Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: hellgremlin on 09 Jun 2012, 17:21
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Yes, yes, I know. It's possible to keep your humanity after becoming an immortal capsuleer. However, I think... it's unlikely.
In all CCP storyline we've been described, generally, as aloof demigods who care not a whit about their crew, or humanity at large. We're unbound Ids and Egos. We have access to every pleasure, every sensation, every tidbit of information we could possibly desire...
... and most of y'all act like the cast of Friends.
No offense. Or maybe, some offense is intended. But your problems are... too human.
Really put yourselves in the shoes of an immortal, an elite, a supreme being of which only a handful exist among the teeming, suffering trillions of New Eden. Even an ego-removed ascetic would find himself feeling special.
I want to see less words-only squabbles on IGS. I want to see more IGS posters responding to a slight or slander by OBLITERATING THE POPULATION OF A PLANET.
Basically, this is a radical appeal for you all to alter your style of RP based on my drunken ramblings. We really need to cultivate the whole "planetsiders are shit" mentality if we're to establish a properly arrogant and conceited relationship with the nascent Dust community. Your thoughts, kind sirs and madams?
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Weirdly enough, Aria's presently headed back the other way.
In general, though: I tend to think of the "Demented" (a.k.a. regular players, whose detachment from "reality" inhibits recognizing the reality of their situation or the enormity of their actions) as filling this niche for the most part.
"Immersionist" characters, at least the more moderate and compassionate ones, represent the most "human-like" of their breed, but are the exception, not the rule.
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I enjoyed watching the discrepancies, honestly.
Capsuleers (characters) would have their own "cast of Friends" squabbles and disputes, claiming that they'd remained well-grounded and down-to-earth despite it all... and all the while wiping out fleets of thousands of people in minutes, spending collective trillions in churning out more weapons and ammunition with which to do that, and so on.
Aria mentioned the non-RPers as filling that niche nicely, but I'd argue that the vast majority of players fit what I described as a subcategory of it -- capsuleer isolation creating this bubble in which they're quite solidly convinced they're nicely sane and rational. I know the "personal dramas / vast wealth and destructive capacity" dichotomy started to develop to be quite pronounced in Kyber, but then I stopped playing him, so.
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Oh well, Lyn never really actually cared for people. She care for people as statistics, because of :detachement:
So well, if she has to obliterate a planet as you say, she would do it without a lot of remorse, but she would need a damn good reason to do so.
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There was a great Amarr roleplayer around in the 03/04 era, aligned with Sabaoth Inc. if my memory serves correctly. I forget her name.
She roleplayed a capsuleer that had not left her pod in months. She was an emaciated blanched flesh-draped skeleton displaying signs of liquid immersion decay (imagine the pruney fingers you get from soaking in the bath too long... times A THOUSAND)
She (or he, I don't know) performed the most immersive RP of what being a capsuleer is like, that I've ever seen. A complete detachment from humanity. A complete adherence to what it would be like to live your life floating in a fullerene pod with a slimy goo center.
I want to see stuff like that again.
Capsuleers that aren't in love with their old, human self. Capsuleers who completely and utterly fall in love with their new form.
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Here's a couple points.
One, I do agree there are a lot of RP problems and roles that come off as trite in EVE RP. Granted, "Im not allowed at so-and-so's dinner party!" seems kind of silly, but such trivial things can matter at the highest levels of power.
Frankly, if someone I RPed with said "I JUST DESTROYED ALDERAAN BECAUSE OF YOUR IMPUDENCE!" I would prolly mutter "tool" and stop RPing with them. But if someone could say "for your arrogance, my alliance will take such and such constellation from the Republic and give their population to Amarrian overseers" then Im a little more impressed. A lot impressed actually.
Part of the problem is that typically, RP corps and alliances are generally small. So their ability to impact in game events is limited. And claiming to destroy a planets population comes off a bit god-moddy to me, if you cant stop it.
As for why I try to play a character who still tries to act human, or at least pretend to be, it basically boils down to this for me.
An ambitious, brilliant, powerful and amoral demi-god doing everything he can to advance to immortal full-on godhood, and conquer the galaxy, while stomping on the little people who get in his way? Kinda boring and overdone for me. I've read it before, and know how it ends.
A powerful, wealthy, destructive, murderous demi-god trying desperately to hold onto some kind of home in "mortal" society and retain some shred of humanity left in him? That actually interests me a lot more, and gives me more opportunities to write and more RP arcs to follow.
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People who threaten to obliterate the populations of planets (like the guy in Xenocracy) are incredibly goofy, because we can't and even when we can shoot at people in DUST, we won't be wiping out entire planetary populations. Making that threat is a lot like me threatening to kick Jamyl in her tits if I don't get a free Titan. I can claim I'm going to do it, and when I don't get my Titan I can either claim to kick Jamyl in her tits and then have everyone point out that there's no actual way I did it, or I can just neuter myself by admitting it was an empty threat.
The only people we, as capsuleers, can legitimately threaten are each other, because we're only ones we can actually have any effect on. Sure, we can claim "Grr, I'm gonna kill all Amarr slavers!" but no, no you're not, because no matter what you do the Amarr Empire is going to continue on living with all its stations, all its agents, and so on just fine. The best you can do is occupy some of their systems in FW and blow up some of their ships in missions and the like, which has no real effect (though I guess the FW stuff has a little bit of it now).
And honestly, it's how it should be. Gods fight the giants in Ragnarok, with the bravest of mortals as their valkyries. They don't concern themselves with the old man dying in his hovel.
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I want you to roleplay not only as if you COULD kick Jamyl in the tits, but that her left tit happens to bear the irremovable imprint of your chosen brand of boot.
We are supermen. We are gods. We are engines of annihilation. Our insecurities translate directly into torpedo launches; our fears detonate doomsday devices. Start bloody acting like it, I say ;)
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An ambitious, brilliant, powerful and amoral demi-god doing everything he can to advance to immortal full-on godhood, and conquer the galaxy, while stomping on the little people who get in his way? Kinda boring and overdone for me. I've read it before, and know how it ends.
Oh indeed, it is kind of boring... if there's only one of them.
Now imagine 300,000 of them, interacting, plotting against one another.
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But EVE is a "proof" game. I can make all the claims I want. But can I prove that I did it? No I can't. It's a lot like people claiming to be "protectors of the State" or whatever and then someone wardecs them, kills all their mission runners, and camps their three PVPers into station all day. Why play a character who just makes bold claims but can't back it up? Sure someone can play the guy that talks a lot of shit he can't actually do, but if everyone does it it's just silly. Kill each other, threaten each other. That's the interesting stuff.
We are supermen, gods, and the like. And we take it out on each other. The gods aren't crazy psychopaths, they're the purification and manifestation of nature with the flaws of humans. Zeus is lightning, but he also likes banging chicks.
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Now imagine 300,000 of them, interacting, plotting against one another.
We kind of already have these, though, and they're called Goonswarm.
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There was a great Amarr roleplayer around in the 03/04 era, aligned with Sabaoth Inc. if my memory serves correctly. I forget her name.
She roleplayed a capsuleer that had not left her pod in months. She was an emaciated blanched flesh-draped skeleton displaying signs of liquid immersion decay (imagine the pruney fingers you get from soaking in the bath too long... times A THOUSAND)
She (or he, I don't know) performed the most immersive RP of what being a capsuleer is like, that I've ever seen. A complete detachment from humanity. A complete adherence to what it would be like to live your life floating in a fullerene pod with a slimy goo center.
I want to see stuff like that again.
Capsuleers that aren't in love with their old, human self. Capsuleers who completely and utterly fall in love with their new form.
Here's kinda my critique to this.
Interesting character. One shes not playing anymore. Probably because that character has a very limited shelf-life.
What kind of goals does a desiccated ship-corpse even have? What motivations? What would actually inspire a player to invest years of his or her RL life into that character?
Its a fun thought project. It would be fun to RP with that character. But I think a lot of the stories you could actually tell about that character would likely be limited.
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I'd expect to see various different ways of dealing with the issues of being a podder. I find the idea that everyone reacts to being thwarted by enacting random violence as unconvincing as the idea that no one does. (I have considered the possibility that we are intentionally kept thwarted by limitations on what we can do inside our captain's quarters to keep us in a state of simmering rage and eager to undock. It's doesn't feel very demi-godly, though.)
If you're concerned that we might not seem to have it together enough to deal effectively with DUSTies.... well, yeah. I expect that'll vary from group to group, and being able to present an appropriate face to the DUST troops you're working with will come to have similar political significance to coordinating allies in the current EVE gameworld.
Also, I'm not sure that they'll respect our authoritah even if we do avoid soap-opera:
They float naked in their own piss with pipes sticking out of their asses. Sure, what's not to respect?
- Magin Ongrau, Privateer, commenting on capsuleers
Also also what Gottii said: one of the main things I find interesting about roleplaying in the EVE world is the tension of being a first-generation podder, working out what that means.
Also also also, there's a fair bit here that ties back to "Why do you roleplay?", What do you get out of the investment you make of your time and creative energy, and how does that compare with the other things you could have done with those?".
I've tried to post this three times now, with new posts each time. So much for leisurely discussion threads. :)
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For someone who is known for playing the subterfuge side of the game, you are arguing for us to ignore the strings attached to characters' immortality and physical power.
Old & powerful capsuleers (like Istvaan or 0.0 alliance executors) should be terrified of having clones in CONCORD monitored Stations (low-sec & high-sec). A significant enough threat to the masses might be targeted by "the powers that be," the kind of power Emperyeans only secure through the expenditure of vast wealth.
The ease with which national, patriotic, fanatical agents might destroy someone with clones only in one place is scary. Don't forget the example of Otro Gariushi, a capsuleer of cunning with the power of a cluster spanning corporation at his back was destroyed (maybe) all because he thought his clones secure in Malkalen.
Capsuleers are gods when at the command of starships, but take away a secure means of cloning and they are just as fragile as anyone else.
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Good points. That's why my character has learned lessons from both Otro Gariushi keeping his clones in one basket, as it were; and from Sansha Kuvakei who maintained multiple simultaneous clones and reserves, and managed to survive an extermination campaign wrought by all four empires.
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I've been thinking about some parts of this ever since Istvaan and a few others commented in response to my recent musings about Casiella.
Pod pilots, at least past the beginning of their careers where CCP does everything possible to push them into mission running or FW, should[1] eventually develop their own allegiances to their own goals. That is, thinking bigger than limiting themselves to what the baseliner nations want. In this sense, they will see CONCORD at best as a way for everyone to maintain a reasonably level playing field (the true game mechanical function) and at worst as intolerable interference by the antiquated powers-that-be.
Then again, I've always seen the lore about insane capsuleers as partly a way to explain, well, gamers. I mean, we do some wacky shit. Seen from the perspective of a normal human in the world of EVE, the Jita riots last year came down to CONCORD not developing tech fast enough and fashion prices being out of whack. I don't actually mean to trivialize the problems with CCP, but ICly we look like the sorts of demigods that wake Cthulhu from his slumber to bitchslap us for giving the word "god" a bad name.
So how do we go about balancing all this, outside of the few characters who choose to be the exceptions that focus on developing dance routines or working directly for The Mantm? I'd submit a few ideas, at least the ones I already plan to incorporate:
- Don't worry so much about the major factions. They make sense for new pilots who haven't yet realized the lack of limits on their power, but "we" should move past that.
- CONCORD should be a bigger deal to pilots, whether as a tool or an obstacle or something on that spectrum.
- Interpersonal RP shouldn't be such a focus. I personally get annoyed when The Summit focuses on "hi honey how was your day" and "did you see who she was kissing?" rather than, well, The Big Issues. War, science, trade, etc.
That's just a start but reflects some themes I plan to develop more starting very soon.
[1]: "Should" in the senses of "most of the time" and "in my opinion". There are exceptions, and I don't mean this in a "urdoinitrong" sense.
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We are supermen. We are gods. We are engines of annihilation. Our insecurities translate directly into torpedo launches; our fears detonate doomsday devices. Start bloody acting like it, I say ;)
Plenty of us feel this way, and you have made excellent points.
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If only you knew what my main toon's been doing for the last few years.
If only I'd get around to getting it on paper and eventually onto the more public places...
I'll get around to posting more in line with the topic at a later time.
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Hmm.
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- Don't worry so much about the major factions. They make sense for new pilots who haven't yet realized the lack of limits on their power, but "we" should move past that.
