Anyone else getting a bit frustrated with the prolonged narrative?

I'm not allowed to write what comes to mind... :D
Excrement...

the-simpsons-mr-burns.gif
 
From what I understand from talking to people at lavecon (and from what I've seen on steam charts as well), players have been really enjoying taking on the Thargoids with the capital ships and player numbers/ engagement have gone up with this event has been happening. It's like defending the Gnosis when all the bugs were fixed (except for the Alliance Mega ships, they can get 🤬 for all I care), which I always maintain that was a really good event if you weren't in an explorer ship or got shot down by the Gnosis ship bug.

However, that does imply that these AX-CZs will be going away after the wave thing is fired to be replaced with something else (Guess we find out on Tuesday). Personally, although I've enjoyed it; I think it's been stretched out a little too long (maybe by a couple of weeks), so now I'm just waiting for the weapon to fire on my main account (I guess it's not today either). Good job I have my powerplay and explorer commanders out there to distract me.
 
(Guess we find out on Tuesday)
Do you think it will be Tuesday (patch day!) or more likely to be Thursday?
I'm not particularly interested in the CGs that have popped up along the way, but admit to being curious to see if there is going to be a glorious and visible conclusion to the narrative... Naturally hoping it will go very badly with Salivation's superweapon...
 
Oh my gawd, I am sooo sick of this. I already haven't logged in for weeks, if the new update is just months more of this...

I am not a thargoid person at all. I appreciate that others seem to enjoy this stuff, but I'm sure there's a few more people that don't. Throw us another meaningless trade or bounty hunting CG (or both, even better). Just occasionally will do.
 
I am not a thargoid person at all. I appreciate that others seem to enjoy this stuff, but I'm sure there's a few more people that don't. Throw us another meaningless trade or bounty hunting CG (or both, even better). Just occasionally will do.
There has been collection/trade CGs running every week in parallel to the AX CGs. Maybe if you had bothered to log in instead of just complaining, you'd know this.
 
This is the only AXCG not to have another CG event running at the same time but this hopefullly will be the last one...

Story will not end with update 13 release as the war is to continue till August the 11th...
Update 13 will very likely contain every thing needed for the "END" but they have made a choice not to end it the day the update releases but after this should allow hot fixes for update 13 and not mess up the story with servers going down...
 
Disappointed to see you'd rather resort to sweeping dismissiveness than argue your points in earnest. Let alone admit to any onus of your own bearing....
Likewise you've ceased bringing anything productive to the table, except to make the same empty claims over and over and over again. But let me humour you.

That mechanic was abused heavily, and for a long time, especially where player faction competition was concerned, until Fdev finally introduced mechanics to counteract the effects. If you don't call it metagaming to use something that is known to be uncounterable - or even detectable until after the fact - that's a statement of your personality on its own.
Wrong. The mechanics to counter it existed at the time of Jacques and had been advertised
You presented yourself, in this post here, as the everyman for everybody tried to probe bomb Jaques. So why are you acting surprised when the accusation aimed at all of those players also winds up aimed at you? You had hardly made any claims of altruism at that point in the thread.
Assumptions.

Let me reiterate. I'll happily explain my reasoning, if you leave all your baseless prejudices at the door. My actions weren't altruistic or ill-willed.
Ah, right, the implication that anybody disagreeing with your actions or supposed reasoning for them is out of joint, unreasonable, making things up, finds ill intent where there is none, is a bigger troll than any trolls who trolled them, and seeks to enforce their own made-up house rules on everyone else.

Where have I heard this kind of argument before around these parts, I wonder...? Surely not every single time conversation about griefing comes up?
Sweeping dismissiveness. I'm not trying to enforce my rules on anyone. I'm just playing by the rules FD all but endorsed. You however, are making it very clear i've breached some sort of "code of conduct" that is not resemblant of anything I signed up to when I bought this game.
Either you made your 'contributions' in the way that you did (because the DM allowed it), or you didn't.
Non-sensical. I said I made contributions.
That Galnet article was a precursor to another Community Goal. There was absolutely nothing connecting Obsidian Orbital with Jaques or vice versa. There was no connection with Jaques to any official narrative at all, actually.
Wrong. Obsidian Orbital was UA bombed, and it was clearly reported that Meta Alloys alleviated the issues. Jacques was UA bombed too. Meta Alloys would have fixed it.
And the claim that "there was no deliberate attempt to exploit" is a flat-out lie. Read the responses to this thread. I know for a fact I am not alone on my observations and feelings on this.
Wrong.

