Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: kalaratiri on 13 Jan 2019, 06:41
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Hello everyone.
I've decided to write this post because I've been noticing a disturbing trend in the Out Of Character discussions around Thebeka. There seems to be a rising opinion that certain groups shouldn't be involved because they're "not real roleplayers". I believe that this is an extremely dangerous attitude to hold for the continued health and security of RP and the RP community in Eve.
Every character present in Thebeka for the Cail Avetatu Astrahus structure timer has an In Character reason to be there. Every single one. Even if it's just "My FC told me too". It does not matter if the character hangs out in The Summit every day, it doesn't matter if they're in "an RP corp" or not, and it doesn't matter if their players consider themselves to be roleplayers. The characters exist in universe, and their actions apply to the continued narrative of Thebeka.
Attempting to de-legitimise and discredit people's involvement as being "out of character", or "not having a stake", or even labelling them "non-RP uninvolved third parties" is, in my opinion, deeply unfair. The events taking place in Thebeka are open to all; They are not a personalised playground for specific Minmatar/Amarr RP corps. As a story heavily involving the actions of independent capsuleers, both on the ground and in space, it makes perfect sense that independent capsuleers would be there.
This then, leads to my main point. Events like these, which show better than almost anything else how RP is not all about speaking in Shakespearean English over a healthy mug of /sip, are some of the best possible ways to introduce and include new roleplayers in the game's living story. The fight in Thebeka was an incredible display of force from all sides and an exceptional example of how an In Character conflict can escalate to a battle that would have been a respectable skirmish in nullsec. This kind of event should be lauded as a wonderful success for RP in Eve as a whole. It is the kind of thing that generates interest and invites new roleplayers to try their hands at the game.
Pushing people away for being the wrong kind of players is an enourmous error. It can only lead to a 'No true Scotsman' state of bad feeling. There isn't a side in the conflict that doesn't have a few players allied to them that "aren't real roleplayers". This does not matter. Many of those who showed up were not active roleplayers themselves but were led by those who are. This does not matter. Everybody is as justified in choosing to be present (or not) as anyone else.
Thanks for reading. Please think about it.
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You are pretty spot on.
Also worth mentioning that the more people who get involved = higher chance that CCP will do something similar again.
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I agree fully on it, even though I may raise the question to the involvement of some people, but excluding them from content is just rude, be it the hobo or CVA. it's a mmo after all and we play it with many other people after all
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I admit to having had and shared some reservations of my own. For me, though, it comes down to this: I greatly enjoy playing with and against people I know, who I know have similar interests as I do, who I can trade thoughts with when it's all over and done. I don't really have fun when it's against strangers (especially ones that start putting disgusting crap in local, that's an instant turnoff no matter whether it's over RP stuff or not). This is a reason why I really dislike FW, null, and all of the random matchmaking systems in most multiplayer games these days. Most big fights in general, really. The bigger it gets, with more names I don't know, the more stressful it gets for me. When a bunch of people come in who have had no prior involvement in any way with the things going on, and then by their involvement become the key players in the fight, well, eh. Then it becomes like any other fight in EVE to me. I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a little deflating.
Obviously, everyone had an IC reason to be there. This is EVE, everything is IC. Everyone in EVE is a roleplayer, no matter how much or how little they engage with the playstyle. But there are people who take it seriously, and those who won't. And I can't deny that I don't find much enjoyment playing with people who don't. But people can do what they want, and if they had fun, that's wonderful, I'm glad. I, for one, am not trying to gatekeep anything. I do not want to keep anyone out. But I do have my own feelings on what is fun for me and what isn't. And my issues would have mostly stayed that way, I try not to share them so much outside of private talks because I don't want to offend anyone, but if we're going to be putting this center stage (since I assume this thread was posted in part over me being one of the people who mentioned this to Kala after the fight), well, okay.
I'm sorry to anyone who feels upset over anything I have said over this issue.
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Well, I was supposed to write a long-ish post here but I'll just +1 Samira's post, because she said what I was going to and very respectfully at that.
