The New Guilds and Player Owned Stations Discussion Thread.

[Cmdr Corran Antilles]

So you want to commandeer a mode and take it from others? Nice...

...even if I was fine with that, it would be a concern to me if I was having to dock at player owned stations - that would rip me right out of my immersion. Unless you're saying that solo and open modes become completely separate, with separate background simulations etc? Frontier have stated, in no uncertain terms, that will never happen. So if that's your ultimate request you might as well ask them to send you a new Lotus while you're at it.

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One of the powers is run by a man called Zachary Hudson, a militaristic general who believes that might makes right and grew up in the Federation. That works in Elite.

A guild might be led by "teh v!4gr4 lol!!", leader of the strawberry pies of menace, who have a station called "roxxorz_my_boxxorz".

If that becomes a part of this game then I'll uninstall it so fast I'll probably set a new world record.

EDIT: Furthermore, if guilds aren't that different as you say then there is no need to waste developer time implimenting them is there? Let them just play powerplay.

Why would player stations rip you out of immersion? You can't really say because no one has considered how they would be implemented. Might not allow players to name the station...might require a very strict naming policy...who knows. I am pretty sure your concerns can be addressed. We could come up with a concensus that would satisfy people's concerns. But only if they are discusses rather than just saying no never.

 

[FuzzySpider]

Why would player stations rip you out of immersion? You can't really say because no one has considered how they would be implemented.

What if the station owners won't let me land?

I can't land at a station in the Elite universe, not because I've done something to annoy a faction, not because I've run foul of the Federation/Empire/Alliance, not because I'm carrying illegal goods...

...but because some guy in Nuneaton won't let me unless I go and sign up at his website and join his clan.

If you don't allow players to control "their" stations by setting docking limits etc then there is no point, and you might as well just "adopt" a local faction and call them yours.

 

[Cmdr Corran Antilles]

I have a question for those who desire a monetary perk coupled with a player owned station. 10% cut from profits, 10% discount on something.

Wasn't the whole idea a more ideological one? If players owned things they'd be more engaged in the whole process? If you start including: gimme the monies, that would detract from the ideological argument. Then the perceived motivator becomes greed. So my advice to guild proponents is to focus on the aspect of being more engaged.

edit: And I feel that a larger percentage than is represented in the poll is in favour of: Guilds but no limited player-owned stations, going by earlier discussions in other threads. It sure as heck felt like more than 10% desired this option.

I don't necessarily want money from a station. It is a tool that would prevent the just shooting people who come to your clubhouse mentality....I have no idea how to implement stations to satisfy everyone's wants. Just getting people to accept the concept of better communication tools is like pulling teeth.

 

[Robert Maynard]

If you don't allow players to control "their" stations by setting docking limits etc then there is no point, and you might as well just "adopt" a local faction and call them yours.

Adopting a local faction seems to be what we're going to get - the latest Dev Update makes mention of player sponsored minor factions and that they might in some way be able to be promoted to Powers.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I don't necessarily want money from a station. It is a tool that would prevent the just shooting people who come to your clubhouse mentality....I have no idea how to implement stations to satisfy everyone's wants. Just getting people to accept the concept of better communication tools is like pulling teeth.

The easiest way to (probably) alleviate the concerns of those who do not want Guilds to be added to the game (this late in the development) would be to request that, in addition to Guilds, a new game mode is added that Guilds and all their features are restricted to, thereby ensuring that all players who currently enjoy the Open mode (but don't want Guilds) can continue to play in Open mode unaffected by Guilds....

 

[Cmdr Corran Antilles]

What if the station owners won't let me land?

I can't land at a station in the Elite universe, not because I've done something to annoy a faction, not because I've run foul of the Federation/Empire/Alliance, not because I'm carrying illegal goods...

...but because some guy in Nuneaton won't let me unless I go and sign up at his website and join his clan.

If you don't allow players to control "their" stations by setting docking limits etc then there is no point, and you might as well just "adopt" a local faction and call them yours.

Make the design such that more traffic is better. Make it in a guilds interest to get as much traffic as possible. Just like in the real world more commerce is better for a city. Trading with others is good. Implement that in game and guilds will want more traffic. If you get profit from outfitting people make the outfitting module upgradable if you can provide more options people will flock to your station. Getting the guild profit. Which would cause most guilds to want to make travel in their system safe. Ie killing wanted and pirates.

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The easiest way to (probably) alleviate the concerns of those who do not want Guilds to be added to the game (this late in the development) would be to request that, in addition to Guilds, a new game mode is added that Guilds and all their features are restricted to, thereby ensuring that all players who currently enjoy the Open mode (but don't want Guilds) can continue to play in Open mode unaffected by Guilds....

