My very short point of view on phantoms - people are ignoring phantoms and their rp because it's too much out of place and very few actually know what is going on when phantom starts his RP. But when he ain't RPing that's just another ubership with free_pvp ID on board, so people complain because they don't know why they where killed.
' Wrote:I don't think that the problem with the Phantoms is their RP per se, but how most of your members end up representing it ingame. Firstly, I'm sure there're plenty of other ways to incite fear other than laughing maniacally and blasting away. Secondly, I have yet to see the "sparing" bit. Ever. Or directly know of anyone who was "spared". You might want to work on making that bit more visible.
Well, just from my encounter I had with a cruiser yesterday, it made three gunboats and two bombers run away without firing a shot. True, it was the thing I posted about in their feedback thread where very little of any legibility was said, but it did spare them, I suppose. The Navy people reacted with fear, or at the very least, unease, and the Phantom told them to beat it. Or rather, the CO of the operation told them all the retreat.
On a similar topic, I must say I was pleased that Baconsoda said he'd have a word with the cruiser about the talking. The fact that he responded to acknowledge it and said he'd look into it really shows them in a good light to me. I wasn't griping for the sake of griping, but was hoping that they'd improve and strengthen from any feedback that might be put forward - hopefully that's happening. :)
Well, sadly you covert lot seem to have been caught up in the paradox of online gameplay. It takes a loser to make a winner, and the phantoms tend to win alot.
Had a few encounters with Phantoms. Some were just passing by, some were with some roleplay and some got a bit interesting. Overall, you're an okay faction. And about the "Free to PvP" ID mentioned above - ever tried being a corsair? You don't need to attack, the other side does it for you. Seriously, BMM calls Mollys to assist, Mollys call BAF, BAF calls Freelancers. And sometimes random pirates assist the lawfuls against us. So the PvP isn't the problem. I think it's actually the PvP versus trading and mining ships. Ever seen a fighter F1 to escape engagement? Atleast I haven't.
So in short:
You're cool, a bit strange, but cool.
Ignore the killed miners that lost 50 million credits worth ore.;)
Baconsoda Wrote:This kind of thing is not what this thread is for.
I'm sorry, this sentense:
Baconsoda Wrote:Some feedback on what would actually be appreciated and now labeled "powergaming" or "metagaming" would be nice.
could be understood as you asking what we consider powergaming and metagaming, and what we would appreciate for you to do.
If that is not what the sentense meant, consider what I said as
Baconsoda Wrote:Additional ideas also appreciated.
on how you could solve some of your problems with player hostility.
You might not like to hear what I say, but sometimes you help someone more if you also tell them the stuff they dont want to hear. Because that's what Im trying to do here. To help you not get people pissed off at you, and to help the players that get pissed off at you to not get pissed off.
Baconsoda Wrote:Please take the time to peruse our 45 page Feedback Thread of these exact questions to address all of your concerns, because it has been done multiple times. You can probably stop on page 5. When you've done that, please come back and comment on the ideas I had on having fun for everyone.
Ok, I took some time and looked through your feedback thread.
What I learned is that what I said was basically already said by multiple people multiple times, as you said,
One post on page two of the feedback thread, made by Jinx, I found particularly accurate, observant, and full of foresight.
The post is too long to quote here and I encourage people to read it there, I'll just take out this small part:
Jinx Wrote:phantoms are a relic of discos past. - if THIS faction proposal was made today - i am 100% sure that it wouldn t even be denied but also put into flood and earned a few retarted images and much laughter.
they have freedom that no other faction would get "nowadays" and so they require a lot more responsibility than those that are forced to act "within the official server rules".
fact is - phantoms ARE double standards. - they adhere to different rules than the official ones as a whole faction - and they need to give something in return.
what they need to give in return is elaborated roleplay. - not on every occasion - everyone can have a bad day. but there should NEVER be a formula like "you give me rubbish RP, i give you rubbish RP in return" - when that formula is applied, we end up with rubbish RP all around.
Pity that phantoms didnt pay more attention to it later on, but kept their "I'll blow you up without respect or much words if I dont like you or if I think ur a noob" policy.
Your first post here sounded like were more willing to listen to players now, but then - again - you refused to acknowldge any of the problems that people have kept pointing out over and over again.
You just say there and here that you follow rules, but you ignore that the rules are shifted in your favor, and that rules that apply to almost everyone else dont apply to you.
I am convinced that this shift in rules in favor of your faction does more harm than it does good, not only for the people you encounter, but also for your faction.
