the station bandit last night

[Aewarin Jameson]

That's fine. Snuffler could easily have solved most, if not all of the back lash in that situation by putting a post in the Alpha forum

Apart from the fact that Snuffler wishes to remain anonymous I would agree with you. Same deal for myself - I can't post "testing X tonight" as I would have to reveal my in game pilot name which I am not prepared to do. The offshoot then is we live by the consequences of our actions - as you all do - and with there being no hard and fast rules you are therefore free to do what you want, when you want.

<shrug>

 

[Herik]

I arrive late to the party but my message is the same.


You can do what you want, when you want, and how you want, during Alpha.


The Devs themselves in the Alpha forum said there are no rules of engagement, no style or method by which you should play, and if you can break and abuse the game now during alpha so much the better. (Obviously paraphrased)

Whilst this means right now there are going to be some who abuse this fact in my eyes that's fine as FD can learn about behaviour patterns, methods of abuse and work on fixes. They probably are griefing you but that's ok for now.

Yes, that means for now you might be griefed but that's the nature of an Alpha - ticket the experience and let FD know via the correct channel (threads like these serve no purpose) and with enough tickets FD will react in time.

If you are repeatedly killed by individuals come back later - if you can't and wanted to test something post a request on the forum for others to try it for you. In time, with enough tickets and patience things will get better - FD are aware of what goes on (hence their post on the subject) and the more tickets raised on the subject the better the game will be.

Complaining on forums legitimises the griefers actions and tells them they have won.


Respectfully I don't agree. People paid up to gain early access to the game and can do, within the rules set by FD (and not by you) anything they like. All usage of the Alpha, from testing to playing, is valuable to FD and no single method is correct. If people are abusing the mechanics in the game (or lack thereof) then ticket it - don't come on a forum telling others how to use their time in an Alpha as you didn't pay for their access. I agree that griefing is annoying but better now during Alpha (when the process is mainly about concepts and not bugs/balance) than later in Beta / release.

So Liqua the Alpha subs should just forget about regular testing at this time; (because of course they can't), and instead submit tickets to FD about the griefing....Ok.

 

[IAM GROOT]

im not one to really complain,, but this was beyond a joke in my eyes

3 (that I know of) users were guarding the station , and also following you in , I was the one ducking as you all came through the door way,, next thing I know they are blowing the crap out of me ,,

also was hit on the out side going in ,,

now I know you call it testing (B*******ks)

consider the user your shooting up
I have just spent 3 weeks in hospital with my wife in intensive care ,, almost lost her once,, bleed on the brain,, twice

I finally came home , and was trying to catch up on testing , required by FD ...

but every time I tried you guys showed .....

sorry for the rotten post ,, but its like this sort of thing is really getting out of control,,,,

I'm a little late to this post as usual

First I'd like to share in what I'm sure everyone here does in hoping your wife makes a full recovery as soon as possible, hospital visits to the ICU are not pleasant and place a huge strain on people.
All the best wishes to your wife and you.

 

[IAM GROOT]

Apart from the fact that Snuffler wishes to remain anonymous I would agree with you. Same deal for myself - I can't post "testing X tonight" as I would have to reveal my in game pilot name which I am not prepared to do. The offshoot then is we live by the consequences of our actions - as you all do - and with there being no hard and fast rules you are therefore free to do what you want, when you want.

<shrug>

I noted after going through 72 pages of introduce yourself on PBF that there is a forum member Wokawidget who stated his Commander name would be Cmdr Snuffles, could this be Snuffler now???

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

So Liqua the Alpha subs should just forget about regular testing at this time; (because of course they can't), and instead submit tickets to FD about the griefing....Ok.

And you think griefing will happen 24/7 ?

Irrespective of your obviously obtuse comment, people can do as they please as there are no hard and fast rules. If your client crashes - report it; if things dont work as expected (you know - concepts) - report it; if people grief you in ways you didn't already know / expect - report it ... Playing the Alpha as if it was the final game is also testing.

There are no rules / check lists / spreadsheets to fill (from FD) as they haven't provided any guidance other than "go play".

 

[Adept]

Reputations and impressions matter, and David has suggested rather clearly that persistent griefers will be automatically dealt with by limiting their interaction with the rest of the playerbase. I recommend the "I am entitled" crowd make use of this early opportunity and learn a little courtesy before the penalties are in place.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

I recommend the "I am entitled" crowd make use of this early opportunity and learn a little courtesy before the penalties are in place.

