The player list experiment

[Nodoka Hanamura]

Wonder why...
If you have never been ganked, it means you have never taken a proactive position on a controversial issue. Any fool knows how to fight against everything bad and for everything good. Although, considering that you are ready to threaten to leave in order to protect your interests, this says a lot about your loyalty to the project and manipulation skills. I agree with you: it's cheap, but it will work. Perhaps it helped you survive before. Perhaps this provided you with protection from ganks. I don't know, I don't care. Just think about what you're saying. Not all people are stupid.

I have been ganked, thank you very much.

And my 'manipulation skills' and 'loyalty to the project'? Really? Argumentum Ad Hominem must be the flavor of the day, huh.

How about we teach these poor SOBs who keep getting their ass handed to them to fight back - and incentivize the guys who do gank to play fairly. I and Locksmith took on a Liberty Archer-class the other day, and we only won because he and I were more experienced then the newbie who went and put himself in a cruiser, with minimal experience in capital-on-snub fighting, constantly running away instead of turning broadsides to get all guns on us - I can tell you right now, had he been a bit better with those flaks, and didn't just run away with afterburners, he probably could of whacked Locksmith, since he was in a VHF.

I'm not going to point fingers, or blame any faction here - but we collectively, the more experienced of us, need to teach these people - How do we know if something is going on in say, Dublin, or Penn, or for old time's sake, Omicron Delta, if the player list only says 'BRETONIA' or 'LIBERTY' or 'EDGE WORLDS'. Your answer is likely, "Log in and find out", yes? That'd work - if travelling between systems was not a time-consuming process - Liberty spans 8 systems. Running a dragnet search for a player in Liberty would take about an hour, and by that time the player has had a smoke, done their business and likely eff'd off. And even then, one could predict where a ship is at based on region changes and other factors. If they leave Bretonia and go into the Taus, they're in Tau-31. Leave Bretonia and go to the LIbero-Bretonian independent worlds, and they're in one of four systems, one of which is Edinburgh, which links up to Gallia. Set up BARCAPs (Barrier Combat Area Patrol) like me and Locksmith did with a Gunboat between jump gates and holes to Liberty, we have quite literally set said party up for an attack.

Where there's a will, there is a way.

The majority of our players are people who have been here for more than 2 years. Some have been part of the community for over *ten*. You want to hemmorhage players? Be my guest - watch as Discovery goes the way of YSFlight and Activeworlds. I'm here to finish a story and enjoy playing with my friends. I'll be here until, again - I see no reason to stay or I feel I have done all that I wish to do. And putting in ideas like this is a step in the former direction, given I've already seen some things that don't exactly engender the idea that things have improved since I left.

Addendum: I am in favor of the alternative idea, where player names are obfuscated in lieu of ID/IFF - maybe if we have ship type too. It's.. a bit better, but I still am uncertain about it.

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