That people were patently ignorant of the ways to resolve this is no justification to call UA bombing an exploit.
You have a paradoxical way of showing it, to say the least.
Assumptions. I can only guess by your use of the term "paradoxical" that you think "wanting jacques to get to beagle point" == good, but "UA bombing" == "bad"... both of which are gross over-simplifications and ignorant of many other goings-on in the game at the time.
Oh, for pity's sake. "Well, I never said that rocks won't fall on your head out of the blue, just as you're about to start your next adventure! So it's on you that your character died!" Now this is an example of what a bad DM would look like.
Correct. That is a bad DM. Once again, this was entirely FD's fault, as UAs had never been tied to causing misjumps at this stage.
You're pulling at straws. There was literally no set precent, anywhere, for "environmental context" to affect the outcome of a community goal in ANY capacity, let alone one entirely made up by the players and entirely disconnected from all ongoing official narratives.
Sweeping dismissiveness. The return of Halsey, the first and most notorious misjump at the time, which had players scrambling to find out what happened, was prescient to what was coming down the pipe.
I don't disagree (and I loathe the UI changes after the switch from wikia), but it has uses, and in this case, cleanly linked references.
Retcon is the explicit removal of events after they happened. This is just shutting down any expectations of second attempt on the behalf of the players - no doubt thanks to being gunshy of all the controversy that got stirred up around Jaques, the disappearance, the early (by Fdev reckoning) rediscovery, and ensuring rushed narrative bedlam. As far as I can tell, there has been no such removal of events from the narrative timeline.
That's a very narrow definition of retcon. Subsequent reporting of Jacques misjump at the time was directly correlated to UA interference. Any reference since then has been to mere "mechanical difficulties" like mentioned in that post, which I'm pretty sure is a quote from <that reporter who does the history summaries in galnet>. The root cause being UAs has been summarily ignored since the original occurrence.

Just because it's on the record, doesn't mean for the narrative purposes of the game and it's author that it's forever set in stone.
Because that's what it means to live in a world where other people exist. That obviously applies to virtual ones as well. And even the realm of discussion that exists in the format of this forum. On top of that, you seem to have expressed bewilderment at my conceptions of events and judgements of your stated actions. Understanding where I'm coming from, in turn, may allow you to offer me better understanding.
I do understand where you're coming from, because I've met plenty of people in games expressing your attitudes before; they get their nose out of joint and feel personally attacked because someone else played a game in a way all but endorsed by the game devs and the terms and conditions, instead of following some hidden set of rules being applied without any consent. I frankly have little tolerance for that flavour of toxic behaviour.

Fdev couldn't have had control over any of the player's actions. Yes, they are responsible for the narrative choices they made. That doesn't mean they had complete control - or responsibility.
They had complete control over the outcome caused by those player actions. Jacques didn't just magically misjump through nothing but player activity. FD made that happen, and no player could have predicted that.
Your description of competitive ranked PvP gameplay is a good example of how that kind of game is an inevitable source of toxicity. Too much competition - especially in contexts where one often cannot do anything to change the outcome, which is all too frequent in these games these days - is not healthy. It's a lesson I had to teach myself the hard way, regrettably.
You realise that, and yet here you are, calling someone who simply played the game a troll.

