Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Nmaro Makari on 25 Jul 2011, 06:34
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So its been a few weeks now since the iconic defection of Hilen Tukoss, and the project is still going without any "major" catastrophe. Most of you will know that I was breifly with the project before my CEO seppuku'd. So whats everyones opinion?
Has there been success?
Does the project have potential?
What do you think A'J should be?
Butthurt Caldari loyalists welcome :D
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I'm still unsure as to what the project actually is above a comms channel and some divisions being setup....
Does it have any practical purpose in-game yet ?
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Bit quick to make a conclusion as I feel the project has just started.
I find people are having more difficulties advancing this event that the Sansha pre-incursions. I put that down to most people having little experience in approaching a topic in a real scientific manner and ignore the real troublesome part of having to document findings in context with as many sources as possible (training Science to level 5 is not helping me :!: :cry:). Doing field testing and collecting small pieces of clue here and there are good (and straight) steps forward, but with so few trying to put the evidence together, supporting a hypothesis will be difficult. Doing experiments and writing the Methodology chapter was always much easier than Introduction and Discussion.
I think Dropbear and Headfirst will try to compensate and put in some "shoot at this obvious bad guy" happenings that are much easier to understand and worked so well with the Sansha events. The first w-space event clue was also shot to pieces which just show how eager, and good, EVE players are at shooting at stuff. The Security division of the Arek’jaalan project is also by far the largest.
Second event, though, the w-space residents were too afraid (or undermanned) to engage the single Sleeper drone, but I think we will see more spatial rifts appear soon so trigger-happy EVE players can be "real scientists". :P
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I think I should ay that "verdict" was probaby the wrong word to use seeing, as was pointed out, that the Project isnt very old at all
In any case I hope this thread will go on as the situation changes.
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I was going to try and have Seriphyn involved but...I couldn't justify it IC because Sansha loyalists were involved.
Now, I understand it's meant to be inclusive and all, but Sansha's Nation has declared itself as the exception, declaring war against all of New Eden. It's different from the Serpentis or Cartel, who often do shady deals with the empires, but given the post-singularity, anomalous nature of Nation, I just find it strange in including them. It's like the United Nations embattled with a race of space aliens who want to destroy the human race, yet are including a few of them in their science projects.
However, not wishing to pee on people's cheerios, I am not involving myself in this event, despite the above points of immersion-breakages.
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So wait...Seriphyn is surrendering all influence over the project to the Sansha, and letting them get first dibs on whatever knowledge this scientist comes up with?
Or did I read that wrong?
I sort of figured that this would end up as a scientific project fraught with capsuleer infighting and power-struggles over who benefits from the results/has influence over the main scientist.
Kind of like Creliere. But with podders.
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So wait...Seriphyn is surrendering all influence over the project to the Sansha, and letting them get first dibs on whatever knowledge this scientist comes up with?
Or did I read that wrong?
Very good point. I was considering Seriphyn on the ethics committee, but it involves someone who doesn't like me both IC and OOC for some reason (barely interacted with them) so :ugh:
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The first w-space event clue was also shot to pieces which just show how eager, and good, EVE players are at shooting at stuff.
May i ask which "kind" of clue or situation was blown up?
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The verdict: This is a long, long term project - not in the least because I think CCP is still figuring out what makes any given subset of the playerbase tick, what makes us go "meh", and what makes us convulse with an all-consuming rage. :P
In the case of Arek'Jaalan, there's a very fine line between revealing clues at a good rate, allowing the players to develop things (both their own support structures, and scientific stuffs) on their own, and accidentally introducing factors which make us wildly fly out of control and distract us from the project's target (see: the weeklong debate over the Ethics committee, which made up over 50 percent of mails sent and a decent portion of the chatter on the AJ main channel while it was running, despite Tukoss' attempts to get us "back on target").
Frankly, I'm not totally sure CCP has this method of releasing things "down" yet.
PS: Given the way things are being run in this project, I'm basing my assumption here on the continued belief that AJ is aimed at having us discover something critical to the storyline before the release of Dust 514, and that the "release of clues" will be carefully regulated to aim for just this.
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The first w-space event clue was also shot to pieces which just show how eager, and good, EVE players are at shooting at stuff.
May i ask which "kind" of clue or situation was blown up?
Here you go (http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=10115352).
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It's got potential, but it's chasing off too many of the more principled entities by it being 'inclusive' enough to have the worst entities in New Eden grab division head positions and there being little to no consequences for stated loyalties and intentions. IC that is. OoC, there's a lot of people going 'meh, there's no fun in having to constantly either drop character convictions, or locking horns with the opposite sides' from what I can tell.
Still, for the 'less principled' as it were, it's a great project. It's all up to you and what you feel is right for your character.
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CCP cant go and tell people "sorry we dont want you because you did this and that 2 years ago".
Bearing that in mind, people can either deal with it or not, thats true.
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CCP cant go and tell people "sorry we dont want you because you did this and that 2 years ago".
Bearing that in mind, people can either deal with it or not, thats true.
Actually, while I'm a fan of inclusiveness, I think it would be a major victory for RP having consequences if CCP itself looked at what you'd done and who you professed loyalty to and did something about it.
However, until they are able to put on enough events that there will be something else for them to do instead, they can't really do that. As long as they can only run one big thing at a time, they have to try to be inclusive or they risk accusations of favortism, etc.
If the players could organize to exclude those they didn't want to be a part of it, that'd be fine, but getting everyone to agree on who should or shouldn't be there is nigh on impossible.
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Yeah, it's just the amusing note that the more inclusive you are, the less inclusive you are, since you by default exclude those who won't work with their worst enemies.
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Bit quick to make a conclusion as I feel the project has just started.
I find people are having more difficulties advancing this event that the Sansha pre-incursions. I put that down to most people having little experience in approaching a topic in a real scientific manner and ignore the real troublesome part of having to document findings in context...
Yea, i feel hard to get in it, don't have so wide knowlage about PF that helps to i think. :bash:
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Yeah, it's just the amusing note that the more inclusive you are, the less inclusive you are, since you by default exclude those who won't work with their worst enemies.
Well, that depends. Do those 'who won't work with their worst enemies' outnumber those they'd need to see excluded in order to participate? Even if, for example, you excluded the Sansha and the Sani Sabik (maybe EOM too?), you'd still have the other Empires, etc. Using Miz as an example (and feel free to tell me I've misjudged her) I wouldn't expect to see her happy so long as Imperial loyalists were involved. So in order to get people like her involved, you'd have to exclude a lot more people.
On the other side, you've got the Amarr loyalists that don't want anything to do with it because Hilen went to the republic. Honestly, I don't think kicking out the handful of sansha and other 'pirate' loyalists is going to get you much back.
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...all influence over the project to the Sansha, and letting them get first dibs on whatever knowledge this scientist comes up with?
That won't happen
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I'm not sure of the problem with Arek'jaalan taking the inclusive route -- if in doing so your character wouldn't be happy to work with it, then surely it's just a matter of their not getting involved? Lord knows there's been RP I've found intriguing that Kyber'd just have no part in for any number of reasons. vOv
I'd be inclined to say that the events that were more faction-centric would be kept relatively quiet, too; there may be some stuff to that end going on already, if you believe Dropbears mutterings. I mean, there's no point bringing it to the attention of the entire cluster if all someone wants is <Angels | Republic loyalists | Guristas | Caldari practicals>.
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So wait...Seriphyn is surrendering all influence over the project to the Sansha, and letting them get first dibs on whatever knowledge this scientist comes up with?
Or did I read that wrong?
Very good point. I was considering Seriphyn on the ethics committee, but it involves someone who doesn't like me both IC and OOC for some reason (barely interacted with them) so :ugh:
This might be OOC motivated* but Myyona pays little to no interest to or respect for the Ethics Committee. None of the people present there appears to have any scientific background, have provided any scientific contributions to the current research topic and all of them appears to run personal agendas as far away from objective science as possible.
She might believe that adding to this project is for the betterment of all mankind but she is far from naive to believe other capsuleers share this view. Still, curiosity and scientist at heart makes her do her contribution. If she ever stumbles on groundbreaking discoveries she will do a great effort in taking it a long way around the Ethics Committee.
*: Clarification; I dislike people trying to take claim for scientific work they have done no hard work contribution to. Not that I am against peoples fictional allegiances/agendas.
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I may have mentioned this already. If I have, forgive me. Brain's been all over the place for the past couple of weeks, and the damn thing hasn't been calling home to let me know how the vacation's going. Ungrateful piece of grey matter.
Celeste peeked in for a looksee to establish who the players were, confirm for herself that Tukoss was doing a fine job of recruiting research assistants on the cheap (the man is Caldari, after all: likely quite mindful of a fiscal bottom line), and to drop some suggestion bombs just to see what fish jumped out of the water. She thinks she could be useful in Tukoss' little cult, because, well, decades of putting up with Senate Research Appropriations talks are good for something ... but, eh. There's definitely Angel interest, as she'd suspected, and she'd rather the Angels not know too much about her research interests. Wouldn't want to be interesting, after all.
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Yeah, it's just the amusing note that the more inclusive you are, the less inclusive you are, since you by default exclude those who won't work with their worst enemies.
It's what happens when you play WoW in space.
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Over all, too early to say much about this yet. Unlike the Sansha side of things where we've been going for a year+, and I can point out things that need working on, Arek'jaalan is still too early to tell. Mind you, I've only been in one of their channels and stopped listening to the mailing list after I got <30 mails in one day from it.
I don't know how well the live event team will manage running Arek'jaalan, Sleeper storyline, Sansha storyline, Facwar events, etc. Some of these are not mutually exclusive. Could happen, but a lot of the storyline bits are pretty tangled together. There's also since the live event team is only two real people at the moment, I don't know how taxing this will be on them.
I want to say the issue will probably come down to their man power, time, and how much attention they can pay to each strand at any given moment. I would really just say wait and see how Arek'jaalan is doing a year into it - although that is quite a lot of time to invest into an experiment.
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The verdict: This is a long, long term project - not in the least because I think CCP is still figuring out what makes any given subset of the playerbase tick, what makes us go "meh", and what makes us convulse with an all-consuming rage. :P
They have had 8 years of doing this....don't you think they should have concluded something by now? :bash:
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Too much inclusive or not enough ? Well, the problem is not that, the problem is that they run each time only a part of the factions revolving around a stated RP big issue.
Last time it was Sansha vs CONCORD, with very little of the rest, but at least they tried to set directions to Guristas stances, etc. Now we lack of other faction representatives so everyone end up to work for Hilen Tukoss because thats the only IC dev played faction/group/entity here. What are the republic loyalists thinking ? Imperialists ? Federalists ? Etc... they do not even have created a single Caldari Zainou main character to create an opposite side (have they ?). What are the pirate factions thinking too ? What the hell are they doing ? Sleeping ? Now we see people like Revan getting involved in that project, I am not saying it is bad, but it sounds surely weird. Maybe Hilen Tukoss does not care (apparently he doesn't). Ok with me.
But if we have had different factions with identifiable dev characters to rally, this inclusive issue wouldn't have existed in the first place, for the simple reason that every player would have picked his side instead of rushing the only available option : Hilen Tukoss happy club.
And I know perfectly why this is not happening : they have not enough dev actors.
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It's an ambitious project, one with lots of bureaucracy and organization, and very little leadership. This is the problem with the project and it's not CCP's fault. From what I've observed, there are three kinds of people:
1) They log in, say hello in chat, and ask if anything has transpired. When they hear "no, nothing." they complain about how slow going things are and log off or do something else.