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[...] there are people who take it seriously, and those who won't. And I can't deny that I don't find much enjoyment playing with people who don't. But people can do what they want, and if they had fun, that's wonderful, I'm glad. I, for one, am not trying to gatekeep anything. I do not want to keep anyone out. But I do have my own feelings on what is fun for me and what isn't.
Agreed.
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As I mentioned elsewhere in discussion with Samira,
"The point I'm trying to make isn't necessarily "everyone must welcome everyone with open arms", it's much more like "don't be openly hostile to the idea of new people""
I agree with a lot of what you've said Sami, and it's a perfectly legitimate opinion to hold.
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I'm much more excited to see decent numbers from both Amarr/Minmatar sides, to see groups like CVA/I-Red return to RP involvement, to see surprises like AM going rogue, or PNS side with old friends against people they've more or less been allied with for the last year, to see relevant RP pirates again (Daeuuas, Drake Arson and friends), and to see small corps and individuals (Samira, Mizhara, Darkar) making a HUGE impact both in space and in the official CCP narrative (thanks CCP!), than I'm disappointed by a very low number of participants in all of this who resort to political trolling in their attempt to "RP".
Overall this is great. I hope it leads to more fresh activity from all parties and encourages more of the people involved to RP. I'm not going to let a few bad interactions or distasteful trolling attempts ruin what has been a very positive experience.
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I'm much more excited to see decent numbers from both Amarr/Minmatar sides, to see groups like CVA/I-Red return to RP involvement, to see surprises like AM going rogue, or PNS side with old friends against people they've more or less been allied with for the last year, to see relevant RP pirates again (Daeuuas, Drake Arson and friends), and to see small corps and individuals (Samira, Mizhara, Darkar) making a HUGE impact both in space and in the official CCP narrative (thanks CCP!), than I'm disappointed by a very low number of participants in all of this who resort to political trolling in their attempt to "RP".
Overall this is great. I hope it leads to more fresh activity from all parties and encourages more of the people involved to RP. I'm not going to let a few bad interactions or distasteful trolling attempts ruin what has been a very positive experience.
Great attitude. I like it.
I still say being wary of the pitfalls and being very cautious when dogpiling the events is of utmost importance, but good attitude.
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All CCP events get dogpiled. This is way better than 1200 people in Amarr local drowning out the event actors. All three sides (Loyal Amarr/Minmatar+Rebel Amarr/Mercs+Pirates) called in friends. I'm pretty pleased that things stayed fairly even in the main conflicts.
For what it's worth. I think if someone called in PIRAT, while a "valid RP move", it was poor taste and I don't think it was wrong for Arrendis to bring in 100+ goons to try to counter it. I think PIRAT was the only escalation in all of this that I'd consider a dick move. All of the rest wasn't really bad dogpiling, it was fairly tame escalation considering.
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I'm less convinced on the hobo thing to be honest. That never felt like it had any kind of decent justification. PIRAT, well, if you have to merc you have to merc really. Besides, I have zero confirmation anyone even did call them in. Just someone hearing from someone that someone did it, and literally no confirmation in any way.
Other than the Hobo thing though, I'd agree.
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Hobos invited themselves because their FC was interested in being involved.
Which is absolutely fine.
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I'm much more excited to see decent numbers from both Amarr/Minmatar sides, to see groups like CVA/I-Red return to RP involvement, to see surprises like AM going rogue, or PNS side with old friends against people they've more or less been allied with for the last year, to see relevant RP pirates again (Daeuuas, Drake Arson and friends), and to see small corps and individuals (Samira, Mizhara, Darkar) making a HUGE impact both in space and in the official CCP narrative (thanks CCP!), than I'm disappointed by a very low number of participants in all of this who resort to political trolling in their attempt to "RP".
Quoted for truth.
EDIT to add this clarifying wall-of-text:
While I've used to word "partycrashers" about e.g. Daeuuas (hi) and Hobos (hi) I have not intended that as a claim that it is not valid gameplay or that "Real ArrPeers" as in established groups should have extra access to CCP storylines. Neither it is a comment on lack of RP - I'd call them partycrashers IC too.
