I saw this more as a Nation War style event than a piracy event. In Nation War, it would make RP sense if you made the statement "you can't push any rule on our actual job," almost as well as you make it for this event. That's not the point. The point is that if you don't follow the rules the events are not going to happen. If/When the economy is fixed, then maybe there will be enough trader convoys through grey that y'all can make this argument and it will have real teeth. Until that day, this convoy is going to be as unlike reality as Nation War is.

And on the "putting on rules" front, the pirates accepted certain restrictions on their freedoms for stuff like the Deneb Run, which lots of you are now missing: stuff like not being able to kill racers in the starting sector before the race begins. There is lots of precedent for pirates being willing to give up some freedom in order to accommodate the fun of everyone. You've been doing it for quite some time, it seems odd to all of a sudden (in the middle of a huge trader drought, when more cooperation than ever is needed) decide that you won't compromise anymore.

That being said, I think this event could work without the life restriction. Pirates, defenders, and even traders if they wanted to could all return to the struggle, and that would emphasize group tactics in a different way. Knowing you only have a short time after clearing a sector of pirates makes timing key, as well as scouting out staging areas, rehoming along the way, etc. It might not be exactly what you had in mind when you came up with the event, but I definitely think it could work out well, if that's what the community wanted to do.

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

In other words, "make the traders follow some set of rules/something which will make our job easier, just don't tell us how to behave". Right... because that's great incentive for the traders. Such an event would have to be mutually beneficial.

EDIT: For those who can't spot sarcasm in text well, here's a hint: there is a good example in my response above.

pirates accepted certain restrictions on their freedoms for stuff like the Deneb Run

Speak for yourself. The only people who accepted any rules on who they killed and where they killed them w/r/t the DR were those who wanted to get paid by the race committee for those kills. The rest of us had zero problem trying to kill people at the station.

Is it that bad to kill people in station sector?

ooops

: )

PS: Do organize a n00b convoy for me, me is getting old and has difficulties to feed correctly, See that as an act of mercy : )

I admit, Lecter, that I never hosted a DR when you were around. However, I never had any problems with people trying to disrupt, and, indeed, hosted several runs where there were lots of pirates cooperating to bring down the racers. It's true that there's nothing stopping you from griefing the event (be it the DR, NW, or this proposed event). It's also true that when everyone follows some pretty basic rules, everyone almost always has more fun. I notice that it has been quite some time since there has been a disruption at a Nation War. Wouldn't it be the perfect show of not being restricted by other people if you killed everyone before it started and returned once you died to kill some more?

This is a community. A lot of the fun things that happen are generated by the community. You can aggressively not buy into the community, and disrupt events that people put on for everyone's enjoyment, but then nobody has fun and the game dies even more. Fluffy is basically saying "I'll try to drive lots and lots of traders with high-ticket items through grey for you to try to pirate, if you agree to some simple rules." If you go with what he's saying, it's likely everyone will have a grand old time and it might be repeated. If not, it'll never happen again, and you'll have nothing to do but sit in B8 all day (an exaggeration, but you know what I mean).

You'd prefer to carry out your job on your own terms, I can definitely respect that. But your job depends on the traders being there, which by and large they are not right now. Fluffy is trying to bring down traders, on his terms. If there were lots of other traders to choose from, that might not be very tempting, but as the pickings are very slim, rejecting his offer of traders and fun is not getting you anything at all.

So in this case, pirates become griefers for the duration of the event if they choose to not be participants but be pirates? Seems awkward, and inauspicious.

Maybe the rules can be adjusted to make the event more robust.

I've adjusted by moving into their nation space and finding them there, diq. If they come to Grey, I'm shooting them my way.

As for your definition of "griefing," I'll just say you amuse me.

Finally, Fluffy is getting his panties in a twist for no good reason. Obsidian used to run a somewhat similar mining event in Azek, and rapidly adjusted to the fact that pirates like hunting miners by adopting some ground rules. The difference was that Obs didn't scream and cry and stamp her wittle feet when not all the pirates agreed to not shoot miners at the drop off station. She just cut us out of the event rewards and left us to our own devices. The event continued, much as events are wont to do, and everyone had their fun. Did some miners get boomed while trying to dock? Sure, but that hardly caused problems. Likewise, Fluffy's traders are only realizing that they might boom a pirate only to see them reappear... chasing a moving convoy. Oh. No.

