Elite Babysitter...

[Robert Maynard]

No supposition at all. It is the consensus of mmo gamers in general.

They have been burned by these protective choices and are sick to death of being babied. It shows with the performance of the mmo market over the last decade building up to the point that there are no major mmos start ups on the horizon at all other than ones that were already committed to development.

The long line of spectacular big budget fails by AAA developers just keep stacking up.

The FtP craze isn't some cutting edge idea that some clever marketing guru came up with. It is a way to try and salvage shareholders money from completely disasterous game design concepts and the decision makers trying to save their jobs.

While it does seem unfortunate that there are a group of disenfranchised players out there, does that mean that Frontier should change their vision of the game to accommodate these potential sales? No indication of numbers has been given.

We have nearly 50,000 backers so far - that would tend to suggest that a lot of people were content to back during the Kickstarter (25,681) and another 24,000 since - based on the outline originally given and the (remarkably open) development thereafter.

Is Elite: Dangerous even a standard definition MMO? It is largely NPC driven with a relatively small PC population. It is instanced with a maximum of 32 players per. It is neither pure play PvP nor PvE.

It's not F2P either - it's a traditional "buy the game" game - playing costs nothing.

I think that, in the end, Frontier will make their decisions based on everything that they believe and taking into account discussions in the DDF - hopefully they will make the right calls going forward (they have shown themselves to be highly capable in this regard thus far).

 

[jabokai]

It's a bit rich to be talking about the Kickstarter and the dev's vision when the kickstarter specifically stated we would be easily able to tell players from NPCs and some of the devs, at least, have stated that if it was up to them the only option would be Ironman!

 

[Saxxon]

does that mean that Frontier should change their vision of the game to accommodate these potential sales?

It seems that is why this thread is here to begin with. A small group of people chose to pay a sum of money to have input and are attempting to change the vision of the game to ridiculous levels of safety and security.

I thank JeffRyan for bringing this to the table for all to see what is being attempted in that elite forum.

It reinforced the importance when I saw how upset some of these players were at him for putting it in public.

 

[Herik]

Only once were we unanimous and that was over the in-game flight mechanics. FD's proposal wasn't that bad - If you think of Alpha now, minus supercruise, it would still be an interesting and great game. It also would have been a hell of a lot simpler to programme and I suspect we would be further along in development. However ALL the DDF said no and FD changed their minds.

Everything else that I see we're simply refining things - giving FD additional ideas.

ETA:
With regards to this thread I really don't understand your problem here. FD are looking for suggestions as to how best ensure people have a good experience with ED. The suggestions in the DDF thread (before it went off in a tangent) are quite logical to me : some form of help system to give support to players; banning of hackers; moving griefers to a private group.

The issue though comes with "what is a griefer" which is hard to define. What you might tolerate I might not. Clear cut cases (abuse; threats; etc) you yourself know should not be condoned - it's common sense. For the grey areas that's where FD need to make their own minds up. We're simply giving them suggestions.

Excellent Liqua; Thats all I would ask of the devs. Thankyou.

 

[biggbno]

I might be coming in a bit late here but I want to say one thing about the transponder issue.
For immersion sake it should not be possible to see if they are players or npc. We are all (npc's and is real people) inhabitants of the galaxy.

As for the groups and ignore issue there will be some people I do not want to play with just the same that there are people in RL that I do not want to associate with.
The brilliant thing about this being a game is that I can actually do this by putting them on my ignore list. Which I would kill for to have in real life.

 

[JughedJones]

These conversations always leave me feeling conflicted. In real life, I'm quite the liberal (in the American political sense,) and like the idea of living in a society that we all agree to certain rules that make our lives safer and easier. (hopefully)

However, in the realm of open world games, I'm much more of a libertarian and think that it's pretty much every man/woman for themselves. In a perfect world, the community will do its own policing and the dynamics of bounties and penalties for being a 'lunatic' or 'cheater' will resolve any problems on their own.

I really don't want this to be wide open in the EvE sense, but I wouldn't want too much hand holding because a few folks like it easy. Then again, the game is called Elite: Dangerous, I assume that's for a reason. I'm not too concerned about griefing balance.

 

[Adept]

to be honest, I still don't get the need for all the layers upon layers of protection.. I mean if your playing alone and don't want to run into a real human.. , uh, maybe play "SINGLE PLAYER"? . :

Then I guess you just don't get it.

I want to share the sandbox with humans. The more people get on Elite the better. I just don't want to be targeted for pew-pew because I have a tag that says human. I welcome being targeted for my badass rep, the cargo I carry, my crimes & bounty... All of that is awesome. Any bored PK looking for a fight "with a huuman" can go frak themselves for all I care. I'm not under any obligation to reduce my game to pointless pew-pew for his or her entertainment.

