Seafaring, pirate, and privateer etiquette

Azor

In re: the claim that the startup cost is too high. The Blood Congregation purchased a ship for members to use. I and a few others will take people on marque runs for free. It costs, I believe, seven lessons to get rank 1 in command, which allows you to operate a ship. So the startup cost is 5k for the marque and 7 lessons, plus however much a shipaxe costs (not much). It takes perhaps an hour or two to learn the basics you need to sail around. The House covers the cost of upkeep, and I'm willing for the House to eat the cost of being sunk, as well, if that should happen. Someone sailing alone with just Rank 1 in Command is pretty much a sitting duck, but the cost of an infrequent sinking isn't too much to bear, for me.

Why can't other Houses do the same? With the resources Houses have, the cost to make sailing available to low-level players is not by any means prohibitive. And it's fun to sail out and visit say, Clockwork Isle, all by itself.

On another note, I think the aversion to getting sunk is a bit too intense. There's a cost, sure, but unless you're into ship combat yourself it doesn't matter if you lose some crew xp all that much.

Silas

I don't even understand - how can you be robbed blind? Like, if my boat sank I was under the impression I'd lose the 15k in the strongbox and whatever's in the larder, as well as some of the crew. How would you go about losing anything else?

Kresslack

@Jonathin: "You also try to limit the seas to people that are "genuinely interested" when it should be an open thing for all of Achaea. If I started killing you every single time you stepped out of Ashtan simply because I'm better than you, you'd end up issuing me. I couldn't use the excuse "oh, well he stepped out of Ashtan, so I thought he was genuinely interested in combat", so you can't use that argument here."

Apples and oranges, entirely. Seafaring is open to everyone. There's nothing stopping anyone from sailing but their own lack of interest or unwillingness to invest time and effort into keeping themselves, and their vessel safe, if that's what they wish.

"I'm not pitching piracy as griefing, I'm pitching YOUR TYPE of pirating as griefing. The way Zulah operated was masterful and should be the pillar upon which all piracy RP is based. More RP, less lolpk&theft."

Let me recount to you one fo Zulah's boardings, on Delphinus' ship no less. I was falcon tracking Delphinus from south of Ulangi, back when falcons could be used at sea, and was directing Zulah and crew towards his location up north of Lothos. They found him, boarded him, and certainly more than gold was taken. I recall Zulah mentioning that Delphinus had handed over quite a few batches of herbs as well. We were regularly instructed when boarding a ship with Zulah, to search the ship to clear the bait tanks and take maps and anything else of value that was sitting around.

That's what piracy in Achaea is, and it's what is has always been. I seem to also remember that Ellodin and Naizar resorted to similar tactics about a year ago during their stint. Using piracy to battle piracy, because you disagree with piracy, it's a clever ploy. We have had generous donations from willing participants when boarding recently, mainly rogues and some Cyrenese. As it stands, there have been no actual complaints received about it IG in a long time.

The Pirates of Meropis operate under the mission statement that they were founded under, and the results have been the same as always: Most people want to be left to catch textfish without being bothered, and now trade runs, and they consistently complain when they are faced with a lose due to being unprepared and untrained. And yet, most people still have little interest in changing this.

There has been no reproach upon the PoM for their operations from higher authorities, and so the PoM will continue operating under the model that has served it well for many a year now. If you have concern for the safety of seafarers, we have always encouraged that citizens be trained by the individual Navies and maritime organizations that are present throughout Achaea.

Griping about it OOC'ly is one thing, doing something about it IC'ly is something else entirely. If people want to be safe at seas, they can get Shipwarning, basic captain training, and Wavecall certainly helps. That people are unprepared to deal with the dangers involved with seafaring is not the PoM's issue, as we certainly ensure all of our members are suitably trained.

Kinilan

Silas said:

I don't even understand - how can you be robbed blind? Like, if my boat sank I was under the impression I'd lose the 15k in the strongbox and whatever's in the larder, as well as some of the crew. How would you go about losing anything else?

You don't lose what is in the strongbox or larder, the help files are wrong. and there is a ~33% chance that a token used by a crew member from the larder will fail resulting in that crew members death. Morale takes about a 1k hit and the remaining crew will train new crew at a highly accelerated rate.

PoM can't force the give command. They can pick up whatever is on the deck, rummage through chests and desks and bait bins and the like but anything locked in the cabin is  almost inaccessible.

Eld

Last time I was sunk, I had no provisions post-salvage. I emptied the strongbox before the ship went down, so don't know about that. You also lose some fraction of any cargo you're carrying.

Kinilan

Right cargo.

