You're not responsible for Player A, B or C's wellbeing. FDev are.
You seem to be saying "Bad stuff happens in real life so it should happen in the game too".
That's fair enough.
It is, however, also a superficial observation and it needs looking at more carefully before any conclusions should be drawn or any justifications made.
Look at the examples you offered.
How many of them involve wanton, gratuitous crimes?
Sure, in the real world people do bad things BUT they usually have a reason for doing them AND they don't commit crimes more serious than necessary to achieve their goals.
Phil Specter mean anything? How about Oranthal James "OJ" Simpson? H.H. Holms? Or even John McAfee?
Armed robbers commit crimes for financial gain and they don't kill people for the yucks.
Drug dealers are also in it for the money and also don't kill people unless they're left with no alternative.
Gang members are probably the most irrational of the bunch but even <em>they</em> are likely to commit crimes out of some desire to defend their territory or assert their authority.
True, in most cases, but not always the case. But this is reaching the point of over-analyzing.
And then, just to add a bit of perspective, you have the "school shooter" types, who genuinely ARE full-on nutcases.
Or Viktor Sayenko and Igor Suprunyuck
So, what can this little slice of life tell us?
That criminals come in as many varieties as those they victimize, and that Criminal Psychology is a separate course of study from Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, or Child Psychology - and for good reason.
Primarily, it tells us that most criminals act out of some tangible <em>need</em>; either for money, drugs, possessions, authority or status etc.
Secondly, it tells us that even criminals understand that it's unwise to escalate an offence by committing unnecessary additional crimes.
Thirdly, it tells us that when we ARE faced with a full-on nutcase, the authorities will go to great lengths to prevent them from committing further crimes.
You can probably see where this is going by now, but let's talk about it anyway...
I saw where it was trying to go, and I had to pull it out of there.
You have to look at WHY criminals - people who have, by their very nature, forsaken law-abiding society - STILL place self-imposed limits on the crimes they commit.
We live in societies where everybody accepts the rule of law.
Even criminals know what's acceptable and what isn't.
They know that hijacking a lorry-load of laptops is going to get them noticed but they're not going to make any "most wanted" list unless they kill the driver. So they don't.
Even gang members know that they're only "safe" in their own territory. They know they can't go into a different city and commit crimes because they won't have the same influence.
If everyone accepted the rule of law, there would be no criminals. Criminals may or may not have "their own rules", that whole "honor among thieves", but that only really exists in literature. In reality, the world is a much darker and grimmer place. And gang members do very much go into other cities - ever hear of The Mongols or the Hell's Angels?
There are two three problems with ED.
Firstly, there isn't any tangible incentive for random crime.
Sure, there's PP, factions and CGs which do provide justification (however tenuous) for crime but we're talking about <em>random</em> crime.
A player can pick up a few scraps by destroying random ships but you can't earn a living doing it.
That immediately negates the most sensible reason for real-world crime.
Secondly, there aren't any meaningful consequences for crime.
That means there's no reason for a criminal to moderate their behaviour.
That explains why players (even ones who have a justifiable reason for criminal acts) have no hesitation in destroying other ships.
Thirdly, there is no overwhelming force available to eliminate the "full-on nutcases".
There is no fear of consequences for gratuitous and unnecessary criminal acts.
This, in conjunction with the above, explains why people see no reason to moderate their actions.
We are in agreement here - There is little incentive for random or even intentional, premeditated criminal acts, except for perhaps the personal achievement of how high a bounty you can accumulate.There is even less in terms of consequences for these sort of actions - a bounty, a fine, a rebuy cost - what's a 20 or 60 or 100 million credit fine to someone with 4+ billion credits in the bank, and three times that in assets?
If we all lived in a violent anarchy then sure; you'd be right in suggesting that violent stuff happens so we should just accept it.
We don't though.
And ED doesn't take place in one either.
<em>Parts</em> of it are, and should be treated as such.
