Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Casiella on 05 Jul 2012, 18:19
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Look, I know we all have our preferences about what should be in RP. As we've seen in a number of recent threads, ask 10 players what are the RP community norms and you'll probably get 12 different answers.
But unless something is out-and-out whacko (Superman travelling from another dimension), can we at least not ruin it for all the third parties around by making a big deal ICly when you think somebody else is doing it wrong? Case in point, rogue drone RP. Everybody will have different opinions about it, but turning it into a federal case by calling them lying crackpots annoys everybody in there, particularly other people who would like to RP with the unusual character.
Yes, we can just defend ("well how do you know?") but that's not nearly as much fun as playing along. Stepping on the air hose just deflates everybody.
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Ah, the problem of blocking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_%28improv%29). I agree. What harm is there playing along with a rogue drone? I've had some enjoyment with it. In the Summit at least, I make a habit of looking up people's bios and, if they have some unique element that is publically knowable (like a criminal case), I'll bring it up for the sake of conversation.
Another thing...what is it with saying shit like...I'll give an example...in the OOC public channel...
"Hey Seri, remember when my character slapped you?"
"You mean slapped my character?"
"whatever"
"I do, yeah, what about it?"
"And then x character made you cry?"
"yeah, I do. but you mean my character though"
"cry some moar"
^ WTF is the point of that. It's bringing up some IC RP for the sake of showing off and putting someone else down in an OOC public channel. Why? This does not create a cohesive community atmosphere if the only point of confrontational RP is something to brag about OOC.
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I thought the Speaker for the Swarm was well done and interesting. According to the bio, he's not an actual drone or possessed by one, just an Amarrian scientist that worships drones and has implanted himself with strange implants.
At the same time, I do understand character thinking the dude is crazy and reacting as such.
Superman travelling from another dimension
:o
*wonders how you found out about her super-sekret alt*
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According to the bio, he's not an actual drone or possessed by one, just an Amarrian scientist that worships drones and has implanted himself with strange implants.
Heh, how inventive.
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Playing Devil's Advocate:
Why is it okay to have my immersion broken by a 'silly character', but it's not okay to risk breaking anyone else's immersion by saying something about it IC or OOC? Are those who think a character is ridiculous supposed to swallow it, or just go RP somewhere else? Where should a line be drawn?
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Kat: I often run into characters that break immersion for me, or just annoy me OOCly. I just ignore them and go about my day, rather than rain on the parade for other people who may be enjoying it. :)
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I would like it to be quite clear that Malcolm's responses were entirely IC. I wouldn't consider anything I said or did to be "urdoinitrong" or deflating the air hose. Malcolm typically considers the man crazy, no matter how he wound up being a servant of the Rogue Drone Swarm, he's clearly crazy now and that's how Malcolm responded to him.
If that's not IC then I'd like to know what it is.
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The line between questioning because your character finds an idea completely implausible and you finding the idea implausible is thin indeed; I bump into it often. I've yet to be able to define it exactly, and much like other aspects of the IC/OOC divide, I do worry that the line is often only visible after someone soundly crosses it.
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Kat: I often run into characters that break immersion for me, or just annoy me OOCly. I just ignore them and go about my day, rather than rain on the parade for other people who may be enjoying it. :)
This.
But then, my characters are the types who see something like that, shrug their shoulders, go "huh" and then remember they have more important things to worry about.
There are dozens of options available to players who are presented with RP that doesn't fit their understanding of the lore that are leaps and bounds better for all involved than waltzing into a discussion and going "you have a CONCORD this and graduated from school X, so you clearly can't be a rogue drone! Ha!" and then everyone facedesks because the 4th wall has just been shattered.
It's like that guy you go to the movies with who points out that the hero didn't reload after so many shots fired and that wounds from a 5.56×45mm NATO round don't look like that and wait those shell casings they showed hitting the floor don't belong in that gun and...and...at some point you just want to smack them.
Then 20 minutes later they're telling you how awesome that scene in the Lord of the Rings with the Ents tearing up Isengard was and you just give up :9.
Willing suspension of disbelief is sometimes required in order to enjoy fiction. We fly pretend spaceships in pretend pods as neigh-unstoppable demi-gods in an interstellar setting with FTL travel complete with space vampires. I think we can dispense with the nit-pickery on a lot of these "grey area" issues, but that's just me.
There's got to be some middle ground between being constrained to the wooden literal inflexibility of some game systems and someone claiming to be a werewolf where if it doesn't directly impact you, you simply make the conscious choice not to get involved and allow others to enjoy their particular corner of the sand-castle without asserting your superior prerogative.
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If the most common response to an immersion breaking character is shrugging your shoulders and ignoring them it will generate a culture of cliques in the RP community.
As it has in EVE.
Also I don't see anything 4th wall breaking in pointing out the difference between game reality and what a character is claiming to be/do and using it as a tool to point out to the public that the character is clearly a delusional individual and should be treated as such.
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While I rarely RP with people trying to portrait the rogue drones, I often feel their RP is a bit lacking on knowledge on the history and nature of the rogue drones. Most importantly that the rogue drones are not a unified group (one big hive) but different groups that separate themselves from each other by adapting to the surroundings they inhabit. And, in particular, that the ability to adapt is their major force. Also, the rogue drones fight among each other. I stumbled upon this very interesting PF while doing my Algintal investigations (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Project_Algintal).
This give a rogue drone RPer more room to develop their story setting for their particular drone hive, but I would advise them to refrain from trying to speak on behalf of all rogue drones as that is simply… silly, sorry.
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... but I would advise them to refrain from trying to speak on behalf of all rogue drones as that is simply… silly, sorry.
This goes for all factions.
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Yes. Thank you. The unrelenting torrent of negativity from the RP police is why I tend to avoid the whole "creativity" thing these days, and primarily interact with the RP community through warp scramblers, blasters, and snark.
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You are provided the tools to remove exposure to disruptive elements who disagree with your interpretation and/or willingness to bend inflexible gameplay restrictions to try something new. If your "game time is screwed over" because you refuse to use them (which is what they are intended for, after all) then you have yourself to blame in the end.
As often as I see people bitch about how nobody ever comes up with a new concept and all the same discussions and arguments take place over and over and how the fiction encourages cookie-cutter faction archetypes...
I guess you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
e-thugs thumping e-chests don't really impress that much these days.
Rather than "stompin" on people or coming up with degrading insults to hurl at them if they are doing something egregiously out-of-sync with established lore, point them to relevant information so they can learn.
If the most common response to an immersion breaking character is shrugging your shoulders and ignoring them it will generate a culture of cliques in the RP community.
As it has in EVE.
After spending time in online RP all the way back to IRC chat channel days, I guess I just accept the fact that large communities segment to a degree.
Quite honestly, I'll take a diverse range of groups each operating in their own comfort zones that interact with some other groups they get along with while avoiding others they don't over a self-selected "sekrit RP counsil" who thinks it is their god-given right to judge what's right or wrong and think it's their job to tell other players "your RP is nothing but shit" (like seen above).
Also I don't see anything 4th wall breaking in pointing out the difference between game reality and what a character is claiming to be/do and using it as a tool to point out to the public that the character is clearly a delusional individual and should be treated as such.
In-game reality: You can't join Mordu's
What I claim about my 2 primary characters: They are part of "Mordu's Surveillance Operations" working as part of the contract to provide security services in Intaki
How does it benefit anyone in any way if I were to suddenly find myself being hounded in IC venues by one or more other characters constantly about this inconsistency?
I'm just attempting to illustrate once again that it's one thing to balk at space werewolves but another entirely to endlessly nit-pick over minutiae that is lore friendly but not supported by game mechanics.
