Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Merdaneth on 24 Jun 2012, 06:08
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I am under the impression that role-play in EVE and what actually happens 'in-space' is growing further apart. Judging from the Intergalactic Summit forum, but also the IC channels, role-players seem to play and exist largely in their own little RP-bubble. A bubble were important galaxy-spanning events like the Goonswarm LP scam, Hulkageddon or even the Goonswarm-Star Fraction mutual ally war-dec don't exist or are simply ignored and hardly mentioned in-character.
How can people talk about their hairstyles, the latest relationships and not mention such things at all unless they consciously choose to not make such events part of their RP. Does it mean that such events simply don't exist within their RP-bubble? Are they discarded as to 'gamist' and therefore having no place in their RP world?
I got the feeling that more and more players separate their play in 'EVE the game' from their play in 'EVE world', and and can happily play a Amarr loyalist who's gameplay is supported by regular donations of isk from an alt enrolled in the TLF.
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That does sound very familiar, yes. Couldn't even begin to figure out the cause but it has been that way for quite some time. Of course, it's hardly universal but it's widespread enough to be... weird. Just one more reason being too busy to play MMOs doesn't bother me all that much. Hell, I even remember a debate in OoC (and Red's, I believe) where it turned out that if you wardec someone over RP, you're apparently an asshole. Facepalmed myself into quite the concussion at the time.
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Mostly because I find the actual flying gameplay rubbish personally, but I really love the setting. Gameplay for PvP is all zoomed out so that whatever pretty ship you're flying is irrelevant since you can't see it, and enlarge the overview so you're doing that old "spreadsheets online".
PvE isn't much better. 50+ ships pounding on one invincible ship while you whittle them down one-by-one is a suspension breaker for me. Guess I'm into more visceral games. At any rate, I did my 'put up or shut up' thing back towards the end of 2009 with eff-doubleya. Of course it's coming up to 3 years since then, but meh.
That's just me, and I'm pretty sure it's not representative of the whole community. I couldn't put a finger on it exactly. Maybe the lack of putting up is a cyclical thing where others feel they don't need to put up either.
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In terms of what happens on the screen (artistically) and immersion, eve gameplay is shitty at best. But I have difficulties to relate that to inspace actions RP vs self constructed RP. I use both to get the maximum out of both.
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A number of random thoughts in no particular order with only mild coherence. It's not yet noon, I probably shouldn't even be posting.
I am under the impression that role-play in EVE and what actually happens 'in-space' is growing further apart. Judging from the Intergalactic Summit forum, but also the IC channels, role-players seem to play and exist largely in their own little RP-bubble. A bubble were important galaxy-spanning events like the Goonswarm LP scam, Hulkageddon or even the Goonswarm-Star Fraction mutual ally war-dec don't exist or are simply ignored and hardly mentioned in-character.
My feeling is that some of this stuff is so horrifically immersion breaking ( :psyccp: ) that people ignore it because they aren't really sure how to incorporate it into the RP in a manner that doesn't buttfuck the RP. In these examples, CCP's mild incompetence and/or repeated failure to think through the possible abuses of their decisions are something we've become accustomed to, but how do we talk about it IC?
do we treat it as ammunition for the "CONCORD is incompetent" argument, because of what they did to the wardeck system (and what they're about to do to it again)?
Do we laugh about how all four of the empire militias at once decided to be pants-on-head retarded and create a pricing scheme that was begging to be abused? But then what do we say if/when CCP decides to take away the Goons' ill-gotten gains? Having the Hand Of CCP reach out of the nether and take away all the stuff they got (LPs, items, whatever they decide) once again puts a hurt on immersion.
It would be possible to use it as fodder for IC discussion, for example someone could use it as evidence that despite our so-called freedom we are still under CONCORD's thumb, but most people (apparently) would rather ignore it.
Hulkageddon, on the other hand, works perfectly IC, and I've seen it talked about as such. But that's because it's actually something being done by the players within the existing system, rather than the players taking advantage of non-sensical and immersion-breaking fuckups of said system by CCP.
I got the feeling that more and more players separate their play in 'EVE the game' from their play in 'EVE world', and and can happily play a Amarr loyalist who's gameplay is supported by regular donations of isk from an alt enrolled in the TLF.
This strikes me as an example of what you might call power gaming? Maybe? it's the usual "there's no IC justification for my characters to be sharing isk, but they're doing it anyways" put into a more blatantly wtf context IC. That sentence made sense in my head. players are willing to overlook stuff not making sense IC as long as it is to their advantage, I suppose? The hyper-competitive nature of the game and obvious opportunities for metagaming that wouldn't ever happen in a normal RPG just make this too easy.
And, you know, the fact that the minnie militia is a great place to make isk, while the amarr militia requires a bit of masochism at the moment.
Hell, I even remember a debate in OoC (and Red's, I believe) where it turned out that if you wardec someone over RP, you're apparently an asshole. Facepalmed myself into quite the concussion at the time.
To me, this sounds like someone who plays EVE as a game, and then just throws some RP on top of it for fun and to pass the time, rather than thinking that that should be the point or focus or even really matter. And you know, there's probably a place for people in the game that want channel RP but don't really want it to have consequences. They just get startled when they run into people to take RP seriously because, well, it's what they do.
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I think Victoria has hit it on the head: Increasingly, to treat the larger game world IC demands that we assume everyone from Sansha Kuvakei to CONCORD to NPC pilots are complete and utter morons. While this is fine for some characters, it's extremely difficult for the larger community to embrace.
With respect to the issue of people having alts on opposite sides of the IC game who support each other: This does seem to be a new-ish thing, and probably merits a whole separate thread in and of itself. Perhaps I was just missing it in the past, but there also seems to be a trend now of people RPing characters on both sides of a conflict as well.
Hell, I even remember a debate in OoC (and Red's, I believe) where it turned out that if you wardec someone over RP, you're apparently an asshole. Facepalmed myself into quite the concussion at the time.
To me, this sounds like someone who plays EVE as a game, and then just throws some RP on top of it for fun and to pass the time, rather than thinking that that should be the point or focus or even really matter. And you know, there's probably a place for people in the game that want channel RP but don't really want it to have consequences. They just get startled when they run into people to take RP seriously because, well, it's what they do.
If I'm thinking of the same discussion, it was actually sort of the opposite: They had begun to RP in the game first and wanted to stay involved in the game, but RL stuff demanded they pay via PLEX, which they acquired with copious amounts of L4 grinding. When the potential of a wardec came up, they wanted the situation to be resolved in some other way since being hunted personally (they were in a 2-person corp) would more or less mean they would be unable to pay their subscription and would have to leave the game.
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How can people talk about their hairstyles, the latest relationships and not mention such things at all unless they consciously choose to not make such events part of their RP. Does it mean that such events simply don't exist within their RP-bubble? Are they discarded as to 'gamist' and therefore having no place in their RP world?
Actually, I think this is fairly believable behavior.
Ask any sampling of teenagers (or adults!) what the election of Morsi to the Egyptian presidency means to them. Or ask them how the the Syrian civil war or the FARC affects their day-to-day lives. Ask them how they feel about Foxconn, the Greek elections, or credit default swaps. Big world events, whether political, military, economic, or whatever, don't take up most people's daily thoughts. This is true even for people who do follow the news. I pay very close attention to events, but I don't sit around wringing my hands or run around my favorite bar starting arguments about them with other patrons.
I got the feeling that more and more players separate their play in 'EVE the game' from their play in 'EVE world', and and can happily play a Amarr loyalist who's gameplay is supported by regular donations of isk from an alt enrolled in the TLF.
This strikes me as an example of what you might call power gaming? Maybe? it's the usual "there's no IC justification for my characters to be sharing isk, but they're doing it anyways" put into a more blatantly wtf context IC. That sentence made sense in my head. players are willing to overlook stuff not making sense IC as long as it is to their advantage, I suppose? The hyper-competitive nature of the game and obvious opportunities for metagaming that wouldn't ever happen in a normal RPG just make this too easy.
