heh. I'm one of the group that Hatred mentioned - he'd told me about this thread a few days ago, but I've been otherwise distracted from coming to read it. I might be convinced to stick around, but only because I want revenge.
My events of the first day here? I fly with my buddy Malice up to get his new Junker CSV - I'd been busy trying to find and get a copy of the game to come play with my friends, because, really, space combat/trading plus roleplay plus persistant servers? Sold, and more than. - in my Starflea because hey, he's got some cash, and I don't, but I'm having a ball just flying around shooting scrap metal. It's entertaining as crap. We get up to Rochester and Malice flies in, and I hang outside and wait, potshotting floating scrap metal bits. I hear something flying up behind me and holy crap, it's a battleship. (Whether it's a "battleship" quote unquote or not I really don't know, and really don't care - it's a hundred times my size, bristling with guns, and looks pissed. I'm still not sure on what's classed a battleship and what's not.)
The guy inside it, a Junker, begins harassing me. 'What are you doing here? Why are you here? You're not supposed to be here, this is a secret base for listening to transmissions from Planet Manhattan!' Now, at the time, I'd never played the single player game, but now having done so, I was pretty sure that the Junkers welcomed everybody to come visit their bases because they're sort of poor and indigent and looking for money, sort of an intergalactic clearing house. But back to the story.
Anyway, I sort of brush the guy off - it really doesn't seem to matter to me, I mean, we're what, level 15? 20? I'm trying to just raise enough money to not be flying a leaky bathtub and I'm looking forward to Malice having a better ship, since we're mostly pooling any money we get to buy better ships and equipment for one another, the rationales being that we want to stick together, and when we're all in decent ships, we can play together, instead of 6 Starfleas and 1 Holy Crap That's A Big Ship. As soon as Malice comes out, the Junker starts raising holy hell about him flying the ship. I don't think anything of it - the rest of the group's meeting somewhere else, and besides, as far as I understood, as long as we're under level 30, there's not jack he can do to us, right? Soon as I turn away, I hear Malice yell out over Ventrilo "He shot me!" I target him in the menu and sure enough, Malice's shield is gone. By this time, I'm already in warp out towards Manhattan, and my parting comment in System Chat: "Geez. I always thought the Junkers were reasonable, but the local guys seem to be a bunch of dicks."
Dicks. Note that word, it'll be important at the end of the story. Also, raise your hands if you think it's vulgar.
This seems to really piss off the Junker, but by now we're for the most part moving along. Another Junker is talking to the aforementioned one, and we're flying off towards Texas or something - someone's mentioned that they want to try a boron/beryllium trade run, and we should all do it to raise some money. That's cool, I've never seen Texas or anywhere else before for that matter. And off we go.
It's pretty peaceful and a lot of fun for a while. We'd been shooting police and the Rogues were more than happy to let us pass through, well, most of us. We get through Magellan, we move down towards Leeds, and as we're going past some base or something somewhere in Leeds who do we hear in System? Mr. Junker and Mrs. Junker, from earlier! Somebody says something to them from our group, there's a laugh over Ventrilo, and we continue - until halfway through the system, Mr. and Mrs. J show up behind us at a base. They're both in battleships (no, I don't know what KIND. The kind with a hojillion guns and ePeens far out of proportion.) OK... Hatred says just to head out, and we're on our way to the jump gate.
I'm last through. I'm a little slow moving at times, I've got AIM open, I've been reading while we're in formation, so I look up just after the rest of the group goes through the jump hole. Mr. J is talking to me. "Halt and drop ure cargo" I could've told him to piss off, but I figure eh, I'll ignore him.
Next thing I know, I hear "Incoming Missile!" and WHAM, Cruise Disrupted, and there's a streak of green across my back. My shield is gone, most of my hull is gone. I panic for a second, and rapidly jam on the Nanobot/Battery buttons, going into and out of Turret Mode at least twice. ONLY AFTER THIS does Mrs. J say 'crap, level 29, nm.'
