Well, I think my meaning is still a bit lost, but Inc, your post still answered my question nicely, I see you've got a plan in place that theoretically should work.

And as MGL was saying...the knowledge of my first PK was lost to time, is there ANY chance that info is still saved?

Hm. Having read the entire thread, especially incarnate's post about democratic policing in the game, I have to say that I'm still skeptic of that system, but I see the point of simply not being able to hire a giant police force for the game.

Don't get me wrong, I believe democracy to be one of the best forms of state. I'm just unsure as to whether it can be applied to an internet gaming community, but then I'm very inexperienced in that field. I guess I'll just wait and see.

ATTN: Hair splitting below.

TRS: I might be old-fashioned, but to me a griefer is a person who repeatedly kills another player, preferrably right outside their home station. I have not experienced griefing as a subject of such since the introduction of the new universe, but have heard of such cases.

I don't know what to call exactly the type of player you described, but a griefer it ain't (and I'm backed by the vo-wiki). Troll is not entirely correct, either, but it's much closer to it than 'griefer', in my opinion.

My first PK was [syn]n00b, and to help test something with the faction system, at that!

I think the upcoming HUD messages may help the issue of people not being muted when they deserve it.

I think, in the super short term, we should form two councils.. and RP council for disputing the loss of faction standing, and an OOC council for dealing with player grievances..

maybe our current guides are already a council of sorts, but a charter should be drawn up and displayed publicly.. I've often played with the idea of forming a guild to do this, except who wants to play nanny all day? I've had some of this on my mind for about a year now, and made some (admittedly halfhearted) efforts in the CP forum... but yeah - councils would be nice in the short term, with a guide in the wings to enforce their decree..

[Vendetta Online Town Meeting??]

((and you're right, FM, it IS cyclical... almost a year ago, exactly, the same things were said - general page 27, RP page 25))

Arolte wasnt bad, Never could understand peoples obsession with him, the key to not being killed by him all the time is to not go near him all the time! GEE WHAT A THOUGHT! he isnt in all the thousands of sectors constantly , he was always in like 2 sectors of several thousand, just go somewhere else! but noooooooooo "I am captain honourable I will charge into battle 100 times with arolte and never be able to kill him cause he runs at the first sign of damage but he manages to kill me 100 times so Ill piss and moan about an honour system that no one really has to follow if they dont want to!" I'm tired of hearing people complain about other users, In the real world there are people that annoy the crap out of everyone too, deal. It's easy to avoid griefing, go the other way. The only ship that really can't outrun anything else is the bus and moth. Now I do however repect the need to silence the players that yammer on constantly in a disrespecting manner in the chat so a more dynamic and feature filled mute system I would support but as for players in space, to each their own.

griefers will use the game mechanics if a) it is to thier advantage, b) they have no other options.

The problem here is that if someone is staying inside the intended game mechanics, is it griefing? If someone is killing you 100 times at your home station, is killing at your home station the intended mechanics of the game, and if so, why are we trying to bypass it, and if not, why are we not addressing the failure of the games mechanics, instead of worring about the player.

There will always be players who attept to abuse the game mechanics, and you can view these players as a detraction from the game, or you can view them as game testers. In the first instance, you will be constantly trying to police players, in the second instance, you will be constantly trying to refine the games mechanics. If you intend to always have a small player base, then start policing players now, but if you intend to ever support a large player base, then start thinking of these players as one of your greatest resources.

I'd like to make a slight correction.

Most of the people annoyed with Arolte were not annoyed that he killed them (Cuz myself, and a number of the other people involved did NOT die to him), but rather that he was able to jump in, harass us until we focused on him, and then, run away.

I personally have no issue with dying, its the ability to avoid engagements that YOU start that bugs me.

However, with the jump vulnerability, and the speed changes, I don't really think this is an issue anymore.

Quoth Calder:

Like Spacehunter. I took the longest break I ever have from VO because of him, and there were many others who flat out left.

Quoted for truth. :(

" However, with the jump vulnerability, and the speed changes, I don't really think this is an issue anymore. "

the jump vulnerability and speed changes done is very good.
but
the unbalance between interceptor ships and Valkyries is a real problem ( why the best runners in game use that ship in battle? it's the best interceptor and running ship ).

WHY?

TURBO DRAIN

i suggest you :

- Valkyries should has a same TURBO DRAIN than Vulturius, SVG, IBG, Orion rev C). 60 drain turbo for all this ships.

- bring back the old 10 sec timer

leebs : i don't have time to play, so I just terrorize the forums now. And when I play, I will always be in-character, so you won't find "softy2" in game :D. This game will be more fun if everyone play in-char. All this OOC-ness in game just kills immersion for me.

