Or to trust traders word about it.

Please excuse me, I'll return to VO around the time of the second generation of player controllable cap ships.

I should have stopped laughing by then.

forgot smiling emoticon from the post :)

What I am doing here is trying to do VO less harsh environment for a new players. Choice of balancing risk and profit should exist, so newbs like me dont get frustrated too easily.

"For the sake of argument, why cannot a pirate accept that a player just does not pay? Especially if the player is not even carrying cargo..."

Because it is anything but Role Playing.

But it depends ...

Imagine a real life situation. You are walking a sidewalk when you suddenly get mugged in a street corner. Seven feet tall thug is screwing your balls, aiming his sawed-off double barrel at your head. What will you do/say??

1) You will pay.
The safest and, in fact, the best real life choice. Even policemen recommend doing so. Moreover, this is definitely RP.

2) Risking your life and drawing your .357 Magnum really quickly you will shoot that bastard.
You want to put your life in risk just to be a local hero. Dumb but OK, this is RP too.

3) You will try to run and escape.
Depends on the situation. Maybe a good or the dumbest idea ever. Anyway, it is fine, enjoyable fun and RP.

4) You will just say: "HEy pirat cut ma ballz and kill me cos i neva pay!!!!!111 Yo mama is so ..."
Err, what? This game requires role playing. You should value your life like you do IRL. Moreover, this is Vendetta Online, not Egoists Online. Such a people should be shot off this game.

I am fine with any RP scenario. I am also fine if you ran out and then call me "lazy slow pirate" from safety. But calling someone names, going personal and crazy, not valuing your own life ... signs of IQ too low to play this game.

Now back on topic please. Sorry Dr. Lecter.

I think real life example does not apply here. That's because there is no law enforcement in VO to take care of criminal afterward, and game system punishes dying only in lost time and credits.

Maybe it is part of pirate role to be ready to fight for your profit. Bigger asking price means higher probability to get shot back.

After all, sorry for inconvenience, my account expires tomorrow, and i think i will not pay for it anymore.

Door, ass, don't let, etc.

"I think real life example does not apply here. That's because there is no law enforcement in VO to take care of criminal afterward, and game system punishes dying only in lost time and credits."

All in all, VO is just another game in which players are not obliged to submit to any predefined behavior. This is exactly why the player base that exists would do better for itself if it actively participated in reasonable rp. This is why I happily paid Fusion last night, even though letting him kill me would have likely tanked his xx standing. I've always got on with him, so I had no reason to be an ass. There are some others, that I personally have no problem being an ass towards but thats another thread or two.

Honestly, there are enough structural holes in VO that undermine RP without a significant portion of the community disengaging itself.

Back to the comment I quoted, wtf? So your telling me this seven foot Lecter is staring you down with a gun to your head, that your decision is going to be made based on whether or not there is some form of police force????? This makes no sense.

One word. Somolia.

Inco, what you are protraying is simply a justification of bullying. If you are fine with that being the only possible way of role-playing, I pity your imaginative capabilities.

Given the fact that I RP a cyborg, the macromolecular pattern and ghost imprint of which is buffered on a well-hidden planet, guarded by a sentient, rampant, colony ship AI, why the hell should I care about some attention-deprived weenie wanting to relieve me of my (disposable) body and means of mobility?

Not to mention that I hardly ever carry cargo, and when I do meet a pirate, I usually stay and fight her or him, or start to run as soon as I can (which either ends up with me getting away, or me dead, but paying then is really just a waste of time).

What I'm getting at is that some pirates should get off their fucking high horse of self-proclaimed RP or accept the RP of others, as well, even if that means they don't get paid.

Dammit, you people make me sick with your 'act according to my pre-conceived idea of how to play VO, or else you're a meanie' attitude. Go play Wii Sport Resorts or something. Or perhaps, I don't know, Daikatana.

Edit: And for the record, I have not made my RP persona up just now. I can't directly prove it (after all, I could have edited my year-old post about who I am RPing), so you're going to have to take my word on it, or perhaps the word of some people I can ask to vouch for me.

