Community Warning

[Reddy]

Well done, community needs a wake up call

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[Emperor Tekagi]

Aight since this has turned into something of a discussion thread:

Define us clear obligations in restraint of indies.
Is subsequent, repeated telling to back off in fights sufficient? I'm aware and previously applied FR1 to aggravated misconduct (read ex. towards the end of a fight, drop a cruiser on the last snub duels) by shooting my own indies.

The Staff Team is currently in discussion on how to tackle this issue so I'll give you the take that seems to not be too controversial unofficially so far:
The CURRENT relationship between OFs and indies isn't really clear and I don't think it's fair to expect OFs to be responsible for indies beyond setting an example. The rework that is coming SOON™ will give additional responsibilities for OFs, along with what we hope will be sufficient privileges to more than make up for the extra responsibility - but until then, just police yourselves and try to remind indies to not be a dick, and that's all we can ask of OFs for now. Indies will be responsible for their own actions, and if it turns out they do something shitty, they'll be handled separately.

Much appreciated clarification. I'll stick to previous instances for the time being then. Oh and hurry up, I want that new system already :>

[James Greed]

The genie is out of the bottle.

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Greedback

[Ashyur]

As this turned into a discussion thread I'd like to ask something too:

Let's say two or three players want to kill or pirate another player. What should we do in this case? Split the fight from 2v1 or 3v1 into duels where everyone gets a chance to kill that player?

I know the intentions here come from a good place, but this isn't Connecticut where it's a fair battle arena where everyone agrees on terms before a fight starts

can you delete the post above? i don't know what happened...

Duplicate post deleted. ~Leo

[EisenSeele]

As this turned into a discussion thread I'd like to ask something too:

Let's say two or three players want to kill or pirate another player. What should we do in this case? Split the fight into 2v1 or 3v1 duels where everyone gets a chance to kill that player?

I know the intentions here come from a good place, but this isn't Connecticut where it's a fair battle arena where everyone agrees on terms before a fight starts

That's the pickle, it's hard to define ganks - especially in snubs where someone like @Haste could easily beat off three randos without breaking a sweat while I would barely know which side of a valkyrie is the part that faces forward. We want people to judge for themselves whether or not the person they're fighting is great or new, and try to be as fair as possible to the best of their judgement. Until we get an actual workable and objective method to decide what is and isn't fair, the staff can only really stick to handling the super obvious stuff - like having a bunch of camps sit on a base to spawncamp snubs, or 10v1s. We will be devoting significant time going forward to finding out how we can steer the culture of the community in a direction where we live rent free in everybody's head and we don't need to sanction people in order to get fights to a place where everyone can have fun.

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FEEDBACK

[Semir Gerkhan]

I want to congratulate the staff for taking a step back and extending the warning to the entire community. It's fair given that ganking is not a problem exclusive to DTR, by any means. I also honestly wish the staff good luck in dealing with such an endemic and old problem as this. It's a good thing that they intend to make combats more satisfying for all of us, but I'm afraid it will be a difficult road.

I have some questions and doubts about how this is going to be approached from now on:

1. From now on, will ganking be understood as any imbalance in a combat that leads one of the sides to have no chance of winning the battle? I mean, will only the number of ships and their class be taken into account, or also the quality of the pilot?

2. Will the imbalance treated as ganking be extended to all combats, including those that may occur in skirmishes between pirates vs traders, police/military vs illegals, or nomads vs whatever, or will it only focus on large fleet battles? I mean, will it be considered ganking, for example, if a Nomad on a cruiser blows up my unarmed Zoner transport, since a transport has no options against a cruiser, and it's also unarmed? Or will that be considered my fault for going alone, or going unarmed, or being a Zoner (this last one is a joke, please nobody get mad, for god's sake).

3. Will there be more extensive rules written about how a battle should be developed in order for it to be in accordance with balance, or will everything be left to the interpretation of the "don't be a dick" rule, as until now? I say this because this rule is quite subjective. Normally everyone tends to understand that they are not being a dick, even if they are.

4. If new rules are written, how will they be carried out on the battlefield? This is a RP server, and often unscheduled combats arise spontaneously. If two groups of enemy players meet, throw their lines, and are ready to attack, will they have to stop, communicate with each other in OORP, and make a roster of their numbers, classes, and PvP capabilities of their players, to be accepted by the other party in a consensus, before starting the pew? I say this because it would be the most effective, but it would also be tremendously boring and unimmersive.

In any case, congratulations for wanting to face the problem and try to find a solution.

[Lythrilux]

Necessary, but I doubt this will ever be properly enforceable. Ganks happen across all games but I've always felt that Freelancer/Discovery in particular has poor game mechanics for preventing them. Maybe something should start on a mechanical level there, rather than a rules level.

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[Chronicron]

I told you it would come to this! The greencoats are taking over!

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[Geno]

I told you it would come to this! The greencoats are taking over!

The oppression of the official factions will never return. You have lost.

[Xenon]

After some thought, we're shifting this into a general warning to the community. There will be no more general warnings for the community on this subject going forward.

Good decision to change this to a "public community warning". I wouldn't say I liked the mentions used because it is showing as a trial by forums.
Although @St.Denis did send one of those "Community warnings" before, he faced a storm of unhealthy and immature comments, which was one of the final nails in his departure from the administration team. Just because of some negativity by the usual negative people playing here, we, the community, lost a great admin.

Please, take into consideration that if you are going to consider "ganking" as a bad act, then don't forget the thousands of times that happened before, because people will look at your decision now and feel discrimination. Simply say "I was ganked several times before, why now it is considered an act that requires a warning, Where is justice for me then? "... Good luck guys.
I hope that things calm down and people enjoy their game without trouble.

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