I'll admit my information is a bit out of date as I haven't seen first hand results of a sinking since I used the Inexerable to fire on the Black Wind for testing years and years ago.

Ruth

I agree that basic captain training does really prevent you from getting caught. It's not even hard to learn and if it's a personal ship, you have reason to ensure that it won't ever be sunk. All you need to know (if you have the skills, if not, I recommend getting them) is shipwarning, wavecall, ship cloak, mast, and then basic things like having a ship axe, a bucket etc.

Delphinus

Kresslack said:

Let me recount to you one fo Zulah's boardings, on Delphinus' ship no less. I was falcon tracking Delphinus from south of Ulangi, back when falcons could be used at sea, and was directing Zulah and crew towards his location up north of Lothos. They found him, boarded him, and certainly more than gold was taken. I recall Zulah mentioning that Delphinus had handed over quite a few batches of herbs as well. We were regularly instructed when boarding a ship with Zulah, to search the ship to clear the bait tanks and take maps and anything else of value that was sitting around.

1) Actually, it was just a few hundred plants. I told Zulah it was all I had.
2) It was a bit north of Ageiro. West of Sapience, not east of it.
3) The boarding party did search around, but reported that the door was locked and left it at that.

Incidentally, I was only stopped because I was charting a new island (Ageiro) at the time. It still managed to piss me off such that I took my map down for a while, but that's less a gauge of severity and more the fact that it happened at all.

Aktillum

I think more people would sail if ships went faster.

Kresslack

Delphinus said:

Kresslack said:

Let me recount to you one fo Zulah's boardings, on Delphinus' ship no less. I was falcon tracking Delphinus from south of Ulangi, back when falcons could be used at sea, and was directing Zulah and crew towards his location up north of Lothos. They found him, boarded him, and certainly more than gold was taken. I recall Zulah mentioning that Delphinus had handed over quite a few batches of herbs as well. We were regularly instructed when boarding a ship with Zulah, to search the ship to clear the bait tanks and take maps and anything else of value that was sitting around.

1) Actually, it was just a few hundred plants. I told Zulah it was all I had.
2) It was a bit north of Ageiro. West of Sapience, not east of it.
3) The boarding party did search around, but reported that the door was locked and left it at that.

Incidentally, I was only stopped because I was charting a new island (Ageiro) at the time. It still managed to piss me off such that I took my map down for a while, but that's less a gauge of severity and more the fact that it happened at all.

Point remains the same.

Kresslack

I should clarify that it is not the intent of the PoM to 'grief' people, or drive away interest in seafaring. We play the roles we've accepted, and we play them well. Certainly we attempt to make it an actual RP experience for both parties involved, and @Ruth can attest to this. There was one Cyrene ship we boarded, where she made her role as a dragon very interesting. They agreed to pay our suggested fees, and made their deposits regularly.

Nevertheless, it can hardly be expected for pirates to coddle people when they're caught. We will threaten the captain, and the crew, if someone is uncooperative and unruly, as Zulah did and as has been done for years. We will take items that are not secured, as we have always done. And if caught, we will always give someone the option to see their vessel, and crew, safely on their way....for a price.

Theft is hardly a valid point here. If you don't throw an eye sigil and other precautionary before entering a shop stockroom, chances are someone will follow you in. Once in, chances are they're going to grab as much as they can carry of the inventory. The same principle applies to seafaring: Be cautious, be trained, be Aware of your surroundings, and be prepared to take a loss.

Obviously we want people on the seas, as that's our biggest potential for profit. However, people really need to accept responsibility for their own property, and take the necessary steps to ensure they can adequately maintain and defend it. If you don't put totems in your house and are just standing around in it, someone will probably notice and try to prism in and kill you if they have reason or desire.

It's generally the same concept. Ship are property, and are investments. If someone is trespassing or attacking you, there are three common options: retaliate, run, negotiate.

Skye

I've been sunk by Zulah before >_> I kinda feel like that's the sort of thing to boast about haha.

 On my phone atm, but just my quick two cents: I'm mostly an off peak player so I generally find myself alone when I climb on a ship, and like someone else has said, seafaring was meant to be a group activity. I climb on a ship, I use it to go from point A to B as fast as I can or I only stay in familiar waters because I'm leery of pirates. I don't actually think I'm getting the full on nautical experience just yet and that feels a bit of a waste since I transed seafaring.

