It looks to me like that OP made some mistakes that didn't help himself. (quoting from Redthread):
I've been trying for hours to complete my first mission, a simple ICC probe mission.
I personally did that mission for the first time on Thursday night. It took about 15 minutes to succeed, not hours. So it sounds as if the player really isn't comfortable with game mechanics yet.
My first few deaths were to that Ninetails (NPC)
You don't have to engage any NPCs in that mission to succeed. Sneak to the probe slowly behind the asteroids. The NPCs are engaged in their own battle and will ignore you for a time. And again, see above.
Dying to griefing like that is just disheartening and turns people off to any game, especially one with controls as complicated as Star Citizen.
The PU is
not where you go to get comfortable with the controls. That's exactly where you should NOT be. There are 6 other flight-related multiplayer modes, none of which require any insurance claims nor risk any credits. Some are co-op, some are free-for-all, etc.
If the overall goal is to bring more people into the game, I really think this (griefing) needs to be addressed so that new players don't have such an annoying obstacle preventing them from playing an otherwise fantastic looking game.
Again, see above. The PU is
anything goes. If you want a "safer multiplayer space", those DO EXIST. Fly in those areas. Heck, there's even 3 different SOLO modes where you can learn to fly against NPCs, or just completely alone.
How are CIG going to deal with this sort of thing? Let it happen?
There is already a basic crime/rep system in place in SC - basically, it's like being a criminal @ Eravate (except you cannot jump from "Eravate"). Some stations will deny you landing, if you're wanted. NPCs will hunt you, and other players will as well. There's a station that doesn't care - just as in Elite (troublemakers in Eravate avoid Cleve Hub, but can dock at the other station with no problems.)
The part that I hope SC improves upon, is that the crime/rep will follow you around the entire galaxy. This is where Elite has completely dropped the ball. You can murder all night in Eravate, accrue a $700,000 bounty, then just use Neto as your home base and enjoy all the privileges of a clean record.
It's absurd. At times I believe that the reason Elite has NOT had a better Crime system is because it never occurred to DB that players would engage in so much PvP or crime - because HE doesn't like playing games like that. He just wants to fly around in his Asp and marvel at the sights, maybe trade a couple tons of Fruit on occasion. So perhaps he had a bit of a blind spot in this regard. Hopefully, this is changing very soon in Elite.
I think CIG is very aware of how other games have tried to succeed in this regard, or utterly failed, and if things go well then SC will find a decent balance there.
But there's one MP crime element that CIG (and Frontier) will never, never be able to solve: and that is, catering to player who just "want a relaxing night, doing some trucking" and can't deal with the reality of PvP-based losses. Nor should this problem be solved. That sort of gamer should just play some other game - I'd suggest finding one that doesn't feature loads of ships carrying loads of guns.