- CONCORD should be a bigger deal to pilots, whether as a tool or an obstacle or something on that spectrum.
- Interpersonal RP shouldn't be such a focus. I personally get annoyed when The Summit focuses on "hi honey how was your day" and "did you see who she was kissing?" rather than, well, The Big Issues. War, science, trade, etc.
1) Well, I am not sure that I would really like to see everyone drops his faction. Factions are a big source of RP conflict, and what the point to make them so dense and deep in the lore if it is for everyone to ignore them ?
2) Maybe. Though I already see a large trend of people that enjoy saying that CONCORD is a big pain in the ass for them or that CONCORD is nothing more than a group of bloated, corrupt, incapable people.
3) Definitly. This is why I always said that I do not really like the Summit myself, but I can understand that a lot of people do and who am I to tell them they are doing it wrong ? This is why instead of trying to force those people out of the summit and then try to resurrect it in another fashion, I would have liked to do it with a proper channel like the NEA or whatever.
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If capsuleers are to be gods then they are perhaps the most nihilistic, destructive, violent, ruthless, selfish and cynical deities known to man. This poses fundamental issues if your character is anything close to approximating a rational or sane human being and if your favoured form of RP is close interpersonal interactions with others.
Some days I find there is an irony in that the, "Non-RP'ers" seem more able to accurately reflect the concept of capsuleers as being absolutely badass motherfuckers, who are ruthless, capricious, and only in it for themselves and those they consider their associates as they treat human life as just another commodity no different to their weapons systems or vessels. Where they grease the machinations of New Eden's War Economy with the blood of their fellow man in acts of terrible violence and atrocity in the name of power and profit and so that the gears of supply and demand in the armaments industry keep on turning as relentlessly as the body counts keep rising.
Personally, with Mjalnar anyway, I've found trying to explore the psychological effects and impacts of violence and killing as a capsuleer and the brutalization of the spirit that occurs during war and conflict just as rewarding elements of character development and progression as any factional introspection.
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Bit of an IC spoiler here, but it's highly relevant:
Esna knows a part of him loves fighting wars - not for the cause, not for some greater good, but simply because wars and the battles that define them are (for him) the last great thrill in the universe.
It scares the fuck out of the remaining reasonable human in him.
With respect to the greater arguement, I think this heavily ties into the various arguements about the acceptibility of unchecked claims, of which there have been numerous rehashes on this forum and which I won't delve into now. The point, however, is that it seems to me that in recent years there has been an increasing tendency to respond to claims of non-gameplay RP actions with the IC equivalent of "pics or GTFO".
This is not something entirely bad. Certainly there have been numerous claims that I felt needed to have their silliness pointed out, and "...proof plx?" simply provided the best mechanism to point this out.
Contrasting this with the increasing ability of certain player blocs - I'm thinking of the nullsec coalitions here, but they're certainly not the only ones - to actually influence the entire EVE cluster on a whim, acting as if one is badass without proof increasingly makes you look like a fool to the actual badasses, whoever they may be.
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There is also the psychos that seem to disgust the majority of people and get almost ostracized for what they do. Remember when Vea cut a slave's throat and wanted to obliterate Pator ?
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We are supermen. We are gods. We are engines of annihilation. Our insecurities translate directly into torpedo launches; our fears detonate doomsday devices. Start bloody acting like it, I say ;)
You are ejected out into space at the start of your capsuleer career. You feel wide-eyed and unprepared in your puny vessel and an amount of isk on your bank account which is rather laughable. When you ask an agent for an assignment to earn some isk, you are often ridiculed and talked down to. Other capsuleers either ignore you or treat you with tender sympathy for all your ignorance.
You soon discover that your supposed ascendance to capsuleerhood doesn't free you from doing menial jobs. Mining is an activity learned so easily and with so little challenge, you feel even the mentally challenged kid of your neighbour could succeed at. Still, apparently the law doesn't allow such activity to be automated at all. The major trading activity involves continuously updating your orders, also known as 0.1 isking. The logistics sector suffers from a poorly programmed autopilot which means that for efficient transport you have to repeatedly click one button every minute or so. Research and industry also involves a lot of micromanagement, your staff being completely unable to work until resources are depleted and need constant supervision.
As you learn the ropes you soon discover that Concord rule the spacelanes in high-sec like Gods. They can apparently follow you everywhere, have the technology to break laws you are bound to, like warping right into deadspace, having system-wide cloak jammers, and no amount of speed or tank you can muster will deter them for more than a few seconds. It becomes obvious that to Concord you are less than an ant, someone to be squashed at will if you break their draconic rules. Superior technology prevents you from even locking stations, and many objects you can lock seem completely impervious to your mighty weapons.
You soon learn that the so-called nullsec alliances are in the grip of Concord as well, 'paying' for the ability to claim sovereignity in supposedly unclaimed space. Miss the payment and cynojammers will suddenly start to fail no matter how large the capital fleets you can muster are.
Oh, you hear that Concord's technology is inferior next to that of a rarely seen God-like race called the Jovians, making you feel even more insignificant.
The so-called baseliners you are supposed to lord over are never seen anymore, largely shut off from contact with them as you are. Almost nobody ever grovels of debases himself in front of you, although there are plenty of capsuleers standing in line willing to take you down a notch or two. All your grand actions, your destruction of thousands of pirate ships never seems to have much impact, in fact, most people either don't notice or if they do, don't care about it.
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You and I don't feel Godlike because we can kick over an anthill, we feel Godlike if we are the supreme powers around, and we are much more powerful than the next contender. Tens of thousands of equals diminishes one's God-like feeling, tens of thousands of superior beings totally annihilate one's God like feeling. Feeling God-like is not an absolute notion, it is a relative one (the Hulk pointed this out to Loki in the recent Avengers).
EVE lore might try to make us out as Gods, but EVE gameplay tends to make most people feel anything but Gods but more like insignificant nothings, small cogs in a great machine ruled by others.
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One, I do agree there are a lot of RP problems and roles that come off as trite in EVE RP. Granted, "Im not allowed at so-and-so's dinner party!" seems kind of silly, but such trivial things can matter at the highest levels of power.
Well, it seems to me that guys and gals like say, the Greek Gods, were precisely doing this. Being concerned about dinner parties and the like.
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Now imagine 300,000 of them, interacting, plotting against one another.
Matter of perspective. To bacteria we might be considered positively Godlike IRL. However, nobody ever sees or cares about their perspective, and from our own perspective we are simply petty squabbling mortals.
To feel properly Godlike we need a good frame of reference, and EVE doesn't give us that.
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Good points Merdaneth, an alternate view I hadn't considered. I never really approached this game as a tiny person when playing Istvaan, it was always king and kingmaker. I suppose CONCORD could certainly intimidate one, up to a point - that point being you learning that a 50m Tornado can be used to pop a T2 indy carrying 20 billion in loot. A new player might feel quite lost in a sea of veterans, supervised by CONCORD, but if you give me that new player, I can turn him into an apex predator with a bit of advice and a few months' training time, able to operate in the heart of protected territory and laugh at the inconsequential penalties imposed by the Instawarp Cops. Said hypothetical new player wouldn't waste his time with mining or missions or any other mind-numbing tedium but jump straight to preying upon more advanced players and taking their shit through violence.
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Good points Merdaneth, an alternate view I hadn't considered. I never really approached this game as a tiny person when playing Istvaan, it was always king and kingmaker. I suppose CONCORD could certainly intimidate one, up to a point - that point being you learning that a 50m Tornado can be used to pop a T2 indy carrying 20 billion in loot. A new player might feel quite lost in a sea of veterans, supervised by CONCORD, but if you give me that new player, I can turn him into an apex predator with a bit of advice and a few months' training time, able to operate in the heart of protected territory and laugh at the inconsequential penalties imposed by the Instawarp Cops. Said hypothetical new player wouldn't waste his time with mining or missions or any other mind-numbing tedium but jump straight to preying upon more advanced players and taking their shit through violence.
I agree with many of your points. Would be interesting to see a shift towards grand narratives and strong characters but without means to justify your position, and even then, I don't see people accepting it.
It's also tough to try to encourage newbies to focus on areas of game play which have a higher impact on other players. What do you do when they lose their fourth Tornado, without making any ISK?
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Buy Catalysts or Thrashers and gank exhumers :P
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I agree with many of your points. Would be interesting to see a shift towards grand narratives and strong characters but without means to justify your position, and even then, I don't see people accepting it.
It's also tough to try to encourage newbies to focus on areas of game play which have a higher impact on other players. What do you do when they lose their fourth Tornado, without making any ISK?
Smack them and tell them to pick their targets better.
Back in the pre-alpha, my own Endless Corporation engaged in a war with Taggart Trans Inc. Neither of us had seen the client yet. We had our war through RP posts on the forums, illustrated battle reports, etc. When someone went "pix or stfu" they got pix. Admittedly said pix were photoshop cutout collages harvested from CCP promotional material, but the war was real to most of the folks posting in those earliest of days.
Another mostly-RP war happened between EC and Das Paragon (or the Daas.) The war had a chronology that went something like this:
- The Daas are approached by a mysterious 3rd party that alerts them to Endless Corporation's strange gate experiments.
- Endless Corporation is building "stargates to nowhere" whose properties match those described by an ancient Daas space explorer, lost centuries ago.
- The Daas become aware that Endless Corporation is a Caldari front producing bioweapons and high-end slave tech for the Amarr, represented by Sabaoth Inc, which receives regular shipments of superVitoc (Vitoc but super) and Desol-8-ION, a powerful bioweapon. It is also run by an elite of former nobodies who are suddenly rubbing shoulders with generals and senators. In addition, Endless employs slave labor provided by the Amarr. Endless Corporation becomes aware of the Daas meddling.
- Das Paragon begins attacks on EC shipping. EC retaliates by attacking the Daas facility that produces Slurbegone, a famed detoxification/anti-hangover agent that accounts for a large chunk of their economy. The attack is made up of a handful of elite EC commandos accompanied by a mob of drugged-into-stupor slaves used as a human wave assault.
- The Daas discover a shipyard where EC is having a subcontractor named Hosokawa Inc. build cruisers that can deploy bioweapons against a planetary target, and race to destroy it. They notice that while they managed to destroy the shipyards, two of the cruiser berths are empty.
- Meanwhile, Endless Corporation, whose entire upper echelon is by now under the direction of "strange voices heard not in the ear, but the mind" continues to build bizarre stargates to nowhere, including a giant version in the Heaven constellation, next to a heavily armed starbase.
- The mysterious 3rd party from the beginning alerts the Daas to the Heaven installation, and they receive distress calls from their centuries-lost explorer. The Daas assemble their greatest fleet ever, pulling defensive units away from their homeworld, Daasa, to reinforce it.
- Das Paragon arrives in Heaven in major force, to find a stargate containing a wormhole, and EC ships trying to wrench something free of the hole with tethers. Humongous Into-The-Fire-esque fleet battle ensues, containing highlights such as minefields, and a suicide-badger loaded with explosives ramming a Das Paragon titan. The Daas succeed in rescuing their long-lost scientist from EC's clutches, who in his dying breaths reveals that he has found a place inhabited by people "like Jove... but dark." The scientist also reveals that these "Dark Jovians" are in full control of EC, using them as puppets to enact some bizarre alien plot.
- The Daas pay a horrible price for their newfound knowledge. The two EC bioweapon ships are detected descending into the atmosphere of Daasa. The fleet overheats their drives to return home, but by the time they do, the EC cruisers have poisoned Daasa. (This is the deployment of bioweapons I refer to in my CONCORD fact sheet, by the way.)
This was all in pre-alpha/beta. It happened via dozens of illustrated forum posts, a written saga spanning dozens of pages, and talked about strange dark Jovians who live in wormholes YEARS before we heard the term "Sleepers." We didn't bother to strictly adhere to PF, and I dare say we ended up creating some instead. Modern day's tendency for people to go "pix or stfu" and require in-game proof for actions committed is suffocating the hell out of the RP community, because RPers are not often movers and shakers. Good RP shouldn't exclusively require a list of in-game achievements to back it up.
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Out of interest, how did you represent the mysterious construction(s) in the game world itself? Did you use actual stargates/construction models, or improvise with a handwaved understanding?
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Good points Merdaneth, an alternate view I hadn't considered. I never really approached this game as a tiny person when playing Istvaan, it was always king and kingmaker..... but if you give me that new player, I can turn him into an apex predator with a bit of advice and a few months' training time
That was partially my point. If you are a king or kingmaker, who are your subjects? Surely those masses of peasants are other capsuleers.