And, you know, the fact that the minnie militia is a great place to make isk, while the amarr militia requires a bit of masochism at the moment.
From an IC perspective, they can be explained as war profiteers. Capsuleers aren't bound to the empires and they've found a convenient loophole in the quaint little 'last-generation' terms of the Empyrean War. Many people go to war for reasons other than loyalty to kin and country. See Blackwater/Xe. If you're free from any meaningful reproach by the belligerents, why not work both sides?
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Addendum to the relevant discussion: It's my understanding that CCP has, in fact, removed the items/LPs/ISKs Goons made with that exploit. Not sure where/how that info would be available IC, though.
I got the feeling that more and more players separate their play in 'EVE the game' from their play in 'EVE world', and and can happily play a Amarr loyalist who's gameplay is supported by regular donations of isk from an alt enrolled in the TLF.
This strikes me as an example of what you might call power gaming? Maybe? it's the usual "there's no IC justification for my characters to be sharing isk, but they're doing it anyways" put into a more blatantly wtf context IC. That sentence made sense in my head. players are willing to overlook stuff not making sense IC as long as it is to their advantage, I suppose? The hyper-competitive nature of the game and obvious opportunities for metagaming that wouldn't ever happen in a normal RPG just make this too easy.
And, you know, the fact that the minnie militia is a great place to make isk, while the amarr militia requires a bit of masochism at the moment.
From an IC perspective, they can be explained as war profiteers. Capsuleers aren't bound to the empires and they've found a convenient loophole in the quaint little 'last-generation' terms of the Empyrean War. Many people go to war for reasons other than loyalty to kin and country. See Blackwater/Xe. If you're free from any meaningful reproach by the belligerents, why not work both sides?
I think Merdaneth wasn't talking about the more privateer-ish FWers who could easily be explained as war profiteers, but actual Amarr Loyalist characters who receive regular infusions of cash from Minmatar alts.
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Addendum to the relevant discussion: It's my understanding that CCP has, in fact, removed the items/LPs/ISKs Goons made with that exploit. Not sure where/how that info would be available IC, though.
linky?
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something that might be related, that I've been thinking about, was the reduction in player influence on some parts of the storyline.
There's arguments about pre-scripted things and so forth, but there's still some things that can be pointed at:
Gallente elections: players chose someone, in a very protracted thing, and Foiritain was elected. Next election, Nope, Roden, no player involvement.
Insorum thing: players obtained some insorum for the republic, Ushra'Khan was going to use it to save people. Nope, Maelatu Shakor the Elder Pawn appears, no player involvement.
Caldari Brothers of Freedom thing: Something about something in the State, then... Nope, Tibus Heth, out of nowhere.
Amarr Succession Championship: Players had a hand in selecting the next Emperor, who was leading the Empire to a new age of peace and reform. Nope, Jamyl. with no players being involved.
Faction warfare as a whole: Players cannot 'win' the war. It's a game mechanic, a feature that cannot now be removed.
Wormhole mysteries: Players cannot solve things, it's a game feature.
Sansha Incursions: Will go on and on, regardless of player actions.
So player influence on wider events is diminished.
And does this not then reflect upon player's own RP stories ? If people cannot affect the universe, why do they have to acknowledge the parts of the universe that they have no interest in ?
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This is the main reason I don't involve myself much in the actual RP side of EVE any more. Because most EVE RP is pointless and has no connection with the actual game. I still read the chrons and new lore when it comes out and have my character stick by his RP druthers (for instance, Yoshito will almost never go pirate, even though I think I'd have a lot of fun doing it, because it wouldn't fit my RP), but I don't pop into channels or read IGS because it really has no point for me. I still get pulled into some in-game RP on occasion, but it's rare, which is unfortunate because I like doing it when it actually has consequence.
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Gallente elections: players chose someone, in a very protracted thing, and Foiritain was elected. Next election, Nope, Roden, no player involvement.
Insorum thing: players obtained some insorum for the republic, Ushra'Khan was going to use it to save people. Nope, Maelatu Shakor the Elder Pawn appears, no player involvement.
Caldari Brothers of Freedom thing: Something about something in the State, then... Nope, Tibus Heth, out of nowhere.
Amarr Succession Championship: Players had a hand in selecting the next Emperor, who was leading the Empire to a new age of peace and reform. Nope, Jamyl. with no players being involved.
Faction warfare as a whole: Players cannot 'win' the war. It's a game mechanic, a feature that cannot now be removed.
Wormhole mysteries: Players cannot solve things, it's a game feature.
Sansha Incursions: Will go on and on, regardless of player actions.
So player influence on wider events is diminished.
This accurately sums up my lack of interest in the wider world. At least in reality, I can cast a legal vote for a new president if I don't like this one. In EVE? I can only complain about Heth.
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What Louella and Katrina said basically sums it up for me.
I've only been back to EVE for about a month and I'm already starting to feel like I'm wasting my money. I contend with people left and right on the forums and in Summit IC about things that I have absolutely no control over in the game. Player involvement is even lower now than when I left, the quality of RP has dropped significantly (especially since the majority of what's talked about now is either the same stuff that's been debated to death or people actually complaining about debates and wanting to just "chat.")
It's sad to think that I dragged people into the Honor Guard and I have some really amazing corpies and I'm still thinking about letting my sub run out because I simply can't see myself staying long term for nothing.
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What Louella and Katrina said basically sums it up for me.
I've only been back to EVE for about a month and I'm already starting to feel like I'm wasting my money. I contend with people left and right on the forums and in Summit IC about things that I have absolutely no control over in the game. Player involvement is even lower now than when I left, the quality of RP has dropped significantly (especially since the majority of what's talked about now is either the same stuff that's been debated to death or people actually complaining about debates and wanting to just "chat.")
It's sad to think that I dragged people into the Honor Guard and I have some really amazing corpies and I'm still thinking about letting my sub run out because I simply can't see myself staying long term for nothing.
That's it, time to wardec some people!
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The OP touched upon many subjects. I won't say anything about the general disinterest in lore and in-game reality but I agree that basically the goonswarm has become the backdrop of EVE.
My character basically follows what the goons are doing mainly through statistics and news. He's barely aware that a group bearing that name exists.
During the Gallente Ice Interdiction, we were on the belts offering logi and getting easy killmails. In-character, we treated it as a some kind of Massive Attack mission, in defence of the Gallente industry against pirates. There were many others who played completely different but very plausible reactions to the event. During the Burn Jita weekend, Bastian was supposed to give a speech inciting the Caldari people to a rebellion. In the Factional Warfare, in my character's eyes, there has been no farming or market manipulation - it all has happened because the generals have made wise or foolish decisions.
This may be gullibility but for role-playing I have found it to be less problematic than a complete awareness of the real state of affairs. How far one can push an IC discussion about game mechanics before it ceases to be IC? What would I think in reality if someone came to tell me that a group of businessmen has been manipulating the markets of my country? Also, out of character, there is a lot of fun to be had in speculation and debate, and I personally find stating the obvious as boring as watching paint dry.
So I guess what I'm trying to claim is that the recent galaxy-spanning events can be and have been accommodated in RP, and it's not at all impossible to view them from IC perspective.
I do understand the opposite view too - in light of recent failed game design decisions and implementations by CCP one can easily get the feeling that anything you do in-game has no meaning, and that your involvement in the gameplay is an act of benevolence by the null-sec power blocs. From this point of view, staying docked and immersing oneself in a socially constructed fantasy without any in-game counterpart seems like a direction where some players might want to go.
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So I guess what I'm trying to claim is that the recent galaxy-spanning events can be and have been accommodated in RP, and it's not at all impossible to view them from IC perspective.