Mostly the concert I have seen deal with pvp. So fix those issues. Make pvp actions have consequences.

 

[FuzzySpider]

Make the design such that more traffic is better. Make it in a guilds interest to get as much traffic as possible. Just like in the real world more commerce is better for a city. Trading with others is good.

But fake Elite CR is nowhere near as important as ego and self-esteem, particularly to people who "live" online.

You would inevitably get players owning stations that they'd only let their guild/clan members dock at. You'd even get guilds shooting up ships that they don't recognize because "this place is ours lololol!". Look at what was going on at Leesti with the rammers, then actually add in game support for that! Particularly if someone arrives low on fuel.

Sorry, but this is a terrible idea.

 

[Mohrgan]

I don't necessarily want money from a station. It is a tool that would prevent the just shooting people who come to your clubhouse mentality....I have no idea how to implement stations to satisfy everyone's wants. Just getting people to accept the concept of better communication tools is like pulling teeth.

There you go again. You are putting energy into guild owned stations with one hand. Then you make a wild statement about just wanting better Comm's. It's all over the place. I've said many times: Comm's = Good, Stations = Bad. I've seen many posters here accepting better COmm's. That could be an easy win, but the next thing you know it's all about stations again. It sounds like you may be able to back factions. Let's just see what FD has. Maybe you can adopt a station as a home. But, a Group wouldn't own it.

 

[M00ka]

Make the design such that more traffic is better. Make it in a guilds interest to get as much traffic as possible. Just like in the real world more commerce is better for a city. Trading with others is good. Implement that in game and guilds will want more traffic. If you get profit from outfitting people make the outfitting module upgradable if you can provide more options people will flock to your station. Getting the guild profit. Which would cause most guilds to want to make travel in their system safe. Ie killing wanted and pirates.

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So why couldn't a guild decide to charge all non-guild commanders a landing fee, that is what happens in the real world.
And now you are talking about the ability to transfer funds, for a guild to have a separate financial account whereas now, all accounts are purely and solely individual - there isn't even a mechanism to transfer credits between players, it has been asked for numerous times and been subsequently rejected by FD numerous times.

Mostly the concert I have seen deal with pvp. So fix those issues. Make pvp actions have consequences.

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Since a guild would be acting as a collective, I agree, make any transgressions, not just PVP, liable to both the Commander committing those infractions and the Guild he is a member of. And set a limit, if a guild, on a whole, reach a certain limit of fines, then all those guild members are reset, they lose all their credits, they lose all their ships - they start back at the beginning. Make it a requirement of creation of the guild that they understand and accept those conditions.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Just getting people to accept the concept of better communication tools is like pulling teeth.

I am Ziggy and I accept the concept of better communication tools.

Communication tools are callcenter agents right?

 

[Crazy Jedi]

The easiest way to (probably) alleviate the concerns of those who do not want Guilds to be added to the game (this late in the development) would be to request that, in addition to Guilds, a new game mode is added that Guilds and all their features are restricted to, thereby ensuring that all players who currently enjoy the Open mode (but don't want Guilds) can continue to play in Open mode unaffected by Guilds....

How many times has one of us repeated this?

This solves the problem doesn't it?

The only questions left is, why would any body (pro-guild or Anti-guild) be against this idea and why?:S

 

[Commander Debic]

You fix this by making actions have real consequences. The wild west was ended by the telegraph. So if you get a wanted status and you do more bad actions that status should start speading to neighboring systems. And potentially faction wide. Get a high enough bounty and stations should start refusing docking requests. Piracy was ended in the carribean by destroying their land havens. Denying pirates docking privileges does this. Pro piracy powers are a haven for these people. But they would be herded to those systems. Just like in the real world.