Even your apex predator needs lots of prey. And who does he prey on? Capsuleers....
Most capsuleers are peasants and prey, only a very few are kings, kingmakers or apex predators. Only these few might feel godlike, while the masses would feel anything but. When RP-ing it makes sense that only a few would RP like Gods, and most would RP about more small-minded stuff. This is even apart from the Concord-factor.
Killing another in high-sec and making a profit is smart. Killing another and being able to evade Concord without anyone else knowing how you did it: that would be Godlike.
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Is this thread Istvaan's response to another Alexander moment ("... he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer") as he tries to nudge us into being worth attacking?
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Out of interest, how did you represent the mysterious construction(s) in the game world itself? Did you use actual stargates/construction models, or improvise with a handwaved understanding?
Plenty of handwavium and unobtainium were alloyed during this process into a substance I call badassfictionium.
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From my perspective, when I became involved in EVE RP, transhumanist amoral godlike Capsuleers seemed the norm. By trying to humanise my characters, I wanted to try and do something different. I also think its significantly more interesting to RP flawed humans with the aptitude for something more than great and terrible gods. The only way Mammal wants to be more godlike is to become an Idama.
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Hey yeah... come to think of it, there *was* more of that stuff earlier into Eve's lifetime. Perhaps that's what I miss. :|
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It was mentioned before, but basically the kind of ammoral, inhuman, "uncaring god" kind of characters are basically the non-RPing players out there. And theyre certainly the norm.
They speak in weird gibberish. They throw themselves at each other, spending untold fortuntes in warships and losing the lives of untold millions, for nothing more than pride and electronicly recorded trophies. They collect the corpses of their enemies as a hobby. Local comms chatter is filled with insults and taunts the second two rivals appear in the same system. Massive capital fleets wait in the dark, sending out small frigates like hunting hounds, simply for the chance to find an unsuspecting fleet or even lone ship to drop upon.
When an Incursion erupts in high sec, what do these inhuman monsters do? Do they quickly and efficiently remove the threat to the space lines and the system? Of course not, these inhuman bastards farm the Sansha for as much CONCORD bounty as they can squeeze out of it.
I mean, we could RP all of this, but really, why? From the eyes of an IC character, non-RP players are doing a fine job of being inhuman monsters.
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Very, very true.
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For me, the annoying thing about pretty much every MMO is that you play THE MIGHTY HERO, which would be great except for the fact everyone else is also THE MIGHTY HERO.
A world where everyone is THE MIGHTY HERO ends up like this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfzm9dfqBw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfzm9dfqBw)
Eve isn't like that, because the game doesn't make you or anyone else The Big Cheese, it's down to you whether or not that happens - and that means that there be little guys as well as movers and shakers.
I want to see less words-only squabbles on IGS. I want to see more IGS posters responding to a slight or slander by OBLITERATING THE POPULATION OF A PLANET.
Aritcio Kor-Azor tried doing just that. It didn't end well for him.
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Frankly, I think the godliness depiction has faded and faded and we now should accept that the picture painted in a chron such as Xenocracy, is half accurate at best.
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It was mentioned before, but basically the kind of ammoral, inhuman, "uncaring god" kind of characters are basically the non-RPing players out there. And theyre certainly the norm.
Nice way of looking at it!
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... and most of y'all act like the cast of Friends.
Exactly reason I don't roleplay(immerse) much anymore. There was once a time that wars, chaos and destruction was part of IGS. Now its all philosophical discussions and those who should be enemies going to any lengths to destroy each other playing at tea parties. Yawn....
I think possibly because the early roleplayers were born and bread in games like Eve/UO. Many now come from WoW and other fluffy games.
:bash:
Eve is very stale right now in terms of roleplay. Don't worry, I'll close the door behind me. :D
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... Ye of little faith.
Seriously, all the old timers bitching about RP being boring and too much fluffy cuddles should harden up and help fix it.
As a number of people will attest, I am currently trying to antagonize and create some epic conflict RP currently as seemingly very few people left want to.
Also, in regards to the Godlike argument, my take on it is simply that, for my character, his development has taken a few years and several powerful events to drive him to the point where his faith in humanity in general has been mostly destroyed and those few friends he has left helps him maintain some form of humanity. BUT he has now taken to that aloof and superior world view of being immortal, and that things that simply aren't worthy of his time simply get ignored, or shot.
But in general, yes there is a lot of people who RP what we could call 'soft' but that's simply human nature, to RP a credible person in EVE you need to go against your nature (for most of us) to such a point that its often uncomfortable.
It certainly doesn't help that EVE seems to have lost, for me at least, its shine of a "Gritty dark, bitter and dangerous" which creates such characters.
Again, I would mention that if we simply lament the loss of such depth in our characters it will simply fade into the shadows, the best way to help is simply get out there in the public and be something, do something, create stuff and get energy into our community IN GAME, IGS, wars, public events, etc. will all help at building our world up again after it was hammered by CCP's previous inneptitude and untill they seriously put effort in to the storyline its up to us to make it work.
u
/end rant
P.S. Istvaan, you're a drunk madman but never stop posting :P
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... Ye of little faith.
Seriously, all the old timers bitching about RP being boring and too much fluffy cuddles should harden up and help fix it.
As a number of people will attest, I am currently trying to antagonize and create some epic conflict RP currently as seemingly very few people left want to.
The main issue when old timers like us try to "antagonize", they quickly end up being the public enemy number 1 to be shot down. And I am not even trying to speak about the average evil mustache twirling bad guy. This issue lies in the fact that this same people going into tea parties and fluffy social RP, complimenting each other at any time, tend to form a solid and compact group of people that now tends to constitutes the majority, the masse. When us old timers try to antagonize, often alone, the risk of being ICly ostracized is very high and you always have to play on the razor's edge. Another issue arises when you start to get the idea to gather other old timers that want to antagonize too : often, since they want to antagonize and are part of other factions, they just can't support your views to prevent that problem to happen. And the last issue is that by simply thinking like this, you insert a lot of OOC thinking behind something that should remain IC.
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*working on these things*
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... Ye of little faith.
Seriously, all the old timers bitching about RP being boring and too much fluffy cuddles should harden up and help fix it.
As a number of people will attest, I am currently trying to antagonize and create some epic conflict RP currently as seemingly very few people left want to.
The main issue when old timers like us try to "antagonize", they quickly end up being the public enemy number 1 to be shot down. And I am not even trying to speak about the average evil mustache twirling bad guy. This issue lies in the fact that this same people going into tea parties and fluffy social RP, complimenting each other at any time, tend to form a solid and compact group of people that now tends to constitutes the majority, the masse. When us old timers try to antagonize, often alone, the risk of being ICly ostracized is very high and you always have to play on the razor's edge. Another issue arises when you start to get the idea to gather other old timers that want to antagonize too : often, since they want to antagonize and are part of other factions, they just can't support your views to prevent that problem to happen. And the last issue is that by simply thinking like this, you insert a lot of OOC thinking behind something that should remain IC.
Lyn, first off - your replies are so hard to read D: Walls of text, but anyway back to the reply.
I would like to think that, while you make points that are certainly valid they don't have to remain so.
I would probably consider myself at least part of that 'mass' and have in part been part of hating on certain idealistic elements in the past, however I certainly don't want to ostracize anyone any more as we are so thin on the ground.
Perhaps the issues then, are on the methods of 'antagonizing' if you will, the way I am trying to create some RP is by creating a mutual understanding OOC before creating IC shenanigans, so instead of just declaring war and being a doosh on the IGS, talking to your opponent first and saying "Hey look, would you be up for (idea)?" so there is less but-hurt when suddenly you rain on their parade.
As for breaking the mold of group mentality, being able to perhaps find a mutual ground and reasonable elements to break the casing, if you will.
As for being part of a faction, that shouldn't be a deterant for RP, if the person is at least decent and most people here on backstage are then again, being able to find something to work together on isn't impossible even if your IC views are totally opposite, if your issue is an OOC one then sorry its probably not worth looking in that area for RP anyway.
So essentially what I am saying is that the bar seems to be the unwillingness for people to talk, OOC/IC whatever and come to a common ground to collaboratively create things so I again reiterate my view of the problem being US.
So, get off your bitter-vet pedestals and if your complaining look at what you could possibly do to create something, and yes I AM a bitter-vet so I can talk as I am trying to move myself out of a place where I was content to bitch to one where I am actively trying to build stuff to do.
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Maybe I'm one of the few here, but I have to wonder what happens when you don't want to be god or godlike. Maybe I've burnt myself out by playing one too many heroes in other games, but what interests me these days is not the guy who's the hero, but who's the everyday joe.
If there are others like me, what are we to do around all the Gods? Just serve because we don't want to be you? Or are we in the wrong game again?
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Maybe I'm one of the few here, but I have to wonder what happens when you don't want to be god or godlike. Maybe I've burnt myself out by playing one too many heroes in other games, but what interests me these days is not the guy who's the hero, but who's the everyday joe.
If there are others like me, what are we to do around all the Gods? Just serve because we don't want to be you? Or are we in the wrong game again?
The 'gods' are not gods at all. They are petty, self-decieving fools with delusions of greatness clouding their vision. There are thousands more like them, each the same as the last, each the same as the next. Petty. Egotistical. Self-absorbed. Worthless.
Their only danger lies in direct challenge for the unweary and clueless - ignoring them and making yourself invisible is your greatest asset - they can't see what they don't care with and they don't care with those who are well out of their way - their are to many of their compatriots in-line for thier anger.
Let them have their squables and petty conflicts of minds and ships; while they waste their time plotting the ends of each other, you work undisturbed, in peace, dealing with your things.
... so yeah, even from an IC pow there are plenty of ways you can marginalize the effects of those you don't agree with, IC or OOC. "A god am I" toons might think themselves superior to your toon, but why should yours care, long as they are not in his/her/it's way? Cluster's huge and you should have the space to keep them out of your hair.
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You can chestbeat because you're controlling a bigass starship with plenty of guns, or you can consider that for all the fame and power you have, you owe it mostly to being a genetic freak and therefore usable as a glorified targeting computer. Works either way, really, and the tension field between the extremes of that scale is where, in my opinion, the interesting stuff happens.
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... Ye of little faith.
Seriously, all the old timers bitching about RP being boring and too much fluffy cuddles should harden up and help fix it.
As a number of people will attest, I am currently trying to antagonize and create some epic conflict RP currently as seemingly very few people left want to.
The main issue when old timers like us try to "antagonize", they quickly end up being the public enemy number 1 to be shot down. And I am not even trying to speak about the average evil mustache twirling bad guy. This issue lies in the fact that this same people going into tea parties and fluffy social RP, complimenting each other at any time, tend to form a solid and compact group of people that now tends to constitutes the majority, the masse. When us old timers try to antagonize, often alone, the risk of being ICly ostracized is very high and you always have to play on the razor's edge. Another issue arises when you start to get the idea to gather other old timers that want to antagonize too : often, since they want to antagonize and are part of other factions, they just can't support your views to prevent that problem to happen. And the last issue is that by simply thinking like this, you insert a lot of OOC thinking behind something that should remain IC.
Lyn, first off - your replies are so hard to read D: Walls of text, but anyway back to the reply.
I would like to think that, while you make points that are certainly valid they don't have to remain so.
I would probably consider myself at least part of that 'mass' and have in part been part of hating on certain idealistic elements in the past, however I certainly don't want to ostracize anyone any more as we are so thin on the ground.
Perhaps the issues then, are on the methods of 'antagonizing' if you will, the way I am trying to create some RP is by creating a mutual understanding OOC before creating IC shenanigans, so instead of just declaring war and being a doosh on the IGS, talking to your opponent first and saying "Hey look, would you be up for (idea)?" so there is less but-hurt when suddenly you rain on their parade.
As for breaking the mold of group mentality, being able to perhaps find a mutual ground and reasonable elements to break the casing, if you will.
As for being part of a faction, that shouldn't be a deterant for RP, if the person is at least decent and most people here on backstage are then again, being able to find something to work together on isn't impossible even if your IC views are totally opposite, if your issue is an OOC one then sorry its probably not worth looking in that area for RP anyway.
So essentially what I am saying is that the bar seems to be the unwillingness for people to talk, OOC/IC whatever and come to a common ground to collaboratively create things so I again reiterate my view of the problem being US.