 

[Saxxon]

Then I guess you just don't get it.

I want to share the sandbox with humans. The more people get on Elite the better. I just don't want to be targeted for pew-pew because I have a tag that says human. I welcome being targeted for my badass rep, the cargo I carry, my crimes & bounty... All of that is awesome. Any bored PK looking for a fight "with a huuman" can go frak themselves for all I care. I'm not under any obligation to reduce my game to pointless pew-pew for his or her entertainment.

This is not directed at you Adept but the players who will attempt what I am outlining.

The pew- pewers might not want their economic market exploited by hidden traders. They aren't under any obligation to have their game reduced by stealth market manipulation for the trader's wealth gains either.

 

[JeffRyan]

Then I guess you just don't get it.

No. I don't get 'I want to play with humans, but I don't want them to know I'm human...' I'm still puzzled as to why I'm in the minority on this issue.

 

[Togg]

TBH.. I don't see a real reason why there should be a indicator that a ship is AI or PC. in fact I would love to open the forums and see a player raging about Player XXXX having hacked the game so Player ABCD couldn't Block them after player XXXX Griefed them... just to find out later that player XXXX was in fact a NPC.

BTW... i'm not a head hunting PK'er as some people around here have been slyly suggesting. i'm actually a more PvE person with no Qualms about taking on a PvA attitude when its needed.

 

[Cody]

I don't get 'I want to play with humans, but I don't want them to know I'm human...'

Not at first glance - my wish would be for it to require at least a basic scan to differentiate PC from NPC.

 

[JeffRyan]

Not at first glance - my wish would be for it to require at least a basic scan to differentiate PC from NPC.

I'm open to that.

 

[Saxxon]

The funny thing is I am one of those people that will have the highest threat envelope while playing. I am going to be a smuggler so everyone will be trying to shoot my a** off, player and npc alike.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

I will never know the luxury of piloting a Lakon because with my profession it will be a deathtrap.

 

[Salmoneus]

This is an interesting suggestion. As a general rule I really hate deliberate ramming.... That being said, hypothetically.

I am a clean pilot, either without any cargo at all and am attacked, or on the other hand, possibly I was attacked, so dumped my cargo........

However the person attacking me decides it will be fun to kill me anyway.

I am about to die, so think screw it, I never asked for this, I have no cargo any more and have no bounty so there is no reason for you to be killing me, so I hit ramming speed and take the attacker with me.

who would be the person at fault in your analogy then be, me (the initial victim), or the killer who I took down with me?

(serious question..... in a normal vs game where the point is to battle to the death I believe ramming is never a good thing, but in this instance, I am not so sure).

Sorry for taking a while to get back to your question. Man this thread grew fast.

I have no problem with ramming in this particular instance. The approach that I laid out is that the report would show multiple instances of the same person repeatedly ramming several individuals over and over in a short instance (interval to be defined). Perhaps also recording relative health of the ship. Obviously seeing someone ram someone repeatedly when both parties are at full health would be a bit odd to be a valid way of killing somebody.

Ramming to survive an engagement or take someone down with you is perfectly acceptable.

This is why I think recording the velocity vector of both ships, and the number of times they've caused collisions along with relative time, and now additionally recording relative health, and finally sending it to a "moderator/GM/overseer/person in charge" to make the final determination on whether to warn/ban someone is a good thing. I definitely agree that 1-3 times isn't enough data to be deemed a griefer. And the context of the battle could be also recorded. For instance if you were the initiator of the fight, then by all means they can ram you/me to their hearts content.

I don't think most people are absolutely against pvp. They are just against being griefed repeatedly/humiliated. It's just that people have been put off by griefers to the point that they now don't want pvp at all until they see a working system. No one wants to die repeatedly in a short interval let alone by the same individual without having a chance. I'm cool with really good pvpers/pirates locking down certain systems and basically killing anyone coming into their territory. Okay, my mistake, I'll avoid that area altogether.

 

[Phaedra]

Sorry for taking a while to get back to your question. Man this thread grew fast.

I have no problem with ramming in this particular instance. The approach that I laid out is that the report would show multiple instances of the same person repeatedly ramming several individuals over and over in a short instance (interval to be defined). Perhaps also recording relative health of the ship. Obviously seeing someone ram someone repeatedly when both parties are at full health would be a bit odd to be a valid way of killing somebody.

Ramming to survive an engagement or take someone down with you is perfectly acceptable.

This is why I think recording the velocity vector of both ships, and the number of times they've caused collisions along with relative time, and now additionally recording relative health, and finally sending it to a "moderator/GM/overseer/person in charge" to make the final determination on whether to warn/ban someone is a good thing. I definitely agree that 1-3 times isn't enough data to be deemed a griefer. And the context of the battle could be also recorded. For instance if you were the initiator of the fight, then by all means they can ram you/me to their hearts content.

