Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Silas Vitalia on 31 Jan 2014, 10:59
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I suppose its my own personal issues with the game.
I used to feel like this particular MMO was something very special and represented sometimes a very interesting sort of 'interactive fiction' where things that we did with other players and the NPCs affected the world of the game and the 'story,' and the people who made the game, who wrote the PF stories, were really interested in the lore and there was sort of a respect and back-and-forth with us the subscribers. The 'story' seemed very important to the overall game, and was given focus and time and attention by the powers-that-be behind the curtain. Each expansion was a lore event, things happened, the plot moved, it was one of the more public and visible parts of the game. The lore sort of oozed out of every pore of the game, it was rich and it's probably what sucked in most of us here on this forum.
While it was never this thing where the players drove the story on their own all the time, we were given a PF bone pretty often and allowed to interact with the fiction. Things happened often in the PF, and it was all most of us needed to have something 'concrete' to bounce our own stories off of. "x faction did this and said this and this thing happened" and then us nerds would go off and fight about it or debate about it, or sometimes effect it.
For a variety of reasons those days are over, and I'm having to do a lot of reflection lately on continuing to pour my time into a game where the people making the game don't seem to have any of the same interests in my area of interest any more. It's not that what they are doing is bad (although some expansions are hard to defend), they can take their IP and move it anywhere they like. It's weather it is a time investment that's worth it for me moving forward.
I'm failing at not trying to sound butthurt (heh), but my point is I used to feel like the game I was paying for, a lot of the people making the game had a lot of the same interests as me the player. Lately I don't feel the same way, do any of you feel similar?
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I can certainly understand where you're coming from. Especially with the lore moving forward with each expansion part...lately some expansions are just game content-related as opposed to being tied with the backstory of EVE. However, I'm an optimist and I have faith that this current trend CCP is going on (capsuleers growing beyond the grasps of the empires), although a bit cliche, is leading towards something great in the future.
And if you end up quitting EVE...can I has your stuffs pls?
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While I do like that CCP is giving the lore no small amount of attention these days I wish that:
1. They get some serious science fiction writers to work on it and stop trying to mirror the lore too closely to current RL events.
2. They do not railroad the lore events.
3. Player actions get referenced more and player events and CCP events intertwine more.
1 is easily doable. 2 and 3 however is trickier. If 3 is done really well 2 might not have to happen at all. However, we have to admit that 3 is a really serious issue because the players may act like utter douchebags and ruin everything 'for the lulz' instead of seriously sticking to their role. Every time, whenever CCP lore events actually involve player involvement we had seen that it usually ends up being an utter mess where one side is serious about plot progression, another side is trying to troll everyone, another side being opportunists and neither the protagonist nor antagonist side actually successfully herding the involved party to go through with the event.
Nothing much can be done with the trolls except treating them as 'wild card interferers' and responded to as such. As for the 'cat herding' part, it would be nice if CCP would engage with player RP factions to help out. That I think would improve matters. Also, communication needs alot of work. Maybe have special chat channels you get into automatically whenever you get to the involved systems and the neighbouring systems i.e. Sansha incursion chat.
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I can certainly understand where you're coming from. Especially with the lore moving forward with each expansion part...lately some expansions are just game content-related as opposed to being tied with the backstory of EVE. However, I'm an optimist and I have faith that this current trend CCP is going on (capsuleers growing beyond the grasps of the empires), although a bit cliche, is leading towards something great in the future.
And if you end up quitting EVE...can I has your stuffs pls?
If that's the direction the plot is going to keep going, then I want some PLOT on this. Events and lore and all manner of 'things (tm)'. I'm not opposed to the capsuleers somehow breaking out from CONCORD and causing problems but I want it to be a dynamic and interesting high stakes clash of civilizations. Maybe you have to choose to be 'unafilliated' or retain loyalty to the factions and there are consequences to each, who knows.
I'm not quitting right now, but if I do we'll have a hell of a party and stuff will be given yes.
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I think I'll just say I love the background fiction, but the news and events just less so because they tend to come off as nothing more than flash-in-the-pan marketing exercises.
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I think I'll just say I love the background fiction, but the news and events just less so because they tend to come off as nothing more than flash-in-the-pan marketing exercises.
Yeah this. "We have this new feature coming out tomorrow! Quick make a news article about it!"
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There also seems to be a desire on CCPs part to liberate the game from its lore and make it just about the players. Shaikar noticed yesterday that the Viziam blurb disappeared from the Sentinel, for example. Maybe I am being paranoid here, (and I actually think I am unless it starts happening to more ships) but I can't help but read decreased presence of impactful mentions of background and the horrible marketing events as a "We think the backstory is dorky and want it to be about players blowing up players" on the part of a good portion of CCPs devs.
And Elmund, I don't think they need science fiction writers. They need science fiction wargame makers in about the same place David Weber was in before he became a novelist. Don't even know if that type still exists, but thats what CCP needs to get a handle on their universe. Someone to categorize everything, actually figure out how the empires relate in raw materials, tech, economy ect to eachother and to the capsuleers.
Then maybe hire an anthropologist. And go from there.
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There also seems to be a desire on CCPs part to liberate the game from its lore and make it just about the players. Shaikar noticed yesterday that the Viziam blurb disappeared from the Sentinel, for example. Maybe I am being paranoid here, (and I actually think I am unless it starts happening to more ships) but I can't help but read decreased presence of impactful mentions of background and the horrible marketing events as a "We think the backstory is dorky and want it to be about players blowing up players" on the part of a good portion of CCPs devs.
Possibly a stupid question, but you did notice they split the per-level/role bonuses into their own tab on the show info windows with this patch, right? Traits and Description are two separate tabs now. :)
Edit - I happen to like this change, for the record, but I don't care for how it removed the fluff text from the Market entries. Probably worth an F&I thread.
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Also am I the only one that's been noticing the at times random tossing of news articles and chronicles etc., down the memory hole? Recently, I've tried looking for certain ones that I -know- existed for info and they were all gone.
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Its a conspiracy! Hide yer wives, hide yer kids!
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Also am I the only one that's been noticing the at times random tossing of news articles and chronicles etc., down the memory hole? Recently, I've tried looking for certain ones that I -know- existed for info and they were all gone.
They redid how they organised news stories. Lots of old links no longer go anywhere. If you do a lot of digging around, you can find them again, have a look at this thread as to how: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=308994&find=unread
It's so bad, that CCP are looking for player volunteers to join ISD, to sort out the broken links on the wiki.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=316857&find=unread
That's right, the background and PF of CCP's game world is in a disorganised enough state that even CCP recognise it needs work.
But they're not willing to pay for it.
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I feel the same.
I only admired Eve for it's incredibly rich lore (though not a fan of some of the chronicles), and for it's macro economy and politics. How that kind of sandbox can truly shine, through player made goods, trade, conflict, to a scale never seen until now.
I never admired Eve for its tedious, bland gameplay, that has always only been based at its core on standard MMO values glorifying farming, tedious work, and a combat gameplay that looks more like DOTA than an actual space opera roleplaying game...
There also seems to be a desire on CCPs part to liberate the game from its lore and make it just about the players. Shaikar noticed yesterday that the Viziam blurb disappeared from the Sentinel, for example. Maybe I am being paranoid here, (and I actually think I am unless it starts happening to more ships) but I can't help but read decreased presence of impactful mentions of background and the horrible marketing events as a "We think the backstory is dorky and want it to be about players blowing up players" on the part of a good portion of CCPs devs.
And Elmund, I don't think they need science fiction writers. They need science fiction wargame makers in about the same place David Weber was in before he became a novelist. Don't even know if that type still exists, but thats what CCP needs to get a handle on their universe. Someone to categorize everything, actually figure out how the empires relate in raw materials, tech, economy ect to eachother and to the capsuleers.
Then maybe hire an anthropologist. And go from there.
You can find other kind of people that can do the same. Science fiction writers work too if they get implied into the game making process. We have a historian where I work and that guy can create very genuine and deep plots if he wants to. And he does, to a certain amount, because the company doesn't always give itself the means to really dig deeper in that direction, unfortunately.
If your game designers have some culture that can also help and work too. But heh, CCP prefers hiring from the playerbase rather than pros. Hiring the playerbase might be good for a few positions to get player feedback, but that's about it.
Also am I the only one that's been noticing the at times random tossing of news articles and chronicles etc., down the memory hole? Recently, I've tried looking for certain ones that I -know- existed for info and they were all gone.
They redid how they organised news stories. Lots of old links no longer go anywhere. If you do a lot of digging around, you can find them again, have a look at this thread as to how: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=308994&find=unread
It's so bad, that CCP are looking for player volunteers to join ISD, to sort out the broken links on the wiki.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=316857&find=unread
That's right, the background and PF of CCP's game world is in a disorganised enough state that even CCP recognise it needs work.
But they're not willing to pay for it.
Yes, and at the same time they pay players for their New Eden Open, because that's obviously more important :marketing101:
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I'm comfortable with the EVE lore.
I am not comfortable with some of my colleagues in the RP community, nor am I content with the lack of immersion in gameplay.
Also am I the only one that's been noticing the at times random tossing of news articles and chronicles etc., down the memory hole? Recently, I've tried looking for certain ones that I -know- existed for info and they were all gone.
The news articles were manually ported over to the new system, not automatically. Because of that, some were missed in the haste to transfer some 2000 news articles. CCP has requested that we notify them of any missing articles if we know of any as a bug report, so they can get them worked out.
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Indifferent to it.
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I cannot vote as the options are basically " love it " or " hate it ". My vote would go towards " generally alright with it but could use more depth ".
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I'm more interested in front- than in backstory, these days.
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Honestly, I have a mild dislike of the lore. If people here hadn't been excellent RPers and done something with it, I'd probably hate it more.
Either way, it's not really the lore that I find most disappointing in the game. I can work around that. I spend a lot more time on the IGS and in private IMs RPing than in the game. Gameplay is probably why I'm not going to renew when my one-year experiment runs out in August.
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my point is I used to feel like the game I was paying for, a lot of the people making the game had a lot of the same interests as me the player. Lately I don't feel the same way, do any of you feel similar?
Yup, although none of the anwers above apply to me. I used to love EVE and it's future before Incarna 1.0...now...it's mostly just you people and the occasional race that keeps me subbed.
Also, the "new" mining barges/exhumers...Ughh. I know I'm probably alone on this, but that is actually what is still at the top of my immersion killers... Every time I think about or see them I PFacepalm myself mentally. :bash: :psyccp:
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Honestly, I have a mild dislike of the lore. If people here hadn't been excellent RPers and done something with it, I'd probably hate it more.
What is it you don't like in the lore ?
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My first experiences with roleplaying came out of tabletop games, so my perspective on it is that the universe shouldn't be this massive unchangeable thing that swings around the players uncontrollably and there is nothing they can do to effect the outcome of it. The feeling that it doesn't matter how hard you try, what you do, who you work for, the results will be fixed? That bothers me, and in a lot of ways, makes me ask, 'well what's the point then?' it makes me feel as helpless ingame as I often feel in real life, I don't feel a sense of freedom, because macroscopically, regardless of how big I get, how much power I amass, how many ships I blow up, nothing I do will matter. I want to leave a mark, however small, on the universe. I want to know that its not going to just pass me by and erase me with time. I want to be remembered, even if only as a footnote.
I think many of us were drawn to EVE on the premise that the game universe was free, that it wasn't fixed, and that our actions had consequences, had meaning. That if we wanted to change the universe, then try hard enough and we could. In recent years, that has become less and less the case. The Empires have become unchangeable monoliths, slaves to the status quo, and in that way, the game has become like many other MMOs. Fixed, static, unchanging, the universe nothing more then a set of levers and pulleys you interact with to receive funds and items.
I think too, on some level, CCP have realized this. However, because the majority of the game lives in highsec, and would quit if their routines were altered, they have become mired down by their need to turn a profit. The status quo has become god, and I think it could very well harm the long term survivability of the game. The people who demand an unchanging status quo are not likely to stick around long anyway, because frankly, static quickly becomes stagnant. However, marketing is still winning out over game design, so average solo battleship flying level 4 mission runner has to be appeased as they make up a majority of subscriptions. To counter this, the developers try to say 'okay, the empires won't change, but look at what these players in nullsec are doing!' in a lot of ways, its trying to avoid the problem. Focus on nullsec and let highsec be its unchanging fixed place. Alliances will come and go, but Jita will ever remain. I don't think it'll work though. The game cannot be carried on nullsec alone, the universe has to remain a vibrant place in order for people to be able to remain invested in it, and I hope CCP realizes that before its too late.
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There also seems to be a desire on CCPs part to liberate the game from its lore and make it just about the players. Shaikar noticed yesterday that the Viziam blurb disappeared from the Sentinel, for example. Maybe I am being paranoid here, (and I actually think I am unless it starts happening to more ships) but I can't help but read decreased presence of impactful mentions of background and the horrible marketing events as a "We think the backstory is dorky and want it to be about players blowing up players" on the part of a good portion of CCPs devs.
Possibly a stupid question, but you did notice they split the per-level/role bonuses into their own tab on the show info windows with this patch, right? Traits and Description are two separate tabs now. :)
Edit - I happen to like this change, for the record, but I don't care for how it removed the fluff text from the Market entries. Probably worth an F&I thread.
Yep, half the description is no longer on the description tab.
In game now:
Electronic attack ships are mobile, resilient electronic warfare platforms. Although well suited to a variety of situations, they really come into their own in skirmish and fleet encounters, particularly against larger ships. For anyone wanting to decentralize their fleet's electronic countermeasure capabilities and make them immeasurably harder to counter, few things will serve better than a squadron or two of these little vessels.
However the old description (which is still on evelopedia: https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Sentinel) also had this at the end:
Developer: Viziam
Viziam ships are quite possibly the most durable ships money can buy. Their armor is second to none and that, combined with superior shields, makes them hard nuts to crack. Of course this does mean they are rather slow and possess somewhat more limited weapons and electronics options.
I'm almost certain it's just a copy/paste gremlin of some sort, as other ships like the Zealot do still have their ship-specific blurb. It does seem a bit odd though.
I'm ok with the lore. It's not as good as it once was but only because they stopped putting the effort in to give the expansions some sort of plausible IC story/plot aspect. They're now obsessed with a focus on nullsec and capsuleers but not doing it in any coherent way - their expansion trailers recently have all been effectively OOC but with a really bad IC disguise, which makes me sad. Either make them IC and internally consistent/plausible, or stop pretending and make good OOC marketing. Ideally, do both and capture/keep both markets.
It's quite amazing to me that the current WoW expansion has managed to have much more immersive trailers for it's patches than anything EVE has managed recently, given the respective subject matter and the fact it used to be very much the other way around. When kung fu pandas make for a more coherent storyline, something has gone terribly wrong.
(For example, the recent obsession with capsuleers = the players is beginning to grate. The lore is littered with references to hordes of non-player capsuleers, some of which are fairly new, and many of which are part of the various factions, yet story wise we keep lurching between the players being unstoppable, bestriding the cluster as lone capsule-clad colossi, and the various factions puttering along as if those colossi didn't exist at all. It's mad.)
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I wasn't here in the "old" days where there seemed to be more of a player impact on the development of the lore, so I guess I don't know what I missed since I am used to online games where the rp is done in a world where the lore and world is shaped by the developers and we're rping in an already painted canvas (e.g. WoW).
That being said, it is a shame that CCP doesn't seem to appreciate it's rich lore or the possibilities. More and more it just seems like it's just null this and that with only a superficial touch on other matters and a lack of attention to detail like missions storylines that are woefully obsolete, elimination of "fluff" and the like.
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Honestly, I have a mild dislike of the lore. If people here hadn't been excellent RPers and done something with it, I'd probably hate it more.
What is it you don't like in the lore ?
I suppose that, because it rotates around two thing, empires (which can't essentially lose or win because people actually belong to those factions) and nullsec corp politics (which I tried to get into, but couldn't bring myself to really care), EVE wallows in moral ambiguity. Hell, Constantin Baracca is essentially my reaction to EVE, that there are no good guys, no paladins, and I intentionally put him in the most hated race in New Eden.
I know the moral ambiguity is there by design, and some people really like it, but it hits me with a sense of pointlessness. Maybe I played too many paladins or gangsters in my RPing days, but EVE lore does sometimes feel like a blob of grey gloop. Like wall putty, it serves a very important purpose, but isn't especially interesting unless you're into gypsum patching.
There's just no omnipresent force of danger, not a universal villain or even space itself, threatening people. So a lot of the arguing and conflicts seem very petty and insignificant. Normally, intergovernmental intrigue is sort of the background ridiculousness that paralyzes great people from acting together against everpresent threats. Since EVE itself isn't threatening you, those petty disagreements and arguing are the boiling points of the game.
It's not the worst thing ever, people are trying, but man does it feel like I have to work to wring meaning from the game lore.
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I suppose that, because it rotates around two thing, empires (which can't essentially lose or win because people actually belong to those factions) and nullsec corp politics (which I tried to get into, but couldn't bring myself to really care), EVE wallows in moral ambiguity. Hell, Constantin Baracca is essentially my reaction to EVE, that there are no good guys, no paladins, and I intentionally put him in the most hated race in New Eden.
I know the moral ambiguity is there by design, and some people really like it, but it hits me with a sense of pointlessness. Maybe I played too many paladins or gangsters in my RPing days, but EVE lore does sometimes feel like a blob of grey gloop. Like wall putty, it serves a very important purpose, but isn't especially interesting unless you're into gypsum patching.
There's just no omnipresent force of danger, not a universal villain or even space itself, threatening people. So a lot of the arguing and conflicts seem very petty and insignificant. Normally, intergovernmental intrigue is sort of the background ridiculousness that paralyzes great people from acting together against everpresent threats. Since EVE itself isn't threatening you, those petty disagreements and arguing are the boiling points of the game.
It's not the worst thing ever, people are trying, but man does it feel like I have to work to wring meaning from the game lore.
I think this part of why you see so many people RP from a very personal perspective with their characters. Everything relates to their personality, their past, their actions, because that's where the impetus lies in Eve since all the factions have their own nightmares.
And this is also why I have found so much enjoyment off and on over the years in Eve, because the universe does encourage (Well, did. This is getting worse) personal arcs rather than each character supposedly their own frackin' hero in the universe (WoW: Every character meets the leader, is recognized for their accomplishments, somehow is involved in the defeat of each boss. rly.).
While this can encourage drama llamas, I'd much rather have that then martyrs.
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I suppose that, because it rotates around two thing, empires (which can't essentially lose or win because people actually belong to those factions) and nullsec corp politics (which I tried to get into, but couldn't bring myself to really care), EVE wallows in moral ambiguity. Hell, Constantin Baracca is essentially my reaction to EVE, that there are no good guys, no paladins, and I intentionally put him in the most hated race in New Eden.
I know the moral ambiguity is there by design, and some people really like it, but it hits me with a sense of pointlessness. Maybe I played too many paladins or gangsters in my RPing days, but EVE lore does sometimes feel like a blob of grey gloop. Like wall putty, it serves a very important purpose, but isn't especially interesting unless you're into gypsum patching.
There's just no omnipresent force of danger, not a universal villain or even space itself, threatening people. So a lot of the arguing and conflicts seem very petty and insignificant. Normally, intergovernmental intrigue is sort of the background ridiculousness that paralyzes great people from acting together against everpresent threats. Since EVE itself isn't threatening you, those petty disagreements and arguing are the boiling points of the game.
It's not the worst thing ever, people are trying, but man does it feel like I have to work to wring meaning from the game lore.
I think this part of why you see so many people RP from a very personal perspective with their characters. Everything relates to their personality, their past, their actions, because that's where the impetus lies in Eve since all the factions have their own nightmares.
And this is also why I have found so much enjoyment off and on over the years in Eve, because the universe does encourage (Well, did. This is getting worse) personal arcs rather than each character supposedly their own frackin' hero in the universe (WoW: Every character meets the leader, is recognized for their accomplishments, somehow is involved in the defeat of each boss. rly.).
While this can encourage drama llamas, I'd much rather have that then martyrs.
Maybe, but not everyone plays that hero. On the other hand, there are a hundred different problems to handle, often several at once, without resorting to that.
EVE doesn't really have that, it's just a bit devoid of anything. I think that's why, eventually, it kind of devolves into a sort of background noise after a while. Take faction warfare for instance. The reason the lore for that is so unreasonably stupid is because it completely apes their own logic for how the universe works. CONCORD can apparently be attacked, dismantled, and doesn't do anything about it afterwards. Instead, the empires sign a pact sending their people to the middle of nowhere and letting them duke it out in a war that can't end, lest the game mechanic disappear. But instead of seeing this as a complete P.O.S. waste of time, resources, and lives, we're supposed to treat this like a real war that patriots go and fight in.
Imagine if the US and USSR, worse than just the proxy wars they fought during the Cold War, randomly picked the Yakutsk and Alaska and said, "All of you can go fight over there if you want, but it won't make any difference in the long term. But you should, it's your duty!"
The problem is, if your reaction to that is, "WTF, that's ridiculous and I'll have nothing to do with it!" your other option is nullsec, where that's essentially been going on for almost a decade.
There's no northern wall to go defend, nowhere to go if you want to be more than a factionalist, unless you deal with one of those two sets of lore. It really is to the detriment of the lore in the end, I think. It really comes to a head when CCP talks about giving more control to the capsuleers, and we capsuleers end up against it because even we know we're full of shit. None of us really want the people in nullsec to have anything to do with highsec, mostly because those of us in highsec right now would prefer CCP purgatory to nullsec Hell.
But because of the ambiguity, there's really nothing else to do in EVE. The pirates are essentially gold mines for whomever holds their space, the empires hover between omnipresent non-entities or emasculated bureaucracies, and space is a relatively benign place where, unless a player scans you and drops by to shoot you, you can get up, logged in, and wander around for a few hours. It's not that there are no heroes, it's that there's really nothing to be a hero against. That's a function of the lore, that all the potential calls to arms aren't worth answering.
Really, in the end, the only reason to do anything is money and power, both gained for the purposes of buying equipment to gain more money and power. Maybe that's why I prefer WoW's lore to EVE's, it might be the McDonalds of games, but at least it has some substantive nutritional value. EVE's lore can essentially be like water, a basic substance that, if we weren't adding flavor to it, would taste like nothing.
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I think this is just a different perspective on RP thing. I am incredibly glad there is nothing to go be a hero against - that is what has killed RP for me in other games. Films have heroes, books have heroes, real life has made-up heroes, but those are all things orchestrated for that hero. When the hero element is added to RP, the same thing happens: it become orchestrated for that one person and only that one person. You have a whole set of people all RPing as if they are some hero or paragon of justice and there is almost nothing you can do with that except: you save everyone, you become an anti-hero, you become a martyr. And in each option, there is no room for other players.
What makes the Eve universe interesting for me is the fact that there are no heroes, which to me gives more options for possibility - it forces players to deal with the fact that they are just another egger. If they can't handle that and try to be a hero or supervillain, it becomes immediately obvious and they become ostracized. It is its own MarySue corrective system. Do they still exist? Is it still rampant? Sure, but usually in the form of drama llamas that can be easily ignored. Heros and villains has little room for originality in my opinion and essentially devolves into each person going "Mirror mirror on the wall..."
It seems to me that many of the issues we face is mostly from inactivity on the part of CCP. Little news, little change, little development.
Now, all the complaints about the recent turns towards nullsec I completely agree with. Nothing good will come of null becoming more important to lore or gameplay.
Edit: I suppose a less aggressive way to explain my position is that I feel having a collective evil to take arms against is too linear. It is no longer open-world at that point, there is no balance. To me, that's just not what Eve is about. It is what kills RP for me in other games like WoW or TSW. The open-world aspect is a complete misnomer. It is just a large linear game that allows you to skip parts of that linearity.
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I think this is just a different perspective on RP thing. I am incredibly glad there is nothing to go be a hero against - that is what has killed RP for me in other games. Films have heroes, books have heroes, real life has made-up heroes, but those are all things orchestrated for that hero. When the hero element is added to RP, the same thing happens: it become orchestrated for that one person and only that one person. You have a whole set of people all RPing as if they are some hero or paragon of justice and there is almost nothing you can do with that except: you save everyone, you become an anti-hero, you become a martyr. And in each option, there is no room for other players.
What makes the Eve universe interesting for me is the fact that there are no heroes, which to me gives more options for possibility - it forces players to deal with the fact that they are just another egger. If they can't handle that and try to be a hero or supervillain, it becomes immediately obvious and they become ostracized. It is its own MarySue corrective system. Do they still exist? Is it still rampant? Sure, but usually in the form of drama llamas that can be easily ignored. Heros and villains has little room for originality in my opinion and essentially devolves into each person going "Mirror mirror on the wall..."
It seems to me that many of the issues we face is mostly from inactivity on the part of CCP. Little news, little change, little development.
Now, all the complaints about the recent turns towards nullsec I completely agree with. Nothing good will come of null becoming more important to lore or gameplay.
Edit: I suppose a less aggressive way to explain my position is that I feel having a collective evil to take arms against is too linear. It is no longer open-world at that point, there is no balance. To me, that's just not what Eve is about. It is what kills RP for me in other games like WoW or TSW. The open-world aspect is a complete misnomer. It is just a large linear game that allows you to skip parts of that linearity.
I didn't think the first way was very aggressive. It's a perspective thing. I think a big problem with the idea is that being just another person isn't what the game is supposed to be going for; we're supposed to be ultra-rare. Which it kind of doesn't feel like, but that's probably more of a game limitation than a lore one. The problem is that we get built up to be amazing and we get catapulted into... well... nothingness. Storylines against something, or usually somethings (just one enemy gets tedious, I'll admit), at least are a driver for stories. The thing is, I'm not sure CCP is being lazy intentionally as much as they really don't have any stories to tell without altering something important in their game world.
In other games, if you get a new expansion, you get new continents, tons of new areas to explore you haven't been before. EVE doesn't have that luxury, really, the cluster can't realistically expand and every system is just another set of coordinates around the sun. The way they've set up the game is a pretty much constant state of tension, but you can't just remove an empire from the game. Maybe the pirates are kind of that villain, but they're so neutered in the game world by essentially ending up as farm material for us that they never feel as threatening as they should be.
About the only thing that really seems interesting are Sansha incursions, and I never seem to be near one.
The lore comes off very emasculated considering how hard they're trying to make us feel patriotic or powerful. It just comes to the point where I'm saying, "Are we rehashing this again? Does every thread turn into this?" On the other hand, when I was more active in WoW RP, I've had one character literally running an every Sunday church service in Stormwind and, later one of those Sundays, had my main use carpenter nails to pin a woman to a table and then cut off a tattoo to show her. Having stuff in the game to do, I don't feel like a linear story since I don't have to actually do it as part of my RP. But it does give me something to do if I don't feel like going "RAWR, KILL THE HORDE!" every few minutes.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like, because of the lore setup, it's very hard to make anything happen without engendering some eyerolls. It's hard to write compelling lore when everything you do will absolutely piss off your subscribers, but since all the in-game movers and shakers are aligned to people the capsuleers essentially work for, CCP kind of wrote themselves into a corner.
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While I was really enthusiastic about Eve's potential for roleplay when I first came in because of it's really sandboxy nature, I've now kinda come to the realization that that kinda makes it no fun.
The game wants you to get invested deeply in it, in it's immersive economy and internal politics - But as a player, not as a character. There's a reason the "Capsuleers being Capsuleers" handwave for almost everything you do in game exists, and that's because neither the story nor the setting make sense in the context of the gameplay. Not only does that mean that the world itself is filled with massive logical contradictions, but also that attemping to play a character who behaves like a normal person means shooting yourself in the foot. The game encourages you to feel apathetic about the world - To view it's NPCs as dispensible money boxes, to view it's factions not as real, concrete entities, but simply tools to earn profit and hop between when it benefits you. And to only really care about conflict between player groups, where the losses and gains are "real".
And by "real", I mean real, again, as a player. Not a character.
In the past, I viewed that fact as something that can be explored interestingly as your character slides between the two extremes, but in retrospect it's a dead end; The only two possible outcomes are that your character goes full Capsuleer, or they don't. In the former case you virtually have to stop roleplaying, and in the latter you remain indefinitely locked out from a lot of content that it isn't possible to justify a rational human being actually doing.
The direction of the background just kinda reinforces this. It doesn't try to work with the setting like most MMOs do. Rather, the setting exists only as a tool of justification - Something to provide a bit of flavour for the direction of the game, not something deep or meaningfully woven in.
I don't think that's bad, per se. It's just what the game is.
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I understand the points, but I suppose for me the interpersonal aspects of RP have always been what makes it interesting for me. I do actually view the original lore as backstory for a character that will go out there and make relationships with other characters. Would everything be much easier and more fulfilling if CCP actually kept something as simple as World News coming on a more regular basis? Sure, it would.
And I do realize that my perspective does not help avoid RP cliques, but again, CCP never changing the dynamics or adding new lore is a larger part of that problem in my opinion. In other games like TSW, it is nearly impossible to avoid in-world consequences of the story. You can't actually just be a businessperson if you want. You can't say you killed that boss with those friends, because well, you didn't. He spawned again. The worlds of that style of MMO is so incredibly immersion-breaking for me that it ruins the potential for me.
It is similar with D&D versus say, WoD. If you play vanilla nWoD and not the specific settings, you are an average Jane with a few real-world skills. You are thrown into a story, and let's see what your character does. You aren't a budding wizard on your way to being a frackin' demigod.
So in the vein of that analogy, my current frustrations are not the backstory (for the most part *ahem* Jin-Mei *cough*) or the game mechanics (the arguments against FW are the same for every battleground system in any MMO ever), but the lack of news, lore, and change that CCP releases.
I don't want to seem like I am coming across as defending the current state of Eve RP - just the mechanics and setting of it. I think there are many things CCP could do differently, should do differently: the most important being, well, do something. And I think there are certain aspects of the RP community in Eve that have developed in very unfortunate ways - some by luck, some by the influence of heavy hitters, and often as a reaction to CCP's own mistakes.
Edit: And regarding the rarity of capsuleers, I've always viewed that as misinterpretation by RPers. They are described in these flowery terms in the PF to some extent, but in no way is it viewed as magical, heroic, or anything of that nature. It is just a technological evolution. A big one, a powerful one, but just another technological improvement like the assembly line was.
Edit2 (sorry :eek:): Also, a lot of the things you are describing such as your Stormwind church are things that are simply limited without station walking. Not to open that can of worms, but a lot of the limitations that frustrate RPers is from the text-based aspect of Eve RP.
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Being just a character is what has made EVE for me. I don't like universes populated by exceptional characters.
The trick is to make the 'just a character' interesting for you to play despite not being exceptional.
I do this with Gaven by running a constant study of Amarrian culture and how a relatively bright individual could totally buy Amarrian culture and believe in it. Also cultural questions of what makes a military aristocrat tick, ect. But that is what I find interesting, other people need to find their own interests. EVE offers a wide variety of things to get interested in.
Not everyone has to be a hero. Not everyone should be a hero. The idea that only heroes are interesting to read about is an extremely strange one to me. Also, the sheer depth of player history in EVE means that you aren't going to manage to convince players that you are a hero because you say so, which means that many people who try to be heroic don't end up being happy with the game.
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I understand the points, but I suppose for me the interpersonal aspects of RP have always been what makes it interesting for me. I do actually view the original lore as backstory for a character that will go out there and make relationships with other characters. Would everything be much easier and more fulfilling if CCP actually kept something as simple as World News coming on a more regular basis? Sure, it would.
And I do realize that my perspective does not help avoid RP cliques, but again, CCP never changing the dynamics or adding new lore is a larger part of that problem in my opinion. In other games like TSW, it is nearly impossible to avoid in-world consequences of the story. You can't actually just be a businessperson if you want. You can't say you killed that boss with those friends, because well, you didn't. He spawned again. The worlds of that style of MMO is so incredibly immersion-breaking for me that it ruins the potential for me.
It is similar with D&D versus say, WoD. If you play vanilla nWoD and not the specific settings, you are an average Jane with a few real-world skills. You are thrown into a story, and let's see what your character does. You aren't a budding wizard on your way to being a frackin' demigod.
So in the vein of that analogy, my current frustrations are not the backstory (for the most part *ahem* Jin-Mei *cough*) or the game mechanics (the arguments against FW are the same for every battleground system in any MMO ever), but the lack of news, lore, and change that CCP releases.
I don't want to seem like I am coming across as defending the current state of Eve RP - just the mechanics and setting of it. I think there are many things CCP could do differently, should do differently: the most important being, well, do something. And I think there are certain aspects of the RP community in Eve that have developed in very unfortunate ways - some by luck, some by the influence of heavy hitters, and often as a reaction to CCP's own mistakes.
Edit: And regarding the rarity of capsuleers, I've always viewed that as misinterpretation by RPers. They are described in these flowery terms in the PF to some extent, but in no way is it viewed as magical, heroic, or anything of that nature. It is just a technological evolution. A big one, a powerful one, but just another technological improvement like the assembly line was.
Edit2 (sorry :eek:): Also, a lot of the things you are describing such as your Stormwind church are things that are simply limited without station walking. Not to open that can of worms, but a lot of the limitations that frustrate RPers is from the text-based aspect of Eve RP.
Probably so. And how limited your text can be before you run out of space. Man does that not help. Especially in a game without station walking where you'd need to describe your own settings, having to break everything into just a few sentences over and over through a description is mind-numbing. But I guess that's to avoid griefing in the rest of the game. Kind of wish you could turn that off in player channels.
Maybe most of it comes from playing Shadowrun all those years ago, I got into that a lot deeper than I got into V:tM or D&D. I loved it because Shadowrun, despite having that moral ambiguity, gave you so much to do and so much to work at. You could work criminal angles, megacorps (Caldari corporations don't hold a candle to some of the Mitsuhama runs I've had to do, corporate zero-zero), dragons were everywhere, you had spirits to deal with, rogue news reporters, racist polyclubs. You were overrun with complete assholes that deserved a hardcore asswhooping, or in my case usually a driving-away-from.
It would be different if it was a whole world that all needed an attitude adjustment, it's just, very colorless. Maybe you don't need heroes, but EVE even manages to get blood-drinking psychopathic cultists to look boring. You'd figure that would be in the news weekly. CCP could hire someone to write grisly murder stories on a daily basis if they felt like it. Yet they're just somewhere in the background, getting farmed by some null corp or another. Not enough to write stories about, I guess, they just become another faction somewhere.
In any other game, blood drinking serial killing kidnappers are pretty universally the most slappable people imaginable. How you couldn't color them villains is beyond me. Yet even then, we just don't hear much from them. It's like EVE made villains, you couldn't define them any other way, then completely neutered them. Hell, if it wasn't for Silas, they're just another ISK node. Which is sad, considering blood cultists are sort of Villains 101.
Don't get me wrong, people around here have taken the scant lore and run with it, but that's nothing we can say EVE's lore helped with. If anything, EVE essentially made it impossible to play someone without that ambiguity because it simply can't make the basics work. I could plop Constantin Baracca in any game with a religion of light and he could exist exactly as he is; the lore doesn't have enough substance to make anyone I've ever seen not fit in other games. Good roleplayers can make good characters out of nothing, good lore makes characters better just by giving them a lot to work with. EVE's lore is just too directionless and vague for that.
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Now you are getting somewhere. The lore is a *great* deal deeper than you are giving it credit for... but CCPs handling of making that lore seem alive in the universe is totally crap.
The game world feels significantly less alive than it did 8 or 9 years ago and the NPCs feel a lot more static than in the early days before CCP got scared of showing favoritism of any sort.
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Probably so. And how limited your text can be before you run out of space. Man does that not help. Especially in a game without station walking where you'd need to describe your own settings, having to break everything into just a few sentences over and over through a description is mind-numbing. But I guess that's to avoid griefing in the rest of the game. Kind of wish you could turn that off in player channels.
Maybe most of it comes from playing Shadowrun all those years ago, I got into that a lot deeper than I got into V:tM or D&D. I loved it because Shadowrun, despite having that moral ambiguity, gave you so much to do and so much to work at. You could work criminal angles, megacorps (Caldari corporations don't hold a candle to some of the Mitsuhama runs I've had to do, corporate zero-zero), dragons were everywhere, you had spirits to deal with, rogue news reporters, racist polyclubs. You were overrun with complete assholes that deserved a hardcore asswhooping, or in my case usually a driving-away-from.
It would be different if it was a whole world that all needed an attitude adjustment, it's just, very colorless. Maybe you don't need heroes, but EVE even manages to get blood-drinking psychopathic cultists to look boring. You'd figure that would be in the news weekly. CCP could hire someone to write grisly murder stories on a daily basis if they felt like it. Yet they're just somewhere in the background, getting farmed by some null corp or another. Not enough to write stories about, I guess, they just become another faction somewhere.
In any other game, blood drinking serial killing kidnappers are pretty universally the most slappable people imaginable. How you couldn't color them villains is beyond me. Yet even then, we just don't hear much from them. It's like EVE made villains, you couldn't define them any other way, then completely neutered them. Hell, if it wasn't for Silas, they're just another ISK node. Which is sad, considering blood cultists are sort of Villains 101.
Don't get me wrong, people around here have taken the scant lore and run with it, but that's nothing we can say EVE's lore helped with. If anything, EVE essentially made it impossible to play someone without that ambiguity because it simply can't make the basics work. I could plop Constantin Baracca in any game with a religion of light and he could exist exactly as he is; the lore doesn't have enough substance to make anyone I've ever seen not fit in other games. Good roleplayers can make good characters out of nothing, good lore makes characters better just by giving them a lot to work with. EVE's lore is just too directionless and vague for that.
"If anything, EVE essentially made it impossible to play someone without that ambiguity because it simply can't make the basics work."
I think this is the key point of difference for us. I view the inability to play without ambiguity as a great thing, not as a failure. It is intentional, and it is something not many RP universes do. I like ambiguity, I like the fact that it is almost impossible to make a hero or villain fit into this universe. Those that try usually start to look hackneyed fairly quickly.
I couldn't get into Shadowrun because everything felt so exaggerated to me. I don't like my characters feeling forced to care about something, I don't like the environment trying to make me react to exaggerated things. It ruins my immersion. It's also why I had a hard time with D&D except for very specific DMs, and why I never stuck around WoW long (besides hating the actual game itself, I mean) and my TSW tenure was fairly short.
And I absolutely agree with you about the text limitations.
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To qualify my answer (option 3) I would like to state the following:
1. This poll is obviously exceptionally limited
2. I support more about large capsuleer groups in ADDITION to iteration on existing PF
3. I perceive a lot of unhappiness with PF is due to one or two 'nexus' events where bad writers had the reins (he who shall not be named) and the frantic backpedaling that has been the prime driver of CCP generated RP since then.
Point 1 is a given, any poll is going to have a limitation issue as will any reductionist approach, it is why we have the capacity to post is response. In this case, the love/hate approach is a little leading IMO, but serves to get the point across.
Point 2, I think that RP suffers from a sense of disconnect in the power structures of the 'stage and props' and the actors who move within and upon them. We need more development of the back story, to build a convincing stage upon which we may act our our role play. At the same time if the players on that stage, be they role player or rabid internet douche (or both), are not at least partially defined by the very real power structures they create, we get a disparity between power projection, word-bloat and the general 'them and us' I see a lot between 'loyalists' and 'colonists' (or whatever else you might want to call the null-blocs).
A definition of the Empires that incorporates the capsuleers, without the current spooky hands 'their power is growing unchecked' would mitigate a lot of the issues here. Empires that have stood the test of time are apparently being threatened by groups less than a decade old, often younger. If this is coming to pass, then more detail would be nice - Rome didn't fall in a day and neither will the Empires, but null sec is fertile ground for a new type of structure to be explored by the players and incorporated into the rich PF we have. After all, there have been some far more sensible political and military decisions born of the necessities of victory in the game world, than there have been in the fictitious battles of the Empires - drawing on this to the benefit of both (retconning or evolving fictional fleet combat to involve tactics that demonstrably WORK in game) can only help role play become more relevant and in tune with the realities of day to day activity. This can be said for all scales, from solo frigate pvp, through skirmishes in FW, up to the maligned but required blob warfare of sov grinds.
Simply put, the lack of focus on capsuleer groups (large, small, whatever) combined with the lack of recognition of that middle ground of the Empire loyal capsuleer, is causing a lot of problems with the PF in general from a consistency and impetus point of view. It is evident players will define their own characters through role play (passive or active) no matter what - the game is just built in such a way that any action can be taken in a 'cause -> effect, make words' context. Shackling us to Empire descriptions may be fun for those of us that like to play with the stage dressings, but what of those who wish to build something center stage, all of their own, trying to keep it up as long as possible before others pull their creation apart? If we're going to develop the PF, I think that the interface between free-captain/independent colonies, the pirate factions and the CONCORD signatory nations need to be hammered out in at least the loosest of detail.
Point 3, he who shall not be named et al. This is an unfortunate state of affairs, because this guy shit the bed once and CCP decided to let him back under the covers despite finding empty packs of Ex-Lax in the bedside table, resulting in an initially warm current of PF stirring, followed by a wave of nausea and attempts to block the entire protracted, flatulent biological encounter from the collective memory. Damage is done, and to be honest, the community damage control of going ostrich actually worked pretty well IMO. You get the occasional person who likes to thrust this PF in our faces, because, like it or not, it is PF, but fortunately a majority are either hollow trolls that are easily dismissed, or individuals with the good sense to cherry pick and polish what can be salvaged. The primary issue on CCP's side is staying on the defensive.
To continue a metaphor, CCP love those damned bed sheets, and they don't care if the colour is bleached out so long as they can still claim to have those very same sheets to put on show. Thus the cleansing begins, not with the fire of retcon, but with the peroxide of back pedal. I applaud the CCP story team for their attempts, but the fact that every story except for a very few has been a response to 'people hate these characters, what do?' shows. Simply put, my trust in the ability for CCP to define their game in pseudo real-time fiction is shaken to the core. I trust that future Chronicles and EVE:Source will be fantastic, due to the largely unfettered collective talents of those individuals working on them, but the marketing machine and public-facing big selling RP of EVE is tainted by a very few nexus events that have since coloured almost every effort to rebalance the fiction. This has in turn shifted my opinion towards the reconciliation of 'what we experience as characters in the context of the game' and 'what we experience as characters in the setting'. Just getting more about the big four or pirates isn't enough - we need to know how we as capsuleers fit in in the loosest sense. Don't define us, but provide the springboard for descriptions of interactions with realistic power structures, in terms of how you might be received as a member of an alliance, a corp, or even as an NPC corp 'franchise' pilot keeping out of trouble.
To summarise, I do not feel that a concentration of the static or out of reach elements of the back story is advisable, simply based on prior experience. The bogey man capsuleer trope is getting old, and the only way to mitigate this is to start to define the loosest possible framework for why capsuleers would continue to be tolerated, and how CONCORD reconciles the capsuleer empire building, loyalist corp founding and piratical activity with the gains made from such. How deeply can a new system be exploited (does sov indicate colonisation, or is the outpost the largest metropolitan structure an alliance may hold? is colonisation restricted to skeleton crew and largely autonomous PI?)? Iterate on the back story, develop it and refine it by all means, but focus on that bit where we, the players of the characters, start to become relevant.
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Hi to all, sorry for any misspellings.
"How do you feel about the current state and direction of the Eve IP and "lore"?"
Is a great question which I so cant answer (thats why I hit nothing). So I will try to answer first another question: How do you feel about the current state and direction of the Eve?
For me coming back a year later it was almost same, and sadly the same reason which let me go the first time are still there right now:
- EVE has no casual gameplay. Everything is a journey and if you dont have the time in RL to put into the game, you are out.[1 (http://www.eve-search.com/thread/17899-1/author/Publius%20Valerius#1)]
- I feel nothing. For me the game hasnt just a infaltion of ISK, it has also a inflation of feelings. What I mean with it? I mean: In the long gone past I really felt soemthing if I loss or won(kill) something, as for today I dont feel anything. I know, it is most likely me, as I feel the same about other games and movies too.[2 (http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-white-house-down-and-the-lone-ranger/)] Even, after I read the news about the battle, I felt nothing and most likely the other side too. Nothing died inside of me when some blows me up, it is not even a mild annoyance, it is more like in WoT: Go and take another "pixel-thing" and fight again. I call it the inflation of feelings. I think new threats of death would be needed for me. As I mention here (http://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4099278#post4099278), it makes not just great storytelling it would make for me the gameplay less "indifferent". Maybe World of Darkness will be my next CCP game, even if I dont know nothing about the lore.
- Fresh Ideas and Fresh blood. After a year the same topics are still around, and often I dont comment on stuff because I know I already have. I call that the dead horse thingy. As of for the people: I always thought that more people is more fun and that the immersion project would be a great idea to get more people on the round table.[3 (http://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1247411#post1247411)] Sadly, there isnt much lately which would really inspire a growth (the rework of machanic and overall look was needed, but it doesnt brings more game-content. And I dont count the drop of some random models and few ships as a "big leap forward" in any direction. Thats why for me the latest expansion were more patshes to fix stuff.)* And that CCP actually dont react** to the stagnant subs (not counting the China server) let me belive that we both -- CCP and me -- have different opinions on that matter.4 (http://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=701143#post701143)
Thats my short version what I feel about the current state of EVE. As for the lore: How do you feel about the current state and direction of the Eve IP and "lore"?
- Meh. I still like it. It is just the Exequror-moments got more. What I mean with it? A exequror-moment is something which pulls you out of the immersion. Which reminds you that EVE is more space opera, then sci-fi.5 (http://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4127072#post4127072) Those exequror-moments have I lately more. So it isnt all "you know who" fault.*** Even if his work started it and contributed the largest part of this "Exequror-moments". Today, I know I have to change my perception of EVE, until this transformation is over I will stand with my "meh"/indifferent. Which is actually the worst possible answer towards any writer. :(
*Which I can understand with DUST 514 and Valkyre as new creative focus.
**not react in a sense, that CCP brushes it away with "cell regeneration" and "just the calm before the storm" (to lazy to find and add the mark726-article). It reminds me on the one of those panals few fanfest agos. Where the same lines were drop by (you know who, the man which we shall not name.) about the IP, that it will explode etc... "just the calm before the storm [...] see arab spring."
***Making caldari liberals to american liberals.6 (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=4260.msg67349#msg67349) And amarr slavers to american slavers... etc general TonyGism (charakter choose options not because they are the best, they choose because it moves the plot forward. Which makes me belive that some book-charakters have less braincells, choice or are just stupid.
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see this topic on the IGS here?:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=318467&find=unread
?
Because of Theodicy, and the requirement for that to be 100% canon, then that topic is all wrong.
The Minmatar never lost any cultural practices, the Minmatar were still colonising planets by the outbreak of the Rebellion. They may have lost artifacts and access to culturally important sites on Matar, but not the culture itself.
They still had a Minmatar Navy, capable of building, without Gallente help (because the Gallente had only just met them), battleships that were the equal of any given single Imperial Navy battleship.
The argument about lost records and oral traditions is simply, according to CCP, flat out wrong.
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see this topic on the IGS here?:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=318467&find=unread
?
Because of Theodicy, and the requirement for that to be 100% canon, then that topic is all wrong.
The Minmatar never lost any cultural practices, the Minmatar were still colonising planets by the outbreak of the Rebellion. They may have lost artifacts and access to culturally important sites on Matar, but not the culture itself.
They still had a Minmatar Navy, capable of building, without Gallente help (because the Gallente had only just met them), battleships that were the equal of any given single Imperial Navy battleship.
The argument about lost records and oral traditions is simply, according to CCP, flat out wrong.