But you and the others probe-bombing Jaques Station absolutely knew that it has detrimental and disruptive effects. No, I don't think you could have predicted that Fdev would choose to say it causes a misjump - but the aim was most certainly to take the station offline or hinder it.
Assumptions. You have no idea what my aims were.
A game that you ought to remember, is shared with every other player, to one extent or another.
Oh I'm well aware of that. I don't think you're as acutely aware of that as you think you are though.
You cannot shirk the responsibility of your actions when it was deliberately trying to muck with other players, whatever your reasons were.
Wrong. Again, I'll happily give you the full story if you leave the prejudice at the door.
Yes, Fdev - like any DM - could have taken action to prevent the muckery, or at least not make the muckery the prime driver of the narrative moving forward (and pushing aside anything else up to that point). The fact remains that you participated in that muckery of your own doing, not because Fdev made you.
So what? Yes, I did that. That doesn't make it trolling in the slightest.
Fdev are not trolls simply because they have enabled or at least ignored trolls in their game, your individual actions & motivations notwithstanding.
So FDev endorse the actions. Therefore, I can't be a troll.
I'm not sure if the game has ever kept the 'unique' station Herald posts indefinitely, I can't say I know enough to be certain though...and I'm certainly not able to check Jaques myself. Goodness knows if it's not just a bug or oversight of some other nature. The change to another forum structure later on certainly can make it hard to reference these things. I feel like they would go for the Galnet articles first and foremost, if the intent is to retcon anything.
And as mentioned, recent galnet articles completely ignore the root cause being UAs, rather, just a malfunction.
Subjective, gatekeeping, that street goes both ways in this context. I've laid my motivations out in the clear, so I don't see why you continue to hold yours close to the chest, given you are bothered to this extent.
I only hold it close to my chest because I feel based on your attitude right now it's wasted effort to actually explain. Prove me wrong.
"I'm delivering pipe bombs to your office, but it's for other mysterious reasons and totally not anything nefarious. You should help me! Hey, where are you going? No, don't tell the officials there's a saboteur, come back!"
Poor analogy. We know what pipebombs do. UAs had many more features and functions than mere UA bombing, many of which were still being explored.
You knew what UA bombing was, you knew what effect it had on stations.
Sure. But nobody knew it would cause misjumps.
It's not really the fault of a third party observer journalist player for putting an accurate label on things, however 'apologetic' they may have felt after your honorable(?) intentions.
Assumptions. Nothing honourable about my intentions in the slightest.

I'm not here to say "Nobody who UA bombed was ever a troll", in just the same way that while I think ganking and seal-clubbing (outside the starter systems) is perfectly reasonable, but that there will be plenty of people doing it who were outright griefing.

But once again, I reiterate my original response to you dismissing my comment about UA deliveries to Jacques.

Sure making a lot of assumptions there mate.
I'd be happy to explain, if you're willing to listen without preconceptions of motive.

I did this all those years back, and most people agreed it wasn't trolling, though I'm certainly not going to make that claim for everyone who did take UAs to Jacques.
^^ This would've easily replaced the rest of this post, basically.
 
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What frankly frustrates me after watching this game from the sidelines , is that the prolonged narrative seems to correlate with the usual habits that Frontier Exhibits and such habits seems to have been further enhanced after the "Questionable" release of Odyssey. Habits in my view , defines Frontier's usually prolonged silence , and whenever we have anything of remote concreteness , it's rather vague , riddled with more questions than answers.

To me, this gives me the impression that the culture at Frontier is simply perhaps disconnected from what this community has expected from them. And this is not old news mind you, we have always criticized this, but the Azimuth Saga has stretched for so long because I can only deduce that really, Frontier has no idea what their plans are after Odyssey's launch, we cannot confirm or deny this, because again, the way we've been communicated (or rather, what the Community Dev's have been permitted to say) has resulted in this sort of limbo where we are now doubting the entire suspense that Frontier is trying to show us with excitement and glee.

An unfortunate reality in my view, but this saga has stretched for so long because really, until we're unlikely told otherwise in an odd act of complete transparency, that Frontier has lost track of their long term goals for Elite.
 
There has been collection/trade CGs running every week in parallel to the AX CGs. Maybe if you had bothered to log in instead of just complaining, you'd know this.
Oh yea, forgot how friendly and understanding this forum is. I've been here for over 7 years kid.

I go to the community goal link on the forum. I don't need to log on if there's nothing I'm interested in doing at that time.

And as I stated, I was just venting some frustration, not asking for advice from you. Read more slowly, it will absorb better.
 
It seems that the focus on the current narrative isn't in telling a high quality story, it is instead to drag out the ongoing narrative for as long as possible, probably to prolong the feeling of something going on in the game.

If the azimuth saga...

Elite Dangerous has a story? Really? This one never noticed. (player since Jan 2015)
 
The megaship was destroyed because the competitive CG was successful in defeating the terrorists - their main ship was captured, then the terrorist leader blew up the one he was on (the Far God one) to avoid being captured himself.

This was towards the end of the plot - the terrorist leader had spent the last year blowing up various stations around the bubble, killing the Federal Vice-President again, and so on. I mean, it's not as if most players can really claim the moral high ground on "blowing up superpower infrastructure is wrong", but it still made his group more unpopular than not.

Had the CG "failed" from the Empire Loyalist point of view and the terrorists won, then the leader would have transferred himself to their main ship which would then likely have escaped to fight another day ... and there's a chance in that scenario that he'd have just abandoned the Far God one without destroying it. Or not, we'll never know, maybe that ship was always going to end up in bits either way.