Having said that, team pirate says that they're giving other captains the opportunity to learn or whatever (and honestly I've always found that schpiel a little self-important and gets people's backs up), but that's exactly the problem: I think the price of such a lesson, as it is now, is pretty damn high. It's not like standard PK where you drop a bunch of herbs and pray. You have to go out and find someone to help you salvage, you have to regain your own exp and retrain your crew and top-up the strongbox. It's like if you died and everytime you died you had to go and get lessons again and you lose a portion of your gold even if you kept everything in your pack. Imagine who will bother raiding again if they had to go through all that everytime they died.

From a player pov, as an aggressor, you have to understand and accept that you're going to face all types. On land, the worst you could do is kill them, now you're in a position to do even more and it can be very easy to get carried away.

It may make perfect "RP sense", but will ruin a player experience. I think those pirates need to remember that sometimes you have to compromise a little RP for player cohesion. I know you pirate-y types may spend days on the prowl looking for targets, but sometimes it's good if you give newer captains just a taste of the chase instead of seriously going after them from the get go. That's how you get people interested. Not by going for the kill straight out.

Kinilan

Skye said:

 I know you pirate-y types may spend days on the prowl looking for targets, but sometimes it's good if you give newer captains just a taste of the chase instead of seriously going after them from the get go. That's how you get people interested. Not by going for the kill straight out.

You mean like when Kresslack, Ruth or I would go out solo with no real chance of catching a ship let alone sinking them and just chase people?

Skye

I'm going to use the "I don't know if you do that or not because I've been dormant", but we're going on the context of a full crew on the prowl not just you going out alone and watching people crap their pants when they see you on the map >_>


Also if you sink me, daddy, Imma kill you! Suffer no underwear forever!

Jonathin

Kresslack said:

Alright, before you miss my entire point again- I'll try and make it clearer because obviously I was not clear enough before, whether my fault or not.

I'm not trying to argue that piracy is bad itself, it's how you go about it. Demanding an amount of gold that is irritating but workable is ok. Demanding an amount of gold that sets someone back 20k or more, plus herbs, plus whatever else you can get your hands on is not.

As I've been trying to say with every post in this thread, piracy can be a positive thing for Achaea if done in moderation, rather than trying to strip everyone of everything and then forcing them to spend hours, days, or possibly weeks regaining what they lost. It's an extreme example, I know, you don't have to point that out to me. 

You don't have to coddle anyone, but you also don't have to stomp on their heads when their face is already in the mud.

Ruth

I'm pretty sure I have a log of the PoM days where we caught, threatened the captain of the Viridian Tortuga and got the fee we wanted. Mosr was a part of it, I think, and I was new. I can post it here later once I'm back here to show how things usually get done in the PoM, which is more or less the same as it is now.

Kaevan

Daeir said:

I agree with @Jonathin. There was a reason old theft was removed - and there is absolutely no reason for you to insist that piracy does not receive the same treatment as old theft did. Jacking someone's gold is bad enough, but clearing a person out of their entire ship contents plus demanding herbs from them as well is excessive, with the only potential counterplay to it either being simply not to sail, or to hork out more money to you in order for you to leave them alone. There is a fine line between eliciting interaction and griefing, and from what I've seen, you're not even attempting to establish interaction beyond "yarr I'm a pirate and I'm going to take your stuff and there's nothing you can do about it except pay me more money".

I pine for old theft sometimes, but then I remember that people quit the game because they had such quantities of things stolen from them. This was addressed, and I earnestly hope @Sarapis and @Tecton take the same approach regarding Seafaring piracy to ensure it isn't becoming excessive enough to put people off sailing entirely.

Again, you could also bring more people with you. Hardly every pirate ship is going to be crewed by the likes of Tirac, Tanris, Kalvon, Deridius, or whomever else people revere when it comes to text combat. If you do manage to get boarded, assuming that you are not sailing alone or with all of the novices that you found at the 'Archway to Minia' then you stand a decent chance of fending off whomever decided to follow the one doing the forceboarding. You did invest in a few swashbucklers, yes? As @Ruth mentioned, the requirements for being able to engage in flight are not particularly steep; engaging in the fight is considerably more expensive if we take ammunition into account. You can fight and and succeed in driving the pirates off (or fail have your ship looted and sunk). You can run and get away (or simply get caught again and deal with the same situation but with the other party a bit more excited now). Or you can negotiate and pay protection fees (losing some gold in the process but gaining some protection from future occurrences should you happen to keep up with the fees). The whole bit about 'Yarr (who says that?)! I'm a pirate and I'm going to take your stuff and there's nothing you can do about it (emphasised for emphasis) except pay me more money!' is blatantly false. There's plenty you can do and a whole lot of those methods have already been mentioned in this thread. 

