Elite: Game talk
10 Oct 2017, 3:48pm
Jack DekerdtSo, I am not picking on anyone in particular but as a player in open and private on occasion and solo more often than not, I grow weary of the rather constant put downs of the solo player whether on FDs forums and until recently, here on INARA. Like, or maybe unlike, other players I work with people for a living, more to the point, I am a clinical mental health social worker that treats co-occurring patients, this means they have profound mental illness and usually moderate to severe substance use. At the end of the day, I want to fly, and have a sort of RPG/fantasy career path that I feel good about. I paid the same $$ you did and you play the way you want--I don't begrudge any of you the right to play the way you want. In fact, I am hard pressed to find the SOLO player waxing on-and-on with varying degrees of vitriol about OPEN play. Just because some of us choose to fly SOLO more often than not, does not make us second class patrons, morons, lazy, or autodocking onionheads. Can we have discussions about whatever play style one chooses without the denigrating hyperbole? INARA, I have found, since joining a ways back, has always, generally, tolerated play styles with an emphasis on HELPING each other. Let's leave the sniping and snarky comments to the FD forum posters, and get back to being the tight knit community we are capable of being... Have your opinion, but try and put yourself in the other poster's shoes for a minute. Thanks, see you around the 'verse.
This is a hugely important point. This is why Mobius and other private groups exist. I also have a stressful job full of human interaction, big egos and often intractable problems, and some days can be very tense and emotionally depleting. After such a day, an unsolicited ugly interaction with another person is really more than I'm willing to handle. Loading up Elite and shooting some rocks is a nice balm, but having my several hours of relaxation frustrated by someone looking for aggressive interaction is not welcome. Mind you, I do want to interact with people - people who are engaged in the same sort of self-care as I am, who enjoy the same activity and who will engage in me in the shared fantasy of it; but in a civil manner. So I do not want to isolate myself in Solo, and I do not want to only interact with my friends in the few private groups I have access to. Some of the most fun I've had in Elite was "pick up wings" where I meet a few new people, wing up for some BH, trading loops or *gasp* mining, and just enjoy each other's company in this shared illusion.
Elite is fun and exciting and interacting with new people in it is mostly great. Elite is "self-care". It's like going to the gym after work. Imagine if you were at the gym, just doing your thing and working off the day's stress, and some jackass comes over and starts using your machine when you just got up for a moment to stretch; and starts flexing in your face and verbally insulting you; basically depriving you of the quality time you're trying to enjoy by violating the quality of it. THIS is "griefing". "Griefing" is ruining another person's experience of the game by imposing your playstyle on them against their will and without their consent. If you don't know why they're there, what day they've had, what they're trying to get out of the time they're putting in to their activities, and you decide to force yourself into their life on your terms and to use them for your own entertainment, you're a griefer.
Solo is fine for some, but it is necessarily unsocial and so it isn't what everyone wants in an alternative to Open. Private groups are fine, but in most of them you already know who you may or will run into, and again, the fun of sharing the "world" with strangers is lost. Mobius is a great alternative to Open - and the SDC invasion of Mobius some months back was absolutely despicable for the reasons above. What would be lovely is if people could ask permission to engage with others - yes it does burst the immersion if you should ask if you can rob someone.
It would be lovely if you could opt out of an unwelcome interactions. Nobody opts in to being catcalled on the street or groped on the metro. This shit happens and it is wrong when it does. And it is not the fault of the victim some dudes feel other people are in this world for their amusement. Men tend to tell women what they can and should do to avoid being harassed in public - and it's stupid. Getting "griefed" in Elite is a mere shadow of a whiff of what casual harassment is (and I would never compare getting shot out of the sky to getting molested), but it is equally insensitive and asinine to tell someone to just "learn the game" or "fly better". It's a matter of common courtesy and respect to not impose yourself on other people, plain and simple.
"Griefing doesn't exist" is A perspective, it is not THE truth. It's like saying that "rudeness doesn't exist". You may not think it is rude to cut someone off in traffic, or to cut in front of them in line at the movie theater, but the person you do that to surely disagrees. Just because we share this false reality does not make the people in it any less real then they are in the real world, and the same rules should apply. IRL is full of assholes, and many of them are unwilling to face the consequences of their nature ILR so they curb it and bring it into Elite instead, where they face less harsh consequences for less lasting transgressions. Maybe that's a net-positive thing, but you can ruin someone's day online just as badly as IRL.
And to be fair - simply doing what NPCs do, only with human intelligence behind it, is NOT griefing. Being a deliberate dick to intentionally ruin someone else's fun for your own amusement and gratification is.
10 Oct 2017, 4:40pm
What has been said is that open involves other people, and that other people can be dicks, or that other jobs may be in conflict with your own chosen job. Thats it.
Edit: wording
10 Oct 2017, 4:53pm
GiyariHonestly, what. What is wrong.
Glad you're the first to say it this time. Is somebody sending private messages that we can't see because nobody insulted you.
10 Oct 2017, 4:53pm
GiyariLiterally no one has said open is better or solo and groups is worse.
What has been said is that open involves other people, and that other people can be dicks. Thats it.
I did, specifically möbius. although after reading posts afterwards I am rethinking it. It makes sense that not everyone is looking for a Battle Royale after work. I am just sensitive about comments from players who die in very reasonable PvP interaction and then whine about it deriding the other player as a T-roll or Griefer.
My initial comment regarding "griefing" does not exist was deliberately extreme to highlight the silliness of players dying in open and screaming because it wasn't an NPC who killed them.
My second post is honestly the way I view the game, I desire a more dynamic experience than the AI can provide:
keep in mind I am a person who has litterally only killed 1 other player in my 2 year history of the game. (Although is have taken out the drives of a few anacondas and left them floating in space haha). So this isn't a post from someone who is a hardcore PvP hunter.
10 Oct 2017, 4:58pm
AesirGiyariLiterally no one has said open is better or solo and groups is worse.
What has been said is that open involves other people, and that other people can be dicks. Thats it.
I did, specifically möbius. although after reading posts afterwards I am rethinking it. It makes sense that not everyone is looking for a Battle Royale after work. I am just sensitive about comments from players who die in very reasonable PvP interaction and then whine about it deriding the other player as a T-roll or Griefer.
My initial comment regarding "griefing" does not exist was deliberately extreme to highlight the silliness of players dying in open and screaming because it wasn't an NPC who killed them.
My second post is honestly the way I view the game, I desire a more dynamic experience than the AI can provide:
keep in mind I am a person who has litterally only killed 1 other player in my 2 year history of the game. (Although is have taken out the drives of a few anacondas and left them floating in space haha). So this isn't a post from someone who is a hardcore PvP hunter.
I consider that a nice kind of chivalry....
.....but after experienceing that the same CMDR over and over again destroyed my Anaconda, i tend to hate Cmdr Star0ver ....and his wingman10 Oct 2017, 5:03pm
10 Oct 2017, 5:10pm
GiyariHonestly, what. What is wrong.
Nothing. Murdoc just tends to be very passive aggressive when he posts.
10 Oct 2017, 5:15pm
AesirHaha I believe it. Beam laser build is key if you don't want to cause unwanted death. Although its been a long time since I've bothered interdicting anacondas. Combat logging is so prevalent that unless you go for the kill you'll find yourself trying to take out the drives of an anaconda that doesn't take damage.
hmm these were 2 vultures fully equipped with PA's :/
10 Oct 2017, 6:23pm
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