There have been a number of posts and threads recently concerning pirates, griefing, and the general spacequake feel of the current vendetta product. Obviously as the game moves on towards a RPG there will be some concequences for randomly killing people, and it would seem that setting up some form of reputation system would logically follow missions. (after all, completint missions would be a good way to improve your standing with broad groups). Obviously this has all been hashed over before, however for the players who havent been with us for very long, I'm re-opening the topic for discussion. It's always possible that a new player will have a good idea that no-one else has expressed yet.

Now, I would like to see something kind of like the reputation system in the old "Elite" game series. For those of you who never played elite, it went something like this.

Each system (sector) had a level of government, some systems were lawful, and as such fairly safe to transit. lots of police craft, you couldnt sell illegal cargo there, etc. Other sectors were total anarchy's, anything went. police were non-existant, you could buy and sell just about everything, all in all, a pirate haven. Every station (dock), no matter the sector, had a no fire area around it. If you discharged a weapon inside that area, lots of annoying little police bots came out and hunted you down, and the station would refuse to let you dock there until you had left the system and returned.
Your personal reputation was also a factor. If you had killed too many peaceful traders or fired in too many "safe areas" you would gain a reputation for being a criminal/pirate. Police in lawful sectors would automatically attack you, the stations there might not let you dock (depending on how criminal your reputation was and how lawful the system was) you were more or less limited to the sectors where pirates and the like were welcomed.

I would envision this transferring to vendetta in the following manner. Each sector would have a level of police presence. this could be changed by having player controlled stations or station segments that were dedicated to lawful commerce. Factories, peaceful guildhouses, etc would increase the police presence in a sector. The higher the police presence, the "safer" the sector would be. Conversely if there were many player owned stations that produced illegal weapons, a major pirate guild, etc the police presence would go down. In a "lawful" sector, each station would have a "no fire" area around it, enforced by turrets and defbot type craft. once again, if you violate the "no fire" rule, you can't dock for a set period of time, and the turrets/defbots come after you.
Sectors that had a more "criminal" outlook may or may not have this no fire area.
If you are a habitual pirate/griefer sectors with a high police level would refuse you docking rights, etc. Obviously one mans pirate is another mans hero, so your criminal record would vary depending on what faction(nation) was enforcing the laws in each sector. A Neutral pilot who spent all his time killing Serco would be unable to dock in a sector with a strong tie to the Serco Govt, but an Itani sector wouldnt have any problems with him.

This is not meant to be a total description of a system, just some food for thought. Polite discussion is what I am after, and once again, while I am aware that all of this has been discussed int he past, it has been a few months since we had a serious indepth discussion on it, and it seems to me to be a fairly timely topic as reputations logically follow missions. (you wouldnt give a sensitive mission to someone your nation couldnt trust after all, nor would it make sense to give a pirate a mission to track down a pirate base)

I definitely like the idea of a reputation system, as well as a detailed profile of each player that can be accessed through some type of in-station public database. And perhaps the reputation you gain can alter the way station NPCs treat you. Like for example when a pirate walks into a trading station, the merchants in there will naturally refuse to conduct business with the pirate. Or they may offer extremely high prices for certain trade items if they're generous. On the other hand a peaceful trader who docks in the same station will receive wonderful bargains.

Also NPCs that are out looking to hire someone for missions may tend to call out towards certain individuals with a very good reputation in a particular field (be it pirating, trading, exploration, etc.). So the more you get good at a certain task, the more opportunities will arise for you in the career path you choose. Maybe if a player is unsure what career path they want to choose (like for newbies), they can be presented with a large variety of easy tasks at first. And they're always free to change their mission types, all by changing the way they play the game.

This can open tons and tons of opportunities for each player in the Vendetta universe. There's also the possibility of certain territories having their own reputation. An area of three or four sectors can contain city stations that are known to house pirates and give bargains for 'em. Another area of the Vendetta universe can have stations that favor peaceful traders more. Stuff like that can really give Vendetta more of an MMORPG feel to it, as if you're traveling through a busy universe full of cities, each with their own background and reputation.

I'm drooling at the very thought of it!