While I am woefully impotent as far as Minnie lore goes, doesn't that common trope have something to do with CCP having some serious holes in their Minmatar lore?
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Because of Theodicy
While I am woefully impotent as far as Minnie lore goes, doesn't that common trope have something to do with CCP having some serious holes in their Minmatar lore?
Almost every other part of Minmatar PF is based on the premise that the Minmatar were conquered and enslaved in their entirety.
With the short story Theodicy, and the sequels, the two eve novels, Empyrean Age and Templar One, then that all changes.
Instead of being a people that were conquered by an overwhelmingly technologically superior force, and enslaved for hundreds of years, with much of their existing culture being suppressed, before eventually rebelling and winning the freedom of their homeworld and much more space than they originally held, through their own martial efforts, and in the modern age, dealing with the cultural legacy of their enslavement and the continued enslavement of a large number of their kin, the image portrayed by those items of PF is quite different.
Instead, the Minmatar are now, officially, a people that were mostly conquered by a technologically superior force, were unable to win their freedom except with extremely heavy material and educational support from a foreign power, were unable to form a stable government, because of endemic corruption, are unable to cope with the cultural legacy of their enslavement, due to their own incompetence, because it is only through Minmatar incompetence that any culture was lost since the Day of Darkness, and as a people, are now largely irrelevant, because their puppet masters, the Elders, who merely have to say "OBEY" and a minmatar jumps to follow the command, a far more effective control than anything the Amarr ever made, the Elders have now, after wasting millions of Minmatar lives, decided that the future of Minmatar no longer lies with anything connected with the Republic, which includes all player characters.
So, on one hand, you have Minmatar that are brave fighters that have problems dealing with the cultural legacy of having been slaves for centuries, where player characters can involve themselves in trying to deal with the problems.
And on the other, you have Minmatar who are corrupt, incompetent, unable to achieve anything without foreign help, bite the hand that feeds them, and are the discarded obedient automaton puppets of the Elders with no will of their own, who are utterly irrelevant to what it "means to be Minmatar", all player characters included.
And the direction of PF is that second portrayal.
It's not a hole, it's a retcon.
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Yeah, Louella nailed it for the Minmatar. They have gone from desperate people trying to reconcile with their lost history and build something of their own, getting out of a quasi cultural extinction, to turn into drum circles with caravans on Pator (aka Waterworld).
I suppose that, because it rotates around two thing, empires (which can't essentially lose or win because people actually belong to those factions) and nullsec corp politics (which I tried to get into, but couldn't bring myself to really care), EVE wallows in moral ambiguity. Hell, Constantin Baracca is essentially my reaction to EVE, that there are no good guys, no paladins, and I intentionally put him in the most hated race in New Eden.
I know the moral ambiguity is there by design, and some people really like it, but it hits me with a sense of pointlessness. Maybe I played too many paladins or gangsters in my RPing days, but EVE lore does sometimes feel like a blob of grey gloop. Like wall putty, it serves a very important purpose, but isn't especially interesting unless you're into gypsum patching.
There's just no omnipresent force of danger, not a universal villain or even space itself, threatening people. So a lot of the arguing and conflicts seem very petty and insignificant. Normally, intergovernmental intrigue is sort of the background ridiculousness that paralyzes great people from acting together against everpresent threats. Since EVE itself isn't threatening you, those petty disagreements and arguing are the boiling points of the game.
It's not the worst thing ever, people are trying, but man does it feel like I have to work to wring meaning from the game lore.
I find that greyish soup rather refreshing. I have more and more difficulties with black and white setups. That's why I have come to play myself more and more in tabletop RP games like The Masquerade or L5R.
I still like a lot of more black and white settings, though, at least, for those with a good narrative and story. Maybe the only thing I could criticize negatively about eve lore is their tendency at times to force and shoehorn the grimdark everywhere, like, with a hammer. It's like doing something grimdark at times and then winking very slowly in your direction to make sure you understood how grimdark (and so, awesome) it is.
Maybe, but not everyone plays that hero. On the other hand, there are a hundred different problems to handle, often several at once, without resorting to that.
EVE doesn't really have that, it's just a bit devoid of anything. I think that's why, eventually, it kind of devolves into a sort of background noise after a while. Take faction warfare for instance. The reason the lore for that is so unreasonably stupid is because it completely apes their own logic for how the universe works. CONCORD can apparently be attacked, dismantled, and doesn't do anything about it afterwards. Instead, the empires sign a pact sending their people to the middle of nowhere and letting them duke it out in a war that can't end, lest the game mechanic disappear. But instead of seeing this as a complete P.O.S. waste of time, resources, and lives, we're supposed to treat this like a real war that patriots go and fight in.
Imagine if the US and USSR, worse than just the proxy wars they fought during the Cold War, randomly picked the Yakutsk and Alaska and said, "All of you can go fight over there if you want, but it won't make any difference in the long term. But you should, it's your duty!"
The problem is, if your reaction to that is, "WTF, that's ridiculous and I'll have nothing to do with it!" your other option is nullsec, where that's essentially been going on for almost a decade.
There's no northern wall to go defend, nowhere to go if you want to be more than a factionalist, unless you deal with one of those two sets of lore. It really is to the detriment of the lore in the end, I think. It really comes to a head when CCP talks about giving more control to the capsuleers, and we capsuleers end up against it because even we know we're full of shit. None of us really want the people in nullsec to have anything to do with highsec, mostly because those of us in highsec right now would prefer CCP purgatory to nullsec Hell.
But because of the ambiguity, there's really nothing else to do in EVE. The pirates are essentially gold mines for whomever holds their space, the empires hover between omnipresent non-entities or emasculated bureaucracies, and space is a relatively benign place where, unless a player scans you and drops by to shoot you, you can get up, logged in, and wander around for a few hours. It's not that there are no heroes, it's that there's really nothing to be a hero against. That's a function of the lore, that all the potential calls to arms aren't worth answering.
Really, in the end, the only reason to do anything is money and power, both gained for the purposes of buying equipment to gain more money and power. Maybe that's why I prefer WoW's lore to EVE's, it might be the McDonalds of games, but at least it has some substantive nutritional value. EVE's lore can essentially be like water, a basic substance that, if we weren't adding flavor to it, would taste like nothing.
Eve lore has been irremediably butchered since TEA. They may have tried to fix it a bit recently, but that's rather negligible tbh. Sorry in advance to Falcon, Eterne, and all the ones that tried, but really, that's close to a failure to me for now. I am still thankful for their efforts though.
How to fix something as absurd as FW to begin with ? By removing it from the game altogether ? :ugh:
It was not like that in the past at all.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like, because of the lore setup, it's very hard to make anything happen without engendering some eyerolls. It's hard to write compelling lore when everything you do will absolutely piss off your subscribers, but since all the in-game movers and shakers are aligned to people the capsuleers essentially work for, CCP kind of wrote themselves into a corner.
Well yes, it forces people to play more mature and a lot more subtle. That's also something I find really refreshing.
The direction of the background just kinda reinforces this. It doesn't try to work with the setting like most MMOs do. Rather, the setting exists only as a tool of justification - Something to provide a bit of flavour for the direction of the game, not something deep or meaningfully woven in.
I don't think that's bad, per se. It's just what the game is.
Yes, that is more and more the case in my opinion. It is rather unfortunate.
Now you are getting somewhere. The lore is a *great* deal deeper than you are giving it credit for... but CCPs handling of making that lore seem alive in the universe is totally crap.
The game world feels significantly less alive than it did 8 or 9 years ago and the NPCs feel a lot more static than in the early days before CCP got scared of showing favoritism of any sort.
That is exactly that. There is a huge, growing dichotomy between the actual lore and its poor, terrible depiction ingame. Because as Gwen said, it is used as a sugarcoat and a justification for marketing and gameplay decisions rather than living together with it as it did in the past.
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It's become apparent to me over the past couple of years (since the Incarna protests) that CCP cares only about what practical, tangible game mechanics ideas they can palm off as expansions to mollify the masses who rebelled against Incarna. Gone are any attempts to bring fresh, innovative ideas to the table or to develop the backstory. Instead the lore is bent to accommodate whatever new game feature CCP's planning to introduce. I honestly feel that CCP views the incredibly rich lore (and RPers who love that lore) as necessary evils; something they'd just as soon went away rather than vital resources to be leveraged.
Hell, why bother to hire professionals to work with a deep and complex IP when you can market "thousands of players in a single place destroying hundreds of mega-ships worth the equivalent of $300,000 in RL money!" :psyccp:
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Oh, and I absolutely refuse to see nullsec alliances coming into the lore. Nullsec can stay where it is, it's bland. It's not lore written by a storymaker. It's lore constituted of bunches of drunk dudes with silly names like Bob, or xxxXShadoxOfXDeathXXxxXXxx !1!1!11!!!
Vade retro.
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It's become apparent to me over the past couple of years (since the Incarna protests) that CCP cares only about what practical, tangible game mechanics ideas they can palm off as expansions to mollify the masses who rebelled against Incarna. Gone are any attempts to bring fresh, innovative ideas to the table or to develop the backstory. Instead the lore is bent to accommodate whatever new game feature CCP's planning to introduce. I honestly feel that CCP views the incredibly rich lore (and RPers who love that lore) as necessary evils; something they'd just as soon went away rather than vital resources to be leveraged.
Hell, why bother to hire professionals to work with a deep and complex IP when you can market "thousands of players in a single place destroying hundreds of mega-ships worth the equivalent of $300,000 in RL money!" :psyccp:
Though to be fair, I cannot think of a single MMO that did not see the RP community in that way. It is always a secondary community to be handled, nothing more.
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Though to be fair, I cannot think of a single MMO that did not see the RP community in that way. It is always a secondary community to be handled, nothing more.
You're tapping here at a big iceberg. If I wasn't so lazy I would write a whole brickwall of text on the subject, but here's the shorthairs:
While I am squarely in the camp of those who desperately want strong story, consequence, and a reactive world that seems real on it's own...you're talking about roleplayers.
Roleplayers are kept at arms length, because while we are by far the most committed and giving types of people in terms of content, as a whole we are also packed to the gills with cringenerds.
Roleplayers Scare Developers.
Here's the tough part to swallow:
It's completely justified.
I have seen more petty snippy manipulative bullshit in one month of Roleplaying (not IC either, purely OOC) than happens in a year of nullsec metagaming. The most depraved and pathetic displays of desperation, usually for nothing more than keeping a certain 'appearance', have come from Roleplayers. Even before taking on the Summit job, before being the Hated Head Referee of the Derplord Championships, the things I've seen RPers do to each other would really bend all senses of credulity.
RPers make enemies like everyone else, because they're playing the same game as everyone else, they meet the same annoying shits who troll and trample your stuff.....but they Hate, I mean truly HATE like no one else. They make enemies for life, and it's often over the most petty and insignificant things you could imagine.
Have you ever heard a LARPer screaming about a rule, crying about unfairness? Ever seen a tabletop RPer throw his dice and rage? It makes you cringe and lessens your respect for anyone in those hobbies, but in an MMO, where the anonymity of the internet and the convenience of a computer game make this the norm? Bad stereotypes become more and more accurate.
Roleplayers take the game too seriously.
Devs, of course, happily march to the hypocrite's drum of pretending they love such a community. They tell us all how they're committed to the same ideals we are, that they want to take the world they've created seriously too.
Then they step off stage, take a relieved breath, and joke with each other about 'those fucking weirdos'.
(1200th post. Good round number.)
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I wouldn't argue with any of that. It's part of the reason why RP communities always turn into cliques and public RP inevitably dies. It is also the reason why I spend way more time writing fiction about my characters that I never plan to see the light of day than I actually do RPing.
It ebbs and flows, and every game I've RP'd in has these weird phases where public RP actually has things going that are meaningful and interesting, bring in new RPers that stick around - but it never lasts, and people retract back into their cliques to play house.
Edit: And honestly, most RP communities reach the point where they start viewing themselves in the same way you described the devs. Only their group has the right balance, everyone else are derpy weirdos that take it too seriously, etc.
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Though to be fair, I cannot think of a single MMO that did not see the RP community in that way. It is always a secondary community to be handled, nothing more.
You're tapping here at a big iceberg. If I wasn't so lazy I would write a whole brickwall of text on the subject, but here's the shorthairs:
While I am squarely in the camp of those who desperately want strong story, consequence, and a reactive world that seems real on it's own...you're talking about roleplayers.
Roleplayers are kept at arms length, because while we are by far the most committed and giving types of people in terms of content, as a whole we are also packed to the gills with cringenerds.
Roleplayers Scare Developers.
Here's the tough part to swallow:
It's completely justified.
I have seen more petty snippy manipulative bullshit in one month of Roleplaying (not IC either, purely OOC) than happens in a year of nullsec metagaming. The most depraved and pathetic displays of desperation, usually for nothing more than keeping a certain 'appearance', have come from Roleplayers. Even before taking on the Summit job, before being the Hated Head Referee of the Derplord Championships, the things I've seen RPers do to each other would really bend all senses of credulity.
RPers make enemies like everyone else, because they're playing the same game as everyone else, they meet the same annoying shits who troll and trample your stuff.....but they Hate, I mean truly HATE like no one else. They make enemies for life, and it's often over the most petty and insignificant things you could imagine.
Have you ever heard a LARPer screaming about a rule, crying about unfairness? Ever seen a tabletop RPer throw his dice and rage? It makes you cringe and lessens your respect for anyone in those hobbies, but in an MMO, where the anonymity of the internet and the convenience of a computer game make this the norm? Bad stereotypes become more and more accurate.
Roleplayers take the game too seriously.
Devs, of course, happily march to the hypocrite's drum of pretending they love such a community. They tell us all how they're committed to the same ideals we are, that they want to take the world they've created seriously too.
Then they step off stage, take a relieved breath, and joke with each other about 'those fucking weirdos'.
(1200th post. Good round number.)
Only once a blue moon I take the key out of the well of despicable hate and open the lockbox of love. You made me do that again.
Going Gay For Graelyn 2014
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Though to be fair, I cannot think of a single MMO that did not see the RP community in that way. It is always a secondary community to be handled, nothing more.
You're tapping here at a big iceberg. If I wasn't so lazy I would write a whole brickwall of text on the subject, but here's the shorthairs:
While I am squarely in the camp of those who desperately want strong story, consequence, and a reactive world that seems real on it's own...you're talking about roleplayers.
Roleplayers are kept at arms length, because while we are by far the most committed and giving types of people in terms of content, as a whole we are also packed to the gills with cringenerds.
Roleplayers Scare Developers.
Here's the tough part to swallow:
It's completely justified.
I have seen more petty snippy manipulative bullshit in one month of Roleplaying (not IC either, purely OOC) than happens in a year of nullsec metagaming. The most depraved and pathetic displays of desperation, usually for nothing more than keeping a certain 'appearance', have come from Roleplayers. Even before taking on the Summit job, before being the Hated Head Referee of the Derplord Championships, the things I've seen RPers do to each other would really bend all senses of credulity.
RPers make enemies like everyone else, because they're playing the same game as everyone else, they meet the same annoying shits who troll and trample your stuff.....but they Hate, I mean truly HATE like no one else. They make enemies for life, and it's often over the most petty and insignificant things you could imagine.
Have you ever heard a LARPer screaming about a rule, crying about unfairness? Ever seen a tabletop RPer throw his dice and rage? It makes you cringe and lessens your respect for anyone in those hobbies, but in an MMO, where the anonymity of the internet and the convenience of a computer game make this the norm? Bad stereotypes become more and more accurate.
Roleplayers take the game too seriously.
Devs, of course, happily march to the hypocrite's drum of pretending they love such a community. They tell us all how they're committed to the same ideals we are, that they want to take the world they've created seriously too.
Then they step off stage, take a relieved breath, and joke with each other about 'those fucking weirdos'.
(1200th post. Good round number.)
Sorry, been hammered all day by a shortened deadline, so the conversation got away from me. For the previous stuff, I guess I spent too long playing the grey mush game in tabletop. I've had way too much of Lyn's grimdark than I can handle. Why doesn't moral ambiguity ever lead to a scenario where people turn decent? Anyway, maybe the game was a lot different before I arrived. I've only been in the game since August; people seem to have fonder memories of it before.
On Graelyn's subject, though...
Maybe the bigger problem here is that CCP didn't exactly give themselves a lot of wiggle room in that department. Even if, going back to the tired example, WoW roleplayers got sick of the way lore was handled, they at least have other lore hanging around that can be completely divorced from the thing they're angry about. If you don't like the way EVE lore is going, well, you don't have much else to do. The imperial and nullsec storylines are so absolutely encompassing in the game that, if you don't like it, you're pretty much screwed; that's all there is.
Which was kind of the point in me wishing there was some far-off, forgotten place with a good PVE story where I could get away from the empires and nullsec grind for a while. We've hammered slavery, invasion, and the same subjects over and over that, if CCP doesn't do drastic stuff much more often, we're essentially revving the engine in neutral.
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You guys are killing it for me.
:cry:
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You guys are killing it for me.
:cry:
Don't underestimate the depth and greatness that can come with player created arcs, even if they are just with you and a group of people and don't go all that public. A lot of the frustration you see is bittervet, a long time in the making.
Just do you. Freighters gonna freight. :cube:
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Screw all that, Aldy's happy with his family and trying to nudge the Empire to be nicer over all. Power and important stuff? Ffffbbbbbttttttmeeeeeh.
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Don't underestimate the depth and greatness that can come with player created arcs, even if they are just with you and a group of people and don't go all that public. A lot of the frustration you see is bittervet, a long time in the making.
Just do you. Freighters gonna freight. :cube:
QFT. Most of my best times in EVE were caused by what we, the roleplayers created, not what CCP wrote.
[..]now...it's mostly just you people and the occasional race that keeps me subbed.
Current Ché would not exist without you folks (yes, that means you too, unregistered lurker), and I love you for it. :cube:
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Maybe the bigger problem here is that CCP didn't exactly give themselves a lot of wiggle room in that department. Even if, going back to the tired example, WoW roleplayers got sick of the way lore was handled, they at least have other lore hanging around that can be completely divorced from the thing they're angry about. If you don't like the way EVE lore is going, well, you don't have much else to do. The imperial and nullsec storylines are so absolutely encompassing in the game that, if you don't like it, you're pretty much screwed; that's all there is.
I really really don't think you are giving the lore anywhere near the credit it deserves. There is a ton of material on that Wiki and throughout the game to play off of, and most of it hasn't been touched. Even within the imperial storylines, the nuances are rarely developed fully.
Just because CCPs marketing latches onto Empires and Null, doesn't mean that is all there is.
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I tend to have more fun with other "non-roleplayers" who actually play the game for what it is than most "roleplayers" who seem to want it to be about playing United Nations Security Council in space, or some kind of debate club then complain when CCP doesn't provide enough things to write minutes about when the whole point to me is that the content comes from players and not the background.
I don't think most players pay their sub for the luxury of posting on IGS or in-game chat rooms, honestly.
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I tend to have more fun with other "non-roleplayers" who actually play the game for what it is than most "roleplayers" who seem to want it to be about playing United Nations Security Council in space, or some kind of debate club then complain when CCP doesn't provide enough things to write minutes about when the whole point to me is that the content comes from players and not the background.
I don't think most players pay their sub for the luxury of posting on IGS or in-game chat rooms, honestly.
Pretty much the same here. I do enjoy the rp focused venues, but I have always enjoyed reconciling the game features with the 'experience' of being a capsuleer. Some of the best rp I have taken part in was with Narwhals, where a small group of people enjoyed a bit of story telling to pass time when we'd depleted our wormhole and didn't have viable targets. Speculation about what might live on the temperate world, when we'd be able to see a properly kitted out station again and war stories from previous employment were all pretty interesting, and some non-role players really got into it (if only for nostalgic ego stroking, but hey, we get a lot of that here too and it isn't always a bad thing).
The excitement of role play, for me, is the mode of social interaction it presents. You're an imagined personality talking to another imagined personality about things that ACTUALLY happened in game. They have weight and credibility despite the imagined nature of the text. This is another reason why I voted option three - my most exciting rp scenes have been while in, or while interacting with a few individuals in large organisations flung far into the reaches of the eve cluster. Taking the propaganda, news reports and obnoxious rp of some of those people's peers, and then comparing it with a light hearted talk with a friend about the realities, cuts through a lot of the pretension and pomp while retaining the role play. These are genuinely interesting people at heart, but their public face requires that they keep up the rippling-muscled Adonis neck beard of outer space image, as the survival of their alliance tends to require an influx of people who buy into that image.
As ever, private rp > all other rp for me. You get to know a character and what they really think, if there is a basis of trust. Drama is low and you can reconcile REAL elements of the game (lol real) with lore and personal rp. That is what I look for in this game, something that anchors on things that can be changed, built, torn down or preserved, and a self-written story to go along with it.
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For me, as a few have mentioned, RP is anything that happens in game. I like to kill people more than I like talking about killing people, but, at the same time, I like interacting with others that share our space.
It is all part of the game. For me there is no Empires versus null. It is all just part of one big universe. Because I cannot predict where CCP will go next, I tend not base my RP on things that they might or might not do. This does not mean I ignore it, it is still much part of my game, just not the absolute cornerstone. In the same sense, I do not base my life on what the president of my country might do, I live my life despite what he might do. Yes, sometimes if affects me, and that just means I have to adapt. (He derps worse than CCP anyway)
This is the reason, for instance, that the Crows are nonaligned, and focused more on what it means to be a capsuleer. For us, flying together and having fun and adventure, and CREATING stories, is a big focus, instead of just living those of others. They mix, they mash, but we are masters of our own fates.
We are also the weirdos.
Saying all that, we do tie in directly with the fates of the Empires and null, because ultimately we fight to protect the former, often against the latter. But because of our stance, we are perhaps more resilient to the smaller termors inside the empires. (This idea is very much growing and in development, so it is far from presentable, but soon™...)
I am not saying that factional loyal RP is wrong, not by any means. We expect most of our interaction will be with factional loyal folk. Just sharing my perspective and why I take the approach that I do. It is sentiments like these that got me to change my thinking:
If you don't like the way EVE lore is going, well, you don't have much else to do. The imperial and nullsec storylines are so absolutely encompassing in the game that, if you don't like it, you're pretty much screwed; that's all there is.
Which was kind of the point in me wishing there was some far-off, forgotten place with a good PVE story where I could get away from the empires and nullsec grind for a while. We've hammered slavery, invasion, and the same subjects over and over that, if CCP doesn't do drastic stuff much more often, we're essentially revving the engine in neutral.
What I am getting at, is that instead of waiting for CCP to do something, we still have all the in-between time to fill. We cannot save the galaxy every day. Some days we just do what we do and live our lives. Perhaps we should broaden our thinking outside of what I perceive to be "You have to support a faction to RP - Supporting a faction has to be in X way - The faction depends on what you do to save it"
Afterall, we are all the all killing demi-gods. We are allowed to stand up for ourselves in this universe filled with all the other people pretending to be pilots.
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Maybe the bigger problem here is that CCP didn't exactly give themselves a lot of wiggle room in that department. Even if, going back to the tired example, WoW roleplayers got sick of the way lore was handled, they at least have other lore hanging around that can be completely divorced from the thing they're angry about. If you don't like the way EVE lore is going, well, you don't have much else to do. The imperial and nullsec storylines are so absolutely encompassing in the game that, if you don't like it, you're pretty much screwed; that's all there is.
I really really don't think you are giving the lore anywhere near the credit it deserves. There is a ton of material on that Wiki and throughout the game to play off of, and most of it hasn't been touched. Even within the imperial storylines, the nuances are rarely developed fully.
Just because CCPs marketing latches onto Empires and Null, doesn't mean that is all there is.
No, I'm just used to quite a bit more lore than this or the freedom to make and expand if it isn't there. I really don't have either in EVE, it's too restrictive to say it's really an open RP forum and there's definitely not enough of it there to say that the lore is very rich and deep in nuance. This coming from someone who didn't LARP for that long comparatively speaking, but who has a shelf full of sourcebooks, including the Book of Nod, and who ran his own free-form RP in a created world, I've done both. EVE's lore doesn't give you enough flexibility to run on the fly but the bigger problem we keep running into is that it's not specific enough about what we have.
Not saying people don't make great stories in it, just saying I wouldn't exactly credit the lore for that.
I tend to have more fun with other "non-roleplayers" who actually play the game for what it is than most "roleplayers" who seem to want it to be about playing United Nations Security Council in space, or some kind of debate club then complain when CCP doesn't provide enough things to write minutes about when the whole point to me is that the content comes from players and not the background.
I don't think most players pay their sub for the luxury of posting on IGS or in-game chat rooms, honestly.
What I am getting at, is that instead of waiting for CCP to do something, we still have all the in-between time to fill. We cannot save the galaxy every day. Some days we just do what we do and live our lives. Perhaps we should broaden our thinking outside of what I perceive to be "You have to support a faction to RP - Supporting a faction has to be in X way - The faction depends on what you do to save it"
Afterall, we are all the all killing demi-gods. We are allowed to stand up for ourselves in this universe filled with all the other people pretending to be pilots.
The problem with that is that if CCP doesn't give me the content, there are better games out there. Not even getting into the WoW debate, I certainly wouldn't call EVE's gameplay the most engaging game I've ever played ever, certainly not worth the subscription. I really, honestly wouldn't be playing if it wasn't for SFRIM and RP, a thought that's been echoed around here quite a bit. I know the brother that I originally started in EVE to play with has moved back to WoW for the time being because he didn't really have anything tying him in, which was the only other reason I was here. I might not have logged in at all if Lunarisse and the gang weren't making the game interesting for me.
Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second. If I'm not paying CCP to do their end and it's pretty much been taken over by someone that I can RP with irrespective of the game, what exactly is my subscription going to pay for? Everyone so far is complaining about the lack of content, news, and work that goes into our end of space. I guess I just don't consider myself that much weirder than someone sitting in null on a scheduled patrol without caring about their character as more than a bag of stats and skills. It's all a time investment, just ours isn't one that CCP seems to be willing, or able, to really put the work into.
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The problem with that is that if CCP doesn't give me the content, there are better games out there. Not even getting into the WoW debate, I certainly wouldn't call EVE's gameplay the most engaging game I've ever played ever, certainly not worth the subscription. I really, honestly wouldn't be playing if it wasn't for SFRIM and RP, a thought that's been echoed around here quite a bit. I know the brother that I originally started in EVE to play with has moved back to WoW for the time being because he didn't really have anything tying him in, which was the only other reason I was here. I might not have logged in at all if Lunarisse and the gang weren't making the game interesting for me.
Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second. If I'm not paying CCP to do their end and it's pretty much been taken over by someone that I can RP with irrespective of the game, what exactly is my subscription going to pay for? Everyone so far is complaining about the lack of content, news, and work that goes into our end of space. I guess I just don't consider myself that much weirder than someone sitting in null on a scheduled patrol without caring about their character as more than a bag of stats and skills. It's all a time investment, just ours isn't one that CCP seems to be willing, or able, to really put the work into.
Well, as usual, the better games out there is all a "to each their own" thing. There aren't many MMOs that feel remotely open world to me, which is part of the reason I stay. And there aren't many set in a futuristic setting, which is another part of why I stay. And then on top of it, I do actually like Eve gameplay. But I understand that the "game game" might not be everyone's thing.
I think the part of all of these discussions we've been having lately that I have the hardest time connecting with is the notion that somehow other MMOs take better care of their RPers. I've never seen it. Blizzard doesn't care, Cryptic doesn't care, none of the MMO developers really care about their RPers. And in fact, most of them have less lore in my opinion - especially if you lean more heavily on random information and backstory in the lore you use instead of storyline, because so many other MMOs give you a simple, linear storyline as the background to their universe. Here, we have a Chronicle with virtually no purpose but to describe technological background lore. That doesn't happen often.
Edit: I suck at not adding things. But another thing I like about Eve compared to other MMOs is my skill queue keeping on truckin' while I'm offline. I'm so busy IRL, I love that my skills, PI, and market orders are doing things while I'm offline. Is that really a huge deal? No, but it's just an example of another little thing that I like about Eve. All the little things add up.
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Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second.
I suppose where I differ is that I define my character more by what they do than what they say. The background PF is just that: background. It's nice and all, but have I felt I really needed it? Not really. The majority of how my characters have developed in Eve have been from what they've done in the game and it's exploring the universe through the perspective of a capsuleer that interests me more than anything written about the factions themselves. Where others complain about lack of content, I can't really grasp it because I get content that's dynamic and ever-changing for me and that's from other people's interacting with mine, whether it's directly through pvp or indirectly through politics and the markets.
When I first started Veik, they were a completely different character to what they are right now, because I've rp'ed over a year of constant violence into their character and in fact they've developed far more due to their actions than they ever have through some IGS discussions or what have you. I quite enjoy that playing a capsuleer thrusts them into the world of New Eden, where it really is a dog-eat-dog world and I don't see any major disconnects between how CCP have sought to describe the little bubble freelance capsuleers live in and what people do in-game. To me, Eve is an insight into both a dystopian world full of intrigue, violence, power and greed in addition to a social experiment in how people behave when there's few rules and plenty of opportunities.
I've had just as much fun exploring the impacts of the game world as a fundamentally nihilistic and existential lifestyle and the struggles my character has between trying to maintain some semblance of normality and humanity in an inhuman existence than other roleplay adventures. I find the themes inherent in being a capsuleer far more engaging and rewarding to explore than some small talk in an rp bar somewhere.
Although sometimes I feel roleplayers in general don't want to play the capsuleer in New Eden but rather something more akin to the, "Average Joe" of whatever faction. I guess it's why I accept it when people level accusations of my characters being "Edgy" or "Grimdark" because compared to the average denizen of New Eden a capsuleer is pretty much the epitome of being edgy and grimdark. That's what I enjoy exploring, being a typical capsuleer and an atypical human being in Eve and that's what it offers for me.
So yes, while some of the news can be annoying for me, or the background contradictory that's fine and I'll keep on playing because they really aren't that important for me to keep on playing or developing my characters.
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Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second.
I suppose where I differ is that I define my character more by what they do than what they say. The background PF is just that: background. It's nice and all, but have I felt I really needed it? Not really. The majority of how my characters have developed in Eve have been from what they've done in the game and it's exploring the universe through the perspective of a capsuleer that interests me more than anything written about the factions themselves. Where others complain about lack of content, I can't really grasp it because I get content that's dynamic and ever-changing for me and that's from other people's interacting with mine, whether it's directly through pvp or indirectly through politics and the markets.
When I first started Veik, they were a completely different character to what they are right now, because I've rp'ed over a year of constant violence into their character and in fact they've developed far more due to their actions than they ever have through some IGS discussions or what have you. I quite enjoy that playing a capsuleer thrusts them into the world of New Eden, where it really is a dog-eat-dog world and I don't see any major disconnects between how CCP have sought to describe the little bubble freelance capsuleers live in and what people do in-game. To me, Eve is an insight into both a dystopian world full of intrigue, violence, power and greed in addition to a social experiment in how people behave when there's few rules and plenty of opportunities.
I've had just as much fun exploring the impacts of the game world as a fundamentally nihilistic and existential lifestyle and the struggles my character has between trying to maintain some semblance of normality and humanity in an inhuman existence than other roleplay adventures. I find the themes inherent in being a capsuleer far more engaging and rewarding to explore than some small talk in an rp bar somewhere.
Although sometimes I feel roleplayers in general don't want to play the capsuleer in New Eden but rather something more akin to the, "Average Joe" of whatever faction. I guess it's why I accept it when people level accusations of my characters being "Edgy" or "Grimdark" because compared to the average denizen of New Eden a capsuleer is pretty much the epitome of being edgy and grimdark. That's what I enjoy exploring, being a typical capsuleer and an atypical human being in Eve and that's what it offers for me.
So yes, while some of the news can be annoying for me, or the background contradictory that's fine and I'll keep on playing because they really aren't that important for me to keep on playing or developing my characters.
While I understand and respect people that want to emphasize the "walk the talk" aspect of RP, I think part of the disconnect is what people look for out of RP. My RP has often been interested in interpersonal dynamics in addition to continually developing the specifics of my characters' backgrounds. Just like real life, interpersonal dynamics require a great deal of simple discussion ICly.
And on top of it, I'm just very erratic in-game as far as what I do on a day to day basis.
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Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second.
I suppose where I differ is that I define my character more by what they do than what they say. The background PF is just that: background. It's nice and all, but have I felt I really needed it? Not really. The majority of how my characters have developed in Eve have been from what they've done in the game and it's exploring the universe through the perspective of a capsuleer that interests me more than anything written about the factions themselves. Where others complain about lack of content, I can't really grasp it because I get content that's dynamic and ever-changing for me and that's from other people's interacting with mine, whether it's directly through pvp or indirectly through politics and the markets.
When I first started Veik, they were a completely different character to what they are right now, because I've rp'ed over a year of constant violence into their character and in fact they've developed far more due to their actions than they ever have through some IGS discussions or what have you. I quite enjoy that playing a capsuleer thrusts them into the world of New Eden, where it really is a dog-eat-dog world and I don't see any major disconnects between how CCP have sought to describe the little bubble freelance capsuleers live in and what people do in-game. To me, Eve is an insight into both a dystopian world full of intrigue, violence, power and greed in addition to a social experiment in how people behave when there's few rules and plenty of opportunities.
I've had just as much fun exploring the impacts of the game world as a fundamentally nihilistic and existential lifestyle and the struggles my character has between trying to maintain some semblance of normality and humanity in an inhuman existence than other roleplay adventures. I find the themes inherent in being a capsuleer far more engaging and rewarding to explore than some small talk in an rp bar somewhere.
Although sometimes I feel roleplayers in general don't want to play the capsuleer in New Eden but rather something more akin to the, "Average Joe" of whatever faction. I guess it's why I accept it when people level accusations of my characters being "Edgy" or "Grimdark" because compared to the average denizen of New Eden a capsuleer is pretty much the epitome of being edgy and grimdark. That's what I enjoy exploring, being a typical capsuleer and an atypical human being in Eve and that's what it offers for me.
So yes, while some of the news can be annoying for me, or the background contradictory that's fine and I'll keep on playing because they really aren't that important for me to keep on playing or developing my characters.
That's more or less how I play my character too. I gave him a background, a history, and use it as a guideline on how Elmund would act in any given situations (though admittedly I might have dropped the ball plenty of times). Other than that, what he does at any given point is the RP. So when he shoot some other guy, that's exactly what he is doing IC, and the motive for doing it is the character's. At the same time, as a character, he has lines he will not cross, things he will not do, a set of principles he will not violate. If any action were to violate any values he holds dear, I won't do it, because he, as a character, won't do it either.
Which is why I do not make alts for market or whatever. He, as a character, will do these things. It is all part of his growth as a character.
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The problem with that is that if CCP doesn't give me the content, there are better games out there. Not even getting into the WoW debate, I certainly wouldn't call EVE's gameplay the most engaging game I've ever played ever, certainly not worth the subscription. I really, honestly wouldn't be playing if it wasn't for SFRIM and RP, a thought that's been echoed around here quite a bit. I know the brother that I originally started in EVE to play with has moved back to WoW for the time being because he didn't really have anything tying him in, which was the only other reason I was here. I might not have logged in at all if Lunarisse and the gang weren't making the game interesting for me.
Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second. If I'm not paying CCP to do their end and it's pretty much been taken over by someone that I can RP with irrespective of the game, what exactly is my subscription going to pay for? Everyone so far is complaining about the lack of content, news, and work that goes into our end of space. I guess I just don't consider myself that much weirder than someone sitting in null on a scheduled patrol without caring about their character as more than a bag of stats and skills. It's all a time investment, just ours isn't one that CCP seems to be willing, or able, to really put the work into.
Well, as usual, the better games out there is all a "to each their own" thing. There aren't many MMOs that feel remotely open world to me, which is part of the reason I stay. And there aren't many set in a futuristic setting, which is another part of why I stay. And then on top of it, I do actually like Eve gameplay. But I understand that the "game game" might not be everyone's thing.
I think the part of all of these discussions we've been having lately that I have the hardest time connecting with is the notion that somehow other MMOs take better care of their RPers. I've never seen it. Blizzard doesn't care, Cryptic doesn't care, none of the MMO developers really care about their RPers. And in fact, most of them have less lore in my opinion - especially if you lean more heavily on random information and backstory in the lore you use instead of storyline, because so many other MMOs give you a simple, linear storyline as the background to their universe. Here, we have a Chronicle with virtually no purpose but to describe technological background lore. That doesn't happen often.
Edit: I suck at not adding things. But another thing I like about Eve compared to other MMOs is my skill queue keeping on truckin' while I'm offline. I'm so busy IRL, I love that my skills, PI, and market orders are doing things while I'm offline. Is that really a huge deal? No, but it's just an example of another little thing that I like about Eve. All the little things add up.
I think what I'm getting at is, if CCP doesn't care about RP and lore and only the game, why not just play the game and RP elsewhere. I heard the 5th edition of Shadowrun was a whole lot better than the 4th was.
Which isn't really getting away from the crux of the matter; just because other developers are only moderately more or less interested in RPers doesn't really affect the stat of the EVE IP. Being disappointed in everybody else doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't be disappointed in CCP itself. I suppose I can't judge EVE's lore amount on the basis of WoW, for instance, as Blizz released the first game in the Warcraft IP in 1994 and have a metric ton of source to go with it. I can't judge it on a book or tabletop set because lore is mostly what they do.
I guess if I hadn't had such a broad experience, from having the freedom of my own RP world to manage to the minutiae of games like FFXI that weren't meant to be RPed in, but I did, EVE's lore isn't very special as much as it's just rather vague. I kind of got over the V:tM thing after a few years in high school. Hell I was eventually playing a reaction to V:tM's core zeitgeist within a year. I've had some time to read the chronicles since I started and I can't say I've come away with as positive an impression as other people have. It's not bad, it's just not terribly engaging. I can't say I came away from reading any of it wanting to add anything or start a new character arc. Which, in the end, is kind of the point of RP lore. At least, after you've read something about paladins in whatever game they're in, you're usually cooking in your mind what it is like to be a paladin or how to disrupt the paladins or something. Same thing with necromancers or combat engineers or drone riggers.
In EVE, I guess reading about the Khanid doesn't make me want to play a Khanid, for example, and reading about the Black Eagles didn't make them seem very interesting. It just makes me sort of shrug. It's not a, "I've seen this before" or "I've seen this done better" way, more of a "I can't really say I have any reaction to this whatsoever" thing.
Which wouldn't be bothering me as much, except that I'm a roleplayer first and a game player second.
I suppose where I differ is that I define my character more by what they do than what they say. The background PF is just that: background. It's nice and all, but have I felt I really needed it? Not really. The majority of how my characters have developed in Eve have been from what they've done in the game and it's exploring the universe through the perspective of a capsuleer that interests me more than anything written about the factions themselves. Where others complain about lack of content, I can't really grasp it because I get content that's dynamic and ever-changing for me and that's from other people's interacting with mine, whether it's directly through pvp or indirectly through politics and the markets.
When I first started Veik, they were a completely different character to what they are right now, because I've rp'ed over a year of constant violence into their character and in fact they've developed far more due to their actions than they ever have through some IGS discussions or what have you. I quite enjoy that playing a capsuleer thrusts them into the world of New Eden, where it really is a dog-eat-dog world and I don't see any major disconnects between how CCP have sought to describe the little bubble freelance capsuleers live in and what people do in-game. To me, Eve is an insight into both a dystopian world full of intrigue, violence, power and greed in addition to a social experiment in how people behave when there's few rules and plenty of opportunities.
I've had just as much fun exploring the impacts of the game world as a fundamentally nihilistic and existential lifestyle and the struggles my character has between trying to maintain some semblance of normality and humanity in an inhuman existence than other roleplay adventures. I find the themes inherent in being a capsuleer far more engaging and rewarding to explore than some small talk in an rp bar somewhere.
Although sometimes I feel roleplayers in general don't want to play the capsuleer in New Eden but rather something more akin to the, "Average Joe" of whatever faction. I guess it's why I accept it when people level accusations of my characters being "Edgy" or "Grimdark" because compared to the average denizen of New Eden a capsuleer is pretty much the epitome of being edgy and grimdark. That's what I enjoy exploring, being a typical capsuleer and an atypical human being in Eve and that's what it offers for me.
So yes, while some of the news can be annoying for me, or the background contradictory that's fine and I'll keep on playing because they really aren't that important for me to keep on playing or developing my characters.
That would be more fun, I guess, except that I get very, very easily bored of the actual game of EVE. My gut reaction to most of what happens in the game world is, "FFS grow up!" which doesn't make it easy playing someone who's trying to understand the world around him through the lens of actually trying to be a decent human being. I guess that's another big problem of mine, I don't see the game in those terms. The game encourages and emphasizes a certain zeitgeist even by saying, "there are no rules." There's also not much to do but kill each other and farm. Like I've been saying, there might not be another storyline where we fight the undead hordes, but EVE's otherwise benign nature doesn't give us the impetus it does to form societies, survival.
Seriously, if there weren't other players in EVE, we'd never die. The reason that, despite not having any real natural laws, that we humans form societies with laws on Earth is because Earth is a relatively hostile place to survive. We aren't challenged that way in EVE. The only reason to band together in game is usually to fight each other in larger groups. While we say that the world is open for anyone and anybody to do anything, it's really not the case. EVE does encourage, by its design, a very specific type of character and play. I they wanted us to have a real choice between working together or fighting each other, they'd have to make a consequence for not doing one or the other.
EVE isn't trying hard enough to kill us to make the failure to communicate as dangerous as it is in the real world.
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What is that distinction that everyone always do out of purely OOC manners between what people do and what they say ?
Saying something is doing something. Debating something is doing something. Convincing immortal capsuleers of something is certainly worth ten times in gold than just killing them to see them coming back the next minute.
Also, why would I take part in a gameplay that I strongly disagree with ? The gap between ingame and the actual lore and universe is so huge that what happens ingame doesn't mean anything at all to me. It's vain. And my character thinks the same way too btw. Doing otherwise would be totally nonsensical. I can still play the capsuleer demigod in either way.
Like in most MMOs actually. Most RPers ignore the game to actually play the lore rather than the - limited, poor, bland, bleached, and sometimes absurd or contradictory - gameplay. Sounds logical to me.
Which was kind of the point in me wishing there was some far-off, forgotten place with a good PVE story where I could get away from the empires and nullsec grind for a while. We've hammered slavery, invasion, and the same subjects over and over that, if CCP doesn't do drastic stuff much more often, we're essentially revving the engine in neutral.
Enlist in Saede's corp then ?
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I think what I'm getting at is, if CCP doesn't care about RP and lore and only the game, why not just play the game and RP elsewhere. I heard the 5th edition of Shadowrun was a whole lot better than the 4th was.
Which isn't really getting away from the crux of the matter; just because other developers are only moderately more or less interested in RPers doesn't really affect the stat of the EVE IP. Being disappointed in everybody else doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't be disappointed in CCP itself. I suppose I can't judge EVE's lore amount on the basis of WoW, for instance, as Blizz released the first game in the Warcraft IP in 1994 and have a metric ton of source to go with it. I can't judge it on a book or tabletop set because lore is mostly what they do.
I guess if I hadn't had such a broad experience, from having the freedom of my own RP world to manage to the minutiae of games like FFXI that weren't meant to be RPed in, but I did, EVE's lore isn't very special as much as it's just rather vague. I kind of got over the V:tM thing after a few years in high school. Hell I was eventually playing a reaction to V:tM's core zeitgeist within a year. I've had some time to read the chronicles since I started and I can't say I've come away with as positive an impression as other people have. It's not bad, it's just not terribly engaging. I can't say I came away from reading any of it wanting to add anything or start a new character arc. Which, in the end, is kind of the point of RP lore. At least, after you've read something about paladins in whatever game they're in, you're usually cooking in your mind what it is like to be a paladin or how to disrupt the paladins or something. Same thing with necromancers or combat engineers or drone riggers.
In EVE, I guess reading about the Khanid doesn't make me want to play a Khanid, for example, and reading about the Black Eagles didn't make them seem very interesting. It just makes me sort of shrug. It's not a, "I've seen this before" or "I've seen this done better" way, more of a "I can't really say I have any reaction to this whatsoever" thing.
That would be more fun, I guess, except that I get very, very easily bored of the actual game of EVE. My gut reaction to most of what happens in the game world is, "FFS grow up!" which doesn't make it easy playing someone who's trying to understand the world around him through the lens of actually trying to be a decent human being. I guess that's another big problem of mine, I don't see the game in those terms. The game encourages and emphasizes a certain zeitgeist even by saying, "there are no rules." There's also not much to do but kill each other and farm. Like I've been saying, there might not be another storyline where we fight the undead hordes, but EVE's otherwise benign nature doesn't give us the impetus it does to form societies, survival.
Seriously, if there weren't other players in EVE, we'd never die. The reason that, despite not having any real natural laws, that we humans form societies with laws on Earth is because Earth is a relatively hostile place to survive. We aren't challenged that way in EVE. The only reason to band together in game is usually to fight each other in larger groups. While we say that the world is open for anyone and anybody to do anything, it's really not the case. EVE does encourage, by its design, a very specific type of character and play. I they wanted us to have a real choice between working together or fighting each other, they'd have to make a consequence for not doing one or the other.
EVE isn't trying hard enough to kill us to make the failure to communicate as dangerous as it is in the real world.
Well, first of all, I have nobody IRL to tabletop with anymore. So there's that. But as I said earlier or in another thread (everything is running together for me at this point), I do actually enjoy the Eve universe and lore despite my frustrations with CCP's inactivity.
Your lack of reaction to Eve lore is precisely how I would describe my experience with WoW, TSW, etc. I just sat there going, "Well, okay. Meh."
And the banding together aspect is a large part of why I don't like those settings, or say D&D versus the various WoD settings. I hate feeling like the setting is trying to force me in a direction, to band with people I don't want to and fight against some great evil I don't want to. I couldn't care less about the villain in the dungeon that everyone is getting together to slay, or the massive faction that is slowly enveloping the world in a wave of heinous destruction.
Part of why I like Eve is because there is no great "other" that the players are intended to fight against. To me, that is what makes it open. What you are describing to me is what makes a world closed. Nothing kills RP faster for me than someone creating a common enemy and expecting my character to band together with others and fight it.
But, I can absolutely understand someone not being driven to stay in Eve if they don't like the actual gameplay. This forum is full of people that stopped playing because the game itself stopped being fun, and the RP scene stopped motivating them.
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What is that distinction that everyone always do out of purely OOC manners between what people do and what they say ?
Saying something is doing something. Debating something is doing something. Convincing immortal capsuleers of something is certainly worth ten times in gold than just killing them to see them coming back the next minute.
Also, why would I take part in a gameplay that I strongly disagree with ? The gap between ingame and the actual lore and universe is so huge that what happens ingame doesn't mean anything at all to me. It's vain. And my character thinks the same way too btw. Doing otherwise would be totally nonsensical. I can still play the capsuleer demigod in either way.
Like in most MMOs actually. Most RPers ignore the game to actually play the lore rather than the - limited, poor, bland, bleached, and sometimes absurd or contradictory - gameplay. Sounds logical to me.
It is the notion that if your character isn't involved in game mechanics, then any activities they claim to be doing that could be represented in-game are not actually happening and your character is straight up lying.
That explanation aside, I largely agree with your reaction to it. I don't mind people being obsessed with game mechanics, everyone has their own method of playing and RPing. But I generally think that obsessing over a distinction between those that "do" and those that "talk" is yet another division in the RP scene we don't need. And possibly the most potentially divisive of them all.
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What is that distinction that everyone always do out of purely OOC manners between what people do and what they say ?