Courtesy has nothing to do with it.

Right now abuse the hell out of EDas it's probably the only time you're going to be able to - be a nuisance, be annoying, do anything and everything you can think of to try and break ED, as it's through these people and actions that ED going forward will be a better game for it.

Reputations and impressions matter, and David has suggested rather clearly that persistent griefers will be automatically dealt with by limiting their interaction with the rest of the playerbase.

yes - come Gamma / release that will be the case, but right now all bets are off.

Personally I want people to be a pain in the rear now so that once all the pieces are in place the system should weed out the annoying people and deal with them accordingly. By breaking it now players may find new ways of abusing ED which the Devs didn't think of - if this is done in Beta / Gamma that could damage the game as a whole whereas right now it annoys a small subset of people who should realise "this is Alpha" and therefore anything (as per the Devs) goes.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

As much as I loath the general notion of deliberately being an idiot and griefing in any way shape or form, Liqua makes a v good point.

the more annoying you are now, it does kind of make the point that things have to be tightened up. Not saying I agree..... but it is a good point

 

[Olrik]

You can do what you want, when you want, and how you want, during Alpha.

The Devs themselves in the Alpha forum said there are no rules of engagement...

Indeed.

Firstly, everything that a player can do currently, and get away with, is technically fair game

Last edited by Sandro Sammarco; 28/03/2014 at 10:45 AM.

Well, I hate griefers.
Following that line of reasoning, let´s ruin the alfa.
(In my humble opinion, Free for All is the right place for PvP)

-----

now players may find new ways of abusing ED which the Devs didn't think of

Abusing ED yes, but it´s not ok to abuse other gamers.

 

[Herik]

And you think griefing will happen 24/7 ?

Irrespective of your obviously obtuse comment, people can do as they please as there are no hard and fast rules. If your client crashes - report it; if things dont work as expected (you know - concepts) - report it; if people grief you in ways you didn't already know / expect - report it ... Playing the Alpha as if it was the final game is also testing.

There are no rules / check lists / spreadsheets to fill (from FD) as they haven't provided any guidance other than "go play".

Depends on the number of (new Alpha testers?) are really testers. If I'm to believe, based on some comments on this forum that there are many more griefers in MMO's than most believe; Its likely most testers will be concentrating their attention over there shoulders. Good luck with testing in that case.

 

[Olrik]

Liqua

if people grief you in ways you didn't already know / expect

Enlighten us on this point.Would you care to elaborate? I only know one way- the usual way.

------

In my opinion, you should observe some basic rules of etiquette- even in alfa.
People tend to forget that while this is an alfa, it is beeing played with other people. An alfa is not a pertinent excuse for griefing= "I kill for fun"

 

[Herik]

As much as I loath the general notion of deliberately being an idiot and griefing in any way shape or form, Liqua makes a v good point.

the more annoying you are now, it does kind of make the point that things have to be tightened up. Not saying I agree..... but it is a good point

Yes Mad Mike; Liqua makes a good point....Griefing as stupid and barbaric as it is, is a major issue occurence. And our rage at this behavior is legitimate. Also any of you who are true Alpha testers, must see the threat to you actively doing your job either in Alphas or the up coming Betas.

 

[PacalB]

Courtesy has nothing to do with it.

Right now abuse the hell out of EDas it's probably the only time you're going to be able to - be a nuisance, be annoying, do anything and everything you can think of to try and break ED, as it's through these people and actions that ED going forward will be a better game for it.


yes - come Gamma / release that will be the case, but right now all bets are off.

Personally I want people to be a pain in the rear now so that once all the pieces are in place the system should weed out the annoying people and deal with them accordingly. By breaking it now players may find new ways of abusing ED which the Devs didn't think of - if this is done in Beta / Gamma that could damage the game as a whole whereas right now it annoys a small subset of people who should realise "this is Alpha" and therefore anything (as per the Devs) goes.

I can see where you are coming from with these points Liqua, but I see it as a bit heartless towards the newer Alpha peeps that have joined. Alpha in its early day was nowhere near as hostile as it is currently. Those that were first in got the head start, got their Cobra's, mods, money, bells and whistles in place. These later alphas who have joined (who are still joining) are seeking to get the experience the older lot have had. They are not getting it.

You see, characters that have this anything goes attitude like you are suggesting are in fact destroying the experience for the younger Alpha peoples here. The younger lot are not getting a chance to play it, test it, whatever without hitting a wall of frustration that is not entirely their fault. It's all very well saying; "they can play at different times", but people work in times zones that mostly match up and log on when the masses are around.

