First let me address this “respect issue.” Andreus, Myyona and Verone speak above about “respect needing to be got before it can be given.”
And Andreus and Verone go on to explain why they feel they haven’t been given respect and thus do not give respect in turn. I can understand this impulse because it is simple human nature though it does indicate that part of the problem here:
Is the expectation of
IC respect along with OOC respect and that’s where things get muddy.
Now at Andreus to begin with. As I understand it you were treated quite decently and granted full ooc respect by one of our directors who met you at a pub meet some years ago. More recently I don’t recall you being disrespected on an out of character level by the Fraction. Indeed a few months ago I recall you being disappointed and frustrated with Eve and posting that you were going to quit the game on Eve general forum. As is the custom with these posts you had pages of people trolling you and generally laughing and I came there and said something positive to you as a player with heartfelt respect and sympathy.
So while its true to say we have no respect for your character in-character, that is not the whole story. But then as we’ve concluded already – you have to give respect to get respect and from the perspective of our membership your character does not act in a way we respect on the Eve forums (which is our sole medium of interaction).
We could fill pages “he said” / “she said” and ancient wrongs but why bother?
I don’t believe in justifying IC actions with pages of OOC explanations – why is it difficult to believe that a hardline federalist nationalist speaker who has often used the line “I might hate the Amarrians/Gurristas/Serpentis/Caldari but I hate the Fraction more” would be considered an empty vessel by the people HE has been insulting and deriding now for years?
Why is IC respect needed? If you are comfortable having your character operating as an anti Fraction mouthpiece that simply joins ANY thread and hurls rotten fruit at the Fraction why do you need IC respect from us in the first place?
And if you want to change the way you are perceived then simply change the way your character acts. Give respect, get respect.
And to Verone now. You say in your post above that you consider it inexplicable that Jade (and other Free Captains) came to dislike your character. I really don’t understand why.
Veto pilots attacked our organization and earned their -10. When a senior director initiated diplomacy to check if you were serious about this you told him something like “I can’t control my pilots without standings and I don’t want to set you blue” we said fine and kept you -10 from that day. If you had wanted to do diplomacy at any time the door was open.
Jade’s comment about Verone being an "Imperialist Sympathizer" came from one post Verone made using the Andreus line “I might hate the Amarr but they are more honourable than the Fraction” (or words to that effect) and Jade in seeing this concluded that Verone liked the sound of his own voice more than honest discussion and slammed him on it.
But again, that’s pure IC. By and large I am not in contact with you OOC Verone. I don’t have contacts in common, I don’t speak to you OOC regularly – last time we DID speak was in Iceland where I believe we resolved the issues with your dislike and boycotting of CSM1 (I seem to remember there was something that stopped you running yourself?) fairly completely over a long rambling drunken conversation.
I think the problem you have with us Verone is you are too quick to assume that what we do IC reflects an automatic OOC shadow of opinion or dislike and I hope to demonstrate why that is completely wrong.
When we see Verone doing something like playing both sides of the Sansha war, by playing the pirate and attacking anyone he feels like then claiming he’s more honourable and principled than x,y,z person our CHARACTERS might think Verone is a Snake unable to be trusted but by and large that is as far as it goes.
In character you are a snake! You are a pirate who lives on the misery and terror of others, who cheats and lies and steals and brutalizes New Eden.
Sometimes I think you want everything too much your own way and try to combine in the character of Verone both Captain Hook AND Peter Pann (and sometimes ever the bloody tick tock Crocodile too!) and you get a little frustrated when other characters don't respect this characterization to your full and complete expectations.
It all becomes a muddle frankly and it does represent why messing up notions IC and OOC respect can be a fiasco on stilts with a plastic party clown hat and silly nose.
Recent example of something *MUCH* better?
I-RED. Last year we came into direct hostility and contact with I-RED at the event their executor organized at the Malkenen memorial. We sent a fleet there and blew up John’s ship to make a point about Amarrian influence over the memorial of a man who liberated billions of slaves. Was a pure IC motivated response to an IC political situation. At the time a hellova lot of “RP’ers” got their noses twisted out of joint by this action (including yourself Verone) but in the wake of it the single OOC contact we had from John Revenant was a nice mail on chatsubo that said “excellent fun guys, thanks or making the event an interesting one”.
Now that ladies and gents, is how an RP’er should behave in our eyes. We had a furious IC argument with I-RED and their supporters, there were massive IGS debates and fallout, but OOC relations were not damaged or foisted into the equation.
So this year (and this goes back to respect gets respect on the IC level) – we were planning what to do about the Memorial again. Do we wardec I-RED again? Do we attend for other reasons, do we ignore it? Do we do our own?