Pirates partycrashing a high-visibility light shows and "third parties" getting involved because they are not actually third parties but have less-well-known allegiances and friendships is perfectly valid RP. It is valid RP if the entities in question actually play the roles; it is also valid RP environment for me if they do not actively play it, but still exist. I see that in the context my comments have possibly added to the feeling of not being welcome and if so, I am terribly sorry for that. I was not aware of the context enough and will try and be extra careful about it in the future.
While it is true that overwhelming force rarely leads to gudfites, I have not seen that as an issue in Thebeka, and well, if it happens, people get bored and go away and then something else happens later, and I don't think that's something that should be used to pre-emptively tell any particular party they are not welcome. (Unless you're CCP. Then you can tell anyone anything and CONCORD them if they don't listen. That's fine.)
(Personally, I prefer people actually roleplaying partycrashers and surprise allies over people being partycrashers and surprise allies without much thought to RP about it, obviously, but also both of those to people suddenly inventing convoluted backstories that don't fit theis established play as an "excuse" to get involved, instead of just being what they are. There's been very little of that last in this show, which is great. I love EVE best when it bases on actual history between players / player entities, and I too like subtle plays within small groups over these shows as my mainstay of RP. But I want to stress that these are my preferences, not a comment on the right way to play EVE.)
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[mod]Moderation discussion that began in this thread was moved to the appropriate forum (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?board=12.0).[/mod]
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War never changes ;)
Agree with Samira as usual; it's always more fun to be fighting with/against people you know/have history with, much less fun when 'x' group brings disproportionate numbers and firepower to an event to blow it out of the water.
There's always that tricky equation where the tiny RP pool wants dev involvement for storylines, but the more an event gets promoted the larger the derpsquads are going to be who show up to shit all over local and the event.
So yea all the usual stuff about welcoming people and getting more people in the pool, but it's also ok to be frustrated when you've been working on interaction and plotz (tm) with lots of people and then random bored FC with tons of people show up to shit on things and squash everyone. Such is EVE.
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War never changes ;)
Agree with Samira as usual; it's always more fun to be fighting with/against people you know/have history with, much less fun when 'x' group brings disproportionate numbers and firepower to an event to blow it out of the water.
There's always that tricky equation where the tiny RP pool wants dev involvement for storylines, but the more an event gets promoted the larger the derpsquads are going to be who show up to shit all over local and the event.
So yea all the usual stuff about welcoming people and getting more people in the pool, but it's also ok to be frustrated when you've been working on interaction and plotz (tm) with lots of people and then random bored FC with tons of people show up to shit on things and squash everyone. Such is EVE.
+1 to this too.
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And I agree that is frustrating.
However, I also find it frustrating that the RP pool is tiny, especially having seen so many people who have been somewhat interested but turned away.
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However, I also find it frustrating that the RP pool is tiny, especially having seen so many people who have been somewhat interested but turned away.
How or why have they been turned away, is an interesting question? Because in my observations most interactions with new people we generally shower them with love and try to help them to flesh out their characters and even if they want to for example, roleplay a bloodline that is not in the game, we try to help to do so. People genuinely interested in roleplay are nearly universally welcomed with open arms, when I've noticed them, if they just come and say hi.
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Well there was an example of that in this very thread?
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much less fun when 'x' group brings disproportionate numbers and firepower to an event to blow it out of the water.
I will point out that the combined forces of the two 3rd parties were smaller than the individual fleets formed by the Amarr and Minmatar sides.
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Well there was an example of that in this very thread?
Ah. Right, there is. "That is until they saw us getting shit on for being uninvited nonRPing blobbers. Over the course of this what little they have seen of the RP chat and forums has killed any sparks of interest in joining RP. " That's of course unfortunate, though I haven't noticed that being done in any channels I frequent (though, since it doesn't concern me, it's easier to miss), and I don't know what this "shitting on" consisted of.
I know I did throw one abusive-ish comment (something like "Was there actually people roleplaying there and not just some nullsec twats whoring for free kills?"), though it was not aimed at any particular group, for my part, I'm sorry if that turned people off of roleplaying. Why I said that was drawn from my experiences and bittervetness with Live Events, where faceless masses generally mean "LOLRP" -hollering and general douchebaggery. Of course, not being there in person I should have just refrained from saying anything. Including posting in this thread. vOv
And well, in this particular case I understand, the roleplaying part indeed wasn't that much about twirling moustaches and talking in Shakespearian English in local, but more about trashing people about. And everyone was more or less invited by someone to trash other people about. So in that sense that was perhaps one of the biggest roleplayer bouts certainly in the past few years if not ever.
