I agree. Unfortunately the Valkyrie totally breaks it for what we have now. A high agility ship with high hull strength. Not good for balance. Not good at all.

TraderVix :- I think its pretty clear that Vendetta is meant to be a MMORPG of some sort. Not a simple FPS. http://www.guildsoftware.com/ven.general.html implies that a lot more roles than just combat are intended.

Next, whether or not logging off in warp is an exploit is beside the point. The point is that players are demonstrating that they would rather log off than play in situations where they have no concievable win condition.

FM: I dont think this thread is particularly heated. Well, what TraderVix said.

Xorbital: Regarding the ship availability the other posters seem to have covered that. Regarding the allegation of teamwork being the solution: its a nice dream, but it wont work. Well - I presume by "teamwork" you mean that the trader hires an escort: Frist off, your basic premise is flawed: A situation where one side *needs* greater numerical odds in order to have an equal chance is inherently unfair. Next up: Non traders can login and launch as they dont *need* to teamwork to simply stay alive. Traders face the prospect for - on every mission - somehow convincing a skilled PvP pilot to escort them. If one is online - and nearby. Next up, if traders can group, so can pirates. Next up, piracy is glamorous and will tend to attract more mercurial types anyway. Trading on the other hand is slow and - if the escort is sufficient disincentive - boring. Which means that only pilots that are #### at PvP are going to be available for escorting.
Simply, forcing traders to engage in teamwork to succeed in the simplest tasks means they spend more time in stations waiting to meet other pilots than flying which quickly grows burdensome.

FM: As I pointed out, if pirates ships are expensive to replace, the pirates will be forced to try an dmaximise their profits. Potentially there will be less pirates yes, but the pirates that there are will be rather unbending in their desire to succeed in every confrontation with a trader as they will be unable to afford the losses inposed by loseing. (PS. Youre close to being exactly on topic: this thread is about how pirates should be, in order that traders dont feel it necessary to log off when they spot them, but rather deal with them ingame).

I like the idea of pirate ships being pretty fast, but also rather fragile. A single pirate vs. a well-armed trader should die most of the time if it stays to the bitter end, but could run like hell if it was losing (which would be often)and live to fight another day (after repairs). Pirate ships should be very expensive and hard to replace, and pirates should have a hard time buying supplies at most stations. Still, there should be some "most wanted" eliteness involved as well.

[edit: ooo, I'm off topic]

The pilots logging off during warp are making use of an exploit yes. And exploits need to be fixed.

But, before this is fixed, its worth considering what is really happening here. And what it means for the future of legitimate piracy within the game.

The simple fact of the matter is, the pilots involved in using the logoff exploit have been driven to logging off. Yes they are avoiding an in-game situation, an in game situation we feel its an exploit for pilots to avoid, but the point really is, that these players would rather not play the game, than be pirated.

Now, by definition, when people would rather be doing *something else* than playing a game, they are not having fun.
So, as much as it may burn the rear ends of all the wannabe pirates out there, the lesson to be learned from this exploit is NOT that exploits like this need to be fixed so everyone can farily suffer dire ingame consequneces, BUT that most players finf piracy unfun enough that they would rather not play than tolerate it.

Ergo, fixing the exploit will not widen the scope for piracy - all the current cargo pilots that make a habit of logging off, will simply not log on at all - leaving the game with even less cargo pilots per pirate. The increased predation leading even these pilots to either switch to PvP (probably becomming pirates themselves and increasing the problem) or quitting outright.

The evidence, dear pirates, is before your very eyes. The game WILL NOT support a situation where cargo pilots do not have a very good chance to escape (or defeat) their attackers.

--
Piracy CANNOT be controlled by reputation systems or in fact any system that makes it hard to be a pirate, as a pirate that is destroyed often and is persistenly hunted looses money, and it becomes even more imperative that the pirate *wins* most of their encounters with cargo ships. And pirates that win are an anathema to a successfull game of this sort.