The more I think about this, the dumber an idea Fluffy has. All that needs be done is the same thing [TGFT] used to do when they wanted to have some convoy fun: put together a convoy to haul valuable goods from point A to point B, with the goal being to make as much profit as possible. In order to ensure that they'd actually have some fun, rather than a totally quiet flight, they'd post the event, arrange some [VPR] coverage, and those pirates that were on would kill what they could.

Oddly enough, it seemed to be a fine event without any silly NW style rules.

As I posted above, I think it would be a perfectly fun event without the one life rule.

And my definition of griefing is not necessarily rigorous, but going out of your way to disrupt a player-run event for no purpose but that it be disrupted, thus ruining the fun for everyone else, pretty much fits. I will agree that pirating a convoy does not constitute griefing, I was using the term too broadly in that instance. That's something that pirates would do anyway, so it should not fall under the same category. Disrupting something like NW or the DR is a lot more like griefing, but that is a separate discussion that we shouldn't get into here.

I was going to put in more here on the topic (I wrote a good bit of it out, even), but I decided that it's beyond the scope of this discussion. It would probably end up being unintentionally preachy, and that wouldn't do any of us any good. I agree that this event could probably function fine without the life limit, and I think the direction this thread took immediately is quite indicative of why I no longer log on very often.

I seem to recall miharu having to change the start position of the deneb run in order to make it more robust against extra legal participants.

I think, that if you give it a little thought, you can design an event, that will account for pirates doing, what pirates are already and naturally doing.

The one death rule vs the shortage of players: you are limiting yourself, and attempting to limit others, in plain light that you are already facing a shortage of participants, and that otherwise interested participants don't want to limited themselves to dieing once. It would be like a pirate telling a trader that if he kills him once he can't use that trade lane anymore. rp and all.

Just have the traders figure out how to get x number of cu of item x through grey space at an announced time from serco space through the odia trade lane to itani space. if pirates don't show up, you win. if you deliver x items, you win. if you make peytros cry and log off, you win. those are called rules. if you don't like them, change them. (but keep the peytros one. it should be universal for all events.)

I'm glad to see that there is some discussion happening.

Lecter: The reason my 'panties are in a twist' isn't over some rule or lack there of. It is because of a refusal to engage in the discussion. As I prefaced the suggested rules:
"The current rules (which at present are up for debate):"

The one death rule like all the rest was subject to people's preference. Which is what 'up for debate' means.

At no point did I try to impose 'my rules' or 'trader rules' upon anyone. However, if your going to brush off my overtures with a 'we probably wouldn't follow them anyway', then so far as I'm concerned, screw you. I'll just do my own thing and not waste my time. If certain members of the pirate community want to have an attitude that they are above and beyond the rest of the VO population, fine. Just don't expect me to abide by 'your' rules or engage in activities that enhance your game experience.

The entire point of my post was to explore what would make such an event enjoyable for the greatest number of people and get the greatest number of active players from our sadly lacking player base involved.

Now you're just being a pissant: WAHHHHH!!! This discussion didn't go exactly how I thought it should, so I'm done with this idea and it's YOUR FAULT IT'S ALL RUINED! THIS IS WHY WE NEVER HAVE NICE THINGS!!1

You sound like some pathetic, passive-aggressive little school-girl. Less debate, more do.

Impavid held a convoy event once, some time ago. All involved seemed to have enjoyed it. He was in an XC full of chocolates, Everyone else divided into two teams. A -> B. Pay escorts if safely arrived, cargo will have become looted if not.

Lessons from it: the route should not go through nation space, the XC is too weak/slow.

I think you have it ass backwards Lecter.

WAHHHHHHHH! All those mean traders are hiding in nation space. Its not fair. They should be punished by nerfing nation space profits down to 10 cr a day so that they have to come and play with us, because we're too stupid to practice faction management. VO isn't fair! Those mean traders in their Taurs hurt us with those nasty Gatling Turrets! They should be nerfed too! WAHHHHHHHHHHH! WAHHHHHHHHHHH! WAHHHHHHHHHHH! VO's not balanced! Traders make too many credits and we can't get them because we're too fucking lazy to leave B8. WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

More do would not happen at best for three weeks unless someone else hosts sooner.

Edit: I forgot my current favorite. WAHHHHHHHHHHH! Nation space is too safe! Lets make half of the nation systems Grey! We'll pout if you don't! Cause its not fair!

None of which is in this thread, sweetie.

And all of which are open-ended suggestions for changing game mechanics, not event ideas floated and then dropped in a huff as soon as someone says something the OP didn't like.

