[Poll] Discord Player Tracking

[Lusitano]

no matter tool is made, it can be used to can be used to different purposes. i don't use discord so i'm out of the main discussion. about the ingame list ... well also can be good and bad! depends of the player intentions, so don't blame the tools.

[Soban]

I support fully the removal of any system that allow offline player to get intel without anyone ingame like the alert bot and forum player list.

You want to guard a system? intercept specific people? Well get your lazy ass ingame.

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[Sand-Viper]

Based on the opinions I've read here, as well as in a couple of different Discord servers:

I'm willing to give the nuclear option a try: "No bot tracking, AND remove the players online list/forum tracker tool."

I will admit, I myself am guilty of checking the forum player list, checking to see who is on, then deciding not to log in, with folks too spread out.

If I am instead forced to boot Freelancer up, then check the player count, I might decide, "Well.. Let's see who is where."

From there, I may just stay in the game, since "Well I'm here anyways, let's fly around for a little bit. If I get bored, I can always switch characters or log out."

Either I run into someone, or I don't. Either way - I had to boot the game to even SEE how many are online, and then log into SOMETHING to even browse the player list to see "What systems have 2 or more people?"

I think we should give a try to removing tracking bots and the forum player list. It might be a positive change, it might not - We won't know, until we give it a try!

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[Nika]

It may be a marvel of technology but it's my genuine conviction that if a tool allows a broad selection of players to make a conscious decision on whether to log or not to log into the game - it should not exist at all. Concur with Jammi on that bit completely.

[TheSauron]

I don't feel particularly inclined one way or the other, but I'd like to echo something others in this thread have already said. Discord bots do nothing the forum playerlist doesn't already. If we get rid of one, we should get rid of both. Player count can stay, though.

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One MD Admiral

[darkwind]

Reading through different voted ways to go... and at the same time considering usage cases like
1) Player names have importance for player to allow communications, to know with whom they can communicate
2) Player names have importance to see when their friends are online
3) At the same time player positions have importance to know where they are for finding interactivity

I think potentially a good path can be
1) darkbot player tracking i guess getting removed
2) forum online page to list player amount, which player names online, and which player system/regions are present separately. To list two lists of players
- So u will know when your friends online, just not where
- So you will know there is activity in specific system (seeing anonymous positions of player system/regions), just not who exactly
3) in a future adding heat based online map that shows presence of players anonymously in which system they are, just no who it is exactly

this approach is potentially the most soft one to improve things, without disrupting anything else while working towards preventing offline specific player tracking/targeting/shadow logging and etc
You will still be able to find activity by flying towards where player activity
You will still know your friends are online

There will be just no ability to target anyone explicitly, where specific person is, not knowing which kind of faction players are where unless login into game (And that part is potentially changable too if Aingar is willing)

P.S. potentially can be considered player names removal from web site visibility completely. a subject to ponder about. but as first step for improvement just keeping those two informations (names and positions) separately will work i think without causing any harm towards smth we should not have harmed.
We should not do radical decisions without a lot of... consideration, yet there is clearly a thing to improvement and separating player names from their positions for web site visibility looks like a good step forward that has no drawbacks i can predict

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Interstellar	Autogit	Ctrl-V	Encryptor	Discovery At Linux
Dark Tools	DarkBot	DarkLint	DarkStat	DarkMap

[darkwind]

Reading through different voted ways to go... and at the same time considering usage cases like
1) Player names have importance for player to allow communications, to know with whom they can communicate
2) Player names have importance to see when their friends are online
3) At the same time player positions have importance to know where they are for finding interactivity

I think potentially a good path can be
1) darkbot player tracking i guess getting removed
2) forum online page to list player amount, which player names online, and which player system/regions are present separately. To list two lists of players
- So u will know when your friends online, just not where
- So you will know there is activity in specific system (seeing anonymous positions of player system/regions), just not who exactly
3) in a future adding heat based online map that shows presence of players anonymously in which system they are, just no who it is exactly

this approach is potentially the most soft one to improve things, without disrupting anything else while working towards preventing offline specific player tracking/targeting/shadow logging and etc
You will still be able to find activity by flying towards where player activity
You will still know your friends are online

There will be just no ability to target anyone explicitly, where specific person is, not knowing which kind of faction players are where unless login into game (And that part is potentially changable too if Aingar is willing)

P.S. potentially can be considered player names removal from web site visibility completely. a subject to ponder about. but as first step for improvement just keeping those two informations (names and positions) separately will work i think without causing any harm towards smth we should not have harmed.
We should not do radical decisions without a lot of... consideration, yet there is clearly a thing to improvement and separating player names from their positions for web site visibility looks like a good step forward that has no drawbacks i can predict

or may be should show only amount of players per system at the web site / and have heat based map and that is it. May be it is the way
A thing to ponder a bit and take decision, will be enough to split information and show player names at the web site separately from where players are in which system?
Or we should be showing only amount of players per system and that is it?

Which will be a good change? A bit time to think should be made and make decision later

For now i see that online page at the website can be changed in next ways:
[ ] 1) keep at the website player online page the same
[ ] 2) at the web site player online page we should show player names as separate list (without known system/region), and the number of players in each system as second list
[ ] 3) we should show at the website only player names online but not their position
[ ] 4) we should show at the website only the number of players in each system
[ ] 5) we should show at the website only players amount and nothing else

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Interstellar	Autogit	Ctrl-V	Encryptor	Discovery At Linux
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[Mephistoles]

The forum playerlist can't be set to automatically ping you to notify of a certain ship in a certain system at a certain time, you would have to look at it manually. These Discord bots can. They are not the same thing. Outlaw them.

When is the Lane Hacker forum account going to be forcibly logged out? That thing's been permanently online automatically refreshing the player list for years, harvesting all the data to an external website where it tracks each ship's activity, providing a searchable tool so its users can see at a glance which systems a certain ship may usually be in, and what paths it may usually take.

Time Spent Online: 9 Years, 9 Months, 2 Weeks

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Sigma & GMG Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/d4j3W4v

[LuckyOne]

Let's not get all heated up in discussion. I think a potential reasonable first step would be to remove the exact system from the forum playerlist and leave only the region visible. Then track the impact for a period of time and analyse the data, and then decide if further measures are required.

[darkwind]

mmmmm the topic of original poll and discussion is strongly spilraling out of the way to be honest. The original subject meant to tackle Discord bots only.
Player Online Page discussions were not meant to be part of this thread... you know... considering how much thus subject became discussed i will just have a separate thread made for Player Online page topic and lets go

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Interstellar	Autogit	Ctrl-V	Encryptor	Discovery At Linux
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