This leads us to consider the somewhat counter intuitive proposition that the converse might have to be the case: For the game to sustain a pirate presence without causing the cargo pilots to leave Pirates MUST have an easy life. Their ships must be cheap, as must their equipment. Only in this way will they be able to tolerate a situation where 95% of their victims escape outright, and the other 5% turn out to be armed to the teeth and shoot back.

Every cargo pilot this game ultimately attracts is drawn to it due to their experience in single player games like Space Rogue, Elite and Freelancer. And the defining feature of those games was that pirates were present, but could be outrun, or beaten off.

In conclusion, to the pirates I say: Get used to loosing, or get used to an empty server. You choose.

baadf00d: "The sky is falling... the sky is falling"

I'm fairly sure that you don't have a clue. You don't realize what the fundamental problem with the current game is, and so you rant about this or that thing as if it was important and all the while doing nothing but stirring up trouble.

"Yes they are avoiding an in-game situation, an in game situation we feel its an exploit for pilots to avoid, but the point really is, that these players would rather not play the game, than be pirated.

Now, by definition, when people would rather be doing *something else* than playing a game, they are not having fun."

Have you ever thought to turn around those statements? The pirates would rather not play the game than not be allowed to pirate. Why is that? Why is it that the pirates pirate? Why is it that the traders trade? Why is it that the dynamics of the game create more pirates than the 'society' can really handle? Why is it that the traders feel they are dying too frequently?
Why is it that traders (for example) don't do thier trading in Valks or Vultures if dying is such a bad thing?

I can answer all those questions with one word.

Can you? Do you really understand the basic problem?

I can answer it in one word, and so can any game designer worth his salt, and I would think most game players if they though about it.

Boredom.

The problem is that the Vendetta Test is boring. I know that. Incarnate knows that. There isn't enough to do. Deprived of anything interesting to occupy thier times, the experienced players turn thier attention to the one reasonably exciting thing available to them - killing other players. They don't do it for the money. They do it because they are bored. And the game as it stands doesn't penalize people at all for doing so because its still completely tied to its death match heritage. This is Quake with trading in space not because it is badly designed, but because little over a year ago it wasn't anything but a frag fest.

The basic cure of pirating is giving players something to do other than shoot each other, and give reasonable RP penalties to people who chose anti-social careers. If there are fun things to do other than be pirates (and indeed if pirating is a hard life), then most players will not be pirates. If there aren't fun things to do (mission structures, reasonably intelligent AIs, experience points to earn, NPC's to converse with, factions to organize and participate in, tiny plots that arise, and major story arcs), or if you make pirating easier than other lifestyles, then you end up creating a universe full of pirates BECAUSE that will be the most fun way to play the game. Eventually however, Quake in space gets old, the economy (if one exists) falls apart because thier are no 'producers', and people leave.

It's not like you are the only experienced gamer here. I was likely playing multiplayer games back when you were in diapers.

"Piracy CANNOT be controlled by reputation systems or in fact any system that makes it hard to be a pirate, as a pirate that is destroyed often and is persistenly hunted looses money, and it becomes even more imperative that the pirate *wins* most of their encounters with cargo ships."

Convert that statement to the real world would you.

"Crime CANNOT be controlled by reputation systems or in fact any system that makes it hard to be a criminal, as a criminal that is caught often and persistantly hunted spends most of his time in jail, and it becomes even more imperative that the criminal succeed everytime they commit a crime."

Don't you see how ridiculously backwards that statement is?

I know, lets stop crime in the real world by ceasing to socially stimatize it, abolishing the police, making it easy for criminals to escape justice, and making the rewards of crime high.

I know, lets stop crime in the game by giving it no social drawback, having no police, making it easy for criminals to escape justice, and making the rewards of crime (you're no longer bored) high. Oh, wait a minute. We've already done that.

Sheesh.

Celebrim > you.

