I am not convinced that I will never speak in local; I really do have a policy of 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'.
In a low sec system that I lurk in; I will be shot at by less players because I chat. Never smack talk; never tears. I speak to players the way I would like to be spoken too.
But there are very good reasons not to talk in local, especially in a wormhole. From a simple dscan; even I can get a rough idea of what you are doing. Are there wrecks? Are there many active sites? Are you in your POS?
What I can't tell from a dscan is what corp you belong to; Sure I can if I am up close and personal, but I am trying to avoid up close and personal; that's why I am scanning first.
There were two incidents recently.
First of all; we had a confirmed sighting of an unknown Loki in our system; on our A239 wh (entrance to lowsec). There was another toon from the same alliance in the lowsec system. This particular alliance is known as a WH PVP alliance.
I spend a lot of time afk; Weekends are busy times. When I came back to keyboard I read in local:
- A: "Ok; scanners in"
- A: "Shit; sorry"
- B: Aww dude.. you're fired.
[05:43:55] EVE System > Subspace communication beacon unreachable. Channel list unavailable.
[05:51:56] C > This is a heist all the nanos in the fucking bag
[05:52:24] D > quiet bane
[05:52:42] C > No you didnt
[05:52:54] C > Want to fool around D?
[05:52:59] C > im near planet 3
And other private stuff that is not for putting up on a public blog.
Now it is entirely possible that these posts were actually for my benefit. However I now know who C and D are; their employment history; how old their toons are. From their names; I can look up their
Before they chatted; I only knew their class of ship and that they were doing a sleeper site.
If so; well and good. If not; carelessly leaking information into local is a potentially deadly mistake.
It is so easy to create a channel for friends; Chat -> Open Channel Window -> Create.
You can make it open, or allow any and all; restrict it to as few as you want.
Local is for saying what you want to be heard. Fleet/corp/private channels are for sensitive information.
I wonder if this kind of mistake (let's assume they're honest mistakes, and not bait or taunts) happens because people keep Local in the same window as all the other chats; instead of dragging it out into its own window.
ReplyDeleteA comment in Local reveals all sorts of information that newer players may not appreciate. You've just told me your name, corp and alliance. I can see from Employment History how old your character is.
ReplyDeleteI can get an idea what ships you fly and how you fit them from your alliance's killboard or Eve Kill. I may be able to get an idea if you honour ransoms etc from Eve Search. If you have a blog or talk about the game publicly on the internet I may be able to find your stories of how you fight and get an idea of whether I can bait you out with a good fight? type bait ship like a Myrm or Drake or whether you'll only respond to irresistible bait like a Noctis or Mackinaw.
If I think you're a dick I can war dec your corp and I can use Locator agents and Killboard evidence to track your people down and figure out where your moons are so me and my friends can come blow them up.
You provide a lot of intel when you say something in Local.