Simply abiding to easy-to-follow rules like "dont blow up a trader without a demand", "dont blow up a trader in a cap ship", and "dont immediately shoot people after saying BOOIMAPHANTOMANDURDEAD" would already reduce the amount of flak you get a great deal.
Making the phantoms a more normal faction may also get players inside the factions off their head trip and show a little more consideration for the average player again, which will automatically result in more positive feelings to your faction too.
As for repeated allegations in your feedback thread that who ever criticizes phantoms is simply upset that he didnt get invited/accepted, upset that they died, or the carrier of a silly little oorp grudge against... phantoms as a faction, for what ever reason other than the one they are stating... or have oorp grudges against players, who all coincidentally converged into the phantoms...
You might just as well turn it around and say that anyone who gives positive feedback is doing it to get invited/accepted, or is/was trying to please one of the 5 admins/ex-admins that are/were in the faction.
Funny thing I noticed while going through both the phantom roster and feedback thread was that some of the people who post positive feedback about encounters with phantoms actually also have phantom characters xD
Ok this is going to be repetetive, but with the sort of half-truth answers you give, this is never going to get sorted out.
Baconsoda Wrote:Not only that, but your claims are completely unfounded. Let me enlighten you about a few things (no pun intended):
Please read the restrictions of our ID on the tech chart. As you can see, we have fewer green boxes than someone with a Freelancer or Mercenary ID.
We must ask factions and file SRPs for many of our ships. Those ships which we do have that are unique are mostly SRPs, such as Nightsmoke (Kusari Bomber), Pitchfork (Corsair Bomber), and Ze'ev Barak. They have been approves SRPs, tested by the community, not just the Admins, from before the time the current SRP rules were implemented. Everything else we have that is eccentric is either drawn from the small pool of ships (smaller than Junkers!) that we have access to or is a Phantom ship.
First of all, Freelancers and Mercs dont even have their own shipline, and are more a multi-house occupation than a faction. Phantoms are a faction who have their own shipline (and also their own bases and technology background).
Second, its really nice that you point out that your ships with red boxes are SRP. But wouldnt you agree that when you are an admin or are in the same invite-only faction as an admin, it may be a lot easier to get your SRP through than when you are not? Its also a high percentage of granted SRPs for a faction, no?
Third, lots of white boxes, lots of ships that are linked to white boxes, but...
I couldnt find a single post where the phantom asks the particular faction for permission to fly a ship. Kinda like you are docking at bases although your rep list says "hostile everyone, allies none", and you dont have a diplomatic relations thread with the factions you dock with either.
Mind you I only know about the phantoms and ships that are listed in your roster, and the roster probably isnt 100% accurate.
I searched the communications thread to find the rogue gunboats and black dragons of Valentine, Iscariot, and Psychosis, but couldnt find anything.
But its entirely possible that I didnt look in hte right place/way. If permissions like that exist, could you show me where to find them?
Baconsoda Wrote:We do not have any special treatment by the rules.
Except that rules allow you to go everywhere, shoot everyone, and blow up traders in cap ships without making a demand, while rules dont allow that for all other factions except nomads and wilde. Yeah, repeating it to infinity, but you refuse to acknowledge it although it is perfectly evident for everyone.
Baconsoda Wrote:Every single gun we use is a Phantom gun. There is not one person who does not use a complete loadout of Phantom guns. Where does anyone get this idea?
Some people in this thread say they have seen otherwise, and so do some people in the feedback thread. If you changed your gun policies now, people may not have registered the change.
But since the phantoms have a class 9 gun with 4 shots per second, 666 speed and 2400 damage per second, I wouldnt be surprised if they dont put anything else in a slot where they can mount that one. Except maybe the damage output or archangels, which are class 10, have slower refire rate and slower projectile speed, thus making it harder to hit with them and leave less options for gun slot setups.
Baconsoda Wrote:Docking rights is not even our choice. We are playing our role of taking advantage of the unlawfuls, if someone else has a problem, its his turn to RP with us, FR 5 us, or just ask us OoRP to be hostile.
I think the liberally granted docking rights, the liberal engagement rules for your faction, liberal ship rules, liberal granting of SRPs, and a lot of people's previous willingness to go along with it were a product of your faction leader temporarily being an admin, the high concentration of admins, and the high concentration of veteran players who are also friends with both admins and faction leaders.
I dont think they were a product of RP logic or particularly valuable RP. And I dont think they are needed for RP logic or valuable RP, but only to give yourselves the l33t feeling.