And oh, for the record, here is a Socratic series of questions (for l337 alphas like roguelazer)

(a) You all like the new jump-vulnerability right?

(b) You all really really like it right?

(c) You know that it's all the "ridiculous whining" about Arolte that got it implemented right?

(d) And it was "quick" implementation right?

(e) You should STFU right?

Answer : Mmmpptt <--- STFU-ness

Aw, gee man, gee, really sorry about your immersion man, gee, sorry. Wow. Sorry. Never though of it that way man, yea, sorry. Really. Sorry. That immersion stuff man, yea, should probably keep that up man. Yea.

PS: Socrates seems to be failing in his old age. Had me denying at (a).

GAH! Let's get that /vote fucker "_____" feature in here soon! Tonight was full of running backrolling assholes!

you going to vote a player for using a game mechanic. that could get real old real soon if we ever get a large player base. your not exercising your brain properly. please put some thought into a more automated solution.

Yeah, the point of the system I described is for dealing with people who are seriously abusing the system. Killing people, or running away, on their own are not abusing the system. Under the right conditions of extreme excess (which is what we ran into with Arolte) it can lead to changes in the system, as it exposes flaws. But muting someone isn't supposed to be some motivation to make them change their play style. And I don't think anyone can dictate what's necessarily the "right" or "wrong" way to fight.. including running from a battle, until it crosses some nebulous threshold of extremity (the person stalks you all over the universe to attack and them run). Some people fight to win, regardless of the tactics employed.. but that doesn't make their tactics wrong, or even abusive. If it demonstrates problems in the game as a whole, then those problems should be addressed, not the users for playing the game the way it's been written.

I don't like this thread anymore. It's boring.

the problem i had with the Arolte incedent, and others like it (including the Space Hunter arguments) was that, most of the arguments boiled down to this "[insert tactic here] is (unfair/dishonerable) and should be banned because the availability of that tactic ruins my fun. I should not have to be bothered learning or using the one simple and comonly known counter to that tactic, rather the devs should (change the game/ban all players using that tactic)".

I agree that some system should exist to deal with players who take things too far, but in my experience most of the cases where players were accused of being troublemakers it was really just that they didn't adhear to the same code of honor as the complainers.

Arolte never really bothered me in that he killed me or any thing, I could knock him down to the point where he would run easy or I could use his same tactic on him and he would never get me and I would get a good laugh out of it. The big issue for me was when he picked on RPers and attempted to ruin events, then when people complained they where silenced or asked to shut up because he was just RPing in his own way, or he was doing nothing wrong.

My issue was in the way it was handled and I took a stand in the hope the the fall out would cement a good reason for these types of things to be handled better. I personally am very untrusting of well every one, but most importantly people with power in this case the devs and guides.

Am I bias? Yes, I believe the guides look out for them self's more then they should (Though guides like RR have always impressed me with their selflessness) and that is when they are around. I believe we should have a guide around 24/7. Now I did hear Inc when he said he could not hire a big staff but common, I know you could find some people in-game that would not mind guiding for free, I know I would if it meant helping make the game better.

As for the Democratic player base, well we'll see how it works though I do remain skeptical, though I am happy to see the devs do in-face have a plan, but as I said before they should first find some new guides that can be in game. I can count on one hand how many guides not devs mind you I've seen in the past three months, it's pathetic, most semi active web forums have more Moderators then this game has Guides, and I feel in this game guides are more vital then Moderators are on a web forum. If any thing they could be out there as eyes for the devs.

That's just my .02 y'all can take it how ever you want.

Sorry genka, didn't mean to spoil your fun. I suppose you don't like Socrates? I don't like him too, good riddance I'd say. But hey, I bet he got some good goobars with dem ladies while he was at it.

[Edit : p.s. Hey Genka, don't forget our date on Friday. Bring the stuff, you know what *wink*].

I think it's valid to point out that almost a few hours after the initial post was made in this thread, Smittens went around spamming 100 with a 7-line alias.

Hrm. Hypocrite? Certainly.

Borb: There's more to being a guide than volunteering for the job. The devs need to have people who they trust, who they know won't use the oper tools in personal vendettas against other players to their advantage, etc. etc. They need people who behave like guides.

I agree that it takes a LOT to be a good guide, and so they are hard to come by. I still think, though, that the Devs should look closer for people exploiting weaknesses in gameplay for the purpose of annoying and griefing. Finally, I too will wait and see how the democracy experiment works out, though I don't have high hopes for it.