*sigh*

The constantly missed statement in both threads is PK. Pirating does not have to mean PK any more than PK has to mean pirating, yet there are many "pirates" that PK first, pirate later. It is one thing to "pirate" but to commit senseless and, in essence, murder is quite another.

In both threads the concept of pirating has been treated with the same meaning as PK, this is due to the above mentioned arrogance at which people claim piracy. There is a distinct differance between attacking a player for their cargo and attacking a player simply because "it's fun". That differance is defined by intent.

The intent of a pirate is to obtain a player's cargo through whatever availible means, be it force or just plain and simple deception.

The intent of a PKer is to kill another player regarless wether or not that player has cargo. In this case, if the player has cargo, it is simply a bonus for the PKer.

The two are seperate entities, please treat them as such.


-------------------------------------------------------------

On a side note:

Celebrim: please go back to the community message board and re-read the statement: BE NICE

That was rather uncalled for.

I dont think that distinction actually exists in the minds of most traders. Traders, like all players of games - play to win the game.

And lets be quite frank: the goal of a trader in a pirate ridden universe is not to make money despite constant piracy, it is to make money in spite of piracy. Thats explained badly. Put it this way - making money, and being taxed, is boring. Pirates that are routinely payed are simply tax collectors. On the other hand, managing to get ones cargo past the pirates - to thumb ones nose at them or perhaps even destroy an incautions pirate who underestimated the cargo pilots skill and intensity of purpose - that is fun.

That is to say, the winning condition for many cargo pilots is met when they either escape, or destroy the attacking pirate.

Merely having ones cargo stolen, or being destroyed are both loosing conditions, just of different magnitutes.

Thus Pirate or PK - the effect is the same - if a pilot is never allowed to "win" any encounters as a trader; they will stop playing the role of a trader, either changing roles within the game or quitting outright.

This forms the basis for my assertion that pirates - and PKs using "piracy" as an excuse - need to have a relativly easy time of their job - so that its not imperative to them that they always succeed. i.e. making pirates hemmorage money with each death will make them bitter, and indisposed to mercy.

At the very least, it would seem fair that 50% of piracy attempts ended with the pirate / potential PK destroyed - or the trader successfully escaping. Now it becomes a game of skill with a playable degree of risk - both players involved have an equal chance to win an encounter to their satisfaction.

Given the turn around time involved in recovering from being destroyed with cargo, and greater monetary (and time) loss sufferend by traders, arguably the game should be balanced such that piracy attempts succeed perhaps only 25% of the time (or fewer).

If all the players in an encounter between pirate and trader feel they have a fair chance to succeed or fail, then players will be compelled to keep playing (the game is fun enough to keep them comming back each month), and compelled to keep playing (i.e. not logging off during a jump).

baad:

What you're discussing is the matter of perspecitive rather than actual fact. Example: if trader "x" percieves pirate "y" to be just pking then that is a matter of perspective. If, however, pirate "y" launches to kill without provoctation, this is the basis of PK. PK, of course means player kill(er/ing/s). In general, RPG based games try avoid PK when it serves no in game purpose or makes rational/logical sense (they often fail miserably too but that's another thread).

The core question for Vendetta really boils down to: will this be an RPG or a FPS "shoot 'em up"?

Taken in context of an RPG style, pirating must serve a purpose beyond simply killing other players. Conversely, FPS style can allow for "pointless" killing as it doesn't need to follow a storyline as tightly (note: there are plenty of exceptions to this, but in general that is the way of things).

Now, back on topic.

er, exactly. What we are dealing with here is how most traders are going to percieve wether they are enjoying the game or not.

As such, I can really only answer for myself, but I can look at how other traders behave and correlate their behaviour with mine. And this has lead me to suspect that a lot of traders have similar win or lose conditions. If I am destroyed, or even simply submit to the demands of a pirate and have my cargo stolen, I feel ive lost. If I destroy the pirate, or even simply manage to escape - I feel Ive won.

