Zoner/Zoner Guard IDs

[n00bl3t]

Now the Guard ID's are supposed to be the folks who protect and are the definition of their respective NPC faction. So why is it such a stretch to think that they would only be interested in dealing with certain groups and zoners only. I think that's what a lot of folks are forgetting, the RP behind that ID we are arguing about. It is not just some work you have to do so you can fly the bigger ship, there is RP attached to it. I think this idea goes inline with that RP.

The Guard ID, in the case of Zoners, was solely designed to weed out those who just bought a Zoner ID with a just over half green reputation and power-traded. (Leaving capital ships our of this, of course.)

Nooblet, one would think you have the maturity and knowledge to gather your own evidence to counter my evidence. As such, you should stop asking for infocards in every single discussion you get into, and instead grab your own to counter the other person's argument with facts.

Since you seem incapable, I display the following evidence and politely ask you excuse yourself from further discussion until you can bring your own work and effort here to provide reasons to your views, rather than simply saying 'No U.'

Dab, one would think since you want the change, the onus would be on you to provide the evidence. However, with Discovery, such etiquette falls out the window. It seems most here are incapable of following this behaviour.

Your attempt to force me out of this discussion is not so subtle, at least not to those who are observant. At least make it more obvious to others that are not so observant so they are not tricked into believing you are some saint.

(This screen-shot shows that Zoners do go into house space. It also shows that Zoners deal in what could be considered contraband.)

(This screen-shot shows that Zoners have angered houses and corporations before.)

On that note, all I see from you is words.

Furthering that, on the Zoner infocard, there is a difference between living outside colonial space, and moving/trading outside it.

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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.

[Cellulanus]

(This screen-shot shows that Zoners do go into house space. It also shows that Zoners deal in what could be considered contraband.)

And I would like to point out that this screen shot is from the Freeport in Bering, and that Hamburg is literally the fist station that they come across when entering Rheinland, they have NPCs that go to Hamburg to, but no further.

On top of that the NPCs only fly freighters, not 5k transports.

[n00bl3t]

And I would like to point out that this screen shot is from the Freeport in Bering, and that Hamburg is literally the fist station that they come across when entering Rheinland, they have NPCs that go to Hamburg to, but no further.

On top of that the NPCs only fly freighters, not 5k transports.

It is from Freeport 2, and yes, Hamburg is in the next system.

Hamburg is also house space.

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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.

[Bluntage]

Hey Folks,

I'm not very active on the forums but I've been a longtime Zoner player and found this topic when as I was browsing.

I have a Zoner Guard Heavy Tanker (and other Zoner Ships)

I think changes could be made but I am fearful changes will punish the good as well as the bad. In all honesty I haven't seen many other Zoner Guard traders around and the ones I have are friendly people and good roleplayers. I think there are several facts to consider.

1) You can't just buy a Zoner Guard ID on Planet Erie. It's a very long process and requires patience and time. It is the absolute hardest non-request ID to get in the game.

2) There is no trading advantage to being a Zoner. Xoria has done a terrific job of balancing trade routes. Being able to land on many different bases gives you no advantage to making money. It gives you the freedom to explore and trade with almost all factions. That in itself speaks to Zoner neutrality and role play.

3) Being a Zoner trader leaves you open for pirating everywhere. You get a few people who let you go a little easy but others will rob you extra blind just as frequently.

4) Bad role-play pretty much extends everywhere across all factions equally so making trade changes to remedy this doesn't seem helpful.

5) If people want to powertrade then it's easy to do with any faction. It's easy for us (myself included) to sit back on our billion dollar reserves and our personal fleet of powerful ships and wag the finger at other people that are trying to do the same. Let's be honest here. We didn't earn our fortunes by doing missions.

If there are bad zoner rp'ers then I think it needs to be done on an individual basis. I think what's being proposed here is to change the nature of a faction. It almost seems like people want to rewrite who the Zoners are. Dab I play online quite a bit and I am flying all over sirius trading. I am really not seeing any abuse issues at all. Are people here really seeing that many Zoner Guard people trading?. The Zoner Guard ID difficulty factor discourages it to such a degree that I think these reports are exaggerated to say the least. I for one would want to see some proof of abuse on a substantial level before any changes are made.
All I've seen is forum gossip so far.