So, get off your bitter-vet pedestals and if your complaining look at what you could possibly do to create something, and yes I AM a bitter-vet so I can talk as I am trying to move myself out of a place where I was content to bitch to one where I am actively trying to build stuff to do.
Definitly, my points are not to remain so. I merely tried to state facts that I usually face, or see, or experience.
Also, I am not especially targeting the people on backstage, but the greater RP community (the summit especially, anyone ?). The fact is that a lot of people actually WANT to play that way, and I am certainly not going to tell them to do otherwise. It just happens that it creates the incompatibilities of RP I refered above (hard to antagonize with huge and solid mass buddies supporting each others).
Ah, and sorry for my last post, I usually try to make them clearer and create numerous alineas and paragraphs. Also, I run my screen in 1980 x 1200 px, so for me, that was definitly not a wall of text...
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[ANTI PYRAMID QUOTES >_>]
Definitly, my points are not to remain so. I merely tried to state facts that I usually face, or see, or experience.
Also, I am not especially targeting the people on backstage, but the greater RP community (the summit especially, anyone ?). The fact is that a lot of people actually WANT to play that way, and I am certainly not going to tell them to do otherwise. It just happens that it creates the incompatibilities of RP I refered above (hard to antagonize with huge and solid mass buddies supporting each others).
Ah, and sorry for my last post, I usually try to make them clearer and create numerous alineas and paragraphs. Also, I run my screen in 1980 x 1200 px, so for me, that was definitly not a wall of text...
I was being a little tongue in cheek with the wall of text comment, I run a 1920x1080 as well, probably should have called it a block of text :P
And yes, I agree whole heartedly with you there, now that I know we are essentially talking about the same thing with different words :) a lot of people DO like to RP that way and as you said, who are we to tell them 'ur-doing-it-wrong' but despite that I do wish they would be more open and interesting... give me character depth! D:
Hence why I like backstage so much, the people here are numerous and with almost all factions represented in some way so most RP stories/events/shenanigans have good people to work with in our subsection of the community.
This has the benefit of being people you can enjoy the RP with and if suddenly the larger masses of other peeps want to join in? Well then suddenly we have started to fix the main issues :3
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Malcolm's a diplomat because he has to be, not because he wants to be. He understands the need for an eventual resolution to the conflict between the nations and so he works toward that resolution.
He's more than willing to blow up people along the way though... >.>
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Maybe I'm one of the few here, but I have to wonder what happens when you don't want to be god or godlike. Maybe I've burnt myself out by playing one too many heroes in other games, but what interests me these days is not the guy who's the hero, but who's the everyday joe.
If there are others like me, what are we to do around all the Gods? Just serve because we don't want to be you? Or are we in the wrong game again?
What you describe would be an ideal circumstance for RP. You are the guy who wakes up from coma in the future, it was your ship which crashed on an alien planet, you're not called Mahasamatman, you're just Sam. God's don't have a choice, you have.
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Modern day's tendency for people to go "pix or stfu" and require in-game proof for actions committed is suffocating the hell out of the RP community, because RPers are not often movers and shakers. Good RP shouldn't exclusively require a list of in-game achievements to back it up.
Agreed on all three points there - it is, we usually aren't, and it shouldn't - but what it does require is mutual respect between all involved parties and a willingness to cooperate on an OOC level (should the need arise) to make things run smoothly and enjoyably for everyone, like Math'ra said.
Unfortunately, after nearly ten years of conflict (for some, anyway), sometimes things have become too deeply ingrained to allow for that. When you consider the very real results of losing in EVE, it isn't really that surprising - you can lose years of hard work and effort, the equivalent of thousands of dollars, even, overnight or in seconds, just because of something as simple as you (or someone else with the power to) having checked the wrong box next to someone's name in the corporation management interface, something that is very hard to duplicate in other games.
I also agree with some other folks in the thread - even if we're all "demi-gods" or whatever, there's still going to be a wide range of "godliness" within that group. Personally I err towards the "slightly-above-average joe" end of the spectrum because I find it more interesting and a better use of my time - I don't really have the spare time (anymore) to even consider doing things that'd qualify as "godlike" in scope, and as I'd rather actually get things done IC than spend time planning for something I wouldn't have the means to do even if I did have the time, I stay away from that sort of thing.
Doesn't mean I'm not necessarily up for being involved in someone else's plans if it makes sense for me IC, but the odds of me trying to generate my own are fairly low. :)
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Don't forget that no matter how wealthy or powerful or elite people are, they do still suffer from the same emotional deficiencies as everyone else.
The old royalty of Europe, the Emperors of Rome, the Pharaos of Egypt, they all were jealous, scheming, and just as concerned over stupid human gossip and opinions as our capsuleers are among each other.
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Don't forget that no matter how wealthy or powerful or elite people are, they do still suffer from the same emotional deficiencies as everyone else.
They suffer from it more, since they are often at liberty to express these deficiences and not end up dead, outcast or otherwise rather quickly.
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Don't forget that no matter how wealthy or powerful or elite people are, they do still suffer from the same emotional deficiencies as everyone else.
They suffer from it more, since they are often at liberty to express these deficiences and not end up dead, outcast or otherwise rather quickly.
That's a very good point. Even less social restrictions to keep baser instincts in check. Sabik for everyone!
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I'm seeing two different--and essentially opposed--approaches here. A number of people are calling for more conflict leading to shooting things, while Isvaan's been waxing nostalgic about a quite different narrativist approach where apparently people told stories about their deeds of glory rather than actually doing them.
Couple that with even the "Moar conflict!" types wanting to negotiate their conflicts in advance (which for my EVE-RP set-of-customs is a no-no), and I'm reminded that we're playing fairly fundamentally different games.
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When Istvaan Shogaatsu is seen in New Eden, he always seems to be treated as a being who has transcended beyond simple capsuleership. He seems to be accept the role and acts accordingly. Those who are of lesser resourcefulness and tied to more mundane squabbles, tend not to challenge him as this could mean making enemies they are not prepared to face. It may get lonely up there but isn't it a part of being godlike? Isn't the boredom of gods one of the classical motivations for their interference in mortal affairs?
I think the game mechanics is working pretty well here and what is especially cool is that with fame and ability you can make people to play along, whether they are role-players or not.
If a powerful being approaches a random capsuleer, to ease the boredom, and asks what does he want, he will tell he wants to blow up those who smacked them in local, kill all their associates, kill everyone who comes after them and destroy everything in their possession. There's a strong motivation, good direction, practical implementation and built-in narrative ready. The situation will no doubt play out differently if the capsuleer being approached is not just some random pilot but someone role-playing an average joe who prioritizes friendship over personal pride or ideals.
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I'm seeing two different--and essentially opposed--approaches here. A number of people are calling for more conflict leading to shooting things, while Isvaan's been waxing nostalgic about a quite different narrativist approach where apparently people told stories about their deeds of glory rather than actually doing them.
Couple that with even the "Moar conflict!" types wanting to negotiate their conflicts in advance (which for my EVE-RP set-of-customs is a no-no), and I'm reminded that we're playing fairly fundamentally different games.
I enjoy playing to both.
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When Istvaan Shogaatsu is seen in New Eden, he always seems to be treated as a being who has transcended beyond simple capsuleership. He seems to be accept the role and acts accordingly. Those who are of lesser resourcefulness and tied to more mundane squabbles, tend not to challenge him as this could mean making enemies they are not prepared to face. It may get lonely up there but isn't it a part of being godlike? Isn't the boredom of gods one of the classical motivations for their interference in mortal affairs?
I think the game mechanics is working pretty well here and what is especially cool is that with fame and ability you can make people to play along, whether they are role-players or not.
If a powerful being approaches a random capsuleer, to ease the boredom, and asks what does he want, he will tell he wants to blow up those who smacked them in local, kill all their associates, kill everyone who comes after them and destroy everything in their possession. There's a strong motivation, good direction, practical implementation and built-in narrative ready. The situation will no doubt play out differently if the capsuleer being approached is not just some random pilot but someone role-playing an average joe who prioritizes friendship over personal pride or ideals.
I've always found it both fascinating and maddening, what we can actually accomplish through the engine and our in game friends.
There's a wild and unruly triangulation we all deal with between in game resources the veteran can bring to bear, the relative power of the target, time, energy, and effort, and possible results. I'm saying this to the point that there are very very few actual RPer 'god' types around.
In other words plenty of us are old bitter vets that can bring a lot of expensive hardware onto the fiel, but only under the right conditions. I can almost guarantee none of our vet friends are interested in permacamping and smacking around small 5 member RP corps 4 regions away for 2 weeks for getting uppity with us on the IGS.
So how much power do any of us really have?
The 'power' dynamic is always a difficult line to walk, as it intersects RPers in strange ways.
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Perhaps the issues then, are on the methods of 'antagonizing' if you will, the way I am trying to create some RP is by creating a mutual understanding OOC before creating IC shenanigans, so instead of just declaring war and being a doosh on the IGS, talking to your opponent first and saying "Hey look, would you be up for (idea)?" so there is less but-hurt when suddenly you rain on their parade.
As for breaking the mold of group mentality, being able to perhaps find a mutual ground and reasonable elements to break the casing, if you will.
As for being part of a faction, that shouldn't be a deterant for RP, if the person is at least decent and most people here on backstage are then again, being able to find something to work together on isn't impossible even if your IC views are totally opposite, if your issue is an OOC one then sorry its probably not worth looking in that area for RP anyway.
So essentially what I am saying is that the bar seems to be the unwillingness for people to talk, OOC/IC whatever and come to a common ground to collaboratively create things so I again reiterate my view of the problem being US.
A year ago there was a thread where it was asked whether it's a good idea to contact people OOC or just keep everything IC. The overwhelming response was that the more IC, the better. Would people today like IC developments to be orchestrated OOC? Would it be good to send out OOC reminders that it's all fictional and what is IC is really IC? Should one try to convince people OOC that you are a nice person in reality before starting to role-play? Should those who accept, or don't accept old-fashioned non-consensual RP mention it in their bio or character sheet so that there won't be misunderstandings?
Out of curiosity, how do you actually perform the OOC contacting in practice? Do you use the in-game OOC channel or do you send eve mails, open private convos or use the pm posting option on backstage? Do you remind people that it's just RP every time you disagree with them, or blow up their boat? Should this be done every time or just the first time it happens?
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So how much power do any of us really have?
The 'power' dynamic is always a difficult line to walk, as it intersects RPers in strange ways.
If one's opponents are immortal, have unexhaustible means of replenishing their hardware and they can choose to avoid your attentions if they so desire, then the power struggle must be fought in other arena's. The strategy of choice in EVE seems to be 'denying the opponent fun', whereas most tactics are designed to inflict a maximum of emotional agony on the player, rather than trying to affect the capsuleer.
I wouldn't know how anyone that Merdaneth would insulted would be able to 'defeat' him unless I provided them with a set of victory conditions myself.
Which, incidentally, would probably be an interesting idea to have people actually post their victory or defeat conditions. It would make them uniquely vulnerable, although many would probably be hesitant to do so. I remember Star Fraction doing so once, but the PR aftermath of that probably gave them second thoughts about doing it again.
Ah, here it is: http://www.eve-search.com/thread/1229001
However, such a thing did help to drive conflict.
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A year ago there was a thread where it was asked whether it's a good idea to contact people OOC or just keep everything IC. The overwhelming response was that the more IC, the better. Would people today like IC developments to be orchestrated OOC?
Doing it all IC is still my strong preference. But I'm aware that even in my own corp there are people who don't seem to be able to get on board with the "They're evil pirates, but they aren't necessarily scumbags IRL" and they can hold OOC grudges for some time over pirate corps that once shot at us. (Ok, so most of the pirate corps who shoot at us aren't "Roleplayers" exactly, but even so...)
I think that trying to sort it out OOC might prevent some of that, but I have no experience for how that might actually go.
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I can almost guarantee none of our vet friends are interested in permacamping and smacking around small 5 member RP corps 4 regions away for 2 weeks for getting uppity with us on the IGS.
This kind of thing happens + if you don't want to do it yourself, you can always hand over a coin to someone who is more into this kind of stuff. And even when the mouthpiece of the potential receiving end estimates the real threat level to be low, for the reason quoted, there will be people in the same organization who have a lower tolerance for risks and who will take care of the smacking part, internally. All this does create a bias to stay out of RP which is not in your league.