2) They message the event actor constantly, provide theories and tiny bits of data along the way. Kinda like dogs, they drool a lot, wag their tail, and look helpful, but really they're just knocking all the furniture over.
3) The 'overlords', or 'pseudo-leadership' that throw lots of money at the problem and hope that fixes it.
The problem I see with this project is that players are assuming that if they do enough then the actor will fill the rest in and give them all the answers. The problem might be that they are asking too much, or are expecting too much from its player base, or they've just plain overestimated them. It's not to say that players are stupid, but those of us who have been around know how events run and have certain expectations, and I think this might be an attempt at trying something entirely different.
Myyona touched on a couple points that I thought were relevant, specifically about players not approaching this project with a scientific mindset. There's tons of theory crafting, but not too much effort on the 'organize and collate evidence' part, cause that actually takes time and effort, and who the hell wants to do all that when they log in? Well, I would, but I have races to run and something resembling a life, so my participation thus far has been lackluster, but that's not for a lack of trying.
I think what this project needs are some dedicated teams and/or strong central leadership, and I don't think that's what Tukoss was meant for in this scenario. He's definitely a guide, but he's not going to hand you the answers to this project on a silver platter (i hope!).
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So basically, Arek'jaalan needs it's own Grad Students for the slave work?
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Pretty much. lol
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Well, with the whole thing with Lianda Burreau, I've suddenly been given a reason to be IC involved, yay. Well, I think. All I know is that the FIO want the professor.
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http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1557731 (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1557731)
From a strictly IC perspective, this should be worth a read. Certainly an intersting twist.
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Yay! someone made a private endeavor!
This is an excellent effort, and respectably IC, so I salute Pilot Neferis for a substantial venture in a career of otherwise notorious goings-on.
8)
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Yay! someone made a private endeavor!
This is an excellent effort, and respectably IC, so I salute Pilot Neferis for a substantial venture in a career of otherwise notorious goings-on.
8)
Will be interesting to see what comes of it. Basically I did it because some of my guys were getting bored with the stillness and lack of " action " on the Arek'Jalaan project, so I'm giving them some entertainment apart while trying to stimulate them to remain with the ccp event and give some time to see if things pick up.
Lots of good folks are leaving the Arek'jalaan on the past few days due to the controversial nature of the channel which is tending to be lots of ooc comments between brackets, or total silence with a few exceptions of some mildly repetitive discussions.
Also, the lack of any collective action is making people feel they are wasting their time there without any sort of goals or directions, so they are leaving and doing their own things.
I think its early to give a veredict to the Arek'Jalaan project but players want action and stuff happening and thus far there isnt much of either unless you are engaged there with your own stuff and motivations. End of the day, an event is as a good as you make of it and this one has potential to expand if players put their own cards on the table too to help it to not become so predictable.
One of the interesting things for example is to explore the fact that most of Arek'Jalaan leads were taken by capsuleers members of criminal organizations. I'm sure this fact wont be ignored so its one of the things im curious to see how it will play out on the near future.
Also, people need to keep in mind that npc actors arent godlike productions. I remember well on past events how we were all constantly reminded about how they can lie, manipulate, spread falso rumors etc like any capsuler out there. With this in mind, I hope something interesting will come from Tukoss apparent " boring " style " and surprise us with some twist the great majority wont be expecting. This kind of things makes events interesting.
But anyways, yes regarding the igs thread and the Takmhal and Bloodraider Research institution we will have fun with it at space and hopefully get some bloodraider actors to surface too to bring some answers to light on that aspect.
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Also, people need to keep in mind that npc actors arent godlike productions. I remember well on past events how we were all constantly reminded about how they can lie, manipulate, spread falso rumors etc like any capsuler out there. With this in mind, I hope something interesting will come from Tukoss apparent " boring " style " and surprise us with some twist the great majority wont be expecting. This kind of things makes events interesting.
Endoma... grrrrr...
Not that she really surprised us when she turned out to be a slave.
But anyways, yes regarding the igs thread and the Takmhal and Bloodraider Research institution we will have fun with it at space and hopefully get some bloodraider actors to surface too to bring some answers to light on that aspect.
This would be amazing.
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Also, people need to keep in mind that npc actors arent godlike productions. I remember well on past events how we were all constantly reminded about how they can lie, manipulate, spread falso rumors etc like any capsuler out there. With this in mind, I hope something interesting will come from Tukoss apparent " boring " style " and surprise us with some twist the great majority wont be expecting. This kind of things makes events interesting.
Endoma... grrrrr...
Not that she really surprised us when she turned out to be a slave.
Quick derail:
If i remember correctly im prety sure her turning into a slave was a mistake or something that they just rolled with
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Endoma... grrrrr...
Not that she really surprised us when she turned out to be a slave.
Quick derail:
If i remember correctly im prety sure her turning into a slave was a mistake or something that they just rolled with
Hmm... I thought we were all getting annoyed with her for parrotting the CONCORD line that nothing was happening, nothing to see here, move along, etc. Then we started to suspect her for being a nation loyalist and eventually she came out and said as much. As for whose idea it was, etc, I have no idea. I do recall her deliberately avoiding a lot of direct questions and giving half-answers to easy ones on IGS.
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My recollection is that Endoma wasn't originally intended to be a toaster, but a mistyped dev command alongside the growing suspicion from players made them recover from said mistype by turning her into a National infiltrator. Ofc., I could be entirely wrong, since I've not looked it up, and it's a complete derail here. :P
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So we get the best stories out of CCP when they have to correct typos?
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My recollection is that Endoma wasn't originally intended to be a toaster, but a mistyped dev command alongside the growing suspicion from players made them recover from said mistype by turning her into a National infiltrator. Ofc., I could be entirely wrong, since I've not looked it up, and it's a complete derail here. :P
This is what happened. The dev behind Endoma mistyped something and the command meant to spawn a bunch of sansha rats was sent into local. Hilarity and plot twist ensued.
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This is what happened. The dev behind Endoma mistyped something and the command meant to spawn a bunch of sansha rats was sent into local. Hilarity and plot twist ensued.
I so hope this dev comes to Arek' Jalaan event too! It's just about what we need to warm things up!
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A'J is pretty much one of the dream potentials for Kitzless I had. Right now I'm just gonna latch on and see if I can use the A'J momentum to get the engine going.
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I've been pinged more than once in the last few days about participating, and like Seriphyn (before Burreau entered into the picture) I find it hard to justify participation from an IC perspective. SYNE's core is anti-Nation, I've spent the last 8+ months researching Nation and producing AARs, and to suddenly drop that in favor of cooperation with Nation loyalists just doesn't work.
OOC, I like the project and think it has potential. But I'm getting this sense that CCP tried to do too much, too fast, with Arek'Jalaan and didn't spend enough time thinking on how they wanted this all to play out.
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I am fine with the speed of the project. I see it as a continuation of the what have been going on on the EVE Fiction (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=channel&channelID=3524) forum for the last years, and by God have things gone slow in there. It is about a year ago I wrote about my sightings in w-space for example.
As long as I see the long term contributors from EVE Fiction participating I think the project is doing fine. Some of us would like it to go even slower perhaps, like Auwnie (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1550152). The part of the project where I am lead (I just claimed the title and nobody objected) is progressing fairly well. I do not know about the other parts of the project but when I write research proposals on the portal it is because I already have an idea how to pursue insight on that topic without the need for waiting for answers from Hilen or some other NPC.
I forgot to add: If you are waiting for things to happen time will likely seem long, but if you are trying to make your own stuff time is often too short. :)
Oh, and ood luck with you science gathering, Revan. It took my fifteen minutes to write and seven years of interest on the topic to make that discussion piece.
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Topic title changed to reflect the developing nature of A'J
Also, please remember to post any opinion whatsoever, within reason, about both the project itself or how it has played out as a live event i.e. what was good, bad, needs improving, has potential, etc.
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Oh, and ood luck with you science gathering, Revan. It took my fifteen minutes to write and seven years of interest on the topic to make that discussion piece.
Just a note here, using the ic post itself its very clear: "The purpose of this Society is not scientific but philosophical on its nature and to us, also a matter of Wars and Faith."
To Revan AK is already taking care of the Scientific side of the business, her business with this is because she doesn't trust Eifyr, Tukuss or whoever else involved in such studies to not be corrupt and do what was done with the Tetrimon scriptures.
It's simply a matter of pure religion and my intention with it ooc is not to pursue scientific data gathering either but spark this religious conflict.
About your discussion, was a very interesting and well formulated post and I hope it will be integrated more often on the project as a line of thought which is quite consistant with the hints of PF we have out there. I do hope that ccp 'Tukoss' will turn a moment of interest into it to let us know if thats the right line to pursue further with any form of validation or if it is way out of what they plan for Takmahl to be.
Trick part of this event is players not able to make wide assumptions without us having to get a little "hot or cold " from time to time.
So yes let's see what can come out of it, that discussion certainly brought material to the table, let's see what can be done afterwards with that.
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The Aurora Ominae: A'Js ethical hot potato or a whole lot of hype from the overcautious?
Controversial conspiracy theories welcome as well as decent theories :lol:
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Strikes me as more :drama: than actually backed up issue. I can go construct a hundred of them right now if I want to waste the ISK on it. Doesn't mean they can be fired this side of nullsec. With the whole thing being so public, there's no way in hell there wouldn't be someone from CONCORD or whoever keeping an eye on it and making sure there's a) no power source capable of firing it being constructed, b) no circumvention of CONCORD's limitation on it's usage.
That particular bit is highly overblown in comparison to the Sansha loyalists in key positions (especially given Nation's statements of seeking the destruction of Arek'jaalan) and so on.
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The Aurora Ominae: A'Js ethical hot potato or a whole lot of hype from the overcautious?
Controversial conspiracy theories welcome as well as decent theories :lol:
I think this is less a matter of the superweapon in question, and more a question of the pilot who proposed it. Enough said. :s
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As my situation with most members of the RP community, I have never had any contact with Myxx before or paid any attention what he has done. But it does raise Myyona's awareness and uncertainty about participation in the project if Dr. Tukoss has been asking about getting access to a weapon of mass destruction with no reason given. Myyona wants to save humanity, not participate in causing its annihilation. The Aurora Oinae is (in her eyes) the worst example of what Sleeper technology can be used for, and if the main goal is to construct more of that she would rather spend her efforts raising the bounty on Dr. Tukoss.
Though, with my OOC knowledge I know that is likely not the case. And I can also see that my "opponents" are little capable of doing 'fictional science' (as Auwnie coined the term (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1550152&page=1#24)) and have to resort to talk about game mechanics (and did I spot a bit of name calling? :P) to argument their case. That is not a level I want to step on.
As there is no point in twisting thumps any further, I will let it drop.
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Arek'jaalan channel: Brackets, Brackets, Brackets, Brackets, Brackets, Brackets!!! :ugh:
"Theories" pulled out of nowhere. :ugh:
Theories that outright ignored the background of the thing concerned. :ugh:
A "Science" project that ignores any form of scientific process. :ugh:
A superweapon being "researched" by a character who is a paranoid delusionist who hates everyone. :ugh:
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A "Science" project that ignores any form of scientific process. :ugh:
I hope you didn't seriously think everyone in there was going to adhere to the scientific process. If you did, I'm sorry, but that's more than a little naive. Consider the playerbase you're dealing with here. The majority of them want to do something "cool" and Arek'Jalaan is - for the moment the coolest thing around. How many of them are real-life scientists, have a scientific background, or want to adhere to something formal that gets in their way? They're here to have fun, not do work or be bound by policies and procedures.