Surely you can see that, yes? Show a bit a empathy there Liqua.

 

[Olrik]

Surely you can see that, yes?

Possible but improbable.

. Those that were first in got the head start, got their Cobra's, mods, money, bells and whistles in place.

Cheating/testing/retesting/retesting/retesting and..."retesting" the game... there are some exceptions, obviously.

 

[Bewilderbeest]

Yes Mad Mike; Liqua makes a good point....Griefing as stupid and barbaric as it is, is a major issue occurence. And our rage at this behavior is legitimate. Also any of you who are true Alpha testers, must see the threat to you actively doing your job either in Alphas or the up coming Betas.

First of all I wish Noctivagus' wife a speedy recovery, and I can 100% sympathise with his situation being a rotten one at the particular moment in time being discussed here.

I agree that the rage in this thread is legitimate, but I think it's unfair to entirely lay the blame at the feet of those responsible for this fairly isolated incident. A successful Alpha should have many different types of people pushing the edges of what's built in all kinds of places, including those of player interaction.

There's a fascinating video of David Braben talking at an financial investor meeting in Cambridge from last month. In it he talks about the ambitions to scale Elite Dangerous up over time, and one of his reference points is World of Tanks (at around 14:35).

Their desired growth for the game in year three is somewhere between 8x and 40x the size of the first. That is a HUGE scaling job! Not only with networking and servers, but also sheer amount of conflict and griefing that playerbase will generate, and the number of customer support and GM types that will be needed.

In the video he also talks a lot about the Alpha process being hugely beneficial in making early course corrections to the development. This open process catches issues early and can rectify them in a much more nimble way than the more traditional closed model.

This thread suggest that the scale of the Alpha is perhaps larger than intended, or that Frontier underestimated the priority they need to give griefing mitigation strategies. Stating that every Alpha tester should keep abreast of these known issues and avoid replicating them simply doesn't scale, and it's a good thing that we've identified this early! We're all in this thread because we care deeply about the game being an ongoing success, but the upshot shouldn't be some sort of witch hunt.

The biggest take away from this whole business is for Frontier who can figure out at what point a small and well-ordered community starts finding its natural limits, and where conflict starts being generated. Have any of you seen or read Stephen King's "Under the Dome" ? We need to help Frontier develop tools that will scale the game and keep everyone within it happy, and that hopefully includes better lists of known issues and rules around what is and isn't classed as griefing.

 

[Olrik]

this fairly isolated incident.

It´s not an isolated incident. Search previous threads and posts.

...Frontier underestimated the priority they need to give griefing mitigation strategies.

That´s my opinion.

 

[Memnoch]

Well, I hate griefers.
Following that line of reasoning, let´s ruin the alfa.
(In my humble opinion, Free for All is the right place for PvP)
Abusing ED yes, but it´s not ok to abuse other gamers.

I agree with you that it is annoying. But let's look at two possible outcomes here:

1. Players continue to grief during the Alpha and Beta. These incidents are reported to the devs. who then analyse the reports and look at ways of mitigating this behaviour through gameplay mechanics so that it is self policing and fair to all parties.

or

2. Everyone stops griefing or it doesn't get reported. Game development continues and new features are added. Come release time for some inexplicable reason everyone starts griefing again. But the developers have not had the chance to consider these situations and incidents and now have to play catch-up with the griefers so they can implement gameplay changes to deal with these cases in a fair manner.

Which would you prefer? Fix it now or later?

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

If I'm to believe, based on some comments on this forum that there are many more griefers in MMO's than most believe:

Like many others I have been playing online games for years and personally I have been subjected to very few incidents - yes, depends on the nature of the game and your own tolerance levels but on the whole it's no where near as bad as people thing.

That said it does happen.

In my opinion, you should observe some basic rules of etiquette- even in alfa.
People tend to forget that while this is an alfa, it is beeing played with other people. An alfa is not a pertinent excuse for griefing= "I kill for fun"

Pet hate - it's Alpha, not Alfa .. But I guess it depends where you're from so no offence meant.

You are correct in that people SHOULD observe some basic etiquette but it's not a requirement. (Not yet at any rate) It should be noted however that the discouragement for murder is rather poor right now. As a pirate if I murder you I get a 400 credit bounty on my head and the response is pants from the authorities. This needs correcting but unless FD hot fix that backend (server update not client) I will keep ensuring that I can get away with it in Alpha until the response seems fair.

