Original Post — Direct link
Hey all, I've heard vague rumblings of espionage and subterfuge being a thing allowed and encouraged, like ambushing a caravan.

I come from Eve Online, so I'm wondering what the extent of espionage/subterfuge/sabotage will be 'allowed'. Obviously, it seems you can place a character in a rival node to manually look for caravans, or in a separate guild to try and get information on when a caravan will go out. I would assume the same goes for any information-based espionage: informing a rival guild of their primary hunting grounds, or that they'll be in a certain location at a certain time for a raid boss, that a certain character is transporting extremely valuable processed goods for use in making a Legendary-class weapon, et cetera.

Suppose that someone proves their worth, and gains a leadership position within the guild they are a spy in. They gain take privileges from the guild's storage (that is, the storage that cannot be accessed during a siege, and which is lootable after a successful siege).

Obviously, doing so would blow the spy's cover, the guild might tell other guilds so as to blacklist them, so they'd have to be very careful as to when they chose to do this---but my question is would it be a legal, non-bannable offense to go 'rogue' and steal stuff from the guild's storage (including completed equipment, if they are stored there)? (Or likewise, in the same scenario in which someone tries to subtly skim resources and processed goods in order to profit but not be detected, at a risk).

I'll give another example scenario---this doesn't seem as good an example given what we know thus far of AoC and the difference in mechanics between Eve and AoC, but I'd still like to ask. In Eve Online, in Null Security space, there are Interdiction-class ships, which have the capability to create Warp Disruption Bubbles, preventing all ships within the radius from initiating warp. As they are centered upon the Interdictor, they'll typically only trap some enemy ships inside, especially brawler-type ships. Ships farther away will be unaffected, and can warp out and warp back in. For the same reason, if a spy used an Interdictor, they could deploy a Warp Disruption Bubble smack-dab in the middle of the enemy fleet, which would cause likely a total wipe if deployed at a good time. There are multiple stories of this happening in Eve. Now again, the core mechanics of AoC would seem to prevent anything like this particular example from happening, but hypothetically---would sabotaging a battle---say, participating in and subsequently throwing/ruining a party's raid in order to cause destruction to the node they are a part of, be allowed and/or encouraged?

Hmm... I believe those are all the questions I have that pertain specifically to spying. I have more questions with regards to allowances on the marketplace, but we don't know a lot about the market so I'll hold to ask those until later in development.
over 4 years ago - LieutenantToast - Direct link
Hi there! As this is more of a longer-form discussion than a support question, I'm going to go ahead and shift it on over to our General Discussion section!