Vindicator Jones Discusses Fundamental Game Improvements

Ah, now I remember why I stopped coming to the forums.

Something about you avatar i ju st ca nt st o p l o o king at it...

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As for the whole ban thing, never understood the whole swearing thing, its not like he was standing in front off anyone screaming blue murder, they are but words its how they are used that counts.


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On topic ...emm nothing more to add so i'll get me coat.
 
Just a sidenote on this whole thing: i over christmas met a friend from university times. Among other things (both of us being old gamers) we found out that we both have this game. But he told me he bought the game, was shot down several times in his beginner sidewinder, then quit the game. When i asked a little more on how and where that happened, i concluded that it was a player shooting him down whenever he left the station.
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Now a few details on the person on question:
- He makes a lot of money.
- He spends a lot of it on all kinds of gaming.
- There's several online games where he "just for the fun of it" spent 500 euros over a little over a year. (It doesn't really matter for him, he's almost done paying off his house within less than 10 years and he still has plenty of cash spare... )
- He usually enjoys online games and plays a lot of competitive games. But for reasons apparently not understandable for people here, competitive gameplay and being the fish in the barrel are not the same thing.
- He is not a big forum dweller and thus was not aware of Möbius. Now he knows about it, but i still consider it very unlikely that he'll ever return to this game. There are other games out there, who very much enjoy the money he gives them, without him having to jump through hoops and all to have fun...
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Now i dare to ask:
- How much damage did that -one- player do to Frontier and this game by driving away that new player?
- Do you believe that the -one- player reduced himself to do this to only one person?
- How much money would that -one- player have to spend to be a net gain for the game?
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I conclude that he most likely won't ever spend as much on the game as he already did in damage by driving away one new player, and in the very likely case that he did that to many new players, an activity which by now i feel that FD basically encourages, did more damage to FD than he even -could- compensate for if he bought anything in the cash shop for the whole lifetime of the game.
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So that is how i actually consider all those "i attack whoever i like to attack" players: a huge liability of the game, which any -reasonable- game company would either dispose off, regulate or create a seperate server or playfield for. (E.g. null-sec zones, PvP servers, PvP flags, etc. ) But alas, as those people who play that way will always find a cheap excuse for their behaviour, lacking either the mental capabilities to reflect on their actions or not actually caring for the game they are wrecking, i guess the ball in in FDs playfield.
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As long as they cherish people who kill beginners in their videos and praise people and groups who are into activities which are detrimental to their own business, i guess it is their very own choice that they conclude to have too much income and want to reduce it.
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Whooa looks like I hit a nerve there. I fail to see how calmly discussing a subject is making you so angry. Relax, everyone is allowed to have different opinions. Its all good.




Well it is the kiddies with the big guns!! It's just a toungue in cheek phrase.
And the word carebears offendes you apparently and can't be considered a tongue and cheek phrase?
 
VJ makes lot of good points and I'd like to see a good c&p system, if only to reduce the impact on the forums but also to give meaning to being the good/bad cmdr's in game.

However, I also think players should take some responsibility for learning. Out of curiosity I went and found Rinzler's vid, and whilst I personally didn't learn much (except bandwidth) it's funny and useful.

As a card carrying brave sir robin (mostly) I honestly think a video like that should be put in front of every trader, particularly those that take part in CG's. The knowledge will help.
 
And the word carebears offendes you apparently and can't be considered a tongue and cheek phrase?

Sorry... To me it's clear one of the two of you is out to actually make some considered points and suggestions, while the other is out to "score points"...
 
@VJ
Regarding the wording you use in the video:
IMO it would be better to abstain from any side-hooking
towards playstyles and how they view your point.
I too think you did yourself and your point in the vid no favor,
by using expressions Cosmos has quoted.

If there is a point to discuss, discuss the point factual
and don't get personal.
I know it is hard to limit the personal influence into the wording
when you write something up for a game you enjoy.
But staying factual will help transport the discussion and the suggestion better,
than to pour oil into a bristling fire.

Personal criticism off.
 
