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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.03.09 22:42:00 -
[1]
Because it is a game and some things just don't make sense (like NPC pirates hanging unmolested by jump gates in Empire space). Attacking convoys is just something to do CCP put in the game as a means for fun and to get good loot. As it generally doesn't affect other players and NPCs couldn't actually care it is left as is.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.03.10 14:29:00 -
[2]
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Excuse me, but do you honestly believe that Piracy has almost always automatically merited the death penalty because people like Blackbeard ripped a few sails off vessels to slow them down, fired a few warning shots across their bows, robbed their holds and then left them alive to repair their ship to merrily return to port?
Yes.
Remember back then just stealing a horse merited the death penalty much less ripping-off the King's treasure ship or sacking a whole town.
Pirates absolutely had an interest in not killing everyone they met. Much better to leave people alive to spread the word of their fearsome reputation so the next ship seeing the skull and crossbones would just heave to and give up the goods. Unlike in EVE sinking a ship in Blackbeard's time meant the treasure went down with the ship...that is no good for them.
Did Blackbeard and his like kill people? Certainly. Did they blast every ship they saw out of the water on sight? Absolutely not.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.03.10 15:44:00 -
[3]
Edited by: Mon Palae on 10/03/2004 15:44:58
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Jesusinasidecarcareeningoffacliff, you're a sad one Mon Palae.
Cannons do not have a "Just graze them" setting. Shoot a few holes in a ship, kill off a bit of the crew, steal their supplies and then leave them in the middle of the ocean with radioing for help still a few centuries off. Just what the hell do you expect happened to the ship and anyone left alive?
You really should read your history more.
Pirates did indeed "just graze" ships although the word "graze" is used very loosely here. If a shot across the bow didn't stop their prey they would use chain-shot to take down the rigging and slow the ship. They could also use grape-shot which was more of an anti-personnel weapon. The pirate's primary goal was to capture the ship. Sinking it did no one any good. The pirate's ultimate goal was to catch their prey and board the ship so it could be plundered. Certainly murder and mayhem were part of all that but generally the target ship was still seaworthy. Maybe not top notch seaworthy but still capable of sailing home. Ships of that day most definitely carried much of what was needed to repair the ship with them. Once finished the pirates would usually leave the plundered ship be so those who remained could go back and tell the story of what happened to them (and while the pirates may well have murdered some crew for resisting they usually did not kill everyone...in some cases the crew from the target ship would ask to join the pirates and were accepted). Hopefully other crews, having heard the tales, would not be as quick to run or fight back making the pirate's job easier. Indeed, Blackbeard cultivated his reputation as a fearsome pirate for that very reason. As badass as he reputedly was any time two ships engage in combat there is the possibility for disaster on either side. He'd much rather just have ships heave-to and be done with it.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.03.10 18:23:00 -
[4]
Edited by: Mon Palae on 10/03/2004 18:32:57
Edited by: Mon Palae on 10/03/2004 18:25:06
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And Mon Palae, you are a sad sad little man. Trying to minimize the fact that piracy usually ended with someone dying. Do you know how sad you sound essentially saying "Well not everyone was killed! Just those unfortunate enough to be on deck during the initial bombardment, a couple during the boarding and that deckhand that looked funny".
Jebus, give over already. "Nice Piracy" is an invention of Hollywood and carebears in this game.
Resorting to ad hominem attacks is the resort of people with nothing useful to say and have nothing left to fall back on but "you're an idiot".
I am not minimizing what happened to the people killed in pirate attacks...never made a value judgement on it at all. The point is that pirates did not sail around blowing up everything they could point their guns at. They attacked enough so they could get the loot which was the whole point of doing what they did. In EVE terms I wholeheartedly accept "pirates" as part of the game. Can they harm me and my mates? Sure. Are they part of the spice that livens up the EVE universe? Yes.
Someone calling themself a "pirate" has distinct connotations of what it is that a pirate actually does. People ganking at gates are NOT pirates. They are greifers. Rather than images of swashbuckling and derring-do that while not "nice" actually add to the EVE universe and the fun factor for all gate campers/gankers EVE 'pirates' are much more akin to Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad (Washington D.C. area snipers who lurked in distant cars randomly killing people). In game terms these people simply make the game a worse place for all.
So, as for comparing "real life" to "EVE life" I grant that there are important distinctions but I point to the "real life" version as a historical basis for what the word means and what is was/is pirates do. Just because EVE works differently doesn't mean you get to redefine the English language and up-end centuries of historical persepctive on pirates. The appropriate thing to do is apply the applicable term for them in EVE which would likely be mass murderers or serial killers.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.03.10 18:55:00 -
[5]
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damn, in before the lock on another thread with whiners whining that being pirated isn't cuddly and nice.
Not sure where the whining about pirating not being cuddly and nice came in. I, for one at least, acknowledge that the very act of piracy contains a violent aspect to it. I also explicitly noted that I think piracy is a necessary aspect to the EVE universe.