Your poll which you wanted has already given you your answer so there is no need for any more discussion OP, especially when you keep telling those who disagree with you to go play solo and call others Jerks. Perhaps you should take your own advice until you can learn to interact with others in a polite way instead of directing hostility towards them that will just increase hostility towards you.
My own view is after six years in Eve and watching how the Devs, who were once against suicide ganking, and were originally going to include ways to treat this as griefing, then did a 180 degree turn, as more and more of them joined the big alliances like Test, AAA and Goon Squad. That of course is where the small original corps ended up, and Eve also had similar ideas to yours in their distant past as regards small corps and some forms of cooperative play. Cooperative play went out the window gankfests and suicide ganking came in, and Eve became what it is today. It suits some people and good luck to them, but it seems it set a pattern to any developer who makes a similar game and tries to instigate some form of open group play.
I have played War Thunder and GTA online and had a lot of fun doing so, knowing I will be attacked by groups of players. I have gone into Battle grounds in WoW knowing the same thing. Now in Elite we are going to have CQC, again a place where free for all PVP can happen. Those are all expected scenarios where I can choose to participate if I want to. Eve and its associated group form of game play does not allow that so I choose not to play that game. Elite, if it follows your wishes will go the way of Eve, and you already have a number of players in ED who are Goonies and Test and would possibly love to see some form of that group play of Eves introduced. I, and I think a large number of that 55% who voted no in your poll, would probably go elsewhere and leave you to your group owned game and find other ways to entertain ourselves.
I exist in Elite Dangerous in the largest group already, we are though a cooperative group and have strict rules when it comes to PVP. We have not found it necessary to form some sort of guild or own stations. While I would agree with better group tools to handle teaming up with and enjoying our group the rest of your suggestion just opens some very nasty doors.

 

[M00ka]

Your poll which you wanted has already given you your answer so there is no need for any more discussion OP, especially when you keep telling those who disagree with you to go play solo and call others Jerks. Perhaps you should take your own advice until you can learn to interact with others in a polite way instead of directing hostility towards them that will just increase hostility towards you.
My own view is after six years in Eve and watching how the Devs, who were once against suicide ganking, and were originally going to include ways to treat this as griefing, then did a 180 degree turn, as more and more of them joined the big alliances like Test, AAA and Goon Squad. That of course is where the small original corps ended up, and Eve also had similar ideas to yours in their distant past as regards small corps and some forms of cooperative play. Cooperative play went out the window gankfests and suicide ganking came in, and Eve became what it is today. It suits some people and good luck to them, but it seems it set a pattern to any developer who makes a similar game and tries to instigate some form of open group play.
I have played War Thunder and GTA online and had a lot of fun doing so, knowing I will be attacked by groups of players. I have gone into Battle grounds in WoW knowing the same thing. Now in Elite we are going to have CQC, again a place where free for all PVP can happen. Those are all expected scenarios where I can choose to participate if I want to. Eve and its associated group form of game play does not allow that so I choose not to play that game. Elite, if it follows your wishes will go the way of Eve, and you already have a number of players in ED who are Goonies and Test and would possibly love to see some form of that group play of Eves introduced. I, and I think a large number of that 55% who voted no in your poll, would probably go elsewhere and leave you to your group owned game and find other ways to entertain ourselves.
I exist in Elite Dangerous in the largest group already, we are though a cooperative group and have strict rules when it comes to PVP. We have not found it necessary to form some sort of guild or own stations. While I would agree with better group tools to handle teaming up with and enjoying our group the rest of your suggestion just opens some very nasty doors.

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Well said - REP to you sir. Unfortunately I think your effort will fall on deaf ears, more is the pity because yours is the voice of reason and experience.

 

[BurnyBurns]

Pro-guild guys. Let's see if we can get some consensus from you as to what exactly you want and why.
[...]
1) What exactly do you want?
[...]
2) Why do you want it?
[...]

1) What exactly do you want?

I'll shamelessly repost what I imagined a possible guild/"station control" system could be like. As for station control, one could possible also let single players do this:

• Introduce guilds (Edit: "Groups" or whatever they would be called). Players will probably identify with a human-formed group more than they will ever with an NPC(, edit: even if the group has no other feature, than giving the player a tag and letting group players communicate with each other).
  • Communication options within guilds are a must of course. Chat, forum, whatever is necessary to organize Wings in the short term and strategies in the long term.
  • Guild logos, guild homepage for representation, viewable from within the game.
  • Guild logo as decal for ships. Players should be identifiable as guild members.
  • Guilds could be aligned to a Powerplay power or another major/minor power - with varying passive benefits, if that additional complexity is desired.
  • Guilds have storage (see guild stations) of ingame wares and a guild bank account. Control over those should be grantable to a member with treasurer privileges.
• Keep the jurisdiction under control by the game. The game will decide which players receive bounties, just as it does now. (Edit: Also, the game will decide which player can access an area)
• Introduce a system for guilds (Edit: Or single players as well) to "take control" of stations. Stations are the only player accessible human reference points in the game at this point and therefore pretty much the only point to show that players are having lasting influence on the game world.
  • Control changes are clocked in realtime ticks, e.g. one week apart, as in powerplay.
  • Control: Stations are held by a NPC power until a guild takes over. Having control means gaining a fixed tax for every transaction in that station. Ship sales, players buying goods, the taxes for all transactions are added to the guild account.
  • Guild players can receive discounts on ship sales in the stations. The guild's logo is displayed at the station, and it is declared as belonging to the guild. It also belongs to any (sub-)factions to which the guild belongs.
  • Taking control: Could be realized with instanced and scored group battles between guilds over the span of one tick, by the end of which the scores are compared and the faction with most points is granted control over the station. Indirect actions are also imaginable, e.g. providing a starving station with food supplies. Could also be a combination of the two.
  • As jurisdiction and execution of which are still controlled by the game, guild players with a bounty in the system will be attacked by security just as any other player.
  • Stations have maintenance cost, and require food/resource supplies according to the system they're in per tick. The guild has to provide the station with the goods by hauling them there and the cost is taken from the guild's bank account at the end of the tick.
  • If the guild failed to provide the station with the upkeep cost and/or couldn't pay the maintenance cost at the end of the tick and no other guild made a takeover attempt, it loses control of the station to the minor/major power to which the guild is aligned (or to the most influential NPC power in that system?).
• Options to develop stations, build certain ship according to development tier, produce certain non-basic goods...
• ... (this could be extended almost endlessly)

