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General Discussion => General Non-RP EVE Discussion => Topic started by: Seriphyn on 10 Sep 2011, 17:17
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Or is it just me? RP community is very quiet. Summit is endlessly Amarr...what's going on? Was it the summer, if I'm just being paranoid?
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Summit is not endlessly amarr. There's a good dose of all four races in there, but only the Amarr seem to be stirring up trouble lately. Mostly because none of the other factions are bringing their RP into the summit.
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Well, it's full of Amarr....
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There do seem to be a lot of Amarr around lately, though I think it also has to do with a lot of some of the "other faction" RPers dropping off, at least from the public view - I feel like I used to regularly see a lot more faces from various factions other than Amarr, e.g., other EM, U'K, and a couple FW types from Minmatar, LDIS, CAIN, and FT-K from Caldari, Mixed Metaphor and others from Gal, etc etc... Even pirate factions seem to have shrunken; CR-SE and Blood Inquisition have left the Blooder side, Anshar Inc. from Serps, etc...
Now I see the same few dozen people, and while I don't <3 you all any less for it, I definitely feel like there were many more faces a while back.
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Maybe never mind so much the Amarr then, but as Esna said, shit be quiet yo
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LDIS bought FT-K many moons ago (maybe close to 2 years), are trying to build relationships with some RP-lite/local corporations, and going through some growing pains.
CAIN is busy with their 0.0 space and has not been particularly active in on IGS for a long time. Van Cleef occasional makes an appearance on IGS when he thinks there is some activity they are doing worth mentioning.
We also have done a lot of :bash: over the years and are not interested in rehashing the same conversations again.
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LDIS bought FT-K many moons ago (maybe close to 2 years), are trying to build relationships with some RP-lite/local corporations, and going through some growing pains.
CAIN is busy with their 0.0 space and has not been particularly active in on IGS for a long time. Van Cleef occasional makes an appearance on IGS when he thinks there is some activity they are doing worth mentioning.
We also have done a lot of :bash: over the years and are not interested in rehashing the same conversations again.
Wel for Katrina's part, she's attempting to foster friendly relations with LDIS by flying with them, ordering from them, etc. She wants to see LDIS and I-RED grow a bit closer.
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The Summit or the RP community in general?
Amarr/Minmatar have always been the most predominate groups around, but I could see how it seems some others have decreased a bit. The Summit I have not really noticed a strong Amarr presence (it may be your time zone), if anything its mostly been e-RP lite when I've bothered to look. Rather disconcerting, actually.
I'm personally working on seeing if I can post more on the IGS, although how that'll go remains to be seen.
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I keep an eye on the summit most of the times, but, well, it's... ah not always that interesting or tempting for me to chime in lately. Also I'm pretty much tied up in corp business and closer relations at the moment.
Kat, your raptors will be built with love. And before someone says something about Caldari: We can do this because we charge for it 8)
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Yes, I should have clarified - my post was meant to reflect the RP community as a whole, judged by who I had common interactions with anywhere - Summit, IGS, Barpee, semi-private arcs, etc. This is, of course, a horribly skewed measure, but I'm not sure of any other way to measure it. :P
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I don't really consider myself an active role-playing participant beyond writing race reports, but I will say that I'm feeling rather lethargic about engaging in eve-RP. The summit can be fun but its not really my thing. Done more than my share of BAR RP, so that's not really a big motivator for me either. If I wasn't for the Racing League I'd probably have cancelled my sub months ago.
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Yes, not very my type either for the Summit. I am occasionally active when I see discussions that I find interesting to my tastes and to which my character would actually reply. Discussion more suited to the NEA btw.
NB : OMG Seri I WANT A SIMILAR PIC.
Well, it's full of Amarr....
Yes, the new liberal amarr imperialism is all powerful and omnipresent compared to the gallente liberalism. \o/
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Tempted to make a JC Denton avatar with the notorious What a shame (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAlPx7ll7kA&feature=related).
We should use the NEA more often, I mean, it's not used for its original purpose anymore, so we might actually use it for things like political discussion. Also I'd rather have Des get the raging about Inhonores's opinions than talk about what a lovely sandvhich she ate earlier. ;)
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Tempted to make a JC Denton avatar with the notorious What a shame (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAlPx7ll7kA&feature=related).
We should use the NEA more often, I mean, it's not used for its original purpose anymore, so we might actually use it for things like political discussion. Also I'd rather have Des get the raging about Inhonores's opinions than talk about what a lovely sandvhich she ate earlier. ;)
PS: What a shame that no one used that as an avatar already. There must be something we can do...
Edit: Damn, clicked quote instead of modify. Is there a way to delete your own message?
What a rotten way to make a point. 8)
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I've noticed the RP community has been quiet for a while now.
Probably due to a lack of advancement in storyline. Sadly this will be the case until the overlords at CCP decide they want to develop the game a little more and give the storyline guys something to work with.
:psyccp:
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I've noticed the RP community has been quiet for a while now.
Probably due to a lack of advancement in storyline. Sadly this will be the case until the overlords at CCP decide they want to develop the game a little more and give the storyline guys something to work with.
I'm seeing a fair bit of weariness out there: a lot of people I know have been in EVE lulls all at once, which gets a bit self-reinforcing when they come back and struggle to find people to play with. From my point of view individual interactions can still be good, but quite a lot of the bigger world of EVE is awkward and uncomfortable to play with, either because it involves dealing with the contradictions inherent in PF at the moment or because doing thing X in front of person(s) Y will most likely lead to outcome Z which is just not fun.
For me, the main things CCP could do would be to clarify the general ranges of how some things work (although I kinda fear they'll try to take Mata's interactions with her clan away from her) and to give updates on the stalled stories which should be the background and framework of our lives (tribal council, etc) so we have some relevant news to respond to.
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Not sure its just the rp community. eve as a whole feels slower going to me since awhile back and not seeing the upsurge i expected when summer was done.
At least i notice that the corps i got chars in and the communities i use to move in are less active as a whole, with less people on and many of those that are on being on less time than beginning of this year.
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There's definitely a general EVE low. I feel that it's getting better slowly - more people on corp chat again, more people in fleets, more RP happening. But that might be because I myself am slowly getting out of an EVE low which was partly caused by some RP drama llamas.
Never really liked the Summit. Too much noise, too little signal.
I've recently been enjoying IGS more. It seems to me that for a long time, there were very few interactions between characters other than either yelling at each other and being best friends - this seems to be changing. RP without dynamic conflict tends to get boring fast for me at least.
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We at the ILF have been pretty inactive of late. Somewhat my fault as I have been super busy with life.
I'm hoping to organise some sort of event to bring us back at some point.
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We at the ILF have been pretty inactive of late. Somewhat my fault as I have been super busy with life.
Mammal, you should definitely not blame yourself for the low activity. As I recall, last year at this time ILF was slow to dead as well, which is partially what led me to leave temporarily back then. Naturally, as soon as I did, things picked up again.
Reflecting on this and similar bouts of inactivity in years past, I think it's just how it goes for EVE at this time of year. People are back at school, or have kids who are now back at school, and after all the summer vacationing and whatnot, many industries start gearing up for fall and--dare I say--Christmas, so people are busy at the office too.
Things will pick up again soon, I'm sure. :)
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Wait for winter to set in fully. People will be cuddling in front of their PC's trying to get warm from the soft pixelated glow of their monitors and the wonderfully warming feeling of ship explosions, tears and drama.
Summertimes are allways slower than winter in online worlds, and come fall it's usually at it's lowest ebb.
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Not everyone's in the northern hemisphere, Bloodbird.
For me the bigger difference is probably the cumulative two-hour daylight saving shift that affects who I can play with when at "mid-year" and "year's end".
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Also EVE getting slowly and surely more crappy might have something to do with it.
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Three years ago, bittervets used to be much better. :-(
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Wait for winter to set in fully. People will be cuddling in front of their PC's trying to get warm from the soft pixelated glow of their monitors and the wonderfully warming feeling of ship explosions, tears and drama.
Turn CQ on and you should be nice and toasty in no time :yar:
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Three years ago, bittervets used to be much better. :-(
:P
:D
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to give updates on the stalled stories which should be the background and framework of our lives (tribal council, etc) so we have some relevant news to respond to.
Yeah, lack of this is one of the reasons I unsubscribed a couple of months ago. CCP ain't providing squat for RPers not interested in whatever Live Event topic is current.
I prob won't return to EVE... though if DUST is good and CCP shape up on progressing the backstory again you might see me playing a Bloody Hand DUST merc.
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Yeah, lack of this is one of the reasons I unsubscribed a couple of months ago.
Missed you in the Circle of Tribes.
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Wait, people still play this game.
Oh, wait, sorry, mixed this up with the FHC tab in my browser. Carry on!
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Wait for winter to set in fully. People will be cuddling in front of their PC's trying to get warm from the soft pixelated glow of their monitors and the wonderfully warming feeling of ship explosions, tears and drama.
Summertimes are allways slower than winter in online worlds, and come fall it's usually at it's lowest ebb.
Easy to do now...just trun on the captains quarters and get an extra radiator heater :D
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You know what you guys could use? A Revan Event. ;)
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You know what you guys could use? A Revan Event. ;)
No thank you. :(
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There have been times recently when I've logged in, realized I didn't know a damn one of the characters floating around the Summitt and IGS, and thought to myself: 'hey, maybe you should make a secret alt and get to know these people'.
The urge generally goes away after I smack myself around.
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for me its a two-part reason to be really inactive
First, i started a week ago a long term project out of town, i still got internet, but no access to a gaming rig.....so eve only for weekends if even (just skill queue).
Two, the new forums kinda put me down on even attempting to post a message.......it looks like a fan-made forum....and that breaks it big for me sadly :S
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Some of us new guys are worth getting to know. Does seem to be in a bit of a slow patch lately.
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You know what you guys could use? A Revan Event. ;)
I agree, though I'm not sure that even a Revan event could turn things around in the short term, actually
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The fact that this thread has garnered so many responses in so many days reassures me that the rp community isn't dead--just sleeping. Honestly, after the crap pulled this summer with faction standings and Incarna, a nice long nap was called for. The question remains whether it'll be worth waking up. I remain (perhaps foolishly) hopeful.
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The RP community is Sleepers?
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There have been times recently when I've logged in, realized I didn't know a damn one of the characters floating around the Summitt and IGS, and thought to myself: 'hey, maybe you should make a secret alt and get to know these people'.
The urge generally goes away after I smack myself around.
You mean... that wasn't you?
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People use Summit?
Amazingly, there are other roleplay channels.
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There have been times recently when I've logged in, realized I didn't know a damn one of the characters floating around the Summitt and IGS, and thought to myself: 'hey, maybe you should make a secret alt and get to know these people'.
The urge generally goes away after I smack myself around.
You mean... that wasn't you?
That wasn't me. I think. It might have been me. Who are we talking about?
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There have been times recently when I've logged in, realized I didn't know a damn one of the characters floating around the Summitt and IGS, and thought to myself: 'hey, maybe you should make a secret alt and get to know these people'.
The urge generally goes away after I smack myself around.
You mean... that wasn't you?
That wasn't me. I think. It might have been me. Who are we talking about?
Oh, *mumble* no one....
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People use Summit?
Amazingly, there are other roleplay channels.
Are any of them active?
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Mata made a good point about the problem being kinda self-reinforcing. Characters (indeed, players) can get discouraged from bothering with the Summit much by the for some reason high concentration of Imperial characters, at the moment, for instance. There's also the various flavours of character and RP that aren't Imperial that also encourage their own continuation that rub characters or players up the wrong way. The curse of a wholly public channel, I guess.
Then there's the issue of more private / specialised / both channels being, well, silent. I don't think it's anything serious beyond a natural lull, but I'll admit it's vaguely irritating. That said, I'm back working myself so my own time is kinda erratic. vOv
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Kyber's point about there being characters you don't want to socialise with is valid for me.
Which is a shame, since I quite like a lot of the players who I don't want to associate IC. (Hi Kyber)
Which means I spend more time talking in OOC channels than in IC channels with people outside my corp. Once I've started socialising in one channel, it just tends to stay in that channel, even though some of it could be in an IC channel.
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There have been times recently when I've logged in, realized I didn't know a damn one of the characters floating around the Summitt and IGS, and thought to myself: 'hey, maybe you should make a secret alt and get to know these people'.
The urge generally goes away after I smack myself around.
Some of us new guys are worth getting to know.
QFT. I think it can be difficult sometimes for newer RPers to 'break in' to the existing community, because the community sometimes ignores or can't be bothered to invest in these unknowns, and gravitates to what it is already familiar with. Granted, the well-known players in the community got to be well-known by putting in a lot of effort, and power to them. But this can make places like IGS intimidating too.
Everyone has to start somewhere, and seeing sentiment like what Vieve posted (sorry for singling you out) probably would not leave the little guy with warm 'n' fuzzy feelings about sharing their own, unknown stories with the big guys. :( So there's probably other RP going on out there...just under the radar.
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There have been times recently when I've logged in, realized I didn't know a damn one of the characters floating around the Summitt and IGS, and thought to myself: 'hey, maybe you should make a secret alt and get to know these people'.
The urge generally goes away after I smack myself around.
Some of us new guys are worth getting to know.
QFT. I think it can be difficult sometimes for newer RPers to 'break in' to the existing community, because the community sometimes ignores or can't be bothered to invest in these unknowns, and gravitates to what it is already familiar with. Granted, the well-known players in the community got to be well-known by putting in a lot of effort, and power to them. But this can make places like IGS intimidating too.
Everyone has to start somewhere, and seeing sentiment like what Vieve posted (sorry for singling you out) probably would not leave the little guy with warm 'n' fuzzy feelings about sharing their own, unknown stories with the big guys. :( So there's probably other RP going on out there...just under the radar.
I just strong-armed my way into the Summit. It's hard to ignore a genuinely friendly person who often has fully worded opinions and comments to a discussion at hand. You have to speak up to stand out. These days, I tend to actually be noticed when I join the channel.
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I don't think it's so much an issue of vets not wanting to know the newbies. It is more that that many vets don't touch the summit with a twenty foot pole.
If, for example, someone convo'd Soter out of the blue, I'd talk their ears and eyes off with Trinary Data, the Sleepers, the Sansha, and the Jovians, even if they were a day old. I'd ask what their vision for their career was, their background, their motivations for becoming a capsuleer. So much possible roleplay.
The summit entirely destroys those opportunities, in my opinion. It becomes an arena for chest beating, falsifications, abuse of roleplay privledge, and other issues that run rampant on a daily basis. Not to mention the horde of alts that makes genuine RP experiences few and far in between. What's the purpose of spending hours of communicating with something that is only there as a sockpuppet to further the players metagaming ambitions?
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Well, I as a newbie, am not sure exactly where else to go.
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You know what you guys could use? A Revan Event. ;)
Honestly, these are not terrible things. Several solid folks have been introduced to the community through them.
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Honestly, I wasn't being facetious. I just know how riled up people get about them when they happen and thought i'd add some fuel to the fire.
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Roleplay is, normally, conducted between a small group of individuals, numbering between two and five. Hence, DnD games and other tabletops. The fallacy of a large channel populated by twenty or so characters competing for equal air time in a single channel is that the person who shouts the loudest gets heard, regardless of what he or she is saying.
It degenerates rapidly into the standard norms of large unregulated internet chatrooms, with the additional cornucopia of roleplaying and additional layers of anonymity through multiple alt accounts.
I'd recommend approaching individuals as you start your roleplay, make real relationships, contacts, connections, as you would in real life, and branch out from there. Chat channels and their denizens will naturally open themselves up to you as you do.
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I think it can be difficult sometimes for newer RPers to 'break in' to the existing community, because the community sometimes ignores or can't be bothered to invest in these unknowns, and gravitates to what it is already familiar with.
One of the biggest problems newbies suffer from is the "btdt" syndrome. The 10293th "AMARR ARE EVIL MINMATAR ARE GOOD WE COME FOR YOU ARRGH" thread stops being interesting, even though the first might have been nice (dunno, too long ago). RP stories tend to get deeper over time, more complex, so that newbies will feel threatened by them, and vets feel bored by the newbie stories.
Having some kind of "hook" for newbies to enter would be nice, but then those who like to have spotlights on them and jump for such hooks the fastest often are not the ... most interesting people to have around.
That said, seeing my alliance blamed for all sorts of Evil Things on OOC channels does not make me feel like I want to hang out there, so the splintering of "the RP community" (if there ever was a single one) is probably not just a newbie problem.
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Once I've started socialising in one channel, it just tends to stay in that channel, even though some of it could be in an IC channel.
I need to do some math/fact-checking first, and then Morwen may need to give Ulf another business call. They're overdue for a chat anyway. :P
QFT. I think it can be difficult sometimes for newer RPers to 'break in' to the existing community, because the community sometimes ignores or can't be bothered to invest in these unknowns, and gravitates to what it is already familiar with. Granted, the well-known players in the community got to be well-known by putting in a lot of effort, and power to them. But this can make places like IGS intimidating too.
Everyone has to start somewhere, and seeing sentiment like what Vieve posted (sorry for singling you out) probably would not leave the little guy with warm 'n' fuzzy feelings about sharing their own, unknown stories with the big guys. :( So there's probably other RP going on out there...just under the radar.
It can be pretty hard. It took me a few weeks of hanging out and trying stuff in Sakura's "Three Sisters" channel after seeing the opening post on IGS before I was exposed to larger parts of the community, and I'd been playing EVE for almost a year at that point, even if Morwen was newish at the time.
Unfortunately, the only tried-and-true way of "breaking in" is to just suck it up and start doing stuff- it doesn't have to be in a big channel like the Summit (and for many characters, probably shouldn't be) but you do have to start somewhere. The real problem is finding those "somewheres", which you often can't do until you shove your foot in the door. Same with "under the radar" stuff. It's an annoying catch-22. :(
When it comes to investing time in "unknowns", I tend to get bored with the same-old-same-old after a while, and really enjoy getting to interact with new characters regardless of whether I know them as a player already or not, in the vast majority of cases. (On that note, I think I might need to poke my head into FreeIntaki sometime soon - got a few OOC friends that I've not really interacted with IC yet, and need to fix that. Plus, after poking through your blog, and some other IC stuff going on, might be some interesting things to talk about. ;))
I just strong-armed my way into the Summit. It's hard to ignore a genuinely friendly person who often has fully worded opinions and comments to a discussion at hand. You have to speak up to stand out. These days, I tend to actually be noticed when I join the channel.
It definitely worked out in your favor in this case - Kitkat makes for a good partner on the Summit for general tomfoolery and shenanigans - but unfortunately it doesn't work for everyone. I could name a few examples where I think it didn't work, but I'm not sure if it would be productive or helpful to do so. :\
I don't think it's so much an issue of vets not wanting to know the newbies. It is more that that many vets don't touch the summit with a twenty foot pole.
If, for example, someone convo'd Soter out of the blue, I'd talk their ears and eyes off with Trinary Data, the Sleepers, the Sansha, and the Jovians, even if they were a day old. I'd ask what their vision for their career was, their background, their motivations for becoming a capsuleer. So much possible roleplay.
The summit entirely destroys those opportunities, in my opinion. It becomes an arena for chest beating, falsifications, abuse of roleplay privledge, and other issues that run rampant on a daily basis. Not to mention the horde of alts that makes genuine RP experiences few and far in between. What's the purpose of spending hours of communicating with something that is only there as a sockpuppet to further the players metagaming ambitions?
I'm going to agree with the first paragraph wholeheartedly (though I'm not one of the vets in question), and have to ask you to clarify some things (bolded) in the last one before I can say whether I agree with it or not (either in part or as a whole). Also, it's a bit extreme to assume every alt in the Summit is just "a sockpuppet to further the players metagaming ambitions".
Second paragraph is more or less how I ended up leaving rookie corp on Morwen, though, as you probably well remember. Even though it technically started with you dragging me into Elpida either from OOC or the Summit and not me opening a convo. :P
Also, what Grae and Kaleigh said. Revan's events are pretty decent at bringing in fresh blood - a number of the people who participated in the recent NENTM contest hadn't RPed in EVE much before or at all, and several of them stuck around afterward (Jason, Othar, and Uraniae to name a few, though I haven't seen much of Othar lately).
