Goons looking to grief and steal far more.

Hi there.

Just saw a forum from STO RolePlayers Fleet giving a warning about planned increases in griefing and fleet thefts by Goonswarm.

Those of you with experience in EVE Online like myself or other old MMOs may well be familiar with the name Goonswarm.

Essentially they are a group who love getting their lulz by griefing others or doing anything possible to break games.
They have a forum post saying they want to target Role Players and "Furries" in STO. Primarilly using disruptive stuff like Fire Extinguishers etc in public areas and baiting people into raging enough that they can be reported.
They are also looking to get access to Fleet Banks and steal from them.

http://storp.guildlaunch.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8518114&gid=193886 this is the post on the STO RP forum.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3495038 the post encouraging more griefing and ideas around STO.

Although these may not directly affect Stonewall the risk of asset theft is clear and I felt worth bringing up.
Might also be worth noting for those of us who like our Caitian or Ferasan. If we see this griefing around Drozana or DS9 etc then we are aware of their aim and hopefully how best to avoid feeding their kind of fun.
They are also looking for anyone who might enjoy their ERP and trying to grief those kinds especially. Upto and including inviting them to a ship only to face a bridge full of Goons who hassle the person who has gone there.

Really pathetic and sad, on their part, but good to know so that it can be avoided. I usually have everything but fleet chat turned off anyway.

I love these guys. They make the world much less boring.


Edit: It's also worth noting that an account is required to view the RP forum thread, but the Goon forum thread is publicly viewable.

Thankfully only an account for any Guild Launch forum. They seem to work across the different kinds.

I created one for a Caitian fleet that had alas fallen apart in the lull going Free To Play.

Essentially they give a few @ handles gained from the SomethingAwful forum. Although do remember that anything listed there could very well be mis-information. Used to create more grief just by existing to trick others:

"Since according to this thread ( http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3495038 ) the Goons/Starfleet Dental not only plan to grief people all day but also will try to get invites to other fleets (at times they have been successful) and rob their banks. I thought having a list of them might help. These are handles I got by searching in-game and in their forum, so best put all of them on ignore and maybe even pass on the link and the list to other fleets. From the looks of it they will be invading STO in large numbers pretty soon, so best be careful. And yes, they are that many, possibly even more.

By the way, if you set your specialFX to low in the options, you won't see a thing from the fire extinguishers. Under no circumstances talk back at them, because they aim to make you mad and curse at them, then report you, and you will get at least a warning for it. Another thing you can do is go to your teamsettings under privacy and set it so you are only visible to friends, that way they can't find you as easily if you are on DS9, Risa, wherever."

Fleets:

Imperial Revenue Service
Kdf Dental Hygiene
Shutup Wesley
Starfleet Dental
Starfleet Orthodentics

This is all from the Role Players forum. But yeah. Treat with skepticism but be wary of the above.

And the most recent part:

"-Ivory- on 2012/07/19 0:20
Okay folks, a headsup. Starfleet Dental has a new tactic, they create female non fleet toons, start to flirt with people and then invite them to their ship, where they will be a greeted by a gang of other dental folks... you can probably guess the rest. So make sure to put those @handles on the list on ignore!"

So yeah. Those of us rocking Caitians and Ferasans, be they Furry Fandom or otherwise can be aware of these, and anyone getting random ERP flirtations etc might want to be extra cautious. Especiaally if they go inviting you to their ship.

But the main thing when dealing with Goons. Do our best not to play their game or let them twist ours too much. Or they still get kicks from that as well.

Best way to have erotic role play is with a trusted partner. Please dont go back to your quarters with some strange. Also the Ferengi whips dont work so well as ive found out

Quote by Dr Cuddlebear RP

Best way to have erotic role play is with a trusted partner. Please dont go back to your quarters with some strange. Also the Ferengi whips dont work so well as ive found out

*reads the SA thread*

*reads this post*

Win.

