A time to reflect

[Monk]

So..yeah...been away for a while but now I am back. Been skirting around here and there on the server with some characters you might associate with me and others less so.

Having not been steeped in Disco drama or frustrated by the usual I was able to take an objective look at the status of the server of its players as compared to how I remember it.

What I want of this thread is for people to chime in on what could be better, what is good and what seems confusing. With this we might be able to collectively better ourselves as well as appreciate and protect the things we like.

I'll start:

-Player activity seems pretty solid now...even through off-hours
-The server seems fairly stable during the hours I have played, just minor hiccups and crashes.
-Maybe it is just the hours I play but faction players seem to have decreased or they are all only playing for a few factions. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems most factions are only coming out for events and not for regular play...not good imo (and i know i am guilty of this).
-PvP whoring seems ever more present than before (or maybe I just forgot). Examples include, zero dialog before or after an attack (suppose they are just stroking each other in group), excessive force and general rudeness.
-There is some really terrific RP if you know where to look. This is both good and bad...good in that you can find good RP on the server bad in that it seems areas of space are being segregated by PvP zones and RP zones (i.e. NY vs. NB).
-OOC chat is at atrocious levels...even in places where you find decent RP going on...unnecessary use of "/// "is rather rampant wherever you go.
-hmm trying to create a compliment sandwich here but I am having trouble finding another piece of bread.

So go ahead...post your own reflections good and bad and discuss how we can improve. I would like to avoid flaming but accept that it happens.

[n00bl3t]

-There is some really terrific RP if you know where to look. This is both good and bad...good in that you can find good RP on the server bad in that it seems areas of space are being segregated by PvP zones and RP zones (i.e. NY vs. NB).

At least there's always activity in NY.

Welcome back.:)

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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.

[Laowai]

You're definitly right about faction absence - though i don't think its general, i think it seems to be located in certain areas.

NY for example usually has quite a few LN, or LSF people on at any given time. For the Outcasts as well, i have noticed that the most consistent group is the SOB - i rarely see any others anymore.

The Xenos in Liberty (XA) are sporadic... though as i have an XA character i know that i'm sporadic there as well.

Rheinland? yep, havent seen a RM player there for weeks, hessians, ditto, GMG, etc etc very quiet.

Corsairs are definitly on the decline in numbers, though i think its probably when i log on, but you only ever see on or two TBH players, OPG are also now quieter, and the Benitez?

- PVP stupidty is perhaps a little higher, though i have not seen a massive increase, i will admit though to seeing more "shoot first" behavior, with Rubbish RP - my trader was shot up badly over NB last night by a Hessian tagged Liberty Rogue Id'd player, who dropped my hull to almost nothing then uttered "Tax ?" - (nice RP buddy.) I was also shot up by a Zoner ID'd fighter (also in NB) the other day, with no hint of RP.
More effort to RP all around would be great, im almost never OOC when im ingame, i'll only sometimes use the occasional "//" (mostly for speed of communication as i find sifting through 120 names to find one person to PM extremely tedious) - its not that hard to do, dont know why new or non aligned players cant pull their finger out.

- The most common misdemeanor is see at the moment is ID/tag issues.

On the whole, things seem to be going along steadily - the server issues are a little tedious. Crashing etc - but I know the admins are working on that all the time, so all good.

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http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/3289/...047770.png

[Blodo]

I guess one could call this a temporary loss of interest. The moment summer vacations started, the server was pretty much at it's very highest. 170+ players on at any one time wasn't anything new, and the Corsair - Hessian event sported about 30 people on at least several occasions. New York would get 50 people camping it (can't imagine SA/LN containing such a mess), New Berlin would be under control of the Rheinland unlawfuls, while Omegas and Omicrons would be filled with PvP. All ended in July more or less, coincidentally when the server started failing like hell...

Just give it time. Either new people will come in or old people will return soon.

[sovereign]

Rheinland? yep, havent seen a RM player there for weeks, hessians, ditto, GMG, etc etc very quiet.