But since this is off-topic anyway: I'm not too lazy to leave B-8, and I know how to game the faction system and exploit nation space better than most. In fact, having restored my UIT standing to excellent and stockpiled lots of proc goods where they'll let me regain standing in the least amount of time, lately I've taken to chewing up noobs, traders, and miners in Arta C, Dau, and Azek. It's a lot of fun, and I especially like shooting the obviously newer XC/heavy miner pilots down to about 3% hull and sticking em with the repair bill -- not even any faction loss there :D Often I'll follow them to the station and do it a few more times. And when I catch some poor young UIT sap homed at a sub-faction station... well, let's just say he won't be leaving until I grow bored.

The noobs really appreciate my presence in nation space rather than in Grey, I can tell.

Since we're off topic anyway, how much 'real' trade do you see happening in UIT? I'm not talking about newbs proc-ing up their standing. I mean real traders trading vs Grey trading. And sugar plum, its the pirate centric attitude that also afflicts this thread. The idea that because you play 'outside the law' that you may also play outside the 'social bonds'. The idea that changing game mechanics to favor pirate activity shouldn't take into consideration ways to make those changes worthwhile to other roles. I think Impavid said it best when I had to force feed him the knowledge that he had played with my former character Retractile, and I paraphrase since I don't recall the exact wording. "You gave up being a respectable pirate to become a moron trader." Yes. Yes I did.

Back to topic, its sad that this thread degenerated to blowing raspberries as soon as I made an additional post. I thought the discussion had become quite good until that point. Regardless, you are quite correct.

The idea is to change game mechanics such that most player interaction will occur in the least regulated space, you narrow-minded squirt of diarrhea.

That "favors" pretty much all sorts of interesting activity, piracy included.

It's cute that you think running a convoy event is just like NW, and that anyone who plays different is violating "social bonds."

Back to topic, its sad that this thread degenerated to blowing raspberries as soon as I made an additional post.

Correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but in this case, I think we can be pretty certain that it does.

Chaak made a reasonably good argument for eliminating the life limit, albeit couched in a "we aren't going to do it your way because we don't want to" manner. Fluffy, I think you overreacted to the manner, rather than to the content, and subsequent posts by pirates completely misinterpreted what Chaak was trying to say and turned it into a flamewar (not singlehandedly, it was a bipartisan effort). These are the impressions I got from this thread, and feel free to correct me if I misrepresent your viewpoint. I am calling it how I see it, but I am as fallible as anyone.

The pirates in this thread seem to be saying that they don't support a rule-bound version of this event because this is what grey-space should be all the time. Traders should fly through grey and quake at the possibility that they might get pirated at any moment, by pirates that respawn as much as they want and use whatever means they like to either get paid or get the loot. Fluffy's response to this seems to be that while that might be what grey space SHOULD be all the time, it isn't like that now. The volume of traders required for that is not currently present, so he is proposing this event to get more trade down into grey, for the sake of both the traders and the pirates (everyone has fun and hopefully makes a good profit). To that end, he proposed a set of rules that would entice the traders down, as obviously the incentives for them to come down on their own do not currently exist. It is debatable whether or not some of those incentives are necessary, and some useful debate on that subject has occurred, despite all the flames.

The Fluffy in this thread seems to be saying that it's clear the pirates don't want to play by any rules, even when acceding to them instigates more trade to possibly pirate, and so he doesn't feel it's worth holding an event like this when people are so clearly going to not hold to the rules, and possibly actively oppose them to the point of making holding the event intentionally more difficult. The pirates seem to think that because this is what they would be doing anyway, even if they didn't know about the event at all, the rules are too restrictive, and they don't want to be unreasonably blocked from doing what they perceive to be their job. Their position is that Fluffy should accept that pirates are going to pirate if there is loot to be had, and structure the event around that truth, as previous events have successfully done.

With this as a baseline (assuming that I've correctly captured people's intentions above, which is certainly not assured), I think we can try to move on without resorting to personal attacks and rancor. I think this event would bring some excitement to the game, and I think it could work just fine without the one-life rule. If Fluffy decides to hold it, I'll actively promote in in my guild, and, assuming it happens at a time I'm available, I will participate.

(It's also possible that nobody here wants an attempt to try to bring the thread back in line and move it forward productively. If so, just tell me, and I'll desist in the future.)

I, for one, will not tell you to desist.

It might feel safer and more enticing for potential participants if we use something akin to Impavid's or Roda's model.

I'm simply suggesting to just run it like a normal public convoy: announce the time, the start point, the destination, and all else will follow. There's no reason to make a NW out of it like that "bounty" event way back that required co-operation from pirates who didn't have any stakes in the competition and who would rather be hunting anyways, hehe.