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Not everyone, no.
You'd think the "division heads" would though.
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So why not raise the issue IC regarding not doing actual science?
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So why not raise the issue IC regarding not doing actual science?
someone already has.
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I hope you didn't seriously think everyone in there was going to adhere to the scientific process. If you did, I'm sorry, but that's more than a little naive.
There's "adhering to the scientific process", and there's making sense. Too few people seem to do either, unfortunately -- and yeah. That issue's been raised a few times by a few people now.
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The problem will sort itself out soon enough, once the "freeloaders" (in this case, people who are there expecting Hilen/Dropbear/Nick to hand us everything on a silver platter, not understanding that actual time-consuming work needs to be done before any results appear) get bored/frustrated with not getting something for nothing, and leave.
It might take a little while, but what he said at EVE Vegas last night was quite a relief to hear.
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The problem will sort itself out soon enough, once the "freeloaders" (in this case, people who are there expecting Hilen/Dropbear/Nick to hand us everything on a silver platter, no understanding that actual time-consuming work needs to be done before any results appear) and get bored/frustrated with not getting something for nothing, and leave.
It might take a little while, but what he said at EVE Vegas last night was quite a relief to hear.
Honestly I don't think waiting it out for the freeloaders to leave is the best thing to do. I know dozens of people who want to work to make the project work but all the drama that has been created from the channel is driving them away. I for one am geting tired of logging onto dozens of mails from people argueing over the stupidest things
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I wasn't advocating waiting, tbh.
Even if we press the issue aggressively, it's still going to take a little bit for it to have the desired effect. Bitches be stubborn, yo.
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Pushing the issue aggressively seems like the only real route, at this stage -- except any attempt to make the people who don't even make sense, let alone try to approach it moderately scientifically IC, will just be met with even more of the ever-fuckin'-present drama.
I love the concept of Arek'jaalan, but when it's filled with people of the aforementioned bent, and any criticism of a project immediately escalates into more drama? I really do wonder if it's worth the time. Dropbear's presentation was encouraging, yeah, but there's only so much he can do. :\
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I wrote a blog post (http://rift.chromebits.net/2011/08/eve-vegas-ccp-dropbear/) on my romantic getaway weekend (>_>) with Dropbear. Lots of stuff in there about Arek'Jaalan, and as I remember stuff from my conversation, I'll try to include it here. The drinking may have affected my memory, so if something sounds stupid or frustrating, assume that that's not what he said and it's just me being a drunken neckbeard.
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Very nice blog post, Casiella.
I guess my suggestion with adding pew-pew to this event to compensate the wannabe scientists is not going to happen. Luckely for me, and with two other events centered around pew-pew there should be enough for everybody anyhow. It is nice Dropbear is trying to keep the spirit of the discussions from EVE Fiction and letting this event go as slow as needed.
Also that he plans to let the project develop on its own after having established the foundation is exactly what I had in mind too. Then we can also get rid of the "I am sacrificing rare items to the gods for them to take notice of me" research.
Let me add, not because the project is riddled with that research approach right now, but as long as Hilen is visible in the lead, a lot of projects will effectively be about asking him questions and wait for answers. I go through the AJ wiki pages on a daily basis (simply looking at what have been edited recently) and there is a lot of interesting research proposals there that players could do some real digging into themselves. It will be better when people to realize that it will be themselves to come up with the results and answers and not the "GM".
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How many of them are real-life scientists, have a scientific background, or want to adhere to something formal that gets in their way?
I am irl and would be fine with that. My character isn't though ;)
Also, bugger that, loldrama everywhere.
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I find it rather odd how self-proclaimed RPers complain about Drama. Isn't that...I dunno...the point? :eek:
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Oh, sure -- conflict and the ensuing drama has catalysed some really damn entertaining RP for me, be it conflict of interests, personalities, ideologies, or whatever.
The problem is, there's that kind of drama, with multiple people coming into conflict and the RP getting somewhere beyond '"I'm right!" "No, I'm right!" "You're both wrong; I'm right!"' and then there's Drama, where it seems like people cause it for the sake thereof and it's more tiring than entertaining. Ofc., YMMV; just my stance on it. (Nola really must get back to Kyber, though. >>)
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I put it in the EVE Vegas thread but was reminded it's more appropriate here:
Dropbear just posted his EVE Vegas preso (http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1108/EVE_Vegas_-_Live_Events.pdf).
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Like others have mentioned, it just doesn't jive with my IC persona. I have been trying to follow some of it and sadly have found the whole thing a little tough to follow.
I do admire the RPers who are dedicated to the effort and are trying to work it all out though. Hopefully what is learned through this process will make the next event better and perhaps that one will be more in-line with my IC persona.
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I'm having visions of Crierle (sp?) about this project. The drama just grows by leaps and bounds. And then there's those crazy off-the-wall suggestions, such as one about filing a legal motion with the Gallente Supreme Court about releasing a report. I think I saw that and within a minute I had four officers (I was reading it while on duty at work) asking me if I was OK. Just crazy. Simply crazy. :roll: :lol:
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This is very well put. (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1564865&page=1#9)
It's basically the small issue I have with this project. In trying to be 'all inclusive' it's pretty much by default shooing away a lot of characters. The mechanics through which this happens is outlined in the link above. In an ideal fantasy world that doesn't exist, I would have much preferred to see five or six different little projects. Each being less active than Arek'jaalan due to simply not having the manpower to keep them all at Arek'jaalan levels, they would still allow for a far larger sampling of characters to be involved in these 'live' projects by simply saying "This project won't have Blooders, Sansha and Angels pouring out of the woodwork every time you try to poke at it. That's for those four projects over there. That project is an Amarrian haven and that one's something both Federation and Caldari RPers might have interest in. That one's something anti-slavers and Matari RPers can have fun in. Everybody's invited and this time everybody can join in at least one of the projects." instead of inviting everybody to a project which... well, very far from everybody can join in on.
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After talking to Dropbear about it, I found that he's well aware of the concerns. The impression I had was that he wants to catalyze player conflict, and we already see that with things like the bounty on Tukoss by Caldari loyalists, etc. etc. But given the resource constraints - on CCP's side, A'J basically consists of just that one dude - he can't do much more. Each of those proposed projects might seem smaller than the one we have now, but they'd have significant fixed costs.
So instead of wishing a character could get directly involved, perhaps others could create their own projects. Nothing is stopping, say, Electus Matari from saying "we can do better" and proceeding with their own research project. I know for certain that some of those have already quietly launched.
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Ask him about Mannar IV!
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I know, Casiella. In fact, there's been talk about that already. It's however gimped by the fact that the people who might be interested also goes "... fuck, I don't know how CCP-RP happens. Hell, even if we did run this whole project, what'd happen? Nothing, unless CCP suddenly interferes.". In short, player-made competitor projects aren't really going to do much.
I know what I outlined in the post above is a pipe-dream. It's never going to happen.
It's still a nice dream to have, when by default this style of 'inclusive' RP is more excluding than projects excluding the worst of the worst.
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I don't see any alternative. Imagine the uproar if CCP chose to exclude certain players... but by opening it up to all comers, they're allowing players to decide whether or not to exclude themselves.
"The worst of the worst", in an IC sense, is in the eye of the beholder.
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Ask him about Mannar IV!
EVE Vegas is over and... well, the Mannar are pretty dang low on my priority list, personally.
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I don't see any alternative. Imagine the uproar if CCP chose to exclude certain players... but by opening it up to all comers, they're allowing players to decide whether or not to exclude themselves.
The decision to exclude yourself or not is made by the character, not the player. I'm not sure if asking players to override their characters out of OOC concerns is a good way to stimulate roleplaying.
"I want to be part of CCP's storyline, so I have to accept cooperating with the enemies of all my character stands for - but hey, they're all roleplayers, nice people OOC, so I should totally do that" does not work for everyone's RP, and telling those people that their RP is wrong is not making the situation better. :-)
On the other hand, I'm very happy that Drake Arson seems to be playing the Sansha loyalist very well there. Means the whole thing gets at least some realism.
I'm mostly enjoying myself with the current situation. It's a bit meh realizing that there is much more pro-A'J interest going on because of OOC reasons (as Casiella said people should), but I can deal with that.
My main issue right now is actually that EM won't do anything against the will of the Republic, the Republic's last statement was "carefully accepting" the project, and the dear admiral is not replying to mails regarding recent developments. So our RP is a bit stuck there. But well, "them Republic types dun talk with us" works IC as well, so I'm rolling with that.
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How about, 'if my enemies are allowed to participate and I don't, my beloved Republic may be at a disadvantage'? It's not that hard to devise some reasoning to participate if so inclined.
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How about, 'if my enemies are allowed to participate and I don't, my beloved Republic may be at a disadvantage'? It's not that hard to devise some reasoning to participate if so inclined.
Sure. That means our participation is limited to not contributing at all, but only taking out anything we get. Which limits our "participation" quite a bit. Do you think that's a good thing for the storyline in general? :-)
Maybe I should expand on the above, it seems I did not quite get across what I wanted to say.
I totally like the Arek'Jaalan storyline. The way I see it, it's a Caldari scientist who fled from the State to be able to conduct his research. He seems either very naive or very unscrupulous, which causes quite a few problems to the people he moved to.
There is a lot of RP opportunity for everyone there: You can support the project as is, or you can oppose it. You can argue in favor of having "Evil People"[tm] (everyone in EVE is "evil" in some way, so this is actually "the OTHER Evil People[tm]") around, or you can argue against. You can take up arms for or against it. You can draw lines of what is or is not acceptable to your character. And not only about the members, but also about the research conducted. The whole "let's build a doomsday device" thing was an awesome story hook (very Battlestar Galactica in a way - "I just need two nuclear warheads").
What makes me very much un-eager to participate in the story surrounding the A'J project (which is different from "participating in the A'J project") is that it appears to me that the other ways of interacting with the project is not supported by the GM, and actually frowned upon by the players. Basically any way of interacting with the project other than participation gets you to a wall in the game world very quickly (as an example, but not the only case, the problem of no reply from Balginia, while I easily get replies from Tukoss).
Players seem to imply this, too: Well, this is the way CCP wants us to role-play, it's only one CCP dev, so take a backseat and just accept that we have to bend our characters to just play together, at least we get CCP RP out of it. "Any other RP is wrong, you know."
And basically that's ok. I'm happy for the people who enjoy that, but it's not the kind of RP *I* enjoy.
And in the end, that means that the A'J story arc is an RP even for a subset of roleplayers, not for all. If you make your IC entity "open to everyone", you are not creating an RP environment for everyone. Period.
I have no problem with having story arcs that are not for me. There have been a few in the past like that, and I'm sure there will be future story arcs that work better for my character.
But saying, as has been done above, that this is the way to involve lots of players, is simply wrong.
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Dropbear is watching this thread, Arkady, and I did prod him on Twitter earlier about your concerns with Balginia, so hopefully some progress will come on that front. Just gotta be patient (even more than you already have been). :cube:
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Dropbear is watching this thread, Arkady, and I did prod him on Twitter earlier about your concerns with Balginia, so hopefully some progress will come on that front. Just gotta be patient (even more than you already have been). :cube:
:-) Thank you.
