How Gankers Made my Game more Fun.

[Einar Donarsson]

So there was that minievent everybody talked about, so i thought: "Nice, some lorestuff. Le's go there." Since i play in open 90% of the times, i knew there might be murderes flying around the site. So i packed up my PackhoundCutter, my Big Lasergunspewpew Corvette and managed to get a Spot with my Carrier. Shortly after i arrive i read a message from someone "This area is protected by SPEAR (Or S.P.E.A.R). Landing permit is required if you wanna touch down" Something like that, i dont remember the exact wording.

First i thought its some RPers and went full on RP myself. Went in Asking for Landingpermission after dropping in to the site as they requested. No answer and nobody present except a DBX. So i just land and get ready to deploy my SRV. Suddenly a FDL appears and instantly targets me. (Insert some long ass message you cannot Read because you get attacked 0,5 seconds after it got posted) PEW PEW, i instantly start the Engines and deploy my fighter. The Guy flies a typical Rail FDL, he quickly realizes that im not one of those "But i want a Cutter/Corvette even though i am new and have no engineer unlocked" people and he plays for time by boosting away a lot. Gladly i have the speedbreaker on one of my Packhound racks and fire single volleys to slow him every time he goes for a Railsalvo. His shields are about to drop, he runs, suddenly more ships drop in. His other Friends from SPEAR of Course. The FDL runs (As is typical for gankers when they meet resistance), i try to run after him but the massive amount of Carriers sadly cause me to DC trying to enter supercruise.

I log back in and warn people that there Are Gankers pretending to be Protectors and that visitors should bring armed ships wich quickly resulted in the Gankers hating towards me (i kept some salt for later usage).
Was loads of fun!

Is there a meaming to the Story? Maybe, if you wanna play in open, never go unarmed to heavily visited sites and you might be the one ganking the Ganker.

 

[Vedmo]

Is there a meaming to the Story?

If this is truly a case of someone who does not know who SPEAR is getting ganked by them unprovoked, then you have no idea of the meaning to this story!

Edit: also liked your story and am glad you had a good time with recent content.

 

[TheChosen]

Is there a meaming to the Story? Maybe, if you wanna play in open, never go unarmed to heavily visited sites and you might be the one ganking the Ganker.

Finally someone gets it. The risk of being ganked really pushes you to build your ships in a smart way, instead of the paper ships you can fly in solo mode.

 

[Gully Foyle]

So there was that minievent everybody talked about, so i thought: "Nice, some lorestuff. Le's go there." Since i play in open 90% of the times, i knew there might be murderes flying around the site. So i packed up my PackhoundCutter, my Big Lasergunspewpew Corvette and managed to get a Spot with my Carrier. Shortly after i arrive i read a message from someone "This area is protected by SPEAR (Or S.P.E.A.R). Landing permit is required if you wanna touch down" Something like that, i dont remember the exact wording.

First i thought its some RPers and went full on RP myself. Went in Asking for Landingpermission after dropping in to the site as they requested. No answer and nobody present except a DBX. So i just land and get ready to deploy my SRV. Suddenly a FDL appears and instantly targets me. (Insert some long message you cannot Read because you get attacked 0,5 seconds after it got posted) PEW PEW, i instantly start the Engines and deploy my fighter. The Guy flies a typical Rail FDL, he quickly realizes that im not one of those "But i want a Cutter/Corvette even though i am new and have no engineer unlocked" people and he plays for time. By boosting away a lot. Gladly i have the speedbreaker on one of my Packhound racks and fire single volleys to slow him every time he goes for a Railsalvo. His shields are about to drop, he runs, suddenly more ships drop in. His other Friends from SPEAR of Course. The FDL runs (As is typical for gankers when they meet resistance), i try to run after him but the massive amount of Carriers sadly cause me to DC trying to enter supercruise.

I log back in and warn people that there Are Gankers pretending to be Protectors and that visitors should bring armed ships wich quickly resulted in the Gankers hating towards me (i kept some salt for later usage).
Was loads of fun!

Is there a meaming to the Story? Maybe, if you wanna play in open, never go unarmed to heavily visited sites and you might be the one ganking the Ganker.

You seem to be playing the game correctly

 

[Stabby_Dave]

There's a "correct" way to play a game?

 

[Taifu]

There's a "correct" way to play a game?

Yes.

The "Correct" way is "My" way.

The "Wrong" way is "Your" way.

I think that's the general consensus around here... from what I read on the forums anyway.

 

[Stealthie]

Is there a meaming to the Story? Maybe, if you wanna play in open, never go unarmed to heavily visited sites and you might be the one ganking the Ganker.

It strikes me as a bit one-dimensional when the only main "benefit" of playing an MMO in multiplayer mode is an elevated chance of being destroyed.

Don't get me wrong, it can be a bit of a laugh.
I just wish there was a bigger variety of ways that Open had an effect on the gameplay.

Personally, I'd suggest there need to be more benefits to playing in Open, to encourage people to do it, rather than (mainly) consequences.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

I think the increased chance of being destroyed is a benefit. As is the increased chance of being the destroyer.

 

[Bigmaec]

Oh Spear ganking again?
Or those gankers pretending to be Spear?

Anyways, good you had fun.

 

[Einar Donarsson]

Personally, I'd suggest there need to be more benefits to playing in Open, to encourage people to do it, rather than (mainly) consequences.

That makes a lot of sense, wich is why it will (probably) never happen

 

[Morbad]

It strikes me as a bit one-dimensional when the only "benefit" of playing an MMO in multiplayer mode is an elevated chance of being destroyed.