Well, I know what you mean about the ramming issue, but really frontier need to raise the speed limit to about 140-150m/s and in the mean time commanders need to learn to enter the docking area at under 100m/s to avoid these problems. They should be doing this anyway considering how ramming is often an issue at stations.
I'd actually suggest the speed limit should vary by ship class, but I suspect this could just prove too confusing?

But I'd definately agree 100m/s is too slow, and something more around 140-150m/s makes more sense.
 
I'd actually suggest the speed limit should vary by ship class, but I suspect this could just prove too confusing?

But I'd definately agree 100m/s is too slow, and something more around 140-150m/s makes more sense.

Why?
Make it the "blue-zone" and be done with it.
It is logical for a government to restrict speeds to a general
limit however, even if we don't like the choice. ;)
 
The problem nobody seems to get is that if murder has severe and long lasting consequences in the way most of you guys (VJ, for instance), think it should, murder will become nigh impossible, and that would cut the balls right off a massive section of possible gameplay options, not just the ganking that makes everybody so hysterical. I'm confident that we don't have C&P system yet just for that reason: because most systems that allowed for murder and mayhem to be at all possible are simply not going to provide enough relief for those of you so desperate for it. And if murder is rendered impossible outside of Anarchy systems (thanks VJ for outlining where PvPers are allowed to fly) and PvPers are forced to dwell there because of some sort of persistent karma system, that isn't going to be any fun, either.

If C&P is too draconian it will terminate all content related to non consensual violence. The recent conflict in Xihe for example wouldn't be happening, and that would be a shame, because that's some phenomenal gameplay right there.

I thought VJ made sense in the part of his video where he talked about an ingame CQC. I would like to see that.

I think part of the reason we don't have a C+P system and why FD seemingly haven't paid it the attention it clearly deserves is that one of the hardest parts of its conception is where to draw the line. The divided community that we have in ED is at polar opposites as to what they think is required, no matter what FD do with regards C+P no one will be happy with it. I think that's played a large part in the delay in it seeing light of day and its overshadowed the fact that they are sat on a potential game play goldmine.
 
@VJ
Regarding the wording you use in the video:
IMO it would be better to abstain from any side-hooking
towards playstyles and how they view your point.
I too think you did yourself and your point in the vid no favor,
by using expressions Cosmos has quoted.

If there is a point to discuss, discuss the point factual
and don't get personal.
I know it is hard to limit the personal influence into the wording
when you write something up for a game you enjoy.
But staying factual will help transport the discussion and the suggestion better,
than to pour oil into a bristling fire.

Personal criticism off.

Well, I kinda disagree there, calling someone specific a carebear is quite different to referring to a group of unnamed players as kiddies with big guns. But hey, maybe that's just me..

Personally I think anyone getting offended being called a carebear needs to take things a little less seriously also, hence the start of the video with the care bear gag.. lol..

But fair enough, I will try and be more eloquent in my approach in the future ;)
 
Would it help if I made my own video?

It would help if you maybe just backed off a little bit, understood everyone makes comments that are questionable at times, and/or uses phrases/terms that are questionable at times, and instead of fixating on that just looked at the bigger and more important matter of the topic being discussed. And then comment on that...

If you agree or disagree with what VJ proposed in his video (or elsewhere) is of course absolutely fine. Make your point and explain your reasoning... But just descending into needless semantics while all the time ignoring the far more important issue of the topic being discussed just seems pointless to me at least.
 
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Nice video! It all boils down to telling Frontier to finally get real about game design. I have been absolutely baffled and disappointed by their bumbling failures so far.

Not sure about the "Karma" term, it's pretty cringey. It's "reputation"; oh wait, there is a reputation system in the game - it just means absolutely nothing in the context of crime&punishment. Design your game properly, Frontier!

Anyway, great job bringing this to the fore, VJ.
 
It would help if you maybe just backed off a little bit, understood everyone makes comments that are questionable at times, and/or uses phrases/terms that are questionable at times, and instead of fixating on that just looked at the bigger and more important matter of the topic being discussed. And then comment on that...