I've always felt that putting someone on ignore should make their character invisible to you. (The character and everything they did, such as fire extinguishing)

This is really crappy and, while they may try to stay within the terms of service, any type of griefing, no matter what it is, is against the games TOS. I forward the link on to Cryptic so they would be aware what the Goons were planning.

We have plenty of safety checks in Stonewall Fleet (bank limits, membership requirements, moderators) to prevent most of this stuff from happening to us so we should be alright.

That being said, I've removed the list of @handles from above. I'd rather this not turn into a list of accusations.

If you see someone griefing another player or you're being greifed, do not engage the player. Making you angry is exactly what they want. Report them to Cryptic and put them on your ignore list.

I checked out Drozana last Friday, and it was every bit as horrible as our dental friends suggest. I felt dirty afterward, a million times worse than logging on to Second Life. (SL is horribad, for those who don't know.)

I usually cant stand being around Drozana for the headache inducing lights. I really wish they had some way of setting it so once you pass teh Devidian Arc the appearances stop there. You automatically phase to a version without Devidians. Think I went for a SubSpace Radio get together there. But otherwise much prefer DS9 etc.

And yeah. As said before. Best tactic against Goons is just avoid their game. They were mostly looking to hassle RolePlayers and Furries. But as they also love just hassling anyone they can in EVE I thought it wise to just pass the info along so any other big fleets like Stonewall could be forewarned.

Quote by Nova

I checked out Drozana last Friday, and it was every bit as horrible as our dental friends suggest. I felt dirty afterward, a million times worse than logging on to Second Life. (SL is horribad, for those who don't know.)

This. I think the worst slog in the game for me was the story arc that required you to spend time at Drozana station. It's just gross in there.

And, of course, the goon squad is in The Secret World, now. Probably scheming on how to best harass and grief those who are on the "RP servers"

Gracious, things have changed a lot in-game. Makes me think about whether I want to rejoin. I've got enough garbage in my life without paying for it, too.

Quote by SiranNataan

Gracious, things have changed a lot in-game. Makes me think about whether I want to rejoin. I've got enough garbage in my life without paying for it, too.

STO is free to play.
Don't dance on tables in Drozana with the illiterate transvestite Orion sex slave roleplayers.

Problem solved.

Quote by Nova

Don't dance on tables in Drozana with the illiterate transvestite Orion sex slave roleplayers.

\

*bites his tongue hard*

I dunno about the rest of you but first thing I do is remove the profanity filter followed by removing local and zone chatter I really don't care what other ppl have to say only channels I have on are the ones I want ...

Quote by Nova

Quote by SiranNataan

Gracious, things have changed a lot in-game. Makes me think about whether I want to rejoin. I've got enough garbage in my life without paying for it, too.

STO is free to play.
Don't dance on tables in Drozana with the illiterate transvestite Orion sex slave roleplayers.

Problem solved.

Converting my toons to Silver means losing the hard work I've done creating my BOs because you're not allowed as many. And that's not just work in-game. I don't know, for every character--captain and BO--I create, I have a whole backstory and their relationships to the rest of the crew. My BOs ain't no redshirts. :-P Maybe that doesn't make sense, but it's where I draw my line.

Yeah. Dont let them spoil your idea of fun, especially when they are easy to avoid for the most part.

I seem to recall many people saying that if you were Gold and convert to Silver that you keep all you had as Gold and it would just be new chars that become restrained by Silver levels now?

As to reasons to give it another go. If you are not too sure why not create an alt account as Silver. Create a basic Fed and see how the fleet is now. And if you enjoy how Stonewall is now then think about renewing your Gold properly?

I had thought that PWE had rules forbidding users to have both a Gold and Silver account, that's why I haven't done it. The main reason that I want to get in the game to begin with has nothing to do with the game. I miss being able to talk with my fleetmates in real time. So, I guess, really, I'm wanting to spend $15/mo for a chatroom. :(