Suggestion: Warp Events similar to LA events

Was jus chattin with a bro when an idea hit me. Its not something I personally would benefit from at least at the moment but others might.

What about MS and pf/sf being able to create warp events in the events list similar to LA have events. It would allow automated ticket sales etc without direct owner interaction 24/7 and allow a sort of warp schedule to be built into the game as well.

Just an idea.. Thoughts?!?

Add an option of automatic summon/teleport to the event location at the start.

Some remote LAs could benefit from that, too.

Haruto Rat said:

Add an option of automatic summon/teleport to the event location at the start.

Some remote LAs could benefit from that, too.

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I haven't done an event ina while actually wow but.. if I recall they do have a teleport option alrdy or used to?

The problem with this is that it makes Privateers and Motherships too efficient. It would lead to more frequent space travel, increased participation on partner planets, and significantly higher ROI for ship owners.
MindArk appears to want nothing of the sort.

Ok so who in this automated space ship is going to defend the passengers when ship is attacked.
Who is going to be able to deal with passenger error.. I forgot something, I missed the summon, Can I have 1 more minute ?
How is a machine going to be able to refuse passage to known pirates or other persons that may affect the reputation of the ship and owner ?
Who/how will ship get repaired in the event of an attack ?

What you propose is using the ships as a glorified TP.. much as they were before space as we know it

TBH the lack of scheduled warps or even regular VIP, and the large number of parked idle ships come down to 2 things
Firstly for years players have moaned about the price and prefer to risk pirates in a quad rather than pay for a service which offers increased safety and speed. Yet no-one in space charges anything like the price the old TP's did. Scheduled warps are a risk.. you have to burn the warps, you charge a lower fee than VIP and have to hope enough customers each leg to cover costs. Expectations of cheap warps, readily available are unrealistic.
Second MA need to be able to let us assign a 2nd in command that has access to guest list when owner not there. This would then allow far greater usage of those ships that can be bothered to put in the time to earn a few ped

Granny Rowan said:

Ok so who in this automated space ship is going to defend the passengers when ship is attacked.
Who is going to be able to deal with passenger error.. I forgot something, I missed the summon, Can I have 1 more minute ?
How is a machine going to be able to refuse passage to known pirates or other persons that may affect the reputation of the ship and owner ?
Who/how will ship get repaired in the event of an attack ?

What you propose is using the ships as a glorified TP.. much as they were before space as we know it

TBH the lack of scheduled warps or even regular VIP, and the large number of parked idle ships come down to 2 things
Firstly for years players have moaned about the price and prefer to risk pirates in a quad rather than pay for a service which offers increased safety and speed. Yet no-one in space charges anything like the price the old TP's did. Scheduled warps are a risk.. you have to burn the warps, you charge a lower fee than VIP and have to hope enough customers each leg to cover costs. Expectations of cheap warps, readily available are unrealistic.
Second MA need to be able to let us assign a 2nd in command that has access to guest list when owner not there. This would then allow far greater usage of those ships that can be bothered to put in the time to earn a few ped

Click to expand...

I think he was not referring to a fully automated ship, but rather simply an automated method of distributing tickets. This way I can buy a ticket at 11:22 to catch the 12:00 scheduled warp, and be able to teleport up to the ship rather than be manually summoned.
The pilot would still have to fly the ship, this would just facilitate the ease of ticket sales.

Of course it's possible I'm misunderstanding it.

Granny Rowan said:

Ok so who in this automated space ship is going to defend the passengers when ship is attacked.
Who is going to be able to deal with passenger error.. I forgot something, I missed the summon, Can I have 1 more minute ?
How is a machine going to be able to refuse passage to known pirates or other persons that may affect the reputation of the ship and owner ?
Who/how will ship get repaired in the event of an attack ?

What you propose is using the ships as a glorified TP.. much as they were before space as we know it

TBH the lack of scheduled warps or even regular VIP, and the large number of parked idle ships come down to 2 things
Firstly for years players have moaned about the price and prefer to risk pirates in a quad rather than pay for a service which offers increased safety and speed. Yet no-one in space charges anything like the price the old TP's did. Scheduled warps are a risk.. you have to burn the warps, you charge a lower fee than VIP and have to hope enough customers each leg to cover costs. Expectations of cheap warps, readily available are unrealistic.
Second MA need to be able to let us assign a 2nd in command that has access to guest list when owner not there. This would then allow far greater usage of those ships that can be bothered to put in the time to earn a few ped

Click to expand...

Yes I was simply suggesting the possibility of using the Event System for scheduling and signing up for flights. In no way did I suggest unmanned automated services although that might be interesting as well since most don't use theyre ships themselves

Ok so automated ticket sales.. still not sure what is to be gained here. In fact I see the potential for players to lose ped and not be happy about it.