I shall compare this to Achaean combat since many others can relate to that instead of the 'naked virgin walking in the dark with a sack of gold' metaphor. Sailing on a vessel by yourself without taking precautions is akin to wandering around in enemy territory without selfishness, having your personal fortune out of its designated container, and not putting fist sigils on your decent rapiers. Suddenly, some enemy monk with a grudge against you comes up to fight you, uses bladefist of all things (not likely, but hey), manages to nab your organisational item through mind force, and manages to kill you as all of your sovereigns spill out over the damp, bloody ground. You're now short two weapons, considerably poorer, short one item that is unique to your organisation, and dead alongside your customised text pony. What could you have done to make this less painful for yourself? Putting your gold in a safe place, purchasing a collar of Lupus (or not bringing your pony to a firefight), buying fist sigils, keeping the selfishness defence active, and entering into a contract of some sort with the would-be aggressor (or again, hiring bodyguards or Marks). This way, if you do end up perishing after either insulting the aforementioned monk or fighting/running and dying, you don't lose as much. What's left on the deck is like the herbs or minerals that people drop when they die and probably should not be akin to the contents of a shop. They're things you're using and that you're putting at risk for gain or to help ensure your survival. Some of the stuff that you people leave outside is a bit ridiculous.

The point of all of that text is that for those of you saying that you're losing (or at risk of losing) so much to pirates are not taking enough precautions (or any at all). You might die. Your ship might sink. Your crew might lose some morale. You might become a little bit poorer. The PoM already offer an alternative to that, if memory serves. You don't have to lose 20 bazillion rapiers, your kitten collection, or all those spare commodities that you were hoarding in case both Jaru and El'Jazira go up in flames. Is it extortion? Absolutely. Are the rates exorbitant? Not the last time I checked. Piracy is already done in moderation and is rare enough as it is as there is all this ocean to search and we're looking for something that looks like this: =.  The moderate option been present for IG decades or something at this point. Take it.

TL;DR: I feel that some of you are complaining about how hard the steep ski slopes are when the bunny slopes are right over there and easily accessible. If this makes absolutely no sense, keep in mind that I don't ski.

Edit: Colours.

Ruth

Also. Given we send in the likes of that dude up there @Kaevan in a forceboarding party, I don't think you will find yourself dead for the first few minutes anyway.

Katzchen

You're making a lot of assumptions a new sailor wouldn't even be aware of. There's a lot of small things to learn, even with the basics. And you kind of need to lug around that kind of gold if you want to try trading. I never held more than 100k on me, most of that would have been in the strongbox. I had no idea whether they could tell how much was in there or what.

Thaumas

If there's any lesson to be learned from this thread: don't buy ships, don't learn seafaring. Stay away. bashing and questing is far better.

Sherazad

@Daeir: I have alts everywhere, and if you have someone who knows what he's doing in the seas, you don't even have to meet these awful pirates. 

Kaevan

Daeir said:

Thaumas said:

If there's any lesson to be learned from this thread: don't buy ships, don't learn seafaring. Stay away. bashing and questing is far better.

From the looks of things, this may be the sad truth. There is no way I am going to invest 400+ credits in a ship and then practically open myself up to unmoderated extortion that is somehow acceptable despite the current status of overworld theft.

@Kaevan: You are basically saying that on top of the immense startup costs and maintenance costs of actively participating in Seafaring, I also have to shell out "protection" payment to an arbitrary third party lest they encounter me on the seas and decide that they want to "interact" by overwhelming me with numbers and experience and basically forcing me hand over my gold anyway. You are basically extorting non-coms for money, which is a really crappy thing to do. It's frowned upon on the overworld - why would being at sea make it any different?

@Daeir: That's more or less exactly what I'm saying, yes. Or you could take measures to become a hard nut to crack and pose a threat and being able to fight them off. If you're going to have private ownership of a vessel, those are the costs and risks that should have been factored in. The costs and risks are easier to mitigate with the support of an organisation or at least a group of people. See my earlier point about how I feel that seafaring is really supposed to be a group activity and not something that you do all by your lonesome. Ideally, someone in your group would have the experience or knowledge to at least give you some edge in running away; the 'flight' part of 'fight or flight' is horrifically easy to do -- plenty of people have wavecalled away from @Kinilan and gotten to the safety of a harbour. Remember where I said that piracy is, by definition, stealing and extortion?

