I think the Frontier can datamine it just as well as their normal anti-griefer statistics. A person using out-of-game tools to target players who have their ident transponders off will have a clear pattern showing. It will be quite enough for warnings, timeouts and an eventual ban if they don't listen.
Elite Babysitter...
- Thread starter JeffRyan
- Start date
I think the Frontier can datamine it just as well as their normal anti-griefer statistics. A person using out-of-game tools to target players who have their ident transponders off will have a clear pattern showing. It will be quite enough for warnings, timeouts and an eventual ban if they don't listen.
'Cause A Pirate Is Free...
I really hope Frontier don't take away my human loot piñatas, they are almost always the best kind of target. A lakon making an exceedingly ill advised trade run, stacked to the gills with high value cargo in my Anarchic system? Oh yes please!
NPCs may be 'stupid' but there's nothing quite as devoid of sense as a greedy human being trying to get rich quick. For me and whatever crew I might be running with, they are our bread and butter. Sidewinders, Cobras? Target practise mostly, gotta keep your hand in, stay sharp right? Otherwise, barely worth the effort really. Plus there's the hate-mail, (hate-mail = best-mail!) Sometimes a good hate-mail makes the difference between a good day and a bad day. Hell, sometimes you get the two birds with one stone so to speak, epic loots and awe inspiring tirades of vitriol.
Yeah sometimes you feel kind of bad for your victims and occasionally attempt to offer advice on how to best avoid these kinds of predations. It's not often received well and sometimes upsets the poor blighters even more. Other times I may feel generous and allow you to take part in the cargo karaoke, hop on comms and sing us a song and I'll probably stop shooting you for a while.
At the end of the day though, I'll be happy playing whatever game Frontier make, my only demand is that they make the game they want to make and screw what the rest of us say.
I really hope Frontier don't take away my human loot piñatas, they are almost always the best kind of target. A lakon making an exceedingly ill advised trade run, stacked to the gills with high value cargo in my Anarchic system? Oh yes please!
NPCs may be 'stupid' but there's nothing quite as devoid of sense as a greedy human being trying to get rich quick. For me and whatever crew I might be running with, they are our bread and butter. Sidewinders, Cobras? Target practise mostly, gotta keep your hand in, stay sharp right? Otherwise, barely worth the effort really. Plus there's the hate-mail, (hate-mail = best-mail!) Sometimes a good hate-mail makes the difference between a good day and a bad day. Hell, sometimes you get the two birds with one stone so to speak, epic loots and awe inspiring tirades of vitriol.
Yeah sometimes you feel kind of bad for your victims and occasionally attempt to offer advice on how to best avoid these kinds of predations. It's not often received well and sometimes upsets the poor blighters even more. Other times I may feel generous and allow you to take part in the cargo karaoke, hop on comms and sing us a song and I'll probably stop shooting you for a while.
At the end of the day though, I'll be happy playing whatever game Frontier make, my only demand is that they make the game they want to make and screw what the rest of us say.
That's been my hope since day 1.
'nuff said
Not that I wouldn't agree, IF FD would do anything like that, but with all the stuff I read here that has been said by "your side", it's pretty evident that "you" don't know what kind of game ED will be... I read talk about risk free PvE, traders that can become rich totally devoid of any danger, how the game will become easy mode/carebear without open PvP, etc. Basically all the stuff the EVE forums have been buzzing with the last 8+ years... and people that know nothing about ED come here and read that stuff.
Problem is: It is all wrong!
ED is NO PvP centered game, it's a combat/trading/exploration space adventure that HAPPENS to have an online mode, so most of the "concearns" people are milling over here are non issues... always have been.
But yea, as I said... discussion = moot.
Best post in this rather tiresome discussion so far.
That famous Henry Ford quote comes to mind: "If I asked people what they wanted the most, they would have asked for a better horse." Sometimes asking for and following player feedback is the worst thing a developer can do.
Yes the teams of Frontier and their leaders are great professionals and they know what to do to have a balanced game and that satisfies the largest number. But they also listen to the opinions of players, otherwise they would not have created the DDF
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This is an interesting suggestion. As a general rule I really hate deliberate ramming.... That being said, hypothetically.
I am a clean pilot, either without any cargo at all and am attacked, or on the other hand, possibly I was attacked, so dumped my cargo........
However the person attacking me decides it will be fun to kill me anyway.
I am about to die, so think screw it, I never asked for this, I have no cargo any more and have no bounty so there is no reason for you to be killing me, so I hit ramming speed and take the attacker with me.
who would be the person at fault in your analogy then be, me (the initial victim), or the killer who I took down with me?
(serious question..... in a normal vs game where the point is to battle to the death I believe ramming is never a good thing, but in this instance, I am not so sure).