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I'm pretty darn new to Eve RP, so I'll freely admit my cluelessness, but I have to admit that it seems a lot more dead then when I briefly poked at it in the past/looked at before joining. Like others have said, I'd probably put my bets on it being due to the Incarna stuff and the followups more then I would on it being summer, because it's not just the numbers. It's the general... Er, I dunno how to put this. The "Feel" of everything, I suppose. It seems like it's winding down, like it's in a twilight period.
Like, hell, I know that Eve has always been full of a zillion bitter vets, but it feels like almost everyone I talk to says something like "Eh, I'm only really playing until an alternative comes along/until my sub runs/until my corp mates leave", or talking about how they never really play the game anymore or will be running for the hills if CCP doesn't fix everything up by the winter.
There really seems to be kind of an atmosphere of desperation and "it was fun while it lasted"ness amongst a lot of people I've been seeing, and it feels like every time I sink my teeth into actually interacting personally with someone and doing some "Proper" RP, they seem to become less and less active. It's kind of depressing me to the point that sometimes I feel like I'm already sort of losing interest. And I'm used to Eve except for this one aspect - It's gotta be even worse for brand new players.
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I sort of managed to start RP entirely separately from everyone who wasn't EM. For about five months or so, I didn't do any rp outside of EM, and didn't even join the summit until about three or four months ago (mostly because Ava kept talking about it :D ).
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There are mostly two big, major issues for newbies to get into RP :
- As you said above, the vet barrier with all that it implies. You also have to prove that your character is interesting to interact with : who wants to RP with tasteless characters ? This is not always easy, because you will sometimes speak a lot in the air at the beginning to make yourself noticed.
- The PF ignorance usually found in every newbie RP. So yes, everyone has obviously to start somewhere and the PF is huge/deep and even more, it is blur and vague, sometimes hard to grasp, with a lot of little details that are actually very important. And all of this gets extremly important as soon as newbies want to get into a politicaly oriented RP. This is also why a lot of them avoid it at least at the beginning and focus on more mundaine things on places like the Summit, for example.
Somewhere, I was lucky when I started to RP in the general RP community 2 years ago, because I already had played Eve since 2006 and be part of a smaller local RP community. I do not even want to imagine how my RP would have been welcomed if I had been brand shiny new to Eve RP when I started in this community (2009-2010). And I do not want to even think to what it would have been if I had been a newbie to RP in general too.
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I've done a lot of RPing in big environments, such as persistent worlds for Neverwinter Nights (DnD) and tabletop groups of seven plus people, with the former having up to twenty or thirty people RPing in a single area at one time.
Yes, you're going to run into your chest beaters, your ignorant newbs, your abusive vets and your obnoxious character. That doesn't destroy the RP that you get out of it though, you just learn to work around it or ignore it entirely. There is a "block" function in this game, after all. It's handy for that sort of thing.
Besides, the best way to help a newb who really wants to learn how to RP, is to direct them, not bash them and ignore them. Even if you have to pull them aside OOC and give them some resources and help them flesh out their character and make them feel more comfortable as a player, you're going to make them a better RPer and transform them from an ignorant newb to a contributing member of the RP community. And we can never have too many of those.
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Everyone has to start somewhere, and seeing sentiment like what Vieve posted (sorry for singling you out) probably would not leave the little guy with warm 'n' fuzzy feelings about sharing their own, unknown stories with the big guys. :( So there's probably other RP going on out there...just under the radar.
Uh, okay, a little freaked out by being called one of the big guys ... but, hey, no need to apologize for singling me out. I should have been a little more clear about why I was smacking myself around: it's not from lack of interest in the new stories that are out there, it's my resisting the urge to create a new alt and steamroller my way into try to explore them. I don't have as many opportunities for ingame time as I used to have -- as it is these days, the majority of my RP winds up happening via e-mail exchanges and scheduled sessions1.
And why a new alt? 'Cause most of the existing characters have substantial baggage. Some are also kind of creepy. But that said, good grief, even the creepiest among them are generally open to being contacted out of the blue by a complete stranger. Just ask Seriphyn2.
1Though Maris does randomly turn up in Heiian; she's avoiding The Summitt these days for IC reasons, and her guardian An ... er, never mind, what was I saying?
2http://cruxmeander.blogspot.com/2009/04/beholders-eye.html (http://cruxmeander.blogspot.com/2009/04/beholders-eye.html)
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The IGS in particular does seem to have the main spotlight swinging back and forth between Amarr / Minmatar and Caldari / Gallente (with Intaki thrown in to get everyone angry :P)
Right now it seems like both are enjoying a fair amount of activity with the whole debate on slavery going on, a really good debate on the State happening and the Gallente / Intaki relationship being explored.
It means that most interests are covered at least to a degree and it provides those curious RP beginners with some reading and names to go searching for to try and make a connection ingame.
Personally I always really try to maintain some level of composure during my posts and the feedback I've got so far suggests I'm going some way to achieving that. I just really hope I'm not one of the IGS chestbeaters... but... let me know if I am :s
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Well, I am an Eve RP newb. There are a lot of barriers. I started RP-ing because I joined KotMC, which has a number of veteran RP-ers. My previous RP experience was limited to a few DnD runs back in the day. However, I had read a lot of PF and the novel, which is a good read, but not the best RP basis.
The first issue was the process of learning the basic flow. I watched Mercy's Keep and interacted timidly. I started a blog to flesh out Ryven's backstory. I cannot overstate the usefulness of that. Ryven has grown into a complex person and he is very real to me, so much now that I am still surprised by his reactions to things. He is still relatively unknown, but as more people enter his world, he continues to have enjoyable encounters.
I have IRL barriers in the form of time. I work 30hr/week and 18 hr classload at college, plus a wife. RP can be time consuming. If a pvp fleet forms up, I choose that usually.
Some additional thoughts: Ryven is not currently the sort of guy who likes limelight. He has demons he has finally settled and I suspect he will be more public in the near future. So, his IGS interaction has been limited, but I feel generally well recieved, when any bothered to respond to it.
That brings me to the last item: respond to the lesser known entities in a thread. It is easy to engage with the powerhouse characters, but it is unspoken encouragement when you acknowledge them, even if you aren't nice, IC.
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That brings me to the last item: respond to the lesser known entities in a thread.
This is an excellent advice, thank you.
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That is kinda funny because you took my advice while saying it was good advice.
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That is kinda funny because you took my advice while saying it was good advice.
Deliberately, too :-)
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Since I don't know most of you, or you're on alts now that I don't recognize, interacting with most of you is a new experience for me. Generally, my characters respond well to individuals that can carry a conversation, not whether they are vets or newbies. Tiberious Thesselonia is one individual that has always been able to do that, regardless of the character that I'm playing as, which is why I enjoy his company. What tends to happen often is people will try to engage someone and you have an audience, or peanut gallery, that toss in one liners and don't really push any further into the discussion. I do it too sometimes when I'm busy with something else.
I guess what I'm saying is, don't let the art of conversation be a lost one. >.>
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I wonder how much RP time goes to the Arek'jaalan project? At one point 30% of the IGS posts on the first page were related to AJ. I can't help thinking that all the energy that goes into it is taken away from other kinds of RP. In the worst case scenario some people who initially joined the project might have got frustrated with the difficulty of making a difference and with the lack of good motivations for character interactions.
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Not much RP goes into AJ as far as I know.
Perfectly fine with me, as I do not participate primarily for social interaction but because I like to solve puzzle games.
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Ryven has grown into a complex person and he is very real to me, so much now that I am still surprised by his reactions to things.
*Bolded for emphasis*
This isn't the first time I've heard such but it's something completely foriegn to me. I've never been surprised by any of my own characters actions, reactions, or thoughts. I've had them do things that I'd rather not have them do because the other half of the RP (the other player's character) didn't do as I had expected, but that's really being surprised by someone else's character and not my own.
Maybe it's more of being suprised that the other character could convince yours to do something that you didn't think they would?
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Maybe it's more of being suprised that the other character could convince yours to do something that you didn't think they would?
It's not about someone else being able to convince your character. It can happen based on any situation or experience.
Basically, it's the sudden realization that a number of experiences your character has had caused her to do something that you would have found strangely "out of character" for her a few weeks ago, but now, with all that background, it just makes sense for the character to do.
That is, it's a situation where your character changes not because you thought that change would be cool now, but because the situation just makes it "logical" for this change to happen.
It's a bit difficult to describe. But it's awesome when it happens. :-D
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I've had a few moments like that, actually.
Malcolm is a brilliant example.
Malcolm's player: "Yar! Goin' ta be piratin' the cold, black sea!"
What happened was that the people Malcolm ended up interacting with, took a sincere interest in getting to know him and through careful RP, gentle guidance and really well constructed arguments, Malcolm was eventually committed to "cleaning up" and reforming himself into the man he currently is. He still has lapses, particularly when he's angry or frustrated, but overall he's a very different character than I originally anticipated him being.
I sometimes find myself a little surprised when I respond to something and then read over it and immediately think, "Meh...I never would have expected Malcolm to think like that."
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Compared with my more thoughtful (and, as a result, predictable) characters, Stecker surprises me on a regular basis. She's hardly the character I oringinally created her to be. Who she chooses to be nice to seems to vary day by day, to say nothing of the ways that she's been influenced by her friends (and enemies) over the last year.
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Basically, it's the sudden realization that a number of experiences your character has had caused her to do something that you would have found strangely "out of character" for her a few weeks ago, but now, with all that background, it just makes sense for the character to do.
That is, it's a situation where your character changes not because you thought that change would be cool now, but because the situation just makes it "logical" for this change to happen.
It's a bit difficult to describe. But it's awesome when it happens. :-D
Well I've had that, yes, but it didn't "surprise" me because I (obviously) knew about everything that had happened to my character, so I guess I was just misunderstanding what people meant. It's not so much a surprise "in the moment" as it is "surprising" that the character ended up doing X since when the character was created you thought that he/she was going to be doing "Y."
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I have not been able to immerse myself for probably two years now. I still like to be social but I stay 'in character' only as a courtesy. The Ishukone/AJ thing could have been brilliant, but I really couldn't muster the energy to lead something.
Van Cleef has been asking me to run an event for CAIN but I just can't get excited about it.
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I have not been able to immerse myself for probably two years now. I still like to be social but I stay 'in character' only as a courtesy. The Ishukone/AJ thing could have been brilliant, but I really couldn't muster the energy to lead something.
Van Cleef has been asking me to run an event for CAIN but I just can't get excited about it.
CVA sucking the life out of you? ;)
I tease, I tease.
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Well I've had that, yes, but it didn't "surprise" me because I (obviously) knew about everything that had happened to my character, so I guess I was just misunderstanding what people meant. It's not so much a surprise "in the moment" as it is "surprising" that the character ended up doing X since when the character was created you thought that he/she was going to be doing "Y."
It depends. I'd say it can be either. Sometimes you find yourself hurtling down a narrative for just one more line and one more line... and end up somewhere you never expected to be.
By the sound of it, YMMV. :)
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Probaly most of the RP goes on in corps but yeah, everywhere apart from summit seemed to die horribly.
Plus I cant rally comment now having not been on EVE for a while.
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So, I was chatting with a friend/corpmate and MSN, and got into a rant about the current state of RP that actually had some good points to it - so, here's the distilled version.
The issue, in my opinion, is that there is no longer much in the way of RP sub-communities/sub-factions. This has largely taken the epic, multi-person feel out of RP and instead broken it down to individual interactions between players.
(DANGER: Much bittervent ranting about "the good old days" ahead. :P )
For example, when I got here, the Amarr "faction" was composed of a bunch of different corps and alliances - I can name about a half dozen offhand - but even within that front, there were some differences of opinion that resulted in sub-factions, who again would work together to do stufftm., but might collectively get together to pew the Minmatar or Blood Raiders. Another good example of the "sub faction" concept was discussed by Arkady in another thread (CBA to go find it at this second) about the Minmatar faction, when there was much internal disputation about whether it was better to immediately attack the Empire to try to force the release of slaves, or player Midular's game of seeking peace and mutual recognition. Regardless of which side you sat on, you had a group of people you could work with towards that goal, and a group of people you could clash with - and of course, the Amarr, whom you could all get together and shoot at if they provoked you.
But what happened?
I honestly don't know. I really don't. It's nice to lay blame on a topic as painful as this one, but I don't think a single point - or even five individual points - can be blamed for the decline of conflicting factions. I think though, that I can identify three points which may have contributed to this situation:
First, FW, which attempted to artificially create sides with very strict, forced parameters while at the time being inclusive to everyone and not just RPers, which quickly meant that inter- and intra-faction cooperation became difficult at best.
Second, the lack of storyline development - both overall, and in terms of storylines that can create conflict between defined factions; it was nigh-impossible to create inter-faction conflict out of Apocrypha, and only two distinct factions could be formed of Incursion, with both more or less stalling once Incursions became a mechanic and live events were only a chance for actors to appear in shiny ships, yell scary things in local, and then disappear.
Third, the appearance of non-factional, mutual-cooperation style corps - note that this is in NO WAY a strike against FW or "non-denominational" corps as a whole; I'm in FW myself and have had plenty of good interactions with multi- (or non-) factional corps... in fact, I'd say that when distinct, opposing factions begin to crumble, the formation of organizations in the "middle ground" is a natural occurance. Unfortunately, however, if you are specifically looking for and hoping to provoke inter-factional conflict, these are not neccesarily fertile ground.
But what did this mean?
It meant each person had to "carry the flag" personally. With no more factions to naturally create conflict between each other, storyline to bring up new points to RP and conflict on, it fell to each player to create their own storylines to run with. Of course, player-made storylines aren't inherently bad, but when they're all you have to run with, it quickly becomes tiresome and difficult to have to invent your own activity all the time - sometimes, just plain not possible; running a storyline personally is a tiring, difficult process that doesn't work well with RL requirements - not to mention there's a fine line between running a good storyline and being percieved as just starting the dreaded DRAMA. Unable to run their own storylines and with nothing provided for them, people just get bored (or tired) and leave.
tl;dr - factions, which previously conflicted and drove action, broke down while the storyline didn't advance, so people had to make their own stuff all the time. This is tiresome and not everyone can do it. So, people left instead.
Just my 0.02 ISK.
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I'm back after quite a long summer break. Which might have aided in the slight overabundance on Amarr related threads. ;)
In EVE, lack of control or even the presence of a real world beyond internet spaceships makes it so that one cannot really advance storylines much in a practical sense. I also see a fair amount of RP keeps getting stuck as well in the 'prove what you say'. Besides shooting each other, there is not a lot of practical RP that one can do. If the world just runs on barely noticing your interaction with it, you might as well not even bother to affect it.
So most RP focuses on interpersonal relationships and philosophical debates. You might not be able to affect the world much, but you can change another person. Even if the world does not respond much to you, other players will. However, interpersonal relations are difficult to 'get into' by outsiders. Without visible real-world equivalent, one must be introduced by outsiders to these virtual worlds of interpersonal interaction. Or alternatively, get busy with the more open discussion going on in the more visible places, like the IGS.
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The inactivity of the summer does seem to be coming to an end, which is awesome. Hopefully some old faces, and a bunch of new ones, will peep into the RP "world" of EVE and decide they like what they see; I will be honest, I only play anymore because of the friends, both inside and outside the RP community, that Ive made.
RP seems to have stagnated, but it is very interesting to watch people's characters "shift" over spans of weeks or months, or even years, ie, Malcom. Its great to see people move beyond "argh Amarr! Die!" and "Argh! Heathens! Know your place!". Its great to see characters with desires, failings, hopes, fears, strengths and weaknesses.
Still feels pretty slow though; I mean, very slow. I left EM because I grew tired of being the only member of my corp online for much of the afternoon and evening. Hey, people have lives, people live in different time zones (And most of Gradient live outside the US, TZ issue here was quite pronounced) people take extended summer vacations. No one did anything "wrong", it is no one's "fault", it just happened. Lately, my choice seems to be boiling down to RPing in the Summit (With an overwhelmingly nonminmatar crowd) and/or going to a non-Minmatar corp. RP is only fun if you have people to RP WITH.
This also has much to do with the fact that Minmatar "RP", what there is of it outside EM, consists of "GAH DIE BURN DEATH AMARR!"
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General situation with Eve Roleplay
I think its undoubtedly the case that Eve itself has slowed down a lot this summer post monocle-gate and the realization that the pay off for 18 months of no significant new content was not actually very good (CQ). Across the game there has been a general wave of lassitude, unsubbing and only logging in to changeover skills etc and I don't think its in any way specific to the RP community. Now of course, it doesn't help that there isn't really any background or plot development going on for RP'ers to latch onto. I think the research project thing was an interesting idea perhaps, but lack of anything real to do in-space meant that people's enthusiasm for it died out relatively quickly. Sansha plotline has become humdrum (after all, people are "farming it"). FW empire fights - well, we all know the story there, its content that has suffered years of neglect and stasis. So it leaves people needing to make their own content and RP story from whatever corp and alliance mates they have left. For many that is difficult.
How my alliance has been impacted with this
In our alliance (star fraction) we've had our routine summer drama llama-ding-dong with people declaring the movement dead and going pirate. (happens every summer) combined with the low activity and general angst at CCP's perceived abandonment of the game universe. In practical terms the impact its had on us is twofold:
Firstly, our maximum fleet size for patrolling and intervention dropped from low to mid twenties to half a dozen to low teens. Most people who were on the fence about activity in Eve seem to have dropped off the fence (on the wrong side) and we're looking an alliance of a few dozen actives total from the 60-70 we had a couple of years ago.
Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
Well gotta see the upside
That said, it has been a positive thing to see we can actually have fun with the smaller fleets at the half a dozen man vs half a dozen target level and it does make the organization feel more personal and camaraderie amongst the hardcore idealists that stick it out is improved. I think if Eve in general does survive the current doldrums and recover and begin appealing to people's broader interests again the veteran's who toughed it out and kept to their principles in the Fraction will have forged a bond that will empower us for years to come.
All organizations have their ups and downs - but I think Eve at the moment is seeing an awful lot of organizations having their downs simultaneously with only a couple of pseudo-rp outfits on the verges keeping their activity on non-rp focus.
Time for CCP to pull their fat out of the fire
Still. There is always hope. CCP may well listen to the climate of protests and unhappiness across the player base at the moment and may realize that they need to fund and properly resource their core game and start making things happen again. I personally hope we hear less of "there is no resource/it can't be done" and a bit more acceptance that unless they start making these things happen there might actually be "no game at all".
Its clear Eve does need a lot of attention and new enthusiasm and passion to make things happen. Something as simple (albeit time consuming and manpower intensive) as renewed Live events with genuine in-space interaction could help. Renewing and repairing Faction Warfare would definitely help. Even looking at enhanced lowsec, mercenaries and bounty-hunters, new faction ships, new anything really can help because it makes people want to log into the game again and prepare to fight for things!
Anyways, to summarize for the op I think while Eve RP did not actually "die" it has gone to sleep now for quite a while. We will need CCP's help to help wake it up, but of course we can help too.
Looking Forward
From SF's perspective we really have gone back to our roots moving to this autumn and we're making war on regressive road-blockers and would-be imperialist pirate outfits that have the temerity to charge people "rent" for occupation of lowsec Placid systems. The beginning of our "loops" campaign was basically a statement of intent that we would fight people who dared restrict the movement of our ships in placid but it revealed a hidden criminal network in the "loops" that charge people to live there. We've now advanced our wardec to the landlords and would-be rent-barons and in return got wardecced by some mercenaries paid by the slumlords to defend their business. Its a pretty good angle and looks to be providing some nice mixed fighting of the scale we can currently enjoy and its nicely absent of any traditional "rp community" needle and angst.
So it is possible to enjoy the game even in the current situation. But like everyone else I'm definitely hoping CCP throw us a bone to make it easier to engage people's interest again and recover from the long summer doldrums.
