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A Toggle for Age

I'm sitting in chat and Tikktokktokk asked a damn good question.
Tikktokk Tokkzikk > Could you ask CCP to add a pink colortag and background for newbros on the overview?
Tikktokk Tokkzikk > Toggleable, of course.
Sugar Kyle > pink?
Tikktokk Tokkzikk > Pink is a fitting color for newbros, no? :p
Sugar Kyle > why?
Sugar Kyle > because its a boy color?
Tikktokk Tokkzikk > No, it's a cute color.
Tikktokk Tokkzikk > I think it's cute.  Like newbros.
Tikktokk Tokkzikk > Also all other colors are taken.
And so began our discussion into what each color of the overview is used for. It also was a discussion with several other questions.
  • Is this something players want?
In Eve you can make an effort to kill anyone you can get your weapons systems on. It is one of the core features of the game. Often times when newer players are killed they are upset. Why did they attack a new player? We do not have levels but we can see ages. Only, when out moving around many of us do nto check age until later if at all. And there are some that would prefer to avoid the newer players and let them ripen. I've had it happen to me before when people give me newbies. In fact, we had a 5 day old player join the conversation. He had been plopped into my chatroom by someone who killed him on his second day.
  • What is a new player in this case?
The definition of a new player is not a simple one. We have many experienced players that make new accounts. Our new player system has to be structured around the knowledge that these players exist. Without wandering into the vast plain that is the subject of defining a new player, for the sake of this toggle what age do we limit it to? A week? A month? Three months?

There are other technical questions but I won't worry about them right now. I'm more interested in the idea of an age flag for new players for older players that wish to be made aware without digging into their employment history and remembering what date it is.

Opinions?
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Reference: When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink? - Smithsonian 

Comments

  1. It's a really terrible idea, just another way for gankers, griefers and scammers to identify the easiest targets.

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  2. It'd be nice to recognize newbros but as MoxNix said, might be a bit too easy to target them then.

    Pink's nice though

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  3. Goes two ways, means nice people can be nice and mean people can be mean.

    So the real question then becomes which are there more off?
    And is that answer still correct when further refined for people most likely to be active pvp'ers?

    Unforeseen consequence; newbie friendly fleets like Greygal's, Agony's & RvB's are going to have the hand full of experienced people helping out picked off more often then not (leaving a helpless ball of nublets in space).

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    Replies
    1. To elaborate a little further, this will have some other consequences too.
      Pilot age has tactical value too in some situations. For example when I look for outnumbered fights or think I might be fighting outnumbered I memorize pilot names+ages from local as I warp in, I do that so I can quickly eliminate all the young pilots. I don't do that because I'm mean but because they will have the weakest tanks and are least likely to be able to prevent damage and while they also do the least damage they still have points, webs and other e-war which enhances what the older pilots also on grid can do so killing them quickly improves my chances of killing more things or at least leaving grid if I decide I want too.

      Delete
  4. Sadly this is not a good idea though. In large fights newbs would be targeted first. If it was any other way then vets would just make a succession of newb accounts to exploit the safety of being 'pink'.

    In my corp we have an unwritten rule to give someone the ISK value of their ship (or a few times if it was a cheap frig) back if we notice they were a newbie. Often this is accompanied by a mail or convo explaining what just happened Usually we even extend an invitation to come chat to us once they are a bit older and more experienced if they are still interested in wormholes. Knowing the pilot was a newbie on the overview wouldn't change us killing them, it would just mean we more often knew we'd killed a newb. Maybe the killmail should highlight the age of the character?

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  5. As already pointed out, Pink = Prey . . . probably not in adolescent pilot’s best interests.

    Now, with apologies Sugar, one can’t wander into a topic without wandering into a topic. If you ask what character age pink toggles should apply to you are invariably requesting some sort of definition of ‘new player’. I suppose the idea underneath the wandering is that new players (whatever that precisely means) deserve different treatment or why make the distinction at all. This puzzles me.

    It puzzles me because it puts a higher burden on players than it does on CCP. To my knowledge, game mechanics function the same for new players as they do for old. (NPCs pay no attention to player age. Hi, low and null sec gates pay no attention to player age. Wormhole entrances pay no attention to player age. . .) If new players deserve special treatment then CCP can code it into the game (inaccessible zones, special invulnerabilities, free ship replacement . . .). One advantage of coding special treatment into the game (if one is inclined to support such a cause) is that it eliminates having to cajole players, young and old, into behaving properly. If a player’s not supposed to do X, they simply can’t do X. It’s a much cleaner approach.

