In a spirit of construction, maybe the best way to look at this would be like a trade. Psyron would like to talk about in-game false-flag stuff, jabokai would like the real-world examples removed from the OP, nobody wants a meta-debate. If you give the other person what they want, maybe you'll get what you want in return.
General / Off-Topic False-Flag-Operations within ED?
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In a spirit of construction, maybe the best way to look at this would be like a trade. Psyron would like to talk about in-game false-flag stuff, jabokai would like the real-world examples removed from the OP, nobody wants a meta-debate. If you give the other person what they want, maybe you'll get what you want in return.
I used "real world stuff" deliberately, rather then "examples" as they're not even proper examples for the most part (as Cathy pointed out, they're mostly lies/propoganda rather than flase flag events), and certainly not proven either!
Psyron even pointed to a Wikipedia article as a resource and here's what it says about some of the examples he gave -
"The responsibility for the Reichstag fire remains an ongoing topic of debate and research" - i.e. not proven.
"The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the U.S. Department of Defense" - i.e. as insidious as the proposal was, it never actually happened.
"The Gulf of Tonkin incident has long been accused of being a false flag operation, but this judgment remains in dispute." i.e. not proven.
That being said, and on topic... I don't really see the place for this in the game unless they actually implement military/national security type organisations and the ability for the player to be employed by those agencies. It's certainly not the sort of thing that would be handed off as missions to non-affiliated personnel. And if you exclude missions and just do that stuff anyway then how do you quantify it's effect for the player?
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Go on then .. I'll bite ...
What you are describing here is emergent behaviour from the players outside of the game. It has no relevance to ED other than it being a vehicle for someone to do said things. However there is 1 flaw in your argument - there are 25 player ships, none of which are tied to an alliance as anyone can own them (preconditions aside) As such any actions by another pilot is linked to their name NOT the alliance.
Unless there was a way to masquerade as someone else, which I highly doubt nor would approve, the skullduggery you advocate can't happen.
In films and TV shows (like Babylon 5) attacks are made against 1 faction in another factions ship. (Say a Mimbari ship piloted by a human attacking an Earth Alliance Ship) - In this instance Humans are going to think the Mimbari are provoking a fight, even though it was piloted by a human, and that's how a great story arc evolves.
This isn't possible in ED .. there are no "alliance" only ships. We can't permanently associate ourselves to a particular faction to give the illusion of someone else causing trouble.
It's possible this could have story-arc potential within ED but not player driven IMO.
What you are describing here is emergent behaviour from the players outside of the game. It has no relevance to ED other than it being a vehicle for someone to do said things. However there is 1 flaw in your argument - there are 25 player ships, none of which are tied to an alliance as anyone can own them (preconditions aside) As such any actions by another pilot is linked to their name NOT the alliance.
Unless there was a way to masquerade as someone else, which I highly doubt nor would approve, the skullduggery you advocate can't happen.
In films and TV shows (like Babylon 5) attacks are made against 1 faction in another factions ship. (Say a Mimbari ship piloted by a human attacking an Earth Alliance Ship) - In this instance Humans are going to think the Mimbari are provoking a fight, even though it was piloted by a human, and that's how a great story arc evolves.
This isn't possible in ED .. there are no "alliance" only ships. We can't permanently associate ourselves to a particular faction to give the illusion of someone else causing trouble.
It's possible this could have story-arc potential within ED but not player driven IMO.
psyron
Banned
As a compromise i will edit my opening post in a way to show that "9/11 being a false-flag-attack" is right now not the opinion of the majority of the people.
Nevertheless it has to be pointed out that in the time of an occurred false-flag-attack the majority of the people always are deceived by that false-flag-attack (what is exactly the purpose of such an event) and those who recognize it as what it really is are always discredited as "conspiracy theorists". This doesn't of course mean that the inversion of the argument applies in the case of 9/11, but it only shows that the opinion of the majority is not a measure of quality regarding the evaluation of what the truth behind a potential case of false-flag-event is.
But please back to the topic now.
psyron
Banned
Why not forcing players of a special alliance to have a paint-job on their ships that mark them as being part of an alliance. All/only players of that alliance would have that painting on their ship. This little idea would already solve the problem you were pointing to.
In this way, ships would be clearly associated to an alliance and then the idea of a false-flag using a boarded and stolen ship would work quite fine
It's exactly the sort of thing you would hand off to non-affiliated personnel, to create plausible deniability. Those carrying out the act may even believe that the stated objective is the real objective.
Since we're just talking about Elite here,
, let's say the Alliance Security Services want to distract the Federal Navies attention away from themselves for a while. Find some disgruntled Fed sympathising faction on an Imperial world, infiltrate and stoke them up to the point of sabotaging the Imperial Military. Cue interstellar incident.When it all cools off, the Feds notice the Alliance navy has redeployed in an interesting fashion and says "hey wait a minute", reply is "What?, of course not, the very idea, pure coincidence, honest guv'" This denial is not plausible if the saboteur is an Alliance Officer, some smelly merc space trucker on the other hand. . .