A closing point on the way people use the IGS
I think one big problem with the IGS is people simply use the "RP excuse" to troll their OOC feuds there and it does become corrosive and poisonous. I'd definitely like to see a bit more discipline from old school rp'ers and less internicine bitterness masquerading as "rp". Nobody wants to see talking heads being purely negative about anything anybody else has to say. If a topic doesn't interest you then ignore it. Don't feel obliged to troll and sneer just because its a post made by somebody you don't like. IGS would be a far superior environment if people competed for interest against each other with positive and progressive thread/topic posting representing in-character play rather than used it simply as a way of insulting and demeaning each other with veiled ooc insults all the time.
For my money I'm happy to see virtually anything presented as IC from the single rifter shooting a wartarget punisher if its presented in nice and evocative language. I want to read about people's first wars, their ideals, their principles and their schemes. I want to read about what people are doing and what they stand for. This is all positive. (One great thing about the new forums is that I can "like" all positive posts while ignoring the terrible ones).
I don't want to see put-downs and purely negative posting pretending to be "characterization".
If you want to flame somebody IC then send them an evemail - please don't drag the rest of the community through your personal issues and grudges.
This simple bit of self-discipline on the part of the community would massively improve the atmosphere on the summit.
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On which point I would close on saying:
I think one big problem with the IGS is people simply use the "RP excuse" to troll their OOC feuds there and it does become corrosive and poisonous. I'd definitely like to see a bit more discipline from old school rp'ers and less internicine bitterness masquerading as "rp". Nobody wants to see talking heads being purely negative about anything anybody else has to say. If a topic doesn't interest you then ignore it. Don't feel obliged to troll and sneer just because its a post made by somebody you don't like. IGS would be a far superior environment if people competed for interest against each other with positive and progressive thread/topic posting representing in-character play rather than used it simply as a way of insulting and demeaning each other with veiled ooc insults all the time.
For my money I'm happy to see virtually anything presented as IC from the single rifter shooting a wartarget punisher if its presented in nice and evocative language. I want to read about people's first wars, their ideals, their principles and their schemes. I want to read about what people are doing and what they stand for. This is all positive. (One great thing about the new forums is that I can "like" all positive posts while ignoring the terrible ones).
I don't want to see put-downs and purely negative posting pretending to be "characterization".
If you want to flame somebody IC then send them an evemail - please don't drag the rest of the community through your personal issues and grudges.
This simple bit of self-discipline on the part of the community would massively improve the atmosphere on the summit.
While I understand you're referencing the greater problem as a whole, I'm going to use you as an example to agree.
I for one am sick of seeing people troll the crap out of your threads just because they see it is written by 'Jade Constantine'. I see your name passed around as a sort of inside joke on the IGS or something, and it's kinda annoying. It's annoying because it's a visible example of how worthless the IGS is. Everyone I speak to considers the IGS even worse than the ingame Summit channel (which I don't think is that bad, actually). It's the cesspool of EVE RP, according to some, and this is why. It's a place where people drag other people's names in the mud for craps and giggles, because trolling them OOC isn't as fun as making their character look bad too. The IGS is just another troll forum, as far as I think.
Point in case:
Jade Constantine and Star Fraction are one of the most vocal anti-establishment and anti-territorial organizations.
Someone posts on IGS about freeing all of Delve from territorial claim, inviting help for the campaign from outsiders.
They specifically say Jade Constantine is not invited.
... what? Stuff like that makes no sense to me.
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Jade Constantine and Star Fraction are one of the most vocal anti-establishment and anti-territorial organizations.
Someone posts on IGS about freeing all of Delve from territorial claim, inviting help for the campaign from outsiders.
They specifically say Jade Constantine is not invited.
... what? Stuff like that makes no sense to me.
Jade's character tends to be pretty vocal in a way that triggers a lot of other people.
I can understand the specific non-invitation from an in-character standpoint though.
Understand that Merdaneth sees himself as a vocal humanitarian too. However, I don't have any problem from some humanitarian organization specifically not inviting him, although Merdaneth might have a problem with it.
I enjoyed Jade IC posts, but he convinced me he didn't like mine, so a little over a year ago I made the (one-sided) offer not to respond to him or post in his threads anymore, which I still don't.
This remains at the core of some of the issues, some people don't like other people's RP. I'd like to lose myself in nonsense debates and try love to invent odd arguments. I can certainly imagine some other people growing tired of it at times. :)
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The IGS is what you make of it. If you go to the summit to win arguments and convert the masses, you're in for a rude awakening. It's a tool, and when properly utilized, can serve a greater function in achieving your corporate/character goals.
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I’m not that surprised to not be invited to the Goon version of fight-arena-freespace in Delve, they also pointed out they will be giving nobody any standings either so *shrug* that’s a bit of a non-event really. Interesting gesture but as I said on the IGS this afternoon its a bit of a trust issue to anyone taking up that offer because the goons could simply change their mind at any time and remove docking and hanger rights.
With regard to the constant trolling though – it does get very old and it is supremely anti-RP in basis so yes, it’s very annoying and does suit some agendas of ruining IGS for everyone really.
@ Merdaneth, this isn’t really about characters – its more about ooc trolling using an flimsy mask of “ic” to hide the nastiness.
With regard to our resolution the thing was I was finding your posting very monotonous and had the effect of turning every thread into the same argument. Basically the moment you started to critique my stuff we were rehashing the same debate we’d had hundreds of times before. I found this rather sterile and because we weren’t in corporations/alliances that were able to fight each other in a meaningful way it wasn’t going anywhere. I do however appreciate you respecting my wishes and desisting from the forum stuff. And as I said at the time, if we do ever end up being in organizations that can interact meaningfully in space I will be happy to debate on IC forums again about those specific interactions.
But this is actually the problem with the IGS trolling now, it does tend to make all threads the same. Some people have decided that the only way they can “fight” Jade and Star Fraction is to sabotage our IGS threads by trying to make them all the same argument and froth as those that have gone before. It is very destructive from a metagaming perspective and it does make people switch off – so from a practical-perspective I guess it works. But its not really anything to do with roleplay in Eve, more about the progression of ooc feuds and ancient grudges.
Of course it goes broader than us - when this stuff is perceived to be okay against one target it gets into common usage against all and suddently its the norm.
There isn't really an enforcement solution because the worst perpetrators are good at putting an "ic sheen" on the feuding and only way it can be resolved longterm would be for people to grow up a bit and realize that for everyone's good competing on positives and progressive stuff would be better than doing down others the moment they try to do their own thing.
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Three pages of posts since my last! :O I had to copy/paste this all out and write it during my lunch break at work then carry it home. :D
It's hard to ignore a genuinely friendly person who often has fully worded opinions and comments to a discussion at hand. You have to speak up to stand out.
I agree, though sometimes finding something "unique" to contribute that doesn't sound like something someone else already said can be a challenge too. I've experienced this myself. I'd post on IGS more often if I didn't feel like my particular position has already been "spoken for" by the time I'm able to have a look. This doesn't mean my opinion or comments wouldn't be fully worded or developed--but perceived "copy cats" are rarely forgiven. I'm new to RP too. Finding ways to say the same thing without saying the same thing is tough.
This sort of ties into what Julianus said, about IGS being "overrun". I don't know that it's overrun with alts per se (and "alt posts" are easier to ignore now), but the higher number of people present does mean if you're not fast (or in the "right" timezone), everyone seemingly gets their $.02 ISK in before you. I often remark to my corpmates that all the fun stuff happens while I'm at work!
But, like Katrina, I'm also not sure where else to go. I RP on my corp forums and in game to a certain extent, but IGS is really the only arena (that I know of) where anyone from any corner of the game can easily and freely interact. I won't be exposed to a lot of the stuff in IGS by sitting in the "FreeIntaki" channel in game, for example. On the other hand, I can't sit in all kinds of other channels in game either. ("Where's my ship? I'm sure it's buried under all these windows somewhere...")
Having some kind of "hook" for newbies to enter would be nice, but then those who like to have spotlights on them and jump for such hooks the fastest often are not the ... most interesting people to have around.
So the challenge becomes filtering out the non-interesting people from the interesting ones. I can see how vets would get burned out on this--only so much energy to go around "giving the benefit of the doubt". Though, I would expect the non-interesting people would make themselves obvious pretty fast?
but you do have to start somewhere. The real problem is finding those "somewheres", which you often can't do until you shove your foot in the door. Same with "under the radar" stuff. It's an annoying catch-22. :(
Yep. I played EVE for three and a half years or something before I ever really started thinking about RP. The "thinking" was a year ago now and even then, I still didn't really get going on anything until this past spring, when I suddenly did a whole spurt of stuff at once: IGS, corp forums, my website. Just makes me go "Doh!" when I see an opportunity on IGS that I missed because of whatever reason, or tried to take advantage of but was subsequently "passed over" or missed by others.
(On that note, I think I might need to poke my head into FreeIntaki sometime soon - got a few OOC friends that I've not really interacted with IC yet, and need to fix that. Plus, after poking through your blog, and some other IC stuff going on, might be some interesting things to talk about. ;))
More faces in FreeIntaki are always welcome. And the rest sounds awesome too. :)
Besides, the best way to help a newb who really wants to learn how to RP, is to direct them, not bash them and ignore them. Even if you have to pull them aside OOC and give them some resources and help them flesh out their character and make them feel more comfortable as a player, you're going to make them a better RPer and transform them from an ignorant newb to a contributing member of the RP community. And we can never have too many of those.
This is one of the best suggestions I've seen of late. Respect, sir!
And why a new alt? 'Cause most of the existing characters have substantial baggage. Some are also kind of creepy. But that said, good grief, even the creepiest among them are generally open to being contacted out of the blue by a complete stranger. Just ask Seriphyn.
I think my personal preference as a new RPer would be to interact with other established characters rather than someone's new alt, even if there is a certain level of "intimidation" that might come with talking to said established character (but if I don't know any better, then there wouldn't be any of that anyway). One new character talking to another new character...? Hmm. Might be kinda like strangers standing in line at the theater who happen to exchange pleasantries.
respond to the lesser known entities in a thread. It is easy to engage with the powerhouse characters, but it is unspoken encouragement when you acknowledge them, even if you aren't nice, IC.
I'm glad you said this, because I was going to if no one else did. This happens OOC too, even here on Backstage (shock!). When someone unknown tries to contribute to a conversation but nobody picks up on their contribution at all, they'll probably think less about trying again.
Second, the lack of storyline development - both overall, and in terms of storylines that can create conflict between defined factions; it was nigh-impossible to create inter-faction conflict out of Apocrypha, and only two distinct factions could be formed of Incursion, with both more or less stalling once Incursions became a mechanic and live events were only a chance for actors to appear in shiny ships, yell scary things in local, and then disappear.
I can appreciate this point as one part of RP decline. But (and I realize I'm probably hanging myself out to dry by saying this), I also think, knowing CCP and Mercury are lately trying to do something they (yes) should have done a long time ago in filling in the holes and whatnot, we as players should probably be thankful they're doing it at all rather than continuing to blunder on with the PF in the state it is. Consider how vast the PF is already and how much Swiss cheese it really is. We can't have it both ways--there are either people to fill in holes or people to produce new storyline. Splitting the resources might sound logical to us but is probably inherently inefficient. Although, filling in holes is kinda the same as producing new storyline, since there will be more information than we had before. We just don't have access to it yet. Yep, it's up to us to "make do" in the meantime.
not to mention there's a fine line between running a good storyline and being percieved as just starting the dreaded DRAMA. Unable to run their own storylines and with nothing provided for them, people just get bored (or tired) and leave.
I think newbies fear this especially. In a game like EVE, everyone needs at least a "little" bit of DRAMA, and you generally always have to start with your own storyline because it'd be hard to start anywhere else. Nobody wants to RP or learn about Sarah Jane "girl next door" capsuleer who never has any adventures or gets into any trouble but always does her agent work on time, never shoots anybody she shouldn't, and is generally everybody's BFF. That's just as terribad. The challenge is doing DRAMA right--enough to inject some excitement or surprise without going overboard. When someone is new they might worry their attempt is not taken seriously right from the get-go. Maybe they don't know any better (inexperience) or just happen to come in after someone else's last go-round of it and other people think "Oh here's another one". Again it's a case of the community striking a balance with the newbie--tolerance/patience vs degrees of the aforementioned 'strong-arming'.
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All the above is just further reason why I love you to bits, Sakaane.
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Just one thing.
CCP started to 'make sense of' the PF four years ago.
Mercury is basically doing the same thing all over again.
Why?
I have no idea, but from my experience the answer is pretty obvious.
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@ Merdaneth, this isn’t really about characters – its more about ooc trolling using an flimsy mask of “ic” to hide the nastiness.
Definitly.
I have to admit that the only time I had to face that was... How to say it, from SF members, which may explain several things (but definitly not excuse them !). :/
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respond to the lesser known entities in a thread. It is easy to engage with the powerhouse characters, but it is unspoken encouragement when you acknowledge them, even if you aren't nice, IC.
I'm glad you said this, because I was going to if no one else did. This happens OOC too, even here on Backstage (shock!). When someone unknown tries to contribute to a conversation but nobody picks up on their contribution at all, they'll probably think less about trying again.
Yeah, I definitly agree with that.
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He, I thought role players thrived on drama. As a main driver to define their character and so. It takes little skimming of IGS to discover only threads that provides drama gets a lot of attention even when topic has been discussed a million times already. All the corporate propaganda about who they fought last week is similarly only good for drama or gets no response at all.
The only times I have ever managed to get major response on any of my doings is when I accidently hit the drama button. Accidently, because I have no interest in drama but favor the small common every day things and define my characters based on what I learn about the EVE universe setting on those subjects (through my lore hunt), instead of how I would like EVE universe setting to be. There is a very good reason why, in the eight years I have played EVE, I have kept myself in the outskirts of the RP community.
On the topic of RP dying? No, I think it is a general state of the game as Jade mentioned. Captain Quarters failed to provide the immersive experience as it was hyped to be. CCP is still promising this and that is "just around the corner but is still failing to deliver. Their stated goal 'delivery' goes the same way as their previous one of 'excellence'.
-
I think its undoubtedly the case that Eve itself has slowed down a lot this summer post monocle-gate and the realization that the pay off for 18 months of no significant new content was not actually very good (CQ). Across the game there has been a general wave of lassitude, unsubbing and only logging in to changeover skills etc and I don't think its in any way specific to the RP community. Now of course, it doesn't help that there isn't really any background or plot development going on for RP'ers to latch onto. I think the research project thing was an interesting idea perhaps, but lack of anything real to do in-space meant that people's enthusiasm for it died out relatively quickly. Sansha plotline has become humdrum (after all, people are "farming it"). FW empire fights - well, we all know the story there, its content that has suffered years of neglect and stasis. So it leaves people needing to make their own content and RP story from whatever corp and alliance mates they have left. For many that is difficult.
In our alliance (star fraction) we've had our routine summer drama llama-ding-dong with people declaring the movement dead and going pirate. (happens every summer) combined with the low activity and general angst at CCP's perceived abandonment of the game universe. In practical terms the impact its had on us is twofold:
Firstly, our maximum fleet size for patrolling and intervention dropped from low to mid twenties to half a dozen to low teens. Most people who were on the fence about activity in Eve seem to have dropped off the fence (on the wrong side) and we're looking an alliance of a few dozen actives total from the 60-70 we had a couple of years ago.
Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
That said, it has been a positive thing to see we can actually have fun with the smaller fleets at the half a dozen man vs half a dozen target level and it does make the organization feel more personal and camaraderie amongst the hardcore idealists that stick it out is improved. I think if Eve in general does survive the current doldrums and recover and begin appealing to people's broader interests again the veteran's who toughed it out and kept to their principles in the Fraction will have forged a bond that will empower us for years to come.
All organizations have their ups and downs - but I think Eve at the moment is seeing an awful lot of organizations having their downs simultaneously with only a couple of pseudo-rp outfits on the verges keeping their activity on non-rp focus.
Still. There is always hope. CCP may well listen to the climate of protests and unhappiness across the player base at the moment and may realize that they need to fund and properly resource their core game and start making things happen again. I personally hope we hear less of "there is no resource/it can't be done" and a bit more acceptance that unless they start making these things happen there might actually be "no game at all".
Its clear Eve does need a lot of attention and new enthusiasm and passion to make things happen. Something as simple (albeit time consuming and manpower intensive) as renewed Live events with genuine in-space interaction could help. Renewing and repairing Faction Warfare would definitely help. Even looking at enhanced lowsec, mercenaries and bounty-hunters, new faction ships, new anything really can help because it makes people want to log into the game again and prepare to fight for things!
Anyways, to summarize for the op I think while Eve RP did not actually "die" it has gone to sleep now for quite a while. We will need CCP's help to help wake it up, but of course we can help too.
From SF's perspective we really have gone back to our roots moving to this autumn and we're making war on regressive road-blockers and would-be imperialist pirate outfits that have the temerity to charge people "rent" for occupation of lowsec Placid systems. The beginning of our "loops" campaign was basically a statement of intent that we would fight people who dared restrict the movement of our ships in placid but it revealed a hidden criminal network in the "loops" that charge people to live there. We've now advanced our wardec to the landlords and would-be rent-barons and in return got wardecced by some mercenaries paid by the slumlords to defend their business. Its a pretty good angle and looks to be providing some nice mixed fighting of the scale we can currently enjoy and its nicely absent of any traditional "rp community" needle and angst.
So it is possible to enjoy the game even in the current situation. But like everyone else I'm definitely hoping CCP throw us a bone to make it easier to engage people's interest again and recover from the long summer doldrums.
On which point I would close on saying:
I think one big problem with the IGS is people simply use the "RP excuse" to troll their OOC feuds there and it does become corrosive and poisonous. I'd definitely like to see a bit more discipline from old school rp'ers and less internicine bitterness masquerading as "rp". Nobody wants to see talking heads being purely negative about anything anybody else has to say. If a topic doesn't interest you then ignore it. Don't feel obliged to troll and sneer just because its a post made by somebody you don't like. IGS would be a far superior environment if people competed for interest against each other with positive and progressive thread/topic posting representing in-character play rather than used it simply as a way of insulting and demeaning each other with veiled ooc insults all the time.
For my money I'm happy to see virtually anything presented as IC from the single rifter shooting a wartarget punisher if its presented in nice and evocative language. I want to read about people's first wars, their ideals, their principles and their schemes. I want to read about what people are doing and what they stand for. This is all positive. (One great thing about the new forums is that I can "like" all positive posts while ignoring the terrible ones).
I don't want to see put-downs and purely negative posting pretending to be "characterization".
If you want to flame somebody IC then send them an evemail - please don't drag the rest of the community through your personal issues and grudges.
This simple bit of self-discipline on the part of the community would massively improve the atmosphere on the summit.
TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL
Its great that you put thought into this but surely it can be trimmed a little?
-
Is reading difficult for you? :P
-
I think its undoubtedly the case that Eve itself has slowed down a lot this summer post monocle-gate and the realization that the pay off for 18 months of no significant new content was not actually very good (CQ). Across the game there has been a general wave of lassitude, unsubbing and only logging in to changeover skills etc and I don't think its in any way specific to the RP community. Now of course, it doesn't help that there isn't really any background or plot development going on for RP'ers to latch onto. I think the research project thing was an interesting idea perhaps, but lack of anything real to do in-space meant that people's enthusiasm for it died out relatively quickly. Sansha plotline has become humdrum (after all, people are "farming it"). FW empire fights - well, we all know the story there, its content that has suffered years of neglect and stasis. So it leaves people needing to make their own content and RP story from whatever corp and alliance mates they have left. For many that is difficult.
In our alliance (star fraction) we've had our routine summer drama llama-ding-dong with people declaring the movement dead and going pirate. (happens every summer) combined with the low activity and general angst at CCP's perceived abandonment of the game universe. In practical terms the impact its had on us is twofold:
Firstly, our maximum fleet size for patrolling and intervention dropped from low to mid twenties to half a dozen to low teens. Most people who were on the fence about activity in Eve seem to have dropped off the fence (on the wrong side) and we're looking an alliance of a few dozen actives total from the 60-70 we had a couple of years ago.
Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
That said, it has been a positive thing to see we can actually have fun with the smaller fleets at the half a dozen man vs half a dozen target level and it does make the organization feel more personal and camaraderie amongst the hardcore idealists that stick it out is improved. I think if Eve in general does survive the current doldrums and recover and begin appealing to people's broader interests again the veteran's who toughed it out and kept to their principles in the Fraction will have forged a bond that will empower us for years to come.
All organizations have their ups and downs - but I think Eve at the moment is seeing an awful lot of organizations having their downs simultaneously with only a couple of pseudo-rp outfits on the verges keeping their activity on non-rp focus.
Still. There is always hope. CCP may well listen to the climate of protests and unhappiness across the player base at the moment and may realize that they need to fund and properly resource their core game and start making things happen again. I personally hope we hear less of "there is no resource/it can't be done" and a bit more acceptance that unless they start making these things happen there might actually be "no game at all".
Its clear Eve does need a lot of attention and new enthusiasm and passion to make things happen. Something as simple (albeit time consuming and manpower intensive) as renewed Live events with genuine in-space interaction could help. Renewing and repairing Faction Warfare would definitely help. Even looking at enhanced lowsec, mercenaries and bounty-hunters, new faction ships, new anything really can help because it makes people want to log into the game again and prepare to fight for things!
Anyways, to summarize for the op I think while Eve RP did not actually "die" it has gone to sleep now for quite a while. We will need CCP's help to help wake it up, but of course we can help too.
From SF's perspective we really have gone back to our roots moving to this autumn and we're making war on regressive road-blockers and would-be imperialist pirate outfits that have the temerity to charge people "rent" for occupation of lowsec Placid systems. The beginning of our "loops" campaign was basically a statement of intent that we would fight people who dared restrict the movement of our ships in placid but it revealed a hidden criminal network in the "loops" that charge people to live there. We've now advanced our wardec to the landlords and would-be rent-barons and in return got wardecced by some mercenaries paid by the slumlords to defend their business. Its a pretty good angle and looks to be providing some nice mixed fighting of the scale we can currently enjoy and its nicely absent of any traditional "rp community" needle and angst.
So it is possible to enjoy the game even in the current situation. But like everyone else I'm definitely hoping CCP throw us a bone to make it easier to engage people's interest again and recover from the long summer doldrums.
On which point I would close on saying:
I think one big problem with the IGS is people simply use the "RP excuse" to troll their OOC feuds there and it does become corrosive and poisonous. I'd definitely like to see a bit more discipline from old school rp'ers and less internicine bitterness masquerading as "rp". Nobody wants to see talking heads being purely negative about anything anybody else has to say. If a topic doesn't interest you then ignore it. Don't feel obliged to troll and sneer just because its a post made by somebody you don't like. IGS would be a far superior environment if people competed for interest against each other with positive and progressive thread/topic posting representing in-character play rather than used it simply as a way of insulting and demeaning each other with veiled ooc insults all the time.
For my money I'm happy to see virtually anything presented as IC from the single rifter shooting a wartarget punisher if its presented in nice and evocative language. I want to read about people's first wars, their ideals, their principles and their schemes. I want to read about what people are doing and what they stand for. This is all positive. (One great thing about the new forums is that I can "like" all positive posts while ignoring the terrible ones).
I don't want to see put-downs and purely negative posting pretending to be "characterization".
If you want to flame somebody IC then send them an evemail - please don't drag the rest of the community through your personal issues and grudges.
This simple bit of self-discipline on the part of the community would massively improve the atmosphere on the summit.
TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL
Its great that you put thought into this but surely it can be trimmed a little?
People think and speak (and write) at different speeds. Diversity is part of the beauty of life. That kind of thing takes me 5 minutes to write. If its too much for you to take in one sitting - have a cup of tea between the paragraphs.
-
Is reading difficult for you? :P
Incredibly so. For I have no eyes :| Nah but seriously I can read, anmd read well.
-
I think its undoubtedly the case that Eve itself has slowed down a lot this summer post monocle-gate and the realization that the pay off for 18 months of no significant new content was not actually very good (CQ). Across the game there has been a general wave of lassitude, unsubbing and only logging in to changeover skills etc and I don't think its in any way specific to the RP community. Now of course, it doesn't help that there isn't really any background or plot development going on for RP'ers to latch onto. I think the research project thing was an interesting idea perhaps, but lack of anything real to do in-space meant that people's enthusiasm for it died out relatively quickly. Sansha plotline has become humdrum (after all, people are "farming it"). FW empire fights - well, we all know the story there, its content that has suffered years of neglect and stasis. So it leaves people needing to make their own content and RP story from whatever corp and alliance mates they have left. For many that is difficult.
In our alliance (star fraction) we've had our routine summer drama llama-ding-dong with people declaring the movement dead and going pirate. (happens every summer) combined with the low activity and general angst at CCP's perceived abandonment of the game universe. In practical terms the impact its had on us is twofold:
Firstly, our maximum fleet size for patrolling and intervention dropped from low to mid twenties to half a dozen to low teens. Most people who were on the fence about activity in Eve seem to have dropped off the fence (on the wrong side) and we're looking an alliance of a few dozen actives total from the 60-70 we had a couple of years ago.
Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
That said, it has been a positive thing to see we can actually have fun with the smaller fleets at the half a dozen man vs half a dozen target level and it does make the organization feel more personal and camaraderie amongst the hardcore idealists that stick it out is improved. I think if Eve in general does survive the current doldrums and recover and begin appealing to people's broader interests again the veteran's who toughed it out and kept to their principles in the Fraction will have forged a bond that will empower us for years to come.
All organizations have their ups and downs - but I think Eve at the moment is seeing an awful lot of organizations having their downs simultaneously with only a couple of pseudo-rp outfits on the verges keeping their activity on non-rp focus.
Still. There is always hope. CCP may well listen to the climate of protests and unhappiness across the player base at the moment and may realize that they need to fund and properly resource their core game and start making things happen again. I personally hope we hear less of "there is no resource/it can't be done" and a bit more acceptance that unless they start making these things happen there might actually be "no game at all".
Its clear Eve does need a lot of attention and new enthusiasm and passion to make things happen. Something as simple (albeit time consuming and manpower intensive) as renewed Live events with genuine in-space interaction could help. Renewing and repairing Faction Warfare would definitely help. Even looking at enhanced lowsec, mercenaries and bounty-hunters, new faction ships, new anything really can help because it makes people want to log into the game again and prepare to fight for things!
Anyways, to summarize for the op I think while Eve RP did not actually "die" it has gone to sleep now for quite a while. We will need CCP's help to help wake it up, but of course we can help too.
From SF's perspective we really have gone back to our roots moving to this autumn and we're making war on regressive road-blockers and would-be imperialist pirate outfits that have the temerity to charge people "rent" for occupation of lowsec Placid systems. The beginning of our "loops" campaign was basically a statement of intent that we would fight people who dared restrict the movement of our ships in placid but it revealed a hidden criminal network in the "loops" that charge people to live there. We've now advanced our wardec to the landlords and would-be rent-barons and in return got wardecced by some mercenaries paid by the slumlords to defend their business. Its a pretty good angle and looks to be providing some nice mixed fighting of the scale we can currently enjoy and its nicely absent of any traditional "rp community" needle and angst.
So it is possible to enjoy the game even in the current situation. But like everyone else I'm definitely hoping CCP throw us a bone to make it easier to engage people's interest again and recover from the long summer doldrums.
On which point I would close on saying:
I think one big problem with the IGS is people simply use the "RP excuse" to troll their OOC feuds there and it does become corrosive and poisonous. I'd definitely like to see a bit more discipline from old school rp'ers and less internicine bitterness masquerading as "rp". Nobody wants to see talking heads being purely negative about anything anybody else has to say. If a topic doesn't interest you then ignore it. Don't feel obliged to troll and sneer just because its a post made by somebody you don't like. IGS would be a far superior environment if people competed for interest against each other with positive and progressive thread/topic posting representing in-character play rather than used it simply as a way of insulting and demeaning each other with veiled ooc insults all the time.
For my money I'm happy to see virtually anything presented as IC from the single rifter shooting a wartarget punisher if its presented in nice and evocative language. I want to read about people's first wars, their ideals, their principles and their schemes. I want to read about what people are doing and what they stand for. This is all positive. (One great thing about the new forums is that I can "like" all positive posts while ignoring the terrible ones).
I don't want to see put-downs and purely negative posting pretending to be "characterization".
If you want to flame somebody IC then send them an evemail - please don't drag the rest of the community through your personal issues and grudges.
This simple bit of self-discipline on the part of the community would massively improve the atmosphere on the summit.
TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL
Its great that you put thought into this but surely it can be trimmed a little?
People think and speak (and write) at different speeds. Diversity is part of the beauty of life. That kind of thing takes me 5 minutes to write. If its too much for you to take in one siting - have a cup of tea between the paragraphs.
No, its not about how fast you write or I read or whatever. Im not really criticising you or anything, just pointing out that it hard to find details or what you actually think from sifting through that much text in every post.
-
No, its not about how fast you write or I read or whatever. Im not really criticising you or anything, just pointing out that it hard to find details or what you actually think from sifting through that many words.
Well I guess as they say, takes all sorts! (tell you what though, and don't say I never take criticism!) I've edited the original post and put some bold subject headings in there. Pretend each of the sections is its "own post" and take them separately. How about that?
General situation with Eve Roleplay
I think its undoubtedly the case that Eve itself has slowed down a lot this summer post monocle-gate and the realization that the pay off for 18 months of no significant new content was not actually very good (CQ). Across the game there has been a general wave of lassitude, unsubbing and only logging in to changeover skills etc and I don't think its in any way specific to the RP community. Now of course, it doesn't help that there isn't really any background or plot development going on for RP'ers to latch onto. I think the research project thing was an interesting idea perhaps, but lack of anything real to do in-space meant that people's enthusiasm for it died out relatively quickly. Sansha plotline has become humdrum (after all, people are "farming it"). FW empire fights - well, we all know the story there, its content that has suffered years of neglect and stasis. So it leaves people needing to make their own content and RP story from whatever corp and alliance mates they have left. For many that is difficult.
How my alliance has been impacted with this
In our alliance (star fraction) we've had our routine summer drama llama-ding-dong with people declaring the movement dead and going pirate. (happens every summer) combined with the low activity and general angst at CCP's perceived abandonment of the game universe. In practical terms the impact its had on us is twofold:
Firstly, our maximum fleet size for patrolling and intervention dropped from low to mid twenties to half a dozen to low teens. Most people who were on the fence about activity in Eve seem to have dropped off the fence (on the wrong side) and we're looking an alliance of a few dozen actives total from the 60-70 we had a couple of years ago.
Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
Well gotta see the upside
That said, it has been a positive thing to see we can actually have fun with the smaller fleets at the half a dozen man vs half a dozen target level and it does make the organization feel more personal and camaraderie amongst the hardcore idealists that stick it out is improved. I think if Eve in general does survive the current doldrums and recover and begin appealing to people's broader interests again the veteran's who toughed it out and kept to their principles in the Fraction will have forged a bond that will empower us for years to come.
All organizations have their ups and downs - but I think Eve at the moment is seeing an awful lot of organizations having their downs simultaneously with only a couple of pseudo-rp outfits on the verges keeping their activity on non-rp focus.
Time for CCP to pull their fat out of the fire
Still. There is always hope. CCP may well listen to the climate of protests and unhappiness across the player base at the moment and may realize that they need to fund and properly resource their core game and start making things happen again. I personally hope we hear less of "there is no resource/it can't be done" and a bit more acceptance that unless they start making these things happen there might actually be "no game at all".
Its clear Eve does need a lot of attention and new enthusiasm and passion to make things happen. Something as simple (albeit time consuming and manpower intensive) as renewed Live events with genuine in-space interaction could help. Renewing and repairing Faction Warfare would definitely help. Even looking at enhanced lowsec, mercenaries and bounty-hunters, new faction ships, new anything really can help because it makes people want to log into the game again and prepare to fight for things!
Anyways, to summarize for the op I think while Eve RP did not actually "die" it has gone to sleep now for quite a while. We will need CCP's help to help wake it up, but of course we can help too.
Looking Forward
From SF's perspective we really have gone back to our roots moving to this autumn and we're making war on regressive road-blockers and would-be imperialist pirate outfits that have the temerity to charge people "rent" for occupation of lowsec Placid systems. The beginning of our "loops" campaign was basically a statement of intent that we would fight people who dared restrict the movement of our ships in placid but it revealed a hidden criminal network in the "loops" that charge people to live there. We've now advanced our wardec to the landlords and would-be rent-barons and in return got wardecced by some mercenaries paid by the slumlords to defend their business. Its a pretty good angle and looks to be providing some nice mixed fighting of the scale we can currently enjoy and its nicely absent of any traditional "rp community" needle and angst.
So it is possible to enjoy the game even in the current situation. But like everyone else I'm definitely hoping CCP throw us a bone to make it easier to engage people's interest again and recover from the long summer doldrums.
A closing point on the way people use the IGS
I think one big problem with the IGS is people simply use the "RP excuse" to troll their OOC feuds there and it does become corrosive and poisonous. I'd definitely like to see a bit more discipline from old school rp'ers and less internicine bitterness masquerading as "rp". Nobody wants to see talking heads being purely negative about anything anybody else has to say. If a topic doesn't interest you then ignore it. Don't feel obliged to troll and sneer just because its a post made by somebody you don't like. IGS would be a far superior environment if people competed for interest against each other with positive and progressive thread/topic posting representing in-character play rather than used it simply as a way of insulting and demeaning each other with veiled ooc insults all the time.
For my money I'm happy to see virtually anything presented as IC from the single rifter shooting a wartarget punisher if its presented in nice and evocative language. I want to read about people's first wars, their ideals, their principles and their schemes. I want to read about what people are doing and what they stand for. This is all positive. (One great thing about the new forums is that I can "like" all positive posts while ignoring the terrible ones).
I don't want to see put-downs and purely negative posting pretending to be "characterization".
If you want to flame somebody IC then send them an evemail - please don't drag the rest of the community through your personal issues and grudges.
This simple bit of self-discipline on the part of the community would massively improve the atmosphere on the summit.
-
No, its not about how fast you write or I read or whatever. Im not really criticising you or anything, just pointing out that it hard to find details or what you actually think from sifting through that many words.
Well I guess as they say, takes all sorts! (tell you what though, and don't say I never take criticism!) I've edited the original post and put some bold subject headings in there. Pretend each of the sections is its "own post" and take them separately. How about that?
General situation with Eve Roleplay
I think its undoubtedly the case that Eve itself has slowed down a lot this summer post monocle-gate and the realization that the pay off for 18 months of no significant new content was not actually very good (CQ). Across the game there has been a general wave of lassitude, unsubbing and only logging in to changeover skills etc and I don't think its in any way specific to the RP community. Now of course, it doesn't help that there isn't really any background or plot development going on for RP'ers to latch onto. I think the research project thing was an interesting idea perhaps, but lack of anything real to do in-space meant that people's enthusiasm for it died out relatively quickly. Sansha plotline has become humdrum (after all, people are "farming it"). FW empire fights - well, we all know the story there, its content that has suffered years of neglect and stasis. So it leaves people needing to make their own content and RP story from whatever corp and alliance mates they have left. For many that is difficult.
How my alliance has been impacted with this
In our alliance (star fraction) we've had our routine summer drama llama-ding-dong with people declaring the movement dead and going pirate. (happens every summer) combined with the low activity and general angst at CCP's perceived abandonment of the game universe. In practical terms the impact its had on us is twofold:
Firstly, our maximum fleet size for patrolling and intervention dropped from low to mid twenties to half a dozen to low teens. Most people who were on the fence about activity in Eve seem to have dropped off the fence (on the wrong side) and we're looking an alliance of a few dozen actives total from the 60-70 we had a couple of years ago.
Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
Well gotta see the upside
That said, it has been a positive thing to see we can actually have fun with the smaller fleets at the half a dozen man vs half a dozen target level and it does make the organization feel more personal and camaraderie amongst the hardcore idealists that stick it out is improved. I think if Eve in general does survive the current doldrums and recover and begin appealing to people's broader interests again the veteran's who toughed it out and kept to their principles in the Fraction will have forged a bond that will empower us for years to come.
All organizations have their ups and downs - but I think Eve at the moment is seeing an awful lot of organizations having their downs simultaneously with only a couple of pseudo-rp outfits on the verges keeping their activity on non-rp focus.
Time for CCP to pull their fat out of the fire
Still. There is always hope. CCP may well listen to the climate of protests and unhappiness across the player base at the moment and may realize that they need to fund and properly resource their core game and start making things happen again. I personally hope we hear less of "there is no resource/it can't be done" and a bit more acceptance that unless they start making these things happen there might actually be "no game at all".
Its clear Eve does need a lot of attention and new enthusiasm and passion to make things happen. Something as simple (albeit time consuming and manpower intensive) as renewed Live events with genuine in-space interaction could help. Renewing and repairing Faction Warfare would definitely help. Even looking at enhanced lowsec, mercenaries and bounty-hunters, new faction ships, new anything really can help because it makes people want to log into the game again and prepare to fight for things!
Anyways, to summarize for the op I think while Eve RP did not actually "die" it has gone to sleep now for quite a while. We will need CCP's help to help wake it up, but of course we can help too.
Looking Forward
From SF's perspective we really have gone back to our roots moving to this autumn and we're making war on regressive road-blockers and would-be imperialist pirate outfits that have the temerity to charge people "rent" for occupation of lowsec Placid systems. The beginning of our "loops" campaign was basically a statement of intent that we would fight people who dared restrict the movement of our ships in placid but it revealed a hidden criminal network in the "loops" that charge people to live there. We've now advanced our wardec to the landlords and would-be rent-barons and in return got wardecced by some mercenaries paid by the slumlords to defend their business. Its a pretty good angle and looks to be providing some nice mixed fighting of the scale we can currently enjoy and its nicely absent of any traditional "rp community" needle and angst.
So it is possible to enjoy the game even in the current situation. But like everyone else I'm definitely hoping CCP throw us a bone to make it easier to engage people's interest again and recover from the long summer doldrums.
A closing point on the way people use the IGS
I think one big problem with the IGS is people simply use the "RP excuse" to troll their OOC feuds there and it does become corrosive and poisonous. I'd definitely like to see a bit more discipline from old school rp'ers and less internicine bitterness masquerading as "rp". Nobody wants to see talking heads being purely negative about anything anybody else has to say. If a topic doesn't interest you then ignore it. Don't feel obliged to troll and sneer just because its a post made by somebody you don't like. IGS would be a far superior environment if people competed for interest against each other with positive and progressive thread/topic posting representing in-character play rather than used it simply as a way of insulting and demeaning each other with veiled ooc insults all the time.
For my money I'm happy to see virtually anything presented as IC from the single rifter shooting a wartarget punisher if its presented in nice and evocative language. I want to read about people's first wars, their ideals, their principles and their schemes. I want to read about what people are doing and what they stand for. This is all positive. (One great thing about the new forums is that I can "like" all positive posts while ignoring the terrible ones).
I don't want to see put-downs and purely negative posting pretending to be "characterization".
If you want to flame somebody IC then send them an evemail - please don't drag the rest of the community through your personal issues and grudges.
This simple bit of self-discipline on the part of the community would massively improve the atmosphere on the summit.
Very helpful :)
*raises hat in appreciation
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Am I the only one who thinks the rise of incursion farming is just the icing on the cake? When it comes to RP at least.
I mean it was a superb idea but it seems that all 4 empires have been completely removed from the equasion, as was discussed in this thread http://eve-search.com/thread/1544201 (http://eve-search.com/thread/1544201)
The empires were supposedly in flux after the events of the Empyrean age, i.e. had their internal workings massively f***ed up, yet they've all remained in pretty much a complete stasis.
So really, the reason for a lapse in RP is simple: Theres nothing to talk about. Or at least, nothing that hasnt already had the legs discussed off it. Theres only so much ground that players can make up by themselves, so really the bakcstory, which is the foundation of RP, needs some serious Dev Love.
