Plunder party

[DeletedUser10720]

I thought the video was excellent as well, but now I must argue for the sentiment I believe @Stephen Longshanks was gunning for earlier. Mainly towards the "if it explicitly isn't against the rules".

I believe that is where the 'ethic/moral twisting' can occur, if we look at rules on a meta-level. The video did a good job of walking us through how, at first, Roger seemed like a malicious actor, but then they reveal he wasn't just doing it for 'cheap' wins/points. It was more for refining the rules and we could argue that Hockey was improved by having more specific rules (depends on your viewpoint and experiences with lawyers, I suppose). I assume that's where the disconnect occurs between different claims of moral standards. If the player is purely motivated by selfish benefit, a plunder party could be seen as malicious collusion and the people who participate it as morally bankrupt. Yet mechanically, it's not much different from FP swap threads, which I have not seen a 'malicious collusion' argument for. The difference? The twisting of the 'spirit' of a rule versus the specific rule.

If plunder is meant to be a competition between city defense/offense, with the victor having a secondary competition to determine if they steal something as a reward, then I see why a plunder party is violating the spirit of the competition and thus a twisted ethical/moral standard. FP swap threads don't suffer from that potential violation since they chiefly fear someone cheating others by NOT donating FP due to potentially lax enforcement/oversight on FP swaps. Even though FP swaps are mechanically similar to the plunder party idea: An agreement between individuals to use a system to collaborate and help maximize their individual benefits. I also think of traffic signals for cars and cross-walks for pedestrians. The spirit of the law is meant to protect everyone on and near the road, thus increasing everyone's ability to pursue liberty, joy, happiness, etc. Is it necessary to ticket every jay-walker, especially if they cross the road in a deserted area? Specific mechanical law would dictate it is so, but that seems contrary to the spirit of the law. The issue with spirit/intent is it's abstract inexactness, which can lead to conflicting interpretations and muddling intent.

The "if it explicitly isn't against the rules, I might as well see how long I can get away with it" mindset is probably a common mantra for any criminal element, which understandably upsets anyone who wants a good, clean, fair game/society. I'm sure most of us can think of how a 'rules lawyer' has used(possibly twisted) the rules of a game to their benefit and how annoyed we have been with 'that guy'. Thus resulting in more specific rules(Roger...!) or house rules to adjust to the new 'fair' benchmark. I guess my end point is: Someone will always find a way to game the system, we just have to remain vigilant to see if the new 'fair' is 'more fair' to one group over another.

Anywho, I think it'd be a long time before I have the infrastructure to profit from a plunder party, so I'll stick to 'running really fast in certain contribution races' and FP swaps, for now.

Well put and I agree with the bulk of what you're saying here.

This is definitely a concept that tiptoes on that gray line. With ambiguous concepts and several avenues for manipulating results, high risk for losses and a challenging means for implementation. Couple that with the expense of making the plunder party profitable ( construction of voyager and Atlantis) and I can definitely understand a lot of mixed feelings coming from this idea.

With more time to ponder on it, there are a lot of avenues in the way of free goods trading that can be built out of this. (You
Plunder my PE TF for goods to help you build your traz and I'll plunder your colonial TF for goods to fund GvG) or collaborative efforts between allied guilds to help build general teamwork strategy for GvG battles. If you know you have trouble with certain defensive formations, a party member can help you learn strategy and unit balance against them or allow you to test differing defensive strategies to see what is more effective. If the plunder trade is more of an agreed upon chance reward it could be more of an agreementto predetermined sparring matches to allow one to familiarize themselves with new battle units.

It does seem exclusionary to those outside the club. However anyone determined enough to watch neighbors patterns and test different times, would likely be able to track your clubs pattern, on at least one member. And possibly even 'steal what was supposed to be a prize set for a party member. And a player not in a party would simply keep full defenses up and regularly collect. So it, debateably, balances itself in a way as the party members do expose themselves to a higher risk of loss from all hoodies. Not to mention the idea of a member being in a hood, with a friend or guildmate, possibly being willing to share that data to get more out of you.

It does have that sticky feeling of a Saul Goodman type lawyer. Twisting and corrupting the spirit of the rules with the personal interest and mindset of appealing to a criminal element.

I do think I will still occasionally look at a new hood and see if I can start a party. Even trading between just a single other hoodie is an interesting exercise and involves a lot of cooperation in a naturally competitive arena.

I do wonder how future GBs and other changes that may increase the reward of plunder or require more battles in general, may effect the general public's opinions on the party. If for instance a change in questing for DC meant the Win X battles without losing. Quest came up significantly more often, a GB that would add a seed vault like random reward to plundering, and the relatively often proposed idea of separating PvP battle points from Cmap and GvG points for variant tower rewards.

If one or any similar thing like this is in the future. I do think the weight on the risk Vs reward scale shifts and with that goes many opinions. So it will be interesting to see, should inno decide to continue the subtle trend of encouraging more PvP / plunder.

 

[DeletedUser20068]

Lawyers are the better example over hackers or game rule benders. Lawyers are the ones who kept pushing the US Constitution the be more inclusive and, right now, conservative lawyers are pushing to have it become more restrictive. Also, if you're looking for a real world example of enemies working together towards a common goal, just think of the USSR working with England and the US to fight the NAZI's in WW2