Now. I admit. I have a little bit of an anger issue. So that sort of explains why I exploded, both in Ventrilo and into System chat. I make a point to put the // into System Chat and go off on him, asking him what the hell he exactly thinks he's doing, I'm level 29 (I made a POINT to be level 29 and will continue to be level 29/39 as long as I can stand to be), I have a civvy tag, and I call them both M***** F*****s. Yes, in System Chat. His response? "oh you can't talk to me like that i'm gonna report u". I tell him to go right ahead, I want him to report me, I'm looking forward to it. I've got screenshots of my current level, his own screenshots sent in to the admins will show him in a battleship, I'm looking forward to it. Of course, at the time screenshots were the farthest thing from my mind - I was too busy blowing my top to the rest of the Vent crew. 'i'm gonna get u banned' Yeah, right. Jerk.
I take off, and at this point the rest of the group is actually on their way back through the systems. I'm so lost and mad it takes me another 20 minutes to figure out where I'm going, and I take the same gate back and forth twice before I recognize what I'm doing. Finally, I get over it, and I'm ok. I'm cool. It's the next day, I'm having fun, shooting police and transport, snarking at the LN and LPI in NY over System, scaring the crap outta some level 32 police dude who opens fire on me when I shear off his shields in a second long burst of fire, and I admit, I'm having a good time. I'm a pirate, and proud of it.
Next day, same stuff - until later that night, oh, dammit, server crashed again. .... No, wait. ... Well, hell. I'm banned.
This is where that question about dick comes into play. I don't consider it vulgar - a little rude, perhaps, but more indicative of a state of annoyance. Rules state you get a 7 day ban for vulgarity. I check the boards the next day, when whomever it was who banned me finally got around to posting about it, and I'm out for 14. hmph. fine.
.... You know, I was thinking earlier about coming back and playing more, but after writing this, I'm not sure if I will. I've got Mass Effect to play, I've got WoW to play, I've got City of Heroes, Elona, Combat Arms, TF2, I've got writing, roleplaying, I've got my dogs to play with, there's TV to watch - I don't have to play Freelancer to enjoy myself. It's fun, but.. (And another thing. Y'know how people fuss about how many noobs there are in NY space? It's because it's frigging SCARY anywhere else! You wanna be a pirate, like me, from the beginning? Three words: Bounty Hunter Barracudas. *tremble* 4 of them, 2 Piranhas, just outside a warp hole? I was dead before I finished undocking. I don't want to have to trade for a month to scrape up the money for a giant ship before I can start PLAYING, but going outside of Liberty Space in anything less than a $500,000 ship is suicidal.) I don't want to play somewhere where people can manipulate the rules and 'play favorites' however they want, and especially for new players (not just to Discovery, but to the game!) who're trying to figure out what the hell they're doing and have some fun, well.. it just ain't fun.
Not that I didn't meet some awesome people, though. Warspite, looking at you, dude. Cool enough to cruise past me while I'm kicking the crap out of LPI fighters at the NY->Texas warp gate in that big ship and actually RP with me. (Well, threaten me not to fire on him, but still, that's how you're supposed to do it. Check the level, check the tag, hail them, THEN decide to open fire. I replied back, said I hadn't thought of it, safe journeys, and we talked a couple more times while flying around.) But really. One or two people I like and the rest of the crew (who've all had their moments that've turned them off) vs. the NY/LN/LPI community? Nope, sorry, not interested.
And don't even get me started on the rest of the crap I've seen going around. Hatred's bit on 'we're pirates. we'll fly pirate ships, but we're using what guns we get.' This is obvious. Minimal's piece on 'RP =/ "2 mill or dai"'. Yes. The guy in the battleship/cruiser/whatever it was who chased me through the NY->NY Buffalo warp hole just to shoot me, then DEMANDED that I leave the area multiple times but sat on top of the jump holes so I couldn't get out, and was threatening to report me? Yeah. Hope that did a lot for you, buddy. Nope. The only reason I'd come back would be to have one of those billion-credit battleships specifically so I could turn Rochester into a parking lot. Then I'd leave, and be happy. As it is, I'll probably leave and be happy anyway.