Bluntage

[tyro]

Zoners are bunch of various peoples, with different RP behaviour. Nobody can control them all. There are problems with independent Zoners. Complaints are addressed to CoZ, which can't do anything with it. The image of Zoners factions could be damaged because of that. I understand that is the reason of this proposal to control all Zoners through rules.
But this is not good way. This rule affects general Zoner style of life. It changes the definition of Zoners.

There is another way - do it via RP. Let your Zoners group restrict themselves, write these rules to your faction diplomacy. Do the same for CoZ members. Next time when the problem with zoner smuggler appears, you can answer: it is not our business, we/our members didn't do it. You can also put such 'Zoner' to your unfriendly list.

I see here, that some people want to unify all Zoners under one central authority. Wrong way. Only certain factions here can be controlled, but not Zoners, who are anarchistic bunch of free people. If you want to own Zoners you will own problems only.

[Phyrus Emperor]

If the RPing is an issue here, have you considered maybe giving the 5k perk to one of the unofficial zoner factions? Like the Zoner Trading Consortium (]c[) who specializes in trading? I'm sure those fellas will make sure to take on only RPing lads and ladies and it will tune down the mass demand for the ID.

So the ID can be altered by saying 3800k like the normal ID, but adding, "5000k transports can also be used ONLY if belong to one of the following Zoner trading factions:"

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, or ever even been done before...to give an unofficial faction sole use of a ship, but I find it the best way to monitor the usage of these ships, if said factions are willing to take that responsibility.

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By phyrus_emperor at 2009-06-13

[Dab]

The Guard ID, in the case of Zoners, was solely designed to weed out those who just bought a Zoner ID with a just over half green reputation and power-traded. (Leaving capital ships our of this, of course.)

Odd, some of us Zoners use the Guard ID because our character's job is to.. Guard Zoners and Freeports. The ID is not solely for weeding out people who bought the Zoner ID. Especially when one can get Zoner guard rep full in half an hour.. Much easier than any other faction.

On that note, all I see from you is words.

Words from rumors of the bar NPCs on all the stations. Do you really mean to insinuate I made them up? I got the rumors via using FLE as it's easier than spending 4 hours flying around, then relogging until I get all of the rumors.

And about your screenshot of them making Arm runs into Hamburg, as Johann already said; No further than Planet Hamburg. Furthermore, those arms are collected by freighters, not transports. And if that wasn't enough, those arms are ONLY bought during the course of collecting necessary goods, such as oxygen, water, etc, as is said here;

Jim Millan, Freeport 1 Bartender
We make supply runs to Hamburg to import essential Commodities like Oxygen, Water, Consumer Goods, and Pharmaceuticals.

1) You can't just buy a Zoner Guard ID on Planet Erie. It's a very long process and requires patience and time. It is the absolute hardest non-request ID to get in the game.

Took me about 30 minutes..

2) There is no trading advantage to being a Zoner. Xoria has done a terrific job of balancing trade routes. Being able to land on many different bases gives you no advantage to making money. It gives you the freedom to explore and trade with almost all factions. That in itself speaks to Zoner neutrality and role play.

Zoners have the greatest trading advantage of any faction. Not only can they run their own routes, but EVERYONE ELSE'S at the same time. The Zoners can run any route they wish. Heck, they could go from Planet Leeds, controlled by Bretonia, to Stokes, controlled by KNF. A BowEx transport can't.

Zoners can also smuggle Cardamine straight to Manhattan.. Outcast ID can't.

Zoners can do any route that exists right now, so there is no way they can be balanced to other routes, for they can do all of them.

And as shown by the rumors from Zoner NPCs in my last post, the Zoners DON'T trade with all the factions. One rumor specifically stated; "... that way we can go where the governments aren't. We survive by trading with other independently minded factions."

4) Bad role-play pretty much extends everywhere across all factions equally so making trade changes to remedy this doesn't seem helpful.

If it's equal, I have yet to see it.. I see countless bad role-play being exhibited by Zoner traders, while most factionized traders I encounter roleplay quite well. The only trading faction that people expect bad RP from that start are the Zoners and Smuggler ID transports. I very clearly remember you flying your Heavy Tanker through Leeds, through Manchester, into Cortez filled with Nomad pilots, not even responding to BAF until you were in Cortez, where the first thing out of your mouth was 'This is Liberty space, you can't hurt me here' (Which was untrue btw, it's independent and the treaty allows both LN and BAF to patrol it). We saw no roleplay there at all. That was only one example of hundreds I've witnessed since the release of 4.85. Not to mention what I've seen since the release of 4.84.