(Frontier could have railroaded it as a bounty CG or a one-sided war CG like the recent Kumo one, and not given players the opportunity to support the terrorists in their last stand, but they didn't)

Fascinating. Well, I'm conflicted: it's not like the players en masse could be provided with an opportunity to negotiate and de-escalate the situation with the terrorists to avoid them blowing up a megaship. Could anybody have anticipated a pyrrhic result? Though given the history of blowing multiple stations up, negotiation could well be considered a moot point...I don't know. I think there is a tinge of "you won, congrats, but here's a last-minute punch in the nuts from the grave", for anybody who got invested in the Far God storyline.

On the other hand, it adds a grittier note of history to a galaxy that all too often has been criticized as being too soft and not dangerous enough, and it demonstrates a lasting impact and change to the human bubble. It's certainly a darker-toned narrative; perhaps that kind of conflicted ending is befitting, and it sounds like there was a lot of conflict setting up the finale there. Something that would make for good TV.

Considering the context, perhaps - on this note of Fdev narrative writing - I can come around.

NMLA was entirely an NPC group, though by the end of their story arc their habit of blowing up superpower infrastructure had of course attracted some player support (and lots more player opposition).

Far God Cult ... greyer area. I think they may have come originally from a player suggestion way back, but I don't believe there's been any direct player involvement in suggesting their in-game appearance and previous plot events around them. Again, I believe some players back them as an interesting NPC group.

The Marlinist colonies are of course another grey area between them:
- the Marlinists themselves are an NPC group
- a player group (Dark Wolf Marlinists) formed to defend their BGS position
- this group was mentioned in Galnet due to their success in both defending the position and being publicly entertaining about it
- plenty of non-BGS events have happened to the Marlinists as well, whether through CGs or simply "this happened recently" Galnet articles

I'm pretty sure the Dark Wolf group is very clear that while it has been mentioned in Galnet and their work may have affected the outcome of bits of the story, they don't own the Marlinists and all they can do is fight for them as the game allows.

I see. Well, player groups have risen periodically in support of NPC faction/character storylines, so I suppose I would view it as an official narrative as opposed to one initiated by the players. (Though I do feel like I recall a few CGs back in the day that were in the name of official character/factions, but were player initiatives? Such as the campaign to free slaves on Uibuth?)

But then, likewise Jaques - from an FFE story inserted as a minor callback into Elite Dangerous; the Fuel Rats I think were quite excited by how the whole refuelling story spun out from their basic CG suggestion and have a little base in modern Colonia. Is it a player initiative, or is it a Frontier initiative incorporating a player suggestion for what one of their NPCs might do.
(There were quite a few people in the exploration community at the time vocally opposed to Jaques jumping to Beagle Point as they felt it should be kept clear of settlement. Whether any tried to do anything in-game about it I don't know)

Hmmm. It is fair that Jaques Station is an 'official' entity. I have to reconsider perspective a bit based on that point, I think. It is true that the Fuel Rats swung with the punch, if you will, and especially with the Fleet Carriers have created a lasting galaxy-wide legacy and gameplay opportunities that continue to entertain and attract players.
(Personally, the exploration community has a lot of weird takes and opinions. Being out in the dark for so long changes people, doesn't it? I remember a lot of excitement and anticipation for "that bartender on the far end of the galaxy," myself.)

For me the dividing line is this: player-run narratives must purely use tools available to players without explicit Frontier intervention. Anything else, and players are making suggestions to Frontier about what might happen next, which Frontier are entitled to incorporate, but not obliged to incorporate exactly as suggested, and it's a Frontier-run narrative.

I think everything you state here is right. Nonetheless...they need to be careful about managing expectations, and watching out for "take the fun away" moments, because that remains my lingering 'gut feeling' as a player - though much of that is thanks to mechanical/design choices, rather than narrative.
 
I fear having to buy a new mouse soon! :D

I like my Rosewill M62. Affordable, reliable, comes with some fun RGB options, the mouse software isn't bloated and has a functional UI, it fits my left hand comfortably, and has enough additional side buttons to manage things. The scroller has a nice grip and friction, too.
 
Likewise you've ceased bringing anything productive to the table, except to make the same empty claims over and over and over again. But let me humour you.