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I've war-decced a 25+ members corporation with a single-man corp utilizing cruisers, two BC's and one T1-named fitted BS for having one Sani-sabik member being dumb on the IGS. If a corp of high-SP high-asset 5-year player and his corp of 2 guys want to deck a 5-man RP corp for flapping their gums, IC or OOC, it may very well happen. They hold the power to inconvenience and/or blow up those 5 guys for weeks because one or more said something that, in hind-sight, was a bad idea.
If they bother to go through with it or just leave them be is another matter however. They still have the power to do it, if they please.
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My comments are generally referring to groups with vastly different 'power' levels, not groups that are remotely evenly matched or that can provide even 'good kills' to the older players. The more closely matched they are the more likely there will be in-space consequences.
IE an FC for a large null sec alliance that happens to be an RPer is going to really have to stretch his credibility and his credit with his alliance fleetmates to drag them 4 regions to camp a station looking for 3 one-year old Rpers in cruisers, follow? You can't ass 30 people to do that kind of thing very easily for long without a mutiny.
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Istvaan: Do it.
Go onto IGS, find someone who's post bothers you just barely, work your GHSC magic and when you post that gloriously smug announcement that you've ripped them off, stole half their corp's members, set up all of their deaths for the past three months and managed to scam them out of most of their personal wallet, just link to their post as the reason why. [EDIT: Yes, I know you sort of did this when Shigsy called you guys Irrelevant that one time, but Shigsy/his people didn't feel any pain over it.]
It's not a planet, but then, who cares about planets? I sure don't live on one.
...And then, the next time someone saves a planet from the Sansha, blow up it's largest population center.
I want to see less words-only squabbles on IGS. I want to see more IGS posters responding to a slight or slander by OBLITERATING THE POPULATION OF A PLANET.
Aritcio Kor-Azor tried doing just that. It didn't end well for him.
I welcome the arrival of the capsuleer who can have me re-executed a bajillion times via resurrection Meatgrinder.
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(http://i.imgur.com/0qRsO.gif)
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I welcome the arrival of the capsuleer who can have me re-executed a bajillion times via resurrection Meatgrinder.
o/ Right here buddy.
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Frankly, the I-am-untouchable-god is one of the biggest turnoffs of eve for me. You're an untouchable god? Really? Youre 1000 bajillion times smarter, richer, and more powerful than everyone else?
Then whats the point of RPing with you?
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My comments are generally referring to groups with vastly different 'power' levels, not groups that are remotely evenly matched or that can provide even 'good kills' to the older players. The more closely matched they are the more likely there will be in-space consequences.
IE an FC for a large null sec alliance that happens to be an RPer is going to really have to stretch his credibility and his credit with his alliance fleetmates to drag them 4 regions to camp a station looking for 3 one-year old Rpers in cruisers, follow? You can't ass 30 people to do that kind of thing very easily for long without a mutiny.
You will probably laugh but I did that with AM 4 years ago, we went all the way from Providence to Solitude to war dec a gallente loyalist corp, one of the remnants of Acheron Federation. They were totally overwhelmed, noobs at pvp, and we managed to lose quite dramatically due to logistics, organisation, and most of all, all our new members that were noobs too that gave them enough kills to turn the balance of the war. In the end, that was our war dec that actually made their corp live again and gave them incentives to continue playing...
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Frankly, the I-am-untouchable-god is one of the biggest turnoffs of eve for me. You're an untouchable god? Really? Youre 1000 bajillion times smarter, richer, and more powerful than everyone else?
Then whats the point of RPing with you?
Because it's relative: we play gods compared to the normals, but we all play gods.
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Frankly, the I-am-untouchable-god is one of the biggest turnoffs of eve for me. You're an untouchable god? Really? Youre 1000 bajillion times smarter, richer, and more powerful than everyone else?
Then whats the point of RPing with you?
Because it's relative: we play gods compared to the normals, but we all play gods.
Important point to take note: compared to normals. NPCs, not players.
I'm pretty sure Ava was referring to players posturing in front of other players; because the posturing tool is likely just as smart/rich/powerful as any of his/her audience (if not less due to the need to be posturing in the first place), most are going to tire of it quickly.
Especially if it's someone new to the community, or a new alt.
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+1 to MorLag
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Frankly, the I-am-untouchable-god is one of the biggest turnoffs of eve for me. You're an untouchable god? Really? Youre 1000 bajillion times smarter, richer, and more powerful than everyone else?
Then whats the point of RPing with you?
If you count out the veteran players, I actually haven't seen many of these untouchable, 1000 bajillion times richer than anyone else characters around. It might be quite an interesting change. The point of RP could be opportunism, scamming, admiration, zealotry, projection of yourself etc. It's even possible to play disbelief while accepting the premises of the other player.
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I've war-decced a 25+ members corporation with a single-man corp utilizing cruisers, two BC's and one T1-named fitted BS for having one Sani-sabik member being dumb on the IGS. If a corp of high-SP high-asset 5-year player and his corp of 2 guys want to deck a 5-man RP corp for flapping their gums, IC or OOC, it may very well happen. They hold the power to inconvenience and/or blow up those 5 guys for weeks because one or more said something that, in hind-sight, was a bad idea.
I've decced RP enemies when I was in my one-man-corp. You kill a few PvP noobs, kill a few more experience PvPers who don't know your repetoire of tricks yet, and then get either confronted with vastly superior numbers, station camping ships with enough tank for safe de-agression or, more often, simply people staying docked or moving off in separate directions in pods and whatnot.
The more experienced your opponents, the lower the odds you can inconvenience them. Vast isk reserves, use of alts, meta-game knowledge and no real need to undock to conduct one's business sort of ensure that.
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I've war-decced a 25+ members corporation with a single-man corp utilizing cruisers, two BC's and one T1-named fitted BS for having one Sani-sabik member being dumb on the IGS. If a corp of high-SP high-asset 5-year player and his corp of 2 guys want to deck a 5-man RP corp for flapping their gums, IC or OOC, it may very well happen. They hold the power to inconvenience and/or blow up those 5 guys for weeks because one or more said something that, in hind-sight, was a bad idea.
I've decced RP enemies when I was in my one-man-corp. You kill a few PvP noobs, kill a few more experience PvPers who don't know your repetoire of tricks yet, and then get either confronted with vastly superior numbers, station camping ships with enough tank for safe de-agression or, more often, simply people staying docked or moving off in separate directions in pods and whatnot.
The more experienced your opponents, the lower the odds you can inconvenience them. Vast isk reserves, use of alts, meta-game knowledge and no real need to undock to conduct one's business sort of ensure that.
Exactly my point. How we reconcile our self-perceived 'power' with the reality of not being able to do all that much to other capsuleers unless they let us... "there's the rub" as they say.
I think what we find is that reputation and respect (or fear) amongst our peers is more of a motivation than anything else (IC and OOC)
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So hire mercenaries, or infiltrators if they rarely undock. Power through ISK.
Yes, I know this is controversial for various reasons, but if one RPer hires somebody to infiltrate another corp, how the infiltrator does it is not the first RPer's concern IMO.
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In my widely recognized as humble opinion, the learning skills were the thing that turned a human into post-human/demi-god. With them removed from the game and PF the demi-god description might not be so apt anymore. :psyccp: Maybe we pick them up before graduation these days?
I suppose an argument gradual build up of skills could be the turning point. We aren't super smart or fast any longer but we still contain vast amounts of knowledge. Some of the older capsuleers probably have as much knowledge as several dozen baselines if not even reaching the triple digits.
Before a certain Amarrian CPU made out of meat starts telling me I'm doing it wrong:
Logic
SOCT Advanced intelligence training. While this training obviously is of great value to anyone, the most impressive results are achieved by students with great latent potential. These students develop an intuitive understanding of complex patterns and are able to grasp esoteric concepts with incredible ease.
Presence
SOCT Advanced social consciousness training. While this training obviously is of great value to anyone, the most impressive results are achieved by students with great latent potential. Training in this skill allows a student to develop heightened mental sensitivity, to the point of being able to sense the surface mood and emotions of a person.
Focus
SOCT Advanced self-discipline training. While this training obviously is of great value to anyone, the most impressive results are achieved by students with great latent potential. These students are able to remain focused and alert under extreme pressure, and can ignore pain and fatigue for extended periods of time.
Clarity
SOCT Advanced awareness training. While this training obviously is of great value to anyone, the most impressive results are achieved by students with great latent potential. These students develop almost superhuman sensory abilities and can react to stimuli so fast that, to the untrained eye, it almost seems as if they can predict the future.
I'd like to add that these abilities were achieved once a capsuleer had added ten points to their baseline stats, and before they added up to 50% more skill points with attribute implants. If a capsuleer could react to stimuli so fast he or she seem to be clairvoyant, how much more impressive would this superhuman ability be with a +5 Perception implant?
If the learning skills actually enchanced a character's speed, IQ etc as per the above PR then isn't unreasonable to then assume that when the character reaches level five in biology, science, neurotoxin recovery, and Nanite control that he has the knowledge a skills of a master physician? Or is master in the field of quantum physics able to write papers and perform experiments once he or she has quantum physics to level five?
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Frankly, the I-am-untouchable-god is one of the biggest turnoffs of eve for me. You're an untouchable god? Really? Youre 1000 bajillion times smarter, richer, and more powerful than everyone else?
Then whats the point of RPing with you?
Because ingame conflict is the best fuel for RP and pitting your character against an untouchable enemy, succeed or fail, is perfect story material. How boring would Starwars be without the untouchable Vader or Harry Potter without unbeatable Voldemort?
http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=245.0
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In the older days, IIRC, you begin with 8 in all scores, then you recieve so-and-so many points to assign, likely a reflection of where the more primitive training in the academies of the day went. You chose this yourself ofc so you likely had a say in what you focus your time into.
By the time you launched off for the first time the first thing a well-planned toon would do is earn up the isk for the learning skills then plug them in and spend plenty of valuable time early on training them, perhaps springled in with soem ACTUALLY useful skills to enhance ship skills, support, weapons/industry etc. Eventually your basic-level learning skills were done and later perhaps you got the more advanced ones. Then in between you would get skills for implants, and possibly working all thsi time to amass the isk needed to pay for all this - not an easy feat when your low on skillpoints and most of them are learning skills that don't help at all on more 'practical' skills. They simply cut down the time you needed for those practical skills, meaning you could be several months into your career before you even kicked off the training for the things you wanted ot do in the first place.
These days, you start off with the equivilent of the basic and advanced skills on level 5, a serious save from a huge isk, time and interest sink for the fresh players and a great time and effort saver for the up-and-coming characters, who do in fact plan to train 'more important' skills. It makes perfect sense that not only did they train you in these skills in the academies or their equal training methods to gain the same level of mental focus, to boost your stats from the "average-baseliner-standard" of 8 across the board up to an average of 18 - a boost on over 100% from the basic level - they did not even bother to list the skills in your official records.
With this in mind, the 'god-like' attributes are not removed from you just because you are saved from manually getting and training the skills, it simply means everyone is equally god-like now because they start on equal foting when it comes to intuitive learning skills.
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boost your stats from the "average-baseliner-standard" of 8 across the board up to an average of 18
After the Black Mountain chronicle, I started to wonder if in order to make the cut for capsuleer you need to have the required genetic markers, not mind-lock and have a minimum of eight in each of attributes.
With this in mind, the 'god-like' attributes are not removed from you just because you are saved from manually getting and training the skills, it simply means everyone is equally god-like now because they start on equal foting when it comes to intuitive learning skills.
That's probably the best way to handwave the change. The game, from a mechanics point of view is better off without the learning skill, I just wish somebody, anybody at CCP had realized how critically important removing them was to the Eve's fiction and had written even the tiniest IC blurb or even made a wiki article. I mean this is something vital to the nature of capsuleerdom and they either can't be assed to type out a single sentence or are so out of touch with their own story line that they didn't realize the significance.
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CCP appears to be generally out-of-touch with/don't generally give a toss about their own PF.
What else is new, I wonder.
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This seems more like a case of what's important to some RPers and what's important to others. After all, it only took a few minutes of thinking to come up with the explanation "oh now they just do it in core capsuleer training", so why worry about it?
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Just a note hellgremlin there are a few capsuleers who are actually happy to be transhumanists, and you should know that already. We don't show much up on the igs, but mostly cause we are just bored with it. This is what I posted last time I was there.