Saying something is doing something. Debating something is doing something. Convincing immortal capsuleers of something is certainly worth ten times in gold than just killing them to see them coming back the next minute.
Also, why would I take part in a gameplay that I strongly disagree with ? The gap between ingame and the actual lore and universe is so huge that what happens ingame doesn't mean anything at all to me. It's vain. And my character thinks the same way too btw. Doing otherwise would be totally nonsensical. I can still play the capsuleer demigod in either way.
Like in most MMOs actually. Most RPers ignore the game to actually play the lore rather than the - limited, poor, bland, bleached, and sometimes absurd or contradictory - gameplay. Sounds logical to me.
It is the notion that if your character isn't involved in game mechanics, then any activities they claim to be doing that could be represented in-game are not actually happening and your character is straight up lying.
That explanation aside, I largely agree with your reaction to it. I don't mind people being obsessed with game mechanics, everyone has their own method of playing and RPing. But I generally think that obsessing over a distinction between those that "do" and those that "talk" is yet another division in the RP scene we don't need. And possibly the most potentially divisive of them all.
If there were an 'in game' arbitration method for RP I would be quite interested. Things you could 'skill up' at such as charisma, etc, things that would effect these stats, then you enter into a 'dice roll' type situation with other RPers for things you are trying to do. "x throws a punch at Y" or "x convinces the guard to lower his weapon"
We don't have these tools in the game, so there's no neutral GM to handle imaginary encounters and situations.
The game engine, limited as it is, can be often used as a proxy for things "i exploded your ship" "you took over my territory"
If there were a way for a neutral GM or statistics of sorts to weave in and out of our plotting I would be interested perhaps.
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That would be more fun, I guess, except that I get very, very easily bored of the actual game of EVE. My gut reaction to most of what happens in the game world is, "FFS grow up!" which doesn't make it easy playing someone who's trying to understand the world around him through the lens of actually trying to be a decent human being. I guess that's another big problem of mine, I don't see the game in those terms. The game encourages and emphasizes a certain zeitgeist even by saying, "there are no rules." There's also not much to do but kill each other and farm. Like I've been saying, there might not be another storyline where we fight the undead hordes, but EVE's otherwise benign nature doesn't give us the impetus it does to form societies, survival.
Seriously, if there weren't other players in EVE, we'd never die. The reason that, despite not having any real natural laws, that we humans form societies with laws on Earth is because Earth is a relatively hostile place to survive. We aren't challenged that way in EVE. The only reason to band together in game is usually to fight each other in larger groups. While we say that the world is open for anyone and anybody to do anything, it's really not the case. EVE does encourage, by its design, a very specific type of character and play. I they wanted us to have a real choice between working together or fighting each other, they'd have to make a consequence for not doing one or the other.
EVE isn't trying hard enough to kill us to make the failure to communicate as dangerous as it is in the real world.
It isn't up to Eve to try and kill you -- it's other players. If you don't venture into the areas of the game where you do, in fact, run the risk of other players/characters having the opportunity to destroy what you've created then yes, I suppose Eve might seem rather benign.
To take your undead horde analogy, I suppose if you played DayZ and did nothing but hover around in a helicopter all day instead of running the risk of some random person killing your character and then taking all your stuff it would seem a rather bland experience.
Eve offers a lot of choice, and it even offers the choice of zero consequences: never undocking. Experiences might vary in Eve, because it has that scope where different areas bring with it different challenges. Even nullsec politics is essentially at core different groups deciding between working together or fighting each other over resources and assets needed to survive so I'm not sure what the issue is?
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Well, Jace, I didn't say you should band together to fight evil. Maybe if gate camps every few minutes had to deal with roaming meteors, rabid pack drone attacks that jump through gates into highsec, running out of oxygen or fuel, DED finding out their real identity and shutting down their clone network, having to fence illicit goods that, if recognized, get their mule arrested or worse, electromagnetic storms, solar wind, ship degradation with all the good facilities in higher security space, or something of that nature, we wouldn't see so many people take it up.
As it stands, EVE is doing its best to encourage one particular kind of play even if they aren't threatening you with the army of darkness. The universe isn't trying to kill anyone, makes it comparatively easy to play a prick, and then doesn't really reward you if you decide being a prick isn't your thing. It's no less of a mold than something like WoW has; EVE is built to encourage that specific kind of play. No giant soul-eating demons required.
I dislike the impetus to either jump into a null corp or faction warfare to get anywhere in the game, especially because the reasons for making us do this are kind of blatant (screw the rather idiotic way faction warfare gets handled, why are the research and manufacturing stations near the centers of learning, culture, and trade in highsec so much worse than the ones elsewhere?)
For all the complaints I have with WoW, and after seven years I have a few, the last one I'd have is a feeling of inflexibility. If I want to PVP in WoW, I can play that as a gladiator in arenas, soldier in BGs, or I can just jump on an RPPVP server and let them try to kill me everywhere. If I don't want to PVP, I can raid, run challenge dungeons, grind reps, run a pet combat team, set up for world bosses, whore achievements, or build professions. I can roll all of that into RP if I want, or not. WoW's biggest problem isn't making you into something, it's that there's so much for them to keep track of that tweaking something in the game affects a dozen other things where it would essentially form an exploit.
Well, that and heirlooms. Worst thing that ever happened to the game.
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That would be more fun, I guess, except that I get very, very easily bored of the actual game of EVE. My gut reaction to most of what happens in the game world is, "FFS grow up!" which doesn't make it easy playing someone who's trying to understand the world around him through the lens of actually trying to be a decent human being. I guess that's another big problem of mine, I don't see the game in those terms. The game encourages and emphasizes a certain zeitgeist even by saying, "there are no rules." There's also not much to do but kill each other and farm. Like I've been saying, there might not be another storyline where we fight the undead hordes, but EVE's otherwise benign nature doesn't give us the impetus it does to form societies, survival.
Seriously, if there weren't other players in EVE, we'd never die. The reason that, despite not having any real natural laws, that we humans form societies with laws on Earth is because Earth is a relatively hostile place to survive. We aren't challenged that way in EVE. The only reason to band together in game is usually to fight each other in larger groups. While we say that the world is open for anyone and anybody to do anything, it's really not the case. EVE does encourage, by its design, a very specific type of character and play. I they wanted us to have a real choice between working together or fighting each other, they'd have to make a consequence for not doing one or the other.
EVE isn't trying hard enough to kill us to make the failure to communicate as dangerous as it is in the real world.
It isn't up to Eve to try and kill you -- it's other players. If you don't venture into the areas of the game where you do, in fact, run the risk of other players/characters having the opportunity to destroy what you've created then yes, I suppose Eve might seem rather benign.
To take your undead horde analogy, I suppose if you played DayZ and did nothing but hover around in a helicopter all day instead of running the risk of some random person killing your character and then taking all your stuff it would seem a rather bland experience.
Eve offers a lot of choice, and it even offers the choice of zero consequences: never undocking. Experiences might vary in Eve, because it has that scope where different areas bring with it different challenges. Even nullsec politics is essentially at core different groups deciding between working together or fighting each other over resources and assets needed to survive so I'm not sure what the issue is?
Well, that's the issue. You can't, on the one hand, say that EVE is truly free and open as a world, and in the next say that it's a game where everything revolves around one particular style of play and that those who don't like it just aren't playing the game right. It kind of hurts that idea that EVE is a game where you do whatever you want and is truly open. EVE made the game for a certain kind of person to play in a relatively specific way.
So since the only people with a chance to kill you being other capsuleers, you can't really say it's a world all about choices and a good representation of the real world.
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That would be more fun, I guess, except that I get very, very easily bored of the actual game of EVE. My gut reaction to most of what happens in the game world is, "FFS grow up!" which doesn't make it easy playing someone who's trying to understand the world around him through the lens of actually trying to be a decent human being. I guess that's another big problem of mine, I don't see the game in those terms. The game encourages and emphasizes a certain zeitgeist even by saying, "there are no rules." There's also not much to do but kill each other and farm. Like I've been saying, there might not be another storyline where we fight the undead hordes, but EVE's otherwise benign nature doesn't give us the impetus it does to form societies, survival.
Seriously, if there weren't other players in EVE, we'd never die. The reason that, despite not having any real natural laws, that we humans form societies with laws on Earth is because Earth is a relatively hostile place to survive. We aren't challenged that way in EVE. The only reason to band together in game is usually to fight each other in larger groups. While we say that the world is open for anyone and anybody to do anything, it's really not the case. EVE does encourage, by its design, a very specific type of character and play. I they wanted us to have a real choice between working together or fighting each other, they'd have to make a consequence for not doing one or the other.
EVE isn't trying hard enough to kill us to make the failure to communicate as dangerous as it is in the real world.
It isn't up to Eve to try and kill you -- it's other players. If you don't venture into the areas of the game where you do, in fact, run the risk of other players/characters having the opportunity to destroy what you've created then yes, I suppose Eve might seem rather benign.
To take your undead horde analogy, I suppose if you played DayZ and did nothing but hover around in a helicopter all day instead of running the risk of some random person killing your character and then taking all your stuff it would seem a rather bland experience.
Eve offers a lot of choice, and it even offers the choice of zero consequences: never undocking. Experiences might vary in Eve, because it has that scope where different areas bring with it different challenges. Even nullsec politics is essentially at core different groups deciding between working together or fighting each other over resources and assets needed to survive so I'm not sure what the issue is?
Well, that's the issue. You can't, on the one hand, say that EVE is truly free and open as a world, and in the next say that it's a game where everything revolves around one particular style of play and that those who don't like it just aren't playing the game right. It kind of hurts that idea that EVE is a game where you do whatever you want and is truly open. EVE made the game for a certain kind of person to play in a relatively specific way.
So since the only people with a chance to kill you being other capsuleers, you can't really say it's a world all about choices and a good representation of the real world.
It isn't a representation of a real world, it's a representation of a fictional world of capsuleers and what happens when you have privatized violence, an economy based on military-industrial complexes, lack of law enforcement, and deregulated corporatism coupled with unrestricted capitalism. It's a dystopian reality where being a dick is rewarded and having morals, ethics, and scruples is detrimental to "success".
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It isn't a representation of a real world, it's a representation of a fictional world of capsuleers and what happens when you have privatized violence, an economy based on military-industrial complexes, lack of law enforcement, and deregulated corporatism coupled with unrestricted capitalism. It's a dystopian reality where being a dick is rewarded and having morals, ethics, and scruples is detrimental to "success".
Well, I guess then a different way to put it is that if incessant grimdark is all there is going to be, some of us find that rather boring. What's the point of having everything be dark when there's no light to compare it against?
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That would be more fun, I guess, except that I get very, very easily bored of the actual game of EVE. My gut reaction to most of what happens in the game world is, "FFS grow up!" which doesn't make it easy playing someone who's trying to understand the world around him through the lens of actually trying to be a decent human being. I guess that's another big problem of mine, I don't see the game in those terms. The game encourages and emphasizes a certain zeitgeist even by saying, "there are no rules." There's also not much to do but kill each other and farm. Like I've been saying, there might not be another storyline where we fight the undead hordes, but EVE's otherwise benign nature doesn't give us the impetus it does to form societies, survival.
Seriously, if there weren't other players in EVE, we'd never die. The reason that, despite not having any real natural laws, that we humans form societies with laws on Earth is because Earth is a relatively hostile place to survive. We aren't challenged that way in EVE. The only reason to band together in game is usually to fight each other in larger groups. While we say that the world is open for anyone and anybody to do anything, it's really not the case. EVE does encourage, by its design, a very specific type of character and play. I they wanted us to have a real choice between working together or fighting each other, they'd have to make a consequence for not doing one or the other.
EVE isn't trying hard enough to kill us to make the failure to communicate as dangerous as it is in the real world.
It isn't up to Eve to try and kill you -- it's other players. If you don't venture into the areas of the game where you do, in fact, run the risk of other players/characters having the opportunity to destroy what you've created then yes, I suppose Eve might seem rather benign.
To take your undead horde analogy, I suppose if you played DayZ and did nothing but hover around in a helicopter all day instead of running the risk of some random person killing your character and then taking all your stuff it would seem a rather bland experience.
Eve offers a lot of choice, and it even offers the choice of zero consequences: never undocking. Experiences might vary in Eve, because it has that scope where different areas bring with it different challenges. Even nullsec politics is essentially at core different groups deciding between working together or fighting each other over resources and assets needed to survive so I'm not sure what the issue is?
Well, that's the issue. You can't, on the one hand, say that EVE is truly free and open as a world, and in the next say that it's a game where everything revolves around one particular style of play and that those who don't like it just aren't playing the game right. It kind of hurts that idea that EVE is a game where you do whatever you want and is truly open. EVE made the game for a certain kind of person to play in a relatively specific way.
So since the only people with a chance to kill you being other capsuleers, you can't really say it's a world all about choices and a good representation of the real world.
It isn't a representation of a real world, it's a representation of a fictional world of capsuleers and what happens when you have privatized violence, an economy based on military-industrial complexes, lack of law enforcement, and deregulated corporatism coupled with unrestricted capitalism. It's a dystopian reality where being a dick is rewarded and having morals, ethics, and scruples is detrimental to "success".
"So since the only people with a chance to kill you being other capsuleers,"
Totally like the topic, how this is going. Im totally for new death threats 1 (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5702.msg94019#msg94019), I mean stuff thats can kill you what isnt a other capsuleer. I mean EVE doesnt need to be Gravity, but the Idea being lost in space could be so powerful (I remember, when I was lost in a wormhole. I had the feeling of being lost (even if I was with a friend there), and to loss a curse because of my OWN action and stupidity/arrogance was great (I mean I felt something :P). It was the first and last time, as since then I was prepare (since wormholes space is random -- in its attributes -- just to a certain degree.). So Im totally for more "Random Acts of violence outside the capsuleer-realm". I mean space should be deathly in itself, something like this have I mention ones about Black Prophecy 2 (http://eve-search.com/thread/91354-1/page/2#46). True be told, I never tested the game, so I dont know how those system worked out in the end. But I could think of some ways where mother-nature/spave could do f*** around our life more (or that of our crews. Which could change our ship attributes: ROF, agility, reaction time of modules... etc...).
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That would be more fun, I guess, except that I get very, very easily bored of the actual game of EVE. My gut reaction to most of what happens in the game world is, "FFS grow up!" which doesn't make it easy playing someone who's trying to understand the world around him through the lens of actually trying to be a decent human being. I guess that's another big problem of mine, I don't see the game in those terms. The game encourages and emphasizes a certain zeitgeist even by saying, "there are no rules." There's also not much to do but kill each other and farm. Like I've been saying, there might not be another storyline where we fight the undead hordes, but EVE's otherwise benign nature doesn't give us the impetus it does to form societies, survival.
Seriously, if there weren't other players in EVE, we'd never die. The reason that, despite not having any real natural laws, that we humans form societies with laws on Earth is because Earth is a relatively hostile place to survive. We aren't challenged that way in EVE. The only reason to band together in game is usually to fight each other in larger groups. While we say that the world is open for anyone and anybody to do anything, it's really not the case. EVE does encourage, by its design, a very specific type of character and play. I they wanted us to have a real choice between working together or fighting each other, they'd have to make a consequence for not doing one or the other.
EVE isn't trying hard enough to kill us to make the failure to communicate as dangerous as it is in the real world.
It isn't up to Eve to try and kill you -- it's other players. If you don't venture into the areas of the game where you do, in fact, run the risk of other players/characters having the opportunity to destroy what you've created then yes, I suppose Eve might seem rather benign.
To take your undead horde analogy, I suppose if you played DayZ and did nothing but hover around in a helicopter all day instead of running the risk of some random person killing your character and then taking all your stuff it would seem a rather bland experience.
Eve offers a lot of choice, and it even offers the choice of zero consequences: never undocking. Experiences might vary in Eve, because it has that scope where different areas bring with it different challenges. Even nullsec politics is essentially at core different groups deciding between working together or fighting each other over resources and assets needed to survive so I'm not sure what the issue is?
Well, that's the issue. You can't, on the one hand, say that EVE is truly free and open as a world, and in the next say that it's a game where everything revolves around one particular style of play and that those who don't like it just aren't playing the game right. It kind of hurts that idea that EVE is a game where you do whatever you want and is truly open. EVE made the game for a certain kind of person to play in a relatively specific way.
So since the only people with a chance to kill you being other capsuleers, you can't really say it's a world all about choices and a good representation of the real world.
It isn't a representation of a real world, it's a representation of a fictional world of capsuleers and what happens when you have privatized violence, an economy based on military-industrial complexes, lack of law enforcement, and deregulated corporatism coupled with unrestricted capitalism. It's a dystopian reality where being a dick is rewarded and having morals, ethics, and scruples is detrimental to "success".
"So since the only people with a chance to kill you being other capsuleers,"
Totally like the topic, how this is going. Im totally for new death threats 1 (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5702.msg94019#msg94019), I mean stuff thats can kill you what isnt a other capsuleer. I mean EVE doesnt need to be Gravity, but the Idea being lost in space could be so powerful (I remember, when I was lost in a wormhole. I had the feeling of being lost (even if I was with a friend there), and to loss a curse because of my OWN action and stupidity/arrogance was great (I mean I felt something :P). It was the first and last time, as since then I was prepare (since wormholes space is random -- in its attributes -- just to a certain degree.). So Im totally for more "Random Acts of violence outside the capsuleer-realm". I mean space should be deathly in itself, something like this have I mention ones about Black Prophecy 2 (http://eve-search.com/thread/91354-1/page/2#46). True be told, I never tested the game, so I dont know how those system worked out in the end. But I could think of some ways where mother-nature/spave could do f*** around our life more (or that of our crews. Which could change our ship attributes: ROF, agility, reaction time of modules... etc...).
I TOTALLY understand that sentiment! You know one of the few times I've actually cared about another capsuleer? Really cared? There was someone (can't for the life of me remember who) who was in wormhole space. She had a PLEX in her station, but she was about to run out of time and had to make it back before she got DCed. It wasn't really a lore thing, wasn't really a capsuleers-might-kill-her thing, wasn't really much threat, but that was the one time I really felt like I should jump out into wormhole space and help if I could. I think I offered to get her PLEX for her.
Wormhole space, if it was more environmentally dangerous rather than still being a place corps essentially set up shop, would be amazing. Imagine being in space and not knowing if, should the wormhole collapse behind you, your character might be lost for weeks or months with no way to get home.
Sure as Hell would up the ante on wormhole exploration. From what I've seen, there's always a way out and Sleeper tech is all you have to worry about. No roaming issues.
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That would be more fun, I guess, except that I get very, very easily bored of the actual game of EVE. My gut reaction to most of what happens in the game world is, "FFS grow up!" which doesn't make it easy playing someone who's trying to understand the world around him through the lens of actually trying to be a decent human being. I guess that's another big problem of mine, I don't see the game in those terms. The game encourages and emphasizes a certain zeitgeist even by saying, "there are no rules." There's also not much to do but kill each other and farm. Like I've been saying, there might not be another storyline where we fight the undead hordes, but EVE's otherwise benign nature doesn't give us the impetus it does to form societies, survival.
Seriously, if there weren't other players in EVE, we'd never die. The reason that, despite not having any real natural laws, that we humans form societies with laws on Earth is because Earth is a relatively hostile place to survive. We aren't challenged that way in EVE. The only reason to band together in game is usually to fight each other in larger groups. While we say that the world is open for anyone and anybody to do anything, it's really not the case. EVE does encourage, by its design, a very specific type of character and play. I they wanted us to have a real choice between working together or fighting each other, they'd have to make a consequence for not doing one or the other.
EVE isn't trying hard enough to kill us to make the failure to communicate as dangerous as it is in the real world.
It isn't up to Eve to try and kill you -- it's other players. If you don't venture into the areas of the game where you do, in fact, run the risk of other players/characters having the opportunity to destroy what you've created then yes, I suppose Eve might seem rather benign.
To take your undead horde analogy, I suppose if you played DayZ and did nothing but hover around in a helicopter all day instead of running the risk of some random person killing your character and then taking all your stuff it would seem a rather bland experience.
Eve offers a lot of choice, and it even offers the choice of zero consequences: never undocking. Experiences might vary in Eve, because it has that scope where different areas bring with it different challenges. Even nullsec politics is essentially at core different groups deciding between working together or fighting each other over resources and assets needed to survive so I'm not sure what the issue is?
Well, that's the issue. You can't, on the one hand, say that EVE is truly free and open as a world, and in the next say that it's a game where everything revolves around one particular style of play and that those who don't like it just aren't playing the game right. It kind of hurts that idea that EVE is a game where you do whatever you want and is truly open. EVE made the game for a certain kind of person to play in a relatively specific way.
So since the only people with a chance to kill you being other capsuleers, you can't really say it's a world all about choices and a good representation of the real world.
It isn't a representation of a real world, it's a representation of a fictional world of capsuleers and what happens when you have privatized violence, an economy based on military-industrial complexes, lack of law enforcement, and deregulated corporatism coupled with unrestricted capitalism. It's a dystopian reality where being a dick is rewarded and having morals, ethics, and scruples is detrimental to "success".
"So since the only people with a chance to kill you being other capsuleers,"
Totally like the topic, how this is going. Im totally for new death threats 1 (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5702.msg94019#msg94019), I mean stuff thats can kill you what isnt a other capsuleer. I mean EVE doesnt need to be Gravity, but the Idea being lost in space could be so powerful (I remember, when I was lost in a wormhole. I had the feeling of being lost (even if I was with a friend there), and to loss a curse because of my OWN action and stupidity/arrogance was great (I mean I felt something :P). It was the first and last time, as since then I was prepare (since wormholes space is random -- in its attributes -- just to a certain degree.). So Im totally for more "Random Acts of violence outside the capsuleer-realm". I mean space should be deathly in itself, something like this have I mention ones about Black Prophecy 2 (http://eve-search.com/thread/91354-1/page/2#46). True be told, I never tested the game, so I dont know how those system worked out in the end. But I could think of some ways where mother-nature/spave could do f*** around our life more (or that of our crews. Which could change our ship attributes: ROF, agility, reaction time of modules... etc...).
I TOTALLY understand that sentiment! You know one of the few times I've actually cared about another capsuleer? Really cared? There was someone (can't for the life of me remember who) who was in wormhole space. She had a PLEX in her station, but she was about to run out of time and had to make it back before she got DCed. It wasn't really a lore thing, wasn't really a capsuleers-might-kill-her thing, wasn't really much threat, but that was the one time I really felt like I should jump out into wormhole space and help if I could. I think I offered to get her PLEX for her.
Wormhole space, if it was more environmentally dangerous rather than still being a place corps essentially set up shop, would be amazing. Imagine being in space and not knowing if, should the wormhole collapse behind you, your character might be lost for weeks or months with no way to get home.
Sure as Hell would up the ante on wormhole exploration. From what I've seen, there's always a way out and Sleeper tech is all you have to worry about. No roaming issues.
GIVES A GREAT HUG. I feel you. My word choosing isnt the best... maybe I should say instate of "dead threats", "I care about something". And as you said, It can be also help (in our case) or helplessness (in my case). So I totally get where you coming from. How much I dont liked to be lost in a wormhole without a way back.... the more I liked the feeling. If thats make any sense?
"Imagine being in space and not knowing if, should the wormhole collapse behind you, your character might be lost for weeks or months with no way to get home."
Love this idea.
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I TOTALLY understand that sentiment! You know one of the few times I've actually cared about another capsuleer? Really cared? There was someone (can't for the life of me remember who) who was in wormhole space. She had a PLEX in her station, but she was about to run out of time and had to make it back before she got DCed. It wasn't really a lore thing, wasn't really a capsuleers-might-kill-her thing, wasn't really much threat, but that was the one time I really felt like I should jump out into wormhole space and help if I could. I think I offered to get her PLEX for her.
... (http://i.imgur.com/eCT8vEx.jpg)
Okay, I'm done laughing at you now. None of that should've happened at all: you can add a PLEX to your gametime from anywhere in the game if you can find it in your assets window, whether you're in the same place as the PLEX or not.
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Well, Jace, I didn't say you should band together to fight evil. Maybe if gate camps every few minutes had to deal with roaming meteors, rabid pack drone attacks that jump through gates into highsec, running out of oxygen or fuel, DED finding out their real identity and shutting down their clone network, having to fence illicit goods that, if recognized, get their mule arrested or worse, electromagnetic storms, solar wind, ship degradation with all the good facilities in higher security space, or something of that nature, we wouldn't see so many people take it up.
As it stands, EVE is doing its best to encourage one particular kind of play even if they aren't threatening you with the army of darkness. The universe isn't trying to kill anyone, makes it comparatively easy to play a prick, and then doesn't really reward you if you decide being a prick isn't your thing. It's no less of a mold than something like WoW has; EVE is built to encourage that specific kind of play. No giant soul-eating demons required.
I dislike the impetus to either jump into a null corp or faction warfare to get anywhere in the game, especially because the reasons for making us do this are kind of blatant (screw the rather idiotic way faction warfare gets handled, why are the research and manufacturing stations near the centers of learning, culture, and trade in highsec so much worse than the ones elsewhere?)
For all the complaints I have with WoW, and after seven years I have a few, the last one I'd have is a feeling of inflexibility. If I want to PVP in WoW, I can play that as a gladiator in arenas, soldier in BGs, or I can just jump on an RPPVP server and let them try to kill me everywhere. If I don't want to PVP, I can raid, run challenge dungeons, grind reps, run a pet combat team, set up for world bosses, whore achievements, or build professions. I can roll all of that into RP if I want, or not. WoW's biggest problem isn't making you into something, it's that there's so much for them to keep track of that tweaking something in the game affects a dozen other things where it would essentially form an exploit.
Well, that and heirlooms. Worst thing that ever happened to the game.
You feel like it is pushing you to a specific style of play because the other ones aren't even crossing your mind. Highsec mining corps? Manufacturing? Trading? None of those may be appealing to you, but I genuinely enjoy being a space trucker. There are more opportunities than you are giving credit for because they are so unenjoyable to you, I assume. Which is fair, but it doesn't mean the universe is pushing you a certain way.
What I was referring to is world lore pushing you a certain way. Years ago when I tried to play WoW, I really did try to stay involved in the RP community. But everything was about the overall story which was very linear, and in my opinion, uninspired. Everything revolves around the new giant threat to the world that creates dungeon opportunities. NPCs had little missions that had irrelevant stories that rarely developed the lore of the world and made no IC sense if you repeated them.
In Eve, if I want to do a distribution mission, I can go back to the same agent, get another one, and it makes IC sense that I do so. And beyond the regular missions, epic arcs give interesting flavor to the world.
For most MMOs, you have two major factions and periodic third entities that threaten both factions. All lore revolves around those three things, all NPCs are either bland and irrelevant or have to do with those three entities, and ICly is absolutely makes no sense that everyone is doing these missions over and over and over. You can't realistically RP going into the same dungeon more than once. You killed him, but you really didn't. So nothing that happened in the world outside of PvP (And even then, you have the same IC problem with battlegrounds as always. Same plot of land being fought over with oddly specific rules and regular intervals) is able to be applied to your character's story.
The only IC actions in-world that ever made congruent IC sense was randomly running into world mobs and arenas.
Edit: And no matter how much me and others whine about CCP not giving us enough World News, at least that is a thing. Other MMOs? No news, lore, or anything whatsoever until the next expansion.
Edit2: Also, since this thread has split into multiple discussions, I don't really want to sift through them all when responding to you. So if I mention something already said, sorry. I'm just quoting your response to me and responding.
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Well, Jace, I didn't say you should band together to fight evil. Maybe if gate camps every few minutes had to deal with roaming meteors, rabid pack drone attacks that jump through gates into highsec, running out of oxygen or fuel, DED finding out their real identity and shutting down their clone network, having to fence illicit goods that, if recognized, get their mule arrested or worse, electromagnetic storms, solar wind, ship degradation with all the good facilities in higher security space, or something of that nature, we wouldn't see so many people take it up.
As it stands, EVE is doing its best to encourage one particular kind of play even if they aren't threatening you with the army of darkness. The universe isn't trying to kill anyone, makes it comparatively easy to play a prick, and then doesn't really reward you if you decide being a prick isn't your thing. It's no less of a mold than something like WoW has; EVE is built to encourage that specific kind of play. No giant soul-eating demons required.
I dislike the impetus to either jump into a null corp or faction warfare to get anywhere in the game, especially because the reasons for making us do this are kind of blatant (screw the rather idiotic way faction warfare gets handled, why are the research and manufacturing stations near the centers of learning, culture, and trade in highsec so much worse than the ones elsewhere?)
For all the complaints I have with WoW, and after seven years I have a few, the last one I'd have is a feeling of inflexibility. If I want to PVP in WoW, I can play that as a gladiator in arenas, soldier in BGs, or I can just jump on an RPPVP server and let them try to kill me everywhere. If I don't want to PVP, I can raid, run challenge dungeons, grind reps, run a pet combat team, set up for world bosses, whore achievements, or build professions. I can roll all of that into RP if I want, or not. WoW's biggest problem isn't making you into something, it's that there's so much for them to keep track of that tweaking something in the game affects a dozen other things where it would essentially form an exploit.
Well, that and heirlooms. Worst thing that ever happened to the game.
You feel like it is pushing you to a specific style of play because the other ones aren't even crossing your mind. Highsec mining corps? Manufacturing? Trading? None of those may be appealing to you, but I genuinely enjoy being a space trucker. There are more opportunities than you are giving credit for because they are so unenjoyable to you, I assume. Which is fair, but it doesn't mean the universe is pushing you a certain way.
What I was referring to is world lore pushing you a certain way. Years ago when I tried to play WoW, I really did try to stay involved in the RP community. But everything was about the overall story which was very linear, and in my opinion, uninspired. Everything revolves around the new giant threat to the world that creates dungeon opportunities. NPCs had little missions that had irrelevant stories that rarely developed the lore of the world and made no IC sense if you repeated them.
In Eve, if I want to do a distribution mission, I can go back to the same agent, get another one, and it makes IC sense that I do so. And beyond the regular missions, epic arcs give interesting flavor to the world.
For most MMOs, you have two major factions and periodic third entities that threaten both factions. All lore revolves around those three things, all NPCs are either bland and irrelevant or have to do with those three entities, and ICly is absolutely makes no sense that everyone is doing these missions over and over and over. You can't realistically RP going into the same dungeon more than once. You killed him, but you really didn't. So nothing that happened in the world outside of PvP (And even then, you have the same IC problem with battlegrounds as always. Same plot of land being fought over with oddly specific rules and regular intervals) is able to be applied to your character's story.
The only IC actions in-world that ever made congruent IC sense was randomly running into world mobs and arenas.
Edit: And no matter how much me and others whine about CCP not giving us enough World News, at least that is a thing. Other MMOs? No news, lore, or anything whatsoever until the next expansion.
Edit2: Also, since this thread has split into multiple discussions, I don't really want to sift through them all when responding to you. So if I mention something already said, sorry. I'm just quoting your response to me and responding.
No problem, I know how it goes. I think the reason you don't often get news lore in some games is because of high volume content. WoW, for instance, has a minor content injection every single major patch instead of every expansion, so the game's usually got something new going on every few months that adds to it. When they dropped the Siege of Orgrimmar raid set for 5.4 in September, we also got a new PVE area to wrap up some of the story threads, a major change to one of the existing MOP zones, and a couple game re-balance shifts. One of the nice things about WoW being the colossal block of Jello that it is has to be the giant staff that seems to be able to give us stuff to do between expansions. Now, if only we could get a reliable rating system so we can keep people who don't know WTF they're doing out of LFR runs, I'd be pleased.
I guess my WoW experience has been a lot different as far as RP goes. I don't keep up on forums, instead I tend to RP in game (you can walk around, so why not?) So most of who I know in the game, I met in bars or on random dungeon runs. I actually made a lot of friends recently running my biker gang. I never had to worry about linear story stuff because we've always had other stuff to do and I'm not particularly interested in factional fighting (one of the other reasons EVE lore annoys me, of all the things to have in common with WoW, why multiple character factions, the hog-tie of storytelling?) I ran IC raids for my Horde guild and the in-clan lore for that is rather extensive. I can link the storyline as it stood when we kind of stopped running it, but it was a lot of fun having storytime in Thunder Bluff weekly. Luckily, there was a lot of room to wiggle. The Skulldance Clan was definitely a pro-Horde clan until Cataclysm, when we split off and RPed on our own for a while. The last expansion was a lot of fun for us, though now we're all doing it as a sideline to our mains elsewhere.
Ahhhh, the fun of IC instancing and raiding. Either way, until Cataclysm, I tended to avoid getting involved in the Horde/Alliance crap. Luckily, there was always something else to do that we could apply to the story.
EVE doesn't really have that because so many areas of space are "owned". It's easy to understand CCP not making more happen since stuff that "happens" doesn't usually matter in null, where they're pretty intent on focusing the game. They can't do what other MMOs do and add new areas to go to that no one's ever seen before, the cluster's extents are visible. They also can't really add many new factions and content to new areas because they'd either need to remove the empires from the relevant parts of highsec or remove the people living in lowsec, neither of which sound like they'd be popular.
What would they add that would be interesting but not fundamentally shift the game at this point?
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No problem, I know how it goes. I think the reason you don't often get news lore in some games is because of high volume content. WoW, for instance, has a minor content injection every single major patch instead of every expansion, so the game's usually got something new going on every few months that adds to it. When they dropped the Siege of Orgrimmar raid set for 5.4 in September, we also got a new PVE area to wrap up some of the story threads, a major change to one of the existing MOP zones, and a couple game re-balance shifts. One of the nice things about WoW being the colossal block of Jello that it is has to be the giant staff that seems to be able to give us stuff to do between expansions. Now, if only we could get a reliable rating system so we can keep people who don't know WTF they're doing out of LFR runs, I'd be pleased.
I guess my WoW experience has been a lot different as far as RP goes. I don't keep up on forums, instead I tend to RP in game (you can walk around, so why not?) So most of who I know in the game, I met in bars or on random dungeon runs. I actually made a lot of friends recently running my biker gang. I never had to worry about linear story stuff because we've always had other stuff to do and I'm not particularly interested in factional fighting (one of the other reasons EVE lore annoys me, of all the things to have in common with WoW, why multiple character factions, the hog-tie of storytelling?) I ran IC raids for my Horde guild and the in-clan lore for that is rather extensive. I can link the storyline as it stood when we kind of stopped running it, but it was a lot of fun having storytime in Thunder Bluff weekly. Luckily, there was a lot of room to wiggle. The Skulldance Clan was definitely a pro-Horde clan until Cataclysm, when we split off and RPed on our own for a while. The last expansion was a lot of fun for us, though now we're all doing it as a sideline to our mains elsewhere.
Ahhhh, the fun of IC instancing and raiding. Either way, until Cataclysm, I tended to avoid getting involved in the Horde/Alliance crap. Luckily, there was always something else to do that we could apply to the story.
EVE doesn't really have that because so many areas of space are "owned". It's easy to understand CCP not making more happen since stuff that "happens" doesn't usually matter in null, where they're pretty intent on focusing the game. They can't do what other MMOs do and add new areas to go to that no one's ever seen before, the cluster's extents are visible. They also can't really add many new factions and content to new areas because they'd either need to remove the empires from the relevant parts of highsec or remove the people living in lowsec, neither of which sound like they'd be popular.
What would they add that would be interesting but not fundamentally shift the game at this point?
But with all of that content you mention, despite its linearity which I can accept doesn't bother you but does me, none of it can be used ICly. No dungeon makes rational sense ICly. Everyone killed this guy? Then he respawned? You can't ICly put that into your character's story, because it just simply makes no sense, it would make their story incoherent. You couldn't walk around and talk to someone about how you killed Mr. Evil McOrc and how it was so tense and heroic, because well, they killed him to.
It is so incoherent story-wise for a character that it can't even be fixed with hand-wavium. And that's the problem with RP in most MMOs. They are specifically designed to set everyone up to be a MarySue. I killed the boss at the end of this huge dungeon. Well so did I! And me too! There is no coherent character story there. So you now by default have to detach your character from the world in which she lives just to have their story make any sense. So as far as RP goes, all of that "content" (dungeon, trash mobs, boss, repeat) is unusable for RP.
And yes, it is nice you can walk around in other games. But due to limitations of animation, don't be mistaken: it is still text-based RP.
And about your last question: I believe they should fundamentally shift the game and factions. Absolutely. Wars should happen, hisec systems should change hands for one reason or another. Is this possible? Probably not, but damned if it wouldn't be fun.
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They actually regularly add new areas of space. Exodus, one of the first expansions, saw more nullsec space iirc. Then another one (Red Moon Rising or the first Revelations, don't remember well) added all the drone regions in nullsec. Then TEA that added Black Rise and rearranged low sec for FW. Then Apocrypha will the hundreds of wormhole space systems. Then... well, they stopped adding content a few expansions later so... Nothing new now.
But yes unfortunately it stays completely static once implemented. :/
Well, Jace, I didn't say you should band together to fight evil. Maybe if gate camps every few minutes had to deal with roaming meteors, rabid pack drone attacks that jump through gates into highsec, running out of oxygen or fuel, DED finding out their real identity and shutting down their clone network, having to fence illicit goods that, if recognized, get their mule arrested or worse, electromagnetic storms, solar wind, ship degradation with all the good facilities in higher security space, or something of that nature, we wouldn't see so many people take it up.
As it stands, EVE is doing its best to encourage one particular kind of play even if they aren't threatening you with the army of darkness. The universe isn't trying to kill anyone, makes it comparatively easy to play a prick, and then doesn't really reward you if you decide being a prick isn't your thing. It's no less of a mold than something like WoW has; EVE is built to encourage that specific kind of play. No giant soul-eating demons required.
I dislike the impetus to either jump into a null corp or faction warfare to get anywhere in the game, especially because the reasons for making us do this are kind of blatant (screw the rather idiotic way faction warfare gets handled, why are the research and manufacturing stations near the centers of learning, culture, and trade in highsec so much worse than the ones elsewhere?)
For all the complaints I have with WoW, and after seven years I have a few, the last one I'd have is a feeling of inflexibility. If I want to PVP in WoW, I can play that as a gladiator in arenas, soldier in BGs, or I can just jump on an RPPVP server and let them try to kill me everywhere. If I don't want to PVP, I can raid, run challenge dungeons, grind reps, run a pet combat team, set up for world bosses, whore achievements, or build professions. I can roll all of that into RP if I want, or not. WoW's biggest problem isn't making you into something, it's that there's so much for them to keep track of that tweaking something in the game affects a dozen other things where it would essentially form an exploit.
Well, that and heirlooms. Worst thing that ever happened to the game.
I feel in the obligation to point you to that...
http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/ (http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/)
What is that distinction that everyone always do out of purely OOC manners between what people do and what they say ?
Saying something is doing something. Debating something is doing something. Convincing immortal capsuleers of something is certainly worth ten times in gold than just killing them to see them coming back the next minute.
Also, why would I take part in a gameplay that I strongly disagree with ? The gap between ingame and the actual lore and universe is so huge that what happens ingame doesn't mean anything at all to me. It's vain. And my character thinks the same way too btw. Doing otherwise would be totally nonsensical. I can still play the capsuleer demigod in either way.
Like in most MMOs actually. Most RPers ignore the game to actually play the lore rather than the - limited, poor, bland, bleached, and sometimes absurd or contradictory - gameplay. Sounds logical to me.
It is the notion that if your character isn't involved in game mechanics, then any activities they claim to be doing that could be represented in-game are not actually happening and your character is straight up lying.
That explanation aside, I largely agree with your reaction to it. I don't mind people being obsessed with game mechanics, everyone has their own method of playing and RPing. But I generally think that obsessing over a distinction between those that "do" and those that "talk" is yet another division in the RP scene we don't need. And possibly the most potentially divisive of them all.
Wait, I am certainly not speaking of characters claiming to be doing things that could be represented ingame. I share the same view than everybody on that : if you can do it ingame, then do it ingame. I never, ever, tried to replace something that could have been done ingame with pure fluff RP. Like the holy separation of OOC and IC - which a lot of people are unable to do - I always, always make sure that I keep RP ingame and pure fluff RP separated. And the latter is the kind of harmless RP you do outside of the game precisely because the game doesn't allow it. Like, you know, the most stupidest thing even : going at an opening ceremony, meeting someone else in his CQs or whatever. Oh, you still have the few die hards that go by "ONLY WHAT HAPPENS IN SPACE ACTUALLY HAPPENS". Well then, I guess our characters never go to the bathroom, never eat, never take a piss... Ah yes, I get it, it's all done in the capsule ! :bash:
I just don't understand why some players are lambasted (actually, I do) for just enriching the RP world around without necessarily doing "important" stuff ingame. Other than telling people that they are doing it wrong, what's the point ? How does that even bother them ?
But yes, that is a new trend I have seen emerge the last years. It's the cult of the killboard (for which I have nothing but contempt) and "backing one's claims in space", whatever that even means. Because people got so fed up to see all the usual Mary Sues you see in every MMO claiming to be the soon of Tovil-Toba, Jamyl, having killed millions of enemy soldiers on foot, or whatever silliness, that they feel in the obligation to apply that principle to everyone not falling into the other extreme.
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[...stuff...]
I just don't understand why some players are spit upon for just enriching the RP world around without necessarily doing "important" stuff ingame. Other than telling people that they are doing it wrong, what's the point ? How does that even bother them ?
But yes, that is a new trend I have seen emerge the last years. It's the cult of the killboard (for which I have nothing but contempt) and "backing one's claims in space", whatever that even means.
It is just the perspective that if it isn't something theoretically "meaningful" or a literal "action," it is somehow inferior and "just talk" since it isn't important enough to be reflected in game mechanics. Similar to a jock telling someone to "shut up or put up" in high school or something.
As I said, I find the trend to be unnecessarily divisive. But it is what it is, people can have whatever perception they wish.
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They actually regularly add new areas of space. Exodus, one of the first expansions, saw more nullsec space iirc. Then another one (Red Moon Rising or the first Revelations, don't remember well) added all the drone regions in nullsec. Then TEA that added Black Rise and rearranged low sec for FW. Then Apocrypha will the hundreds of wormhole space systems. Then... well, they stopped adding content a few expansions later so... Nothing new now.
But yes unfortunately it stays completely static once implemented. :/
Well, Jace, I didn't say you should band together to fight evil. Maybe if gate camps every few minutes had to deal with roaming meteors, rabid pack drone attacks that jump through gates into highsec, running out of oxygen or fuel, DED finding out their real identity and shutting down their clone network, having to fence illicit goods that, if recognized, get their mule arrested or worse, electromagnetic storms, solar wind, ship degradation with all the good facilities in higher security space, or something of that nature, we wouldn't see so many people take it up.
As it stands, EVE is doing its best to encourage one particular kind of play even if they aren't threatening you with the army of darkness. The universe isn't trying to kill anyone, makes it comparatively easy to play a prick, and then doesn't really reward you if you decide being a prick isn't your thing. It's no less of a mold than something like WoW has; EVE is built to encourage that specific kind of play. No giant soul-eating demons required.
I dislike the impetus to either jump into a null corp or faction warfare to get anywhere in the game, especially because the reasons for making us do this are kind of blatant (screw the rather idiotic way faction warfare gets handled, why are the research and manufacturing stations near the centers of learning, culture, and trade in highsec so much worse than the ones elsewhere?)
For all the complaints I have with WoW, and after seven years I have a few, the last one I'd have is a feeling of inflexibility. If I want to PVP in WoW, I can play that as a gladiator in arenas, soldier in BGs, or I can just jump on an RPPVP server and let them try to kill me everywhere. If I don't want to PVP, I can raid, run challenge dungeons, grind reps, run a pet combat team, set up for world bosses, whore achievements, or build professions. I can roll all of that into RP if I want, or not. WoW's biggest problem isn't making you into something, it's that there's so much for them to keep track of that tweaking something in the game affects a dozen other things where it would essentially form an exploit.
Well, that and heirlooms. Worst thing that ever happened to the game.
I feel in the obligation to point you to that...
http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/ (http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/)
What is that distinction that everyone always do out of purely OOC manners between what people do and what they say ?
Saying something is doing something. Debating something is doing something. Convincing immortal capsuleers of something is certainly worth ten times in gold than just killing them to see them coming back the next minute.
Also, why would I take part in a gameplay that I strongly disagree with ? The gap between ingame and the actual lore and universe is so huge that what happens ingame doesn't mean anything at all to me. It's vain. And my character thinks the same way too btw. Doing otherwise would be totally nonsensical. I can still play the capsuleer demigod in either way.
Like in most MMOs actually. Most RPers ignore the game to actually play the lore rather than the - limited, poor, bland, bleached, and sometimes absurd or contradictory - gameplay. Sounds logical to me.
It is the notion that if your character isn't involved in game mechanics, then any activities they claim to be doing that could be represented in-game are not actually happening and your character is straight up lying.
That explanation aside, I largely agree with your reaction to it. I don't mind people being obsessed with game mechanics, everyone has their own method of playing and RPing. But I generally think that obsessing over a distinction between those that "do" and those that "talk" is yet another division in the RP scene we don't need. And possibly the most potentially divisive of them all.
Wait, I am certainly not speaking of characters claiming to be doing things that could be represented ingame. I share the same view than everybody on that : if you can do it ingame, then do it ingame. I never, ever, tried to replace something that could have been done ingame with pure fluff RP. Like the holy separation of OOC and IC - which a lot of people are unable to do - I always, always make sure that I keep RP ingame and pure fluff RP separated. And the latter is the kind of harmless RP you do outside of the game precisely because the game doesn't allow it. Like, you know, the most stupidest thing even : going at an opening ceremony, meeting someone else in his CQs or whatever. Oh, you still have the few die hards that go by "ONLY WHAT HAPPENS IN SPACE ACTUALLY HAPPENS". Well then, I guess our characters never go to the bathroom, never eat, never take a piss... Ah yes, I get it, it's all done in the capsule ! :bash:
I just don't understand why some players are lambasted (actually, I do) for just enriching the RP world around without necessarily doing "important" stuff ingame. Other than telling people that they are doing it wrong, what's the point ? How does that even bother them ?
But yes, that is a new trend I have seen emerge the last years. It's the cult of the killboard (for which I have nothing but contempt) and "backing one's claims in space", whatever that even means. Because people got so fed up to see all the usual Mary Sues you see in every MMO claiming to be the soon of Tovil-Toba, Jamyl, having killed millions of enemy soldiers on foot, or whatever silliness, that they feel in the obligation to apply that principle to everyone not falling into the other extreme.
Two things about this, first being thanks for letting me know space has expanded. I don't know many people who've been in the game since 2009, so this is the first time hearing space used to be smaller. Who knows, maybe more intrinsically dangerous places will pop up.
Mostly I kind of hope that because my second point is that that list is weird. It would be like putting together a list of things to do in WoW and saying, "Heal.." then listing all the classes and specs. Yeah, they're technically very different to play, but realistically it falls under a general heading of PVE. More to the point, one tends to involve the other. If you feel like burying your face into high level cosmic anomalies, you're going to be in a PVP fit because the most dangerous thing in the area is whatever capsuleer corp owns the space.
Almost makes me want to see a list like that for Shadowrun. Say what you want about it, decking and rigging might as well have been in different games, but they went together so well. I wonder if someone will ever make more than that crap iso browser game for it. It'd be the most ambitious game ever made.
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Almost makes me want to see a list like that for Shadowrun. Say what you want about it, decking and rigging might as well have been in different games, but they went together so well. I wonder if someone will ever make more than that crap iso browser game for it. It'd be the most ambitious game ever made.
