it used to be different lonestar...

And no pirates really never cared that much about hold, as long as they got the kill (valks). Later on after they noticed the marauder was as decent they took that one. Which is still one of the best ships for its purpose.

I have never seen a pirate pirate in a tradeship or a variant from a tradeship. aka a wraith, a prom or a centaur. Why you may ask, because people stopped sticking to fight the opponent due to the sunflare era(due to unbalanced ships). I miss the times off outdodging or even killing pirates while I traded and in stead have to choose between either running or dropping...

Then came the other extreme of always being able to outrun everybody. Which ticked off the pirates to kill even faster in stead of trying to make it enjoyable by all...

And maybe the good times are comming back, we will see but this will also need somewhat of a mentality change of the pirates. If they kept to make it fun and not only did it when they wanted to have fun, then Im sure it would be better for the game in its entirety.

And sorry to say it, but 8 hours is far from enough to get even a feel for the game if you are willing to pay for it. Why? Very easy, the first 4 - 5 hours are needed to kill a simple collectorbot due to the massive learning curve. And being able to enjoy a bit of pvp takes a bit of time itself. You only get hooked to the game in its current state when you tasted from a bit of everything. And really 8 hours is to little to get a taste of the game. 7 days seems better. Just as most standard other rpgs offer.

actually, Lonestar, i believe you are mistaken; i've been a bit disappointed that no pirate has ever been the least bit interested in my cargo. just about any cargo is completely worthless in the current state of the game. they just want cash. :)

yeah, definately interested in cash instead of cargo. kinda like toll roads only want their money and are not interested in what you are hauling... we are the toll booths of space. hehehe. :)

Renegade... do you even play? I never see you ingame.

Shape!

Thankyou for that, i really didnt want to bring it up, but for somebody that does not even play at the moment....

No,

I do hop online sometimes by using the 8 hours trial to see if anything changed(mostly after an update). Can only say it is still not a game im willing to pay 9-10 euro for. If it had been 4-5 euro, you would have seen me maybe a bit more (if time permitted).

Still, being active or not does not matter the slightest, I think I got more then enough experience in actual playing the game to know what drew me to it and to say if it is in it yes or no. Not to mention that attacking somebody by just saying well you don't know anything since I don't see you play, seems like your grasping on the last straws just to try and nullify my points. Otherwise you would have come out with point after point to counter all my concerns. Which I however didn't see.

cheers

Now that's nasty, I was making a single point. I could make a lot of others. Like that I think that your intent purpose of sterilizing this game may trick players into staying, but it will offer them nothing in the way of replay value.

Look at counterstrike, or warcraft, they put their best players on a pedestal, and the other players strive to get there. This is the truth for most games that succeed. We don't want to punish the new players, but we do want evolving content, and ESPECIALLY danger and risk for the explorers. You somehow think that explorers will be convinced that the game isn't worth it if they meet resistance.

I THINK, that the reason why players may have left, is that they found their sacrifices in exploring to be not worth it. They found corvus... and got a bit of equipment, and that's it... done.

And if you are not actually playing, then you have NO IDEA what the dynamic is with new players atm.

I have never stated that shape.

What I want is that all the ships are balanced, meaning that each ship should be able to take out any other ship. I never stated that it should be easy. Unless it is specifically noticeable that the ships that are chanceless have something else going for them. At the moment, it are only the big ships that are decently unbalanced (but im waiting) and will see once the devs notified them being balanced. My point is however that if you can take out a centaur in a valk/marauder then really I don't consider this to be skillfull or even roleplaying a pirate. If you however try to hunt the centaur with another centaur or a prom or a rag at this time. Then I will applaud your attempts and consider you to be a real pirate, in stead of someone trying to get some easy pks. Naturally once the big ships (and marauder) get balanced I might change my stance about pirating in general.

But at the moment (and in the past), pirating was only there to:

1) amuse bored vets
2) let these vets feel powerfull

And this has always been at the expense of newbies, being the reason why there was such a low retention.

And please don't compare vendetta to games like warcraft or counterstrike since both these games have no intention of being a role playing game. Vendetta is a RPG with hints of FPS(at least that is what the advertising made apparent to me), not an fps in its entirety and sure as hell it is not an RTS (where unit x is the natural counter of unit y).

I never stated that there should not be perill, but only once there actually is a story behind it all and the game is actually balanced and pirates tie into the story then I can and will agree that pirates are part of the game. But as long as that is not the case, I consider it to be only people putting it in to feel better or to be less bored.