Pot to kettle. I'm going to largely ignore the disruptive (and erroneous) labelling you've sprinkled throughout your response.

The mechanics to counter it existed at the time of Jacques and had been advertised

Some hints of using meta-alloys existed, yes. I'm uncertain if Galnet had started listing 'stations in need of repair' at that point. It remains a fact that Fdev's solution to the widespread exploitation of probe-bombing did not come until much later, as per the date of the thread I linked in my prior response to you.

Let me reiterate. I'll happily explain my reasoning, if you leave all your baseless prejudices at the door. My actions weren't altruistic or ill-willed.

Pot to kettle, again; I imagine if you got your own prejudices out of the way, your explanation would have long been put forth, avoiding much of this hubris.

Sweeping dismissiveness. I'm not trying to enforce my rules on anyone. I'm just playing by the rules FD all but endorsed. You however, are making it very clear i've breached some sort of "code of conduct" that is not resemblant of anything I signed up to when I bought this game.

Sweeping dismissiveness? Those were your own words. Your excuse is exactly the same used to justify griefing, every time that it has come up over the years: "I'm just playing by the rules that FD have permitted". And you are being willfully deceptive when you claim it's "all but endorsed", given FD have time and again made very strong statements about not supporting griefing and taking action to combat it. Not that they've yet landed on a ruleset that properly tackles the problem and makes everyone happy, but I digress.

I am...mystified that you find the "code of conduct" of common decency to be such an alien concept. It's not something you 'sign up to'.

I said I made contributions.

You made the claim it was 'a bad DM making bad choices' and so 'not your fault'. Hence, I am emphasizing that it is in fact your responsibility for your own decisions and actions.

Obsidian Orbital was UA bombed, and it was clearly reported that Meta Alloys alleviated the issues. Jacques was UA bombed too. Meta Alloys would have fixed it.

Obsidian orbital was also the result of someone intentionally trying to grief, by the way. Yes, Fdev responded to that situation by offering SOME way of responding mechanically to the situation, after Obisidian's services were kept offline for significant periods of time. It was hardly sufficient in the face of dedicated UA bombing taking place, particularly as meta alloys were not anywhere near being widely available at this point of time. And this still fails to consider the ability of the players to detect and prevent it from taking place, as opposed to having to respond, in the middle of an active and limited-time-period community goal.

That people were patently ignorant of the ways to resolve this is no justification to call UA bombing an exploit.

The thread I linked you has hard evidence that UA bombing is viewed as an exploit. And you can find more evidence throughout reddit, including this one regarding Obsidian Orbital. You do realize griefers also claim "player ignorance" as justification for their actions ganking newer players, right? What makes you think that argument contains any validity? Do you really think you are a special case that makes that argument any different?

I can only guess by your use of the term "paradoxical" that you think "wanting jacques to get to beagle point" == good, but "UA bombing" == "bad"... both of which are gross over-simplifications and ignorant of many other goings-on in the game at the time.

I was clearly referring to your actions and rather antagonistic commentary here, regarding the term "paradoxical". You want to claim innocence, that Fdev is responsible and you are not, that your actions were not ill-intended or meant to disrupt anyone else's gameplay, that your motivations were reasonable and agreeable in nature, and that anybody affected by you is just ignorant. I don't see any reason to believe one iota of those claims, despite you having had every opportunity to convince me otherwise.

That is a bad DM. Once again, this was entirely FD's fault, as UAs had never been tied to causing misjumps at this stage.

Are you justifying the narrative, or not? Your prior response to this was "Says Jacques has the fuel. It doesn't say that it was going to make it." Your position is inconsistent.

The return of Halsey, the first and most notorious misjump at the time, which had players scrambling to find out what happened, was prescient to what was coming down the pipe.

That misjump had nothing to do with player actions or community goals. It was pure narrative (which, not to mention, had months and months and months of Galnet narrative setup.) That is not remotely, by any stretch of the imagination, "environmental context" for being able to sabotage ongoing community goals.

That's a very narrow definition of retcon. Subsequent reporting of Jacques misjump at the time was directly correlated to UA interference. Any reference since then has been to mere "mechanical difficulties" like mentioned in that post, which I'm pretty sure is a quote from <that reporter who does the history summaries in galnet>. The root cause being UAs has been summarily ignored since the original occurrence.

Just because it's on the record, doesn't mean for the narrative purposes of the game and it's author that it's forever set in stone.