As a capsuleer we can see gamma rays, perceive x-rays, sense dark matter, feel the wind of a supernova blow over us! I can not even properly express what we as caspuleers experience to a mortal, as it is impossible to conceptualize such complex emotions and sensations in the limited language we use! But you would trap yourself in your bodies prison, to "walk on a beach." Do us all a favor and stay there with the rest of the dregs.
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There it is, that's exactly the attitude I was looking for. We are so far beyond human, and so much more, and yet our squabbles are still confined to that limited, waterlogged, bipedal omnivore scale.
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There it is, that's exactly the attitude I was looking for. We are so far beyond human, and so much more, and yet our squabbles are still confined to that limited, waterlogged, bipedal omnivore scale.
Au contraire. Without health, life, food and a home to squabble about, what is left? Give someone ultimate power and knowledge, and you'll probably find he has no reason to squabble about anything.
What do most people who have a godlike amount of wealth in our own world squabble about? If you don't need to struggle for material things or even life and health, you'll likely start to struggle for intangibles as love and respect.
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Also note that many capsuleers may be in denial about their godhood, or even locked in a bitter struggle with it. They might not want to be a god, for whatever reason.
Aldrith, for example, detests most capsuleers for their power and inhumanity, and wants nothing more than to kick their egos into the dirt until they realize they are still just stupid humans despite all the pod gives them. If Istvaan is a king and kingmaker, Aldrith is a kingslayer.
Others might just want to completely ignore thier power, either out of fear for what they might become if they take too hard a look at what they are, or because they simply like to fancy themselves as still human. Remember, most capsuleers haven't been 'living the life' for more than a few years, and very well might not be used to the concepts surrounding their position, or might not be comfortable enough with it to really examine who they have become and what they want to do. I think it's perfectly normal that many capsuleers would cling to their humanity.
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On the other hand, Aldy has god-like (goddess-like?) hair.
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Look, the gruesome threesome have already become avatars of constructed gods. Not sure I can do much more with them than that without taking them out of my little corner of the sandbox.
I'd have to make another alt.
I don't wanna make another alt.
Besides, y'all scare me.
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And sometimes Vieve you scare me becasue I've no idea what your talking about and part of me want to know. That's a horrible thought right there.
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Just a note hellgremlin there are a few capsuleers who are actually happy to be transhumanists, and you should know that already. We don't show much up on the igs, but mostly cause we are just bored with it. This is what I posted last time I was there.
As a capsuleer we can see gamma rays, perceive x-rays, sense dark matter, feel the wind of a supernova blow over us! I can not even properly express what we as caspuleers experience to a mortal, as it is impossible to conceptualize such complex emotions and sensations in the limited language we use! But you would trap yourself in your bodies prison, to "walk on a beach." Do us all a favor and stay there with the rest of the dregs.
Vendrin, do you roleplay at all these days? Is there any way to intersect with this vision of transhumanist experience apart from STUGH's whole "We are the Wild Hunt and you are either with us or our prey" angle?
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I'm reminded of something from Timothy Leary.
The twenty-first century person capsuleer is a internal cybernetic person. He or she accepts the Heisenberg principle that you create all internal realities. Therefore you're responsible for everything that you experience. This identification of yourself as a internal quantum entity certainly dissolves most of the identification chords to your former culture, your former nation, your former religion, or any other external structure, even to your family, unless family members are redefined as cybernetic entities. The internal cyber-punk, or the cybernetic person, is a free agent.
Edit mine, of course.
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And sometimes Vieve you scare me becasue I've no idea what your talking about and part of me want to know. That's a horrible thought right there.
It is particularly scary when you have an idea what she is talking about and your character(s) are referenced in the logs of her characters with different perspectives on the relationships between those characters. :eek:
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I'm reminded of something from Timothy Leary.
The twenty-first century person capsuleer is a internal cybernetic person. He or she accepts the Heisenberg principle that you create all internal realities. Therefore you're responsible for everything that you experience. This identification of yourself as a internal quantum entity certainly dissolves most of the identification chords to your former culture, your former nation, your former religion, or any other external structure, even to your family, unless family members are redefined as cybernetic entities. The internal cyber-punk, or the cybernetic person, is a free agent.
Edit mine, of course.
A question for you: I feel like it's the norm for capsuleers not to maintain ties to former culture, nation, religion, etc, and that those of us who do are the weirdos. I get the sense that some people perceive it the other way around.
Could I have some feedback on that?
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I'm excruciatingly aware of this. OOC Reasoning: It's more interesting to explore the decadence of a person who clings onto their humanity, their culture, their religion, their wars and their daily injustices into deific madness and unabridged megalomania than it is to play someone who is more readily able to realize the limits of their new lives.
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There it is, that's exactly the attitude I was looking for. We are so far beyond human, and so much more, and yet our squabbles are still confined to that limited, waterlogged, bipedal omnivore scale.
Au contraire. Without health, life, food and a home to squabble about, what is left? Give someone ultimate power and knowledge, and you'll probably find he has no reason to squabble about anything.
What do most people who have a godlike amount of wealth in our own world squabble about? If you don't need to struggle for material things or even life and health, you'll likely start to struggle for intangibles as love and respect.
Oh no! Not no squabbling! What will EVE be about if the only reason to fight is to just blow the other guy up?!
...wait...
in seriousness though, I'm hoping to address Trans humanist issues with CEMPS. I've wondered what would happen if a person realizing their Trans humanist nature would try to take the peaceful contemplative path (Buddhist, anyone?)
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"Advanced Infomorph Psychology"
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I'm reminded of something from Timothy Leary.
The twenty-first century person capsuleer is a internal cybernetic person. He or she accepts the Heisenberg principle that you create all internal realities. Therefore you're responsible for everything that you experience. This identification of yourself as a internal quantum entity certainly dissolves most of the identification chords to your former culture, your former nation, your former religion, or any other external structure, even to your family, unless family members are redefined as cybernetic entities. The internal cyber-punk, or the cybernetic person, is a free agent.
Edit mine, of course.
A question for you: I feel like it's the norm for capsuleers not to maintain ties to former culture, nation, religion, etc, and that those of us who do are the weirdos. I get the sense that some people perceive it the other way around.
Could I have some feedback on that?
I believe the eve playerbase generally represents the 'non aligned' capsuleers, the vast bulk of which aren't out fighting for the home nation, but more are free agents as you describe.
"PF" wise I think the actual majority of capsuleers are under the direct yoke of their governments, members of the military, etc.
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A question for you: I feel like it's the norm for capsuleers not to maintain ties to former culture, nation, religion, etc, and that those of us who do are the weirdos. I get the sense that some people perceive it the other way around.
Could I have some feedback on that?
So most capsuleers of the player-controlled variety clearly don't maintain a lot of factional loyalty, because they're looking at game rewards first and foremost (e.g. mission runners who want a CNR will run Caldari missions, not because they love the State, but because they want the LP). We know that many NPC capsuleers work for other factions: Roden is a capsuleer, as was Gariushi, but not Heth, and many pilots are as well. This even applies to the pirate factions.
We could make the case that many of the first type will look at loyalist capsuleers as weirdos, even among roleplayers. The best analogy that occurs to me is that these characters might be seen as the equivalent of "mamas' boys" who never move out of their parents' basements. (Please note, I'm not casting OOC aspersions here in the least, but pointing out character attitudes!) After all, these pilots have been given the most incredible gifts of freedom, immortality, and resources, and they sit at home doing the things they wanted to do before?
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Yes, there is that. And the opposing view-point is that the Faction that reared you, groomed you and GAVE YOU that amazing position, freedom and mobility in space, finances, etc. deserves some respect and assistance. You are after all, getting paid for all that work you do for them in some way or another, and most still bother to visit friends and family, because they can.
To some if not most of these, the ones that break off to do anything else might be seen as the ungrateful kind that are solely out for their own good - even if their sole good is pretty much covered as a side-effect of their work? That might be seen as the most selfish thing one could possible do, but it does fit with the 'god-like' vain arrogance some eggers display; now that they are immortal unstoppable gods, why should they care for the silly base-liners and their cheer-leader eggers?
A capsuleer's freedom is so vast that there is literally nothing stopping them. They can even turn to piracy and out-right assistance of some factions, such as the Sansha, and there will be little if any consequences from the governments that spawned them. With this in mind, most capsuleers might start believing the good-hood argument sooner rather than later.
In my opinion the disparity between the good-hodders and... what to call the other side of the divide... oh well, the other group, well it's a very good thing. It's pretty much the separation between attitudes and opinions on yet another subject; themselves. In a hot-bed of religious, political, historical, racial, ethical and social arguing and an inability to get along and agree, often with loaded weapons and constant conflict, we add yet another point of separation between capsuleers to make their lives even more turbulent, deep and sometimes disturbing.
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Godhooders and basement dwellers? ;) :P
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Just a note hellgremlin there are a few capsuleers who are actually happy to be transhumanists, and you should know that already. We don't show much up on the igs, but mostly cause we are just bored with it. This is what I posted last time I was there.
As a capsuleer we can see gamma rays, perceive x-rays, sense dark matter, feel the wind of a supernova blow over us! I can not even properly express what we as caspuleers experience to a mortal, as it is impossible to conceptualize such complex emotions and sensations in the limited language we use! But you would trap yourself in your bodies prison, to "walk on a beach." Do us all a favor and stay there with the rest of the dregs.
Vendrin, do you roleplay at all these days? Is there any way to intersect with this vision of transhumanist experience apart from STUGH's whole "We are the Wild Hunt and you are either with us or our prey" angle?
I don't really rp in EVE any more, not because I don't want to, but because I have no desire to do bar or summit rp and haven't found much opportunity to do much else. If he's invited to something and I can attend I'll be there as long as there is some kind of reason for it.
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Join any immersionist RP corp of your choice and be social with whomsoever you please. Also, a reminder;
Like all things in EVE, RP don't have to be consensual. I RP as default with some of my toons even if I speak with nearly only non-RP'ers.
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I don't even need to be in a roleplay corp to roleplay, and certainly not a full IC one. Without even counting FiS actions as RP, there are a number of avenues. BarP be damned, there's science to be done! (Or aspolosions, take your pick.)
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Just a note hellgremlin there are a few capsuleers who are actually happy to be transhumanists, and you should know that already. We don't show much up on the igs, but mostly cause we are just bored with it. This is what I posted last time I was there.
Herein lies the problem, G.
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My name is Hatele and with these simple steps (at just the low price of $5 per self-help video) I'll have you RPing like a boss in no time.
Step one: find a crowd.
Step two: RP.
Step three: RP LOUDLY.
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My name is Hatele and with these simple steps (at just the low price of $5 per self-help video) I'll have you RPing like a boss in no time.
Step one: find a crowd.
Step two: RP.
Step three: RP LOUDLY.
I think it varies. Not so keen on crowds, myself. My best roleplay has usually involved two to six players.
A few times a year we'll do something big, with 30+ people chatting away, sub-channels for tables or rooms or whatever, and things scrolling as fast as you can read, but I prefer something where you get to chat properly with a few people.
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My name is Hatele and with these simple steps (at just the low price of $5 per self-help video) I'll have you RPing like a boss in no time.
Step one: find a crowd.
Step two: RP.
Step three: RP LOUDLY.
I think it varies. Not so keen on crowds, myself. My best roleplay has usually involved two to six players.
A few times a year we'll do something big, with 30+ people chatting away, sub-channels for tables or rooms or whatever, and things scrolling as fast as you can read, but I prefer something where you get to chat properly with a few people.
I don't think Hatele was being serious, Mata. :lol:
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I dunno, given that Halete-c does just that. >_>
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Honestly, if Capsuleers were to be truly Godlike, they would just do what they do and not be bothered to talk/brag about it. Which means, no IGS posting, because honestly, they've got Empires in Space to run.
Or, you know, they'd talk through intermediaries. The true "Gods" would be so aloof as to be very nearly invisible. Not only that, but they'd have the power to smite anyone who happened to catch sight of them.
So yeah. There's only a few who would match that description. "Demigod" matches more closely. As in, not quite a God, a little better than mortals (Capsuleers really only have immortality and immense power through ships; they do still die though). Not enough power to actually change the world.
Capsuleers not godlike enough? I'd say that's quite an overstatement of the actual power wielded by Capsuleers.Like all things in EVE, RP don't have to be consensual. I RP as default with some of my toons even if I speak with nearly only non-RP'ers.
Also, this.