OTEC hits LDIS hard; our in-game/in-character goals are aligned with the production of T2 Modules. It is what we do. We can't ignore it as players or characters. "A dominant, independent, capsuleer empire is hitting LDIS's bottom-line and there is little to nothing we can do about it!" I could make an IGS post about it, discuss how hard hitting OTEC is on small industry.
We also may want to make the story of how independent capsuleers are impacting the "champions of factions" relationship public.
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I honestly do not care much if I do not see any consequences from our actions ingame. What I care is to have RP around them. The outcome is only a small fraction of the pleasure one can have out of it. Of course though, it can become annoying to a certain point when for example nothing happens in the FW and half of the people start to think that this war is obviously useless/meaningless and get out of it. But it can still remain RP and offers other RP alternative views, and it is mostly a question of imagination and what we can do with what we have.
Then yes, that tends to lead to more "world-building RP" or "RP created bubbles" detached from the ingame, but that does not mean that the ingame RP has disappeared. It is just that a lot of people lack a little of imagination, and I will repeat myself again, but characters/corps staying in their private corners do not help at all since basically there are no ingame interactions anymore between political entities, which means between RP corps and not only RP characters.
Edit : seriously, when I remember Aria's thread about provoking more wars, what the hell are doing all the RP corps ? They never seem to politically interact with each other, or at least not in the way of conflict.
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As Merdaneth suggested in his excellent IGS thread the amount of kit given by the Shakorites to the Goons would have put a strain on their economy.
And yet will CCP post any news reports about economic hardship in the Republic? I doubt it very much.
Perhaps more people would RP around the big events if CCP did likewise.
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Edit : seriously, when I remember Aria's thread about provoking more wars, what the hell are doing all the RP corps ? They never seem to politically interact with each other, or at least not in the way of conflict.
Not everyone plays EVE for the conflict. Some play for interactions with other players, others to build something of lasting worth. Still others enjoy the setting alone, and are happy to observe from afar or explore new horizons within it on their own.
This goes for every aspect of EVE, RP included.
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As Merdaneth suggested in his excellent IGS thread the amount of kit given by the Shakorites to the Goons would have put a strain on their economy.
And yet will CCP post any news reports about economic hardship in the Republic? I doubt it very much.
In similar vein, why were there no news posts about the miraculous generation ex nihilo of advanced moon materials, back in early YC 111? It would've been cluster-shaking news.
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Really it comes down to us, as players, to keep the community going and make the events that happen a central part of our experience and RP. I admit that a lot of the time, I'm simply oblivious to some things until somebody brings it up, and I am thankful when someone takes the time to point out how something will affect New Eden.
I try to do the same when I can. I think that if we keep working at it, the RP community will hold everything up as long as we remember to keep everything IC and still enjoy one another OOC.
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Edit : seriously, when I remember Aria's thread about provoking more wars, what the hell are doing all the RP corps ? They never seem to politically interact with each other, or at least not in the way of conflict.
Not everyone plays EVE for the conflict. Some play for interactions with other players, others to build something of lasting worth. Still others enjoy the setting alone, and are happy to observe from afar or explore new horizons within it on their own.
This goes for every aspect of EVE, RP included.
Almost everything in Eve is conflict. I was not specifically targeting mere pew pew and the likes. It can be political, ideological, industrial, etc. Where there is profit to be made, there is conflict. Where there is PR to be made, there is profit. Unless you are telling me that everyone now plays for IC cuddles and congratulations ?
The main source of the problem for me still remains that entities almost do not seem to talk to each other. Or at least not very publicly, because hell if there is conflict, I hear about none. Of course, I also understand that there is the fact that everything has already been said, done, argued, nothing new, which does not help at all to create new interactions.
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Edit : seriously, when I remember Aria's thread about provoking more wars, what the hell are doing all the RP corps ? They never seem to politically interact with each other, or at least not in the way of conflict.
I have taken ANSH out of the way to do this. However, we've been hesitant to hop up on the IGS, as in our experience, everything rapidly degenerates into shitposting from all sides. Stuff™ will be coming soon™ to an IC forum near you.
Louella pretty much hit the nail on the head I think. As CCP have taken a 'fuck the world' attitude towards reporting on player activities, or maintaining their 'everything players does has an impact' thing they used to have, it kind-of comes down to the players to take up the responsibility and carry on if we want the whole dynamic world thing to work.
Initiatives like ANN, EN24 (Which is now just an aggregate site, shame, even though Riverini was a talentless hack), Gutter Press, Tech 4 News and the various small news network posts popping up are key to maintaining the image that EVE is a dynamic universe, and that player activities do have an effect. Granted, we can't say Tibus Heth has reacted badly to the complete indifference of the Caldari militia to piracy in their ranks, or that Roden has introduced more reforms, but we can imply it and skirt around direct 'godmodding' of NPC characters with clever and careful writing.
I've been encouraging people to get involved with things like this for ages, but interest always seems to peak very quickly and then diminish into nothing. Players need to be less apathetic about getting their activities out there so the multitude of news groups can actually report on them (and perhaps you guys should write some stuff too)
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So far, I've been doing my best to get WHG involved in things and I can vouch for ANSH giving us conflict both in space and in RP conversations. Also, the news reports are one of the best parts of the gaming community.
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MERD. Wanted to thank you for addressing the elephant in the room with the IGS thread.
Up with this kind of thing and so on. We need less people in comfortable private bubbles and more people pewing in space, or waging price-wars, or what have you.
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If it comes up Simca adresses Goons and other stuff ICly. I don't RP much in the Summit anyway so I miss a lot, but part of that is because its the same old stuff. Just idly chatting is fun sometimes, and even the debates aren't all bad. That said the same topics over and over do get a bit boring.
Personally I like a mix of both private RP bubble stuff(inside the corp RP, SimKat, etc) as well as stuff in space like what we do in Syndicate or wars. Public chatter is a part of it too, but as I said it does get old after a while, especially with people seeking attention and obvious alts just made to be a pain in the ass.
Speaking of wars FCO would make a good candidate. :D ............/o/
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Well if you want to know why I participated in the IGS, then its only because it was mostly the only place where one can have political debates and stuff in these lines, and/or ethical discussions. Yes, seriously, its the only place, more or less, and have always been. The Summit has some of them but most of the time its cuddle time. The NEA was promising but almost nobody seemed interested so it collapsed. An ICly in any channel, its rare enough to be neglectible, especially since you do not always interact with very different mindsets (except if you are willing to go in places where your character would never go).
At the moment the only alternative I see for this is to have one's own political entity, and get into :diplomatic discussions: with other entities. So either you become a CEO, or at least a diplomat, or you are screwed. And of course, your little entity has to have at least a little political weight or you will be laughed at.
Now though, for personnal reasons, I do not take part in the IGS anymore.
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Before this gets any more demotivational, let me present an alternate view.
The base setting not being subject to dynamic change is demoralizing for some. The base setting being subject to dynamic change is unmanageable unless it is made the core of the Eve experience, which it is not and is never likely to be.
While I would very much like to see tax rates in trade hubs adjusted to reflect fortunes in FW, or perhaps an expansion of the war and perhaps some new twists in the storyline, I am not holding my breath. IC, the faction war represents a protracted low-level conflict whose purposes include avoiding the chaos that would result from a high-level one. This can go on happily for decades, and likely will (the first Caldari/Gallente war lasted for 80 years or so).
The real RP fun to be had under the circumstances isn't in the epic world-politics-changing game unless you want to sign up with one of the big alliances and play the (largely un-immersive, but frequently epic) game of empires. Very few RP organizations are involved in that.
For my money, the real fun to be had is on the scale of personal stories, personal and private successes, failures, hopes, dreams, relationships, and disasters. Conflicts are good for that because they stir the pot, not because they get all epic and world-changing.