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It won't work. All they need to do is attack a few NPCs as well. As I said, it'll just be circumstantial evidence, not enough to ban someone unless the oversight is completely over the top.
I remember back in the day, some games refused to run if certain apps were installed on your PC (anydvd was one of them iirc)
could FD not implement a similar thing.
Yes, I know it is cat and mouse and the app "network sniffer" could constantly be being updated so as to not be detected by the game, however, the very 1st time the EXE notices "network sniffer" running, it would disconnect the person who is running it with a warning. Their account would then be flagged (not insta ban in this case because maybe the person genuinely didnt consider it cheating).
Imagine network sniffer was then updated to 2.0 and ED no longer picked up on it, so, the intrepid cheater goes back online.
sure maybe for a few days or a week he is fine, but then a silent back end update to ED is patched in and network sniffer 2.0 is detected.
That person then gets account permbanned from the game, either from the network completely, or put into a badboy shard full of all sorts of cheaters etc.
I think you act against someone if they use a tool that tries to interfere with the network comms, but I doubt it would work for people simply monitoring their own network comms. That would be excessive and an intrusion I would guess. Plus there are too many ways around this these days (run it on another PC (or tablet/phone), run it in a VM - where no ED client is running.)
Anyway, I do think the majority of people cheating in that way will be doing so to win fights and not just to grief... but i was just making a point. Using a sniffer to detect PCs will be a fairly easy and "light" cheat.
good point I never thought about other devices.
in which case, despite it being a good suggestion to completely mask who is human from who are AI, I guess the only edit (non )exploitable way is the way it is now, with all human commanders visible to all.
which in a way is a shame, as I do like the idea in principle of being able to turn those tags off if you so choose (with a view to if you dont broadcast them you dont see them either).
but I see now how exploitable that is
in which case, despite it being a good suggestion to completely mask who is human from who are AI, I guess the only edit (non )exploitable way is the way it is now, with all human commanders visible to all.
which in a way is a shame, as I do like the idea in principle of being able to turn those tags off if you so choose (with a view to if you dont broadcast them you dont see them either).
but I see now how exploitable that is
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To argue against myself for a moment, I don't think the bulk of people would cheat - as ever, it's a minority problem. Trouble is, small numbers of people can make a big difference when everyone else is following the rules.
So I finally finished reading this entire thread, and I wanted to present some viewpoints that I don't think I've seen thus far.
My plan for ED at this stage is to play it online, but solo or in a small group of highly trusted (read: RL) friends. This is for a number of reasons.
While playing the original Elite while I was growing up, my friends and I used to dream up ways of how the game could be made even better. These ideas broadly came down to improved graphics, flying different ships, more weapon options and perhaps a few more missions (Zartid, Zurid etc). Not once do I ever recall anyone discussing multiplayer options.
Point #1: I was happy for years on end with the original Elite without multiplayer, and ED easily ticks all my other boxes without it too.
Eve Online was my first MMO, from 2004-2010. It was cool for the first 2 years or so until people realised there were no consequences for acting like spacejerks, so eventually everyone became spacejerks. Sure I PvPed a few hundred kills or so along the way, but it wasn't my main focus, and I regret having hung around in the game for so long in the vain hope that things would ever improve.
Point #2: I would *like* to trust in other people online in this game, but with so many other ex-Eve players also here, I *know* that I can't.
I also played Guild Wars from 2008 to 2012 and GW2 since beta (2012). These aren't spacey type games of course, but in terms of PvP/PvE balance, they suited me *much* better then Eve ever did. In GW1 I could FA when I wanted to, in GW2 I can WvW when I want to.
I expect that in the future I may split my time between GW2 and ED along PvP/PvE lines. When I'm feeling social I might play GW2, but when I'm feeling like I want to get away from it all, I'll play ED. Can't get much further away from anywhere than in ED, after all.
Point #3: Just because I don't want to PvP in ED doesn't make me a bleeding heart carebear across the board. It just means I don't want to PvP in ED.
Hope this makes sense.
My plan for ED at this stage is to play it online, but solo or in a small group of highly trusted (read: RL) friends. This is for a number of reasons.
While playing the original Elite while I was growing up, my friends and I used to dream up ways of how the game could be made even better. These ideas broadly came down to improved graphics, flying different ships, more weapon options and perhaps a few more missions (Zartid, Zurid etc). Not once do I ever recall anyone discussing multiplayer options.
Point #1: I was happy for years on end with the original Elite without multiplayer, and ED easily ticks all my other boxes without it too.
