From what I've seen in game, it's getting harder and harder to find experienced roleplayers (i.e the people who make the game interesting). I suppose I could take a few newbies under my wing, but I lack patience for ineptitude.
Make it a server rule for everyone with over 1000 posts to train a new player. If you don't, you get a week ban or something. That would have everyone rushing to help someone. If only the logistics weren't so overwhelming.
My reason for leaving (or taking temporary break hopefully) was the degradation of RP environment. I think all those people left exactly because of it. After all discovery is(was) unique in its ability of mixing deep RP and PVP. Actually I tried looking for something similar but couldnt find anything close.(hence whole reason i still post and care despite not playing for several months)
(02-27-2013, 11:40 AM)jammi Wrote: It's true that these threads don't help directly, but they can help identify root causes of problems. Once that's been identified, we can crack it - older games and communities can't afford to pretend everything is perfect and let things fester.
At the end of the day, Discovery has a finite lifespan. That's a given, we can all accept that. However, it should be the mission for every single one us to turn that time into an awesome experience for everyone involved. For you, your mates and the bloke with the red IFF you're lobbing antimatter at.
When it comes to the crunch, the sole purpose of the admin and development teams is to foster good, entertaining gameplay, activity and positive interaction. Some of the more cynical members might disagree, but we wouldn't do it if we didn't love this place. So yes, Discovery is going to die some day, but join Syrio Forel in saying 'not today'.
Absolute truth, admin team exists for the purpose of making gameplay/ game atmosphere better, not for litterally upholding all rules set for this very reason.
Example: http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=93757
I just cant see how this decision promotes healthy environment in any way...
(just hope Karlotta wont notice this conspiracy material)
I dont think anything like this would be allowed let alone be sided with by admins ~3 years ago. RP environment IS worsening. Yes, you say its players who create environment, but was healty comunity ever created by itself? Its exactly admins and mods who should set server course, not go with the flow like in the last years.
All i want is Admin team ENFORCING roleplay here.
(02-27-2013, 11:51 AM)Crackpunch Wrote: From what I've seen in game, it's getting harder and harder to find experienced roleplayers (i.e the people who make the game interesting). I suppose I could take a few newbies under my wing, but I lack patience for ineptitude.
The secret is not only teaching noobies. New players are in no way matter more than old (in many ways they matter less, who says they wont leave after 1 month?). Whenever you just L1 L2 some old player or ignore obviosly new player you get same result: -1 roleplayer, +1lolwut, or -1 player. Far more important than teaching new players is being nice with everyone else. No matter how nice you teach someone they will still get dissapointed in RP environment. If you really want to help server, be nice with everyone you meat, thats best thing you can do.
P.S. Im not raging about admins, i very much respect what they TRY to do for the server(at least the ones who try, but enough with conspiracies) and im sure they want to know what exactly went wrong. Im not saying my point is the only right one, i say if admins want feedback, they will have honest one. In no way democracy should be allowed in administration. As i said, majority can only hurt the community.
(04-23-2013, 11:29 AM)Echo 7-7 Wrote: When "roleplay" around you seems to be diminishing... all you can do is be a new beacon of roleplay to light up everyone else's interactions.
(02-27-2013, 08:31 AM)Ingenious Wrote: What can we change to reverse this trend? Why are people leaving?
This right here. If people start with this attitude then there is a chance. For everyone out there that wants to complain and point and all the things that are being done wrong I will ask again, what are YOU doing to make this better. Every person who plays this game has the opportunity to improve role play, reach out to more players, and find new ways to make the game interesting. Are you doing this? If all you are doing is complaining in these threads and expecting other people to "fix" the game, don't spend too much time waiting.
The problem is people who play purely for causing grief to players. They ask demands that they know aren't reasonable, but are still within the rules, they bring an amount of firepower that no convoy, even with escorts, could fight off without the death of transports, and they don't give anyone time to roleplay, they just demand a large amount of credits, give a very short amount of time to pay, and then kill everyone.
This causes a never-ending cycle:
New player starts trading. New player gets pirated constantly, before he can gather up the credits to afford a real ship or to pay off pirates.
New player gets sick of being pirated.
New player makes a pirate character and goes around demanding large amounts of credits, because it's easier than trying to trade in a small freighter.
New player causes other traders to get sick of being pirated with large demands and no RP.
Other traders make pirates to demand large credits and don't bother to RP.
It's a never-ending cycle, and it just gets worse.
Especially, I might point out, people with names like "uninstall_baddie". They're clearly showing that their objective is to grief the traders that they stop. They don't roleplay, they just /1 and kill.
I try to help this situation, but it is too much for me to handle alone. I help new players all the time. First I get them a rhino, I show them a short route, then I get them a Camara, show them a slightly longer route, then I buy them a transport, and start showing them more profitable, longer, routes. Or, if they want to mine, I give them credits for a mining ship, armor, equipment, etc, and we go to mine. Unfortunately, they are always stopped and asked completely ridiculous demands by pirates. Pirates who ask for more than their ships are even worth when they have empty cargoes. They get so sick of it, because they are hardly ever even able to complete a trade route. Usually half of them either leave or start pirating, and the other half stays to trade and mine but they try as hard as possible to avoid player interaction so that they don't lose everything.
I do this about once every couple of weeks; I buy mammoths for 3-8 new players, and show them a bunch of different routes. We always have very poor encounters with pirates who make unreasonable demands and kill them all. They know they're new players, they target all of the new ones before me, just because they want the satisfaction of the blue messages.