And then I prefer that in stead of pirating you keep to the wars and the duels since this at least gives everybody the freedom that he has payed for. And you know just as well as me that wars are never the same same for duels, and that these in themselves are more then enough to keep people enticed to offer replay value.

Since the actual RPG content is not in, which I consider the reason to be most people stopping with playing. And sorry but human pirates will not solve this lack of content. And really, we have never put pirates on a pedestal. I never seen eldrad pirate, neither did I see asp pirate nor maso nor lin. Most pirates were considered not to be pilars of the society but annoying little kids (leathal, scuba steve'sorry', icarus). Although outside of this pk-suit they were giddy good chumps...

I am a newbie, and I am not in the least put off by pirates. I started playing this sort of game with Tradewars and then Elite. Tradewars was fun with only three products to trade and in text mode only. This was because of the high risk of trading. You had to work to get your cargo from here to there. Whether or not the cargo is valuable to the pirate is beside the point. Whether or not the pirates is just trying to 0wnz3r you is beside the point. The point is that trading from port to port is boring. However, having to make it through a gauntlet of pirates and maybe pick up some spare cargo that they had laying out between Sedina and Odia as bait on the way is a ball. Especially if you are in an Atlas - infiniboost, but not the fastest. A well balanced ship if you ask me.

And you mentioned, Renegade, that balancing the ships means that each ship can destroy the others. They can, but it takes some skill. But you can't expect that a newbie in a bus can take out any pirate he comes across and that it should be so because his ship is balanced. That's not how the game should be. The newbie gets better, gets levels (licenses), and then gets better equipment to make it a bit easier, but also becomes a bigger target. That's what the challenge is all about.

I welcome any pirates to try and catch me. It's the meat of the game. Botting and trading without risk is boring. Why would someone pay for that content? CtC might be fun (although I'm UIT so I haven't tried it out really) and PVP and Wars great, but I wanted a trading game. And trading can get easily boring if there is absolutely no risk that you will get your cargo to its destination unharmed.

lonestar thats your prerogative, and that means that you don't mind getting pirated on trips since it makes you having fun.

However I hate trading, I only do it to have sufficient money to fund my excursions with, for nothing else. Naturally if there were some real missionstrings and stories with trading, then I will consider it.

But untill that day, I prefer to do as less of trading as possible without getting bothered in something I consider to be a pain in the ass and which keeps me from having fun.

Because of this, pirates are in fact taking away time of my fun, for which I payed dearly.

Your point tied in with my previous points, if people enjoy something, then please let them have fun since there will always be likeminded people. However, leave the unlikeminded people out of the entire debacle. Which is something that happened in the past, and which I miss at the present.

I however agree that the bus and warthog and the vult and een the cent are balanced. I am however doubting slightly about the marauder, the rag and the centaur not to mention the prom.

in my opinion the marauder is the ideal tradingship, it can fend of for itself and has a supreme cargohold. If you however keep the centaur the same as it is now, then you need to make the cargo of the marauder at least at the same proportions of the atlas and increase the cargo of the centaur with a couple more (like add 50%). If you however prefer the maud as it is now, then I suggest that the centaur gets changed to at least 2 times the current cargocapacity. But like I stated before I am waiting on the rebalancing of the heavy ships, which should not be just targets which they are now.

I agree on the Centaur. There has to be some sort of advantage for such a heavy ship.

However, as far as your feelings on what the game is about - it's a fighting and trading game. I'm sure there are games out there where you can just do official PVP or man vs robot all you like. But in a dynamic game with multiple players online, you have to expect that there will always be that sort of thing.

My only real point is that if there weren't pirates making trading challenging, then the devs would have to make npc ones to do it in their stead. Like you said, trading is boring on its own. It has to have some sort of challenge to make it worth doing.

lonestars, and that is where I suspect missions to come in for.

In a real rpg you only do fetch and carry missions in the beginning and then you sure as hell are not in any big risk.