Ok, since it seems you didnt want that to be addressed, I'll try to address the things I'm sure you want me to.
Yeah, propaganda posts in the forums, diplomatic threads, and more care with your RP ingame would definately be a good idea, I support that.
But honnestly, I wonder how you expect the junkers to cooperate with you considering the tone and content you used in the linked message, and considering the way you killed them before.
Is being respectful and diplomatic, at least on the surface and in certain situations where it is useful, so difficult for an allegedly so advanced faction?
You already said that you dont care if your RP story is good, but you should acknowledge the reality that if your RP background isnt sold and doesnt appear to make sense, and you are systematically arrogant and disrespectful to everyone you meet, not all people are going to give respect simply because you demand it and you think you are the elite.
You know, I can understand Arena.Net now. I made something expecting people to read something, and then answer some simple questions and offer advice. So far, I see Primitive has offered his advice. Thank you. Everyone else has done exactly what they've always done: reiterating his own opinion. I have 45 pages of opinions. I know what the people who will take a moment to respond think. I'm trying to acknowledge what you all think and try and expand ourselves in a way which we would like to expand that might be more helpful to have more people have fun with our RP.
So, I don't care what you think of us. I know what you think of us. We're not going to change our role. What this thread is for is to ask for some feedback on ideas we have to help alleviate frustration. Ironically, it's frustrating me.
Please, this is not the Feedback thread, this is a thread I made to ask a few questions. If they are too obscure, I can elaborate on them. I don't at all see them being addressed. Let me use an example, if I can, from the last person who posted when I started posting:
' Wrote:My very short point of view on phantoms - people are ignoring phantoms and their rp because it's too much out of place and very few actually know what is going on when phantom starts his RP. But when he ain't RPing that's just another ubership with free_pvp ID on board, so people complain because they don't know why they where killed.
' Wrote:One thing we would really like to do is publicize our actions (good and bad) more on the forum. It's not readily apparent to everyone that we actually do the kinds of things we do ingame. The medium through which we would do it, though, is the question. If implemented wrongly, it's not helpful at all, but if we can get an idea of what people like, we can make the RP more fulfilling for everyone and better integrate our RP into the mainstream flow of RP around the forum. A few ideas are:
News Media
Phantom Propaganda
Using Junkers to Distribute Information (did not go neutral with them because of that)
Posting in random unlawful watering holes about accomplishments
Some feedback on what would actually be appreciated and now labeled "powergaming" or "metagaming" would be nice. Additional ideas also appreciated.
Look at that, I wanted to give more information on the forum about what happens ingame. That is pretty much his concern which I am trying to address, but would like some advice on addressing. Don't know why you were killed? You can check the news later. You can pass some cash on to the Junkers to find out. You can stumble upon someone in a Watering Hole who heard a story about what happened. But, is that stuff okay? Would we be welcome if we, say, showed up on Darmstadt randomly in the bar? Would it be fine if we, as Phantom members, posted as Colony News Network Reporters in the Sirius News forum? Or, would that be viewed more as us "imposing" and not be fun for anyone to read?
That's what this is about. I know what you think of us. Seriously. There are 45 pages of everyone telling us what you all think. I'd like to try and make it more fun for everyone without compromising either of our goals. Can I actually get feedback on that, rather than more of the 45 pages that I already have?
' Wrote:Hate to contradict you...well actually, I don't mind. There are two phooms who do, or at least did use non-phantoms guns. Specifically, Xeno guns on some shadow and Tizona turrets on Ivan's P-trans. Oh, and that Osiris.
Aha, you're right. My apologies. We have a total of 2 ships we do not use a full Phantom loadout. Seeing as we don't have capship weapons, I rather feel that part is moot. If we had capship weapons, you can rest assured that we would be using them. Thank you for correcting me. I was legitimately wrong.
' Wrote:Why don't you do it inRP ? Send comms to unlawful factions you want to work with ? I don't see why would any faction now go....oh yes let's cooperate. This kind of oorp things that CAN be done inRP...I don't see reason for it.
My suggestion, start RP-ing with them...on comm channel if you can't find them online or such. There are ways.
Frankly, it's because I have two exams today, and I have 2 exams every week, plus at least one paper and presentation. The only reason I don't have a paper and presentation this week is because it's a holiday week here in the US. I'm very busy, and I don't have the time to seek out every single faction leader, write up a personalized PM, and then send it to them all (because I would like the RP to be at least semi-spontaneous). I considered that first, but when I thought about it, I really thought that it would be better to just put out this post and hopefully some faction leaders will look at it, too. Apparently they didn't.
