Being the founder of Elite’s biggest PVE community with 50,000 members, I feel that I can offer a few suggestions to get pretty much everyone to want to play in open.
I was all up for open from the start, but even during the early days it was shown that there would be zero consequences for unwanted pvp, I suggested that what was needed was some sort of crime and punishment system similar to that which was in such games as EVE Online(something of a poor version of this has recently been implemented) I also suggested that a faction style bounty system be put in place where viable targets from opposing factions become wanted and are viable targets in an opposing faction territory ( again something like this will be implemented soon).
instead what happened with Elite was a small collection of minority groups of salt mining players out to ram ships outside stations for the lols, attacking players at newly discovered alien ruins or attacking players at various community goals for no other reason than to post youtube videos of players being blown up for the sheer fun of it, any reason for a community to get together was always hindered by such groups.
When I backed Elite during the kickstarter having a galaxy of players sounded wonderful but the Alpha showed that Frontier was not interested in what the DDF( Design discussion forum) had to say and released a game thinking that everyone would get along.
If frontier wants everyone to play in open then I suggest the following.
- Players are required to choose a universal faction that being Empire, Federation, alliance or independent.
- Players that are from the above factions are legitimate targets from opposing factions and will show up as a viable target, independent players are not shown as a viable targets and are protected by the local factions law enforcement.
- Players choosing independent that attack others as a murder pirate outside an anarchy system are flagged as wanted in all factions and will be attacked by the factions security force on entering a faction system.
- Aligning yourself to a faction will offer players unique faction powers with the exception of independent players that will not show at viable targets, maybe some sort of rock, paper, scissor system.
- players that are aligned to a universal faction that have zero bounty that enter another factions territory are not protected by that factions security force but will show that they are not aligned, players wanting to attack will receive no bounty/Elite or wanted status for the destruction of said player unless wanted.
- Bounty hunters are required to register with a faction to bounty hunt players, these players will avoid being harassed by local security when a bounty scan has been completed.( a new bounty scanner will be provided by the faction).
- Player factions within a universal faction that are at war are legit targets against each other and will only be attacked by the ruling faction security of that system when an opposing faction attacks a faction member. Independent factions that are not at war attacking player faction will be treated as a pirate and dealt with by the ruling security force.
- All Anarchy systems are a free for all and have zero security forces to protect either players or player faction within that system and players will also not show as being wanted or that they are aligned to any other faction.
- Systems have a security status. Low to high, high meaning that certain death comes to those attacking a player that does not have a bounty on their head or is not from an opposing faction.
- Local security will not attack players from another faction but will only defend players from their faction, if a faction player interdicts a non faction player, security will not intervene to protect them.
- Players wanting to perform piracy within their chosen faction against players that are not aligned to their faction are not penalised in other factions as long as they do not murder a non faction member.
- Bounty Hunters are required to be an independent force, all bounty hunters will automatically see who is wanted regardless of what faction the wanted player flies in( only by getting a licence to bounty hunt will these players receive this ability), this means that bounty hunting becomes a legitimate role within the game.
Basically players need a legitimate target, being a legitimate target offers risk as there may be a Hugh trade profit on entering a system that is not aligned to your chosen faction. If players want to defend their chosen faction from players trying to profit then there is nothing stopping them from performing piracy as long no one dies.
playing within your chosen faction offers protection for those who enjoy a pve game, players wanting to gain a high profit need to risk themselves by entering a non faction system, this gives players that risk vs reward that all pvpers go on about and also gives those players that were not into pvp a good enough reason to enter into pvp to protect their factions.
I believe that using the above points will give players that want to play without unwanted pvp are protected by the system, and that those who want to pvp are free to do so.
What this all boils down to is offering protection to those players who are not interested in PVP while at the same time giving players a reason to enter into PVP/
I’m open for discussion as I am sure a few points will need some fine tuning.
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