1. It MUST include the station name, location. It is very common that same group owns more than one stations. While working with TGFT, we conquered all 3 stations in very little time... then got a warning that one was under attack. Which one?

2. It should come from station's Guards (NPC), to trace a source. Once all guards are gone, no more warnings.

3. Message should be posted as PM messages, formatted as:

[$NPC]: Warning, station [$STATIONNAME] is under attack from [$GUILD:$PLAYER]

4. Option to send RL warnings, as IRC, SMS, IM, Email, tweet, FB post, RSS...

5. Option to alarm level / type: NO warning, Single warning, Repeating warning
Single is what exists now. New option Repeating would be that NPC Guard send a warning for every attack suffered. Or No warnings.

--------Reasoning:

Why warning come "from NPC" instead of game engine itself? Because God sends no warnings!

And since guards are there, they can be ordered to "dial back" to his employeer when under attack. And limiting the number of present guards (respawns per hour) we can limit warning capabilities.

Maybe even add another 3rd guard, as a Marshall. It only respawns once per hour, and can be messaged (PM) from anywhere, when he simply responds "All calm" or "Under attack". Owner must know its name, and it changes every time station is conquered.

-1 to item 4, keep the game world in the game world. If people want to monitor inside the game from the outside, they can write and maintain their own bots to do it. I am opposed to taking efforts to prevent people from making such bots, but I am also opposed to GS doing the work for them. People should have to expend their own effort if they want to have out-of-game warning systems.

As for the rest, I am mostly ambivalent. I do like being able to attack one station and force the defenders to check them all, but then I am an agent of chaos, and it really doesn't make sense from an RP standpoint. I do like the idea of the message coming from one of the guards - helps build the player-npc interactions, which we need much more of.

i posted this then pirren wrote one then u wrote one, theres three threads atm about this on the first page. Lets link suggestions together?

please do add a /ignore option or a delete button fer key list : )

The idea that the station guards would send a message is sound and realistic, however I think the question would be should there be some kind of delay on them sending it. After all, imagine yourself in the position of the guard, it's going to take a few seconds for you to report in which would give an attacker an opportunity to take out the guards. From the PoV of those on the station, they'd know something was amiss, but might only report after they sorted out their own chaos.

In programming terms, this could translate into a 2-3 sec delay before the guards report being under attack (with the appropriate station as part of the message), with perhaps a 1 minute delay before the station reports with its name. Should a guard survive past the delay period, more details could be reported.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/22704#282475

Also, it isn't God, it's your HUD synthesizing and presenting in digestible form myriad streams of information. Making station guards the conduits isn't realistic at all for the genre.

Specifying which station is obvious.

-1 to item 4, keep the game world in the game world. If people want to monitor inside the game from the outside, they can write and maintain their own bots to do it. I am opposed to taking efforts to prevent people from making such bots, but I am also opposed to GS doing the work for them. People should have to expend their own effort if they want to have out-of-game warning systems.

Totally agree with Pizzasgood.

please do add a /ignore option or a delete button fer key list : )

+1

-6.02e23 to OP and all suggestions to make the station alert more specific and here's why:
Controlling multiple stations should be difficult. If you want to be a power broker and control all of the conquerable stations in the galaxy? Fine, go for it, but deal with the consequences of trying to manage all the assets - the hard way.

Making the station alarts more specific completely ruins the gameplay aspect of sneak attacks, diversions, etc. It makes it boring and further takes the "conquerable" out of conquerable stations.

However, for players IN the sector with the station that's under attack when the attack happens, more information should be available from the station defenses. Maybe a sector message from the NPC that triggers the alert. "Turret 4 is taking fire. Sound the alarm!"

+1 to the /ignore and /delete options for keys. There's piles and piles of keys on people's keychains now and its already unmanageable.

So Alloh, you make a post saying conq'ing stations is too easy then you make a post trying to make it easier.

Stop talking forever, the notification as it is now is fine it requires you to send scouts if you were terrible enough to leave your assets unguarded

Assets are not unguarded... indeed, there are guards there, usually two. NPC guards are guards...

This improvement does not makes easier to conquer stations, instead, makes easier to defend, therefore, harder to conquer!

It also increases interactions PvP, instead of PvE when no one is defending. Sneaky is PvE...

It also would bring more players online, like sending IRC/IM messages, so more interactions = increased fun. Instead of making people write scripts and bots, offering more interaction only increases participation in game. Even someone talking on IRC@/100 is better than no one talking... and IRC warning would give them a reason to login and play 5min...

And if the universe is empty of real players, that is why we added NPCs... and it improves Player-NPC interaction.