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I would like to see faction reputation as well. Eventually, factions could control sectors of space. Now if say the ABC guild controls s234 they can set tarrifs for other guilds to trade there.
The DEF guild is allied to ABC so has a low tarrif like 0-5% but the LMN guild has recently been threatening the ABC so their traders must pay a 35% tarriff on all products. Where as the XYZ guild is at war with the ABC so the bots target all vessels displayed under the XYZ and they cannot trade at those stations.

If anyones ever played Freelancer, then you've seen the reputation system. If your rep goes up with police, it goes down with pirates, and vice versa. Perhaps for guilds and companies, the amount of trading and combat can somehow be monitered, and that can effect the rep with good guys/bad guys for the entire guild.

I kinda don't understand the sector/system bit. Is the System supposed to be a huge place? Will Sectors be seperated only by turbo, or will it be like the current Test?

grunadulater: No one but the devs, and maybe not even they, fully understand the final system.

As best as I can peice together, the final system won't work just like what we have now.

There will be two big divisions: sectors and systems. I don't know what is the bigger division. I'm assuming that Systems are the larger of the too.

Systems will represent distantly connected areas, esentially different stars, accessible from each other only by wormholes - such as we have now. The final structure will be too complex to picture in the small area that is currently used and probably some sort of navigational interface will be developed (I picture something like what was used in the game Ascendancy, but I have no idea what they have in mind.)

Each system will will be composed of several sectors, which are still quite far apart but on the cosmic scale quite close together (think AU rather than light years). I'm not clear on whether you travel between sectors using wormholes or with something the devs call 'medium jumps' or both, but I can state with a fair degree of confidence that you won't just turbo between them, because that would take hours even if sectors where fairly close to each other (and months or even years at a realistic scale).

[ethnic slur removed]

I realize you didn't intend to be hurtful, but that was in fact a slur.

oops... ;)

I was saying that I was the worlds stingiest tight wad, but I'd be willing to pay to play if there was even a rudimentary reputation system that punished excesive evilness.


mutorcs

I recommend needing below a certain reputation to trade illegal goods, also trading in low police sectors have a higher yield(Higher risk higher gain)

A question sorta for the devs, or anyone else who may know....

Can the server detect who fired "first" in a firefight or other battle scenarios? I don't know if there is any way for the server to currently tell who starts, ends, or does what in fights. I don't mean like you hit fire and a missile goes, more like it keeping track of "hostile" and "defensive" actions. My guess is no, and that it would be quite hard, but the devs may surprise me :)

Well, my guess is that you'd go down in the one you destroyed's governments rating, but that gov is probably a pirate or an enemy gov. Besides, they would understand if you had only 1-5 kills on that gov... maybe not 100-200...

taumuaddib, it cant be done.
The first hostile act in an engagement is not necessarilly an explicit opening of fire.

Q: Is the cargo pilot that opens fire on a pirate sneaking up the agressor?
Q: If a pilot accidentally hits another ship while defending himself from NPCs the PvP agressor?
Q: If a pirate opens fire, but deliberately misses the cargo ship causing the cargo ship to return fire and hit the prate first, is the cargo ship (as the ship that got the first hit) the agressor?

I think it can be done:

Q: Is the cargo pilot that opens fire on a pirate sneaking up the agressor?
A: Yes. Does it matter? No. This is what a reputation system is for. The only reason you would open fire in the first place is that they are a *pirate* with a pirate's reputation. The government would probably reward you for being the agressor toward a pirate.

Q: If a pilot accidentally hits another ship while defending himself from NPCs the PvP agressor?
A: Yes. It's impossible to determine what the motives of a player are sitting behind the computer screen. Without developing a complex court system (which could be player run) you have to assume that the shot was intentional. A stray shot could just as easily have destroyed an already damaged craft. It's the shooters fault for being trigger happy and not aware of their surroundings.

Q: If a pirate opens fire, but deliberately misses the cargo ship causing the cargo ship to return fire and hit the pirate first, is the cargo ship (as the ship that got the first hit) the agressor?
A: Yes. Does it matter? No. See the first answer.