I'd say not likely. With Cyberpunk coming and WoD coming, it seems that things are going in a different direction. Also, just fyi, I'm going to leave for a seminar soon so my next response to our main discussion will be delayed by a few hours.
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Mostly I kind of hope that because my second point is that that list is weird. It would be like putting together a list of things to do in WoW and saying, "Heal.." then listing all the classes and specs. Yeah, they're technically very different to play, but realistically it falls under a general heading of PVE. More to the point, one tends to involve the other. If you feel like burying your face into high level cosmic anomalies, you're going to be in a PVP fit because the most dangerous thing in the area is whatever capsuleer corp owns the space.
Almost makes me want to see a list like that for Shadowrun. Say what you want about it, decking and rigging might as well have been in different games, but they went together so well. I wonder if someone will ever make more than that crap iso browser game for it. It'd be the most ambitious game ever made.
I don't understand. I pointed at all that what can be done in Eve like you did for WoW : "In Wow I can do this, or that, or even this...". I don't see the difference... I would even say that the possibilities of different things to do in Eve are countless times more numerous than anywhere else, and the game is famous for that...
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Mostly I kind of hope that because my second point is that that list is weird. It would be like putting together a list of things to do in WoW and saying, "Heal.." then listing all the classes and specs. Yeah, they're technically very different to play, but realistically it falls under a general heading of PVE. More to the point, one tends to involve the other. If you feel like burying your face into high level cosmic anomalies, you're going to be in a PVP fit because the most dangerous thing in the area is whatever capsuleer corp owns the space.
Almost makes me want to see a list like that for Shadowrun. Say what you want about it, decking and rigging might as well have been in different games, but they went together so well. I wonder if someone will ever make more than that crap iso browser game for it. It'd be the most ambitious game ever made.
I don't understand. I pointed at all that what can be done in Eve like you did for WoW : "In Wow I can do this, or that, or even this...". I don't see the difference... I would even say that the possibilities of different things to do in Eve are countless times more numerous than anywhere else, and the game is famous for that...
This.
Also, I would find this critique more reasonable if the character Constantin actually interacted with the lore on Amarr (and Caldari and Minmatar, since he interacts with them) rather than fighting it at every turn.
EVE cultures are alien. We keep calling it grimdark, but that is missing the issue. The issue is that these cultures are alien and need to be treated as alien and different from modern cultures. What is considered "good" and "bad" is going to be completely different from modern ideas about the same. This is especially true with Amarr, which is the one I know, but I get the impression it is also true on the others.
If you think you could take Constantin and put him in any other light religion, to me that says that you haven't bothered situating him in the complexity of Amarr.
Now, its not really a problem for RP if people don't get into the lore, but play loosely off it, but it does result in characters going "this guy isn't really Amarr, but something else."
Could we use more lore, yes. Could the lore be better integrated into the game, yes. But it is extremely deep and there is a ton to play off of.
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Almost makes me want to see a list like that for Shadowrun. Say what you want about it, decking and rigging might as well have been in different games, but they went together so well. I wonder if someone will ever make more than that crap iso browser game for it. It'd be the most ambitious game ever made.
I'd say not likely. With Cyberpunk coming and WoD coming, it seems that things are going in a different direction. Also, just fyi, I'm going to leave for a seminar soon so my next response to our main discussion will be delayed by a few hours.
No problem, I'm always unsure of when I'll be able to talk. I'm not in a hurry.
Mostly I kind of hope that because my second point is that that list is weird. It would be like putting together a list of things to do in WoW and saying, "Heal.." then listing all the classes and specs. Yeah, they're technically very different to play, but realistically it falls under a general heading of PVE. More to the point, one tends to involve the other. If you feel like burying your face into high level cosmic anomalies, you're going to be in a PVP fit because the most dangerous thing in the area is whatever capsuleer corp owns the space.
Almost makes me want to see a list like that for Shadowrun. Say what you want about it, decking and rigging might as well have been in different games, but they went together so well. I wonder if someone will ever make more than that crap iso browser game for it. It'd be the most ambitious game ever made.
I don't understand. I pointed at all that what can be done in Eve like you did for WoW : "In Wow I can do this, or that, or even this...". I don't see the difference... I would even say that the possibilities of different things to do in Eve are countless times more numerous than anywhere else, and the game is famous for that...
What I'm pointing out is that the metric used isn't what I'd call correct. The list was actually one of the weirder things I've ever seen. Reason I brought up WoW is because we're using it as the metric for MMOs, if you want I can switch to a different game to use as that metric.
Having said all that, the point is that the possibilities aren't really endless, a lot of those things are blended together, you can't do one without the other, it's the same thing in a different part of space, et cetera.
Probably the problem was that EVE was advertised as a fantastically difficult game with a vast universe. The universe is certainly vast, but the main reason I came was because my brother was promising something REALLY hard. Problem is that the game isn't hard, it's just another game with a PVP difficulty curve. Unfortunately, that curve regulates just about everything to do in the game, which is a shame, because I think I was bored with the PVP difficulty curve concept by Battlefield 2.
Per a private comment I got, yes, I have problems with EVE, but I wouldn't call it a bad game. I may sound like I hate it. I don't, or I wouldn't bother sticking around to write about it. It's definitely not what was advertised to me, but that might be because my brother wanted someone to play with my background and may have dosed up certain elements. Part of the state and direction question does mean going over the stuff I like. So, some things I do like about the EVE IP:
-Combat pacing. I come from a long series of games where you have to make two-dozen decisions a minute for ten minutes. What's refreshing about the game is that, once you're engaged, even in PVE it's a slower, more deliberate method of playing the game. It makes it a bit more interesting to make decisions, since you'll have to know you need your armor repaired long before you're going critical, so you sometimes have to plan ahead in fights by several minutes. I was a big fan of Final Fantasy Tactics when it came out, so I don't mind deliberate decision making you regret or have to make up for later.
-Variable combat style. One thing I really do like about EVE, and where it's precisely as advertised, is how much control you have over the ships. I'm still kind of mad I can't play with the paint layers or coloring, personalizing the outside, but one thing that hasn't disappointed me is the core mechanic of fitting a ship. It's been decently fun to be able to personalize what I've got on my to what I like having on me, giving me pretty minute control over the handling of my ship. I think that would be more fun if I wasn't constantly having to gear for other capsuleers and could run a more situational fit, but I don't have anything but praise for the ship and fitting mechanics themselves. If I don't like how my ship handles or I want to try some piece of obscure equipment that I just trained for, I can. The variety of possible equipment is a thing that, even with my high expectation of it, is exceeded. It's very good.
-Mission running, to a point, is very entertaining. One of my current problems is having to maintain my faction standing for the four empires when I run them, which is grating on my nerves because a large majority of the missions I take to raise one standing are running against another. That's severely limited what I can do as far as empire missions go. However, EVE seems to be able to do the "go here, do this, come back" thing on a small scale while keeping it relatively interesting, which is unfortunately not something I can say for most of the newer games coming out now. I know I'm starting to run out of missions to run and I end up re-running old ones, but the enemies within those are at least keeping me somewhat on my toes. I may not feel like it's the hardest game out there, but EVE PVE isn't a total cakewalk, especially on your own.
-Sansha incursions. When I can get to them, these can be pretty awesome, and are sort of what I wish there was more of. In a way, I wish the incursions really did spawn enemies to attack the station and do lasting damage in highsec we would have to repair on contract to the governments. That'd be fun. Or if the Sansha started actively hunting capsuleers in the area (at least I don't think they are, I've never had them warp in on me and I don't know much about them). But being able to enter an area that actually acts like its under random attack is probably the most fun I've had in EVE.
-Skill system. I don't have any complaints, really. I don't get much time to play, it's nice to be progressing even when I'm playing something else. This one speaks for itself and I don't think it's unpopular with anyone. The certification system could be made a LOT easier to comprehend and access even now, but I think it's a good idea that makes the complexity of the skill system bearable.
-Enemy variety. One thing I hate about WoW, once you've killed the same monsters, even raid bosses, a few hundred times, you need something new or you get bored. EVE doesn't have that problem as much because the enemies have adaptable equipment. Even if you've run something before, there's no guarantee you aren't going to get tracking disrupted this time through or suddenly have to deal with a shield tanker who suddenly pops up an armor repairer. Though the overview is a fairly terrible way to track combat, I think that's just a UI problem. A new UI later, and this would be pretty much perfect as far as keeping entertained through stock enemies. I may gripe that I always know if I'm flying into something in EVE's PVE world, but I won't complain about always knowing what I'm flying into. You don't always know what you're getting.
-Mission variety. As I told Lyn, I wouldn't consider a shipping mission and a combat mission to be different elements of the game; they're both missions and essentially are part of the same piece of the game. With that said, at least you know what you're getting when you get into one. If I don't feel like shooting stuff, there are agents specifically devoted to not-shooting-stuff missions, and my shooting stuff mission agents almost always have me doing one thing, shooting stuff. It's nice because, if I don't feel like shooting stuff, I know where to go, and when I feel like shooting stuff, there's a place to go for that. Even within the missions, the aforementioned enemy variety and combat pace keep things variable, so there's at least stuff going on that requires that you pay attention.
-Construct designs. I don't often get into this, but I really like Amarrian ships and their stations. Half the reason I still fly an Amarrian ship, generally in Amarrian space, is I like it. While I'm not a fan of the other ship/station types per-se, I can see why people might like those types of designs. It's about the only statement of style we can make in space, so it's nice that we've got some options instead of having to pick the least-ugly.
-Music and graphical style. I'm not sure how everyone else feels about this, but the music in EVE is amazing. It really captures the emptiness, the loneliness, and yet somehow doesn't feel cold and bleepy. Really, all the things I don't like about EVE are mechanical and social, I can't say I think EVE should look or sound different. I kind of wish my cruiser lasers sounded a bit more like lasers, but I can't say I hate the sound they have. I don't have a gripe with how the game looks on my screen and sounds in my speakers
-The RP community. Despite how much I hate probably what might be considered your average EVE player (because almost everything said outside of you guys makes me want to put my head through the wall), I think I at least enjoy the people I talk to on the IGS and here. My issues with the lore are many, and I don't think I'd be having fun RPing if people here weren't at least decent RPers. You guys really are the only reason I'm still here.
I think I wouldn't be here complaining if I thought EVE was completely stupid or didn't have any promise, it can be interesting and I like certain portions of how it works. Just saying, I'm not a complete hater. I'm not the biggest fan of the lore and the emphasis on imperial and nullsec infighting is head-deskingly annoying to me. A lot of the reason I have the revulsion to PVP games these days like the FPS games I was into is the nature of who I have to deal with on my own team, if not the people on the other side. It all turns into just another curve to learn, nothing that feels new.
But it's not that it's NOT fun to play, it's good enough to keep me entertained for a few hours at a time a few days a week. I do keep getting the feeling that, if I want to get harder or more distant targets, I have an eyeroll reaction because I'm going to be dealing more with capsuleer jackassery instead of the stuff I actually like in the game. There is stuff I like in the game and would like to see more of, though. If I had more of a stomach for asshattery in my spare time, like I had when I was younger, or a way of not getting pressed through the PVP mold to provide my game challenge, I'd probably renew for another year, at least, when the year I bought to try the game out is up. I just can't see paying to play another game like that when there are a bunch of games out there that will give you a PVP challenge essentially for free.
As it is, though, my patience for people being dicks on accident, nevermind on purpose, is pretty much gone by 5 pm EST (after a few phone calls with my contractors/clients/engineers/especially engineers/my God I wish we'd just become an AE firm), and to get deeper into the game, EVE doesn't give me a choice about whether or not I feel like involving myself in it. I'm either going to be allied with them or devoting time and space to keeping them from annoying me, probably both at the same time and neither of which I'm particularly thrilled about. It's part of why I wish EVE was more of a threat to us than each other. At least then my first instinct on seeing another ship in my space wouldn't be that the fun is over, it's time to deal with whatever this asshole is going to do. I could assume he has his own shit to deal with.
I really wish the capsuleer icon on my overview wasn't the end of my enjoyment. It's an MMORPG, I should kind of want to see other people or what's the point of the MMO bit of the genre? In the end, though, I get the feeling I'd enjoy EVE a whole lot more if there wasn't anyone else in it. I don't get that in the other online games I play and I think that's a major design problem.
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Mostly I kind of hope that because my second point is that that list is weird. It would be like putting together a list of things to do in WoW and saying, "Heal.." then listing all the classes and specs. Yeah, they're technically very different to play, but realistically it falls under a general heading of PVE. More to the point, one tends to involve the other. If you feel like burying your face into high level cosmic anomalies, you're going to be in a PVP fit because the most dangerous thing in the area is whatever capsuleer corp owns the space.
Almost makes me want to see a list like that for Shadowrun. Say what you want about it, decking and rigging might as well have been in different games, but they went together so well. I wonder if someone will ever make more than that crap iso browser game for it. It'd be the most ambitious game ever made.
I don't understand. I pointed at all that what can be done in Eve like you did for WoW : "In Wow I can do this, or that, or even this...". I don't see the difference... I would even say that the possibilities of different things to do in Eve are countless times more numerous than anywhere else, and the game is famous for that...
This.
Also, I would find this critique more reasonable if the character Constantin actually interacted with the lore on Amarr (and Caldari and Minmatar, since he interacts with them) rather than fighting it at every turn.
EVE cultures are alien. We keep calling it grimdark, but that is missing the issue. The issue is that these cultures are alien and need to be treated as alien and different from modern cultures. What is considered "good" and "bad" is going to be completely different from modern ideas about the same. This is especially true with Amarr, which is the one I know, but I get the impression it is also true on the others.
If you think you could take Constantin and put him in any other light religion, to me that says that you haven't bothered situating him in the complexity of Amarr.
Now, its not really a problem for RP if people don't get into the lore, but play loosely off it, but it does result in characters going "this guy isn't really Amarr, but something else."
Could we use more lore, yes. Could the lore be better integrated into the game, yes. But it is extremely deep and there is a ton to play off of.
Mostly I kind of hope that because my second point is that that list is weird. It would be like putting together a list of things to do in WoW and saying, "Heal.." then listing all the classes and specs. Yeah, they're technically very different to play, but realistically it falls under a general heading of PVE. More to the point, one tends to involve the other. If you feel like burying your face into high level cosmic anomalies, you're going to be in a PVP fit because the most dangerous thing in the area is whatever capsuleer corp owns the space.
Almost makes me want to see a list like that for Shadowrun. Say what you want about it, decking and rigging might as well have been in different games, but they went together so well. I wonder if someone will ever make more than that crap iso browser game for it. It'd be the most ambitious game ever made.
I don't understand. I pointed at all that what can be done in Eve like you did for WoW : "In Wow I can do this, or that, or even this...". I don't see the difference... I would even say that the possibilities of different things to do in Eve are countless times more numerous than anywhere else, and the game is famous for that...
This.
Also, I would find this critique more reasonable if the character Constantin actually interacted with the lore on Amarr (and Caldari and Minmatar, since he interacts with them) rather than fighting it at every turn.
EVE cultures are alien. We keep calling it grimdark, but that is missing the issue. The issue is that these cultures are alien and need to be treated as alien and different from modern cultures. What is considered "good" and "bad" is going to be completely different from modern ideas about the same. This is especially true with Amarr, which is the one I know, but I get the impression it is also true on the others.
If you think you could take Constantin and put him in any other light religion, to me that says that you haven't bothered situating him in the complexity of Amarr.
Now, its not really a problem for RP if people don't get into the lore, but play loosely off it, but it does result in characters going "this guy isn't really Amarr, but something else."
Could we use more lore, yes. Could the lore be better integrated into the game, yes. But it is extremely deep and there is a ton to play off of.
That Constantin doesn't come off as an Amarr, but something else, to be fair, is half the point. I'd probably be a bit disappointed in myself as a roleplayer if he came off as just another Amarr set piece. He's not supposed to, he's supposed to come off as a character first.
That said, the lore isn't deep compared to what I'm used to and conflicting where it tries to be. More to the point, it's not very alien either. People worshiping Gods that told them to enslave people that are at odds with the modern world aren't that alien. If they worshiped the concept of disappointment, that would be alien. If we had more than a handful of Scripture that painted the religion in a very complex, dual-natured way, that would be deep. What bits we have tend to sound like the soundbites southern Baptist preachers use, but the Amarr aren't painted that way.
One of the problems is that looking through Amarr lore, I can't see any other way Constantin becomes a more interesting character by being more Amarrian or taking anything else from the lore. Making him, say, a Tetrimonian? It wouldn't give him anything new to grow on and would severely limit what he can grow into as a character. It both has too much of the less useful information (limiting who he can be, where from, and what his goals are) and too little of the useful information (how else he could be defined as more than just a Tetrimonian, a thread to his personality that would be less symmetrical in character, or even a chunk of the original Scriptures that differ from the primary line that we would know besides the political).
If you've got anything that might go the other way, I'd like to read it. I just haven't read anything yet that could make Constantin, or any Amarrian character, more interesting as a character instead of limiting to their persona.
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It isn't a representation of a real world, it's a representation of a fictional world of capsuleers and what happens when you have privatized violence, an economy based on military-industrial complexes, lack of law enforcement, and deregulated corporatism coupled with unrestricted capitalism. It's a dystopian reality where being a dick is rewarded and having morals, ethics, and scruples is detrimental to "success".
Well, I guess then a different way to put it is that if incessant grimdark is all there is going to be, some of us find that rather boring. What's the point of having everything be dark when there's no light to compare it against?
I don't find it as grimdark as much as a representation of say, Dark Ages Europe. It's where you're essentially surrounded by Vikings, Barbarian Tribes, and Warlords. It's about humans being humans when there's a lack of laws, violence being power, and survival.
To use that analogy further, I sometimes look at Eve RP'ers like the Christian monks who just want to have the stability to sit in their cloistered monastaries illuminating texts and writing stories in a setting where other Eve players can very much be like Vikings rowing around in their longboats and nothing prevents them putting to shore and setting said monastaries on fire given an opportunity.
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The issue isn't that Constantin comes off as not Amarr, but that he specifically comes across as modern liberal christian. That level of modernization of thought really seems to come out of nowhere IC. Why would a person of Amarrian background and education come to value life for the sake of life? What causes such a change in belief schemes? Cosntantin tries to move Amarr way too many steps "forward."
Slavery really isn't the core issue for Amarr. You need to get to the why of slavery, and the nature of the slavery model. What causes Amarr to enslave? The answer (or answers, technically) is there in the PF, and its not because god said so. You have a mix of self defense, conversion practices, and economic self interest. And if you can find a RL culture that purposely enslaved people for the express purpose of conversion, i would love to know about it.
The eras of the universe model is also pretty unconventional: the formula of All things were one>Discord, but a chosen few remain>All things reunified can be found in RL religion, but it tends to be the more obscure apocalyptic stuff and on a smaller scale.
The lack of any concept of separation of church and state is also not unique, but it doesn't exist in any modern context that I know of.
You have a dozen different offshoot ways of interpreting Amarrian religin. Sani Sabik, EoM, Blood Raider, Khanid, each of the different houses, Tetrimon (which btw are crazy conservative nutcases who kill freed slaves :p), Ammatar, and salvation church just come off the top of my head.
They all prioritize different things, and handle differently.
And I come from the south, and I don't know a single SB type who goes where Amarr does. If you want a real world model, you have to look a thousand years ago, and even then none of the models quite work.
Right now, Constantin feels limited by the fact that he doesn't engage in the lore. Instead he floats above it with strange ideas that I cant see how they grow naturally from the lore we have. And well, that is Ok. But it does make it hard for me to take you slagging EVE lore too seriously.
The Abel Jarek salvation church line would be the direction I would look to start developing as the closest to C's character, though that is unfortunately one of the more shallowly developed parts of Amarr PF. It would also require collaboration with Matari RPers so that you make sure not to say Constantin does things that the Matari wouldn't let him do.
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The issue isn't that Constantin comes off as not Amarr, but that he specifically comes across as modern liberal christian. That level of modernization of thought really seems to come out of nowhere IC. Why would a person of Amarrian background and education come to value life for the sake of life? What causes such a change in belief schemes? Cosntantin tries to move Amarr way too many steps "forward."
Slavery really isn't the core issue for Amarr. You need to get to the why of slavery, and the nature of the slavery model. What causes Amarr to enslave? The answer (or answers, technically) is there in the PF, and its not because god said so. You have a mix of self defense, conversion practices, and economic self interest. And if you can find a RL culture that purposely enslaved people for the express purpose of conversion, i would love to know about it.
The eras of the universe model is also pretty unconventional: the formula of All things were one>Discord, but a chosen few remain>All things reunified can be found in RL religion, but it tends to be the more obscure apocalyptic stuff and on a smaller scale.
The lack of any separation of church and state concept is also not unique, but it doesn't exist in any modern context that I know of.
You have a dozen different offshoot ways of interpreting Amarrian religin. Sani Sabik, EoM, Blood Raider, Khanid, each of the different houses, Tetrimon (which btw are crazy conservative nutcases who kill freed slaves :p), Ammatar, and salvation church just come off the top of my head.
They all prioritize different things, and handle differently.
And I come from the south, and I don't know a single SB type who goes where Amarr does. If you want a real world model, you have to look a thousand years ago, and even then none of the models quite work.
Right now, Constantin feels limited by the fact that he doesn't engage in the lore. Instead he floats above it with strange ideas that I cant see how they grow naturally from the lore we have. And well, that is Ok. But it does make it hard for me to take you slagging EVE lore too seriously.
The Abel Jarek salvation church line would be the direction I would look to start developing as the closest to C's character, though that is unfortunately one of the more shallowly developed parts of Amarr PF.
Why liberal Christian? Constantin has stated that he believes in slavery, tends to run up his good graces wherever he goes by killing pirates, has a serious habit of womanizing in person, and drinks cognac, not bourbon. Granted, probably not the worst frame of reference for him. I think we have a different way of approaching lore. I don't think of Constantin's thought as "modern" as much as he's very much a product of his environment. He's had to reconcile his Amarrian heritage and way of thinking with his integration with the other three empires. In a way, he isn't really just an Amarrian anymore. His translation of the Scriptures are going to be a bit different, and I think that has to show.
I'm really not playing Constantin to show what all the Amarrians are like. That would pretty much squash anyone else's attempts to be another character. Constantin sees his faith in a certain way, in that his family was already a fairly leftist bloc and he's had contact with a lot of people who aren't Amarrian.
So, no, he's really not supposed to sound or act like any other Amarrian that doesn't share his unique history. He's Amarrian enough; I don't think anything he says is heretical enough to get him tossed before the Theology Council. However, I've brought up several times that the Ardishapur family that sponsors him is divided on him and his methodology, his own family supports him but worries about him being in danger, and Constantin himself is constantly evolving his thought based on what he hears. He's essentially reconciling the Scriptures with the rest of the cluster he lives in. When he reads Askura he reads something very differently than something, say, another Ardishapur who never leaves his holdings might read it.
He's kind of what you'd expect a foreign missionary to be, in the end. You wouldn't expect the guy who spends the majority of his time living in that space to see the pieces about, say, free thought the same way. Gaven probably thinks that the uniform thought idea applies only to Amarrians; Constantin can't help but count wise people outside the Amarr Empire as people with whom he should form a consensus. That's probably not something that comes up for someone like Gaven. It's certainly made Constantin idiosyncratic and a lot of other Amarrians like his message, but it definitely comes from a perspective that you wouldn't get as an Amarrian surrounded by Amarrians living the white-picket-fence Amarrian life.
Which is kind of the point because, unfortunately, all those offshoot religious views are very limiting to what Constantin would end up being. I'm a character writer, and making him, for instance, a Sani Sabik doesn't give him much to fuel development or to give him things to react to and against within it, it essentially limits his development. I remember you brought up the family and I'm thankful for that, because coming from the Ardishapur family and having read about them did give me something to use. That was a good piece. It gave me some background, as I've used a lot from their history to mould the Baracca Family history and elements like Khaedra's Law helped sort of form this somewhat-conservative but humanitarian approach I've tried moving toward.
However, for the most part, I think the lore's a bit thin and what we could really use isn't more stuff telling us what people are and are not, but giving us real source material that we can use to give characters context rather than limitations. More about the planetary settlements and their environments, the practice of the religion (especially more Scripture that's maybe tied to procedure or practices and rituals), what jobs are allocated to what classes of society, that sort of thing.
What lore we have is generally enough to cover story bases, but I wouldn't consider it deep. For our purposes, it's not as easy to wring evolutionary material out of it. Just from a story standpoint though, I'll give you an example. We're told religion runs most aspects of Amarrian life. We've got a few Scriptural passages from various places. We can infer from people's actions what the religion must be like. We know it's variable, as the Sacred Flesh doctrine was eventually rolled back for Jamyl and the Moral Reforms rolled back a ton of their own Scripture. However, we're essentially left to our own devices with how that religion functions in practice, what is Scripture and what isn't, what the Moral Reforms changed outside of the political, and so on. That's a lot not to have considering it's supposed to run their lives.
What we do have is a lot of slavery and their history of conquest, which is sort of what we've got to go on. As you said, there's more to the Amarr than conquer and enslave everyone, but that's most of what our lore talks about when talking about the Empire at large. I'm not sure that adding offshoot churches really helps, though at least it's something. It's a bit like saying America was conquered from the natives and repopulated with Europeans, they had a war of independence, you list what life is like in a few different states, and then you go over the Millerites and their offshoot religions. I mean, it's just not enough to cover the whole society, and the information you do have from that doesn't necessarily describe what the country is like.
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No problem, I know how it goes. I think the reason you don't often get news lore in some games is because of high volume content. WoW, for instance, has a minor content injection every single major patch instead of every expansion, so the game's usually got something new going on every few months that adds to it. When they dropped the Siege of Orgrimmar raid set for 5.4 in September, we also got a new PVE area to wrap up some of the story threads, a major change to one of the existing MOP zones, and a couple game re-balance shifts. One of the nice things about WoW being the colossal block of Jello that it is has to be the giant staff that seems to be able to give us stuff to do between expansions. Now, if only we could get a reliable rating system so we can keep people who don't know WTF they're doing out of LFR runs, I'd be pleased.
I guess my WoW experience has been a lot different as far as RP goes. I don't keep up on forums, instead I tend to RP in game (you can walk around, so why not?) So most of who I know in the game, I met in bars or on random dungeon runs. I actually made a lot of friends recently running my biker gang. I never had to worry about linear story stuff because we've always had other stuff to do and I'm not particularly interested in factional fighting (one of the other reasons EVE lore annoys me, of all the things to have in common with WoW, why multiple character factions, the hog-tie of storytelling?) I ran IC raids for my Horde guild and the in-clan lore for that is rather extensive. I can link the storyline as it stood when we kind of stopped running it, but it was a lot of fun having storytime in Thunder Bluff weekly. Luckily, there was a lot of room to wiggle. The Skulldance Clan was definitely a pro-Horde clan until Cataclysm, when we split off and RPed on our own for a while. The last expansion was a lot of fun for us, though now we're all doing it as a sideline to our mains elsewhere.
Ahhhh, the fun of IC instancing and raiding. Either way, until Cataclysm, I tended to avoid getting involved in the Horde/Alliance crap. Luckily, there was always something else to do that we could apply to the story.
EVE doesn't really have that because so many areas of space are "owned". It's easy to understand CCP not making more happen since stuff that "happens" doesn't usually matter in null, where they're pretty intent on focusing the game. They can't do what other MMOs do and add new areas to go to that no one's ever seen before, the cluster's extents are visible. They also can't really add many new factions and content to new areas because they'd either need to remove the empires from the relevant parts of highsec or remove the people living in lowsec, neither of which sound like they'd be popular.
What would they add that would be interesting but not fundamentally shift the game at this point?
But with all of that content you mention, despite its linearity which I can accept doesn't bother you but does me, none of it can be used ICly. No dungeon makes rational sense ICly. Everyone killed this guy? Then he respawned? You can't ICly put that into your character's story, because it just simply makes no sense, it would make their story incoherent. You couldn't walk around and talk to someone about how you killed Mr. Evil McOrc and how it was so tense and heroic, because well, they killed him to.
It is so incoherent story-wise for a character that it can't even be fixed with hand-wavium. And that's the problem with RP in most MMOs. They are specifically designed to set everyone up to be a MarySue. I killed the boss at the end of this huge dungeon. Well so did I! And me too! There is no coherent character story there. So you now by default have to detach your character from the world in which she lives just to have their story make any sense. So as far as RP goes, all of that "content" (dungeon, trash mobs, boss, repeat) is unusable for RP.
And yes, it is nice you can walk around in other games. But due to limitations of animation, don't be mistaken: it is still text-based RP.
And about your last question: I believe they should fundamentally shift the game and factions. Absolutely. Wars should happen, hisec systems should change hands for one reason or another. Is this possible? Probably not, but damned if it wouldn't be fun.
Vic, I think you missed this response of mine from earlier once the thread got busier. ;)
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No problem, I know how it goes. I think the reason you don't often get news lore in some games is because of high volume content. WoW, for instance, has a minor content injection every single major patch instead of every expansion, so the game's usually got something new going on every few months that adds to it. When they dropped the Siege of Orgrimmar raid set for 5.4 in September, we also got a new PVE area to wrap up some of the story threads, a major change to one of the existing MOP zones, and a couple game re-balance shifts. One of the nice things about WoW being the colossal block of Jello that it is has to be the giant staff that seems to be able to give us stuff to do between expansions. Now, if only we could get a reliable rating system so we can keep people who don't know WTF they're doing out of LFR runs, I'd be pleased.
I guess my WoW experience has been a lot different as far as RP goes. I don't keep up on forums, instead I tend to RP in game (you can walk around, so why not?) So most of who I know in the game, I met in bars or on random dungeon runs. I actually made a lot of friends recently running my biker gang. I never had to worry about linear story stuff because we've always had other stuff to do and I'm not particularly interested in factional fighting (one of the other reasons EVE lore annoys me, of all the things to have in common with WoW, why multiple character factions, the hog-tie of storytelling?) I ran IC raids for my Horde guild and the in-clan lore for that is rather extensive. I can link the storyline as it stood when we kind of stopped running it, but it was a lot of fun having storytime in Thunder Bluff weekly. Luckily, there was a lot of room to wiggle. The Skulldance Clan was definitely a pro-Horde clan until Cataclysm, when we split off and RPed on our own for a while. The last expansion was a lot of fun for us, though now we're all doing it as a sideline to our mains elsewhere.
Ahhhh, the fun of IC instancing and raiding. Either way, until Cataclysm, I tended to avoid getting involved in the Horde/Alliance crap. Luckily, there was always something else to do that we could apply to the story.
EVE doesn't really have that because so many areas of space are "owned". It's easy to understand CCP not making more happen since stuff that "happens" doesn't usually matter in null, where they're pretty intent on focusing the game. They can't do what other MMOs do and add new areas to go to that no one's ever seen before, the cluster's extents are visible. They also can't really add many new factions and content to new areas because they'd either need to remove the empires from the relevant parts of highsec or remove the people living in lowsec, neither of which sound like they'd be popular.
What would they add that would be interesting but not fundamentally shift the game at this point?
But with all of that content you mention, despite its linearity which I can accept doesn't bother you but does me, none of it can be used ICly. No dungeon makes rational sense ICly. Everyone killed this guy? Then he respawned? You can't ICly put that into your character's story, because it just simply makes no sense, it would make their story incoherent. You couldn't walk around and talk to someone about how you killed Mr. Evil McOrc and how it was so tense and heroic, because well, they killed him to.
It is so incoherent story-wise for a character that it can't even be fixed with hand-wavium. And that's the problem with RP in most MMOs. They are specifically designed to set everyone up to be a MarySue. I killed the boss at the end of this huge dungeon. Well so did I! And me too! There is no coherent character story there. So you now by default have to detach your character from the world in which she lives just to have their story make any sense. So as far as RP goes, all of that "content" (dungeon, trash mobs, boss, repeat) is unusable for RP.
And yes, it is nice you can walk around in other games. But due to limitations of animation, don't be mistaken: it is still text-based RP.
And about your last question: I believe they should fundamentally shift the game and factions. Absolutely. Wars should happen, hisec systems should change hands for one reason or another. Is this possible? Probably not, but damned if it wouldn't be fun.
Vic, I think you missed this response of mine from earlier once the thread got busier. ;)
Sorry, I did. I kind of got lost when Gaven got here. I honestly sometimes feel like he's my boss or something. I, in fact, did use an in-game boss as part of my orc character's development, but that's not normally used. I've mostly said that, even if I didn't specifically kill X or Y, my character was there for the fight (or more often, wasn't, since my characters didn't normally care).
I can kind of see what you're getting at, but then again I'm not sure it's better to have no story moving whatsoever. EVE's elements are almost meant to be divorced from each other, which is why I think faction warfare lore is such a pisser for most people. In the end, though, what can you do? If you're between player factions, you essentially have to set up a neverending war, or you're going to lose a gameplay element and piss off whomever was in that losing faction. I guess I never ran into the problem because it's rarely been important that I've killed so-and-so in any game I've played unless it's a personal NPC integral to some story I'm running. Oddly, I ran a lot less linear stories in the game that actually had linear stories. We would randomly throw parties that turned into drunken IC raiding and I did a lot of introspective RP with my characters.
Unfortunately, that kind of fun's a lot harder to have in EVE just because of the text limitations and that being the only way we can describe actions. I average something like two paragraphs of text in WoW per post and people have every right to criticize me for writing a LOT at a time. I learned to be very descriptive in pure-text RP freeform. EVE's text limit is nice for reducing spam, but man does it suck when you're trying to describe something in-depth.
I'd really like if suddenly there was an implosion in the supplies or CONCORD decided to get militant about us. I might think about going criminal if it meant being less like Genghis Khan and more like Dillinger or Gotti on some character or another. I'd certainly love it if those Sansha incursions could destroy stations and, if they did, they would destroy all goods on market or in hangars in those stations until it could be repaired. People would take those incursions more seriously.
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Sorry, I did. I kind of got lost when Gaven got here. I honestly sometimes feel like he's my boss or something. I, in fact, did use an in-game boss as part of my orc character's development, but that's not normally used. I've mostly said that, even if I didn't specifically kill X or Y, my character was there for the fight (or more often, wasn't, since my characters didn't normally care).
I can kind of see what you're getting at, but then again I'm not sure it's better to have no story moving whatsoever. EVE's elements are almost meant to be divorced from each other, which is why I think faction warfare lore is such a pisser for most people. In the end, though, what can you do? If you're between player factions, you essentially have to set up a neverending war, or you're going to lose a gameplay element and piss off whomever was in that losing faction. I guess I never ran into the problem because it's rarely been important that I've killed so-and-so in any game I've played unless it's a personal NPC integral to some story I'm running. Oddly, I ran a lot less linear stories in the game that actually had linear stories. We would randomly throw parties that turned into drunken IC raiding and I did a lot of introspective RP with my characters.
Unfortunately, that kind of fun's a lot harder to have in EVE just because of the text limitations and that being the only way we can describe actions. I average something like two paragraphs of text in WoW per post and people have every right to criticize me for writing a LOT at a time. I learned to be very descriptive in pure-text RP freeform. EVE's text limit is nice for reducing spam, but man does it suck when you're trying to describe something in-depth.
I'd really like if suddenly there was an implosion in the supplies or CONCORD decided to get militant about us. I might think about going criminal if it meant being less like Genghis Khan and more like Dillinger or Gotti on some character or another. I'd certainly love it if those Sansha incursions could destroy stations and, if they did, they would destroy all goods on market or in hangars in those stations until it could be repaired. People would take those incursions more seriously.
But even that drunken raid you mention - there's no way that can be coherent with the world ICly for the reasons I mentioned. I guess for me, I want my character to be able to be completely coherent with the world in which it resides, otherwise it is no longer open-world for me. I hate linearity, because it reduces all RP to either sitting around talking about the main story, or RPing in such a way that it has absolutely nothing to do with the world at all.
Whereas with Eve, yes, many things have little in-game consequence as far as lore goes - but it feels like it has more consequence than with a game in WoW where you have to constantly be saying "this obviously didn't happen ICly, guys". In Eve, what you do in-game can always be IC. A certain level of character immersion is possible, and that is why some of us love it - that kind of continual RP-Zen can't happen in other MMOs.
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Sorry, I did. I kind of got lost when Gaven got here. I honestly sometimes feel like he's my boss or something. I, in fact, did use an in-game boss as part of my orc character's development, but that's not normally used. I've mostly said that, even if I didn't specifically kill X or Y, my character was there for the fight (or more often, wasn't, since my characters didn't normally care).
I can kind of see what you're getting at, but then again I'm not sure it's better to have no story moving whatsoever. EVE's elements are almost meant to be divorced from each other, which is why I think faction warfare lore is such a pisser for most people. In the end, though, what can you do? If you're between player factions, you essentially have to set up a neverending war, or you're going to lose a gameplay element and piss off whomever was in that losing faction. I guess I never ran into the problem because it's rarely been important that I've killed so-and-so in any game I've played unless it's a personal NPC integral to some story I'm running. Oddly, I ran a lot less linear stories in the game that actually had linear stories. We would randomly throw parties that turned into drunken IC raiding and I did a lot of introspective RP with my characters.
Unfortunately, that kind of fun's a lot harder to have in EVE just because of the text limitations and that being the only way we can describe actions. I average something like two paragraphs of text in WoW per post and people have every right to criticize me for writing a LOT at a time. I learned to be very descriptive in pure-text RP freeform. EVE's text limit is nice for reducing spam, but man does it suck when you're trying to describe something in-depth.
I'd really like if suddenly there was an implosion in the supplies or CONCORD decided to get militant about us. I might think about going criminal if it meant being less like Genghis Khan and more like Dillinger or Gotti on some character or another. I'd certainly love it if those Sansha incursions could destroy stations and, if they did, they would destroy all goods on market or in hangars in those stations until it could be repaired. People would take those incursions more seriously.
But even that drunken raid you mention - there's no way that can be coherent with the world ICly for the reasons I mentioned. I guess for me, I want my character to be able to be completely coherent with the world in which it resides, otherwise it is no longer open-world for me. I hate linearity, because it reduces all RP to either sitting around talking about the main story, or RPing in such a way that it has absolutely nothing to do with the world at all.
Whereas with Eve, yes, many things have little in-game consequence as far as lore goes - but it feels like it has more consequence than with a game in WoW where you have to constantly be saying "this obviously didn't happen ICly, guys". In Eve, what you do in-game can always be IC. A certain level of character immersion is possible, and that is why some of us love it - that kind of continual RP-Zen can't happen in other MMOs.
I guess I don't share that, because I've actually killed and had characters killed in the game in combat. Being a capsuleer, just by the lore of it, precludes you from things like bravery because you literally cannot die for your country. I've had a couple go for less than that. At least lore-wise, I've dealt with the consequences of death fairly regularly. You kind of have to RP it because even the crew deaths are essentially something that doesn't happen in-game, all you're technically losing is your ship. I guess I'll take the IC threat of death, even if it has to be RPed out in text, over the in-game consequence of ship loss, though it doesn't. It's probably a personal thing, though. I didn't always have a game to RP in, so I don't mind handling entire dramas in nothing but an IMer. Skipping the hassle of in-game doesn't necessarily bother me.
Group functions, getting to do that largely in-game, is a bit more fun, so here's hoping station walking eventually makes an appearance and has some kind of purpose. I really don't get in-game immersion in the actual moment. When the game is going on and I'm worried about keeping my ship intact or my raid from pulling threat, I'm not entirely concerned with my character's frame of mind and how he'd react mentally to this duress. It's part of the pain in the ass of having a game around your RP. Sometimes it's nice to have graphic representation, but when the game is on, the game is on. People, sometimes not RPers, are very often counting on you to not have your head up your own ass when you've got a job to do.
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Sorry, I did. I kind of got lost when Gaven got here. I honestly sometimes feel like he's my boss or something. I, in fact, did use an in-game boss as part of my orc character's development, but that's not normally used. I've mostly said that, even if I didn't specifically kill X or Y, my character was there for the fight (or more often, wasn't, since my characters didn't normally care).
I can kind of see what you're getting at, but then again I'm not sure it's better to have no story moving whatsoever. EVE's elements are almost meant to be divorced from each other, which is why I think faction warfare lore is such a pisser for most people. In the end, though, what can you do? If you're between player factions, you essentially have to set up a neverending war, or you're going to lose a gameplay element and piss off whomever was in that losing faction. I guess I never ran into the problem because it's rarely been important that I've killed so-and-so in any game I've played unless it's a personal NPC integral to some story I'm running. Oddly, I ran a lot less linear stories in the game that actually had linear stories. We would randomly throw parties that turned into drunken IC raiding and I did a lot of introspective RP with my characters.
Unfortunately, that kind of fun's a lot harder to have in EVE just because of the text limitations and that being the only way we can describe actions. I average something like two paragraphs of text in WoW per post and people have every right to criticize me for writing a LOT at a time. I learned to be very descriptive in pure-text RP freeform. EVE's text limit is nice for reducing spam, but man does it suck when you're trying to describe something in-depth.
I'd really like if suddenly there was an implosion in the supplies or CONCORD decided to get militant about us. I might think about going criminal if it meant being less like Genghis Khan and more like Dillinger or Gotti on some character or another. I'd certainly love it if those Sansha incursions could destroy stations and, if they did, they would destroy all goods on market or in hangars in those stations until it could be repaired. People would take those incursions more seriously.
But even that drunken raid you mention - there's no way that can be coherent with the world ICly for the reasons I mentioned. I guess for me, I want my character to be able to be completely coherent with the world in which it resides, otherwise it is no longer open-world for me. I hate linearity, because it reduces all RP to either sitting around talking about the main story, or RPing in such a way that it has absolutely nothing to do with the world at all.
Whereas with Eve, yes, many things have little in-game consequence as far as lore goes - but it feels like it has more consequence than with a game in WoW where you have to constantly be saying "this obviously didn't happen ICly, guys". In Eve, what you do in-game can always be IC. A certain level of character immersion is possible, and that is why some of us love it - that kind of continual RP-Zen can't happen in other MMOs.
I guess I don't share that, because I've actually killed and had characters killed in the game in combat. Being a capsuleer, just by the lore of it, precludes you from things like bravery because you literally cannot die for your country. I've had a couple go for less than that. At least lore-wise, I've dealt with the consequences of death fairly regularly. You kind of have to RP it because even the crew deaths are essentially something that doesn't happen in-game, all you're technically losing is your ship. I guess I'll take the IC threat of death, even if it has to be RPed out in text, over the in-game consequence of ship loss, though it doesn't. It's probably a personal thing, though. I didn't always have a game to RP in, so I don't mind handling entire dramas in nothing but an IMer. Skipping the hassle of in-game doesn't necessarily bother me.
Group functions, getting to do that largely in-game, is a bit more fun, so here's hoping station walking eventually makes an appearance and has some kind of purpose. I really don't get in-game immersion in the actual moment. When the game is going on and I'm worried about keeping my ship intact or my raid from pulling threat, I'm not entirely concerned with my character's frame of mind and how he'd react mentally to this duress. It's part of the pain in the ass of having a game around your RP. Sometimes it's nice to have graphic representation, but when the game is on, the game is on. People, sometimes not RPers, are very often counting on you to not have your head up your own ass when you've got a job to do.
I'm mostly talking about coherent IC-ness at this point, not being super IC at all times. I just want actions to be coherent. Respawning famous NPCs that your hero somehow kills alongside everyone else just isn't coherent as far as any character storyline is concerned. And even if you try to handwavium it away (which I can't do, because that's everything your character does in that kind of MMO), it is still MarySueage that your character was somehow the hero that killed this supervillian and saved the game world.
So for IC actions, you are left with bars and world mobs.
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So, no, he's really not supposed to sound or act like any other Amarrian that doesn't share his unique history. He's Amarrian enough; I don't think anything he says is heretical enough to get him tossed before the Theology Council.
Not yet. But he does have a very 'Arzad Hamri' style to him, which I pointed out on Samira on the IGS. That is heretical. He talks a lot about using a soft hand and incorporating foreign culture into Amarr, which are things that Arzad Hamri was looked down on and eventually trialed for.
If that's how you want your character to be, then that's fine. But it is going to result in a lot of traditional Amarr characters viewing Constantin as heretical. Samira liked him at first, but she's been growing more and more concerned with what he says.
However, for the most part, I think the lore's a bit thin and what we could really use isn't more stuff telling us what people are and are not, but giving us real source material that we can use to give characters context rather than limitations. More about the planetary settlements and their environments, the practice of the religion (especially more Scripture that's maybe tied to procedure or practices and rituals), what jobs are allocated to what classes of society, that sort of thing.
More of this would be nice. There's some of it about, but a lot of it is buried really deep in isolated sentences in chronicles. For example, Amarr view physical punishment as a standard punishment for crimes, not just something used on slaves, as mentioned in a chronicle. That same chronicle mentions that priests at least work beside the slaves, not just as overseers. Another chronicle mentions that execution and killing are actually rare, because the culture prefers to make the criminal/enemy to come to see their point of view, through methods like slavery. There is a lot of lore to be found in those chronicles (and in in-game missions).
This is the case for lore in most universes, though, not just EVE. To go to WoW as you keep using it as an example, there is even LESS lore there. WoW's lore is extremely vague on cultural backround and practices with a handful of exceptions (one of the reasons I really liked the Pandaren was because it was one of the few times Blizzard actually went into depth on the culture of the race). As someone who plays a draenei as her main, the only way you could get any kind of lore was to infer for yourself based on what little you could find in quest dialogue (for example, I wrote a big essay on the Auchenai (http://www.defiasrp.com/t4262p105-draenic-discourses-on-the-inner-light-updated-25-7-2013-with-the-army-of-light-marches-on#153092) purely from conjecture and inference of an extremely limited selection of quotes. None of that is actually canon, it has to be assumption because there's so little to work with. That entire thread I linked to is actually full of stuff like that--essays and assumptions made from very scant pieces of lore because draenei have nothing to work with).
Where WoW lore did get expanded was in the WoWRPG books. Unfortunately those were declared non-canonical, which lobotomized the universe (the entire Forsaken religion of divine humanism for example was a product of those books and is now non-canon). It otherwise has as much, if not far less, actual lore available for players as EVE does. While the case of draenei as mentioned above is one of the more extreme cases, even well-developed races like humans and orcs have very little of actual substance. In WoW, as in EVE, you have to make a lot of inferences from obscure references.
One of the major differences? In EVE, unlike WoW, the player's actions can actually affect change on the actual lore. Much of current Amarr lore has been inspired by or even outright taken from things that Amarr roleplayers did years past. Amarr Victor for example came from players, and I believe that the concept of Amarr slavery being a path to salvation came from Archbishop's old sermons on the IGS. The systems of Bagodan and Hama were originally low-sec systems but were raised to high-sec after consistent anti-pirate operations by PIE and others in the area. The same thing happens with the other factions. Hak'lan tea was player-made and canonized, Ava tells me that Modern Standard Matari was created by players and eventually canonized, as well as the voluval ritual, and so on.
That's really the thing that EVE does and WoW doesn't. In WoW, the lore comes from the developers, and nothing the player does in the realization of that lore in-game means anything. You are just there as a member of the audience, watching Blizzard's story. It is a railroaded game in content and story. Even the official characters are tools of the plot, there not to be characters but to drive the story in the direction Blizzard wants it to go (evidenced most clearly in Jaina's recent 180 change in character, done purely in order to give the Alliance faction a driving incident (Theramore) and to make Jaina the devil on Varian's shoulder in pair with Anduin the angel). In EVE on the otherhand, you the player are expected to be the one who does something with that lore.