Not to mention that these npc pirates will be tolerable in my eyes since that is a part of the game, just as bots are a part of the game. But as long as piracy is only infused by players, I will never consider it to be part of the game. Since the only real advantage pirating offers is pvp and that can easilly be obtained through duels or wars. But only when there is an actual string of missions that can be found to join the piratefraction then and only then will I consider human pirates to have a place in the game. Not to mention that not everybody that completes this string will automatically have rights to be a pirate. Only a certain percentage of the population might become pirates. And once the amount of wannabees exceeds the limit, then these wannabees need to beat a majority of the established pirates in a duel to be able to make a former pirate into a wannabee pirate and this wannabe pirate gets the title of the former pirate (the wannabe pirate choses the pirate that gets kicked). But as long as it is only a wannabe pirate, it should not be pirating anyhting but npcs. This will make sure that we keep a healthy trader/piracy population in stead of seeing x pirates and the traders contineously acting as their moneycows. Since this will drive people away (happened in the past). And then you create this supreme elit-ist feel that you so wanted shape (and the actual powerstruggles that I expect in a real roleplaying sense of pirating). Not to mention that it will not be as easy as proclaiming yourselve as a pirate and take it as an excuse to pk.

the rest of the kills in grey space are not to be confounded with piracy but just pk-ing.

And yes, chances will be mighty big that im going to go to guildwars, since it has exactly this split in regulated pvp and pve. the only lack is that it is not real skill that decide when you hit someone or not, but we will see...

cheers

In an open ended role-playing game, you really have no right to say pirates have no right to exist, since when was the last time you saw a space game without pirates?

wouldn't it be innovative to for once not use pirates :D

Not to mention that becomming a pirate is not just like I want to be a pirate, lets go and kill people in grey space and take there cargo since that makes me a pirate...

??????

how is this NOT what becoming a pirate is like? pirates are CRIMINALS!

look, if you want to be a mugger, all you need to do is procure a weapon (unless you're naturally large and threatening) and hang out in poorly-lit areas waiting for a victim. you don't have to apply for a mugging license, or go to mugger school!

look. enough demanding that the devs make the game exactly the way you like it. Renegade, since you've been playing for so long and have so much experience, have you tried organizing any sort of antipiracy group? how about a gang of vets that patrols through grey space, attacking and killing any pirates they encounter? how about any suggestion other than "devs, please make it impossible for players to be pirates", because that's pretty much all i've heard from you.

you've made your suggestions, repeatedly and at great length. i don't think there's anyone on this board who doesn't know how you feel about pirates, and piracy, and ship balance. please come up with some new ideas.

Because it is a rpg and not a simulation.

Meaning that you use story elements and missions to further your advancement not just take something up to do something. Meaning that you need licences to do anything(we wouldn't have needed combat and light weapon licences and all otherwise...).

I also presumed the missionstring for pirates to be a novelty in my explanation...

And yes, these have been made but have been considered to be ineffective since they only created more pirates. Not to mention that they evolved into less likeable groups due to the power they might have over other people. Reason why anti-piracy should also be tied into a missionstring or a profession, which is build in in game and not regulated by mere people.

cheers

Hmmm, rene, see me in the news twice for my actions, see me being bounty hunted, and not just me loosing skill, be me actually loosing licenses for being hunted (yes, I had to spend a lil time botting in some places)

I have been locked out of TPG space forever for one fscking kill....

I know you hate pirates, my RPG/PvP experience today.

I finnaly decide to do some trade missions and gain some faction somewhere other than RED, the faction i decide to work for is on the current Itani transoprt run, Im flying a Centaur MK 3, I had guns, and saw the itani transport, being Serco, i blew it up (I did have intentions of capturing the cargo, but two Itani warped in) - I was on a trade mission, and didnt want to loose my cargo, so i ran...

...A skilled itani (alpha) chased me and shot me to near 40%, my main goal was my mission, so i completed it and was told in the bar *you have attacked our convoy you will be dealt with*...

I took another trade mission, he shot me to 60% half way through, so i docked at the nearest station, which just happened to sell me swarms, i grabbed some, and popped his lil pie rat ship in two presses of my trigger

Nuff said...

hakamadare, that's not a bad idea. I'd love to see an anti-piracy guild flying around grey sectors cleaning it up. That would add a really fun elemnt to the game. You could message members to let them know you are running a mission through, your flight plan, etc. Could be fun.

"Because of this, pirates are in fact taking away time of my fun, for which I payed dearly."

wait, I thought we came to an agreement on this... you didn't pay anything. you're just using 8 hour trials.

And I would like to jump on tram's bandwagon here. We KNOW how you feel about it. And no matter how loud YOU whine about it. The devs aren't going to change it, because that's the way this game is. So find a different way to deal with these issues.