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[Kybernetes Moros]

Caveat lector: I am not much of a PvPer. I enjoy it for RP reasons, but not so much for its own sake; this obviously colours my perspective. Similarly, this is by no means 'urdoinitrong' (or indeed directed at anyone in particular): it's just something that confuses me.

Over the couple of years I've spent playing EVE and RPing, there has been a weird trend that I've noticed. RP corps with a PvP focus, or element, that are similarly matched in space and of opposing IC ideologies often seem extremely averse to attacking one another. There've been instances I can name when this trend has been bucked, but in my experience the more common outcome is "eh, we'll leave them be and RP at them in channels".

The "words, not action" approach can make sense and provide some decent RP, but it baffles me in some regards -- especially since I've usually felt actual conflict to be the better driver for RP than vague ideological disagreement. The fear of loss is something I've sometimes seen cited as a reason, but isn't there a risk of losing your ship inherent in just undocking?

I suppose the question is "Why is there this intermittent preference for hunting non-RPers in a corp's comfort zone, rather than leaving it to fight RPers?".

(For clarity, this isn't a thread about trying to organise OOC fights or anything: I'd be more in favour of "suddenly, wardec!" or a corp turning up in another's home area, personally, but ultimately how it's arranged isn't tremendously important to me.)

[BloodBird]

If a self-admitted RP entity fights a non-RP entity and lose, the non-RP'ers will likely just go 'well, you know, RP'ers, shitty PVP'ers, all that' and remain quiet.

If a RP entity fights another RP entity one of them will lose and the winner will brag in public places like the IGS. The losing side loses credit and 'public face'. The preference seem to be to avoid this scenario at all costs.

[Logan Fyreite]

If a self-admitted RP entity fights a non-RP entity and lose, the non-RP'ers will likely just go 'well, you know, RP'ers, shitty PVP'ers, all that' and remain quiet.

If a RP entity fights another RP entity one of them will lose and the winner will brag in public places like the IGS. The losing side loses credit and 'public face'. The preference seem to be to avoid this scenario at all costs.

Pretty much my take on it as well. Risk adversity seems to be rampant everywhere in Eve. On the other hand the factional warfare RP pvp groups have done a pretty good job of fighting against other RP opponents without causing too much loss of face to the opposing team. I think another thing that plays into this is that there are a lot of things that have to be "Met" in order to successfully pvp at a rp target.

1. Most RP corps are not universally active, and only a select few have a 24/7 presence.
2. Because of 1, it doesn't make sense to fight cross-timezone "at" someone who will likely not be online at the same time as your member base.

I wish there were more active RP "wars" though, would make for a more exciting summit, in space and well, pretty much everything.

[Silas Vitalia]

That's the gist of it. Losing OOC is generally no big deal to most RPers...however losing IC to other RPers causes many ooc tears due to the public crowing they will be on the receiving end of, and some supposed loss of "status." 

This usually stems from a lot of RPers talking big 'elite killer' status IC and then avoiding having to back it up at all costs and have their reputations sullied by having a few ships blown up, when if they actually DID fight, their reputations would only improve. Winning or losing isn't what matters, it's putting it on the line that gets you respect.

It's easy to tell the difference, though. There's a lot of very good sports and constant RP pvpers out there who kill and are killed with regularity, and their IC reputations are better for it. (Ava Starfire, Math'r'a, True Slave Foundations, IRED, etc). There are plenty of others (not going to sling mud) who wouldn't get into a fight with other RPers if their subscriptions depended on it.


A few years ago Silas lost a whole null region, 0.0 stations, hundreds of pilots to failcascade, and an entire fail alliance all in the span of about two weeks.

It was super crappy but I had to suck it up IC and take my lumps. I got to hear no end of this from IC enemies and they go to have fun ripping on me for a good while after.  Them's the breaks, but good character development for me and fun for other RPers to laugh at me IC.

No matter who loses, when two RPers fight we all win.

[Silas Vitalia]

Also frankly there was more going on 'plot' wise for RPers to branch-off of and have dynamic issues to fight over.

The occasional scope news bone thrown at the RP base was enough to launch many a war.

[Ken]

My experience with the fusion of RP/PVP is limited to the last several months, but fwiw, I think the biggest challenge to engaging in RPer-on-RPer PVP is proximity and simultaneous play times, as Logan mentioned.  RPers are a small percentage of the player base, and PVPing RPers smaller still.  This is more of a hurdle than anything else, and I disagree entirely with the notion that RPers prefer to shoot at non-RPers for fear of "losing face" or whatever from an IC standpoint.  WHG has no preference for non-RP targets over RPers.  We shoot at non-RPing militia war targets daily but are more than happy to shoot at the Serpentis gentlemens of Anshar, who happen to be active, live close enough to us, and represent an opposing IC force.

[Silas Vitalia]

I disagree entirely with the notion that RPers prefer to shoot at non-RPers for fear of "losing face" or whatever from an IC standpoint. 