I guess I don't share that, because I've actually killed and had characters killed in the game in combat. Being a capsuleer, just by the lore of it, precludes you from things like bravery because you literally cannot die for your country. I've had a couple go for less than that. At least lore-wise, I've dealt with the consequences of death fairly regularly. You kind of have to RP it because even the crew deaths are essentially something that doesn't happen in-game, all you're technically losing is your ship. I guess I'll take the IC threat of death, even if it has to be RPed out in text, over the in-game consequence of ship loss, though it doesn't. It's probably a personal thing, though. I didn't always have a game to RP in, so I don't mind handling entire dramas in nothing but an IMer. Skipping the hassle of in-game doesn't necessarily bother me.
To be blunt, but that's bullshit. While EVE might have an IC mechanic to get around death (something that WoW also had, by the way, in the form of resurrections, even though a lot of RPers liked to forget it existed because "herp derp I'll only acknowledge the mechanics, lore, and IC actions that I personally agree with"), it has OOC consequences to death that WoW did not have. And even more importantly, as a full-time RP game in which everything you do in-game is IC (compared to WoW where only the things you want to be IC are IC), you actually can and do die on a regular basis.
In WoW RP, bravery was never a thing to worry about because RPers lived in a world of RP-by-Consent. The PC is never at risk of death unless the player behind the character wants to be at risk. And as none do, it results in characters being brave as a rule because they will ignore any seriously threatening injury and only die when the player wishes the character to die. Even in actual IC PvP, any death the character suffers in combat will be ignored because the player does not wish to acknowledge it.
In EVE, bravery is enforced by OOC consequences and because the game spits on your consent. Sure, you may have an IC out to use, but you will actually die regardless of whether you want to or not, and you will actually lose assets in that death. Ergo, you will have to actually tone down your bravery to acceptable levels because the game doesn't let you pick and choose when and how you want to die. Characters in EVE actually do retreat from lopsided fights, something that actually rarely happens in WoW RP.
Also, cloning does not immediately render bravery moot, because it is strongly dependant on how your character views cloning. Amarr characters in particular have actual lore reasons (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Death#Amarr) to not view cloning as something that invalidates death.
Group functions, getting to do that largely in-game, is a bit more fun, so here's hoping station walking eventually makes an appearance and has some kind of purpose. I really don't get in-game immersion in the actual moment. When the game is going on and I'm worried about keeping my ship intact or my raid from pulling threat, I'm not entirely concerned with my character's frame of mind and how he'd react mentally to this duress. It's part of the pain in the ass of having a game around your RP. Sometimes it's nice to have graphic representation, but when the game is on, the game is on. People, sometimes not RPers, are very often counting on you to not have your head up your own ass when you've got a job to do.
And the key difference here, is that in EVE it's other characters that are counting on you, not just other RPers. The vast majority of raids in WoW are not IC, even when it's a full group of RPers. In EVE, everything you do in-game is IC, and those people are therefore counting on you both OOCly and ICly. When I do well in a fight in EVE, I get IC praise. When I've done poorly or run away from a lopsided fight (without being ordered to retreat), I've been reprimanded IC. The fight actually has more meaning in EVE because it's IC.
That's why I personally find EVE more immersive as a universe than WoW. In WoW, the only things that are IC are the things that you and other players are willing to take IC. In EVE, everything you do is IC. Everything the OOCers do is IC. Everything that happens in EVE is IC. That is far, far more immersive. WoW is part-time IC, EVE is full-time IC.
And that's kind of the thing. In WoW, the world is a toybox that you use to stage creative stories on. Nothing about the world actually matters, rather what you can create with what is available. When you use an in-game dungeon, you are not typically RPing the ACTUAL dungeon, you are using the dungeon's art and environment assets to pretend it's somewhere else for a story you are running. When you are running an event out in the world, you are inventing a plotline and creatures that are typically not actually there, and using raid markers and emotes or dice rolls as a way of staging that story--the environment itself is once again an environmental prop piece, much like the underlying environment board for a PnP or miniatures game.
In EVE, the actual world is an actual world. It is not a toybox that you take stuff out of and put back in when you are done, it is a living breathing world in which your characters are actually living and interacting on a daily basis. What happens in that world actually happens IC, whether it is interesting and exciting or dull and mundane.
Do note, that unlike a lot of EVE players I won't go and say that WoW or the WoW method or RP is actually bad. I was RPing in WoW for the better part of 6 years and was the main IC leader for my server's Alliance RP community last year. The WoW method does actually let you create very fun larger than life stories. But the key word in that sentence is 'stories'. EVE is 'life'. In WoW, like in a PnP game, you have a lot of resources that you can use to create amazing stories, incredibly fun for all the players involved, but those stories won't ultimately change or mean anything to the overall universe. In EVE, however, your character is in a living, breathing universe. You may not be able to tell the same kind of grand stories (except in exceptional cases by exceptional people), but you can live out an alternate reality with actual persistent impact for everyone in that universe. In WoW, the big problem I found in the RP community was the people trying to live out normal, mundane character lives when the world is built for powerful, engaging, creative storylines (IE the typical boring guard/citizen/criminal dynamic that spends all its time jacking off in Stormwind instead of participating in the ever-evolving WarCraft story). In EVE, the problem is the opposite, in people trying to be create big made-up storylines in text instead of actually living out their character's day-to-day lives in the game world. Both types of story have their merits and both are fun. But each story type fits better to a different game. I could not RP out a character like Samira in WoW (and I've tried). At the same time, I could not RP out a character like I've played in WoW in EVE. The game worlds support two different types of story. That doesn't mean that either of them is bad, they just cater to different things.
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Sorry, I did. I kind of got lost when Gaven got here. I honestly sometimes feel like he's my boss or something. I, in fact, did use an in-game boss as part of my orc character's development, but that's not normally used. I've mostly said that, even if I didn't specifically kill X or Y, my character was there for the fight (or more often, wasn't, since my characters didn't normally care).
I can kind of see what you're getting at, but then again I'm not sure it's better to have no story moving whatsoever. EVE's elements are almost meant to be divorced from each other, which is why I think faction warfare lore is such a pisser for most people. In the end, though, what can you do? If you're between player factions, you essentially have to set up a neverending war, or you're going to lose a gameplay element and piss off whomever was in that losing faction. I guess I never ran into the problem because it's rarely been important that I've killed so-and-so in any game I've played unless it's a personal NPC integral to some story I'm running. Oddly, I ran a lot less linear stories in the game that actually had linear stories. We would randomly throw parties that turned into drunken IC raiding and I did a lot of introspective RP with my characters.
Unfortunately, that kind of fun's a lot harder to have in EVE just because of the text limitations and that being the only way we can describe actions. I average something like two paragraphs of text in WoW per post and people have every right to criticize me for writing a LOT at a time. I learned to be very descriptive in pure-text RP freeform. EVE's text limit is nice for reducing spam, but man does it suck when you're trying to describe something in-depth.
I'd really like if suddenly there was an implosion in the supplies or CONCORD decided to get militant about us. I might think about going criminal if it meant being less like Genghis Khan and more like Dillinger or Gotti on some character or another. I'd certainly love it if those Sansha incursions could destroy stations and, if they did, they would destroy all goods on market or in hangars in those stations until it could be repaired. People would take those incursions more seriously.
But even that drunken raid you mention - there's no way that can be coherent with the world ICly for the reasons I mentioned. I guess for me, I want my character to be able to be completely coherent with the world in which it resides, otherwise it is no longer open-world for me. I hate linearity, because it reduces all RP to either sitting around talking about the main story, or RPing in such a way that it has absolutely nothing to do with the world at all.
Whereas with Eve, yes, many things have little in-game consequence as far as lore goes - but it feels like it has more consequence than with a game in WoW where you have to constantly be saying "this obviously didn't happen ICly, guys". In Eve, what you do in-game can always be IC. A certain level of character immersion is possible, and that is why some of us love it - that kind of continual RP-Zen can't happen in other MMOs.
I guess I don't share that, because I've actually killed and had characters killed in the game in combat. Being a capsuleer, just by the lore of it, precludes you from things like bravery because you literally cannot die for your country. I've had a couple go for less than that. At least lore-wise, I've dealt with the consequences of death fairly regularly. You kind of have to RP it because even the crew deaths are essentially something that doesn't happen in-game, all you're technically losing is your ship. I guess I'll take the IC threat of death, even if it has to be RPed out in text, over the in-game consequence of ship loss, though it doesn't. It's probably a personal thing, though. I didn't always have a game to RP in, so I don't mind handling entire dramas in nothing but an IMer. Skipping the hassle of in-game doesn't necessarily bother me.
Group functions, getting to do that largely in-game, is a bit more fun, so here's hoping station walking eventually makes an appearance and has some kind of purpose. I really don't get in-game immersion in the actual moment. When the game is going on and I'm worried about keeping my ship intact or my raid from pulling threat, I'm not entirely concerned with my character's frame of mind and how he'd react mentally to this duress. It's part of the pain in the ass of having a game around your RP. Sometimes it's nice to have graphic representation, but when the game is on, the game is on. People, sometimes not RPers, are very often counting on you to not have your head up your own ass when you've got a job to do.
I'm mostly talking about coherent IC-ness at this point, not being super IC at all times. I just want actions to be coherent. Respawning famous NPCs that your hero somehow kills alongside everyone else just isn't coherent as far as any character storyline is concerned. And even if you try to handwavium it away (which I can't do, because that's everything your character does in that kind of MMO), it is still MarySueage that your character was somehow the hero that killed this supervillian and saved the game world.
So for IC actions, you are left with bars and world mobs.
I'm not sure that doesn't happen in the EVE universe any less. How often have I had to destroy that random-name generated anti-slavery terrorist while trying to build up faction lore? Honestly, I can't remember if it's the same name or a different one every time, but I don't think missions or epic arcs do. I can't imagine we've all killed Harkan after a long investigation exposing him.
Not yet. But he does have a very 'Arzad Hamri' style to him, which I pointed out on Samira on the IGS. That is heretical. He talks a lot about using a soft hand and incorporating foreign culture into Amarr, which are things that Arzad Hamri was looked down on and eventually trialed for.
If that's how you want your character to be, then that's fine. But it is going to result in a lot of traditional Amarr characters viewing Constantin as heretical. Samira liked him at first, but she's been growing more and more concerned with what he says.
Difference there being that Constantin isn't a Holder himself and, though his family is certified to own slaves, obviously Constantin doesn't. That might make his missionary work somewhat awkward. Also, it's a different time when the Empress herself is releasing slaves en masse. In the end, he's sort of supposed to make conservatives worried on pretty much all sides, not just Amarrians. Matari warhawks don't like him either.
More of this would be nice. There's some of it about, but a lot of it is buried really deep in isolated sentences in chronicles. For example, Amarr view physical punishment as a standard punishment for crimes, not just something used on slaves, as mentioned in a chronicle. That same chronicle mentions that priests at least work beside the slaves, not just as overseers. Another chronicle mentions that execution and killing are actually rare, because the culture prefers to make the criminal/enemy to come to see their point of view, through methods like slavery. There is a lot of lore to be found in those chronicles (and in in-game missions).
This is the case for lore in most universes, though, not just EVE. To go to WoW as you keep using it as an example, there is even LESS lore there. WoW's lore is extremely vague on cultural backround and practices with a handful of exceptions (one of the reasons I really liked the Pandaren was because it was one of the few times Blizzard actually went into depth on the culture of the race). As someone who plays a draenei as her main, the only way you could get any kind of lore was to infer for yourself based on what little you could find in quest dialogue (for example, I wrote a big essay on the Auchenai (http://www.defiasrp.com/t4262p105-draenic-discourses-on-the-inner-light-updated-25-7-2013-with-the-army-of-light-marches-on#153092) purely from conjecture and inference of an extremely limited selection of quotes. None of that is actually canon, it has to be assumption because there's so little to work with. That entire thread I linked to is actually full of stuff like that--essays and assumptions made from very scant pieces of lore because draenei have nothing to work with).
Where WoW lore did get expanded was in the WoWRPG books. Unfortunately those were declared non-canonical, which lobotomized the universe (the entire Forsaken religion of divine humanism for example was a product of those books and is now non-canon). It otherwise has as much, if not far less, actual lore available for players as EVE does. While the case of draenei as mentioned above is one of the more extreme cases, even well-developed races like humans and orcs have very little of actual substance. In WoW, as in EVE, you have to make a lot of inferences from obscure references.
One of the major differences? In EVE, unlike WoW, the player's actions can actually affect change on the actual lore. Much of current Amarr lore has been inspired by or even outright taken from things that Amarr roleplayers did years past. Amarr Victor for example came from players, and I believe that the concept of Amarr slavery being a path to salvation came from Archbishop's old sermons on the IGS. The systems of Bagodan and Hama were originally low-sec systems but were raised to high-sec after consistent anti-pirate operations by PIE and others in the area. The same thing happens with the other factions. Hak'lan tea was player-made and canonized, Ava tells me that Modern Standard Matari was created by players and eventually canonized, as well as the voluval ritual, and so on.
That's really the thing that EVE does and WoW doesn't. In WoW, the lore comes from the developers, and nothing the player does in the realization of that lore in-game means anything. You are just there as a member of the audience, watching Blizzard's story. It is a railroaded game in content and story. Even the official characters are tools of the plot, there not to be characters but to drive the story in the direction Blizzard wants it to go (evidenced most clearly in Jaina's recent 180 change in character, done purely in order to give the Alliance faction a driving incident (Theramore) and to make Jaina the devil on Varian's shoulder in pair with Anduin the angel). In EVE on the otherhand, you the player are expected to be the one who does something with that lore.
I really just intended to use it as an example, not derail us onto a WoW discussion, it's just that everyone knows a lot about it. Being that, I should disclose that I've been pretty knee-deep in Warcraft since OaH and I edited on WoWwiki for a while. There's a LOT of it out there, and not just blurbs in buried sentences, but fairly useful lore. A lot of it, to be fair, EVE can't replicate because you can see it happening in-game. For example, we know the Church of Light's ranking system because those characters are present and order each other around in the game. We know how the church relates to the rest of the Alliance, what they worship, what their rituals are, we know where its purview ends, what they believe, where they draw their power from, what they draw their power from, und so weider. It's not too many articles you'd need to read to go through the meat and potatoes.
The Amarr religion, despite being more intimately tied to Amarrian culture, we don't have nearly as much information on. Unfortunately we, desperately need it, as per the last thing I was talking about. Is Constantin doing something heretical? That's a pretty hard question to answer because we don't know, presently, what constitutes heresy. We know being a member of a terrorist/blood drinking organization can get you on the list, but that's probably going to get you in trouble anywhere. Would the events that got Hamzi killed get him killed today? That's the problem. You get a decent story, and they write a lot of stories, but not much actual lore so you can understand modern life and what it's supposed to be about. Most of it is conjecture.
I'm not sure us having a hand in lore is that much of a good thing, then. Imagine if CCP decided to roll with Constantin's interpretation of Scriptures because it fits better with their universe. That would justly piss a lot of you off OOCly for good reason.
To be blunt, but that's bullshit. While EVE might have an IC mechanic to get around death (something that WoW also had, by the way, in the form of resurrections, even though a lot of RPers liked to forget it existed because "herp derp I'll only acknowledge the mechanics, lore, and IC actions that I personally agree with"), it has OOC consequences to death that WoW did not have. And even more importantly, as a full-time RP game in which everything you do in-game is IC (compared to WoW where only the things you want to be IC are IC), you actually can and do die on a regular basis.
In WoW RP, bravery was never a thing to worry about because RPers lived in a world of RP-by-Consent. The PC is never at risk of death unless the player behind the character wants to be at risk. And as none do, it results in characters being brave as a rule because they will ignore any seriously threatening injury and only die when the player wishes the character to die. Even in actual IC PvP, any death the character suffers in combat will be ignored because the player does not wish to acknowledge it.
In EVE, bravery is enforced by OOC consequences and because the game spits on your consent. Sure, you may have an IC out to use, but you will actually die regardless of whether you want to or not, and you will actually lose assets in that death. Ergo, you will have to actually tone down your bravery to acceptable levels because the game doesn't let you pick and choose when and how you want to die. Characters in EVE actually do retreat from lopsided fights, something that actually rarely happens in WoW RP.
Also, cloning does not immediately render bravery moot, because it is strongly dependant on how your character views cloning. Amarr characters in particular have actual lore reasons (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Death#Amarr) to not view cloning as something that invalidates death.
They went over when resurrection was possible and impossible a few times in WoW. The most recent one I can think of was during the new Troll starter quests when Vol'jin asks his shaman healer to res a fallen novice, and she says his soul has been blasted out of his body and cannot be recovered. It's not as reliable as EVE cloning. Now the spirit healers, that's probably a better example of IC WTF-is-this from WoW? But that's just one of those things you have to accept is a game mechanic. EVE has them, too, as well as any game you want to RP in. Take CONCORD. How strong is CONCORD? If they can obliterate you in seconds in 1.0 space, but become farmable in groups outside highsec, why don't they move their 1.0 killing machines to lowsec and secure space? And how did a third of the Elder Fleet smote their headquarters and destroy their fleet?
Just one of those things you kind of have to deal with so they can get game functions to work.
One of the reasons you don't see WoW characters running from fights, even though there are better lore examples of the consequences of death in them, is partially because you know OOCly there aren't many lopsided fights. Aside from world PVP (which, for the record, if you're severely outnumbered, you do run from if you're smart, I can't remember ever having defended Southshore on my 25s leveling back in the guard-grinding days), you are either evenly matched to your opponents in numbers or, in the case of PVE, they've taken your gear into account. Blobbing is of limited effectiveness, it's just not something that translates well because you're generally matched to your opponents in whatever you're doing; you can't just go get more people if your team sucks at WSG.
Again, how do we view cloning in the era of Jamyl Sarum? They say things are changing, but how much? Is the Doctrine of Sacred Flesh even a thing anymore? Does a capsuleer death even count, thus be applicable to that idea that death is irrelevant? It'd be nice to have the lore on that instead of the sort of vague idea that the Sacred Flesh is a thing, especially when they violated it so loudly in their own lore.
And the key difference here, is that in EVE it's other characters that are counting on you, not just other RPers. The vast majority of raids in WoW are not IC, even when it's a full group of RPers. In EVE, everything you do in-game is IC, and those people are therefore counting on you both OOCly and ICly. When I do well in a fight in EVE, I get IC praise. When I've done poorly or run away from a lopsided fight (without being ordered to retreat), I've been reprimanded IC. The fight actually has more meaning in EVE because it's IC.
That's why I personally find EVE more immersive as a universe than WoW. In WoW, the only things that are IC are the things that you and other players are willing to take IC. In EVE, everything you do is IC. Everything the OOCers do is IC. Everything that happens in EVE is IC. That is far, far more immersive. WoW is part-time IC, EVE is full-time IC.
And that's kind of the thing. In WoW, the world is a toybox that you use to stage creative stories on. Nothing about the world actually matters, rather what you can create with what is available. When you use an in-game dungeon, you are not typically RPing the ACTUAL dungeon, you are using the dungeon's art and environment assets to pretend it's somewhere else for a story you are running. When you are running an event out in the world, you are inventing a plotline and creatures that are typically not actually there, and using raid markers and emotes or dice rolls as a way of staging that story--the environment itself is once again an environmental prop piece, much like the underlying environment board for a PnP or miniatures game.
In EVE, the actual world is an actual world. It is not a toybox that you take stuff out of and put back in when you are done, it is a living breathing world in which your characters are actually living and interacting on a daily basis. What happens in that world actually happens IC, whether it is interesting and exciting or dull and mundane.
Do note, that unlike a lot of EVE players I won't go and say that WoW or the WoW method or RP is actually bad. I was RPing in WoW for the better part of 6 years and was the main IC leader for my server's Alliance RP community last year. The WoW method does actually let you create very fun larger than life stories. But the key word in that sentence is 'stories'. EVE is 'life'. In WoW, like in a PnP game, you have a lot of resources that you can use to create amazing stories, incredibly fun for all the players involved, but those stories won't ultimately change or mean anything to the overall universe. In EVE, however, your character is in a living, breathing universe. You may not be able to tell the same kind of grand stories (except in exceptional cases by exceptional people), but you can live out an alternate reality with actual persistent impact for everyone in that universe. In WoW, the big problem I found in the RP community was the people trying to live out normal, mundane character lives when the world is built for powerful, engaging, creative storylines (IE the typical boring guard/citizen/criminal dynamic that spends all its time jacking off in Stormwind instead of participating in the ever-evolving WarCraft story). In EVE, the problem is the opposite, in people trying to be create big made-up storylines in text instead of actually living out their character's day-to-day lives in the game world. Both types of story have their merits and both are fun. But each story type fits better to a different game. I could not RP out a character like Samira in WoW (and I've tried). At the same time, I could not RP out a character like I've played in WoW in EVE. The game worlds support two different types of story. That doesn't mean that either of them is bad, they just cater to different things.
See, here's where I can see what you're getting at, but I kind of don't think EITHER is accomplishing what you're saying. I think you're right that they're trying. Unfortunately, WoW tries so damn hard to get you involved in heroic thrashing that you get stuck in mundacity. Daily quests are horrible for that; necessary game mechanics, but the death knell of that idea ICly that WoW is an over-the-top Tolkein-ish world. It essentially makes going out to combat a daily, boring task. "Oh alright, I'll go kill another ten people. Sheesh... work." Which just isn't what they're going for. I think Pandaria made that a bit better by first of all adding a lot of daily quests that DID seem like boring work, but also by making things feel more suitably epic. Cataclysm raiding was so horribly underwhelming.
EVE has another problem, and I agree that they're trying to make spacetravel and space combat seem less about heroism and more about the daily intrigue and grind of nations. The problem is, they don't make daily living that hard. Players do (finally getting back to the original subject matter), but the game doesn't. So... is the daily life of a capsuleer boring without other capsuleers? By definition, it gets you involved in exciting fighting that's supposed to have an edge of danger.
To me, the games meet in the middle, which isn't a good thing because I don't think either is trying to be. EVE's biggest problem is that I don't feel like it's a challenge to do anything in space except for other capsuleers (not technically all RPers doing things for IC reasons, of course). Which, oddly, doesn't make me feel like a member of the herd, it makes me part of the only group of people that matter. I can blitz 20-30 NPC ships in a single sitting on my own in matched ships and fly from station to station without a care in the world until I hit another capsuleer. I don't think that's what they were going for, but we have all the baggage of the special-chicken concept with none of the benefits (as opposed to having the benefits and pitfalls of special-chicken syndrome).
I think that's not a terribly difficult idea to manage, my simple suggestion would be to make the universe more hostile and hard to survive in. With the movement towards nullsec corps as a driver for the game, it seems they're going in the opposite direction and saying we few, genetically predisposed, superior-piloting capsuleers are now growing more powerful than the actual empires themselves that govern the large center of the cluster.
If we're going that way, I want my shining gold armor and acknowledgement of my minuscule contribution from the space-goat pope.
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Eve at core in regards to its design and the majority of the player-base that drives it isn't a PvE driven lore based MMO where it's you versus the environment and PvP is an afterthought. It's essentially a PvP driven MMO where it's you versus everyone else either directly or indirectly and the PvE content like mission running is just there really to grind ISK for whatever reason it's required for.
Just look at the player culture of Eve and the negative reaction to Incarna or the sentiments of "Go back to WoW" to see that from the CCP developer perspective they're not trying to build a co-operative, PvE, lore-driven product because the majority of players seem to want a confrontational, PvP, mechanics driven product. The background fiction then becomes just that: background, that can be used or not used as desired either by players or the content team.
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Eve at core in regards to its design and the majority of the player-base that drives it isn't a PvE driven lore based MMO where it's you versus the environment and PvP is an afterthought. It's essentially a PvP driven MMO where it's you versus everyone else either directly or indirectly and the PvE content like mission running is just there really to grind ISK for whatever reason it's required for.
Just look at the player culture of Eve and the negative reaction to Incarna or the sentiments of "Go back to WoW" to see that from the CCP developer perspective they're not trying to build a co-operative, PvE, lore-driven product because the majority of players seem to want a confrontational, PvP, mechanics driven product. The background fiction then becomes just that: background, that can be used or not used as desired either by players or the content team.
I find the claim that "the majority of palyers seem to want a confrontational, PvP, mechanics driven product" to be hard to believe. I would easily wager that the majority of Eve players are hisec non-PvP players in some fashion or another. It's just that Eve's marketing and fame is all PvP-based.
Edit: Because I can't type or use teh grammarz
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I'm not sure that doesn't happen in the EVE universe any less. How often have I had to destroy that random-name generated anti-slavery terrorist while trying to build up faction lore? Honestly, I can't remember if it's the same name or a different one every time, but I don't think missions or epic arcs do. I can't imagine we've all killed Harkan after a long investigation exposing him.
While that is true for specific well-known missions, the fast majority of them have nameless enemies that can be easily used ICly. And that holds for virtually the whole game, whereas with other MMOs (it isn't just WoW here) the entire game focuses around PvE against famous NPCs in specifically-named dungeons.
And the NPCs that even give you the missions have their own little silly story arcs that make no sense ICly once they are completed - and that goes for virtually every non-dungeon mission as well. Not everyone has helped Farmer Bob with the Willy Warlock slinging fireballs at his pumpkin patch. Eve? Agents are built into the lore to make sense ICly.
Then add-in distribution missions, mining missions, etc., all of which can be used ICly very easily. Then add on top of that player trading, hauling, world-PvP, nullsec, whatever, and it can all coherently and consistently be used ICly for my character's story and existence.
Other MMOs like WoW and TSW break all of that constantly.
Edit: My overarching point here is that RP in WoW and TSW requires either a constant OOC existence out in the world, or an unbelievable level of handwavium at all times that breaks any immersion or coherency for my character.
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I'm not sure that doesn't happen in the EVE universe any less. How often have I had to destroy that random-name generated anti-slavery terrorist while trying to build up faction lore? Honestly, I can't remember if it's the same name or a different one every time, but I don't think missions or epic arcs do. I can't imagine we've all killed Harkan after a long investigation exposing him.
While that is true for specific well-known missions, the fast majority of them have nameless enemies that can be easily used ICly. And that holds for virtually the whole game, whereas with other MMOs (it isn't just WoW here) the entire game focuses around PvE against famous NPCs in specifically-named dungeons.
And the NPCs that even give you the missions have their own little silly story arcs that make no sense ICly once they are completed - and that goes for virtually every non-dungeon mission as well. Not everyone has helped Farmer Bob with the Willy Warlock slinging fireballs at his pumpkin patch. Eve? Agents are built into the lore to make sense ICly.
Then add-in distribution missions, mining missions, etc., all of which can be used ICly very easily. Then add on top of that player trading, hauling, world-PvP, nullsec, whatever, and it can all coherently and consistently be used ICly for my character's story and existence.
Other MMOs like WoW and TSW break all of that constantly.
Edit: My overarching point here is that RP in WoW and TSW requires either a constant OOC existence out in the world, or an unbelievable level of handwavium at all times that breaks any immersion or coherency for my character.
Like I said, I think I understand what you're getting at, it just hasn't ever been a problem for me because of the breadth of my RP experience. I was keeping people immersed in Yahoo IM and Final Fantasy XI, so I've had a LOT of practice in that particular area. I don't often notice the difference, personally, I threadweave on instinct.
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I'm not sure that doesn't happen in the EVE universe any less. How often have I had to destroy that random-name generated anti-slavery terrorist while trying to build up faction lore? Honestly, I can't remember if it's the same name or a different one every time, but I don't think missions or epic arcs do. I can't imagine we've all killed Harkan after a long investigation exposing him.
While that is true for specific well-known missions, the fast majority of them have nameless enemies that can be easily used ICly. And that holds for virtually the whole game, whereas with other MMOs (it isn't just WoW here) the entire game focuses around PvE against famous NPCs in specifically-named dungeons.
And the NPCs that even give you the missions have their own little silly story arcs that make no sense ICly once they are completed - and that goes for virtually every non-dungeon mission as well. Not everyone has helped Farmer Bob with the Willy Warlock slinging fireballs at his pumpkin patch. Eve? Agents are built into the lore to make sense ICly.
Then add-in distribution missions, mining missions, etc., all of which can be used ICly very easily. Then add on top of that player trading, hauling, world-PvP, nullsec, whatever, and it can all coherently and consistently be used ICly for my character's story and existence.
Other MMOs like WoW and TSW break all of that constantly.
Edit: My overarching point here is that RP in WoW and TSW requires either a constant OOC existence out in the world, or an unbelievable level of handwavium at all times that breaks any immersion or coherency for my character.
Like I said, I think I understand what you're getting at, it just hasn't ever been a problem for me because of the breadth of my RP experience. I was keeping people immersed in Yahoo IM and Final Fantasy XI, so I've had a LOT of practice in that particular area. I don't often notice the difference, personally, I threadweave on instinct.
I also had a wide RP experience, then when I tried Eve I couldn't RP much anywhere else - I was spoiled by the fact that I had all of these game mechanics that were congruent with RP. Some people don't mind continual handwavium (I mean, if you have ever gone into a dungeon ICly you are used to handwavium on extreme levels), but after I realized what it was like to not have to do it much anymore, I just couldn't go back to anything else.
I haven't played WoW in years because I don't actually like the game itself, but the rare times I hop on TSW it is purely OOC. I just don't have the patience for trying to RP in a world that makes me go OOC so much.
I think another part of why this is all so important to me is not having any tabletop groups available for so many years. Eve has replaced that for me in creating my characters, writing their backstories, RPing with specific people in the RP community here, etc. If I was a regular tabletop player anymore, I would probably have a much easier time running around TSW lolrping with handwavium left and right.
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I find the claim that "the majority of palyers seem to want a confrontational, PvP, mechanics driven product" to be hard to believe. I would easily wager that the majority of Eve players are hisec non-PvP players in some fashion or another. It's just that Eve's marketing and fame is all PvP-based.
Edit: Because I can't type or use teh grammarz
The dynamics of trade, industry, and exploration all involve competition with other players. The only real activity in high-sec that doesn't is mission running. You can also get rather glorious hatemails through market speculation that can cause others to lose billions of ISK.
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I find the claim that "the majority of palyers seem to want a confrontational, PvP, mechanics driven product" to be hard to believe. I would easily wager that the majority of Eve players are hisec non-PvP players in some fashion or another. It's just that Eve's marketing and fame is all PvP-based.
Edit: Because I can't type or use teh grammarz
The dynamics of trade, industry, and exploration all involve competition with other players. The only real activity in high-sec that doesn't is mission running. You can also get rather glorious hatemails through market speculation that can cause others to lose billions of ISK.
Oh, sure. I obviously wouldn't argue with that. I thought you were saying that the majority of people play for FW, null PvP, and random open-world pewpew.
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I find the claim that "the majority of palyers seem to want a confrontational, PvP, mechanics driven product" to be hard to believe. I would easily wager that the majority of Eve players are hisec non-PvP players in some fashion or another. It's just that Eve's marketing and fame is all PvP-based.
Edit: Because I can't type or use teh grammarz
The dynamics of trade, industry, and exploration all involve competition with other players. The only real activity in high-sec that doesn't is mission running. You can also get rather glorious hatemails through market speculation that can cause others to lose billions of ISK.
Oh, sure. I obviously wouldn't argue with that. I thought you were saying that the majority of people play for FW, null PvP, and random open-world pewpew.
Depends on how many of the "players" in high sec are alts for ISK generation and logistics so people can do FW, nullsec sov wars and open world PvP.
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I'm not sure that doesn't happen in the EVE universe any less. How often have I had to destroy that random-name generated anti-slavery terrorist while trying to build up faction lore? Honestly, I can't remember if it's the same name or a different one every time, but I don't think missions or epic arcs do. I can't imagine we've all killed Harkan after a long investigation exposing him.
While that is true for specific well-known missions, the fast majority of them have nameless enemies that can be easily used ICly. And that holds for virtually the whole game, whereas with other MMOs (it isn't just WoW here) the entire game focuses around PvE against famous NPCs in specifically-named dungeons.
And the NPCs that even give you the missions have their own little silly story arcs that make no sense ICly once they are completed - and that goes for virtually every non-dungeon mission as well. Not everyone has helped Farmer Bob with the Willy Warlock slinging fireballs at his pumpkin patch. Eve? Agents are built into the lore to make sense ICly.
Then add-in distribution missions, mining missions, etc., all of which can be used ICly very easily. Then add on top of that player trading, hauling, world-PvP, nullsec, whatever, and it can all coherently and consistently be used ICly for my character's story and existence.
Other MMOs like WoW and TSW break all of that constantly.
Edit: My overarching point here is that RP in WoW and TSW requires either a constant OOC existence out in the world, or an unbelievable level of handwavium at all times that breaks any immersion or coherency for my character.
Like I said, I think I understand what you're getting at, it just hasn't ever been a problem for me because of the breadth of my RP experience. I was keeping people immersed in Yahoo IM and Final Fantasy XI, so I've had a LOT of practice in that particular area. I don't often notice the difference, personally, I threadweave on instinct.
I also had a wide RP experience, then when I tried Eve I couldn't RP much anywhere else - I was spoiled by the fact that I had all of these game mechanics that were congruent with RP. Some people don't mind continual handwavium (I mean, if you have ever gone into a dungeon ICly you are used to handwavium on extreme levels), but after I realized what it was like to not have to do it much anymore, I just couldn't go back to anything else.
I haven't played WoW in years because I don't actually like the game itself, but the rare times I hop on TSW it is purely OOC. I just don't have the patience for trying to RP in a world that makes me go OOC so much.
I think another part of why this is all so important to me is not having any tabletop groups available for so many years. Eve has replaced that for me in creating my characters, writing their backstories, RPing with specific people in the RP community here, etc. If I was a regular tabletop player anymore, I would probably have a much easier time running around TSW lolrping with handwavium left and right.
It's more than just hand-waving, I've literally had to threadweave entire settings for most of my RP life. For me, it gets VERY annoying that it's so hard to do. Not too long ago, I was RPing with someone in Constantin's Glasshouse apartment on Amarr. I began going into a description, then literally stopped myself and gave up. The text limitation is extremely annoying to deal with when you're trying to go into detail and, considering my very Burroughs way of longform writing, I was literally running out of space within a SINGLE SENTENCE to describe some of what was going on.
Is there a way to change that limit in your own personal channel? At least then I could invite people in and set the setting and describe events without having to hardset so often. I usually end up having people install Gtalk so we can RP there. Normally, when I'm actually playing the game, I'm a bit too wrapped up in what I'm doing to worry about IC issues. And it's not like you can whip it out and piss on someone after you've killed them.
Obviously, my WoW characters can be very different than Constantin.
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It's more than just hand-waving, I've literally had to threadweave entire settings for most of my RP life. For me, it gets VERY annoying that it's so hard to do. Not too long ago, I was RPing with someone in Constantin's Glasshouse apartment on Amarr. I began going into a description, then literally stopped myself and gave up. The text limitation is extremely annoying to deal with when you're trying to go into detail and, considering my very Burroughs way of longform writing, I was literally running out of space within a SINGLE SENTENCE to describe some of what was going on.
Is there a way to change that limit in your own personal channel? At least then I could invite people in and set the setting and describe events without having to hardset so often. I usually end up having people install Gtalk so we can RP there. Normally, when I'm actually playing the game, I'm a bit too wrapped up in what I'm doing to worry about IC issues. And it's not like you can whip it out and piss on someone after you've killed them.
Obviously, my WoW characters can be very different than Constantin.
You can talk to them in local. And if you pod them, grab their corpse - that's pretty damned close to pissing on them.
And with a personal channel, you can have large MOTD to do any describing you want. This is why many of us have our own personal channels for homes, offices, etc. We get the general description done in the MOTD and then when someone comes in, either do additional description to lay out current specifics - or just edit the MOTD before you invite them to make it more specific to the current situation.
The other option if you don't want your own channel with a MOTD (no idea why you wouldn't, honestly. Make it private, invite someone in when they are at your home, kick them when RP is done so they aren't lurking) is to have locale descriptions saved somewhere and copy-paste-mail them to the player in-game . This can work for homes or for really detailed descriptions of your character.
And depending on what RP clique you are in, you can also have a channel that has visuals you've designed. There are some RPers with high skill level in AutoCAD and SketchUp that literally just make their homes.
Edit: And by "have visuals" I mean design them graphically then link them with titles in the MOTD. Using text to describe the atmospheric elements you might not have been able to put into the graphic, or things that are situational.
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It's more than just hand-waving, I've literally had to threadweave entire settings for most of my RP life. For me, it gets VERY annoying that it's so hard to do. Not too long ago, I was RPing with someone in Constantin's Glasshouse apartment on Amarr. I began going into a description, then literally stopped myself and gave up. The text limitation is extremely annoying to deal with when you're trying to go into detail and, considering my very Burroughs way of longform writing, I was literally running out of space within a SINGLE SENTENCE to describe some of what was going on.
Is there a way to change that limit in your own personal channel? At least then I could invite people in and set the setting and describe events without having to hardset so often. I usually end up having people install Gtalk so we can RP there. Normally, when I'm actually playing the game, I'm a bit too wrapped up in what I'm doing to worry about IC issues. And it's not like you can whip it out and piss on someone after you've killed them.
Obviously, my WoW characters can be very different than Constantin.
You can talk to them in local. And if you pod them, grab their corpse - that's pretty damned close to pissing on them.
And with a personal channel, you can have large MOTD to do any describing you want. This is why many of us have our own personal channels for homes, offices, etc. We get the general description done in the MOTD and then when someone comes in, either do additional description to lay out current specifics - or just edit the MOTD before you invite them to make it more specific to the current situation.
The other option if you don't want your own channel with a MOTD (no idea why you wouldn't, honestly. Make it private, invite someone in when they are at your home, kick them when RP is done so they aren't lurking) is to have locale descriptions saved somewhere and copy-paste-mail them to the player in-game . This can work for homes or for really detailed descriptions of your character.
And depending on what RP clique you are in, you can also have a channel that has visuals you've designed. There are some RPers with high skill level in AutoCAD and SketchUp that literally just make their homes.
Edit: And by "have visuals" I mean design them graphically then link them with titles in the MOTD. Using text to describe the atmospheric elements you might not have been able to put into the graphic, or things that are situational.
No, I mean when I'm actually typing. Seriously, I could throw down a whole paragraph describing Constantin's sword without breaking a sweat, with elements of it relating to his personality and reflecting the duality of his existence.
Remember, I used to have to show character dynamics through actions, sometimes, without saying anything. If there's one thing that annoys me, it's that I don't have recourse to that while I'm RPing. I have to abbreviate quite a bit, and I think there's something lost when you can't write a lot. It probably comes from where I'm from; I've DMed a lot as well as freeform. People get really bored if you don't draw them in with language.
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No, I mean when I'm actually typing. Seriously, I could throw down a whole paragraph describing Constantin's sword without breaking a sweat, with elements of it relating to his personality and reflecting the duality of his existence.
Remember, I used to have to show character dynamics through actions, sometimes, without saying anything. If there's one thing that annoys me, it's that I don't have recourse to that while I'm RPing. I have to abbreviate quite a bit, and I think there's something lost when you can't write a lot. It probably comes from where I'm from; I've DMed a lot as well as freeform. People get really bored if you don't draw them in with language.
Sorry I wasn't clear, I was suggesting potential recourses for you since we can't change the character limits - but forgot to actually answer that part, which is no we can't. Which is frustrating, I agree. Most people get very good at knowing when the character limit is coming up and type something like [...] to denote more is incoming, or they use MOTDs, or they drop links to giant text-dump descriptions or images. And I believe there are some RPers using Skype now to actually RP.
But yes, I agree it is definitely a pain in the bottom.
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I'm just going to step in here and say that I absolutely love what Constantin's been doing. He's taken the relatively sparse information we have about Amarr missionary-style efforts and really written something great out of them; it's rare we get to see an Amarr missionary character who actually puts in serious missionary-esque work.
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I'm just going to step in here and say that I absolutely love what Constantin's been doing. He's taken the relatively sparse information we have about Amarr missionary-style efforts and really written something great out of them; it's rare we get to see an Amarr missionary character who actually puts in serious missionary-esque work.
While I've heard it criticized as "not being Amarrian" by some, it really isn't my place. I haven't seriously RP'd an Amarr character in a very long time. It is nice to have another person taking their character so seriously, though. Something that can be lacking in the community at times.
Even if I disagree with his opinion on Eve and Eve lore, as I told someone in-game last night when talking about this thread: He's surprisingly cool-headed and a nice guy despite being wrong about everything. :D :cube:
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Sorry I wasn't clear, I was suggesting potential recourses for you since we can't change the character limits - but forgot to actually answer that part, which is no we can't. Which is frustrating, I agree. Most people get very good at knowing when the character limit is coming up and type something like [...] to denote more is incoming, or they use MOTDs, or they drop links to giant text-dump descriptions or images. And I believe there are some RPers using Skype now to actually RP.
But yes, I agree it is definitely a pain in the bottom.
Thanks for the info. Maybe word limits are like architectural budgets. You know why they exist, but they really limit what you're trying to do as an artist.
I'm just going to step in here and say that I absolutely love what Constantin's been doing. He's taken the relatively sparse information we have about Amarr missionary-style efforts and really written something great out of them; it's rare we get to see an Amarr missionary character who actually puts in serious missionary-esque work.
You know, one of the things that surprised me is that the Amarr scene looked kind of flat before I got into it. Information was sparse, so I wasn't sure how things actually worked. So when I praise the RP community here and say it's really the only reason I'm still around, I mean it. I might wish I had more lore, but I can't really ask for better people to RP with.
One of the great things I like about EVE's RP scene, due to game mechanics, is that because of the lack of physical interaction, EVE RP is very much a character-based initiative. Odds are, if someone makes you angry, you can't just reach across the IGS and slap them; you can try to bother them in space, but it's a lot harder than it looks. It paves the way for people to have a lot more philosophical arguments about the issues at our disposal. That's led to a much larger variety of characters than you would think possible. Extra procedural lore might help a lot in codifying practices, but I think the community has made up for that by doing their damndest to fill in the gaps. It might lead to people butting heads over specifics, but the alternatives being not having anything to talk about or do at all would be a lot worse.
I almost wish CCP would just give us an open area, give us a 3d shell design tool, and let us design our own nightclubs, apartments, bars, and other station areas, then give us a character limit. I'd love to get my architectiness on in the game, and then we could maybe make money running bars.
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You know, one of the things that surprised me is that the Amarr scene looked kind of flat before I got into it. Information was sparse, so I wasn't sure how things actually worked. So when I praise the RP community here and say it's really the only reason I'm still around, I mean it. I might wish I had more lore, but I can't really ask for better people to RP with.
As with most of the factions, there are a couple of well-respected Amarrian RP groups and the rest are small and disorganized. And I do have to echo Gavin (probably the best person for Amarrian fact-checking in the history of ever) that I think there are elements of lore you haven't seen or read. That's what it sounds like, anyway.
One of the great things I like about EVE's RP scene, due to game mechanics, is that because of the lack of physical interaction, EVE RP is very much a character-based initiative. Odds are, if someone makes you angry, you can't just reach across the IGS and slap them; you can try to bother them in space, but it's a lot harder than it looks. It paves the way for people to have a lot more philosophical arguments about the issues at our disposal. That's led to a much larger variety of characters than you would think possible. Extra procedural lore might help a lot in codifying practices, but I think the community has made up for that by doing their damndest to fill in the gaps. It might lead to people butting heads over specifics, but the alternatives being not having anything to talk about or do at all would be a lot worse.
I almost wish CCP would just give us an open area, give us a 3d shell design tool, and let us design our own nightclubs, apartments, bars, and other station areas, then give us a character limit. I'd love to get my architectiness on in the game, and then we could maybe make money running bars.
The bit about being character-based is essentially what a lot of us having been saying in this thread, and why many of us return to Eve. I always come back for that. I have a character and everything I do is based on this character, and despite wishing lore was updated more frequently, there is plenty to base my character off of and have them work with when you combine everything from Chronicles to item descriptions.
And while it isn't the same thing, why not use AutoCAD or SketchUp? The latter is free.
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I really just intended to use it as an example, not derail us onto a WoW discussion, it's just that everyone knows a lot about it. Being that, I should disclose that I've been pretty knee-deep in Warcraft since OaH and I edited on WoWwiki for a while. There's a LOT of it out there, and not just blurbs in buried sentences, but fairly useful lore. A lot of it, to be fair, EVE can't replicate because you can see it happening in-game. For example, we know the Church of Light's ranking system because those characters are present and order each other around in the game. We know how the church relates to the rest of the Alliance, what they worship, what their rituals are, we know where its purview ends, what they believe, where they draw their power from, what they draw their power from, und so weider. It's not too many articles you'd need to read to go through the meat and potatoes.
The Amarr religion, despite being more intimately tied to Amarrian culture, we don't have nearly as much information on. Unfortunately we, desperately need it, as per the last thing I was talking about. Is Constantin doing something heretical? That's a pretty hard question to answer because we don't know, presently, what constitutes heresy. We know being a member of a terrorist/blood drinking organization can get you on the list, but that's probably going to get you in trouble anywhere. Would the events that got Hamzi killed get him killed today? That's the problem. You get a decent story, and they write a lot of stories, but not much actual lore so you can understand modern life and what it's supposed to be about. Most of it is conjecture.
Can't say I agree here. I think there is far more substance for the Amarr religion than there was for the Church of Light in WoW. We have the Scriptures (which I consider far more important than pretty much everything there is on the Church of Light, as the CoL has almost zero direct scripture to draw from), a few rituals, multiple examples of historically meaningful religious incidents, and multiple chronicles and stories showing the religion in use, and so on. It may not all be in one easy place, but it is there.
Religion is something that I found Blizzard had no idea what to do with, and was echoed just as much in the RPers. I at least find it far easier to RP a religious character in EVE than I did in WoW, since it feels like EVE has more to work with than WoW did.
I'm not sure us having a hand in lore is that much of a good thing, then. Imagine if CCP decided to roll with Constantin's interpretation of Scriptures because it fits better with their universe. That would justly piss a lot of you off OOCly for good reason.
If it's canon it's canon. That's my stance for RPing. I have a huge dislike for people who pick and choose what they like and don't like in lore. I may not like something but if it's canon then I respect it and try to find a way to use it. I even acknowledge Tony G stuff... the horror!
They went over when resurrection was possible and impossible a few times in WoW. The most recent one I can think of was during the new Troll starter quests when Vol'jin asks his shaman healer to res a fallen novice, and she says his soul has been blasted out of his body and cannot be recovered. It's not as reliable as EVE cloning.
EVE's normally isn't, either. It's reliable in the pod and nowhere else (and even then, it's ICly stated to not be a 100% of succeeding. Cloning accidents can occur. Plus the cloning facility itself can be sabotaged or destroyed, as seen in some missions and the Malkalen disaster). You do of course get all the soft-cloning people but that's primarily a player thing because people want an IC out for their planetside excursions, even though capsuleers are supposed to be vulnerable outside the pod. That's why CCP has gone back and forth on the soft cloning issue, I think, as it removes one of the key weaknesses capsuleers are supposed to have.
One of the reasons you don't see WoW characters running from fights, even though there are better lore examples of the consequences of death in them, is partially because you know OOCly there aren't many lopsided fights. Aside from world PVP (which, for the record, if you're severely outnumbered, you do run from if you're smart, I can't remember ever having defended Southshore on my 25s leveling back in the guard-grinding days), you are either evenly matched to your opponents in numbers or, in the case of PVE, they've taken your gear into account. Blobbing is of limited effectiveness, it's just not something that translates well because you're generally matched to your opponents in whatever you're doing; you can't just go get more people if your team sucks at WSG.
