decision needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis. For instance, if people are repeatedly exploiting a situation where they can sit in an asteroid, we may need to do something about that problem. But we can only do so if people bring it to our attention. For his part, Whistler tried to, by posting to an admin forum. I rarely read the role-playing forum, many of the people on here know that, and most of them also know how to email me if something is seriously wrong. No one did so.

This game is built and maintained by four people, and of them, I am the ONLY one charged with dedicating a substantial portion of his time to day-to-day and week-to-week administration.. everyone else is focused on active development. Because we are such a small shop, more personal responsibility is required of the userbase. If there is a serious problem, identify it, concoct a real solution (Yes, we could probably use more guides, but that won't mean the guides are there when you need them), post it, and email me to make sure it's brought to my attention. Every single long-term vet on here knows this, because I've posted it many times, and many of you *have* emailed me in the past, when there have been serious problems.

There are a couple of positive solutions that could be taken away from this discussion. One is that there needs to be better matchmaking between guides and events, some sort of signup/sponsor process (but that assumes you even *want* guides to be there, which I'm not sure of). Another is that a collision detection problem (sitting in asteroids) should be solved.

Lastly, the final part of my post to the previous thread was a general reference to gameplay philosophy. I do believe that people should be able to have as open-ended a gameplay experience as possible, and that the architecture and context of the game itself should allow this and permit many different methods of play, with pros and cons to each. If people want to be pirates, great, more power to them, but they'll be banned to grayspace and unwelcome in any nation's territory. A balance of repercussions is what this game is intended to become. We all know perfectly well that it isn't there yet, but most of you (at least, the vets who read the suggestions forum posts, news posts, and other stuff) know that's what we're trying to do. So no, I will not absolutely prevent someone from running from combat simply because someone else happens to dislike that.. it's a viable gameplay method. However, I *DO* sympathize with a player-run Event that is plagued by someone being an ass. Of course, someone else may think that anyone EVER killing them is also someone being an ass, and I don't necessarily agree with that, since we have a fundamentally PVP game, and that action may fit within context. I think a light application of common sense makes most of these situations pretty clear, we don't have to get too bogged down in semantics.

Final moral: if there is a big problem, bring it to my attention (john at guildsoftware dot com, or see the website at http://www.guildsoftware.com ). Identify the problem and propose a solution on Suggestions where we can discuss its merits in a positive context (like: "guides need to be matched up with Events better", or "new Event class of specially-permitted user could spawn instanced sectors and have some guide abilities, but only within the spawned sector", or whatever). Yes, I am really busy (trying to improve the game), and that's why I assume that you will exercise good judgement and only involve me if it's really necessary. Yes, I have high expectations of our userbase, but by and large my expectations have been borne out. The continual *dialogue* between developers and userbase is one of the best aspects of this game, and this community, but it requires perspective and maturity on both sides. It will succeed only if we can focus on finding positive solutions to problems, rather than ranting.

Thankyou for all the above posts , I have followed the thread with interest .

My decision to ban BG from the event was based on two main things , firstly I had asked him to leave the roid before Omega fired , and he had ignored me , and secondly I had told him at a previous nation war that roid hiding would not be allowed at subsequent NWs . From my post of the 7th midweek nation war (posts passim) :

"Blackholes trick of hiding inside a roid is a bit naughty , and we won't allow it in future wars."

The point of player run events is that we as a community acknowledge that the developers focus is quite rightly the software and structure of the game; we must therefore create our own game content in the meantime. I would prefer such events to be self -regulating since that reflects well on the maturity of the vo comminuty as a whole.

In the long term the collision detection system does need to be adjusted , but it is rare that it has practical implications for gameplay and I would suggest that it is lower on the priority list than the developers current projects.

Finally I would thank the community for their continued support of events, I shall continue to host them.

Ecka

Personally, I think the balance of the game should be shifted so that a single player would not be inclined to piss of a large group of players, more like the real world. If death had any meaning, a player would have motivation to behave if he or she didn't have some sort of backup. A single player shouldn't be able to ruin anything for a group of players as large as the nation war. Maybe I'm not understanding exactly what happened, but I think the game should move towards that goal in general.