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Am I the only one who thinks the rise of incursion farming is just the icing on the cake? When it comes to RP at least.
Not at all.
So really, the reason for a lapse in RP is simple: Theres nothing to talk about. Or at least, nothing that hasnt already had the legs discussed off it. Theres only so much ground that players can make up by themselves, so really the bakcstory, which is the foundation of RP, needs some serious Dev Love.
Pretty much, yep. As I said in my post a while back, it's fallen to the individual people to drive their own storylines, something many people find very, very difficult to do for extended periods of time - not to mention the fear (real or imagined) of just spawning more dramallama.
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Pretty much, yep. As I said in my post a while back, it's fallen to the individual people to drive their own storylines, something many people find very, very difficult to do for extended periods of time - not to mention the fear (real or imagined) of just spawning more dramallama.
Well, it's the sandbox concept applied to RP. :o)
My biggest problem with that is that there are so many PF gaps on everyday stuff, and I can't really invent that, either (inventing stuff everyone knows/does/etc. feels to me like godmoding, imposing my ideas on others, and I hate doing that).
So, small storylines to develop. Works fine. I'm currently having a lot of RP around developing the direction of my corp, for example. It's the kind of RP I like the most: Gameplay-motivated RP.
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Completely player-driven events have several advantages: They don't have to scale well, they don't have to be open for everyone, they can be targeted to a selected audience, they can be partial and biased and the players never have to sit back and accept god-modding. The disadvantages include the difficulty of finding players and to some extent the lack of proper in-game tools, other than shooting.
Although it would be nice to see the inconsistencies of the backstory getting fixed and the open storylines going somewhere, I think we could do perfectly well with a static and vague backstory, without any active involvement by the CCP employees.
Or is it just me? RP community is very quiet. Summit is endlessly Amarr...what's going on? Was it the summer, if I'm just being paranoid?
I'd go with the monocle gate explanation: When players leave, social networks collapse and it takes time to build them up again.
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Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
You know, teaming up with Caldari loyalists doesn't really help your target situation. :P
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[Insert bravado and posturing here]
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Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
You know, teaming up with Caldari loyalists doesn't really help your target situation. :P
Do you have an example in mind?
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Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
You know, teaming up with Caldari loyalists doesn't really help your target situation. :P
Do you have an example in mind?
IRED, former Amarrian lapdogs and Caldari loyalists. :)
I don't follow the IGS so was amused to see you flying with them. v0v
[Insert bravado and posturing here]
And no, believe it or not Jade and I can get along just fine. :P
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IRED, former Amarrian lapdogs and Caldari loyalists. :)
I don't follow the IGS so was amused to see you flying with them. v0v
You remember when we fought the Kimotoro Directive and on chatsubo I framed it as a conflict between the Sandboxistas (Archbishop's consensual-only sandbox within a sandbox) and the heroic Dynamacists (roleplay without preconditions and tramlines)? Well part of the reason we fought was to introduce the roleplay community to the notion of realistic political development.
I mention this because I-RED have changed over the years and developed from Amarrian Allies to State Dissidents and now are considered -10 KOS by the Caldari Militia for their opposition to Heth and State Liberalist principles. In Star Fraction we've recognized these developments and done our bit to encourage and support them. We've a revolutionary movement, surely we should be encouraging dissident Caldari politics right?
The short version is when people's roleplay evolves and develops in reaction to events in game its right to open one's mind to react in turn. Such dynamacist thinking is what we once fought for you and Bacchanalian. Nowadays everything is doing it :)
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All the above is just further reason why I love you to bits, Sakaane.
+1 Like
Oh wait, wrong forum. Drat.
Thanks Mammal. You're one of my favorites, did you know?
I think the RP situation overall will recover. Newbies like me and others do intend to promote our own storylines, which while potentially slow to get started will at some point (hopefully) gather enough steam to create opportunities to broaden out and attract/involve more people than at the start. It seems to me that SF always has some RP potential going on and a number of groups can spring off it if they choose. Everybody else maybe just needs a break or a chance to reset. What's that saying? Every twenty minutes in conversation there's a natural pause? Maybe this is the RP equivalent.
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Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
You know, teaming up with Caldari loyalists doesn't really help your target situation. :P
Do you have an example in mind?
IRED, former Amarrian lapdogs and Caldari loyalists. :)
I don't follow the IGS so was amused to see you flying with them. v0v
We set each other neutral some time ago [Yes we are still neutral to eachother even now.] A joint operation to disrupt pirate activities in Placid does not seem to far fetched.
We have one thing in common that is we both want to see the gates clear of pirates, I-RED wants this to allow more access to the Intaki Market. I am sure SF have their own reasons.
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Knew you'd dropped the Amarrians, but I had no idea you were anti-Caldari State now too.
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Knew you'd dropped the Amarrians, but I had no idea you were anti-Caldari State now too.
Pretty sure we still aren't anti-State.
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Knew you'd dropped the Amarrians, but I had no idea you were anti-Caldari State now too.
Anti Provist does not mean anti-State.
Anti-Heth does not mean anti-State.
Anti-STPRO (and only certain parts of STPRO, I might add... most of it is still neutral.) does not mean anti-State
I don't see what is so difficult to understand about this. You don't have to love the current government to love the nation. This is a fact seen all over the world, all throughout history. It is the driving point behind many of history's greatest revolutions and rebellions.
EDIT: To make a point, I should clarify that we are not revolutionaries or rebels. We operate well within State law. We just don't agree with Heth or his policies. We're a legitimate member of the Caldari Liberal faction. Just as there is a very legal and accepted Practical faction that doesn't particularly like Heth either. Patriots and Provists aren't the only legitimate citizens of the State. They're merely the loudest, since they're in power.
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Knew you'd dropped the Amarrians, but I had no idea you were anti-Caldari State now too.
Funny.
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Secondly, our potential target availability has dropped significantly. Earlier in the year placid was full of pirate groups roaming with 10-20 man fleets and bite-sized gate camps were oppressing travellers at all the hisec/lowsec junctions. It was a target rich environment that we often struggled to win against and in away that was a good thing because it made us evolve our tactics and try to find ways to fight outnumbered and often out-blinged. These days the pirates are relatively scarce and potential RP territorialist/enclosurist organizations to wardec rarer still. So that does have the danger of spiralling to a mutually-reinforcing decline.
You know, teaming up with Caldari loyalists doesn't really help your target situation. :P
Do you have an example in mind?
IRED, former Amarrian lapdogs and Caldari loyalists. :)
I don't follow the IGS so was amused to see you flying with them. v0v
We set each other neutral some time ago [Yes we are still neutral to eachother even now.] A joint operation to disrupt pirate activities in Placid does not seem to far fetched.
We have one thing in common that is we both want to see the gates clear of pirates, I-RED wants this to allow more access to the Intaki Market. I am sure SF have their own reasons.
Not a million miles from I-RED's motive really. We've always been pro-commerce and economic development and the regressive gate-camping pirate alliances in Placid are in the way of business. Part of SF's revolutionary agenda has been encouraging businessmen, traders, industrialists and explorers to take their defence into their own hands and strike back against oppressors and for us its great to see progressive commercial interests taking the fight to the bad guys.
Was good to work with you guys last night also, it was surprisingly smooth and my complements to your alliance mates!
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Knew you'd dropped the Amarrians, but I had no idea you were anti-Caldari State now too.
Anti Provist does not mean anti-State.
Anti-Heth does not mean anti-State.
Anti-STPRO (and only certain parts of STPRO, I might add... most of it is still neutral.) does not mean anti-State
I don't see what is so difficult to understand about this. You don't have to love the current government to love the nation. This is a fact seen all over the world, all throughout history. It is the driving point behind many of history's greatest revolutions and rebellions.
EDIT: To make a point, I should clarify that we are not revolutionaries or rebels. We operate well within State law. We just don't agree with Heth or his policies. We're a legitimate member of the Caldari Liberal faction. Just as there is a very legal and accepted Practical faction that doesn't particularly like Heth either. Patriots and Provists aren't the only legitimate citizens of the State. They're merely the loudest, since they're in power.
Bah, its always the same thing, you will have people taking your ideals for what they are when you are actually working on things from the inside (yeah, not everyone is a damn patriot, and this in every faction), and people thinking in black and white "you are not 100% with us, so you are against us".
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To make a point, I should clarify that we are not revolutionaries or rebels. We're a legitimate member of the Caldari Liberal faction.
And this is where I get confused about you being in bed with Star Fraction.
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To make a point, I should clarify that we are not revolutionaries or rebels. We're a legitimate member of the Caldari Liberal faction.
And this is where I get confused about you being in bed with Star Fraction.
It shouldn't be that confusing, of the nationalist ideologies closest to Fraction ideals you can list Matari radicals, intaki separatists and caldari liberals. I think you need to remember that the Fraction is not one of these "burn-everything nihilist sects" that some of our spin-off descendants turned into. Star Fraction movement believes in constructive persuasion and economic cooperation as a means of furthering our influence and ideology alongside direct action in space against the regressive hardcore adherents of nationalist dogma.
We've spoken for the last three years now at the Otro Gariushi memorials http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrbZJ1n9fL4&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrbZJ1n9fL4&feature=related) and publicised our feelings on state liberalism quite widely.
Quite honestly you weaken yourself criticically as a revolutionary if you fail to reward progressive signs of change with cooperation and friendship where it is warrented. New Eden has some real villains to be fought.
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*cough*
Split the thread or somethin'...
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Knew you'd dropped the Amarrians, but I had no idea you were anti-Caldari State now too.
Anti Provist does not mean anti-State.
Anti-Heth does not mean anti-State.
Anti-STPRO (and only certain parts of STPRO, I might add... most of it is still neutral.) does not mean anti-State
I don't see what is so difficult to understand about this. You don't have to love the current government to love the nation. This is a fact seen all over the world, all throughout history. It is the driving point behind many of history's greatest revolutions and rebellions.
EDIT: To make a point, I should clarify that we are not revolutionaries or rebels. We operate well within State law. We just don't agree with Heth or his policies. We're a legitimate member of the Caldari Liberal faction. Just as there is a very legal and accepted Practical faction that doesn't particularly like Heth either. Patriots and Provists aren't the only legitimate citizens of the State. They're merely the loudest, since they're in power.
Note (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/State_of_the_Caldari_State%2C_110.06.11#Practicals), the Practical faction is not exactly anti-Heth.
Heth is at the head of KK, which is nominally the lead corporation of the Patriot political faction. Lots of things that Heth has done the Patriots wanted to do, but not necessarily in the way it is being done. I try not to portray LDIS as Provist, but I completely understand the Lai Dai/Patriot position being construed as Provist.
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Can we stop pyramid quoting a ten paragraph essay? It's becoming prohibitively frustrating to bother reading many of the posts in this thread.
Thanks.
There is lots of RP going on, it's just that the public arena of RP can largely be equated to /b/. Shock posts, attempting to gather reactions, using the freedom and relative anonymity of alts to generate drama on a daily basis for the benefit of their twisted sense of humor. Welcome to the Summit and IGS.
So many of us try to avoid that region of affairs. Many people don't comment on IGS threads simply because certain individuals will use it as an opportunity to gerrymander offense to said comment, for the purpose of pointless wardecs, angst, or other idiocy.
If, for example, someone was roleplaying the formation of an industrial corporation to help rebuild the Seyllin system, and made a call for investors to do so, then you'd get 2 offers for genuine support and about eight to declare their intentions to destroy it.
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If, for example, someone was roleplaying the formation of an industrial corporation to help rebuild the Seyllin system, and made a call for investors to do so, then you'd get 2 offers for genuine support and about eight to declare their intentions to destroy it.
and how many of those 10 responses then go on to actually do anything about it? Anything at all? :ugh:
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*cough*
Split the thread or somethin'...
Me agrees with Graelyn and slaps people discussing Statist stuff and other things...
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If, for example, someone was roleplaying the formation of an industrial corporation to help rebuild the Seyllin system, and made a call for investors to do so, then you'd get 2 offers for genuine support and about eight to declare their intentions to destroy it.
and how many of those 10 responses then go on to actually do anything about it? Anything at all? :ugh:
From my observations over the years, one in ten. So, out of every hundred such replies, you might see 2 actual acts of support, and 8 acts of spaceship violence.
This begs the question, is posting on the IGS actually roleplay? Can it be possible for a given character to continually promise to do something, and then not do it, and maintain any shred of credibility as a human being or infomorph/capsuleer?
If we judged the credibility of IGS posters on a statistical level, 90% of them would be the laughing stock of the intergalactic community, in character. Attempting to navigate such a jungle is, needless to say, more trouble than its worth.
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Also:
approaching soon is the DUST:514 novel, "Templar One", which is arriving within the next 3 months iirc.
There will be things to have arguments about, RP wise, such as the minmatar executing surrendered enemy forces, and the moustache-twirly evil caricatures of other persons.
of course, then there's That Argument Again, about how much any of all that would be known outside of the persons directly concerned.
Schrodinger's PF. :ugh:
Anyway, with not much in the way of new information in missions or whatever, that is easily found (New missions are spread thinly, since, if there's 100 existing missions with PF snippets in it, then adding 10 more means the chances of encountering those missions isn't particularly high, compared with ones you've already seen), and no news or chronicles, then there's not much to talk about.
Even with FW, if there's a falloff in numbers contesting plexes and systems, then there's less to talk about there. Same with incursions, it has become a weather report rather than a particular thing to discuss. "forecast for today, heavy Sansha's with sunny intervals" and so on.
the inability to see what other persons are wearing for example, also means Incarna is a bit vOv so far. E.g. SHOES!
Shoes can ONLY be seen by the player of the character wearing the shoes. it's a bit all dressed up and nowhere to go, which is :s
you can /emote wears fabulous shoes from the NeX store, at the handful of social functions that are going on, but it's a bit Meh at the moment.
Not to mention, the whole debacle with the monocles, 18 months, Walking in Cupboards, and so on, which has had the effect of making several persons think "Do I see myself still playing this game next year?" which then has a follow on effect, of "Do I want to start a thing with these other characters, with the possibility that at least some of us will unsubscribe before a Conclusion is reached?", so there's less long-term RP commitments.
Some people are currently reviewing where the exit is, and checking their parachute harness, it makes other people less willing to commit, I think.
Overall, meh.
Needs something to make people go "Wow!!!" and then everything will pick up again.
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If, for example, someone was roleplaying the formation of an industrial corporation to help rebuild the Seyllin system, and made a call for investors to do so, then you'd get 2 offers for genuine support and about eight to declare their intentions to destroy it.
and how many of those 10 responses then go on to actually do anything about it? Anything at all? :ugh:
And what can be actually done to rebuild it? Nothing. You can makebelieve you are rebuilding the system, but since you are trying to aid an NPC element, and NPCs in EVE are largely non-existent and non-responsive in anything but our imagination, there isn't much you can actually see being done. So, in many cames the declaration to aid *is* the aid, because actual aid cannot be proven or disproven.
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If, for example, someone was roleplaying the formation of an industrial corporation to help rebuild the Seyllin system, and made a call for investors to do so, then you'd get 2 offers for genuine support and about eight to declare their intentions to destroy it.
and how many of those 10 responses then go on to actually do anything about it? Anything at all? :ugh:
And what can be actually done to rebuild it? Nothing. You can makebelieve you are rebuilding the system, but since you are trying to aid an NPC element, and NPCs in EVE are largely non-existent and non-responsive in anything but our imagination, there isn't much you can actually see being done. So, in many cames the declaration to aid *is* the aid, because actual aid cannot be proven or disproven.
Incorrect, I believe. Rebuilding a system, in general, can be done through establishing planetary economic activity to provide a substitute economic base to what was lost on Seyllin Prime, thus providing a place for the system's economic potential to the local astropolitical entity, in this case, the Federation, to be renewed. Planetary interaction, in other words.
If the use this more generalized objective, reestablishing economic potential to the Federation, then our opportunities are even more abundant. Capsuleer industrial activity, including starship manufacturing, ore processing, trade and commerce, are all valid ways to implement such a policy. As is limiting pirate activity through destroying cosmic anomalies/deadspaces, belt rats, that would otherwise hamper civilian non-capsuleer commercial traffic.
Running missions for the agents located within the system is also applicable.
To argue otherwise would be to invalidate the roleplay done by Ishuk-Raata and Intaki Liberation Front, who have done things similar in the Intaki system, and set significant precedent. The only debatable aspect is precisely how much economic activity might be stimulated.
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And what can be actually done to rebuild it? Nothing. You can makebelieve you are rebuilding the system, but since you are trying to aid an NPC element, and NPCs in EVE are largely non-existent and non-responsive in anything but our imagination, there isn't much you can actually see being done. So, in many cames the declaration to aid *is* the aid, because actual aid cannot be proven or disproven.
I was actually thinking about this while bored at work for the last 30 mintues or so. If I were going to make such a claim, what would I do? Came up with a few ideas:
Putting people to work: Move heavy industrial production to the system. See how full you and your corp can keep all of the production queues. From our view it seems like we work in a vacuum, but you've gotta figure that when I start a production job, someone is working on it in some capacity. Even if we try to say that it's all automated, then I've just given the maintenance crew a bit more work to do.
In a similar vein, put the stuff on the market there, try to attract more attention, draw people there. Is it going to have any real, in-game impact on the state of the system? Probably not. But CCP does once in a while notice what players have done, and a concerted, long term, public effort to promote industry and commerce might get their attention.
Or, you know, it might not do a damned thing. *shrug*
edit: sniped by soter
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I think we can see the beginnings of another argument in the same vein, here: "no roleplay-by-doing is realizeable in this setting, and thus, roleplay-by-doing and roleplay-by-saying are equivalent and can be substituted for one another"
I believe this statement is patently false. We exist and do things in the in-character universe on a second by second basis, providing us with hard fact and evidence to support our character development. The danger of roleplaying purely by saying things, as exists on the IGS for the vast majority of cases, is that you remove many of the barriers stopping metagaming and manipulating character development, namely, by removing observable fact from the equation and reducing it to a 'on-your-honor' system.
Which, as we all know, fails miserably in such a context. Hell, it happens when doing table-tops, so how is it going to work on the internet, of all places?
Relating this to the OP, I believe many of the issues with the present publicly-observable roleplaying activity is that people are seeing this for themselves, and don't want anything to do with it. They've grown bored of the old, rehashed tropes.
Eventually, the reason why people pay for their subscriptions to CCP is because they purchase the privileged to fly spaceships in space. A chat client, or a chat room, is an infinitely reproduceable and free technology, through which all manner of text-based roleplay can be conducted. However, what we have in eve online is a infinitely-varied and deep history of observable player action relating to observable outcomes. Eve online market, corporation, and pvp game mechanics are the D20 ruleset that keep everything humming along, and the charred remains of titans and supercarriers, corporate thefts, and ponzi schemes, are the collective memories of the player base that can never be undone by a retcon.
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Incorrect, I believe. Rebuilding a system, in general, can be done through establishing planetary economic activity to provide a substitute economic base to what was lost on Seyllin Prime, thus providing a place for the system's economic potential to the local astropolitical entity, in this case, the Federation, to be renewed. Planetary interaction, in other words.
If the use this more generalized objective, reestablishing economic potential to the Federation, then our opportunities are even more abundant. Capsuleer industrial activity, including starship manufacturing, ore processing, trade and commerce, are all valid ways to implement such a policy. As is limiting pirate activity through destroying cosmic anomalies/deadspaces, belt rats, that would otherwise hamper civilian non-capsuleer commercial traffic.
Running missions for the agents located within the system is also applicable.
To argue otherwise would be to invalidate the roleplay done by Ishuk-Raata and Intaki Liberation Front, who have done things similar in the Intaki system, and set significant precedent. The only debatable aspect is precisely how much economic activity might be stimulated.
I guess the problem here is that most of it is solo play and no one really cares if you just produce stuff and sell it on the market. I agree that framing this kind of gameplay as a rebuilding effort is a good way to give it a role-playing motivation. On the contrary, if you specifically want to start a rebuilding project, dedicating yourself to all these things might turn out to be a real role-play killer, and take the fun out of your game experience.