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  6. Most new chars are just alts of old ones, and more likely than not rolled for the very "griefing" or other despicable EVE purposes that so many people wish to blinker actual new players from. That's why you shoot first and talk later. Because it's just a game, there's no damage that cannot be undone. In my experience, it's older players that generate the most tears; most actual new players these days have already a decent idea of what EVE is, and in fact that's why they're here.

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  7. I simply don't care how old the characters I kill are, only what ship they are flying and if I can catch it. Flagging them as newbies would not change my behaviour.

    Generally, if I kill a player or I see them post something 'interesting' in chat then I will Show Info on them. My point is that this change would only make it easier to proactively target newbies, those who I haven't had any meaningful interaction with yet, such as in Local or a busy chat channel.

    As Kaeda asked; will they be targeted for good or ill?

    I think this change will mainly empower bad corporations to proactively recruit new players, those high-sec corps with a tax rate above 0% and nothing to offer in return save the bitter misconceptions of a despotic carebear CEO.

    On an off-note, I think that CCP should upon up the entire rainbow to Standing settings.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The only reason I'd see for on overview toggle like that is for PvP interactions, and honestly show info is a few button clicks away. I don't see the need for this, nor do I think marking players as easy targets helps their cause on the overview.

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  9. Thank you all for the responses and view points.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I could see certain groups holding back if the age info were present in the overview.

    Perhaps the Pink flag is set upon creation and then first time they aggress, it goes away permanently. Would limit abuse of the flag to a singular moment, which seems like a fair trade.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That singular moment could be effectively infinite if the player never aggresses anyone....

      Delete
    2. So at what point do you say too young is old enough? 1 week? 1 Month? Seems like eventually it would be something the player would want to drop, but if they didn't you still can shoot them, the flag is just for informational purposes.

      In that mindset it could turn into a liability...

      Delete
  11. Like I said in the channel last night, it would be nice if in addition to how long a character has been in a corp, that we also had a relative number on their capsuleer age. 'Flying since xx/xx/xx, 2 years, 3 months, 14 days...' so we didn't have to scroll through employment histories which take a fair time to load...

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm the noob in the chat room. A small insignificant rectification. I'm not exactly day 5, though I'm still less than a month old in eve. And I remembered it wrong. It wasn't exactly day 2, as I said but day 10 or something when I met that nice guy who sent me the message and some isks, real change from eh, what happened? oh, killed again... things. Of course, it wasn't the first time I got killed. I used to be killed a lot, really. I used to buy and stock the frigates fitted as cheap as possible in case... Whenever I tried new things, I kind of expected to be killed in new ways. Not that I could percieve well the difference in how I got killed. In the first week or so when I was learning to control the UI, it was just bipping sound. Ok, I didn't stay in high sec as often recommended to newbies, and anyway I got killed on high sec too. So I don't think this is about protecting newbies not getting killed. Newbies are easy killmail and easy target especially depending on where they are, right? I accepted it as a part of game or I could have stayed in very limited area, and get bored.
    Then what are we talikng about? Well, newbs are like babies in eve, really. That was how I felt. Or tourists, if someone doesn't like expression. I think it would be better if they just make it recognizable and explicit... Whether you abuse them or pamper them or avoid them, it's open. Another not very serious suggestion, I think it would be amusing to make killmail for killing newbie pink in killboard too. So someone very practical would not care at all. It is just color. Or maybe be proud of it having 200 of 300 killmail in pink. Pretty. Or... For the question as to who is real newb, if I get it right, i think if you are on trial period, the chances are you are real newb, right? Because you can't use multiple account on trial account. And real newb would probably all pass the trial period, 14 days, 21 days or a month in my case as I got an account in steam. And yes, it is kind of annoying to start an account in steam. But many did, and many will do. As my travel as a tourist in eve is almost over, I have to decide wether I want to get back or stay. I can say at least, it was fun.

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  13. "I think it would be amusing to make killmail for killing newbie pink in killboard too. "

    I think that's a great idea!

    It'd be embarrassing for a self-proclaimed "elite PvPer" to have pink killmails on his killboard. And a great thing to ridicule him over whenever he starts bragging again.

    ReplyDelete

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