' Wrote:PvP obviously. Although that's a false dilemma you present looqas with. Role-play and PvP....these are not mutually exclusive things.
PVP and role play are not intrinsically tied to one another either.
Quote:PvP is an important component not just of Discovery, but specifically of playing the role of a bounty hunter, a mercenary, a pirate, certain freelancers, and pretty much all the House militaries. This is not Discovery Hand-Holding Server 24/7 - it is a role-playing server with the added "attraction" of having spaceships that can fire guns being available to the general public. A kind of a right to bears arms exists here, but it's more a "futuristic galaxy where life is cheap" than "your neighbours now own a anti-aircraft gun" kind of right.
PVP in the absence of role play is quite different than role play in the absence of PVP. You CAN role play without ever having a PVP encounter ... but to PVP without having a role play encounter ... isn't that against the rules? My point was that blanket bounties leads people to attack on sight ... red is dead mentality. I've experienced it ... no fun and not much thought involved (ie: not much role play).
Quote:Evading hunters, lawful and unlawful, normally involves exploitation of game mechanics, but has also been known to take the form of people claiming that even though they are using the ID of a criminal gang, are considered a member of said gang, have acquired the reputation that allows them to land on pirate bases, trade in illegal goods, and generally take long, warm showers with all manner of disreputable thugs, they somehow should not be considered pirates. It all sounds a little disingenuous. You can't have everything. You can't have the freedom of a pirate ID and not expect to run into trouble should the law of its duly appointed deputies come after you...
1)having posted adequate forum roleplay
2)in keeping with the canon of Freelancer and people's experience of how the NPC engine behaves in hunter-criminal interactions. Of course players should play to a higher standard than NPC's...but if you watch NPCs you may be surprised at just how much better they can be than many players.
Not arguing this point. And I'd expect bounty hunters to stick with their lawful buddies ... and NOT dock on a Junker base where pirates hang out. There's ways to have a role play encounter between a pirate and a lawful police/navy type without firing the guns. Pirates don't attack on sight generally ... they pick their targets. Lawfuls (police) don't attack every traders as if he's carrying contraband.
Posting a bounty is fine ... but if you post a bounty on anything red that moves ... what's the point in posting the bounty? Red is dead becomes the mantra and might as well forget about any further role play. If you're fine with red is dead ... then lets get rid of all the role play rules. Lets just have one rule ... if the guy you're attacking is red on your radar then he's fair game ... pirate or not.
And yes ... NPCs do have a tendency to role play better. If Liberty Police scan and find contraband they give a role play "well well ... look what I found ... hand it over and we'll have no trouble here" ... then there's a 30 second pause before they start shooting. And if you happen to dock before they tell you "bad move slick ..." then they've forgotten you had the stuff. NPCs aren't perfect ... but at least they give smugglers a chance. Heck ... never saw a lawful NPC fire a CD before or after scanning ... they only fire the CD when you refuse to drop the contraband.
Quote:And the bounties aren't true wildcard licenses to kill - look at the restrictions (some of which are probably a little too rigid).
Bounties have been closed before for being too broad and having flimsy RP behind them. The current ones seem pretty okay.
I like having bounties ... makes for better role play than seeing a bounty hunter battlecruiser shooting every pirate on sight (as it used to be). And any blanket bounty SHOULD be restricted to avoid repeat abuse from the past. There's another issue with bounties I don't care much for ... the excessively high bounties. There's one I saw just today for 50 mil on a single pirate. I've seen so many anti-pirate threads complaining about pirates demanding 2, 5 or even 10 mil from a trader ... and at the same time I see traders posting 50 mil bounties on pirates. There's gotta be some balance here. If you've got 50 mil to pay a hunter you've got 10 mil to pay the pirate. Pirates are fairly well corralled within a fence (ie: restricted on what they can do, fly, etc). I don't see any problem with similar restrictions on hunters.
On the other hand ... if you wanna lift some of the restrictions on pirates, I don't see a problem with doing the same for hunters. But you can't have one free to do whatever and the other tied to a post like a punching bag.
' Wrote:I'm hardly the most blood thirsty guy out there. In fact my nature is better suited to play as a reporter, or trader or some other non-violent character. Simply because I want the other guy to have a fighting chance and thus have fun. As it is I've known to have let numerous guys off the hook what comes to blanket bounties or even posted individual bounties.
And it's not called being lazy. It's called trying have some fun once or twice a week instead of spending the evening chasing ghosts.
One of the reasons why blanket bounties are needed is that the bounties section is very messy. People put incomplete bounties without any sufficient info up there. It would actually be a tremendous help if there were a form anyone could fill up. And that would be a small relief to the poor bounty hunter trying to check out the jobs.
So just don't call me a lazy ok? You try that sometimes and then come tell me. Even when I kept the list updated, fat lot it did help me when I had to alt-tab to check it and then the quarry had ran away 2 systems from me. Unless I could read his mind or really OORP know his/her habits and bases and could foresee his path and actions I simply had no means of catching him. I rarely even got to the pvp-whorage part you seem to accuse me of.
Most of the hunting even now is pure chance and luck anyway unless you spend sizable amounts of time in the server. Which people simply do not have in the long run.
A flhook bounty system would be a bliss.
I call blanket bounties lazy ... like firing a shotgun into a crowd ... some innocent bystander is gonna get hurt. You talk of having fun ... nothing's fun about trying to role play a pirate doing something besides pirating getting ganked by a dozen hunters because of some blanket bounty. If you read each ID ... they all have multiple uses. Smugglers can carry both contraband and legal goods. One will get him in trouble with the law and other won't. Same with a pirate ... pirates can pirate (obviously) ... but they can also move contraband and legal goods. Why would you place a bounty on a guy moving food, water and medicine? Pirate or no pirate ... he's not doing anything wrong.
Yes ... if my pirate attacked your trade vessel ... by all means place a bounty on me. But if you trade exclusively in Bretonia and I never pirate within house systems or Bretonians ... why would you post a bounty that would affect me? Why would you post a bounty on a pirate you will likely never come across? You wouldn't ... but these blanket bounties cause a lot of collateral damage.