I was talking about RP, not PvP. In PvP, you will get people running from lopsided fights (usually after zerging into them a few times)... but most PvP fights are not viewed as IC unless they've been pre-arranged (often between event leaders who OOCly balance out the numbers to get even fights, something I've always hated). But in emote fights, which is where the majority of IC fights are found (you can't duel in cities, afterall), people will refuse to acknowledge that they're outnumbered and fight anyway, shrugging off wounds and injury so they can be a badass. Which is, admittedly, fitting for the type of characters that WoW ones are supposed to be, but bravery is taken for granted in that universe. I at least find it easier to RP a coward in EVE than I did in WoW, because there's a lot more to actually be afraid of even on an OOC level. I've OOCly instinctively run from fights before, not just out of IC behavior but actually OOC because EVE's full-time RP world makes me OOCly share in the same feelings as my character. In other games it feels like you have to force fear into your characters because there's very little to actually be afraid of. In EVE I'm OOCly trembling half the time I'm in PvP.
Again, how do we view cloning in the era of Jamyl Sarum? They say things are changing, but how much? Is the Doctrine of Sacred Flesh even a thing anymore? Does a capsuleer death even count, thus be applicable to that idea that death is irrelevant? It'd be nice to have the lore on that instead of the sort of vague idea that the Sacred Flesh is a thing, especially when they violated it so loudly in their own lore.
Jamyl Sarum is ICly claimed to be a miracle from God. The question of if she's a clone or not isn't even touched on because it's a subject Amarr doesn't want to talk about (even critics of her like Ardishapur only attack it subtly, setting up tours and schools designed to better educate people so that they can realize for themselves that Jamyl is breaking religious law). Her existence doesn't retcon Sacred Flesh, it's a direct IC contradiction of it that characters can and should be concerned about ICly. IC hypocrisy is a good thing.
So yes, it's still a thing. As for it applying to capsuleers, well even though Sacred Flesh doesn't apply to them (beyond the fact that many non-heirs abide by Sacred Flesh voluntarily) there is still the nature of the soul and what happens to it after death to account for. As the article linked says, the rise of capsuleers has encouraged the view of cloning causing the soul to migrate, but it's made clear that this is only a recent argument that challenges the more traditional viewpoint of the soul being lost upon cloning. Again, that's a good thing. That's the kind of thing that drives RP conflict, creating issues like that in which players can feasibly support one side or the other and have conflict about. As a traditional Ardishapurite, Samira is believes that capsuleers are soulless shells. And all this is ignoring the other, non-religious argument about whether a clone is even the same person or just a copy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CloningBlues).
Cloning as an IC out might exist, but it's hardly something that immediately renders death (and thus bravery) pointless. There's both IC and OOC reasons why death still means something. As far as Samira is concerned, cloning doesn't nullify death at all, and she only has clones because it's mandated by CONCORD. Then throw in the rut about actually being a clone into the mix, and how that means she no longer has a soul, and there's a lot of neat RP stuff to play with.
See, here's where I can see what you're getting at, but I kind of don't think EITHER is accomplishing what you're saying. I think you're right that they're trying. Unfortunately, WoW tries so damn hard to get you involved in heroic thrashing that you get stuck in mundacity. Daily quests are horrible for that; necessary game mechanics, but the death knell of that idea ICly that WoW is an over-the-top Tolkein-ish world. It essentially makes going out to combat a daily, boring task. "Oh alright, I'll go kill another ten people. Sheesh... work." Which just isn't what they're going for. I think Pandaria made that a bit better by first of all adding a lot of daily quests that DID seem like boring work, but also by making things feel more suitably epic. Cataclysm raiding was so horribly underwhelming.
EVE has another problem, and I agree that they're trying to make spacetravel and space combat seem less about heroism and more about the daily intrigue and grind of nations. The problem is, they don't make daily living that hard. Players do (finally getting back to the original subject matter), but the game doesn't. So... is the daily life of a capsuleer boring without other capsuleers? By definition, it gets you involved in exciting fighting that's supposed to have an edge of danger.
To me, the games meet in the middle, which isn't a good thing because I don't think either is trying to be. EVE's biggest problem is that I don't feel like it's a challenge to do anything in space except for other capsuleers (not technically all RPers doing things for IC reasons, of course). Which, oddly, doesn't make me feel like a member of the herd, it makes me part of the only group of people that matter. I can blitz 20-30 NPC ships in a single sitting on my own in matched ships and fly from station to station without a care in the world until I hit another capsuleer. I don't think that's what they were going for, but we have all the baggage of the special-chicken concept with none of the benefits (as opposed to having the benefits and pitfalls of special-chicken syndrome).
I think that's not a terribly difficult idea to manage, my simple suggestion would be to make the universe more hostile and hard to survive in. With the movement towards nullsec corps as a driver for the game, it seems they're going in the opposite direction and saying we few, genetically predisposed, superior-piloting capsuleers are now growing more powerful than the actual empires themselves that govern the large center of the cluster.
The universe is hostile. You just seem to equate 'universe' and 'other players' as two separate things, when in fact other players are part of the universe. The players are supposed to be the ones that make the EVE universe threatening. I find the EVE universe far, far more hostile than anything in WoW, and I played on an RP-PvP server. In EVE, I get OOC jitters while in PvP, even after a year in FW, because there are real OOC and IC consequences for doing poorly.
That being said, I agree that PvE should be made more difficult (or at least fun to fight). IMO, beyond the rookie levels, mission NPCs should be almost as difficult as players, and fly with similar tactics and damages. A player battleship vs NPC battleship fight should have the same damage projection as a PC vs PC battleship fight. IMO missions should lower numbers of opponents and heighten the ability of individual opponents. Make it an actual challenge to fly rather than a curbstomp where winning is dependent purely on building an appropriately tanked "mission fit" that lets you practically AFK the fight.
I also think that there should be more penalties for people of low sec/standing status. Among other things, IMO, criminals should be barred from all high-security stations and militia should be barred from all enemy stations (they are in low sec, but not in high sec, which doesn't make a wad of sense). High security and enemy space should be a downright hostile place for you if you're on the wrong side of the law/war.
I'm just going to step in here and say that I absolutely love what Constantin's been doing. He's taken the relatively sparse information we have about Amarr missionary-style efforts and really written something great out of them; it's rare we get to see an Amarr missionary character who actually puts in serious missionary-esque work.
This is why I've defended Constantin before and want him to succeed. It is something nice to see. I just worry about him doing too much Christian preaching rather than Amarrian. Though I prefer discussing these kind of differences IC rather than OOC, and would like an opportunity for Samira and Constantin to have a chat sometime. They're both Ardishapurites, but one is strongly traditional and the other very liberal.
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Regarding text limits, two things:
First off, most MMOs have a text limit, this isn't something unique to EVE. It's easy to forget that it exists in WoW when you have access to mods that can get rid of it, but by default I think WoW limits text even more than EVE does. EVE however has MotD's for player created chat channels, which is a godsend that few other MMOs have.
Secondly, I think you'll find that a lot of RPers actually don't like so much text and flowery prose. In-game RP is more like improv acting than storywriting, and players typically care less about prose than they do about action. I know there's a lot of people who dislike how every post Constantin makes on the IGS is a mile long, for example, and I've seen similar dislike from RPers towards characters in other games that take 2-4 emotes to describe everything they say.
I think it is a good lesson to learn how to make do with less. Both RL and in RP. I remember getting lectured by my English teacher back in 12th grade that I needed to learn how to condense my essays, because length doesn't actually mean quality. I had further lessons on that in university for my creative writing classes--readers often don't want to read an excessively long description, and often gloss over it to get to the action (action in this case meaning the character's doing things, not action action, obviously).
Description is a good thing, but you don't want to drown your readers in it.
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If it's canon it's canon. That's my stance for RPing. I have a huge dislike for people who pick and choose what they like and don't like in lore. I may not like something but if it's canon then I respect it and try to find a way to use it. I even acknowledge Tony G stuff... the horror!
A couple thousand times this. I find myself constantly getting in conflict with the players that try to ignore TonyG. Canon is frackin' canon. Unless you can demonstrate a direct, explicit, and literal contradiction in other PF that has not been handled - it is canon.
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Regarding text limits, two things:
First off, most MMOs have a text limit, this isn't something unique to EVE. It's easy to forget that it exists in WoW when you have access to mods that can get rid of it, but by default I think WoW limits text even more than EVE does. EVE however has MotD's for player created chat channels, which is a godsend that few other MMOs have.
Secondly, I think you'll find that a lot of RPers actually don't like so much text and flowery prose. In-game RP is more like improv acting than storywriting, and players typically care less about prose than they do about action. I know there's a lot of people who dislike how every post Constantin makes on the IGS is a mile long, for example, and I've seen similar dislike from RPers towards characters in other games that take 2-4 emotes to describe everything they say.
I think it is a good lesson to learn how to make do with less. Both RL and in RP. I remember getting lectured by my English teacher back in 12th grade that I needed to learn how to condense my essays, because length doesn't actually mean quality. I had further lessons on that in university for my creative writing classes--readers often don't want to read an excessively long description, and often gloss over it to get to the action (action in this case meaning the character's doing things, not action action, obviously).
Description is a good thing, but you don't want to drown your readers in it.
Having RPed a lot outside EVE, and still being someone who does RP in a lot of places outside EVE, I can't say I've seen that trend anywhere but EVE. Most places I've been actively ignore one-liners and the prevailing thought is that if you didn't describe it, the description is up for grabs. So sometimes it makes a difference where you're sitting in relation to other people, whether you have your legs crossed, or whether you've already described where both your hands are when someone pulls a gun on you. Descriptive writing is really key in those forums, as well as making it flow so it doesn't sound like you're just covering your bases. One of those dying arts that's really the province of mass IM forum RP. The introduction of stricter text limits in most of them, and the decline of IMers in general, kind of slew the format. But you used to see people learn to put so much of their character into stuff they were simply doing.
Ahhh, reminiscing.
Back on subject, I'm not sure what the comparative lengths are, but I play in both, so I can hop on and check the limits in both. I feel like I have more room in WoW per para, but I don't have to guess if I can just start typing the Preamble to the Constitution and see how far I get. I'll return with my findings later.
As with most of the factions, there are a couple of well-respected Amarrian RP groups and the rest are small and disorganized. And I do have to echo Gavin (probably the best person for Amarrian fact-checking in the history of ever) that I think there are elements of lore you haven't seen or read. That's what it sounds like, anyway.
No, lore I would consider deep would be something like Shadows of Asia. Now that is a ton of useful lore, as it should be, it's packed into a book. I might be spoiled slightly by having a collection of source material like that around for book games and reading it on the toilet instead of magazines (yeah...). But I wouldn't consider what we have in EVE to be top notch compared to what I usually have to deal with. I actually got a listing of stuff I read when I started here, some kind of Amarr character lore care package, and read through it. There wasn't much I felt like I could use to make Constantin more interesting as a person.
The bit about being character-based is essentially what a lot of us having been saying in this thread, and why many of us return to Eve. I always come back for that. I have a character and everything I do is based on this character, and despite wishing lore was updated more frequently, there is plenty to base my character off of and have them work with when you combine everything from Chronicles to item descriptions.
And while it isn't the same thing, why not use AutoCAD or SketchUp? The latter is free.
I think the difference is you might see that as a function of game and lore, I don't. That's a function of the player base having to overcome a game limitation and succeeding, because the community is decent. I've always felt like the community is everything that makes this game's lore interesting, otherwise it wouldn't really pique my interest. For instance, the things I find most interesting about, say, Lunarisse Aspenstar isn't the stuff related to her Amarrian-ness, it's who she is as a character. At the very least, even if I find the lore flat, the players are very good.
I didn't mean modeling as a representative model, though, otherwise I do own a full copy of Revit. I mean something we can use to model spaces in-game so that we can use them as station walking hubs. I've built in Radiant before, CCP could always just give us the tools to make their game more interesting for them rather than having to do it themselves.
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If it's canon it's canon. That's my stance for RPing. I have a huge dislike for people who pick and choose what they like and don't like in lore. I may not like something but if it's canon then I respect it and try to find a way to use it. I even acknowledge Tony G stuff... the horror!
A couple thousand times this. I find myself constantly getting in conflict with the players that try to ignore TonyG. Canon is frackin' canon. Unless you can demonstrate a direct, explicit, and literal contradiction in other PF that has not been handled - it is canon.
Empress Jamyl Sarum's age is given as being X in the books, and Y on the evelopedia. She is an only child in the books, and has a nephew in the evelopedia AND ingame news.
The Scorpion is stated as being new Ingame, while in short stories, it is described as decades old.
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Having RPed a lot outside EVE, and still being someone who does RP in a lot of places outside EVE, I can't say I've seen that trend anywhere but EVE. Most places I've been actively ignore one-liners and the prevailing thought is that if you didn't describe it, the description is up for grabs.
I just recall in WoW that basically anyone with an RSP bio over 3 or 4 paragraphs was considered overdoing it, and players that had a habit of using 2-3+ paragraphs for every emote they made often had people ignoring a lot of their writing (the occasional long thing is fine, it's mainly issues with the people who do it with everything they write).
So sometimes it makes a difference where you're sitting in relation to other people, whether you have your legs crossed, or whether you've already described where both your hands are when someone pulls a gun on you. Descriptive writing is really key in those forums, as well as making it flow so it doesn't sound like you're just covering your bases. One of those dying arts that's really the province of mass IM forum RP. The introduction of stricter text limits in most of them, and the decline of IMers in general, kind of slew the format. But you used to see people learn to put so much of their character into stuff they were simply doing.
Ahhh, reminiscing.
As someone who originated in forum RP, I get what you're saying. Back in those days, RP really was about writing a story. The shift from forum/IM to MMO has shifted RP in the direction of short, quick, and direct over long and descriptive, in my experience.
No, lore I would consider deep would be something like Shadows of Asia. Now that is a ton of useful lore, as it should be, it's packed into a book. I might be spoiled slightly by having a collection of source material like that around for book games and reading it on the toilet instead of magazines (yeah...).
EVElopedia has a lot though, and that's before getting into the chronicles (I still haven't read all of those). I usually take notes anytime I read a chronicle or news piece with Amarr stuff.
Still, more is always good and I'm really looking forward to EVE: Source.
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Having RPed a lot outside EVE, and still being someone who does RP in a lot of places outside EVE, I can't say I've seen that trend anywhere but EVE. Most places I've been actively ignore one-liners and the prevailing thought is that if you didn't describe it, the description is up for grabs.
I just recall in WoW that basically anyone with an RSP bio over 3 or 4 paragraphs was considered overdoing it, and players that had a habit of using 2-3+ paragraphs for every emote they made often had people ignoring a lot of their writing (the occasional long thing is fine, it's mainly issues with the people who do it with everything they write).
So sometimes it makes a difference where you're sitting in relation to other people, whether you have your legs crossed, or whether you've already described where both your hands are when someone pulls a gun on you. Descriptive writing is really key in those forums, as well as making it flow so it doesn't sound like you're just covering your bases. One of those dying arts that's really the province of mass IM forum RP. The introduction of stricter text limits in most of them, and the decline of IMers in general, kind of slew the format. But you used to see people learn to put so much of their character into stuff they were simply doing.
Ahhh, reminiscing.
As someone who originated in forum RP, I get what you're saying. Back in those days, RP really was about writing a story. The shift from forum/IM to MMO has shifted RP in the direction of short, quick, and direct over long and descriptive, in my experience.
No, lore I would consider deep would be something like Shadows of Asia. Now that is a ton of useful lore, as it should be, it's packed into a book. I might be spoiled slightly by having a collection of source material like that around for book games and reading it on the toilet instead of magazines (yeah...).
EVElopedia has a lot though, and that's before getting into the chronicles (I still haven't read all of those). I usually take notes anytime I read a chronicle or news piece with Amarr stuff.
Still, more is always good and I'm really looking forward to EVE: Source.
To be fair to you, I think I know what you're talking about in WoW, and you just reminded me. Not that it's been universal, but I remember that being an issue on the Steamwheedle Cartel server, the place the Skulldance Clan was originally made. I didn't have the issue on any of my other servers (Alliance Emerald Dream, Alliance Thorium Brotherhood, Alliance Moon Guard, Horde Wyrmrest Accord) though I think the first one was because our posts were very often forced to be shorter in an RPPVP server like ED. The rest, there's some kind of limit if you're in a bar just because you flood out the /say and /e channel, though most people are usually on board for longer posts. Luckily, you can do a bit in-game that takes care of some of the details, so you don't have to note relative positions and the like, they can see where you are.
In any case, even in private, because people can see what you look like for the most part, where you are, and often what you're doing, I haven't had to max out WoW's limit more than twice at a time, and those are few and far between. On SWC, I know they used to start groaning as soon as you passed a few sentences up if you were in a public place like Brill or SMC.
Hell, Brill as an actual RP location.... that's a long time ago.
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Hm, do you play on both US and EU servers? Or does US also have a Steamwheedle Cartel and Emerald Dream?
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Hm, do you play on both US and EU servers? Or does US also have a Steamwheedle Cartel and Emerald Dream?
Wow does not restrict us players from going on EU or other servers. It is an option we can choose (I don't think serve names are duplicated). That being said, if you care about time zones people go to the one that's in their region.
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Hm, do you play on both US and EU servers? Or does US also have a Steamwheedle Cartel and Emerald Dream?
Wow does not restrict us players from going on EU or other servers. It is an option we can choose (I don't think serve names are duplicated). That being said, if you care about time zones people go to the one that's in their region.
Err, no. This speaking as a US player that played on EU servers for 6 years. You need an EU account to access EU servers, which requires buying an EU copy of the game. A US account can only access US servers. The server names are not duplicated, which is why I was asking if Cons played on both, since SWC and ED are EU servers while MG and WC are US ones.
Though this is veering off topic.
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If it's canon it's canon. That's my stance for RPing. I have a huge dislike for people who pick and choose what they like and don't like in lore. I may not like something but if it's canon then I respect it and try to find a way to use it. I even acknowledge Tony G stuff... the horror!
A couple thousand times this. I find myself constantly getting in conflict with the players that try to ignore TonyG. Canon is frackin' canon. Unless you can demonstrate a direct, explicit, and literal contradiction in other PF that has not been handled - it is canon.
Empress Jamyl Sarum's age is given as being X in the books, and Y on the evelopedia. She is an only child in the books, and has a nephew in the evelopedia AND ingame news.
The Scorpion is stated as being new Ingame, while in short stories, it is described as decades old.
Right, so that specific piece of information has to be dealt with. But it does not throw out the entirety of the novels. Trying to do so is just ego-hurt people wanting to ignore changes they didn't like because they were so dead set on their own previous interpretations as the "way it should be" they can't handle the way it actually is.
Explicit contradictions like the one you mentioned have to be dealt with - if not by CCP (which they never are), then by the players using the lore. But the rest of the canon is still canon.
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No, lore I would consider deep would be something like Shadows of Asia. Now that is a ton of useful lore, as it should be, it's packed into a book. I might be spoiled slightly by having a collection of source material like that around for book games and reading it on the toilet instead of magazines (yeah...). But I wouldn't consider what we have in EVE to be top notch compared to what I usually have to deal with. I actually got a listing of stuff I read when I started here, some kind of Amarr character lore care package, and read through it. There wasn't much I felt like I could use to make Constantin more interesting as a person.
You can't jump genres when comparing lore. Of course tabletops like Shadowrun and WoD will have an unbelievable amount of lore compared to an MMO. We are arguing that relative to other MMOs, Eve has a significant amount of meaningful lore. Something that originated as an MMO is going to be nature have less material than franchises like Shadowrun or WoD that have been releasing amazing source material for so long.
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What I'm pointing out is that the metric used isn't what I'd call correct. The list was actually one of the weirder things I've ever seen. Reason I brought up WoW is because we're using it as the metric for MMOs, if you want I can switch to a different game to use as that metric.
Having said all that, the point is that the possibilities aren't really endless, a lot of those things are blended together, you can't do one without the other, it's the same thing in a different part of space, et cetera.
I still don't understand, it's the exact same metric.
In Eve you have PVE and PVP, both separated into various branches, interconnected or not. PvE can be missions, incursions, exploration, etc, and all of those have sub categories as well, like missions having epic arcs, classic mission, FW missions, cosmos, etc. PvP can be FW, low sec, nullsec warfare, wormhole pvp, duelling, etc. Or seen otherwise, it can be solo roaming, small gang warfare, standard fleet warfare, nullsec fleet warfare, gate camping, suicide ganking, empire war dec, etc. Believe me, they are all different, even if sharing the core mechanics between each other. And then you have countless other mediums like trading, industry, or metagaming activities like transport companies (red frog, etc), API programmers and websites, online poker with isk, scamming (seriously, Ponzi schemes...) and all social stuff going along. I have seen so many innovative things on eve done by the players that i'm still amazed when a new one completely silly (an intelligent) comes out.
In WoW it's the same. PvE will give you quests, raids, etc. PvP will bring you open pvp on pvp servers, griefing, arenas, battlegrounds, etc. Well, it's the same for each, it's either pve or pvp, but each with a different flavour. And then, the social activities you probably know a lot better than myself since I never played to that game.
-Mission running, to a point, is very entertaining. One of my current problems is having to maintain my faction standing for the four empires when I run them, which is grating on my nerves because a large majority of the missions I take to raise one standing are running against another. That's severely limited what I can do as far as empire missions go. However, EVE seems to be able to do the "go here, do this, come back" thing on a small scale while keeping it relatively interesting, which is unfortunately not something I can say for most of the newer games coming out now. I know I'm starting to run out of missions to run and I end up re-running old ones, but the enemies within those are at least keeping me somewhat on my toes. I may not feel like it's the hardest game out there, but EVE PVE isn't a total cakewalk, especially on your own.
For standings it's not that hard tbh. I only have negative standings with Minmatar and that's due to 3 years of FW. And yet, even with that, i'm not that far from zero. Just don't accept missions against other empire factions, don't run storyline missions if you really have not to (I still do), or just run missions for neutral factions like SOE like I do now (has been 3 years) with very little losses for other empire factions. And then, run epic arcs. They give flat huge standing bonuses to the faction without removing anything from the others. Run Cosmos if you have too, I heard it's the most potent stuff in terms of standing ever, but that shit is so out of date ingame that you will have to go deep into early eve stuff (dates back to what ? 2005 ?).
-Sansha incursions. When I can get to them, these can be pretty awesome, and are sort of what I wish there was more of. In a way, I wish the incursions really did spawn enemies to attack the station and do lasting damage in highsec we would have to repair on contract to the governments. That'd be fun. Or if the Sansha started actively hunting capsuleers in the area (at least I don't think they are, I've never had them warp in on me and I don't know much about them). But being able to enter an area that actually acts like its under random attack is probably the most fun I've had in EVE.
For incursions sansha NPCs (which are rather brutal) are only located in incursions sites in high sec. Which is a shame really, but understandable to my annoyance. I too would have like them to have devastating, durable effects.
In lowsec/nullsec though, they camp the gates and the asteroid belts, and that can get nasty very quickly.
-Skill system. I don't have any complaints, really. I don't get much time to play, it's nice to be progressing even when I'm playing something else. This one speaks for itself and I don't think it's unpopular with anyone. The certification system could be made a LOT easier to comprehend and access even now, but I think it's a good idea that makes the complexity of the skill system bearable.
-Enemy variety. One thing I hate about WoW, once you've killed the same monsters, even raid bosses, a few hundred times, you need something new or you get bored. EVE doesn't have that problem as much because the enemies have adaptable equipment. Even if you've run something before, there's no guarantee you aren't going to get tracking disrupted this time through or suddenly have to deal with a shield tanker who suddenly pops up an armor repairer. Though the overview is a fairly terrible way to track combat, I think that's just a UI problem. A new UI later, and this would be pretty much perfect as far as keeping entertained through stock enemies. I may gripe that I always know if I'm flying into something in EVE's PVE world, but I won't complain about always knowing what I'm flying into. You don't always know what you're getting.
-Music and graphical style. I'm not sure how everyone else feels about this, but the music in EVE is amazing. It really captures the emptiness, the loneliness, and yet somehow doesn't feel cold and bleepy. Really, all the things I don't like about EVE are mechanical and social, I can't say I think EVE should look or sound different. I kind of wish my cruiser lasers sounded a bit more like lasers, but I can't say I hate the sound they have. I don't have a gripe with how the game looks on my screen and sounds in my speakers
I really like their music, but to be perfectly honest, it's not a game music. It's the kind of music I like to listen when I want to chill or quietly doing something else. It becomes especially bland when you start doing actual stuff ingame, and when you enter into combat, it's just ludicrous. It doesn't properly accompany the game, and like most things in eve, it's anti immersive to me.
I do keep getting the feeling that, if I want to get harder or more distant targets, I have an eyeroll reaction because I'm going to be dealing more with capsuleer jackassery instead of the stuff I actually like in the game. There is stuff I like in the game and would like to see more of, though. If I had more of a stomach for asshattery in my spare time, like I had when I was younger, or a way of not getting pressed through the PVP mold to provide my game challenge, I'd probably renew for another year, at least, when the year I bought to try the game out is up. I just can't see paying to play another game like that when there are a bunch of games out there that will give you a PVP challenge essentially for free.
As it is, though, my patience for people being dicks on accident, nevermind on purpose, is pretty much gone by 5 pm EST (after a few phone calls with my contractors/clients/engineers/especially engineers/my God I wish we'd just become an AE firm), and to get deeper into the game, EVE doesn't give me a choice about whether or not I feel like involving myself in it. I'm either going to be allied with them or devoting time and space to keeping them from annoying me, probably both at the same time and neither of which I'm particularly thrilled about. It's part of why I wish EVE was more of a threat to us than each other. At least then my first instinct on seeing another ship in my space wouldn't be that the fun is over, it's time to deal with whatever this asshole is going to do. I could assume he has his own shit to deal with.
I definitely understand. I don't like it either.
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Hm, do you play on both US and EU servers? Or does US also have a Steamwheedle Cartel and Emerald Dream?
Wow does not restrict us players from going on EU or other servers. It is an option we can choose (I don't think serve names are duplicated). That being said, if you care about time zones people go to the one that's in their region.
Err, no. This speaking as a US player that played on EU servers for 6 years. You need an EU account to access EU servers, which requires buying an EU copy of the game. A US account can only access US servers. The server names are not duplicated, which is why I was asking if Cons played on both, since SWC and ED are EU servers while MG and WC are US ones.
Though this is veering off topic.
We might use the same acronyms? SWC in US parlance is the Steamwheedle Cartel server and ED is the Emerald Dream server. Granted, I'm not on either of those anymore, but those should both be US servers, the former RPPVE and the latter RPPVP. I don't think there are EU version of those, but I don't play on EU servers, so you'd probably know more than I would on that subject. I'm definitely in the U.S. and play on U.S. server.
No, lore I would consider deep would be something like Shadows of Asia. Now that is a ton of useful lore, as it should be, it's packed into a book. I might be spoiled slightly by having a collection of source material like that around for book games and reading it on the toilet instead of magazines (yeah...). But I wouldn't consider what we have in EVE to be top notch compared to what I usually have to deal with. I actually got a listing of stuff I read when I started here, some kind of Amarr character lore care package, and read through it. There wasn't much I felt like I could use to make Constantin more interesting as a person.
You can't jump genres when comparing lore. Of course tabletops like Shadowrun and WoD will have an unbelievable amount of lore compared to an MMO. We are arguing that relative to other MMOs, Eve has a significant amount of meaningful lore. Something that originated as an MMO is going to be nature have less material than franchises like Shadowrun or WoD that have been releasing amazing source material for so long.
Well, that's why I'm saying my background gives me a much different perspective. RP to me is RP, whether I'm in a game or not. Comparing WoW and EVE lore might be useful in terms of games; I think WoW has a bit more because the Warcraft franchise has been around longer as an RTS than when it became an MMO. But I think that's why I can't call EVE lore very deep or abiding. I mean, if all you RP in is video games, that's an understandable perspective. That's not even the case for me today, though.
And Lyn... hope you don't mind if I respond without quoting you. You and I can make these pretty long.
The thing I'm pointing out is actually a WoW criticism that I try not to apply to EVE, but that list seems to. It's like saying, "You have so many things to do in WoW, if you get bored of healing as a priest, try shaman!" Or my favorite, "If you don't want to do 10-man, try 25." But do the objectives change, or are you doing the same thing with a different set of amounts and numbers? I've always thought that was a bit of a cop out. If you've heroic tanked the SoO series on a Death Knight, yes it's very different to do it on a Bear Druid. All the keystrokes, gearing, what you're looking for, how you maintain threat and generate resource, it's all nominally different.
I wouldn't tell you it's a different. It's PVE. Whatever scale, class, role, whatever you're doing, it's the same raid. If you want to get into different things to do in WoW, you're getting into stuff like the Brawler's Guild, pet battling, PVP (PVP in arenas, BGs, and world are slightly different and can require vastly different keystrokes and such, but are essentially the same). I looked at the list you gave me and the list boils down to, "Shoot players, shoot NPCs and then later players, do exploration and then later players, do crafting, do trading, do exploration." I mean, I guess flying around on a WoW PVP server and randomly ganking level 20s is technically a thing to do, but I wouldn't consider it any different than PVP for the weaksauce. And yes, you can scam people in WoW, it's just illegal and there were people actually employed in other countries breaking into your account. Scammers in WoW weren't people trying to con your gold in local, there were people seriously DDOSing Curse.com and putting up false websites for the addons people needed, then using them to install keyloggers. They're tame in EVE. I wouldn't call it something to do.
My reaction is generally because people have told me there's a lot to do in WoW. There is, but trust me, you can get bored of it and I can't blame people who do. What I wouldn't want to do is then say, "Well, if you're bored, an interesting thing you can do is go grief other people. That's technically a thing to do." I could do that on YouTube if I wanted.
*shudder*
Thanks for the incursion info, though. I've been trying to figure out how to get into them more often and be more effective in them. I don't know why NPCs can't camp the gates and such in highsec, though. I can understand people just not wanting to deal with the lulz of PVP in their everyday lives, but NPCs are a little easier to tune the annoyance level on. On the same level that low and null kind of feels like more work than it's worth because of the FFA, it seems like highsec is too easy and the vastness of space between you and where you're going sort of feels like an empty timesink instead of living and dangerous.
That wouldn't be hard to change, though.
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Well, that's why I'm saying my background gives me a much different perspective. RP to me is RP, whether I'm in a game or not. Comparing WoW and EVE lore might be useful in terms of games; I think WoW has a bit more because the Warcraft franchise has been around longer as an RTS than when it became an MMO. But I think that's why I can't call EVE lore very deep or abiding. I mean, if all you RP in is video games, that's an understandable perspective. That's not even the case for me today, though.
Many of us have those backgrounds, don't assume we all just stumbled upon MMOs and discovered RP. But you have to have parameters for a discussion about lore.
And I would have to unbelievably disagree with the WoW vs. Eve lore for the reasons I already mentioned: beyond arguing about sheer amount, most WoW lore is not useful for character purposes because of the linearity and coherency issues I mentioned. It simply makes absolutely no sense to thrust your character deep into the WoW storyline climaxes. Either A) your character is somehow uniquely doing the same unique things that every other character does and so their stories can't coexist, and/or B) it is unbelievable MarySue territory.
Thus, the amount of lore that is actually useful for RP is negligible - it feels like more simply because you see your character running around in the world.
Edit: Messed up quote.
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Regarding the length of text, it's something I am very conflicted about. On forum RP, which includes the IGS somehow I guess, it is fine, and can even be awesome. I think where it is the most appropriated is on forum RP cooperative stories, which I have had a lot and absolutely loved for that it mostly consists into a cooperative writing efforts still involving roleplaying and characters. It's totally free of anything and so, we can do what we want in the frame of what is defined by the GM. So yes, I love writing something engaging, and I often overdid it myself with fucking long walls of texts. But that's what is expected in that kind of RPs.
On the IGS, well, there is a bit of that, but it's more an IC forum for characters than a true forum RP story done between players. So it's often good to be more concise at times. I remember that another RPer was often annoying a lot of people by posting litteral walls of texts (often 2 or 3 messages together because it didn't fit into a single one). Well, Jade did awesome essays, but when you read a forum and stumble on a new essay at every of his answers, you start to just skip them. It just takes too much time to read, and often it's not even necessary as it can be summed up in a few paragraphs at best. So you eventually feel like you are reading an argument/essay full of interesting stuff maybe, but not concise at all, so like reading mostly air with the important info spread here and there. And it seriously feels counterproductive and I have to admit that even reading some of Constantin answers on the IGS, I just barely read the important bits or just skip them altogether because I just don't have the damn time. Especially as it is not even my native language, but that's another issue. I just feel like I am wasting my time. It's not about the content, it's just a problem with the form. A thread titled "essay on X", I will read it if I find the time and will appreciate it, and expect that it is actually filled with essays and walls of text. But an essay poping every page on a mundane topic, or a in a debate, no... I just can't.
Same ingame with RP emotes. Emotes are fine, emotes are even mandatory to flesh out a bit what's happening and they give life to characters. But like everything, there is moderation to have. Reading every answer made by a player that takes several paragraphs is just horrible. It takes time and most importantly, completely disrupt the flow, because it's not written asynchronous RP, but synchronous real time RP. And waiting 10 min for the next answer is... erm. Rather brutal. Then typing your own... for 10 more minutes ? It can work if you just open a convo and use it like a forum thread yes, but that's not how it works most of the time. Now imagine if everyone did that in RP parties where you have like 40 RPers all speaking at the same time. Which is already a nightmare to keep track...
So, no, he's really not supposed to sound or act like any other Amarrian that doesn't share his unique history. He's Amarrian enough; I don't think anything he says is heretical enough to get him tossed before the Theology Council.
Not yet. But he does have a very 'Arzad Hamri' style to him, which I pointed out on Samira on the IGS. That is heretical. He talks a lot about using a soft hand and incorporating foreign culture into Amarr, which are things that Arzad Hamri was looked down on and eventually trialed for.
If that's how you want your character to be, then that's fine. But it is going to result in a lot of traditional Amarr characters viewing Constantin as heretical. Samira liked him at first, but she's been growing more and more concerned with what he says.
I don't remember well. Was Harzad Hamri actually declared heretical by the TC or the Emperor, or was it just Ardishapur ?
However, since Constantin's liege is Ardishapur, well... yeah.
Which makes me think now that the Mandate is under Ardishapur overseeing, it makes me a very sad progressive Ammatar. Buggers.
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And Lyn... hope you don't mind if I respond without quoting you. You and I can make these pretty long.
The thing I'm pointing out is actually a WoW criticism that I try not to apply to EVE, but that list seems to. It's like saying, "You have so many things to do in WoW, if you get bored of healing as a priest, try shaman!" Or my favorite, "If you don't want to do 10-man, try 25." But do the objectives change, or are you doing the same thing with a different set of amounts and numbers? I've always thought that was a bit of a cop out. If you've heroic tanked the SoO series on a Death Knight, yes it's very different to do it on a Bear Druid. All the keystrokes, gearing, what you're looking for, how you maintain threat and generate resource, it's all nominally different.
I wouldn't tell you it's a different. It's PVE. Whatever scale, class, role, whatever you're doing, it's the same raid. If you want to get into different things to do in WoW, you're getting into stuff like the Brawler's Guild, pet battling, PVP (PVP in arenas, BGs, and world are slightly different and can require vastly different keystrokes and such, but are essentially the same). I looked at the list you gave me and the list boils down to, "Shoot players, shoot NPCs and then later players, do exploration and then later players, do crafting, do trading, do exploration." I mean, I guess flying around on a WoW PVP server and randomly ganking level 20s is technically a thing to do, but I wouldn't consider it any different than PVP for the weaksauce. And yes, you can scam people in WoW, it's just illegal and there were people actually employed in other countries breaking into your account. Scammers in WoW weren't people trying to con your gold in local, there were people seriously DDOSing Curse.com and putting up false websites for the addons people needed, then using them to install keyloggers. They're tame in EVE. I wouldn't call it something to do.
My reaction is generally because people have told me there's a lot to do in WoW. There is, but trust me, you can get bored of it and I can't blame people who do. What I wouldn't want to do is then say, "Well, if you're bored, an interesting thing you can do is go grief other people. That's technically a thing to do." I could do that on YouTube if I wanted.
*shudder*
Thanks for the incursion info, though. I've been trying to figure out how to get into them more often and be more effective in them. I don't know why NPCs can't camp the gates and such in highsec, though. I can understand people just not wanting to deal with the lulz of PVP in their everyday lives, but NPCs are a little easier to tune the annoyance level on. On the same level that low and null kind of feels like more work than it's worth because of the FFA, it seems like highsec is too easy and the vastness of space between you and where you're going sort of feels like an empty timesink instead of living and dangerous.
That wouldn't be hard to change, though.
Ah yes, seen like that, sure. I can agree to that, it's more or less the same.
For incursions I think they didn't want to disrupt the life in high sec. I don't think the change with NPC attacking people everywhere in incursion systems warranted to be completely avoided as a game mechanic, since people can perfectly well ignore the incursion constellations (they could even add warnings and feedbacks to make it easier... but CCP and the UI, lol... a full story or hate and bitterness). But they probably played it safe. Which is unfortunate.
But otherwise I understand it because I do think that completely changing a game aspect played by various people for the sake of changing the game is very bad game design. It will just piss off people and destroy the specific game bits they love and that had been made for them in the first place. But here in the case of incursions in high sec, I just don't think it could have been so far no...
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Hm, do you play on both US and EU servers? Or does US also have a Steamwheedle Cartel and Emerald Dream?
Wow does not restrict us players from going on EU or other servers. It is an option we can choose (I don't think serve names are duplicated). That being said, if you care about time zones people go to the one that's in their region.
Err, no. This speaking as a US player that played on EU servers for 6 years. You need an EU account to access EU servers, which requires buying an EU copy of the game. A US account can only access US servers. The server names are not duplicated, which is why I was asking if Cons played on both, since SWC and ED are EU servers while MG and WC are US ones.
Though this is veering off topic.
We might use the same acronyms? SWC in US parlance is the Steamwheedle Cartel server and ED is the Emerald Dream server. Granted, I'm not on either of those anymore, but those should both be US servers, the former RPPVE and the latter RPPVP. I don't think there are EU version of those, but I don't play on EU servers, so you'd probably know more than I would on that subject. I'm definitely in the U.S. and play on U.S. server.
Looks like some names are shared, I just checked. Both US and EU have Argent Dawns, Emerald Dreams, and Steamwheedle Cartels. US however doesn't have a Defias Brotherhood (which is where I played).
So some names are duplicated, some are unique.
it seems like highsec is too easy and the vastness of space between you and where you're going sort of feels like an empty timesink instead of living and dangerous.
Agreed with this. I would love to see incursion constellations in high sec actually be threatening for everyone in the constellation, not just the incursion runners. If CCP are worried about how this affects newbies, then they can prevent incursions from targeting newbie school constellations (assuming they don't already).
Many of us have those backgrounds, don't assume we all just stumbled upon MMOs and discovered RP. But you have to have parameters for a discussion about lore.
And I would have to unbelievably disagree with the WoW vs. Eve lore for the reasons I already mentioned: beyond arguing about sheer amount, most WoW lore is not useful for character purposes because of the linearity and coherency issues I mentioned. It simply makes absolutely no sense to thrust your character deep into the WoW storyline climaxes. Either A) your character is somehow uniquely doing the same unique things that every other character does and so their stories can't coexist, and/or B) it is unbelievable MarySue territory.
Thus, the amount of lore that is actually useful for RP is negligible - it feels like more simply because you see your character running around in the world.
What defines a Mary Sue is dependent on universe, any Mary Sue litmus test will tell you this (specifically they say not answer yes to something if it is common for the universe in which the character is in). Player characters can and should be involved in the major WoW storyline climaxes in some capacity (even if not the direct end raid), as they are supposed to be heroes in the WarCraft story. Failing to uphold that would be no better than player characters in EVE trying to RP non-capsuleers and bridge captains. I spent the last year dragging the Alliance community on my server out of their bars in Stormwind and forcing them take advantage of the evolving storyline regarding Garrosh's fall, working together with Horde RPers to RP a joint campaign pushing up to the gates of Orgrimmar over the course of many months and several patches, fighting armies and monsters and magic, because that kind of heroic undertaking is what the player characters are supposed to be doing. That's the kind of universe WoW is. It's a high fantasy, high magic universe. I'd contend that Mary Sue characters in that universe are the ones trying to play mundane folk and ignoring the story.
EVE is different. EVE is a grim and dirty sci-fi universe, though it still has its fantastical elements in the capsuleer 'class'. Again, if you'd fail to uphold that it'd be failing to acknowledge the universe in which you are playing. The games offer different things, but what is true in both is that you have to tailor yourself to that game's style and lore. If you don't then you're not going to be enjoying yourself.
It is still important to note that the case of Arzad Hamri was mostly an internal family affair of the Ardishapur. Which are, well... ardishapurites. So, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's heretical. It just means that it's to the eyes of Ardishapur members.
Actually it's the opposite. It was the Theology Council that brought down the charges, not local Ardishapur courts. And while Idonis Ardishapur wanted a lighter sentence, it was special prosecutors from the Theology Council that forced a harsher sentence and had him struck from the Book of Records, making it outright heresy.
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It would seem that you quoted me precisely before I edited my post, in the minute interval before I did. I suddenly felt a big doubt on the matter and was right to do so it seems.
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What defines a Mary Sue is dependent on universe, any Mary Sue litmus test will tell you this (specifically they say not answer yes to something if it is common for the universe in which the character is in). Player characters can and should be involved in the major WoW storyline climaxes in some capacity (even if not the direct end raid), as they are supposed to be heroes in the WarCraft story. Failing to uphold that would be no better than player characters in EVE trying to RP non-capsuleers and bridge captains. I spent the last year dragging the Alliance community on my server out of their bars in Stormwind and forcing them take advantage of the evolving storyline regarding Garrosh's fall, working together with Horde RPers to RP a joint campaign pushing up to the gates of Orgrimmar over the course of many months and several patches, because that kind of heroic undertaking is what the player characters are supposed to be doing.
That's the kind of universe WoW is. It's a high fantasy, high magic universe. I'd contend that Mary Sue characters in that universe are the ones trying to play mundane folk and ignoring the story. EVE is different. EVE is a grim and dirty sci-fi universe, though it still has its fantastical elements in the capsuleer 'class'. Again, if you'd fail to uphold that it'd be failing to acknowledge the universe in which you are playing. The games offer different things, but what is true in both is that if you have to tailor yourself to that game's style and lore. If you don't then you're not going to be enjoying yourself.
But this still doesn't address the congruency issue I brought up. WoW public RP never could discuss the actions of your characters because they couldn't coexist with the actions of the character you ran into. I ran into this problem all of the time when I played - you couldn't discuss your run through a dungeon to kill a named boss, because the other character had done that same thing and you obviously weren't there together.
The only way that problem could be avoided is to avoid any public discussion of your character's actions whatsoever, thus limiting all of your action-referencing RP storylines to within your guild and not allowing any public interaction.
That style of MMO severely limits the public RP available for the players. And my MarySue comment was for those that walked around in public RP but refused to stop talking about how their character killed the Lich King.
Edit: For a contrasting example, an Eve character can publicly reference their involvement in a specific Sansha incursion that occurred at a specific time and specific place - other people were either there, or they weren't. There's no coherence problem with other characters.
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What defines a Mary Sue is dependent on universe, any Mary Sue litmus test will tell you this (specifically they say not answer yes to something if it is common for the universe in which the character is in). Player characters can and should be involved in the major WoW storyline climaxes in some capacity (even if not the direct end raid), as they are supposed to be heroes in the WarCraft story. Failing to uphold that would be no better than player characters in EVE trying to RP non-capsuleers and bridge captains. I spent the last year dragging the Alliance community on my server out of their bars in Stormwind and forcing them take advantage of the evolving storyline regarding Garrosh's fall, working together with Horde RPers to RP a joint campaign pushing up to the gates of Orgrimmar over the course of many months and several patches, because that kind of heroic undertaking is what the player characters are supposed to be doing.
That's the kind of universe WoW is. It's a high fantasy, high magic universe. I'd contend that Mary Sue characters in that universe are the ones trying to play mundane folk and ignoring the story. EVE is different. EVE is a grim and dirty sci-fi universe, though it still has its fantastical elements in the capsuleer 'class'. Again, if you'd fail to uphold that it'd be failing to acknowledge the universe in which you are playing. The games offer different things, but what is true in both is that if you have to tailor yourself to that game's style and lore. If you don't then you're not going to be enjoying yourself.
But this still doesn't address the congruency issue I brought up. WoW public RP never could discuss the actions of your characters because they couldn't coexist with the actions of the character you ran into. I ran into this problem all of the time when I played - you couldn't discuss your run through a dungeon to kill a named boss, because the other character had done that same thing and you obviously weren't there together.
The only way that problem could be avoided is to avoid any public discussion of your character's actions whatsoever, thus limiting all of your action-referencing RP storylines to within your guild and not allowing any public interaction.
That style of MMO severely limits the public RP available for the players. And my MarySue comment was for those that walked around in public RP but refused to stop talking about how their character killed the Lich King.
Correct, and that's the limit of WoW RP that doesn't exist in EVE. As I was saying earlier, it's EVE's benefit that your in-game actions are always IC, that everything you do matters. In WoW, your in-game actions are frequently OOC, and so you are forced to create storylines, with the players around you, to get your RP content. I basically never did instances, raids, battlegrounds, or arenas IC, I did them solely to experience the content OOCly and get RP gear/PvP gear for RP. For RP, the community had to go about creating its own RP. We did this by, again, using the world as a prop on which to host our stories, inventing characters and storylines and monsters and whatnot to tell the story. Those of us in community leadership roles were quite literally DMs, charged with taking the resources we had available to us and crafting plots and stories for other players to participate in. RP in the game would fall flat without that kind of management, because 90% of the actual game itself was not taken IC.
In EVE, you can't do that. What's there is there, and what you do in that universe is IC no matter what. Even when you're not RPing, you're still RPing. This is why, even if the current state and direction of the EVE IP isn't going in the direction that people might like, it still offers a niche that is not really available in any other MMO out there--that of the full-time IC sandbox. Just logging on is an IC action--your character plugging into their capsule. Undocking is an IC action. Warping is an IC action. Jumping to a new system is an IC action. And dying and being podded is an IC action. You can never say any of these things were OOC.
Part-time IC vs full-time IC.
Edit: For a contrasting example, an Eve character can publicly reference their involvement in a specific Sansha incursion that occurred at a specific time and specific place - other people were either there, or they weren't. There's no coherence problem with other characters.
You can do that in WoW, but it typically only applies with actual RP'ed events rather than dungeons and raids you've done. Someone can say they were at Council on Tuesday, or at the Battle for Northwatch Hold on Friday, but not your guild's weekly SoO raid. Which of course would make an OOCer scratch their head wondering wtf you're talking about (unless they happen to be a ganking guild that tried to grief your RP event). It required RP communities (not just guilds, but communities of guilds) to be fairly tight to ensure widespread coherence among the server's roleplayers.
I did try getting a community-wide IC run of SoO when it came out, as we had been building towards the Siege for months, but even then it was a social faux pas to claim to have killed any of the actual bosses. Instead it was pretended that we were killing miscellaneous other generals, in one of many battles for control of the city.