[mod]Removed the quoteboxes of a recently-moderated post. The rest can stay. -Morwen[/mod]
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I personally feel that tasteful creativity should be encouraged OOC, even if your character would respond negatively IC.
Speaks for Swarms, for example, is a really creative way of going about RPing something related to Rogue Drones and the background they're using is pretty unique and perfectly viable. I see a lot of potential for good RP with them. However, Malcolm doesn't respond so well to things like that because a) he doesn't like Rogue Drones, b) he doesn't understand why/how anyone would be fascinated with them, c) the guy clearly speaks in the third person plural when referring to himself which makes him crazy in Malcolm's eyes and d) he doesn't like Rogue Drones.
I honestly hope Malcolm's reactions weren't seen as an OOC attempt to "squelch" the character because they were entirely IC.
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I have never been comfortable with rogue drone RP or non-human entities in Eve. It does not really annoy me the slightest, but it still definitly falls into the can of worms.
How I see that issue is mostly a storm in a kettle syndrome that I often see on these forums as much as ingame in the OOC channel. I may be a little rude and apologize in advance but I think most people take things in the wrong way. Anyone of you remember the eve wiki article on roleplay (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Roleplay) ? Not that it has to be the Canon of roleplay (that single idea is simply ridiculous), but there is an interesting line in the guidelines part.
Be Human - Your main character is a "pod pilot" or "capsuleer" - a human equipped with implants and equipment that make it possible to fly a spaceship controlled from within a "pod" or "capsule." While you may claim to be something else, chances of anyone believing you are slim.
Since they are guidelines, it is at best, advice, and not rules, unlike some people here seem to think. And the key point for me is around these semantics. ADVICE. It means here that you can perfectly choose to play something else, alien. But that advice warns people about the consequences it can bring upon the character in question. And consequences will inevitably come.
OOCly, I have absolutely nothing against that. If it breaks my immersion, fine, as already mentionned above, I have plenty of tools to ignore him, and will only have to blame myself if it breaks my immersion because I choosed not to use those tools and just can't control myself to the point to be a killjoy for everyone that even have nothing to do with this. As long as it remains IC for me, I do not even see why people are bringing that OOCly. He pretends to be a rogue drone ? Fine, mock him ICly, just tell him you do not believe him, believe him, or just ignore him, whatever works for your character. If the guy in question can't take this, then the blame is to be put on himself and himself only for not following that simple ADVICE. But as soon as someone starts to bring that OOCly (that is called OOC bleeding by the way), then the guy in question is not the only one to be blamed anymore. And to the guy that reacted to this OOCly because it breaks his immersion or whatever, well done dude, you may have just fallen into the trap of a troll, who knows, he was maybe just waiting for the first idiot to feed him OOCly ? :roll:
Really, it all sums up to this : as long as everything is done IC, I do not see where is the issue. Do you all think that Muck Raker or Vaari have to be shot down OOCly because what they claim ICly is pure bullshit ? I do not think so, and look at what happens continuously on the IGS for example : they continue to get flak from the majority of the characters answering to their topics, because well, these characters think obviously that what they are saying is pure bullshit. And so what ? Do people cross over and start to piss in their cheerios OOCly as well ? I don't think so, indeed. So, why the contrary with this rogue drone guy ? Because you think that his RP has no quality or something ? Or is there something else that I have missed ?
My adivce is : stop always playing the offended OOCly when something happens IC. It is selfish and childish, and most of all, arrogant, at best, and only proves that you can not make the difference between OOC and IC as well as you think.
( note : the "you" here is not adressed to people in particular )
In-game reality: You can't join Mordu's
What I claim about my 2 primary characters: They are part of "Mordu's Surveillance Operations" working as part of the contract to provide security services in Intaki
How does it benefit anyone in any way if I were to suddenly find myself being hounded in IC venues by one or more other characters constantly about this inconsistency?
I'm just attempting to illustrate once again that it's one thing to balk at space werewolves but another entirely to endlessly nit-pick over minutiae that is lore friendly but not supported by game mechanics.
As I said in another thread, I choosed to play an Ammatar myself, and I do not see why we wouldnt have minor bloodlines capsuleers as well (would make no sense). And yet the game has its own limits that makes my RP conflicts with the CONCORD database. I basically decided to pick up something that was potentially dangerous since it can conflict a little with the sacred "what happens ingame is king". So, as I said above it is always about the same thing : the more you play on the suspension of disbelief, the more are the chances for people thinking that your character is crazy, ICly.
In my case or maybe in yours (I do not know for you), I have never really had to deal with OOC influenced flak from someone else since people usually like to have players coming from subfactions, since it basically adds a lot of richness (<- is that the correct word ?) to the player generated RP enveloppe that we all live in. And this is fortunate, and it is also always what makes me cringe when I read that kind of topic.
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For those people who don't want jarring default NPC corps showing in their histories, create your own corps (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Corporation_management_guide) with appropriate-sounding names and manage your corp transfers so you never pass through the NPC corp.
"Mordu's SurveIllance Operations" seems to be available, for instance.
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These days I think I tend to run with a, "At least it's not Twilight: Breaking Dawn", Philosophy to RP and some might say that so long as things don't involve glittervamps on tropical islands, vampire sex, or werewolf baby-lovers I'm setting my standards pretty low and it might be the case. However, I've always taken the viewpoint that RP in Eve is just as much a sandbox as the rest of the game. The background and fiction are deliberately kept vague and nebulous because it's up to players to dictate and define how they and their characters view New Eden and the respective factions. There are no real objective standards provided because it's differing individual perspectives that matter.
It's that conflict of differing perceptions and opinions that creates tension and fundamentally good reasons to shoot each other in face which in turn creates good opportunities for RP. I find nothing wrong with telling others they're doing it wrong in an IC context due to fundamental disagreements in worldview and ideology because to me this is New Eden and it is a world built upon war and death and things would get damn boring if it was the United Nations in space and our characters were expected to talk things out and come to understandings and binding resolutions without resort to violence.
Now that I think about it I guess I've been doing it wrong all this time because I've always treated Eve as an anything goes pvp game where even RP itself can be a non-consensual and you have to to HTFU and learn to maintain your immersion through creative doublethink and acts of rationalization. The only other option I see is to seek to spend your time inside the walls of an Ivory Tower with a select clique raging at anyone that breaks your precious suspension of disbelief by not conforming to whatever arbitrary preconceived notions on the fiction you may have conjured up (Because that's what they are).
I guess I just prefer player/characters that are willing to go on a tangent and cop some flak for it, but provide the potential for interaction and conflict as opposed to player/characters that prefer to snipe from the sidelines behind the walls of their sandcastles.
*shrugs*
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I'm not sure that it's really fair to post a topic like this, since one of the rules of the board is that we shouldn't tell others that they are "doing it wrong". If we disagree with the OP, we are in essence doing just that, aren't we?
Rather unlikely that one will have one's thesis strongly contradicted then, at least for long. Persons with a more cynical streak might label that a tad convenient.
As to my response, I think lots of people are role-playing in settings not justified by or even contraindicated by the PF. To stay on this side of the thin blue line, however, I won't say whom, or what, sets me off.
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The question isn't whether people RP "right" but how we react when we think they aren't.
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I'm not sure that it's really fair to post a topic like this, since one of the rules of the board is that we shouldn't tell others that they are "doing it wrong". If we disagree with the OP, we are in essence doing just that, aren't we?
Paradox:
People X think that People Y rdoingitwrong
People Z think that People X rdoingitwrong when they say that People Y rdoingitwrong.
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Why is it okay to have my immersion broken by a 'silly character', but it's not okay to risk breaking anyone else's immersion by saying something about it IC or OOC? Are those who think a character is ridiculous supposed to swallow it, or just go RP somewhere else? Where should a line be drawn?
The line should be drawn at intention.