Now I have some more questions that could pose problems, but I think they can be solved:

Q: If a player A lays a mine which player B deliberately runs into, should player A be considered the agressor?

Q: If player A fires a splash weapon (rocket, nuke etc.) which damages a pirate but also player B (who is a good citizen), should player A be considered an agressor toward player B?

Q: If player A "rams" player B into an asteroid, causing them to take damage, should this be considered an agressive act? How could this condition be implemented?

"I think it can be done."

Well, that depends on what you mean by 'done'. You have changed the definition here in order to make your point, but I think its a useful change, because I think you are right that a reputation system is not going to be perfect but doesn't necessarily need to be perfect provided people look at it right.

I don't think it is possible to design a reputation system which is always 'fair' and 'just', but then neither is any system of justice designed by man always 'fair' and 'just'. If people look at the mistakes it makes as being part of the realism and depth of the RPG, then I think they will be able to accept it and even enjoy its nuances. If people look at the mistakes the reputation system makes as if the devs are unfairly picking on them, then you'll just have a bunch of grumpy teens complaining about authority figures.

So, building on what Phaserlight says, the most critical component of a reputation system may need to be the RPG flavor it conveys. If people understand that the system was almost in a certain since designed to sometimes unfairly accuse the wrong person of wrong doing, and that sometimes they are supposed to get in trouble with NPC's when its not thier fault they are probably going to be alot more ok about it. So the devs should in a certain way be up front about the systems problems by incorporting them into the missions and backstory they create for the game.

'In prison, everyone is innocent'. In the real world, no one thinks the system treated them fairly - or at least no one admits that it did.

In the real world, if you kill someone in self-defence, expect to go to prison anyway most of the time because the police are inclined to suspect without other evidence that the winner of a fight was the person who actually started it and that the aggressor was the one who was willing to exhert the most force and unleash the most violence.

In the real world, if your soldiers kill civilians in the process of attacking thier enemy, no matter who was at fault expect the system to call into question the justness of thier actions.

In the real world, even if the evidence is clear as to who committed the crime, expect sometimes the murder to go unpunished by the system.

In the real world, thier are corrupt judges, currupt systems, corrupt attorneys, and corrupt police and in some places thats even the norm rather than the exception.

So if the system doesn't work perfectly, maybe that's a feature instead of a bug. ;)

1. Wrong. You see the notorious pirate Blackbeard approaching. Due to some recent metagaming behaviour, he has squeezed his PR to be positive. The cargo pilot will be the agressor if he fires first, and take the PR hit. However, the alternative is to allow Blackbeard to close to zero range, and open fire at his leasure guaranteeing the cargo pilots death.

2. Youve now opened the opportunity for griefers to accidently fly inbetween ships and NPC opponents, forcing non PvP pilots to become PvP agressors.

3. It matters.

baadf00d: Hmmm...

1) "You see the notorious pirate Blackbeard approaching. Due to some recent metagaming behaviour, he has squeezed his PR to be positive. The cargo pilot will be the agressor if he fires first, and take the PR hit. However, the alternative is to allow Blackbeard to close to zero range, and open fire at his leasure guaranteeing the cargo pilots death."

I think your problem is that you are trying to see that above scenario as a problem. It is not at all necessarily indicative of one.

Your other problem is you seem to be importing griefs from other systems (PR?) into the discussion with no real explanation of how the other system (the one that you claim failed) failed. If you have been playing another system, its only fair to explain the problems with that system in detail rather than making bold claims.

If a notoriously aggressive player has been able to metagame the system and somehow maintain a positive reputation despite being highly aggressive he is either highly skilled or else the system is badly designed. Only the latter is a problem.

In your example, Blackbeard has one of two choices if the cargo pilot doesn't panic and open fire. Either he can let the cargo pilot go, or he can fire the first shot, make the first hit, and make the first kill - all of which collectively are going to cause a major reputation penalty in any reasonably designed system.

So Blackbeard can't beat that behavior indefinately. It may work a few times, and behavior like that may allow people to occasionally grief and get away with it. But it won't ruin the game.

