Let's face it, this is a PvE user heavy forum, and it breeds itself accordingly.
Without commenting on moderation bias, it's pretty clear some of the moderators here, and often the more vocal ones don't like PvP.
So yes, this place is unwelcoming to PvP players.
Eh PvP'ers aren't saints, and they don't need to be but posts like this don't help your side either, just throws the victim role.
The fact is that there are significantly more PvE'ers then PvP'ers in games, that is simply a function of numbers of people who need their games to be competitive and those that do not, those that prefer solo games, or cooperative multiplayer, there are significantly more none PvP play style options then PvP, so more PvE'ers, and this being official forums, which are often loud, it isn't really surprising that PvP'ers are a minority to me, but it isn't hostile if you ask me, but many seem to think it is, and bias their posts accordingly, and yeah, guess how that goes.
Or at least that's my perspective.
My hangup is the signal to noise ratio of it all really. In the past 2 months I've had maybe 6-8 encounters with other CMDRs that were hostile. I trade rares in Open, I've done all but 3 CGs in that time, I went down to Maia to see the space artichoke, and I spent a gang of time grinding Sirius rep for the permit. Seen plenty of other CMDRs in stations, in RES, in CZ, SC, everywhere. 6-8 hostile encounters in 2 months. In about half of the cases my "body language" so to speak may have been interpreted as aggerssive (scanning, deployed hardpoints, approached to less than 500M in a Vulture, etc.). I'll tell you this, in that same 2 months I've probably winged up with double that number in random people and added most to my friends list and will wing up again from time to time.
What the hell are you all doing that paints such a bright target on your backs anyway?
Exactly this is my experience as well I play mostly in open and generally do not have an issue with griefers or such, it all depends.
the main issue is CE's if you ask me, because griefers gravitate towards those high density areas. And lets be honest, if they see an unshielded potential target, guess what they go for.
open has been a great experience for me, the problem I see, is that people do not notice x amount of silent commanders, while they just fly about doing their thing, so they aren't counting each of them as 'important' but that one commander that does hurt a lot of people most definitely counts, add that many people are just not communicating with others, plain and simply silence (I know there can be valid reasons for this) but yeah, if you do not try to interact with other players, out of fear of them going to do something bad against you, and you then only get interaction from those that deliberately destroy and grief you? yeah then your total sum is going to be a negative experience.
Generally more communication and interaction in the game of all kinds, would be a big plus to everyone. And I am still insisting that frontier should implement a 'local' voice channel for those that use headsets and hotas setups, so they do not need to type. Granted it won't be perfect but it would be better.
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I'm simply explaining my pov and that of others and describing my experience here. But if in doubt do a search and count the number of 'griefer' and hateful threads directed towards anyone who PvPs.. I'm not being hyperbolic, what I've said is the reality.
In short the forum has become a platform for PvE fanatics to berate and malign anyone who doesn't sing from their hymm sheet.
I'm talking about your words towards braben? not about the forum in general....I've never disagreed that there aren't a lot of threads like that, but many of them are also valid threads and threads made from frustration, remember that. There IS a griefer problem, like there is one in any game with PvP possibilities online of late. Denying its existence, or defending people's rights to be griefers, does not solve the problem and those that are griefers are to blame for their actions, legal or not, it is legal to do many things irl, but even so there is a host of things you do not do, because of how it would affect others, and in turn how they would treat you, this is something you avoid online entirely, you can do whatever and no one can 'treat' you negatively, and there isn't a mechanic easy solution for this, because I've yet to see any game find one, other then those previously mentioned, but even they aren't perfect. And thus griefers exploit this fact.