In the rest of it, however, crime should happen for a reason and if those crimes are particularly noteworthy they should be met with the sort of response commensurate with a lawful society.
I never said we should "just accept it", nor that there was no rule of law - had I suggested either of these, we wouldn't even be able to have a conversation of this nature. But I will stress and reiterate that Violent and even non violet crimes ARE a fact of life. Denying that these things happen is a dangerous delusion.
You sir, deserve a salute.
o7
Thanks - now I'm worried for my soul - lol we've only ever disagreed historically.
I agree. Except one thing. Here you can see David Braben talk about it. <a href="https://youtu.be/Kb5hqjxmf4M?t=37" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/Kb5hqjxmf4M?t=37</a>
And within this video they touch on players going after wanted commanders and how cool that is. Except. I hardly see it.
And to be able to attack someone thats wanted. You have a grind to get there. Cause I can go a whole playing sessions without dying killing any ship I want and wake away anytime there is a threat towards my rebuy.
I dont actually go out and do this. But I can if I wanted to. Now, the problem is how long it takes to get there to be able to hunt down wanted cmdrs.
Still, Ive escaped multiple ganks, against the highest tiered pvpers with exploited rolls with sub par engineering compared. Killing them however is a completely different story. Im not that gud yet =D
I don't know David, and I've only seen him in a couple of videos talking about Elite, but I've heard all manner of stuff attributed to him around these parts, and he takes me as one of those Head-in-the-Clouds Idealists with a particular vision of how things should be, even when they couldn't be less like his vision. And there's nothing wrong with this - the world needs dreamers and idealists to inspire others to strive for better things.The real problem with trying to hunt down Wanted Commanders - number one, space is frelling big. If someone wants to hide, odds are no group of people will ever track them down. Then add to that the fact that space is 3 times bigger than that - with Private Groups and Solo, someone can commit all manner of criminal acts at a CG station, land if anyone comes looking for them, log out, change modes, fly far away, log back in and no one would ever know. Likewise, someone can commit all manner of heinous acts, then spend a week playing Dying Light and come back to Legacy Fines to pay off and be on their merry way.And then finally, to add salt to the insult to the injury - even though CMDR MurderHobo has a 232,517,961 credit bounty on his head, that payout is capped because people misused this as a means of credit transfer.
the difference is there are consequences for doing bad things to people in real life. in most video games, there are also consequences for going out of your way to ruin other peoples' game experience.
instead what we have in this game is a bunch of what are essentially invincible people with infinite funds and time running around doing it.
any effort to stop them accomplishes nothing and is ultimately pointless because of how the game is designed, and most players don't even have the -option- of trying to stop them so it's a nonstarter anyways. attempting to be the bounty hunter to their criminal is wasting your time and fruitless, the NPCs certainly aren't going to do anything about them, bla bla- i'm sure you get the picture.
in real life, if someone wants to walk up and hurt me, i can defend myself without grinding to get a special t-shirt that puts me on their level. in fact, tools to defend myself irl are actually pretty cheap, whether it be a knife, a gun, or whatever. so that's one thing that could be fixed; make it possible for players to fight back with unengineered ships instead of letting you turn into a god just for grinding for a while.
make it fruitful to hunt wanted players, make npcs more threatening, give actual consequences to crime, bla bla bla. it shouldn't be rocket science!