I'm actually not too worried about the good admiral. The Republic (or rather, the Fleet) not replying to our mail is not too much of a problem - happens, we're after all just some capsuleers. (And it's a recurring problem. Back in Aurora times, we actually had some Republic dude tell us about some story arc "stay out of it!" and then never ever show up again, never reply to mails, etc. - so we were basically forced to not participate. THAT I was/am bitter about, but that was long ago. The current thing is hardly comparable, we still have lots of options. :-))
I used it as one example of a general "problem". I think the "A'J story arc" would win a lot by rewarding various ways of interacting with the whole storyline, as opposed to rewarding simply membership in the project itself.
A few examples that do not involve EM:
Sansha loyalists should have some kind of incentive and the opportunities to actually harm the project now that Kuvakei declared hostilities. This would both mean that Sansha loyalists will do something against the project as well as giving incentive to other people to be actually wary of the Sansha people, as opposed to having to think "they're just here so they can enjoy the CCP RP as well, it would be OOC rude to exclude them."
Caldari loyalists should have an incentive and opportunities to hunt down Tukoss or his research to return some of it back to the State. Again, this would mean that the State loyalists can do something more than put bounties on the head of a person whose death likely means nothing, and it means that project members again have a reason to wary of the hostiles.
It does seem to me that a lot of the actions of the different divisions right now happen mainly because players do not want to be OOCly rude to other players and do not want to exclude them from "the CCP RP."
(Well, actually, if you ignore the part of "they're RPers, I'm sure they'll behave", it currently looks a lot like the project is being taken over by some criminals for their own benefit, abusing the extreme naivity of some people in the process. It's funny seeing it this way. :-D)
(Oh. And. Hey, Dropbear, you're awesome! This has to be said from time to time. (And is unrelated to the post above.))
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How about, 'if my enemies are allowed to participate and I don't, my beloved Republic may be at a disadvantage'? It's not that hard to devise some reasoning to participate if so inclined.
Sure. That means our participation is limited to not contributing at all, but only taking out anything.
The scope of the project is discovering the origins of sleepers and wormhole phenomena, not creating doomsday weapon. All information discovered is public knowledge. I'm trying to see the logic behind 'working with my enemy is bad!' when clearly the sleepers have no factional interests.
Not that I expect you to explain your characters motivations, but it just seems odd.
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I'm trying to see the logic behind 'working with my enemy is bad!'
Hm. I'm not sure how to explain this any better, really. The whole logic is "obvious" to me, and what others do "seems odd". It seems that it is the same to you, just the other way around. :-)
Let's say you find yourself in a fist fight with someone. Bad situation, really. You might end up with a lot of bruises if this goes bad. Even if you win in the end, it will still not be pretty.
Then you get the option: Ok, put in some effort, and you both could get a gun.
Will you put in effort to do this? The end result is that the fight will have a high chance of ending even worse than before. Even if you win, now you're not only likely to get bruises, you also are likely to have some serious wounds.
If the research is public, why put in the effort at all? You can have him put in all the effort - if there's something coming out of it, you will both have it. If not - nothing is lost. It's much smarter to put the effort into private research so you can actually have an advantage.
(It's not by chance that Project Manhattan was not a combined German/US research project.)
To me, this is also unrelated as to whether the project is actively researching weapon technology or not. Humans are very ingenious when it comes to utilizing latest scientific research for means to harm each other, and looking at T3 cruisers, it's highly likely that research into sleeper tech will reveal something useable in the conflicts.
My character also thinks that if Nation bothers to say "Nation will not let Hilen Tukoss's actions go unchecked", that whatever the good doctor is doing might pose a threat to Nation. Giving Nation loyalists direct access to the research, enabling them to sabotage or misdirect it if necessary, or at least take the fruits quickly to develop a protection against it - or even using A'J resources to develop a protection against it - is close to criminal.
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Dropbear is watching this thread, Arkady, and I did prod him on Twitter earlier about your concerns with Balginia, so hopefully some progress will come on that front. Just gotta be patient (even more than you already have been). :cube:
Sansha loyalists should have some kind of incentive and the opportunities to actually harm the project now that Kuvakei declared hostilities. This would both mean that Sansha loyalists will do something against the project as well as giving incentive to other people to be actually wary of the Sansha people, as opposed to having to think "they're just here so they can enjoy the CCP RP as well, it would be OOC rude to exclude them."
Caldari loyalists should have an incentive and opportunities to hunt down Tukoss or his research to return some of it back to the State. Again, this would mean that the State loyalists can do something more than put bounties on the head of a person whose death likely means nothing, and it means that project members again have a reason to wary of the hostiles.
It would be nice to see opportunities for general anti-Arek'Jaalan shenanigans. The only viable choice right now seems to be spying, infiltration, and thievery - which is a very particular subset of EVE gameplay and over all hard to sell to people who like to pewpew.
Much like for the Sansha Events though, I have a hard time visualizing how they can offer anti-Arek'Jaalan chances without someone pulling Nullsec connections and having a huge fleet shit all over everything. Considering the stupid amounts of ISK the evacuation Charon freighter had in it, it wouldn't be hard to sell the lure of that much money again to pretty much anyone.
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Regarding the subject of character versus player choices: I think it's a little bit of a red herring to suggest that one doesn't influence the other.
Certainly, I'm not the type to suggest that you (e.g. Arkady-p) should do what you want and shoehorn Arkady-c into things that you want, even if they break the character. On the other hand, our characters are not automatons, reacting in the same predictable way to a given stimulus. (At least not in general: characters that do react that way might provide their own interesting exception, I suppose.)
So none of us would say that no Republic loyalist could possibly get involved with the project because Amarrian or Nation pilots have done so. You may decide that Arkady-c will not, and obviously that's a valid choice. But that differs from the implication that Arkady-c could not do so simply because he is a loyalist.
That said: Dropbear made it abundantly clear to me that he keeps a very very close eye on reading Backstage. CCP rules hamstring him a little bit in his responses on 'external sites' like this one, but posting here in the hopes he will see it is a pretty good way to go.
Alternately, finding your way to events he attends (like the VETO summer camp in Nashville right now) or reaching out to him on the CCP forums or Twitter also work really well. At heart, he's an EVE roleplayer who wants the same things most of us want, at least in a general sense.
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On that note, I have changed Revan's ic stance to hostile towards Arek'Jalaan.
The note can be seen here: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1565142&page=1#6
It's not really the side I'd like to take ic because i enjoy the controversy that revan brings to the table, but my group in the eve have become extremelly anti this " good approach " with the rp and not quite willing to support our ic alligned stance anymore.
As I play very little nowadays and they are the ones who roll the isk investments and use their time keeping things happening at space I found better to let my guys enjoy the event the way they want, which is taking the usual hostile approach with mercs and so on.
IC, Revan stired some nerves there in order to pick a few obvious reactions which worked pretty well as she planned, so now its just let things move on naturally.
I wont be able to follow much the event myself , ill leave the war decs to be decided by the people playing, but ill keep checking things when possible.
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So none of us would say that no Republic loyalist could possibly get involved with the project because Amarrian or Nation pilots have done so.
I don't think anyone ever claimed that? If you read my posts as that I am sorry, I need to work on my communication skills.
I was criticizing the idea that "just opening up the project to everyone allows everyone to participate." It doesn't. It allows everyone to shoehorn their characters into participating, which is not fun for everyone and not everyone enjoys the resulting kind of RP.
Edited to add: And before someone jumps to that conclusion, as mentioned above, I am quite fine with having "CCP RP" that I can not (really) participate in, as long as I know that there will be, at some point, some "CCP RP" that I can. My main worry with the current situation is that people start to think that this is "the" way to run "CCP RP" events because they think that it's somehow "all-inclusive." Hence why I speak up and try to point out that no, it isn't :-)
It's a bit like concerts. It's impossible to make a concert with "music that everyone likes". Hence why you have some concerts that play this and some concerts that play that. It would take a lot out of the music scene if you'd go "ok, we only play country now, and as everyone can buy a ticket, that means we are catering for everyone." While certainly possible, it would remove quite a bit of variety. :-)
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It would be nice to see opportunities for general anti-Arek'Jaalan shenanigans. The only viable choice right now seems to be spying, infiltration, and thievery - which is a very particular subset of EVE gameplay and over all hard to sell to people who like to pewpew.
You mean like having a Sansha loyalist as a leader of the Security division? . . . :P
Until we start undocking and doing shit, the most Friends of Nation can do is troll the evelopedia pages and fuck things up there. But maybe that's a bannable offense? I'm not sure.
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Sansha loyalists should have some kind of incentive and the opportunities to actually harm the project now that Kuvakei declared hostilities. This would both mean that Sansha loyalists will do something against the project as well as giving incentive to other people to be actually wary of the Sansha people, as opposed to having to think "they're just here so they can enjoy the CCP RP as well, it would be OOC rude to exclude them."
Caldari loyalists should have an incentive and opportunities to hunt down Tukoss or his research to return some of it back to the State. Again, this would mean that the State loyalists can do something more than put bounties on the head of a person whose death likely means nothing, and it means that project members again have a reason to wary of the hostiles.
As someone else already stated, for a project that is thus far based on wiki writings and drama on channels the only steps that can be taken by our side of the rp ( meaning those who wants to play hostile against it ) is to create the so called harm from within. Of course we have always in every group those rp capsuleers who their characters are easy to manipulate ic due to their emotional fragelty, they are easy to be lead to break down and do or say compromising things and cause all sort of paranoias from spreading their emotional outburts once they are rightly triggered to it.
This is what Revan did using a few of the project leads to give her the missing reasons to declare hostility.
Like this example, sansha is certainly using the same elements with their mere presence and acting from within, as are others, there are plenty of things that can be done at this stage of the project from a hostile point of view.
Someone said messing with wiki, I do hope people don't resort to that, not sure if its bannable offense but it is the least to say very bad taste to do so. There are too many ways to play the hostile role without entering such layers, and psycological warfare is one of them specially when people are already so susceptible to it.
To those more interested at pvp, as Soter said the project needs to take off first and start doing things at space but meanwhile the usual methods of war decs can be done to entertain. And of course you can always use alts, Revan just declared her hostile intentions openly because it was part of my rp and my intention to play along with my friends on this, but anyone else who still wants to rp hostile and remain within the project can easily do so, the whole framework of the project is set to allow it.
To resume there are plenty of ways to participate at the ccp event, either being pro or against it, it takes just adjusting your line of play to adapt to it.
It's not as exciting as the faction events in my opinion, this " all in " does turns a lot of people off and the practical side seems to excluding people more than including but I guess Dropbear deserves credit for trying this new line of approach and its still too early to say if it works or not.
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Outside of occasional field expeditions, this particular story line is not intended to involve space. That's what the Sansha and upcoming FW story lines are for.
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Outside of occasional field expeditions, this particular story line is not intended to involve space. That's what the Sansha and upcoming FW story lines are for.
Depends of how you see it. In eve, everything will involve space if you want to, its where the game IS after all.
I agree that the core idea of the event is just perhaps wiki wrtting and channel interactions with little spaceships expeditions now and than, which is fine. It's a sort of event that has public too, like my rp model events restricted to forums, channels x my auctoramentum gladiatorium events restricted to forum/ space. But even the model event had consequences at space, i was surprised, ( positively surprised ) at how they could manage even that event turn to it.
There are many forms to build events and each will attract a certain public, which is very cool.
The point i want to make about "taking it to involve space" is simply because game mechanisms. You have x pilot participating. x pilot is member of a corporation, alliance. x pilot is one member of perhaps other 100 people who arent participating on the event and are well, playing the natural eve environment at space.