"Retcon" has a clear and specific definition, where things 'on the record' are revoked and or changed from what they were originally. Using the term incorrectly to refer to 'ignoring' a narrative object, doesn't make it narrow. Certainly, since the point of time where Frontier ended UA-bombing exploitation, references to it dropped.

I do understand where you're coming from, because I've met plenty of people in games expressing your attitudes before; they get their nose out of joint and feel personally attacked because someone else played a game in a way all but endorsed by the game devs and the terms and conditions, instead of following some hidden set of rules being applied without any consent. I frankly have little tolerance for that flavour of toxic behaviour.

You contradict yourself right from the start here. If you understood where I come from, you would not see fit to sweepingly dismiss and slander my view (or that of anyone else who disagrees with breaking Wheaton's Law). If you had little tolerance for toxic behavior, you would be checking your own first and foremost.

They had complete control over the outcome caused by those player actions. Jacques didn't just magically misjump through nothing but player activity. FD made that happen, and no player could have predicted that.

That is not what you claimed prior. You explicitly have made the claim that Fdev, acting as a 'bad DM', is responsible for your actions taking place. (And I've already made an admission for not being able to predict that outcome.) You are appearing to me to be obstinately denying culpability for your actions relating to Jaques, which is making your entire narrative surrounding the nature of your actions highly suspect.

You realise that, and yet here you are, calling someone who simply played the game a troll.

Yes. You could say I have extensive experience recognizing when trolling is taking place. I gave you multiple opportunities to prove me wrong, and thus far, you've wilfully denied them. What does that say about how you played the game?

You have no idea what my aims were.

Yes, I do, in spite of your repeated insistence on not explaining your aims from your own perspective. Much can be gleaned from the nature of your actions, and your continued attitude about it in this thread, in the absence of an earnest explanation.

Oh I'm well aware of that. I don't think you're as acutely aware of that as you think you are though.

No, you are not. You would not be mystified by the principle of 'common decency', and how it applies to you (and everyone else) regardless of any signing up to 'terms and agreements', were that the case.

Wrong. Again, I'll happily give you the full story if you leave the prejudice at the door.

So, the truth comes out. You explicitly believe that you carry none of the weight of responsibility for your actions; and furthermore, that all the weight of those actions lies entirely on Fdev or even those affected by your actions, due to their ignorance. Those are the statements you have made so far.

So what? Yes, I did that. That doesn't make it trolling in the slightest.

Oh, but wait, we finally have an admission! Only with a tacit refusal to acknowledge any other perspective than your own upon the actions in question. We got so close to some kind of progress.

I'm going to skip ahead of repetitions of things you've already said and that I've now responded to.

I only hold it close to my chest because I feel based on your attitude right now it's wasted effort to actually explain. Prove me wrong.

The burden of proof is solely in your court in this situation. I have not hidden anything about my actions, motivations, or perspective at any point in this discussion. Whether you want to finally discuss your motivations in earnest or not is ultimately up to you and you alone.

Poor analogy. We know what pipebombs do. UAs had many more features and functions than mere UA bombing, many of which were still being explored.

Hubris. The specific action of UA-bombing stations was known to be a disruptive act that shut down station services and functions, as was proven through the events taking place at Obsidian Orbital before Jaques.

Sure. But nobody knew it would cause misjumps.

Oh, another rare admission - only to follow it up with claiming that ignorance of the misjump narrative means the other disruptive effects had no relevance. Which is observably false.

Nothing honourable about my intentions in the slightest.

And yet you have emphasized putting on an air about your intentions as though it makes all the world in the difference, despite refusing to speak in earnest about what said intentions are this whole time. Clearly you view your own intentions in some sort of manner more closely aligned with 'honorable' than 'trolling', given you have multiple times expressed indignation at the term 'trolling'. So again, your position is appearing to be inconsistent.

I'm not here to say "Nobody who UA bombed was ever a troll", in just the same way that while I think ganking and seal-clubbing (outside the starter systems) is perfectly reasonable, but that there will be plenty of people doing it who were outright griefing.

Well, the part I put in bold explains a lot of your mindset. This begs the question of how exactly you separate "outright griefing" from "ganking and seal-clubbing" (which by more widely supported definitions of forum users in general relating to this game over many years of threads and posting, very much falls under the "griefing" category), but I frankly don't care. I am still curious what your supposed motivations were, because you've used up so much time and space in emphasizing their importance - without giving any explanation as to what they actually were, but I could care less about splitting hairs over what is and is not disruptive to other players' gameplay experience. That definition is clear-cut, easily observable, and well-defined.