Buh? I can go grab the patrol reports from our forums, RM have been more alive than ever before. Just last night we took a little hunt after a mercenary spy, kept a Volksfront operative from harming trade, and then to top it off dismantled a pair of Harvester gunboats. This stuff isn't out of the ordinary either, the Volksfront and RHA have been picking up the pace a bit too.

<shameless plug>

By the way join the Volksfront. We're wicked awesome, and we fight the powertraders with RP rather than PvP. It actually seems to work better by the way, talking to traders gets more of them off the run than blowing them up. Plus we're one of some four groups that have pulled off OC/Sair neutral successfully.

</shameless plug>

- PVP stupidty is perhaps a little higher, though i have not seen a massive increase, i will admit though to seeing more "shoot first" behavior, with Rubbish RP - my trader was shot up badly over NB last night by a Hessian tagged Liberty Rogue Id'd player, who dropped my hull to almost nothing then uttered "Tax ?" - (nice RP buddy.) I was also shot up by a Zoner ID'd fighter (also in NB) the other day, with no hint of RP.

If you ever see this from a Bundschuh player please send me their name so I can have them hung. If you see this from random people in Rheinland let me know anyway and I'll bring their names to the Rheinland Pirate (convenient acronym is RP:happy:) skype chat so we can either shape them up or kick them out of Rheinland. Ain't no hidin' place here for ooRP, all factions in Rheinland work together to make the place the best it can be. (It helps when most of the leaders are in multiple groups- I lead the Volksfront, while also having a Corporal in the RM and a Wild. Makes planning stuff and balancing teams a breeze.)



On a happier note, a lot of people I talk to are being increasingly friendly and understanding as players, even in *gasp* Liberty. Gigantic kudos once more to Galactica, who stopped his Liberty Gunboat's guns when I pointed out that the rest of the fight was 4 Greyhounds vs 6 Avengers/Guardians/Raven Claws. People are willing to give you a kill when you deserve it rather than meek out a survival over an hour and a half, and I've had no troubles finding trustworthy players to do transfers.

Sirius is a much better place than people make it out to be. It really depends on the perspective you take going in- if you want to have fun, you'll have fun. If you want to find stuff to complain about, you will.

I want to have fun.

Do you?

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[Monk]

Whoa now...i wasn't necessarily complaining. Merely pointing some things out that could use improvement. The most important one and the oldest one being poor RP practice. Sov, you actually mentioned a solution that has worked well in the past. A bad RPer will usually wise up or leave disco if his fellow pirates/lawfuls begin to turn on them for poor behavior.

I would like to call out for, currently, independent players to consider joining factions. More importantly, they should consider some of the factions that are lacking in membership (i.e. Bretonian factions, police factions and Kusari). Having a diverse spectrum of and active factions, in my experience, have always been lots of fun. I generally find it difficult to develop a community feeling when like 100 of the 110 people on are all unaffiliated players. Not trying to say I am against independents (i have a few myself) just trying to say there are too many.

[Jinx]

a quick reflection since the last update.... :

- liberty got "mostly" fixed - for the better for sure. RP happens there, factions got established AND respected - and there is a lot work to do ( in terms of RP )
- kusari is still a ghost-town, not as much as before..... but it shows almost no presense by any noticable force, nither unlawful nor lawful.
- bretonias activity went from almost zero to a respectable level. the BPA) and the QCx are around regularly and do a good job. there has even been "global" effects as consequences from the roleplay ( independence of the irish people - something they struggled to get in RL for like decades - but we shall see - maybe it will still cause the very same problems )
- rheinland is a ghosttown, except for the short part of the sigma-13 jumphole and new berlin orbit. - that only refers to how the general traffic goes. - the other systems are still alive, but not with regular traders that are needed to make a system feel "alive" but only with pirate/police interaction - sort of.