As a scheduled warp operator and VIP operator it is a rare day that does not see a request for a warp later changed.
A VIP warp where the passenger changes their mind about the time they want to fly, or a scheduled passenger that asks about the flight and then has logged off by the time the schedule operates. They are not being awkward, silly or a nuisance, they are just people who have real lives that take precedence over gaming, or gamers who get distracted, invited to a hunt a trade or other interruption. Will these people get their ticket money back ? If so how ? the machine is not going to know if they flew or not. If there is not a refund then players will instinctively blame the operator simply because it is human nature to blame others rather than ourselves.
Payment just before summon or immediately after arrival on board overcomes this.

Also as I pointed out above, use of a payments machine removes the operators right to refuse passage to people they don't want on their ship.

Person to person trade may take a little longer, but it also acts as an information exchange where newer travellers can ask questions and be given guidance on how it all works. Automation like in real life removes this personal touch and may leave some players feeling they cant travel because they don't understand what they need to do and when. For instance people always think in terms of time in their time zone. The schedule says the ship flies at 02:00pm or 14:00, yes but what time is that for me ?
You will be summoned to the ship.. oh so do I have to go to the SS then ?
Can I be summoned from anywhere?
How is machine going to deal with this?

at least at a rail station when you try to use a ticket machine rather than a counter clerk, there is usually someone to ask who can then guide you

This is a great idea +rep

Granny you shouldn't be too concerned. Think about LA event tickets, no one complains about them. People accept automated tickets cannot be changed. Same would occur with ms automated tickets

GeorgeSkywalker said:

This is a great idea +rep

Granny you shouldn't be too concerned. Think about LA event tickets, no one complains about them. People accept automated tickets cannot be changed. Same would occur with ms automated tickets

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that's kinda what I was thinkin.. it doesn't even benefit me at all.. I only do ViP. Scheduled warps would benefit greatly.. can set prices for event and people buy tickets.. maybe even summon themselves to ship if theyre rdy.. they don't show well its on them I guess. and the wchedule be viewable right there in the event list.. it be usefull at the least. was just an idea


im just suggesting a lot of neat usefull ideas latly because its annoying we spent so much on our ships and what can we do with them that isn't super hardmode? if I wanna go hunting I either gotta spend hours getting a crew together or go myself and seat swap15x just to shoot n loot. warps to run anything remotely successful you have to lose sleep and quit your job to be available 24/7 for guestlist operations.. its craziness.

Granny Rowan said:

Ok so automated ticket sales.. still not sure what is to be gained here. In fact I see the potential for players to lose ped and not be happy about it.

As a scheduled warp operator and VIP operator it is a rare day that does not see a request for a warp later changed.
A VIP warp where the passenger changes their mind about the time they want to fly, or a scheduled passenger that asks about the flight and then has logged off by the time the schedule operates. They are not being awkward, silly or a nuisance, they are just people who have real lives that take precedence over gaming, or gamers who get distracted, invited to a hunt a trade or other interruption. Will these people get their ticket money back ? If so how ? the machine is not going to know if they flew or not. If there is not a refund then players will instinctively blame the operator simply because it is human nature to blame others rather than ourselves.
Payment just before summon or immediately after arrival on board overcomes this.

Also as I pointed out above, use of a payments machine removes the operators right to refuse passage to people they don't want on their ship.

Person to person trade may take a little longer, but it also acts as an information exchange where newer travellers can ask questions and be given guidance on how it all works. Automation like in real life removes this personal touch and may leave some players feeling they cant travel because they don't understand what they need to do and when. For instance people always think in terms of time in their time zone. The schedule says the ship flies at 02:00pm or 14:00, yes but what time is that for me ?
You will be summoned to the ship.. oh so do I have to go to the SS then ?
Can I be summoned from anywhere?
How is machine going to deal with this?

at least at a rail station when you try to use a ticket machine rather than a counter clerk, there is usually someone to ask who can then guide you

Click to expand...

well I see what your saying but for those unafraid of change most issue are easily overcome with a warning msg during ticket purchase and brief explanation "goto events click teleport when your rdy to goto ship" for those asking for instructions which youd give anyway whatever they might be. but your right OMFG how do LA's deal with people purchasing tickets for events that cant make it? your probably right that is a reduculous thing to even consider happening and they shud just remove the whole event system maybe? *edit* or charge ticket price upon clicking teleport to ship?