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Well, that's why I'm saying my background gives me a much different perspective. RP to me is RP, whether I'm in a game or not. Comparing WoW and EVE lore might be useful in terms of games; I think WoW has a bit more because the Warcraft franchise has been around longer as an RTS than when it became an MMO. But I think that's why I can't call EVE lore very deep or abiding. I mean, if all you RP in is video games, that's an understandable perspective. That's not even the case for me today, though.
Many of us have those backgrounds, don't assume we all just stumbled upon MMOs and discovered RP. But you have to have parameters for a discussion about lore.
And I would have to unbelievably disagree with the WoW vs. Eve lore for the reasons I already mentioned: beyond arguing about sheer amount, most WoW lore is not useful for character purposes because of the linearity and coherency issues I mentioned. It simply makes absolutely no sense to thrust your character deep into the WoW storyline climaxes. Either A) your character is somehow uniquely doing the same unique things that every other character does and so their stories can't coexist, and/or B) it is unbelievable MarySue territory.
Thus, the amount of lore that is actually useful for RP is negligible - it feels like more simply because you see your character running around in the world.
Edit: Messed up quote.
I don't think that's necessarily true, not because I don't think you've read it, but because I know nobody's read it all. There is a ton of material out there, a ridiculous amount, and you can usually figure out anything you want to find out by asking and it's been in some comic or book over the years. Warcraft has a habit of fleshing out things that were originally jokes or random ridiculousness. Hell, the entirety of the MoP expansion is the lore spiral off an April Fool's Joke from Warcraft III. The problem is that WoWwiki is a sledgehammer of lore. It's not that it's hard to find certain things because they're buried, there are a lot of people that work on WoWwiki and Wowpedia, so the lore is actually pretty easy to find if you want to look something up.
But that also means the lorenazis are especially brutal on some servers. I'll grant you, not all lore they have is useful in the same way a lot of EVE's isn't useful, so having more of it is probably a bad way to compare it. It can also be used to really crush anything fun in WoW. A lot of people will point to some tidbit somewhere saying "Orcs are this way!" and therefore if you aren't that way, you're doing it wrong. It's harder to do that with EVE's lore since it doesn't try to be as helpful, but it can seize up random RP action if someone keeps using it to hit the brakes. Wyrmrest Accord, though a little better now, used to have a REALLY bad reputation on the Horde side for having more discussions about minute elements of Horde lore than RPing actual characters.
Lore should be more useful as a tool than a weapon. Luckily, it's also a game with flying aircraft carriers, Goblin mechasuits, and a weeklong monthly carnival on an island. It's generally easy to find stuff to make life interesting.
Regardless, I don't think people haven't necessarily done all the stuff I've done, but I'm not sure people still do them. Comparing EVE and WoW lore is like comparing the Camry and Focus in a comparative test. They're just functional, economy-size versions of more powerful lore, limited by the fact that video games don't have the resources or need for something that powerful for all their clientele. Even knowing that, it's a little disappointing sometimes, trying to look up something cool and finding out it's not there.
Regarding the length of text, it's something I am very conflicted about. On forum RP, which includes the IGS somehow I guess, it is fine, and can even be awesome. I think where it is the most appropriated is on forum RP cooperative stories, which I have had a lot and absolutely loved for that it mostly consists into a cooperative writing efforts still involving roleplaying and characters. It's totally free of anything and so, we can do what we want in the frame of what is defined by the GM. So yes, I love writing something engaging, and I often overdid it myself with fucking long walls of texts. But that's what is expected in that kind of RPs.
On the IGS, well, there is a bit of that, but it's more an IC forum for characters than a true forum RP story done between players. So it's often good to be more concise at times. I remember that another RPer was often annoying a lot of people by posting litteral walls of texts (often 2 or 3 messages together because it didn't fit into a single one). Well, Jade did awesome essays, but when you read a forum and stumble on a new essay at every of his answers, you start to just skip them. It just takes too much time to read, and often it's not even necessary as it can be summed up in a few paragraphs at best. So you eventually feel like you are reading an argument/essay full of interesting stuff maybe, but not concise at all, so like reading mostly air with the important info spread here and there. And it seriously feels counterproductive and I have to admit that even reading some of Constantin answers on the IGS, I just barely read the important bits or just skip them altogether because I just don't have the damn time. Especially as it is not even my native language, but that's another issue. I just feel like I am wasting my time. It's not about the content, it's just a problem with the form. A thread titled "essay on X", I will read it if I find the time and will appreciate it, and expect that it is actually filled with essays and walls of text. But an essay poping every page on a mundane topic, or a in a debate, no... I just can't.
Same ingame with RP emotes. Emotes are fine, emotes are even mandatory to flesh out a bit what's happening and they give life to characters. But like everything, there is moderation to have. Reading every answer made by a player that takes several paragraphs is just horrible. It takes time and most importantly, completely disrupt the flow, because it's not written asynchronous RP, but synchronous real time RP. And waiting 10 min for the next answer is... erm. Rather brutal. Then typing your own... for 10 more minutes ? It can work if you just open a convo and use it like a forum thread yes, but that's not how it works most of the time. Now imagine if everyone did that in RP parties where you have like 40 RPers all speaking at the same time. Which is already a nightmare to keep track...
So, no, he's really not supposed to sound or act like any other Amarrian that doesn't share his unique history. He's Amarrian enough; I don't think anything he says is heretical enough to get him tossed before the Theology Council.
Not yet. But he does have a very 'Arzad Hamri' style to him, which I pointed out on Samira on the IGS. That is heretical. He talks a lot about using a soft hand and incorporating foreign culture into Amarr, which are things that Arzad Hamri was looked down on and eventually trialed for.
If that's how you want your character to be, then that's fine. But it is going to result in a lot of traditional Amarr characters viewing Constantin as heretical. Samira liked him at first, but she's been growing more and more concerned with what he says.
I don't remember well. Was Harzad Hamri actually declared heretical by the TC or the Emperor, or was it just Ardishapur ?
However, since Constantin's liege is Ardishapur, well... yeah.
Which makes me think now that the Mandate is under Ardishapur overseeing, it makes me a very sad progressive Ammatar. Buggers.
From what I remember, Hamri was declared heretical by the TC and then ordered Ardishapur to handle it. At the same time, they've been pretty decent in the Mandate. I think Yonis appointed an Ammatar to run it. They also had something called Khaedra's Law which didn't let the Ardishapur kill the rest of the Matari on Starkman Prime. So I think the family is conservative, but not officially racist from what I've read.
[Author's Note] Holy crap, 5 posts? I might need a minute to finish this floor....
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I don't think that's necessarily true, not because I don't think you've read it, but because I know nobody's read it all. There is a ton of material out there, a ridiculous amount, and you can usually figure out anything you want to find out by asking and it's been in some comic or book over the years. Warcraft has a habit of fleshing out things that were originally jokes or random ridiculousness. Hell, the entirety of the MoP expansion is the lore spiral off an April Fool's Joke from Warcraft III. The problem is that WoWwiki is a sledgehammer of lore. It's not that it's hard to find certain things because they're buried, there are a lot of people that work on WoWwiki and Wowpedia, so the lore is actually pretty easy to find if you want to look something up.
But that also means the lorenazis are especially brutal on some servers. I'll grant you, not all lore they have is useful in the same way a lot of EVE's isn't useful, so having more of it is probably a bad way to compare it. It can also be used to really crush anything fun in WoW. A lot of people will point to some tidbit somewhere saying "Orcs are this way!" and therefore if you aren't that way, you're doing it wrong. It's harder to do that with EVE's lore since it doesn't try to be as helpful, but it can seize up random RP action if someone keeps using it to hit the brakes. Wyrmrest Accord, though a little better now, used to have a REALLY bad reputation on the Horde side for having more discussions about minute elements of Horde lore than RPing actual characters.
Lore should be more useful as a tool than a weapon. Luckily, it's also a game with flying aircraft carriers, Goblin mechasuits, and a weeklong monthly carnival on an island. It's generally easy to find stuff to make life interesting.
Regardless, I don't think people haven't necessarily done all the stuff I've done, but I'm not sure people still do them. Comparing EVE and WoW lore is like comparing the Camry and Focus in a comparative test. They're just functional, economy-size versions of more powerful lore, limited by the fact that video games don't have the resources or need for something that powerful for all their clientele. Even knowing that, it's a little disappointing sometimes, trying to look up something cool and finding out it's not there.
I'm not sure how we started talking past each other here, but if you scroll up one post to where Sami and I ended up on the discussion, that is what I've been trying to communicate to you as the primary difference between the usefulness of Eve RP versus WoW RP. It is a specific type of usefulness regarding IC action versus OOC action, and for me it is the pinnacle of what makes a game enjoyable to RP in or not.
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From what I remember, Hamri was declared heretical by the TC and then ordered Ardishapur to handle it. At the same time, they've been pretty decent in the Mandate. I think Yonis appointed an Ammatar to run it. They also had something called Khaedra's Law which didn't let the Ardishapur kill the rest of the Matari on Starkman Prime. So I think the family is conservative, but not officially racist from what I've read.
Negative.
"[Idonis Ardishapur's] family and friends would be appalled if they knew of his dark-skinned Starkmanir girl, with her almond eyes and her smile that was coy and bold at the same time." - Khumaak (Chronicle) (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Khumaak_%28Chronicle%29)
Idonis is also described as being "extremely conservative and xenophobic". And that's the guy who both committed genocide on the Starkmanir and passed Khaderia's Law (the same guy did both). You can say many things about the Ardishapur Family, but them not being racist isn't one of them. It's one of the hallmarks of the conservative bloc, which the Ardishapurs are at the head of. There's even very vague hints that they're sexist, at least in the sense of being patriarchal (firstborn sons inherit the family line, something which isn't seen in the other Royal Houses)--though that could have just been poor choice of wording on CCP's part in Yonis' article.
Yonis' moves in the Mandate were out of political savvy more than anything else. Everyone expected him to go the hardliner route. It's what he and the Ardishapur Family are known for (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/State_of_the_Empire,_110.06.11#Ardishapurites), and it's precisely why Jamyl appointed him there. That Yonis didn't shows his intelligence more than his character--he knows a trap when he sees one, and he knows how to exploit it to his benefit. Whether he's actually racist or not isn't known, but it's is certainly not why he was so progressive with the Mandate.
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From what I remember, Hamri was declared heretical by the TC and then ordered Ardishapur to handle it. At the same time, they've been pretty decent in the Mandate. I think Yonis appointed an Ammatar to run it. They also had something called Khaedra's Law which didn't let the Ardishapur kill the rest of the Matari on Starkman Prime. So I think the family is conservative, but not officially racist from what I've read.
Negative.
"[Idonis Ardishapur's] family and friends would be appalled if they knew of his dark-skinned Starkmanir girl, with her almond eyes and her smile that was coy and bold at the same time." - Khumaak (Chronicle) (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Khumaak_%28Chronicle%29)
Idonis is also described as being "extremely conservative and xenophobic". And that's the guy who both committed genocide on the Starkmanir and passed Khaderia's Law (the same guy did both). You can say many things about the Ardishapur Family, but them not being racist isn't one of them. It's one of the hallmarks of the conservative bloc, which the Ardishapurs are at the head of. There's even very vague hints that they're sexist, at least in the sense of being patriarchal (firstborn sons inherit the family line, something which isn't seen in the other Royal Houses)--though that could have just been poor choice of wording on CCP's part in Yonis' article.
Yonis' moves in the Mandate were out of political savvy more than anything else. Everyone expected him to go the hardliner route. It's what he and the Ardishapur Family are known for (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/State_of_the_Empire,_110.06.11#Ardishapurites), and it's precisely why Jamyl appointed him there. That Yonis didn't shows his intelligence more than his character--he knows a trap when he sees one, and he knows how to exploit it to his benefit. Whether he's actually racist or not isn't known, but it's is certainly not why he was so progressive with the Mandate.
Real quick (tenth floor!)
That chronicle is why I figured they weren't so racist anymore. Idonis obviously wasn't, himself, racist; he was fucking a Starkminar. I got vibes of Tiberius in I, Claudius there, in particular. Which is why I'm really pointing at the lore and saying, "Really? Are they racist? They seem to be doing what's politically expedient most of the time." They're just more tied into the church than to the military.
I mean, that in and of itself was almost a century and a half ago. That was before he issued the Khaedra Law that called for them to be left alone. That was even before Heideran and the Pax Amarr. Way before Jamyl Sarum and the emancipation.
This is what I'm talking about with the lore. This piece of story happened in an Amarr Empire that the lore itself tells us, in the first pages of Amarr lore, came before a massive event that reshaped Amarrian political thinking. All the modern signs point to the fact that things are changing at an impressive rate. Is this lore still useful or relevant? Or is it really a good idea to apply a glimpse into what Yonis's predecessor was thinking before the Minmatar Rebellion had even begun?
That's a lot of assumptions we're making that we don't necessarily have much evidence for. It looks like he has more political reason, at the very least, to not stick to that racist stance than his father had to do the opposite.
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Real quick (tenth floor!)
That chronicle is why I figured they weren't so racist anymore. Idonis obviously wasn't, himself, racist; he was fucking a Starkminar. I got vibes of Tiberius in I, Claudius there, in particular. Which is why I'm really pointing at the lore and saying, "Really? Are they racist? They seem to be doing what's politically expedient most of the time." They're just more tied into the church than to the military.
I mean, that in and of itself was almost a century and a half ago. That was before he issued the Khaedra Law that called for them to be left alone. That was even before Heideran and the Pax Amarr. Way before Jamyl Sarum and the emancipation.
This is what I'm talking about with the lore. This piece of story happened in an Amarr Empire that the lore itself tells us, in the first pages of Amarr lore, came before a massive event that reshaped Amarrian political thinking. All the modern signs point to the fact that things are changing at an impressive rate. Is this lore still useful or relevant? Or is it really a good idea to apply a glimpse into what Yonis's predecessor was thinking before the Minmatar Rebellion had even begun?
That's a lot of assumptions we're making that we don't necessarily have much evidence for. It looks like he has more political reason, at the very least, to not stick to that racist stance than his father had to do the opposite.
Just a general comment here, this is where you'll get people start balking at playing fast and loose with the PF. Many have an "it is written" attitude about it (myself included) - which doesn't mean your character can't be different, but it does mean he will be interpreted a certain way by others.
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You find that he was progressive with the Mandate ? I wouldn't say that he was harsh or extremely conservative, but what he did never looked really progressive to me. He just put the Mandate - more or less - back together, especially militarily. On the rest, he stripped the Mandate a lot of its autonomy by replacing locals by his own men. Nominating an Ammatar is here just as a puppet. It's certainly not that guy that runs the Mandate. It was already barely the Ammatar that ran the Mandate beforehand, since they were always seconded by an imperial governor.
No, the only thing I saw is Idonis strenghtening his grip on the Mandate, but he didn't do that especially harshly, just well and firmly.
I don't want to get started on whole essays on the deplorable state of the Mandate, but that is probably the faction that has been the most abandoned over the years. Like most minor factions, they tend to be forgotten for long periods of time, but at least they keep their integrity. Which is not the case with the Mandate at all. The Mandate was already half of a joke before TEA, with sheepish citizens and puppet authorities. Which can be interesting... to a point. Now that Ardishapur took over (it could have been anyone really, nothing would have changed), everyone seems to assume that it's all well and good and the Mandate is stronger than ever. As an Ammatar RPer (kindof..) I would argue that it's exactly the contrary, and that the Mandate would have been in a way better shape left alone to figure out on its own how to get back on track. The only thing that Ardishapur brought story wise was to definitely kill any Ammatar spirit left in the faction.
The Ammatar Mandate is extremely interesting to me precisely because it's a HUGE anomaly in the Amarr society. They are not totally part of the Amarr Empire (or at least, were not, like the Khanid Kingdom), but more akin to a protectorate, back in time. They were given a mandate from God by the Amarr Empire to act as a buffer nation between the Empire and the newly formed Minmatar Republic, with all the benediction of the Amarr. In return, they became kindof a vassal/protectorate of the Empire with their own solar systems, as faithful as they demonstrated to be. It is an anomaly precisely because of the status of their slave owners, which is illegal everywhere else, because those are precisely not Holders (who for most of them are True Amarr or Udorian in the case of Tash Murkon, or maybe Khanid now that the Kingdom is kinda back into the Empire). The simple fact that the ex Nefantars started to happily hold slaves during the Amarr conquest and the Minmatar Rebellion, and were allowed to keep them because the Empire could not afford to enforce their rules on Holders in such times, was made purely out of necessity. And it is interesting because it creates a huge precedent. It turned the Mandate into a very privileged semi independent nation of Faithful, even larger than the Khanid Kingdom themselves (though probably with a lot less military power), which were allowed to continue to keep slaves for their Holders-that-are-not-legally-Holders, and which were also given their emancipation very quickly compared to other enslaved races. All in all, they enjoyed a unique status that balanced a bit their rather... stern pictural as meek, spineless individuals, but oh so faithful and all. It also actually provided a lot of political manoeuvers and RP material by putting the emphasis on that specific anomaly.
The arrival of Ardishapur to fix things in the Mandate after the Elder invasion basically killed all of this. Granted, we probably still have Ammatar holders that are not holders, but otherwise while bolstering their military and administration, putting all back in order, it firstly kill the semi independence they had (much like the Khanid), thus removing a lot of the sub factional differences we had so much more before TEA, and also definitely made them actually weaker since all was not done by themselves, but Ardishapur. And all they do is smiling stupidly and meekly while their own government is brutally replaced by Ardishapur puppets and men. All in all, it's a part of the identity of the Ammatar that has already more or less faded away. Well, that can bring interesting material, like the Intaki identity issue has on the federal side, but here it's not just a threat, but a systematic removal from the lore itself, delegating it to the past. So it offers good incentives to start political arguments with Amarr loyalists, but it also at the same time scarifies a lot that actually makes the Ammatar Ammatar. I would love to believe that all of this is just transitional and that cunning Idonis Ardishapur will actually leave after, doing its own version of Khadrea's law in the Mandate by looking nice and compassionate while it's actually a tool for him to protect shameful stuff, but I really don't believe it will.
@ Vic : considering their portrayal in the news, I would still say that they are the most religiously traditional of all Houses. They may probably have changed like all after Vak Atioth, Heideran, and all that, to evolve into a modern Empire, but they probably are the ones that did it the less considering their very religious roots.
Also, I firmly believe that Khadrea's law concerning Vo'shun has nothing at all to do with humanitarian purposes, which is only as a PR tool. Khadrea's law is actually a pure middle finger given to the Minmatar Voluval traditions, showing how horrible it can be. Also considering how he protects them but also does not at all to actually help them or enlight them, or enslave them on Arzad, I would rather be even tempted to say that this guy can be really cruel. Vo'Shun under Khadrea's law reminds me a lot of his personal zoo.
The fact that Ardishapur was not as keen as the Emperor to declare Hamri as heretical is also maybe not out of compassion either to me, but rather because he was an Ardishapur subject that brought a lot of shame on their House. And we all know how many famous heretics the Ardishapur sprouted.
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Real quick (tenth floor!)
That chronicle is why I figured they weren't so racist anymore. Idonis obviously wasn't, himself, racist; he was fucking a Starkminar. I got vibes of Tiberius in I, Claudius there, in particular. Which is why I'm really pointing at the lore and saying, "Really? Are they racist? They seem to be doing what's politically expedient most of the time." They're just more tied into the church than to the military.
I mean, that in and of itself was almost a century and a half ago. That was before he issued the Khaedra Law that called for them to be left alone. That was even before Heideran and the Pax Amarr. Way before Jamyl Sarum and the emancipation.
This is what I'm talking about with the lore. This piece of story happened in an Amarr Empire that the lore itself tells us, in the first pages of Amarr lore, came before a massive event that reshaped Amarrian political thinking. All the modern signs point to the fact that things are changing at an impressive rate. Is this lore still useful or relevant? Or is it really a good idea to apply a glimpse into what Yonis's predecessor was thinking before the Minmatar Rebellion had even begun?
That's a lot of assumptions we're making that we don't necessarily have much evidence for. It looks like he has more political reason, at the very least, to not stick to that racist stance than his father had to do the opposite.
Just a general comment here, this is where you'll get people start balking at playing fast and loose with the PF. Many have an "it is written" attitude about it (myself included) - which doesn't mean your character can't be different, but it does mean he will be interpreted a certain way by others.
I'm just bringing up that it's not really a fast-and-loose thing. 150 years ago, the conservative party that lost the U.S. Presidential election made sure their voting states seceded in order to continue the practice of slavery. Even if we're going in a generational sense, my father was grounded at home and heckled at school for dating a black girl. Things change a LOT, and the most basic lore we have says things have changed a lot in the Amarr Empire just in the few years the game has occupied the timeline in.
I'm not saying that stuff didn't happen, I'm saying, what does it actually tell us about what is happening now that might be pertinent to our characters? It's really hard to say that everything that has ever been written about anything, in this case the Empire, is still true today even if we have a ton of lore that says the Empire has changed a lot over the years, decades, centuries, and millenia. I saw pretty much the opposite of racism in that story when I read it, Idonis himself wasn't racist per the story as much as he essentially had to play a political role to put down the rebellion. Which brings me to Lyn...
You find that he was progressive with the Mandate ? I wouldn't say that he was harsh or extremely conservative, but what he did never looked really progressive to me. He just put the Mandate - more or less - back together, especially militarily. On the rest, he stripped the Mandate a lot of its autonomy by replacing locals by his own men. Nominating an Ammatar is here just as a puppet. It's certainly not that guy that runs the Mandate. It was already barely the Ammatar that ran the Mandate beforehand, since they were always seconded by an imperial governor.
No, the only thing I saw is Idonis strenghtening his grip on the Mandate, but he didn't do that especially harshly, just well and firmly.
I don't want to get started on whole essays on the deplorable state of the Mandate, but that is probably the faction that has been the most abandoned over the years. Like most minor factions, they tend to be forgotten for long periods of time, but at least they keep their integrity. Which is not the case with the Mandate at all. The Mandate was already half of a joke before TEA, with sheepish citizens and puppet authorities. Which can be interesting... to a point. Now that Ardishapur took over (it could have been anyone really, nothing would have changed), everyone seems to assume that it's all well and good and the Mandate is stronger than ever. As an Ammatar RPer (kindof..) I would argue that it's exactly the contrary, and that the Mandate would have been in a way better shape left alone to figure out on its own how to get back on track. The only thing that Ardishapur brought story wise was to definitely kill any Ammatar spirit left in the faction.
The Ammatar Mandate is extremely interesting to me precisely because it's a HUGE anomaly in the Amarr society. They are not totally part of the Amarr Empire (or at least, were not, like the Khanid Kingdom), but more akin to a protectorate, back in time. They were given a mandate from God by the Amarr Empire to act as a buffer nation between the Empire and the newly formed Minmatar Republic, with all the benediction of the Amarr. In return, they became kindof a vassal/protectorate of the Empire with their own solar systems, as faithful as they demonstrated to be. It is an anomaly precisely because of the status of their slave owners, which is illegal everywhere else, because those are precisely not Holders (who for most of them are True Amarr or Udorian in the case of Tash Murkon, or maybe Khanid now that the Kingdom is kinda back into the Empire). The simple fact that the ex Nefantars started to happily hold slaves during the Amarr conquest and the Minmatar Rebellion, and were allowed to keep them because the Empire could not afford to enforce their rules on Holders in such times, was made purely out of necessity. And it is interesting because it creates a huge precedent. It turned the Mandate into a very privileged semi independent nation of Faithful, even larger than the Khanid Kingdom themselves (though probably with a lot less military power), which were allowed to continue to keep slaves for their Holders-that-are-not-legally-Holders, and which were also given their emancipation very quickly compared to other enslaved races. All in all, they enjoyed a unique status that balanced a bit their rather... stern pictural as meek, spineless individuals, but oh so faithful and all. It also actually provided a lot of political manoeuvers and RP material by putting the emphasis on that specific anomaly.
The arrival of Ardishapur to fix things in the Mandate after the Elder invasion basically killed all of this. Granted, we probably still have Ammatar holders that are not holders, but otherwise while bolstering their military and administration, putting all back in order, it firstly kill the semi independence they had (much like the Khanid), thus removing a lot of the sub factional differences we had so much more before TEA, and also definitely made them actually weaker since all was not done by themselves, but Ardishapur. And all they do is smiling stupidly and meekly while their own government is brutally replaced by Ardishapur puppets and men. All in all, it's a part of the identity of the Ammatar that has already more or less faded away. Well, that can bring interesting material, like the Intaki identity issue has on the federal side, but here it's not just a threat, but a systematic removal from the lore itself, delegating it to the past. So it offers good incentives to start political arguments with Amarr loyalists, but it also at the same time scarifies a lot that actually makes the Ammatar Ammatar. I would love to believe that all of this is just transitional and that cunning Idonis Ardishapur will actually leave after, doing its own version of Khadrea's law in the Mandate by looking nice and compassionate while it's actually a tool for him to protect shameful stuff, but I really don't believe it will.
@ Vic : considering their portrayal in the news, I would still say that they are the most religiously traditional of all Houses. They may probably have changed like all after Vak Atioth, Heideran, and all that, to evolve into a modern Empire, but they probably are the ones that did it the less considering their very religious roots.
Also, I firmly believe that Khadrea's law concerning Vo'shun has nothing at all to do with humanitarian purposes, which is only as a PR tool. Khadrea's law is actually a pure middle finger given to the Minmatar Voluval traditions, showing how horrible it can be. Also considering how he protects them but also does not at all to actually help them or enlight them, or enslave them on Arzad, I would rather be even tempted to say that this guy can be really cruel. Vo'Shun under Khadrea's law reminds me a lot of his personal zoo.
The fact that Ardishapur was not as keen as the Emperor to declare Hamri as heretical is also maybe not out of compassion either to me, but rather because he was an Ardishapur subject that brought a lot of shame on their House. And we all know how many famous heretics the Ardishapur sprouted.
A few things I've read (and I really hate lorenazying, so take this as conversational rather than dictatorial) just make it sound like the ground rules have changed. Let's take what you said as given, as a worst case scenario, that this is just a political stunt. Just from the bare bones, the most solid stuff I can wring out of the lore:
-The Ammatar are ethnic Matari living in the Empire
-The Ammatar were given to the most stridently conservative of the Heirs
-The Heir saw fit to cater as best he could to the Ammatar and give them political power
-We are assuming he is doing this for his political benefit because this helps his house
Then what we can gather is that, worst case scenario, the Ardishapur Family has recognized that the race of Matari, at least those who follow the faith, are a better political asset than they are enemies and would be a wise investment of political capital. That doesn't strike me as someone who sees them as barbarous heathens who aren't really part of the Amarr Empire, even at worst. If he'd really believed that, they'd be absolutely worthless and he would have done exactly as expected because he wouldn't have cared what they thought.
Things have changed, particularly since the Elder Invasion in this case. They're the most religiously traditional, but there were American laws on the books forbidding interracial marriage (and they found passages that they said supported this in the Bible) on the books until the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional in 1967. Not 50 years later, you can get thrown off your very popular cooking show for even having been reported to have used a derogatory racial slur. Now, in the worst case scenario, those people who are racists are hiding it because blacks in America are now seen to have political power and worth, so they should be catered to.
I like to think we're better off than the worst case scenario, personally. But even at its very worst, that says something about the fact that societies, no matter how traditional, move.
So how does this relate to the stuff on the Mandate?
If you don't think of everything in that scenario, that the reason the Matari have more power now is because they've essentially "proven" themselves by staying with the Empire through the combat and after the Elder Invasion, in spite of the fact that a lot of them were hiding pureblooded Starkminar (essentially hearkening back to their own tribal roots), I'd say that ethnic racism is starting to become a dying fad. I mean, there's a Udorian heir, the Ammatar have at least earned some political power and respect in the Mandate, the Khanid have their Privy Council seat back despite their temporary secession. Even the Ni-kunni, who we're supposed to think of with racist aspirations, are called out as probably rising to prominence in the future by Amarr historians.
It's hard, given what I've read, to think that things can just be taken as written about things a hundred years ago, or even from the beginning of the game. The most relevant lore relates to the most recent developments.
It could be that racism just isn't a political viable option anymore.
[Author's Note] Again, just my interpretation of what I've read. I don't grimdark up everything I read, I try to reduce everything down and take it as neutrally as possible.
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The worst part about the Ammatar is that from the COSMOS missions, the mandate was *supposed* to be the epicenter of FW. There is this whole set of stories about a military buildup at Kenobanala that is about to go hot.
I get the impression someone decided a proxy war over Ammatar wouldn't be big enough, so they had the elder fleet breeze right through without a problem and made it a war between the principles.
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From what I remember, Hamri was declared heretical by the TC and then ordered Ardishapur to handle it. At the same time, they've been pretty decent in the Mandate. I think Yonis appointed an Ammatar to run it. They also had something called Khaedra's Law which didn't let the Ardishapur kill the rest of the Matari on Starkman Prime. So I think the family is conservative, but not officially racist from what I've read.
Negative.
"[Idonis Ardishapur's] family and friends would be appalled if they knew of his dark-skinned Starkmanir girl, with her almond eyes and her smile that was coy and bold at the same time." - Khumaak (Chronicle) (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Khumaak_%28Chronicle%29)
Idonis is also described as being "extremely conservative and xenophobic". And that's the guy who both committed genocide on the Starkmanir and passed Khaderia's Law (the same guy did both). You can say many things about the Ardishapur Family, but them not being racist isn't one of them. It's one of the hallmarks of the conservative bloc, which the Ardishapurs are at the head of. There's even very vague hints that they're sexist, at least in the sense of being patriarchal (firstborn sons inherit the family line, something which isn't seen in the other Royal Houses)--though that could have just been poor choice of wording on CCP's part in Yonis' article.
Yonis' moves in the Mandate were out of political savvy more than anything else. Everyone expected him to go the hardliner route. It's what he and the Ardishapur Family are known for (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/State_of_the_Empire,_110.06.11#Ardishapurites), and it's precisely why Jamyl appointed him there. That Yonis didn't shows his intelligence more than his character--he knows a trap when he sees one, and he knows how to exploit it to his benefit. Whether he's actually racist or not isn't known, but it's is certainly not why he was so progressive with the Mandate.
Real quick (tenth floor!)
That chronicle is why I figured they weren't so racist anymore. Idonis obviously wasn't, himself, racist; he was fucking a Starkminar. I got vibes of Tiberius in I, Claudius there, in particular. Which is why I'm really pointing at the lore and saying, "Really? Are they racist? They seem to be doing what's politically expedient most of the time." They're just more tied into the church than to the military.
I mean, that in and of itself was almost a century and a half ago. That was before he issued the Khaedra Law that called for them to be left alone. That was even before Heideran and the Pax Amarr. Way before Jamyl Sarum and the emancipation.
This is what I'm talking about with the lore. This piece of story happened in an Amarr Empire that the lore itself tells us, in the first pages of Amarr lore, came before a massive event that reshaped Amarrian political thinking. All the modern signs point to the fact that things are changing at an impressive rate. Is this lore still useful or relevant? Or is it really a good idea to apply a glimpse into what Yonis's predecessor was thinking before the Minmatar Rebellion had even begun?
That's a lot of assumptions we're making that we don't necessarily have much evidence for. It looks like he has more political reason, at the very least, to not stick to that racist stance than his father had to do the opposite.
There is some merit in that, which is why I can see characters having that mindset. However, by no means are the racist ideologies eradicated. By Amarr standards that chronicle is still very recent. Idonis himself was still alive until just 5 years ago. The Empire has had some significant events in the meanwhile, but traditionalists are by their nature slow to change. And lore already states that conservatives are still racists (see writings on the Tash-Murkon family, where it's stated that they still are seen in a bad light by conservatives for being of Udorian ancestry). Likewise, it's stated in the Ardishapur Family entry that while tolerance has gone up in Ardishapur territories, stigmas still remain.
"The area has grown much more tolerable on a social level, as reforms pushed by Yonis have encouraged people of all races and bloodlines to seek religious enlightenment. Many of the old stigmas still exist, however, making the area particularly uncomfortable for foreigners." - Ardishapur Family, EVElopedia
As far as the Mandate goes... personally I prefer what they did with it. But then I'm an Ardishapur fangirl.
That doesn't strike me as someone who sees them as barbarous heathens who aren't really part of the Amarr Empire, even at worst. If he'd really believed that, they'd be absolutely worthless and he would have done exactly as expected because he wouldn't have cared what they thought.
Racism is not binary. It is not 'perfectly tolerant' and 'barbarous heathens'. The simple act of viewing them as inferior and needing the guidance of the Amarr is racist, and the actions in the Mandate still fit under that overall view. What it doesn't maintain is the strictness of proper Ardishapur territories, where punishment for sins is far harsher.
A better argument comes from Yonis' speaking tours: http://communityclassic.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=3826&tid=4&_ga=1.168374948.423763422.1359927558
But then you get stuff like this:
"Yonis came under some criticism when he appointed an ultra-conservative theologian to the post of chancellor at one of his newly-opening schools. The chancellor, Derek Tanar, believed that only True Amarrians were deserving of leadership in the Empire and that all other bloodlines should remain subservient. He had particularly gathered ire for suggesting the Tash-Murkon Family be expunged from their Royal seat. Yonis distanced himself from Tanar's more controversial views, while declaring him an exemplary choice for administering the school." - Yonis Ardishapur, EVElopedia
So there's evidence supporting both sides, so either is good to play. Society is only in the process of changing, though. The traditional elements are still there.
If you don't think of everything in that scenario, that the reason the Matari have more power now is because they've essentially "proven" themselves by staying with the Empire through the combat and after the Elder Invasion, in spite of the fact that a lot of them were hiding pureblooded Starkminar (essentially hearkening back to their own tribal roots), I'd say that ethnic racism is starting to become a dying fad. I mean, there's a Udorian heir, the Ammatar have at least earned some political power and respect in the Mandate, the Khanid have their Privy Council seat back despite their temporary secession. Even the Ni-kunni, who we're supposed to think of with racist aspirations, are called out as probably rising to prominence in the future by Amarr historians.
A few issues with this line of argument. One, while there is an Udorian heir, the Udorians are basically True Amarr now. There are no physical or social differences anymore. They're accepted because by most people's standards they are True Amarr. The radical conservatives are opposed on the merit of that little bit of Udorian blood that is left. That tiny bit of heritage is enough to poison the House in the eyes of radical conservatives.
Secondly, the common misconception that the Khanid Kingdom is a kingdom of Khanid. King Khanid is True Amarr. The Khanid Family are True Amarr. The majority of Holders in the Kingdom are True Amarr. It has a higher percentage of Khanid holders than the Empire, and an equal or possibly greater Khanid:True Amarr ratio among commoners, but it is not a kingdom of the Khanid by the Khanid for the Khanid (unless the Khanid we're talking about here is King Khanid. Who is not Khanid).
Amarr are very, very, very confusing with how they name things. <.<
I'm also pretty sure that allowing Khanid back was a purely political move made to counter Ardishapur's opposition and growing power, and not in recognition of any actual fence-mending. You'll note that, of course, it was Ardishapur who was opposed to the reunion. (http://communityclassic.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=3083&tid=8&_ga=1.97768090.423763422.1359927558) I'm sure there's both religious and political reasons for that opposition.
For the most part, the wheeling and dealing of the heirs is built around political goals moreso than any representations of their actual beliefs (with the possible exception of Aritcio). Thus it's hard to take any of their public statements at face value. Almost everything we've seen out of Yonis for example is very carefully crafted to poke at Jamyl's authority on a very subtle level. I wouldn't doubt that his pro-tolerance policies are anything more than a method of combating Jamyl's own major political gains among free Minmatar. Jamyl would have gone up in popularity among Minmatar quite a bit with the emancipation. But then you remember that freed slaves have serious issues with poverty and integrating into Amarr society (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Amarr_Empire#Brutor), which would have soured their immediate gains. Then in steps Yonis with schools, hospitals, education reforms, and pro-tolerance policies, and you start buying into him over Jamyl.
Yonis is fucking dangerous. Jamyl doesn't call him the most powerful man in the Empire for nothing. I'm honestly expecting Amarr to be building up to a second Moral Reform.
Really, that's the kind of stuff that makes me like EVE lore.
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From what I remember, Hamri was declared heretical by the TC and then ordered Ardishapur to handle it. At the same time, they've been pretty decent in the Mandate. I think Yonis appointed an Ammatar to run it. They also had something called Khaedra's Law which didn't let the Ardishapur kill the rest of the Matari on Starkman Prime. So I think the family is conservative, but not officially racist from what I've read.
Negative.
"[Idonis Ardishapur's] family and friends would be appalled if they knew of his dark-skinned Starkmanir girl, with her almond eyes and her smile that was coy and bold at the same time." - Khumaak (Chronicle) (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Khumaak_%28Chronicle%29)
Idonis is also described as being "extremely conservative and xenophobic". And that's the guy who both committed genocide on the Starkmanir and passed Khaderia's Law (the same guy did both). You can say many things about the Ardishapur Family, but them not being racist isn't one of them. It's one of the hallmarks of the conservative bloc, which the Ardishapurs are at the head of. There's even very vague hints that they're sexist, at least in the sense of being patriarchal (firstborn sons inherit the family line, something which isn't seen in the other Royal Houses)--though that could have just been poor choice of wording on CCP's part in Yonis' article.
Yonis' moves in the Mandate were out of political savvy more than anything else. Everyone expected him to go the hardliner route. It's what he and the Ardishapur Family are known for (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/State_of_the_Empire,_110.06.11#Ardishapurites), and it's precisely why Jamyl appointed him there. That Yonis didn't shows his intelligence more than his character--he knows a trap when he sees one, and he knows how to exploit it to his benefit. Whether he's actually racist or not isn't known, but it's is certainly not why he was so progressive with the Mandate.
Real quick (tenth floor!)
That chronicle is why I figured they weren't so racist anymore. Idonis obviously wasn't, himself, racist; he was fucking a Starkminar. I got vibes of Tiberius in I, Claudius there, in particular. Which is why I'm really pointing at the lore and saying, "Really? Are they racist? They seem to be doing what's politically expedient most of the time." They're just more tied into the church than to the military.
I mean, that in and of itself was almost a century and a half ago. That was before he issued the Khaedra Law that called for them to be left alone. That was even before Heideran and the Pax Amarr. Way before Jamyl Sarum and the emancipation.
This is what I'm talking about with the lore. This piece of story happened in an Amarr Empire that the lore itself tells us, in the first pages of Amarr lore, came before a massive event that reshaped Amarrian political thinking. All the modern signs point to the fact that things are changing at an impressive rate. Is this lore still useful or relevant? Or is it really a good idea to apply a glimpse into what Yonis's predecessor was thinking before the Minmatar Rebellion had even begun?
That's a lot of assumptions we're making that we don't necessarily have much evidence for. It looks like he has more political reason, at the very least, to not stick to that racist stance than his father had to do the opposite.
There is some merit in that, which is why I can see characters having that mindset. However, by no means are the racist ideologies eradicated. By Amarr standards that chronicle is still very recent. Idonis himself was still alive until just 5 years ago. The Empire has had some significant events in the meanwhile, but traditionalists are by their nature slow to change. And lore already states that conservatives are still racists (see writings on the Tash-Murkon family, where it's stated that they still are seen in a bad light by conservatives for being of Udorian ancestry). Likewise, it's stated in the Ardishapur Family entry that while tolerance has gone up in Ardishapur territories, stigmas still remain.
"The area has grown much more tolerable on a social level, as reforms pushed by Yonis have encouraged people of all races and bloodlines to seek religious enlightenment. Many of the old stigmas still exist, however, making the area particularly uncomfortable for foreigners." - Ardishapur Family, EVElopedia
As far as the Mandate goes... personally I prefer what they did with it. But then I'm an Ardishapur fangirl.
That doesn't strike me as someone who sees them as barbarous heathens who aren't really part of the Amarr Empire, even at worst. If he'd really believed that, they'd be absolutely worthless and he would have done exactly as expected because he wouldn't have cared what they thought.
Racism is not binary. It is not 'perfectly tolerant' and 'barbarous heathens'. The simple act of viewing them as inferior and needing the guidance of the Amarr is racist, and the actions in the Mandate still fit under that overall view. What it doesn't maintain is the strictness of proper Ardishapur territories, where punishment for sins is far harsher.
A better argument comes from Yonis' speaking tours: http://communityclassic.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=3826&tid=4&_ga=1.168374948.423763422.1359927558
But then you get stuff like this:
"Yonis came under some criticism when he appointed an ultra-conservative theologian to the post of chancellor at one of his newly-opening schools. The chancellor, Derek Tanar, believed that only True Amarrians were deserving of leadership in the Empire and that all other bloodlines should remain subservient. He had particularly gathered ire for suggesting the Tash-Murkon Family be expunged from their Royal seat. Yonis distanced himself from Tanar's more controversial views, while declaring him an exemplary choice for administering the school." - Yonis Ardishapur, EVElopedia
So there's evidence supporting both sides, so either is good to play. Society is only in the process of changing, though. The traditional elements are still there.
If you don't think of everything in that scenario, that the reason the Matari have more power now is because they've essentially "proven" themselves by staying with the Empire through the combat and after the Elder Invasion, in spite of the fact that a lot of them were hiding pureblooded Starkminar (essentially hearkening back to their own tribal roots), I'd say that ethnic racism is starting to become a dying fad. I mean, there's a Udorian heir, the Ammatar have at least earned some political power and respect in the Mandate, the Khanid have their Privy Council seat back despite their temporary secession. Even the Ni-kunni, who we're supposed to think of with racist aspirations, are called out as probably rising to prominence in the future by Amarr historians.
A few errors with this line of argument. One, while there is an Udorian heir, the Udorians are basically True Amarr. There are no physical or social differences anymore. They're accepted because by most people's standards they are basically True Amarr. The radical conservatives are opposed on the merit of that little bit of Udorian blood that is left. Not straight up Udorian as a race, but the trace amounts of Udorian blood in an otherwise True Amarr.
Secondly, the common misconception that the Khanid Kingdom is a kingdom of Khanid. King Khanid is True Amarr. The Khanid Family are True Amarr. The majority of Holders in the Kingdom are True Amarr. It has a higher percentage of Khanid holders than the Empire, and an equal or possibly greater Khanid:True Amarr ratio among commoners, but it is not a kingdom of the Khanid by the Khanid for the Khanid (unless the Khanid we're talking about here is King Khanid. Who is not Khanid).
Amarr are very, very, very confusing with how they name things. <.<
I'm also pretty sure that allowing Khanid back was a purely political move made to counter Ardishapur's opposition and growing power, and not in recognition of any actual fence-mending. You'll note that, of course, it was Ardishapur who was opposed to the reunion. (http://communityclassic.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=3083&tid=8&_ga=1.97768090.423763422.1359927558) I'm sure there's both religious and political reasons for that opposition.
For the most part, the wheeling and dealing of the heirs is built around political goals moreso than any representations of their actual beliefs (with the possible exception of Aritcio). Thus it's hard to take any of their public statements at face value. Almost everything we've seen out of Yonis for example is very carefully crafted to poke at Jamyl's authority on a very subtle level. I wouldn't doubt that his pro-tolerance policies are anything more than a method of combating Jamyl's own major political gains among free Minmatar. Jamyl would have gone up in popularity among Minmatar quite a bit with the emancipation. But then you remember that freed slaves have serious issues with poverty and integrating into Amarr society (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Amarr_Empire#Brutor), which would have soured their immediate gains. Then in steps Yonis with schools, hospitals, education reforms, and pro-tolerance policies, and you start buying into him over Jamyl.
Yonis is fucking dangerous. Jamyl doesn't call him the most powerful man in the Empire for nothing. I'm honestly expecting Amarr to be building up to a second Moral Reform.
Really, that's the kind of stuff that makes me like EVE lore.
Just one comment comes to mind, I thought the Tash-Murkon family wasn't made up of True Amarr, that they were definitely Udorian. [url-https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Tash-Murkon_Family]Admittedly, that came from a pretty direct, short stub of a post.[/url] Maybe I missed it somewhere? I was really sure Catiz Tash-Murkon is a straight-up Udorian. I'm not as familiar with Tash-Murkon lore, since it was a lot more interesting to make a missionary in Constantin's vein from the Ardishapur family.
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https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Udorians
"Though originally distinct from the True Amarr, they are now almost physically and socially identical, and impossible to tell apart. Their status is considered nearly equal to the True Amarr by all but the most conservative Amarr elements. One of the royal houses, the Tash-Murkon Family, is of Udorian heritage."
Also
"The social and physical difference between the True Amarr and Udorians disappeared ages ago, although societal traditionalists prefer to remember them." - Amarr Empire, EVElopedia
Essentially, there is no 'straight up Udorian' bloodline anymore. They've basically gone extinct as a race. Though I'm not actually sure if they're still documented as Udorians in paperwork. I thought they were basically written down as True Amarr but with the little taint in their geneaology that conservatives point out, but going through my sources I can't seem to find that. Considering Amarr focus on heritage and ancestry, they might still be documented as Udorians on paper despite being True Amarr in all other capacities, which does make their ascension to royal family more meaningful.
Really, in terms of lore that needs expanding... the Tash-Murkon are a major one. There is so very very little on them.
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Aha, here it was. The Demographics article is where it says that the Udorians are counted as True Amarr, just with Udorian heritage (their description is even rolled into the True Amarr field, rather than having a separate one like everyone else):
"All members of the Amarr royalty are of True Amarr descent, though the Tash-Murkon Family is famously descended from Udorians and are often denigrated by conservatives because of it."
"In the case of the Udorians, over thousands of years, the mingling with the True Amarr ended the ethnicity as a proper separate bloodline."
https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Amarr_Empire
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https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Udorians
"Though originally distinct from the True Amarr, they are now almost physically and socially identical, and impossible to tell apart. Their status is considered nearly equal to the True Amarr by all but the most conservative Amarr elements."
The point being that there is no 'straight up Udorian' bloodline anymore. They've basically gone extinct as a race. Though I'm not actually sure if they're still documented as Udorians in paperwork. I thought they were basically written down as True Amarr but with the little taint in their geneaology that conservatives point out, but going through my sources I can't seem to find that. Considering Amarr focus on heritage and ancestry, they might still be documented as Udorians on paper despite being True Amarr in all other capacities, which does make their ascension to royal family more meaningful.
Really, in terms of lore that needs expanding... the Tash-Murkon are a major one. There is so very very little on them.
The curse of MMORPG lore, apparently, even when they do give you lore, it's usually not what you need >.< This is why my guild spent six years building our own supplementary lore in WoW.
On that note, today I had to run the last RP I'll have with some of my oldest RP friends from WoW. We never really got together for our Skulldance Clan reunion on Wyrmrest Accord, I don't have time to be home running the thing alone, my recruitment officer is about to lose internet, and we've been drifting apart in the game since Cataclysm, RPing only in Gtalk and Skype. It's been threadbare for a while now, and we'll never get the transfers done to have an in-game presence as it is. I guess it was time to wrap it up. I wouldn't have said anything here, except that we were talking about it, but it's the (at least temporary) end to a long project that we all put together as a labor of love and damned the haters.
Maybe someday, I'll have the time to reboot the thing on WRA. For now, though, it was a fitting sendoff, our IC wrapup of the SoO patch and MoP expansion. I'm entering it upon the lore page now.
Here's one last scream for my beloved Skulldance Clan.
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From what ...
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it was Ardishapur who was opposed to the reunion.
? The term reunion or reunification doesnt exist neither in the news, nor the evelopedia.
"reconciliation" is the word. By the way off topic question, who was the guy which first used the term reunification? Just curious. If someone knows, write me. Because I cant think, that other wise smart people just roll with something so "outside the realm of common sense" without CCP employee starting it of (and I dont think it was TonyG or Eterne)....
