I joined in the UIT and have been playing Vendetta for a few days. Other than NPCs, its basically pretty solitary, Occassionally a pirate will swoop in and destroy my transport. Thats it for interaction with other players

Honestly, at this point except for the chat in channel 100, i cant even tell its a mmorpg. The pirates act like NPCs anyway, they stay in certain sectors, they hail you and then blow you up 3 seconds later. Thats about the only in-game pvp interaction i have had up to this point. ( I had a fighter pilot offer to escort me). As far as other traders, I guess there is no real need to have contact with other traders or miners.

So here is my idea for encouraging more interaction between players, "Group Missions" that several players can join and participate in at the same time.

For example:
Trade convoys - a group of transports protected by fighter ships. If the cargo reaches its destination, everyone involved gets a reward.

This is how it would work,station A has a group mission for a trade convoy requiring X amount of cargo to be moved. I go on chan 100 and ask if theres any traders online, maybe theres 2 other guys, so i say meet me at station A. I also ask if theres any fighters willing to escort, theres 3 guys on willing to do that, so they also come down to the station. Once we are all docked at the station we join the mission as a group. If we complete the mission we all get some XP and credits.

Of course organizing this on chan 100 would be an open invite for pirates to attack the convoy. So we should have to use more secure channels. This would encourage traders to talk to traders on secure channels, and when seeking escort we might be very cautious about giving out the location. We might even have a rendezvous point that is not the actual station where the mission is. Lots of potential for good RP.

I notice this has already been suggested back in 2004

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6352

Guilds are the main source of community interaction in Vendetta, you should join one.

I havent been approached by anyone to join a guild, i havent had any in-game experiences with any of the guilds, and except for unlocking a few extra missions.

But yes you can join a guild and then chit chat in the guild chat instead of chit chatting in chan 100. So what? Its still not in-game interaction. As far as i can tell, for traders, everything is single-player.

Guilds generally have their own multiplayer 'missions' / events / whatever that they usually don't talk about on public channels. For example, TGFT (The Guild of Free Traders) does group trading and mining I'm pretty sure.

If trading is your thing, then I think you will enjoy the company of TFGT. However, if you are looking to guilds to find a band of warrior brothers, you may be frustrated. You see, most guilds have non-agressions pacts with each other. This means, for example, that the skilled pilots in TFGT are not given the opportunity to fight the warriors of Viper, or ITAN, or PA. In fact, the pirates who wacked you are the only dependable foe for most guilds, and they are mostly loners. This has the effect of reducing guild membership to a kind of exclusive "chat room." Your comment about "guild chit chat" is insightful.

I will join a guild and see what they have to offer. Then i will post more suggestions :D

I wouldn't be so cynical about guilds. But still, the point remains that they're entirely player facilitated. This is lovely, but in order to really encourage mass co-operation, the game could do more to make it convenient.

I envision giving traders the ability to post a convoy mission from point A to B, then place a payment that would be split amongst escorts. Similarly, other traders could join the mission and put down money, making a bigger pot for more escorts. I'd guess normal 'voy rules about sticking together would apply.

I think even this minimal framework could go a long way to facilitating better player interaction. Who knows, it might even be possible to pull in NPC escorts this way. It just depends on how well the new Kourier goodies facilitate that sort of thing.

Hopefully that wasn't much over 2c.

jeeze and i remember all the tgft sponsored covoys. ok people we need x # of transports and escorts all volunteers /msg "Enter Name of Choice" and we'll get this show on the road.

lots of fun and time was spent bringing 5-7 moths and taurs through greyspace accompanied by several escorts for a multi million profit but then there was the route/commodity tanked for a while. ASK ABOUT GROUP TRADE WHEN YOU WANNA DO SOME.

For Trade Covoys need a Guilds, This are great for Guild Pirates attacks no?