And again, are the costs that the PoM demanding really that exorbitant? I'm not talking about when they force their way onto your ship -- I'm talking about the 'protection' fees that they offer. I know that @Kinilan did not simply force his way onto ships and spring the fees on them with no warning whatsoever; unless, that is, you happen to be a rogue. In any case, you are by no means obligated to pay them. You can, as Kresslack mentioned above, also fight or run. And if you choose to do either of the above, you can take measures to mitigate how much financial damage you take should you fail (no, I'm not going to cover all of them again).

Let's use another example. Mhaldor is currently formally at war with Ashtan which means Kaevan, a Mhaldorian soldier, is arguably free game to any of the Ashtani soldiers. They might even go out of their way to assassinate a Viceroy (still Kaevan), maybe engage in theft, and certainly try to jump, ambush, gank, or any other verb for kill that comes to mind. The same basic options apply to me: negotiate, fight, or flight. Obviously, since Kaevan is on the ruling council of Mhaldor 'negotiate' isn't a very viable RP avenue since we obey the dictators in all things (in theory). Kaevan is easily comparable to a poor, almost-defenceless Windcutter in this example -- he is squishy, he can't fight well at all, and has absolutely no viable escape method like, say, wavecall. Since I don't want to choose negotiate, Kaevan is either going to run away from personal ambushes (assuming that he is not instantly killed) or fight knowing that he doesn't have a very good chance of winning at all given his combat inexperience and low health. I could choose to simply stay in a safe area and never leave Mhaldor, of course, but I would find that intensely boring. I could learn how to engage in combat better and maybe gain more health, making the 'fight' option more viable. Or I could invest in an artefact portal wand, wings, or a vibrating stick to have a decent escape/travel option. Unsurprisingly, none of those options are particularly cheap, either. The situation is comparable, even if the scale is quite different. One of the aggressors could, in theory, demand payment in exchange for not killing Kaevan ('protection' fees again), too. It's extortion and, in my opinion, a valid option for roleplay should you choose to take it. Kaevan could also remove himself from the conflict altogether by removing himself from Mhaldor. Obviously, I would find that boring so while it is an option, I certainly do not find it an attractive one.

Tarkanian

why can't you people ever keep your feet on dry land?

Kresslack

@Kaevan: "The whole bit about 'Yarr (who says that?)! I'm a pirate and I'm going to take your stuff and there's nothing you can do about it (emphasised for emphasis) except pay me more money!' is blatantly false. There's plenty you can do and a whole lot of those methods have already been mentioned in this thread. "

"I could choose to simply stay in a safe area and never leave Mhaldor, of course, but I would find that intensely boring."

^ This. When falcons could still be used at sea, I would use my falcon to clear the deck of any equipment, ammo, or other items left around as well.

Hyperlith

Thaumas said:

If there's any lesson to be learned from this thread: don't buy ships, don't learn seafaring. Stay away. bashing and questing is far better.

Ruins the opportunity to raise that explorer ranking, however.

Nakari

Regardless of whether or not piracy is fair or logical, it just doesn't come off as particularly fun for anyone but the aggressor. 

Seafaring is somewhat of an extraneous system, and getting involved in it already initially means shelling out lessons, equipment time, and learning a heck of a lot before even being able to start. If the goal is to make seafaring more popular and actually making it a system that more then a select number of older players use for more then a source of gold, I feel like piracy in it's current form is somewhat of a hindrance. At least with old theft you didn't have to mess with it for thirty levels and selfishness + two to three triggers would make you about as safe as you needed to be.

Tarkanian

Doesn't the "Don't be a jerk" PK rule apply to this? I know it's not technically PK in certain situations, but if people can practice even an iota of self-control when it comes to PK, I don't see why the same couldn't be applied to piracy. Granted, I'm not a captain, nor even a seafarer at all, but I'm under the assumption that every one of us here has the responsibility to make the game fun for everyone, regardless of RP political and religious inclinations.

To add: if jerk behavior is so prevalent in the high seas, to the point that it is becoming detrimental to the overall feel of Seafaring, maybe the admin can designate areas where piracy is allowed and where it is restricted, sort of like Annwyn? I dunno, really. I'm with the other players that see Seafaring as a very tedious, very expensive, very dangerous, yet very fun endeavor (I know for a fact that I'd love to give Seafaring a try some day, I just haven't found the time to invest in it yet).

Lianca

@Tarkanian, the oceans are considered "Dangerous planes", or full-PK as in Annwyn/Underworld levels of dangerousness.

Tarkanian

@Lianca: considered, like an unspoken rule or understanding? I was meaning more of an actual, hardcoded mechanic.

Lianca

@Tarkanian. It was in an announce newspost sometime time time ago. We found it once for another thread,  some Houses forbid novices from getting on ships/going to sea along with visiting Annwyn/UW because of that status.