That's hardly the only benefit. I've had plenty of cooperative adventures with other players in Open...though the potential of encountering hostilities that couldn't be bushed aside like so many gnats certainly shapes even cooperative gameplay for the better.

Personally, I'd suggest there need to be more benefits to playing in Open, to encourage people to do it, rather than (mainly) consequences.

The main benefit is the potential for interaction. Most things are more fun with other people, even if they aren't necessarily more effective.

Beyond that there would need to be gameplay that was better suited to collaboration, for reasons other than purely arbitrary reward inflation (bounty/voucher/wing mission rewards or trade dividends do little other than cheapen the multiplayer experience, IMO). There are a handful of these scenarios in the intentional gameplay loops that don't involve mutual protection against other CMDRs, but they are few, and have been consistently depreciated in favor of ease of access crap, or reward inflation from more solitary activities.

 

[Stealthie]

Beyond that there would need to be gameplay that was better suited to collaboration, for reasons other than purely arbitrary reward inflation (bounty/voucher/wing mission rewards or trade dividends do little other than cheapen the multiplayer experience, IMO). There are a handful of these scenarios in the intentional gameplay loops that don't involve mutual protection against other CMDRs, but they are few, and have been consistently depreciated in favor of ease of access crap, or reward inflation from more solitary activities.

Exactly.

I'd like to see various simple "puzzles" implemented, which can only be completed by two or more players working together.
You don't want to play in Open, you don't get that content, I'm afraid.

The Guardian stuff could have been an example of that, whereby everything worked similar to how it does but you'd need to trigger all the Monoliths within, say, 45 seconds - so you'd need at least 2 players, working together, to accomplish it.

Equally, we could have things like, say, surface installations comprising an outpost and a power-plant several km away.
One player would need to disable the power-plant in order to open the doors so another player could gain access to the outpost in order to do stuff.

Equally, we already have orbital installations with doors that open and close, and internal corridors we can fly through.
Set it up so that one player has to disable a control box on the exterior of the installation to open internal doors so another player can make their way through to accomplish an objective.

Add hostile NPCs to these scenarios and you also create the possibility that players would need to work in wings of at least three, with two players working on the puzzle while a third defends them from attack.


Course, given that we currently have NPC SLF pilots who crash into the ground while trying to avoid fire from surface installations, surface dogfights with NPCs are probably not imminent.

 

[Morbad]

I don't think Frontier really has much desire to force direct multiplayer on anything, which probably means were never going to get scenarios like this...or we will, but there will always be a 'better' non-multiplayer way.

Surface assaults are a good example. There are some (attacks on system security outposts that always have ships guarding them) that virtually require multiple CMDRs if they are to be done from SRVs...but we can just scan stuff from ships, and since Engineering it's easy to get a ship that can weather fire from NPCs and their surface base more than long enough to get the job done, unaided...there are also better ways to get most data.

Maybe they'll test the waters of mandatory multiplayer content with Odyssey...

 

[Stealthie]

Maybe they'll test the waters of mandatory multiplayer content with Odyssey...

I already have that thread ready to go, on the assumption that some kind of "capture the flag" will be an intrinsic part of the FPS experience.

"Since we now have specific co-op elements in Odyssey, isn't it about time a similar thing was implemented in the spaceship part of this spaceship game?"

 

[Robert Maynard]

I'd like to see various simple "puzzles" implemented, which can only be completed by two or more players working together.
You don't want to play in Open, you don't get that content, I'm afraid.

Why arbitrarily restrict something that requires more than one player to Open?

Private Groups allow players to play together too....

.... noting that Wings and Multi-Crew are available in both multi-player game modes and Squadrons are available to players in all game modes.

 

[Gully Foyle]

There's a "correct" way to play a game?

I think he had fun implementing what he knew.

 

[Gunther_Bladderburst]

It strikes me as a bit one-dimensional when the only main "benefit" of playing an MMO in multiplayer mode is an elevated chance of being destroyed.

Don't get me wrong, it can be a bit of a laugh.
I just wish there was a bigger variety of ways that Open had an effect on the gameplay.

Personally, I'd suggest there need to be more benefits to playing in Open, to encourage people to do it, rather than (mainly) consequences.

Man, there are tons of benefits playing in open. I did lot of collaborations with a lot of great people, we did some great hauls and very entertaining combat missions.

Also when I complete wing missions by myself and turn up upon some newcomer, I often offer them to join my wing and get free money.

I also got killed by players but not as often as you seem to think. It’s not that dangerous.

 

[Stealthie]

Why arbitrarily restrict something that requires more than one player to Open?

Private Groups allow players to play together too....

.... noting that Wings and Multi-Crew are available in both multi-player game modes and Squadrons are available to players in all game modes.

Fair comment.

I guess what I should have said is that players who stick to Solo simply shouldn't expect the benefits that coop play brings.

Basic point was simply that although "risk" is exciting, and can provide an incentive to play in Open, I think it'd be more compelling if there were fundamental benefits to playing with other players.
It's all very well saying "wing missions pay lots so that encourages coop play" but, c'mon.
I can show you thousands of CMDRs who earn enough to easily own and maintain an FC without ever seeing another CMDR, let alone engaging in any kind of coop activity with them.
None of the "wing" stuff currently in the game is really enough to compel players to work together in a multiplayer environment.

 

[The Roofus]

Good for you, I'll stick to solo.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Good for you, I'll stick to solo.

You are welcome to PG with me if you are feeling sociable one day