Unintentionally fucking up other people's RP is allright.
Intentionally trying to fuck up other people's RP is not cool.
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Why is it okay to have my immersion broken by a 'silly character', but it's not okay to risk breaking anyone else's immersion by saying something about it IC or OOC? Are those who think a character is ridiculous supposed to swallow it, or just go RP somewhere else? Where should a line be drawn?
The line should be drawn at intention.
Unintentionally fucking up other people's RP is allright.
Intentionally trying to fuck up other people's RP is not cool.
I like that. thank you for clarifying.
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I just found that going somewhere else when characters that stretched my immersion appeared worked best, honestly. I quite enjoyed the Rogue Drone RP as done by Rogue Drone Systems, even if I've not quite seen it done so well since; the bigger issues for me were the intermittent Mary Sues, space sluts and when people would do nothing in the channel but complain about how little sense a given character made or how crazy they were.
That last isn't necessarily immersion breaking in itself, but it's not my thing at all and is slightly relevant to the topic at hand: I didn't like it, so I went and found somewhere else to RP or, heaven forbid, something else to do for a bit. It isn't srsbsns; if it's boring, frustrating, or anything else like that, I prefer just to gtfo.
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Well it's a Nice idea but like most nice ideas it's ruined by the fact that some people definitely, and undeniably do it wrong.
The crazy person high on blue pill removing their clothing in the summit, rogue drones RPers, Or others who annoy the shit out of people.These people do it right.
People who do it wrong are those who directly contradict, take great liberties with or deliberately ignore the both Prime Fiction and basic common sense.
tl;dr: some people do it wrong, but people are not wrong just because they rub you up the wrong way with their IC act.
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tl;dr: some people do it wrong, but people are not wrong just because they rub you up the wrong way with their IC act.
Yes, I agree with this. Like ban requests for RP channels...I don't think it's fair or just that people being huffy about someone is grounds for a banning, as much as I can empathize with their position of not liking them.
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Well, yeah. As I said -- if you'd rather spend time complaining at a character you dislike rather than just doing something else, I kinda question if you have a bit much time to spare.
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Was someone banned ?
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Nah, this is a continuing thing. I remember Seriphyn was asked to be banned from Summit. Nothing particular, I think some people just found his behaviour there intolerable/offensive/whatever.
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Nah, this is a continuing thing. I remember Seriphyn was asked to be banned from Summit. Nothing particular, I think some people just found his behaviour there intolerable/offensive/whatever.
Seriphyn's character is genius. Unapologetic, gruff and crude, passionately Fed. He's hard to like IC, but hard to dislike OOC.
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Nah, this is a continuing thing. I remember Seriphyn was asked to be banned from Summit. Nothing particular, I think some people just found his behaviour there intolerable/offensive/whatever.
Seriphyn's character is genius. Unapologetic, gruff and crude, passionately Fed. He's hard to like IC, but hard to dislike OOC.
Could not have said it better.
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We wish to inform all of you that we had been considering biomassing this character, in response to the apparently outraged response to him. It seems unfeasable for us to RP him at all, since he was greeted ICly with mockery and disbelief at worst, with the best response seeming to be simple ignoring.
But many of the responses in this thread have uplifted our thoughts on Eve's RP community. We thank you all.
We are firmly (as you might imagine) on the other side of the 'urdoinitrong' people. We understand that our concept is strange at best, but we hope that you will take the time to learn a bit about him, and realize that he isn't poorly thought out, he was not intended to be silly, and he does not in any place contradict prime fiction.
We would also like to remind you all who complain on the basis that one should not RP anything but humans, that one multiple occasions, Speaker For Swarms has confirmed his humanity.
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We wish to inform all of you that we had been considering biomassing this character, in response to the apparently outraged response to him. It seems unfeasable for us to RP him at all, since he was greeted ICly with mockery and disbelief at worst, with the best response seeming to be simple ignoring.
But many of the responses in this thread have uplifted our thoughts on Eve's RP community. We thank you all.
We are firmly (as you might imagine) on the other side of the 'urdoinitrong' people. We understand that our concept is strange at best, but we hope that you will take the time to learn a bit about him, and realize that he isn't poorly thought out, he was not intended to be silly, and he does not in any place contradict prime fiction.
We would also like to remind you all who complain on the basis that one should not RP anything but humans, that one multiple occasions, Speaker For Swarms has confirmed his humanity.
I for one would like to see a biography for that character posted here on Backstage. It might help if some were able to read more about this character to see just how well thought out he is. I wager many of the bad responses you've gotten were knee-jerk reactions.
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We wish to inform all of you that we had been considering biomassing this character, in response to the apparently outraged response to him. It seems unfeasable for us to RP him at all, since he was greeted ICly with mockery and disbelief at worst, with the best response seeming to be simple ignoring.
But many of the responses in this thread have uplifted our thoughts on Eve's RP community. We thank you all.
We are firmly (as you might imagine) on the other side of the 'urdoinitrong' people. We understand that our concept is strange at best, but we hope that you will take the time to learn a bit about him, and realize that he isn't poorly thought out, he was not intended to be silly, and he does not in any place contradict prime fiction.
We would also like to remind you all who complain on the basis that one should not RP anything but humans, that one multiple occasions, Speaker For Swarms has confirmed his humanity.
I for one would like to see a biography for that character posted here on Backstage. It might help if some were able to read more about this character to see just how well thought out he is. I wager many of the bad responses you've gotten were knee-jerk reactions.
We would suspect that you are correct. We hesitate to do so, since we do not wish others to use information gained OOCly in an IC manner, but we are beginning to suspect that that is the least of our worries.
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We wish to inform all of you that we had been considering biomassing this character, in response to the apparently outraged response to him. It seems unfeasable for us to RP him at all, since he was greeted ICly with mockery and disbelief at worst, with the best response seeming to be simple ignoring.
But many of the responses in this thread have uplifted our thoughts on Eve's RP community. We thank you all.
We are firmly (as you might imagine) on the other side of the 'urdoinitrong' people. We understand that our concept is strange at best, but we hope that you will take the time to learn a bit about him, and realize that he isn't poorly thought out, he was not intended to be silly, and he does not in any place contradict prime fiction.
We would also like to remind you all who complain on the basis that one should not RP anything but humans, that one multiple occasions, Speaker For Swarms has confirmed his humanity.
I for one would like to see a biography for that character posted here on Backstage. It might help if some were able to read more about this character to see just how well thought out he is. I wager many of the bad responses you've gotten were knee-jerk reactions.
We would suspect that you are correct. We hesitate to do so, since we do not wish others to use information gained OOCly in an IC manner, but we are beginning to suspect that that is the least of our worries.
Who is 'we' by the way?
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We wish to inform all of you that we had been considering biomassing this character, in response to the apparently outraged response to him. It seems unfeasable for us to RP him at all, since he was greeted ICly with mockery and disbelief at worst, with the best response seeming to be simple ignoring.
But many of the responses in this thread have uplifted our thoughts on Eve's RP community. We thank you all.
We are firmly (as you might imagine) on the other side of the 'urdoinitrong' people. We understand that our concept is strange at best, but we hope that you will take the time to learn a bit about him, and realize that he isn't poorly thought out, he was not intended to be silly, and he does not in any place contradict prime fiction.
We would also like to remind you all who complain on the basis that one should not RP anything but humans, that one multiple occasions, Speaker For Swarms has confirmed his humanity.
I for one would like to see a biography for that character posted here on Backstage. It might help if some were able to read more about this character to see just how well thought out he is. I wager many of the bad responses you've gotten were knee-jerk reactions.
We would suspect that you are correct. We hesitate to do so, since we do not wish others to use information gained OOCly in an IC manner, but we are beginning to suspect that that is the least of our worries.