Already talked about the lack of meaningful consequences, not going to rehash until the end.Let's talk about this real-life business a minute though - are you in the habit of carrying a knife, gun or whatever on a daily basis? If not, then all that talk is just talk. Yes, relatively speaking a knife or gun and even a concealed carry permit are relatively inexpensive. But do you know what is? Two years studying Cамбо, two more studying Krav Mana, in addition to the time I'd already put in during basic military training and advanced combat training. Not everyone has the time, the aptitude, the dedication, or the money to train themselves in such a way. Most wouldn't even want to, and even fewer should ever need to do so.And not that I would want to, but in the realm of the purely hypothetical, if I were to decide to walk up and hurt you, do you really think you would have a chance to defend yourself? Or even conversely, were we to be in a pool hall, at different tables, minding our own business and I should decide to split you skull with a cue stick while you were getting ready to take a shot, do you really think you'd have the slightest chance against such an unexpected and unwarranted (in your mind - my own justifications might never come to light) attack? If so, please pass the radioactive spider, I'd like to be bitten next.But this is not a discussion of combat techniques or precognitive awareness - so I'll forcibly steer myself back on track here.In Elite there is little in the way of any kind of "surprise attack", as we actually spend the majority of our time in Super Cruise, where it is not possible to engage in combat - there has to be an interdiction, and that kills the element of surprise. It's kind of like seeing and hearing someone running towards you from a block away screaming "I'm going to kick your a..ah.. you know."Again, we're brought back to the lack of meaningful consequences, which I promise to come back to at the end.
And if we were playing a murder simulator that would make sense. If we were trying to play a video game that takes place in 2017, then that would make sense.
To the same vein as your craptastic unrealistic version of the world today, then you can accept my analogy.
Perhaps I'm just being dense, but... not only do I not see any analogy here, I'm pretty sure that for some Elite IS a murder simulator. Remember that whole "play your way" thing?
Lets say you have a very wealthy person Driving around in in the latest Bugatti sports car. Well one day he takes it into a working class neighborhood. He knows its a risk because he is a billionaire. He knows its not a good idea. The neighborhood is filled with poor housing, shipping trucks and warehouses. The man gets out of his Bugatti reaches back into the car and pulls out several automatic weapons and an RPG. He then commences to blowing away anybody and anything in that neighborhood.
Let's say you're Orenthal James "OJ" Simpson, with millions of dollars in the bank, making millions more every year from investments, endorsements, and residuals. You come home one night and... the next day you're in the back of your buddy's truck, leading a police parade down four lanes of highway, then in court on charges of murder, have a dead wife and a bloody glove that doesn't fit your swollen hand.
Or perhaps you're Harold Landry - oil and gas multi-millionaire who just finished stabbing his wife to death because she was talking to an old boyfriend on Facebook.
Welcome to the Elite Dangerous Experience.
My point exactly, 110%. All of the above is part of the Elite Experience - and any, all or none of these things could happen to anyone and at any time, for any or no reason whatsoever. In that respect, Elite is somewhat unique. There really aren't that many games out there that allow us the freedom to do or be whatever we like, whenever we like it.
There is where your analogy fails. The violent crimes you listed are very specific, but do have one thing in common. They all have to do with marginalized and or the impoverished. All of your example crimes would not have occurred had the people who instigated the crimes been of the same socioeconomic class.
If everyone is rich and part of the same Elite Group of people, then why do you kill? Well in society when you have a person who kills innocent people even though the person who is doing the murdering is a very wealthy self sufficient business owner, then the rest of society is not kind to that person. The persons sanity is questioned and tested. If the persons mental state is determined to be good enough for trial, then that person is convicted and put in jail for a long time or executed.
Actually that's where my analogy shines - and my above inclusion of some of the absolutely wealthy committing some of the most heinous acts possible, by high-profile people on top of it, just puts a nuclear shine on my position here.
If you even attempt to throw the whole "I am RPing being a pirate." then you also fail. You cant be a Pirate in ED, there is no gameplay set up around Piracy yet.
So there are no Frame Shift Interdictors? No Hatchbreaker Limpets? No text chat? No voice comms? Or did I get Elite and Star Citizen mixed up again... which one is still in its alpha phase, with all of one planet and one system?
You are attempting to justify your cartoon Tom and Jerry, Itchy and Scratchy version of violence in ED as if it were something desirable.
My WHAT? It's ok, I went through a period of experimenting with mind-expanding chemicals too, and I'll be the first to admit, going back and re-reading the journals I kept.. well, I wrote things like this too. It will pass.
Meanwhile everyone who wants to play at being a real criminal/pirate/ or otherwise are being held back all because of your moronically simple minded version of RP.
