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[Anabella Rella]

The whole Broteau arc has really pissed me off.

Firstly, it just doesn't make any sense. Why would the Republic attack its oldest and most reliable partner over an extradition? While I understand the significance of one of the victims, it just seems too contrived and forced just for the sake of driving some storyline. It would be realistic for the Republic to make strongly worded official statements to the press or, make some symbolic gesture like cancelling a joint military exercise, sure. But to have the Republic act in the manner in which CCP did simply strains all credulity. It would be akin to the Israelis launching an attack on the U.S. for not handing over some terrorist. Just ain't gonna happen.

Secondly, the lack of any kind of meaningful follow up makes no sense either. There's been no response from the Shakor government as to who authorized the attacks or why, no outcry from the Minmatar people demanding answers, no accountability for the bungled tactics on the part of the Fleet and, most importantly, no response from the Federation! The dead silence is crazy.

While there have been a few nice opportunities for Ana (as a Matari who was adopted by a Gallentean couple and raised in the Federation) to be internally conflicted and "angsty", for the most part it's only resulted in her withdrawing from most interactions outside her circle of friends for fear of getting smacked over the head with Colelie and her having to defend the undefendable. It's not much fun being on the defensive constantly.

All in all I give a big "thanks" to CCP for a dumb idea and for throwing Minmatar RPers under the bus. 

[Katrina Oniseki]

True. The silence is what kills it.

I was willing to put aside the incredulity of it all by assuming this was leading up to some big announcement that FW was going to split the alliances, and expected an Imperial/State skirmish soon. I expected the Colelie was going to be the first of several mindbogglingly horrific shakeups to the status quo where fleets are deployed and politics become all out warfare. I expected an apocalyptic breakdown of international relations, on par with the series of events that lead up to the outbreak of the Empyrean war - except not written by TonyG and not in a book.

Instead, we got something that hasn't been followed up on, and didn't seem to have any relevance toward furthering the storyline, unlike the Heth arc which clearly changed the status quo.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

That's consistently been the problem with CCP's storylines -- the followthrough has been lacking.

[Lyn Farel]

The whole Broteau arc has really pissed me off.

Firstly, it just doesn't make any sense. Why would the Republic attack its oldest and most reliable partner over an extradition? While I understand the significance of one of the victims, it just seems too contrived and forced just for the sake of driving some storyline. It would be realistic for the Republic to make strongly worded official statements to the press or, make some symbolic gesture like cancelling a joint military exercise, sure. But to have the Republic act in the manner in which CCP did simply strains all credulity. It would be akin to the Israelis launching an attack on the U.S. for not handing over some terrorist. Just ain't gonna happen.

Secondly, the lack of any kind of meaningful follow up makes no sense either. There's been no response from the Shakor government as to who authorized the attacks or why, no outcry from the Minmatar people demanding answers, no accountability for the bungled tactics on the part of the Fleet and, most importantly, no response from the Federation! The dead silence is crazy.

While there have been a few nice opportunities for Ana (as a Matari who was adopted by a Gallentean couple and raised in the Federation) to be internally conflicted and "angsty", for the most part it's only resulted in her withdrawing from most interactions outside her circle of friends for fear of getting smacked over the head with Colelie and her having to defend the undefendable. It's not much fun being on the defensive constantly.

All in all I give a big "thanks" to CCP for a dumb idea and for throwing Minmatar RPers under the bus. 

Yes. As much as I was happy for once to see the Minmatar "getting it", I never really took part in that since everything looked so demented to me. I still have a difficult time to find how I should handle that, it seems even more crazy than what you see happening in nullsec space. New Eden leaders since TEA seem to be completely nuts at times.

That's quite like that Kador attack on Solitude. What the hell was he thinking ? They let retards at the head of every major House or something ?

I was willing to put aside the incredulity of it all by assuming this was leading up to some big announcement that FW was going to split the alliances, and expected an Imperial/State skirmish soon. I expected the Colelie was going to be the first of several mindbogglingly horrific shakeups to the status quo where fleets are deployed and politics become all out warfare. I expected an apocalyptic breakdown of international relations, on par with the series of events that lead up to the outbreak of the Empyrean war - except not written by TonyG and not in a book.

Please, no, no more all out warfare... That proxy war already almost killed intra factional conflict... Make it an all out war and it will just become a bland "Minmatar vs Amarr vs Gallente vs Caldari"... How boring. 

Falcon said on OOC though that they had something we are going to enjoy planned for soon.

[Katrina Oniseki]

I don't want all out conflict, mind you. But that's the scenario I thought CCP was building up to.

[Steffanie Saissore]

I think someone else may have brought this up before, but in the short time I've been here, the storyline stuff I have seen hasn't really made any sense to me. Then there is the fact that CCP doesn't seem to end a story...I had been hoping that the Heth thing would have been wrapped up, but they let Heth get away...