*edit* also as far as unwanted clients aboard ship.. I realize you've been at it a few more years than me but thus far im yet to encounter that situation and cant even think of a reason I wouldn't want a paying customer aboard for travel but maybe that can be dealt with on a case by case basis. or.. instead of ship guestlist you can have a custom banlist!

mspatterson said:

well I see what your saying but for those unafraid of change most issue are easily overcome with a warning msg during ticket purchase and brief explanation "goto events click teleport when your rdy to goto ship" for those asking for instructions which youd give anyway whatever they might be. but your right OMFG how do LA's deal with people purchasing tickets for events that cant make it? your probably right that is a reduculous thing to even consider happening and they shud just remove the whole event system maybe? *edit* or charge ticket price upon clicking teleport to ship?

*edit* also as far as unwanted clients aboard ship.. I realize you've been at it a few more years than me but thus far im yet to encounter that situation and cant even think of a reason I wouldn't want a paying customer aboard for travel but maybe that can be dealt with on a case by case basis.

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I am sorry you feel I would not welcome changes to space.. ofc I would, and have written may suggestions on forums and even to support. Changes that would give new and greater purpose to the ships.. as opposed to just running a taxi/bus service.

You seem to feel I am personally attacking your idea as opposed to discussing.. yet I have tried to state the reasons why I truly do not see the advantage of this system rather than dissing you.

So a little food for thought..
How is visiting a machine which cannot answer question and concerns better than speaking to a person advertising the warp and collecting the fares ?
You will still have to go to a fixed location to use the machine instead of to meet the spammer

Any typing mistakes, wrong item clicked will probably take ped for wrong item (remember this is MA making it happen)
Come to that unless MA are getting paid for the service I would bet the chance of them doing it are close to zero

And while you may find it unlikely that people would ask for ped back if unable to use the flight.. sadly happens quite often, sometimes only moments later when something happens in RL or game that changes their plans.

As for transporting ANY paying customer that is your choice, but most certainly not mine. I don't want pirates standing on hanger deck, watching who moves slow. Even if they did not report to their friends, if we got attacked with a pirate on board, what are people going to assume ?
Sorry but I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this.

Granny is correct. There are quite a few issues that can happen to inexperienced players in regards to using the event system. Not to mention there would be no way to bar undesirables from paying and traveling. The best thing MA can do is add additional features like a 2nd or even 3rd pilot with guest list access and the ability to summon. Features I might add that have been suggested many times that MA has failed to implement.

pontfirebird73 said:

Granny is correct. There are quite a few issues that can happen to inexperienced players in regards to using the event system. Not to mention there would be no way to bar undesirables from paying and traveling. The best thing MA can do is add additional features like a 2nd or even 3rd pilot with guest list access and the ability to summon. Features I might add that have been suggested many times that MA has failed to implement.

Click to expand...

well id have to agree with you, I myself would much prefer pilots have more control including guestlist and would make running a ship less of a one man thing and more like running business. My suggestion was more of an idea or concept built from a clients perspective. as of late I hear many complaints of not being able to find transportation in reasonable amount of time or even knowing what the schedules were. obviously the few of us actually running are doing the best we can with what we have and I was just thinking of ways some of these things could be addressed.

I can see too many questions here that would make this impractical, especially:

1. What happens if the ship owner/pilot isn't online when the "event" begins?
2. If they are online, what's to stop them taking fees for the service and then not providing it?
3. How would you handle multi-stop services?

That said, if a good way to do something like this could be worked out, from the passenger's perspective it would be good to streamline the experience and make it more efficient, because when I look at this...

Granny Rowan said:

TBH the lack of scheduled warps or even regular VIP, and the large number of parked idle ships come down to 2 things
Firstly for years players have moaned about the price and prefer to risk pirates in a quad rather than pay for a service which offers increased safety and speed. Yet no-one in space charges anything like the price the old TP's did. Scheduled warps are a risk.. you have to burn the warps, you charge a lower fee than VIP and have to hope enough customers each leg to cover costs. Expectations of cheap warps, readily available are unrealistic.
Second MA need to be able to let us assign a 2nd in command that has access to guest list when owner not there. This would then allow far greater usage of those ships that can be bothered to put in the time to earn a few ped

Click to expand...

…as a (potential) passenger, rather than a Mothership or Privateer owner, this doesn't ring true at all. For me, the number one reason why I very rarely use scheduled warps nowadays is because by the time I've got to the location where the ticketseller is, paid my fee, made sure I'm ready to be summoned, got called up, waited for multiple summons to pick up more passengers, waited for unspecified reasons why we can't leave immediately, slowcoached out of the safezone, been diverted from the expected route to other locations because someone paid for a VIP trip alongside the scheduled one (this in particular is totally infuriating and extremely bad customer service), had to wait for other scheduled drop-offs at locations I'm not going to, etc etc...

