Interview with SDC about Salome.

[Han_Zen]

Darned skippy I am bitter! It's the best of the flavours. It's a flavour with hairy balls. Salt and Pepper is so 80's.

By the way, you have the bestest sigs.

Between you and me ... I might have been kidding there. But don't tell anyone.

All in all, the true winner of the event was the rather anonymous explorer, Commander Enshiv. He discovered the Teorge listening posts a few hours before the start.

Enshiv 5 all others 0.

 

[DaveB]

First up, the obligatory disclaimer exposing my personal bias.. I despise SDC. I think they are scum, barely on the "legit" side of the line that separates gamers from griefers and they are precisely the kind of player I don't want to play with or against.

Having said that, however, I think we are being a little unfair to them with respect to this event. What they did in the event, infiltrating a player organization as a 5th column and getting themselves in position to pull off this assassination, was perfectly "in-character" for them. It was also exactly how the lore of the ED universe would expect such a group of "rogue pilots" to behave, given the size of the bounties offered.

If anyone is "to blame" it's the PAC leaders for forgetting that when you sup with the Devil you should be using a very long spoon. For me, the way PAC "organized things" and just who they were trusting to lead their PvP efforts led to serious misgivings about the outcome. If nothing else, the PAC leadership should have established a "side channel" with a few non-SDC PvP pilots detailed to shoot THEM down at the first hint of betrayal. I saw no sign of that but then, if they were doing it right I wouldn't see it, would I? Nevertheless, I ended up deciding not to participate, because if I did I wanted to fight and they "wouldn't let" me do that on the side I wanted. PAC fouled up and put the fox in charge of the henhouse. SDC were just being the group of rogue pilots that they are.

 

[Alec Turner]

By the way, you have the bestest sigs.

The latest one (Aquarian Job) is just glorious isn't it! All credit to AkenBosch for that.

P.S. if you click it things get even better, this latest race is going to be frickin' awesome!

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Having said that, however, I think we are being a little unfair to them with respect to this event.

What comes around ...

 

[Javert]

First up, the obligatory disclaimer exposing my personal bias.. I despise SDC. I think they are scum, barely on the "legit" side of the line that separates gamers from griefers and they are precisely the kind of player I don't want to play with or against.

Having said that, however, I think we are being a little unfair to them with respect to this event. What they did in the event, infiltrating a player organization as a 5th column and getting themselves in position to pull off this assassination, was perfectly "in-character" for them. It was also exactly how the lore of the ED universe would expect such a group of "rogue pilots" to behave, given the size of the bounties offered.

If anyone is "to blame" it's the PAC leaders for forgetting that when you sup with the Devil you should be using a very long spoon. For me, the way PAC "organized things" and just who they were trusting to lead their PvP efforts led to serious misgivings about the outcome. If nothing else, the PAC leadership should have established a "side channel" with a few non-SDC PvP pilots detailed to shoot THEM down at the first hint of betrayal. I saw no sign of that but then, if they were doing it right I wouldn't see it, would I? Nevertheless, I ended up deciding not to participate, because if I did I wanted to fight and they "wouldn't let" me do that on the side I wanted. PAC fouled up and put the fox in charge of the henhouse. SDC were just being the group of rogue pilots that they are.

I have to agree. I think there are many times in the past SDC have gone way too far. But on this occasion, based on the information we know at this point (and there may be more facts to come out or which may never come out), SDC played the role you describe above quite well, regardless whether that was actually their motivation or not.

BUT - this is all slanted to SDCs description. All great events have different sides to the story. PAC did not trust SDC at all - they were very well aware that there was a high chance SDC would try to betray them at some time and they had separate comms channels that no SDC members were allowed into. They even had an order 66 kill order to kill all PVP members who were not trusted, which clearly included all known SDC members. Unfortunately on the night, most of the PAC forces were 200 light years away from Salomé becase the VIPs didn't follow the pre planned route (probably for the same reasons discussed above ^^).

