I'm looking at putting together a convoy event for VO some time early November. October is just to crazy for me, and my in game activity is erratic atm.

Participation would be entirely voluntary and the reward would be that everyone hopefully has a good time. Its the standard concept. A trade run through Grey space carrying pricey items into nation space. Participants needed would be lots of traders, defenders, and pirates. I'd love to have enough participants to make using the turrets viable without diminishing the ship count needed, but with VO's current population, we may need players in ships instead.

The goal is for a balanced event. I'd like to see at least 50% + of the traders make it to the safety of nation space, which means that I also want to see up to 50% of the traders die in the attempt. I think something like this would make it more exciting for everyone involved. And to move things along, I'm thinking of making it a timed event.

The current rules (which at present are up for debate):
1. Participants get one life. Use it well.
2. Traders must be carrying high value items like chocolates, porn or lingerie (purchased at their own expense) so that pirates who score a kill get something worthwhile.
3. Defenders and traders should push to make it to the designated safe zone within the allotted time or forfeit their cargo.
4. Hiring of repair crew (EMS) may be allowed, however, they become a legitimate target for the other team. You tell me if this is a reasonable allowance.
5. Further rules are open for nomination.

Obviously, I don't have Dev or Guide powers, so enforcing much of this is a matter of trust. I will personally guarantee upon evidence that if a trader has participated with an empty or crap loaded ship 1500 cr per cube of the ship they fly. If a pirate dies and returns to the fray, I will compensate 2000 cr per cube and the cost of the ship to the trader.

The goal of this is to get as many players involved as possible from as many diverse groups / guilds as possible so that we can all have some fun and good laughs.

Please remember, not everyone can be a pirate or defender. The bulk of participants should be in a trader role.

Future events will be determined by the success or failure of this one.

Feedback please.

Uhhh, giving this event "rules" doesn't make much sense... This is what the game was built for, you don't need to establish additional rules and, if you did, we probably wouldn't follow them anyways. You don't need to reimburse anything, just have the traders independently load up their ships with what they think would be profitable (corvus holo disks, whatever) and, if traders are anywhere as trustworthy with their teammates as pirates are with each other, they will give their escorts a share of their profit. And, either way, the pirates are just going to do whatever it takes to get their hands on that cargo; it's our job, you can't threaten us with reduced standing among the community when we're just trying to make a profit on what the game means for us to do if we don't follow "your rules." Just make it genuinely RP and it will work itself out, the game is meant to handle these kinds of things without rules put in place by a third party such as NW or something.

Anyways, I'm glad some people are still thinking of handling organized events like this. It seems most of our prey is making money in deep nation space these days. You should make this like a set event held every day at a given time to actually use grey space for what it was meant to be used for.

-Chaakin Tockoa

Wow. I have to say that with that attitude, I'm already regretting proposing this event. I'm just glad Retractile died without being contaminated by it.

Giving the event rules gives it a structure that everyone participating in understands and works within. If you and your group cannot abide by agreed upon standards, then there is no point in pursuing this further. I offered a few suggestions for discussion and you respond with "we probably wouldn't follow them anyways."

Unless the general community agrees that the event would be more enjoyable for everyone without any rules, I see no point in proceeding.

I posted for discussion, not to hear a final stance.

Also, I'm neither committed enough nor care enough to organize daily events. You are more than welcome to put them together to your liking.

i think shanktank is trying to say this is the point of greyspace we shouldn't need a player run event for this to happen

Yes. We all live in that wonderful fairytale world of Soon(tm). I should think everyone knows the point of Grey space by now, since its been discussed more than the resurrection of christ.

Let's see. I can participate, or I can just flat out pirate. That's a tough call.

Chaakin presented a very reasonable and correct response to your initial proposal. However, you appear to be hell-bent on avoiding reason, to the point of sacrificing the validity of your 'event'.

If you want to run trade convoys through grayspace, that's fine, but expect to either pay or get blown up. It's deeply disappointing to me that you honestly expect that pirates will play by some arbitrary set of rules established by traders.

My (and Chaakin's, and Lecter's, and Peytros's) attitude is the correct one for a pilot in the Vendetta universe. Yours is horribly flawed. I suggest that you check out http://www.atitd.com/ or http://www.agkidzone.com/carebears.action if you want to play a game where your attitude is acceptable.

Furthermore, given the large number of newbies full of TGFT propaganda to the point that they'd rather cheat than be killed by a pirate, it would be incredibly foolish of me to expect the trader end of this event to actually abide by any of the rules they create.

I apologize. I should not have attempted to bring all interested parties into the discussion, nor should I have attempted to create a player run activity. I was wrong. Discussion over.

