Say a station is under attack or a large amount of player or NPC convoy deaths have been recorded in a certain sector over a small period of time. Make the sector appear red on the map until things die down. Either that or use some other form of notification to let players know, "Hey, there's something going on over here."

The idea being to help localize player interaction. Currently, it's hard to find player interaction even if you're looking for it. Say the Serco are blockading Edras. How do we find out about it? You either have to randomly fly over there or somebody has to announce it on 100. But if the sector showed up as red after a number of victims had been destroyed in that area, it would let people know there's some action going on. In short, it helps players find each other in an otherwise large and empty universe.

Thoughts?

-1

While we do need more player interaction, this would likely lead to less.

There are already a multitude of ways to discover all of what you covered. If my station is attacked, I am alerted. If an allies station is attacked, I usually get a group invite to defend (My apologies to BR1 and FAMY for having to decline both groups last time... conflicting NAPs and all that.). If there is a pirate/military blockade of players, you can bet 100 will be abuzz with the boastings and taunts of nationalists or pirates as well as the whining of care bears. Then there is the fact that many of us have our own information resources which are generally reliable.

This would just act to drive players from conflict regions.

Yeah ghost we have tools that tell us where the action is. It's not a bad idea but a better one is for the proper custom mission thing to get finished and just have more to do, then tie it into the verse like is planned in 1.9.

Dammit Ryan.

Death. Before. Dishonor.

Hey now... what was I to do? FAMY had cast their lot with ITAN Vs. BR1, I'd no choice.

I kind of like this. It means that when I'm busy exploiting the crap out of escorts at, say, Odia H-6, people would eventually see that sector glowing and come over to investigate. It would give people a chance to play the hero and rescue the poor Tunguskan convoys from the evil Rin, without me have to drop hints and stuff in chat.

Or if people are quietly attacking and defending a station, random bystanders who normally wouldn't be involved might get drawn in.

Thanks for the feedback. Some counterpoints I wanted to bring up for the sake of dialogue:

You make valid points RR, but the point I'm trying to make is that your notification relies on certain specifics. If your station is attacked, you might get notified. What if there's a conflict going on that involves neither you nor your allies? Also, what about players who aren't part of larger guilds or groups? Should they just be left out because they don't have allies that will report things to them and invite them to a group? Even though you might have the means to get this information through other sources, not everyone else does. And because you already have the means, implementing this shouldn't actually change things for you that much, but just allow more people to participate.

If there's a blockade going on, you're relying on people going on 100 and reporting it or the blockaders themselves basically announcing it (usually in an attempt to get some action going). It just seems like a better system could be implemented to show players where the action is. For example, if I'm the one actively blockading, I don't feel like I should have to go on 100 and say, "Hey everyone I'm blockading" in order to actually create any furballs.

Im curious about your last point. Why would it drive players from conflict regions? Avoiding a fight is about the easiest thing you can do in Vendetta. I would argue that people who didn't want to participate in a conflict in a given area are well able to avoid it whether or not the sector is marked. It shouldn't make a difference in that regard.

@Pizza: Exactly!

Well, it could make it easier for traders to decide things like whether they should exit UIT via Ukari, Latos, or Edras. So that would be a downside. I suppose it would depend where the thresholds are set. Sufficiently busy pirates would have to assume traders are spreading word about them anyway, but if a lone pirate kills a pair of moths, that probably shouldn't trigger anything. Half a dozen in fifteen minutes, on the other hand, should.

It would make it easier for people who are doing hive skirmishes (or newbs botting in Dau) to team up, which is good. It would also make it easier for people like me to invade Dau and know where the newbies are botting, which might not be good. Maybe it could treat actions by somebody who is KOS (whether temporary or not) within monitored space with more weight than non-KOS people, so that if I did go newb-hunting, it would be easier for Vipers or whoever to track me down (or more feasibly, locate and defend the newbies).

But yeah, overall, I think it might be fun.

heh they might show a flower on the map on some sectors. : ]

-1 That's an ancient PalladinOfLancelot idea. I didn't liked it then, still don't like it.

If we where to do that, then add the number of NPCs and Players in each sector... both bad ideas :P

BUT it is a good idea IF restricted to Deneb. Disputed sectors can blink red/blue while the battle is ongoing. No new information, since those sectors already are marked in Mission system. But I'd avoid any marks if those blinking sectors have real players or only NPCs.

And on Conquerable stations, a message "Station [NAME] at [Location] is under attack" is quite enough, while present "Station under attack" isn't.

I'm not saying it should broadcast the number of NPCs and players in each sector, just that it should be triggered by a certain amount of deaths in a sector. Like Pizza mentioned, 2 traders getting killed in 10 minutes shouldn't trigger a thing. But 20 players and NPCs dying over a span of 10 minutes should.

The birth of the idea may be ancient, but it's hardly antiquated. They use something similar in GW2 right now where crossed swords pop up on the map wherever a large conflict is detected. Again, large conflict. Not just a few players having small ambush style fights. The reasoning is the same. More action = more fun, so help players find the action instead of flying around aimlessly hoping to run into someone. And I would say the idea of identifying conflict areas is even more justifiable in a space age game than in something like GW2.

+1 to the OP

Also, I don't pretend to know the code, but I imagine this should be pretty simple to implement; check a few variables and change sector color to something if they are greater than something; unless you don't already have some way to check player/bot deaths over a certain period of time in which case it wouldn't be worth the development time for a while imo.

BTW, don't use red or blue because thats already taken up by deneb serco/itani sectors. Maybe orange or yellow?

IIRC, PoL's version of this idea was a little different. He wanted sectors marked based on the number of players in them, not based on the amount of violence. That's an important distinction. PoL's version would have essentially penalized peaceful players working together by making them show up as targets for pirates, further discouraging the trader-types from working together. They're bad enough at the concept as it is, so we don't want to do that.

Ghost's version, OTOH, only shows places that are experiencing widespread violence. And it makes sense that a large battle would cause a ruckus and draw a crowd.

Good point, Rin.
+1 OP.

A good test of this could be to have the war convoys call for reinforcements when they're under attack.

And on Conquerable stations, a message "Station [NAME] at [Location] is under attack" is quite enough, while present "Station under attack" isn't.

I'm normally against ambiguity, but this ^ I think actually helps the game. It makes it (slightly more) diffucult to monopolize ALL of the conquerable assets in the game. Unfortunately that still happens.