Sorry Ken but many many years of watching RP corps and individuals go through Herculean contortions of logic, excuses, rants, tears, and outright lies related to RP on RP pvp have shown me otherwise. 

Your group is in the vast minority.

[Silas Vitalia]

The most frequent occurance of this is RP corp A pvping RP corp B, beating the hell out of them, and then OOC shitstorm from the hen circle regarding fairness, who went too far, ooc grudges, 'going after one of our own' , etc etc rinse wash repeat.

[Katrina Oniseki]

From my experience in I-RED we pick our fights carefully on all sides of the spectrum. While we fight often and have often enough lost serious face for it (think Wolfsbrigade war), we don't go around shaking a stick at everyone who happens to oppose us IC. We're smart about who we fight whether or not they roleplay.

Most of our bigger threats are not roleplayers around Syndicate (formerly Placid). We're often enough caught up in rather brutal protracted turf wars with non-roleplayers so much that we can't afford taking on many serious RP PvP groups too. I-RED has a lot of IC enemies, but we have even more enemies OOC. Most of our biggest haters aren't even around where we operate, so travelling halfway across the cluster just to beat on Electus Matari for example isn't something we want to do, especially since we have plenty of fighting to do in Syndicate.

On the other hand, we also don't go picking fights with much smaller RP groups who hate on us IC, because we don't want to pour water on their tough-guy attitude they are roleplaying. I can name several instances where people slander and spit at I-RED on the IGS and elsewhere, but we've not acted on it because they probably either wouldn't fight or simply wouldn't win. We're not out to roflstomp anyone who has a gripe with us.

That said, the best way to get our attention is to start smashing Ishukone assets and brag about it. John will take notice of that.

[Merdaneth]

I'm more of an attitude of 'what's the point?'

If people start losing, they dock up or avoid you. In any case, they make it so that your opportunity cost rises to a level that it is not efficient (let alone fun) to wage war.

Besides that, most objectives do not allow me to express them in terms of random PvP kills. If I beat a RP entity in PvP it only proves that I'm better at PvP, and not a lot more.

PvP between RP entities is most fun when both entities are relatively new to EVE and don't yet know or aren't spoiled by all the tricks the vets know and have to endure.

[ArtOfLight]

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trying to take credit or brag, but when I founded WHG as Malcolm, I specifically set out to bring RP into space in the form of PvP and set up RP-enemies and friends alike that WHG could engage against and with in all sorts of engagements. They seem to still be holding to this trend even without me.

I'm trying to do the same with HOLR but I admit that I suspect it will not be quite as successful.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Merdaneth comments on something that I've run up against often as well: While an attempt to PvP at an IC enemy would often result in them docking up (or returning with a blob), interacting with them by text actually results in progress in our (hostile) relationship.

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

Please come shoot at us.

[Mitara Newelle]

Please come shoot at us.

Maybe we'll try it again when we have more active pilots

Man, Mitty was so pissed when Tiberious joined TS-F, unfortunately didn't have much manpower to throw at you guys

[Ken]

Merdaneth comments on something that I've run up against often as well: While an attempt to PvP at an IC enemy would often result in them docking up (or returning with a blob), interacting with them by text actually results in progress in our (hostile) relationship.

I struggle with this because, for me, talking directly and constructively to someone that my character thinks is worth shooting at and killing knocks a little too loudly on the 4th wall.

If people start losing, they dock up or avoid you. In any case, they make it so that your opportunity cost rises to a level that it is not efficient (let alone fun) to wage war.

Besides that, most objectives do not allow me to express them in terms of random PvP kills. If I beat a RP entity in PvP it only proves that I'm better at PvP, and not a lot more.

PvP between RP entities is most fun when both entities are relatively new to EVE and don't yet know or aren't spoiled by all the tricks the vets know and have to endure.

It is fair to say the element that makes or breaks any engagement of this sort, regardless of player experience or available assets, is sportsmanship.  EVE, unfortunately, strongly discourages sportsmanlike conduct and it takes two mature parties mutually agreeing OOC on rules of engagement in order for this sort of thing to happen without OOC tears and resentment.

WHG has a gentleman's agreement of sorts with Milo wherein we tip each other to the approximate times and rough composition of our roams to facilitate meeting and combat in space using generally well-matched forces without having to set up artificial pitched battles.  This has worked very well, leads to enjoyable fights, and strengthens the OOC trust between us while allowing IC enmity to burn on.  I dare say that if the leadership of either WHG or Anshar were comprised of assholes, this arrangement would fall apart quickly.

When I am told of cases wherein RP Corp A roflstomped RP Corp B and saw nothing wrong with it OOC, I must conclude one of two things.  Either the leadership of RP Corp A genuinely fails to understand that using excessive force robs RP Corp B of their entertainment value or that they are assholes.  There is a gradient here.  Large, powerful, and experienced organizations should be expected to defeat smaller, younger ones.  They can, however, do so without griefing the losing party.  It's called sportsmanship.