Edit 2: Added qualifier to avoid overly blatant generalization.

Edit 3: I should get Billy West to read my posts and post those readings on youtube, then link them.

With edits.

"I am fine with any RP scenario. I am also fine if you ran out and then call me "lazy slow pirate" from safety. But calling someone names, going personal and crazy, not valuing your own life ... signs of IQ too low to play this game."

While I agree in principle, I think in practice unless the same player makes this a practice that it overlooks a key element of the situation the player faces. Particularly for newer players who are more often targeted. Having been pirated and a pirate, I know that to a greater or lesser extent there is something of an adrenaline rush for both parties. So its only natural that with that brain inhibitor saturating someones mind, they would be inclined to vent their frustration in some occasionally enlightening and creative ways. So I think to make that a blanket statement is may be a bit premature and unfair to new and virginal in the piratey sense players.

Edit: While it may appear my other comments in this thread may suggest otherwise, I am in agreement with Toshiro's post.

If you have a 100% chance of losing X credits worth of cargo/rig because you have both a 0% chance of winning a fight against me and a 0% chance of escaping from me, it is rational to pay up to and including X-1 credits in order to buy a 100% chance of not losing X credits.

Slice your RP however you like, Tosh: nobody is saying traders who fight back aren't RPing, or that those who could maybe get away by running aren't RPing. Though if I've run you down and death is inevitable, continuing to run rather than hitting the brakes and hoping that I'm feeling forgiving ... makes no sense. What is being noted is that someone in an XC full of cargo and stuck in the middle of an unmonitored sector with 3000m to go before they can jump, and 500m away from my armed Greyhound . . . is out of any character whatsoever when they say: "screw you, pirate that wants 250k in exchange for letting me not lose 1.5 million! I don't care about death or credits because they're meaningless!!"

Admittedly, that's the Devs' fault for making VO into space quake where death has no penalty at all, and millions of credits fall from the sky for free. But it's still not RP.

Point taken, Lecter, and apologies for the outburst. I'm just talking from personal experience, always a mistake. It gets me riled up a tad when I'm accused (by generalization and specifically) of 'not cooperating in RP' when the RP is lacking so far back in time that no-one directly involved would know it if it hit them on the head with a very large hammer.

But, yeah, once death has meaning, my style of playing/RP will be a lot more difficult to uphold. If I fail to do so, I hope you'll remind my of my claims.

too all non pirates posting in this thread GTFO

To all pirates posting in this thread. Make us.

This "What qualifies as RP" discussion is a bit off. Some people don't always do the "rational" thing... either in real life or RP.

Moreover, Lecter's example that it is rational to pay him to spare your X1 if you have no chance of living is flawed. What if your thinking takes into account the long-term. If Lecter kills your x1, then he gains nothing except a pvp point. Sure, you lose your X1 and get sent home... but maybe that is a cost you are willing to bear to keep Lecter from making another 70k+ credits. Maybe you believe that paying pirates is in part what makes piracy profitable, and therefore you refuse to pay them and suffer the consequences? This act is a "rational" one.

However: I agree that endlessly whining about not paying on 100 is somewhat inane. Saying that you don't pay on 100 once, then shutting up about it, is acceptable... just as saying "shoulda paid" on 100 is acceptable.

Also, just for a mind-fuck, through Ghandi at your "rational" arguments, and see where you end up.

"Not to mention that I hardly ever carry cargo, and when I do meet a pirate, I usually stay and fight her or him, or start to run as soon as I can"

So you perfectly fit my rules, period.

Final reply to Fluffy:

In my opinion, in VO universe firepower and piloting is the law. YOU are law enforcement. theres no police telling "you better pay".
Lost credits are lost forever if you dont even try to do something.

Also there is no universal solution, when someone is pirating you. In Lecters example it is not wise to even try to run, but even I have managed to escape, different ships, different situation.

Errr, Atice, I think Lecter was using X as a variable, where X= your investment in cargo + ship. His arguement while rational, is not a choice people would realistically make. Most folk would say screw the penny because it is of no value to me. In fact many folk would do this at even higher retention levels.

