This sounds so wrong on so many levels. I find that deeply worrying. Social interactions should not be a game mechanic.
Seriously, what's the point in open play?
- Thread starter DjVortex
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I find it wrong on so many levels too. And infinitely entertaining.
that sounds even more wrong to me
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Mind you. We just had this exact same conversation over at https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-blocking-system-a-call-for-change.614584
Feels like we've been here so many times.....
Feels like we've been here so many times.....
Sadly, this has been a problem in MMOs, and before them MUDs, for over 40 years. In Ultima Online, organized PK groups would use ALTs to infiltrate anti-PK groups, so they could raid where such groups were weak. For them, exploiting the social aspects of the game is just another part of the overall meta-game.
Games like EVE online are designed to explicitly cater to this mindset. So are games like Among Us, or the Town of Salem. They work in those games because everyone knows it’s just part of the game. The problem is when you take that mindset into other games…
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Frontier have not changed the design of the game - either in favour of those seeking to force others to engage in PvP or in favour of those who want a PvE mode - so the cycle continues.
I think the point is...
If you don't like open, don't play in open so then you'll have no reason to complain about it.
If you don't like open, don't play in open so then you'll have no reason to complain about it.
Well, I was expecting plasma, not lasers.
Other than the other user's analogy being complete hyperbole, no, there is nothing wrong with a game where danger is prominently depicted as a feature in the marketing material, repeatedly warned about in the documentation, and assumed by all sorts if in-game entities and mechanisms, to occasionally present some vague semblance of danger to in-game characters, like our CMDRs.
Violence and insecurity are real problems in the real world that persist despite millennia of efforts by humanity to pacify itself. The game is a fantasy dystopia that plays up many related themes, for our entertainment. Not everyone finds these things entertaining, but they most certainly aren't out of place.
The has a tendency to attract certain demographics and gankers are a subset of that. I never saw any reason to expect them all to be kids or to fit any other offensive stereotype based on how they play a video game.
Presuming a certain age based on this behavior is barely more justifiable than all these spurious and specious accusations of psychological disorders.
I feel precisely the same way about casting broad instancing exclusions about in a multiplayer game's Open mode where people are trying to play together, with both acquaintances and strangers...but it is just a game and this behavior, as harmful as it is, isn't breaking it's rules.
Also potential consequences, even (or especially) to third parties and bystanders, from some of the tools commonly used to counter ganking.
I'm not always clear on the definition of 'ganking' being used in these contexts, but one of the main points of fantasies like games is a lack of real-life consequence. We get to try things that would be far too costly or risky to indulge in reality.
As for anonymity, that's also a strength of the medium that can aid immersion as well as protect everyone involved. Letting one's anonymity slip is always a risk, for pretty much anyone, because no matter who you are or what you do, your actions and existence will be offensive enough for someone to try to do something about it, if you make it easy enough for them. I don't believe anonymity particularly encourages ganking, because if there is any single general trend I can identify as being more prevalent among gankers, it's attention seeking.
C&P is just a middleman for consequence and cannot work, at least not with anything resembling contextuality, without the underlying game mechanisms being capable of inflicting consequence. Basically, there is little point in fussing over C&P until it's possible for CMDRs that know what they are doing to face losses serious enough that the threat of them can shape their behavior.
People have reasons for what they do, but only they are privy to most of them, and even that self-awareness requires some introspection. Trying to divine those motivations from the outside is exceedingly difficult, and usually pointless. The why a player of a game does what they do in game does not matter. If anyone's dubious presumptions turned out to be accurate, it would change nothing.
I usually find the in-game tools sufficient, if occasionally clunky. I don't think I've ever used a guide for anything in this game and I don't have any 3rd party tracking or QOL apps installed for it. I do occasionally use the forum to communicate with people I play with in game, mostly because messages cannot be left for my CMDR in game, but that's about it.
Nothing against most of these outside sources or 3rd party tools, as long as they aren't effectively playing the game for someone, but I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to my own gameplay.
one could argue it might be dangerous to train your mind that this "mindset" is normal behaviour. This is bound to bleed over into other aspects of gaming or, more dangerously, life. Not everything that seems to be "okay" on the internet should be blindly accepted as such.
Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
Indeed - however that would not stop some of those who prefer to play in Open bemoaning the fact that players affect "their" game features while playing in Solo and Private Groups.
soo... Hotel California is what you are saying?
Seriously, man, at this point: Blah blah blah. The conversation bits you are quoting have nothing to do with blocking and how if affects you. It is about social engineering becoming an acceptable practice in gaming and the dangers of it.
It isn't becoming acceptable. Some games are geared toward it. It's literally in the code; an intended consequence of absolute freedom within a digital space. The way this relates to blocking is, to borrow a word from @Darkfyre99, mindset.
If you go into Open with the expectation that others should play the game the way that you do, or that you want them to, you're going to get burned and feel bad and start blocking people, despite the fact that they have provided emergent gameplay (albeit gameplay that you are uncomfortable with). I never blocked any of the gankers I encountered back before I knew how to elude them in Open because I understood that a) I have no control over them, and b) I chose to swim in a shared ocean.
That's what it boils down to. Open in ED is a choice, and the choice to be in it comes with the consequence of having to deal with whatever its residents throw at you. Expecting them to share your moral compass, or to regulate their behavior to align with your standards, will inevitably result in disappointment.
I vehemently disagree. It has to do with a behavior that many feel justifies a certain response, when that response feature a similar disregard for the effects upon others, which was highly on-topic with the post-response chains I quoted.
I don't think Kawazu was referring to social engineering, nor do I believe griefers infiltrating private groups to cause trouble qualifies as social engineering. There was no higher purpose in those infiltrations; the goal was to amplify the harm caused by inflicting it in a scenario where it was least likely to be expected, and most likely to draw attention.
Regardless, metagaming is metagaming to me. I don't see any more danger in actual social engineering (which is non-existant in the examples leading to the posts I quoted) gameplay than I do in YouTube guides on how to exploit broken material farming mechanisms, or stream sniping. While I find such metagaming undesirable, solely because of what they do to games, the idea that such gaming practices will bleed over into the real world in any way that could be construed as dangerous is some Joe-Lieberman-level moral panic nonsense.
you can, but you would be wrong. Don't tell me what I was talking about or bend it towards your narrative.
I acknowledge that you may have been talking about social engineering, but I think you're mistaken if you think that's what the conversation was about.
And I'm not bending anything, I'm looking at the context, as I see it.
well it is your prerogative on the internet to crash a conversation. The bit I and others were talking about was about social engineering in EVE and similar MMOs. No connection whatsoever how I grief you if I block a ganker. But way to draw attention to your own agenda
. Have a cookie.This is a forum. If you want to have a private conversation where random members cannot interject their opinions on the matter, use the private message thingy.
To be fair, things have gotten rather convoluted here in the lobby of Hotel California, and it's partly my fault. I brought up social engineering in the context of discussing just how far online environments can go in terms of freedom, in the case of EVE to the point at which the game caters to those who actively seek to manipulate others in a bid to control organizations and the outcomes of their activities. ED isn't like that, but a similar kind of freedom exists in Open, and if we aren't able to adapt to the grimier aspects of it, there's a good chance that we'll leave and never return. Or have block lists a mile long. And after a while, we become bitter that we aren't able to enjoy it the way that we want to because someone else may come along at any moment and ruin our fun.
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