And out of the blue we get an IC contact from I-RED executive wing that invited the Fraction to speak with courtesy and respectful tone and I passed this to the alliance and asked what people felt about it?
An internal vote was held with a large majority being to respond to this by looking at I-RED’s history over the last year and see where they were now and ultimately initiate diplomacy if we felt there had been genuine evolution. There was, we did, and diplomatic settlement was made without a single OOC discussion between our organizations whatsoever.
We were able to conclude a load and dynamic IC feud by entirely IC means by dint of both sides being prepared to offer the other a little respect and move forwards with the relationship.
So this does raise the question in my eyes about how this “respect” issue arises in general.
With Verone and Veto -> I don’t really see (and do correct me if I am wrong in this) what grounds can possibly exist for IC respect between Veto and the Star Fraction.
Veto is -10 to the Fraction because they fired on one of our ships and Verone refused to grant standings as part of a resolution. This meant that we’d have to suffer future “random attacks” without warning so resolved simply to keep Veto -10.
On a deeper level:Star Fraction is a democratic anarchist organization and Veto is a fascist dictatorship.
Star Fraction are freespacers and Veto are enclosurists
Star Fraction is NRDS and Veto is NBSI
Star Fraction is anti government and Veto is (well, if not statist, then by turns flirts with a variety of statist principles)
Star Fraction believes in liberation of the human spirit and Veto believes in robbing it. Etc etc. But these are ALL IC DIFFERENCES.
See I don’t think our characters need to respect VETO IC at all, in order to have a better level of respect and professionalism (and avoidance of vile local smack etc) on a player level.
And this I think is where the trainwreck began last Friday where my request for a very simple thing (improvement of OOC relations and less smack talk in local) got mutated into this huge “master plan” where Verone gets to dictate our alliances future wars, engagement, IGS posting and every other aspect of our play simply to court a better standing with the mystical “RP community”.
It was a mistake and I hope you will join me in admitting that now Verone.
That said, there still seems to be a misconception with regards to the ceasefire for Moira, in a sense that people seem to feel that I was trying to help Moira out personally. This isn't the case. The idea behind the ceasefire was simple. I was intending to take The Star Fraction out of the RP equation all together, to the point of there being nothing to post about on the IGS, nothing for anyone, SF or otherwise to gloat on. My intention was then to assist Jade in rebuilding bridges and trying to take care of past issues and conflicts, before helping to organise things so that SF could bounce back into the RP community full swing and not feel isolated from the rest of us.
I find that statement astonishing. That you could believe for one moment that an alliance like Star Fraction with an independent group of players who have charted our own progress and destiny in this game for longer than most have existed could or would allow itself to be dictated to in such a manner by an in-game hostile entity. If I was to have gone to our next alliance meeting and said "Verone is running our policy and war choice and IGS posting for the next few months for the good of our reputation with the RP community" they'd think I'd have gone utterly mad and fired me.
And this is where I think your annoyance comes from in this matter Verone. I asked you for a very simple thing and that was your help in calming down the local smack and getting rid of some of the needle and feuding that your section of the RP community has been doing too much. In return I offered the chance that SF members would play a greater role in the community on an ooc level (which I believe they would if the general mood was improved.)
I didn't ask for your opinion on the wars we were fighting.
I didn't ask for your help in arranging ceasefire with Moira.
I didn't ask for resolution of standings with Veto or Rote Kapelle or whoever else.
I'd witnessed a bad night of Veto/Kapelle fleet smacktalk in Pelille and as I said to you in that chat - it made me feel absolutely disinclined to interest in fighting and "what the hell is all this for?"
So in a triumph of naivete over experience (that I have since described to my own alliance as a terrible tactical error) I held out my hand and tried to see if you could help get this smack fiesta closed down.
Instead we got all this and open wounds flowing bitter blood and craziness.
So now I'm going to ask you again Verone. Can you help settle the smacktalk issue and help me resolve those existing ooc feuds impacting this divided RP community?
I am not asking for involvement in our IC politics or choices.
I am not asking for shoe-horned ceasefires and imposed IGS silence.
I am asking you as a Player (not Verone the character) to do what you can to put some cold water on the smack volcanos and do what you can to ensure that ooc feuds are not continuing to isolate the Fraction on a purely OOC level. (I would include my ongoing channel ban from OOC channel in game in this category since we both know there is absolutely no justice to that decision.)
These are small gestures perhaps but they will reap larger rewards if we can begin to build trust as player to player while the grand IC politics of eve continue without disruption or interference.
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Topic: Discussion on SF/Veto/Moira/RK inter-org politics and dispute (Read 9585 times)