Off topic, the US really needs to lose the F-ing penny. Australia rounds to the nearest nickel. A nickle though only five pennies is still of value. I'm sure other countries have done similar.
/me is tired of collecting shrapnel.

"X-1" represents an undefined sum of credits from which one credit is being subtracted, Atice. Not a valk. My point being that if you will otherwise lose X credits, reason dictates being willing to part with any number of credits up to and including X credits minus one credit to avoid that loss. I understand, though, that economics aren't Columbia's forte. And no pirate asks for 999,999 credits when the cargo+ship+gear are worth exactly 1,000,000.

Your argument that "gee, if I pay him 250k then he's more likely to pirate again" might have some basis, except for the fact that there is a 100% chance that I will kill you and loot 1.5 million credits worth of your cargo if you don't pay me. I'm willing to sacrifice potential profits to RP a pirate, so long as people are willing to pay. When they're not, I'm perfectly happy to kill them without hailing and sell their remains. This argument's value is limited to the instance where the loss to be avoided isn't in cargo.

Finally, Ghandi's approach only works in a world constrained by the modern conception of morality. VO, however, neither shuns nor penalizes genocide. The Romans would have killed every man, woman, and child that followed Ghandi's teachings, and resettled the razed civilization's shattered ruins with more pliant, taxable, conscriptable peoples. And they'd be right to do so, though that's a different debate.

goddamn. read too quickly. point still stands for any ship where the pirate wont gain anything except a pvp kill (aka you have no cargo). If you do have cargo, then things are a bit more grey. I do submit, however, that some people stand on principle even when that principle isn't rational at that current moment, and that such things should still be considered RP.

As per economics: economics rely on every consumer (or in this case pilot) always acting in a "rational" fashion. My whole point was that people don't always act rationally (or that rationality isn't set in stone with regards to the current topic).

but I'm digressing way off the point of the thread, so I'll shut it.

"In my opinion, in VO universe firepower and piloting is the law. YOU are law enforcement. theres no police telling "you better pay"."

This is VO in a nutshell m8. Vendetta. Get better. Get even.

As much as some of the pirate community may be liked or disliked by other members of VO, they are a much needed antagonist. Sadly insofar as I can tell, nationalism is in a coma atm. Without this conflict, VO becomes a very very dull game. I remember long before the days of CHRN, when the titans of Evil CLM and SYN where for whatever reason mostly absent from the game, I often lamented that I'd rather be pirated than hit another gd ion storm. So I became a pirate, kicked some ass, got my ass kicked some and we all had fun.

Escaping or making a reasonable attempt is legitimate RP. Choosing to fight is legitimate RP. Being caught in a situation where you can't escape and can't fight and still refusing to pay is an invitation to death. If you want to go with the idea of the captain going down with his/her ship, then perhaps it is RP. I think the problem lies in the frustration of most of the legitimate pirate community wanting to be more than just griefers or pkers. For them, the fun lies in creating an economic situation where for a price you can continue your activities unmolested for the rest of the day. In the good old days this payed off well. The modern unfinished economy not so much. Hell, I don't know how the current rats do it, but in the past, some of them would even defend you against other enemies while you were in their territory.

I don't know how the current rats do it, but in the past, some of them would even defend you against other enemies while you were in their territory.

Currently, there are less than five traders I'll even bother hailing, Fluffer. Almost every single one of you has a shitty, 'how dare you attack me and expect me to negotiate' attitude about piracy and, what's more, actively works to instill the same in the generation of noobs who are beginning to trade/mine -- so I shoot your kind on sight and sell whatever drops. There's maybe two I'd consider passing along the word to non-[CHRN] pirates that they've paid me and I respectfully request that they be given a pass. There's not a trader alive for whom I'll engage another legtimate 'rat, however.

Maybe for a large escort fee, but really, at that point, you're better off just hiring me to make an 'in hostile space and potentially opposed in force' delivery. Such mercenary acts are not cheap.