Who is 'we' by the way?
We are a weird method actor and prefer to speak as our character does in all OOC interactions. We find it helps us keep our character in mind. It's like the royal we, but with a strange internet RPer instead of the queen.
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/me now imagines that Queen Elizabeth is RPing as SFS
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We wish to inform all of you that we had been considering biomassing this character, in response to the apparently outraged response to him. It seems unfeasable for us to RP him at all, since he was greeted ICly with mockery and disbelief at worst, with the best response seeming to be simple ignoring.
I guess you forgot about the part where Makkal asked him about religion and tried to start a conversation.
I for one would like to see a biography for that character posted here on Backstage. It might help if some were able to read more about this character to see just how well thought out he is. I wager many of the bad responses you've gotten were knee-jerk reactions.
There's a was a pretty good bio posted in the in-game character sheet that explained he was a human who'd become obsessed with the drones. I suspect that few people read it though.
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Nah, this is a continuing thing. I remember Seriphyn was asked to be banned from Summit. Nothing particular, I think some people just found his behaviour there intolerable/offensive/whatever.
Seriphyn's character is genius. Unapologetic, gruff and crude, passionately Fed. He's hard to like IC, but hard to dislike OOC.
Seriphyn's character is genius. Unapologetic, gruff and crude, passionately Fed. He's hard to like IC, but hard to dislike OOC.
Could not have said it better.
[spoiler](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5w4nxUJOM1rqwv86o2_500.png)[/spoiler]
Heh, thanks @ both. Though, I would remark there is the personal side of Seriphyn (which naturally no one would see in a place like the Summit/IGS), where stuff like loyalties and the day job are completely irrelevant. Father and man before soldier, and all that jazz.
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SFS,
I would like to reiterate that Malcolm's responses were ENTIRELY IC, I personally found the character interesting and the biography posted in the dossier is pretty unique and believable. If you ever suspect that I'm being OOC toward you, please do not hesitate to open a convo or send a mail to me and make sure everything's on the level, I very rarely respond to IC things from an OOC perspective but I'd be lying if I said I never do.
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SFS,
I would like to reiterate that Malcolm's responses were ENTIRELY IC, I personally found the character interesting and the biography posted in the dossier is pretty unique and believable. If you ever suspect that I'm being OOC toward you, please do not hesitate to open a convo or send a mail to me and make sure everything's on the level, I very rarely respond to IC things from an OOC perspective but I'd be lying if I said I never do.
We did in fact believe that your response was based on OOC feelings, and we thus apologize for our failed interpretation of the situation.
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SFS,
I would like to reiterate that Malcolm's responses were ENTIRELY IC, I personally found the character interesting and the biography posted in the dossier is pretty unique and believable. If you ever suspect that I'm being OOC toward you, please do not hesitate to open a convo or send a mail to me and make sure everything's on the level, I very rarely respond to IC things from an OOC perspective but I'd be lying if I said I never do.
We did in fact believe that your response was based on OOC feelings, and we thus apologize for our failed interpretation of the situation.
No need to apologize, I'm sorry it came across that way. :( I'll try to ensure that it doesn't come across that way again.
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The line should be drawn at intention.
Unintentionally fucking up other people's RP is allright.
Intentionally trying to fuck up other people's RP is not cool.
And if you're doing it for entirely IC reasons? "You represent everything I wish to destroy in this universe. I will not attack you for this."
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With all thats said, worth remembering that theres such a thing as good taste, so inevitably bad OOC feelings could develop quite natuarally.
Without a medium to express OOC issues in an honest way, the RP community will just eat itself alive. A cloak-and-dagger post on Backstage, as is so often the case for people's OOC issues, is simply inadequate for solving the problem.
But then I'm the sort of person who preferred the summit better when it was quasi-anarchy. Much preferred.
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We wish to inform all of you that we had been considering biomassing this character, in response to the apparently outraged response to him. It seems unfeasable for us to RP him at all, since he was greeted ICly with mockery and disbelief at worst, with the best response seeming to be simple ignoring.
But many of the responses in this thread have uplifted our thoughts on Eve's RP community. We thank you all.
We are firmly (as you might imagine) on the other side of the 'urdoinitrong' people. We understand that our concept is strange at best, but we hope that you will take the time to learn a bit about him, and realize that he isn't poorly thought out, he was not intended to be silly, and he does not in any place contradict prime fiction.
We would also like to remind you all who complain on the basis that one should not RP anything but humans, that one multiple occasions, Speaker For Swarms has confirmed his humanity.
For me it is about a matter of internet guts and hard skin, mostly. As I said before such concepts will always attract all the flak of the universe on your character ICly, so it is better to have the psychological backbone OOCly to handle it.
Also, keep in mind that a player playing a true rogue drone entity (Unit, and in the past there was also Rogue Drone Systems), had to face the same difficulties at the beginning, and still does from time to time. And he is not even playing just a human with implant issues (or something like that ?).
Nah, this is a continuing thing. I remember Seriphyn was asked to be banned from Summit. Nothing particular, I think some people just found his behaviour there intolerable/offensive/whatever.
Seriphyn's character is genius. Unapologetic, gruff and crude, passionately Fed. He's hard to like IC, but hard to dislike OOC.
Could not have said it better.
I see. Well, that explains a lot of things. I for one, both IC and OOC had never had any real grief against Seri (the character) and have a lot of difficulties (OOCly and ICly) to understand why he is so hated. It is a shame, really, and it also reminds me more and more these days that I just do not seem to think and react like most of people, thus why I am slowly drifting away from the community. Have now the same issue with Lyn too.
OOC issue, mostly.
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With all thats said, worth remembering that theres such a thing as good taste, so inevitably bad OOC feelings could develop quite natuarally.
Without a medium to express OOC issues in an honest way, the RP community will just eat itself alive. A cloak-and-dagger post on Backstage, as is so often the case for people's OOC issues, is simply inadequate for solving the problem.
But then I'm the sort of person who preferred the summit better when it was quasi-anarchy. Much preferred.
I'd have hoped that talking to someone OOC about a problem would be the first thing done over some indirect snipe on a forum. Granted, I'm in part hypocritical there since outside the game I don't particularly have the drive to do the former when it arises (hey, I'm not playing: the irritation is at best minor), but I don't do the latter either so I guess it balances out.
On the other hand, though, it may not be the best of moves with the propensity towards drama I've seen. :\
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Step by step analysis of EVE RP
1. Community complains there isn't enough RP
2. Character tries to RP for an ingame faction
3. Character gets heckled, ignored or ostracized for doing something that's been done 80000 times already
4. Character tries something that hasn't been done 80000 times already
5. Character gets heckled, ignored or ostracized for being unconventional
6. Community complains there isn't enough RP
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7. A fellow RP'er makes a snide remark on an OOC board to remind us we are all morons 50% of our waking time D:
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The line should be drawn at intention.
Unintentionally fucking up other people's RP is allright.
Intentionally trying to fuck up other people's RP is not cool.
And if you're doing it for entirely IC reasons? "You represent everything I wish to destroy in this universe. I will not attack you for this."
You cannot intentionally fuck up someone's RP IC, since you character isn't aware of any RP going on.
If, when choosing between several alternatives you character has to respond to some RP situation, you intentionally choose that response that you think would be the worst for the other person's RP (even though it is a valid alternative), then yes, you are intentionally fucking up someone's RP.
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Well thats another thing, people want EVE to be a theatre when its actually a sandbox.
Someone comes along and "ruins" your RP? Well thats just tough, and thats EVE. Being an RPer should not seperate us from what is fundamentally EVE, a nasty universe, filled with assholes, pretty fundamental principle, which should be obvious. Just RP that you werent successful and move on. Or ragequit.