COR, who were the core protection wings for Salomé, didn't trust neither SDC, nor even PAC, because they knew very well that SDC or others would try to infiltrate any group they could.

Now we don't know for sure that there aren't secret SDC members who are pretending to be someone else, but fundamentally that could have happened anyway regardless.

Check out these to hear different perspectives from the defenders:

Lave Radio Interview with PAC and COR:
http://laveradio.com/salome-aftermath-special/

Unaltered video footage from Salomés VIP wing
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...te-Dangerous?p=5473883&viewfull=1#post5473883

Starts at this post and is in 3 parts covering the entire event.

There is another video from one of the other VIP wings which hasn't been uploaded yet.

By the way, can someone please link the entire video footage of Harry Potter's perspective of entire activity for the whole night so we can see both sides of the action.

 

[A D]

Sorry, I'm not getting the whole SDC (small club) thing. Can someone explain why they matter?

 

[DaveB]

...PAC did not trust SDC at all - they were very well aware that there was a high chance SDC would try to betray them at some time and they had separate comms channels that no SDC members were allowed into. They even had an order 66 kill order to kill all PVP members who were not trusted, which clearly included all known SDC members. Unfortunately on the night, most of the PAC forces were 200 light years away from Salomé becase the VIPs didn't follow the pre planned route (probably for the same reasons discussed above ^^)....

Then they did it wrong. If there was ANY wing of "defenders" that was ALL SDC, it was too many. If you cared enough to put the "order 66" in place, you should have been saying to SDC "Look, you're the best PvPers we've got. With instancing and everything we can't afford to have you concentrated in only a few wings. We need you spread around, one or two of you in each PvP wing like the seven samurai leading the villagers." and in every wing that contained a SDC member, there would be at least one other who could have received or transmitted the "order 66". HP should have been burned down before he got his second round off. Same for every other "group" that was participating as part of PAC. You don't let them concentrate where they can find themselves as the only "group" in control of the situation. Anticorruption and counterinsurgency 101.

 

[Javert]

Then they did it wrong. If there was ANY wing of "defenders" that was ALL SDC, it was too many. If you cared enough to put the "order 66" in place, you should have been saying to SDC "Look, you're the best PvPers we've got. With instancing and everything we can't afford to have you concentrated in only a few wings. We need you spread around, one or two of you in each PvP wing like the seven samurai leading the villagers." and in every wing that contained a SDC member, there would be at least one other who could have received or transmitted the "order 66". HP should have been burned down before he got his second round off. Same for every other "group" that was participating as part of PAC. You don't let them concentrate where they can find themselves as the only "group" in control of the situation. Anticorruption and counterinsurgency 101.

Indeed.

And that's exactly what they did. Listen to the podcast I linked.

Harry Potter did not show up to his assigned wing and vanished as soon as the event began. Now, probably, you could say they should have had a wing assigned to "mark" him and follow him as potentially he was the highest threat. All good points with hindsight.

Also as I said above, by the time the final showdown came, all the PAC forces were a long way away because COR did not have live communications with PAC (or at least not fully open ones) during the event. This was on purpose most likely because they knew PAC was likely infiltrated by SDC.

PACS entire strategy (rightly or wrongly) before the event was based around a series of waypoints that they were given by COR. During the event, the VIPs bypassed those waypoints.

You can also say, why didn't they immediately do order 66 at the beginning - again this is explained in the podcast, (or, for an alternate explanation and to preemt SDC propaganda "We are so good order 66 would have failed etc ).

The only part I haven't quite followed is - why not chain interdict them immediately from the beginning without killing them - I don't think that was discussed in the podcast but I suspect there was a reason as well. However, all these things are easy with hindsight.

 

[EddyRockSteady]

Sorry, I'm not getting the whole SDC (small club) thing. Can someone explain why they matter?

They don't.

It's trying to get sheeples to understand this simple concept that is difficult.