So you war dec their alliance based on the concept of this x pilot involvement which will affect his entire alliance in return. Those people are at space and they will be the ones affected by this butterfly effect that eve sandbox lets us play with.
This is just one example of how you can make it involve space if you take that angle.
It doesn't mean much if the project itself doesnt require people to undock. It's just about the consequences of several venues that can be used to translate to things to happen at space, much like the igs has been used to fish for wars during several rp ocassions, channels can be used to the same purpose. There is always those who will give you plenty of reasons to justify actions one way or another.
At the end, no matter what rp mechanism you are willing to put to test, pretty much everything can be taken to consequences at space. I think thats the beauty of eve too, you dont need consensus or "approval " to get what you want done. All you need is the game mechanisms tools for it and you can interact with pretty much everything and everyone you want with or without mutual agreement.
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IC, Revan stired some nerves there in order to pick a few obvious reactions which worked pretty well as she planned, so now its just let things move on naturally.
I wont be able to follow much the event myself , ill leave the war decs to be decided by the people playing, but ill keep checking things when possible.
I saw some of that and rather frowned at it. Then again, I consider it poor form to go after a character because the player may not know how a word is spelled, despite knowing the word, what it means, and how to use it. It comes across as a cheap OOC shot to score points in an IC argument (See: Winning RP) and seeing Revan resorting to such petty crap while trying to demand respect and be taken seriously induces severe eye-rolling. Of course, if the goal was to burn all the bridges and run, she did fine there.
On a related note, while I don't get the IC justification for Revan turning hostile toward the project, I certainly get it OOC and am actually quite pleased. Particularly if it leads to a trimming of the fat from the project, maybe drive off a few of those who seem to be there for their 15 minutes rather than actually contributing. So that should be interesting, I think it'll be a fun development.
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Making fun of typos and misspelling is a perfectly valid approach IC, I feel. While live communication may require a certain speed and thus get prone to such errors, it's not really that hard to avoid the worst of it. Capsuleers are supposed to be somewhat educated at least, and it's fairly reasonable to expect a certain level of eloquence. Hell, I'm a slackwitted northern Norwegian barbarian with shit for education and hardpacked snow for brains and I still think I can manage a certain standard of communication. However, it's a very dangerous game to play when it'll make people ten times as sensitive towards such things with your own posts and utterings. Which brings me to Revan's IGS posts.
Damn, Revan, you really need an editor or proof-reader. Your content is great, even if from Miz's IC point of view it's retarded, but the spelling. Oh dear Lords, the spelling. I wouldn't have thought much about it if I didn't also know that very thing has been a weapon in Revan's arsenal against others in the verbal fencing grounds. Like I said before, I don't mind it at all, but I really expected Revan IC to be a damn sight more eloquent and her posts far less riddled with such things.
This is just generalized advice, and Revan's post is just an example of it but if you want to play the "ur speling sux" game to gain a step up from others, use a dictionary, spellchecker or any of the plethora of tools available to make damn sure you're not making yourself a target in return. Think like a sharpshooter when you're doing competitive RP, people. When you squeeze that trigger, you'll want to make sure your own cover isn't compromised, or if it is you'd damn well better have something hidden up your sleeve to deal with that.
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Capsuleers are supposed to be somewhat educated at least, and it's fairly reasonable to expect a certain level of eloquence. more eloquent and her posts far less riddled with such things.
I guess I take this and go in the opposite direction, treating it as if the character got the spelling right even if the player didn't, unless it's apparent that they are trying to play a character with poor spelling. Otherwise, we basically exclude anyone who may have the vocabulary but not the spelling skill from such debate, because they're going to be mocked IC for an OOC characteristic. It's about the same to me as going after someone's spelling simply because they don't speak english natively.
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Given that we're not actually communicating ICly in English, I don't worry about such things.
Anyway: consequences in space, yes, absolutely. That's part of the goal of catalyzing player conflict. But the arc events themselves (i.e. the interaction with the actors) mostly takes place "stationside" for this particular one.
Whether that drives player characters to blow each other up is another issue, obviously. :D
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IC, Revan stired some nerves there in order to pick a few obvious reactions which worked pretty well as she planned, so now its just let things move on naturally.
I wont be able to follow much the event myself , ill leave the war decs to be decided by the people playing, but ill keep checking things when possible.
I saw some of that and rather frowned at it. Then again, I consider it poor form to go after a character because the player may not know how a word is spelled, despite knowing the word, what it means, and how to use it. It comes across as a cheap OOC shot to score points in an IC argument (See: Winning RP) and seeing Revan resorting to such petty crap while trying to demand respect and be taken seriously induces severe eye-rolling. Of course, if the goal was to burn all the bridges and run, she did fine there.
On a related note, while I don't get the IC justification for Revan turning hostile toward the project, I certainly get it OOC and am actually quite pleased. Particularly if it leads to a trimming of the fat from the project, maybe drive off a few of those who seem to be there for their 15 minutes rather than actually contributing. So that should be interesting, I think it'll be a fun development.
You completely lost me here on your first sentence. I don't believe Revan ever would resort to word spelling and grammar, considering that I myself am Swedish , currentely working on a Portuguese speaking Country with a portuguese keyboard to communicate in English and to be very honest i couldnt care less about spending time even checking those things.
So you need to tell what exactly you are refering to, if it was about shuush comment, you are far away from thinking revan refered to grammar lol. Simply she refered to the state of communications as to low level ' populace " term when a bunch of "commoners " in her expression were gathered to such low level conclave considering they should be scientific minds and therefore quite the opposite.
So again, i ask, what exactly are you refering to as revan pointing english grammar or such? im rather curious to know.
When I said above about stiring some nerves, I refered to the usual pattern, she choses capsuleers with low emotional resilience and makes them give her the " casus beli " as needed and thats exactly what she did.
This is nothing new either, she has done this on igs countless times in order to fill the slots of wars from her contractors.
IC, the reason of her turning hostile was already posted, those who mattered to her were against the project and so, she attended their wishes to give them green card to act, something they couldnt do while their leader remained as part of it.
OOC, as already stated basically is the same, let the players play their way and considering that Im quite busy with new university and projects starting now that the vacation to all of us ends, my eve time will be extremelly restricted and spending it on AJ channels doing 2 hours of same rp over and over or writting wiki isnt exactly fitting to how i wish to spend the few hours Ill have to dedicate to eve from now on. So yes, of course we fit our ic decisions to our ooc current investments too, its normal.
Anyway: consequences in space, yes, absolutely. That's part of the goal of catalyzing player conflict. But the arc events themselves (i.e. the interaction with the actors) mostly takes place "stationside" for this particular one.
Whether that drives player characters to blow each other up is another issue, obviously. :D
It usually ends this way, as long as there are people who enjoys pvp and such, i believe lots of events will find their way to that consequnce.
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Making fun of typos and misspelling is a perfectly valid approach IC, I feel.
No it isn't is just idiocy to be honest. cheap way to conduct an argument.
Damn, Revan, you really need an editor or proof-reader. Your content is great, even if from Miz's IC point of view it's retarded, but the spelling. Oh dear Lords, the spelling. I wouldn't have thought much about it if I didn't also know that very thing has been a weapon in Revan's arsenal against others in the verbal fencing grounds.
It isnt and never will be considering that I myself type always in a rush and will never spending another minute of my time bothering about grammar police ooc vendettas. To me, when you have to work around the clock in a global world nowadays, you simply know that communication means : pass a message to your audience to understand and be able to get back to you with a result.
That's the only thing revan does and will continue to do and considering that her events and interactions has always reached the public target she aims at, im sure that its quite ok the way its done.
I really have no issues with any of it, those who feels offended by my lack of patience to add another minute or so to do keyboard changes or online speels checkers and so on , well, will have to deal with it as they have for the past 7 years of revans posts lol. Its just a subject i really dont care to adress ic and gladly accept as it is, as long as the core message reaches the audience, thats all it matters.
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You completely lost me here on your first sentence. I don't believe Revan ever would resort to word spelling and grammar, considering that I myself am Swedish , currentely working on a Portuguese speaking Country with a portuguese keyboard to communicate in English and to be very honest i couldnt care less about spending time even checking those things.
So you need to tell what exactly you are refering to, if it was about shuush comment, you are far away from thinking revan refered to grammar lol. Simply she refered to the state of communications as to low level ' populace " term when a bunch of "commoners " in her expression were gathered to such low level conclave considering they should be scientific minds and therefore quite the opposite.
So again, i ask, what exactly are you refering to as revan pointing english grammar or such? im rather curious to know.
When I said above about stiring some nerves, I refered to the usual pattern, she choses capsuleers with low emotional resilience and makes them give her the " casus beli " as needed and thats exactly what she did.
This is nothing new either, she has done this on igs countless times in order to fill the slots of wars from her contractors.
IC, the reason of her turning hostile was already posted, those who mattered to her were against the project and so, she attended their wishes to give them green card to act, something they couldnt do while their leader remained as part of it.
OOC, as already stated basically is the same, let the players play their way and considering that Im quite busy with new university and projects starting now that the vacation to all of us ends, my eve time will be extremelly restricted and spending it on AJ channels doing 2 hours of same rp over and over or writting wiki isnt exactly fitting to how i wish to spend the few hours Ill have to dedicate to eve from now on. So yes, of course we fit our ic decisions to our ooc current investments too, its normal.
It was in the process of provoking someone of, as you put it, low emotional resilience, and no I don't mean the 'shoosh' thing. Someone made spelling error while arguing with Revan (mostly telling her to stfu and stop disrupting the meeting) and Revan response looked like she was mocking her for the error while ignoring what she'd actually said. I may have misread it, but that's what it looked like. I can dig up logs when I get home from work in a few hours, if you'd like. *shrug*
Not that big a deal and Revan's hardly the only person I've seen do this, perhaps I just have higher expectations for her ;)
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It was in the process of provoking someone of, as you put it, low emotional resilience, and no I don't mean the 'shoosh' thing. Someone made spelling error while arguing with Revan (mostly telling her to stfu and stop disrupting the meeting) and Revan response looked like she was mocking her for the error while ignoring what she'd actually said. I may have misread it, but that's what it looked like. I can dig up logs when I get home from work in a few hours, if you'd like. *shrug*
Not that big a deal and Revan's hardly the only person I've seen do this, perhaps I just have higher expectations for her ;)
Nah , I can assure you that whatever it was it was nothing to do with english grammar or whatever, if you can bring the logs i can tell you what it was about. What i can tell for sure is that whatever it was it was to take advantage of her / his emotional break down and use it to give her investors an ic reason to become hostile towards the event.
And expectations regarding Revan is a very hard and dangerous concept to think about, Revan is very umpredictable and she will use whatever circunstances to adapt to anything that will profit her and her own in the process. Besides, she is not really sane in any reasonable aspect, but she knows how to turn situations to favour her plans and that is exactly what she has done.
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Outside of occasional field expeditions, this particular story line is not intended to involve space. That's what the Sansha and upcoming FW story lines are for.
Says who? Most certainly not me.
"Oh, you guys shouldn't undock" is probably the least productive advice anyone could have to make RP seem to be a more legitimate and vital element of eve online. There's nothing that turns the larger population off from RP more than that kind of stuff.
Which is why we're seeing a large, ongoing backlash against the project in the general EVE online player base. If we wish to avoid the development of OOC animosity against the project, then we need to guide it to more productive activities.