Point being, if your RP is "ruined" then its no use sulking and raging. This silly idea that when someone kills someone elses RP plans (intentionally or otherwise) they're "ruining" RP is nonsense and contrary to the game of EVE and makes the RP community as a whole look like hissy control freaks who are sore losers.
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Someone comes along and "ruins" your RP? Well thats just tough, and thats EVE. Being an RPer should not seperate us from what is fundamentally EVE, a nasty universe, filled with assholes, pretty fundamental principle, which should be obvious. Just RP that you werent successful and move on. Or ragequit.
Point being, if your RP is "ruined" then its no use sulking and raging. This silly idea that when someone kills someone elses RP plans (intentionally or otherwise) they're "ruining" RP is nonsense and contrary to the game of EVE and makes the RP community as a whole look like hissy control freaks who are sore losers.
In my experience only very few people are assholes. Some people might act like assholes towards others because they think it will gain them something (like recognition from their peers).
In fact using 'the universe is full of assholes' and 'that's EVE' to me feels like someone trying to justify his own assholish behaviour and not making an actual argument, which isn't helped by using labels like 'sulking, raging, hissy control freaks and sore losers'.
What I like about the sandbox is that it gives you the freedom to act in a way that other people might find offensive without some central authority trying to prevent it. That fact that you can act as an asshole absolutely doesn't mean acting like that is either a desired or acceptable behaviour. It merely means that we're policing the rules of conduct based on debate and mutual respect, and not with guns, prison sentences or ban hammers.
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In fact using 'the universe is full of assholes' and 'that's EVE' to me feels like someone trying to justify his own assholish behaviour and not making an actual argument, which isn't helped by using labels like 'sulking, raging, hissy control freaks and sore losers'.
Have all my Internets.
Also, no one is saying UR DOIN IT RONG with me having made up a spaceship that doesn't exist in-game and saying Seri is supervising a bunch of high school girls on some extracurricular trip. Not in a poking way, but is there any reason for that? I feel it is because I am not a new member of the RP community, so I can "get away with it". If I was new, maybe not the same...
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In my experience only very few people are assholes. Some people might act like assholes towards others because they think it will gain them something (like recognition from their peers).
I don't see much of a difference between being an asshole and acting like an asshole, unless you're talking about IC/OOC. I didn't gather that from your post though.
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The line should be drawn at intention.
Unintentionally fucking up other people's RP is allright.
Intentionally trying to fuck up other people's RP is not cool.
And if you're doing it for entirely IC reasons? "You represent everything I wish to destroy in this universe. I will not attack you for this."
Wardecs are roleplay, too: so pewing somebody who represents something you oppose is a much better choice than loudly proclaiming to any and all that Character X is a sham and should be ignored, etc etc.
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I don't see much of a difference between being an asshole and acting like an asshole, unless you're talking about IC/OOC. I didn't gather that from your post though.
About as much different as being stupid and acting stupid.
Or being paranoid and acting paranoid.
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The line should be drawn at intention.
Unintentionally fucking up other people's RP is allright.
Intentionally trying to fuck up other people's RP is not cool.
And if you're doing it for entirely IC reasons? "You represent everything I wish to destroy in this universe. I will not attack you for this."
Wardecs are roleplay, too: so pewing somebody who represents something you oppose is a much better choice than loudly proclaiming to any and all that Character X is a sham and should be ignored, etc etc.
Here's the issue, I run into a lot, Cass: Esna has determined through various IC means (talking to people, actual on-site recon, etc) that the target has no static in-space assets, or they can easily move to an un-interdictable stance (always flying cloaky, etc.), or their in-space assets are far off in Null and he cannot effectively reach them (or some mixture of the above).
However, he CAN - using entirely IC means - disperse highly damaging information about the target, or sabotage their efforts through non-game-mechanic means, or some other means to badly damage their current operations. When doing this, he will still opt to take the most damaging route possible - because really, why shouldn't he? - which will often mean trying to cripple someone's long-term operations. However, I can't help but feel this is somewhat unfair to them.
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Someone comes along and "ruins" your RP? Well thats just tough, and thats EVE. Being an RPer should not seperate us from what is fundamentally EVE, a nasty universe, filled with assholes, pretty fundamental principle, which should be obvious. Just RP that you werent successful and move on. Or ragequit.
Point being, if your RP is "ruined" then its no use sulking and raging. This silly idea that when someone kills someone elses RP plans (intentionally or otherwise) they're "ruining" RP is nonsense and contrary to the game of EVE and makes the RP community as a whole look like hissy control freaks who are sore losers.
In my experience only very few people are assholes. Some people might act like assholes towards others because they think it will gain them something (like recognition from their peers).
In fact using 'the universe is full of assholes' and 'that's EVE' to me feels like someone trying to justify his own assholish behaviour and not making an actual argument, which isn't helped by using labels like 'sulking, raging, hissy control freaks and sore losers'.
What I like about the sandbox is that it gives you the freedom to act in a way that other people might find offensive without some central authority trying to prevent it. That fact that you can act as an asshole absolutely doesn't mean acting like that is either a desired or acceptable behaviour. It merely means that we're policing the rules of conduct based on debate and mutual respect, and not with guns, prison sentences or ban hammers.
Now, for the actual meat and potatoes, all I'm doing is paraphrasing CCP who have reffered to EVE's players as "Intelligent Assholes". But that on its own is hardly enough. So lets actually compare EVE to oter MMO's. In other MMO's "asshole" behavior is often punished, things like corp thefts are nothing like they are in EVE. In EVE things like the Ubiqua Seraph heist are not only looked upon as monumental, but worth aspiring to. As another thread pointed out, recruiters in EVE can be rediculously meticulous with their security checks. On top of that, observe the Hulkageddon series or the Goonswarm ice mining fiasco.
All of this is just the surface, and the point is thus: The EVE universe, both in fiction and gameplay is deliberately set as lawless and unfriendly, especially for capsuleers. But we as the RP community seem to have blocked out both gameplay and sometimes fiction in order to accomodate the fear of looking bad OOC.
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[mod]Keep the personal attacks out of the thread, please.[/mod]
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Also, no one is saying UR DOIN IT RONG with me having made up a spaceship that doesn't exist in-game and saying Seri is supervising a bunch of high school girls on some extracurricular trip. Not in a poking way, but is there any reason for that? I feel it is because I am not a new member of the RP community, so I can "get away with it". If I was new, maybe not the same...
In one way, its kind of the natural thing. The older players know their way around both gameplay and backstory so only natural to be looked to for guidence. But, the RP community has a dangerous tendency to pander to its celebrities, IC and OOC no matter what they do, which is all indicative of a much deeper problem of veteran RPers to pass down skills and knowledge.
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Civilian yacht full of schoolgirls might be slightly more possible and unimportant than what your standard special unique snowflake usually comes up with. Apparently 'normal capsuleers' are so uncool.
@Cas; wardecs
You'll find that most of the people you might want to hit for RP reasons are alts. Usually a good way to spot things is: The bigger their claims, the smaller their organization/corporation, the less likely they're to actually play EVE in space.
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Personally I find the "normal" people the most fascinating. :oops:
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The line should be drawn at intention.
Unintentionally fucking up other people's RP is allright.
Intentionally trying to fuck up other people's RP is not cool.
And if you're doing it for entirely IC reasons? "You represent everything I wish to destroy in this universe. I will not attack you for this."
Wardecs are roleplay, too: so pewing somebody who represents something you oppose is a much better choice than loudly proclaiming to any and all that Character X is a sham and should be ignored, etc etc.
It depends on the character. Lyn do believe that wardecs are one of the less efficient systems to get the upper hand on someone.