Long story short, they befriended a player to be able to track them, tracked them via the friend icon and killed said player. That's It, really. Reflects poorly on the game mechanic but it is what it is.

 

[DaveB]

...The only part I haven't quite followed is - why not chain interdict them immediately from the beginning without killing them - I don't think that was discussed in the podcast but I suspect there was a reason as well. However, all these things are easy with hindsight.

Agreed. Hindsight is always 20/20. However, you're right. The first overt sign of the upcoming treachery was HP not joining his assigned wing, and I'm sure that the "secondary defenders" you mentioned probably had him as KoS from that point on. The second "bad sign" was the VIPs departing from their planned course. That's something will give any security personnel hives. If your principal is "off-plan" at least half your security has just gone down the toilet. Whoever thought that was a good idea or proposed it was either sadly misguided or a "bad guy" themselves.

 

[Jaiotu]

Sorry, I'm not getting the whole SDC (small club) thing. Can someone explain why they matter?

They don't.

It's trying to get sheeples to understand this simple concept that is difficult.

Long story short, they befriended a player to be able to track them, tracked them via the friend icon and killed said player. That's It, really. Reflects poorly on the game mechanic but it is what it is.

That's the thing ... SDC shouldn't matter at all. People blowing up pretend spaceships in a game where one of the core mechanics is blowing up pretend spaceships should not be news. The fact that SDC gets the coverage by the community that they get is indicative that we all put way too much value on our pretend spaceships. I realize that our pretend spaceships often represent a significant investment of time spent playing the game but part of the joy in having them should be the risk of having them destroyed.

If you play in Open then learn to accept the risk. SDC has managed to get themselves into private groups where their brand of antics is against the spirit of those groups and that is an affront to good manners but, honestly, the only way to be sure that you'll never lose your pretend ship to another player is to play alone in Solo.

As long as people continue to cry over the loss of their pretend ships there will be a market for their salty tears and there will be someone like SDC ready to harvest them.

- - - Updated - - -

Agreed. Hindsight is always 20/20. However, you're right. The first overt sign of the upcoming treachery was HP not joining his assigned wing, and I'm sure that the "secondary defenders" you mentioned probably had him as KoS from that point on. The second "bad sign" was the VIPs departing from their planned course. That's something will give any security personnel hives. If your principal is "off-plan" at least half your security has just gone down the toilet. Whoever thought that was a good idea or proposed it was either sadly misguided or a "bad guy" themselves.

EDF was providing protection to Raan Corsen and at least HE stuck to his defined route. I can't vouch for any of the other VIPs as they held zero interest to our group. Raan had a personal connection to EDF as we are the controlling faction of Chi Orionis which was center point to the suspicious death of Femi Dekari and Raan's alleged theft of proprietary Metadrive documents. EDF isn't really a role-play centric group but we do engage in the lore when it intersects with us and Raan most certainly intersected with us.

 

[DefiledDragon]

Sorry, I'm not getting the whole SDC (small club) thing. Can someone explain why they matter?

They're a major driving force in pretty much all the in game events, from CG's to this latest escapade. If those events matter to you, then I guess SDC matters to you too.

 

[Stealthie]

Another thing that bothers me...

I find it INCREDIBLY arrogant that the person being interviewed seemed to be suggesting that it was "for the best" that the pleb's be kept away from the real action so the elite of Elite could get on with doing their thing without hindrance.

Sorry but that's utter ballcocks.

Last time I checked, everybody paid the same for access to ED.
If it ended up being a bunch of newbies who happened to share an instance with the protagonists in this event, that's the way it should have gone.
It should NOT have been engineered so that the "speshul soljers" got to have their fun.

The next time somebody arranges one of these things, they'd do well to remember that.

And shame on the OP for preferring to just write a worthless "fluff piece" which is simply a long-winded series of excuses rather than actually addressing any of these issues.

 

[Oaktree]

They don't.

It's trying to get sheeples to understand this simple concept that is difficult.