' Wrote:Well, the whole thing started when Gentle decided to pay a visit to Malta in his rather... cough... impressive Corsair Dreadnought. As you might imagine, we have no real love for Corsairs who still feel such a strong sense of affiliation to their faction, and that lack of love is only amplified if said Corsair acts like he owns the place.
On that note I can say that the Phantoms also run... hot and cold when it comes to interaction with the Outcasts; Some come and act fairly, while others loiter outside of Malta and insult our pilots.
The disagreement stemming from the old Phantom Sabres with Krakens has been resolved though, and it was only a problem in the first place because I'm an RP purist and Del was being a twat about the issue, stating that, and I quote: "It is not your place to change things which has been set in place for longer than you have been here, Jameson." And such arguments piss me off because roleplay is not stagnant, and it's downright disrespectful, but I digress.
How an Outcast responds to a Phantom varies on the individual; Just as some Outcasts may love or hate a Nomad, an Outcast may indeed love or hate a Phantom. As for the 101st... we're wary of you since you have a lot of Corsairs in your ranks, and those Corsairs make no effort of cutting the ties to their beloved Empire, unlike the few Outcast Phantoms you have had...
That was a rather horrible diplomatic move. It was such a horrible move that the current in-RP leadership thinks it a little too big a faux-pah to mend. Of course, we could always be surprised, but hey, RP leads to consequences, and that was a horrible RP decision on Gentle's part. We are now facing the consequences of that decision and we respect your ability to make that decision for your own faction.
But the part about us having a lot of Corsairs might be true OoRP (with Moros/Tenshi, Zelot, OMGIvan, Pipboy, Vince, and myself), I'm not so sure so many of our characters are Corsairs. Ivan is the only one which is definitely a Corsair, while there are few others who are of Corsair origin. BlackRose comes up as being of Corsair complexion, but she's definitely dead anyway. That's from searching the current Phantom datafiles. So, though the thought of the in-RP leadership might be that we had a serious mixup with the Outcasts and need to try and get on better relations with the Corsairs in case anything bad happens again, we do not have many dedicated Corsair characters.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.
In my post i was not talking about myself, but about general server population. Explayning stuff on forum is a good thing, but you have to keep in mind that it's easier for people to post 3 sentance of rant in feedback then read wall of china to find out what was that.
Ok, Im just going to drop my 2 Cents in here while its all in mind.
For me, on any of my characters. If I see a Phantom on the chat list in a system close to me or where I'm going to be. I tend to just then get the feeling I'm killing time till I get shot down and log off.
I always expect, Phantom arrives, Makes crazy demand like "Murder your passengers" or "cripple your own ship for my ammusement".
Now Im going to guess that 90% of the characters you encounter are Cocky, Self-Important, Arrogant, Trigger Happy or Clueless. 30% of those will be all of the above.
These are the people who will resist you and then get raped by your Hyper-Fighters and then come to the forums and add to the 45 Pages.
The 10% who play along? I dont know about anyone else but in the 3 encounters I have had with a Phantom I felt pretty short changed in the RP department.
My latest encounter with you guys was with You specificaly Baconsoda.
You may remember the Junkers in New London. The miner there (Who was me) you PM'ed a // Message about the Mined Scrap floating about.
In the end you opened fire on me and I quick docked to avoid my CSF getting hammered.
While you were gunning down the clueeless freelancers I decided to try and play the "Feeling safe by the base guy who has been watching the irritating freelancers get blatted" Sortof Cockyness.
When you then confronted me outside the base, I backed down. Yet I only got one line into that dialogue before you started shooting. If I remember rightly, I had just said "Sorry. I thought you might be a fan of the classics" in referance to the tune i was singing while you shot up a BW Transport.
I tried my best, but in the end i got what I expected all along. To get shot at.
Yet now the Phantoms want a truce with us, despite blasting us at every opportunity. You know what the title of the disscussion thread for that on own forums was called? "Phantoms want a truce in exchange for our pride..."
Thats not a good start to diplomatic relations mate, especialy in a deal that pretty much reads as "Accept: Not death. Refuse: Death."
I would like to point out that I am representing myself here, not the Congress.
' Wrote:0-499 posts: Your posts will be completely and utterly ignored. 500-999 posts: People will read your posts, but will never care for the content. 1000-2000 posts: Your posts will be read, your points may be considered, if you're lucky. 2001+ posts and custom title:Your opinion matters.