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The people buying the items you sell most certainly care. One of the good things of this activity is that you can draw in non-dedicated role players on your activities.
Stocking a station with lots of different modules for sale is a great way to simulate rebuilding of a star systems economy because that is what you are effectively doing if we assume those sales taxes do not just vanish in thin air.
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Some people are currently reviewing where the exit is, and checking their parachute harness, it makes other people less willing to commit, I think.
Sounds familiar.
So, if you were going to be here for only another... seven months, what stories would you like to have told? What arcs explored? If we're makIng good memories and going our separate ways, what memories do we want?
It's something I'm thinking about at the moment.
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Speaking as a leader of a gaming community, the relationships and friendships we've made while playing eve are vastly more valuable then any small permutation in game mechanics and expansion release content.
The basic formula is, if( better game exists) then (go to said game)
At the moment, there is no better game in existence for larger scale group collaborative play. Simply doesn't exist anywhere.
So, we have to keep that in mind when going doom and gloom on the state of Eve. Some folks might get dissapointed with the fiction content they add in, with the books, or the limited excitement solo mission running/other small scale stuff provides. But those things aren't what eve is about, in the larger scheme of things.
Eve is about people working and playing together.
So, the most persistent and 'stable' RP is that which brings together a larger number of characters with a broader set of RP motivations, interests, and players backing them up with creativity, initiative, and enthusiasm.
Things you conduct between you and a small group of friends will be necessarily a greater burden on you and that small group to maintain. If the larger context of the game isn't as exciting for you, then I can imagine when the cost/benefit formula curves to the point where you don't feel that its worthwhile and you quit.
But it's possible to salvage your endeavor by expanding your base, and thereby reducing the creative strain on a few people, by spreading the collective participation.
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The people buying the items you sell most certainly care. One of the good things of this activity is that you can draw in non-dedicated role players on your activities.
In my experience selling things on the markets, and solo playing in general, leads by far to fewer character interactions than say fleet ops and shooting. Only once another trader has started a conversation and asked me to leave, clients - they never say anything.
Stocking a station with lots of different modules for sale is a great way to simulate rebuilding of a star systems economy because that is what you are effectively doing if we assume those sales taxes do not just vanish in thin air.
I agree completely. I guess my argument was that PI and Industry are too time-intensive to be used just as simple storyline elements/prods, without any other significance.
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So, the most persistent and 'stable' RP is that which brings together a larger number of characters with a broader set of RP motivations, interests, and players backing them up with creativity, initiative, and enthusiasm.
In my experience, putting emphasis on being "open" to all sorts of RP creates a shallow RP environment which reduces my motivation and interest. So I would not quite use this as generally applicable. ;-)
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If, for example, someone was roleplaying the formation of an industrial corporation to help rebuild the Seyllin system, and made a call for investors to do so, then you'd get 2 offers for genuine support and about eight to declare their intentions to destroy it.
and how many of those 10 responses then go on to actually do anything about it? Anything at all? :ugh:
Hey hey hey hey hey, let's not get judgemental about RP in space and such, we know where that leads! (yes, this is tongue in cheek)
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So, the most persistent and 'stable' RP is that which brings together a larger number of characters with a broader set of RP motivations, interests, and players backing them up with creativity, initiative, and enthusiasm.
In my experience, putting emphasis on being "open" to all sorts of RP creates a shallow RP environment which reduces my motivation and interest. So I would not quite use this as generally applicable. ;-)
People's personal experiences differ. I believe you misinterpreted my statement, however. Not being open to all sorts of RP: Being open to all sorts of characters/players. Expanding the brain-base, not broadening the scope of the roleplay.
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If we judged the credibility of IGS posters on a statistical level, 90% of them would be the laughing stock of the intergalactic community, in character. Attempting to navigate such a jungle is, needless to say, more trouble than its worth.
Uh, yes. This is pretty much what I think about (most of) the posters on IGS in character.
You sound like you think that's a problem. Why?
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The basic formula is, if( better game exists) then (go to said game)
At the moment, there is no better game in existence for larger scale group collaborative play. Simply doesn't exist anywhere.
If a relationship is abusive, then it may be better to get out even if you don't have another relationship to go to.
Eve does not exist in a vacuum. I could spend the time I currently spend playing Eve doing something else. Things like face-to-face roleplaying games, playing more sport, reading more books, spending more attention on my wife.
The question is: Is playing Eve a better use of my time than those other options? And despite Eve being better than any other MMO I've encountered, that isn't an automatic or unqualified "yes".
And Louella is correct about people checking the parachutes and escape hatches. It's only reasonable really. CCP has been demonstrating behaviour I do not feel comfortable having blind trust in.
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If we judged the credibility of IGS posters on a statistical level, 90% of them would be the laughing stock of the intergalactic community, in character. Attempting to navigate such a jungle is, needless to say, more trouble than its worth.
Uh, yes. This is pretty much what I think about (most of) the posters on IGS in character.
You sound like you think that's a problem. Why?
I'm not Soter, but I'll answer for myself.
There is no problem with this. Currently I'm not in a very RP-intense corp, so my power, though co-founder, is limited to more... practical, things. However, if I had a say, then for instance, Vieve, or Nikita, or any other toon that has abandoned faction X and joined with faction Y, and possibly even ditched them again for Z, would be barred from entry. They would in fact be told to go fuck themselves, in no mild manners.
Why? They can't be trusted. So many toons in this game do so many really dumb things, but most of that can be forgiven as simple human nature. People can fuck up, over again, and while one expects them to learn from it most issues are neglectable. Far as I and my toon is concerned, loyalty is not.
This is merely one example of actions that should forever negatively impact a character, but you see them being forgiven again and again. I can't speak for anyone bar myself, but I'd love it if more toons and players started to be treated according to how much they have seriously fucked up. If people were actually told 'no, I don't want to hire you, you ditched me last month, swore to kill all my family and piss on their graves then went to X. Your not getting back in here with us Y folks, we are not stupid.'
On a more generic note, concerning the topic, I'm still around in a way, my mains are in a small corp that I'm trying to help build up. My Amarr toon had a story-line going that seem to have died off pretty hard and this needs to be dealth with, so little action there, and my FW toon don't make much noice. Ergo, I'm alive, but silent mostly. Had I a single toon not indesposed by their own lives (IC, not just my issues OOC) there might be more sightings. Still, as previously stated, EVE might be in a generaly quiet period after CQ etc. but to be fair I do think summer is partially to blame. Only question is how much more lively things will be come winter.
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The basic formula is, if( better game exists) then (go to said game)
At the moment, there is no better game in existence for larger scale group collaborative play. Simply doesn't exist anywhere.
If a relationship is abusive, then it may be better to get out even if you don't have another relationship to go to.
Eve does not exist in a vacuum. I could spend the time I currently spend playing Eve doing something else. Things like face-to-face roleplaying games, playing more sport, reading more books, spending more attention on my wife.
The question is: Is playing Eve a better use of my time than those other options? And despite Eve being better than any other MMO I've encountered, that isn't an automatic or unqualified "yes".
And Louella is correct about people checking the parachutes and escape hatches. It's only reasonable really. CCP has been demonstrating behaviour I do not feel comfortable having blind trust in.
For us, it's a choice of between survival and decline for a gaming community. If we're reading books, we're not on vent, bs'ing, grooving on some pvp adrenaline, having fun playing the same game. It'd create a diaspora that would diminish and destroy bonds of friendship and trust built over the past two years.
So, as you can see, I have a very tangible interest in ensuring the success of eve online. It is partly why I'm encouraging a more immersive, activist form of RP, as I see it as one of the means of EVE succeeding through any of these difficulties. CCP is indeed making very positive steps in the right direction, however, and i'm generally feeling positive about the direction of the game with these providing a context to future expansions.
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I don't see the future as bleakly as some, but not as positively promising as oyu fo, Soter. Can you elaborate on these views of yours? Did I miss something?
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There is no problem with this. Currently I'm not in a very RP-intense corp, so my power, though co-founder, is limited to more... practical, things. However, if I had a say, then for instance, Vieve, or Nikita, or any other toon that has abandoned faction X and joined with faction Y, and possibly even ditched them again for Z, would be barred from entry. They would in fact be told to go fuck themselves, in no mild manners.
Why? They can't be trusted. So many toons in this game do so many really dumb things, but most of that can be forgiven as simple human nature. People can fuck up, over again, and while one expects them to learn from it most issues are neglectable. Far as I and my toon is concerned, loyalty is not.
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I don't disagree with any of this.
I'd go further - I've seen corp members try to explain their month long absence by saying "I've been trapped by sleepers who were doing experiments on me, and I'm sort of partly machine now..."; had it been up to me I would have fired them on the spot as no longer trustworthy.
Kyber, as another example, plugged his head into a Sansha network (y'know, those Sansha who were able to mind-control millions of people to meet them at the landing sites of their drop ships) to see what would happen, at which point I strongly suggested firing him for likely being suborned, but I was over-ruled by the CEO. I was not at all surprised when he finally joined them.
Possibly I'm too paranoid. Possibly I'm not paranoid enough...
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For us, it's a choice of between survival and decline for a gaming community. If we're reading books, we're not on vent, bs'ing, grooving on some pvp adrenaline, having fun playing the same game. It'd create a diaspora that would diminish and destroy bonds of friendship and trust built over the past two years.
That's somewhat true. There is, I believe, no bond of friendship and trust between you and I - we just haven't interacted that much, IC or OOC. I don't think it's one gaming community, I think it's a series of slightly overlapping ones, where some of them don't really have much in common with some of the others.
The people I have met in Eve that I do like and trust I would miss, but I could still imagine a point where paying CCP US$x per month to be fucked around by TonyG was more aggravation than it was worth. Perhaps we'll all charge off and play SWTOR together, and be fucked around by GLucas instead.
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The people I have met in Eve that I do like and trust I would miss, but I could still imagine a point where paying CCP US$x per month to be fucked around by TonyG was more aggravation than it was worth.
What's so bad about TonyG? I mean... what do you consider so bad?
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The people I have met in Eve that I do like and trust I would miss, but I could still imagine a point where paying CCP US$x per month to be fucked around by TonyG was more aggravation than it was worth.
What's so bad about TonyG? I mean... what do you consider so bad?
(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110525062141/uncyclopedia/images/8/8a/You-must-be-new-here.jpg)
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(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110525062141/uncyclopedia/images/8/8a/You-must-be-new-here.jpg)
I am. :oops:
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I think TonyG is a good example of why its safe bet to keep your characters as loosely associated with anything PF related as possible. Also, I liked his writing better than Abraxas personally. At least he had a story with a decent climax and action, and somewhat likable characters.
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What's so bad about TonyG? I mean... what do you consider so bad?
I think Arkady has explained it much better than I could, since he's read more of TonyG's writing.
I think this is public:
http://www.electusmatari.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=8606
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To put it shortly and succinctly, it's my opinion that TonyG's writing has repeatedly shown a startling disregard for established PF, a propensity for characters who alternate between flat-as-a-board and completely illogical, and a habit of portraying specific factions as "definite good guys" and "definite bad guys", often provoking the first two situations.
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... startling disregard for established PF...
That must be why TEA confused the crap out of me regarding what I had read of PF already.
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There was a rather interesting threadnaught here a few months ago (or maybe more than a few) about TonyG and whether we should hate him or if he was forced to write PF-obliterating shit because he had to explain where the fuck FW came from in the blink of an eye.
But yeah, in general, a lot of people don't care for him or his writing.
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Incorrect, I believe. Rebuilding a system, in general, can be done through establishing planetary economic activity to provide a substitute economic base to what was lost on Seyllin Prime, thus providing a place for the system's economic potential to the local astropolitical entity, in this case, the Federation, to be renewed. Planetary interaction, in other words.
That is the way you pretend to rebuild the economy. But even your character would be able to see no isk is spent on labor, and no goods are sold to NPCs. I would not notice any difference in NPC response if you completely filled all the planets with hundreds of installations or they remained empty. You simply cannot effect the NPC world because it isn't there. The best thing you could hope for is a CCP news message validating your effort.
If the use this more generalized objective, reestablishing economic potential to the Federation, then our opportunities are even more abundant. Capsuleer industrial activity, including starship manufacturing, ore processing, trade and commerce, are all valid ways to implement such a policy. As is limiting pirate activity through destroying cosmic anomalies/deadspaces, belt rats, that would otherwise hamper civilian non-capsuleer commercial traffic.
I could mission all day long, or for that matter, shoot convoys all day long, and there would be no noticable change. System security ratings would change, stations would fall into disrepair, convoys would remain at their normal strength.
To argue otherwise would be to invalidate the roleplay done by Ishuk-Raata and Intaki Liberation Front, who have done things similar in the Intaki system, and set significant precedent. The only debatable aspect is precisely how much economic activity might be stimulated.
Show me one non-capsuleer that I can talk to that has benefited. Show me economic figures of the NPC economy that have changed. Show me evidence of any stimulation. I don't think there is any. The only evidence is that you stimulated capsuleer economy. Maybe evidence of buying NPC goods would be the nearest equivalent of stimulating NPC economy.
The argument does not invalidate roleplay at all, any roleplay affecting non-existent entities need GM's fiat. You are only affecting economy NPC economy if we agree that you are. When you make such an effort, you are giving other RPers a chance to validate your RP instead.
Merdaneth couldn't produce proof of slaves working on his farms if he was asked to produce it, because, let's face it, there are no in-game representations of slaves working on farms. Yet, when I suggest I am doing so, and other people treat me as if I'm speaking truth, they are validating my position. That is why it is a lot more difficult to RP conflicts when it comes to stuff not existent in-game.
At this point there is no mechanism in-game to free slaves, which essentially means one cannot prove one has freed slaves. One cannot prove one has enslaved people to. We play a careful pretend game with each other where we make claims we hope that other people find believable and thus will validate. But it is difficult to move opposing interests forward this way.
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I think we can see the beginnings of another argument in the same vein, here: "no roleplay-by-doing is realizeable in this setting, and thus, roleplay-by-doing and roleplay-by-saying are equivalent and can be substituted for one another"
I believe this statement is patently false. We exist and do things in the in-character universe on a second by second basis, providing us with hard fact and evidence to support our character development. The danger of roleplaying purely by saying things, as exists on the IGS for the vast majority of cases, is that you remove many of the barriers stopping metagaming and manipulating character development, namely, by removing observable fact from the equation and reducing it to a 'on-your-honor' system.
It is a verifiable fact in-game that the slaves I bought 5 years ago, and locked into a small secure container in a hangar on some station are still there 5 years later. They didn't die (of malnutrition, asphixiation, disease etc.), they didn't reproduce, they didn't require any isk from me to spend upon them. In fact, if I put them on market today they'll likely bring a comparable price with 5 years ago. It is a verifiable fact that non of my in-game slaves ever die, ever escape or ever reproduce. Everybody knows that, but nobody plays it like that, because it would be utterly boring to do so, and wouldn't match what is established in EVE fiction.....
The examples you give are about capsuleer interaction. Capsuleers you can affect, and most of the EVE game is geared towards capsuleer interaction. You can aid, betray, befriend or defeat capsuleers. However, most of EVE fiction and background concerns itself with non-capsuleers, people you cannot affect. You might pretend all you want that the character Julianus Soter had a youth and a family, but you have no proof of it. You cannot show my photographs of your old school classes, your old home and there is no record of your sports achievement. You need to rely on the community's acceptance to establish such things.
The best way to achieve changes in the NPC world is to convince fellow capsuleers and people from CCP that there are such changes going on. In such a case, words are better than action. I might haul millions of slaves back to the Republic for years, but if I'm not making it public, no one's gonna know and it won't affect the storyline one bit.
If everybody in the RP community starts agreeing and saying that Soter spent the majority of his youth in prison, that will be as good as fact, since you cannot disprove it in any way.
In regards to stagnation: when it dawns on you it is next to impossible to really affect changes in the things you like to affect, than a lot of people will stop putting energy into it. That is the attraction of say, nullsec RP, since you can affect much more. I just don't like the shoot-unmoving-millions-of-hp-structures unopposed kind of gameplay. I prefer to play with more interactive and challenging elements. It is also the attraction (for me) of tabletop RP, because you it is much, much easier to affect NPCs.
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Why? They can't be trusted. So many toons in this game do so many really dumb things, but most of that can be forgiven as simple human nature. People can fuck up, over again, and while one expects them to learn from it most issues are neglectable. Far as I and my toon is concerned, loyalty is not.
This is quite common in EVE, especially in the RP community, because many people are friends OOC while opposed IC. Most characters I see leaving RP corps do so for OOC reasons and retrofit a RP reason to it (if anything, some just don't give any IC reason).
I can understand it, but Merdaneth doesn't like it, and I emphasize such loyalty issues by adressing people with things like 'traitor'. I find it rarely fails to make an impact to consistently do so, and even educates people who didn't realize such a background.
People will be people, and OOC consideration tend to weigh a lot heavier than IC considerations.
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Wait, I thought it was impossible to put NPC's in canisters? I know you can do it to ones in space or in your cargohold.
Regardless, NPC's living 'forever' is also largely an illegitimate excuse to discredit actions in space. I view the human commodities more in terms of contracts or securities with shares of certain slave stocks in that station, and once you leave that station, they're transported with you if you place the 'item' in your cargohold.
Contriving an argument to nitpick NPC item game mechanics and somehow thereby dismantle the view that actions in space are roleplaying actions is extraordinarily tenuous.
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Wait, I thought it was impossible to put NPC's in canisters? I know you can do it to ones in space or in your cargohold.
Regardless, NPC's living 'forever' is also largely an illegitimate excuse to discredit actions in space. I view the human commodities more in terms of contracts or securities with shares of certain slave stocks in that station, and once you leave that station, they're transported with you if you place the 'item' in your cargohold.
Contriving an argument to nitpick NPC item game mechanics and somehow thereby dismantle the view that actions in space are roleplaying actions is extraordinarily tenuous.
Soter, try to respond to the point I am making, and not to one example. I mean, I am willing to make a hundred more examples if you really need them, but I think you probably got my point. Reread my argument disregarding the example if necessary.
Also, I ask you to please not use the words 'contriving' and 'nitpick' if you want to discuss this openly. I don't think it is productive to the tone of the debate. I'm not trying to discredit any actions, again, please try to understand the point I'm making.
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Unfortunately, Merdaneth, you didn't reply to my points, either. You merely constructed something you claimed to be a counterexample and deployed it in the debate.
I speak largely from experience about how there are still roleplay opportunities available from doing things in space, specifically, the Arek'Jaalan project. The Trinity hypothesis, and the General Trinity hypothesis, are both 'word' roleplay items that have been supported by in-game roleplay action, interacting with parts of the storyline. And now we're waiting so see what the result is, although we might move forward on our own.
The best way to achieve changes in the NPC world is to convince fellow capsuleers and people from CCP that there are such changes going on. In such a case, words are better than action. I might haul millions of slaves back to the Republic for years, but if I'm not making it public, no one's gonna know and it won't affect the storyline one bit.
Actually, no, because nobody's going to believe you, if there are only words, and no action. I don't recall a single instance in the past 4 years where this has worked outside of the small roleplaying clique it caters to; for example, I believe it was the Cyrene Initiative that constructed out of whole cloth a "Federation Intelligence Office Report" that they used as a Casus Belli regarding APEX Conglomerate activities in the Placid region, starting the second CYI/APEX war.
Nobody believed it, of course, because it was so obviously contrived and dumb. The result was that the war started, and CYI disintegrated during the course of it, partly dragging down Acheron Federation in the process, as we rushed to their support during the start of the war, but couldn't maintain any sort of wartime activity.
Don't get me wrong, Merdaneth, I don't mean that we should ducttape our mouths shut and not say anything. I merely employ the same realities of life to the Eve Universe, namely, that people are only going to believe and trust you if you put your money where your mouth is.
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Soter,
I'll try to sketch the discussion from my point of view:
- Did everything die?
