as of the new 10 for the chairman, we may need to control ourselves a bit...

[GrammarGestapo]

According to the new 10 for the chairman, it is possible for an organization with a history of belligerence to be labeled as a terrorist organization and for its members to be shot on sight by the UEE.

Obviously, in order to maintain our goal of allowing players absolute freedom to explore the universe before getting caught up in clan wars and the like, we may need to set some ground rules as to ramming.

Here are the basic rules I propose:

1. We ram indiscriminately ONLY in the farthest reaches of space, where there is no effect on your legal status because there is no authority to monitor you. Obviously, this was our plan for controlled pirating and where we would base our organization anyway, so not much of a big deal here.

2. In controlled space, we only ram those with bounties. No unsolicited, indiscriminate attacks. There is more on the line than just your personal bounty here. A lot of people want to explore and trade, being labeled as a terrorist organization will cut their profits in half and totally eliminate any potential for legally recognized and compensated exploration.

I can't really think of any other rules right now, so have at it.

 

[starkestrel]

1. We ram indiscriminately

I think this is the problem right here. Why are we attacking anyone indiscriminately, anywhere?

Ramming with Auroras is the theme around here, as is flying shitfaced, but it's more jovial euphemism than anything else. I can assure you that 95% of TEST flying won't involve being too drunk to fly in a straight line, nor will it involve ramming targets. (For one, ramming things is much, much harder than shooting them.)

5% of TEST flying will involve drunken carousing and/or taking joy in flight skills so terrible that we can only rack up a kill by ramming the damn thing, and it will remain a theme to illustrate our semi-serious perspective, but there's no Organization-level plans to harass centralized space with a concerted attack of 2000 ramming Auroras once the live PU is underway.

Don't get me wrong.... that would be hella fun to do in the last day or two of PU beta, and maybe we should organize that just to get it out of our system, but it's not going to be a dominant style of play in the actual game.

Most importantly, we're not an organization that exists to harass other players. Targets in-game will be bounties, game missions, people who've gone onto our KOS list, etc. My guess is that the majority of our ramming missions will be against ourselves, or a friendly organization that also wants to get up to some tomfoolery (imagine designating a sector of space as a touch football field, with tags = kissing ship hulls at 100 whatever/second).

We're here for fun, not asshattery, griefing, or dickishness.

The sentiment is rock solid, though. People's actions will affect everyone in the org, and it's useful to both express that and make it clear what sorts of behavior will result in being kicked from the org. I'm certain that that'll all be made clear when we're closer to a beta-release of the game, and thanks for laying some groundwork for it now.

 

[GrammarGestapo]

I think this is the problem right here. Why are we attacking anyone indiscriminately, anywhere?

Ramming with Auroras is the theme around here, as is flying shitfaced, but it's more jovial euphemism than anything else. I can assure you that 95% of TEST flying won't involve being too drunk to fly in a straight line, nor will it involve ramming targets. (For one, ramming things is much, much harder than shooting them.)

5% of TEST flying will involve drunken carousing and/or taking joy in flight skills so terrible that we can only rack up a kill by ramming the damn thing, and it will remain a theme to illustrate our semi-serious perspective, but there's no Organization-level plans to harass centralized space with a concerted attack of 2000 ramming Auroras once the live PU is underway.

Don't get me wrong.... that would be hella fun to do in the last day or two of PU beta, and maybe we should organize that just to get it out of our system, but it's not going to be a dominant style of play in the actual game.

Most importantly, we're not an organization that exists to harass other players. Targets in-game will be bounties, game missions, people who've gone onto our KOS list, etc. My guess is that the majority of our ramming missions will be against ourselves, or a friendly organization that also wants to get up to some tomfoolery (imagine designating a sector of space as a touch football field, with tags = kissing ship hulls at 100 whatever/second).

We're here for fun, not asshattery, griefing, or dickishness.

The sentiment is rock solid, though. People's actions will affect everyone in the org, and it's useful to both express that and make it clear what sorts of behavior will result in being kicked from the org. I'm certain that that'll all be made clear when we're closer to a beta-release of the game, and thanks for laying some groundwork for it now.

I know that. But many people don't, and I've seen similar organizations go under because of over-zealous members. Our requirements for entrance are incredibly lax, and there will be some fat-trimming to do once we get under way. Making it clear that indiscriminate, drunken-flying is not how we will generally conduct ourselves BEFORE we get into the PU is generally good practice.

 

[ROBINSON]

Stop with the rules, its fine to discuss the possible future.

Also may not be best being to literal with the old ramming routine.

 

[Egriz]

I know that. But many people don't, and I've seen similar organizations go under because of over-zealous members. Our requirements for entrance are incredibly lax, and there will be some fat-trimming to do once we get under way. Making it clear that indiscriminate, drunken-flying is not how we will generally conduct ourselves BEFORE we get into the PU is generally good practice.