If the exploit could be disabled, that would help immensely, Inc.
You can get really close to an asteroid, set your forward motion to very slow.. and well I think you know how he does it.

Anyway, part of the "Death Means Nothing" aspect of VO means that behavior like this is easy to pull off. You can jump into a sector, fire off swarms everywhere to disrupt an event and ruin the fun for everyone else, get some cheap PK's, and then get killed yourself, then respawn quickly in a nearby station and repeat.

Several players seem to have a penchant for purposefully ruining the experience for others, BG is one of them.

Likewise, if you're outnumbered while holding the border you can do a suicide bombing run, fire off swarms everywhere to disrupt the attack and ruin the victory for your enemies, get some easy PK's... etc. It seems to me that the problem here isn't necessarily one of game mechanics, as those are inexorably tied with the combat part of the game, one of the most cherished aspects about VO. That being said, I don't see what you (plural) mean when you say that death should have "a meaning" other than a loss of money and forceibly being respawned. What exactly are you suggesting? Death Timer maybe?

No, dying should be really really annoying, AKA expensive. A "death timer" might help as well though.

Bah! Sorry for taking away even a moment of your time, Incarnate.

I simply was returning omega's favor of killing me, and then I got banned.
Sure sure, nation war rule's said that sitting in a roid was illegal. But it hadn't started yet. I told this to yoda over guild chat, when I was sitting in it (he didn't want me being an ass) When Omega killed me, I decided that it would do quite nicely if I killed him back. So I went in, and took out his valk without any casualties. So then, of course, when I got banned for killing him, and he didn't, I decided that was bloody unfair. So I went after him again.

Of course, being a tight community, I got mobbed (even though my target was just omega)

Anyway. I really should have controlled myself better.

Otherwise, I think this topic has run it's course through. Mind locking it, Whistler?

In my opinion, if death had a lot more meaning there would be even more incentive for certain players to spam swarms everywhere or whatever they do.

Also BG, if an event coordinator/MC/host asks you to stop doing something, you better stop right away or face the consequences...

Yeah! You might have to stop their 'event' from taking place and deal with a bunch of newbs whining for four pages!

I know I wouldn't be able to hold up under those kinds of consequences...

Okay slime, after attempting to respond nicely in several other compositions on this post, quite simply I can say....

That's horse hockey. Now, I can quite easily screw up the event any goddamned time I please. This topic/incident should serve as a reminider to all mc's to think twice.
Now, I'm not blaming ecka. He's cool.

I'm just saying, think twice about fairness. Banning people or kicking them can easily incite anger to people who know better (AKA, myself) kicking someone doesn't help much, simply because they can what I did.
(in this case, I might have just expressed myself over PM to ecka, and undoubtibly he would have at least listened, if not understood. But, I wasn't thinking. Obviously)

"No, dying should be really really annoying, AKA expensive. A "death timer" might help as well though." I couldn't disagree more. Making dieing a major pain the the ass would kill PVP and inevitably the game

Er...

I think I see where you are going with this, zam, but the way you phrased the part about screwing up events is not clearly written and is just going to get you flames and emo responses. I had to read it a few times myself.

I think you are saying that an event host has no more authority over you than anyone else, and that you are not specifically prohibited from disrupting events. I suppose that's factually correct, though it won't appease people who are annoyed that you disrupted their event.

You then appear to be saying that you might not have behaved so poorly had you not felt that you were treated unfairly. You also appear to be taking some responsibility for not handling the situation better. That's a step in the right direction but it does not address the question of why you chose to be present for the event, and to place yourself inside a roid. I can't imagine that you would do this for any other reason than to provoke some sort of response. I think you are being disingenuous. Perhaps you were present in the roid because it was stated that you had been naughty in hiding in the roids, and that it would not be allowed? There's a bit of a theme here with not liking to be told what to do.