The idea that the game has or designates predefined roles that cannot be deviated from, or that role-playing is limited to one's adherence to these arbitrary roles that the game doesn't actually mandate, is the single most idiotic assertion I have ever heard with regard to this game.
Likewise, claiming that the game's implementation of the Pilots Federation was intended to be more than a very loose club, whose members weren't expected to frequently be at odds, flies in the face of everything the game actually is, making such an assertion an entirely artificial, personal contrivance.
I'm not a ganker and I don't play a ganker character, but I do not want to have anything to do with anyone who thinks they are the sole arbiter of what constitutes proper role-playing in this game, nor those who try to force their ideals of what a correct experience is upon me via matchmaking exclusions.
I accept that I have to tolerate these unwanted impositions upon my game, or deal with an even less than optimal situation, but I do feel compelled to point out the abject hypocrisy and harm of this behavior.
Likewise, in a game like this, the idea that all gameplay must be part of some arbitrarily 'legitimate loop', with said legitimacy contingent on being provided with some reward token, that the game long ago made irrelevant, is nearly as absurd. My CMDR has not needed credits, or materials, or even faction reputation for a very long time. He would thrive if he never encountered another unit of any of those things. He does not need any more garbage and NPC favor is meaningless. I consider this a very positive development that all that crap is behind me, because I do not enjoy contextless looter-shooter or faux-trade gameplay theme park rides. The real game began when that nonsense ended.
If it's not for each player to decide what constitutes ganking, who would be in an unbiased position to do so?
It doesn't really matter what constitutes ganking, if ganking isn't against the rules. This is doubly true in the case of blocking and block lists, because there are no rules as to how that can be applied either. A list of CMDRs wearing Remlock underwear (all of them of course) is every bit as legitamate as a list of those arbitrarily deemed 'ganker'.
The game says: ENEMY so it's fully legit to kaboom.
For the first six years I played the game, civilian massacre missions were labeling all CMDRs "
Mission Target".
Anyway, the game's UI doesn't dictate who my CMDR's enemies are. For me, these are dictated by organic cause and effect, suspicion, extrapolation, rational presumption with varying degrees of prejudice, based on the situation at hand...almost anything
except the arbitrary dictates of hamfisted mechanisms assigning colors to my CMDR's HUD.
it still takes no skill whatsoever to attack a trader with a wing of highly modified combat ships.
It certainly takes skill to prevail in such attacks, otherwise my CMDR's trade vessels would have been shot down in encounters with these wings.
I will continue to block them all when in Open, luckily as i spend most of my time in guardian sites, i HAVE to play in Solo or some turnip blows up my ship because a T7 sitting on the surface is a huge challenge to destroy (yes ive had it happen).
My CMDR's exploration/trash recovery ships have been attacked at Guardian sites, more than once. I've never lost one, because I applied the skills required to survive or prevail in these encounters.
Your opponents not playing by your personal rules of engagement does not make them the problem. Your definition of skill, or PvP, or whatever, are not the single most correct ones.
You're certainly entitled to block whom you see fit, but I consider it a small mercy for the rest of us that you spend most of your time in Solo, because the last thing I want is being excluded from the content I enjoy because you've decided it's ok to shield me behind your personal sense of propriety via non-contextual means.
