+- Discovery Gaming Community (https://discoverygc.com/forums)
+-- Forum: Discovery General (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=3)
+--- Forum: Discovery RP 24/7 General Discussions (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=23)
+--- Thread: Metagaming (/showthread.php?tid=5043)
Pages:
1
2
Metagaming - KercKasha - 12-18-2007
One thing I've noticed lately is that meta gaming is far frequent then it should be, particularly the use of the Player list to find where someone is located in the galaxy, it seems really unfair especially for those who are flying under the radar.
Forgive me for becoming anecdotal but it's probably the best way to explain what I mean about meta gaming and how it detracts from role play for everyone. For years I've been playing the game "The Specialists", which I'm sure a few of you may of heard of. The game itself is a deathmatch game but every few servers you'll find "Roleplay servers" like this one. One of the main problems with TSRP(as it shall be referred from now) was meta gaming, the factions/gang etc in TSRP were pretty simple. You'd have the Police, you'd have Gangs and so on. Now back in the day(Before plugins were put into the engine to make it easier) you'd put your faction into your name in the form of a tag, such as [Police]Bob and [Mafia]Fred, while it helped recognizing friendlys, the problem was you'd have cops deliberately going out of the way to annoy Mafia, which would ofcourse lead to fire fights and not much roleplay going on. Another major problem was when somebody killed somebody else, it would show up in the top right hand corner of the screen(Some servers removed this) which lead to some very badly roleplayed cops once again, going out to arrest people for crimes that Cop probably didn't even know was commited IC. This is in essence metagaming.
Anecdote aside, let me define Metagaming. Basically its using information or tools that your character couldn't possibly have to gain the upper hand over another player, in Freelancer this is basically using the player list to track down people, or watching the "Blah blah killed blah(Gun)" console outputs, and this actually happens quite a bit and frankly its a bit awful. Because while being able to scan and see the affiliations of a ship thats nearby is very well possible(Because known pirates would have records about them, naturally) knowing that someone is in a certain system is literally impossible unless you're asking in group chat about it and someone had actually spotted the target in a certain system.
Now why am I complaining about this? Well it makes Bounty hunting blatantly easy. Two, it makes catching smugglers and pirates in systems unbelieveably easy. Three, it makes hunting down traders even easier! While it may not show where they are on the map, the system is enough to find where that person is because people tend to stay around landmarks(and traders are pretty obvious, just go to the new berlin hole in Sigma 13 and you'll catch about 581951981289).
This is happening extremely frequently, the moment I login to a system or fly into a system I'm instantly yelled at by the Local police to meet at a planet for scanning, how the hell do they know I'm there? Because they're metagaming and frankly it's just as bad as cheating in general when it comes to roleplay.
Anyway I'm done rambling, whats the communities thoughts on this? Because honestly I think it shouldn't be allowed to happen at all for the sake of progressing role play.
Metagaming - ratmantoo - 12-18-2007
Hear Hear ....couldnt agree more
Metagaming - Jinx - 12-18-2007
it works for both sides. the bounty hunter knows where the target is - but he target might possibly know aswell where the hunter is. same with piratas, the pirate knows when there are traders in a system.
i usually only log on Clover when i see that there is at least people around leeds, magellan or somewhere in bretonia - logging on without checking results in a few very boring and lonesome minutes in leeds - since i cannot go anywhere else to pirate.
its out of character, but it supports the gameplay
Metagaming - KercKasha - 12-18-2007
' Wrote:it works for both sides. the bounty hunter knows where the target is - but he target might possibly know aswell where the hunter is. same with piratas, the pirate knows when there are traders in a system.
i usually only log on Clover when i see that there is at least people around leeds, magellan or somewhere in bretonia - logging on without checking results in a few very boring and lonesome minutes in leeds - since i cannot go anywhere else to pirate.
its out of character, but it supports the gameplay
See thats a bit different, what your doing is to support roleplay, not take away from it. Deliberately going out of your way to take out some guy by using the player list is bad, but if your just checking to see if its worthwhile to sit around looking for targets I guess that would be an exception. What I'm talking about is rather then just to see the general population, its to PICK people out of areas, to either kill, bust or ransom. That is meta gaming, the chances of your character picking up faint ship signals for example are very possible, but to find out WHO exactly is in a system is completely impossible because no such technology exists in freelancer(Otherwise the NPC's would be constantly hunting each other down rather then patrols running into each other.)
