Monday 20 October 2014

Emergent Gamplay - CCP's Rule of Thumb

So it was a slow night in local chat. Somehow the topic had turned to how some things were inexplicably considered "emergent gameplay" while other similar things were considered exploits.

Me, being kind of bored, I just had to throw my 2 cents into the conversation. I said
CCP has a rule of thumb for that. If doing it means you're being an asshole then it's emergent gameplay and that's ok, but if not then it's an exploit and you'll get banned for it.
The funny thing is, even though I was being sarcastic and I doubt it's intentional on CCP's part, there is a lot of truth to that statement.

Bump a miner... Emergent gameplay
Bump a hauler... Emergent gameplay

Bump a cap ship... OMG! EXPLOIT! NERFBAT! BANHAMMER!

14 comments:

  1. If you're referring to bumping a ship out of a POS shield from outside the shield, yeah, that's a huge exploit and it needs fixing.

    Now, I'm a bit heretical in that I believe that if the game (any game) allows something, it's legal. If CCP determines doing something is an exploit, it's their job to fix the code so the thing is no longer an exploit. If CCP doesn't want people to be able to bump ships outside of a POS shield from outside the shield, they need to fix it and not ban people that do it because of a hole in CCP's code.

    Having said that, yeah, when I was playing I had real trouble figuring out if certain actions were okay or not. And that's not good.

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    1. Exactly. Why should bumping a ship out of a POS shield be considered an exploit while bumping a ship to prevent it from warping is excused as "emergent gameplay".

      AFAIC, the only real difference is in the first case it's something cartel players hate having done to them, in the 2nd case it's something cartel players love using to grief others.

      IOW, it's nothing but good old boy favourtism.

      Delete
    2. POS bumping is an exploit because when you're have a ship sitting in a POS and the enemy can't lock it you have a reasonable expectation of it being safe barring someone having your POS password. When on the gate you have no such expectations. If you can lock it you can bump it. Not exactly rocket science.

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    3. I disagree, that's just an excuse for null sec cartel favortism.

      The only reason bumping a ship out of a PoS shield is considered an exploit is because the null cartels don't like it. They do however like bumping freighters and miners so that's ok. Everything else is just excuses and rationalizations trying to explain it away as anything other than the favortism it actually is.

      Either bumping is an exploit or it's not, regardless of whether it's a null baby's ship in a PoS shield or a high sec carebear's freighter trying to warp, gate jump or dock.

      Why should null babies should have "a reasonable expectation of being safe" anywhere in null sec while freighters and miners should be unsafe everywhere? Besides the null babies' undeserved feelings of entitlement.

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    4. Considering that nullsec logistics just got nerfed to the point CFC is abandoning bunch of regions your arguments of "null sec cartel favortism." are pretty silly. I'll repeat my argument: you should not be able to interact with a ship you cannot lock. If you have a counter argument for that situation let's hear it. Highsec bumping is unrelated.

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    5. And I'll repeat my argument, bumping is bumping, the only difference is who's being bumped and that's favortism. That's about as blatant as it gets.

      You never answered why null babies feel entitled to be completely safe behind a PoS shield in supposedly dangerous null sec while at the same time continually demanding and insisting nobody should ever be safe anywhere in high sec.

      Anyone can get instagibbed while docking/undocking at Jita but not at a PoS in null. In fact we aren't even allowed to target null babies near their PoSes. Go figure!

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    6. Feeling safe in a POS is sort of what a POS is for lol. And it goes for null low high or WH. So yeah that's exactly why they should be safe inside the POS shield. Null low or high. Unless someone gets the password. Then you can bump to your heart's content.

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    7. Youre just plain wrong, listen to the guy.

      In a POS field you have a massive shield thats sole purpose is to provide you with safe harbour, bumping something out of that safe harbour fundamentally breaks the entire purpose.

      At no point has it been stated that clicking warp is supposed to mean your safe, the design goal of the warp wind up is to provide a window of danger, therefore danger is intrinsically part of the design goal.

      Seems pretty straight forward to me, definately better than a tinfoil hat arguement.

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    8. I really don't care what null babies think since they obviously don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. In fact the most powerful null cartel's stated reason for playing the game is to ruin it.

      The tinfoil hat argument is the one that says bumping somehow isn't an exploit when it's not involving null babies and a PoS.

      Delete
  2. @MoxNix

    on a sidenote, check out the MultiSell new thread. Basically your prediction was correct, instead of fixing the problems CCP decided to make a new fancy interface, that now allows to loose money on a scale not possible before.

    https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=380726&find=unread

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    1. No surprise there, I fully expected that.

      After all why bother fixing something to work better when you can just add more crap that doesn't work very well?

      Delete
    2. It is an exploit to bump anything out of a POS without the password. That would include sub caps. Caps have been highlighted because they are the easiest to bump through a POS shield due to their size, the fact that their collision sphere and ship model are not the same size and that they tend to be closer to the shields edge without being lockable. You are deliberately ignoring the POS shield in your argument and it is the key variable in the discussion.

      Bumping a cap ship in open play is not an exploit, just as bumping a miner or hauler in open play is not an exploit.

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    3. I'm not deliberately ignoring anything. I'm simply saying bumping is bumping, there should be one rule for all bumping and no favortism.

      Favortism - the practice of giving unfair preferential treatment to one person or group at the expense of another.

      CCP favors the null sec cartels by allowing bumping except in one special case... The one the cartels cried about. Throwing their own crap back at them I say the cartels need to HTFU and learn to deal with it just like everyone else has to.

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  3. Bumping is bumping, but you are being a little obtuse if you think POS bowling is the same thing as bumping a freighter. Forcefields exist for a reason. Attacking/destroying anything inside a POS is designed to require a siege and some :effort: or a password, something the forcefield bumping completly removes. I don't think this is an unreasonable assumption.

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