It's not so much the starting out than the prohibitive cost of losing your ship you just spent hours to grind for.
[GALNET] Warning of Ship Abductions by Fleet Carriers by nasty people
- Thread starter Rubbernuke
- Start date
Though it would have made me mad as hell if I was a victim ... I think this scam was pretty awesome and actually is an advertisement for the game. We need more of these emergent types of things happening, but FD needs to do more to enable it. Really wish we had a player driven economy to the extent that systems could be blockaded effectively, or the market cornered on certain goods, or player crafted items being sellable which would lead to things like mining claims on rare belts, etc. Ah well, dreams...
It's the only place you can buy a Cobra 4 but you can't afford it because your broke and all of the missions lock you outside the system. Loosing your ship isn't the worst thing that can happen to you. I learned this after being out exploring for 2 straight weeks and attempting to neutron jump for the first time. I was successful but the stress was unreal.
Pretty soft stuff compared to what is done on EVE. Nevertheless kudos for the "Kidnappers" on a well conceived and executed idea !!
Stuff like this makes the game more real, keep at it !
Stuff like this makes the game more real, keep at it !
![[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/234/234580.jpg?1612617334){kind=avatar}
I was contacted by someone offering me some cash and goodies, I had to find their FC in the Mabe system, then go meet them on Ebay.
A community just as toxic as Eve's, but with a better flight model
I have to tell you that's not a rousing endorsement. Most normal well-adjusted people do not think this is "awesome" and it certainly doesn't attract them to the game. I mean I'm not going on a crusade, but most people have a clear sense of right and wrong and this was just plain wrong.
Correct, by our morality it was a "wrong" thing to do. But it didn't break any rules, there were no hacks or exploits involved. All legit within the confines of the game. That's what makes it cool. What is also cool was the in-game community response with Fuel Rats and others making rescue expeditions. This is the sort of thing that makes the game feel alive. We need more.
They didn't, though.
The deal was they were given the credits to buy a ship (a Krait IIRC) and kit it out for mining... and told to only fit a C2 FSD, which they apparently also did without question.
The only thing they stood to lose by suiciding back to their home-station was the mining ship they were given for free.
Whoever managed to talk these people into it should probably be in politics, or organised crime... or both.
The game lost a bunch of players and FDEV further got egg on it's face when this was made public. We're kidding ourselves that this was some net-positive for the game or the community.
Agree this was legal and allowed, not saying it wasn't and all. But still....it was just a scummy thing to do and we would have been all better off if it never happened. Just my opinion.
Oh, didn't read the game lost players. Was there a mass exodus then? If that's the case, then yes I agree that's a bad outcome. I hadn't read that was result. I didn't interpret as egg on the face for FD at all. But fair enough, we all have our own opinions.
Well that seems to be where the worst humanity has to offer ends up, so agree with you there
The entire thing only involved about a dozen players and it's been suggested that "some" of them might have given up ED as a result.
If this was enough to make them quit, they weren't going to be around long anyway.
Not sure about that.
I suspect that when most gamers hear that this kind of stunt can be carried out in ED they'll be impressed to know that ED has such an open sandbox design.
You have a "Token of Appreciation" from myself for your blatantly inclusive statement
The vast majority of comments about this elsewhere and on social media have been negative. While I don't have a crystal ball and we can't know what we can't know, this clearly doesn't seem to have been a financial or otherwise net-positive for Elite.
The kicker is that interview, the mastermind of this made it clear he didn't do it out of any necessity imposed on him by in-game mechanics. He just thought it would be funny and cool to take advantage of new oblivious players. Some of them children. Most people just frown on that sort of thing.
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The real problem with this is that the people concerned were lied to ingame, according to obsidian ant they were told they had a great ship and would make loads of cash easily - its not a great ship and the "slavers" offer way below market average for mined materials. While lying to adults in a grown up game is fine, doing that to children is not so ok (the age guide for ED is 10+ so there are kids playing). This is essentially griefing, which in most games would be frowned upon.
I disagree with you on one small point ... lying to adults is not ok.
Personally, I think it's the players who're shown in the worst light, for rocking up in ED and immediately grasping at a "get rich quick" scheme.
I guess there's one born every minute.
Some of the most fun I've had in ED involved lying.
I spent a week flying stuff to a CG by flying my Cutter and lying to the Imp' faction who were opposing the CG by telling them I was on their side.
I even "helped" them attack other ships (very clumsily, with very little success) on occasion and they weren't happy when they finally realised what I was doing.
Lollipops! Imperial Shielding! Prismatics! All free today!
https://www.polygon.com/features/2021/2/4/22264605/elite-dangerous-newbies-trapped-forced-labor Remember kids, lollypops aren't free...forums.frontier.co.uk
its real
Haha, I immediately searched Galnet but got a 502 bad gateway, and assumed @Rubbernuke used the chance of a downed server for a prank.
Reality is sometimes amazing.
Very nostalgicA Galnet article in response to player activities? I'm getting all nostalgic.
Yep. Somehow reminds me of the SDC way, just gank enough noobs and you get recognition
I read an article about this from salon.com today (don't blame me, blame my newsfeed) where the writer managed to find a 7 year old player who got roped into this and then immediately dived into hyperbole about it being the "cyber equivalent of enticing children into vans with promises of puppies" - and all with no obvious signs of sarcasm.
Talk about "flying off the handle"!
[...]
Whole world is watching!
There is an article also on the biggest Polish gaming site! Title says: Slave-players imprisoned by fraudsters in Elite Dangerous.
Yep, a seven-year-old boy was lured by bad players, but his ten-year-old sister was more vigilant and told her dad about it. ⚠