This is inclomplete and doesn't touch how exactly players or groups could take control of stations and a million other things. But it should give a general idea of what such a system could look like.


2) Why do you want it?

See the rest of my overly lengthy post in the previous guild thread.

Short summary:
I believe ED's galaxy needs emergent content, because it's giving me the impression of a semi-static "look, but don't touch" kind of backdrop. IMO emergent content will most effectively be spawned from players or player groups, if they are allowed to have a more direct influence on the galaxy. The possible extension of that influence is practically limited to the only currently accessible ingame human reference points - stations. Oh, and yes: Emergent content also means guilds/players fighting over station control, but also possibly having to supply stations with ressources to keep them from being abandoned. The game is instanced and has both a group- and solo-mode. If station control is carefully implemented (again, jurisdiction and access control should be always controlled by the game), this could imo add a lot to the "things to do" in Elite.

Also: Single players can currently play the game as a single player game, whether in single player, group or open mode. Not providing players with group features, that is: communcation options within player groups and some form of ingame identification, is a bit like giving those people who'd like to play in groups the middle finger.

 

[Commander Debic]

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Well said - REP to you sir. Unfortunately I think your effort will fall on deaf ears, more is the pity because yours is the voice of reason and experience.

I expect nothing more as it is sadly human nature to attack those who try to put forward reasoned argument against their own ideas, and thanks for the Rep.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Ahem ...

lol. indeed the hypocrisy is strong with that one

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By the way maybe you guys haven't noticed...but there are already guilds in the game. You have noticed you can join a group right? All we are asking for is for them to give us some communication tools to go with something that is already in the game.

seriously.... that is all the collective "you" are asking for? No it isnt!. I have no issue with better comms but better comms are not the same as guilds and guild content and maybe that is not what you personally want but it is certainly what a great many who voted and voiced themselves in this thread want.

 

[jabokai]

Without reddit? The players that use the Elite subreddit are just as much part of the community as you are. Heck, the post that spawned this poll came from reddit. Elite's newsletters use images and content that come from reddit. Frontier Support reply in reddit threads...

They're a part of the Elite community. They're a part of the Elite Reddit community. They're not a part of the Frontier forum Elite community, unless they interact here too. The rest are gatecrashers! As you say - the Reddit community has Frontier representation there so they can make their points and polls, and be heard there. I'm not saying people from Reddit aren't welcome; the more the merrier, but be a part of the community - post, make your points, join in discussions - don't just come in like a plague of locusts, and leaf!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Groups are basically guilds by another name.

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seriously? so you honestly believe the majority in this thread would be happy if FD made better chat tools in private groups and that is that? if so you will get no argument from me, after all I already am a member of Mobius so by your definition I am already in a guild.... however....... we have already seen in this thread, better comms in a private group is NOT what most of the guild people want.

hell if it is, then there is a massive missunderstanding here as I have no issue with that at all.

if "better comms in private group" was an option I would have voted for it myself!.

 

[jabokai]

<snip>

So how about Robert's suggestion of a new Open-Guild mode then? So current Open is unaffected but all you guildies would be in a new Open mode with all the other guilds - would that work for you?

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

but he can't see the keyboard remember, he has an oculus!

sorry. Not aimed at you mooka but.... just to be a total prat of a pedant.... Its a Rift... or an Oculus Rift.

you do not call a PS4 a "Sony"

(PS I too use a rift, a great device and can make chatting in the game a bit of a pita!) but better chat is NOT guild support.