The PU is years away. There's no need to stress over this now. We are aware of your concerns and everything will be handled appropriately when the time comes.

Spend some time in the organization, you quickly learn how we really function and what our members are really like. You just joined 3 days ago. There is no need to worry.

Just a note: If people want to ram their Auroras as a defense tactic, let them. Who are we to dictate how they play their game? We want our members to have fun.

 

[GrammarGestapo]

The PU is years away. There's no need to stress over this now. We are aware of your concerns and everything will be handled appropriately when the time comes.

Spend some time in the organization, you quickly learn how we really function and what our members are really like. You just joined 3 days ago. There is no need to worry.

Just a note: If people want to ram their Auroras as a defense tactic, let them. Who are we to dictate how they play their game? We want our members to have fun.

WoT and war thunder in large amounts make people cautious. In war thunder, there are entire clans dedicated to nothing but ramming aircraft into each other. They will literally go into a game with a full team and not shoot down a single enemy aircraft by any method other than crashing into them. This is despite an incredible anti-rammer sentiment that can often result in cross words and chat banned accounts.

In WoT, the preponderance of especially young children can ruin games as well as entire clans. Team killers, chat-spammers, explosively-temperamental players who would normally not TK but will if you so much as cut them off; even people willing to track their own team mates in order to get the final 15 damage shot in on that last tank around the corner abound.

I'm not saying we should get extremely selective like in a competitive, territory-holding, WGLNA-composed clan in WoT, but we need to be very, very careful as to just who does what and who is representing the org appropriately.

Thanks for reassuring me, I'm just here to explore really.

 

[Dranoc]

According to the new 10 for the chairman, it is possible for an organization with a history of belligerence to be labeled as a terrorist organization and for its members to be shot on sight by the UEE.

Obviously, in order to maintain our goal of allowing players absolute freedom to explore the universe before getting caught up in clan wars and the like, we may need to set some ground rules as to ramming.

Here are the basic rules I propose:

1. We ram indiscriminately ONLY in the farthest reaches of space, where there is no effect on your legal status because there is no authority to monitor you. Obviously, this was our plan for controlled pirating and where we would base our organization anyway, so not much of a big deal here.

2. In controlled space, we only ram those with bounties. No unsolicited, indiscriminate attacks. There is more on the line than just your personal bounty here. A lot of people want to explore and trade, being labeled as a terrorist organization will cut their profits in half and totally eliminate any potential for legally recognized and compensated exploration.

I can't really think of any other rules right now, so have at it.

No.

 

[starkestrel]

I'm not saying we should get extremely selective like in a competitive, territory-holding, WGLNA-composed clan in WoT, but we need to be very, very careful as to just who does what and who is representing the org appropriately.

Thanks for reassuring me, I'm just here to explore really.

Sure thing.

There's not really any way to police a group of players in an MMO, and IMO the organization size can be a red herring. You could have twenty-five members in your org and one of them could have a shitty day and be a total asshat and make trouble for the organization, or just be a bad seed.

The primary way to get in front of this sort of thing is to have a community that's active within RSI official channels. TEST will have an active diplomacy corps out there making connections with people, so it'll be as easy as possible for other orgs to come to TEST leadership and let them know that a member is acting out. They'll know that TEST isn't about that because of the effort that's put into being a good community member from the beginning of the Org system, so they'll smooth things over in their own org and give TEST a chance to sort it out.

Even more than that, if we have a memberbase that is active at RSI, engaged in the community, helpful, fun, and just good to be around, we'll have other organic connections to people in the 'verse who can tell members they have connections with about a bad seed, or can stand up for us in their org chats, etc. "Yeah, I don't know. I know some guys in TEST and they're all pretty standup. Let's get in touch with them over there and let them know this dude's being an asshat."

My impression of the leadership here is that they're going to assume that TESTies are generally decent folk. As we get closer to multiplayer play, I'm sure they'll present some basic guidelines for what being TEST is about in terms of how we play with others. And they have experience with player organizations, so I'm certain they know how to deal with bad eggs as they crop up.

And we'll all learn together. Nobody's played this game before or been in this particular organization in-game before, but what I've seen in the last seven months tells me that it's fundamentally a good group of guys and gals over here.

 

[BluChew]

I know that. But many people don't, and I've seen similar organizations go under because of over-zealous members. Our requirements for entrance are incredibly lax, and there will be some fat-trimming to do once we get under way. Making it clear that indiscriminate, drunken-flying is not how we will generally conduct ourselves BEFORE we get into the PU is generally good practice.