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Soter, you're not the GM. So it doesn't really matter if you say it or not. Dropbear said this explicitly in his talk and notes: the A'J storyline is not intended to involve ships and blowing stuff up. Players who want that sort of action should look at the Sansha or FW storylines, or whatever else they already do.
In-space actions from A'J will more or less happen as follow-on activity. We've already seen great examples of those sorts of things in this thread. But this doesn't mean that we'll see a lot of Tukoss undocking and doing whatever science things he does in space, nor requesting that directly from the players (though that's not to say it will never happen).
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Says who? Most certainly not me.
"Oh, you guys shouldn't undock" is probably the least productive advice anyone could have to make RP seem to be a more legitimate and vital element of eve online. There's nothing that turns the larger population off from RP more than that kind of stuff.
Which is why we're seeing a large, ongoing backlash against the project in the general EVE online player base. If we wish to avoid the development of OOC animosity against the project, then we need to guide it to more productive activities.
Can't say I disagree with that, I often started to think if the event wouldn't be more productive if presented on an ooc format , for example, eve fiction , instead of igs at least to start gathering and reaching eve large playerbase.
The rp aspect of it of course is very important to US, rpers, but playing devil's advocate here, if the intention is to promote life events to eve in general and make players acquainted to it, difgging it into rp exclusive circles isn't a very didactic or enticing, appealing , whatever you want to say - way to start promoting it.
Without the rp aspect you would reach for example those players at eve fiction who have been studing ancient races since ages and most likely would love to just be part of something like this. Also, not saying everyone would be able to participate as ic politics etc wouldn't have a weight too.
Of course, not saying the rp aspect should be eliminated totally, but gradually injected would be a way to go.
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I have been on a trip for ten days or so and the AJ project has not progressed further than I will be able to catch up. That is properly too slow for some but good for me.
I see Myyona participating in the project as it is only a scientific interest group with a set focus and nothing more. It is not a corporation or an alliance, the Ethics Committee is not a board of directors and the Security group is not a military force for conquest. Both are at best supportive groups for the main research projects with minor say on the research itself. Even if you want to it to be something else, it is not supported by the game mechanics in any other way so nobody holds any real power over anybody else within the project. In effect, AJ is a bunch people with a shared interest that get together and exchange thoughts and ideas with the aim of increasing common understanding on a specific topic. Just like real world science. Of course, if people in general had a better understanding of scientific methods the output of the project would increase, but no rush for my sake.
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i read somewhere that the Hilen Tukoss character/CCP Dropbear said one of the divisions was "exemplary", in terms of the sciency thing they were doing.
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So, some recent activities and developments, certainly from the outside looking in this is interesting:
- Drake Arson departs the project. If you recall there were issues with Arson Industries an Syne before this, causing some problems.
- A few breakthoughs on Aj's many projects
- More recently, the discovery of a long lost scientist with a long name.
BUT, thats not it... For you see many people have now discovered this scientist. (Hint: Multiple clones [allegedly])
Opinions? Some inside perspective?
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- Drake Arson departs the project. If you recall there were issues with Arson Industries an Syne before this, causing some problems.
He left the project "temporarily" so that he could get around the majority opinion (and related policies) regarding his desire to wardec Syne.
- A few breakthoughs on Aj's many projects
Not so much "breakthroughs" yet - mostly people coming up with "results" with varying degrees of "", and waiting for Hilen/Dropbear to have the time to look them over and throw a bone to them. With all the conventions he's had to go to, this'll be a while.
- More recently, the discovery of a long lost scientist with a long name.
BUT, thats not it... For you see many people have now discovered this scientist. (Hint: Multiple clones [allegedly])
This is an issue of people considering mission items as interactable NPCs. It's an extension of the issue that arises from all players pulling completely identical missions from the same pool of available ones, over and over again.
I shouldn't have to go into the implications of people running around with two active clones. It's probably one of the single biggest no-nos for anyone with a cloning contract in New Eden, capsuleer or not. Like, CONCORD will actively hunt you down kind of no-no.
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Moira's holding position in the Trinity class four system we've been operating in, keeping busy making money, doing pew pew, such like, until we get word back on Operation Trinity preliminary report (latest version available here (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4238627/Reeeport.pdf)). Word back sooner rather than later would be handy. :P
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Not so much "breakthroughs" yet - mostly people coming up with "results" with varying degrees of "", and waiting for Hilen/Dropbear to have the time to look them over and throw a bone to them. With all the conventions he's had to go to, this'll be a while.
It will not be long now before there will be moaning about the stagnation of the project. Though, I will not blame Dropbear that people have dug themselves into this situation nor do I expect much in the way of bones will be thrown.
That would sort of spoil the game us that actually like to search out and dig through the ingame information and derive knowledge based on that, no matter how slow that process ever must be. I certainly do not like the situation of stating "My character studies intensively to reveal the answer to all questions" and then look with puppy eyes at the Game Master until he goes "You are successful! The answer is...".
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Part of the reason in releasing the General Trinity Hypothesis was to poke the hornet's nest and generate some discussion based on our observations thus far. Of course, you need other people willing to discuss it for there to be progress. Let's see where it goes.
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I just read it and it is good.
If people find it difficult to provide evidence for their hypothesis it is still better that they try to make a discussion based on their own wild ideas than sit back and wait for Dropbear to come with a definite answer for them. That way we at least got something to work with. It also increases the chance that maybe somebody else got supporting or contradicting evidence for the hypothesis and can bid in on the discussion.
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I certainly do not like the situation of stating "My character studies intensively to reveal the answer to all questions" and then look with puppy eyes at the Game Master until he goes "You are successful! The answer is...".
Apparently, people are petitioning, asking to speak to Dropbear, to gain validation for their things.
actual Petitions. :ugh:
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Probably should be more neutral seeing as did the OP, but I do feel compelled to say that this Professor Delainen thing should be retconned. Like, now. Reasons
1) Mission collectible NPC, i.e. something you rescue from a wreck.
2) Apparently he dies in the later storyline of the mission series.
3) Guidelines vis a vis missions in RP, i.e. they are backstory, not developing story content.
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I used mission related content in my Algintal reports too, but I think it is justifiable as I can come up with an easy explanation why the Damaged Hive Mind is still giving out the same missions. In some cases missions can be the only source of PF material so we have to dig there.
Though, I am not certain about the point of questioning Professor Delainen. In fact, I expect it will lead to another "wait for the GM to answer" situation unless there is a wealth of knowledge on Professor Delainen that I am unaware of.
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I think you might have missed what the issue was
The simple fact is that this prof whoever dies later in the mission series where you get him as an item from. I.e. capsuleers have done this questline already, and he dies at the end of it, therefore, he is dead, ICly.
I mean, no offense Myxx, but this is just plain godmodding, you cant just bring back DEAD CHARACTERS when it suits your purpose.
Im glad to see it not come back on the mailing list, but this has to stop.
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you cant just bring back DEAD CHARACTERS when it suits your purpose.
Maybe the doctor was only faking his death and found a terran sleeper superweapon to free us from the Sansha invasions in a single battle, after which the terran sleeper superweapon is gone and not rebuildable anymore?
. . .
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you cant just bring back DEAD CHARACTERS when it suits your purpose.
Maybe the doctor was only faking his death and found a terran sleeper superweapon to free us from the Sansha invasions in a single battle, after which the terran sleeper superweapon is gone and not rebuildable anymore?
. . .
1) In the final mission, he intergrates himself into a drone hive. You kill him in the mission. He is dead. QED.
2) His specialty is Artificial Intelligence. Not Sansha-killing superweapons.
3) Plain lazy story writing. Battlefield Earth story writing.
I mean, does nobody see the implications of just abusing missions and mission items like this?
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I'm pretty sure Mr. Sadik's statement wasn't so much a retort to you, Nmaro, as it was a tangential despair on the Empyrean age plottwist. Which has been hackneyed and gone over many times before, of course, but there you go.
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Oh, I would not bring in a dead person for questioning. It does indeed break our IC knowledge on the rest of the events regarding this person. Also, I would not claim that there are hordes of Sleeper drones flying around near Arnon eventhough people spot one everyday (just before Dargan blow it up... over and over).
I mean, PF knowledge gained from missions can be essential but has to be handled with care. That is one of the reasons I mostly gather mission background notes in the Lorebook and rarely mission briefings.
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Well, thinking back there was an item on the mailing list that caught my eye once, which was in fact a summary of the epic arc missions (surprised it hasn't been committed to the archive actually), by a capsuleer, from the point of view of a fictional capsuleer.
Quite simply, it was laid out as a journal of finds, intended to be THE record of the mission. I liked this for the reason that it wasnt self hype, like the capsuleer saying he had just done the epic arc, but shifting the responsibility to a non playable character.
By referring to it in the past tense and treating it as if it had been done already, the epic arc missions then become fair game to talk about in theoretical discussions, rather than if the capsuleer in question simply said he was going put on an epic quest and took all the credit.
In my opinion, this is how missions should be used. They have already happened, and should be treated as a record, not developing content.
Then again, what am I supposed to do with all these Militants?
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In my own experience, missions don't fit into RP at all. You basically have to handwave them.
Not only do they not make logical sense in an RP environment, (Yes! I get to go kill Krull AGAIN!!!), the same missions are given to different people in different areas of space at the same time all the time. It simply doesn't make sense.
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In my own experience, missions don't fit into RP at all. You basically have to handwave them.
This.
I talk ICly about "fighting Angels" (or Sansha, or ...), and maybe "breaking an Angel gate camp" (and that's getting iffy already because we can't use the gate), nothing more.
On the other hand, missions give backstory information. I wouldn't use it verbatim as such, but if a mission talks about a Federation spy post in the Republic, I can assume that such things do exist and that we capsuleers know about them.
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I might post this mission question in another thread.
But anyway, there have been rumours abud of Dropbear's absence due to business/health or whatever.
Are these rumours true?
If they are, has it hurt the project?
If so, how?
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It is only hurting those that have been basing their whole "research" on him coming with the answers when they ask the questions. The few of us who actually dig through every bit of EVE lore to try and find small bits of evidence that can support our theories would of course be very displeased if he ever actually did that.
Though, to be fair I guess we are in minority. Most AJ participants seem to think it is a RP scenario where you can RP your way to answers. Not the puzzle pondering investigation game that has been going on in the EVE Fiction forum over the last couple of years.
Oh forgot to say; of course Dropbear can drop small pieces of new clues here and there but it is only fun if finding them is not obvious and you have to log into EVE to find them. And by obvious I mean creating a research proposal that will pretty much explain everything and then demand Dropbear answer to that.
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Title changed again. Shameless thread promotion and also I think it suits it better.
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Site One. What is it?
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I am expecting it to be some kind of landmark in Eram, though if it turns out to be a full multistage deadspace complex I will be amazed.
The interesting part is how Dropbear plans to integrate the articles that have been written in the A'J project so far into the site.
I managed to be the sole contributor of ectoplasm to the construction site and boy did that bring back memories; I accumulated that stuff when I was getting it as mission rewards from the Blood Raider agents in The Bleak Lands.
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Has a date been announced for when Site One is to be built/constructed/whatever?
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Yes. Construction should start on the 10th of November (now that we have managed to gather the necessary amount) and should end on the 30th of November.
According to the Site One description (here (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Arek%27Jaalan:_Site_One)) it appears that our abstracts will be put on in game pamphlets that people then can pick when they visit Site One. Pretty neat that it will have somethings that people can interact with.
