In game ship names

[ryeguy146]

This whole thing pretty much sums up my stance against using the player list as a tool. When I fly into a system, I like the idea of going in blind. I have no idea what it has in store for me. This type of attitude has led me to the most interesting of role play encounters, whereas using the player list sends me to those that I can plan out. Let me restate that, my favorite encounters have been unplanned.

Now, let me use the example of some Corsairs that happened upon me while mining recently. I was relaxing in the Cambridge beryllium fields, something I like to do to blow off steam. Now, there's two ways to do this: I could be scanning the player list while I work, hoping to avoid pirates, "catering my RP" since my BMM character is obviously afraid of them; or I can hit the [delete] key (minimize scanners) and see what happens. In this particular event, I was happened upon by the mentioned Corsair duo. It was the best role play encounter that I've had in perhaps a month. An encounter that I might have avoided were we to use tags and the player list. Was I pirated? Yes. Was it worth the money and time that I gave them? Unquestionably.

This example can be spread out amongst any number of factions or situations. My pirate could pick the system where the fattest traders fly, I could watch for bounty hunters and run when they enter the system, but where's the fun in that? I could avoid pirates with my Bowex character, but then with whom will I interact? I can look for unlawfuls with my police character, but then I might miss out on the civilian looking for pointers on a job, or the state of Bretonia, and a wonderful encounter. These are all examples of things that have happened to me, not just possibilities. They might not be common, but they reinforce my positive opinion of random encounters.

When you start narrowing down your possibilities to a subset in which you are comfortable, you miss out on those that expand your possible experience in Sirius. And this is why I don't like the player list, nor do I believe tags should be a necessity.