But once again, I reiterate my original response to you dismissing my comment about UA deliveries to Jacques.
^^ This would've easily replaced the rest of this post, basically.

Ironically, you aren't wrong. Repeating what I said at towards start of this post, if you would get your prejudices and hubris out of the way and simply explain what your views and reasons for your actions were, a point of understanding could be established entirely avoiding the rest of this forum spat.
 
Ironically, you aren't wrong. Repeating what I said at towards start of this post, if you would get your prejudices and hubris out of the way and simply explain what your views and reasons for your actions were, a point of understanding could be established entirely avoiding the rest of this forum spat.
Frankly, I'm not convinced this isn't a complete waste of time, so here's the only reason that ultimately matters.

I shipped UAs to Jacques with the expectation of Jacques arriving at Beagle Point suffering from interference, in an attempt to create a community event centred around long-distance shipment of meta-alloys and repair goods. And lo and behold, with the exception that Jacques misjumped (again, entirely unexpected), that's exactly what happened. Arguably the biggest community effort over multiple events then played out to seal the story of Jacques and the founding of Colonia as probably one of the most game-changing stories in probably the history of the game.

But like I said... Jacques was never going to make it anyway, UA bombing or no. FD just piggybacked that as a bit of emergent gameplay, and there's plenty of evidence of that.
- UA bombing had two stages; "non-disruptive interference" and "station services shutdown". Jacques never went past the first phase before jump, even though I delivered substantially more UAs than it took to shut down any testing station I'd played with to-date. We're talking 10-20 for immediate full service shutdown.... I delivered over 200 to Jacques, and wasn't alone. So FD gave it plot-armour, and only shut services down once it hit now-Colonia.

- Immediately after, they seeded the corrupted messages from Jacques around stations in local Galnet news. That was the mechanism which we were meant to use to find Jacques, but ultimately never did (as they were found after the fact). So the misjump was well premeditated by FD with mechanics to find Jacques. Not the sort of thing you sort out on a whim in response to some emergent player activities.

- The Community Goals lined up after Jacques discovery all focused on general repairs, and the UA damage was barely mentioned. Meta Alloys are only an anecdote at the end of this article and mentioned in one subsequent article. That to me screams of the fact that this was always on the books... because any of the writing related to the effects of UAs such as the unavailable commodity markets or the delivery of UAs is pretty incongruent.

Of course, there was a litany of other legitimate game reasons around studying the UAs, the roleplay motivations of my group and such, which all added weight to why this seemed like a good and enjoyable use of my time.

But I feel this post is going to fall completely on deaf ears, because...

Well, the part I put in bold explains a lot of your mindset. This begs the question of how exactly you separate "outright griefing" from "ganking and seal-clubbing" (which by more widely supported definitions of forum users in general relating to this game over many years of threads and posting, very much falls under the "griefing" category), but I frankly don't care. I am still curious what your supposed motivations were, because you've used up so much time and space in emphasizing their importance - without giving any explanation as to what they actually were, but I could care less about splitting hairs over what is and is not disruptive to other players' gameplay experience. That definition is clear-cut, easily observable, and well-defined.

... you seem entirely incapable or unwilling to separate actions in game, with the behaviours and intent behind them. Seal-clubbing; the act of a significantly more powerful player destroying a much weaker/newer one. Perfectly valid in many contexts. Roaming around in a powerful ship deliberately wiping out weaker ships "for the salty tears of nubs", that's trolling, just the same as roaming around UA bombing stations, or causing Lockdown, or causing any BGS state, or hell, doing anything, purely to cause personal disruption to other players and no other reason beyond "forum complaints go brrr" ; that's trolling.

But if "someone having their experience disrupted" by an action was the only qualifier, then you might as well ban the whole server population right now. And this is, to come right back to where this came from, why we can't have more player-injected narrative. Not because people like me UA bombing Jacques "ignore the greater community", but sometimes the more vocal groups out there forget they are part of a community... and that they are not the embodiment of the whole community... and when some event gets put in game, that community writ-large will interact with it however they see fit, within the rules of the game and it's mechanics. And that's not trolling, that's just playing the game.

And that's why I didn't say it off the bat... you'd already made your mind up that UA bombing was unquestionably trolling, regardless of any reasoning. What reason can I give when that's already your mindset?
 
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