What Des said too. On the IGS or in the RP world in general, the new RPers are often alts or people that are unlikely to have assets truly threatened ingame. And when they are strawman alts or disposable alts the player behind perfectly knows that he will use them as RP trolls or whatever that will make the offended other player look silly when he will start a war for nothing.
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Living in a major U.S. City, I routinely pass by and am exposed to all manor of crazy, deranged, and 'immersion breaking' characters on nearly a daily basis. In the subway, on the street corner, everywhere.
I imagine EVE or The Summit to be similar, except there we can 'ignore' much easier than the psychopath in the seat next to me on the subway.
IE the world of EVE is full of all sorts of people none of us would likely care to interact with, and just act accordingly if they bother you.
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Living in a major U.S. City, I routinely pass by and am exposed to all manor of crazy, deranged, and 'immersion breaking' characters on nearly a daily basis. In the subway, on the street corner, everywhere.
I imagine EVE or The Summit to be similar, except there we can 'ignore' much easier than the psychopath in the seat next to me on the subway.
IE the world of EVE is full of all sorts of people none of us would likely care to interact with, and just act accordingly if they bother you.
As anyone who has experience with the "unhinged" types on the subway or the street will tell you, the last thing you want to do is get into an argument or drawn out discussion with them on the inaccuracies of their ramblings :9.
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What, you don't want to make them see how they're ruining your immersion in a post-modern urban setting?
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Living in a major U.S. City, I routinely pass by and am exposed to all manor of crazy, deranged, and 'immersion breaking' characters on nearly a daily basis. In the subway, on the street corner, everywhere.
I imagine EVE or The Summit to be similar, except there we can 'ignore' much easier than the psychopath in the seat next to me on the subway.
IE the world of EVE is full of all sorts of people none of us would likely care to interact with, and just act accordingly if they bother you.
As anyone who has experience with the "unhinged" types on the subway or the street will tell you, the last thing you want to do is get into an argument or drawn out discussion with them on the inaccuracies of their ramblings :9.
Hehe that's kind of what I was getting at. Maybe speak to them privately if you care that much, but easier to ignore.
If 'urdoingitwrong' people somehow directly influences you and yours perhaps time to speak to them.
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As anyone who has experience with the "unhinged" types on the subway or the street will tell you, the last thing you want to do is get into an argument or drawn out discussion with them on the inaccuracies of their ramblings :9.
That's true, and I tend to stay away from the pubs those crazy people hang out near too...
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I love how the OP is telling people the are doing it wrong by telling people they are doing it wrong.
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Offering productive suggestions is not the same as telling people their approach is invalid.
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I'm not RPing for an in-game faction... Am I doing it wrong? D;
Also, Seri, I think that you may be right. But I think another factor of it is that new pilots that just show up are usually dispensable RP alts that can be used to avoid consequence, so people are less receptive to their RP in general.
This isn't entirely an OOC factor, either: a new pilot has had significantly less time to accrue power and reputation.
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Offering productive suggestions is not the same as telling people their approach is invalid.
Except little in the way of productive solutions was offered in the OP. That came later in the thread. The OP was about asking people to stop being so brutal in their rejection of RP they don't like. Hambone has a point. :P
On a side note, I have a thought that as friendly and fair as the moderation is on Backstage, I think it's a mistake to try being so 'friendly and fair' in EVE RP, even OOC. EVE never was a nice place, and I think it's a mistake to promote the sense of camaraderie and 'live-and-let-live' in a game where it is completely legitimate and encouraged to betray and stab someone in the back OOC.
I prefer it when people are nice to me. I want people to respect me, and I want people to respect my RP. I agree with what you're saying, Cas, and I don't like how brutal things are sometimes. HOWEVER, I think it's a mistake to set a stage for people to let their guard down and naturally trust everyone else.
Take Istvaan for example. He's a nice guy, and he's quite polite IC and OOC. However, the very real threat of him completely screwing over your character, corp, and time spent in EVE is real and with precedent. People need to remember that and keep that in mind. Not just about him, but about everyone. A few 'urdoinitrong' arguments and curbstomping here and there helps to remind people of this.
EVE isn't nice, and I don't think promoting Backstage moderation ideals in EVE is what should be done.
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EVE isn't nice, and I don't think promoting Backstage moderation ideals in EVE is what should be done.
Eve, or the eve RP community, is what we do of it. One can perfectly be respectful and yet remaining paranoid OOCly.
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People might perceive politeness and reliability are the same thing, and therefore every once in a while we should pretend that they are, and be horribly rude to each other, just to kill any kind of trust and general positive feeling that might otherwise spring up?
That's.. awesome. I think.
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Take Istvaan for example. He's a nice guy, and he's quite polite IC and OOC. However, the very real threat of him completely screwing over your character, corp, and time spent in EVE is real and with precedent.
It's funny you mention Istvaan - when I started Eve and Eve RP I started with Cia looking for a missing capsuleer father. I had more than one person tell me I was doingitwrong: pop pilots were infertile, the idea was hackneyned, it made no sense not to be able to find him when any new pilot could just use the mail system, etc ...
Istvaan contacted me, ICly, offered to help, freaked my newbie self right out by getting Cia to smuggle drugs for him as the price of his help, and then ICly screwed me over. It was awesome, it was one of the things that got me hooked on Eve, and it was the exact opposite of what the OP is describing. I will always be grateful to him for taking the time to be interested in a noob and her idea.
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EVE isn't nice, and I don't think promoting Backstage moderation ideals in EVE is what should be done.
(http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/113/201/ShutUpAndTakeMyMoney.jpg)
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I'm not sure how this became a discussion about the stipulation that everyone's friendly in-character, but I'll bite.
I think Ciarente's story is great. However, not everyone is a conniving bastard. EVE is dangerous. But the thing about EVE is that everyone chooses just how good or bad they are. This translates to our characters. Hatele is by no means a saint, but she isn't going to dick you on every turn.
I'd like to see more IC conflict, but as long as we aren't letting OOC friendships get in the way of IC/IG actions, then I don't mind either way.
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I guess I wasn't clear, sorry. I meant to use that interaction to illustrate the idea that not being 'urdoingitwrong' doesn't mean being nice, fluffy and covered in rainbows. Istvaan was pretty scary to me ICly and a bit OOCly too, given all I knew about him as a player was the GHSC reputation and he didn't interact with me at all OCCly until much later. But what he didn't do was what other players did do, which was have their character say ICly to Cia 'pod pilots can't have children, you're lying' or 'why don't you just mail him, if he isn't on the mail system he doesn't exist, you're lying'.
I never forget that Istvaan has the demonstrated capacity to screw over a player and/or their corp. But to return to the OPs metaphor, he doesn't step on the air hose.
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Oh, definitely.
Some people just can't play well with others, sadly.
I think this thread hit the nail on the head but the reality of it is that people are always going to block (which ultimately leads to clique behavior too).
:s
I guess no Roleplay at all is better than playing a different vision of the sandbox?
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Sometimes yes, but I honestly have never, or very rarely, had to ignore or block someone in Eve. Unlike in more conventionnal MMOs where 90% of the RP "community" gets in the ignore list and/or in my kill on sight list.
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Sometimes yes, but I honestly have never, or very rarely, had to ignore or block someone in Eve. Unlike in more conventionnal MMOs where 90% of the RP "community" gets in the ignore list and/or in my kill on sight list.
Hmm. I've only perma-blocked one RPer in this game. Sort of glad now that I haven't played other MMOs (I don't count my flirtation with APB as "playing". :) ).
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Sometimes yes, but I honestly have never, or very rarely, had to ignore or block someone in Eve. Unlike in more conventionnal MMOs where 90% of the RP "community" gets in the ignore list and/or in my kill on sight list.
Hmm. I've only perma-blocked one RPer in this game. Sort of glad now that I haven't played other MMOs (I don't count my flirtation with APB as "playing". :) ).