Who carries out the sabotage, why not a PC? He thinks he is helping some local freedom fighters, but his pay, equipment and real objective ultimately comes from the Alliance. A bit strange in game as ad hoc missions but certainly a possible starting point for story arcs as Liqua mentioned.
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Or maybe the Empire has its eye on an independent system just outside its borders. It engineers attacks against its own nearby systems, blames it on the inhabitants of the system it covets and uses it as a pretext for sending in warships in the name of stamping out terrorism and restoring order.
I think this sort of thing would have to be quite rare though, otherwise it would be too confusing to have loads of players masquerading as someone else, and every single incident would end up being blamed on agent provocateurs by one side or another. The game would descend into player driven paranoia. Might make things interesting if it was done right though.
I think this sort of thing would have to be quite rare though, otherwise it would be too confusing to have loads of players masquerading as someone else, and every single incident would end up being blamed on agent provocateurs by one side or another. The game would descend into player driven paranoia. Might make things interesting if it was done right though.
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psyron
Banned
Right, like the Trade Federation in Star Wars. They are used as patsies to do the dirty job while Palpatine is pulling the strings behind the scene ... http://vimeo.com/41963839
Of course if such kind of missions are proposed by different factions it should be possible for the player at least during the mission to discover that the mission is a hidden false-flag-attack and he is merely used as a patsy.
For example if you are told that on location X there will be a big spaceship illegally transporting WMDs then you should be able to scan the ship before attacking to maybe detect, that the ship only contains hundreds of civilians. The secret intend behind the mission would have been to bring escalation or war because of a spaceship under the flag of a certain faction having attacked an unarmed "passenger liner".
As i said ... those kind of missions should only be available, if the player has the possibility to make double checks during the mission to avoid the "mistake", because if the player can not escape from being used as patsy then players would maybe generally avoid those kind of missions.
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Reinventing the Wheel?
It's been a while since I went on any Fed or Imperial missions, but I do seem to recall something very similar in FFE. Perhaps not with such wide-ranging consequences to the game environment, but definitely secret, high risk 'black ops' type stuff. One can only deliver so much paperwork and blank data disks before being offered a job as a covert agent.
It's been a while since I went on any Fed or Imperial missions, but I do seem to recall something very similar in FFE. Perhaps not with such wide-ranging consequences to the game environment, but definitely secret, high risk 'black ops' type stuff. One can only deliver so much paperwork and blank data disks before being offered a job as a covert agent.
That kind of thing as a mission is certainly possible and would add mystery and drama to the game. Perform mission actions without thought and you would never know, probe deeper and you may be presented with alternatives.
Basically - Game driven missions / events are plausible as long as there is a reason behind them; player driven events may be harder to do as it would involve work outside of the game. (IE you would have to role-play something and attempt to sucker real people in - but that's not the kind of player I would like to be in ED anyway as its borderline scamming/ harassment)
No.
For one thing you shouldn't be encouraging anything that sanitizes false flag events or facilitates extreme political behavior to become an accepted norm, which can happen if people are saturated with it from all avenues - including video games. Let the mainstream press and thier intellectual prostitutes masquerading as journalists have monopoly on that stuff were we can ignore the or seek alternative viewpoints if we so chose. I want to log on to a video game as a form of escapism, not another bloody reminder that I'm living in the age of deception!
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Pretty much nailed it.
Besides FD have said the game is geared towards a one man and his ship VS the galaxy mentality. The alliance thing is just a loose term for the sake of making it easier to meet friends in game - it has no substance behind it that I can tell. i.e. its not like Eve where true alliances are formed and the mechanics are there to facilitate it. I don't think ED will have a fraction of the political intrigue Eve has. Its a different type of game altogether imho.
psyron
Banned
No.
For one thing you shouldn't be encouraging anything that sanitizes false flag events or facilitates extreme political behavior to become an accepted norm, which can happen if people are saturated with it from all avenues - including video games. Let the mainstream press and their intellectual prostitutes masquerading as journalists have monopoly on that stuff were we can ignore the or seek alternative viewpoints if we so chose. I want to log on to a video game as a form of escapism, not another bloody reminder that I'm living in the age of deception!
I can understand your point of view. But isn't a good game all about immersion? If yes then there would be still a question to answer: Know people enough about false-flag-operations? If not then it will of course not improve their immersion, but instead produce headache.
Or should a game try to represent a better world? Not sure ... I don't think that players who want to be pirates care about that point.
But maybe they want an "easy to understand"-world. A world with clear actions and consequences. Maybe that's what you meant and i think i can agree that this might be the case for a big portion of the players.
If I distance myself from content of parent post, I would welcome missions, operations and events in ED which is not what they seem to be. Even that can be quite random, and not staged. It could be quite easy to implement, and add serious additional depth to game world.
I also don't agree that unions will be very loose in ED. They were in previous games, but if David's words are indication, they plan seriously overhaul immersion in your fraction and you will see, hear and meet a lot of members of your clan, including other players.