As for the IC/OOC divide, I do believe that whatever happens in game, happens IC. Color me callous, but I don't feel that the little absurdities of game mechanics, etc., create a separate reality that only exists to provide funding to the REAL world.
What'cha done, ya done, and if you find it immersion-breaking that the NPCs don't retreat in the face of impending death, that just points up the need to consider reasons why they can't. If you can't buy CCP's world as packaged, just play out the conditions in your head or discuss and write up quasi-canon until we have some kind of believable scenario.
Lord knows we need more world in this world. CCP won't be building it for us, so it's up to us. (Also, they have a habit of adopting bits of quasi-canon that they like as the real thing.)
Keep your sights on the level of Star Trek instead of Star Wars-- that is, worry less about defeating the Empire and more about defeating the captain of that Klingon battlecruiser over there-- and I think the setting works pretty well. If your personal victories and losses eventually lead to major political realignments, so much the better.
Let your character worry about high-level politics and the eventual glorious victory of all that is good and true if that is appropriate to the character. Your concern is better focused on developing the place of that character in the world.
... If you want to be happy with the game, that is.
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Yes. EVE's PF is an alternatively rage- and statism-inducing mess, with one redeeming vice that also happens to be a virtue - it barely touches upon the actual stuff you do in the game.
There's a niche with your name on it somewhere, and you (general ypu) were unlikely to become the Emperor of Space anyway. I found my center when I stopped worrying about what I should do, and started doing things I liked instead.
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Aria told it 10 times better than I could have been able to.
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I think the biggest issue is not that people dont want to do it, but rather, they dont want to do it wrong. There are threads on IGS that try to look like serious news, the problem is that there are so many conflicting strains of lore, points of view and so on that no matter what you write, youll "get it wrong". For example if in TNN I was to write a story about the economic strain of the GOON issue on the Republic Economy I would get two of you guys saying that I need to do more research, another guy saying that the way I described the Republic economy in general wasnt accurate (because of course there is an in game version of Forbes somewhere...?), and a GOON saying "you know nothing of our work".
Now lets say I could get this all right, in a way everyone could agree on, how do I make that intresting and RP friendly anyway. After all we do the IGS for entertainment. This is the biggest problem when trying to write about "real world" events in game...when you write them in detail...they are boring to talk about. So and so war decs such and such because x is aligned with B and B needs the moon that C is harvesting to maintain this or that. But if you write "an insidious power play by So and So against C, once close friends but now bitter foes" it sounds so much better even though it most likely takes a "War and Peace" epic into an episode of GI-Joe.
I guess my point is if you are going to write about it, lore and cannon need to take a little bit of a back seat to make it entertaining.
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Now lets say I could get this all right, in a way everyone could agree on, how do I make that intresting and RP friendly anyway. After all we do the IGS for entertainment. This is the biggest problem when trying to write about "real world" events in game...when you write them in detail...they are boring to talk about. So and so war decs such and such because x is aligned with B and B needs the moon that C is harvesting to maintain this or that. But if you write "an insidious power play by So and So against C, once close friends but now bitter foes" it sounds so much better even though it most likely takes a "War and Peace" epic into an episode of GI-Joe.
Making the point, once again, that some of us roleplayers want different things. That report about nullsec alignments and resources (and spats between FCs) leading to war-fighting is what I want to read.
For a while that type of factual reporting about nullsec politics was provided inside EM by one of our members who'd condense the range of EVE political bloggage and discussion into forum posts about what was going on and likely effects on us. Was good. Was also a lot of work, and eventually said pilot understandably decided to allocate time elsewhere. But that's real, and it explains real things like why PL first turned up in our back yard, or who was road-tripping in the Isto pocket at any given time. When roleplayers ignore what's going on in the space around them because it's somehow not roleplay-worthy I just shake my head.
I don't need--and, personally, don't want--an IGS that's a blend of tabloid newspapers and the more emo parts of Livejournal. (Exception: Muck Raker's blend of parody and Daily-Show-style actual news reportage amuses me.) Clearly, most of the people using the IGS do want that, so I leave them to it. That doesn't mean it's the way it has to be done.
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I just want the old news, we had a little of everything, from nullsec issues (that I did not give a shit considering how dull and anti immersive it was compared to news from the universe, if you pardon me for the language, even when I was in Providence), to tabloids, and most generally, news about the universe itself. Nullsec news could be a little less boring and more attractive to RPers imho if they focused a little on the effects they have on our little words and lives. Most RPers do not care at all if X now controls O-SHIT in the L-MAO constellation, but they care a lot more when it starts to affect the prices of minerals, or when they have to face a goon embargo.
I think the biggest issue is not that people dont want to do it, but rather, they dont want to do it wrong. There are threads on IGS that try to look like serious news, the problem is that there are so many conflicting strains of lore, points of view and so on that no matter what you write, youll "get it wrong". For example if in TNN I was to write a story about the economic strain of the GOON issue on the Republic Economy I would get two of you guys saying that I need to do more research, another guy saying that the way I described the Republic economy in general wasnt accurate (because of course there is an in game version of Forbes somewhere...?), and a GOON saying "you know nothing of our work".
I do not see why people continue to tell that the lore is full of conflicting bits and incoherences. I am sure there are some, but I can't even recall anyone of them myself... What I see, though, is a lot of inaccuracies and vague things. Things that are either briefly described, or stuff that should get the wiki warning "STUB", and we often would like to know more details. Yes, we do not know exactly how a lot of things are conducted, but that is at least something I like with their new dedication to the eve wiki, we get articles like the one on slavery or the state economics, and we can't complain anymore that we know nothing about these subjects.
Anyway, you will always have people that will tell you that you do it wrong. We all have different interpretation of the lore, even if we tend to harmonize/accomodate ourselves especially through initiatives like backstage. To my mind it is not a real issue when you deal with IC things. I have not seen a single piece of news that was not criticized either for its bias, either for inaccuracies. Somehow, they are here for that. A lot of people consider them like RP raw matter to be exploited, and it is good. So yes, ICly, you will always find people to spit on your work, and others to agree with it. Maybe your news were a little too much focused on conspiracies (Karsoth, Seylin events, etc) ? I couldnt tell. Remember Muck Raker, especially at the beginning, and how gutter press was despised by almost everyone ICly and described as trash news. Well, it still is, but people have accomodated themselves to find it entertaining a lot and have drastically changed their views on it ICly.
Now then, the real issue is often on the OOC side. Since Eve is a lot about politics and economics, stuff that is already sensible IRL, when it comes to deal with that people do it naturally ICly, but it often also reflects their own OOC views. And their OOC interpretation of the lore. I had an issue recently centered around that and I couldnt find a way to work around it since it was basically a clash of OOC understanding of the PF, so I just decided to withdraw completely. These are the real issues to me, so continue to focus on the IC side of things.
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I just had an odd disconnect between role-play and real-play in the Summit.
I quit a corporation earlier today after receiving a mail from the CEO that basically said, 'I'm playing Diablo III now. Leave if you want because I am probably going to let this account laps." That means Makkal ended up in the Ministry of War. The problem being that Makkal would saw her arm off before joining that organization.
As chance would have it, another Summit member commented on it, which led to the following exchange.
He: It says here you have no corporation aside from the Ministry of War.
She: Must be an error. My only 'corporation' is the Hanaya Clan. I was born there and will likely die there.
He: You're in the Ministry of War. Check your database.
She: There's no need to check my database. I'm of the Kingdom, why would I join the Empire's Ministry of War?
He: No, you're wrong.
She: No u!
He: No u!
... working from memory here. Might have been slightly different.
I try very hard to have what I do in EVE have some connection to what Makkal is doing. I mostly run courier contracts, so I have Makkal telling people she deals with shipping and distribution for her clan. I got podded the other day, so Makkal complained about it in the Summit, and Kat swooped in with advice to help Makkal, that helped me a great deal. Because Makkal would see this as a type of service, I sent Kat some ISK afterwards.
