Free Play In Multplayer?

Several solutions:

Reward proper behavior - Punish improper behavior.

ACCIDENTS during wartime can & DID happen, and the level of simulation of wartime in a game is determined by the amount of realism built into the game.

EXCUSES - can be avoided by developing a training area which acts as a sort of basic training to be completed before allowing the player into the actual fire zone consisting of identification training, ship/sub controls testing, and target practice. This forces a player to spend enough time learning the game to be unable to make false claims in case they have not practiced prior to jumping into multiplayer.

Designing a game with accidental friendly fire is a difficult choice to make because:

Proving and Determining the intentions of a player is time consuming and difficult due to the myriad of possibilities in a tactical situation with torpedos and bullets flying all around.

1) Disable Friendly Fire: (no realism at all in this regard - highest probability to avoid having "griefers" in your gameworld - but also lose the interest of "purists" in the sense of simulation levels)

2) Friendly Fire may only damage the person who fired and generates no visual feedback to the "griefer" to avoid giving visual stimulation to repeat the offense (punishment, but not realistic - some players actually want to have a reward/punishment system to feel more challenge to playing properly)

3) Friendly Fire hits and generates smoke/explosion, but causes no damage to ally (reduced realism- may also damage the person who fired to some degree for punishment)

4) Friendly Fire hits but causes limited damage to ally (reduced realism - may also damage the person who fired to some degree for punishment - causes concern for player taking damage, and the rest of his loyal team mates)

5) Friendly Fire hits and causes full damage to ally (full realism - greatest possibility for concern among the players from same nation - greatest punishment deserved in this case, possibility of losing the ability to spawn in ANY vessel with firepower from ANY nation for various amounts of time.

Players credit card/other payment method attached to game name to be recorded, researched, cross-referenced, and punished by banning for repeat offenses. Repeat offenders can change their game name or payment method, but they will still have to earn their place all over again. They will have limited opportunity to become repeat offenders.

The amount of time required to devote to "griefing", choosing new payment methods, names, rank, can be a very successful deterrent as the punishment time can be increased substantially.

In each case the offending player would be knocked down in prestige or ability to captain a ship on his next run and may have to earn his way back to spawning anything with firepower on the nation where he committed the offense.. enough "accidents" and that player would have to wait a very long time to participate in that same nation again, if ever. If you are paying to play one or more of the three nations, would you want to see your money go to waste?