I also don't agree that unions will be very loose in ED. They were in previous games, but if David's words are indication, they plan seriously overhaul immersion in your fraction and you will see, hear and meet a lot of members of your clan, including other players.
I have to agree with that. The most interesting quests/missions/whatever in any game are those where everything you knew at the start begins to unravel and by the end you are doing things that make you question your own morality and/or make you reconsider your options.
Just because you won't be able to engage in false flag operations as an independent third party, does not mean you can't be a victim of a false flag operation offered by someone pretending to be from a rival faction.
Just because you won't be able to engage in false flag operations as an independent third party, does not mean you can't be a victim of a false flag operation offered by someone pretending to be from a rival faction.
I have to say I pretty much agree.
psyron
Banned
Fully agree on this. Many actual games and movies take that idea, that things may not always be like they appear in first sight. And player will have to deal with the moral consequences of their actions. I would greatly welcome it if those game play ideas would be integrated in ED.
psyron
Banned
I remember the mission board in Elite Frontier. Does somebody know whether it is possible for players to add their own generated missions to that board so that other players might accept one? (And maybe the mission generator could also choose to hide who is the originator of that mission?)
If this would be possible it would open the door for player-generated false-flag-operations using other players as patsies:
- Imagine a player who would like to create conflicts between two factions/alliances A and B.
- The mission would be described as an attack against a dangerous pirate ship.
- Instead the target would be a normal ship from faction/alliance A.
- The player would wait for a player operating for the alliance B to accept that mission.
- If that player accepts, don't see the trap and fulfill the mission, this will result in big conflicts between faction/alliance A and B.
As mentioned by other players, those kind of missions would add more value and dynamics to the game if they could be player-generated.
I don't have any experiences with EVE-Online. Could somebody quickly summarize what is possible there and what is planned for ED (pros and cons of the possibilities related to false-flag-operations)?
If this would be possible it would open the door for player-generated false-flag-operations using other players as patsies:
- Imagine a player who would like to create conflicts between two factions/alliances A and B.
- The mission would be described as an attack against a dangerous pirate ship.
- Instead the target would be a normal ship from faction/alliance A.
- The player would wait for a player operating for the alliance B to accept that mission.
- If that player accepts, don't see the trap and fulfill the mission, this will result in big conflicts between faction/alliance A and B.
As mentioned by other players, those kind of missions would add more value and dynamics to the game if they could be player-generated.
I don't have any experiences with EVE-Online. Could somebody quickly summarize what is possible there and what is planned for ED (pros and cons of the possibilities related to false-flag-operations)?
Undercover missions were possible in First Encounter.
One could be provided a temporary ship for the mission. Said ship would have a registration number (as in previous games) that would connect it with a specific Faction/Union.
It could be offered only to players with the highest rating with a faction AND such ship would have no escape pod. There's no prisoner in Black Ops... You know, sort of Cyanide pill...
That said, it could be the consequence of another faction pushing the player to reach a rank high enough within an opposing faction and when this Black Ops mission is dispatched to the player he/she can choose to side with his/her favourite Faction/Union.
I know I've seen this done in other games...
One could be provided a temporary ship for the mission. Said ship would have a registration number (as in previous games) that would connect it with a specific Faction/Union.
It could be offered only to players with the highest rating with a faction AND such ship would have no escape pod. There's no prisoner in Black Ops... You know, sort of Cyanide pill...
That said, it could be the consequence of another faction pushing the player to reach a rank high enough within an opposing faction and when this Black Ops mission is dispatched to the player he/she can choose to side with his/her favourite Faction/Union.
I know I've seen this done in other games...
psyron
Banned
Sorry for being extremely concerned about what may happen the next days to Syria ...
Yes you are so right - this is extremely off-topic. I wish i could be worried about a "False-Flag-Operation within ED". About a nice feature we might see in ED. But what's happening right now in Syria is really dramatic. It might in fact have been yet another false-flag-operation. Some years ago Saddam was accused of having WMDs - it was a lie to start a war. Now they accuse Syria of having used poison gas and there were indeed people dying, but this may be a lie too - "rebels" (trained by the CIA) using poison gas to blame it on Assad and to have yet another excuse/lie to start a war. But this time Iran, Russia and China will not simply watch things happening. This means we might all be affected by this war.
I think sometimes off-topic comments are just the right thing to do.
Yes you are so right - this is extremely off-topic. I wish i could be worried about a "False-Flag-Operation within ED". About a nice feature we might see in ED. But what's happening right now in Syria is really dramatic. It might in fact have been yet another false-flag-operation. Some years ago Saddam was accused of having WMDs - it was a lie to start a war. Now they accuse Syria of having used poison gas and there were indeed people dying, but this may be a lie too - "rebels" (trained by the CIA) using poison gas to blame it on Assad and to have yet another excuse/lie to start a war. But this time Iran, Russia and China will not simply watch things happening. This means we might all be affected by this war.
I think sometimes off-topic comments are just the right thing to do.
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