OK, some of those things might not happen on every trip, or only now and then, but almost every time it takes, for one reason or another, for-fucking-ever, and by the time I've done all that I could have already been there in my own quad, at whatever the hell time I want.

I never (except maybe two or three times in very small amounts) take lootables between planets, so all I want from a scheduled warp is speed and convenience, and I very rarely get either. The aim, I think, behind the OP, is to provide better speed and convenience, so I would love it if there was a way for that aim to be achieved. I'm not convinced that this is it though.

Probably what we really need is for someone to step up and run a better and more efficient service than those we've seen previously, but perhaps that's too difficult or impossible to achieve with the current system, or we'd have seen it already.

Oleg said:

I can see too many questions here that would make this impractical, especially:

1. What happens if the ship owner/pilot isn't online when the "event" begins?
2. If they are online, what's to stop them taking fees for the service and then not providing it?
3. How would you handle multi-stop services?

Click to expand...

Agreed

Oleg said:

That said, if a good way to do something like this could be worked out, from the passenger's perspective it would be good to streamline the experience and make it more efficient, because when I look at this...

…as a (potential) passenger, rather than a Mothership or Privateer owner, this doesn't ring true at all. For me, the number one reason why I very rarely use scheduled warps nowadays is because by the time I've got to the location where the ticketseller is, paid my fee, made sure I'm ready to be summoned, got called up, waited for multiple summons to pick up more passengers, waited for unspecified reasons why we can't leave immediately, slowcoached out of the safezone, been diverted from the expected route to other locations because someone paid for a VIP trip alongside the scheduled one (this in particular is totally infuriating and extremely bad customer service), had to wait for other scheduled drop-offs at locations I'm not going to, etc etc...

OK, some of those things might not happen on every trip, or only now and then, but almost every time it takes, for one reason or another, for-fucking-ever, and by the time I've done all that I could have already been there in my own quad, at whatever the hell time I want.

I never (except maybe two or three times in very small amounts) take lootables between planets, so all I want from a scheduled warp is speed and convenience, and I very rarely get either. The aim, I think, behind the OP, is to provide better speed and convenience, so I would love it if there was a way for that aim to be achieved. I'm not convinced that this is it though.

Probably what we really need is for someone to step up and run a better and more efficient service than those we've seen previously, but perhaps that's too difficult or impossible to achieve with the current system, or we'd have seen it already.

Click to expand...

There are currently 2 basic warp services in EU
VIP. Immediate and Fast but Costly..but only available if a pilot is on-line and at correct planet (or may cost more for double warp)
Scheduled warps..you know when, you know where and it's cheap
Slower but generally much cheaper
You the customer can choose. But just like RL don't get on a bus and then complain it wasn't a chauffeur driven limo.

There are also other considerations rather than just price and speed
1. Equus, if pilot is available at the planet you are on and your total weight low enough and NO lootables this is probably quickest option
They may however get delayed/shot by pirates especially if weight near upper limit.
Price typically 20-25ped per warp ( I am sure we will see corrections if I have this wrong)

2. Privateer/Mothership VIP warps. These are generally pretty immediate as VIP warps are generally 1 customer 1 warp. Or you and a friend if you want to share. (tho teams and multiples can be accommodated by agreement)
Dearer than a scheduled warp
Generally a little dearer than an equus, but if the ship has good SI or if passenger chooses to log out, then safer for those with loots
Price Generally 20-30ped (correct me if you know otherwise)

3. Scheduled warps (usually a mothership). Scheduled warps are not about speed of transit so much as security and safety. Think bus service rather than the taxis above.
Yes they may offer sphere as well as SS, and yes that will cause a delay
Yes they may use a spammer and may incur delays if customers turn up at last minute, are new to space flights and need more explanations.
As regards VIPs on scheduled warps I can only comment re KISS. Only rarely would a VIP be slotted in to our schedule, and this would generally be a situation such as one of our frequent fliers who got caught in traffic on way home and missed us, and where we have no privateer available at that time
Prices vary but 7-10 ped seems to be the average

So between the various ship types and services customers have a range of choices and can pick that which suits their needs best. If you want speed and don't mind the expense...go VIP
If you want cheap, moderate speed and good security, then so long as there is one in your time zone you can opt for scheduled warps

Make sure you know who you are flying with and that they have a good reputation. Make sure the summon is for the correct ship. Make sure you have the destination planet downloaded. Please, please don't go for a smoke, to feed the kids or walk the dog. A warp takes a couple of minutes, waiting on passengers to come back from afk can delay everyone.