I'm not against PvP in the game. If someone is playing as a pirate and is doing so with the aim being to make money from stealing cargo from other players, then fine. Piracy is part of the game and it's one of the choices you make on how you decide to play.
The type of PvP-ers I'm not overly keen on are random players who just attack so they can blast the dirt out of you for no real reason than to get their kicks. I personally find it quite cowardly for some brainless numpty in a big tricked out ship, and more weapons than sense, to go around blasting any poorly defended smaller ships for no good reason that to show how "good" they are at combat, and get some childish thrill out of it. If people want to play that way they should pick on ships that are more equal to their own.
That being said bullies do crop up from time to time and I think it's something we'll have to put up with. In my experience it does seem quite few and far between and will probably lessen as more and more of us filter out into the far away systems away from the start areas.
tell that to the fed dropship i found at a USS. i was in an eagle, i had no bounty on my head and no cargo and he was orange to me on the scanner. with weapons tucked away it scanned him to check for a bounty then finding none i flew off. the NPC then proceeded to open fire on my freagle and i had to boost out of there with pips in shields and engines while my FSD spooled up!
random ganking just for the sake of it is not just done by players, it's done by NPC's, even the clean ones.
the reason i play in open is because i know the buzz you can get from PvP, even when you're not looking for it. being interdicted by an NPC seems me swinging my guns round for a bonus bounty payout when i dock. being interdicted by a player gets my heart beating faster as i slam power into my engines to put some distance in as i try to escape. it's just more fun.
sure the other guy might be in a multi million ship and vastly out match me, but that's why i get the buzz, it's not some NPC scripted to fly down my gun sights, it's a player who is probably going to try killing me. i dont care if they have honourable intentions, it's fun for me.
one real problem ED has is the inability to talk to someone unless you are either friends or in the same instance. what you will find from these "griefers" is many are just out to have a laugh. i've learnt this from eve where many a newbie has posted on the forums at how they got killed by player pirates while in their cheap ship, and for some reason they stopped to talk. what followed was a friendly conversation and tons of advice on what to do next time. also when you leave safe space all the PvPers out there are just looking to have a good fight, they run from bad odds and chase when the odds are good (unless they suspect it's a trap) and after they fight they often drop a few compliments in and go get another ship. in ED safe space is solo/group and dangerous space is open, all of it. so i expect any player i meet that opens up on me to be a PvPer not a griefer.
so sure some players may just be out to upset other people, but the bulk of PvPers will be out for some fun, and are not doing it out of malice and given decent comms would happily coach any of their targets for next time.
i dont think you realise that you're bashing a very friendly community who take open PvP as a way to have fun and blow eachother up. i'm not saying there are no griefers, i'm just saying your average PvPer is probably not a griefer but someone who will shoot you in the face then help you do better next time (if comms allowed) and will be quite merry about getting shot in the face by someone with a bigger ship.
open PvP will attract such players as eve does, and you're agreeing to the open PvP when you click on the open button. so just think of it as getting jumped by an elite NPC that's got you out classed and is going to shoot you regardless, then see if you can out wit them. if not, well, that's what insurance is for.