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Hmm. Perhaps the god-power of capsuleers will be allowed greater demonstration once Dust has been out and worked on for a few years. I really want to see a planet-shattering dreadnought barrage, or the effects of a doomsday weapon targeted at a planet.
We have the power to end worlds, we just need the pixels to enact it somehow.
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Hmm. Perhaps the god-power of capsuleers will be allowed greater demonstration once Dust has been out and worked on for a few years. I really want to see a planet-shattering dreadnought barrage, or the effects of a doomsday weapon targeted at a planet.
We have the power to end worlds, we just need the pixels to enact it somehow.
Actually, we don't. IIRC there is a CONCORD-made block in our Capsuleer software (game mechanic limitation :P) preventing us from even being able to target planets, let alone warp in close enough to be able to pin-point specific locations we want to fire at. I believe this is actually written somewhere from an IC-PF pow, but I can't recall where OR if it's entirely correct.
If there were not, players would have shelled every planet to hell by now. If not anyone of us, then the sub-humans folks in Goonswarm.
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Isvaan, while many things could change with time, the DUST demos actually made planetary bombardment seem rather puny.
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Isvaan, while many things could change with time, the DUST demos actually made planetary bombardment seem rather puny.
Seems like the new planetary bombardment weapons are deliberately pitiful - probably due to the requirement of getting the shot through the atmosphere. Although we've also only seen battleships shooting, not dreads.
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Oh, I was more referring to the 'lack of opportunities to RP' on the previous page than making a general statement about how one should RP. I think it's perfectly agreeable to RP in more personal groups.
Back on topic:
I have to disagree with Echo's assessment, but hey, that's personal opinion.
I think we're just more or less exploring what it means to be a Capsuleer right now - but I think the potential for immense, even godlike power is there. And who is to say that a God can't conduct themself how they like? If Hatele shows up as a swan in-character and impregnates a baseliner, that's my prerogative.
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I think we're just more or less exploring what it means to be a Capsuleer right now - but I think the potential for immense, even godlike power is there. And who is to say that a God can't conduct themself how they like? If Hatele shows up as a swan in-character and impregnates a baseliner, that's my prerogative.
Which reminds me...
Once upon a time one of my alliance-mates was quite keen to hunt a certain red-to-us alliance, and maybe drop a dec on it, over unpaid child support.
It took a bit of quick talking to insist that it wasn't like that, really.
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It sounds like your alliance-pal was exercising the influence and prestige that comes with being an egger wisely.
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Spotting a possible casus belli with an alliance she disliked, more like it. :)
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When I would pull off a Goonswarm LP scam, then I would feel godlike.
You can feel godlike in EVE if you manage to manipulate your fellow capsuleers or you can game the (Concord) system.
Having a Titan wouldn't make you feel godlike. being able to fire your guns at a planet despite Concord regulations would make you feel this way. Finding a way to jump and fight with that Titan in high-sec would make you feel that way.
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I think people in EVE have a serious misunderstanding on what it is like to be a god, or have godlike power.
Basically there are four kinds of gods in all mythologies:
-Linked to an aspect of everyday life.
-Linked to an aspect of a special time in a life.
-Linked to an aspect of the world that people live in.
-Tricksters.
All gods have control over the aspect they are connected to.
All gods are limited by strict rules of conduct.
All gods have absolute power over the aspect they are connected to.
All gods are fallible.
Except tricksters.
They can do whatever they want.
They can be as powerful as they want.
They can be everything that they want.
Except stop being tricksters.
To be a god has nothing to do with superior abilities.
Or immortality.
Or your power level being over nine thousand.
It is about creation and ultimate control over what you have created.
A god is worshipped for that control, because you control everything connected to that aspect of the life of a regular person.
By worshipping a god a person can gain your favor and hopefully you grant them some of that control that you have.
Capsuleers and gods have nothing in common.
Capsuleers and demi-gods have very little in common except for the fact that they tend to gravitate towards being archetypes of people instead of being real persons.
You could argue that the capsuleers are gods because they create the ships that they fly and determine the ultimate fate of those things that they create in their wars against each other and whatnot.
So do little children in their sandboxes.
So please stop abusing the concept of godhood.
Pretty please.
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Ok, so they aren't god-like when you use the definition that suits certain pantheon-style polytheistic systems.
However, in many systems the god or gods are portrayed as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and such. While we as capsuleers may not actually be those things (CONCORD make go boom!) there is certainly a case to be made for getting to a point where one might be deluded into thinking so.
Hell, it happens in real life as a result of various psychological disorders. With capsuleers, rather than a major psychotic break all you'd need is a slightly exaggerated sense of worth/ability in order to start believing oneself so mightily powerful.
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According to my mythological knowledge there is only one omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and such god in the world.
That's the Hebrew god.
Who, according to holy texts written by his followers, has gimped himself into oblivion since old testament and has not done anything in the past 2k years.
Making even that god slip into the godly archetypes I mentioned earlier.
EDIT: Clarifying things.
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[mod]Let's please avoid turning this into a RL religious debate. Thank you in advance.[/mod]
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Necroing because I like the OP. Why limit ourselves to what game mechanics allow? Why not RP something a little more 'unf.'
I did it and..honestly it was fun (evil but fun).
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Necroing because I like the OP. Why limit ourselves to what game mechanics allow? Why not RP something a little more 'unf.'
I did it and..honestly it was fun (evil but fun).
Soon.
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I would have fewer issues believing in the godhood of Capsuleers if most of what we do wasn't so godsdamn MUNDANE.
Space Trucker. Space Miner. Mission Running. Faction War.
It's all very low level stuff. The number of people who are true Empyrean style movers and shakers? Very minimal.
CCP has cut us off from interaction with real folks, so we can only be compared to other Empyreans in our interaction.
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I would have fewer issues believing in the godhood of Capsuleers if most of what we do wasn't so godsdamn MUNDANE.
Space Trucker. Space Miner. Mission Running. Faction War.
It's all very low level stuff. The number of people who are true Empyrean style movers and shakers? Very minimal.
CCP has cut us off from interaction with real folks, so we can only be compared to other Empyreans in our interaction.
... movers and shakers... have meetings.
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I would have fewer issues believing in the godhood of Capsuleers if most of what we do wasn't so godsdamn MUNDANE.
Space Trucker. Space Miner. Mission Running. Faction War.
It's all very low level stuff. The number of people who are true Empyrean style movers and shakers? Very minimal.
CCP has cut us off from interaction with real folks, so we can only be compared to other Empyreans in our interaction.
... movers and shakers... have meetings.
I do have to agree with Pieter on this. The actual impact that we have appears to be fairly limited in scope; yes, we can do worldbuilding and little story arcs of our own, but at the end of the day, we have next to no actual impact upon the Nations. At least as far as I can tell.
Faction War, to me, feels very much like a ploy by CONCORD to keep aggressive capsuleers busy shooting up their own stuff in zones that are really of low interest to the nations involved.
Outside of that, we can attack each other where it hurts (the wallet by blowing up the nice shiny ships we fly) or by messing around with mission sanctioned NPC ships in deadspace.
At the end of the day, we might have phenomenal cosmic power, we are constrained into an itty-bitty living space.
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At the end of the day, we might have phenomenal cosmic power, we are constrained into an itty-bitty living space.
Can we not have the parrot though? The parrot is annoying.
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I would have fewer issues believing in the godhood of Capsuleers if most of what we do wasn't so godsdamn MUNDANE.
Space Trucker. Space Miner. Mission Running. Faction War.
It's all very low level stuff. The number of people who are true Empyrean style movers and shakers? Very minimal.
CCP has cut us off from interaction with real folks, so we can only be compared to other Empyreans in our interaction.
... movers and shakers... have meetings.
I do have to agree with Pieter on this. The actual impact that we have appears to be fairly limited in scope; yes, we can do worldbuilding and little story arcs of our own, but at the end of the day, we have next to no actual impact upon the Nations. At least as far as I can tell.
Faction War, to me, feels very much like a ploy by CONCORD to keep aggressive capsuleers busy shooting up their own stuff in zones that are really of low interest to the nations involved.
Outside of that, we can attack each other where it hurts (the wallet by blowing up the nice shiny ships we fly) or by messing around with mission sanctioned NPC ships in deadspace.
At the end of the day, we might have phenomenal cosmic power, we are constrained into an itty-bitty living space.
The scope and frequency of dev events involving capsuleers moves this concept both ways on the pendulum. Sometimes capsuleers are directly involved and responsible for serious PF biz-ness, and sometimes we don't affect the greater fictional world at all for some time.
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So my attempt at RPing someone with the gift of immortality (in so far as technology allows me it) is to meditate on what it is to be human, where that technology might take humanity and how best to capitalise on the benefits of that journey while minimising the risks. That's a personal thing and so it doesn't often come out overtly in the RP I get to do. I hope that, in some way, it comes out in the IGS posts I make from time to time but I think it all too often gets drowned out in cross-factional derp.
I'm going to put this out there - props to people like Saede, Tiberious and Evi (and others within the TS-F crew), Ninavask, Yuni, all the digital consciousness/infomorph types, Jade and Cosmo from years ago, Istvaan and the GHSC/Endless Corp, Shintoko and others - for trying to push that transhuman agenda out into RP. Because without their efforts my character would be a whole lot more two dimensional than he is even now.
I like the idea of being a 'someone' in the universe - someone who has the time, resources and firepower to try and drag humanity into its next era of evolution. I like considering what the sacrifices will need to be and which ones I'm happy to live with and which ones I'm not. I like examining why I'm not happy living with some. And to some extent I like putting a plan together, starting it up and seeing how the experiment plays out with the lives of all those 'smaller people'1 it intersects with.
To me, those things are god-like enough because let's face it ... in the grimdark of EVE if you've got the time to put your mind to those things while also using it to pilot a ship you're probably not struggling to scrap an existence together out of whatever minimum-wage/subsistence society everyone else is struggling with.
1 'Smaller people' - like baseliners - relative to my character in game :)
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What Ollie said.
Though it is hard to see Ari as transhumanist for most, as she usualy appears for all intents and purposes to be the usual proper god fearing Amarrian or your average indy space blue collar worker at times, that factors in quite a bit for her, and always did even before I rped in eve, when I was just writing fiction for the eve portal.
I oddly find nothing mundane at all about being space trucker or space miner. Eve always is to me a mindest of the immense depth and beauty of space, the glory of being among the stars, the sense of intricate connection with a starship. Yes, even if its top speed us somewhere in the 60 to 80 meters per second range and it chews spacerocks as its most violent act.
Then again Im weird.
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+1 to Ollie.
As some of you might have guessed from the recent TS-F thread on IGS, Reppy's actually started pondering transhumanist matters herself, so this thread has a special significance for me now. Have to see how things go in that regard, the arc could go a lot of different ways.
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With all due respect, your thread on the IGS doesn't come across as "I want to learn about trans-humanity".
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Well, it came across as Khanid Holder wants to know... ;)
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With all due respect, your thread on the IGS doesn't come across as "I want to learn about trans-humanity".
It was a lead-in. And she did/does actually want to learn more about the Sansha mentality.
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My, and I think a lot of other TS-F's interpretation was that you were trolling. Certainly there was nothing there that actually warranted an actual conversation among equals.
v0v
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Shansha aren't trans-human, they are in-human. <,<
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My, and I think a lot of other TS-F's interpretation was that you were trolling. Certainly there was nothing there that actually warranted an actual conversation among equals.
v0v
Trust me, I'd have been a lot less polite if I was trolling. I even avoided the old 'Toaster' standby :P Even though the thread was pretty much a failure, she's also sticking by her promise to not stick her oar in or join in the waves of hate beginning to descend.
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Yeah, I pretty much decided to one-post it due to the on coming hate storm :P.
I was pretty wary of the thread myself, but it did give me the chance to put out there the fact that we are 'followers' of the sansha ideology, so analysis beyond our personal situations isn't really going to be much use for anything other than use as a weapon to strengthen the stand point of the questioner - hence our general 'don't bother, just get on getting on' mentality.
That and some randoms who like to shit up threads with sansha in them claiming that sansha shit up threads ;).
It's a pretty sensitive topic in general, but private communication will yield surprising results with regards to depth of conversation - the IGS and Summit are just terrible echo-chambers, when regarding factional politics and ideology, that I (and I think I can go so far as to say We in TS-F) have little interest in beyond the most basic surface interaction.
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Yeah, I pretty much decided to one-post it due to the on coming hate storm :P.
I was pretty wary of the thread myself, but it did give me the chance to put out there the fact that we are 'followers' of the sansha ideology, so analysis beyond our personal situations isn't really going to be much use for anything other than use as a weapon to strengthen the stand point of the questioner - hence our general 'don't bother, just get on getting on' mentality.
That and some randoms who like to shit up threads with sansha in them claiming that sansha shit up threads ;).
It's a pretty sensitive topic in general, but private communication will yield surprising results with regards to depth of conversation - the IGS and Summit are just terrible echo-chambers, when regarding factional politics and ideology, that I (and I think I can go so far as to say We in TS-F) have little interest in beyond the most basic surface interaction.
That was pretty much Khara's line when I was chatting with him about it. Still, needed to go through the motions with Reppy. She's rather blunt and not terribly bright sometimes :P
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With all due respect, your thread on the IGS doesn't come across as "I want to learn about trans-humanity".
It was a lead-in. And she did/does actually want to learn more about the Sansha mentality.
There is many different kinds of transhumanists...
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I together with my character has a bit not standard point of view to this transhumanity, the core of this view, is that we are still mortal, but made to believe in our immortality so we wouldn't be afraid of death, and can be used for dangerous missions, like extracting stuff from wormholes, fighting wars instead of navies, etc.
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That and some randoms who like to shit up threads with sansha in them claiming that sansha shit up threads ;).
To be fair, the impression I get is that both sides shit up threads. Sometimes the instigator is someone smacktalking the Nation loyalists, inviting you guys to respond. Sometimes it's the other way around, and it's a Nation loyalist posting what might be considered the 'standard Smugsha's Nation line' instigating a harsh response from everyone else.
It happens with most threads where some 'villain' is involved or one can be drawn up, ofc. Any thread Diana gets involved in (or where someone can use her as a comparison), pretty much each and every Amarr/Minmatar thread ever, etc. - just as examples.
We're all guilty of that, really. Nobody's clean or has farts that smell of roses on the IGS. The only way to have that is to never post, ever. :p
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There is many different kinds of transhumanists...
I know this wasn't your point and that you probably realise it already, but that's exactly why there's been 10 pages of posts on this so far and also why good debate revolving around key concepts and controversies about transhumanism is a great stimulus for EVE RP (grimdark or otherwise).
I together with my character has a bit not standard point of view to this transhumanity, the core of this view, is that we are still mortal, but made to believe in our immortality so we wouldn't be afraid of death, and can be used for dangerous missions, like extracting stuff from wormholes, fighting wars instead of navies, etc.
Given that deconstructing the concept of god with respect to how we deal with our own mortality is what some transhumanists spend a good deal of their time trying to reason out, I don't think your view is 'not standard' at all - it is however a somewhat unique take on 'gods in the pods' from what I've seen in the game. The idea that someone's created an immortal to do all the things the mortal power player NPCs no longer want to risk themselves or their people with and now find themselves struggling with physical and idiological strategies to contain their creations is interesting. It casts your character in an entirely different light for me.
That and some randoms who like to shit up threads with sansha in them claiming that sansha shit up threads ;).
To be fair, the impression I get is that both sides shit up threads. Sometimes the instigator is someone smacktalking the Nation loyalists, inviting you guys to respond. Sometimes it's the other way around, and it's a Nation loyalist posting what might be considered the 'standard Smugsha's Nation line' instigating a harsh response from everyone else.
It happens with most threads where some 'villain' is involved or one can be drawn up, ofc.
Morwen's on the right track here I think, particularly with that last sentence. Someone shows up in black (or even dark grey) twirling the first strands of a proto-moustache and they're automatically targetted. :) Shortly thereafter the thread vanishes in a sea of derp, ad hominem and strawman back and forth.
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In all CCP storyline we've been described, generally, as aloof demigods who care not a whit about their crew, or humanity at large. We're unbound Ids and Egos. We have access to every pleasure, every sensation, every tidbit of information we could possibly desire...
... and most of y'all act like the cast of Friends.
Guilty as charged.
But I enjoy playing one of the Friends peeps (I never saw this show, so I'm responding to more to a generic sitcom) more than I do an aloof demigod. Even if I tried, I suspect my attempts would come off as unrealistic for the majority of players I interact with.
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I have been playing Vampire:The Masquerade - Bloodlines recently, and something seems somewhat relevant:
"Humanity:
Humanity is a moral code that allows Kindred to retain their mortal sensibilities in the face of their transformation in to parasitic monsters. In essence, it is what keeps a vampire from becoming a mindless animal, enslaved by their thirst for blood."
substitute capsuleer for vampire into this kind of thing, and stuff makes a whole lot more sense :O
It was not for merchant shipping that capsuleers were developed. Mining barges and transports do not need a captain that can react at the speed of thought. Instead, it is for ships of war.
And warships, need someone to fight.
So, some capsuleers try to hold onto their "humanity", to slow/stop the slide into becoming a weaponised brain that is chained by its need to fight.
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In response to the original post - Andreus Ixiris may indeed be an immortal, but he's an immortal human being. The nature of his existence may have changed, but his perspective hasn't. In fact, I'm a strong believer in the idea of powerful abnormality (having superpowers, being nano-augmented, being immortal, etc.) really just making you more like who you already are.
Becoming a capsuleer doesn't automatically change your perspective. You don't come into being as a capsuleer with an innate understanding of how to deal with never having to die and what that entails. Hell, the longest-running independent capsuleers in New Eden have been around just over ten years now. The vast majority of us haven't actually lived longer than normal human beings - we're just significantly more resistant to staying dead when people kill us - so no-one is at the stage where they can realistically claim to be thousands (or even hundreds) of years old. No-one has been able to develop the same perspective on life that D&D elves and dragons have (wait a decade or two and see if the problem is still there). In point of fact we've fit more life into a single ten-year span than most D&D elves can manage into their entire seven-hundred-year lives.
Ten years in New Eden has seen the rise and fall of hundreds of political figures and dozens of mighty empires, unlikely alliances, earth-shattering wars, murders, thefts, betrayals, oaths of revenge, sickening acts of evil and perversity, awe-inspiring acts of generosity and kindness, unbelievable feats of courage, skill or outright luck - and all of these things are so, so brilliantly human. More like gods than men? Fuck no, if anything I think we as capsuleers are priviledged to be given the opportunity to be more human than anyone walking around on a planet could ever hope to be until the advent of the DUST implant.
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I have been playing Vampire:The Masquerade - Bloodlines recently, and something seems somewhat relevant:
"Humanity:
Humanity is a moral code that allows Kindred to retain their mortal sensibilities in the face of their transformation in to parasitic monsters. In essence, it is what keeps a vampire from becoming a mindless animal, enslaved by their thirst for blood."
substitute capsuleer for vampire into this kind of thing, and stuff makes a whole lot more sense :O
It was not for merchant shipping that capsuleers were developed. Mining barges and transports do not need a captain that can react at the speed of thought. Instead, it is for ships of war.
And warships, need someone to fight.
So, some capsuleers try to hold onto their "humanity", to slow/stop the slide into becoming a weaponised brain that is chained by its need to fight.
Vampire the Masquerade also has alternative routes of morality called the Paths, of which some are very inhumane but represent a very different set of 'moral guidelines' which keeps the mindless monster at bay.
Some capsuleers might adapt to those such as Path of Kings, Path of Night and even Path of Typhon and transhumanists sort of Path of Metamorphosis to guide them along immortality to keep them sane on some level.
http://wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Paths_of_Enlightenment_(Vampire:_The_Masquerade)
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I think "functional" is the word you're looking for, Vince. "Keep them functional" rather than "keep them sane."
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Minor nitpick to Andreus' post:
Many Amarr holders live beyond the average human lifespan using implants, and it isn't unheard of for some to live hundreds of years. Indeed, the lifespan of humans has probably increased to around 100 years old thanks to New Eden's medical tech.
Just because we've only been immortal for 10 years doesn't mean we're all ten year olds. :)
Not that my character is any example. She's not even 30 yet.
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I think "functional" is the word you're looking for, Vince. "Keep them functional" rather than "keep them sane."
Right you are my friend, right you are.
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Many Amarr holders live beyond the average human lifespan using implants, and it isn't unheard of for some to live hundreds of years. Indeed, the lifespan of humans has probably increased to around 100 years old thanks to New Eden's medical tech.
Just because we've only been immortal for 10 years doesn't mean we're all ten year olds. :)
Granted, but my general point was that none of us can claim to be anything close to a time abyss (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeAbyss) which is where immortality really starts to kick in. There is no player-controlled capsuleer who's old enough to be a product of a culture - or, hell, even a zeitgeist - which no longer exists. Sure, there might be Holder capsuleers who may be several centuries old, but Amarrian culture is very, very slow to change, and the presence of a quasi-ageless ruling class that lives for centuries would cement that ponderousness. In addition, Holders living for centuries due to implants is something that's been in their society for at least a thousand years, probably longer, and so it's pretty likely that their culture would teach them and those around them how to deal with it.
No-one - and I mean no-one - in the capsuleer community has any legitimate right to bemoan the arduous nature of eternity. Our characters may not be ten-year-olds, no, but none of them have experienced even a miniscule fraction of their possible lifespans (and due to the fact that their continued existence is dependent on real life puppeteers who regretably don't share their lifespan, they likely never will). The only thing that really seperates them from normal humans is their resilience to death (in certain circumstances) and their efficiency as starship pilots.
I've realised recently that I don't really believe in "capsuleer psychosis." Capsuleers who are sadistic, arbitrary cuntbags were always sadistic, arbitrary cuntbags - becoming a capsuleer didn't turn them into one, it just changed the scale on which they can abuse others.
Not that my character is any example. She's not even 30 yet.
I think Andreus is 29 (he was 21 in late 2005, when he graduated from CAS). Is Katrina younger than him? :o
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Not that my character is any example. She's not even 30 yet.
I think Andreus is 29 (he was 21 in late 2005, when he graduated from CAS). Is Katrina younger than him? :o
She's 27. :O
YC89 is her birthyear.
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I've realised recently that I don't really believe in "capsuleer psychosis." Capsuleers who are sadistic, arbitrary cuntbags were always sadistic, arbitrary cuntbags - becoming a capsuleer didn't turn them into one, it just changed the scale on which they can abuse others.
The one counter I'll make to that is that when your day job involves killing thousands of people a day, that'll get to you in some fashion. I also see the experience of cloning, hardcloning in particular, to be a pretty stressful one however you spin it.
So in other words, I agree that becoming a capsuleer will not automatically turn you into an asshole. The things that we go through as a part of normal existence, however, will have psychological strain.
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Capsuleer psychosis is simply - phychosis, but a capsuleer is suffering it.
Officially, one should likely call it informorph pyshcosis. Your brain may have been considered to be functioning in the realms of normalcy as a baseliner, but its xerox copy, and the pych stress of your life, the physical changes of generating brain tissue from a blob of biomass... mehhh 100% perfection?
If so, where's the Ray of Matar? Oh rriiight. That doesn't quite work 100% of the time. There are RL examples of people functioning - high level functioning, with HUGE SWATHS of brain removed or destroyed. Obviously because :grimdark:; the tech isn't perfect.
Plus murdering thousands of people before breakfast that we're taught arent as Cool As We Are prolly doesn't help that litttle flower picking hippy in your soul...
Capsuleers being sane simply wasn't bult into the equation as being IMPORTANT. You don't want a ship pilot who will agonize over the death of milions. You want one who will pull the trigger.
Were are all the true bloody hands of each of our races.
Don't matter how many times I offer my security guy a cup of tea. Arista was created to be a monster, and if not created specifically FOR that, her turning into one is only a BENEFIT. She is, if anything, a fucking failure of the average capsuleer (as in the 100s of thousands of existing pilot accounts) because she suffers from Capsuleer GAS (Gives A Shit).
I do agree about the eternity whining thing. That gets anoying. You've been an immortal for, max, ten years, and in five years the entire infrastructure could breeak down and you could lose the ability to clone, be quiet, is Ari's usual response (in a nicer way). That and "Funny.. I've had two friends die permanently in medical clone transfer accidents already and I've only been flying for three years.." (truth, 2 biomasses of acutal SPed up used toons she flew with that were NOT intended as alts)
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Not that my character is any example. She's not even 30 yet.
I think Andreus is 29 (he was 21 in late 2005, when he graduated from CAS). Is Katrina younger than him? :o
She's 27. :O
YC89 is her birthyear.
YC 89 best YC.