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Dropbear has released a picture of how Site One will look like: here (http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1111/Site-One.jpg)
Besides having storage pads for each of the projects, that I guess either spawns pamphlets and/or haves a project related descriptions, there is also an acceleration gate visible, though marked "under construction".
This appears to be planned as more than just a simple tourist spot, but what, is unknown.
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An acceleration gate, eh? Interesting, interesting...
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Yea, it was suposed to be in a deadspace.
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I managed to be the sole contributor of ectoplasm to the construction site and boy did that bring back memories; I accumulated that stuff when I was getting it as mission rewards from the Blood Raider agents in The Bleak Lands.
Holy shit I have metric tonnes of that stuff. Is it needed still?
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Nopes, not any more, Meb. Dropbear expressed surprise that somebody had such a large stash ready at hand but I guess people who have been running pirate missions back in the days should have quite a lot of the stuff. Interestingly it is hardly available for sale anywhere these days.
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A peak into the very near future (http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/jowen/Site_One.jpg).
And I have never seen the mechanic that can spawn items inside your cargo hold being used before. Maybe it is new.
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tutorials in space can give you stuff into cargohold, but :o at it happening outside tutorials
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I took a bunch of pictures the day it was released on Sisi. You can find them here (https://picasaweb.google.com/morwen.lagann/ArekJaalanSiteOneAntiquus?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNe4jduUlIoN&feat=directlink), or download a zip of them from here (http://go-dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/mlagann/AJS1.zip).
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I got items from going near the Visitor Center, in fact two. One is the A'J Mission Statement and the other informs about the contributors to Site One. It also explains that the site is named after the Antiquarian due to his large personal contribution to the material acquisition effort.
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Yeah, I didn't get the pictures from those uploaded before I had to leave on vacation with a machine that doesn't have space for sisi (or the ability to undock). According to Dropbear there was a defect with the Visitor's Center, and they weren't put in in the first release.
My name had a typo on it on the contributor list and I submitted a bug report though - has it been fixed yet? (It said "Morwenn" instead of "Morwen".)
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My name had a typo on it on the contributor list and I submitted a bug report though - has it been fixed yet? (It said "Morwenn" instead of "Morwen".)
Sadly, it has not been fixed yet. :|
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Ah well. I made sure Dropbear had the report ID# at least, that's the best I suppose I can do for now. :P
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Trouble brews on Security committee it seems...
Also, is CONCORD on an indeffinte coffee break vis a vis Site One?
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CONCORD doesn't respond for Capsuleer aggression against the Empires, only against other Capsuleers.
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I have really have to ask if this Mark276 guy is flamebaiting or just plain stupid...
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He properly forgot the setting he was talking in.
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does arek'jaalan have a future with the revelations in templar one ?
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Doesn't seem so :|
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Yeah... right now I'm waiting for bomb under the table to go off. I don't think it will be pretty, and I'm concerned about what will happen when the dust clears.
No pun intended.
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I saw this news and thought of AJ, been playing EVE for way too long it seems :P
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16662346 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16662346)
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does arek'jaalan have a future with the revelations in templar one ?
I am astoundingly unimpressed that ideas I've been incorporating into an Arek'Jaalan Sleeper project that has taken many, many, hours have (from what I read in the spoiler thread) been hand fed to us in Templar One.
They tell us the pieces of the puzzle are there to find, encourage us to figure it out, start-up an in-game project, request our submissions, and then while we're putting the last few pieces of the puzzle together they show us the picture from the box.
Honestly don't know where to go from here.
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I know the feeling, Kaito, know the feeling. I had a good reason why to put my Sleeper theory out before the release of Templar One.
I want to progress with A'J some more and while I can perfectly understand Dropbear cannot be handling this 24/7 it is now two months since he has made any appearance in the project and in the meantime we have had the release of Templar One and The Fiction Portal both confusing people on what to do.
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I know the feeling, Kaito, know the feeling. I had a good reason why to put my Sleeper theory out before the release of Templar One.
I want to progress with A'J some more and while I can perfectly understand Dropbear cannot be handling this 24/7 it is now two months since he has made any appearance in the project and in the meantime we have had the release of Templar One and The Fiction Portal both confusing people on what to do.
It is already difficult enough to get the community to even acknowledge a theory that involves the Jove in any way. Once a theory has been put out there in the world of OOC PF it is considerably harder to get people to look at it IC. No matter how you arrived at your conclusions, no matter how much supporting evidence you have, no matter if all the work went in before the OOC material was available, it will not be taken seriously. Theories involving "powerful isotopes" are already laughed at, Sleeper/Jove connections mocked, and we don't stand a chance of making any progress towards the Jamyl situation as that one really is so firmly out of our realm it makes one wonder why the plot-line exists.
The hopes of what must by now be hundreds of hours of work between reading, note taking, sorting notes, The Musings, Project Awakening, Project Shattered Helix (working title), and an untitled paper on possible Jovian/Talocan links to Matar, have effectively been written off. Given these efforts were prompted by CCP's fantastic world-building, clue dropping, and belief that we can figure things out for ourselves I don't think betrayal is too harsh a word for their allowing this book to be published at this time, essentially as a DUST514 promotion.
I have made a poor investment of my time it seems.
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/me hugs Kaito and Myyona
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I am astoundingly unimpressed that ideas I've been incorporating into an Arek'Jaalan Sleeper project that has taken many, many, hours have (from what I read in the spoiler thread) been hand fed to us in Templar One.
They tell us the pieces of the puzzle are there to find, encourage us to figure it out, start-up an in-game project, request our submissions, and then while we're putting the last few pieces of the puzzle together they show us the picture from the box.
Honestly don't know where to go from here.
I know the feeling, Kaito, know the feeling. I had a good reason why to put my Sleeper theory out before the release of Templar One.
I want to progress with A'J some more and while I can perfectly understand Dropbear cannot be handling this 24/7 it is now two months since he has made any appearance in the project and in the meantime we have had the release of Templar One and The Fiction Portal both confusing people on what to do.
I feel for you. There must be a curse on CCP live events.
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A hug is good but I am going to take any additional contributions off my list for now and go to passively observer mode, like most others are doing.
The EVE story is much better to just read about than engage in and I see the current developments going towards more of that. Templar One just widened the gap between OOC and IC knowledge to new exceptional lengths and Abraxas plans for the Fiction Portal will only make it wider. The talk from CCP side about wanting to decrease the gap must have been a joke.
Btw. Kaito, your Musings are awesome and you have scored much credit on those.
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This is what you get when a games company confuses it's content department with a marketing team.
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This is what you get when a games company confuses it's content department with a marketing team.
Problem is, it needs to do both. And a lot of the time--perhaps especially of late--the need for marketing to keep the company solvent will trump the desire for particular types of content.
I was surprised at the amount of staff time that seemed to go into supporting A'J. Not unpleasantly so: I was curious about this type of play that seemed to appeal so strongly to some players, and I was intrigued that there was still scope for trying something which I considered so creatively profligate at that time. But it seemed like a resource-hungry project that would engage a tiny proportion of the players, and it wasn't immediately apparent that it would have spin-off effects that would improve the world for the wider group of players who weren't involved directly but who like there being a detailed world out there.
None of that helps with the feeling of having invested a lot of yourself in something that... didn't work out the way you'd hoped. Sympathy.
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That they approved a project so resource-hungry in the first place makes me question CCP's own understanding of their limitations and capabilities, honestly.
Even before the cuts, A'J was a tremendous resource drain on top of their various live event arcs (many of which left somewhat hanging, if I understand correctly). Why give the go-ahead to something that they didn't have the proper resources to maintain for long enough for its benefits to the wider player base to be apparent?
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Possible good reasons:
1. It reinvigorates CCP's creatives.
2. It's part of a reveal-and-launch process for new content or gameplay: it creates in-game champions who know the new releases and advocate them widely.
((
A guess at a likely reason:
Someone wanted to try it because it's one of those things "story people" (like us and them) find appealing, made a case for it, and then put a lot of their own time into it alongside what work time they were allocated. They then burnt out (partly dealing with us being rather argumentative and grabby), didn't get the buy-in they'd hoped for in-house, timelines meant the Templar One launch pre-empted some of the things that might otherwise have come out through A'J, and the resource was recalled for work on other core projects.
))
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Considering recent personal developments with Dropbear, I wouldn't expect anything from A'J in the near future.
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Is that developments besides being put on "babysitter duty" in the New Player Experience team?
But yeah, I think the project has been put on infinite hold. I have also opted on a less active interest with a resulting diminish of my interest in EVE at all.
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Anyone going to fanfest?
I figure fanfest is a good an opportunity as any to get some answers.
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Is that developments besides being put on "babysitter duty" in the New Player Experience team?
But yeah, I think the project has been put on infinite hold. I have also opted on a less active interest with a resulting diminish of my interest in EVE at all.
He got married and is taking a trip to Australia for a month or two with his wife. He may or may not return to CCP when the trip is over. He doesn't know yet.
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I'm hoping we can get some closure on this, so it doesn't fade away. From him or from someone else. It'd be a shame for all the work he and others put in it, I've found leaving these things open creates a downward spiral until it is eventually forgotten and that's just no fun for anyone.
That said, happy for him really :3 He's deserved it all. Although I'm a bit sad to see him go.
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Yeah, I'm conflicted on it. On the one hand, he most definitely has the right to move on with his personal and professional life. But on the other hand, were I in his shoes, I would feel an obligation to bring some closure to the A'J project. But then again, who knows how much leeway he has been given from CCP to actually finish it up?
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Oh, he got married? Good news for him.
I got married last year which surprisingly has resulted in a delivery date for a daughter in the beginning of June. I already had a feeling that event might put a dampener on both my available time to play EVE and put my interests elsewhere. As I do not see any focus from CCP in the near future on topics I find remotely interesting my EVE career will likely come to an end at my next re-subscription.
Please do not take this as bitter talk as I am more than looking forward to being a father. :D
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You never fully leave EVE. It'll suck you back in, eventually. The depth of the game itself is too good to be gone for long.
Which is what I say to myself about Dropbear too.
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Excellent news for Dropbear. Does anyone know if he'll be back in Iceland for Fanfest? He's someone I'd like to catch up with if it's possible (and he's not already being mobbed by others).
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Congratulations to Dropbear.
Congratulations aside however, I'd be lying if I said I wasnt a little irked that the project has been next to killed off with little or no explaination.
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I'm sure it's just on hiatus. Maybe Gnauton or someone can pick up where Dropbear left off. It seemed like a pretty plot-critical thing.
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I'm sure it's just on hiatus. Maybe Gnauton or someone can pick up where Dropbear left off. It seemed like a pretty plot-critical thing.
The problem is this:
Dropbear, Headfirst and crew put a lot of effort into Arek'jaalan. The problem is, it was all to support the revelations of Templar One. It is not even arguable at this point whether or not Dropbear and company had foreknowledge of the events of Templar One, or what was going into it. One can look at the "mysterious" chronicles and fill in those new, missing pieces. They laid the foundation for what was to come, and no one ever saw it coming. For better or worse, EVE got a whole lot more dynamic, and probably not in the way that most EVE fiction fans would have expected.
I'm sure that, had certain individuals made slightly different decisions, things would be far different at this point. Templar One wouldn't have been the hailstorm of revelations that probably double-tapped a few excellent theories before they were ready.
