Re: Changing Reputation via Server Command

[Geisha_Maiko]

There was another server that had a new player mod.

When you started out as a new player, you were given an ingame menu of the reps you wanted to be. You picked one, the game restarted and you were teleported to the 'home' system of your rep, given the Rep ID and a basic beginning ship fitting to the Rep.

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[Friday]

Yes that would be Rebalance I do believe.

It raises the question of a 'noob' starting area - rather than everyone starting in New York. Set faction, purchase starting ship and equipment - read rules!

Then off you go into Sirius!

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[n00bl3t]

Honestly, it does not matter to me which way this is done, but something should be done.

It is absolutely ridiculous to get a Zoner Guard IFF. There are no Zoner missions, and the only method of doing so involves shooting Zoner allies, probability based bribing, balancing a pie on your head, aborting missions, running from place to place, screwing up your entire reputation sheet and basing the entire thing on sheer luck.

(Yes, there are people who have the Zoner Guard IFF, for instance Yoda. However, he has over 3000 flight hours and some of us just prefer flying.)

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.

[sivran]

There was another server that had a new player mod.

When you started out as a new player, you were given an ingame menu of the reps you wanted to be. You picked one, the game restarted and you were teleported to the 'home' system of your rep, given the Rep ID and a basic beginning ship fitting to the Rep.

This.

A one-time-only way to set your new character to a standard rep. IMO, it should not show up immediately, but a new player should be advised about it via starting cargo, perhaps with notes on how much money they should earn to buy a basic ship for their faction. You wouldn't want a newbie in a Flea with only 8500 credits to his name suddenly showing up in Gamma, now would you?

Though, it would absolutely destroy Sindroms's character-setup business. :P

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Brought to you by Sivran The Newb
I've suffered RSI in my right hand and am now even more useless in PVP. I now fly with a trackball!
\CS\Helkos - Teh cyborg Newb, formerly Sivran the Clueless Freelancer, gets pwned in PVP.
SmallTimeTrader - Teh Trader Newb, under new management!
Oracle|Randy - Randall Lamar, Teh Pacifist, Oracle-follower Newb (at least I don't have to worry about PVP on this char!
Texan_Twang - Texan Bounty Hunter, flies a Bomber, rarely played. Almost wish I could move him to another account and sell him.

[Trogdor]

Firstly, my main point, which is to ask:
Will a method to change Reputation to match certain Factions via Server Command ever be implemented?

Secondly, three reasons why I ask the question:
1.) Under the premise that this is an RP server and its supposed to be fun, the fact that people have to grind to get a new character's reputation correctly set up is, at best, a distraction and at worst, an impediment. If you want to play Liberty Police or Navy, fine, otherwise it can take up to 48 total game hours just to get to point where you can actually play the character. More, if the method for that particular faction's reputation is convoluted and hasn't been discussed on the forums.

I also believe that expecting everyone to set up their own rep is bad. The OP describes it as a distraction or an impediment, but I'd go as far as saying it's absolutely unnecessary and a deterrent to RP, which is what we're all supposed to be here for.

Free-flowing reputations is fine for freelancers and mercs, but it's bad for anyone else.

But it's bad for one particular reason only: It determines your IFF. Free-flowing rep would make much more sense if it didn't impact IFF at all, and all it did was reflect on the actions that particular pilot has taken.

Imagine if the IFF was determined by the ID that was installed on the ship. Now, every player is automatically IFF'd by their ID correctly by default, and repgrinding becomes purely a means to achieve the ID. The player is free to have whatever rep with other factions that he likes, because other players are going to see him as the ID he has mounted.

This would also relate naturally to RP. If you've got a kusari police officer being attacked by a kusari corporation, he'd still IFF as a kusari police officer. Someone passing by would then be in a position to wonder, "Why is that police officer being attacked by Samura? He must be a shady cop or something." and engage in RP accordingly.

Rather than the following scenario we have now, "Wow, that guy is ID'd and ship'd as a police officer, but he's coming up GMG and being attacked by Samura, the nearby base and all the tradelanes. His rep must be all messed up, I'll ignore him and move on."

Under the system I am suggesting, reputation becomes a much more in-rp thing, as it would reflect directly on choices the player has made, rather than being this oorp stumbling block that causes us to ignore discrepancies in the story.

Ideally you'd want to overhaul the rep system such that a player who is red to a particular faction will come up as red to a player belonging to that faction, regardless of what the first player's ID/IFF is.

I.e. 'That guy's a Zoner, and I'm an Outcast. He's supposed to be neutral to me, but he's been blowing up a bunch of Outcast NPCs lately, so we don't like him very much.' Therefore even though his ID and IFF are Zoner, he'd still come up as red. But I don't know if this is possible.