Whatever you do, if you value your sanity, never play World of Warcrap.
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Sometimes yes, but I honestly have never, or very rarely, had to ignore or block someone in Eve. Unlike in more conventionnal MMOs where 90% of the RP "community" gets in the ignore list and/or in my kill on sight list.
Hmm. I've only perma-blocked one RPer in this game. Sort of glad now that I haven't played other MMOs (I don't count my flirtation with APB as "playing". :) ).
I've only ever blocked people who spam stuff that's illegal (isk spammers) or hideously irritating (people who put in about 50 newlines in chat in local in a single post).
Never blocked anyone from the RP community because it seems counterproductive - doubly so if they're someone who hangs out in OOC or the Summit. Also, only seeing half of a conversation is more annoying than seeing both halves even if one of the participants is someone who I would like to kick so hard their testicles come out their eye sockets.
Whatever you do, if you value your sanity, never play World of Warcrap.
Mal. Barrens chat.
/me flees from the incoming wails of abject horror!
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Never blocked anyone from the RP community because it seems counterproductive - doubly so if they're someone who hangs out in OOC or the Summit. Also, only seeing half of a conversation is more annoying than seeing both halves even if one of the participants is someone who I would like to kick so hard their testicles come out their eye sockets.
I don't hang out in OOC or The Summit with all my characters (e.g. Maris, who has IC reasons to stay out of The Summit). :)
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Mal. Barrens chat.
/me flees from the incoming wails of abject horror!
There are no words in Entish, Elvish or the tongues of Men to describe the level of sheer stupidity that is embodied in the truth of these statements.
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Vieve: To clarify, it's an administrative thing. If it's someone who doesn't hang out in either of the channels I'm more inclined to employ a block if it's that bad. But given the ones who I'd be inclined to block are the ones I need to keep an eye on... :bash:
Mal: I've never actually played WoW, myself. Just heard horror stories. :P
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Fortunately, you could always leave those channels in WoW so it just stopped being a problem for me. I only did some light RP there (mostly as dwarves named after Minmatar systems from EVE, heh) on an RP-PvP server, but I enjoyed the time I did spend on it.
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"urdoingitrong" starts at character creation, for player characters. (CCP actors have the ability to get around this)
The limitation of game mechanics, means that everyone went to the same 12 schools.
There is no such thing as a Khanid Kingdom native pilot, mechanics wise. They all trained at Imperial Academy, Hedion Uni, or the RAI.
It means any Khanid kingdom loyalist, can be asked "So, why did you abandon your Duty to the Empire to support King Khanid?".
Happens with many other factions too. esp. the pirate factions, like the blood raiders. Anyone that says they are a blood raider supporter, mechanics wise, has to have trained at e.g. Imperial Academy. And so, must have turned their back on the Empire, having been an Imperial citizen initially.
Mechanics wise, there are only 2 kinds of player character. "Big Four" citizens, and former "big four" citizens.
If you say there are more, then you are adding something that cannot be proven by game mechanics, and that is something that will, eventually, be called on.
Thereafter, it is all about cliques and in-groups, as to whether or not player X's character is what the mechanics say they are, or what player X says they are.
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Mechanics wise, there are only 2 kinds of player character. "Big Four" citizens, and former "big four" citizens.
I recall some creative ways around this from a previous discussion, for example.
"I was born and raised a Blooder."
"Then how the $#%& did you graduate from the Imperial Academy?"
"When they found out I could hook up to a pod, someone with connections back home pulled some strings and got me in. Living with those pious pricks in the Empire sucked."
It means taking what we seen in game as simple information and avoiding the (admittedly highly likely) assumptions that go with them. So, for example, taking someone's original capsuleer school as just that - it's where they trained as a capsuleer - without taking it as a guarantee that they are/were a citizen of the given faction.
Yes, it's a stretch. But it opens a few options without being horribly immersion breaking.
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One can also look at the schools as an insidious form of attempted indoctrination.
Why else would the Federal Navy Academy (example) only accept Gallente bloodlines when there's a huge variety of people within the Federation who might want to sign up there who aren't of one of those bloodlines?
Could it be because they want to try and reinforce the notion that serving your 'genetic' nation is a great and wonderful idea? The empire-aligned NPC capsuleers have to come from somewhere, after all - we're the Unbound ones who can come and go as we please and serve whoever or whatever we like - but surely there are many who actually buy into it. ;)
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Or, you know, somebody hacks into the school registration DB to list you or get you admitted just because of CONCORD licensing requirements.
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"urdoingitrong" starts at character creation, for player characters. (CCP actors have the ability to get around this)
The limitation of game mechanics, means that everyone went to the same 12 schools.
There is no such thing as a Khanid Kingdom native pilot, mechanics wise. They all trained at Imperial Academy, Hedion Uni, or the RAI.
It means any Khanid kingdom loyalist, can be asked "So, why did you abandon your Duty to the Empire to support King Khanid?".
Happens with many other factions too. esp. the pirate factions, like the blood raiders. Anyone that says they are a blood raider supporter, mechanics wise, has to have trained at e.g. Imperial Academy. And so, must have turned their back on the Empire, having been an Imperial citizen initially.
Mechanics wise, there are only 2 kinds of player character. "Big Four" citizens, and former "big four" citizens.
If you say there are more, then you are adding something that cannot be proven by game mechanics, and that is something that will, eventually, be called on.
Thereafter, it is all about cliques and in-groups, as to whether or not player X's character is what the mechanics say they are, or what player X says they are.
In my opinion, the limitation of game mechanics means that everyone appears to have gone to the same 12 schools. You can choose to acknowledge and incorporate that your character passed through the school at some time, or 'shady shenanigans' occurred. See also : using what you're given versus ignoring it.
At the end of the day, some people would like to ignore the starting restrictions so it better fits 'their way' of doing things. I think it's important to incorporate these starting restrictions, however, because it keeps things flowing. Rather than think of it as dealing with people who pointedly don't respect what you would like to do, think of it as keeping it clear for people who don't know what you are doing.
A new roleplayer or someone unfamiliar with you might use that part of your employment history as a hook in. If you take them aside OOCly to say 'that isnt actually so' then it breaks flow and jarrs them out of what might be a good exchange. If you take it in stride in character, you can adapt the situation and play with it to suit your whims and generate :RP:. It's not ideal, obviously, but it appears to be the healthy bridge between What Is So and What I Say So.
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What Ghost said. Also what I said in the thread on roleplay and real-play:
If someone tells me that something that I can see in-game isn't correct, I'm not blocking when I question it: I'm grounding our play in our shared world.
They might then go "Yes, and... it's some stupid CONCORD regulation" or "Yes, and... *wide-eyed stare* let me find a new corp: I didn't realise that would happen to my licence when I left".
The responsibility rests with them to present a reason why the public, shared information is, in that instance, not to be taken at face value.
I think there's lots of potential here. "The CONCORD treaties recognise only 12 accredited training organisations for pod pilots, require you to list one-and-only-one race/ethnicity, and tie the two together. It's bizarre, but if you want to fly you need a CONCORD licence, so those are the rules to work with or around. We think it was part of a negotiating ploy by <insert theory here: the Gallente to ensure that all ethnic Minmatar pod pilots would be "free"; the Caldari to ensure that all Caldari pod pilots would be theirs; whatever>. It's <insert view of CONCORD's pragmatism or corruption> and <insert view of what, if anything, should be done about it>".
We can work with this stuff. We can come up with terse Ammatar comments about "Ridiculous CONCORD requirements for licensing". We can ponder whether Khanid should try to become a CONCORD treaty partner in its own right, and what the unlikeliness of that happening means for regional politics and alliances.