:|
CCP had a plan. Arek'jaalan played into that plan, and most certainly still plays into that plan. The question is, are you going to be the puppet, or are you going to cut the strings and go your own path?
I know what I'm going to do.
:bear:
The biggest revelation? Templar One is past events. Things have moved forward, far more forward than you'd think. Take it as CCP cutting the cord; you've got answers, and you've got more questions; how are you going to react? Are you going to let them dictate terms, or are you going to dictate terms to them? I'm not saying "OMG let's out the Sleepers!" I'm saying, perhaps it's time to shake things up moving forward.
Arek'jaalan got a nice bump by Dropbear. Maybe it's time to give that bump back; live, adapt, adjust, and move forward.
"Research, Document, Educate"
Who said anything about Dropbear giving answers? All the answers are there. They have been all along. Perhaps instead of focusing on what Dropbear and CCP are going to release and when, we should be doing more things like the Seyllin conference and actually making a concerted effort to hasten and streamline communications.
Just my opinion though, no need to go spreading it around. ;)
tl;dr
We don't need Dropbear to spoon feed us information. I've been trying to tell him that for what... two years now? :yar:
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I find your insistence that we can somehow affect any aspect of the storyline whatsoever hilarious.
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You can, if you become a volunteer for the Fiction Portal. Of course, you will not get direct credit for it but you can make all kind of stuff up that only needs approval from Abraxas to become Prime Fiction.
I am pretty certain he is the one with A'J stick too, seeing he is the only one making a mention of the project and with the cut downs of the content team he could be the only one working directly on EVE lore and fiction left. I am not aware of his interests in doing live events; it does not seem like his style.
So, with Headfirst working in Shanghai on levels for DUST (and not really into A'J in the first place) and Dropbear resigning the core of the live team is gone.
And I have said it before; trying to make theories in A'J feels like a waste when the sources you use in the Fiction Portal constantly changes and can at any time overwrite your theory by stating the factual truth. It is much "safer" to be a volunteer writer yourself. If A'J was Dropbears pet project the Fiction Portal is Abraxas' and he will put priority accordingly.
As I am not volunteer writer myself I will opt for the second best option; sit on my hands and be spoon fed from the Portal.
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I find your insistence that we can somehow affect any aspect of the storyline whatsoever hilarious.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. Here's a bit more in-depth analysis of my view:
In short, though it's perfectly understandable to expect to be able to affect the storyline, the metaplot shouldn't be changed by players. (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=857530#post857530)
There are points of interaction, like A'J. As much as I applaud Dropbear's initiative, and as much as I'd like to enjoy and participate actively in A'J, it should never have been implied that it would close the gap in player and character knowledge. It took me a bit of soul searching to realize why exactly I was so on-the-fence about the project, but I think it comes down to the feeling that it was just a means of promoting the Tony Gonzales view of EVE canon fiction. Perfectly fine if this canon view were shared by a majority of players, but in a game that promotes itself as a sandbox, "canned" storyline elements don't seem to fit the big picture. When those canned storyline elements are completely misinterpreted by the players, there's a huge problem.
Let me be clear; Most of the more recent chronicles tie directly into Templar One and The Empyrean Age. They appear to be designed to back up every single 'OMG, where did that come from?' moment.
It was a noble endeavor, but A'J felt, to me, like they were just buying time until Templar One came out. The "mysterious" Chronicles are now easily decipherable when put into context of Templar One. The metaplot is there, in the open, and it's basically saying that the player characters are the least important pieces on the grand chess table that is EVE.
I do enjoy the metaplot, but I don't think I'm alone in saying that perhaps it's best that it not be general knowledge. There are ways to bring the revelations to light, but will it be acknowledged by CCP? That's probably a question that should be directly asked on the EVE forums, with an effort made to bring it to CCP's attention.
I don't play EVE to sit back and have plot spoon fed to me. I never have, and I never will. I am quite happy that I've influenced what I have in regards to the metaplot, overtly or covertly, but it is kind of a kick in the teeth when I see my concepts twisted into justifying badly written transhumanist agendas. ;)
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The metaplot is there, in the open, and it's basically saying that the player characters are the least important pieces on the grand chess table that is EVE.
I agree, which is one of the biggest problems with the novels and the events contained within them.
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The metaplot is there, in the open, and it's basically saying that the player characters are the least important pieces on the grand chess table that is EVE.
I agree, which is one of the biggest problems with the novels and the events contained within them.
Furthermore, all the politics, warfare, religion and history of New Eden in general now seem a bit meaningless since jovians have actually been secretly controlling everything, even though we are not supposed to know it IC.
I personally would have preferred the current status quo to be shaped by the interaction between cultures, economic, scientific and military opportunism, disasters, random events and all kinds plotting, scheming and human stupidity. With omnipotent aliens you can justify anything and nothing needs to make sense any more.
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... so basically it's stated that the entire universe is run by a band of FUCKING DEUS EX MACHINA aliens running shit behind our backs? Seriously?
Tell me this is just an idea or theory you got, not easily found facts from the books or anything...
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... so basically it's stated that the entire universe is run by a band of FUCKING DEUS EX MACHINA aliens running shit behind our backs? Seriously?
Tell me this is just an idea or theory you got, not easily found facts from the books or anything...
I was referring to the struggle between the Enheduanni who have been trying to guide the mankind and the Jove who want people to follow their own path (and then they hand out the capsule technology). It has been brought up for instance in these quotes
[spoiler]After the architects left Heaven, the Enheduanni went on to attempt to manipulate humanity, to bring them to the same utopia the Architects had been in. [/spoiler]
[spoiler]The Other, the alien virtual intelligence that infected Jamyl Sarum following the succession trials, was the first virtual-born creation of the Architects, and thus, had no body to return to.[/spoiler]
Since the Jove have been protecting us, I guess we are fine.
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Stupid question : is Jamyl still lolinfected ?
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There's also a quote about there being no way to tell how much of humanity's progress was due to manipulation, which I am going to confidently assume is "none" because it's the least stupid answer.
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There's also a quote about there being no way to tell how much of humanity's progress was due to manipulation, which I am going to confidently assume is "none" because it's the least stupid answer.
Damn. You're right. There goes that awesome theory I just thought up to explain everything I've ever done in EVE.
Though it wouldn't be a half bad way to explain capsuleer dementia. "Some capsuleers are messed up because of the mental strain involved in trying to combat the forces trying to manipulate them. Others do drugs. Others watched too many episodes of MLP: Space Adventures. "
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Thread Necro because I had a few thoughts which have been brewing for some time, so I finally decided to ask CCP, for all the good, ill or boredom it might do me.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1059721&#post1059721 (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1059721&#post1059721)
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That's a significant rewrite of your OP there. You're upset; that's not getting any better with time; there's no official resolution in sight.
Could the players involved in A'J make a resolution that works "well enough"?
Could you live with the mystery that Hilen Tukoss disappeared while engaged in his work?
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Just another event storyline left behind to slowly decompose in the storyline graveyard that is eve...
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A’J is dead.
The effort to write those "scientific" articles is completely wasted when NOBODY within CCP gives an inch of notice or care for the Storyline development. No, the new mantra is spaceships; World of Spaceships. With the same deep storyline setting as World of Tanks.
We were trying to uncover a solvable mystery and interact with the game, not write personal stories for our own amusement. A’J worked great and build up a lot of momentum, sadly, all has been but lost and beside a few diehard people, all major contributors (those actually writing the articles) has disappeared from the project and/or EVE entirely (myself included).
Btw. it actually takes quite the effort and time to write a fictional scientific article with prober links to sources and careful interpretation of findings and results. Anyhow, it was fun while it lasted.
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Btw. it actually takes quite the effort and time to write a fictional scientific article with prober links to sources and careful interpretation of findings and results. Anyhow, it was fun while it lasted.
Confirming this. You can still do SCIENCE™ but there's nothing you can really do for A'J now. The Templar One 'reveal' kind of shafted the whole thing.
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I could have lived with the information presented in T1 as it mostly did not contradict my "grand theory" that I managed to put together before the release of the book. But the whole EVE Storyline setting is dead in the water with all resources cut. Now focus is on "reinventing the wheel", aka. redesigning roles for ships and the UI. Granted, the UI did need some attention, but as a nine year old EVE veteran I get zero additional gameplay out using resources on the Unified Inventory System to replace the old system that I have managed with for all those years. Tweaking tech 1 frigates brings further nothing to the table for a veteran like me. If I were new to EVE I might appreciate these things, but no.
I was sold on the “virtual world”-concept, not just flying around in spaceships and pew-pew. But those times are over, now CCP employees know next to nothing about their own world and you are most certainly a nerd (among nerds) if you do. If you saw the quiz at FF12 you would know what I am talking about.
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So my goals for new projects have less to do with discovering mysteries / moving OOC knowledge to IC and more to do with scientific RP, to compete with (or maybe complement) existing military / diplomatic / business / cultural RP.
Even if we're not investigating the Sleepers, there are interesting RP angles regarding computing, astronomy, biology, etc. in EVE. And whether CCP recognizes it or not, dammit, it's fun for at least some of us.
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An admirable effort. Sadly, I never were much into the RP side of things myself. :(
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So my goals for new projects have less to do with discovering mysteries / moving OOC knowledge to IC and more to do with scientific RP, to compete with (or maybe complement) existing military / diplomatic / business / cultural RP.
Even if we're not investigating the Sleepers, there are interesting RP angles regarding computing, astronomy, biology, etc. in EVE. And whether CCP recognizes it or not, dammit, it's fun for at least some of us.
Do iiiit.
EVE's setting has plenty of room for neat angles without touching on the Sleepers or whatever. Players and CCP alike could have handled Arek'jaalan better, and petulant posting on the forums isn't going to change that. Much better to just say "okay, people dropped the ball, let's just move on and deal with it", I feel.
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Myyona, the bits that may interest you are OOC investigations of EVE IC phenomena. The best example I can think of is that we already know that the astronomical data in EVE is royally screwed, and so I'd like to document that in great detail and possibly even propose a specific alternate model to CCP.
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So my goals for new projects have less to do with discovering mysteries / moving OOC knowledge to IC and more to do with scientific RP, to compete with (or maybe complement) existing military / diplomatic / business / cultural RP.
Even if we're not investigating the Sleepers, there are interesting RP angles regarding computing, astronomy, biology, etc. in EVE. And whether CCP recognizes it or not, dammit, it's fun for at least some of us.
Do iiiit.
EVE's setting has plenty of room for neat angles without touching on the Sleepers or whatever. Players and CCP alike could have handled Arek'jaalan better, and petulant posting on the forums isn't going to change that. Much better to just say "okay, people dropped the ball, let's just move on and deal with it", I feel.
Oh, thank you. Assuming you're reffering to me, you should actually read what was written.
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Well, I did read the edited post before making my own here; it's why I worded it how I did. Questionable and invective rhetoric seasoned with swearing, pomp and comparisons to "fraud", etc., certainly comes off as petulant. Others' mileage may vary -- and lest I make any more potentially moddable posts, I'm out of this thread.
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Well, I did read the edited post before making my own here; it's why I worded it how I did. Questionable and invective rhetoric seasoned with swearing, pomp and comparisons to "fraud", etc., certainly comes off as petulant. Others' mileage may vary -- and lest I make any more potentially moddable posts, I'm out of this thread.
The style I chose was provocative and deliberately so. If it somehow offended your eyes well, all I can say is its unfortunate you feel that way. I dont see any reason for mods to jump on you for valid criticism, I'd hope they're a little more flexible than that.