Tonight, I had some great RP with Turinuk (the dude who's always crawling into Sleeper wormholes) when Makkal bought a Zephyr, scanned down cosmic signatures, they went into a wormhole, and poked around a bit. He then gave Makkal a 'training program.' For me, it was a great tutorial. For Makkal, it was a great experience.
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That means Makkal ended up in the Ministry of War. The problem being that Makkal would saw her arm off before joining that organization.
Tricky one. I believe the usual approach is to say "CONCORD allocated me to the Ministry of War; it's a purely administrative thing; and I'll get out of here just as soon as I can find a new corp...".
Part of the "what happens really happens" approach is that data like that is true. It might not mean you're actively involved with the Ministry of War, but you're currently on the books as their responsibility. If you don't want that, I'd suggest either finding a new corp or creating your own corp with a more appropriate, Kingdom-oriented name.
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Tricky one. I believe the usual approach is to say "CONCORD allocated me to the Ministry of War; it's a purely administrative thing; and I'll get out of here just as soon as I can find a new corp...".
Gallente have it so much easier when it comes to that. It's simple enough to say "The Scope granted me temporary press credentials."
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Tricky one. I believe the usual approach is to say "CONCORD allocated me to the Ministry of War; it's a purely administrative thing; and I'll get out of here just as soon as I can find a new corp...".
'The usual approach' isn't really relevant to my story. Though I agree, that's something I could have said. However...
1) Why did CONCORD just now allocate Makkal to the Ministry of War? Why not do it immediately after she graduated from the RAI?
2) Makkal probably would not talk about joining a new corp. She's a member of the Hanaya Clan. She's talked extensively about her work for them. She's never mentioned the corporation I was in previously and it's unlikely she'd have ever joined it.
"It's a database error" works just as well. It's not like the person Makkal was speaking with had ever met her in person or seen her with members of my corporation. Nor has she ever talked about that corporation.
Part of the "what happens really happens" approach is that data like that is true.
Right. And I'm explicitly rejecting that approach. Hence my posting it as an example of real-play vs role-play.
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Snip.
You'd ought to make a one-man corp unless you're insistent on Corping != in-character.
If that's the case then 'data-base error' would indeed be your best bet, but as far as I've known, even people who don't play in RP corps acknowledge their corporation (Tarunik is a prime example of this).
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The problem with rejecting the facts and reality of the game in favor of pulling things wholecloth out of your arse is that you can't back it up at all while anyone just using in-game resources can back up their claims quite easily. This will inevitably lead to conflict and I'm afraid you're the guy who's claiming things that are on par with the easter bunny, god and the spaghetti monster as far as believable things go. The guys pointing at what the game is saying are, without question, pointing out unassailable truth.
That's why the safest method of playing is to simply acknowledge the game reality of things and incorporate it into the RP. It's really not that hard either. RPers in Eve create all kinds of numbskull excuses for convenience sake and the skillset is quite transferable. Hell, you can even pull the vagueness card as well. "Yeah, I know what it says. Let's just say there's... backroom deals going on." That sentence alone will damn near justify Matari Freedom Fighters enrolling in the 24th Crusade.
It really isn't that hard to retain character while acknowledging game mechanics and when you erect your giant imaginary fiction castle around your character it will pay to take said game-mechanics into account.
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You'd ought to make a one-man corp unless you're insistent on Corping != in-character.
This is what I was thinking about doing. It's still up in the air how I will play it.
The problem with rejecting the facts and reality of the game in favor of pulling things wholecloth out of your arse is that you can't back it up at all while anyone just using in-game resources can back up their claims quite easily.
They can back up their claims by saying what they're seeing in the database. Makkal can back up her claims by pointing out logical inconsistencies (a Kingdom citizen in an Empire corp) by pointing out that she's talked about working for Hanaya clan for some time, and suggesting there's an error.
If the other character decides she's lying for some reason, that's fine.
This will inevitably lead to conflict...
No, it's not inevitable. In fact, it's rather odd that the only time someone's mentioned the corporation I'm in is the day that I'm put in the Ministry of War. The chances of that are rather slim. It's a bit like Makkal saying "I'm in the Khind Kingdom right now speaking with my father" and someone going, "No you're not; I just saw you zip by me in your Magnate. Why are you in Odatrik and why are you lying to me?"
That's why the safest method of playing is to simply acknowledge the game reality of things and incorporate it into the RP. It's really not that hard either.
You'll notice I gave a few examples of my doing just that. Sometimes it's 'not that hard' and sometimes it's more difficult.
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I am under the impression that role-play in EVE and what actually happens 'in-space' is growing further apart. Judging from the Intergalactic Summit forum, but also the IC channels, role-players seem to play and exist largely in their own little RP-bubble. A bubble were important galaxy-spanning events like the Goonswarm LP scam, Hulkageddon or even the Goonswarm-Star Fraction mutual ally war-dec don't exist or are simply ignored and hardly mentioned in-character.
I'm guessing people find it a bit immersion-breaking to some degree to refer to how relatively powerful and influential one particular player block has gotten. I mean, its tricky - it doesn't help that Goonswarm is so profoundly anti-roleplay by its nature - and that anyone attempting to bring this stuff up publicly in an roleplay manner will inevitably be OOC demeaned and trolled etc. That kind of thing does get old and many roleplayers seem not to like that kind of argument.
I tried to post as meaningfully as I could in your FW scam post Merdaneth, but it is pretty hard work putting all CCP's collective bad decisions through an RP lens sometimes. Then we ended up having to sideways consider the confiscation of the illicit gains part of cannon as well - which in RP turns still allows Goons to screw over the Republic into near bankruptcy then get magically saved again by Concord.
Similar thing with our mutual wardec scheme against Goons really - we did everything by the number according to the Inferno 1.0 devblogs and laid the groundwork for a plan to draw the largest alliance in the game into a truly vast network of hisec defensive allies that they could not escape from then ... well, next week CCP changed the rules and turned the whole system on its head. Even I'm not sure of the value of making an RP post out of that because its ultimately going to sound like "CCP/CONCORD caved to Goons" (again) and will just attract the goon trolls to come and mess up IGS.
I guess my point is yes, these are galaxy spanning significant events to Eve the OOC metagame etc. But they don't have much actual credibility to the cannon background. And that probably reflect a change in focus from CCP itself last couple of years, where they have stopped really loving and promoting the Eve storyline of space empires and technological development and started praising metagaming and pure OOC shenanigans.
How can people talk about their hairstyles, the latest relationships and not mention such things at all unless they consciously choose to not make such events part of their RP. Does it mean that such events simply don't exist within their RP-bubble? Are they discarded as to 'gamist' and therefore having no place in their RP world?
Well I don't think people ignore them. Certainly in TLF chat when the FW scam debate was raging it was mostly "So Goons helped us win FW then? / :shrug: its a storm in a teacup CCP will take all the LP back and we'll still have our tier 5 purchased fleet stabbers." How to turn that into appropriate RP rationale - I dunno, "nullsec confidence tricksters used the Amarr and Matari militias as patsies while destroying billions of their own assets to be awarded trillions of Loyalty points to fix galactic markets and gain access to the republican assembly plants - hundreds of TLF fighters randomly benefit from the con by cashing out their own stocks at tier 5, concord then confiscated all the illicit LPs."
Is that better than simply ignoring it - probably - but it is a bit of a jarring impact to the sensibilities of those loyalists who have ever claimed their empires could not be threatened by capsuleer alliances. (and to make matters worse, its concord that has to play the magic reset switch and undo the damage further portraying Amarr and Minmatar states as pretty pathetic patsies in the whole thing.)
Goons vs SF war is similar really - in character it would be "Goonswarm leans on Concord to price large scale defensive alliances out of viability following upsets in hisec wars. Star Fraction to be charged ten trillion ISK to continue the war with their current roster of allies (every two weeks!)."