Reminds me of a couple tabletop games I've played where the GM went out of their way to insure the result they wanted happened; the gaming group nearly imploded after a five hour session of a huge battle where at the end of it, nothing we did really mattered. The GM wanted our side to lose. To which we pointed out, if that was what you wanted, then you could have spared us the 5 hours of trying to win and just done a 'cut-scene' where we lose. We could have then used the rest of that time to go recover and figure out how to recover and strike back.

If Heth was going to get away anyway, I think it would have simply been a better approach of writing it up and posting a news release instead of making a live event out of it. That's just me. I'm sure people had some fun with the battle around the station, but I just find what happened to be a deus ex machina and as viewer from the sidelines, left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Conflict can spice up a story, but it shouldn't be the sole driving force behind a story. Also, conflict doesn't have to be brutal, hate-filled, stuff that seems to be the norm in the EVE universe. I get that it is a grimdark, but I don't buy into the dark and edgy 24/7; look at movies like The Crow, Bladerunner, Serenity (and the show Firefly)...even the new Battlestar Galactica series (which I had problems watching for various reasons). These were all dark, yet they had many touching moments and light moments. Grimdark can only go so far and then it gets cliche and blase. There needs to be a time for peace and rest else everything the characters fight for or strive for has no meaning. There needs to be moments of contrast. But that's just the writer/poet/romantic in me railing against the 'gotta be grim'.

I do hope something comes soon, but it has been too long in my opinion for anything meaningful to happen regarding Colelie.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

Yep, I've been saying pretty much the same thing for ages. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much the people guiding the storyline agree -- Hjalti's stories especially seem almost unrelentingly dark.

[Esna Pitoojee]

I do hereby declare Steffaine's post awesome.

[Lyn Farel]

Ja. Depressing as usual.

[Alain Colcer]

its probably the only thing that i find disheartening......a story arc can directly spawn sub-plots and summit posts, giving tons of opportunity for RPing, but the whole thing can go sour when the storyarc just vanish and it does not provide closure....

I guess eventually we will see an improvement....but expectactions are high always.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

I'm okay without closure; history is a constant flow of events. The problem is that the storyline right now is not a constant flow of anything, it's a flurry of articles over the course of a few months followed by weeks of nothing and then maybe an article or two here and there, and then another flood, and so on. This is not the way you write a good story. Pacing is an important part of writing.

[Lyn Farel]

Maybe they are so eager to share that they release everything in the first weeks and then go "oops, nothing left".

[Svetlana Scarlet]

Maybe they are so eager to share that they release everything in the first weeks and then go "oops, nothing left".

I suspect that is part of it. The disappointing thing is that Eve is almost tailor-made for a long-term narrative arc -- it isn't going anywhere and its subscribers tend to be long-term, not the subscribe-for-two-months/play-content/unsubscribe-for-a-year type. Why not design your narrative arcs that way? If marketing wants hype around releases/media events, that's easy enough to plan for too -- releases don't tend to vary by more than a few weeks in either direction, and it's not like the dates of PAX or Fanfest are fuzzy.

So frustrating to watch. On the other hand, part of it is still that storyline is really just Abraxas and Gnauton, and everyone else is just doing it in their spare time. Not sure that's particularly good for a strong narrative either, especially if you want to include live events and other stuff in there. If something comes up in Falcon/Eterne/Affinity/Goliath's "real job", they are not going to be able to move forward on the storyline stuff.

[Seriphyn]

Svetlana, think the problem is that because EVE is a player-driven, and not story-driven, game? It's not like a 'theme park' MMO where it is the lore that drives the story. It is the stories of 3000-player fleet battles that sells EVE, not the lore. The lore merely sets out a framework for everything else to occur within.

I think it's because the player stories generate so much interest in EVE, that CCP as a result don't invest that much staff into lore or story. I am adamant that CCP should seriously consider hiring a political/historical specialist. A writer with ten years worth of writing sci-fi or political intrigue, something like that. CCP Falcon, for example, was a civil engineer for most of his working life IIRC. CCP Abraxas has a background in IT. This doesn't undermine their quality as writers (anyone can be a good writer), but I do think it handicaps their knowledge in specific areas.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

Svetlana, think the problem is that because EVE is a player-driven, and not story-driven, game? It's not like a 'theme park' MMO where it is the lore that drives the story. It is the stories of 3000-player fleet battles that sells EVE, not the lore. The lore merely sets out a framework for everything else to occur within.

I think it's because the player stories generate so much interest in EVE, that CCP as a result don't invest that much staff into lore or story. I am adamant that CCP should seriously consider hiring a political/historical specialist. A writer with ten years worth of writing sci-fi or political intrigue, something like that. CCP Falcon, for example, was a civil engineer for most of his working life IIRC. CCP Abraxas has a background in IT. This doesn't undermine their quality as writers (anyone can be a good writer), but I do think it handicaps their knowledge in specific areas.

Yes, I am pretty sure that is exactly the problem -- I'm pretty sure I've said that many times. CCP doesn't want to spend any money/time/resources on the storyline aside from the bare minimum. Unfortunately, this means that people working on the storyline should not be surprised when people are unhappy with the way it is being developed.