Honestly, it does not matter to me which way this is done, but something should be done.

It is absolutely ridiculous to get a Zoner Guard IFF. There are no Zoner missions, and the only method of doing so involves shooting Zoner allies, probability based bribing, balancing a pie on your head, aborting missions, running from place to place, screwing up your entire reputation sheet and basing the entire thing on sheer luck.

(Yes, there are people who have the Zoner Guard IFF, for instance Yoda. However, he has over 3000 flight hours and some of us just prefer flying.)

I spent three whole days getting my battleship his zoner guard IFF/ID. Three days of wandering around into all sorts of places he shouldn't be, in a clumsy ship that isn't made to do a lot of traveling, raising the ire of players all over the map with my presence. During that time I engaged in very little RP, avoided other players like the plague, and attacked all sorts of oorp npcs just to fix that one important reputation, let alone get all my other factions where they're really supposed to be.

I approve of
CODE
/hostile faction_code

I do not approve of
CODE
/friendly faction_code

nor do I approve of
CODE
/setstandardrep faction_code

The reason is because the latter would be abused to no end. The only way it would be workable is if the server kept track of this and only allowed it, say, twice? Once? Admin tool only?

I fail to see how this could be 'abused'. What do you fear, that someone is going to wander around through space adjusting their rep willy-nilly, so they can dock on whatever base? So the npcs will leave them alone? ....okay, and so what? Most of the npcs aren't strong enough to kill you anyway, especially if you're running away. A player who decides to abuse these commands stands to gain little.

And there's obvious ways around this, such as making it cost money, or making it only usable once in a certain amount of time, or only allowing it while docked on a base, or whatever.

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[Drepanon]

I have thought much on this and actually done a great deal to impliment this on my own. I will happily share the technical aspects with the Dev Team if they are interested to see if it would be compatible with what they are running.

Idea still being tested:
A bribe offered at only a recruitment base of a faction (a neutral outpost base with nothing but a bribe and some other faction cargo info) that sets rep to that faction . Perhaps there cold be a recruitment system designated if you would like to keep it in the hands of real players. Then recruits could be processed and escorted to where they need to go. I do think the Bribe System could play a role in this however.

One thing is certain.. .you never want to fix something that is not broken... if the server has more players on it that it knows what to do with... something must be right! So careful consideration about changes in gameplay are always needed... lest we break some hidden magical appeal.


Just some thoughts,
~Drepanon

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If we hit the snooze over and over again... eventually the alarm it self will become a lullaby

[Niezck]

Everybody loves that wonderful phase where you have to set up your ship, take missions, abort missions, relog to get bribes, scream because you took the wrong bribe. Why get rid of it? It's character-building in the most literal sense.

[pragun]

actually, if you follow the link on the first page and see what SevereTrinity is sayin, i think its pretty reasonable.

Once a player types whatever code it is which gives him the new rep (say /fixrep), he is immedeately kicked, placed on the home base, with a puny/beginner ship with no creds and equipment.

That way, people won't abuse the command.

Also, to avoid people sending their money to other chars before using fixrep, there can be a condition that the givecash command must not have been used for atleast 2 days prior to using fixrep.

My two cents...

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Retired

[wrathkin]

Honestly, it does not matter to me which way this is done, but something should be done.

It is absolutely ridiculous to get a Zoner Guard IFF. There are no Zoner missions, and the only method of doing so involves shooting Zoner allies, probability based bribing, balancing a pie on your head, aborting missions, running from place to place, screwing up your entire reputation sheet and basing the entire thing on sheer luck.

(Yes, there are people who have the Zoner Guard IFF, for instance Yoda. However, he has over 3000 flight hours and some of us just prefer flying.)

It took me about four hours, and another two to balance the rest of the sheet. A quick search in the help forum will give a couple of guides. If the double/triple bribes are gone as I seem to remember someone said, it's a lot more. The worst part is you need to do it when there's almost no people on the server since you need a steady supply of NPCs, so now I guess it's a lot harder (especially with the Order missions being randomly suicidal).

That being said, rep lowering tool would be nice.

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John Johnson - Master of Synth.Foods-Convoy|049
Hans Adler - Synth Foods escort wing

Sebastian Wrath - Zoner in a Temporary Autonomous Zone ([TAZ]Punchin'Seb)

[Elvin]

I would be ok with tool which makes faction you want hostile, or removes 3 squares of rep (to get more unfriendly) , would be great help while getting guard tags and such, not even mentioning that as an Oucast, you get friendly with Corsair all the time, when you shoot Bounty Hunters, and a Lot factions have similar "probelm" ... And in this case, I see no way of abusing.

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I buy things I don't want to make an impression on people I don't like.