Wait, my what again? You're supposed to drink milk to come down from a bad trip, not orange juice. That only makes it worse. My idea of Role Play is very likely vastly superior to most. In fact, I have hosted a number of very high-profile table-top Role Play games at events like GenCon, DragonCon, and several other conventions over the years. Had I the time, I could very easily put pen to paper and churn out a novel set in the Elite universe that would likely top international best-seller lists. Clearly you have no idea what you're talking about here. Or rather, you do have an idea, but either have addressed the wrong person, or are simply unable to articulate your thoughts into written words.
Wouldnt it have been nice had FDEV actually created a working Crime and Punishment system this patch? Wouldnt it have been nice if FDEV had created tools and ships that allow you to be a Pirate? Wouldnt it have been nice if you could steal a ship and sell it or blow up a star port? Well sure it would have been nice. But no we cant have nice things. You must defend your right to be a murder hobo. So instead of actually building gameplay around being a criminal, they had to implement a Pilots Fed bounty system. All because a bunch of morons couldnt stop being antisocial jerks to the point that it was hurting the games media image and its player population. The murderhobos are bunch are the cry babies who want everything all at the cost of wasted development time and you wonder why everyone thinks they are scum.
Oh the angst.. but I do not totally disagree - a meaningful system of crime and punishment should have been laid down before the first weapons were outfitted on the first ships. It should have been in place the day before anyone sitting in the morning meeting said "You know what would really be cool is if the players could shoot each other, not just NPC's." And there should have been additional systems in place as well, such as being able to hire on a wing of NPC's and ships to fly as armed escorts with you as well. But in fact we have none of these things, and we're growing more vocal about it each day.
FDEV has been constantly cleaning up their mess for the entirety of Season 2. More focus has been put on weapon/pilot balance than any other feature in the entire season thus far.
It sure would have been nice had FDEV been able to create ways to do profitable crime in ED before they implemented any kind of punishment. They had to do it backwards because your unrealistic, boring, immersion breaking, childlike behavior. Meanwhile anyone who wants to be a criminal in this game has to wait for content because of you. You think you are being a pirate, but you are playing in a game universe that is filled with the massively wealthy just blowing away other wealthy people. Its sad that you think that is realistic or likens to your analogies.
Immersion is entirely in your head. I hate when people throw this word around without understanding its meaning, and I refuse to surrender any more of the English language to people who want a word to mean something it does not. The line is drawn - this far and no further. But yes, there has been a whole lot of revisioning - as the folks at Frontier have discovered we have a very different vision from what they had in mind. That happens. A lot.
EDIT:
Also why is this thread open? Its been done hundreds of times before. Can't this be rolled into one of the many hundreds of other threads on this topic?
Because the search function here sucks, the old threads are old and have largely degenerated, many have even been locked, and in all honesty, there has not been a single new idea in the history of history, but that's a philosophical matter best suited to another forum.
I guess since we want the game to be a nice mirror of the oppression of lower classes in real life, all players should have their assets taken away while the devs - the real 1% analogue, not you or anyone else who spent time grinding - roam around doing what they want. Sounds like a fun game!
I'm pretty sure than anyone with access to the engine itself can have whatever they want - including Capital Ships, or Megaships with anti-planetary weapons. They just don't. And no one here should want to, but there are those who do.Now with all that out of the way, and it's been over two hours giving this all the attention it deserves - I should also mention that Season 3 has thus far promised to be a lot more focused Season 2 - lots more fixing, refining and foundation-building, plus whatever little tidbits get tacked on to create the illusion of forward progress. And while this may sound negative, it is not intended to be - I still see Elite as very early in its development, and I'm hopeful Frontier does as well, as it has an absolutely phenomenal potential to be one of the most revolutionary and adaptable games ever. I'm hopeful to still be having discussions
*like* this, though certainly on different subject matter in 2 years, and 4 years from now - as a sure sign that Elite is still growing and developing, rather than declining to retirement.