- It is indeed kinda quiet on the RP front
- CCP not moving storylines forward is contributing to the quiet, its difficult to RP that way
- Me: The EVE storyline depends in a major part on NPCs
- Me: Those NPCs, for the most part, don't exist in game or don't respond to any player interaction
- Me: That is a major reason why it is difficult to move NPC-related RP stuff forward, there is often no option you can do but talk
- You: But you can affect NPCs. Example: Intaki economic development
- Me: No, you can pretend to affect NPCs. There are no NPCs in game. There is no NPC economy to be measured. No amount of capsuleer effort will have an effect on the NPCs simply because they aren't there.
- Me: Because they aren't there, it is also impossible to prove or disprove interaction with the NPC world.
- Me: So, doing something and claiming you affected NPCs or claiming you have done something to affect NPCs are both equally unprovable.
- You: That would invalidate all those RP actions done to influence the NPC world!
- Me: No, I don't know why it should.
- You: You are telling me that role-playing by saying and role-playing by doing are the same!
- Me: No, I'm not. I'm saying that there the effect on the NPCs is pretend-only if your RP tries to interact with the non-existent and non-interactable NPC world. Capsuleer interaction certainly don't suffer from this as you are now trying to suggest.
- You: But you are saying than in-space actions are irrelevant! Example: capsuleer wars. Put your money where your mouth is!
- Me: Hmmm... I am starting to think we took a different turn somewhere...
I'm not discussing capsuleer RP. Capsuleer interaction is still there and offers as many possibilities as before. I am talking about RP involving the EVE background story. A background story which heavily features things that for all intents and purposes do not exist or are non-interactable in game. It is difficult to build your RP around stuff that never responds to what you do. You might as well talk to a plastic doll and pretending it's your girlfriend. At some point it gets boring: the relationship never moves forward.
The Arak'Jaalan is a typical example of this. If I had started this project myself, it would be very difficult to move it forward, since I cannot produce Arek'Jaalan the NPC. I would not be able to provide convincing proof of his defection. I would probably be laughed at by many as someone who tries to RP just by saying stuff without having anything to back-up in space. "Arek'Jaalan defected and contacted you, sure, prove it bud..." That makes it difficult to move such a project forward without CCP actually stepping in and providing the NPC and providing more material from the NPC world to interact with. You have to convince your fellow players to accept your pretend NPC interaction. And when some fellow capsuleers and players have opposing agenda's and views of EVE, the "prove it" card is often pulled.
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entire thread covered.
I'm all caught up now, thanks bro :)
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What difference does it really make if Merdaneth's rebuilding efforts don't have an effect on anything? His intention is to help, and we can react to that in character. The same thing with all the player news and claims: they're obviously fabricated but for role-playing purposes one can also consider whether the message is aligned or misaligned with your character's goals (or whether your character is gullible enough to buy the claim without any consideration) and not always use the "it's a lie" card.
From this perspective the main difference between roleplaying-by-doing and roleplaying-by-saying is whether we can go and destroy Merdaneth's rebuilding efforts in space, or do we have to convince him first that it would be an awesome plot twist.
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Wow, Merdaneth, I just came back after an absence and wish I had those sorts of catch-up posts everywhere! :)
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They are a fine utility....
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The Arak'Jaalan is a typical example of this. If I had started this project myself, it would be very difficult to move it forward, since I cannot produce Arek'Jaalan the NPC. I would not be able to provide convincing proof of his defection. I would probably be laughed at by many as someone who tries to RP just by saying stuff without having anything to back-up in space. "Arek'Jaalan defected and contacted you, sure, prove it bud..." That makes it difficult to move such a project forward without CCP actually stepping in and providing the NPC and providing more material from the NPC world to interact with. You have to convince your fellow players to accept your pretend NPC interaction. And when some fellow capsuleers and players have opposing agenda's and views of EVE, the "prove it" card is often pulled.
Hilen Tukos is the name of the doctor that defected; he named his project/reconfigured freighter Arek'Jaalan.
Anyhow, AJ is great when you realize it is not about shaping the EVE background story but digging into it. Sure you cannot directly effect the EVE background story but you can learn from it and enhance your understanding of the World of EVE. Getting all the pieces of Prime Fiction into place is what increase my feeling of immersion and keeps me interested in continuing my subscription.
I never had much interest in writing my own EVE fiction because I want to know about EVE the way CCP presents it, not how I would like it to be. I hope the message is clear here; I do not increase my feeling of immersion by making up my own stories; I do it by digging more and more into the story that already exists.
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I never had much interest in writing my own EVE fiction because I want to know about EVE the way CCP presents it, not how I would like it to be. I hope the message is clear here; I do not increase my feeling of immersion by making up my own stories; I do it by digging more and more into the story that already exists.
That's great. I'm more of a builder myself. Making my own stories gives me more pleasure than immersing myself in other one's stories. But types can work excellently side by side. I very much like the illusion that I can affect a fantasy world, and EVE speaks to me as a world where one can affect quite a lot in comparison to other MMORPG's.
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Wow, Merdaneth, I just came back after an absence and wish I had those sorts of catch-up posts everywhere! :)
Thanks. But in all honesty to Soter, it is based on my (biased) point of view, thus it is possible I may have misrepresented some things.
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Our capacity to impact the backstory remains the same as ever, I believe. The Live events allow for a significant particiaption of players with ongoing storyline arcs, vis-a-vis actor interactions and completion of various objectives, making a lasting, prime fiction, impact.
The faction war arcs are largely tied up, with the Blind Auction being undone by the liberation of Placid/Verge/Essence, which I'm proud Moira took a part of back in the day. There wasn't much more going on in the Amarr/Minmatar front, however, occupying a star system on behalf of a faction is still most certainly a significant impact on the backstory of the game.
I think it is rather presumptuous for us to believe our capsuleers capable of doing, or undoing, thousands of years of human history just over the course of a few days of typing things in the IGS. That is where the lack of perspective lies, I believe. Even with the contiuous efforts of years of certain RP alliances, there is still a long way to go scratch the surface of the storyline in 'real time', meaning, human epochal history.
The impact of any one person, over such period of time, can be said to be vanishingly small. However, things like faction war, live events, and others, do bring to mind that accomplishments of skill, teamwork, and perseverance will be rewarded by CCP. Acts of a lone wolf attempting to hog the headlines, probably won't.
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With the (re)rise of Jamyl, the question rises, can we really affect the storyline at all?
Basically the most meaningful player interaction with the game world was retconned into oblivion by CCP when they introduced the concept of Emperor Jamyl. Pretty much everything that the Amarrians had done with Doriam and his more peaceful initiatives on diplomacy towards other empires was all wiped away when Jamyl came back from the dead and took the throne, just like CCP had planned to happen oh-so-many years ago.
... pretty much every live event that has been taken part in has had a predetermined outcome.
Not two, or three, but just one.
PIE escorting Brother Joshua and SF trying to catch the freighter, could they have stopped the ship even if they would have reached the gate in time.
Admiral Graelyn remote repairing a military officer that does not go down, the officer deletes himself from the grid.
Just about every interaction with a live event has meant exactly one thing, you could talk to a NPC in real time. Nothing else. Maybe blow up their ship, but even that would not affect the storyline.
Meh.
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With the (re)rise of Jamyl, the question rises, can we really affect the storyline at all?
Nope.
Anyone remember those invincible supercarriers during the live events? It's CCP, what do you expect? :bittervet:
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PIE escorting Brother Joshua and SF trying to catch the freighter, could they have stopped the ship even if they would have reached the gate in time.
Considering we had someone sitting on all of the possible gates and never saw any of PIE or BJ, I doubt it. :P
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I'm not Soter, but I'll answer for myself.
There is no problem with this. Currently I'm not in a very RP-intense corp, so my power, though co-founder, is limited to more... practical, things. However, if I had a say, then for instance, Vieve, or Nikita, or any other toon that has abandoned faction X and joined with faction Y, and possibly even ditched them again for Z, would be barred from entry. They would in fact be told to go fuck themselves, in no mild manners.
Yay! Someone who actually agrees with me about this.
Seriously, I've had to make up a lot of the repercussions for Vieve (and by extension, Celeste and Sabi) because well, damn, her and their choices should have had them.
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Our capacity to impact the backstory remains the same as ever, I believe. The Live events allow for a significant particiaption of players with ongoing storyline arcs, vis-a-vis actor interactions and completion of various objectives, making a lasting, prime fiction, impact.
I agree, or capacity to impact the backstory only exists in these very rare Live Events, which leaves us at the mercy at a largely non-present CCP to determine when and if we can affect the backstory. If I'm not online during a live event, my odds to affect the backstory are close to nil. Regardless of the points brought up by others who have doubts if storyline developments are predetermined by CCP or not.
The faction war arcs are largely tied up, with the Blind Auction being undone by the liberation of Placid/Verge/Essence, which I'm proud Moira took a part of back in the day. There wasn't much more going on in the Amarr/Minmatar front, however, occupying a star system on behalf of a faction is still most certainly a significant impact on the backstory of the game.
I don't know, but I don't remember faction war arcs being tied up but rather being abandoned. The occupancy has no impact on the backstory of the game unless CCP decides it has. I haven't got a clue if Arzad is a razed world, if it still has slaves or not, if its cities have been destroyed by numerous occupation switches. The only thing I know is that my planetary factories have continued operating with any noticable interruption due to occupancy changes. Of course I've tried to pretend there was some impact by posting stuff on the IGS (http://eve-search.com/thread/983243-0/page/1#1) or RPing it with others. I admit, its nothing more than just saying there was an effect, since there is no actual Lantorn in game other than an image and some resource stats. But it is what we got.
I think it is rather presumptuous for us to believe our capsuleers capable of doing, or undoing, thousands of years of human history just over the course of a few days of typing things in the IGS. That is where the lack of perspective lies, I believe. Even with the contiuous efforts of years of certain RP alliances, there is still a long way to go scratch the surface of the storyline in 'real time', meaning, human epochal history.
Soter, I get the distinct feeling that you keep attributing things to me that I neither said nor meant. I do desire to change 'thousand of years of human history', I merely desire that one NPC either talks to me, that my efforts to eradicate the NPC pirates from one system have some effect, or that maybe my mission agent remembers me. When I play a tabletop campaign starting at 1st level, I don't expect earth shattering changes too, but when I save a small village from a group of marauding orcs, it pleases me a lot to see them doing better if I return on year later, and that they still remember me and invite me over for a drink. Small but noticable impact.
The impact of any one person, over such period of time, can be said to be vanishingly small. However, things like faction war, live events, and others, do bring to mind that accomplishments of skill, teamwork, and perseverance will be rewarded by CCP. Acts of a lone wolf attempting to hog the headlines, probably won't.
Once again, I ask you not to attempt to push this debate into extremes. I think trying to cast my arguments into a 'lone wolf hogging headlines' is undeserved and doesn't fit the point I'm trying to make. Safe that kind of stuff for the IGS please. Other than that, I'm not agreeing with you, and neither most names we know from our (and EVE's) history books.
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Perhaps, Merdaneth, I'm just not sure what point you're trying to make. I still can't quite understand what the basis is for the difference of opinion.
On one hand, you acknowledge that live events allow for participation in storylines. These live events, which you claim to be very rare, occurred on a near weekly or biweekly basis for the past year or so, often times, several days on end. Vast quantities of roleplay resulted from these events.
If you wish, I can outline in detail the kinds of live events that occurred, the information that came out of it, and the various other fun CCP was able to introduce.
On the other hand, you claim, at least, I think you do, that because there is no way to participate in the storyline (live events being the immediate and up-front counterexample to this claim), then people are justified in claiming that 'rp has died' and that it is indeed largely CCP's fault.
My primary point was that RP in the domain of the IGS and The Summit, the in-game roleplaying channel, specifically, frightens many roleplayers away and causes these avenues of roleplay to be shunned by the majority of the community (little c, since it's the actual population of roleplayers in the game, vs the 'Community' comprised largely of members on this forum). And that is why 'rp has died', according to the OP of this thread.
The reason for frustration and confusion amongst new roleplayers that have joined this forum is that they don't realize this or understand the reasons behind it. That's why I've attempted to clarify the issue for them, and for the general audience, in my past few posts. If you believed that my posts were direct responses towards your posts, then I apologize, but I'm not attempting to debate you directly. I'm attempting to make the case that these avenues of roleplay should by no means be accepted as the 'primary' or 'only' avenues of roleplay communication in Eve online.
Indeed, that is why I'm not quoting line-by line your responses and countering them directly. I have found that such direct debates and arguments result in little of value. My only objective is pursuing the more general answer to the question: why has public RP quieted down.
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Soter, thank you for answering. It seems to me you often appear to exaggerate my points or put them into a much larger context, which often changes the entire point I am trying to make. So, once again (and I'm trying to say exactly what I'm trying to say, no more, no less):
- I am claiming it is difficult to advance storylines that involve non-existent/non-interactable NPC elements without the specific assistance of CCP.
- I am claiming that CCP efforts to to advance the storylines RPers are interested in is relatively small. So small that of lot of storylines stagnate, becoming fixed in a sort of unaffectable status quo.
- I am claiming this stagnation contributes to the general RP stagnation we've see
- I am claiming that if you have a storyline that involves non-existent/non-interactable NPC elements, creating a pretend play that only involves 'talk' (on IGS or otherwise) is a viable RP option
- I am claiming that visibility is a more important factor than 'actions in space' when it comes to RP with such NPC elements, since no one can produce 'proof' of the effects they have on such NPC elements (note that visibility and actions in space are not on the same continuum).
For clarity, I am *not* saying:
- A capsuleer cannot advance storylines
- A capsuleer cannot advance storylines without CCP
- The fact that you cannot influence certain NPC elements in-game makes RP with NPC elements impossible
- The fact that you cannot influence certain NPC elements in-game invalidates efforts to do so
- There has been no advancement of RP storylines with NPC elements
As far as the other point, the famous 'IGS etc. scares newbies' point, I think is by and large due to our own bittervet syndromes as pointed by others. Shooting down the 9000+th variant of the 'I'm an abused Matari slave escaping from my captors and seeking revenge', or slapping new people silly with 'you are going against PF, look at paragraph 7a, section 4 of story such-and-such'
I honestly don't think rehashing old arguments on the IGS is that damaging, as long as it doesn't reek of simmering OOC conflicts. Jade said that she got tired of the umpteenth discussion with Merdaneth about the same issues. But if you are an IGS newbie, and haven't seen the previous 20 threads, it might seem refreshing and new. And the things mentioned might even give an indication this issue is much deeper and has a whole history behind it. A story behind it as it were. That can be intriguing.
Other than that, IGS roleplay can be like PvP, difficult to get in as a lone newbie, and you'll likely get shot down the first dozen of times you try. Improve your fittings, brush up on your skills and try again.
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Jade said that she got tired of the umpteenth discussion with Merdaneth about the same issues. But if you are an IGS newbie, and haven't seen the previous 20 threads, it might seem refreshing and new.
Just for the record, Jade is not the only one who thinks that the umpteenth repetition of the same arguments is tiring. I do not mind the same topic being discussed, but if the arguments brought up are identical to the last time and the poster apparently completely ignored what others said last time, it turns the possibly interesting story into a broken record. I would not put too much faith in that intriguing new RPers too much.
Edit: Before someone gets me wrong, the above does not refer to "everything Merdaneth says" (by far), and simply being stubborn is also a good trait of an Amarrian, so this works ICly. Just sometimes, I wish some people would ... er ... provide more interactive RP :-P
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I like your posts. Don't let Jade dictate what you post.
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Other than that, IGS roleplay can be like PvP, difficult to get in as a lone newbie, and you'll likely get shot down the first dozen of times you try. Improve your fittings, brush up on your skills and try again.
Quote of the Month. 8)
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[mod]There've been borderline posts in this thread, but I'm avoiding modding it for the time being because the brisk pace of discussion has kept a lot of it fairly useful, and I think at this point it would be counterproductive. That being said, I would like to invite everyone to review the rules (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=14.0) and FAQ (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=16.0) if you haven't recently, to refresh yourself on proper posting behavior.In particular, please remember that regardless of your personal preference there is no wrong way to RP (though noone is under any obligation to RP with someone whose style they don't prefer), and please tread carefully when you decide to use other people as your examples in your discussion.[/mod]
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Perhaps, Merdaneth, I'm just not sure what point you're trying to make. I still can't quite understand what the basis is for the difference of opinion.
On one hand, you acknowledge that live events allow for participation in storylines. These live events, which you claim to be very rare, occurred on a near weekly or biweekly basis for the past year or so, often times, several days on end. Vast quantities of roleplay resulted from these events.
If you wish, I can outline in detail the kinds of live events that occurred, the information that came out of it, and the various other fun CCP was able to introduce.
On the other hand, you claim, at least, I think you do, that because there is no way to participate in the storyline (live events being the immediate and up-front counterexample to this claim), then people are justified in claiming that 'rp has died' and that it is indeed largely CCP's fault.
My primary point was that RP in the domain of the IGS and The Summit, the in-game roleplaying channel, specifically, frightens many roleplayers away and causes these avenues of roleplay to be shunned by the majority of the community (little c, since it's the actual population of roleplayers in the game, vs the 'Community' comprised largely of members on this forum). And that is why 'rp has died', according to the OP of this thread.
The reason for frustration and confusion amongst new roleplayers that have joined this forum is that they don't realize this or understand the reasons behind it. That's why I've attempted to clarify the issue for them, and for the general audience, in my past few posts. If you believed that my posts were direct responses towards your posts, then I apologize, but I'm not attempting to debate you directly. I'm attempting to make the case that these avenues of roleplay should by no means be accepted as the 'primary' or 'only' avenues of roleplay communication in Eve online.
Indeed, that is why I'm not quoting line-by line your responses and countering them directly. I have found that such direct debates and arguments result in little of value. My only objective is pursuing the more general answer to the question: why has public RP quieted down.
This, to be honest.
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Speaking from a new RPer's perspective, I've found public RP (hell, any Eve RP, by this point) difficult to start up because frequently someone will enter a quiet channel other than the Summit and there will be no response. I am guilty of not noticing such instances until it was too late and the other person had logged (most recently Nmaro. My apologies, I was afk). On other occasions, people are active in a channel but not interacting with each other.
Silence breeds silence. God forbid we should have to interact with each other again in order to resurrect the RP in-game ;)
I don't think blame can be pinned on CCP. I always figured that the world plot line moves around the players and that we move our own plot lines because we have minimal influence on the world. We can't just wait for the company to throw us another bone to gnaw and fight over; we need to bring our own stories to share, too. The best RP I've had in any MMO has always been as part of player-created events, and it would be great to see more of these in Eve.
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Just for the record, Jade is not the only one who thinks that the umpteenth repetition of the same arguments is tiring. I do not mind the same topic being discussed, but if the arguments brought up are identical to the last time and the poster apparently completely ignored what others said last time, it turns the possibly interesting story into a broken record. I would not put too much faith in that intriguing new RPers too much.
I am of a different perspective, simply because I liked (which was maybe a repetition but appear that way to me) the repetitions stuff on the IGS myself. I remember a discussion I had with Rodj when someone from the Matari camp offered to have himself be captured. Rodj advised against it partly because "it had been done many times before". I honestly had never seen a 'capture' event in this manner before, it was a novel idea to me, and seemed interesting.
I still think to this day that just because we 'bittervets' have done things before we shouldn't advise new people against it on the basis of 'we have tried it, it rarely ends well', 'it been done a dozen times before, its not believable' or 'its boring repetition', but instead should motivate (new) people to go on with it, but perhaps provide them with small new twists on the idea to give it a bit of additional freshness.
To me the 'avoiding repitition syndrome' is a bit like saying to a new corp member: "I know we are at war, but we've fought these hostiles 10 times before, they always come out with Falcons and we always load up on ECCM to defeat them. We are tired of repeating the same cycle, just let's stay docked." I can understand that sentiment, but that doesn't mean the eager new recruit feels that way about PvP too. If it's a challenge, I'm game, even if we fought a similar battle 20 times before.
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I remember a discussion I had with Rodj when someone from the Matari camp offered to have himself be captured. Rodj advised against it partly because "it had been done many times before". I honestly had never seen a 'capture' event in this manner before, it was a novel idea to me, and seemed interesting.