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It is easy to work around the capsuleer school indicated on each character info. I did it myself and found a clumsy excuse to explain why the Republic Military School.
What is not possible however, is to find a solution for a secondary bloodline that is not available at the character creation. So in the same vein, should I completely scratch my ammatar background because it has no common ground in our shared world ? Or does saying that CONCORD did a mistake/has a restrictive list of bloodlines is ok ?
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What is not possible however, is to find a solution for a secondary bloodline that is not available at the character creation. So in the same vein, should I completely scratch my ammatar background because it has no common ground in our shared world ? Or does saying that CONCORD did a mistake/has a restrictive list of bloodlines is ok ?
The bloodline one is annoying. The world definitely has people with a whole range of backgrounds that we can't register. I'm not aware of anything suggesting that Krusual, Ealurians, Mannar, Thukker, Udorians, etc, are genetically or otherwise unsuited to the pod ( ... although wouldn't that make for some fascinating plot arcs?). There are good stories to be told by bringing them in.
I'm inclined to play it that CONCORD's registration doesn't reflect the social/cultural/genetic reality in those cases, and work out the reasons case-by-case. Some of them will play the "bone-headed bureaucracy" card hard, but dealing with CONCORD's quirks and nuttiness is something we're used to, and one of the things we share despite our otherwise very different interests.
As an example, Thukker were outlaws from the Republic at the time the treaty was drafted, so maybe Thukker heritage didn't get on the registration list and any Thukker pilots since then have had to do some sort of weirdness to get registered. (Sucks to be Krusual, though: only three spots permitted per treaty partner, and they were the smallest of the original four?) Originally, that weirdness might have involved finding a Brutor great-great-grandfather in your family tree, or being sponsored or (extreme measures!) adopted by another tribe. These days maybe that's one of the reasons behind the certificate where all the tribes offer your their sponsorship: it means you can technically register as any one of them. (If you want places to go looking for fruitful conflict between tribal identities and pragmatic realities, this sort of stuff can be useful, too.) Some people will resent this; others will be pretty mellow about it, or shrug and move on since it's just dealing with outlander administration.
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That's always a possibility however...
Explain the Mannar, again.
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IMO, there's a good measure of either pettiness or OCD required to make a fuss about people claiming to belong to a bloodline which clearly seems plausible from a PF standpoint, but which simply isn't supported by game mechanics.
Sure, it's always possible to come up with some excuse for why your pilot's license says Sebiestor while you claim to be Krusual, but honestly, it's often less silly and always a lot easier to simply take otherwise uncontroversial claims of ethnicity at face value.
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IMO, there's a good measure of either pettiness or OCD required to make a fuss about people claiming to belong to a bloodline which clearly seems plausible from a PF standpoint, but which simply isn't supported by game mechanics.
This precisely illustrates the point I tried to make in the OP.
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[mod]Thread cleaned up. Most of the removed comments referenced the several comments that broke the rules. Feel free, as always, to repost constructive content. [/mod]
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"urdoingitrong" starts at character creation, for player characters. (CCP actors have the ability to get around this)
The limitation of game mechanics, means that everyone went to the same 12 schools.
There is no such thing as a Khanid Kingdom native pilot, mechanics wise. They all trained at Imperial Academy, Hedion Uni, or the RAI.
It means any Khanid kingdom loyalist, can be asked "So, why did you abandon your Duty to the Empire to support King Khanid?".
Happens with many other factions too. esp. the pirate factions, like the blood raiders. Anyone that says they are a blood raider supporter, mechanics wise, has to have trained at e.g. Imperial Academy. And so, must have turned their back on the Empire, having been an Imperial citizen initially.
Mechanics wise, there are only 2 kinds of player character. "Big Four" citizens, and former "big four" citizens.
If you say there are more, then you are adding something that cannot be proven by game mechanics, and that is something that will, eventually, be called on.
Thereafter, it is all about cliques and in-groups, as to whether or not player X's character is what the mechanics say they are, or what player X says they are.
The schools thing has made me uneasy as well. Personally, I tend to take the view that if someone's employment history says they were trained by School X, then they were trained by School X and it's down to the player to come up with something to explain their subsequent disloyalty.
However, the specific example of the Khanid pilot isn't a big problem since the Kingdom and the Empire became best buddies - it's quite possible that the Kingdom now sends people to the Empire for training.
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The schools thing has made me uneasy as well. Personally, I tend to take the view that if someone's employment history says they were trained by School X, then they were trained by School X and it's down to the player to come up with something to explain their subsequent disloyalty.
However, the specific example of the Khanid pilot isn't a big problem since the Kingdom and the Empire became best buddies - it's quite possible that the Kingdom now sends people to the Empire for training.
A thing I've seen is the idea of "pilot's exam", and instead of being trained as such by the Imperial Academy, an individual received training elsewhere, and only sat the "exam" at the Academy.
but yes, it still looks like disloyalty.
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Also, Mannar capsuleers exist. http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=2887
In Navy service anyway.
Why then, can you not create one ingame? Who Knows ?
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If I remember correctly, back when background selection was still part of the character creation process (it's not anymore, is it?), one of the background options for a Gallente character was "immigrant". I'd say that's at least an argument in favor of being able to play a character who's classified as Gallente on paper, but who doesn't share the genetic heritage of "real" Gallente (Gallenteans?), while still staying within the boundaries set by the game.
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Natalcya, yes, it's still part of the process (and "immigrant" is still a valid option).
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All alleged discrepancies between RP and IG appearances are because of falcon.
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I had a thought today, about things, it made sense.
A setting has polygons as the entities that do things. The game rules as released only mention how triangles do things, and the developer mentions something that gives the impression that they expect everyone to play triangles, at least at first.
So people are off, playing triangles, and exploring the ideas behind being isosceles in a world of right angled triangles, or the oppression of the equilaterals by the scalene.
And then someone wants to play a square. Squares are mentioned briefly in the prime fiction, but not to any great extent.
Then someone wants to be a triangle with rounded corners.
And someone else wants to be a circle.
What happens here? especially if the developer has talked about squares being in a future expansion?
And then someone wants to be a cube, saying it would add a new dimension to their roleplay. Is that allowed?
Then someone takes it too far, and wants to be a tesseract.
At this point, anyone being a plain triangle may feel excluded, as if no-one's playing the same game anymore.
and this is what some things feel like to me. That some things are polyhedrons in a world of polygons.
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Somebody's been reading Flatland. :)
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I had a thought today, about things, it made sense.
A setting has polygons as the entities that do things. The game rules as released only mention how triangles do things, and the developer mentions something that gives the impression that they expect everyone to play triangles, at least at first.
So people are off, playing triangles, and exploring the ideas behind being isosceles in a world of right angled triangles, or the oppression of the equilaterals by the scalene.
And then someone wants to play a square. Squares are mentioned briefly in the prime fiction, but not to any great extent.
Then someone wants to be a triangle with rounded corners.
And someone else wants to be a circle.
What happens here? especially if the developer has talked about squares being in a future expansion?
And then someone wants to be a cube, saying it would add a new dimension to their roleplay. Is that allowed?
Then someone takes it too far, and wants to be a tesseract.
At this point, anyone being a plain triangle may feel excluded, as if no-one's playing the same game anymore.
and this is what some things feel like to me. That some things are polyhedrons in a world of polygons.
I like your analogy. All the triangles, squares, and rectangles are eager to take new shapes to be the most original, interesting, and provocative assemblies of the imagination in a game of creative competition. Personally, I find it much easier and more pleasant to interact with a plain triangle template that defines its shape with creative character development beyond being just a unique concept/shape. That's not to say other shapes aren't good ideas, but sometimes it's just not necessary.
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Somebody's been reading Flatland. :)
Best required reading for a class I've ever had.
And yes. Very apt analogy. >.<