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Yeah I have to admit, I'm still curious where PNS got shit on. Once they picked and joined a side, I saw nothing of the sort.
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"The Building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."
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[mod]Attempted a quick cleaning, please remember that Rule 3 applies even to people you really don't like. Several posts were collateral damage due to replying to moderated content, but I tried to keep as much intact as possible.Please keep in mind that if your post was removed due to replying to a moderated post you are free to repost, just without the moderated stuff (and it won't really be there for you to reference anymore.)[/mod]
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Sorry I was speaking in generalities, I don't know a thing about this event or who showed up for what, just that that sort of thing is a common outcome on occasion.
It's probably more endemic to EVE in general though, anyone who loses a fight or has their plans squashed can usually be counted to point to the other side doing -things- that are untoward and not in the spirit of the game :P
At the end of the day though they've yet to solve the problem of have the tiniest bit of immersion not be ruined by legions of derp toons flooding local with ASCII penises and whatnot while you are trying to talk to the Emperor or whatever dev actor :P
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I have now witnessed one of my own threads on the IGS become derailed by an OOC discussion masked as an IC discussion about who are true RPers™ and who are not.
Really shows how relevant this thread is.
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EVE Online Roleplay Community Rejects Latest Applicant Considered Unqualified Despite Multiple Doctorates (https://eveonion.com/eve-online-roleplay-community-rejects-latest-applicant-considered-unqualified-despite-multiple-doctorates/)
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Oh, and hey...
The Community is now a meme.
...again.
Time to dust these off! (Keeping my tongue thoroughly in cheek.)
(http://i.imgur.com/y2fhj7k.png?1?6066)
(http://i40.tinypic.com/2vjbls9.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/bfrmaKK.jpg)
(http://i42.tinypic.com/33cvsbo.jpg)
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EVE Online Roleplay Community Rejects Latest Applicant Considered Unqualified Despite Multiple Doctorates (https://eveonion.com/eve-online-roleplay-community-rejects-latest-applicant-considered-unqualified-despite-multiple-doctorates/)
This is quite good
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I have now witnessed one of my own threads on the IGS become derailed by an OOC discussion masked as an IC discussion about who are true RPers™ and who are not.
Really shows how relevant this thread is.
how dare you rp while being in an organisation that doesn't have a history of IGS rp posting.
kind of lame tbh.
"mercenaries don't count", "non-rpers don't count", "it's a lunar eclipse on the third tuesday in january, so doesn't count"
kind of daft really.
And a kind of elitism.
the background is full of things where a capsuleer frowns at doing mundane stuff: "I have people for that", and so on.
which extends to players considering the idea of a capsuleer doing martial arts and stuff, to be ludicrous. "pfft, that's silly, my character has people for that".
but lets take a player who has a talent for trading and manufacturing stuff, and making a lot of ISK doing so, but has no real interest or aptitude for actual spaceship combat. Now, they could hire mercenaries to deliver a beat-down on someone they disapprove of. But that gets seen as "a dick move", or "not real RP", according to some recent posts here.
why is virtually paying virtual people to be your characters bodyguards "normal RP", while paying other capsuleers to do your space dirty work, "not real rp" ?
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I have now witnessed one of my own threads on the IGS become derailed by an OOC discussion masked as an IC discussion about who are true RPers™ and who are not.
Really shows how relevant this thread is.
So what you're saying is that RPing about the disconnect between the IGS crowd and the rest of New Eden is doing it wrong? Gosh, I didn't think we were allowed to say that here. It's not OOC nor is it about who's True RPers or not. It's very simply someone lamenting that places like the IGS has become for all intents and purposes a joke to pretty much any entity with strength in New Eden, while once upon a time that was very much not the case. It's in fact the complete opposite of what you're whining about.