I think we're talking about different kinds of "repetition" - I tried to allude to that by saying that I do not mind the same topic being discussed repeatedly, but I probably failed. Let me see if I can rephrase that.
What gets tiring to me (OOC) is repetition of identical arguments that have been discussed (and sometimes even refuted) repeatedly in the past. Saying exactly the same thing over and over again is different from discussing the same topic over and over again.
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Speaking from a new RPer's perspective, I've found public RP (hell, any Eve RP, by this point) difficult to start up because frequently someone will enter a quiet channel other than the Summit and there will be no response. I am guilty of not noticing such instances until it was too late and the other person had logged (most recently Nmaro. My apologies, I was afk). On other occasions, people are active in a channel but not interacting with each other.
Silence breeds silence. God forbid we should have to interact with each other again in order to resurrect the RP in-game ;)
I don't think blame can be pinned on CCP. I always figured that the world plot line moves around the players and that we move our own plot lines because we have minimal influence on the world. We can't just wait for the company to throw us another bone to gnaw and fight over; we need to bring our own stories to share, too. The best RP I've had in any MMO has always been as part of player-created events, and it would be great to see more of these in Eve.
This is not only concerning newcomers. I have tried several times to get in other channels than the summit, launch something, say "hey im there" by introducing the character in the place, but nothing. Even in the Keep, damnit. @_@
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You can use the EVE mail for role-playing purposes as well, especially if you want to have RP with specific people. Just send a non-creepy EVE mail and set a time and a place for interaction.
It does not have to be in public, but this way you can get very good RP sessions that can go on for hours if the stars are right.
Besides, if a person walks in to a bar and makes his/her presence known, how likely is it that he/she, a total stranger, would be approached by anyone?
That is one of the reasons most of the locations would need a 'barkeep', someone to talk to, whose job is to talk to people, then people could join in through natural means.
Instead of a person walking to a channel, putting down his/her soap box, standing on it and starting to talk by him/herself.
It's even creepier when two people do it.
Yes, your soap box can be cybering/dramallamaing.
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This is not only concerning newcomers. I have tried several times to get in other channels than the summit, launch something, say "hey im there" by introducing the character in the place, but nothing. Even in the Keep, damnit. @_@
Lot of channels, lot of lurkers, lots of afk people, not enough RPers.
I find it tends to work better if you actually ask a specific question or invite people for something specific. Or of course, dangle in delicious rumor in front of them. People will be people.
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Did everything die? From this outsider's perspective, it does look a bit that way. I could be wrong, but across the board, there seems to be a lot less player creativity now than there used to be. I'm not talking about RP specifically here: in-game interactions are an unknown quantity to me, in any case. I'm talking more about Eve-related sites, services, etc. There always seemed to be a stream of people setting up new services and tools related to Eve, new blogs springing up, and forums busy talking about events past present and future in-game. I don't get the sense that is really happening now, but of course, the imperfection could be my own. I remain unsubbed, after all. :)
In terms of forums, I see that Chatsubo is now entirely dead. RIP. Failheap (RIP Scrapheap) is largely not about Eve, IMO, and the Eve discussion that does occur is so overwhelmed by the bittervets that it paints a pretty dismal portrait of the game in 2011. This place seems somewhat quiet too. I find many of the threads here are quite self-centred in any case: there are lots of [character] threads and not so many actually discussing issues, politics, fiction, or events. There's little to tempt me in my occasional drive-by posting. It seems a far cry from the sort of activity (drama notwithstanding) that we used to see on Chatsubo back in the day. Maybe there is another lively forum somewhere full of enthusiastic RPers and fictioneers that I haven't come across?
My gut feeling tells me that a lot of people, even those that continue to pay subs, are no longer investing in Eve.
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A lot of stuff is self-centered Wanoah, yeah. Through IC/OOC discussions, I found that, ultimately, no one gives a shit about how each of the four faction's societies are stratified, how they dress, how they speak to one another, what subjects they consider taboo, their attitudes to different concepts etc. etc.
IC-worldbuilding roleplaying in places like the Summit receives very little interest. I'm not sure what people are actually interested in RPing, or what elements of the EVE fictional universe they are actually interested in other than slaves v slaver.
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A lot of stuff is self-centered Wanoah, yeah. Through IC/OOC discussions, I found that, ultimately, no one gives a shit about how each of the four faction's societies are stratified, how they dress, how they speak to one another, what subjects they consider taboo, their attitudes to different concepts etc. etc.
For me, it's a difficult line between "world-building" and "godmoding" - I am happy to invent some stuff for a clan or for a small group of people, but I'm very reluctant to define how "this faction dresses", for example. (I happen to prefer the small-scale RP, too.)
IC-worldbuilding roleplaying in places like the Summit receives very little interest. I'm not sure what people are actually interested in RPing, or what elements of the EVE fictional universe they are actually interested in other than slaves v slaver.
Things that I have RPed about recently:
- Clan politics (of a handful of specific clans)
- Said clan politics affecting my corp
- Minor inter-service bickering (RSS vs. Republic Fleet)
- The Republic's situation in the war against the Amarr
- The Republic's situation regarding piracy
- Corporate industrial development
- Corporate combat development
And I'd guess a bunch of other stuff I can't think of right now. The "slaves" topic comes up regularly in my RP, but mostly regarding the backstory of the various people I interact with and how they deal with that past.
Now, public RP (IGS, Summit) is a bit more problematic. I am not on The Summit because that channel gives me a headache. But in general, a lot of things my character does he would not simply talk about in public - too easy to interfere with, too easy to misunderstand as bragging, not really suited for public consumption.
The public RP attempts I have seen recently were mostly by a blood raider trying to get support for some kind of (not game-supported) project, and it took a lot of goodwill for my character to even reply to a bloodraider. Noticing that that just made the discussion more and more weird, I quickly ceased.
As for the general "dead-ness": Yeah, I think EVE has been very quiet the last months - which is normal this time of the year, but it seemed a bit worse than before. This seems to be slowly getting better right now, though.
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A lot of stuff is self-centered Wanoah, yeah. Through IC/OOC discussions, I found that, ultimately, no one gives a shit about how each of the four faction's societies are stratified, how they dress, how they speak to one another, what subjects they consider taboo, their attitudes to different concepts etc. etc.
IC-worldbuilding roleplaying in places like the Summit receives very little interest. I'm not sure what people are actually interested in RPing, or what elements of the EVE fictional universe they are actually interested in other than slaves v slaver.
This. Except that I still see 2 or 3 minmatar people (that will recognize themselves, Ava, Kikia, Kala...) continuously trying to develop or put the emphasis on the tribal culture on the summit. But yeah, basically... I have tried several times to do this for several factions, especially the Mandate, but I admit that I could do better.
Though of course I agree with Arkady, I prefer to remain on a "local" size/scale when doing that sort of stuff. For example when I said ammatar people of Lyn's domain spoke an ammatar dialect (mostly amarrian with minmatar roots), I specified that it was concerning this local region. How could have I said that it is the case for the whole Mandate ? I am not CCP...
But then Scagga used it too (on this forum), and so on be inventing something like this at a local scale, you can sometimes see people using it too and expanding it to a bigger scale, however without expanding it to generalities (except for very famous stuff like Amarr Victor, etc).
Things that I have RPed about recently:
- Clan politics (of a handful of specific clans)
- Said clan politics affecting my corp
- Minor inter-service bickering (RSS vs. Republic Fleet)
- The Republic's situation in the war against the Amarr
- The Republic's situation regarding piracy
- Corporate industrial development
- Corporate combat development
Well, tell me where you are able to find such interesting RP, because everything is dead where I am. :(
And well, the summit is 95% of the time "cantina RP", for which I dont really care much.
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IC-worldbuilding roleplaying in places like the Summit receives very little interest. I'm not sure what people are actually interested in RPing, or what elements of the EVE fictional universe they are actually interested in other than slaves v slaver.
I'm pretty sure I don't have any characters who are overwhelmingly interested in the conflict of slaves vs. slavers. (And come to think of it, Arkady? "Things that I have RPed About Recently" sounds like a good title for a separate thread.)
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Things that I have RPed about recently:
- Clan politics (of a handful of specific clans)
- Said clan politics affecting my corp
- Minor inter-service bickering (RSS vs. Republic Fleet)
- The Republic's situation in the war against the Amarr
- The Republic's situation regarding piracy
- Corporate industrial development
- Corporate combat development
Well, tell me where you are able to find such interesting RP, because everything is dead where I am. :(
You won't like this much, but: Corp and alliance, mostly. Though the last months have been a strong lull for us as well. Corp and alliance chat are much less active than they used to be. :-( But it's slowly improving again.
I have been trying for a while to expand our RP to be a bit more publically accessible, but it's difficult. A lot of my RP at least is about security-sensitive topics (corp development) which my character will not discuss in public due to the way the game works.
As a sideline of the topic of this thread, I'd be quite interested in a discussion on what kind of "RP venue" would actually promote interesting RP.
But well, what RP is actually "interesting" is very subjective, and the line between "I do not really enjoy that kind of RP" and "your RP is wrong" is very thin so that I'm not sure such a discussion is really possible in this forum.
And well, the summit is 95% of the time "cantina RP", for which I dont really care much.
Pet peeve time! I have never understood why RPers in a sci-fi game insist on turning every channel into a physical place. :-) It's logical in a fantasy game, but a sci-fi game allows you to treat chat channels as ... er ... chat channels, which pretty much removes all sorts of confusion ("why isn't he actually in the station where this bar is", "why is he not reacting when I jump up and down in front of him - oh, he's afk", etc.).
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The difficulty with non-physical chat channels like the Summit is that there's no reason to be there other than bullshit. As others have stated before, diplomacy is carried out between corporations and alliances; public venues are not great places to discuss inter-corporate activity. At least with a physical location like a bar, people have a two-fold purpose: to unwind and chat/mingle with other people. In the Summit, people join to yawn and complain about how quiet it is, find new fuck-buddies, and/or pick a fight.
In my opinion, I think not only is it sapping player creativity but also presenting a poor first-glance at what roleplay has to offer to new players interested in getting involved. The Summit is supposed to be the first place characters go when they are new to RP, and most of you HATE the channel; That doesn't exactly send a good signal, does it?
In my eyes, the biggest hit to creativity was the creation of militias in faction warfare. Since a bulk of roleplayers were invested in inter-cultural wars, and because a mechanic did not exist, the player base had to be creative in its ways to entice conflict. Now, you just join a militia, go kill some people and take a system, and toot about it on the IGS. That got pretty stale after the first six months the mechanic came out, and now the scene is a dead husk of its former self. There's no more PIE announcements, no more Ushra'Khans, and State Ultranationalists doing crazy shit to rile up the Gallenteans. Some of you are wondering why outlaws factions are so prevalent in places like the Summit, and active on the IGS, it's cause they don't have faction warfare to keep them busy- they still have to be creative to represent themselves and stir conflict.
So guys want to talk about apathy, unfortunately you have no one to blame but yourselves. The biggest thing to happen amongst roleplayers in the past couple of years has been the Sansha conflict and Revan events. EVE is and always has been about making your own fun, not only for yourselves (in your own corp chat, private dens) but everyone else. You need projects to bring people together, interact, and entice fresh blood, otherwise the scene gets stale.
If you want my advice, it's this:
- Give the Summit some purpose. If it's supposed to be an extension of the Intergalactic Summit, give some topic starters from current threads for people to mull over.
- Make some events and projects that pull people together. Get creative!
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The difficulty with non-physical chat channels like the Summit is that there's no reason to be there other than bullshit.
How's that different from IGS? :-)
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The difficulty with non-physical chat channels like the Summit is that there's no reason to be there other than bullshit.
How's that different from IGS? :-)
I'm not sure why people are so down on the IGS. It serves an important function: Announcements for new projects, wars, and stuff that's actually going on around New Eden.
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If you want my advice, it's this:
- Give the Summit some purpose. If it's supposed to be an extension of the Intergalactic Summit, give some topic starters from current threads for people to mull over.
- Make some events and projects that pull people together. Get creative!
IIRC, that's what the Summit used to be. It was used to talk about important stuff going on.
Then came the Sansha. And The Summit was used to host a major conference by Ashar and Soter and a few other key folks. And it was pretty awesome, but it had an unintended side effect: It introduced a horde of newbie RPers to the channel (I was one of them) who slowly morphed it into what it is now.
The New Eden Assembly arrived and kinda took its place as a place to talk politics rather than socialize and ride dramallamas. However, there hasn't been a lot going on lately to talk about in there. I'm not sure who even runs it anymore to put together an event or discussion on a subject.
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That's because the Sansha event was the only thing of interest that galvanized the entire community of roleplayers. You can blame the conflict for changing the dynamic of the channel (ie chasing off certain people), but there's nothing stopping them from coming back. I've been around a while, and I've seen the same shit there as long as I've been there; I don't really think this is the problem, otherwise it would have been fixed by now.
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teh dust chronicles might help with things for people to talk about or do stuff about, but then again, they're not exactly publicised on the eve site, and even if they were, it runs into the problems with existing chronicles - e.g. not everyone reads them, the information in some of them is a schrodinger's cat thing - unless you were in the box with them, how would you know that the things that the chronicle say happened really happened ?
Like, the latest dust chronicle, doubles the number of passages from the Apocryphon that exist. DOUBLES! :o
The public RP attempts I have seen recently were mostly by a blood raider trying to get support for some kind of (not game-supported) project, and it took a lot of goodwill for my character to even reply to a bloodraider. Noticing that that just made the discussion more and more weird, I quickly ceased.
blood raiders D:
Was this in the summit ?
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The public RP attempts I have seen recently were mostly by a blood raider trying to get support for some kind of (not game-supported) project, and it took a lot of goodwill for my character to even reply to a bloodraider. Noticing that that just made the discussion more and more weird, I quickly ceased.
blood raiders D:
Was this in the summit ?
Public - EM.
It's a bit weird. I was very happy to see an RP attempt in that channel - it's usually very quiet, and if not, it's either an actual diplomatic contact or some pirates trying to troll us. But I felt it very difficult to interact with that storyline - the idea was quite nice, but as it was presented by a clearly not mentally stable blood raider, it's not very sensible to try and help said blood raider...
I tried a few times to hang out in The Summit (years ago), but unmoderated, public channels are not really my favorite hang-out.
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And well, the summit is 95% of the time "cantina RP", for which I dont really care much.
Pet peeve time! I have never understood why RPers in a sci-fi game insist on turning every channel into a physical place. :-) It's logical in a fantasy game, but a sci-fi game allows you to treat chat channels as ... er ... chat channels, which pretty much removes all sorts of confusion ("why isn't he actually in the station where this bar is", "why is he not reacting when I jump up and down in front of him - oh, he's afk", etc.).
I did not mean that, actually the summit is a regular virtual communication channel, not a physical place. I meant by "cantina RP" things like "Hullo have you seen my kitties ? They are sooooo cuuuuuuute !", and when its not this, its dramallama RP "ebil slavers vs emo minmatars". Apparently work for a lot of people, but not really my thing.
The New Eden Assembly arrived and kinda took its place as a place to talk politics rather than socialize and ride dramallamas. However, there hasn't been a lot going on lately to talk about in there. I'm not sure who even runs it anymore to put together an event or discussion on a subject.
Aria Jenneth if I remember correctly.
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The difficulty with non-physical chat channels like the Summit is that there's no reason to be there other than bullshit.
Uh, yeah, I think I figured that out about 2 weeks after I started reading it. Non-physical channels need some sort of community of interest to hold people there and give them things to talk about - The problem with that is that I'm not sure how well people of antagonistic factions would co-exist well in a meaningful channel.
At least with a physical location like a bar, people have a two-fold purpose: to unwind and chat/mingle with other people. In the Summit, people join to yawn and complain about how quiet it is, find new fuck-buddies, and/or pick a fight.
I guess it depends what you go to a bar for. In my RL experience most people don't hang out in bars with people they don't like, unless the music is wound up enough that they can't talk to each other, in which case they're trying to "find new fuck-buddies, and/or pick a fight." Really, I don't know anyone that goes to a bar to meet new people; they're usually going with their current friends and acquaintances, which means they start with things in common to talk about. But then, I'm aware that other people may have different bar experiences from me.
The Summit is supposed to be the first place characters go when they are new to RP, and most of you HATE the channel; That doesn't exactly send a good signal, does it?
Well, no, but then I have never recommended a new Eve roleplayer join the summit...
Some of you are wondering why outlaws factions are so prevalent in places like the Summit, and active on the IGS, it's cause they don't have faction warfare to keep them busy- they still have to be creative to represent themselves and stir conflict.
That's quite a perceptive comment, and it feels correct to me. Thank you - I'm going to think on that a bit.
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I did not mean that, actually the summit is a regular virtual communication channel, not a physical place. I meant by "cantina RP" things like "Hullo have you seen my kitties ? They are sooooo cuuuuuuute !", and when its not this, its dramallama RP "ebil slavers vs emo minmatars". Apparently work for a lot of people, but not really my thing.
Ah, sorry.
Out of curiosity, what kind of RP would you expect from interacting with other RPers in a public channel? (Genuine interest :-))
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The difficulty with non-physical chat channels like the Summit is that there's no reason to be there other than bullshit.
Uh, yeah, I think I figured that out about 2 weeks after I started reading it. Non-physical channels need some sort of community of interest to hold people there and give them things to talk about - The problem with that is that I'm not sure how well people of antagonistic factions would co-exist well in a meaningful channel.
I think a lot of that comes down to the perspective of players and characters. I think it is conceivable that an individual can perceive his foe (ie other pilots) as rivals rather than 'blood' enemies, and I think given the fact that it is extremely difficult to actually kill your foes (permanently), this is a very pragmatic position to take. We see this happen often in 0.0 where one day a powerful opponent one day becomes an ally. In fact, I'd say that 'blood rivalry' predominantly exists in the RP world, where most characters are hard-line ideologues bent on the submission of other cultures.
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We see this happen often in 0.0 where one day a powerful opponent one day becomes an ally. In fact, I'd say that 'blood rivalry' predominantly exists in the RP world, where most characters are hard-line ideologues bent on the submission of other cultures.
0.0 conflicts rarely are about killing your crewmembers to take their blood, enslaving your whole race, or turning you and your people into mindless robots Quite to the contrary - for most 0.0 pilots, this is just a game.
For my character, this is not a game, so I do not feel that those two are very comparable.
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We see this happen often in 0.0 where one day a powerful opponent one day becomes an ally. In fact, I'd say that 'blood rivalry' predominantly exists in the RP world, where most characters are hard-line ideologues bent on the submission of other cultures.
0.0 conflicts rarely are about killing your crewmembers to take their blood, enslaving your whole race, or turning you and your people into mindless robots Quite to the contrary - for most 0.0 pilots, this is just a game.
For my character, this is not a game, so I do not feel that those two are very comparable.
No, I'd say most people in 0.0 are out for power, glory, wealth, and conquest. You know, the empire building stuff that is supposed to be the endgame scenario only a select population of eve participates in ^^
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I did not mean that, actually the summit is a regular virtual communication channel, not a physical place. I meant by "cantina RP" things like "Hullo have you seen my kitties ? They are sooooo cuuuuuuute !", and when its not this, its dramallama RP "ebil slavers vs emo minmatars". Apparently work for a lot of people, but not really my thing.
Ah, sorry.
Out of curiosity, what kind of RP would you expect from interacting with other RPers in a public channel? (Genuine interest :-))
Dunno, geopolitics, politics, strategy, technology, sciencey stuff, lore history, lore, the universe, or the stuff seri likes to do by developping our little corners of the universe and describing the life here and there (with coherence to the lore ofc). Whatever really. But I am not really roleplaying to reproduce the usual life that people are having IRL, I find that dull (but this is just my opinion). I am here to play in a living in a certain universe, and more importantly, in a strong eve atmosphere.
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Very good points Kaleigh, rather exceptional I think.
I might think up of my own "Anette events" in lieu of Revan's. Come up with some inventive locales based on what we know. If people can stand a precocious eleven-year old :>