Long story short, they befriended a player to be able to track them, tracked them via the friend icon and killed said player. That's It, really. Reflects poorly on the game mechanic but it is what it is.

And that was the big problem with this event. You needed to be friends with the players playing the characters in order to participate in the event. The rest of us plebs were just wandering around clueless, while a select few were following a green icon on the galmap. And even those had issues with instancing...

 

[Dbrn47]

The OP and subsequent words of Ryan's were very carefully chosen to subvert opinion and illicit salt from the already disaffected player base, mostly in the form of inserting very cruel barbs hooked to strings which can then be tugged on. I certainly wouldn't advise anybody to interpret it at face value.

When reading SDC propaganda it's always wise to search for the hidden dagger, first. Or in this case, the sub-context.

Another thing that bothers me...

I find it INCREDIBLY arrogant that the person being interviewed seemed to be suggesting that it was "for the best" that the pleb's be kept away from the real action so the elite of Elite could get on with doing their thing without hindrance.

Sorry but that's utter ballcocks.

Last time I checked, everybody paid the same for access to ED.
If it ended up being a bunch of newbies who happened to share an instance with the protagonists in this event, that's the way it should have gone.
It should NOT have been engineered so that the "speshul soljers" got to have their fun.

The next time somebody arranges one of these things, they'd do well to remember that.

And shame on the OP for preferring to just write a worthless "fluff piece" which is simply a long-winded series of excuses rather than actually addressing any of these issues.

I'm afraid you may have been had, my friend. You've been took. You've been hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Led astray. Run amok!"

 

[Kapow]

Elite will suffer as long as everything need to be managed and organized by players and completely with out any in game tools to help in this. If the game had support to host events like this or even simplistic real player faction system/ way to organice/form player group in game, then there would be no problems. Like ability to tag more than 3 players to be on your side. What PAC did was the only way to have any kind of organized defense that could actually work. If they had done it other vice it would have been just be huge free for all fight and not fight between 2 parties. This is the best they could do with tools frontier has given to players. This event is perfect showcase why we need better tools for players to form groups and represent their group in game and how important player group tools are for the game.

P.S. its funny how player here on forums are so vocal how you are just one pilot in this universe and that you are not hero or significant factor, but then they rage because their role was just that in this event. They after all all want to be the hero and others being the random, meaningless cmdr

Huge +1. This event was great at showing both what the game could be like and also where it lacks and stumbles. With more in-game tools for players to organize and play together for common goals this game would easily become one of the best Space Sims ever made. I might even forgive them for their terrible RNGeers

 

[Stealthie]

I'm afraid you may have been had, my friend.

Please explain.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Instead, we got a bunch of try-hards showing up in their NPC slayers that were dying left and right and occupying resources that couldn’t be spared...-->We helped because we needed to build trust within PAC so we could hopefully gain some inside knowledge. Turned out that we didn’t really need it because of our spies, so instead we began to sow doubt and confusion. We needed the defense of Salome to be competent but not TOO competent because we still needed a window to get the kill. Worked out flawlessly on our end.

Yes, you spread confusion with the "come unarmed in our builds" - the fact that this is laid bare in a 4-question interview is frankly ridiculous.

There was a PvP challenge and you chose the easier path, that is the one that will go into the records, not the deeds of a CMDR whose name is too ..... to go into any publication.

 

[biot]

They're a major driving force in pretty much all the in game events, from CG's to this latest escapade. If those events matter to you, then I guess SDC matters to you too.

Let's not get too carried away. They do one thing over and over. Trade CG? Blow stuff up. Livestream? Blow stuff up. Salami's Diner Dash? Blow stuff up. Alien ruins discovered? Blow stuff up. The pattern is pretty much established and expected now. They kick over sandcastles, they do it very well, very competently and arguably do it without equal. In very specific, narrow contexts their contribution is significant and has to be taken into account. But that's about it. There's more to the game than that.