Exploration expeditions and the counter expedition to shoot them down are pretty easy to ignore if one isn't tagging along.
I set off on DW2 with the intent of following it around until I got bored and using it as a good opportunity to for my CMDR to visit Colonia for the first time. The exploration data would come in handy for BGS work, I'd get to see some new sights, meet some new people, and probably get to shoot at some stuff. It was paced rather slowly, and the bulk of the expedition was through rather dense sections of the galaxy, so there was no practical downside to taking a combat Corvette and just making room for a class 7 scoop, a scanner, an SRV bay.
I didn't sign up for the 'official' expedition because it seemed overly exclusionary (to the point of being snobby and maybe a bit paranoid) and rather poorly run. Not that there was any reason for me to try to get into the private groups anyway...I had no intention of leaving Open and the idea of helping stragglers who couldn't get a ticket on the safe bus, but still wanted some potential for interaction, was appealing.
Great post/reply!
That sounds like a great little adventure!
Oh, there were definitely some DG participants who were out primarily to irk other players and generate controversy, with little or no regard for in-game contextuality, but it's hard to call the endeavour antisocial.
There was quite a bit of organization involved and no personal animosity by most of the DG participants I encountered against anyone. Nor were the participants challenge adverse. I spent the better part of a week being chased around Colonia by various DG wings...and it wasn't because they were having an easy time destroying my CMDR's ship (never got shot down); it's because they knew that I knew what I was doing and knew I wasn't going to be 'hiding' from them.
Attempts at shooting my CMDR down aside, most of DG actually seemed pretty amicable; and, unlike with some DW2 participants, I didn't get any out-of-character hatred or vitriol from any of them. I recall one notable example of when I tried to find someone to top off the hull on my ship and was lambasted by DW2 in system chat; some apparently thought I was trying to lure them into a trap. In reality I just wanted my 100% hull back (every little bit helps with all those phasing weapons around) and didn't know how long it would be until I was at the next station or waypoint. I ended up having to ask a gank wing, that attacked my CMDR no less than ten times over the course of the journey, to repair his ship, which they did.
Sure I understand. I didn't want to imply that PvP players or gankers are antisocial in such a sense. Just seems to me that the entire idea of let's follow a fleet of peaceful explorers around and blow up their ships seems an enterprise with the intent of griefing other commanders.. Maybe I misunderstand and this should be seen as a wholesome activity in ED open mode?
My idea of consenting PvP would be along the lines of, let's head out to San Tu and have a tournament, let's patrol Archenar (because we are imperials) and shoot any commanders that are wanted, let's go have a war for PP or BGS reasons, let's form up a few wings for convoy duty against commander pirates, Let's form up a wing and go and get one of the most notorious commanders in the galaxy, etc, etc. Of course some of this would need mechanics from FDev to encourage PvP..
The potential ramifications are related to the fact that that we have a game that, by design, allows, even encourages, both direct and indirect competition within the context of a universally shared setting. We can take sides in conflicts, put names on factions, align with factions, and shape (if only in a superficial way) the political and economic reality our CMDRs interact with and exist within. If everyone gets to play by their own set of rules and still succeed, it creates a powerful incentive to choose the absolute lowest difficulty set of rules in order to maximize one's success, and thus one's competitiveness, with least effort.
Try to give everyone what they want in a competitive setting and only those utterly indifferent to the competition get what they want. To a significant extent, this has already been realized. The people most happy with Elite: Dangerous are those who are content treating it as a single player game, who can ignore all the aspects others are supposed to have agency over.
I suspect that this is correct, possibly unfortunately!
I suppose the fun is in the uncertainty of how a CMDR will respond. NPC are formulaic and predictable in the extreme. CMDRs...less so.
It could also be argued that your CMDR's inability to protect their passengers from rare, but foreseeable, dangers of a cutthroat galaxy was tantamount to spacing them. There is no one right way to perceive such incidents.
Yes you're right about that. I'll look at it in that light in the future. No need to be bottom hurt about the past!
For the third Colonia bridge CG I flew a 744t T-9 in open in the bubble and didn't get attacked a single time. Just got the impressions that occasionally some clowns tried to position their ships so that I couldn't land, but it worked out well in the end. I think that someone blew up once, trying to suicidewinder me, and once I think someone intentionally tried to wedge me in the slot, but that might have been an accident. I was at it for a while too as I ended up in the top 10%.
I also don't really need to max out such missions any longer, as I'm a billionaire with a carrier and enough ships, Admiral/Prince, and soon triple elite, so not all that much left to grind in the game. Possibly I've cheated myself out of many hours of gameplay, but I'm beginning to understand that PvP will be one of the few end games.
I was a bit frustrated about the slow gathering of materials and the vulnerability of my ships, so I've done the youtube relogski for a while, then stacked pirate missions for cash... But it's ok, I still have to get better at FA off, PvP, and I always have the Thargoids and all the Odyssey stuff to look forwards to.
I've been flying around Shinrarta Dezhra for the last few days in the hope of getting interdicted (I want to practice getting away from real commanders), but so far no sealclubber or ganker wing has taken the bait