Ok, I can see both points to this I guess. Thing is, we haven't had any grey events for quite some time, (minus NW) and I actually miss them. Deneb run comes to mind.

Fluffy was just trying to think of something new, so why not? I'd say go for it! EMS could wheel and deal for contracts, VPR could arrange escort protection, the pirates would get to shoot ships carrying actual "decent" cargo... seems like a win for all.

Now, I realize I'm kicking a dead mule here.

My response to ShankTank was about unwillingness to join in a discussion to promote an event that would be enjoyable to all involved. His viewpoint is admittedly a correct view for normal Grey pirate activity. Perhaps someday, group convoys will be a necessary part of VO, but that is still a very long way off. It is one thing to say, 'I think such an event would be more enjoyable without rules, and here is why...' and quite another to just say that rules don't make sense because 'This is what the game was built for'. Then alludes to some phantom threat of lowered standing with the community if 'we don't follow "your rules."'

First of all, where the hell does anyone get 'my rules' or 'trader rules' in all of this?

It might have been decided that 'we' as a community don't want to have rules for this 'event'. We might have come to an agreement on some issues. Who knows? What pissed me off was what I took as an outright refusal to engage in a discussion to work out what would make such an event enjoyable for everyone.

Obviously, a convoy event IS NOT a normal or designed feature of VO because to make it work, the pirates need to know when its happening, where it starts, where it ends, the route being taken. This is not normally known information.

Finally, just what the hell out of the 4 rules I proposed for discussion are so horribly offensive to you? The only rule that would affect pirates would be the one life rule. ShankTank said 'Just make it genuinely RP and it will work itself out' How much more RP does it get than eliminating the free re-spawn?

The problem lies in the fact that you are attempting to make a 'player run event' out of normal gameplay activities. A secondary problem lies in the fact that you have responded to very reasonable criticism by throwing a temper tantrum and hollering at the top of your lungs, which is something you unfortunately seem to be doing with increasing frequency these days.

If you really can't just play the game, I strongly encourage you to take your ball and go home. We all have our own.

Some of us even have two.

Seriously, if I'm on when this is happening, I'm booming people. I'm not worrying about whether I die, whether they have stuff I like, or whatever. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, just realize that some of us aren't interested in debating an event with you.

We play our games, you play yours.

I think this thread is proof that CLM is the last true pirate guild.

I think this thread is proof that CLM is the last true pirate guild.

Someone get this idiot a dictionary.

In the meantime: if the definition of "true pirate" is "someone who plays a nice, fluffy, easy-to-beat bad guy when TGFT wants some excitement, but generally just politely stays out of the way so TGFT can get its trading done", then your statement is accurate. The funny thing about definitions though, is that you can't just make them up on the fly to suit your purposes.

actually i believe in this thread (linked below) you said dying and failing was a bad idea because it would make it impossible to play the game and that your reincarnated body deserved some sort of payment for its efforts before it was blasted to bits.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/22054

Oh if only I had time to log in the next few months. I'm glad to see fluffy still acting like a douchebag, the universe is a right place still.

all you nay-sayers are retarded. This player-run event has benefits to both sides:
to traders: they get some good heart-pounding fun, get to test their combat skills as well.
to protectors: always good fun :)
to pirates: you get to know WHEN and WHERE your cargo-rich target will be. what more can you ask for? Also, there's a large possibility of extreme profit off of this event for you. Moreover, you get to practice working together... a skill you will most likely need soon enough.

To sum up my point: if you aren't for this event, shut up. Let others have their fun, as there is plenty of fun to be had.

(let the flames begin)

Ok, so, vsyke, Atice, and myself are for it so far. Now we need some traders!

Oh yes, insulting people is totally going to make them realize that they want to play with you after all.

I'm not opposing a player organized convoy event at all, in fact I'm welcoming it, I'm just saying that you can't push any rule on our actual job. I would actually like it if every time of the day or twice a week or so that there would be a set time of a player guarded convoy through Grey that everyone who want to run some expensive Grey cargo is welcome to join into, we will automatically follow. No one needs to run it, it would just be a commonly known time of the day much like how B-8 (although I'm not all for a whole bunch of random guys filling into one of the best pirate spots in the universe for nothing but hanging out... like, seriously guys, go find an empty sector, hehe) is the commonly known place to catch a duel; no one runs B-8 (with the possible exception of us). I'm saying you don't have to push rules onto this, no one will follow them anyways. We'd much rather carry out our job on our own terms. Run the event, hey, even put some decoy moths upon your Sedina Chocolates, just don't put rules onto our job.