5) If people want to powertrade then it's easy to do with any faction. It's easy for us (myself included) to sit back on our billion dollar reserves and our personal fleet of powerful ships and wag the finger at other people that are trying to do the same. Let's be honest here. We didn't earn our fortunes by doing missions.

Powertrading isn't easy for other factions in comparison to the Zoners. The other factions all have some sort of restriction. Such as Bretonian traders can't take Gold from Dublin to New Tokyo.. Kusari traders can't take Optronics from New Tokyo to New London.. But I see dozens of Zoners doing the same all day. Liberty traders sure can't take Cardamine from Malta to Manhattan, or Artifacts.. Zoner transports can.. So please tell me how it is as easy for a faction trader as for a Zoner one..

If there are bad zoner rp'ers then I think it needs to be done on an individual basis. I think what's being proposed here is to change the nature of a faction. It almost seems like people want to rewrite who the Zoners are. Dab I play online quite a bit and I am flying all over sirius trading. I am really not seeing any abuse issues at all. Are people here really seeing that many Zoner Guard people trading?. The Zoner Guard ID difficulty factor discourages it to such a degree that I think these reports are exaggerated to say the least. I for one would want to see some proof of abuse on a substantial level before any changes are made.
All I've seen is forum gossip so far.

We've tried to deal with the bad RP'ers on an individual basis. It hasn't worked. For two years it has been tried, and it hasn't worked. No one is trying to change the Zoner faction. This proposal is made with only pre-existing Zoner ideals being a factor. If Zoners really did have a history of running blockades between warring houses, than I wouldn't care.. But show me where that is at all in-RP activity for a Zoner.. Show me some evidence that Zoners have been transporting Cardamine for the Outcasts..

You might not see these abuse issues yourself, but they do exist. I see them daily. I see them in Bretonia, in Rheinland, in Kusari, in Liberty, etc. I especially notice the Bret-Kusari blockade running by Zoners. If you sit in Leeds at 'the Tau-31 gate for two hours, you'll see at least 20 Zoner Guard transports filled with Gold, Deuterium, and Optronics heading to and from the system.

In contrary to your statement about the difficulty factor, it is in fact, the ease of which one can get a Zoner Guard ID that makes this problem even worse. The hard way takes 30 minutes, but if you're lucky you can get the rep completely full in 5 minutes, just by flying to Bethlehem and getting a quad bribe. Then you fly to Corinth, buy the ID, fly to Livadia, buy the Whale, fly to Bretonia, and start blockade running.. This is exactly what happens.

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[Dab]

Split into two posts, too many quotes, they broke.

Zoners are bunch of various peoples, with different RP behaviour. Nobody can control them all. There are problems with independent Zoners. Complaints are addressed to CoZ, which can't do anything with it. The image of Zoners factions could be damaged because of that. I understand that is the reason of this proposal to control all Zoners through rules.

The issue isn't that it 'could' damage the faction, it is that is has damaged the faction. If it hadn't caused a problem, I never would suggested any change at all.

But this is not good way. This rule affects general Zoner style of life. It changes the definition of Zoners.

Does it? Show me some evidence that it changes anything about the Zoners.. I've provided my evidence showing how it is in-keeping with Zoner roleplay, so if you disagree please provide something to show why.

There is another way - do it via RP. Let your Zoners group restrict themselves, write these rules to your faction diplomacy. Do the same for CoZ members. Next time when the problem with zoner smuggler appears, you can answer: it is not our business, we/our members didn't do it. You can also put such 'Zoner' to your unfriendly list.

I can tell most people lately haven't been reading my posts at all.. For this is is yet another of several posts that all say 'Do it via RP.' If you go back and read what I've said, you'll see that we've tried to do just that. We've tried for years. It hasn't done any good, and the problem has only gotten worse.

I see here, that some people want to unify all Zoners under one central authority. Wrong way. Only certain factions here can be controlled, but not Zoners, who are anarchistic bunch of free people. If you want to own Zoners you will own problems only.

Please show me where I've, in any way, suggested that I want to unify all Zoners under any control. I've not. My Zoner itself is an independent, so doing so wouldn't make sense. This is an accusation without any evidence to support it.