I mean, you can't really put this kind of thing on paper without it sounding like one long allegation of developer corruption rather than actual roleplay material. Its pretty dodgy stuff.
And of course, that does really partially explain why CCP themselves have stopped RP'ing game decisions in the news. This kind of thing is proving extremely difficult to introduce to the IC reality of New Eden. Years ago CCP did produce RP news articles to cover important events and game changes - so perhaps we could ask what really changed?
I got the feeling that more and more players separate their play in 'EVE the game' from their play in 'EVE world', and and can happily play a Amarr loyalist who's gameplay is supported by regular donations of isk from an alt enrolled in the TLF.
Well I read your email on the subject Merdaneth but IC on that one I'm afraid Merdaneth (the character) probably made his bed years ago as far as Jade is concerned. Yes from a certain angle its corrupt as all hell, especially from the Amarrian side - but then you have to remember as an anarchist opposed to all governments Jade is hardly going to dislike seeing imperialist memetics corroded by personal interest and loyalty given to comrades in space rather than politicians back on the homeworld. Of course if this kind of corruption led to an Amarrian conquest of the warzone you'd see Jade pretty pointed in her criticisms but then its fortunate most slave populations only need to be liberated once. (ie once RAA flipped Minmatar for the first time we'd expect to have gotten the population out from under the yoke and back to free space). Still if it makes you feel any better, rest assured the people Jade flies with in the Minmatar Militia do want to conquer the whole of the warzone and reduce Amarr to zero systems (and then invade providence again). I think that's a pretty honest ambition.
Still, I do agree its something you can get your teeth into Merdaneth - actual loyalist Amarrians running Minmatar alts to farm LPs probably would be seen pretty as pretty dodgy practice by the theology council - though I'd guess they'd justify it as guerrilla economics to fund their continued war.
If this was something we ever needed to do the other way around "running amarr alts for LP income" it would be fairly easy to call it sponsoring corruption in the 24th Crusade with double agents and infiltrators to draw income from the other side.
Perhaps the real issue here is that the FW engine has become something profoundly corrupt in comparison to the way old school loyalists used to run their wars and conduct their roleplay?
But that maybe reflects also the degree to which IC roleplay as a whole is no longer particularly valued by CCP?
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Well Makkal, if that discussion really happened like that in the Summit, it seems obviously to me that this guy was just trying to piss in your cheerios for the sake of it. Typical of players that have OOC issues with someone when they might disagree on the RP of someone else and cowardly hide behind IC snide remarks. If the guy really has an issue with you OOCly as it is obviously the case, he should begin to open an OOC private convo with you to discuss about that. What a douche, really.
I can understand that some people may have some concerns about players pretending to be rogue drones, sleeper agents, enheduanni, and that kind of stuff. Some will argue that they do not find it abhorent, and others will definitly not want to see that breaking their own immersion. Fine, I can understand that someone will tell to a player playing a rogue drone entity that he does consider him as a demented capsuleer or just that he is going to ignore him.
I can also understand, as you said, that someone may not believe your character if he sees that he is registered in the ministry of war, considering that the chances for the database to be wrong are thin as oppose to the probability for it to be corrupted. ICly, your words against his words, nothing more, as long as he does not become a dick about it that barely has anything to do with IC. To y opinion, your case is not a real issue as a lot of options and excuses can be found. You maybe choosed the hardest to defend ICly, but I do not see a particular issue with it.
Now consider my own case and also the case of a few other people that play bloodlines that are not in the CONCORD capsuleer database. It is already annoying to deal with that sometimes, but we ultimately choosed it consciously and have to deal with it. But, sometimes we come to the same moronic arguments where people start to come OOCly at you and begin to tell you how you are a brutor and not an ammatar, period. Well, my usual response to that kind of fanatics of "everything that does not happen ingame or is not written ingame, does not exist" is the same, always : firstly, the truth of anything written RL or in any universe is relative and subjective, and is subject to errors/discrepancies, and secondly, I do not see a single reason for an ammatar/mannar/ealur/udorian/thukker/krusual/starkmanir to be somehow incapable of becoming a capsuleer either.
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Is that better than simply ignoring it - probably - but it is a bit of a jarring impact to the sensibilities of those loyalists who have ever claimed their empires could not be threatened by capsuleer alliances. (and to make matters worse, its concord that has to play the magic reset switch and undo the damage further portraying Amarr and Minmatar states as pretty pathetic patsies in the whole thing.)
Read the whole post but this stuck out.
We can't get nice things because it'd upset people in their bubbles?
All my fears confirmed. :(
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We can't get nice things because it'd upset people in their bubbles?
I maintain that upsetting people in their bubbles/bursting them is one of the most enjoyable things you can do in EVE.
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Tricky one. I believe the usual approach is to say "CONCORD allocated me to the Ministry of War; it's a purely administrative thing; and I'll get out of here just as soon as I can find a new corp...".
Gallente have it so much easier when it comes to that. It's simple enough to say "The Scope granted me temporary press credentials."
odd i always thought i became a temporary employee of Scope to go "check on things", not really like a reporter, just someone who went visiting the locations the scope wanted to check out at first glance....not sure what would the title of that be.
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Tricky one. I believe the usual approach is to say "CONCORD allocated me to the Ministry of War; it's a purely administrative thing; and I'll get out of here just as soon as I can find a new corp...".
Gallente have it so much easier when it comes to that. It's simple enough to say "The Scope granted me temporary press credentials."
odd i always thought i became a temporary employee of Scope to go "check on things", not really like a reporter, just someone who went visiting the locations the scope wanted to check out at first glance....not sure what would the title of that be.
"Technical advisor", "area specialist", "expert resource"?
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Then we ended up having to sideways consider the confiscation of the illicit gains part of cannon as well - which in RP turns still allows Goons to screw over the Republic into near bankruptcy then get magically saved again by Concord.
"Some rogue elements within CONCORD contracted with null-sec interests in order to punish the Republic for the Elder attack on Yulai. The conspiracy was uncovered and corrective measures taken."?
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See how easy it is to incorporate the game reality with RP? Where there's a will there's a way. I'll grant you that some of the shit CCP does can be hard to grapple into submission but what players do? You actually have to work to make it -not- fit RP.
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See how easy it is to incorporate the game reality with RP? Where there's a will there's a way. I'll grant you that some of the shit CCP does can be hard to grapple into submission but what players do? You actually have to work to make it -not- fit RP.
Right then, lets see that piece in the news :)
(I like it)
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Hi Jade
one of your posts in the IGS made me think of something, it was to do with events in the books which are largely OOC material, with hardly any of it appearing in-game.
I forget which one of the threads it was, it related to the Tribal Liberation force though, I think you mentioned something about the TLF Minmatar being free individuals, and not pawns/tools of the republic. And how they'd determine the future of their people.
Anyway, it was a good comment, and would be the sort of thing that Minmatar people would see themselves as, except... some of the stuff in The Empyrean Age and Templar One, paints the Minmatar in the playable game space (Republic space, the TLF, Thukker tribe space), as being little more than a shield to protect the Elder's hidden spaces where they will determine the future of the entire Minmatar people. Not the Republic or anything that would be accessible to player characters, those don't get to determine anything of the "Minmatar Future", it's all the Elders. Who cannot be interacted with in-game.
It made me :( and I'm not sure what to think now.
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Anyway, it was a good comment, and would be the sort of thing that Minmatar people would see themselves as, except... some of the stuff in The Empyrean Age and Templar One, paints the Minmatar in the playable game space (Republic space, the TLF, Thukker tribe space), as being little more than a shield to protect the Elder's hidden spaces where they will determine the future of the entire Minmatar people. Not the Republic or anything that would be accessible to player characters, those don't get to determine anything of the "Minmatar Future", it's all the Elders. Who cannot be interacted with in-game.