Eve Online was my first MMO, from 2004-2010. It was cool for the first 2 years or so until people realised there were no consequences for acting like spacejerks, so eventually everyone became spacejerks. Sure I PvPed a few hundred kills or so along the way, but it wasn't my main focus, and I regret having hung around in the game for so long in the vain hope that things would ever improve.
Point #2: I would *like* to trust in other people online in this game, but with so many other ex-Eve players also here, I *know* that I can't.
I also played Guild Wars from 2008 to 2012 and GW2 since beta (2012). These aren't spacey type games of course, but in terms of PvP/PvE balance, they suited me *much* better then Eve ever did. In GW1 I could FA when I wanted to, in GW2 I can WvW when I want to.
I expect that in the future I may split my time between GW2 and ED along PvP/PvE lines. When I'm feeling social I might play GW2, but when I'm feeling like I want to get away from it all, I'll play ED. Can't get much further away from anywhere than in ED, after all.
Point #3: Just because I don't want to PvP in ED doesn't make me a bleeding heart carebear across the board. It just means I don't want to PvP in ED.
Hope this makes sense.
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If it makes you feel any better most of the ex-EVE players around here feel the same as you. We left because of that sorta nonsense.
...ahm, grrr Goons again?
I agree, though.
Goons were good for my market, i have no quarrel with them.
Though, I understand the pain.
I've read all the way through this thread (90 more posts than the DDF thread). It's good to see people trying to bring different positions together, so I'll have another go at asking the same question I asked last year:
Taking off my "DDF so obliged to try stuff" hat for a moment, my default playstyle is likely to be a single-player online trader. That gives me an interesting puzzle to occupy myself while I see the universe, with enough space to imagine how the world around me is working. It also lets me feel part of a large universe (player-driven newsfeeds, markets rising and falling on the weight of player behaviour, etc.) without having to put up with individuals invading my privacy and expecting me to talk to them. Just to be clear, although I find PvP combat tiresome, that has nothing to do with my primary reason for avoiding players. Given a choice between being robbed blind and having to make smalltalk about the space weather, I'll take the robbery every time.
In other words, it sounds like I'm exactly the sort of person Togg identified as the weak-point in the ED food chain. Putting myself up for PvP piracy keeps the pirates interested, which keeps the bounty hunters interested, and so on. But it doesn't fulfill any of my goals. The universe is just as beautiful in single-player mode, trade is just as interesting, the large-scale story is just as much fun. So what am I being offered in exchange for propping up the ecosystem?
So far I've heard the beginnings an argument - I can start off solo, get the lay of the land by watching station chatter and seeing news stories, delurk when I'm ready to join a small private group and get access to a bit more variety and some interesting people. In other words, all the little compromises have created a smooth gradient for me to slide up into a more social game. Hopefully that shows I'm open to argument, but my fundamental question about the "all" group remains: what's in it for me?
Taking off my "DDF so obliged to try stuff" hat for a moment, my default playstyle is likely to be a single-player online trader. That gives me an interesting puzzle to occupy myself while I see the universe, with enough space to imagine how the world around me is working. It also lets me feel part of a large universe (player-driven newsfeeds, markets rising and falling on the weight of player behaviour, etc.) without having to put up with individuals invading my privacy and expecting me to talk to them. Just to be clear, although I find PvP combat tiresome, that has nothing to do with my primary reason for avoiding players. Given a choice between being robbed blind and having to make smalltalk about the space weather, I'll take the robbery every time.
In other words, it sounds like I'm exactly the sort of person Togg identified as the weak-point in the ED food chain. Putting myself up for PvP piracy keeps the pirates interested, which keeps the bounty hunters interested, and so on. But it doesn't fulfill any of my goals. The universe is just as beautiful in single-player mode, trade is just as interesting, the large-scale story is just as much fun. So what am I being offered in exchange for propping up the ecosystem?
So far I've heard the beginnings an argument - I can start off solo, get the lay of the land by watching station chatter and seeing news stories, delurk when I'm ready to join a small private group and get access to a bit more variety and some interesting people. In other words, all the little compromises have created a smooth gradient for me to slide up into a more social game. Hopefully that shows I'm open to argument, but my fundamental question about the "all" group remains: what's in it for me?
Good question Andrew.
I think that's the problem with all this choice, over time (I expect unlike you, not in the beginning) most people who're open to the MP experience will begin in the all group or even the ironman group. And steadily as losses mount, bad experiences continue, they'll move down the food-chain. From Ironman - All Group (Transponder On) - All Group (Transponder Off) - SP Online.
Now that might actually be a good thing, as people drop down rather than dropping out. But it means for the MP Ironman and All groups to be viable it would need a constant stream of influx of new players.
Since you rather play by yourself anyway, nothing, really; you are the perfect target audience for Solo Online, and you don't have to justify your preference or playstyle anyway.