At some rate of wins vs losses I can convince myself im having fun, and im not simply paying a monthly subscription to be someone elses victim.

And, when I watch other traders in Vendetta or other similar games with gates linking a network of sectors and 3 player factions *coff* I see them behave in a way consistent with those values.

All of which refers us to the original core question. If Vendetta is not to be an RPG then trade systems should be removed to alieve the perception that this is a game where trading is a core interest to its players. If however, the game is to be an RPG then tighter controls on PK (not pirating) need to be implemented and enforced.

For an RPG style game, Vendetta would need to increase it's economic structure and reduce the amount of accessible weaponry as well as increase the amount of defensive abilities trader and other non-combatant players have.

The over-all point of the "warp thread" is that logging while warping is an exploit. Technically it is and, I suspect, in more updated versions this will be dealt with.

My concern isn't wether or not it is taken out but rather what the alternative is to dying while being chased.

In a RPG, this is a gross abuse of a bug with no "in game" reasoning and in a FPS it is cheating. Either way, the player using this method is in the wrong.

What needs to be delt with however, are ways to combat the need for its use and that can only be done when the core question has been answered.

In an RPG, for example, traders would have a varity of defence systems/weapons that can countermind the availible weapons of attackers. Thus reducing the need to use a bug to escape.

In a FPS traders would simply be reduced to scavangers for scraps of ships they have destroyed and thusly should already have a strong tactical array of weapons for any combat there-by reducing the need to use a cheat.

I don't understand why this is getting so heated. You are not playing the final product. It's a little like standing around a newborn infant and discussing how inadequately prepared it is for going to college and supporting a family. "Look! It can't even walk. Pathetic!"

The game ain't done. Have a liitle faith. The devs are gamers themselves and have 10 years of working (together) in the industry. They have just as much sense, if not more, as anyone else regarding what is good and what blows.

FM: :)

Really, in all new game productions a system has to evolve from its base idea to its final form. This takes much planning, trial and error and, my personal favorite, debate.

I, for one, will debate anyside, anytime, anywhere (and there's a good chance I'll win too ;).

As for the "heat" in these two threads, its (in my guess) due to stagnation. Most players have come to realize what Vendetta CAN do and what it IS doing. At that point, people want change and perceive such change in the form of what they want. This, naturally, isn't always agreable to an opposing side. The "heat" increases as topics come "closer to home". In this case, the topic isn't about a wormhole-loggout issue it's about how each player perceives the intended use of the game. In this thread particularly, we are addressing the core question of "what is Vendetta"?

My simple answer: Teamwork.
Guild, mainly Ray, has established a good system for small groups to communicate and work together: /group
If you are unable to defeat other players in one on one combat then I suggest you use teamwork before saying that the game is unfair. Also why do you state that players are "never allowed to 'win' any encounters as a trader" baadf00d? We all have the same equipment and ships available, the only difference is the person.

Traders trade in Mauds, centaurs, and atlases.

Pirates PK in Valkyries.

They do not have access to the same ship. And you might say: "Trade in a valk then" but the very idea of being forced to trade in a fighter simply because the tradeships are no good for that purpose is absurd.

The very fact that it requires teamwork to take down a pirate's ship since it is so much better than the ships it picks on is also, quite absurd.

My two cents: I think that the game would be funnest if the natural rules of the game were similar to life.

What I mean by that is, it should be rather easy to be a pirate. You can pray on the little traders. But, dare to pray on a corporation of traders or a wealthy freelancing trader, and your butt will get wasted.

This isn't all though.. It should be harder and harder to be a pirate as you get larger.. Meaning, as you try to prey on meaner and meaner traders, the ratio goes the other way. Thus, being the top nasty pirate who everyone fears should be the hardest role in the universe.

Conversely, as a trader, it should suck until you get your little cartel together, and then you get stronger and stronger, until you are large enough that you fear only the top pirates.