If the RPing is an issue here, have you considered maybe giving the 5k perk to one of the unofficial zoner factions? Like the Zoner Trading Consortium (]c[) who specializes in trading? I'm sure those fellas will make sure to take on only RPing lads and ladies and it will tune down the mass demand for the ID.

So the ID can be altered by saying 3800k like the normal ID, but adding, "5000k transports can also be used ONLY if belong to one of the following Zoner trading factions:"

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, or ever even been done before...to give an unofficial faction sole use of a ship, but I find it the best way to monitor the usage of these ships, if said factions are willing to take that responsibility.

The problem with this is that you'd have to patch the entire mod with the infocard change whenever a Zoner faction ever disbands or a new one gets made..
Also, while I think a change is necessary, forcing Zoners to join a faction isn't the answer. Zoners are an anarchic lot who value freedom. One reason why they left the houses. To force them to join factions so they can do in-RP trading would be completely contradictory to this. Just because some are indies doesn't mean they are bad RPers. Yes, most of the bad RPers are indies, but the opposite isn't true. My Zoner Whale and Zoner Carrier are both very in-RP (My Whale doesn't dock on any non-Zoner bases besides Malta, where it picks up H-fuel for FP10), yet independent characters. So this solution wouldn't work.

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[Bluntage]

Quote from you (about getting zoner guard id)

"The hard way takes 30 minutes, but if you're lucky you can get the rep completely full in 5 minutes"

Dab, I have to say I am losing respect for what you’re saying. You say it took you 30 minutes to get a Zoner Guard ID. So you flew from Erie to O49 and then adjusted your rep enough (in S13/S19/S17) and then flew to O74, through the field and got a Zoner Guard ID. Under the best circumstances that’s not even physically possible to do in 60 minutes, let alone 30 minutes. Even with a triple bribe, it’s usually necessary to rep fix a bit afterwards. Time it has taken me: 3-5 hours per ship. You say if you’re lucky, you can do it in 5 minutes. Really…how am I supposed to take you seriously when you’re saying stuff like that.

Quote from you:

I very clearly remember you flying your Heavy Tanker through Leeds, through Manchester, into Cortez filled with Nomad pilots, not even responding to BAF until you were in Cortez, where the first thing out of your mouth was 'This is Liberty space, you can't hurt me here' (Which was untrue btw, it's independent and the treaty allows both LN and BAF to patrol it). We saw no roleplay there at all. That was only one example of hundreds I've witnessed since the release of 4.85. Not to mention what I've seen since the release of 4.84.

You clearly remember wrong. I stopped for the BAF in Leeds and was told to wait. I got sick of your crap and left and your friend didn’t have a train disruptor to stop me. At this point the only rp going on was mine and your buddy’s responses were mechanical and like a computer. Filled with nomad pilots? I had 2 nomad brains out of 4700 cargo space. That’s 0.04%....pretty far from “filled”. That speaks to your exaggeration. The BAF and LN share patrols in Cortez…that’s the first I have heard of that so send me a rule showing that and not some statement buried deep in the forums supporting this. On top of that you made me pay you $3M to not destroy my ship. I told you I was attacked by nomads on my way from Delta which was true. I figured you were a bunch of newbies so I paid you and left.


On top of that you felt the need to send me a “Pathetic Inbred” message after our encounter.

http://photobucket.com/BAFPirates

I told you that that was out of line and you just ignored me. It’s true I thought Cortez was a Liberty system so I guess I was wrong there. And yes I was rule lawyering a bit about your constant firing and then re-cruising to catch up with me. To say I was innocent and in perfect rp during this would be a lie. I was getting pretty frustrated with your attitude so maybe my rp was compromised a bit after dealing with your militant “might is right” attitude and your dull responses. While my rp may not have been up to your standards, your rp certainly wasn’t up to mine.

Dab it sounds to me that you need to brush up on your own role-play first before criticizing other people. Your critics (like me and Nooblet) are backing up our arguments with actual facts where as you are just spewing whatever helps your agenda. I am not trying to make an enemy of you but I find your approach…a little childish.

[dr lameos]

On top of that you felt the need to send me a “Pathetic Inbred” message after our encounter.

http://photobucket.com/BAFPirates

Goodmen isn't Dab... and there is a BAF feedback thread for complaints if they're founded. Furthermore, note that that insult was in-RP and not a personal attack.


as to your time comments, there's a quad bibe on bethlehem, no need to travel to GC for it.

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