Metagaming - Jinx - 12-18-2007
well, yes, kerc - of course a player must have a solid reason to even fly in space - in the end, its not like driving a car ( which .... on second thought, you usually need a solid reason for, too:laugh:)
lets put it that way - in freelancer, i can at least think of ways to track others. allthough its prolly not really possible, seeing that even advanced sensors have a shorter range than 1940 radios.
i usually play everquest pvp server - where you have pretty much the same problem ( and thats a fantasy setting without any sensors ) - but people have the option to go "anonymous", which means not displaying their whereabouts. it would display as "???".
since the multiplayer engine of freelancer is quite poor, i don t expect that possible.
btw. that would be a good way to give smuggler IDs the edge over the generic trader. if the smuggler ID would not reveal your system. ( just a thought )
Metagaming - UnknownObject - 12-18-2007
' Wrote:it works for both sides. the bounty hunter knows where the target is - but he target might possibly know aswell where the hunter is. same with piratas, the pirate knows when there are traders in a system.
i usually only log on Clover when i see that there is at least people around leeds, magellan or somewhere in bretonia - logging on without checking results in a few very boring and lonesome minutes in leeds - since i cannot go anywhere else to pirate.
its out of character, but it supports the gameplay
I admit I do it all the time. I curse that I am a victim of it too.
As Jinx does, I will switch characters dependent on who is online, as it is hard to RP alone.
I will use it to see who else is in system to allow system chat before being able to scan... I will ask what people are doing if they are in my ZOI, even if I don't have eye contact.
Is it bad RP? Yes undoubtedly it is using the game engine. However without it my RP would be much briefer, and probably worse.
=LSF= use it constantly. You can get to the stage where you are on their KOS list before you've opened up the chat window. (This is not a complaint, just an observation, as I said I do it too).
It is too much to get people to stop using it. People will use it even if they don't admit to. It is part of the game engine that cannot be disabled. If you make it a crime then people will carry on doing it but feel worse for doing so. So while entirely supporting everything the OP said I would say "just live with it!".
Metagaming - tfmachad - 12-18-2007
This was something that annoyed the bejesus out of me when I started playing here, but to be honest so did the IDs. I learned how to live with them and my impression of both, specially IDs, drastically changed with time. As above mentioned, this is a hard coded feature of the game and we have to learn to live with it. We can have hell freeze faster than we can prevent people from using it.
For a house military, within it's territory (ZOI is getting old real quick), it makes perfect sense to use it. I mean, there are aligned stations, planets and patrolling pilots everywhere, so a ship inside that territory is bound to be spotted (not necessarily pinpointed). It is a little more foggy when it comes to "attacking" ships, or ships outside it's territory, but I'm sure we could come up with at least a couple of lame excuses for that too.
In the end, as Jinx said, this may be a "problem" but it also promotes encounters.
Metagaming - mjolnir - 12-18-2007
' Wrote:For a house military, within it's territory (ZOI is getting old real quick), it makes perfect sense to use it. I mean, there are aligned stations, planets and patrolling pilots everywhere, so a ship inside that territory is bound to be spotted (not necessarily pinpointed). It is a little more foggy when it comes to "attacking" ships, or ships outside it's territory, but I'm sure we could come up with at least a couple of lame excuses for that too.
In the end, as Jinx said, this may be a "problem" but it also promotes encounters.
Exactly.... those stations around would surely call that there is a pirate right in front of them... same with Trade lanes/ Jump gates - that have in-built cables.
Off course in more desolate system that is a bigger problem but.... there are usually NPC patrols around... and they have radios...
So while it is not always 100% kosher.... it makes some RP sense.. and it promotes roleplay... otherwise it could take ages to meet other people.
Metagaming - UnknownObject - 12-18-2007
' Wrote:Exactly.... those stations around would surely call that there is a pirate right in front of them... same with Trade lanes/ Jump gates - that have in-built cables.
Off course in more desolate system that is a bigger problem but.... there are usually NPC patrols around... and they have radios...
So while it is not always 100% kosher.... it makes some RP sense.. and it promotes roleplay... otherwise it could take ages to meet other people.
I'm all for accepting a slightly lame RP reason so long as it is Universal acceptance.
Let us just accept it as part of the game engine and therefore allowed by everyone.
I don't want the RP police saying "I'm police we can use it cos we have sensors throughout the Universe.... you are a Xeno you wouldn't have access to that info".
Sorry I'm paranoid cos everyone IS out to get me. :crazy:
Metagaming - me_b_kevin - 12-18-2007
i can see both the good and the bad of the "who's online" list.
it's good to be able to see if someone is in the same system as you, pirates wouldn't need to either sit for an hour inbetween victims and lawfuls can tell if a baddie is in their system. It's also good to see if someone is in the system with you so you aren't RP'n in system chat by yourself.
it's bad to be seen if your trying to sneak around to ambush traders, smuggle goods, or just trade in peace. it's bad that when you enter New Berlin for example and all of a sudden you see 4 RM log on to come after you.
not sure which i'd prefer really, both have really good and really bad points.
is it even possible to take off where people are out of the chat box?