I don't think most people are absolutely against pvp. They are just against being griefed repeatedly/humiliated. It's just that people have been put off by griefers to the point that they now don't want pvp at all until they see a working system. No one wants to die repeatedly in a short interval let alone by the same individual without having a chance. I'm cool with really good pvpers/pirates locking down certain systems and basically killing anyone coming into their territory. Okay, my mistake, I'll avoid that area altogether.

Read http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6276 Ramming someone is already a major criminal act. I can see no reason why it needs to be treated even more harshly than shooting someone, which is also a major criminal act, with bans imposed if you ram more than a couple of times.

 

[Phaedra]

Not at first glance - my wish would be for it to require at least a basic scan to differentiate PC from NPC.

This would be my preferred solution to the "ident issue" as well. It avoids the potential problems of players shooting an other player by mistake (with all the additional penalties that brings), whilst also ensuring that players aren't lit up like a Christmas tree as a potential priority target as soon as they enter an instance.

 

[biggbno]

This would be my preferred solution to the "ident issue" as well. It avoids the potential problems of players shooting an other player by mistake (with all the additional penalties that brings), whilst also ensuring that players aren't lit up like a Christmas tree as a potential priority target as soon as they enter an instance.

This is also my preferred method as it then in fact will follow game lore, that a scan identifies you as part of the pilot federation. (Forgot the lore name for it).

 

[hunvagy]

This is not directed at you Adept but the players who will attempt what I am outlining.

The pew- pewers might not want their economic market exploited by hidden traders. They aren't under any obligation to have their game reduced by stealth market manipulation for the trader's wealth gains either.

This would only be a real threat if the number of lurkers would be overwhelming. I highly doubt that spread across all the inhabited and frontier systems any single withdrawn player can influence the market in such ways that it has any impact on how others play. If the market was 100% player influenced then what you say might be true, but it's not. We are but a few independent entrepeneurs compared to the trading fleets of the Empire, the Alliance or the Feds.

And again, I don't want to sound rude, but this post makes me think that you are also one of the people who think that Elite is some grand competitive game where you have to be the very best (like no one ever was). This is not the case. You'll have your fast smuggler ship, someone else will fly a Lakon, another an Anaconda, many will fly Imperial Couriers.

Ships are not a linear power progression, as many are thinking. I already said this in the other thread, but to get an idea on how ships work in the Elite universe, people should check out Frontier and FFE videos. The prices do no equal power. Sure, one can haul 400 tons of cargo, but.. even a Sidewinder can put a hole in it. You usually pay for the size, not the firepower.

There are no grand goals in Elite, never have been. You only have to achieve what you want, and even though there are other players around you, they shouldn't be able to skewer your objectives, unless they repeatedly shoot you down until you're broke.

But I do agree partially with you, if during the beta or gamma it turns out that the removed people who play for themselves can change the simulation in an unfavorable way, then yes, there should be some systems in place to balance that, or remove their influence completely. But atm, I don't see any way of you knowing whether it was a solo online player who destroyed the market on Mars, or whether it was 32 trader with slaved drives in a different instance from you, even if they were in the all group. If they are in the US, you are in Europe, chances are you'll never meet, because the system won't match you due to unfavorable ping and network differences.

 

[PacalB]

I still stand to my resolve that FD should make their game, not ours. I am ready to face PC pirates who want my cargo. I am ready to face a human assassin if I **** someone off I shouldn't have (previous pirates as well). I am ready to face a bounty hunter, if I aquire a bounty. What I'm not ready to face is a bunch of people who fight only for the sake of fighting. And I have at least one friend who wants to play but is not ready to dive into the inevitable clusterfrak that will be the all group at times. So I'll probably have to skip between private and all. If that makes me a scared carebear, so be it. Friends trump Random Pew-Pewliot 552

Also @Jeff: Sorry if I devalued the conversation, but going through the same argument in every game's forum I want to support tires me out.

Seriously, what part of you doesn't get the FACT the DDF was/is something FD implemented? That it IS the way THEY chose to make their game. Is it really so hard for you to get your head around?

 

[hunvagy]

Seriously, what part of you doesn't get the FACT the DDF was/is something FD implemented? That it IS the way THEY chose to make their game. Is it really so hard for you to get your head around?

Where do I state this in what you quoted? If you read my other posts you'd see that this is exactly what I was trying to tell to Thorn Black, who always ended up with the DDF being the alpha backer way to change the game.

Edit: like for instance here: http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showpost.php?p=423043&postcount=441