general differences to 4.83:
- the "problematic" mercs all went to the BHG, hence ruining the BHG, which was doing just fine in 4.83
- on the bright side - the mercs are now a much more serious group of people
- the zoner community grew steadily and is still mostly inactive in terms of global RP
- corsair and outcast arms race got to a new peak... with both sides gaining new factions and a massive increase of ships ( fighters and warships )
- the bomber has replaced the gunboat as the "jack of all traits"
- general tolerance and acceptance of different ideas of RP has drasticly decreased. while it was possible to "discover" not only space and information / lore back then but also ships and equipment - switching affiliations and simply getting around and used to all.... its not really possible anymore.
- there is now - or at least it seems to me - a healthier composition of ship types on the server. - i hardly ever see battleships, i see a good deal of cruisers, but where i think they are supposed to be ( except NY ) - and mostly trader vessels and fighter classes around - with bombers and gunboats in balance.
- there was some good and innovative RP going on - but thats hardly anything new as it happened in 4.83, too. - but we lost two established factions ( AW, NovaPG ) .... alright, not lost, but they sort of lost all their power that they wielded back then.
- one of the greatest changes was the admin selection, which - as so far turned out to be OK - but we shall see.
- the server population is on a steady 70 - 140 players which creates a believable enviroment with a player in almost any system.

thats what comes up my mind spontanously - changes were mostly for the good, - sometimes not, but i think nothing became really worse. - except the situation of the BHG which went from a respectable NPC faction to a comedy. i think it needs a strong leadership - not one that leads with an iron fist - but one that is forceful yet gentle and mostly establishes diplomatic ties ( not the leadership that thinks that limiting others is good but a leadership that sets an example of how the faction is supposed to be run )

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[Seth Karlo]

I have trouble commenting as I've only been here for about 6 months. However, I feel the RP is dying slowly, the PvP is drastically increasing, and the Admins are doing a great job.

Seth

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Signature by Sleipnir.

[Jinx]

where i agree about the RP dieing is when it comes to details that can be done ingame - i only see that in the regions i play though. - some are willing to RP, others are not.

for example... there was that rogue gunboat ( non factioned for what it matters ) departing from freeport 11. - he went straight to alaska - prolly intending to take the alaska route back to liberty. upon asking him to take the RP route ( through tohoku ) - he complied without any complained and took this route. a very positive incident as it shows that he saw reason that taking alaska, even if its so conveniently a shortcut is still ooRP. - and he took his time to fly the route that he would most probably take IF he was to head to omicron delta. ( that means, not through gamma and theta as it would be suicide, but through kusari which is dangerous but at least possible for those that can know about it in char )

then there was a person that took the alaska route cause it was a short cut. - some junker who said he had no time to take the RP route through the omegas ( in his case as a junker, the gamma / theta route ). he insisted that he had hacker friends ( he was flying a corsair gunboat ) that would open the alaska gate for him... but admitting that it would be too much for him to take a RP route.
thats the cases where RP dies, cause the people find themselves too lazy to pay attention to the details. - not much can be RPed in depths ingame - but what we CAN roleplay should be RPed.

what really happened is an increase of forum RP and rather little impact of it ingame. - people try... and its not like the RP ingame was vanished or got worse, but its more like the forum RP got more and more complex - so its not possible to uphold the same standard ingame anymore.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[kingvaillant]

my idea is contraversial. But since RP is decreasing, etc. Ever though about a player wipe? Yes, you may lose a lot, but it would purge the server from the indesirable players. And it willl rebalance everything.

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-Yes, factions are less active lately,,, summer I guess. Hessian Tears are dying due to RL issues with nearly all members (me, Ors, Missile Monkey, Simsonator, etc). There si not much I can do about it.

Liberty factions are the most active as well as the SOB(no offense but you should really rework your tag:P). RM is getting slightly more active, but needs more members, same with Mandolorian, etc ,etc ,etc.

-Cheaters here are really problematic. Latelly it seems like someone (the SAME person) like to pop Scrap fields in NY just for fun.

-Server stability is getting better, compared to a few days ago.

-Several notable members have left. However, I know they will come back.

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Director of the Liberty Security Force: Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity

The Amundsen Zone-21 Restrictions