2) Yes. So what? First, most aggressive NPC's are going to be in 'lawless' systems anyway, and in such cases the griefers going to attack with impunity and not worry about the reputation hit. Basically, you've taken one isolated possibility and made it a huge problem. But one isolated possibility is as I just said, not a big problem. A well designed RPG universe is going to have mitigating factors that make griefing with hostile NPC's around not that attractive (the NPC might attack you, you still are letting yourself get damaged before the fight already starts, in many places where the scenario could occur it would be difficult to manipulate this to big advantage, etc.)

3) Why? Enough of this 'it matters', 'no, it doesn't', 'yes, it does'. Make your case. If the tactic becomes popular, won't cargo vessels simply refrain from shooting until they get damaged? If the person is a frequent aggressor, isn't it likely that his reputation will be so low that who take no reputation hit for attacking him anyway? Why would pirates go to all this trouble to keep thier reputation up in the first place? If this is occuring in a populated 'lawful' sector, won't the simple act of firing your gun carry some legal penalty? I mean, you can't just walk down the street firing your gun in the air.

Hmm, I think that killing someone should have very great effects to your rep, and it would be harder to get back up to a good rep. Another problem: In a large battle, you're bound to kill serveral people. I think killing a person should only make your rep go down with that guild, or if they dont belong to a guild, that race. Hell, it'd even probably make your rep with your guild/race go up.

Besides, traders will probably be going along routes that their race/guild has already clamed and marked. Even if they attack you and you kill them, nothing really happens to you; you were in your system, and they are not even supposed to be there, let alone attack.

grunadulater: More or less, yes, you seem to understand.

I wish I had time to write a long post (you laugh, but I mean long by my standards) on the subject, but write now I'm behind in writing specs for my team project because of some goofing off I've done in the past few days and I don't know how quickly I'll catch up.

(grin sheepishly)

Well, I told you I was in a hurry.

Woah. Celebrim did his first double post ever.

Celebrim,

How much of an optimist are you exactly? Getting a PvP system right for a game like this is easilly as complex as a test of the graphics and netcode subsystems. If the griefing prevention logic isnt rather apparent right now, its not going to magically appear as some well designed thing at release.


Regarding the somewhat justified accusation that im importing griefs from another system. The other system is an intended MMORPG called "Jumpgate". Which, given what Ive seen so far, is Vendetta exactly, except with worse graphics. In terms of discussions of factional reputation systems, the exact ideas I see in these forums, Ive seen already.

Now, the thing about Jumpgate is, its not an MMORPG. It gets at most 20 players online on their US server, and up to 100 on their EU server - but the EU server offers free 10 day accounts.

The *reason* there are so few people online is :- Well, a number of things that were clearly stuffed up during the beta were not magically fixed for release. Their player driven economy was not designed by someone with a great understanding of simple economics, and, in terms of their grand ideas of piracy, ultimately the pirates groosly overestimated the amount of "fun" most non PvP players have when being pirated. And they grossly overestimated the ability of reputation systems to control piracy (and not be metagamed).

So, I am going to make a simple assertion. And this is not an assertion I can back up with any amount of facts. All it is is my personal theory why Jumpgates reputation system failed. And it is this: The majority of pilots a game like this will attract are NOT interested in PvP. They are interested in re-creating the experience of single player games like "Elite", Space Rogue", "FreeLancer", but in an online environment. The critical thing here is that in those games, players ran cargo to make money, and fought off pirates AND SUCCEEDED (most of the time). Which means, quite simply, that the cargo ships need big enough guns to routinely destroy pirates - or the engines to successfully flee pirates. And the pirates must be willing to play the part of ultimately unsuccessful evil.

If the pirates insist on being an actual menace a lot of principally non PvP cargo pilots will either leave, or not sign up, and I am convinced that this group is going to be the success (or failure) of a game like this. With a large group of cargo pilots, the games environment is rich enough to support factional based (consentual) PvP, and perhaps even anti pirate PCs. If this group leaves, the game devolves down to a much smaller player base of hardcore PvP pilots fighting each other in a rather pointless game as, with the non combatant pilots gone, theres nothing really left to fight over but a flag.