Still likes where the thread is going......Moves back into the shadowes.
Secondly, the common misconception that the Khanid Kingdom is a kingdom of Khanid. King Khanid is True Amarr. The Khanid Family are True Amarr. The majority of Holders in the Kingdom are True Amarr. It has a higher percentage of Khanid holders than the Empire, and an equal or possibly greater Khanid:True Amarr ratio among commoners, but it is not a kingdom of the Khanid by the Khanid for the Khanid (unless the Khanid we're talking about here is King Khanid. Who is not Khanid).
Ehm.....
Just a minior thingy......equal??
I dont think the true amarr ratio to Khnaid could be equal (just my 50 cents).
Actually the Kingdom had two immigration waves of Khanids (Age of expanision and durning the khanid rebellion) here (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Khanid_Family#Expansion) and here (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Khanid_%28bloodline%29).... Which means that the overall I think it is save to say that the ratio isnt equal....
But in the end does it matter? No. Why? Because the Kingdom (and Empire) arent democracies. So If the True amarr are a minority doesnt matter, as they dont need "voter-majorities" to exersice power (religion and the of it derived caste-system (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Opinions_by_Publius_Valerius) those this). So the overall fear of becoming, or being, "powerless through numbers" wouldnt exist for this group. But as I said just my 50 cents, could think of that the next chronicle runs in the opposit direction of what I had said; and paints the True Amarr as people which fear a majority-minority-change like one of those late century movements on earth. :(
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Real quick (tenth floor!)
That chronicle is why I figured they weren't so racist anymore. Idonis obviously wasn't, himself, racist; he was fucking a Starkminar. I got vibes of Tiberius in I, Claudius there, in particular. Which is why I'm really pointing at the lore and saying, "Really? Are they racist? They seem to be doing what's politically expedient most of the time." They're just more tied into the church than to the military.
I mean, that in and of itself was almost a century and a half ago. That was before he issued the Khaedra Law that called for them to be left alone. That was even before Heideran and the Pax Amarr. Way before Jamyl Sarum and the emancipation.
This is what I'm talking about with the lore. This piece of story happened in an Amarr Empire that the lore itself tells us, in the first pages of Amarr lore, came before a massive event that reshaped Amarrian political thinking. All the modern signs point to the fact that things are changing at an impressive rate. Is this lore still useful or relevant? Or is it really a good idea to apply a glimpse into what Yonis's predecessor was thinking before the Minmatar Rebellion had even begun?
That's a lot of assumptions we're making that we don't necessarily have much evidence for. It looks like he has more political reason, at the very least, to not stick to that racist stance than his father had to do the opposite.
Welcome into my world... I have been trying for ages to portray the Amarr as a modern religious nation rather than the spanish inquisition trope we can see everywhere. I think organisations like PIE do it as well, bu they focus on different sides (more militaristic, dogmatic). I think Nico does it too, where we try to focus on the Amarr empire as a very well cultured and learned society as described at times in the PF. As you say, a lot have changed in the approximate 500 Heideran/Doriam years of progressive Amarr Empire past Vak Atioth. While Heideran became only really active as an Emperor only at the end of his life through his projects with Aidonis, Vak Atioth is described to have completely shaken the Amarr certainty of everything and that they went soon into a reclusive time of doubt and questioning.
That, and the fact that they are a society as advanced as any, with millenias of knowledge behind. They are NOT the Imperium of Man of W40K, for which a lot of people mistake them. So the trick is to picture a society that is modern, and yet not to fall into copying our own RL modern world, which is completely alien to them. They sure still believe that the cluster would be better as Amarr, like the Fed believes the same, or even the Minmatar who are not so reclusive than what we tend to think.
All in all, it's not easy. And double not easy these past years since there is basically almost no progressive and VOCAL Amarr characters left around. So, you tend to eat crows most of the time...
A few things I've read (and I really hate lorenazying, so take this as conversational rather than dictatorial) just make it sound like the ground rules have changed. Let's take what you said as given, as a worst case scenario, that this is just a political stunt. Just from the bare bones, the most solid stuff I can wring out of the lore:
-The Ammatar are ethnic Matari living in the Empire
-The Ammatar were given to the most stridently conservative of the Heirs
-The Heir saw fit to cater as best he could to the Ammatar and give them political power
-We are assuming he is doing this for his political benefit because this helps his house
Then what we can gather is that, worst case scenario, the Ardishapur Family has recognized that the race of Matari, at least those who follow the faith, are a better political asset than they are enemies and would be a wise investment of political capital. That doesn't strike me as someone who sees them as barbarous heathens who aren't really part of the Amarr Empire, even at worst. If he'd really believed that, they'd be absolutely worthless and he would have done exactly as expected because he wouldn't have cared what they thought.
Things have changed, particularly since the Elder Invasion in this case. They're the most religiously traditional, but there were American laws on the books forbidding interracial marriage (and they found passages that they said supported this in the Bible) on the books until the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional in 1967. Not 50 years later, you can get thrown off your very popular cooking show for even having been reported to have used a derogatory racial slur. Now, in the worst case scenario, those people who are racists are hiding it because blacks in America are now seen to have political power and worth, so they should be catered to.
I like to think we're better off than the worst case scenario, personally. But even at its very worst, that says something about the fact that societies, no matter how traditional, move.
So how does this relate to the stuff on the Mandate?
If you don't think of everything in that scenario, that the reason the Matari have more power now is because they've essentially "proven" themselves by staying with the Empire through the combat and after the Elder Invasion, in spite of the fact that a lot of them were hiding pureblooded Starkminar (essentially hearkening back to their own tribal roots), I'd say that ethnic racism is starting to become a dying fad. I mean, there's a Udorian heir, the Ammatar have at least earned some political power and respect in the Mandate, the Khanid have their Privy Council seat back despite their temporary secession. Even the Ni-kunni, who we're supposed to think of with racist aspirations, are called out as probably rising to prominence in the future by Amarr historians.
It's hard, given what I've read, to think that things can just be taken as written about things a hundred years ago, or even from the beginning of the game. The most relevant lore relates to the most recent developments.
It could be that racism just isn't a political viable option anymore.
[Author's Note] Again, just my interpretation of what I've read. I don't grimdark up everything I read, I try to reduce everything down and take it as neutrally as possible.
-The Heir saw fit to cater as best he could to the Ammatar and give them political power
Actually no, that's my main gripe with that part of the storyline. Ardishapur only made the Ammatar choke even more under his grip, striping them away from their identity and their political power/influence. Not saying its' good or bad per se since it brings interesting material, but that's only for the short run... In the long run, I believe it will only be harmful to the faction as a whole. He made the Mandate strong, but what he made "strong" (which is relative...) is an Ardishapur Mandate, not an Ammatar Mandate, is what I mean.
It's also not that the Ardishapur recognize the Matari as important, since Ardishapur was named and appointed by the Empress herself as a tool to fix things in the Mandate. I don't remember him to be all to happy about it, but it was a good opportunity for him, and he took it. Also yes, I agree with you that being an Ardishapur, he will probably be a lot more "humane" toward other races that need redeeming/enlightment than say, Merimeth Sarum or a Kador... Until they start to rebel, or take objection of course, and I believe that Ardishapur can be extremely repressive/oppressive religiously when people do not conform exactly to their bigotry.
Also you seem to assume that a modernized Amarr Empire would necessarily evolve the same way the western world did past the Age of Enlightment. I believe there is a bit of truth in that as the more civilized and the more progress is made socially as well as technologically, we tend to act less and less as animals. But it doesn't necessarily mean that racial tolerance goes along with it. Ours came from the declaration of human rights, enlightment philosophers, and the scientific revolution. I would argue that in the case of the human rights, the Amarr had none, and they don't precisely welcome the distorted one we could find in the Federation (although once again I believe they still probably get influence by it a bit, as it should be, and vice versa). In the case of philosophers, yes, they probably do. And they probably had a lot of them after Vak Atioth. I also more or less remembered the Amarr as a people prone to Agoras in a society that favours cultural and intellectual simulation, so, the difficulty here is to imagine what kind of morals precepts came out of it. In the case of the scientific revolution, contrary to RL historical Christianity, the Amarr religion embraces any scientific progress. I mean, RL Church also did but in an obscurantism environment, picking up what served them and keeping it for themselves and the scholars. So I would rather say that the modernized Amarr is certainly not following the same path than the western world did IRL. I however believe that they became more... open, more calm and level headed than they used to be, precisely because they are not the only advanced civilization anymore. Vak Atioth also shook their faith in traditional armed reclaiming, and they probably behave less like the Roman Empire than they did before.
So no, I would argue that the Ammatar have lost any bit of pitiful power they once claimed. They are now directly ruled by Ardishapur and not their own leaders (even seconded by an imperial governor as they were), they lost all credibility after the attack on their homeworld Halturzhan precisely because their leaders were actually conspirationnist Nefantars hiding Starkmanir and sacrifying their own children and people just for the sake of it. They also got completely swept apart by the Elder fleet that came at them (though that is not much different than what happened in Mekhios and Kor-Azor anyway, imperial fleets got destroyed here as well). But since a part of the Ammatar Fleet also defected in their wake, it certainly didn't help them, and it's not a surprise that the Empress decided that they needed urgently to be put back in the right path by a True Amarr, probably fearing that they started to be tempted by their treatorous nefantar leaders. And the icing on the cake added to the shame is Shakor that took the title of San Matar, which is the title of the Ammatar central constellation as well (I find that bit highly amusing though).
Frankly, I could hardly find a more negative way to picture the Ammatar. Once a thriving environment where extremely progressive ideas blossomed (cf Amarr Cultural Recess) as well as their opposite in the constant border war with the Republic, it's now a more or less stillborn nation. Unless, of course, CCP decides to fix it seriously someday, because at least, it's totally fixable.
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The worst part about the Ammatar is that from the COSMOS missions, the mandate was *supposed* to be the epicenter of FW. There is this whole set of stories about a military buildup at Kenobanala that is about to go hot.
I get the impression someone decided a proxy war over Ammatar wouldn't be big enough, so they had the elder fleet breeze right through without a problem and made it a war between the principles.
Bleh, it's even worse since we already had that stupid proxy war happening. The war between the Mandate and the Republic never really faded out and was still raging through border skirmishes before TEA. Even better, there was also the caldari megas in the middle too, and the Gallente arming the Minmatar behind the curtain.
They could have rolled with that yes. But they didn't. They wanted "grandiose" and "epic" and... well, basically, you press a button and it's "awesome".
As far as the Mandate goes... personally I prefer what they did with it. But then I'm an Ardishapur fangirl.
Yeah but I find that a little selfish. It's the Ardishapur over another faction. I don't mind much factions going into trouble as it provides a lot of interesting drama and material, but the way it is done to the Ammatar is frustrating. They are just used as a storytelling tool or crutch to add light on Amarrian internal politics, without any concern for the Ammatar lore itself. It is still salvageable, but I don't believe they will do anything but let it die.
I think actually what bothers me the most is not the situation the Ammatar are into, because it provides change and interesting perspectives, but rather than it is left as it is, slowly dying. Like Colelie is left dying, like everything is left dying these days. And I don't want it to die like that. There is a huge potential in Derelik involving so many sides that it's almost crazy (the Amarr Houses for political gain, the Caldari megas, the Republic, and the Ammatar themselves).
Amarr are very, very, very confusing with how they name things. <.<
I have a theory in that the Khanid are probably a glimpse of the future for the Ammatar themselves. They started in similar ways : the Khanid helped the Amarr against the Udorians, and were granted their freedom at the side of the Amarr, and ruled by a True Amarr, taking the name of the province he ruled. So eventually, it became the Khanid people ruled by Khanid, of true amarr descent. The same way the Ammatar are ruled by the Amarr but still free as a people, and will maybe someday become a major political house of the Empire considering their sheer size. Unless they get annexed by Ardishapur, that is :lol:
I'm also pretty sure that allowing Khanid back was a purely political move made to counter Ardishapur's opposition and growing power, and not in recognition of any actual fence-mending. You'll note that, of course, it was Ardishapur who was opposed to the reunion. (http://communityclassic.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=3083&tid=8&_ga=1.97768090.423763422.1359927558) I'm sure there's both religious and political reasons for that opposition.
For the most part, the wheeling and dealing of the heirs is built around political goals moreso than any representations of their actual beliefs (with the possible exception of Aritcio). Thus it's hard to take any of their public statements at face value. Almost everything we've seen out of Yonis for example is very carefully crafted to poke at Jamyl's authority on a very subtle level. I wouldn't doubt that his pro-tolerance policies are anything more than a method of combating Jamyl's own major political gains among free Minmatar. Jamyl would have gone up in popularity among Minmatar quite a bit with the emancipation. But then you remember that freed slaves have serious issues with poverty and integrating into Amarr society (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Amarr_Empire#Brutor), which would have soured their immediate gains. Then in steps Yonis with schools, hospitals, education reforms, and pro-tolerance policies, and you start buying into him over Jamyl.
Yonis is fucking dangerous. Jamyl doesn't call him the most powerful man in the Empire for nothing. I'm honestly expecting Amarr to be building up to a second Moral Reform.
Really, that's the kind of stuff that makes me like EVE lore.
Yes I think it was a political cunning move too. It seems only logical that Khanid II and Yonis hate each other to no end, ideologically first, and since they are not of the same generation second. And Khanid is a damn heretic to a lot of people for what he did (succession trials), what he continues to do (slavery), and what he believes in (religious beliefs).
Tbh between all the heirs, there are so many discrepancies...
Khanid is extremely powerful as per his experience. He is truly dangerous militarily as well as politically and it's often the heir about whom I would be the more inclined to say "one does not just fuck with Khanid, or one will soon find himself very dead".
The Kador heir is a complete idiot. Too bad for Kador House, which lack a lot of lore and fleshing out. The only great person they have is Heideran VII... Okay, granted, and a lot of emperors.
Aritcio Kor-Azor, while being the Amarr batman and being cool and all, remains rather ridiculous to me. It's not very eve-ish to my eyes and that he spends his nights fighting wrong and injustice doesn't mean much to me. Where is gone the famous diplomatic and progressive Kor-Azor house ? But anyway, yes, barely dangerous imo.
Merimeth Sarum just sound like a tool, but well, there is Jamyl. I hate Jamyl on many points. She looks inconsistent. TonyG character anyway. It's hard to get a clear picture of the character...
Catiz TM however, sounds to me as dangerous as Yonis. We rarely hear about her, but considering her achievements and the sheer financial power of heir House, the only thing that probably hurts her is her Udorian heritage. Otherwise, I believe that she could prove to be a colossal foe to any other heir considering her network of relations, her wealth and influence, and her unusual pragmatic and shifting personality.
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Real quick note offhand, it kind of seems like this stuff would affect us more if we were groundside. Might I suggest that it might be kind of fun if we could "pledge" ourselves to a specific house and gain access to short missions to provide us with new ships and equipment you couldn't get otherwise? I'd love to fly whatever megalithic religious symbol the Ardishapur would have put together for themselves.
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I don't think you can describe the Amarr as "racist".
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Real quick note offhand, it kind of seems like this stuff would affect us more if we were groundside. Might I suggest that it might be kind of fun if we could "pledge" ourselves to a specific house and gain access to short missions to provide us with new ships and equipment you couldn't get otherwise? I'd love to fly whatever megalithic religious symbol the Ardishapur would have put together for themselves.
I would love some trailers:
- Game of Thrones: Pledge Your Allegiance - House Baratheon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mDlEqdKe0g)
- Game of Thrones: Pledge Your Allegiance - House Stark (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cqABojhqr4)
- Game of Thrones: Pledge Your Allegiance - House Targaryen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JAQcQQ2H-A)
- Game of Thrones: Pledge Your Allegiance - House Greyjoy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Nwnqz_iEY)
- Game of Thrones: Pledge Your Allegiance -- House Lannister (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg1ISNSXZHY)
As for the Heirs and Khanid:
This page had ones give a small overview: http://community.eveonline.com/backstory/races/amarr/heirs/
Aritcio Kor-Azor
The last thing that Doriam Kor-Azor did before leaving for the inauguration ceremony was to name his son Aritcio as the new head of the Kor-Azor family, to the dismay of many. Aritcio is a master politician, having just the right mixture of dishonesty, paranoia and charm to ooze his way up the political ladder. Yet for all his slyness and cunning in carving himself a power position at the top Aritcio is totally clueless when it comes to the problems of the common man. His total naivety on the matter stems both from his sheltered life at the top, but more from his total lack of interest in the fate of the masses. Considered by most to be an egotistical, cold-hearted bastard, Aritcio was careful to cultivate the relationship with his father, who refuses to believe anything bad about his cherished son. The citizens of the Kor-Azor, used to the benevolent, fatherly rule of Doriam, are already trembling at the thought of what their new master might get up to. The only thing they can do is hope he doesn't suddenly become interested in fulfilling his civic duty and take an avid interest in the daily life of his subjects.
Uriam Kador
Uriam personifies all the traits that the Kadors hold so dearly: his tall, splendidly proportioned body gives him a majestic aura of grandeur, his keen intellect makes him a master of oratory and rhetoric and his refined manners inspire loyalty and respect. Uriam is a true leader of men, but his ambitions lie not in the realm of power and rule, but rather in the realms of the mind. A noted philosopher and poet, Uriam's view on life is very cosmopolitan. Not a true liberal or humanitarian, he is still positively enlightened compared to most of his fellow Holders. He has held various high-level posts within the empire, which have given him a thorough insight into every aspect of Amarrian society. He has already indicated that he will modernize the stale, conditioning education system within his domain, as well as streamlining the entangled, cumbersome trade laws. The only taint on his otherwise excellent carrier is his not-so-well hidden relationship with a Gallentean woman of high stature. His family hopes that Uriam, with his new responsibilities and duties, breaks these shameful ties with his mystery lover.
Catiz Tash-Murkon
Catiz Tash-Murkon is the youngest child of the late Davit Tash-Murkon. Yet it came as no surprise when he named her as his heir. When she was still in her teens she refused to follow the safe, but boring and restricting path her siblings took in the upper echelons of Holder society. Instead, she headed out on her own as a lone miner. From this humble start so many years ago she has slowly worked herself upwards, establishing a business empire to rival even that of her own father. All this time she has refused aid from her family, determined that what she built would be hers and hers alone. Now that she has inherited her father's vast domains to merge with her own the already formidable economical power of the Tash-Murkons is now stronger than ever. People are already jokingly saying that when Catiz sneezes the whole empire quivers. This is not far from the truth and many now anxiously wait to see how Catiz will wield her power. Few believe that becoming the richest person in the empire suffices to quench her burning ambitions.
As for me... my own little world view:
- Uriam Kador was for me a philosopher and poet, maybe even cosmopolitan. Very smart, but dont makes often the best decision (see last arc). While not a true liberal or humanitarian, he is still positively enlightened in a amarrian sense.
- Aritcio Kor-Azor. I cant tell. I not sure what to make out of him.
- Catiz Tash-Murkon strong minded woman who achieves her goals. How far those reach, those informations are up to her (she wouldnt be so stupid to tell); as she watches how the males destroy eachother. She is in my playbook, a little bit like Merkel: Power player with strong values.
- Merimeth Sarum cant tell.
- Yonis Ardishapur should be emperor. Case and point :D No long talking.
- Khanid is a wildcard... former commander-in-chief, now sovereign of the (independent) Khanid Kingdom. Alittle bit like Catiz, but unlike her, I dont think he as any values. Meaning deep convictions, just that he loves to life (and call Heideran a fool :P :P).
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I don't think you can describe the Amarr as "racist".
Well yeah, I think we tend to confuse racist (implying hating other races) with racial supremacists. At least for the most conservative and orthodox of them. The new emergent beliefs that all races have to be redeemed equally is less prone to that.
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I don't think you can describe the Amarr as "racist".
Well yeah, I think we tend to confuse racist (implying hating other races) with racial supremacists. At least for the most conservative and orthodox of them. The new emergent beliefs that all races have to be redeemed equally is less prone to that.
Well, the way I was thinking was:
A True Amarr conservative person would look down on say, Gallente, not because they come from Gallente Prime, but because they're the descendents of unredeemed sinners.
the dislike of the other races is not because of genetic reasons, but because of spiritual reasons.
If that makes sense ?
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I don't think you can describe the Amarr as "racist".
Well yeah, I think we tend to confuse racist (implying hating other races) with racial supremacists. At least for the most conservative and orthodox of them. The new emergent beliefs that all races have to be redeemed equally is less prone to that.
Well, the way I was thinking was:
A True Amarr conservative person would look down on say, Gallente, not because they come from Gallente Prime, but because they're the descendents of unredeemed sinners.
the dislike of the other races is not because of genetic reasons, but because of spiritual reasons.
If that makes sense ?
This is how I see it.
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Something to note is that you do have quite a few progressive Amarrians out there. What are missing is actually the good conservatives. Conservative in Amarr RP tends to be stupid tropes about abusing slaves. I want to see people actively fighting to preserve Holder authority against the centralizing tendencies of the last centuries. The funny thing about the Tetrimon is that most of their supporters have been crazy liberal (probably because PIE gets perceived as conservative and they react against us) but they themselves were extreme anti-centralization and anti-manumission conservatives.
OOC I actually think PIE is probably dangerously progressive politically from an average conservative holders point of view. Gaven has an active agenda of centralizing the Amarr Empire, he wants to see highly urbanized populations that are controlled by a central bureaucracy that is beholden to the Empress. This can only happen at the expense of the aristocratic elements.
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Those spiritual reasons bleed into genetics, though. The Amarr are an educated society, who use science as proof of God. Science is included in the Scriptures. And they are already established as being heavily concerned with ancestry and heritage. The science would be a way of documenting those who are descendants of the unredeemed sinners. Genetic analysis is part of genealogy, afterall. You can't really divorce the two. The religion is from where the racist ideologies come from, but the genetics is the science used to track that progression.
The fact is that the other races are seen as inferior to the True Amarr. That this is based in spiritual reasons rather than physical ones doesn't make it 'not racism' to me, because the reasons don't change the fact that the other races are inferior. They are just inferior because of original sin and not because of physical differences. Maybe I'm using the terminology wrong, but for me inequality between the races, regardless of whether it is over physical, spiritual, or cultural reasons is all still racism in my book. I suppose you could go with the term 'ethnocentrism' instead, though even that isn't a perfect description as it judges based only on culture, while it's clear that at least conservative Amarr still look down even on those who are perfect examples of Amarr culture yet are not pure True Amarr by heritage (see Udorians).
Really, it'd be something like religio-ethno-racio-centrism (I could see it being called amarriocentrism in-universe). It's a mix of religious superiority, cultural superiority, and racial superiority. The racial superiority originates with the fall from God and Amarr rather than physical differences, but returning to God and Amarr does not grant full equality with the True Amarr.
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Those spiritual reasons bleed into genetics, though. The Amarr are an educated society, who use science as proof of God. Science is included in the Scriptures. And they are already established as being heavily concerned with ancestry and heritage. The science would be a way of documenting those who are descendants of the unredeemed sinners. Genetic analysis is part of genealogy, afterall. You can't really divorce the two. The religion is from where the racist ideologies come from, but the genetics is the science used to track that progression.
The fact is that the other races are seen as inferior to the True Amarr. That this is based in spiritual reasons rather than physical ones doesn't make it 'not racism' to me, because the reasons don't change the fact that the other races are inferior. They are just inferior because of original sin and not because of physical differences. Maybe I'm using the terminology wrong, but for me inequality between the races, regardless of whether it is over physical, spiritual, or cultural reasons is all still racism in my book. I suppose you could go with the term 'ethnocentrism' instead, though even that isn't a perfect description as it judges based only on culture, while it's clear that at least conservative Amarr still look down even on those who are perfect examples of Amarr culture yet are not pure True Amarr by heritage (see Udorians).
Really, it'd be something like religio-ethno-racio-centrism (I could see it being called amarriocentrism in-universe). It's a mix of religious superiority, cultural superiority, and racial superiority. The racial superiority originates with the fall from God and Amarr rather than physical differences, but returning to God and Amarr does not grant full equality with the True Amarr.
Right. Just because its religiously justified rather than scientificly justified racism doesn't make it *not* racism. Especially since science is subordinated to religion in Amarr.
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- Yonis Ardishapur should be emperor. Case and point :D No long talking.
SHHHH!
I apologize for my friend's outburst here. I can assure you that we Ardishapurites support the Empress completely and, of course, have no designations on state power. Amarr victor.
>.>
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Well, you can be a racial supremacist without hating or disliking other races. You just think yours is superior. Is that still racism ? Maybe, I don't know... According to wikipedia, it definitely is though.
In any case I wouldn't mind to have more PF info on the various stances on the Amarr celestial order and slavery according to conservatives, orthodox and progressives.
Something to note is that you do have quite a few progressive Amarrians out there. What are missing is actually the good conservatives. Conservative in Amarr RP tends to be stupid tropes about abusing slaves. I want to see people actively fighting to preserve Holder authority against the centralizing tendencies of the last centuries. The funny thing about the Tetrimon is that most of their supporters have been crazy liberal (probably because PIE gets perceived as conservative and they react against us) but they themselves were extreme anti-centralization and anti-manumission conservatives.
OOC I actually think PIE is probably dangerously progressive politically from an average conservative holders point of view. Gaven has an active agenda of centralizing the Amarr Empire, he wants to see highly urbanized populations that are controlled by a central bureaucracy that is beholden to the Empress. This can only happen at the expense of the aristocratic elements.
It is true that we haven't seen much true conservatives that are not just mustache twirling holders. I miss Mensha Kael Crow for that tbh.
The problem with progressives is that usually they just tend to be quiet. Even when KotMC was at its golden age and was the first and foremost influential Amarr corp in the Amarr RP bloc, it tended not to be extremely vocal about its views, and merely vaguely defended itself against more orthodox/conservative attacks. Usually most Amarr RPers have been very scared to state other beliefs out of fear of heresy/whatever, or just to be associated with all the actual true amarr heretics exiled in foreign land and claiming to be slavery abolitionists, and some such.
Well, it is true of course that the Amarr tend to do a lot of that behind closed doors, but I also miss the days of Ashar KorAzor and OPIM. Those were really politically active and provided a good alternative to the usual.
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... provided a good alternative to the usual.
Dont start, or I will never come back. :( Im already alittle bitter. :( I think, we could make a general thread about missopportunities. And it would go through all the factions, I even think the greatest miss was something what is not really to hear today: The Intaki Liberation Front (or I havent heared something in my sort comeback. Im happy to be proven wrong.). I think they even ones try to work (on a arc) with CCP, if I remember right? Would be so great if players could work on some larger arcs. As well tip in some more sci-fi trophys (I actually had here nothing to say, would be a noob. But nevertheless would be great): Human-androids, minior factions (Syndicate, Mandate, Kingdom etc... or at least: CCP add them in the character creator as a backround.), cyberpunk, computer- and network-hacker (Khanid Cyberknights?), consumerism... or just greater philosophy themes.
- Yonis Ardishapur should be emperor. Case and point :D No long talking.
SHHHH!
I apologize for my friend's outburst here. I can assure you that we Ardishapurites support the Empress completely and, of course, have no designations on state power. Amarr victor.
>.>
:D
>.>Moves back into the shadows.
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In any case I wouldn't mind to have more PF info on the various stances on the Amarr celestial order and slavery according to conservatives, orthodox and progressives.
Hopefully EVE: Source gives us more on the political stances. The State of the Empire article (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/State_of_the_Empire,_110.06.11#Vertical_Slices) is a very useful page for that, but way too short and a bit outdated.
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Just thought I'd pop in and vote. I occasionally still visit. I've unsubbed from EVE completely. From failure to implement WiS to taking a royal sh*t on the lore and RPers in general, I finally gave in after 9 years and stopped my subscription.
Clearly EVE is about internet spaceships and player alliances. That's the new lore. Better get on that bandwagon now or find better.
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Ditto the Above.
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Just thought I'd pop in and vote. I occasionally still visit. I've unsubbed from EVE completely. From failure to implement WiS to taking a royal sh*t on the lore and RPers in general, I finally gave in after 9 years and stopped my subscription.
Clearly EVE is about internet spaceships and player alliances. That's the new lore. Better get on that bandwagon now or find better.
Where's better?
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Some players I know are just biding their time for Elder Scrolls Online, those that don't mind fantasy settings that is.
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:sad face: for Sci-Fi geeks.
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Agreed.
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:sad face: for Sci-Fi geeks.
Well, there's always Star Citizen hype if you're looking for it. Honestly, though, just grabbing people and hitting an IMer is starting to get to be par for the course. It's all I've been able to keep up with for the past few days.
Yay for 60hr work weeks...
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I think in terms of the IP at present I just wish the dynamics of FW were more in sync between DUST and Eve. By that I mean that in DUST it's made pretty clear and obvious that you're just a mercenary and contractor fighting because it's in your interest. Right now in Eve though the implications where you're a commissioned officer lends some perceived legitimacy to some really idiotic concepts. It's about the only place where you can say, "Oh, I'm a Templis supporter" and hide behind the Caldari militia or alternatively, "I'm an open anti-slavery group" and then hide behind the 24IC which leads one to ask why the hell they'd commission people like that in the first place because the game mechanics let that happen.
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:sad face: for Sci-Fi geeks.
Well, there's always Star Citizen hype if you're looking for it. Honestly, though, just grabbing people and hitting an IMer is starting to get to be par for the course. It's all I've been able to keep up with for the past few days.
Yay for 60hr work weeks...
:( to 60hr work weeks.
I understand the Star Citizen hype, even if I dont share it. Because currently they have 39 mio (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals), but in the larger scale how games are made today it this sum nothing. Nevertheless I think a great game will come out. On another note, that people are willing to give that much money shows there is a market (enters Futurama meme: Shut up and take my money.). Maybe that would be a way to test things for EVE. Example: You like a better Charakter game play and "vanity suff"... here 500K+ would be the goal...etc...
Just thought I'd pop in and vote. I occasionally still visit. I've unsubbed from EVE completely. From failure to implement WiS to taking a royal sh*t on the lore and RPers in general, I finally gave in after 9 years and stopped my subscription.
Clearly EVE is about internet spaceships and player alliances. That's the new lore. Better get on that bandwagon now or find better.
As for me, doing one thing was just boring... I would say and suggest to any 0.0-bear and/or Goonsplayer and EVERYBODY ELSE, that he/she should also make another charakter with different goals and gamestyle; otherwise you miss much of the universe. As I mention before in this thread... even a large battle "with 100s of your "best" :D friends" can become deeply indifferent.1 (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5702.msg94019#msg94019) A pew, pew fest before the unsubbing, but without any meaning or feelings. Just to get all the stuff out of the Hangar, before you leave and close the door behind you. Nevertheless I think too thats the way where CCP is going. More a "Hardcore 0.0-bear game", where big is beautiful. The scale will make the marketing (not the lore. So I was wrong.1 (http://www.eve-search.com/thread/17899-1/author/Publius%20Valerius#1)). Sadly for all the work of the immersion team. :(
Generally I think we will see a stronger player spliting along the CCP products in the future. Somethings like:
EVE Online = Sandbox, Hardcore 0.0-bear. Time intensive PvP. Focus on anarchy and survival, as well as colonisation. etc...
World of Darkness = Sandbox, Roleplay, Theme-park, Coffee-shop... etc..
Dust 514 = First-person shooter. For casual game play? (even if the skill system is really bad as well as way to time and work consuming)?
Valkyre = Combat flight simulator. I would guess a light version of: War Thunder (without the three modes: Real, history...etc...) or Star Citizen (without the rest of the game like trade and minigames etc...)
As mention before I wait what will come, maybe one of the next expansion will hook me again. Nevertheless I think my next CCP game will be World of Darkness. By the way what book would a good starting point for the lore?
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:sad face: for Sci-Fi geeks.
Well, there's always Star Citizen hype if you're looking for it. Honestly, though, just grabbing people and hitting an IMer is starting to get to be par for the course. It's all I've been able to keep up with for the past few days.
Yay for 60hr work weeks...
:( to 60hr work weeks.
I understand the Star Citizen hype, even if I dont share it. Because currently they have 39 mio (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals), but in the larger scale how games are made today it this sum nothing. Nevertheless I think a great game will come out. On another note, that people are willing to give that much money shows there is a market (enters Futurama meme: Shut up and take my money.). Maybe that would be a way to test things for EVE. Example: You like a better Charakter game play and "vanity suff"... here 500K+ would be the goal...etc...
Just thought I'd pop in and vote. I occasionally still visit. I've unsubbed from EVE completely. From failure to implement WiS to taking a royal sh*t on the lore and RPers in general, I finally gave in after 9 years and stopped my subscription.
Clearly EVE is about internet spaceships and player alliances. That's the new lore. Better get on that bandwagon now or find better.
As for me, doing one thing was just boring... I would say and suggest to any 0.0-bear and/or Goonsplayer and EVERYBODY ELSE, that he/she should also make another charakter with different goals and gamestyle; otherwise you miss much of the universe. As I mention before in this thread... even a large battle "with 100s of your "best" :D friends" can become deeply indifferent.1 (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5702.msg94019#msg94019) A pew, pew fest before the unsubbing, but without any meaning or feelings. Just to get all the stuff out of the Hangar, before you leave and close the door behind you. Nevertheless I think too thats the way where CCP is going. More a "Hardcore 0.0-bear game", where big is beautiful. The scale will make the marketing (not the lore. So I was wrong.1 (http://www.eve-search.com/thread/17899-1/author/Publius%20Valerius#1)). Sadly for all the work of the immersion team. :(
Generally I think we will see a stronger player spliting along the CCP products in the future. Somethings like:
EVE Online = Sandbox, Hardcore 0.0-bear. Time intensive PvP. Focus on anarchy and survival, as well as colonisation. etc...
World of Darkness = Sandbox, Roleplay, Theme-park, Coffee-shop... etc..
Dust 514 = First-person shooter. For casual game play? (even if the skill system is really bad as well as way to time and work consuming)?
Valkyre = Combat flight simulator. I would guess a light version of: War Thunder (without the three modes: Real, history...etc...) or Star Citizen (without the rest of the game like trade and minigames etc...)
As mention before I wait what will come, maybe one of the next expansion will hook me again. Nevertheless I think my next CCP game will be World of Darkness. By the way what book would a good starting point for the lore?
If you're looking for the old WoD (which is, I think, what the new game is based on), I'd probably start with the Vampire: the Masquarade sourcebook. Vampires are what they're best known for, followed by Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Those were more a series of thematically similar games ostensibly set in the same universe, but they weren't really meant to work with each other very well. My favorite of the games was probably Wraith: the Oblivion, but it was so obtuse that they ended it with a gigantic storm and replaced it with a game about demons. The books are probably a little harder to find; I assume they're out of print.
White Wolf put out a new series of games under the World of Darkness, where the best place to start is the actual World of Darkness sourcebook. That has a set of common rules for all the games to operate under and tells you how to play a standard, run-of-the-mill fleshbag. It's strange, as all the other books (the ones for the Vampires, Mages, Werewolves, etc.) I've read are kind of similar to each other. The new Vampire: the Requiem has a clan you're born into, a covenant you choose to join, and you can further augment your clan with a bloodline. The new Mage: the Awakening game has a path you are awakened into, an order you choose to join, and you can further augment your path with a legacy. It's very similar, is what I'm saying. It's not really a bad thing, but if you read the multiple sourcebooks, you start to get a real sense of deja vu.
It's definitely stronger than what you got reading through Vampire clans and Werewolf tribes, and even that seemed a little samey-sounding.
Anyway, those are good starting points.
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IIRC, CCP's WoD game is explicitly based on V:tM. Start there, almost all of the important in-game lore will be from that series.
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:sad face: for Sci-Fi geeks.
Well, there's always Star Citizen hype if you're looking for it. Honestly, though, just grabbing people and hitting an IMer is starting to get to be par for the course. It's all I've been able to keep up with for the past few days.
Yay for 60hr work weeks...
:( to 60hr work weeks.
I understand the Star Citizen hype, even if I dont share it. Because currently they have 39 mio (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals), but in the larger scale how games are made today it this sum nothing. Nevertheless I think a great game will come out. On another note, that people are willing to give that much money shows there is a market (enters Futurama meme: Shut up and take my money.). Maybe that would be a way to test things for EVE. Example: You like a better Charakter game play and "vanity suff"... here 500K+ would be the goal...etc...
Just thought I'd pop in and vote. I occasionally still visit. I've unsubbed from EVE completely. From failure to implement WiS to taking a royal sh*t on the lore and RPers in general, I finally gave in after 9 years and stopped my subscription.
Clearly EVE is about internet spaceships and player alliances. That's the new lore. Better get on that bandwagon now or find better.
As for me, doing one thing was just boring... I would say and suggest to any 0.0-bear and/or Goonsplayer and EVERYBODY ELSE, that he/she should also make another charakter with different goals and gamestyle; otherwise you miss much of the universe. As I mention before in this thread... even a large battle "with 100s of your "best" :D friends" can become deeply indifferent.1 (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5702.msg94019#msg94019) A pew, pew fest before the unsubbing, but without any meaning or feelings. Just to get all the stuff out of the Hangar, before you leave and close the door behind you. Nevertheless I think too thats the way where CCP is going. More a "Hardcore 0.0-bear game", where big is beautiful. The scale will make the marketing (not the lore. So I was wrong.1 (http://www.eve-search.com/thread/17899-1/author/Publius%20Valerius#1)). Sadly for all the work of the immersion team. :(
Generally I think we will see a stronger player spliting along the CCP products in the future. Somethings like:
EVE Online = Sandbox, Hardcore 0.0-bear. Time intensive PvP. Focus on anarchy and survival, as well as colonisation. etc...
World of Darkness = Sandbox, Roleplay, Theme-park, Coffee-shop... etc..
Dust 514 = First-person shooter. For casual game play? (even if the skill system is really bad as well as way to time and work consuming)?
Valkyre = Combat flight simulator. I would guess a light version of: War Thunder (without the three modes: Real, history...etc...) or Star Citizen (without the rest of the game like trade and minigames etc...)
As mention before I wait what will come, maybe one of the next expansion will hook me again. Nevertheless I think my next CCP game will be World of Darkness. By the way what book would a good starting point for the lore?
If you're looking for the old WoD (which is, I think, what the new game is based on), I'd probably start with the Vampire: the Masquarade sourcebook. Vampires are what they're best known for, followed by Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Those were more a series of thematically similar games ostensibly set in the same universe, but they weren't really meant to work with each other very well. My favorite of the games was probably Wraith: the Oblivion, but it was so obtuse that they ended it with a gigantic storm and replaced it with a game about demons. The books are probably a little harder to find; I assume they're out of print.
White Wolf put out a new series of games under the World of Darkness, where the best place to start is the actual World of Darkness sourcebook. That has a set of common rules for all the games to operate under and tells you how to play a standard, run-of-the-mill fleshbag. It's strange, as all the other books (the ones for the Vampires, Mages, Werewolves, etc.) I've read are kind of similar to each other. The new Vampire: the Requiem has a clan you're born into, a covenant you choose to join, and you can further augment your clan with a bloodline. The new Mage: the Awakening game has a path you are awakened into, an order you choose to join, and you can further augment your path with a legacy. It's very similar, is what I'm saying. It's not really a bad thing, but if you read the multiple sourcebooks, you start to get a real sense of deja vu.
It's definitely stronger than what you got reading through Vampire clans and Werewolf tribes, and even that seemed a little samey-sounding.
Anyway, those are good starting points.
Im a chaep f**k :P I will start with the wiki: http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Clan_%28VTM%29 By the way those clans look like fun. I like the Nosferatu (ugly as hell, here I come :P) and the Giovanni. Still reading throught the stuff.
IIRC, CCP's WoD game is explicitly based on V:tM. Start there, almost all of the important in-game lore will be from that series.
Thx. Both of you.
First I thought it would be like twilight: A bad vampire-romance-thingy, which is my- (and the younger-) generation vampire universe. :( Thankfully long time ago, someone already told me it isnt like twilight. :D So I would be ready for the ride. :P
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First I thought it would be like twilight: A bad vampire-romance-thingy, which is my- (and the younger-) generation vampire universe. :( Thankfully long time ago, someone already told me it isnt like twilight. :D So I would be ready for the ride. :P
I loved playing a Giovanni. I constantly screwed with the mood by being upbeat and charming, like a used car salesman. I annoyed our local Tremere.
It isn't like Twilight, but it is very thick on drama rather than asswhooping. I did eventually make a V:tM book game about a group of lupine hunters solely so we had a hack-n-slash kind of game to do while we worked on our "mains". Eventually, that game became our main game. There's nothing more fun than happy-slapping a werewolf with level 5 Potence on top of 7 Strength (Hell yeah, legalized diablerie!)
Made all my dramatic machinations on other characters much less exciting.
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V:tM was unbelievably well-done, absolutely nothing like Twilight vampires.
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First I thought it would be like twilight: A bad vampire-romance-thingy, which is my- (and the younger-) generation vampire universe. :( Thankfully long time ago, someone already told me it isnt like twilight. :D So I would be ready for the ride. :P
I loved playing a Giovanni. I constantly screwed with the mood by being upbeat and charming, like a used car salesman. I annoyed our local Tremere.
It isn't like Twilight, but it is very thick on drama rather than asswhooping. I did eventually make a V:tM book game about a group of lupine hunters solely so we had a hack-n-slash kind of game to do while we worked on our "mains". Eventually, that game became our main game. There's nothing more fun than happy-slapping a werewolf with level 5 Potence on top of 7 Strength (Hell yeah, legalized diablerie!)
Made all my dramatic machinations on other characters much less exciting.
I got/understood just nothing :P But it sounds like fun.
As for the drama over asswhooping/4chanism. I dont mind some new drama. Not that EVE is without one, but after a while you have heared already everything (Death horse thing); and you start to troll/kill/dying/wining/lossing/etc out of boredom. :(
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Yeah Vampire is a lot more like a good old Victorian/Lestat rather than a Twilight... ._.
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If you're looking for the old WoD (which is, I think, what the new game is based on), I'd probably start with the Vampire: the Masquarade sourcebook. Vampires are what they're best known for, followed by Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Those were more a series of thematically similar games ostensibly set in the same universe, but they weren't really meant to work with each other very well. My favorite of the games was probably Wraith: the Oblivion, but it was so obtuse that they ended it with a gigantic storm and replaced it with a game about demons. The books are probably a little harder to find; I assume they're out of print.
White Wolf put out a new series of games under the World of Darkness, where the best place to start is the actual World of Darkness sourcebook. That has a set of common rules for all the games to operate under and tells you how to play a standard, run-of-the-mill fleshbag. It's strange, as all the other books (the ones for the Vampires, Mages, Werewolves, etc.) I've read are kind of similar to each other. The new Vampire: the Requiem has a clan you're born into, a covenant you choose to join, and you can further augment your clan with a bloodline. The new Mage: the Awakening game has a path you are awakened into, an order you choose to join, and you can further augment your path with a legacy. It's very similar, is what I'm saying. It's not really a bad thing, but if you read the multiple sourcebooks, you start to get a real sense of deja vu.
It's definitely stronger than what you got reading through Vampire clans and Werewolf tribes, and even that seemed a little samey-sounding.
Anyway, those are good starting points.
The bit in bold is why when I found out CCP had bought White Wolf and, presumably, they would be having a fair bit of influence over the development of EVE's background I was filled with a cold sense of dread.
It always seemed to be that White Wolf back in the day took a similar approach to world building that Russell T. Davies took to writing Doctor Who. They just jumped on the shiny, regardless of if it fitted or made any sort of coherent sense. And they couldn't edit for toffee.
That said I liked running Werewolf (because furry Klingons have a certain appeal) and Mage (largely because of the Sons of Ether). I think were they went wrong was loosing the shades of grey approach to games past Vampire in the old World of Darkness.
Even the Sabbat had their good points. But they never really tried to present a sympathetic view of Wyrm cultists or the Black Spiral Dancers. Further they consistently painted the Technocracy as evil, rather than misguided and corrupted. Lastly they clearly had favoured clans, tribes and traditions.
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If you're looking for the old WoD (which is, I think, what the new game is based on), I'd probably start with the Vampire: the Masquarade sourcebook. Vampires are what they're best known for, followed by Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Those were more a series of thematically similar games ostensibly set in the same universe, but they weren't really meant to work with each other very well. My favorite of the games was probably Wraith: the Oblivion, but it was so obtuse that they ended it with a gigantic storm and replaced it with a game about demons. The books are probably a little harder to find; I assume they're out of print.
White Wolf put out a new series of games under the World of Darkness, where the best place to start is the actual World of Darkness sourcebook. That has a set of common rules for all the games to operate under and tells you how to play a standard, run-of-the-mill fleshbag. It's strange, as all the other books (the ones for the Vampires, Mages, Werewolves, etc.) I've read are kind of similar to each other. The new Vampire: the Requiem has a clan you're born into, a covenant you choose to join, and you can further augment your clan with a bloodline. The new Mage: the Awakening game has a path you are awakened into, an order you choose to join, and you can further augment your path with a legacy. It's very similar, is what I'm saying. It's not really a bad thing, but if you read the multiple sourcebooks, you start to get a real sense of deja vu.
It's definitely stronger than what you got reading through Vampire clans and Werewolf tribes, and even that seemed a little samey-sounding.
Anyway, those are good starting points.
The bit in bold is why when I found out CCP had bought White Wolf and, presumably, they would be having a fair bit of influence over the development of EVE's background I was filled with a cold sense of dread.
It always seemed to be that White Wolf back in the day took a similar approach to world building that Russell T. Davies took to writing Doctor Who. They just jumped on the shiny, regardless of if it fitted or made any sort of coherent sense. And they couldn't edit for toffee.
That said I liked running Werewolf (because furry Klingons have a certain appeal) and Mage (largely because of the Sons of Ether). I think were they went wrong was loosing the shades of grey approach to games past Vampire in the old World of Darkness.
Even the Sabbat had their good points. But they never really tried to present a sympathetic view of Wyrm cultists or the Black Spiral Dancers. Further they consistently painted the Technocracy as evil, rather than misguided and corrupted. Lastly they clearly had favoured clans, tribes and traditions.
It was also a bit weird having to play that the end times were definitely upon us. It's the one thing I almost always downplayed or completely ignored, and I wasn't the only one. The idea that the end of the world was imminent (and we had lore evidence of it!) was present in every single game. It was also the least interesting part, considering WW's original games just weren't gather-the-party-go-on-a-quest games. It almost set you up with an endpoint that nobody had the inclination to really include.
That said, I loved Wraith to death. The idea of playing your own villains and stumbling over yourself intentionally was great. Wasn't necessarily the easiest game, since it purposefully set you up with a character who REALLY NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING, and yet you yourself were supposed to interfere with and torment your own character. Damn fun with the right group.
Of the new WoD batch, so far I've read the Vamp and Mage books. They're not bad, in any way. I'd say if one thing has been expanded, it's the setting. I think it gives you a broader range of tools and less in the way of prejudices, so you can get more variety out of them and the Storyteller gets more control over what kind of game to run. I guess it's just such a big change, reducing the sort of enforced zeitgeist of the inevitable slide towards the beast and setting it up to be a bit more vague. I know it pissed off some of the old-school Camarilla and Sabbat types I used to LARP with.
Maybe I'm a bit more forgiving about the new direction because I was always a fan of that old-school dungeon crawl, whether it was D&D or later Shadowrun infiltration ops. Eventually, all pretentiousness aside, I just want to roll out and roflpwn.
I still hate Mitsuhama.