Yes Mad Mike; Liqua makes a good point....Griefing as stupid and barbaric as it is, is a major issue occurence. And our rage at this behavior is legitimate. Also any of you who are true Alpha testers, must see the threat to you actively doing your job either in Alphas or the up coming Betas.

See above - I agree it's stupid (dumb people do dumb things) so try to act dumb to ensure FD fix this in the future. Griefing as I said does not happen as often as you think so there's always time to test things whilst dodging people

Surely you can see that, yes? Show a bit a empathy there Liqua.

Nope - the more people who join and feel first hand others griefing them (which again is not 24/7 nor as often as people claim or think) and the more they ticket FD about it the quicker FD will fix it. If all you do is moan on a thread FD are not guaranteed to see nor react to it.

Also I would prefer people experience at the start the raw ugliness of what could be and work upwards - online can (rarely) be a miserable place with people people brutes ... It's rare as I said for someone to truly experience extreme situations so let's get the bar open with no standard set and work with FD to raise it as high as possible.

First of all I wish Noctivagus' wife a speedy recovery, and I can 100% sympathise with his situation being a rotten one at the particular moment in time being discussed here.

I agree that the rage in this thread is legitimate, but I think it's unfair to entirely lay the blame at the feet of those responsible for this fairly isolated incident. A successful Alpha should have many different types of people pushing the edges of what's built in all kinds of places, including those of player interaction.

There's a fascinating video of David Braben talking at an financial investor meeting in Cambridge from last month. In it he talks about the ambitions to scale Elite Dangerous up over time, and one of his reference points is World of Tanks (at around 14:35).

Their desired growth for the game in year three is somewhere between 8x and 40x the size of the first. That is a HUGE scaling job! Not only with networking and servers, but also sheer amount of conflict and griefing that playerbase will generate, and the number of customer support and GM types that will be needed.

In the video he also talks a lot about the Alpha process being hugely beneficial in making early course corrections to the development. This open process catches issues early and can rectify them in a much more nimble way than the more traditional closed model.

This thread suggest that the scale of the Alpha is perhaps larger than intended, or that Frontier underestimated the priority they need to give griefing mitigation strategies. Stating that every Alpha tester should keep abreast of these known issues and avoid replicating them simply doesn't scale, and it's a good thing that we've identified this early! We're all in this thread because we care deeply about the game being an ongoing success, but the upshot shouldn't be some sort of witch hunt.

The biggest take away from this whole business is for Frontier who can figure out at what point a small and well-ordered community starts finding its natural limits, and where conflict starts being generated. Have any of you seen or read Stephen King's "Under the Dome" ? We need to help Frontier develop tools that will scale the game and keep everyone within it happy, and that hopefully includes better lists of known issues and rules around what is and isn't classed as griefing.

Good points

 

[Cosmos]

I'm just so disappointed and frustrated to constantly hear people complaining about perceived griefing. I've played Alpha since the first day and I have never been 'griefed'. What this does seem to reveal is that people take this sort of thing way too seriously and are looking at it the wrong way. Given the demographic of many backers here I find the reaction to be quite startling.

I don't want to be overly confrontational, but its a game, why are you getting upset about it? Alpha testing is exactly that, when we also consider that in the full game there are a multitude of ways to avoid other people - even to the extreme of setting yourself up to play so you'll never see another player I can't help but think people have become so hysterical about having their ship blown up that it borders on being juvenile.

I fear this endless moaning and calling individuals out on the forums is going to result in the developers completely sanitising the game further than it already will be. Its Elite Dangerous, not Elite Stawberry Shortcake Land.

Come on..

 

[Lobottomie]

Your comments are confusing. The OP was trying to test the game, but got grief instead. You seem to be for testing and griefing, but they don't go together. Certainly didn't for the OP.

You are assuming wrong. And because grieving is the emotional result of in this case a tester undergoing an action done by someone he assumes not to be testing then yes it can be occurring together.

There are those that requested, almost demanded, to be left alone. That they are allowed to experience the alpha as they would like. They are so 'mindset' on themselves that this mindset will encourage them to feel wronged/grieved. It will most likely hamper their reasoning on what happened to them. There are still bugs found and investigated. Not just because everyone is testing 'nicely' in the current instances.

According to the DDF there will be certain game mechanics developed that will reduce or prevent for each player preference individually the chance to be 'grieved'. And during development i will test each one of them.

I sympathize with the OP about him having a rough time and hope his wife will get better soon. I really do.