Food for thought: If you get a lot of silent traders / minimal rp, perhaps you can ask yourself:
Could it be that my rp is not good enough to earn any/much of a reaction?
After 3 years, around 2000 hours on transports and many hundred pirate encounters, I can only say: "You are treated as you treat others".
Sadly, the gist of that spills over to all encounters, ending in the negative expectations that "all pirates only want to ruin my fun", or on the other side: "All traders are silent lolwuts".
This coin has two sides.
Changing anything would need a change in the heads of the player.
Good luck with that on the internet.
There is no cases of me agreeing that Jack H was right about something.
His opinion is just one of many opinions. So is mine:
Trader is just a catalyst for all the others to play around it because it's necessary activity. You HAVE to make money to buy stuff. Trader must be totally unable to defend himself against any pirates. In that case he'll have to play by pirate's rules or to rely on bunters\navy\escort. Trader is protected by the high profits and rules against the unreasonable demands.
(12-17-2013, 05:09 PM)Redon Wrote: So what RP exactly is it traders would like to see in the 5 seconds before they say "no" and hit Ctrl + W?
The standard interaction starts with a hastily typed:
"Stop" in the various, often misspelled varations.
"X million" in the variations: "Xmil" or "X mil"
then there are the optional classic alternatives: "... or die" / "20 sec" / "X seconds", quite often also "X sex"
When I solo-pirated last time, my pre-tpyed sentence was something along this line:
"Please stop your engines, this is an act of piracy. If you comply, you will not be harmed."
It shows:
> I am no semi-literate lolwut.
> I am not a cheap blue message hunter.
> I am likely not a griever.
=> sets a scene that is more positive for roleplay interaction
Guess what? None of 5 traders were silent. All stopped. All talked. 4 offered noteworthy roleplay in return. Obviously I did not pirate to grieve, my demands were on the easy side, but that's not the point.
The point is: I am sure that the first sentence, the initiation of the interaction is a major point in triggering expectations about the following interaction. It sets the scene.
Whenever I hear: "Hi!", "Stop!" and I expect... "Oh... this will be a -great- rp experience" <sarcasm>. And I would be lying if I said that I enter such an interaction with much motivation, roleplay energy or positive expectation.
Quote:Trader is just a catalyst for all the others to play around it because it's necessary activity. You HAVE to make money to buy stuff. Trader must be totally unable to defend himself against any pirates. In that case he'll have to play by pirate's rules or to rely on bunters\navy\escort. Trader is protected by the high profits and rules against the unreasonable demands.
The notion that traders are just fodder for the PvPers is the kind of attitude that will, if it becomes prevalent, kill this server. This is an RP server. PvP is just *one* aspect of that RP. I meet far too many so-called pirates who are, in fact, nothing more than bullies and BM whores.
(12-17-2013, 05:06 PM)Remilia Scarlet Wrote: Trader is just a catalyst for all the others to play around it because it's necessary activity. You HAVE to make money to buy stuff. Trader must be totally unable to defend himself against any pirates. In that case he'll have to play by pirate's rules or to rely on bunters\navy\escort. Trader is protected by the high profits and rules against the unreasonable demands.
This is my opinion.
I accept that our opinions will likely always be different. That's okay.
However I would like to remind you that flying transports is not only a chore "to participate in other fun parts of the game". It is not "necessary grindwork" for all of us.
It is fun for me.
I prefer flying transports and enjoy it profoundly.
And thus I think I have a right to participate in the game in a "real" role that is more than just "you are the sheep in a slaughterhouse. Now rp!"
Quote:Trader must be totally unable to defend himself against any pirates.
Horse-puckey. In most cases, pirates have the upper hand in terms of maneuverability/attack power, which should certainly be more than enough advantage to make piracy both fun and worthwhile.
Making traders helpless won't improve RP or interactions. It will just perpetuate the "kill me now so I can move on" attitude.
(12-17-2013, 07:16 AM)Markus_Janus Wrote: Hang on a second you claim the InRP angle then say a trader should use the drawcash command?
I am a poor businessman hired by a company to fly a transport for them on a wage, if I have valuable cargo then by all means ask for some, but now you want me to pay you a couple of years salary direct into your bank account?
Hey maybe InRP is not just your take on RP?
I have tried to negotiate with my parent company a few times to pay a ransome for my life, only once was I not killed for taking too long and ruining the pirates 10milordie 30 second RP by talking.
No, I probably wouldnt say it to the person, but instead would simply refuse to accept the excuse 'I have no money' or a 'i have no money on this ship' which borders oorp anyways. In the end anyone who has read the server commands list in any kind of detail knows there is a way to get cash from your other ships while in game no problem. Its like saying 'there's just no way so i can't pay you' when there is. I'm sure some would find out the hard way, if they ask i'll tell them, but would even inrp claim 'just withdraw the cash from another bank account, if you don't got one, well thats a shame'. A year's salaray? Well a true pirate is not likely to care by the point he's already decided to extort money for a living. Everyone knows (for the most part) how to use the /givecash command, its not that hard to set up a cashcode on your character you keep some money on. Therefore if you can't cough up 3 million and you're a known ore miner, empty or not, good luck using the trick of pulling your empty pockets inside out and looking bashful. Set the code up or accept that being too poor might kill you.
(12-17-2013, 07:16 AM)Markus_Janus Wrote: Hang on a second you claim the InRP angle then say a trader should use the drawcash command?
I am a poor businessman hired by a company to fly a transport for them on a wage, if I have valuable cargo then by all means ask for some, but now you want me to pay you a couple of years salary direct into your bank account?
Hey maybe InRP is not just your take on RP?
I have tried to negotiate with my parent company a few times to pay a ransome for my life, only once was I not killed for taking too long and ruining the pirates 10milordie 30 second RP by talking.
No, I probably wouldnt say it to the person, but instead would simply refuse to accept the excuse 'I have no money' or a 'i have no money on this ship' which borders oorp anyways. In the end anyone who has read the server commands list in any kind of detail knows there is a way to get cash from your other ships while in game no problem. Its like saying 'there's just no way so i can't pay you' when there is. I'm sure some would find out the hard way, if they ask i'll tell them, but would even inrp claim 'just withdraw the cash from another bank account, if you don't got one, well thats a shame'. A year's salaray? Well a true pirate is not likely to care by the point he's already decided to extort money for a living. Everyone knows (for the most part) how to use the /givecash command, its not that hard to set up a cashcode on your character you keep some money on. Therefore if you can't cough up 3 million and you're a known ore miner, empty or not, good luck using the trick of pulling your empty pockets inside out and looking bashful. Set the code up or accept that being too poor might kill you.
Well I guess since he is a true pirate and wishes my empty transport captain to wire funds directly to his smart saver account at the local bank, he is out of luck and will have to continue on his way to the conclusion of his RP by killing me.
It is obvious at this point that I can not offer him some of my cargo to buy my way out, since I am empty and real pirates hardly ever accept booty as payment anyway since it would be harder for their accountant at tax time.
As I said previously I have tried an angle that would unfortunately take more than two lines of text for the pirate to be paid, it does not have a very good success ratio.
So that means he gets out of his RP quicker and I get to load up quicker.
Win/win I guess.
That's okay. 
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