The "RP Community", or more accurately the In Character Forum Userbase used to include very big and influential names in Eve/New Eden. Now it very much doesn't. In Character, how would you put that? There wasn't this huge gulf between "RP community" and the people who play the rest of the game. They were for all intents and purposes the same in many respects. In addition, that meant that IGS active entities and organizations were dunking on each other with strength and fury no one currently active there can match. And yes, I don't really count one or two individuals from entities that otherwise have zero presence there to be very IGS active. You can't really proclaim the existence of a "community" without it having a line separating it from the rest of the entities out there, can you? So there'll be insider organizations and outsider organizations, and when that reflects IC then there'll be insiders and outsiders there too. I also note you conveniently skip the fact that the capsuleer in question has done the same with MC, outright saying so, and lamenting the need.
Lamenting the need for outsiders whenever there's need for muscle is OOC now? More importantly, apparently you get to be the RP police who declares what is and isn't IC? You get to call someone's RP "OOC", do you? Do you see the staggering irony in that you are calling someone's RP "OOC" and "not True RP" while accusing them of doing that? The level of attempting to rewrite reality to suit your agenda is Trumpian in scale.
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That's an interesting point from some of you; I think most would just use a bit of handwavium regarding the IGS and relative popularity or 'importance' of things going on there. I mean even at the height of IGS channel popularity it was easily 50% derp on the daily, you had to use numbing amounts of handwavium to imagine it to be not the case or that anyone would care about it outside of that group of members. I mean how can you be IC important when the channel is crickets and there's 4 people in there?
I think one always has to do a bit of Orwelian doublethink to make it all square up; you kind of have to ignore a lot of the actual representation and structure of the eve player subscribers and imagine things a bit differently to get into things sometimes for it to hold together.
The basic setup of the IP, that everyone in the channel is an immortal demigod capable of ludicrous destruction and murder and rich beyond the wildest dreams of billions of baseliners, never quite jives with being a 2 month old character, or running a tiny RP corp with 4 members and thinking you are doing anything remotely resembling those things. Or being a big bad space pew pew character when there are much bigger fish out there.
It'd almost be better if everyone was a peon, and unimportant, and relatively unknown, and everyone could get their space egos checked a bit and work on human and interesting characters and interaction
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Is the issue that someone is using big non rp groups to dunk on things and that's being frowned upon IC?
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Is the issue that someone is using big non rp groups to dunk on things and that's being frowned upon IC?
No.
The issue is that a couple of organisations that don't post on the IGS much as a whole, have some people within it who do. And when those people came into conflict with others, the weight of those organisations were brought to bear. And people complained that it wasn't "true roleplay".
And other people are whining that everything was soooo much better back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and wailing that organisations with the ability to easily whack the structures that CCP have made mandatory to have a war, as a whole, generally do not post much on the IGS. Dressing these whines up with enough IC flowery phrases as to pass muster on the IGS.
Stick a Fortizar somewhere as part of some RP thing, and it takes a fair amount of effort to destroy it. More effort than a big chunk of the organisations that heavily post on the IGS can reliably bring.
So those organisations bring in friends. But that doesn't work too well, when the Fortizars are in highsec, because of the suspect status for outside logistics, which allows others to intervene. So the only way to destroy a Fortizar without all the weird suspect things, is to have the assaulting party be big enough, which often means mercenary groups, who generally don't post much on the IGS.
A+B are at war, A has a highsec fortizar, B doesn't reliably have enough ships to assault it. So C offers to help. Now the A fortizar will fall to a B+C assault. But, the logistics will generate suspect status. Which allows D to intervene and attack B+C's logistics ships. Without which they can't take down A's fortizar. So, B can either, get everyone in C to abandon their corp/alliance and join B for the duration, or find group E which can bring a big enough single-corp force that the logistics won't go suspect and allow D to shoot them.
And if E aren't people who post much on the IGS, then A goes "lol B hired mercenaries, B are weak" and other such silliness.
So, in short, some people are having fun making things explode, and other people are whining that explosions were better in the past, and that people aren't having fun in the correct way, the correct way being what it was 15 years ago, not whatever the kids of today are doing.
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Fun part here is that you can't back up a single fucking word of that post. Every single line in it is pure strawmanning and fabrication. It's in fact quite impressive.
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[mod]Thread seems to be going off the rails again, so locking it. [/mod]