It made me :( and I'm not sure what to think now.
Lou, my take on that is that it doesn't matter. The Elders have collected their set of tribal genes and are now buggering off. They don't care about the very real, living, breathing people of the tribes who they leave, and we're frankly better off without them. Let them go do their schemes, which they seem to think are important: we have people, tribes, and a tribal homeland to look after.
Some of our gods have left us: it's up to us to grow up and look after ourselves.
But yeah: I hate the whole Elders thing. My response has been to classify them as the out-of-touch Minmatar 1%, and say "Good riddance" now they've got what they want and gone away.
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Well Makkal, if that discussion really happened like that in the Summit, it seems obviously to me that this guy was just trying to piss in your cheerios for the sake of it.
Possibly, but it's hard to connect a character's word and action to the player unless you've known both for some time. I'm not comfortable making that leap for this specific interaction. :)
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Well Makkal, if that discussion really happened like that in the Summit, it seems obviously to me that this guy was just trying to piss in your cheerios for the sake of it.
Possibly, but it's hard to connect a character's word and action to the player unless you've known both for some time. I'm not comfortable making that leap for this specific interaction. :)
My initial reading would be that they were calling you on fantasy roleplay, and giving you the option of joining the community norms.
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I think it's bad form to IC 'call' someone on their role-playing, especially when the community standard is rather flexible.
For example, Khross recently told Makkal about an attack on a Khanid planet where he'd seen Blood Raiders and the Nation grab a planet, build a defensive outpost, and start converting the populous. I flew out there and, unsurprisingly, the system was as it's always been. I could have had Makkal appear in the summit, denounce Khross as a liar, and demand to know why he'd play with her mind so, but instead Makkal talked about working with local authorities to secure the systems adjacent to it.
I see RPing as a cooperative venture, and unless something is rather disruptive to the setting, I’d rather work someone than spend my time ICly or OOCly telling them they’re doing it wrong.
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I see RPing as a cooperative venture, and unless something is rather disruptive to the setting, I’d rather work someone than spend my time ICly or OOCly telling them they’re doing it wrong.
I am curious to your thoughts on this position : All roleplay is by its nature consensual, and non-consensual actions / disruptive interventions can be ignored entirely.
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I think it's bad form to IC 'call' someone on their role-playing, especially when the community standard is rather flexible.
For example, Khross recently told Makkal about an attack on a Khanid planet where he'd seen Blood Raiders and the Nation grab a planet, build a defensive outpost, and start converting the populous. I flew out there and, unsurprisingly, the system was as it's always been.
I could have had Makkal appear in the summit, denounce Khross as a liar, and demand to know why he'd play with her mind so, but instead Makkal talked about working with local authorities to secure the systems adjacent to it.
I see RPing as a cooperative venture, and unless something is rather disruptive to the setting, I’d rather work someone than spend my time ICly or OOCly telling them they’re doing it wrong.
And when Ms X lays down claims about Sansha/Amarrian/Gallofreyan invasions of Caldari Prime or some other equally dim choice? It's all well and good to tout the 'cooperative' flag and speak inspirationally about worldcrafting and so on, but the truth remains. When you create a fictional castle out of the gossamer and toothpics of wild imagination there'll likely be someone who's not particularly fond of either castles or your choice of location or even the shape of the toothpicks. The end result, given the ease with which such castles can be toppled, is rarely nice. Especially in Eve where stomping with both feet on the sandcastles anyone outside of your sphere of blues builds is the national sport.
Listen, I do understand your viewpoint and I'd even agree with them in games where they fit in. In Eve though... they just don't. You won't get any kind of unilateral agreement on the kind of "play nice now!" rules required for that to be sustainable without conflict. Not to mention how it completely neglects the true beauty of Eve. The real reason Eve RP is even today superior to any other MMO:
What you do in the game is what your character does. The game mechanics (for the very most part) coincide with IC actions. You can actually do the things a character would. Want to create your own little Empire? If you got the balls, skills and charisma to herd cats then you can. Want to be a selfless hero or a despicable evil wastrel? You can... and you'll make -money- of it! This game has that extremely rare quality that you damn near can't find even in Singleplayer RPGs: Consistency between Character and Gameplay Reality.
That's something to treasure and work with as far as I'm concerned.
Edit: Ghost posted.
Not all roleplay is consensual. In Eve it's RP to go out and roflstomp the fleets and ships of your enemies. Maybe they consented when they undocked, but I've gotten more than one river of tears my way for taking RP out into space.
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My initial reading would be that they were calling you on fantasy roleplay, and giving you the option of joining the community norms.
Norms...in this community?
Syyl'ara, for example, was never for one moment a Federal Citizen. She grew up in Syndicate space and eventually migrated to join relatives in the State. By virtue of selecting Intaki as her ethnicity, I was given no option to choose a school to graduate from which would reflect this. In my view, database entries indicating otherwise are erroneous.
Narrative vs. mechanics inconsistencies like this are abound. While there are a few times when discussing them can produce some interesting exchanges, it has been my experience that doing so usually seems to be used as conversation enders, trump cards and distractions from the actual point being discussed. I find that to be more immersion breaking than respecting a bit of creative license. Limiting ourselves to the strictly defined options of character creation and other "clunky" aspects of gameplay can lead to canned back-stories and restrict creativity.
Ultimately, if someone's character wants to believe the "CONCORD Pilot Database" entries, that's fine I have no say in it. Likewise, they have no say in whether those entries are the reality of my character's life and activities. There were several months of time I played this game before starting to RP, I have no interest in worrying about it, not sure why other people would, either. If you and another player/character can't come to a common ground on issues like these, the best option is probably just to avoid each other and move on. In my opinion, at least, public arguments about these kinds of things are a much bigger immersion-breaker as they constantly remind us we are playing an imperfect game with demands that require us to either endure frustrating hardships in the name of consistency or accept some (ultimately trivial, imo) inconsistencies in order to enjoy our time spent.
Should I never do missions and piddle around broke as a joke all the time because my character is largely non-partisan? Should I have tried to survive in NPC 0.0 to do Mordu's missions when only a few months into my character? I play this game for entertainment, I'm hardly going to impose enjoyment-killing restrictions on myself to conform to someone else's definition of the "community norms."
Chances are, if I ask 10 other people what the "community norm" is, I'll get at least 12 opinions :9.
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I see RPing as a cooperative venture, and unless something is rather disruptive to the setting, I’d rather work someone than spend my time ICly or OOCly telling them they’re doing it wrong.
Agreed on the cooperative venture. Agreed on preferring "Yes, and..." responses over blocking.
When you roleplay with a small group you can do entirely improv narrative play where you make up your reality as you go along. It's the way my latest face-to-face game works, incidentally, and it's hugely fun.
When you roleplay in a persistent world with players joining and leaving over time, and where there are public data points and facts about the game world, it's a really good idea to use those data points and facts as the common ground you share with other players. You might extend that--we do that any time we create something that isn't mentioned in canon but is plausibly consistent with canon--but doing, or claiming to do, things that are inconsistent with canon and the public commons suggests you're either not playing the same game, or you're playing a character who is mistaken, confused, unreliable, deluded, or dingbats. We have characters like that, so that's fine. The main way we can tell that a character is an unreliable narrator is that they make claims that are inconsistent with the in-game reality.
It's normal in EVE to check employment, past employment, sec status, bio, and, if there's time, offline killboards and forums for people you come across. Those things are on the record, and they contribute to the assessment of your capabilities, tendencies and "character", particularly when assessing your likely level of threat. That applies in EVE roleplay just as much as it does in EVE scouting.
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My initial reading would be that they were calling you on fantasy roleplay, and giving you the option of joining the community norms.
Norms...in this community?
Yeah.