You should send some of those ideas over to Reddfaction. I'm sure they'll eat it up. :rolleyes:

 

[SeungRyul]

@GrammarGestapo I just like to first thank you for your awesome passion for looking out for the future of TEST :) While you bring some valid points I'd just like to point out again that the PU is not out for 1+ (personally 2+) years and that our reason for not setting up ROE, etc. is due to the fact that we have zero idea of this game's mechanics. It would be like drawing up a battleplan without having no idea what the enemy is, the purpose of the battle, and even the battlefield location :p We can revisit this idea and our leadership will definitely take into account all possible factors as the PU release nears.

And yes we do have free internet beer and we will be opening a bar on a "abandoned" Bengal Carrier/Vanduul Kingship. :D

 

[KingNewbs]

I think indiscriminate ramming will only ever be a thing until each individual player realizes how much time it takes to get a ship replaced. It sounds like, especially with insurance, you might have to wait a little while.

And, of course, despite the casual drunken attitude of this organization, I don't think anybody is advocating an anti-player sort of temperament. It seems more like a general silliness, that I'm quite fond of. Hopefully as the persistent universe draws closer to release, we'll get some clarity about what will be and won't be acceptable for TESTies. Until then, hic, pass me that, the, pass me that thing, there, the cup. Your cup.

No. No! Mine is empty. HIC. That one. The blue one. It's right there. YOUR CUP.

I don't see HIC why this is so hard. Do you have twin brothers? *collapse*

 

[Mr Fishcakes]

I would like to imagine that most of my fellow TESTies will, once the PU arrives, play wit respect for other players and respect for the boundaries set out by the PU Rule system. I am certain that most Testienauts will have the common sense and the decency not to just indiscriminately ram random strangers; I like to think that the ramming will be saved for slightly more organised events. I would like to think that we would not need some internal players who would ensure that some TESTies are not tarnishing the reputation of the organisation through their hijinks, but with a group as large as this there are bound to be one or two bad eggs.

Perhaps some sort of internal reporting system or just a general level of vigilance between TESTies in ensuring that their comrades are behaving appropriately will do.

Plus, the Book of TEST clearly states in section Seung 14:11 -

"And so, with slurred speech and unfocussed eyes, he spoke to his disciples. 'Thou shalt obey the law of the realm, for I am the law, and such will be my fury that if thou breakest the law; I shall unleash a pestilence of Auroras that shall blot out the sun; with such explosive rage that thou will find thyself in tiny giblets in space with no insurance.'

And so his word was good; but not all of the disciples were entirely clear on the terms and conditions laid out in the stipulations of his word.

'If thou finds thyself at the helm and an apostate to the word of TEST enrages us; may it not be that we can ram this heathen with the valiant spear of our ships?'

And so Seung proclaimed to his disciples that ramming would be fair; only if the stars had aligned and everyone's calendar was free to host some sort of organised event with voice comms and such. With much fanfare, the disciples rose, agreeing to not be naughty in case Seung found out and completely whooped their asses until they were red raw."

 

[Kertys]

How is the UEE going to operate? Isn't it NPC run?

I very much doubt the in-game government will shoot all members of a player org on sight. If you do things that constitute illegal PK in UEE space, though, the penalties are on you.

 

[GrammarGestapo]

How is the UEE going to operate? Isn't it NPC run?

I very much doubt the in-game government will shoot all members of a player org on sight. If you do things that constitute illegal PK in UEE space, though, the penalties are on you.

no, the last ten for the chairman stated that orgs can be labeled as terrorist organizations, and chris specifically stated that the UEE would shoot members on sight. Doing crimes in policed territory will affect everyone in the unit. It's fine if you do them in territory that is stated as no-government presence, as that will not damage your relationship with governing bodies nor even give you a bounty, but inside policed territory, we need to be restrained.

 

[GrammarGestapo]

How is the UEE going to operate? Isn't it NPC run?

I very much doubt the in-game government will shoot all members of a player org on sight. If you do things that constitute illegal PK in UEE space, though, the penalties are on you.

11:49 in 10 for the chairman, episode 24
To paraphrase what chris said (not an exact quote),
"eventually player organizations engaging in negative conduct on a large scale would be classified as terrorist organizations, and the UEE/Advocacy would both hunt actively and shoot on sight if they were to enter policed space"

 

[Crashtestdummy]

screw rules, if that happens, i'm out

 

[AntiSqueaker]

Well, I think a bunch of people want to head out into lawless space, and make a claim there. So it might not even be much of an issue, since the UEE could probably give less of a shit about what happens outside their borders.

 

[Black Sunder]

Just remember that when you crash your Aurora you are in fact doing Montoya's work and that is not a bad thing.

 

[BadNewsBaron]

We're not supposed to be literal with the ramming? What? Oh man, I've been playing Arena Commander all wrong...