If you agree or disagree with what VJ proposed in his video (or elsewhere) is of course absolutely fine. Make your point and explain your reasoning... But just descending into needless semantics while all the time ignoring the far more important issue of the topic being discussed just seems pointless to me at least.

Words have meaning.. it may seem pedantic but its not intended as such.. Either using pejorative terms is okay or its not.
 
In amongst the personal attacks and rhetorical points of order, there are some good points here. Without responding to any post in particular, because VJ's video is a synthesis of what people like Captain Kremmen, FalconFly and Heavenly-Hammer have been saying for years, here are my two cents.

I am slightly frustrated that given the infinite riches of Stellar Forge's creation, and all the variety of interacting mechanisms underpinning the moment-to-moment gameplay and tweakable by Engineers, the way in which the NPC environment interacts with players outside of combat is uniform and deterministic.

A one-dimensional good/bad karma system may be insufficiently granular for interesting responses. Shouldn't an infamous slaver warrant a different type of response to an infamous (but non-murdering) pirate to an infamous psychopath? A heroic paladin vs a rich A-B trader vs a Community Goal hero contributor vs a master BGS manipulator vs a high level Powerplayer? These activities should map onto a set of scales for each player, the combination of which, plus the system security level, state, and government type, should determine the intensity and type of response. RPGs like Divinity: Original Sin track these micro-alignment shifts and they modify NPC dialogue trees and actions accordingly, so why can't Elite's NPCs have nuanced responses, instead of {Indifference,Terminate with Extreme Prejudice} being their total state space?

However:
  • Implementing a more complex Crime and Punishment system is likely to be very resource intensive. Consider what happens if an infamous murderer causes a wing of 4 authority Anacondas to spawn in a High Sec system. Now what happens if 4 infamous murderers are flying together in a wing. Do they each get their own wing of avenging Anacondas in the instance, or a couple of much larger wings? So FD have to add a shared 'Authority Brain' component to the p2p gameplay to manage a measured 'Bring me everyone. EVERYONE!' response to multiplayer criminal gangs.
  • If a balanced lawful/shadow economy were to be added to the game (to not simply punish criminals out of the game, but to offer them rewarding gameplay and to offer risk-accepting lawful pilots a challenge, this would mean utterly rewriting the BGS. I'd love for this to happen (link to the 2014 post I trot out whenever this comes up) but I'm not holding my breath. If only Sandro has gone and ordered implementation of a C&P rewrite coming out of one of his requests for comments many months ago, and FD are just keeping their powder dry until it's approaching release, eh? But that's God Patch thinking so I'll hold that thought there.
 
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Words have meaning.. it may seem pedantic but its not intended as such.. Either using pejorative terms is okay or its not.

Agreed... And on the internet they're even more easy to misunderstand or take in the wrong way. So by all means continue to bat "kiddies" and "carebares" around if think it's important to nail their meanings and use home. Or, you could instead decide to skip that and try and keep focus on surely the rather more important topic(s) being discussed.

Anyway, this is continuing to take the thread off topic...
 
Vindicator Jones, with all due respect, but I think making this into a video for this is a waste of time both for yourself and us. This would have been better as a written post, as that would allow re-reading, quoting etc. Plus, your voice is sometimes hard to understand (I said it in the past, I think it's your microphone), and the extra effort to concentrate the listening itself detracts from concentrating on the actual content.
 
Was going to say the same but I thought it was just me. IMO the pitch of the background music is a bit close in pitch to his voice.

I thinks it's the lower frequencies, I don't know the audio-technical jargon to properly describe it, but it seems to "oversteer" in the lower frequencies.

Generally, for any video content like this it is a good idea to include subtitles directly in the video at least. But I still say it would be better to post this in a written form instead. :)
 
Vindicator Jones, with all due respect, but I think making this into a video for this is a waste of time both for yourself and us. This would have been better as a written post, as that would allow re-reading, quoting etc. Plus, your voice is sometimes hard to understand (I said it in the past, I think it's your microphone), and the extra effort to concentrate the listening itself detracts from concentrating on the actual content.

A written post, without the funny action figure? You must be mad.:D
 
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