Helping new players helps some, but the biggest problem is pirates who are after credits and pews, with no RP whatsoever. Especially indies who use capital ships to kill everyone without even making any demands at all. I could submit a report every single day about my encounters with these sorts of people, but it takes a good amount of time to prepare a report, and I would hardly ever even get to play the game. Besides, none of the lolwut pirate reports ever go through, anyway.
It's good to see that people are taking interest in the degradation of the RP environment. I can't really say anything that wouldn't be a repeat of what's been said above, just that as I detailed in my post titled "Roleplay server?" I as a new player have been growing increasingly dissatisfied with my RP experience here (or lack thereof). There are literally dozens of other shooter games out there of all genres. If all I wanted was a sci fi blow-em-up, I probably wouldn't be here. I realize I may get lynched for saying this, but to me, Freelancer isn't *that* interesting or engaging of a game, gameplay-wise.
I do, however, love the universe and the expanded story introduced in Discovery. It's a gigantic backdrop with all kinds of storytelling/RP potential, and it's a shame to see it fall victim to griefers and immature silliness. But as has been asked above: what are we doing to make it better?
I've been trying to reach out to other players that value RP as much as I do, and it seems that although I can't definitively prove that we aren't a dying breed, we aren't particularly small in number either. We can help to improve the environment and immersion by roleplaying to the best of our ability, and encourage others to do the same. This game gets stale and boring without the players that make it interesting, and if we just find them and help them get out of the discouraged rut they're finding themselves in due to frustration, we can see the attitude of the player base start to change. More players will follow suit, and eventually the culture will be one that frowns up or even refuses to tolerate nonsense.
I share his thoughts on exactly how this decision contributes to the RP environment (or rather, doesn't). More specifically, the decision to sanction a player who was upset about being sneak attacked seems wrong to me. Don't misunderstand, I'm not defending his irritation or indignation, since death in this game has relatively few negative consequences. He probably should have handled it differently. But sanctioning a player for at least making an effort, regardless of his methods, to shed light on and/or uphold the server rules?
Furthermore, I intensely dislike the point made further down that thread where it is specifically stated that RP prior to PvP does not have any limitations or expectations whatsoever, and that an attack does not have to be declared. I understand the reasoning, of course, since in real life, the bad guys won't always give the good guys a shouted warning that they're going to shoot at them. But let's take a step back. In order to RP in Freelancer, you have to take your hand off of the mouse and throttle keys to type. Not everyone is a 200 WPM typist, and not everyone's first language is English, secondly. I've been the victim of this a number of times. If you're in a ship that relies on speed and maneuverability for defense rather than superior shielding or hull strength, if someone shoots at you while you're responding to something they asked or said, you're dead before you even realize you were fired upon, let alone before you can even have a prayer of getting out of the chat window, grabbing the controls, and dodging. Even worse, it elaborates that the RP prior to PvP doesn't even have to have anything to do with the attack. Again, this may have some merit in real life, but as much as I want to be immersed in as real an enviornment as possible, we do have to remember that this is in fact a computer game, and the general server rules should reflect that.
These decisions and precedents are actually detrimental to RP, as anyone familiar with such tactics will likely not bother to RP with anyone for fear of taking their hands away from their ship controls, or even approach other player ships at all. It makes RP essentially a deadly game of Hot Potato: whoever gets left holding the chat window when shots are fired likely winds up dead.
I'm not saying that PvP should be taken away, it's an integral part of the game. It's just that permitting these overtly underhanded tactics (and punishing those who report it) may very well be one of the contributing factors to the larger problem. I also want to point out that I am in no way pointing fingers at the admin team. I respect the job they do, and have first hand knowledge of the aggravation they have to put up with as I have been the equivalent of an admin on another game and server. It's a tough job, but constructive feedback is also how one gets better. I simply wanted to share my thoughts and reasoning, and will respect whatever decision is made whether I agree with it or not.
Just asking: Is there any way of making a system for combat requests: similar to trade request, where you type your rp reason for the atack and the other person accepts or not. Not accepting would lower your rep with factions or disable cruise engines or make docking inaccesible or something similar or better than that.
In order to eliminate absurd pirates you must limit the money a pirate can ask for, and the only way to do that is to only allow them to ask for cargo. A reasonable trader would carry credit card items with at least the minimum value of their cargo(insurance mone). That way there is actually a way to recover your money from a pirate, ask a bounty hunter to catch the pirate. And if you dont get pirated you get an insurance bonus.
I am throwing ideas here, as someone said, we must look for solutions to stop the decline.
You know, I am probably one of the most guilty when it comes to griefer-pirating. But my char is only a symptom of a bigger problem, a system which values material rewards (the "what") over the roleplay ("why") and the experience (the "how"). In order to succeed moneywise as a pirate, yeah, you have to be a dick to people. In order to succeed as a trader, no, you can't stop and chat with pirates. Now, I view gambling as a classy way to pirate people, but its profit margin is tiny.
And then, the admin team explicitly demands 500 million credits for official faction requests and special roleplay requests—the pinnacles of RP achievement in this community.
But I really don't know what to say to make it better.
I was chatting with an older player about a week ago ingame. I had just come back from a break and he was leaving - permanently. Now, this older player was not a chronic complainer or a forum whiner. He just got tired of the atmosphere here and the game itself.
I asked him why and he said that he was getting a bit bored of the whole FL universe and that player bases had changed the nature of the game for the worse.
How player bases had negatively changed the game he didn't elaborate on. As I've never built or maintained one, I can only speculate. Maybe the amount of time and energy needed to build, maintain and protect a pb somehow detracts from other forms of RP that we've seen more of in the past.
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