Sorry if you don't like it pointed out that camping at a gate and blasting whatever floats by puts you more in the company of creeps like the Washington D.C. snipers rather than Blackbeard.
What part of this don't you get?
A) Chasing miners and haulers around, beating them up a bit to 'encourage' them to hand over the goods = pirating = better EVE universe for all to play in.
B) Sitting at a gate shooting anything that passes and killing the pod as well if it can be managed = mass murderer = worse EVE universe for all to play in
Option A is good! Knock yourselves out. I honestly hope pirates do this a lot more. Yeah...it will suck for me if I get caught but overall it adds spice and livens things up. Yes, it is harder for the pirate to do but I would hope it is more satisfying and fun for them as well.
Option B is just plain bad. Not a matter of opinion...it IS bad for the overall game that we ALL share.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.03.10 20:15:00 -
[6]
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Essentially, your Option A led to the cluster**** we have now and bigger ones down the road. All because you have to approve of the motives behind the "Bad Guy" killing you so you won't scream "Ban, baaaaan...Baaaaaah" like a bloody sheep.
So it is the non-pirates (carebears if you like) fault we are at the place we are today in EVE? It couldn't have anythign to do with pirates and how they played the game?
I entered EVE after CONCORD was already in place but as I understand it pirates were so thoroughly blocking up Empire space a response had to be thought of...you get CONCORD and gate guns. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but again I admit I was not present for that so only have the story fifth hand).
When I did enter EVE pirates were using the ever-so-great JIP camping tactic. Forget for a moment discussions on the appropriateness of piracy. They were using a really cruddy gap in the game mechanics to gank ships before they even knew anything at all was happening. Players got to see their screen load only to find themselves on fire and scrambled if not already in a pod. So CCP moves everything to the gates.
Then 'pirates' move to the gates and just sit and blast everything that crosses their path from extreme long range. The opportunities for players to respond to this attack was only marginally better than the previous JIP camp tactic. Mostly it just involved running to the gate. If you were in a hauler or shuttle it was certain death every time (unless they had an instajump bookmark).
Then we get Zombie's antics in Yulai. Pirates were often fond of telling people who griped about gate camps that if they don't want to get attacked they should just stay in carebear land. Zombie put those notions to rest. What was it...100 podkills and over 200 ships destroyed? A handful of players having fun at the expense of several hundred in a place even pirates told carebears to stay if they wanted to ensure safety. CCP HAD to do something...can you imagine the carnage if that tactic was deemed ok? (And as I understand it the reason for the ban was Zombie refusing to heed a GM that told them to stop but I admit that is hearsay.)
So now you have 150km gate guns and as is to be expected pirates are simply working around CCPs clear intention to move 'lawlessness' to 0.0 non-Empire space.
I grant that CCP has not set the game with the tools necessary to let pirates do their thing easily. Frankly it shouldn't be 'easy' at all and fraught with risk as much as people driving by gate camps. Still...this area could use improvement but it is hard to envision how without opening up unbalanced or 'exploitable' (even if not strictly an exploit in the bannable offense sense) opportunities for pirates. Pirates as a group have certainly shown their endless ingenuity at stretching game mechanics beyond what CCP likely intended.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.03.10 21:03:00 -
[7]
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That's because we are the only player group actually hindered by the game mechanics in the most instances. Take for example the old JIP-camping. That was a response to being totally unable to even target things at a gate. It was totally impossible to do this because if the invulnerability timer didn't last long enough for the victim to dual-MWD his way into safety, he could just use it to hit the warp and stroll away into safety.
Problem: 10 second invulnerability timer.
Problem: "Target is in warp and cannot be targetted" - half a minute later - "Target is in warp and cannot be targetted"
Problem: 2 or 3 MWD took about 100 powergrid to fit and gave every ship ultra super speed. Combine this with the above two issues.
I agree it was a cruddy game mechanic but it cut both ways. When mining we'd (sometimes) dutifully set out guards. Pirate warps into belt...assesses his/her chances and if not to their liking jetted out before we could do anything to stop them. We never caught a single pirate due to this so it was certainly helpful to pirates as well.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.03.10 21:44:00 -
[8]
Joshua:
With out going over each and every point you made in general I agree. I actually do think the 'responses' CCP has made so far to many of these issues are the weakest available and only done because they are 'simple' for CCP to do. The really good changes that should help a lot more are partly as you suggest and partly as others have suggested with different ideas in different threads.
You may want to check out today's CSM chat as they address some of the things you are talking about (such as better enemy flagging...e.g. a support ship helping an 'enemy' should become flagged a combattant as well).
Thing is the dmanable CCP tradematked "Soon". They always seem to be saying something will be fixed or improved in ways that most players agree with and like yet the actual changes trckile in just barely fast enough to keep people from losing all hope. A lot of this looks slated for Shiva which they say will have a release date set in the next two weeks or so. They also say Shiva is HUGE so maybe they are waiting to cram all this in in one go but I wish some of these changes would be implemented sooner as they are needed.
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