If Makkal wanted the Ministry of war not to appear on their corp history, then maybe they should have found another corp to join instead of just resigning from the one they were in. Or maybe Makkal could have said it was a CONCORD screwup when entering the data, but saying that what the Eve client tells me is in the CONCORD databases is not what it is actually there is against some of our norms.
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Thats one of the strange mindsets I have come across in EVE.
The restrictions of the game mechanics are not seen as a challenge, instead they are seen as something that would 'limit the story' hence conveniently as something that you can ignore whenever the hell you feel like it.
Colouring inside the lines is much harder than ignoring them.
Using the limitations of the mechanics and the game world will make for much more interesting story, to me, than going off a tangent just because you have to be 'creative'.
Actually going off a tangent and being 'creative' is completely the opposite in a RP setting when you want to have a co-operative narrative with other people.
It is actually destructive.
Destructive in the sense that the other people that you are interacting with have no way of doing so without being destructive towards the sandbox defined by the mechanics and the game world shared by all.
Mainly because if a person goes off on a tangent with your story, away from the game world and the mechanics that everyone shares, it is very hard to get back in there.
Especially in a game like EVE, a place where conflict is the driving force behind pretty much everything, where your every mistake, every lapse, every fit, every drunken tirade, is used against you the more you do.
I'm not saying that it is forbidden to colour outside the lines, it's just that only you will know what the hell you are trying to portray.
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I am curious to your thoughts on this position : All roleplay is by its nature consensual...
Rather true. You can't force someone to RP or RP in a way you like.
... and non-consensual actions / disruptive interventions can be ignored entirely.
I'd have no problem ignoring them.
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My initial reading would be that they were calling you on fantasy roleplay, and giving you the option of joining the community norms.
Norms...in this community?
...
Chances are, if I ask 10 other people what the "community norm" is, I'll get at least 12 opinions :9.
Agreed. It's been my experience that every player has a point where 'if it happens in game, it happens' breaks down: maybe it's rescuing the damn damsel for the 1,000th time, maybe it's the fact that the chargen treats the different races as different species who never, ever interbreed, maybe it's the nonsensical NPC corps, or the eternally suicidal NPC belt rats, or the magically reappearing veldspar in every belt, or DT, or aggression mechanics, or alts, or the comparative size of ship models, or ...
And it's also been my experience that many players consider their own exceptions to the 'if it happens in game, it happens' rule to be basic, obvious common sense and community norms, and everybody else's to be immersion-breaking.
EVE has often contradictory PF, nonsensical game-mechanics, illogical behaviour by NPCs both small (belt rats) and large (Sansha incursions, anyone?). Every RPer integrates them as best they can and as much as they can, and with some points of difference from everyone else.
The way you treat those differences is entirely up to you: curbstomp the other player with game mechanics, play along, change the subject, ignore them. But it is your choice, not an unbreakable law of RP.
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If someone tells me that something that I can see in-game isn't correct, I'm not blocking when I question it: I'm grounding our play in our shared world.
They might then go "Yes, and... it's some stupid CONCORD regulation" or "Yes, and... *wide-eyed stare* let me find a new corp: I didn't realise that would happen to my licence when I left".
The responsibility rests with them to present a reason why the public, shared information is, in that instance, not to be taken at face value.
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I think we're working towards a point where we're roughly saying:
-Every time we invent something non-canon but plausible, we should attempt to collaborate and ground our RP
-Conversely, anything shown by in-game mechanics shouldn't be simply ignored. It's down to the player to color outside of the lines
... Which I think works best, really. "Why is CONCORD registering you as a criminal?" "WHAT? NO" is bad form. It's also one of the first things we're taught in improvisational drama. Don't block, work with it.
This isn't aimed at you by the way, Makkal, it's more of a general statement.
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Developing creative explanations for plausible, but not canonical (though also not anti-canonical) inconsistencies certainly advances the opportunity for more collaboration and can be an opportunity for the player to elaborate on attributes of their character.
Unfortunately since these kinds of inconsistencies are often brought up as a "gotcha" by characters in an antagonistic relationship, the response is likely to be more along the lines of "No, you're just a filthy liar, what are you hiding from us? SEE EVERYONE, THIS PILOT CLEARLY CAN'T BE TRUSTED!!!" rather than "oh, terribly sorry for the confusion, thanks for clearing that up. That database error must be terribly frustrating!"
I agree there are certainly areas of gameplay where you shouldn't bend things recklessly. However, in most any game I've played in I consider dev-imposed activities involving mindless repetition to be rather off-limits. In this game I consider running missions or other activities that are totally limited to interaction with NPCs to be akin to farming dailies for gold or grinding raids for gear in order to "keep up with the Joneses." That's different than say, participating in Faction Warfare while posturing on the IGS, then a year later trying to hand-wave it all aside. But, in line with what was said above about everyone having their own "comfort zone" and assuming it is "the norm" I don't presume to impose my definitions on others.
Especially with the way the last few years have gone where "official" storyline lore has slowed to a crawl, discouraging RP that isn't outright contradictory just seems ultimately self-defeating.
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There is a big difference between ignoring in-game realities (like being a member of the Ministry of War) and denying them.
Ignoring them (and the RP people make with them) doesn't get you into trouble, denying them will because a denial is directly attacking the other player's interpretation of the EVE world. Ignoring them leaves the other player's image intact.
If you feel uncomfortable ignoring something, just contact the other player OOC and tell them you don't feel comfortable RP-ing with that subject...
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Especially with the way the last few years have gone where "official" storyline lore has slowed to a crawl, discouraging RP that isn't outright contradictory just seems ultimately self-defeating.
The official storyline has always been dead slow and it always has moved forward in leaps.
That is why most of the long time RPers have leaned towards RP that is personal and 'realistic' instead of something that is contradictory to the status quo of New Eden.
I believe that is where the current depth of the Minmatar/Amarrian player created culture has come from.
From slow development that is almost glacial, co-operation and the consensus of the masses through small stories within the lines.
I believe that that it is also one of the reasons why the Minmatar/Amarrian RP circles are quite exclusive.
They have created something sustainable and entertaining to them, therefore there is a tendency to not to embrace every new player with the next new and best thing (that they have seen a hundred times) where that new player wants to be entertained instead of finding the entertainment within their own roleplay.
There is a lot of bi-polar behaviour exhibited by roleplayers, ADHD as well, there are some telltale signs of drama queens/llamas and if you exhibit any of those signs usually it means that you will never roleplay with the kind of roleplayer that has spent years building the story of their own character through small choices and encounters.
This is EVE, you protect yourself and your own first.
The fun is waaaaaay down the line.
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I am under the impression that role-play in EVE and what actually happens 'in-space' is growing further apart. Judging from the Intergalactic Summit forum, but also the IC channels, role-players seem to play and exist largely in their own little RP-bubble. A bubble were important galaxy-spanning events like the Goonswarm LP scam, Hulkageddon or even the Goonswarm-Star Fraction mutual ally war-dec don't exist or are simply ignored and hardly mentioned in-character.
How can people talk about their hairstyles, the latest relationships and not mention such things at all unless they consciously choose to not make such events part of their RP. Does it mean that such events simply don't exist within their RP-bubble? Are they discarded as to 'gamist' and therefore having no place in their RP world?
I got the feeling that more and more players separate their play in 'EVE the game' from their play in 'EVE world', and and can happily play a Amarr loyalist who's gameplay is supported by regular donations of isk from an alt enrolled in the TLF.
By separating my 'Eve the Game' from my play in the 'Eve World', I can ignore galaxy defining moments and large events like those the OP mentions which I have no part in.
This enables me pretend that my RP corp, that has only me and my alts, are doing amazing galaxy altering in space conquests, without having to face the reality that I am only in high sec running level four missions with my alt for a faction that I hate IC, by acknowledging the existence of entities that actually impact the galaxy and other capsuleers living in it.
The truth of my in-space actions goes against all of my channel RP and stories that I have written and crafted.
:sarcasm: