Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE Fiction + Fiction discussion => Topic started by: Isobel Mitar on 05 Jul 2010, 03:09
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Inspired by the discussion on Eve gate in another section ( http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=739.0 ) I thought to ask people here:
Do you write fiction, blog or something else about/for your Eve character(s) that is OOC public, but IC private?
What things do you feel you can or cannot write about, because of the OOC publicity? Does the OOC publicity affect your choices in other ways?
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Mine / Koro's blog is ooc public, for anyone who can be bothered to find the link to it. As for being IC private, that depends on the reader and whether or not their character would have the motivation to search for / ability to see certain logs.
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My blog started out as IC public. I changed the policy around and since then I believe I've done only one IC post that is private. I found IC public to be harder, since my character would be writing in a fashion she'd like the outside world to see, while her own personal doubts and feelings remained hidden. On the other hand, being Cartel, there's little she's not going to be brutally honest about.
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I have a blog, yeah. My general policy is not to include the names of other capsuleers unless I explicitly know they're ok with being mentioned and not to write about in-space operations until they're over with. I don't think there's much there that could be used against me. On the other hand, I don't really do channel rp; it's probably the best way to gain any insight into what Simon is doing.
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My blog is IC private and OOC public.
I'm not going to put any tactical stuff there, though, with the unrealistic expectation that everyone would respect that it is private. What I do sometimes put on there is stuff that is IC private regarding the character.
The difference being that info that could compromise an operation or something IG can actually have an IG impact. Someone's character 'knowing' something about one of my characters that they 'shouldn't' can usually be ignored or spun.
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I've come to the point where I don't think I'll ever write about the characters I play in-game any longer. I've had so many meta-gamed experiences across multiple universes that I've come to the conclusion that unless whatever you're writing is public 'in character', the knowledge will be used in some way or another, regardless of what it is.
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My blog is OOC public and IC private, more or less. If people think they should have access to information and have a good explanation for how they got it (Question #1 -- why the hell would you even want it?), I'm generally agreeable to it. I've also been known to be helpful to these poor souls. One of my former bosses called this trait "making the problem go away by throwing a book at it".
I haven't had many metagamer experiences in EvE -- and so far none have been based on information lifted from my blog. I suspect it's in part because I have unreliable first person narrators (one who's convinced her private recordings are being monitored, so she has a great deal of fun with that) and I rarely post anything 'interesting' in real-time.
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What things do you feel you can or cannot write about, because of the OOC publicity? Does the OOC publicity affect your choices in other ways?
I'm definitely careful about what I write. It's made more difficult because a lot of the rationale for writing is trying to sort my character's thoughts out about difficult subjects, and thus generally he only writes about stuff that's bothering him.
When there is OOC overlaps with the things that are bothering him and other characters/players, then I tend to be very circumspect about what I write. Often I'll delay it, or avoid it altogether.
I also try not to put tactical information in there. On the other hand, war targets usually already know that we're at war, so I can often be more free with what I say about wars than what I say about internal politics :)
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Tactical info wouldn't be useful even if I did put it on my blog. So you figure out where I frequent in Curse? That's not hard and I have lots and lots of people trying to shoot me anyway.
As for RP-type stuff: I'm not anal about it. If somebody uses something as a way to create more interaction, great. RP isn't a competition like market PVP is.
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Due to my structure of roleplaying in the game itself, very few people actually know anything useful about Ghost IC. I think this is more so because no one has reached all the appropriate "flags", rather than me being an uncooperative bugger.
When I decided to launch my now hidden IC blog, I originally wanted it to expose all of Ghost's inner workings and that of the Foundation. OOC, I would've like for people to read my work and provide feedback on its concepts, design, etc and have fun reading it. I also thought it would have hopefully presented an interesting angle for others to be interested in the Sansha stuff.
I find it completely unreasonable to expect people to ignore valid tactical/strategic intel when it's presented anywhere. I disagree completely with people in IC RP using information about a person's thoughts, secrets, etc against them without previous interactions to 'justify' having that information. Note the distinct difference between tactical/strategic intel, and IC RP information I am suggesting.
This is an incredibly slippery slope for me to take my position on. To expand, I am of the mindset that unlike many other things in EVE, RP is a purely cooperative venture. If a person does not want to include you in their RP, you are not included. There is no way to force this or 'assert' yourself like in PVP. The only thing you end up doing is making yourself look like a jackass.
Thusly, for RP to exist between entities - hostile or not, consent and cooperation of some kind is required. The failcascade begins when 'malicious' leaking of private IC information is spread around. Bystanders may end up using that information without realizing it should not be within their grasp at all to begin with. The system breaks down and you are forced to privatize all your information OOC as well (or face the consequences).
It is this disregard of the cooperative spirit that greatly annoys me. To me, roleplaying is creating a story with others to tell. You can't make a good story if there isn't some kind of respectable cooperation going on.
To answer the last question, in light of my thoughts and some instances of my own goodwill being thrown back at me, I am very colored in what should be presented OOC for people to read or not. At the end of the day, you must assume everyone reading your information has malicious intent in mind. Otherwise, when a troll does come along and throw a wrench up in your grill it can be very damaging if the information given is sensitive to your RP.
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I have hesitated to provide good IC stories because I have observed some folks using the information contained within quite maliciously.
My RP has suffered as a result, as only a very select few know wtf I'm really up to, but it's EVE in the end, and EVE is not a nice place. Still, that's why most of us love it. I would like it if RPers held themselves to a higher standard, but I do not expect them to, and so far, such expectations seem to be in line with the reality.
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My blogs - Cia's files (http://ciarentediary.blogspot.com/) and my fiction (http://ciarentesfiction.blogspot.com/) are OOC public and IC private. I'm careful not to put anything in them that gives away tactical information (you won't read in Cia's diary about her corp's upcoming operations for example) but you might read things in them that you have no other way of knowing OOC and your character has no way of knowing at all, although mostly things I can't imagine people being much interested in for 'metagaming' (Cia's taste in interior decorating and the fact that her brother wants to be an artist?)
Like all writers, I write both because I enjoy it and for an audience - Raymond Chandler said that as soon as pen touches paper a writer is writing for publication, whether they admit that to themselves or not. I ask, though I can't force, my readers to accept that the blogs aren't available IC, any more than any of the rest of the OOC internet is available to our characters. After all, those blogs are published on earth in 2010, a planet our characters have never heard of and a time which is lost in the mists of prehistory for them.
Yes, I know there is a danger that someone might use 'secret' information about Cia's hopes and fears or her crew or her family to 'win' an RP interaction, but that's what the block function is for. Ultimately, if people behave like asses over another player's fiction, the real lasting outcome is that they display themselves as asses to the entire community.
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Yes, I know there is a danger that someone might use 'secret' information about Cia's hopes and fears or her crew or her family to 'win' an RP interaction, but that's what the block function is for. Ultimately, if people behave like asses over another player's fiction, the real lasting outcome is that they display themselves as asses to the entire community.
This. RP, as opposed to say PVP or just about everything else in EvE, is pretty much by consent. If someone truly feels the need to use OOC information maliciously, dont RP with them and be glad its one less Mary Sue you have to worry about.
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With regards to the OP: Esna's long-neglected blog follows the trend of IC private, OOC public blogs. Why do I bother? I have no clue. In fact, the first IC post is actually named "Why am I here?"
Now, as to things that I don't feel I can even OOCly reveal:
I, unlike many of the RP community, have spent almost all my recent time in EVE in nullsec. Unlike when dealing with other RPers, nullsec alliances can and will dig through any information uploaded to the internet for tactical clues. The location of a key travel route, the general area of an oft-used capital jump point, even the types of ships I've been flying lately - all of these are things that many bloggers casually reveal, but I have to consider more carefully.
Or I'm just going paranoid, which wouldn't surprise me either.
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Like everyone else, OOC Public and IC private.
I don't think you'll find many who'll have a IC public blog unless it's for conveying messages to the masses, such as news reports or if Archbishop decided to put his sermons into a blog. With an IC public blog, it would be harder to keep it regularly updated, as you would need to continuously think of new "speeches", as in effect that's what they would be.
IC private is much easier, because then everyone your character meets won't know everything about your character (or at least have the potential too), which could lead to certain problems. Also, what would your characters have to talk about? The other already knows all your character's stories.
As for RP-type stuff: I'm not anal about it. If somebody uses something as a way to create more interaction, great.
As Casiella said, if someone uses my IC information to create more interaction, that's great, as long as their character doesn't assume the knowledge and they can come up with a reason for the interaction IC. You can read someone's information from their blog and say "Hey, if she thinks that, then there's a chance for some good RP because my character thinks this." Sure, that's metagaming in the literal sense, but if it leads to good RP and it's justifiable in IC (meaning no unwarranted knowledge or the like), then it's good metagaming, no?
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I don't think you'll find many who'll have a IC public blog unless it's for conveying messages to the masses, such as news reports or if Archbishop decided to put his sermons into a blog. With an IC public blog, it would be harder to keep it regularly updated, as you would need to continuously think of new "speeches", as in effect that's what they would be.
They manage to do it with IGS. :twisted: :bash:
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I briefly had one but got rid of it when I learned of some of the issues already mentioned. It's not worth it to me if I can't write a story fully and have to add yet more opsec to playing EVE. On the other hand I have toyed with keeping an in-depth character journal but only making it public when I quit EVE or that character expires. But given my laziness inertia factor I probably won't. :roll:
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IC private, OoC public. However, I keep getting that ugly feeling every time I hit 'post' that this is going to kick my teeth in down the line, because it'll get metagamed or someone'll 'godmode' hack the captain's log or whatever I'm writing at the time.
Still, there's got to be some flexibility. If someone feels that the RP between my characters and theirs would benefit from information having bled out, I'd be more than willing to talk about how the information could be spread IC and get into their character's hands. Same with me, really. I often see interesting things in other people's blogs, and just might throw them an OoC mail to discuss if there's possibilities for RP, hinging on how well some information is hidden or not.
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I curtail the published content of Mata's blog (http://matarikirain.blogspot.com/ (http://matarikirain.blogspot.com/)) out of concern for opsec.
That's my excuse for why it seems to be all about her clan, relationships, and cryptic poetry.
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Like most others, my blog is IC private, OOC public.
I've been writing in it for a little over a year with fairly regular updates, and in all that time, I can really only name 2 or 3 times at most that anyone has used the information to metagame. And of those times, I usually have went along with them knowing the information because it made for more interesting RP for them to know. The one time I did get a little annoyed is when some random person posted on the IGS, using my entire blog as public knowledge. I was in PIE at the time, and Gaven (my old CEO) quickly shut them up.
I love to write about my character's experiences, and I love to read other people's blogs as well. Long before I ever met Morwen or Vincent or several others, I was huge fans of their blogs and would read them religiously. It was always pretty exciting to meet the people I'd be reading about for so long.
I think for the most part, the RP community does not metagame. Though from reading this thread, it is obvious enough of us have encountered it that it can be a problem. I just say to ignore the person, block them, whatever. We don't have to put up with it, really. I just hope everyone does continue to write, c'mon people, give me something to read while I'm at work! :p
- Shalee
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IC private, OOC private.
You wouldn't want to read it anyways.